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Have you considered determining NPC gender randomly? (ttrpg.network)

submitted 1 day ago by juergen_hubert@ttrpg.network to c/rpg@ttrpg.network

11 comments fedilink hide all child comments

At some point in the past, I noticed that I had a strong tendency to make NPCs male, even though there wasn't any good story or setting-specific reason to do so. From gods to villains to random shopkeepers - most of these were assigned male without me even realizing that I have been doing it.

Thus, I started to assign genders by the roll of a dice - and I am fairly pleased with the results as this made the world significantly more diverse.

How about you? Have you noticed any similar biases in your own NPCs - and if so, what did you do about this?

top 11 comments

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[–] Ziggurat@fedia.io 3 points 1 day ago

I am no fan of random generation, but I try to have a proper gender balance, and found that gender swapping cliché is a good way to re-use them, the stupid prince worried about his hair, the lady knight

[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 day ago

When I ran games in high school most of my NPCs were male because my horny friends would always try and hook up with the women.

Now I do not mention gender unless it is relevant. I do need to add some non-cis, non-binary npcs.

[–] Infynis@midwest.social 7 points 1 day ago

Finally, a use for my d17!

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 day ago

I'm currently GMing Cyberpunk (because I can't convince my group to play Shadowrun), and there are a couple of modules that use gender politics as part of their hook and background. I don't want to mess with those because I feel like it adds to the credibility of the world.

Overall, I tend to make mostly female NPCs. To avoid that, I assign gender based on who they will appear with. If the leader of a faction is female, their sidekick is male. When male driver 1 passes the group to driver 2, driver 2 is female.

[–] JonasJRichter@mastodon.pnpde.social 6 points 1 day ago

@juergen_hubert
Actually, I have.

That chart is mixing gender and sexual orientation, by the way. May look fun at first glance, but less so if you look at it a little linger IMO. 😉

[–] Gryphon@ttrpg.network 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I did this in a novel I wrote, actually. I assigned TLA 'names' based on their job (ENG, PIL, etc), and any time a gender would normally be referenced in the text I used XXX - both for easy searching. I got about 70% of the way through when my beta readers rebelled - they absolutely HAD TO KNOW what gender everybody was. Sigh.

But by this time the characters' personalities and speech patterns were well established, so I flipped a coin for each one, and continued onward. I'll probably do this again some day and just ignore the beta readers.

[–] Binette@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

That's usually my go to starting point into making an OC. I just spin the weel on a bunch of arbitrary trait and mold the character based on how they would be in the world.

[–] thezeesystem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My thoughts is make the characters first there backstory and everything then roll for gender, as if I did gender first I would feel like I draw more towards stereotype of that gender. As one gender does not define who someone is. And this way they all seem more diverse and more alive that way.

[–] dazflorplebam@dice.camp 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

@thezeesystem @juergen_hubert GREAT idea!

[–] Longwing@wandering.shop 1 points 1 day ago

@dazflorplebam @thezeesystem @juergen_hubert I've started doing this, it leads to more vibrant NPCs.

[–] Atlas48@ttrpg.network 5 points 1 day ago

I'm genderfluid, I write whoever I wanna.