Not everybody likes to roll buckets of dice for the bad guys that threaten the PCs. Here are a couple of options to make various threats more "GM friendly".

A) Cheat. Hey, players don't know what you got! Sometimes I just roll 15 or 20 dice for a group of dudes and assign sets I get to different people. They're more likely to succeed, but as long as I split up the 4x10s, it usually isn't a big deal. Or I just give Random Bad Guy A a 2x5 and call it a day.

B) Use the mook rules. This is like cheating, but the book approves. WT and Reign both have rules for handling crowds of faceless baddies, and both systems work pretty well.

C) Abstract the threat. Bailywolf recommended this one time, and you can do similar things. For example, instead of fully statting out an NPC and rolling all his dice, pretend like he's actually just 10 wound boxes in one hit location, with a few dice pools he uses: Hit People, Shoot Lasers, Avoid Damage.

Bailywolf's method is to just set a Difficulty number to actually hit the guy (So he always gets a set of 2xDiff.) and if the player's don't hit him, roll a couple of dice as an Area attack on the player. Bailywolf's combat hack is treating nameless foes and general menaces as a difficulty number, and if the players fail in their roll against it the GM throws a certain number of dice which are treated like area dice (reading them as 1 point of damage to the location shown on the die). It is possible for the players to throw these dice themselves so the GM can sit back, hands empty of filthy polies.

Threats are written in shorthand like 8/3L/6 - difficulty 8, 3 damage dice (doing lethal damage), and a total of 6 width needed to overcome the menace. It could be a swamp full of crocodiles, a bunch of punks with chains and knives and those skinny little 80's sunglasses, a burning building, or a the spectral minions of the villain Sam Eddy.

An added wrinkle to the abstract threat is a success which doesn't beat the threat's Diff. In that case, the players picks whether he wants to avoid the damage dice OR work towards removing the threat.

For example, a 6/4dS/L+2Pen/10 menace representing a... lets say a bunch of giant cockroaches driving a huge gun-laden Mad-Max bulldozer. It can inflict 4 area dice of damage (1 shock and killing to the location shown per die) with 2 penetration (getting squished by a roach-dozer sucks even in armor).You need a Height of 6+ on your action to both avoid the threat and mediate it somewhat. But any match will let you pick one or the other.

You need a total of 10 Width to defeat the threat this thing poses - and this threat can encompass a whole lot. The GM describes it to include the innocent civilians caught in the street with the roach-dozer attacks. In a sense it's a way to pace the encounter, and a measure of 'toughness' of the threat. It's intended to encourage players to use their abilities creatively. |

Lets say you're going to use your super-speed powers to zoom in and drag the civilians to safety, and you've got 7d+1wd in this ability. You throw them, and because it's one of those nights, you get 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Woo- that's a 4x1 when you add in you're wiggle die! Boo- that's way under the roach-dozer's difficulty.

Now, speedypants, you have to make a choice.... save the civilians (and knock 4 off the required Width) and suffer 4d of damage, or evade the damage but leave the civilians to continue being squished and gunned down by angry insects.

D) Random generators or the phone book. A big list of 10d10 rolls works great, just read dice from left to right until you reach the guy's pool size. This works in any game, but I find it particularly good due the whole One Roll thing. In, say, Exatled, I'd need 3 lines per person: initiative, hit, damage. With ORE, it's just one set of dice per guy. I pick out the sets and I know what all my NPCs are up to.