Minor NPC Building

Non Player Characters are an essential part of any campaign. Whether being used as a main villain or lowly servant or anywhere in between it is important to remember that NPCs are a large part of what will make your world seem real. Although it is tempting to resort to tired clichés to save on time you must pause and ask exactly how interesting is your villain with the goatee and white cat going to be to your players? Or the stereotypical barkeep? Or the bumbling wizard, perhaps?

As much as we are all familiar with these characters, they are simply not realistic. People in real life are not so one dimensional. If your players are seeking to be fully immersed in your gaming world then you owe it to them as their Game Master to provide them with as much realism as you can.

But is there a way of creating rich, dynamic characters without spending endless hours fleshing them out?

Building Statistics
The first step is also the easiest. How do you find the ability scores for NPCs? The first place to look is in the rule books. Most books that are not a Player’s Handbook have stats for NPCs at various levels. Because your players will never need to know the exact ability scores there’s virtually no reason to change this. If you feel that changes must be made try to keep them minimal. In order to find these simply check the table of contents and index and make note of any alterations.

The next source of NPC ability scores is from your own previous games. Reusing the same scores saves a great deal of time. Also if you have any character sheets that are not in use there’s no reason why they can’t be converted to NPC scores. Also remember most NPCs will never be called upon to do any that would need them to even have stats, so only do this if necessary.

=== Characterization ===

Ability scores are easy. Much harder is making realistic and three dimensional characters, right? Turns out there are actually highly customizable cultural archetypes already in place, where with the work of a moment can be used to makes endlessly diverse character, both good and evil. In fact you already know them. All you have to do is look at a calendar.

Figure it out yet? Think about the zodiac. If you look at both the western and Chinese zodiac there are two dozen starting places with room for near infinite variation.

The first step is to choose a sign:

Western (d12) Eastern (d12)

The next step is to choose character traits based upon the zodiac sign. Each one has a list of both positive and negative traits. The key to making a well rounded character is to pick three traits, two matching and one contradiction. This will make the character feel more real and make them infinitely more interesting. The following is a list of all the signs with their character traits:

Western Zodiac

Eastern Zodiac