I want to stat up a few NPCs for my game using the stat blocks similar to the ones used for the creatures in the Loremaster Book. My question is, for good NPCs would you Hope instead of Hate?

For NPC protagonists, I stat them up as characters - using the character skills. I'll specialise the NPC according to what they do. For hope, I tend not to give NPCs a huge amount. This, in my mind, is what distinguishes the heroes from the normal folk. The NPCs stay at home and accept the status-quo. The heroes feel the need to go out and change their state - depending on their calling/drive.

With the bad-guys, I stat them up using the adversary stats in the LM guide.

I tend to stat them up like characters but I might give them maybe 3 to 4 less hope then a hero would.Since in my mind Adventurers fighting the shadow are doing so year around not just when the shadow attacks a .

Thanks for the answers. So Hope isn't exclusively the domain of PC heroes, at least game mechanics wise?

In my Opinion it is not because you see this in the books when you have soldiers of Gondor make a last stand in front of Mordor,probably needed some hope that they would survive the battle.

In Tales from Wilderland, stat blocks are based on the same layout as foes for the 'First Captain of Dale, a Beorning hero and some regular soldiers of Dale. These characters have 3, 4 and 2 Hope points respectively.
They also have abilities which are variants on the Shadow Abilities but powered, instead, by hope.
Hope this helps

Thanks Halbarad, I should've thought of looking at Tales from Wilderland for NPC stat blocks.

As the LM books has stats for various types of Orcs has anyone done any similar stats for various cultures or be willing to do so?

HN

Hoplitenomad,
Unless you're going to be engaging in active large-scale warfare, why would you need to create stats for cultures?

Most NPCs are going to be narrative elements that do not engage in combat and therefore don't need to be written-up. If you do need something equivalent, you're likely going to use a "one size fits all" approach, with generic archetypes and maybe a table of mods to reflect different cultures (very much like MERP's racial modifiers to stats and skills). I would imagine accounting for those cultural mods would likely become annoying to most LM's and frequently ignored in such a simple game system.

Perhaps I'm missing the point?

For example I am just curious as how a typical Orc Soldier might stack up to a typical Elf Warden of Mirkwood, or a Dwarven slayer. In running "Of Leaves and Stewed Hobbit" the battle plans as listed in the adventure couldn't be used due to my player's actions and the NPCs had expanded roles plus an additional NPC not in the book. So, I used the thug's from " Don't Leave the Path" for the Breelanders, and stats from former PCs for Iwagr and the additional NPC I added.

A) I just like comparing stats
B ) Having examples in one place for comparisons would be nice, at least for me, so I have options for gauging, and modifying encounters.

I personally wouldn't stat these out, I'd go for story flavor.

Running a game like D&D 3.5, it's all mechanistic where stat blocks rules and monster X compares to attack pattern Y, yield ing XP Z.

To me, One Ring is not that kind of game.

Even though a combat is a contest of Endurance and Wounds, and the chance of death is there, One Ring to me is not supposed to be "Combat as Drama."

If it was a modern day setting, and I want to have a NPC hit by a truck for the story, I'm not gonna stat out the giant truck, or figure truck vs. car vs. motorcycle.

I don't try to balance encounters. If the good guys are attacked by a larger force, but somehow outwit or out-tactic them, I don't send in bad guy reinforcements to Make it a tougher challenge.

The fact that they were able to beat that many foes shows their competence.

I agree with your post generally. I am just curious as to how certain npc protagonists would stat out as there are many adversaries stated out. It is not about sending extras if the big bad villian is thwarted, or stating cars, or even giving out xp. I would just like to compare a Barding captain to an Orc soldier statwise as an example.

Right. But to me, it's all fictional, and falls into Star Destroyer vs. Starship Enterprise. or BattleTech 'Mecha vs M-1 Tank.

I've gotten dragged into die-hard discussions of Who Wins, like that TV show where they got Navy SEAL fights Roman Gladiator - Who wins?

The Story whould win. If that requires a certain NPC to have certain stats, well, an enemy that never hits from bad luck, stats might asd well be zero. Likewise a bad luck player vs. weak but lucky low level bad guy is or can be.. hurting.

We've all seen that. I'm not detracting from your desire to toss around the different variables...

To me, I'd rather call it, Variable, unpredictable; "Best guess, Mr. Sulu."

Some years ago, I got a ahole of Last Unicorn Star Trek Spacedock. It's a book to stat out Cruisers and Battleships and such for that RPG.

I quickly saw, and had this epiphany.. all of this is made up, so...make it up. If the defense needs to be X to almost but not quite resist playwr attacks, make it X, force them to burn points to make it a critical hit.

Kind of like the way top down and bottom up campaign planning do the same thing, different way.

The obverse of what I am saying seems to be.. "Look at the numbers and see how those allow me to balance encounters, which results in story, determined by (at least somewhat) the mechanical interation of those numbers, elements and rules."

Something like that. I'm more fluffy, and prefer the story-like elements, over the mechanical. I GM more wargamie style things, like Battletech that way. Books and books of units to select.

Finally, it occurs to me that J.R.R. Tolkien is long gone, and so, we'll never accurately know. So, I resort to.. best guess for the story.

hoplitenomad, if you pick up and/or take a look through the Laketown supplement that comes with the LM screen you'll see that Francesco has detailed numerous categories of NPCs as part of each district or point of interest within Esgaroth. Rather than create individual NPCs, he's largely focussed on 'cultural types' (eg, elf archers, guards, etc), so from this I think you'd be able to use them directly for many of your purposes or extrapolate from, as a good 'starter for 10'.

I think I'll need to read that supplement at least a dozen times. It's packed with useful information.

Perhaps I erred by posting " gauging and modifying encounters." My interest in many ways divorced from the narrative or mechanics of the game. I simply like making comparisons. I spent much time pouring over MERP's people of Middle Earth looking at how certain characters where statted up and comparing to other's who were and I never even played MERP. I would reflect on if I agreed or disagreed because I enjoyed. Because there are many stats for adversaries, I would simply enjoy seeing stats for some standard protagonists. I could use or discard what I wanted in the narrative if I choose to use them. It would be a gauge of my perception vs other to see how others thought. Even if I never gamed TOR, if there a stat like there was for MERP I would be happy as a Hobbit with pipe weed.

I am simply a statophile.

To Rich H.

You posted as I was typing. Thanks for the info. My copy is on the way and you have just made my day!

That's quite alright. There are numerous stat-blocks in there so I think you'll get a lot of mileage out of them.