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Message: <blockquote data-quote="painandgreed" data-source="post: 3027570" data-attributes="member: 24969">OK. Everything seems fine, but I think I got us off the track of the thread with my questions. I think what is being discussed here is that so much time was put into a BBEG, only to have it killed in the first round of combat. Therefore, there should be special rules for creating BBEGs, so that it only takes half that time to create so they draw less resouces. In the above case, it's not much of an issue because it was a pre-made character from a published adventure. Here some people are for creating the quick gen rule set for such BBEG so they don't end up spending so much time on something that might not even matter. One of the reasons that that solution doesn't really go well with me, is because, I would think that stating out an important NPC just to have them be used in a single fight like a disposable resouce would be waste even if the fight lasted longer. Rather than make it easier to create such NPCs, I choose to instead use the NPCs more. When designing a game, I rarely have a BBEG sitting in a dungeon and only seen when the PCs encounter them. If I do, it's usually with pre-made adventures and I don't have to worry about it. My games are ideally run as such: I make up all the NPCs (I like world building also). I then run the NPCs as if they were my own characters. They have plots, plans, and actions. I keep track of what they are doing just as I do the PCs. I have an idea of what they want to do and how the game would normally progress without PC interference, but expect to have to modify their actions due to them. Such has even resulted in NPC vrs NPC combats that I have played out or called in friends to play out as a one shot between games to determine the result. NPCs usually start out pretty simple (name, class, level) and then get fleshed out in the course of the game as needed. Thus, the main NPCs get fleshed out pretty quickly and in detail. Typically, by time the PCs confront a BBEG type, I have consulted that NPC many times in the course of the game to determine the results of their various actions.For example, in the last campaign I started, the PCs were in the middle of three opposing but balanced factions. Each faction tried to sway the PCs to their side with whatever philosophies and resources they had. I had no idea which one the party would side with, if they sided with any at all. Once they did side with one, the balance was thrown off and the region thrown into conflict and whoever the PCs sided with would have the upper hand. The game played out very close to how I thought it would play out, but I still did not force it, and was willing to let it go wherever the PCs wanted to take it. By time the final battle happened with the losing faction, that NPC was well used. In fact, the PCs had probably talked to him every other game and had even fought along side him once.</blockquote>

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