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I really like the character disposition charts used throughout the palladium line of games. These are great for helping to flesh out a character with a so-so concept but for me I love them for coming up with quick npc personalities on the fly. Unfortunately there is only 17 different dispositions to to choose from (or roll for). I'd love to find a huge list with dispositions similar to the ones in the palladium books (by similar I mean they have a name descriptor and a few sentences to get your creative juices flowing).

Anybody know if such an animal exists or have any ideas for new dispositions?
I mean I suppose I could add an insanity of some kind to the npc (at a low to moderate level) to make more variety but I'd really like to compile a huge list of dispositions to roll on when a generic npc suddenly draws the interest of the party.

Thanks for your attention.

Make your own.


I never roll randomly for personality. There is a reason why that NPC is there, confronting the group. If they are just generic grunts used to provide action then they dont need a personality. But everything that comes up in the game is part of a greater plot, and it makes no sense to leave their character up to random numbers on a die.
If the party chooses to interact with someone randomly and I dont have anything set up for it, I would still need to evaluate the situation and decide what that person is all about. If the group were touring a war-torn village trying to pull themselves up from the mess, it makes sense that a randomly grabbed person would be bitter and distrustful of a heroic party running around. Or if I wanted some other character response I would simply GIVE them the appropriate personality. It does not make sense to generate it on the fly.

Imagine if George Lucas had rolled for Lando Calrisians personality. BAD!

ok that is fine for nothing npc's but what about long term encounter npcs where they are goin g to be there more than just -hey you destroyed my village- or -please save my baby- etc, THose who are not -in the moment- people

I roll all the time. It gives a twist on alignment. Like wolvering; aberrant or scrupulous, but lone wolf. If you want to be lazy about RPing sure, but the challenge comes in playing something that might not look right on paper and making the connections work, like a Miscreant nice guy, or a Principled mean suspicious and vengeful "hero". Its about having the players think and look more than skin deep
mean=evil
nice=good
lone wolf=selfish

For NPC's that are the arch nemesis of the PC group...I fully roll up the character.

For "throw-away" npc's, I use the Central Casting books. There is one for each basic setting. Heroes of Legend covers fantasy settings, Heroes Now covers modern day based games and Heroes for Tomorrow covers future based games. They were originally published by Task Force Games and are now out of print but can be found on Amazon or if you do some digging on PDF.