by gentleman john » Fri Nov 01, 2013 3:03 pm
I sympathise with you. I too have had players take an interest in the most obscure characters for reasons that are entirely incomprehensible to me. What? You want to know about the background of the potboy? Really?
So - how detailed do I make my settlements? In any game system, I really only concentrate on developing the major NPCs. After all, they are the ones that most of the action is going to be concentrating on. However, I have learned my lesson, and I always have a list of "random" NPCs handy. The list just consists of a number of names and interesting traits. That's it. If the players ask after a random NPC, I just give them a name off the list and a trait for them to interact with.
There is another part to this - remembering what happened! When players come back to the same location, they do go after their "pet" NPCs. So, I make a habit of noting down my random NPCs in my little black book campaign logs.
Maybe, after time, I develop these NPCs, but only if the circumstances demand it. After all, not every kitchen hand wants to be an adventurer.
Addressing your specific point about MF - don't bother giving the NPCs any special powers unless it is part of their species. Really. If you've got a family of badders running the local octochicken franchise, then they have standard badder abilities. If you just have a load of random mutants, then they look like mutants but their powers aren't really all that good. Maybe they can levitate a pound of metal, or they have spines. Maybe they have their face in their stomach. Maybe they're just plain deformed. It makes the PCs and the major NPCs that bit more special, but doesn't detract from the setting.
I must admit, my views on this are influenced by mutants in Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog. Yes, some mutants do have interesting abilities, but these are the ones the adventure centres around. The rest are just "eye candy", so to speak.
Of course, YMMV.