While most GURPS players don’t want their characters to be randomly generated, there are bound to be some who do and GMs may want to create random NPCs.
Unfortunately, many aspects of character creation are setting-specific. However, attributes tend to be fairly universal, and are well suited to randomization.
The first version of the third edition Basic Set suggested simply rolling 3d for attributes, but that gives absurd results, especially with fourth edition rules.
To generate a random attribute value, roll 3d and consult the following table:
| 3d | Attribute |
|---|---|
| 3 | 7 |
| 4-5 | 8 |
| 6-8 | 9 |
| 9-12 | 10 |
| 13-15 | 11 |
| 16-17 | 12 |
| 18 | 13 |
This should result in 'realistic' values if you assume that each level of a GURPS attribute is about one standard deviation from the norm, which 'feels' about right.
Many professions will not have the same distribution of competence as the general population. For example, lumberjacks probably tend to be stronger but less intelligent than doctors. The easiest way to represent this is to simply add a professional template onto the rolled attributes. For example, a lumberjack template might have +2 ST, giving a range of values from 9 to 15, while a doctor template could have +1 IQ, giving a range from 8 to 14. A possibly more realistic option is re-rolling results below a certain threshold. The two approaches can even be combined, if you don’t mind some complexity. For example, lumberjacks may re-roll any ST of less than 9 and then add +1 ST, giving a range from 10 to 14.