A while back I was going to post a query seeking views as to how to improve the plausibility of NPC's and their behaviours. Rather than posting such a query with nothing meaty to contribute of my own, I researched some of the texts about characterisation that I saw mentioned here at The Forge.

The gist of my research suggests that a more plausible NPC can be sketched in terms of a demeanour and a personality, and a virtue and a vice, and framed (that is, given a reason for being) with a goal, a motivation and a conflict.

I ended up developing a generic-fantasy NPC generator (http://members.iinet.net.au/~rene1/realnpc.htm) based around these findings.

Do my findings ring true? Does the generator seem useful for generating on-the-fly NPCs, and guiding their actions? Are there other ways of making NPCs seem more plausible in thought and action?


René Vernon

Hey Zoetrope,

Thanks for the tool. Personally I prefer to wing alot of those feilds. It certainly depends on the game, but I find I don't often need a lot of data for NPCs. I generally like to fill in a few game stats, shorthand style, and maybe a personality detail, just to refresh my memory when playing.

I would say that the tool is quite useful. There are fields that I would never use, but that doesn't mean that they aren't useful to others. It's easy to just ignore them and modify the NPC to your system.

I'm going to use it a few times and then give some feedback. It'll be easier to see the pitfalls/advantages after I've given it a try.

And btw, I've linked to it from my web site http://www.randomrpg.com. I like providing useful tools like this for my users. Keep up the good work!