Topic: Your average Joe NPC

[Gunnar Greybeard]

Finally getting back into Rolemaster (RMC) after another brief hiatus and was wondering what class information to use for your average joe/peasant in a campaign. I know most would not have any real skills as far as those mostly available to PC (the combat ones, etc).

BUT my question is what do others use as a basis for creating the average NPC who may frequently interact with the PC's where you would need some more detail in the skills area. Would you just flesh out their stats and the relevant skills (making up any that are not specific to RMC, including secondary skills)?

[VladD]

since you don't want a totally developed NPC, just go by determining their maximum ranks, then decide how good their stats are and see if you'd like to add a NPC Profession bonus. Assume that a journey man NPC is lvl 1, Master craftsman can be up to 3 and for veterans from a recent war assume 4-5.
Apply the result to the skills you guestimate the NPC learned to full capacity (such as his daily livelihood, his great hobby, etc) then apply lesser values to other skills that come in play.

lvl   max ranks   rank bonus   avg Stat Prof bonus total
1       5                 25            5            2         32
2       7                 35            6            4         45
3       9                 45            7            6         58
4       11                52            8            8         68
5       13                56            8            10       74

I think that the "No profession" profession applies here, but I also recall craftsman professions in the old RM2 Companions.

[Gunnar Greybeard]

 I forgot all about the "No profession" profession. That's probably the best route to go. Thanks.

[arakish]

Remember your average Joe NPC will focus their skills into artisan, crafts, music, influence, social, and trades skills.  Where the average gung-ho fighter character can kill with one hit, the average Joe NPC would be able to repair his sword, bow, armor, etc.

Yes, PCs can learn such skills, but they will never be as good as the Craftsman, Smithy, or even the No Profession or Layman.

rmfr

[OLF, i.e. Olf Le Fol]

When there's no need to flesh out the average NPC, I consider someone to have 2 ranks and +3 per level in his main field of expertise, 1.5 ranks and +2 per level in his secondary field of expertise, the average person being level 5-6 whilst some at the end of his life (which is about at 40...) is level 9-10, whereas elite would be 9-10 and end 14-15.
If I need to flesh out a NPC a bit more, for the average peasant, I use the Farmer from RoCoIII, for the average craftsman, I use the Craftsman from the RoCoIII, a dancer/acrobat and the like would use the Dancer profession from the RoCoII, etc. In other words, I'd find the closest matching profession (and it's not that hard, if you consider the normal professions in the RoCoI to RoCoIII: burglar, dancer, scholar, merchant, bounty hunter, assassin, farmer, craftsman, gypsy, sailor, ...) or No Profession otherwise, with a 90 in the main stats and 60 elsewhere.

[Marc R]

I tend not to create full sheets for people unless I really need them, but I've been doing it so long and I keep them all that it's at least possible to pull the "I had to stat out that smith for the 'goblins treed the town' scenario 8 years ago" rabbit out of the hat.

I tend to use the profession that best fits, and I think it's best to consider competence to bonus and work out from there.

like:

The small village has a smith, who mostly makes and fixes stuff for farmers, does some farrier work and hoops for the cooper.

I'll decide he's likely been in town his whole life, I call it and call him in his early 40s. All I really need for the PCs to get stuff fixed is a bonus, so I just pull one out of my. . .ahem. . .hat.

1) I decide he's likely to have around a +75 bonus in smithing, but no real experience in armor or weapons. . .

That's step 1, you have all you need to use him "casually".

The players, being trouble as usual, decide that despite being moderately wealthy by local standards, they don't want to pay the smith full prices so they'll cast charm kind on him to get a "friendly discount". Now I need to know his level, and perhaps his Em Bonus. this takes us to step 2.

2) +75 bonus, I choose to call that 10 ranks plus stat and profession bonuses, smithing is his core thing, so likely he'd have 2 ranked each level, so lets call him 4th level. I decide he's got a +5 Em Bonus.

OK, a bit later, the PCs get into trouble with a werewolf, get chased back into town, choose to hole up in the smithy as the most solid building in town, I end the session with the monster roaring outside. . .OK, there's a combat in the smithy, now I need full combat stats for the smith.

3) I take what I already know about him being a 4th level craftsman, now I spec some stuff out combat wise, 4th level character, fairly tough lifestyle so I'll give him 4 ranks in Body dev, etc. Go through it enough to give him what he needs for the werewolf fight.

OK, post fight the village is wrecked, the smithy on fire, most of the people are dead or fled. The Rogue's player's brother in law shows up at the next session, he wants to play a session to see if he likes the game, but doesn't want to do character creation. At this point I need to go all the way so:

4) I take what I had from step 3, then flesh it out 100% as if I were building the character as a PC.

Brother in law either stays (and likely wants to roll up his own PC) or he decides not to, but rather than throw the smith out, I make sure to:

5) Keep a copy, so I can use it again later any time I need a 4th level smith.

That help?

[ReaperWolf]

I tend not to create full sheets for people unless I really need them, but I've been doing it so long and I keep them all that it's at least possible to pull the "I had to stat out that smith for the 'goblins treed the town' scenario 8 years ago" rabbit out of the hat.

I'm 100% with Marc on this one.

I rely upon thumbnail descriptions and trait numbers for my NPCs, even those central to the plot.

I call this GM's shorthand and it's a real timesaver allowing me to devote more time and effort to developing other more important story elements.

>>ReaperWolf

[Cory Magel]

This all depends on your world view.  Some people think of your average joe as being "0 level".  Levels are what you've learned obviously, but how much you have learned depends greatly on the NPC's circumstances.

Is it a Medieval setting? Is your world mainly made up of exploited peasants?  There would be tradesmen of course, but the typical person might do little more than do what someone else tells them to, resulting in a very limited set of skills.  In a world like that many NPC's will rarely see more than maybe a few levels (maybe 5th?) and even then will be oriented as arakish points out.

The more advanced your civilization as a whole the more knowledge your average joe will have.  The more knowledge the average joe has the higher level they will be, regardless of what profession you use to represent them or how old they are (I do not believe age should ever be tied concretely to level and vice verse - they typically correlate, but they are by no means tied together as a given).

That said, I don't bother to work up a characters sheet for an NPC unless it will have a more influential role on the campaign than some blacksmith who happened to fix their armor or sharpen their sword.  I may not even bother determining what their skill is unless it actually has a significant impact on the game.  Course, some of this is determined by whether you leave random chance to impact the game or if you use the NPC's as a way to control things.  Take a blacksmith for example.  They players have standard armor, nothing special, and it needs repairs.  Do I want the players to remain at a disadvantage for plot/story reasons?  If I do, the blacksmith doesn't fix the armor for a number of reasons... skill, cost, whatever.  But if I do want the players to get their armor repaired the blacksmiths skill is irrelevant to me, because I want him to succeed.

[Marc R]

I generally don't bother stating up every person walking down the street, the progression, mapped to the steps above is caused by the players:

1) We need him to fix something, is he good enough to do it?
2) We're gonna cast a spell on him, what's his level and Ess Bonus for the RR?
3) We got the smith into a fight on our side, by hiding in his house, what's his combat thumbnail?
4) A new player wants a test drive, the mostly done smith from step 3 is handy to fully stat out as a test vehicle.

I tend to run rather sandbox, the result is that there's a big world out there, but it's very low resolution, no GM has the time to detail out everything in advance. . .the high resolution areas in any campaign world tend to be either areas/people of high importance to the story (GM) or of high importance to the players who kept either poking into it, or interacting with it. The more details the players require of the NPC, the more details I create.

Of course, it helps to have a large folder of PDFs of NPCs I've created over the decades, once you have a 4th level blacksmith in the folder, it's real easy just to whip him out and change the name the next time a similar NPC comes up. . .then again, the stats tend to be the easy part, when the PCs roll up on some random stranger and start chit-chatting with them you find yourself stuck coming up with all sorts of little detail elements so they don't come across as a MMORPG NPC with a glowing exclamation point floating over their head.

"The goblins robbed me, they went that way, they took my blue shovel, can you get it for me?" (Accept side quest Y/N)

Lol.

[dutch206]

Hmm--

I would say "Average Joe" would have Region Lore and Local Culture lore at the very least.  5 ranks in a craft or profession is a good possibility.  Maybe a rank or two in MA strikes 1 if he gets into brawls at the pub now and then.

Bow skills and Stalk/hide if he likes to go hunting with his buddies now and then.

I would do like most GM's do and keep a roster of the "usual suspects": town guards, thugs, etc...

[intothatdarkness]

I have a rack of standard NPCs that I roll out with some ad hoc modifications (city watch, special watch response team, village smith, town healer, and so on). Any adjustments I make tend to be based on the realm or culture that the PCs are in at any given time (a Dwarf smith will have higher bonuses than a Human smith, for example), but that's all accounted for in my culture stuff. Usually I just have a few skills, OB, DB, hits, and one or two other things. Enough for me to flesh one out if needed.

[Gunnar Greybeard]

All of this is excellent feedback. I'm just getting back into RM so I guess I need to get started making a stockpile of generic NPC's for various roles.

[Marc R]

Don't burn yourself out doing it, as I said above, as soon as you plan things out and think you're ready, the PCs will make a sharp right turn and depart your plans. . .so it's best to kind of go with it, and have some basic logic worked out (like in Vlad's first reply up above) and don't worry about actually creating character sheets for NPCs unless you actually have to. Save your creative juices for making life challenging for the PCs.

That said, just make sure not to throw anything out. . .no need to create lists of NPC thumbnails or stacks of NPC character sheets, just have a cheat sheet handy to wing it, and keep any results so you never have to do the work twice. A good trick is to just fend off any need for more NPC detail until the end of a session, so you can catch up on the paperwork of working up stats between sessions. Sometimes you'll be forced to crib up stats mid session, but it's best to avoid a time hole mid session that breaks up the momentum of the fun.

Trying to create my folder of many NPCs from scratch would be a daunting task, but just letting it build up over time like a pearl is no hassle at all.

[intothatdarkness]

My stock of generic NPCs runs to about 20 different types, none of which have more than five stats recorded (OB/DB, Hits, PP if needed, AT, and one or two basic skills if it's a non fighter - spell users have one or two basic lists noted depending on their type). All of these can be adjusted or modified if the players run into the same person more than a couple of times (I make note of names as I add them, or program some in if it's in a village I've detailed).

I've found that this gives me a good, workable "slush pile" of NPCs that can easily be expanded if needed but work fine as they are. That skeleton lets me keep playing as Marc mentioned (since there's enough detail), but I can easily go back and make them more detailed and unique.

[Gunnar Greybeard]

I was just going to start with a couple generic NPC's for the small scenario I had planned out, maybe 2-3. That should be a doable task as the game is not till Saturday AM. 

[VladD]

Its probably best to stick with the little table I worked out for their important skills, and focus more on their appearance, demeanor, quirks, and relationships WITHIN the community. Those are much more important than skill rolls. A sample NPC should be more writing than numbers, IMHO.

But coming back to the numbers: I just took some arbitrary values, but they are fairly realistic in terms of stats and how a typical NPC in a specialized craft economy would develop. The numbers in the table tell us that a 5th lvl craftsman can make his normal products (medium difficulty +0) without much chance of failure: the +74 bonus, applied to the static maneuver table, gives almost no chance of failure, unless he rolls open ended low.
More difficult products will prove more difficult. A black smith repairing a full plate will have a really big chance of failure (full plate being a -40 maneuver and the black smith is dabbling in armoring (another -20)). Then again the smith has no knowledge of the special hardening and annealing techniques used to make a gothic full plate, much less the facilities to accommodate the larger sections in his forge, even less the right tools and anvils for the job.
This said: don't pay too much attention to the numbers, just play!

As a little tip:
usually I have like a spokes person for the villagers: the Elders, a mayor or some wise woman.
Then there needs to be an entertainment guy: such as inn keeper, the brewer, or the village chef.
Then you'd need some appropriate craftmen: smith, leatherworker, carpenter, mason, etc.
Then there's the fluf of every village: annoying children, market stalls with food items, pretty and or ugly wifes/ available women.
The larger the village, the more numerous the important people. I find it easier to come up with the craftsmen involved if I knew the subsistence pattern of the village. Goat herder villages need no smith, but a sheepshearer, and a spinnery would be the right crafters. Smiths tend to work for farmers, who need plows and horse shoes and woodland villages, to cut trees and timber. Etc.

Main subsistence             Crafters
Herding                          Shearer, spinner, wood works
Traditional farming (food)  Blacksmith, brewery, bakery, mill, wood works
Orchards                        Blacksmith, winery, confectioner, wood works
Husbandry                      Cheese maker, black smith, wood works, butcher,
Hunter gatherer              Stone worker, basket weaver, potterer (these are older crafts)
Lumber/ forestry             Winery, wood worker, basket weaver, fowler, butcher
spec. farmer(silk, cotton)  Spinner, weaver, dyer

Plenty of crafts were done at home by the way. In the middle ages your wife would be harvesting willow toes to weave into the coming year's baskets. She would buy wool and yarn to knit and sew next year's clothes and she would gather clay to throw new cooking pots when needed.

[bpowell]

Vlad,

I love the chart you made up.  I will "steal" that for use in my own games.

[VladD]

As said somewhere else on the forums: "you cannot steal what I give freely", and I live by that.

[bpowell]

As said somewhere else on the forums: "you cannot steal what I give freely", and I live by that.

And you Sir, are an outstanding person

[Marc R]

I find that the persona that makes them more than a list of numbers is both the hardest, and the best part of being a GM.