Hello all, and welcome to another installment of Freestyle Friday. As with last time, I must warn you that this stuff I bring up is completely off the top of my head and is not polished and may require adjustment by DMs that want to use it.
Being that it is nearing Valentine’s Day, the thoughts of many turn to love and lovely mean and ladies. Although many NPCs are crafted diligently by DMs with their appearance and attractiveness determined deliberately, I wish to provide a way to create either exceptionally comely or ugly NPCs to populate the world with with some degree of randomness. Alternately, a player not sure of what sort of appearance they want with their character could put these tables to use.
Many focused on appearance give men and women a rating of 1-10 in appearance and attractiveness. While this practice is rather rude and objectifying, it serves creating NPCs with randomized attractiveness quite well.
The first step in using these tables is to roll a d10 and assign that number to determine a creature’s attractiveness. Follow the typical 1 is hideously unattractive while 10 is dazzling beauty. Feel free to apply bonuses or penalties to the roll based on the makeup of the party or personal preferences of the party. For example, a dwarven man would probably get bonuses in a primarily dwarven party or if a player likes elves or tieflings, maybe adding 1-2 to the roll might not be out of place.
If you roll a 1-3 consult the unattractive features table and roll 3 d20s for a 1, 2 for a 2, and 1 for a 3, either rerolling duplicates or saying that duplicates represent especially severe versions of the feature. If you roll an 8-10, consult the attractive traits table, rolling once for an 8 2 times for a 9, and 3 times for a 10, either rerolling duplicates or having duplicates expressed as extremely strong exceptions of the trait.
(note, these tables are meant to represent more standard races and humanoid creatures and will need adjustment for either particularly unusual player races or less human monsters or creatures.)
Unattractive traits table d20
- unpleasant natural scent
- obvious signs of disease such as skin discoloration, sores, or obvious flesh rot.
- too much or too little hair
- terrible taste in dress or jewelry
- poor personal grooming or uncleanliness.
- unpleasant voice
- utter lack of manners or etiquette
- unnerving personal habit such as talking to self or twitching.
- obvious deformity such as shriveled limb, or ruined part of the body.
- either exceptionally fat or skinny
- obsesses over a single topic and talks of nothing else.
- obnoxious enormous ego.
- keeps very bad company
- bad teeth
- unpleasant ethics that clash with the party that the person openly shares.
- obviously aberrant influence or touched by a lower plane.
- really bad tempered
- Morose, with no sense of humor
- overly loquacious.
- overwhelmingly stupid
Attractive traits d20
- excellent taste in dress and/or jewelry
- interests align closely to one or more members of the party.
- good sense of humor
- good natural scent or tasteful use of perfume.
- excellent sense of humor
- hair or eye color attractive to one or more members of the party or their players.
- In great physical condition.
- excellent conversationalist.
- impeccable personal grooming.
- well-educated and knowledgeable
- talented in one or more artistic abilities.
- ethics are close to party goals.
- kind
- witty
- strong physical attractiveness.
- pleasant voice
- energetic
- pleasantly optimistic or alternatively not overly perky or prone to dullness.
- interesting personal life or history.
- pleasantly complimentary to one or more party members.
I hope you enjoyed this installment of Freestyle Friday and I hope to see you again next week for another visit.
About the author: Zachary is one of the DMs for “Companions of the Perception Check.” He enjoys classic lit, bad sci-fi and monster flicks, and playing with his rats and dogs. He enjoys his -17 charisma modifier and his -6 strength one.
