So I did a little searching this morning (in-between reading bouts of old flamewars, and noticing people we're missing, *sigh*) for people's methods of generating NPCs for prep and on-the-fly. I didn't really seem to brush up against much, but what I did seem to find led to a few agreed points:

1. Don't use BP / Karma to generate
2. Don't assume BP / Karma to balance with your team
3. Eyeball the stats
4. Look for a baseline DP and work out stats from there

...all of which are a little too flighty for me. I like the generation methods given in Saga / 4e D&D, wherein you have guidelines to work off of that result in NPCs generally balanced against your players. And (relatively) quick, too - especially Saga.

So I thought, Dumpshock is full of pretty smart folks, I'm sure we can come up with something similar for the game. Right?

***

I was working on this last night, and here's what I was thinking:

1. Use Professional Rating as we do Force / Pilot / Resonance. This determines attribute and skill point bases, as modified racially.
2. Split NPCs into three tiers: Grunt / Lieutenant / Prime Runner, of ascending importance to plot (similar to Minion / Standard / Elite tiers in 4e D&D)
3. Choose a Role for the NPC and then add pluses and minuses where called out. Examples: Ganger, Mr. Johnson, Housewife. Each Role comes with pre-selected packages of qualities, skills and gear (weapons, armor, augmentations) for your picking and choosing pleasure; each "tier" get more choices out of each package.
4. Skill Ratings = PR; you may use one choice to buy a Specialization out of a Skill Group.

A few examples, using the, *cough* examples above -

Roles -

Ganger
Attributes: B: PR +2 A: PR +2 R: PR +2 C: PR I: PR L: PR W: PR EDG: PR ESS: 6 INIT: R+1 CM: B
Qualities: Adept, Ambidextrous, Double Jointed, Guts, High Pain Tolerance, Home Ground, Lucky, Magician, Magic Resistance (surprise!), Mystic Adept, Photographic Memory, Quick Healer, Technomancer, Toughness, Will to Live
Skills: Athletics Group, Close Combat Group, Firearms Group, Influence Group, Stealth Group, Archdery, Exotic Melee / Ranged Weapon, Heavy Weapons, Throwing Weapons, Dodge, Pilot (X), Intimidation, Perception, Demolitions, First Aid, Survival
Gear - Grunt: Forearm snap-blade, knife, club, crossbow[light], Holdout, Taser, Light Pistol, Assault Rifle, Leather Jacket, Armor Clothing Lieutenant: As Grunt, plus: Katana, Heavy Pistol, Machine Pistol, Submachine Gun, Sport Rifle, Shotgun, Armor Vest, Armor Jacket, Sense & Bodyware Prime Runner: Anything not covered by Lieutenant.

DA SQUID Member, Human Ganger PR 1
Attributes: B: 3 A: 3 R: 3 C: 1 I: 3 L: 3 W: 3 EDG: 3 ESS: 6 INIT: 6, IP 1 CM: 9
Qualities: None
Skills: Close Combat (Knives +2), Intimidation, Dodge, Perception
Gear: Knife (2P), Armor Clothing (4/0)
Attack Pools: Unarmed 6, 1S, Knife 8, 2P
Defense Pools: Melee 6, Ranged 3, Full Defense 6

We can also establish a Minion - or Scum (to stay more Shadowrun focused) role for Shadowrun this way - Professional Rating is Attributes, modified racially, skills are all PR x 2, and one or two choices in a special "Scum" package, and 1-3 successes on an attack roll knock them outta the fight.

This is the idea I'm leaning towards, but packages may take awhile to write.

(This also gave me the thought that skills and skill groups need to be looked at; I was working last night and bonked my head against the fact that Intimidation isn't in the Influence Group; wtf?)

Thoughts / Concerns / Questions / Praise / Hatemail?

To balance NPCs against PCs, BP and Karma don't really factor. What I'm concerned about is dice pools. In my opinion, you really need to know the dice pools of the characters at your table.

Personally, to cook up NPCs, I use Chummer looking at the "Game Master Summary" version of the printout. I'll often cut and past that into a Open Office doc to get multiple types per page (grunts and officers on one page for example).

What I'm looking at is equipment and rating so I can see what tools they have and what dice pools they're using.

Note that Chummer also handles Critters.