Arion: Interlude - Statblocks

"Consider this Game Master’s Rule #1 when it comes to Extras: Don’t “build” them! Don’t create your Extras with the character creation rules. Just give them what you think they ought to have in their various skills and attributes and move on. The game is supposed to be easy for you to set up, run, and play. Don’t sit around adding up skill points for Extras when you could be designing fiendish traps and thinking up nasty Special Abilities for your monsters!" - Savage Worlds Adventure Edition Core Rulebook

This is a rule I struggle to abide by, especially in solo play. As a GM in group play, I am quite happy to allocate everything on the fly, thinking things like "Hmm, this NPC needs to make a Fighting roll now, a d8 feels about right, let's just roll one." In solo play, I feel compelled to generate the complete statblock. This is partly out of not wanting to be accused of favouring the solo PC unfairly, which has never happened in 17 years of sharing these little vignettes on my blogs, and partly wanting the NPC to be consistent each time they are encountered, which actually matters a lot less than you would think, not least because there are very few "series regulars", and what you remember, whether the game is group or solo, are their personalities, not their statblocks.

When I first started playing solo, not just my PCs but all their companions were Wild Cards with full statblocks, as if they were full-fledged PCs themselves; but what I have realised is that I need to keep them simple, not just to reduce my workload as both player and GM, but also because it's actually quite hard to kill a PC in Savage Worlds, and while I'm happy for my central PC to have a level of plot immunity, if all the good guys have it, that makes it hard to maintain tension in the game.

Likewise, if I have half a dozen PCs and allied NPCs all earning Advances willy-nilly, my solo game will eventually collapse under the complexity of tracking all that. So these days, I say that only the central PC gets Advances, and everyone else stays where they start.

Anyway, there are bound to be fights in the future, and Arion's close friends need statblocks, even if they are Extras now rather than Wild Cards. So far, I've used a different approach for everyone; that's complicating matters, but I tell myself it's an experiment and I'll simplify things eventually. Let's look at the major friendly characters in increasing order of complexity...

Aksunar Karagoz

Karagoz has been around for well over a decade and has yet to roll any dice. So not even I think that generating a statblock for him is a good use of time, and also it helps keep him mysterious. Who knows what he's capable of? Not me, that's for sure. The dice will tell me when I need to know.

Mr Osheen

Originally a 5150 grath, Mr Osheen is a grey-skinned alien mercenary of undetermined ancestry. Rather than work him out in detail, I just grabbed the zombie statblock from the core rulebook, issued him a laser SMG, and left it at that. Close enough for government work. What's memorable about him are his fish-out-of-water attitude and his, umm, dietary habits.

Officer Karen Muhammed

By the time I thought Karen needed stats, I was using Interstellar Rebels as the solo oracle, and that has what it calls NPC Variants; most NPCs don't have full stat blocks, instead they are basic or advanced variants of civilians, warriors, or psychics. Mulling over the statblocks, I decided Officer Muhammed's role in the game best suited a Basic Civilian, quote:

"Basic civilians have d6 in all attributes, d4 in all combat skills, and d6 in any skills appropriate to their concept. They usually inflict Str+d4 damage (knife) or 2d6 damage (blaster), and have Parry 4, Toughness 5." - Interstellar Rebels

Blasters in IR are lasers, reskinned with a different trapping; in the Traveller setting, ordinary firearms are fine, and the game stats are unchanged.

Coriander Ganzfeld

This incarnation of Cori was built while I was in my "all NPCs are either Soldiers or Experienced Soldiers" phase. I started with the Soldier Ally statblock on p. 112, bumped the Smarts to d6 so she had the right number of attribute points for a PC, used the extra skill points that frees up to buy Psionics d6, and swapped out Soldier for Arcane Background (Psionics), taking what I consider to be the three most useful Powers for her; boost/lower Trait, empathy, and healing.

Now that I look at her through the lens of Interstellar Rebels, I see that she is essentially a Basic Psychic, and there's no need to do any more than that. I think if she survives until Arion reaches Veteran Rank, I'll promote her to an Advanced Psychic; such a character will have taken three attribute increases over a Basic Psychic, so if we were counting points - which we're trying not to do - she would be at least Veteran.

I thought about experimenting with the Psyker background in the SF Companion, which looks like a good match for Traveller psions; I'm especially intrigued by the Scan Edge. However, I do try to stick to the core rules where I can, the added complexity of the Companions isn't necessary for my solo games.

Major Evelyn Sheng

Major Sheng is Army character #2 from Classic Traveller's Supplement 1: 1001 Characters; I took that decision because she was the only NPC of the team that Arion knew at the start of the current story arc, and it was established in the narrative they were friends and knew each other well. Therefore, Arion had to know her statblock, and converting a CT character meant she would not be one of my usual cookie-cutter NPCs.

Her statblock is: 478658. Army 4 terms, Major. Brawling-3, Medic-1, Tactics-3, Fwd Obsv-1, Rifle-1, SMG-1. Oh, and Cr 25,900, not that it matters.

My usual conversion rules for CT characters are these:

• Attributes are the closest die type to the CT characteristic value minus one. However, Education becomes Common Knowledge and Social Standing converts to an appropriate Edge if it's extreme enough. CT Endurance has aspects of both Vigour and Spirit, so they both come off that. If Wealth is in play, it comes off Social Standing.
• Expertise levels start at d4 for level-0, and go up a die type each level after that. Skills convert to the one with the most similar description if there is one, otherwise it's folded into Common Knowledge; Forward Observer, for example, doesn't have an equivalent in SWADE, but Sheng obviously knows how to do it, so it becomes Common Knowledge for her. All characters get at least a d4 in the SWADE core skills.
• Army and Marine characters get the Soldier Edge from their basic training. Other Edges and Hindrances to taste, based on established narrative if any.

So that gives Major Sheng this SWADE statblock; she gets what the above guidelines would indicate, plus Attractive because Arion thinks she's pretty:

• Attributes: Agility d6, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d4, Vigour d8, Wealth d8.
• Skills: Athletics d4, Battle d10, Common Knowledge d4, Fighting d10, Healing d6, Notice d4, Persuasion d4, Shooting d6, Stealth d4.
• Pace: 6; Parry: 7; Toughness: 6.
• Hindrances: None identified.
• Edges: Attractive, Soldier. 

Looking at Sheng from a points perspective, which I shouldn't do, I can see that even if she had the full amount of Hindrances, she has to have taken at least one Edge, possibly two, and two Advances worth of skills. So she is at least at the top end of Novice, and possibly edging into Seasoned.

That all looks a bit complicated, but I know both systems well enough that I can do the conversions either way in my head, on the fly, during a game. All the same, what would I lose if I said Sheng is an Experienced Soldier Ally (SWADE), or an Advanced Warrior (IR)? Not much, I think.

Arion Metaxas

Arion's statblock is currently this:

• Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigour d6, Wealth d6.
• Skills: Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Electronics d6, Fighting d4, Notice d4, Persuasion d6, Piloting d8, Repair d6, Science d6, Shooting d4, Stealth d4.
• Pace: 6; Parry: 4; Toughness: 5.
• Hindrances: Heroic, Impulsive.
• Edges: Ace, Alertness.

If he's still alive at the end of the next episode, he'll get an Advance, which I think should boost his Notice and Shooting to d6.

However, he was originally built on the Savage Worlds Deluxe pilot archetype, which converted to SWADE looks like this:

• Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigour d6
• Skills: Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Fighting d4, Notice d8, Persuasion d4, Piloting d8, Repair d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d4, +1 additional skill point
• Pace: 6; Parry: 4; Toughness: 5
• Hindrances: 4 points.
• Edges: Ace, Alertness.

I ran him on that for years without bothering to give him any Advances, and I was very happy with him. I'm often tempted to say "Hang the SF Companion!" and roll him back to the original statblock; the only reason I changed his skills was that according to the SFC, he should have Electronics and Science to operate the Dolphin. The SWADE core rulebook says Electronics is required to operate missiles and sensors, and page 32 suggests it would be acceptable to use it for astrogation as well, although the SFC uses Science for that last one. I could've used the spare skill point for Electronics - I tend to give people d6 in skills they need to do their job, but a lot of the SFC archetypes get by with a d4.

Still, one more Advance and he'll be where he would have been if I'd started him with the archetypical build.

I guess the key message from this post is: It's not about the statblocks.