Extras and Named Characters

From: sarah.newton5_at_... <sarah.newton_at_...>
Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2010 08:24:48 -0000

Hi everyone,

I've been really enjoying the HQ2 rules and the two Sartar books, and have been thinking about how I'm going to be presenting critters and villains in my rejuvenated Dragon Pass campaign.

I'm borrowing a trope from the FATE system, which makes a distinction between "Extras", which are your run-of-the-mill bad guys, and "Named Characters", who are scenario villains important enough to have unique stat blocks and... well... names ;-)

I'm thinking that for "Extras" my game will use things like session base resistances and the pass / fail cycle, and draw on the critter descriptions from the wonderful Encounters section in the Sartar Companion (kudos to Jeff and the guys - the Encounters section gave me a warm fuzzy Griffin Mountain glow!) to colour the narrative. That'll cater for most mid-session conflicts.

Then, for the big conflicts against the Major Villain, I'll follow the Named Character conceit and stat him almost like a PC. He'll probably still be subject to the pass / fail cycle, but it'll modify his abilities rather than the base resistance. That way I as GM get to chew the Zorak Zorani scenery too ;-)

Naturally there'll be borderline cases, but you get the idea. Have other HQers out there done something similar with their major scenario villains?

Cheers,

Sarah