Editing Unwritten: System Reference Document/Running the Game (section)

====Nameless NPCs====

The majority of the NPCs in your campaign world are nameless—people who are so insignificant to the story that the PC’s interactions with them don’t even require them to learn a name. The random explorer they pass in the Cavern, the archivist at the library, the DRC minions running around. Their role in the story is temporary and fleeting—the PCs will probably encounter them once and never see them again. In fact, most of the time, you’ll them simply out of reflex when you describe an environment.

On their own, nameless NPCs usually aren’t meant to provide much of a challenge to the PCs. You use them like you use a low-difficulty skill roll, mainly as an opportunity to showcase the PCs’ competence. In conflicts, they serve as a distraction or a delay, forcing the PCs to work a little harder to get what they want.

For a nameless NPC, all you really need is two or three skills based on their role in the scene. Your average security guard might have Athletics and Notice, while your average clerk might only have Research. They never get more than one or two aspects, because they just aren’t important enough.

=====Nameless NPCs as Obstacles=====

The easiest way to handle nameless NPCs is simply to treat them as obstacles: Give a difficulty for the PC to overcome whatever threat the NPC presents, and just do it in one roll. You don’t even have to write anything down, just set a difficulty according to the guidelines in this chapter, and assume that the PC gets past on a successful roll.

If the situation is more complicated than that, make it a challenge instead. This trick is useful when you want a group of nameless NPCs more as a feature of the scene than as individuals.

=====NPC First, Name Later=====

Nameless NPCs don’t have to remain nameless. If the players decide to get to know that explorer or Restoration Engineer or whatever, go ahead and make a real person out of them—but that doesn’t mean that you need to make them any more mechanically complex. If you want to, of course, go ahead and promote them to a supporting NPC. But otherwise, simply giving that courtier a name and a motivation doesn’t mean he can’t go down in one punch.