# New NPC Personality and Background Generator



## bobcat_grad (Oct 2, 2009)

Hi all.  

Attached to this post is a NPC personality and background generator I put together.  I'm putting together a campaign that's starting in a week, and the last thing I had on my plate was bringing some of locations to life with some NPCs.  I looked around for a while for NPC generators, but didn't find anything I really liked.  I came across Ash’s Guide to RPG Personality & Background (found at Ash Guide to RPG Personality & Background :: The Guide) and realized that was the framework I wanted for my NPCs.  So, I put together this app to take a good portion of his approach (along with a few extra things I put in).  The result is the ability to create a full NPC background and personality framework in 1 click:

*[FONT=&quot]Name:[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot] Geoffrey[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot]Occupation:[/FONT]*[FONT=&quot] Armorer *Birthplace:* Large Coastal Port
*Socioeconomic Class:* Upper Middle Class *Reputation:* Unknown

*Primary Motivator:* Discovery/Adventure - To explore, uncover mysteries, and pioneer
*Emotional Disposition:* Apathetic *Moodiness:* Ever Changing

*Quirks:* Eavesdropping, Hair pulling, Sleeping in odd places
*Hobbies:* Horse riding, Invention, Storytelling, Boating/Sailing[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

*Core Traits:*
_Affinity:_ Cold - self absorbed, needy, greedy, stingy, uncaring
_Boldness:_ Cautious - timid, paranoid, vigilant
_Comportment:_ Discordant - gruff, critical, arrogant, crude, defensive, sanctimonious
_Conformity:_ Conventional - orthodox, formal, down-to-earth, mainstream, traditional
_Disclosure:_ Secretive - closed, mysterious, evasive, cryptic
_Flexibility:_ Flexible - nonchalant, tolerant, forgiving, open-minded, adaptable
_Impulsiveness:_ Spontaneous - capricious, flighty, hyperactive, rash
_Integrity:_ Unscrupulous - lazy, deceitful, unreliable, manipulative, slipshod, impractical
_Interactivity:_ Extrovert - engaging, talkative, listener, entertaining, touchy
_Outlook:_ Pessimistic - cynical, bleak, distrustful, foreboding, resigned

*Religious Details:*
_Association:_ Church - Generally an established, hierarchical organization
_Adherence:_ Orthodox Adherent
_Expression Of Beliefs:_ Constant
_Tolerance:_ Tolerant[/FONT]

Some of the features include:


Picking origin of name like Dwarf, Evil Elf, Arthurian, High Elf, Egyptian, etc.
Opting to keep certain values you like, so when you 'Generate' again, those values are not re-randomized.
Picking how many Quirks you want to be generated
Picking how many Hobbies you want to be generated
A separate window to allow you to copy and past your generated NPC.
NEW UPDATES 10/06/2009


Added random age along with the ability to choose lifespan based on type.
Added the ability to generate up to 99 NPCs at once. There's a new button that takes in the number you input and will create that many NPCs and output it to the window that opens. If you hit Cntl-G on the window, all NPCs are coppied to your clipboard and you can paste them anywhere. Now you can generate a whole section of town in a few seconds if you wanted to.
Added two options for displaying NPCs on the print out. You can now choose to see the Core Traits and/or Religion section or not.
The attached file is just a .zip with an .exe in it - no install for now.  It's built using the same technology as the DnD builder is, so if you have that, all of the reqs are already in place for you to be able to run this without the install.  If people want it and have issues with just the straight .exe, I'll build an install for it.


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## Markn (Oct 2, 2009)

That's pretty cool!  I'll be using this a lot.  Thanks for posting!


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## keterys (Oct 2, 2009)

Nifty. Thanks.


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## bobcat_grad (Oct 2, 2009)

*Update...*

Ignore this - just fixed and updated the first one now.


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## bobcat_grad (Oct 7, 2009)

*Update II*

Realized how I could update the first post's attachment.  This post is obsolete now.


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## Neuroglyph (Oct 7, 2009)

bobcat_grad said:


> Attached to this post is a NPC personality and background generator I put together. I'm putting together a campaign that's starting in a week, and the last thing I had on my plate was bringing some of locations to life with some NPCs. I looked around for a while for NPC generators, but didn't find anything I really liked. I came across Ash’s Guide to RPG Personality & Background (found at Ash Guide to RPG Personality & Background :: The Guide) and realized that was the framework I wanted for my NPCs.





I love this for NPCs but am a bit troubled that Ash's Guide is meant to "randomly" create a PC personality as well.  Been playing RPGs for over 30 years and have never had a problem coming up with a personality for my alter-egos.  You could randomly end up with a personality so distantly removed from your own that role-playing it would actually be unenjoyable.

Although as an excercise, it could be interesting to play a short campaign with a random persona.

But anyways, well done on the NPC Persona Generator... will be using it in my campaign


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## bobcat_grad (Oct 7, 2009)

Neuroglyph said:


> I love this for NPCs but am a bit troubled that Ash's Guide is meant to "randomly" create a PC personality as well.  Been playing RPGs for over 30 years and have never had a problem coming up with a personality for my alter-egos.  You could randomly end up with a personality so distantly removed from your own that role-playing it would actually be unenjoyable.
> 
> Although as an excercise, it could be interesting to play a short campaign with a random persona.
> 
> But anyways, well done on the NPC Persona Generator... will be using it in my campaign




Oh - don't get me wrong, I would never use this for random generation for my own PC.  Rather, I'd use this when I would need to create a bunch of NPCs quickly for a town or village.

I wrote this as I was prepping for a campaign I'm running starting this week.  I wanted to have a bunch of NPCs on hand from different races for the just-in-case situation.


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## Otakkun (May 10, 2010)

Wow, just wow.

This is one damn good tool for NPC creation. Had been browsing the web for about half and hour when I found it, and it's superior to everything else I've found.

I just thought it would be worth the necro to thank you for your work, and hopefully it will also lead others to use it, I know I'm keeping it in my online hard drive


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