Do all NPCs in your game need to be statted out?

[maddman75]

I don't feel particularly compelled to stat up characters that I do anticipate them fighting. I will if I have time, but its generally the last and least important thing that I do.

Schrodinger's statblock indeed. If you have a decent understanding of the system, you can just pull numbers out of the air and it works. Really, no one is going to question it. You don't need stat blocks, be free .

 

[Aberzanzorax]

In my games all NPCs are "statted", ESPECIALLY the helpful ones that I don't expect players to kill. The priest at the church? What are his spells? The rogue guild leader? What's his sense motive, his knowledge local?


HOWEVER, I only truly stat important pcs. I do, though, use the npc charts in the DMG, sometimes with a note like "has x potion" or "illiterate" or whatever.

So the players may meet acolyte #1... but when they do, I know he's a lvl 2 cleric, and I know his spells for that day.

 

[Ariosto]

No. It's not a matter of determining beforehand 'what the NPCs are for'. It's a matter of finding out, in the event, what the 'stats' are for, so that I know which ones to assign.

Most beings in the game-world don't even have names. They are simply subsumed in such data as 'Peripherus, pop. 4,000' or 'troglodytes, 10-100'.