I’m running Promethean tomorrow night, which means I should do a little homework on the game today, if I have time after redlining Chill (I’m seriously spending a solid 12 weeks redlining; first Promethean, then Chill, then Beast).
When I was younger, I did character sheets for everybody. I really liked statting up NPCs. I still do, actually; it’s a fun exercise to see how the concept for a character meshes with the mechanics. It’s just a matter of time, now. I have enough time to do notes for my games (I’m running Promethean, Vampire: The Requiem, and Monsterhearts at the moment, if you’re interested, plus occasional one-shot games and a Night’s Black Agents game that’s on hiatus because of a medical issue with one of the players), but the kind of work that I used to put into making sure all the NPCs had mechanical representation just has to fall by the wayside. It’s eaten by my day job, my family, and all these games I’m making. I’m not complaining, I have a very full life, and I like it that way; I get bored and restless if I’m not overworked, I find.
But it does mean that I’ve had to reexamine my attitude with regard to NPCs in games. I only bother statting them if knowing their particular traits is going to matter in play. In the World of Darkness, for instance, I just need to know how the powers work (and pdfs are a godsend, because I can find systems easily) and then approximate a dice pool. In Promethean, the most common dice pool I need tends to be Resolve + Composure, for Disquiet.
This is also why I enjoy books in the Night Horrors vein, or like World of Darkness Antagonists (which was a good while ago, I know) – I like having characters with traits and backgrounds that I can just plug into my chronicles. That’s a good bit of why Legion, from Saturnine Night, is making an appearance in my current story (that and I just really like him, and I figured it’d be good for the Unfleshed character in my game to meet another Unfleshed).
I’m interested in knowing how other Storytellers handle NPCs. Do you stat everybody? Do you take abbreviated notes, just the dice pools they’re likely to use, or do you just make it all up on the fly?
And while you’re thinking about that, think about this: Since we’re talking about NPCs, for this Tuesday, would you like to know more about Pandorans or Centimani?
Comments
49 responses to “Sunday Poll and Rambling about NPCs”
For my Hunter game I use a mix. I use written stats from books, I stat my own and then often I just use whatever dice pool seems reasonable for the character and effect. I don’t like breaking the flow of game to look stuff up and I have a group that’s comfortable with a rules lite style of play. So I tend to make judgements based on what feels right for the situation.
For NPCs, I’d like to see Pandorans.
It depends. If it’s a powerful guide or God-like character (ala Gandalf or Yoda or some such), I skip the stats and let the character do whatever he needs to do to assist the players without holding their hand too much. If the NPC is somebody who’s close in power to a starting level character, and ESPECIALLY if it’s someone the players will be spending a lot of face-time with, I give him stats. That way the character is not powerful or immortal. He has his limits, and over time the players will see what his strengths and weaknesses are.
Same goes for antagonists as well as allies. I’d give street thugs a stat block. But the powerful crime lord with more money, guns, and connections than the players ever hope to acquire in their life? He kind of just does whatever the story warrants him to do.
For my mage game I just improvise dice pools based on the NPCs competence, and only pre-stat special powers if a certain NPC has them. I have the arcana all printed out and memorised, which saves a lot of time, but that took a few years of running the game to achieve!
I use a mix as well for my games, with long running npc’s getting the full stats.
Centimani!
Pandorans – no questions asked.
They are like the ghosts for prometheans, something to make them remeber their failures and what they could have become. They have so many possibilities and I really want to see more of them in this update.
Hm. I’ve never actually run a game before. If I did, I imagine I would stat the major player characters only, and use notes for the minor ones. If the players seemed to like or focus on a minor character over the course of a chapter, I could then make a character sheet for them as well. I would like to hear about Centimani.
I use a mix of styles. For nobody characters I’ll just make up a dice pool. For more important npcs I’ll use the 3-alone 3-plus rules from Mirrors or these “quick npc” rules I found online somewhere. If the character is really important and is going to be around a long time, I do full stats, but I just give them what they should have with pith counting xp.
I usualy improvise. Sometimes I use Power/Finesse/Resistance (atr) + Physical/Social/Mental (skill) for general action or special dice pool for important ones. And for main antagonists I use complete char.sheet.
PS: Centimani.
Easy one, Pandorans.
So far the bulk of NPC pools I’ve used have been made up on the fly.
Votin’ for Pandorans.
For most of mine NPC’s I write a small notes with the really important information but for some of the major I create a full stat sheet with a background and very detailed information.
Regarding the vote, mine is for the Pandorans.
I vote for Centimani, but I wouldn’t disagree with Pandorans.
Centimani
Centimani
I take a Triad approach for all NPC’s who I know are going to play a part in my game and only fully stat the ones that will be central.
In regards to Promethean, I will typically do the following for my Triad
1) What is my NPC’s motivation? (obviously they want something)
2) How driven is my NPC towards their goal? (how far are they willing to go to obtain it)
3) 3 descriptors for the NPC (example would be Brute, Intelligent, Desperate)
Thanks to this, I can have a new NPC created on the fly should I really need to with only a minute or two worth of work. The descriptors allow me an approximation for their dice pool, while the motivation and goal help shape how I want the NPC to interact with the players
I would love to know more about the pandorans.
Names, personalities, and what the players need from them.
If I need dice pools, I generate them on the fly based on what seems appropriate.
Major characters will get full stats. That’s the villain, major political figures, or characters really close to the player like the PC’s fiance or mentor. Includes Integrity stat.
Less important characters will get abbreviated stats, so we just break it down to relevant pools – generally Physical, Social, Combat, and what they use to resist Disquiet/Frenzy/Frontaranging/Whatever. Does not in clue integrity stat.
Very minor characters get standardized abbreviated stats. Thugs, store owners, minor contacts, random people on the street, will generally have a dice pool of 2-4 for a given task depending on how primary it is to them.
I find Pandorans more interesting.
*sing song* Centimani, Centimani, night and day, it’s Centimani.
Definitely Centimani! I want to hear more about how Centimanus is no longer a Refinement.
Centimani all the way!
Has for NPCs, I usually do full character sheets for the major ones. And Improvise the stats for Minor ones. Although I’ve been meaning to delve into the system where characters only have three Attributes or Skills and use it for NPCs.
I vote for Centimani.
About NPCs, I’ve taken advice I once heard from Gentleman Gamer. I come up with a cast of characters. Name, affiliations (clan/covenant/bloodline) and like a two sentence write-up, with a description (notable attributes and possibly habits). I throw in a brief list of wants and offers. Essentially, things this character wants, and things the character has or can do that the characters might want.
To finish that up, I do what some of the books did, and just have a loose dicepool guideline for stuff. Fighting – 8 dice, Scrying – 4 dice, sometimes it gets really specialized, Plucking Out Eyes – 9 dice.
That said, obviously if the character is going to be seen and interacted with a lot for a variety of things (interacted with dice, rather than just spoken to), like a recurring villain or someone the players bring everywhere, I’ll give them a full write-up.
I really loved the Night Horrors line for making things like that so easy as well as giving us stuff that both fleshes out the world and giving us things to fit into it, I’ve made great use of them.
I vote for Pandorans.
If the NPC is important, or the players are likely to interact with him/her mechanically, I’ll write the stats up. Otherwise, I almost always wing it. As long as I know their general capabilities, the exact numbers don’t matter too much.
Centimani!
Afters years of trauma at the hands of crunch-heavy systems, I’ve resolved to improvise damn near everything I can. It’s part of why I almost exclusively play FATE now.
Centimani, please! I’m interested to see how our Flux-filled friends are doing. (Is there any chance of qashmallim being a later poll option)?
Centimani, of course! Let’s hear about notRefinement! 😉
As to NPC – major or often recurring NPCs ( like mentors, servants, relatives or just direct higher-up of PCs ) will be fully stated. Episodic character will have basic stats – like maybe Gnosis + Arcana dots. Other will just be generated randomly.
Centimani
I vary my stat bocks depending on how important the NPC is and how much interest I have in them. Minor side characters get nothing, and if I need dice pools I’ll come up with them on the fly. Unnamed NPCs like enemy henchmen generally just get Power, Finesse, Resistance and important dice pools. If an NPC is going to be a major part of the story, such as the Consilium in my Mage Chronicle, they get full stats, as do any NPCs that just catch my interest. If I find an NPC interesting but they don’t play a major role in that chronicle I can re use the concept either in a nother chronicle or as a player character
I vote Pandorans. I’m curious how Dormancy will play out in the new setting (or if it will be replaced with something else).
Actually, you’ve brought up a problem I’ve recently been experiencing. I used to love stating characters, now I can’t be arsed. I actually still generally like giving them their own backstories because I find it easier for me to understand them that way. I’d like to see a book or something of Just NPC stats. Much like the generic stuff in the back of the corebook. Maybe make it part of the Hunter line and just give a whole lot of generic here’s x number of prebuilts of type X.
anyways Centimani
I try to keep them as simple as they need to be, but sometimes, you need to hedge your bets.
Centimani
Pandorans, please.
I tend to stat out NPCs I care about or who have particular mechanical intricacy for some useful reason, and then improvise everything else. I generally have go-to statblocks or half-statblocks in a google doc for common needs though – a stock guardian angel for a region, carthian thugs, a go-to goblin, etc.
Pandorans.
I’m happy to use The Threes from Mirrors for most NPCs and monsters. The only time I might go for a fully statted character is if I’m going to run him or her as a party member. Variance and differentiation are best brought out in description and gameplay, rather than relying on a difference in dot distribution.
My take is that pc’s are, among other things, the “UI” for players. Character creation rules are details about how the player wants to interact with the game and the setting. NPCs are not interfaces, they are objects that act upon or are acted upon by the players, and they don’t need as complex or expansive a system. So much of what they do is already covered by their role in the story, making Merits redundant, as well as any skills that aren’t going to be tested by the players.
One thing I would like to see, since we’re on the topic: NPCs/monsters with whatever Dread Powers written into the stat block. D&D4E’s one flawless execution was the completeness of its monster stats. Instead of a la carte spells, feats, and equipment from across three books, they had a set of common rules, and anything else outside those was written up in the stat block itself. While that’s not workable for WoD, it’s certainly something I’d like to see with regards to Dread Powers, Pansmutations, et al.
In brief: PC character creation rules are needlessly complex for ST-side characters, and simplified NPC stats are a godsend in any system.
Centimani
Centimani all the way!
*jingles* Centimani’s coming to town!
CENTIMANI,CENTIMANI,CENTIMANI!!!!!!!!!
Pandorans, please.
My vote is for Pandorans
What I do varies a lot based upon the needs of the story. When I first started running games, I would fully stat out every npc. That even included full stats for general thugs and other cannon fodder. I eventually decided that that was taking too long, so I started giving them only the stats that would likely come up. Now, I will stat things out when they are needed, but often I will simply let the narrative take care of everything, and only worry about rolls if I feel they are necessary.
I vote for Pandorans.
Depends on the character’s importance. Nine times out of ten, I’ll wing it on the fly and scribble down notes for consistency’s sake. If combat’s likely, I’ll at least write down the relevant traits in case they get reduced by a player effect or something similar and make sure my math is right. Important characters (‘Big Bads’ and such), though, get a full sheet ahead of time. Most recurring characters get improvised at first and a full sheet later based on whether I think they’re likely to wind up as regulars.
And my vote is Pandorans. As curious as I am about what you’re doing with Centimani, I’m really hoping to find out if you’re able to make Pandorans come across as less ‘random encounter’-y in this new edition.
Pandorans
Centimani.
Another vote for Centimani. I totes missed the bit about them not being a proper Refinement any more.
Pandorans are one of my top 3 nWoD antagonists but I gotta vote for Centimanni
I’m not a Storyteller myself, so I can’t comment on the NPCs. I vote for Pandorans, and a Promethean Night Horrors book. (Please!)
Pandorans please! =)
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I’m kind of in the same boat as you are — I like statting characters, and I used to stat up every character I made. I ended up stopping due to a combination of accumulating a *lot* of NPCs (I currently have 204 characters in my game, between PCs and NPCs, accumulated over five years of running the PbP), and GMC updates leading me to do various upgrades. It just wasn’t plausible to tweak the mechanics on all 40+ vampires I have in my game. So I shifted to a Core and Peripheral NPC system, where some have full writeups, but most have numbers for Mental/Physical/Social, a power stat, and a couple of notes about their specialties.