Random Non-Leveled/Commoner NPC Generation Script

"Feiernde Bauern" ("Celebrating Peasants"), artist unknown, 18th or 19th century

“Feiernde Bauern” (“Celebrating Peasants”), artist unknown, 18th or 19th century

This script will generate a set of random non-leveled (i.e., commoner) NPCs in a plain text file, including basic physical characteristics, psychological features, and information about employment. The program is a companion piece to the leveled NPC generation script previously published on this blog. While that script was for creating rival NPC parties and the like, this one is primarily for generating NPCs to drop into your campaign whenever your players drop into their local tavern to collect rumors or stop a random passerby on a city street.

Choose how many NPCs to generate: 

Notes and Caveats:

  1. The following characteristics are randomly determined:
    1. Basic Information: Name, Sex, Race
    2. Employment Information: General Occupation, Employ/Offering/Skill (i.e., experience and quality of goods & services), Specific Occupation (sub-group based on General Occupation above), Work Temperament
    3. Physical Features: Body Type, Skin Color, Face Shape, Eye Color, Hair Color, Type & Length, Facial Hair
    4. Psychological Features: Motivation, Inspiration, Personality, Quirks, Bad Habits, Burdens/Faults
  2. It is expected that Dungeon Masters will make use of the physical and psychological features selectively, highlighting those they find most useful/interesting and ignoring contradictory results (unless finding a way to explain that contradiction yields something memorable!).
  3. It would be remiss on my part if I didn’t acknowledge the influence on this script of Richard J. LeBlanc Jr.’s NPC generation charts in his D30 Sandbox Companion publication. I strongly recommend clicking that link and buying all of his D30 products in both PDF and print (the latter available here).
  4. There is one more NPC generation script yet to be uploaded: one that generates the entire population of a city district including both leveled and non-leveled NPCs and using some of the demographic assumptions introduced in third edition Dungeons and Dragons.