Toxic Levels of NPCs

[Buzzardo]

I have been playing Age of Worms, and I just got my Shackled City Hardcover.

Is anyone else (from a DM perspective) completely overwhelmed at the sheer volume of NPCs in both these adventure path campaigns?

There are SOOOOOO many NPCs it is as if every person in the cities/towns is fully detailed with all the interactions with other NPCs, motivations, etc...

Cant...keep...track. Having such a massive number of NPCs makes it so that they all lose their impact, even the important ones just blur into all the background noise.

I would rather have way less NPCs, but those that remain be very memorable.

Am I alone in this frustration?

 

[demiurge1138]

I usually just ignore the NPCs until the PCs make motions to interact with them, or they need to interact with the NPCs. Ones with a foreshadowing aspect get introduced, yes, but not in much detail unless they become important.

Demiurge out.

 

[Graf]

Am I alone in this frustration?

I'm sure you aren't.

But I think that having to stat an NPC is one of the biggest timewasters for a DM. One of the major advantages that published stuff offers over homebrews is that all the stupid filddly bits have been taken care of.
If I run a game and the PCs are headed toward a lords keep I will, at best, have a note about race, class, level and one or two skills. If I'm running an adventure the fact that I can tell at a glance that each guard has a touch AC of 11, a torch and 3 javilin's is what I'm paying for.

In my experience a minor NPC can suddenly become a major NPC due to some quirk of fate. Having all those stats ready, just-in-case and with-no-effort, is what you're buying.

Don't be afraid to run the game slowly! You can also decide to dump or render NPCs uninteresting. (i.e. calling somebody "the drow swordswoman" instead of by name).

So maybe look through and pick out a few NPCs you like and make up an index card for the rest with a very short description (drow swordswoman), name and the page where the stats are listed.

The adventures are apparently quite good so your players are in for a good time.
Good luck!