Your fourth paragraph hits the nail right on the head, but I think we both need to remember Tim’s target readership here are inexpereinced GM’s who need more detail provided up front becasue they don’t yet have the ability to fill in the missing bits as fast as players can call for them during a session.

I certainly accept your point that the relevant equipment should be defined. In this particular case this is the weapons and armour, but such will not always be the case.

The skill in Kandar Religious Lore is implied by the class, but need not be defined – unless part of the point is that it is a lot lower than one might expect. For example, the character might well be a religious fundamentalist who has a rather limited understanding of the religion.

Under these circumstances it would be useful to define a skill below “good”, but this is an excepetion because it is relevant to the character. One can have lot’s of fun with characters who believe their skill in something is far higher than it really is, but they have to have a little skill in it because they have to get things right just enough to justify the self-delusion.

Skill-wise, I wouldn’t list anything that’s below Good… those aren’t important to who the character is, either. Likewise any skill that’s just flavor and won’t enter into the story (Kandar Religious Lore, might fit this category).

One of the things I’ve been thinking about this this traditional format where the piece I think is the most important, the prose description, comes _last_.

To me, an NPC description should get to the heart of who the character is, and thus _his role in the story_, very quickly. The character stats should support that and not be the centerpiece of the character.

My own personal approach, even for the most major of NPCs, I could easily live with the book giving me nothing but a prose description and leave the details to me as the GM. If he’s a major NPC, I’m going to muck about with his character sheet to make it suit me anyway, and if he’s a minor NPC, he doesn’t need much of a character sheet anyway.

You need his weapons & equipment, how good he is at using them, his interactive skills (Strength, Dodge, Willpower, Perception, Endurance) and the “keys”.

The rest only need to be defined if they ever become relevant, which in all probability they won’t.