Need 50-75 NPCs for a town


Advice


I have an encounter planned for my group that will require them to interview many many people in a growing town (just shy of 1K people). By necessity of the quest, many of the encounters are going to be "random person on the street" so I need some simple information prepared in advance. What I would typically like to have is age, gender, are they married, how many kids, maybe a Wis/Int score, and what their job is. This is the information that is likely to frame the responses that I (as the GM/NPC) give to the PCs.

Occupation is probably the most important thing as I feel a bit challenged to come up with more than a dozen or so medieval-era jobs that people might have, but there certainly must be more. The best thing I can find so far is the Backgrounds & Occupations generator in the d20pfsrd. Still, I can't help but wonder if somebody hasn't already created what I need. Is there a good list of fantasy world jobs or a "street encounter" generator that might help me out on this?

As always, TIA.


So What's the NPC Like, Anyway? by Raging Swan.


I can't recommend Tablesmith highly enough, except that later versions are pay to use. You can find an old version and install, though.

Still, it'll crank out the entire town for you, including the shops and shop owners, if you like.

Sovereign Court

Are you sure you need THAT many NPCs? Will the players actually be able to keep track of them?


Ascalaphus wrote:
Are you sure you need THAT many NPCs? Will the players actually be able to keep track of them?

It's better to have too many than not enough. You can always change the names and use them again in a later adventure.


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Samuel (Male human expert 2, Int 10, Wis 12)
Samuel is a strong man of medium height, age 24. His hands are calloused from splitting wood all day. He is leader of a team of colliers at the edge of town.

Five men build a massive pile of split wood, cover it in sod, light a smoking fire and let it burn a few days. They sell the resulting charcoal to the towns smiths.

Samuel is married to Jessica and they have a 3 year old son who plays with a wooden sword.


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Kharnag (Male dwarf expert 7, age 120, Int 15, Wis 13)
Kharnag is a dwarven smith. He oversees three apprentices who turn out blades for the guard. He himself is busy with a great sword that takes most of his attention. He doesn't like being interrupted and his responses are gruff. He tries to foster most callers onto his oldest apprentice (Kellik, a young 60 year old dwarf). Kellik is used to his master's behavior and mentions Kharnag has been working on that sword for a month. He is friendly for a dwarf and tries to show off the shop's well made swords and daggers.

All the dwarves in the shop are of course single and live in the back of the shop.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

There's a miniatures company that makes a pack of 24 townsfolk, and has a pdf on their site with complete npc profiles for each one. Damned if I can remember their name, though. Anyone?

Sovereign Court

JoeJ wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:
Are you sure you need THAT many NPCs? Will the players actually be able to keep track of them?

It's better to have too many than not enough. You can always change the names and use them again in a later adventure.

Respectfully, too much can really be annoying. I'm speaking from experience - my Vampire campaign had hordes of NPCs. But keeping track of all of them is a hassle, and after a while the players don't really remember them anyway because there's just too many. You also stretch your creativity thin, as well as the time you have to prepare them.

I think it's better to have a handful of really good NPCs than a "realistic" horde of them.


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Young Tom
Ability score: Constitution
Skill: Swim
Feat: Endurance

Young Tom is a man of little consequence in his 30's who pushes a cart, delivering vegetables and firewood to those who can pay from farms outside of the town. He inherited the business more than a decade ago from his father Tom after Tom was thrown from his horse and the horse ran away. Young Tom had a young wife once, but she also ran away due in part to his meager personality, but more due to his meager ambition and income. He is considered by others to be tolerable, generally trustworthy, and even-tempered. Young Tom is able, though not worldly. Because of the nature of his occupation and his frequent coming and goings Young Tom sees a great many things, but his mind is unadventurous enough for him to not worry what any of it means. Few things stand out to him as worthy of note, but he can remember details if he is asked the correct questions.

Grand Lodge

What kind of town are we talking about, and where is it located? Is it mostly a farming economy? Fishing? Shepherding herds of animals? Is it a trading cross-roads, with lots o resources catering to travelers and some quirky businesses that you'd typically only find in a much larger city? It seems like you'd get different kinds of inhabitants depending on your answers to those questions . . .


1) Fifty is not too many. The quest involves what you might consider an opinion polling process. They have determine what needs the town has and then make a recommendation to a third party as to how to improve the city. The PCs could choose to ask one question and then move on to the next person, or they could probe for further explanations. They have one day of game time to gather the information they need, so its reasonable to assume that they could plow through 100 people in the course of day. (I used to do market research, so I know over 100 is doable in eight hours.) I can certainly recycle NPCs - just because two people have the same job and other similar stats doesn't mean there aren't other circumstances that could cause them to give different answers. My main concern is that I'm not very inventive when it comes to making up NPCs on the fly and I want to make sure I have an encounter table that is robust enough to handle the scenario I've created. Otherwise, I'll just keep using the same dozen or so professions which becomes unrealistic They could meet anybody from a street beggar, a baker, a farmer, a prostitute, a merchant, a record keeper, the head guard, a magistrate, and so on.

2) The city is about 700-800 people and growing fast enough that its on the verge of becoming a major city. It is on a river that is used for trade (so sailors just got added to the list, and warehouse workers) but there is plenty of farmland in the surrounding area. A major forest is about an hour away, so lumberjacks and game hunters are also possibilities. (So, that also means hunters, weavers, tanners, seamstresses, blacksmiths.) So pretty much any job that would be in a medium but not quite metropolis sized city I would like to have handy on a list.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Wheldrake wrote:
There's a miniatures company that makes a pack of 24 townsfolk, and has a pdf on their site with complete npc profiles for each one. Damned if I can remember their name, though. Anyone?

Dang!

It was Mega Miniatures, and they sold all their molds. The figures are still available at Turnkey Miniatures, but the pdf with the villagers stats appear to no longer exist. Pity.


GnomeStew has a good book on a NPCs.


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Shayla Lightleaf
half-elf female
Ormund Beerbrooke
human male

Two apprentice druids serving the local druid grove. They're in town because the druids are keenly interested in the direction this growing town is taking. The pair is relatively undercover, though they won't deny their allegiance if confronted.

If questioned or polled, they'll both likely fall on whichever side is less destructive to the river or nearby forests and stress highly that the local druids should be consulted and respected.

Both druids keep their animal companions outside of the settlement in the nearby farms and forest and they're relatively even-tempered regarding the town and its inhabitants.

Ormund, however, is involved in a private feud with a local farmer whom he witnessed beating a draft horse overly-much in his opinion. He occasionally has his owl companion swoop in and carry off one of the farmer's chickens or leave bait around the farmer's field and barn to attract vermin or varmints to cause minor damage.


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Azalyn
Ability Score: Intelligence
Skill: Knowledge (geography), Knowledge (history), Linguistics
Feat: Skill Focus

Azalyn is a scribe by profession, but is known best in the settlement as "the foreigner". She had wealth when she arrived and owns a small home in town. She works out of her home, earning an income by writing letters for the illiterate, occasionally translating texts, and keeping detailed records for the local authorities, as it presently lacks a fully fledged administration. At her best, Azalyn is a pleasant conversationalist and an eager teacher. However, daily stress is difficult for her to deal with, so on most days she comes across as distracted, and on the worst as dismissive. She has her own collection of scrolls and books, which she has copied, purchased, and written. It is her hope that they will become a library someday when the town has grown large enough. Although her appearance is considered plain in her homeland, it is considered exotic by local standards, and this can draw unwanted attention. It is unknown why she left her native land.


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Klebbur Kettlesteam
Middle-aged male gnome tinker
Married; 6 'children' of working age, 4 brothers, 8 cousins.

Klebbur works as a tinker and coppersmith in town, repairing all manner of things from cookware to padlocks. He has a grand idea about improving the town's sanitation by excavating a new sewer system he's designed. It will ensure that the river docks aren't overwhelmed by the extra waste from the growing community.

He'll proudly tell anyone who asks about his plan, which involves using his gnomish clan to work on the tunnels with their affinity for construction and communication with burrowing animals to prevent the typical 'open trench' digging that would usually be needed to create such a system.

The plan would require the town to be okay with a sizable influx of gnomes however, though in truth his design is actually as efficient as any other sewer design, though the smaller size of the sewer tunnels and their reliance on several new 'steam-driven water pumps' for optimal performance means that there will need to be constant skilled gnomish oversight.

His current design actually will keep the river much cleaner near the town, but mainly because his sewer design just channels it much further downstream before draining into the river, unlike the current system for disposal of waste.


Found this NPC background generator on WotC's site in their archives. Don't know if it will help or not, but it's something.

Dark Archive

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/characters.html

That is a list of authentic (if broad) character with occupations from medieval times. They are the people from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Throw in a few spellcasters and non-humans.

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