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< * Lists of names and NPC traits in order to quickly improvise people. I also like to use a d6 for male/female and young/middle/old age. This works well if you run a game in a particular culture such as a 1001 Nights setting: [http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/txt/Arabic%20Feminine%20Names.txt Arabic Feminine Names], [http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/txt/Arabic%20Male%20Names.txt Arabic Male Names].
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> * Lists of names and NPC traits in order to quickly improvise people. I also like to use a d6 for male/female and young/middle/old age. This works well if you run a game in a particular culture such as a 1001 Nights setting: [http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/txt/Arabic%20Feminine%20Names.txt Arabic Feminine Names], [http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/txt/Arabic%20Masculine%20Names.txt Arabic Male Names].
The following developed out of a discussion on Google Reader regarding Rob Conley’s How to manage a sandbox campaign: The Box of Stuff. A friend started the discussion by saying more or less “I miss techniques that can help a GM improvise – except for random tables which have been discussed a lot. What other tools are there?” My reply turned into the following list of lists.
Random encounter tables have been discussed before. More generically, I prefer to organize my “stuff” in the form of lists. Keep these on index cards if you like. I keep meaning to do that, but I’m too lazy so all of this just ends up on pages upon pages in my little campaign notebooks or on my campaign wikis.
Here are the kinds of lists I keep. Usually these act as todo lists, not as tables to roll on.
Also, watch a lot of cheap movies and read a lot of science fiction and fantasy books. 
Tags: RPG
Old School
Sandbox
advice 