I'm curious: do most of you, when GMing, tend to stat your NPCs and Monsters out fully, or do you tend to use the defaults from the manuals, or even just wing it as you go along?

RPGPundit

I keep a sheet of "generic stats" - mostly ones at the player level of power, some bigger, some smaller.

I pick off that as we go.

Depends on the game.

For D&D: Always statted, either from the book, adventure or myself. No D&D  combat encounter without stats. Elsewise there can be no meaningful fight.

For Traveller: PC Gen Programs + Citizens of the Glaxy + 1001 characters. Gotta love it.

For Star Wars: I pulled a lot from my arse. Don't play it nowadays.

Quote from: RPGPunditI'm curious: do most of you, when GMing, tend to stat your NPCs and Monsters out fully, or do you tend to use the defaults from the manuals, or even just wing it as you go along?

I consider a decent library of commonly-used NPC stats a critical feature in a full-sized RPG, and when possible I default to those for any kind of "generic mafia goon" or "generic tax accountant" or "typical ozark moonshiner" or whatever. I like being able to point to them as fair benchmarks, too, so players know when they're tough enough so that generic tax accountants need cause them no fear, and so players can measure their characters against a "typical beat cop" and not just abstract stat/skill averages (useful for players new to a system, trying to get a feel for the scale).

If a character or beast is unusual, I stat it special (even if that just means making explicit note of how it differs from some standard thing). If a character or beast is meant to be recurring, I often stat it special even if it isn't particularly unusual.

If a character is improvised by necessity, I sometimes assign it a single "master stat," Risus-cliche style, and use it or a derivative of it for everything until which time I can dig up or create something more concrete (or until the NPC fades back into the crowd and I don't need to).

I like having full statblocks at the ready rather than using the book defaults. I started playing D&D in the 70s. I very quickly got wise to players being able to tell what critters they were facing just by how many pages had to be riffled through in the Monster Manual, or doing everything in their power to see what page the book was turned to. Having stat blocks written out in my own notes made it a lot easier to retain some mystery.

Quote from: S. John RossI consider a decent library of commonly-used NPC stats a critical feature in a full-sized RPG, and when possible I default to those for any kind of "generic mafia goon" or "generic tax accountant" or "typical ozark moonshiner" or whatever. I like being able to point to them as fair benchmarks, too, so players know when they're tough enough so that generic tax accountants need cause them no fear, and so players can measure their characters against a "typical beat cop" and not just abstract stat/skill averages (useful for players new to a system, trying to get a feel for the scale).

I like stuff like that, too. I liked it in Shadowrun, and I loved it in d20 Modern and the d20 Modern Menace Manual. Mutants & Masterminds also has done this, at least in 1st edition (but I assume they also do it in 2nd edition).

As with many facets of RPG's, a GM's rule knowledge is very important in answering this question.  I think you should always have important NPC's and monsters stated up, but when it comes to more mundane encounters it depends on a GM's familiarity with the rules.  Basically if you are going to have to stop the game and look something up, have it pre-stated, otherwise if you can do it off the top of your head, I would go with that, just to save pre-game prep time.

I never stat anything out other than brief character information, their personality and stats come out from that.

I create a stat on the fly as the situation demands, but then I dont run DND where monsters are expected to behave to certain criteria.

Quote from: S. John RossI consider a decent library of commonly-used NPC stats a critical feature in a full-sized RPG, and when possible I default to those for any kind of "generic mafia goon" or "generic tax accountant" or "typical ozark moonshiner" or whatever. I like being able to point to them as fair benchmarks, too, so players know when they're tough enough so that generic tax accountants need cause them no fear, and so players can measure their characters against a "typical beat cop" and not just abstract stat/skill averages (useful for players new to a system, trying to get a feel for the scale).

If a character or beast is unusual, I stat it special (even if that just means making explicit note of how it differs from some standard thing). If a character or beast is meant to be recurring, I often stat it special even if it isn't particularly unusual.

If a character is improvised by necessity, I sometimes assign it a single "master stat," Risus-cliche style, and use it or a derivative of it for everything until which time I can dig up or create something more concrete (or until the NPC fades back into the crowd and I don't need to).

Pretty much what he said.  Including standard stat blocks is part of good game design for me, not including them or worse yet including them but having the stats skewed so you can't use them that way (NWoD did this with it's ninja trained superbeatcops) I see as a major strike against a game's utility.

I don't stat most characters, although it might help me round them out if I did.  I'll stat them in advance if I know combat is coming up, but my hombrew is simple enough that having a general idea of how good the character is at something pretty much provides the stat.

Mostly I run my own games, and in each I have a chapter on NPCs with typical opponents, quick chargen, motives, goals, and other information which can be random rolled or selected. In most cases a typical opponent can be selected and used immediately. In other cases, a few quick rolls builds a character from scratch with the important information. If the character is important and recurring, I advise - and follow this advice - generating the NPC as a PC.

-mice

I guess it is a combination: If it's an npc that is going to come up in play in encounterful way, I have a stat block.

If it's a special encounter, I do a stat block.

If it's kinda routine, I'll use the default of whatever is in the book (monster manual or whatever).

I've gotten so good at "guesstimating" what I'm going to need that I don't work up stats anymore. I can figure in my head within a couple points if not right on where I need the numbers to be, practice makes perfect I guess. It's especially a waste of time if this NPC is going to end up dying and his items in the PC's backpacks.

Unlike this guy on Enworld that is quitting the game crying about prep time, I love prep time. It's actually a relaxing meditative process for me.

QuoteI love prep time

:ditto:

To be honest, I rarely stat anything up at all beforehand but if I'm running BRP I'll quickly roll 3d6 for an NPC's hitpoints.  Which is always funny... especially when I roll 3.

I do feel though that I probably should, simply because it feels more philosophically correct to me to have there be real stats for the characters regardless of whether the characters choose to fight them or interact with them.  Otherwise it all feels a bit solipsistic.