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

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Mgellis

....I can tweak a character to fit the story in a few seconds (raise or lower skill levels, etc.) if I have to. ...

What it boils down to is that for most NPCs, you can get away with...

* Who are they?
* What are their four basic stats?
* What do they do for a living?
* How good are they at what they do?
* How well or badly do people usually react to them? (due to status, appearance, etc.)
* Do they have any other skills, etc. worth mentioning?
* What are they doing/thinking/etc. when the player characters first meet them?

Because I game balance by probability, I spend ALOT of time before hand tweaking those untill I think theyre just right and beating Excel spreadsheets into submission. It was a bit of work at the start, but its something Im getting better at and Im starting to see greater and greater dividends. The down side to that is of course that tweaking 'on the fly' is not really something Im wont to do because it doesnt take mcuh nudge to end up on the wrong side of the 3d6 bell curve that drives GURPS.

These are good questions!
They help you define NPCs and keep them relevant to the game. Its easy to go from GMing to writing, especially in the planning stage. If you've taken your 'Shop Merchant NPC' and written a 10 page background for him, you may be out of scope! :)

Nymdok