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Not detailing NPCs

Posted on July 9, 2020

One very important thing in RQG is that much of the character stats are player facing. As a GM, it is perfectly fine detailing a zombie as nothing more than:

Zombie
Hit Points 16
Magic Points 5
Armor: heavy scale hauberk, bronze greaves and vambraces, open helm
1H Spear 50% 1d6+1+1d6
And then add the hit location chart. And that’s it. I always find the hit location chart handy.

Only worry about the stuff that will matter in how your players are likely to interact with it. Don’t bother to worry about the rest. You might discover in play that Zombie 3 has glimmerings of memories of life and keeps muttering “Rosebud.” But don’t worry about that until then.

Why write down armor? Because in my experience that is the first thing that gets looted. I have a party that just got their hands on 18 scale hauberks, and an equal number of pairs of bronze greaves and hauberks, and open helms. That’s enough to equip a raiding force!

In short, much of the material in the rules exist to support the players so that they know what they can do, so they have options, and they have a means of describing their character that has mechanical meaning. But as the GM you don’t need all that stuff. So don’t sweat it.

RuneQuest is all about inducing fear and anxiety in characters who on paper can hurl thunderbolts and smite folk with Truesword plus Sword Trance. But you make them scared going down dark stairs.

Or has happened in a recent session, “Shit, all our Shield spells expire soon and we have no more Rune Points. And we need to light a fire to light the torches? Shit.”

“Tactical retreat!”

I tend to have a few templates for types of NPCs – Militia, Zombie Sentry, Sable Riders, etc. And then separately I have a random list of names:

  • Barayos Elmalovo
  • Janna Vinch
  • Wahatal
  • Maravola
  • Erenalda
  • Helkos Starn

And so on. And then just grab which name is appropriate. You hired an Impala guide? His name is Wahatal. But everyone calls him Waha TALL.

But sometimes the NPC remains “Newtling Number 3”. And No. 3 becomes legendary as the Newtling who got away.

Jeff Richard

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