Typical Encounters

[Jame]

Just to try to create a reference for those of us without money for 76 Gunmen, or who use a set of different rules. I'm trying to create a set of "typical" people an adventurer may meet "on the job," with equipment, such as typical Army personell (Skills? Uh, rifle-2, maybe a survival skill... Equipment? Hmmmm. Well, an auto-rifle or weapon, maybe cloth armor and helmet) or a brawler in a bar (I have no idea...)

Yes, I do realize I'm breaking my vacation. I'm sending this from my current port-of-call by XBoat...

 

[Mythmere]

Jame, don't forget the Enemy Superstore Thread

 

[Jame]

Thanks for the reminder, Mythmere, but I'm looking for CT stats.

 

[Mythmere]

Sorry! I always forget who's T20 and who's CT.

 

[Jame]

Not a problem, no worries.

We, or someone, should figure out a conversion for both ways. (My main problem is having CT stats for a typical tl10 aoldier.)

 

[mark_rotteveel]

Jame. I do up a sort of NPC library on 3" x 5" cards, and keep them handy. Each card has a title (eg Soldiers), and each line has a UPP, name, skills, and basic gear for that NPC. It really comes in handy if the party get into trouble with, say, a gang of thugs. I just grab the 'Thugs' card, and roll for how many, then I pick entries at random, and "Ta-Da", I have their stats, skills and basic gear.

Very handy when the party takes an unexpected turn somewhere, and leaves the Ref having to wing it.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I do up a sort of NPC library on 3" x 5" cards, and keep them handy.

That's far too organised! I'm very much of the "make it up as you go along" school.

TL10 soldier? Easy. Stats of 8, skill 2, cloth armour w/helmet, ACR, couple of grenades, radio.

Three thugs? Stats of 7, skill 2, one has an autopistol, one has a dagger, one has a club.

etc.

 

[mark_rotteveel]

That's far too organised!

True. And a lot of work also. But I need to make up for in organisation, what I lack in imagination......

(it's alright for you young whipper-snappers, who can still think straight. But us old folks need a bit of backup)

 

[Zutroi]

For CT I had a random number generator make rolls for 1/2 of a UPP and a couple of random skill levels. I had a sheet with 100 of these, always prepared for battle (Strength, Dex, End and weapon skills) or interpersonal contact (Int, Ed, Soc, and whatever skills were relevant). Some day I'll adapt this to T20...

I do keep lists of randomly generated Vargr and Vilani names handy.

 

[Jame]

Zutroi, can I take a look at this list?

 

[flykiller]

Zutroi, can I take a look at this list?

http://tribble.dreamhost.com/vilani.html

 

[Zutroi]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Zutroi, can I take a look at this list?

http://tribble.dreamhost.com/vilani.html </font>[/QUOTE]Thanks, Flykiller!

The Big List o'Stats was just a simple Excel spreadsheet adding up a bunch of random number...

 

[Jame]

Thanks, flykiller!

 

[plop101]

Rotters writes:

True. And a lot of work also. But I need to make up for in organisation, what I lack in imagination......

Yep, I know the feeling. What I started doing after seeing a post on TML was to put together whole lists of significant NPC's in my Spinward Marches campaign. Start with the known canon npc's, then fill in the blanks, like a Sword Worlds ambassador, Regina port director, etc. Everyone from the Emperor right on down to a hotel maid on Regina. I stopped working on it after I hit about 26 pages worth of material. Just too much.

At some point in time, you wind up having to fudge things quickly. For CT, look at the Tech level list in Book 4. Your Army trooper should have an ACR, a Combat Environment Suit, a Helmet radio, Grenades, and at least Light Amplification gogles. Give him UPP 888888, and level one skills for the weapons he will be using. MT and T20 have lots of material for fudging NPC's quickly (MT more so than T20, IMHO). Plus, the MT stuff is real easy to convert to a Book 1-3 CT campaign. Getting one of those character generators to punch stuff out on the computer quickly helps alot.

 

[Jame]

How about we start an "Average Personell" section with generic CT/T20 stats and tech level lenses, on this website?

 

[clementk]

Originally posted by flykiller:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Zutroi, can I take a look at this list?

http://tribble.dreamhost.com/vilani.html </font>[/QUOTE]I use this page a *lot* for creating Vilani names on the fly. Since it gives a lot of results it gets my brain going if I want to create a specific name or I can just copy and paste one of the results as is.

And with a little thought Vilani names can be used for alien names, etc. I also use the page to create Vilani corporation names and to fill in gaps in the Vilani vocabulary file.

One thing though, if the length of most of those names is any indication it's no wonder the Solomani took over the First Imperium! They got tired of having to say the full Vilani names!

Casey

 

[flykiller]

these sites are also helpful with name/word stuff.

http://www.kleimo.com/random/name.cfm
http://www.spacecorsair.com/wordgen.html

as for creating random people and their stats, if you have a computer and can do any programming then it's easy to write character generators. the old dungeon master's guide had some great tables for doing just that. that way if during a game you suddenly need an NPC you can just tap a key on your notebook computer and there he is. if you don't like him, tap again and there's another.

 

[Zutroi]

Yeah, those six syllabbubbleicious names are a bit absurd... I usually break any thing that long into a first and last name - 'Piikarkumemad' becomes "Piikar Kumemad", a much more pronouncable name!

You can also generally make good Vilani sounding names by scrambling up website names, phrases off of business cards, etc. - "Creative" becomes "Reat Ivec, Portmaster" Good for sudden last second name needs. The fact that I keep my dice in a 'Rey del Mundo' cigar box directly led to the creation of 'Ray del Mundo, low level narcotics traffiker' for example.

 

[plop101]

Jame writes

How about we start an "Average Personell" section with generic CT/T20 stats and tech level lenses, on this website?

Me and Liam put quite a few characters in the adventure forum under the thread title "Character Dump." Mine were enhanced CT/MT characters, I think Liams were TNE or T20.

Converting CT to T20 and vice versa is difficult; they don't translate well. I've tried doing this with a scout pc I put together, Dain Thrangar, and I posted the results in the adventures forum. If your looking for this stuff, you may have to hit that all posts thing and wade through all of them to find it.

Dain was a piece of work. Did a enhanced CT/MT character, then converted it to TNE, Gurps Traveller, T4, and finally T20. Now that I think about it, I never did do a non-enhanced CT character for Dain. Wouldn't be that difficult though. Probably just take the enhanced CT character and cut the number of skills in half.

 

[TKalbfus]

A typical encounter is with an NPC that attacks you. If captured alive, the NPC explains that he's just a random encounter and that your going to have to roll for his motivation. So you roll a d20 and look up on the table for motivations.

d20 Result
1 "You were just to ugly to be left unmolested, I had to attack you."
2 "You reminded me of my mother."
3 "I was jealous of your accomplishments in the last adventure."
4 "I wanted your money."
5 "Revenge! That last NPC you killed was my friend."
6 "I was hired to kill you. Roll again for who hired me."
7 "I'm crazy!"
8 "My dog told me to do it."
9 "Sorry, I thought you were someone else."
10 "Begone ye foul demon!"
11 "I'm on a mission from God."
12 Your assailant bites into his poison tooth and dies.
13 Your assailant bites into his poison tooth and exhails a poison vapor before dying. Roll fortitude saving throw.
14 "You owe me money you swindler!"
15 "You damn meddling kids! I could have gotten away with it too!"
16 "There's a price on your head of cr10,000!"
17 "Witch! Witch! Burn you Witch!"
18 "I am a robot. Beep! Does not compute."
19 An ugly looking creature bursts out of his chest and scurries down the corridor.
20 "The Devil told me to do it."