Asymmetric character complexity - cardboard cutout NPC stats

A lot of RPGs use the same complexity when describing NPC stats as they do PC stats. It's understandable - you spend a lot of time developing and polishing how PC-facing mechanics work, you write up a lot of cool powers and so on, so why wouldn't you use the same system for your NPCs? On the other hand, there is such a thing as information overload...

Godbound and simplified powers

In Godbound, the players control demigod PCs, complete with a suite of divine Words containing many Gifts. The PCs use these powers to up their damage output, do some cool stunts, synergies and what have you. By mid-game you can easily have 15 different Gifts bound to you and have access to some 15 more, taking a few pages of possible things you can do.

A page like this times three,

that's a rough approximation of the amount

of different things every Godbound PC can do

In contrast, NPCs can usually be described in one paragraph with a few key stats:

Typical Godbound NPC

Some more important NPCs also have access to a handful of divine miracles, but those are usually more limited.

To balance the challenge between PCs having access to a lot of powers and NPCs being a lot more simple, the game just gives the NPCs higher stats. While a PC might use a gift to get low AC, a gift to do 1d10 damage, and another one to attack twice, an NPC just gets low AC, two attacks and a high damage instead. All of the complexity and word count that would normally go into a set of gifts get instead distilled into raw stats. This way the GM doesn't need to internalise 10 different powers, instead they can just hand-wave "this NPCs has powers to support their stats".

What this design approach does is it allows the GM to much quickly introduce new NPCs and throw challenges at the PCs without having to keep too many powers in their head and forgetting half of them.

Similarly, scaling encounters up into battling armies just means giving the enemies more HP and more attacks per round. This way you can introduce 10 or 1000 enemies at once just as easily and not have to worry about tracking individual stats and positions.

Fellowship and simple threats

Fellowship (and many other Powered by the Apocalypse games) follow similar philosophy, only they take it even further. While a player character might have a a few pages of moves they can do, five different stats to roll and a bag of equipment, the NPCs might not even roll, instead being very reactive with what they do.

A PC wizard

An NPC wizard

This can further reduce the complexity of any encounter. Bigger groups of enemies are also rather simple - they just gain one extra stat and one new mechanic.

And honestly, even with this level of simplicity, you can still have interesting encounters and give your enemies unique powers to challenge the players with.

Conclusions

Complexity can be a fun thing, but it can also be a burden. It's fun to have options as a PC to what you can do, so you do want extra complexity on that side of the table. However, if you are a GM and you have to juggle many NPCs and enemies at once, you ideally want something simpler instead so you don't get lost. This way everyone around the table generally operates at a similar information load - players can keep a lot of intricate details about their PCs on their sheets and in their heads, and the GM can instead commit to managing a number of NPCs by themselves. Expecting one person to potentially deal with the same information load as 5 other people can be daunting.