Just curious - what do SGs think about creating NPCs who have more or less than the 7 points for Characteristics and not using the same rules for Virtues and Flaws as PCs, i.e. equal amounts of points should be spent on each, no more than one Story Flaw and only two Personality Flaws, etc?
A huge number of my NPCs barely even have character sheet, to be honest. Most end up as a series of personality traits and specialties. I think there's little reason to bind NPCs with the same limitations as PCs, especially because of how little virtues and flaws really matter to NPCs. I just make sure they have noted advantages the players can access if they become allies and flaws to exploit if they become enemies.
NPCs using standard advancement can't even use the popular/powerful xp-boosting virtues such as Book Learner or Apt Student. Story flaws basically don't matter unless the NPC is very closely working with the saga's plots.
I mostly write full, legally advanced character sheets for major NPCs, and Quick NPC Templates for minor ones. But I am sparing with Personality and Story flaws for them, so many NPCs don't have a full 10 points of Virtues or Flaws. (Then again, most of the PCs I build stop short of 10 points too.)
And there is one way that I deviate a little from PC generation when I stat NPCs: I only use story flaws for NPCs where those flaws will specifically work as hooks or leverage in their interactions with PCs.
For example, a Jerbiton with an Oath of Fealty is vulnerable to tribunal accusations of Interference or court wizardry, and might come to the PCs for help because mundane politics constrain them from personally doing something they want done.
Or, two magi with each other as Enemies will require the PCs to either choose sides between them, or reconcile them somehow - they can't expect good relations with both.
That is, the Flaws will actually pull them into creating particular stories for the PCs. The NPC's story isn't important, so an aspect of their story that won't strongly inform their interactions with the PCs in particular, is not worth a Flaw. E.g. the relationship between an NPC and their Mentor isn't relevant to the PCs, so I won't give Mentor to an NPC.
The vast vast majority of my NPCs have a name.
They're lucky if they have stats.
If they're "legal characters" its because I'm re-using an old character concept that I've had to accept I'll never get to play. :-/
I know what you mean... sometimes though, dealing with important NPCs involves rolling dice so for those situations I like to have the stats handy.
I constantly reskin (ie: just change description and name) existing NPCs, from corerule book and any published material, as well as any NPCs that I had to create because the reskinning was not enough. For most mundane characters, reskinning is more than enough.
For entities with supernatural powers, this is were it takes more work, but here again, I would just reskin spells - even if it does not exactly match the Realm power rules, the ballpark of the effect will be correct. For example, you need a demon that blast tendrils of shadow, just use arc of fiery ribbons. That's how I save time instead of spending hours generating power from scratch.
I agree that the stats are handy, but for my own sanity and ease, I usually come up with the numbers when appropriate, and then write it down for next time it comes up.
I do the same - I agree there's no need to go through the whole character creation process when there's a perfectly suitable set of NPC stats in a book somewhere that might just need a little tweaking.
rarely do my NPCs make it past me writing down a name.