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100% GMing
Treasure Tables is dedicated to game masters, offering GMing advice and ideas and a community of GMs helping each other run great games since 2005. I'm Martin Ralya, and I've been GMing since 1989 and writing for the RPG industry since 2004.
A Zillion Goblins: Timesaving Products for GMs
Tue. May 29, 2007
Via Gaming Report, I just saw that Creative Conclave has released a d20 product called The Lazy GM: Goblinoids, which includes several hundred pre-statted goblins, bugbears and the like at a wide range of levels.
I loathe creating d20 statblocks with every fiber of my being, so this is one aspect of game prep that I can always use help with. Even in RPGs with lighter statblocks, I prefer having plenty of pregenerated mooks and sample villains available.
Most GMs have at least one common prep task that they don’t enjoy, or that they’d prefer took less time. What’s your least favorite prep activity for your game (or games) of choice? Are there any timesaving products that you use to make that task more bearable?
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17 Responses to “A Zillion Goblins: Timesaving Products for GMs”
Mapping. Creating maps is something that has very little pay off for the amount of work put into it. I use Fractal Mapper to make it easier, and keep any published maps that I find for future use. My work requires that I be involved with new office space buildouts, so I get a lot of architectural drawings for those types of layouts that I can use.
Spell lists. I really hate making up spell lists for D&D NPC mages.
I kinda like making maps…
Hmm, I’d go for item selection. Most character stats come easily to me, but item selection for NPCs always seems like a choice between the mind-numbing detail that players put up with only because they’re really invested in their characters or the wholesale purchase of a single standard set of generic items.
It would be nice to have a couple different premade equipment load-outs for assorted common classes and class combinations at ascending levels, varying by theme and campaign setting.
I don’t like drawing up the map of anyplace that the party is going to visit only once. I can stat stuff out in my head really quickly. One of my favorite parts of preping is picking NPC spells
i used to love mapping. a pad of graph paper, some sharpies, and marker fumes. i’ve relied on my random dungeon generator lately, since its faster and generates the sorts of dungeons i prefer anyway. i wouldn’t say that the magic item compendium has made item selection for NPCs and monsters easier, but it has made it a lot more fun and interesting.
spell lists for NPC mages? nah, they’re never going to use more than the evocations, starting with the highest level down, or the one spell which the party sought them for, so why bother?
For spell and equipment lists, check out the Player’s Handbook II — it’s got an entire chapter at the end guiding you through NPC creation, including suggested spells and equipment for each level and class. Easily the most useful part of the book.
I can’t stand statting out NPCs, expecially ones for which I have to actually buy gear, select spells or skills, etc…
I don’t mind making up “John Jones, federal agent with a chip on his shoulder. Good at sense motive and spot.” But that’s about as far as I want to take it.
To a lesser extent I have the same issue with monsters, but I just print out a page from the SRD and go since 90% of monsters are static.
Maybe since it’s obvious that one man’s trash is another’s treasure, we should start up something in the forums sso that I can post “Need spell list for dark necromancer that incidentally has a herbalism hobby.” and others could knock out my spell list. In return, when they post “need decriptive text for a mountain cave, must have something “pizzazy”" I can return the favor. Regular compilation into the wiki would result in a list of location descriptions, statblocks, spell lists, maps, etc… that could eventually be compiled as a free PDF and, if it’s meaty enough, sold as an inexpensive paperback through a print-on-demand publisher to help offset the costs of TT and give the contributors writing credits on their resume. Or maybe that’s too much at once. Just bouncing thoughts around.
Names. I suck at coming up with names, and therefore, my players always know when an NPC isn’t important.
Really, the rest of it, though, I kind of enjoy. Character writeups, mapping, spell lists, treasure lists, political motivations, etc. I like it all. Probably why I’m a GM far more often than I’m a player.
I hate generating stat blocks for high level NPCs.
Luckily I have a solution that works perfectly: I run Savage Worlds now.
DM Tools has a *lot* of NPCs pre-statted and ready to go.
The D20 NPC Wiki provides a library of NPCs, searchable by challenge rating, creature type, primary class, etc. It’s well laid out and contains a fairly large number of NPCs.
http://d20npcs.wikia.com
Shameless plug: HeroForge, an Excel-based character creation spreadsheet that frankly rocks on toast (non-SRD choices, 60th level support, etc). Lots of other d20 goodness at that link.
Caveat: I’m on the documentation team, so this is automatically suspect. But check it out and use your own judgement.
Coming up with NPC stats for an NPC who is really just there for very little interaction. I hate to come up with stats to make a specific NPC that is just minor background noise, or something the players will most likely gloss over. Of course that is the one that the players insist on bargaining with, or questioning, or focusing on as the main crux of their adventure, etc. I’ll usually pull from a bank of generic stats that I’ve got written up, or instead of coming up with stats for everyone I use a kind of equivalency method when they are outside of combat. I decide how much of a challenge this NPC should represent to the task that he is needed for, and I just freeform him with the appropriate dice/skill level/abilities, etc.
It’s interesting that one GM’s cup of tea is another GM’s cup of pee. Not surprising, but definitely interesting.
Rick’s idea has a lot of potential, and it reminds me of the babysitting co-op in the neighborhood I grew up in. Every hour you babysit banked you an hour you could ask someone else to babysit, with “co-op bucks” of some sort to keep track of hours. It seemed to work pretty well.
Rick, would you like to start up a thread based on your suggestions in the forums?
This be good for rough-and-ready NPCs: http://www.immortalshandbook.com/simony2.htm
The now offline Undead Presidents had a “Quick NPC Item Selector” that I’ve found quite good. Googling it I found this: http://www.imasy.or.jp/~miyamoto/rpg/javascript/npcItemSelector.html
Otherwise I have it on PDF.
Hi,
It might interest some of you to know that not only are we at The Creative Conclave working on more stat-books for other common foes, but we’re looking to put together an ensemble of Lazy GM books so that you can create a sort of ‘pick and mix’ adventure from different ready-made elements.
Maps/locations are definitely high on the list.
Simon
Dr. Simon: I’d like to see more work in this vein, and I’m glad maps and locations are in the hopper.