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<blockquote data-quote="barsoomcore" data-source="post: 2905870" data-attributes="member: 812">Stats are never a problem for me when winging it. Players don't see those stats, so I can easily make them up on the spot.NAMES are the tough part. I keep sheets in my binder with dozens of names listed on them, one sheet for each linguistic group so that I can easily grab a name for any given locale. Names are tough not only because coming up with a random Hungarian (forex) full name isn't super-easy for me, but also because it's so visible to the party and has such a huge impact on their sense of verisimilitude.I actually sometimes just say, &quot;He tells you his name&quot; when it's an NPC I don't want the party spending any time on. Everybody knows that if an NPC doesn't have a name, he's not important, and sometimes that helps to keep the story from going in the wrong direction.But when I'm really winging it, I don't always know myself who's going to turn out to be important or not, and so having a stock of names goes a LONG way to convincing my players I had it planned all along.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="barsoomcore, post: 2905870, member: 812"] Stats are never a problem for me when winging it. Players don't see those stats, so I can easily make them up on the spot. NAMES are the tough part. I keep sheets in my binder with dozens of names listed on them, one sheet for each linguistic group so that I can easily grab a name for any given locale. Names are tough not only because coming up with a random Hungarian (forex) full name isn't super-easy for me, but also because it's so visible to the party and has such a huge impact on their sense of verisimilitude. I actually sometimes just say, "He tells you his name" when it's an NPC I don't want the party spending any time on. Everybody knows that if an NPC doesn't have a name, he's not important, and sometimes that helps to keep the story from going in the wrong direction. But when I'm really winging it, I don't always know myself who's going to turn out to be important or not, and so having a stock of names goes a LONG way to convincing my players I had it planned all along. [/QUOTE]

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