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It is a simple question. Do you go through the effort to make a legitimate character or do you just wing it?
I do a little of both some major ones I flesh out completely and others not so much. So how do you guys run it?

I generate a list of names in advance and assign those names as I narrate the story. Keeps me from having a lot of Bobs and Janes. Occasionally, when I intend to use a character across multiple sessions, I'll make some notes regarding their appearance, motivations, and relationships.

I recycle old or dead pcs from previous game so there is lots of details. Also when another player throws away a character I ask if I can keep it to add to my flock. I tend to alter their appearance or personality from the original in either slight or very dramatic ways. But that is only the npcs that might become important to the pcs. Otherwise no I have data for Toby the gate attendant or Tyr the guy a pc might gun down or help across the street.

For NPCs traveling with the party, I get around to statting them out and giving a backstory after the PCs start relying on them and I need to know what they can and can't do. For important NPCs, I tend to have a character concept down, a few abilities noted and that's about it. For unimportant NPCs, off the top of my head. Bites me in the rear too, when the PCs take an unimportant NPCs and say "Let's take her along!"

NPC level of detail is directly proportionate to the importance of said NPC.

So the bartender will have a name and an OCC and a couple of details (i.e. a bionic arm and a face tattoo or some minor pyschic powers etc.)
The barfly has no details, except possibly a name, which I will likely make up on the spot.
The black market contact will have some basic combat stats just in case something goes bad.
The main bad guy is a fully realised character with almost all skills and stats worked out. His/her flunkies probably have all combat stats worked out.

Snow Hawk wrote:It is a simple question. Do you go through the effort to make a legitimate character or do you just wing it?
I do a little of both some major ones I flesh out completely and others not so much. So how do you guys run it?

some where between wing'n it and writing the char up.....but no french novel type thing

drewkitty ~..~ wrote:

Snow Hawk wrote:It is a simple question. Do you go through the effort to make a legitimate character or do you just wing it?
I do a little of both some major ones I flesh out completely and others not so much. So how do you guys run it?

some where between wing'n it and writing the char up.....but no french novel type thing

No French novel type thing?

Where you write out the chars reasonings for the actions they take in extremely defined details.

The "prototypical" example is "writing three pages of text about why he ate the apple." sort of thing

Ok thank you for the clarification. I might do that from time to time, not intentionally I some times just get carried away.

You know I never can tell. I've had detailed, worked up NPCs the group just blew by and they end up recycled down the road. And some of my all time favorite NPCs the players have known and loved for years started as a random, pulled out of thing air NPC I totally winged and they just clicked. I have binders full of worked up characters and charts of stats and sometimes I still just pull the old "Well this guy is +2 to strike, +4 parry/doge" and just go with a random personality that I hope is entertaining. Before you know it, I'm rolling 'em up because they're reoccurring every game.

GM Jay wrote:You know I never can tell. I've had detailed, worked up NPCs the group just blew by and they end up recycled down the road. And some of my all time favorite NPCs the players have known and loved for years started as a random, pulled out of thing air NPC I totally winged and they just clicked. I have binders full of worked up characters and charts of stats and sometimes I still just pull the old "Well this guy is +2 to strike, +4 parry/doge" and just go with a random personality that I hope is entertaining. Before you know it, I'm rolling 'em up because they're reoccurring every game.

This happens a lot for me aswell.

for random goons / troops I generally use a base template and don't go into much detail. I keep a number of text docs with a basic type on my pc and just print them off as needed, so a basic CS trooper will have the same stats for simplicity, like a Skelebot has the same stats all the time.
For a major villain etc I'll take the time to give more filler to the stat sheet.