SIngle Skill NPC?

[sladethesniper]

What is everyone's opinion on a single skill NPC, such as Viking 45%, so that skill is basically a composite of all the skills that a viking should have without gettting into crazy detail. Naval tactics? Sure, for a longboat, 45%. Archery? Sure 45%. Axe 45%, Shield 45%, etc. etc. 

That would allow much more simple NPC writeups of Gangster 22% or Politician 61%.

For any other, outstanding or strange skills you can still use them so that our Politician 61% also has art(painting) 44% and guitar 81%, but those are skills that are outside of their primary skill set.

OK or stupid? I ask because I am about to embark on making several hundred NPCs (they will be posted here) but I just don't want to make a list of 10+ skills for every single Charlie's Angel, MK fighter or every single Transformer.

-STS 

[Raleel]

I do this in mythras for npcs. Any skill that is in their wheelhouse, they get at full value. Skills that aren’t but are adjacent get 1/3rd off. Everything else is half. I’ve been advocating this approach for several years at this point. 

[lawrence.whitaker]

Its an excellent shorthand. I used the same approach in an online combat yesterday, where a bunch of guards had a flat 'Guard 45%' skill for anything that a guard could be expected to perform to a reasonable degree of competence.

[Jakob]

Most recently, I've come across this approach in the Mothership-based RPG Cloud engine (which is a very rules light d100 game, BRPish, but even more inspired by old editions of Warhammer, if I'm not mistaken). There, every NPC just has one percentile statt called Instinct - they roll it for everything that they might have some degree of competence in, if they should be forced to do anything that wouldn't be part of their skillset, it's GM fiat.

For a super-light RPG light Cloud Empress, I think it works really fine (though I haven't tried it at the table yet, only did some cursory solo-gaming). I'd be finde to use it in other BRP games as well for minor NPCs. If you want to get fancy, maybe give them a specialty at +20 (Viking 45%, Drinking +20), or a passion at +20 (Viking 45%, protecting his little brother +20).

[NickMiddleton]

1 hour ago, sladethesniper said:

What is everyone's opinion on a single skill NPC, such as Viking 45%, so that skill is basically a composite of all the skills that a viking should have without gettting into crazy detail. Naval tactics? Sure, for a longboat, 45%. Archery? Sure 45%. Axe 45%, Shield 45%, etc. etc. 

That would allow much more simple NPC writeups of Gangster 22% or Politician 61%.

For any other, outstanding or strange skills you can still use them so that our Politician 61% also has art(painting) 44% and guitar 81%, but those are skills that are outside of their primary skill set.

OK or stupid? I ask because I am about to embark on making several hundred NPCs (they will be posted here) but I just don't want to make a list of 10+ skills for every single Charlie's Angel, MK fighter or every single Transformer.

-STS 

Makes sense to me: it’s a refinement / streamlining of the Magic World (page 220-221) approach, e.g.:

”Average: All abilities are at 10, preferred skills at 40%, other skills at 20%. HP = Con (10), 3-4 points armor. Weapons always do 1d8 damage.”

[g33k]

3 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

What is everyone's opinion on a single skill NPC, such as Viking 45%, so that skill is basically a composite of all the skills that a viking should have without gettting into crazy detail. Naval tactics? Sure, for a longboat, 45%. Archery? Sure 45%. Axe 45%, Shield 45%, etc. etc. 

That would allow much more simple NPC writeups of Gangster 22% or Politician 61%.

For any other, outstanding or strange skills you can still use them so that our Politician 61% also has art(painting) 44% and guitar 81%, but those are skills that are outside of their primary skill set.

OK or stupid? I ask because I am about to embark on making several hundred NPCs (they will be posted here) but I just don't want to make a list of 10+ skills for every single Charlie's Angel, MK fighter or every single Transformer.

-STS 

Absolutely!  A very-commonly-adopted GM practice.

I do something similar, but not quite so brief -- usually 3-5  skills.  I only define skills I expect to be "relevant," so only combat-skills for the NPCs setting up the ambush (after they first fire from cover, I don't expect the PC's to engage in "social skills") but only social-skills at the swanky party where the PC's need to find their Contact.

Also sometimes known as "Skill as Profession" or "Profession as Skill" (n.b. it effectively becomes a character class, defined as the skill).

But the "Charlies Angels," in-narrative, are supposed to be protagonists, so I wouldn't use that as an example.
 

[Atgxtg]

3 hours ago, sladethesniper said:

What is everyone's opinion on a single skill NPC,

I think it's fine for "rank and file" NPCs, extras, mooks and the like. NPCs who the PCs won't interact with much, or will interact in a limited way (i.e. Guard Dog 53% which gets used to spot intruders, bite and jump). It harks back to WEG's 2D Attrubtes, 4D skills NPCs. There even a few RPGa that uses character professions and classes that way, and f a given profession applies or not depends on if the player can convince the GM that, say , a Boxer should know some first aid. 

Even old RQ used to do something like this with "Significant Skills" listed for NPCs (allowing GMs to given them "ingisnficant skills" if they needed to).

THe skill ladder from Novice (5-25%), to Journeyman (50%), Veteran (75%) to Master (90%+) leads itself to this. 

More significant NPCs, though naturally need more significant writeups. So Stormtrooper 44% yes, Sith Lord 93%, no. 

[AndreJarosch]

I do that, but with breakout skills (higher or lower), when nessessary.

[sladethesniper]

1 hour ago, g33k said:

Absolutely!  A very-commonly-adopted GM practice.

I do something similar, but not quite so brief -- usually 3-5  skills.  I only define skills I expect to be "relevant," so only combat-skills for the NPCs setting up the ambush (after they first fire from cover, I don't expect the PC's to engage in "social skills") but only social-skills at the swanky party where the PC's need to find their Contact.

Also sometimes known as "Skill as Profession" or "Profession as Skill" (n.b. it effectively becomes a character class, defined as the skill).

But the "Charlies Angels," in-narrative, are supposed to be protagonists, so I wouldn't use that as an example.
 

There are 12 different Charlie's Angels... how different (skill wise) are they. The 1970's are police trained private investigators, the 2000s were unarmed bodyguards mostly, and the 2020 group were like Mission Impossible spies. Charlie Townsend certainly upped his recruiting game over the past 60 years.

-STS

[g33k]

I am actually considering a version of this for my own in-development BRP-based RPG... even for PC's!

Take a "Profession," defined as a suite of skills (and backstory).  "Professionally-relevant" skills would all be at a single % (decided by GM according to their campaign).

An example would be an "Archaelologist" (they explicitly have skills including Excavations, Linear-B, Cuneiform(Sumerian), Cuneiform(Akkadian), Culture (Sumerian), Culture(Akkadian), History (Ancient World), Library Use; but likely also includes other specific skills discovered/defined in play (whatever the GM/table decides is separate-enough to be its own skill, and is the kind of Professional skill this archaeologist would have had (e.g. likely not skills with mesoamerican cultures -- that's a different Archaeologist) if the idea had occurred at initial character-creation).

Each Professional skill would begin at a fixed %age (say, 60%), but gets skill-checks & advancements separately; if our Archaeologist is on an Akkadian dig, they might advance their Akkadian skills (culture, cuneiform) but not likely their Sumerian ones; if they are examining inscriptions in a university/museum setting, they might advance Cuneiform and/or Library Use, but not Excavations; etc etc etc.

Don't bother writing the individual skills as separate line-items until it becomes relevant to do so.

[Raleel]

2 minutes ago, g33k said:

I am actually considering a version of this for my own in-development BRP-based RPG... even for PC's!

Take a "Profession," defined as a suite of skills (and backstory).  "Professionally-relevant" skills would all be at a single % (decided by GM according to their campaign).

An example would be an "Archaelologist" (they explicitly have skills including Excavations, Linear-B, Cuneiform(Sumerian), Cuneiform(Akkadian), Culture (Sumerian), Culture(Akkadian), History (Ancient World), Library Use; but likely also includes other specific skills discovered/defined in play (whatever the GM/table decides is separate-enough to be its own skill, and is the kind of Professional skill this archaeologist would have had (e.g. likely not skills with mesoamerican cultures -- that's a different Archaeologist) if the idea had occurred at initial character-creation).

Each Professional skill would begin at a fixed %age (say, 60%), but gets skill-checks & advancements separately; if our Archaeologist is on an Akkadian dig, they might advance their Akkadian skills (culture, cuneiform) but not likely their Sumerian ones; if they are examining inscriptions in a university/museum setting, they might advance Cuneiform and/or Library Use, but not Excavations; etc etc etc.

Don't bother writing the individual skills as separate line-items until it becomes relevant to do so.

this is very similar to 13th Age's Backgrounds, which is where I came up with the idea myself. I had no idea it had been used by many others but am glad. 

[g33k]

24 minutes ago, sladethesniper said:

... The 1970's ... the 2000s ... the 2020 group ...

The point is, within each milieu each group of Angels were "Protagonist" characters.

Your initial query was about quick easy NPC writeups for GM use.

[Atgxtg]

33 minutes ago, g33k said:

I am actually considering a version of this for my own in-development BRP-based RPG... even for PC's!

Take a "Profession," defined as a suite of skills (and backstory).  "Professionally-relevant" skills would all be at a single % (decided by GM according to their campaign).

 

You could use the difficulty mechanic to handle both specialties and knowledge that is outside the character's field of expertise. 

For instance, you archaeologist 60%, could specialize Sumerian culture and such rolls would be easy, with most other cultures being average. He might have some knowledge of ancient Egyptian rafts, but wouldn't be be all that experienced with actually  piloting an ancient Eqgyptian raft making that task difficult. 

Experience and improvement could consist of shifting a task's difficulty. 

This might simply stat blocks, as you'd only need to write down the stuff that changes.

 

 

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, Raleel said:

this is very similar to 13th Age's Backgrounds, which is where I came up with the idea myself. I had no idea it had been used by many others but am glad. 

You have somthing similar with Hero system since V4 (the Big Blue Bok) iirc: the professional skill.

That way, you could have PS: Stage Magician 14- or P.S.: Butcher 15-

[Ravenheart87]

I do it for NPCs in Mythras and my Warhammer hack too. And RuneQuest kinda did something similar back in the day to give some NPCs more character: I recall some of them had besides your usual skills some, which where no actual skills in any rulebook or supplement with a percentile value.

[tobarstep]

8 hours ago, g33k said:

Take a "Profession," defined as a suite of skills (and backstory).  "Professionally-relevant" skills would all be at a single % (decided by GM according to their campaign).

This is similar to Barbarians of Lemuria and its offshoots, though they are not d% games. You put a certain number of ranks in several professions representing your backstory and then during play if you attempt something that would fall within the realm of one of those professions (subject to GM approval) you use your rank in it for the roll. Excluding combat actions as those are governed by a separate attribute.

[g33k]

21 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

... but wouldn't be be all that experienced with actually  piloting an ancient Eqgyptian raft ... 

IMO, the approach of "experimental archaeology" is relatively-recent (Kon Tiki was 1947, Wikipedia tells me -- AFAIK the oldest "serious" project, though I think a few prior anthropologists have immersed-in / practiced-with some of the primitive cultures they studied; Sagnlandet Lejre was 1964; Butser Farm was 1970).  AFAIK, the field remains remains relatively-sparse and IMO under-utilized.

I would *not* presume these "practical" ancient skills from most professional Archaeologists.

It's entirely-similar, IMO, to how a "Physicist" may understand a nuclear reaction better than than an "Engineer," but an "Engineer" has a much better grasp of a nuclear reactor !

Edited January 9 by g33k
typos

[Atgxtg]

4 minutes ago, g33k said:

It's entirely-similar, IMO, to how a "Physicist" may understand a nuclear reaction better than than an "Engineer," but an "Engineer" has a much better grasp of a nuclear reactor !

LOL! You're hitting close to home with that one. I'm an electronics technician and have worked for several engineers. When it came to theory and designing circuits, those guys were way ahead of me. When it came to actually putting the design together, soldering connectors, following NASA, Milspec, ISO9000, etc. standards, I left those guys in my dust. And well all knew it. I had one boss who would toss me the 26 pin MS connectors because none of the engineers could solder one without either breaking a wire or shorting one out. At least not on the first try.

Now we all kinda knew what the other knew. I did know the theory to design a circuit, and they did know how to wire and solder a circuit board.  But we were so much slower than each other. 

[g33k]

3 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! You're hitting close to home with that one. I'm an electronics technician and have worked for several engineers. When it came to theory and designing circuits, those guys were way ahead of me. When it came to actually putting the design together, soldering connectors, following NASA, Milspec, ISO9000, etc. standards, I left those guys in my dust. And well all knew it. I had one boss who would toss me the 26 pin MS connectors because none of the engineers could solder one without either breaking a wire or shorting one out. At least not on the first try.

Now we all kinda knew what the other knew. I did know the theory to design a circuit, and they did know how to wire and solder a circuit board.  But we were so much slower than each other. 

<heh>
The old joke goes, "the only thing scarier than a hardware engineer with a patch-tape is a software engineer with a new circuit-board."
(n.b. which is the scarier depends on how you tell the joke, to which audience)

I'm mostly a software guy.  I can solder... kinda (if you don't mind large blobby masses on your circuit-board).

[Atgxtg]

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

<heh>
The old joke goes, "the only thing scarier than a hardware engineer with a patch-tape is a software engineer with a new circuit-board."
(n.b. which is the scarier depends on how you tell the joke, to which audience)

LOL! One of the engineers I worked for once told a doctor that at least he can fix his mistakes, not bury them. 

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

I'm mostly a software guy.  I can solder... kinda (if you don't mind large blobby masses on your circuit-board).

Argh, cold solder joints, solder bridges, more rework.

But that's just in. In game terms you have the skill, sorta. You just don't have it at the same level, and vice versa. What I can see, in game terms, as that as someone gets further away from their field of expertise, the difficulty goes up. The task is still within their general field, just not something that they actually do. 

 

BTW, on the software side of things, I gamed with one of those engineers and routinely went to his house and did tech support for him. Mostly undoing the stuff he did. He once deleted a bunch of Windows system files that "he didn't install". Now the guy could program machines. It's just that he was used to a very different operating system (G Code) and the memory constraints of CNC machines. Things like hidden system files to support the GUI were not something he was aware of. At least not until I had to reinstall Windows. 

[Joerg]

A keyword like that can be a useful shorthand, although I would still allow modifiers for specialist knowledge (e.g. rowing for that Viking), demerits for rare specialist skils (like composing skaldic verse) and off-brand abilities (e.g. lock-picking). If the character is anything more than a mook to mow down, they should have some distinction.

Various levels of Viking proficiencies were what I pulled out of that "sample Vikings" leaflet in the RQ3 Vikings box, a list which served me well outside the immediate setting, too.

As a GM I don't tend to over-prepare, so I ad-lib opposition more often than I provide well-prepared opponents.  Providing some options for whimsy even with a mook tends to make encounters more memorable.

[soltakss]

On 1/8/2024 at 1:21 PM, sladethesniper said:

What is everyone's opinion on a single skill NPC, such as Viking 45%, so that skill is basically a composite of all the skills that a viking should have without gettting into crazy detail. Naval tactics? Sure, for a longboat, 45%. Archery? Sure 45%. Axe 45%, Shield 45%, etc. etc. 

It is a lot easier to use, so makes sense.

[Yazurkial]

There's definitely a scale between a full character sheet and Viking 45%. The very fine book, The Company of the Dragon, available on Drive Thru RPG (and no, I'm not the author), has a way of boiling a lot of numbers down into one statistic, which -- I think? -- has the interesting side effect of putting more emphasis on the narratively relevant parts of the description.

[sladethesniper]

I've heard of this Company of the Dragon before... I should probably check it out.

I have found that less is often more in RPGs, so having a game that emphasizes that will be quite nice.

-STS

[narsilion]

I do something similar, ie: Viking 55-40-20

Numbers represent: crucial-secondary-other skills.

Thus i can make very specialised Viking 90-30-15 or more "jack of all trades" Viking 50-40-30