NPC Personality Traits and Quirks Cheat Sheet: A Guide to Livening Up Your Cast of Characters

Bringing Your Game’s Cast to Life with Unique Traits

Roll the die, craft the character: Every face a story, every number a personality trait. Artwork by author per DALL·E 3.

Introduction

Breathing life into the characters that populate your imaginary worlds is one of the keys to crafting an immersive roleplaying experience. But conjuring up compelling personalities on demand can be a challenge for even the most creative game master.

To lend a hand, I’ve put together a cheat sheet of 20 distinctive NPC personality traits and quirks you can mix and match to bring your non-player characters to life. Whether you need to generate NPCs on the fly or want to add depth to important figures, this table is filled with traits to take your characters from bland to bold.

From absent-minded professors to conspiracy theorists, sarcastic smartasses to drama queens, you’ll find a spectrum of characteristics to make each NPC unique and memorable. Keep this guide on hand during your next gaming session when you need to spur your imagination.

Let’s take a look at the traits:

To generate personality traits for an NPC, simply roll a 20-sided die (D20) and consult the table for whichever number comes up. For example, if you roll a 7, give that NPC the “Control…