Another question from Tracy Barnett, “How do you prefer to keep track of your game’s NPCs and characters?”
When I’m in a face-to-face game, I use index cards (which should be on sale right now at the beginning of the school year), but I used to use a binder. For online games, I use a word document.
You can get a lot of important information down to one index card if you break down the game system. I gave a talk at a Gamemasters’ Conference where I showed how I compressed Shadowrun down to effectively Ghostbusters: that troll ganger has a Muscle of 8, 11 if he’s doing gang-related physical stuff.
With the binder for Blue Planet, I had three or four setups for characters where I just circled the impact of the NPC (major, minor, mook) and the type (transhuman, modfied, aqua, beast, belter) which gave me quick stats right off the block.
Anyway, a short one.