Monday, June 1, 2015

Random NPC ages

Something I've written up this weekend is a way to randomly roll NPC ages, and genders tied to it. The method has two parts. The first is to see if the NPC is an grownup or a child. This is optional, since most NPCs will be grownups for obvious reasons, but I'm including it anyways for pedantic completeness.

Child or grownup? Roll 1d6:


NPC Ages
Roll (1d6)Age
1Baby; age is 1d6-2 (-1 is under 3 months); 1-11 are male on 1d20
2Kid; age is 4+1d10; 1-10 are male on 1d20
3-6Grownup; roll another 1d6 (see below)

Most of the time, again, we can skip this step and go on to the next one, which is how old a grownup NPC is.


Adult NPC Ages
Roll (1d6)Age
1Adolescent; age is 14+1d6; 1-9 are male on 1d20
2Young adult; age is 20+1d8; 1-9 are male on 1d20
3Thirtysomething; age is 28+1d8; 1-9 are male on 1d20
4Middle age; age is 36+1d10; 1-9 are male on 1d20
5Old; age is 46+1d10; 1-9 are male on 1d20
6Ancient; age is 56+1d30 (you can make this exploding on a 30 to get legendary ages); 1-8 are male on 1d20. For GURPS purposes, 70 is the big number, and 1-in-10 are that or older; 1-7 are male on 1d20

Based on Lichfield, England, 1695. I did some tweaking to make things smoother, and to handle the odd spike of girls born right before this census. But I wanted something where I could roll a d6 and get a general idea of an NPC age, and this is it. I don't care much about the exact age until I've fleshed out the NPC a bit.

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