[ArM5] NPC Question

[Nick Simmonds]

> How do I get over the hump of generating NPCs for ArM games?  The
> thought of writing them up from scratch is daunting, not only where
> magi are concerned, but even in the case of NPCs like bandits or city
> guardsmen.  What strategies or shortcuts do people use to make NPC
> creation easier?  I can't use the NPC generator program b/c it's not
> set up for Mac folk, so that option is already out.  But are there
> others?

To be honest, and don't tell my players this, I pretty much never stat
up NPCs any more, in any game.  I'll write up the truly important
ones, but I generally just describe the character and then make up
statistics as I roll the dice.  If I know that NPC A should be above
average at, say, fighting, I roll the dice and add an above-average
number to it, while NPC B is not as good so I don't add as high a
number.  This also avoids the sort of trap wherein the GM forgets to
give some standard, indispensable ability to an NPC, who ends up
crippled because of it. I figure I'm going to fudge the die rolls
anyway, so writing up every character ahead of time is a waste of
paper.

Even if you're not quite willing to toss pre-creation out the window,
you can just write down a character that has generally what arts and
abilities you think it should and then run with it.  Most
discrepancies in experience between characters of the same age can
just be written off as having found different teachers/texts when
learning stuff.

--Nick