Best NPC generators and NPC creators 2023
While they’re a lot of fun, Tabletop RPGs such as Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) and Pathfinder can be incredibly time-consuming. Dungeon Masters (DMs) spend hours planning before a gameplay session to ensure their players enjoy a grand adventure full of mischief, monsters and – perhaps most importantly – exciting characters.!
But as so many DMs quickly find out, building an entire campaign’s worth of imagined personalities is no easy task. That’s how non-playable character (NPC) generators came about. These tools help RPG fans create basic outlines of characters within seconds, taking the stress out of having to think up character names, backgrounds, likes, dislikes, and more.
But most NPC generators don’t provide the user with many customizability options, only the basics such as race or gender. There is also no way to request extra details. However, there’s a new kind of NPC generator - powered by generative AI. AI NPC generators can create original characters with genuine depth by using the power of generative AI. The NPCs generated by these NPC creators have vibrant personalities and colorful backgrounds -- and better yet, they can be customizable to your game.
If you’re interested in learning more about NPC generators, here’s everything you need to know about the best AI NPC generators and NPC creators, and how you can use tools such as Inworld’s Studio to make your own AI characters for Pathfinder, Dungeons and Dragons 5e, and other RPGs.
What is an AI NPC generator or NPC Creator?
An NPC generator or NPC creator is a program that enables users to create non-playable characters with minimal effort. Some NPC generators (or creators) function via randomization. These random NPC generators will only give you basic descriptions and outlines based on pre-programmed concepts that they remix upon request. Others are more sophisticated and use generative AI to help create dynamic characters with a distinct personality that you can tweak based on your needs.
While many NPC generators or NPC makers can be used for any game others are customized to specific RPGs. For example, there are DnD NPC generators built solely for creating DnD NPCs.
NPC generators can be broken down into four main types: character description generators, NPC personality generators, character appearance generators, and AI NPC generators.
NPC character generator
A NPC character generator (or NPC description generator) is a NPC maker that lets you quickly create an overview of a fictional character, including traits such as their political views, in-game stats, moral values, IQ, and hobbies, without getting bogged down with all the physical details. They’re helpful when creating DnD NPCs, fictional characters for novels, short stories, films, audiobooks, plays, and more.
NPC personality generator
An NPC personality generator is a NPC creator that's relatively similar to a NPC character generator that's focused on character description. The main difference is that, as they’re more geared toward non-playable characters, they focus more on their personality traits and background than in-game stats. For this reason, these NPC creators might not be as tailored for creating DnD NPCs.
Character appearance generator
A character appearance generator is a NPC creator can be used in tandem with an NPC character generator or an NPC personality generator to create a character according to a few set rules (such as gender or race) with a written description or illustration. They also describe some personality traits and other features, although typically with less detail than other generators. This can be helpful for creating DnD NPCs if you want to have an illustration of your characters.
AI NPC generator
An AI NPC generator is an NPC maker that uses generative AI to bring an NPC to life. These tools enable everyone from tabletop RPG players to game developers to build an infinite number of highly dynamic characters.
Take our Inworld Studio as an example. Users can create both characters themselves or a NPC character generator that can create infinite numbers of characters customized to their campaign's needs.
NPCs generated by an AI NPC generator like Inworld can also talk and interact voice-to-voice in interactive tabletop games – allowing you to speak with the NPC while playing. This can really up the interactivity of your game and allow you to create unforgettable DnD NPCs.
The best AI NPC generators, NPC makers, and NPC creators
Below is a comprehensive list of the best NPC generators available today, including information on how to access them, where they’re the most useful, and any drawbacks to be aware of around each generator.
✨ NPC Generator: DnD NPC generator 5e
- Website: www.npcgenerator.com
- Overview: NPCgenerator.com is a DnD NPC maker. Each randomly generated character receives a general description, personality traits, ability scores (i.e. strength), relationship status, sexual orientation, alignment (e.g. good or evil), and even a plot hook to bring them into the story.
- Type: NPC character generator, NPC personality generator
- Use cases: Tabletop RPGs such as DnD or Pathfinder
- Benefits: NPCgenerator.com allows users to customize the results with five different options (race, sex, alignment, plot hooks and occupation).
- Drawbacks: This DnD NPC generator is purely text-based, so some imagination is necessary to fill in the blanks.
✨ Inworld AI: AI NPC generator & NPC character generator
- Website: www.inworld.ai
- Overview: Inworld allows users to create AI-powered characters in three ways via their NPC maker. 1) You can design a character with a vivid personality and complex backstory using natural language descriptions in their easy-to-use studio. Inworld characters can even join your game and speak with you. 2) You can also use Inworld Studio to create a NPC generator customized to your needs to generate random character ideas for you like our D&D Character Creator. 3) Or you can use one of our pre-made NPC generators!
- Type: AI NPC generator, NPC character generator
- Use cases: Tabletop games (DnD NPCs), video games, and more
- Benefits: Inworld's Studio allows you to automatically generate characters from a minimal description and customize them any way you want. You can then interact with these characters either by voice or text. Inworld also provides pre-configured RPG character creators like our D&D Character Creator for generating innovative character ideas and the D&D Game Master who can design a gaming scenario and guide users throughout the session. Wish you had your own character creator customized to your needs? You can use Inworld Studio to make one for yourself! You can also experiment with Breaking Bad or Lord of the Rings-themed RPG adventure chats.
- Drawbacks: Because Inworld Studio isn’t RPG-specific, you can create any kind of character you want. One problem: that could leave you overwhelmed by the possibilities.
✨ RPG Tinker: D&D 5e NPC Generator
- Website: www.rpgtinker.com/
- Overview: RPG Tinker is a DnD NPC character generator tool for making NPCs for DnD 5e (fifth edition). This NPC maker leans heavily on in-game statistics and abilities, creating unique characters that can be immediately used in battle. It’s also highly customizable, providing a number of base templates to choose from (including roles such as beggar, farmer, and artisan) and allowing modifications to hit ability scores and hit dice.
- Type: Character description generator, DnD 5e NPC generator
- Use cases: This NPC maker is primarily geared towards Dungeons and Dragons 5e. It could be used for other editions of DnD, although its stats and abilities may not be as accurate depending on how the rules have changed.
- Benefits: RPG Tinker is particularly good for building DnD NPCs that intend to be brought into battle, allowing users to print off a dedicated sheet they can refer to during the fight.
- Drawbacks: This NPC creator doesn’t really provide any details on the appearance or personality of an NPC. It’s also only truly useful to DnD players using the latest edition of the game.
✨ RanGen NPC Personality Generator - DnD NPC maker
- Website: www.rangen.co.uk/chars/pergen.php
- Overview: The RanGen Personality Generator is an NPC creator that randomly creates sets of character traits that can be used as the basis of an NPC character.
- Type: NPC personality generator, random NPC generator
- Use cases: Useful when creating any fictional character, regardless of medium.
- Benefits: This NPC maker is easy to use and can generate up to 20 characters at a time which makes it great for RPG campaigns that require a lot of NPCs.
- Drawbacks: It only generates very limited details about the character, although this might be seen as a positive for a more experienced writer or dungeon master who is just looking for a starting point.
✨ DnD 5e NPC Generator - Random DnD NPC generator
- Overview: This DnD 5e NPC generator from Tetra Cube generates random characters for the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons. While it doesn’t provide any information on stats, each DnD NPC is detailed and has key background information, such as their biggest flaw (for example, they may be being hunted for a crime).
- Type: NPC personality generator, Dnd 5e NPC generator
- Use cases: Dungeons and Dragons
- Benefits: This DnD NPC generator features colorful art cards that help users to visualize the characters.
- Drawbacks: It’s only useful for creating DnD NPCs. If you want to generate a NPC for another use case you're better off using another NPC maker.
✨ Fantasy Name Generator: Character Description Generator
- Overview: This character description NPC generator generates a random description of a character belonging to a random race. The generator keeps certain aspects of the descriptions the same to retain a general structure for their characters while randomizing important details.
- Type: Character description generator, random NPC generator
- Use cases: This NPC maker specializes in fantasy characters, meaning it’s well-suited to any form of fiction as long as it’s within that genre.
- Benefits: This generator describes characters in the style of a novel, which makes it easier to imagine them as fully-realized individuals.
- Drawbacks: The customizability options are limited; you can only choose between a male or female description.
✨ RanGen Character Appearance Generator
- Website: www.rangen.co.uk/chars/appgen.php
- Overview: Works in a very similar fashion to RanGen’s other NPC creator, except this NPC creator focuses on appearance rather than personality.
- Type: Character appearance generator, random NPC generator
- Use cases: Useful as an NPC generator for creating any fictional character, regardless of medium. It also includes a special setting for anime characters.
- Benefits: It paints a surprisingly vivid picture of each generated character, describing not just their face but also aspects of their body and overall style. Characters sometimes even hold objects of importance, helping to spark additional ideas about what their motivations could be.
- Drawbacks: There are a number of customizability options, but there is still room for a lot more custom options. For example, if you were looking to generate a character from a certain background or age range, it could take a while to generate something that fits with this random NPC generator.
✨ Character Personality Generator - NPC maker
- Overview: This NPC generator creates highly detailed descriptions of characters and covers the basics, such as name, age, ethnicity and sexuality, as well as more finite details, including hobbies and motivations.
- Type: Character description generator, NPC personality generator
- Use cases: Useful when creating fictional characters for novels, films, podcasts and more.
- Benefits: This NPC generator packs in a lot of information for each character, even going so far as to include aspects such as their favorite food and information about their romantic partner.
- Drawbacks: Only generates basic information regarding a character's appearance. There’s also no way to customize this NPC generator by time period, meaning every character is based in the modern day.
How to make an AI-generated NPC
Want to make your own AI NPC generator like the D&D Character Creator or even a character you can talk to while playing your tabletop games? It might seem complicated, but AI NPC generators are actually no more difficult to use than any other NPC generator. The main difference is they require a bit more information to help bring the AI or the NPC generator to life, so you might have to spend a little longer in the design process to get a nuanced character. Thankfully, if you’re really strapped for time, auto-generation can help speed things up by filling in some of the blanks.
To make the process even easier, we’ve put together a short guide on creating an AI-generated NPC using our studio.
Step 1: Create your character!
The first step is to click ‘Create your character’ in the top right-hand corner of the studio. You’ll then be prompted to enter a name and a core description of your character. You should also see a prompt to enable auto-generation. We’d recommend turning this on as it can help fill in some of the extra details in the next section. If you're creating a customized NPC generator make sure to mention what they're going to help you create and what outputs they'll give you for your characters.
Step 2: Flaws and motivations
Now you’re in the main character screen, the next step is to give your character some flaws and motivations. If you’ve used auto-generation, this should be partially completed already, so just tweak this as you feel necessary.
Step 3: Identity
You can change the basic details of your character, such as their name, role, pronouns, age, and more by pressing the edit identity button in the top right. If you’re creating an AI character based on someone well-known, you can even enter a Wikipedia entry that the AI can use as a reference point.
Step 4: Personality
You’ll find the next set of options in the ‘advanced’ section. The personality section features a number of sliders that allow you to change how a character behaves, such as being more positive, extroverted or confident. You can also add specific adjectives that may be relevant to your character.
Step 5: Knowledge
Here, you can enter facts that are essential to your character’s backstory; just make sure you enter {character} first. For example: {character} thinks using AI generators is the best way to create fictional characters. If you're creating a customized NPC generator, make sure to include all the rules you want them to follow in creating a character here!
You’ll also see it's possible to add common knowledge here. This advanced feature provides the character with key information about the world and any crucial events that have taken place.
Step 6: Dialogue Style
You’ll see dialogue style at the bottom of this first page, which impacts how your character will talk and write. There are many different preset options, such as villainous, formal and bubbly, so just choose whichever you feel fits your character's personality best. You can also dive deeper into your character's style with custom options, which allow you to set them to use certain adjectives, adverbs, and colloquialisms.
Step 7: Voice
This section is fairly self-explanatory. You can alter what your character sounds like by changing their tone, talking speed, and pitch.
Step 8: Goals and Scenes
The last two parts of this section are for more advanced users but are still worth experimenting with if you have the time. Goals allow you to set parameters for a character to act in a certain way in specific scenarios, such as during a confrontation.
Scenes allow you to place a character in a particular location that impacts their behavior. For example, if they were in a burning building, they would likely be in a state of panic.
Step 9: Avatar
By clicking the image next to your character's name, you can change their image. You can either use an image you’ve made yourself or a custom 3D avatar from within the studio.
Step 10: Start a chat!
Your character is now complete, which means it's time to start a conversation with them. Be sure to quiz them on all the different facts and key aspects you’ve built into their character to see how they react. If something doesn’t seem quite right, then go back into the editor and make some tweaks till you’re happy with their behavior. If you created your own customized NPC creator, start creating characters by talking to your new AI-powered and personable NPC generator!
🏹 Use Inworld’s AI NPC creator for free
Interested in trying to create your own AI-generated NPC? Inworld’s Studio is free to use to create and chat with characters in our Studio so get started creating your first NPC today.
You can also chat with a whole range of vibrant characters for free in the Inworld Arcade or sign up for our Early Access for AI Games program to interact with AI NPCs in video games.