The winter storm has moved on leaving behind a ton of snow and bright, clear skies. This morning started with some routine diaper changing (daddy life), but now I’m enjoying a cup of coffee and have a little bit of time to write a quick post.

In my current Long Night Campaign, the players belong to one of several Saxon families that have traveled north from a section of the southern coast of Britain not far from the old Roman shore fort of Anderitum. The families have established a small community in the uncultivated “frontier” land situated just south of a great primeval forest known as Andredes Weald. To bring the families of the community to life, I’ve been randomly generating various aspects of each NPC, things like traits, dispositions, behavioral habits, and appearance. What follows is an example family produced using this random method, the family of Ecgred. This is the family to which the players are connected either by blood or by service at the start of the campaign.

Randomly generating some physical and personal traits of an NPC is a quick and easy way to give that character more interesting life without demanding too much prep time. In my games, since I do not have a pre-scripted adventure plot that characters must follow, I can never be absolutely certain how the players will proceed in the campaign world. So, for example, while I may know that there are particular NPCs in a specific locale (such as in this game’s Saxon village), I am never certain which NPCs the characters will decide to focus their attention on at any given moment. Therefore, I do not want to devote a lot of time to NPC creation since an NPC may never figure prominently in the game (at least in terms of direct in-game interactions with my players).

Because of this, even “important” NPCs, such as the leading thegn (“thane”) of the Saxon village in my game, will receive just enough attention from me to understand the NPC’s basic motivations and how that NPC may interact with other characters in the campaign setting. Even then, I like to generate such information randomly because 1) I find it less time-consuming, 2) randomly generating such information provides a kind of safeguard against imposing some kind of underlying story or plot line on the characters, and 3) randomly generating the NPCs can create wonderfully unexpected dynamics in the game that can be just as new, rewarding, and refreshing to the DM as it may be to the players.

In the past, I have used Tony Bath’s method for randomly generating personalities (I still use it sometimes). This work, Setting up a Wargames Campaign, is now out of print and was developed in the context of wargaming; however, the section on randomly generating personalities using a standard deck of playing cards is interesting and useful. James Maliszewski over at Grognardia dedicated a post to this work a couple of years back, so I won’t rehash such information here.

For my current campaign, I’ve been using Courtney Campbell’s random personal and physical trait tables found in On the Non-Player Character. This supplement, despite the price, is freaking fantastic, and I’ve been using the social interaction rules for my OD&D and B/X games since it came out. If you want to provide a consistent mechanical method for avoiding “Mother May I” pitfalls in your classic D&D games, the social mechanics in this work provide one way to do just that. Highly recommended.

Anyway, it also provides some useful random generation tables to give NPCs some quick and interesting personal and physical traits. After recently using those tables, here is the resulting overview for the Family of Ecgred. Italicized portions indicate information provided by a random table. Based on the random trait, I occasional filled in some information. For example, when I rolled aphasia for Æthelwíg (one the player’s younger brothers), I decided that condition was the result of a swineherding accident since that is the family’s livelihood.

The Family of Ecgred

Ecgred: The swineherder Ecgred is the head of one of the six families that traveled north with Seaxwulf to found a new settlement on the edge of the great forest called the Andredes Weald. Ecgred is known to be friendly, although he can be quite loquacious at times. Despite a fatalistic outlook, humor, and habit of sighing a lot, he has a tendency to take people into his family if they seem trustworthy and demonstrate a willingness to work hard. Ecgred was widowed after losing his wife in a raid on the mainland. He traveled to this new land with what was left of his kin to start over.

Eormenhild, wife, deceased: A petite women when alive known to be hostile toward most people. Felt most people treated her poorly.

Billfrith, younger brother, unmarried: Sarcastic, joking; tends to loudly announce every action.

Burgwulf, father-in-law, also widowed: Wears ostentatious neck jewelry, proselytizing nature; alludes to being in connection with higher powers.

Ecgred’s Children

Æthelgeard, eldest son: Negative attitude (but usually pleasant), indolent; was caught killing small animals and studying their entrails when younger (only immediate family knows this).

Éadgifu “Gifu”, eldest daughter: Narrow face, sensible; family believes her to be a diviner since she often lapses into trance and predicts the future; however, the predictions are often so vague as to be useless (this is the reason why she is not yet married).

Wulfgar, middle son: This is one of the players in the game.

Æthelwíg, youngest son: Smooth-faced, insecure; has aphasia (swineherding accident, trampled).

Wulfrún, youngest daughter/child: Always has dirty fingernails (not uncommon), somber; not very emotional, works from a perspective of pure logic (particularly unsettling due to her young age).

Ecgred also has taken on additional hands to the help with his homestead. Currently, this includes two other playing characters and a Frankish middle-age swineherder named Bryne.

Bryne, middle-aged workhand: Goiter, reverent; talks to an friend/spirit that others cannot see (imaginary?).

I came up with this information for Ecgred and his family in about 15 minutes (I also randomly generated the names). All of this information is more than enough to provide some initial basic guidance for interactions with the playing characters. From here, in-game play will develop more in-depth understandings of each character as the players interact (or don’t interact) relationally with these NPCs.

Peace. It’s time for another cup of coffee!