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Have you considered determining NPC gender randomly?
(ttrpg.network)
At some point in the past, I noticed that I had a strong tendency to make NPCs male, even though there wasn't any good story or setting-specific reason to do so. From gods to villains to random shopkeepers - most of these were assigned male without me even realizing that I have been doing it.
Thus, I started to assign genders by the roll of a dice - and I am fairly pleased with the results as this made the world significantly more diverse.
How about you? Have you noticed any similar biases in your own NPCs - and if so, what did you do about this?
I tend to have my players interact with women or NBs because I'm self conscious about doing voices for men. But I've found that I definitely have some internal biases when it comes to certain things. Guard captains are almost always male, hospitality industry is usually female, etc etc.
Always trying to be aware of that and challenge those biases.
Another good question is about age, too. It seems like almost everyone is in the 20-40s range because that's easier. But it's a lot of fun to throw different age groups out there.