Creating Stat Sheets for your SPCs - When, Why, How

I am on record as to saying that Storyteller's should not stat all their SPCs, including very important SPCs. I talk in my article about Populating a City about how many stat blocks a Storyteller would have to come up with. I think that's a lot of busy work that will largely never come up, a lot of wasted time that could be better used creating interesting relationships, plots, personalities, twists, and problems for your players. But I still like rolling dice! So let's talk about what I do instead.

This is a frustrating article to write. I am certain I had better resources than this, but I think that the system I use is a weird amalgam of the official books, Reddit advice threads, previous systems, and homebrew, and I haven't actually formalized it until this point. In particular, I'm going to shout out this thread on Reddit by u/CharsOwnRX-78-2 which catalyzed a lot of how I do this.

I first want to say that this method - and any method I use - will violate rules in character creation. I don't care. Character creation rules are for PLAYERS - the purpose, in my opinion, of a mechanical character creation method is to balance player characters within the Coterie. That is not your priority when creating antagonists. So I don't mind pulling pools out of a very simplified system.

To be clear - I'm not saying don't stat ANY SPCs. When you start rolling a lot for a given SPC (or when you know they will be actively opposing the PCs in a session), when they start being a key antagonist or very active ally, that's a great time to stat them. You rarely know who the players will focus on as their real rival or foe, or who will be their favourite. Do the work when you have to do the work and not before. My recommendation is, even then, to stat to the level of the simplified stat blocks, such as on page 370 (Antagonists) of the Vampire the Masquerade V5 Core Book, not to write up a full player character sheet.

But, by default, I use a quick statting system, that characterizes the SPC, and lets us build up something of a stat sheet for them without doing any work. We evolve the SPC as our needs for them change. Let's look in depth at the steps we'll take and I'll break this down into a nice, easy chart at the end of the article. There feels like lots of steps here, but using this I can choose a dice pool in real time, with no break in the game at all.

1. Classify this SPC

Ok, so we're rolling for this SPC that we didn't anticipate rolling a lot for and we need a dice pool. Who is this person? Let's rank their threat level, essentially by giving them a base dice pool for their normal activities. How good are they at most things in their day-to-day, whatever that looks like. Rank them from 1-5, with some examples for each:

1. Not a threat - average mortal, just some random person
2. A bit more - a newish ghoul; a trained, capable mortal
3. Average threat - a neonate Kindred; other baseline supernaturals; Hunters; and trained SI agents
4. High threat - ancillae; newer werewolves
5. Extreme threat - elders; experienced werewolves

How much of a danger do you want this person to be? What makes sense in the world and in the story?

Take their threat level and multiply by 2 - that's their base dice pool.

2. Choose tracker values

By default, Willpower and Health are both 5. We'll then tweak based on the character and threat level:

1. Consider reducing trackers by 1 total point
2. Likely should remain 5/5
3. Consider increasing trackers by 1 total point
4. Consider increasing trackers by 2 total points
5. Consider increasing trackers by 4 total points

3. Choose exceptional pools

Take their threat level and choose that many pools they are good at - and that half that many things they are bad at. Add 2 dice for a pool they they are good at, subtract 2 dice (minimum of 1) for a pool they are bad at. 

4. Special Powers

Some SPCs have special powers - Disciplines, Gifts, Spells, Rites, etc. If you're on the fly, grab a power that makes sense. Make the call - do they have Heightened Senses? Potence? Dominate? Just grab and go. I've got suggested ranges for number of total dots in the chart below, but when we're doing this off the cuff, we're only 'spending' the discipline dots that we need to right now. If their exact discipline spread is important, that means this isn't the tool for this situation and we need to at least get a simplified stat block built.

5. Vibe Check

Does this feel right? Feel free to add or subtract 1 dice to any pool. Or 1 point to any tracker. This also helps keep everything from being an even number - your players don't need to know you didn't stat this SPC, that they are doing something you haven't fully planned for.

6. Make a note

Write it down. I use Kumu for my Characters and Relationships, only going to a full sheet in Foundry when I fully stat. So I put down these decisions in my session log- threat level; trackers; exceptional pools (good and bad); powers; and specific pool decisions after the vibe checks. Then after the session I transfer over those notes into my Kumu character description. This helps me be consistent between sessions and to transfer those decisions over if I fully stat the SPC. 

7. Roll Those Dice

Rolling Dice is Fun! Let's roll that pool. On Foundry, I use the Special Dice Roller plugin, that let's me do V5 style dice rolls easily, including Hunger Dice.

Summary Chart

Threat Level	Base Dice Pool	Tracker Tweak	Exceptional Pools	Maximum Dots
1	2	-1 to 0	1 good, 1 bad	0
2	4	0	2 good, 1 bad	4
3	6	0 to 1	3 good, 1 bad	7
4	8	0 to 2	4 good, 2 bad	12
5	10	0 to 4	5 good, 2 bad	20

All Trackers start at 5 Willpower, 5 Health.

You can always increase or decrease any pool or tracker by 1 based on Vibes.

Don't forget to write down your decisions.

Kindred SPCs should have Hunger appropriate to the situation.