RPGaDAY2025 – Day 6 – Motive
What’s #RPGaDAY2025 ? See the details here.
Day 6 – Motive
Leo O’Bannion: You’d do anything to help your friends, like you’d do anything to kick your enemies.
Tom Reagan: Wrong, Leo. You do things for a reason.
Miller’s Crossing (1990)
A lot of RPGs have random tables to determine the reaction of NPCs. They don’t generally tell you what their motivation for that reaction is.
Most prepared NPCs will already have basic motivations, but at the table, sometimes new characters appear suddenly, and you need to create a motivation quickly. Here’s a set of random tables that might help. They don’t specify what a NPC will do, they just suggest an idea of why they’re doing it.
To begin, roll a d4 (the worst polyhedral die…) for the basic motivation, and then roll again on the appropriate sub-table for the NPCs specific motivation.
Basic Motivation (d4)
EconomicPoliticalPersonalArtisticEconomic (d4)
Wants Money from PCsOwes Money to someone, needs PCs to helpLooking to hire PCsLooking for work from PCsPolitical (d4)
Opposed to PCs activities or existenceSupporters of PCs activities or existenceWants to convert the PCs to her ideology or faithWants to convince the PCs to abandon their ideology or faithPersonal (d4)
Hates a PC for good reasonHates a PC based on a mistaken notionLoves a PCIdolizes and wants to impress a PCArtistic (d4)
Wants to paint/sculpt one or more PCsWants one or more PCs to be a museInterested in the exploits of the PCs as source materialThinks the PCs stand in the way of her artistic vision.#RandomTables #RPG #RPGaDAY2025 #ttrpg
GoldSeal
takeonrules
Follow Me, And Die! 🎲
Polyhedral Nonsense
not a martian, honest
Alwiz Puken 
Elrik