Many, many years ago (when dinosaurs roamed the earth), when I was just getting going under the D6 engine, I put together a whole bunch of stats for random schmoes in a spiral notebook. Bartenders, con men, gamblers, shopkeepers, cab drivers, customs agents, plucky street urchins - folks that the players might bump into and actually need a roll of some sorts but never got love in a source book.

I was thinking of doing something similar here, build a generic stat block template in excel and come up with a list of folks I might need a roll for - partly as a GM resource, partly as a get better at manipulating stats exercise.

I have a good idea of what I'd want to include, but I thought I'd throw it out to the peanut gallery - what sort of random NPC stats would you find useful?

Here's a list I've been accruing and slowly putting together on the fly:

Street urchins (pickpockets and the like)

Costermongers/street vendors

Bartender

Nobility across the spectrum

Specific military and law enforcement personnel (ranging from the beat cop to admiral)

Gamblers (mostly Sabacc, but a few dice rollers as well)

Force Users of all flavors

Various types of crew; mechanics have been a primary demand, but others may come up

Miscellaneous professionals with LEGAL skills; a programmer that isn't a slicer, for example.

And, of course, the million and one types of droids:

Repair droids, Mouse droids, and Bodyguard droids have come up so far.

Here's a list I've been accruing and slowly putting together on the fly:

Street urchins (pickpockets and the like)

Costermongers/street vendors

Bartender

Nobility across the spectrum

Specific military and law enforcement personnel (ranging from the beat cop to admiral)

Gamblers (mostly Sabacc, but a few dice rollers as well)

Force Users of all flavors

Various types of crew; mechanics have been a primary demand, but others may come up

Miscellaneous professionals with LEGAL skills; a programmer that isn't a slicer, for example.

And, of course, the million and one types of droids:

Repair droids, Mouse droids, and Bodyguard droids have come up so far.

I like chocolate raspberry force users most.

Here's a list I've been accruing and slowly putting together on the fly:

Street urchins (pickpockets and the like)

Costermongers/street vendors

Bartender

Nobility across the spectrum

Specific military and law enforcement personnel (ranging from the beat cop to admiral)

Gamblers (mostly Sabacc, but a few dice rollers as well)

Force Users of all flavors

Various types of crew; mechanics have been a primary demand, but others may come up

Miscellaneous professionals with LEGAL skills; a programmer that isn't a slicer, for example.

And, of course, the million and one types of droids:

Repair droids, Mouse droids, and Bodyguard droids have come up so far.

I like chocolate raspberry force users most.

You crazy Dashade you!

Interestingly, I've been doing the same thing in Evernote, with some help. I realize not everyone's an Evernote user but for those that are, I'd be happy to share my template and any content that's not protected by copyright and/or my friends' permissions.

Of note, the Order66 guys have a GM Holocron that's exactly this, although it's not as widely-populated as one might expect from a podcast that has that many listeners. It's still there and active, no sense in reinventing the wheel unless that's something you enjoy.

And back on topic: I'll echo several others' requests for a beastiary!

Space guru type contacts. Those kind of guys that know all the crazy stories about wild space and decades lost space stations and ships. "You ever see those shadows flying around outside the ship when you're in hyperspace? Rumor has it they're beings from an old Sith Empire slave vessel that vaporized when it made the jump. Now they just haunt the lanes."

I used to make templates for everyday type NPCs for games I ran. A few years back I got the notion in my head that there had to be something easier. Now I just work off a short set of rules that lets me run any minor NPC off the cuff and if they end up becoming recurring then I go give them their own stats. Disclaimer: I only run RPGs that are skill-based (none of that level based stuff) so that's how I make this work.

To do this you'll need to know what the baseline average is for a characteristic/attribute. In this case it is 2 (though might be different based on the species). If this is an NPC with a profession then their characteristic(s) in their field would often be 1 higher than the average.

Then you need to know if the NPC would be at all skilled at the thing in question. Depending on how expert they are supposed to be anywhere from 1 to 3 ranks in the relevant skill. I typically err on the low end.

So basically if the players tell me they're going to look for a mechanic in town to help fix their ship and it turns out to be a human mechanic I just figure he has Intellect 3 (1 higher than average for his profession relevant characteristic) and a Mechanics skill rank 2 (assuming average city and they just go looking for a competent mechanic, not necessarily the best around).

Only thing you might need given the nature of Star Wars having crazy numbers of species... is a table listing species average for characteristics, what their average WT difference is from baseline adult human (seems to be WT 5 in this system so you go up or down a point from there based on species variance), and any racial specials.

With that table and the above guidelines you can improvise most any typical NPC you'd need leaving your prep time to focus on the series plots, set piece encounter design and stating out only the major NPCs.

That would eliminate the need for the majority of generic NPC templates.

i find inspiration everywhere. i keep a note open on my phone just for NPC inspiration.

i will usually boil characters down to only their most interesting bits, and build from there. often i will rip something off, straight from a movie or TV show. i ask "what do i like about that guy?" or "why is she doing that?" then i just take that aspect directly. especially if it is from a different genre, players won't spot the source. i've taken whole storylines from media before, and never been called on it once. all our stories are just recycled from each other anyway - it doesn't stop me from loving sons of anarchy and i KNOW its based off hamlet.

for example, if i find the relationship between mr. white and jesse interesting in 'breaking bad,' i will put two characters in my game just like them. of course, they won't be manufacturing/selling meth, but maybe running a chop shop. but one is older than the other, giving orders - the younger one is mouthy, etc.

there was a bartender at this place near where i used to GM (IRL). he called everyone "boss." "you know what you're having tonight, boss?" he was short and bald, with a goatee. he teased the servers a lot, especially the girls. i saw him reading on his break one day. all that info went straight into my game i was running at the time: bartender, same physical description, social and flirty (for a guy double the girls' age), but also with an intelligent side.

when i develop NPCs for my games, it often helps me to visualize them. this way, i can very easily describe them consistently . i often will write the name of a famous person, or character from a movie next to their name. this is even faster than writing the whole description down. i will write "looks and attitude: uma thurman, kill bill" sometimes i will write their "catch phrase" down. something that i repeat over and over - it makes the players instantly recognize the character and feel the continuity of your story. in the bartender example i wrote "catchphrase - calls everyone "boss"

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