[tip] Generating backgrounds on the fly

[Jason]

Apologies for posting something that may have been covered earlier; please feel free to point me in the direction of earlier threads missed by my search.

I just started a new In Nomine campaign — the first RPG I've run in close to a decade, and the third In Nomine campaign I've ever run. My friends are now much more devious and clever than they were in their youth, and so I find myself needing to come up with LOTS of information about NPCs on the fly.

Any time my PCs encounter a new NPC, they'll all shake hands or bump into the person to get the check digit bonus on resonance and activate relevant attunements. So, for every important character, I tried to plan ahead with pre-written results for...

1. Social relations and complete backgrounds (Mercurian resonance)
2. How much money a person made in the last few months (Mercurian of Trade)
3. Three most noble and ignoble acts in recent years, plus greatest potential in either direction (Malakite resonance)
4. True Name (Seraph of Destiny)
5. Fortune-telling for loves, career, etc. (Mercurian of Destiny)
6. Complete Skills, memories, and background (Kyriotate of Destiny)

The problem I'm running into is that I didn't pregenerate this stuff for EVERYONE they could meet, but when you have one PC who possesses practically every human he meets (thinking everyone they encounter must be important somehow), you need to know all that stuff. I have one Kyriotate who keeps asking specific questions about his hosts' jobs, living conditions, lack or presence of roommates, personal possessions back at home, ongoing commitments that must be addressed so as to avoid dissonance for leaving them in "worse condition" than before, and so on. I don't always know why he's asking, so I sometimes give answers that don't actually address what he really wants to know. It ended up being so frustrating that every time he possessed someone new, I told him it was a boring person who lives alone and has no obligations to anyone at present, with three randomly chosen skills. This kind of defeats the purpose of the attunement, though, and I don't like breaking the action to choose Skills from a list.

For our next session, I've pre-generated a bunch of mundane NPCs with their own names and little background stories, including Destinies, Fates, careers, loved ones, and three Skills that seem relevant. I honestly don't know whether I have enough, though, as my Kyriotate player especially likes to possess hosts for only a couple hours (in-game) at a time.

Anybody have any tips for quick references or generation methods for this kind of info?

[ladyarcana55]

I do things on the fly all the time, NPCs included. I really have to keep notes on them because sometimes I forget what I just told them, lol.

Let's say they meet Monica. After getting her name, the most important questions for me are:

What is her personality like?
What is she doing for a job and why?
What is her culture?

Everything else usually comes as the questions come. The third question is nice because on some cultures, it is offensive to touch someone without their permission and in others, you just don't unless you are in a position of trust and intimacy.

In general I give very general information. Anything really important they'll figure out later. Besides, I can't see anyone's Resonance being so strong that they will know EVERYTHING about a person. But that's just me. And I thought that a Kyriotate can't access a person's memories??

[JCD]

There are three related ways to handle this

One: Let the CD be your guide. The number can help you establish number of relationships, most important relationship, Money in tens of thousands etc.

A six on a Malakim roll of dishonorable thing might be 'killed own mother' or something sufficiently horrid.

Two: Take the people you know in life (the ones OUTSIDE the game). This will provide you an never ending splendor of NPC's with a great deal of background.

Two A: You let the PC's invent the NPC's. Not always. Not critical NPCs which MUST be the provence of the GM. But between the 4-6 of you, you must know thousands of people.

Why work hard when outsourcing it to the players will make them feel connected to the game?

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

And I thought that a Kyriotate can't access a person's memories??

A Kyriotate of Destiny can. (Pg. 134 of my edition) It's part of the understanding that goes along with Yves' Word.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by JCD

There are three related ways to handle this

One: Let the CD be your guide. (…)

Two: Take the people you know in life (the ones OUTSIDE the game). (…)

Two A: You let the PC's invent the NPC's. Not always.

These are good tips; the first two probably just require me to think more quickly on my feet.

The third raises another issue for me which I probably need to relax about: If the PCs come up with this info themselves for anybody at all —*or if they see me just giving Destinies, Fates, and background details clearly off the top of my head — then it's clear which characters are "important" (for one reason or another) and which are "extras." My original plan for this campaign was to have them constantly unsure of whether an NPC was relevant to them or not (or to make every NPC relevant somehow, even if only to give a greater picture of the Strange Thing Going On in the city) ... but then again, this approach sure does encourage them to spend more time investigating the background of the setting instead of actually moving forward on their mission! Perhaps a few more clues from me here and there would keep things moving faster.

[Jason]

Originally Posted by ladyarcana55

I can't see anyone's Resonance being so strong that they will know EVERYTHING about a person. But that's just me. And I thought that a Kyriotate can't access a person's memories??

Yeah, as Rocket Man says, Kyriotates of Destiny are a special case here, and kind of a GM's nightmare in some ways, I'm finding. It does put more of a burden on the PC, though —*they'll definitely know when they're leaving their host in worse condition, insofar as the host's personal life is concerned. (I always assumed that if the Kyriotate was sincerely ignorant of messing up something for a person, even after taking precautions to leave a host in "pristine" condition, they might be less likely to get Dissonance than if they had no excuse. Not sure of what the actual rule is on that.)

Also, a check digit of 6 on the Mercurian's resonance says that you know a person's background as if it were written on her face. I've read stuff implying that the details might still be vague (e.g., they grew up in a "rough neighborhood," but not necessarily an indication of which one), but there's still a lot of potential detail in there, including important relationships, occupation, and hobbies.

[Acolyte]

You've got your hands full! IN can be difficult to GM sometimes, but your combination of Choirs and Words is extremely information-heavy. Hats off to you!

Regarding the Kyriotate and his desire not to leave his host worse off--this is very understandable from both the player's and the character's perspective. I would work out a deal with him where he gives you a timeline of how long he wants to be in control of the body, and you tell him only relevant personal information about things the host would have wanted to accomplish in that time. FOR EXAMPLE, Bob is a stay-at-home dad. The Kyriotate can reasonably possess him from 10am - 2pm and as long as his physical needs are met, he won't be worse off (behind on chores, maybe, but that's not a severe issue). However, if the Kyrio possesses him at 3:30, that Kyrio had better take him to pick up the kids at school or he's on the road to dissonance, even if the Kyrio only wanted him for 15 minutes.

I think in time you'll develop a rapport with the Kyrio player about this. He doesn't want you to say "MWAHAHA! You forgot to ask if she had any memory of getting called to jury duty and now you've gotten her in big trouble!" which for the sake of assuming you are a decent GM you aren't, and you can save yourself a headache of essentially meaningless details by quickly summarizing a host's immediate requirements. Then, if the Kyrio does want more specific information (say, the group is trying to figure out if a human is a Soldier of Hell and they've taken the slightly risky stance of having him possessed to figure it out), the questions can be more on-topic.

To a lesser extent, you can do this with the Mercurian resonance as well at high CDs. For example, most people's important relationships include their immediate family, significant others, and a few good friends or important coworkers. That doesn't mean you need to have 9 names handy for each NPC. But it does mean that you can supply the relevant information and then later, if the situation changes, you can provide the rest. For example, the Mercurian wants to know about Susie's relationships to get some leverage on her to break the law (unlikely for a Friend of Destiny, but Destiny CERTAINLY works in mysterious ways), and he gets a high CD. Susie's crazy upstanding and even if her husband were kidnapped, she'd cooperate with the authorities in every way. But Susie's infant daughter is the one thing she'd do anything for. Later on, the same Mercurian wants to reach Susie with an authoritative voice she'll trust while she sits in jail--it's not necessary for him to re-resonance her; you can supply now how she feels about her parents and such, which he technically learned weeks ago but which is just now becoming relevant.

The Seraph of Destiny True Name is easier; the vast majority of humans go by either their True names or a close variation thereof. And it's not a good celestial detector, either. Sure, some demons are named Grawaaraagh and some angels are named Illithuriel, but plenty of the angels/demons have normal human names or unique-sounding human names that are a little bit out of the ordinary but still palatable.

The Malakite resonance is sticky. It leads better than any other into interesting side diversions, but the thing to remember is just that most people do both honorable and dishonorable things all the time, but very rarely does anyone do anything extremely honorable or dishonorable. At first it feels like telling your Malakite that someone's worst deed was nicking some office supplies or best deed was tipping an overworked waitress something extra isn't "fun" enough for the game, but in all honestly that's what people do. And remember that even extremely good people or extremely bad people have weird moments of inversion (a very good father and husband who drinks a lot but isn't strictly an alcoholic might due to a bad set of circumstances actually strike his wife once, then immediately break down in remorse and start going to AA meetings, but then a Malakite might see his three most dishonorable deeds of the past year as "hit his wife, sneak some booze, and sneak some booze again" which makes him sound pretty terrible even if he isn't).

For the Malakite in the game I run, I give him free reign to make up resonance results for minor things as the game goes on--the group's sitting in a bar, waiting for their contact, and he goes down the line "adultery, petty theft, volunteers at a homeless shelter, yells at his kids, pretty generous," etc. I interject with the major things, or for NPCs that may become important. Note that the Malakim resonance doesn't provide (except on a CD of 6) both honorable and dishonorable facts, only one or the other, GMs' choice. If you really want to make it easier on yourself, I'd write down two big lists of "minor" good and bad deeds people do regularly and pick one from the list when someone you didn't anticipate gets resonated. Maybe separate lists for "moderate" deeds for the higher CDs.

Anyway, good luck with your Destiny-heavy party! Please let us know how it goes.

[ladyarcana55]

Originally Posted by Jason

The third raises another issue for me which I probably need to relax about: If the PCs come up with this info themselves for anybody at all —*or if they see me just giving Destinies, Fates, and background details clearly off the top of my head — then it's clear which characters are "important" (for one reason or another) and which are "extras." My original plan for this campaign was to have them constantly unsure of whether an NPC was relevant to them or not (or to make every NPC relevant somehow, even if only to give a greater picture of the Strange Thing Going On in the city) ... but then again, this approach sure does encourage them to spend more time investigating the background of the setting instead of actually moving forward on their mission! Perhaps a few more clues from me here and there would keep things moving faster.

I would say have them create an NPC or two then give you the stats and such. IF you decide that someone is important then you can add more infor about them later. Nothing says that you have to stay with what they give you. Play around with it and change things around. That way it keeps them on their toes.

[Jason]

Thanks for the tips, Acolyte & ladyarcana. I think I will try to outsource this to the players a little from time to time, though I've now started making my own lists just in case. My players sometimes get flustered when they have to improvise anything beyond their own characters' thoughts and motivations. (We spent far too long at our last meeting, for instance, with the Kyrio player asking if he could possess someone who looked like a regular at the bar he wanted intel on, and me saying that he'd have to come up with a creative way to tell just from looking at a person if they frequent a specific bar the PC had never been to.)

As I've been making this list, one thing I've found useful in coming up with noble and ignoble deeds quickly is conceptualizing it in terms of broad categories. When we get to game time, I might not even need the whole list itself anymore; the exercise of making the list may have been sufficient practice! The Choir attunements for servitors of Gabriel, for instance, already imply several categories of "ignoble deeds" and Fates that you can use to generate more specific ones if you want. (Start with "betrayed someone devoted to you," and fill in the blanks.) The seven deadly sins are an even easier starting point, come to think of it. Personally, I find it easier to come up with incidents when I have a seed like that to start. Anyway, I will check in again and let you all know how it goes.

Now, one question to follow up:

Originally Posted by Acolyte

Note that the Malakim resonance doesn't provide (except on a CD of 6) both honorable and dishonorable facts, only one or the other, GMs' choice.

Based on the check digit table, I have been assuming my Malakite gets to read both noble and ignoble deeds on a roll of 2, 4, 5, or 6. (It occurs to me now, too, that I haven't been making "greatest virtues and worst sins" for my NPCs in case the Malakite rolls a 5.)

Is it safe to assume that when he rolls a 5 or a 6 he gets not only the information listed next to the check digit results for those values, but everything beneath it on the check digit results table? I guess I'll assume that even if that wasn't what was intended; for our purposes, it's often more useful for him to know recent evil acts than worst evil act ever (though he does appreciate hearing when a character's greatest potential strongly implies that they could be a candidate for a Word some day).

[Attercap]

Maybe it's the media junkie in me (I am Nybbas's bitch), but when I need to come up with random backgrounds and such I just grab secondary characters from TV shows and movies and rename them. ...Except when I use Jay and Silent Bob. They are always Jay and Silent Bob. And, thanks to Dogma, they tend to have a cameo in every one of my In Nomine campaigns.