[MatrixWraith]

Hello once again fellow Gamemasters! Sorry for all the questions (well ok only two so far but will be more I am sure) as I am a new gm to Shadowrun. I have noticed the lack of npc's or enemies and have read on the boards that Gamemasters are supposed to design them. So my question is how do you all do it? Build Points? Karma build? Just assign what you think they should have for stats/skills/gear and such? Running my third session tomorrow and am curious. So far have used some of the premade stat blocks and it went well but want it to go better. Thanks for any advice in advance.

[Wakshaani]

There aren't any point guidelines, so, I use the "People of  X experience haveskills of Y" chart. Attributes will be average, plus or minus a point most of the time, plus gear that makes sense. The default is Agility 3, Firearms 3, and a laser sight fo +1 dicepool .... that's where most badguys fall, and those in other roles will be similar. 6-8 dice in their 'Thing' is enough to be a professional, where 8-10 is more 'Old vet'and 10-12 is "OMG amazing". (Err, those are numbers before assorted dice pools are added. Gear can make pools quite a bit larger.)

Note that not everyone plays at that level. Several people have games where that kind of opposition would be a joke, so average officers are Agility 5, Firearms 5 types with Smartlinks and more. Your game's power level may vary.

[Ympulse]

Your game's power level may vary.

That's the gist of NPC generation, imo. One of the groups I run has everyone in it rolling 20+ dice to resist damage, and so I have to compensate in order to make the opposition threatening.

It's why I keep a tertiary "handwave" stat for all of my NPCs that just simply adds dice to all relevant pools in order to keep them up to par with the group.

[Simagal]

For an easy challenge I'll roll 6-8 dice, medium challenge 10- 12 dice, for a tough challenge I use a dice pool similar to the pcs. I also use the characters from published sources with name changes as appropriate. Some of the lower characters in Street Legands make good major villain's leutenants.

[Hsere]

I keep a few simplified mook NPC sheets on hand for each "archetype" the characters come across -- "Stock Physical Muscle," "Stock Mage," "Stock Technomancer," etc.  They're tailored to my group's power level and the level of challenge I like to throw at them.  The sheets are also super-simple -- all they list is how many dice I roll for common checks, like shooting or dodge (I keep their full stats on another page, but I barely ever have to use it).  It saves time during prep when I'm pressed for it, and it's particularly useful when a fight breaks out unexpectedly -- I just decide how many of each type there are and go.  You don't want to overuse it, of course, but you'd be surprised of often you can do that without the PCs catching on that all the hackers use the same stats.

As a bonus, if I'm pressed for time and need to stat a named NPC, I can just grab one of them and modify/power it up.  Still some work involved, but a lot better than starting from scratch.  For the same reason, I'll sometimes grab one of the sample characters and modify/power-up them to make a named NPC.  They often need quite a bit of work to make them optimal, but again, it's better than starting from scratch.

[Zilfer]

I'm really surprised they haven't come out with just a book of enemies, just to show different levels and different templates you could start with. How to tailor them this way or that.

[NinthSphere]

For chumps, I actually just tweak the book npcs. I manage npcs in Chummer, which has them put together already, so I pull up an appropriate dude, mess around with it, and stick it in a go-to folder for easy access in-game. If I need a named npc that might see action, then I point gen and tweak to taste.

[OFTHEHILLPEOPLE]

I think the main reason they haven't put out a book of already ironed out monsters and villains is because once you do that I feel like people will default to those pre-generated monsters and villains as a standard set in stone.  That's something I feel Shadowrun wants to shy away from.  But think of it this way, when you make a monster or bad guy your own you have really awesome war stories to tell other players especially if they've made the same kind of monster or bad guy but with different stats.  A Yeti in my game may be more savage and killer whereas a Yeti in yours might be a breeze to take down.

That being said, I would like to see some basic template stats for NPC characters.  Like "Here are the Stats to start with for an easy combat character, add 50BP where you see fit and 5k of gear" and so on and so forth.  I might take up this deed.  But following up in the footsteps of other games if you are making characters that are unnamed meatshields then just write down a few key stats.  But like NinthSphere said, if you are making "Johnny Fourfangs, Smuggler and One-Eyed Deadshot" then you should probably roll him like a regular character with all the bells and whistles.

[vinnmun]

You can probably make a pack system and than tweak things after you put it together.

[Eugene]

Ghost Cartels, Jet Set, and Corporate Intrigue all have big lists of NPCs that are great for this.  Twilight Horizon probably does too but I don't have that so I can't say for sure.

[Mithlas]

I'm really surprised they haven't come out with just a book of enemies, just to show different levels and different templates you could start with. How to tailor them this way or that.

That would be very useful. What I did is I took a sheet of paper and created 10-15 templates (simple things like "+1 to these three stats, plus a few more to a select few skills", things like that), with the vast majority of templates being non-mutually exclusive so I can mix-and-match as desired. The human average of "3" on attributes and 0 on skills is where everything is modified from. Slap on a troll template, and "common ganger" on that and in 30 seconds I've just put together a gaggle of Sons of Sauron thugs. Equipment is something I take more time on and would like a quick-and-easy for, but I'm sure somebody's going to have something for that.

Of course, I would like to check out what Ghost Cartels and Twilight Horizon have. I've seen them noted a couple of times.