Characters with personality...

[kesher]

I would love to take these character descriptions, hand them out to players, have them roll up said characters in accordance with the description, then head off to the nearest dungeon...

[darkling]

I adore character character description generators. It can be quite fun to use them to add flavor to one-off games (especially high-mortality ones)!

Detailed CharGen

Quick CharGen

[kesher]

"The hypocritical barbarian, living on borrowed time."

Awesome!

[Zenopus]

The modules B1 and B2 each had a different simple system for generating random NPC personalities. You could simply use these with PCs (or allow them to pick). B1 is based on 4 d6 rolls for Attitude, Courage, Disposition, and Loyalty. B2 is a simple d20 roll; roll twice for each character.

There's also a much more complicated system in the 1E DMG, pg 100-101.

[Zenopus]

Here are the B1 "NPC Personality" tables:

Attitude
1 Helpful/cooperative
2 Helpful/cooperative
3 Helpful/cooprative
4 Apathetic/lazy
5 Unreliable
6 Obstinate/argumentative/domineering

Disposition
1 Greedy/selfish
2 Normal
3 Normal
4 Normal
5 Normal
6 Unselfish

Courage
1 Reckless/daring
2 Courageous
3 Normal
4 Normal
5 Hesitant
6 Cowardly

Loyalty
1 Loyal
2 Loyal
3 Normal
4 Normal
5 Fickle
6 Fickle

[Zenopus]

And here is the B2 "Personalities" table:

PERSONALITIES
1. Brave
2. Careless
3. Cautious
4. Cheerful
5. Courteous
6. Dishonest
7. Forgiving
8. Friendly
9. Helpful
10. Honest
11. Kind
12. Lazy
13. Modest
14. Nosy
15. Prankish
16. Rude
17. Suspicious
18. Talkative
19. Trusting
20. Wasteful

The directions indicate to roll once or twice per character, though all of the sample NPCs have two personalities.

[Finarvyn]

Back in "the day" we always let personality distinguish otherwise similar characters. This is a nice twist, where you give the personality out and players have to role play it. Nice find!