I'll take shortcuts when needed, but if I have something specific in mind, I'll usually go to the lengths to handcraft things to my taste.

For my D&D campaign I try to make the SRD, the DMG chapter on NPCs, and the internet do as much of the work for me as possible, but I arrange the pieces to produce unique opponents.  Monster + template(s) + class(es) = foe.  Sometimes I cheat.  For example, by the rules you can't apply the Fiendish template to a golem.  But when I wanted a Hellgolem I did it anyway.

I generally let my players do whatever the hell they want to and reap the consequences. That means winging a whole lot of stuff on the fly.

Important NPCs get stats, otherwise I generally just set a difficulty or roll the dice based on about how tough I want this encounter to be. This is a place where *GASP* WoD beat out d20 in my experience. With the former, I could just grab a number of dice I thought appropriate and roll, whereas the latter has very lock-step, codified progressions for characters and monsters.

My main game is DC Heroes/Blood of Heroes, which has published stats for over a thousand heroes and villains from the comics. When that runs dry, there's writeups.org, which has stats for more than a thousand more.

If I need a super on the fly, I just attach the appropriate power(s) to one of a set of generic stat blocks I've made up (the strong guy, the smart guy, the nimble guy, the charismatic guy, etc.) and off we go.

Statting up a non-super is even easier: everything's a '2'.

And my prep time consists of watching cartoons, reading comic-books, and swiping the plots.

Other folks love prep time, and good on 'em. Me, I hate it. I like play time.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadI'll take shortcuts when needed, but if I have something specific in mind, I'll usually go to the lengths to handcraft things to my taste.

Same, but in the reverse.  I mostly shoot from the hip, but do big prep on special folks and moments.

Hardly ever.  I mostly use printed adventures

In the past I rarely did, these days, I use True20 and it so easy to stat someone/thing, that I will take the time to do so while I prep; although, it isn't really necessary.

I'll stat up major villains, but generally wing the mooks and non combat NPCs.

Situational mixed bag.

Something that comes up during play, and this can happen a fair amount with my GMing style if the players are zigging and zagging a lot, is either something out of a pile of generics or has a somewhat limited scope of fleshing out of the stats. Which is what usually depends on whether it is a civilized human or monsterous.  For example in D&D a player Summoned Creature is read right out of the MM, nearly always with NPC Summoned Creatures too.  On the other hand an NPC that they come across that was unexpected by me will get a quick outline covering off what seems important at that momment, although these are often based off of generics in the catagories I have on hand.

Entities that I strongly predict beforehand will come up or that come up, survive the session, and can be reasonably expected to make a return appearance I will fully handcraft the stats for (well not so much 'mooks', they'll get some limited).  Even monsterous creatures, to some degree though typically less than with humans and demi/meta humans. Ussually just different HP, although occationally abilities that deveat or build upon the stock ones.

This all assumes (demi/meta)human PCs. My reasoning for the difference with the 'monsters' is that I see them as distant from the PC's experience. So I assume the extra details of the personality differences between members of the species (unless separate age/class groups) being insignificant to the overall difference inherent in them being critters.  Along the lines of "all [insert ethnic group] look the same to me".

While I do like to stat up my NPC's, of late I've mostly been sticking with games where this doesn't really take up a lot of my time, so it's no biggie.

The exception being M&M, which does take some time... but making supervillains is fun.

My likelihood of stating is in an indirect proportion to the size of the statblock. The bigger the block, the less I'll stat. If it's small, I might just do the whole damn thing.

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?

Normally, when I ran something like WFRP1 or Fudge, I'd just wing it.  I recently ran a D&D 3.5 game where I statted almost everything out (though I usually cheated by using character generators for NPCs with levels).  I never felt comfortable winging it because everything was so balanced to work a certain way and I was worried I'd break something.  I think I spent more time preparing for that game than I spent playing at times.  That's one of the reasons why I'm not sure I'll ever run D&D 3.5 again, even though I had a lot of fun running that game and even though I'm still having a blast playing in D&D games with another group.  Of course I also tend to think of myself as a player rather that a GM, even though I do both, because I enjoy playing more than GMing.

I "collect" statblocks. That is, I find any available, online or in books, and either cut & paste or type them into a Word doc. That way, I have them available to print out when I need them. Over time, it's fairly easy to accumulate a lot of statblocks that fit the bill for most NPCs. If I have something specifically in mind for a BBEG, I may do it from scratch, but often enough I'll have found a statblock that either is close to what I want, or can be easily modified.

Dungeon has been a really good source for a variety of statblocks. As I read each new issue, I make a note of ones I think will come in handy at some point.

Everyone Else is a nice sourcebook for a lot of "generic" NPCs that fill specific functions in society.

This thread at EN World has 100 generally useful NPC statblocks: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=99643

I never do their stats. I do their personalities, what they want and fear, who they like and hate, etc. When the players' characters go see the old witch, I don't need to know her strength stat, are they gonna arm wrestle her? I need to know if she's going to tell them the truth when they ask her for a prophecy. If they go see the thane of the shire to get a mission, do I need his dancing skill? Are they going to have a Lord of the Dance dance-off? I need to know if he likes them, or if he likes one of them but not the others, and what he really wants, and is it the same as what he tells them, etc.

I go to any length possible to avoid making a full statblock for anyone.

My primary game right now is Arcana Evolved, and there are sadly no competent programs that I know of to quickly stat someone out.

Fortunately, both diamondthrone.com and Fiery Dragon's AE box came to the rescue with level-by-level PC Class stats. (Think 3.0 DMG.  This, btw, is the largest glaring absence in the 3.5 DMG.)

I only stat something out myself when it's something particularly important, like an 8th-Level Warmain Chorrim or a high-level Magister.

Now, I'm also test-running a Call of Cthulhu game using FATE as the basic rules system.  Completely statting out an NPC in FATE is as simple as marking down like three words and three numbers.  I'm fucking loving this, since I can concentrate on making interesting scenarios and spend just a few seconds on my stat blocks.

-O