Noble NPC Generator
So I like running political campaigns and I like filling out family trees, perhaps I create more NPCs than necessary but it is fun for me and I got a system to come up with concepts for nobles that lets me come up with a fleshed out character concepts without statting them out completely. This can work for individuals lords and ladies or it can be used to establish the general strengths and weakness and/or reputations of entire noble houses.
Sometimes, when planning a story, a character concept for a noble or a house of nobles flows easily but this is not the norm. When I'm stuck and need to create a noble, I will use a randomizer to figure out their strengths and weaknesses.
I give each noble, four scores, M, D, W, and P.
Minister (M): Administrative skills and book smarts
Diplomat (D): Diplomatic ability and standing with one's noble peers
Warrior (W): Martial and tactical prowess
Populist (P): Popularity with the commoners and general reputation in the land
I have four basic traits and I roll a d10 for each trait, then I make up a short bio for what the combination of traits means.
1-Terrible
2-Bad
3-Bad
4-Adequate
5-Adequate
6-Adequate
7-Good
8-Good
9-Good
10-Amazing
Once I roll out the scores, I can use the combination of traits to come up with an explanation for how they fit together which can help a character come to life.
The one to ten scale can apply to almost anything. I brought this topic up on another RPG forum and someone came up with an idea to adapt this system to creating merchant NPCs creating the categories of Work Ethic, Appraisal, Generosity, and Backbone.
Going back to Scarterra, a sea captain can replace warrior with seamanship and a guild leader could replace warrior with craftsmanship to represent how respected they are as a tradesman.
If most or all of the PCs are affiliated with a priesthood or holy order, it might be useful to figure out how pious and Nine-fearing the nobles they interact with. Roll a d10 to gage how pious the noble is.
What if you really like Game of Thrones and want your RPG campaign to include a treacherous and backstabbing nobles. A good Diplomacy rating and good Warrior rating might help a noble survive a treacherous court but what about family loyalty. Are the characters more like Starks or are they like Lannisters? In a system where the system where the first born son inherits everything, is the second-born son content to serve a minor courtier role while his older brother gets all the land and titles or is he plotting fratricide?
What about arranged marriages? Does the couple involve actually like their partner or do they despise each other? Roll a d10!
Sometimes I make gratuitious family trees for long-dead nobles. I often like to roll a d10 to see if the character died young or lived to a ripe old age and write their story based on their roll. Characters that roll a 1 or 2 probably didn't make it to adulthood.
A character with a high Warrior rating who died young probably died in battle as a celebrated hero. A lord wth a low Warrior rating that died young probably died in an embarassing fashion. A lady with a high Diplomacy who died young might have been assassinated because they were a threat to someone's plans. A character with a low Diplomacy rating who died young might have been assassinated because she foolishly angered the wrong people.
Examples, Individuals
Show spoiler
M3, D5, W7, and P7
This nobleman is a good warrior and generally well-liked but is not good at the day-to-day administration tasks of being a leader. He is past his prime as a warrior but he is still remembered fondly for his past tournament wins and a successful military campaign or two.
Perhaps the lord is bad at handling money and is prone to extravagent expenses. He's not greedy or cruel as he likes to be generous to other. He often throws lavish tournaments and festivals and this makes him popular with the peasants though his fellow nobles fret about the debt he's acquiring.
M8, D3, W7, P4
This nobleman is intelligent and well educated, and he has honed his martial skills well. Wanting to please his parents and make his noble house proud, as young lad he pushed himself hard in his studies and training. He is shy by nature and you can't learn social skills out of book or in an exercise yard. He sticks his foot in his mouth a lot when dealing with other nobles and this only makes him more stand-offish and reserved with his peers. The noble wants to be a good leader to his people but he doesn't get a lot of credit from the commoners for his actions. The commoners don't dislike him, they just accept that he's there as their lord and don't think much about him.
M 9, D 3, W 7, P 4
This noble woman was so clearly intelligent as a young girl that her parents apprenticed her to a wizard. She has a knack for combat spells and with her general intelligence is a good tactician to boot. Her great intellect and power makes her more than a bit arrogant. She is bad at "soft power diplomacy" and while she is not selfish or cruel, her subjects and peers alike find arrogance very off-putting.
M9, D4, W4, P1
This noblewoman is an intelligent and cunning schemer but has an obvious cruel streak reacting angrily to even small failures. She is prudent enough to keep save her worst excesses for the common people who greatly fear her. Other noble are polite to her face, but they keep their distance because they have all heard rumors of her cruelties inflicted on commoners.
Examples, Noble Houses
Show spoiler
M4, D5, W9, and P8
This noble house clearly prioritizes martial prowess. They push their sons and daughters to train hard in the use of weapons, and have them study books on tactics and historical battles as they learn to read. While the nobles all aspire to be elite warrior, they are not elitist in attitude towards the commoners. They take the protection of the commonfolk very seriously and they put a lot of emphasize on training citizen militias and men at arms and making sure they have the best equipment available. The common soldiers are very loyal to their commanders because they know their lords will reward merit and will not ask them to take on risks that they themselves are not willing to take on.
For day-to-day management of the realm, they prefer to hire underlings to take care of it. They find courtly manners and intrigue a burdensome chore are not exactly masters of etiquette though they are not outright offensive. Basically, other noble houses can win their respect if they demonstrate martial prowess, otherwise they are largely ignored.
M8, D7, W4, P5
This is a house of beuarcrats. They make their young lords do some basic martial training for appearances sake, but they rely heavily on promoted men-at-arms to lead their levies and they often use mercenaries or foreign forces secured with treaties. The commoners don't exactly admire and adore their lords but at least they recognize that their bellies are full and the soldiers aren't running rough shod over them.
M3, D7, W3, P2
This noble house has grown decadent and corrupt. The nobles push the day-to-day management and defense of the realm on overworked and underfund underlings. Meanwhile they throw lavish feasts and parties while the peasants often go hungry. A revolt is likely soon enough but most of the nobles are self absorbed to see it.
Guidelines not Straight Jackets
You don't have to use the dice rolls as is if you don't want to. You can reroll or fudge rolls you don't like. If you already have a clear concept for a noble in question, you don't have to roll at all. You can push scores around. If the noble is serving as a king's grand marshal, you should probably automatically put his best score in the Warrior trait. If you already established that you want a character to be a cruel villain, you can automatically assign their lowest trait to P. If you are rolling for a specific noble in an already house you can modify traits up or down based on what the family as a whole is good at. With a 1-10 range, some lords and ladies might have extreme traits. If you have d4s on had, you can roll 3d4 and subtract 2. This will bias a noble's traits towards the middle and make very high and very low traits relatively rare. You could roll 2d6-1 and treat 11s as 10. This will bias things towards the mean but slightly weigh things towards competant leaders. This is good if you are creating a nation where you generally want to portray the local lords as good albeit slightly flawed people. If you only have d10s, you can roll six times instead of 4 and remove the highest and lowest number. This will also smooth out rough edges.For interpreting results, it doesn't matter a whole lot if a trait is 6 or 7 or 9 or 10 but it will tell you where their priorities and instincts lie. Lets say you have two very strong leaders, one with Warrior 10 and Diplomacy 9 and one with Diplomacy 10 and Warrior 9. Obviously these leaders are great at diplomacy and war and they are flexible enough to use the soft or hard solution problem as situations dictate, but one leader will instinctively look at martial solutions first and the other will look at diplomatic solutions first.
Do you make chaotic space genie go away by quoting Shakespeare at him or by punching him in the face?
Photoshopped amalgam of my two favorite Starfleet captains by Viacom/CBS Studios
Rank Matters
If a noble is a king or queen has a very high or very low score in something, it's going to make a bigger difference than if they are low ranking courtier. Low ranking nobles can get away with having shortcomings as long as they are good at their main job. The captain of the guards might be able to get by with a low Diplomacy score provided she keeps her mouth shut during formal banquets, but the king's Grand Marshal has to sit on a lot of council meetings with other high ranking advisors regularly so that's going to cause some problems if he has a low Diplomacy score. If the king's seneschal has a low Warrior score, it doesn't matter because he probably won't have to lead troops in battle. As long as he can balance the ledgers and make sure the storerooms are well-maintained, then everyone will say that he is a good seneschal. But, if the king's seneschal does have a high Warrior score that means that the king's army is going to probably have very solid logistics behind becaause king's seneschal and the men-at-arms have a good working relationship built on mutual respect.New Categories
This system doesn't have to be used exclusively, with some tweaks you could apply to any fictional universe.You don't have to use the for categories of Minister, Diplomat, Warrior, and Populist. Hypothetically if I was making a Starfleet captain with this randomizer, I would drop Populist because damn near everyone in Starfleet is a saint...at least pre-Kurzman Star Trek.
I'd give Starfleet captains ratings in and Manager, Diplomat, Warrior, and Scientist because that is something they need to deal with more. Different things are important to different leaders. Like coffee, coffee is very important.
Screenshot of Captain Janeway by CBS/VIacom Studio
Interesting! You BBCode bold tags are somewhat broken, though.
Fixed now, thank you