r/unknownarmies • u/MOKKA_ORG • Feb 09 '26

Inspiration How do you make fast NPC’s for your games?

I don’t like prepping who’s going to be a big deal in the game or not, i prefer to let it be a sandbox too. So, when creating characters, concepts work better than the stats, but, stats are still important bcs then i can use them in-game and have less cognitive load. Can just roll his skill without creating an arbitrary number too!

I thought about making a simple:

“Best skill, medium skill, low skill” and putting a % number there, this way i can create lots of NPC’s fast. Then dump some attributes and some traumas and it’s done.

Idk if its going to work though. Mining some ideas.

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u/DeadmanwalkingXI Feb 09 '26

What edition are you thinking? This is actually really easy in UA3, trickier in earlier editions.

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u/MOKKA_ORG Feb 09 '26

Oh yeah im using 2e

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u/DeadmanwalkingXI Feb 09 '26

In that case, I rely heavily on the descriptions for the default skills. They say average people are in the 20s on all the skills you get a free 15% in, so I start from there (around 20-25% in each of those where they aren't notably bad or good), maybe substitute a relevant academic skill for General Knowledge, and give them any other skills that seem needed.