Mina's "Hey how do I get more diverse in my writing without overthinking it" Cheat sheet!
It's a randomizer/die. Also note once you have the character set up you DO need to research. This is just to fill out minor characters/crowd scenes/more major characters you know you want but aren't sure beyond that/etc. Also note that if some form of Eugenics, isolationism, etc, is a PLOT POINT then ignore as needed.
1) Gender: Make this as long as you want, but you want at least 4. Male/Female/Nonbinary/Trans. Longer ones are for breakdowns of non binary (unique gender identifiers, non human gender notes, she/theys, etc)
2) Race: If you are dealing with just humans, then you'll need a couple. Black/Indigenous/Desi/Latin/Arab/Asian/White,etc. But if you h ave non human species, feel free to add them too. If one of your shop keepers is a mermaid in a land locked city, that's fun! More alien species makes that intergalatic spaceport feel more varied. etc.
2a) for more specific human based stories, you can refine it more if you want. Is the person black, or Nigerian. Are they Arab or are they from Oman? Are they Latin, or are they Venezuelan? Are they mixed race? Migrants/Immigrants? From places that are more complicated? etc.
2b) You should be doing something similar for your non human characters too if possible. Languages, dialects, religions, skin tone, etc vary across human cultures. Why not non human ones?
3) Sexuality: Gay/Lesbian, asexual, Bisexual, pan, poly, straight, whatever. Feel free to put in non human sexualities in here too.
4) Ability. Okay, this one you may want/need to break up a bit. For example, rolling an allergy on someone who won't be eating in a scene. But you can either get a list of "Disabilties" or divide it up and go from there. (Physical/Mental/dietary/etc) and roll based on that. the second version will have more options. Also don't forget to add "non disabled" as an option too. The WHO says 16% of people have some form of disability and it is rising due to age so for easy of rolling, around 20% of your cast should have some form of disability. This number can go up on a variety of factors (war, age, etc)
5) speaking of Age: that! Either get a randomizer up to 100 (or more as needed) or just divide them up into age groups and work from there. Once again, you don't need to have a 2 year old run a shop, but there should be more 5 and 75 year olds in a crowd scene.
6) Religion! Standard disclaimer vis a vis stuff like closed practices, but it makes things so much more INTERESTING when any sort of religion gets involved with someone's day to day activities. Planning something around a timed prayer, motions used for good or bad luck, ceremonies referenced, items carried with them, food they avoid, etc. Why deny yourself the joy of someone avoiding a poisoning attempt because it was served in something they can't eat for religious reasons? And while certain religions may be more populous under certain ethnic groups, go check religious make up of a country and it is usually much more diverse than you think.
7) general wealth. Again, this falls into "Divide it up" but especially for crowd scenes you should get SOME variety.
8) Fashion is not a randomizer thing but should be considered. Depending on all these factors, people should be wearing different things.
okay. Let's see what I get.
Using a random number generator and assuming basic human I have a:
1) Male
2) Desi
3) Pan
4) Herniated Disk
5) 53 years old
6) Christian
7) making roughly 75k to 100k a year.
I mean. That is someone that most likely exists. And plopping them into a crowd scene immediately makes it more interesting even if I don't end up using most of it.
And if you want to just start with one person and use the randomizer to build the rest of the family out as needed that works too.
Anyway, go. Make your crowd scenes, shop owners, random families, one off specialists, servants, and so on much more interesting.
