Resolved,There is no point to statting up anything that is not a PC

[Paul]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

People overstatting and convincing other people to waste their time overstatting does kill the hobby.

We all have real lives, SOs, children, jobs, etc., wasting our free time on overstatting causes people to stop playing due to lack of time, even people with the time, if they feel they need to overstat, will flee the hobby due to being overwhelmed by all the minutiae involved.

Has *anyone* provided a counterarguement to the "I don't have a lot of prep time" reasoning for minimal pre-statting?

[LemmingLord]

Originally Posted by Paul

Has *anyone* provided a counterarguement to the "I don't have a lot of prep time" reasoning for minimal pre-statting?

No, sounds like a pretty sound reason to me.

Some of the most fun games I've ever played have been one shots where the gamemaster has zero prep time. Some of these have turned into multiple night games due to popular demand.

Some of the least fun games I've ever played in have been built by the gamemaster as long drawn out affairs with notes on everything in the world. A gamemaster can easily become overwhelmed with the importance of her own gameworld to an extent that diminishes the importance of the players.

If you are talking about fun, at least for me, go with the flow rather than with your prescripted work whenever possible. I know as a gamemaster it is nice to have some idea of the direction you want to go, and notes and statting can do just that, and I know that for many gamemasters, such as myself, statting can be very fun to do... but the thing that seems responsible for a good time is NOT the prep work, but the improvisation and pacing.. If your prep work doesn't help you do that, it is just a fun thing for the gamemaster to do with her spare time between games... and if you don't have that much time for prep, don't do it!!

[Philomath]

Originally Posted by Paul

Has *anyone* provided a counterarguement to the "I don't have a lot of prep time" reasoning for minimal pre-statting?

I don't think there is one. Not enough time is not enough time.

Not having enough prep time isn't the most important reason not to stat everything IMO. Once one has a reasonable grasp of the rules and balance the 3,723rd mook is going to have stats very similar to the 3,722nd. Possibly not identical but certainly close enough to start from the same base.

On the character point issue, I don't think they are important as a total at all. They are a measure of a characters ability to purchase traits individually -- whether character X can afford Invisibility, or Typing-16, or ST 20. Not how character X compares to any other character. Doing otherwise causes things like Wealth or Status gained in play (as a reward) to cost CPs or lost Allies or Disadvantages gained to give extra points, or even foster the false impression that one 200 point character is combat equivalent to another 200 point character. Much simpler to just change the CP total on the character sheet and move on.

Feeling the need to stat and design everything is, in my experience, a sign of a novice GM. Every GM I've ever known, including myself, tried, got overwhelmed, and scaled back, usually by learning to improvise and by learning the system and players better. Telling someone not to stat something in a thread where they are asking how to doesn't help anybody. Either they already know and would find the statement redundant or they don't already know and have to figure out when not to for themselves. Either way telling them not to do what they want is going out of your way to not provide an answer to their actual question.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

I have a problem with the "or" here: why is the consent of all parties optional in consideration of longer term stories? You're not seriously suggesting it is okay to use or mislead people to tell a story in a way they wouldn't find acceptable otherwise?

So, let's say I have a fully statted out "big bad" character that's the boss. The PCs and the big boss meet in the second episode. There's supposed to be a few insults, possibly an ineffective (for the PCs) exchange of blows. This is a common fictional trope, and will provide the party a motivation to improve, or find the key to a weakness, etc.

Well, it's the Big Bad's turn, and maybe he totally blows a defense roll. Or crit fails a DX roll or a weapon roll or his gun explodes in his hand, which could result in death.

(a) I would not make the roll in front of everyone (I never do)

(b) No frickin' way that I'll let my Big Bad die like that. I probably spent hours of scarce time getting him right, and have numerous episodes planned around his actions and plans. I will fudge whatever rolls are necessary in the service of the dramatic moment.

This will heighten the long-term story AND please the players, since when they actually DO get powerful enough to take him head-on (or by some other device not yet formulated), that will provide a satisfying resolution of the event.

By and large, most of my game worlds are simulationist at heart. I like GURPS, like the realism and (more importantly) believability of the task resolution system. But even as a player, I found it unsatisfying when the first shield rush on the first round of combat knocked the Big Bad on his butt, unconscious. I KNOW the GM at the time was dismayed at the result.

And again, an actual campaign example: A Black Ops campaign, where I had a series of fully statted out characters, many partially statted out characters, and a series of events that would happen without the player's intervention.

Well, the players were uncharacteristically brilliant. EVERY twist, turn, and surprise I had in mind, they pre-empted with good planning, good strategy, and excellent tactics. Basically, the intelligence mission went without a hitch - not because no hitches were planned, but because they anticipated and beat them ALL.

After the game, I faced a player revolt. The episode was too boring. Why didn't I have more challenges? I explained they'd preempted them all. They told me that, effectively, ninjas should have kicked down the door and made life hard for them.

So in my experience, the players demand a certain level of challenge and, sometimes, failure. If I have to alter plans, make stuff up, or fudge die rolls to provide for that expectation, so be it.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Paul

Has *anyone* provided a counterarguement to the "I don't have a lot of prep time" reasoning for minimal pre-statting?

There can't be one, I don't think. If you want to have a hobby, someone has to GM. If that person, as is the case with me, has very little spare time due to other commits, then my former tendency to stat out and hyperdefine the entire game world gives way to "only stat out enough to ensure the PCs have something to interact with" and reserve the deepest description for only the major players.

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Paul

Has *anyone* provided a counterarguement to the "I don't have a lot of prep time" reasoning for minimal pre-statting?

I guess the counter argument, if one exists, is that the multiplicity of premade templates in the system should render the minimal stats for minimal time arguments moot.

The indviduality of GURPS and GURPS players/GMs, Im guessing, causes those templates to be altered heavily between the Page of the source book and the game world.

And here may lie the answer.

Statting isnt a chore. Its not an inconvenience. We accept that a varrying levels it MUST be done (some will wag, some will write full sheets for everyone).

The GAME says (at least for those of us who try to keep integrity in our dice) that we need stats at least as complete as the Charachters interaction is going to be. We may not need to know a shop owners IQ, but we DO need to know the Shop owners Merchant skill (if we're going to use him in that capacity).

The various interaction arenas are what determines the depth and breadth of his stats.

The more stats we add the more robust the interaction can be, but not EVERY NPC needs to have an avenue for robust interaction.

Beyond that, we stat what we have time for, because we enjoy it, and sometimes it provides a private and well mechanized system to brainstorm NPC ideas in their inception.

The World is the same on a larger scale. We Stat/Map the bits that we need, but as the Charachters dont interact with it, we prop up a facade in the players imaginations. Done and Done.


So to recap:

We stat minimally because The Template Doesnt Exist or We Dont like the Template. (The template doesnt exist excuse is a thin one. There are a BOATLOAD of Templates and Lenses.)

When we are left to our own devices, we stat minimally because we lack time, we stat fully because we enjoy it as an exercise.

Nymdok

[trooper6]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

The GAME says (at least for those of us who try to keep integrity in our dice) that we need stats at least as complete as the Charachters interaction is going to be. We may not need to know a shop owners IQ, but we DO need to know the Shop owners Merchant skill (if we're going to use him in that capacity).

But where does it say in the books (page number please) that we need to know that before the game starts.

What is the difference between me, as GM, deciding before game starts...If they run into a taxi driver he will have a Driving Skill-12, Area Knowledge-13 and writing it down, and me deciding right when they hail a taxi that the driver has Driving Skill-12, Area Knowledge-13? There is no difference. Except in case 1) if they never hail a taxi, the time I spent on the taxi driver was wasted.

Some people seem to think that winging it means that you have less integrity and that you are somehow less coherent. But I could do lots of prep beforehand and write everything down and decide that all my Taxi Drivers have Driving 18, Indomitable, And Guns-16. Then I write it down...so now I have integrity.

Because here is the truth, if you make the character before the game starts or at the moment, it is still you, the GM, who is making those decisions. If a GM is oppositional and out to get the players it doesn't matter if they decide ahead of time or at the moment. If the GM, lakes creativity, it doesn't matter if they decide before hand or at the moment. There is nothing inherently more moral about making the decisions about NPCs 5 days before game or 5 minutes before the character walks on screen. If you have integrity and fairness as a GM you have integrity and fairness. Informed Improvisation or Meticulous foreplanning has nothing to do with either fudging or no-fudging, integrity or no integrity, consistency or lack of consistency...not even cinematic or not-cinematic.

Originally Posted by Nymdok

When we are left to our own devices, we stat minimally because we lack time, we stat fully because we enjoy it as an exercise.

I'm a minimal statter for the bulk of the NPCs. It isn't because I lack time. I spend days doing prep for my games. I make extensive handouts, get maps, get photos, spend hours dreaming up actions and reactions. And I stat up fully those NPCs that I deem necessary to do so. I don't stat up the rest because I lack time, I don't stat up the rest because I don't find it necessary.

[LemmingLord]

Originally Posted by Nymdok

Statting isnt a chore. Its not an inconvenience. We accept that a varrying levels it MUST be done (some will wag, some will write full sheets for everyone).

The GAME says (at least for those of us who try to keep integrity in our dice) that we need stats at least as complete as the Charachters interaction is going to be. We may not need to know a shop owners IQ, but we DO need to know the Shop owners Merchant skill (if we're going to use him in that capacity).

We don't need to know the shop owners merchant skill. Ever.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by LemmingLord

We don't need to know the shop owners merchant skill. Ever.

Well, if you want to have the PCs roll, say, a quick contest of skill to find out how much above/below list price someone can get an item, you'll need to invent it either before or during game play.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Paul

Has *anyone* provided a counterarguement to the "I don't have a lot of prep time" reasoning for minimal pre-statting?

Well, there is one: If you don't have enough prep time, you're running games too often. You should run them less often and put the saved time into more prep.

I know that a lot of people have weekly sessions, and even take that as the norm, or don't understand how you could keep a campaign going on monthly sessions. But I've had monthly sessions for all my campaigns for over a decade. It gives me time to think longer about each campaign between sessions; and for a fair number of my players, meeting every week would be too great a burden on their time, given that they're mostly adults with lives and jobs. And I'm willing to suggest that a GM who holds sessions every week, and can't do more than minimal prep, might profit from going biweekly or monthly and doing more thorough prep.

That's not to say that you have to write up everything in obsessive detail. I come to a new session with one or two fully done character sheets, for core characters. But you did say "minimal prep," and anything that the GM experiences as minimal may very well not be enough.

Or in the words of an old joke:

YOUNG BULL ON A HILL: Hey, pop, let's run down to that field and make love to a couple of those cows!
OLD BULL: Hold on, son. Let's walk down the that field and make love to all of them.

Bill Stoddard