NPC Generators
Something Traveller has always been keen on is random generation of content. Whether it is worlds, NPCs, encounters or plots. Even the more modern Mongoose edition is full of random tables.
A while back, as part of the trade system for my MgT2e system for FoundryVTT, I added a random NPC generator for passengers. It was a relatively crude way of generating NPCs with different backgrounds when picking up passengers at ports.
In my last session, I bemoaned the lack of an easy way to generate crew for starships. I’ve spent the weekend fiddling (obviously I don’t have anything of higher priority to do, such as getting vehicle and robot support finished) with extending the NPC generator to handle wider scenarios.
What I have now is much the same, but with some bug fixes and clarifications (in my head) as to how it works.
The general idea is that you create a roll table, and add some entries in it. The random name generator is already there, so for each entry you add something like this:
Engineer [engineer+2] [science.physics+1] [carouse] [Age+2D6] [Cash+3D6*500] # An engineer
If selected, this creates an NPC with a profession of “Engineer”, gives them a level 2 in a random Engineer specialisation, a level one in Science (Physics), +1 to their Carouse skill, adds 2D6 to their age and 3D6*500 to their cash. Their description will read “An engineer”.
You can also refer to other roll tables, so if you want a list of potential skills all crew members have, then you can create a table for those. Then each crew role can reference that table, and you only need to specify the additional skills the specific role has.
One thing I’ve changed is that ‘age’ is now ‘Age’ – different capitalisation to distinguish from a skill called ‘age’. Not that there is one, but with an expanded set of special attributes, characteristics have to be uppercase (e.g. [EDU+1]), skills lowercase, and special attributes title case.
You can also add items to these NPCs, as long as you have a compendium of items. So <Laser_Pistol_TL11> will go find Laser Pistol TL11 from a compendium pack, and automatically add it to the character. This allows groups of random combat NPCs, loaded up with suitable equipment, to be quickly created.
Underscores are needed (and changed to spaces) because the token splitter splits on words. There are better ways of doing it, but it started as something quick and simple.
Currently, the NPCs are just dumped into a new actor folder. I do want to automatically add them all to the selected ship, and for it to dynamically work out what crew members are needed based on the roles defined in the ship.
You can also have different types of crew – trader, pirate, smugglers and that sort of thing.
Ultimately, I’ll want to be able to other types of NPCs as well.
Whilst all the roll table parsing code is part of the system, the actual creation of the NPC in this case is done in a macro. I’ll include an example macro as part of the compendiums, so Referees can just take and use it, or modify to fit their needs.
Hopefully it’s something that other people will find useful as well.
