Normal Animals in Ghostbusters Contrarian, October 14, 1996June 13, 2025 Once in a while, a completely non-supernatural animal will wander into a Ghostbusters adventure. I’ve found the easiest way to handle an animal encounter is to treat the animal in question as just another non-player character, with four Traits and four Talents. This appendix explains my system for assigning Traits and Talents to animals, and includes several example animals. The System There are no hard-and-fast rules for converting real-world animals to Ghostbusters format. Most of the design issues are those common to animal/monster creation in any role-playing game. All I’m going to do here is give some advice on setting Trait scores and assigning Talents. After you’ve done it a couple of times yourself, creating animals won’t seem any harder than designing human extras. My most important piece of advice is: Remember that Ghostbusters is a comedy game! Your results don’t need to be as realistic as those Other Games™. As long as your animals make the correct impression on players, you’re doing fine. Brains Animals use their Brains to find food. They always have a Brains score of 1, but their Brains Talents usually involve locating/finding/detecting their natural prey, such as Locate Herbivore or Find Acorns. (Well, I suppose you could give the really smart animals, like chimpanzees or dolphins, a Brains score of 2. Keep in mind, though, that will make the chimps smarter than some of the human characters.) Cool Animals use their Cool score mostly to threaten other animals and/or resist such threats, but they don’t react well to other threats (like fire, guns, or ghosts), so their base score is low to medium (4 or less). Herbivores and/or young animals have a Cool score of 2 or less. Most animal Cool Talents improve Cool in specialized situations, like Fight When Cornered, Mating Dance, or Ignore Nature Photographer. Animals traditionally seen as very frightening (like wolves) can have more useful Talents like Howl, Growl, or Roar. Moves There’s no real limit on an animal’s Moves score; the faster and/or sneakier an animal is, the higher its score. Animals that face the old "two movement rates problem" should have a Moves score based on the slower travel rate, with a Talent (like Swim, Fly, Climb, and Brachiate) that improves the Moves score in situations where the animal is faster. Other animals probably have a Moves Talent involving Sneaking, Stalking, or Camouflage. (For those of you who don’t own both versions of the game, I should point out that Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters International disagreed about the relation between Moves and Cool, in that GBI considers social skills (like flirting, gossiping, and seduction) an aspect of Cool, while the original rules assigned them to Moves. I usually lean towards the GBI interpretation when designing NPCs. That’s why Mating Dance is a Cool Talent, not a Moves Talent.) Muscles This one’s a bit tricky (it’s one of those design issues I mentioned), so pay attention: because the Muscles trait (like strength scores in any game) affects combat and encumbrance, it actually subsumes two different ideas: lifting strength and attacking strength. Those numbers are always the same for any given player character, because the system is built around humans. Using the same scale for animals with non-humanoid anatomies can produce some absurdities, because (for example) wolves are pretty dangerous in a fight, but not very good pack animals. To roughly simulate this dichotomy in a Ghostbusters character, compare an animal’s lifting ability to its fighting ability, and base the Muscles score on whichever ability is lower. Then, give the animal a Talent that will push the score up as necessary. For example, Wolves have a Muscles score of only 2, but a Bite score of 5, while Horses might have Muscles 4, Carry Stuff 7. The Examples Here are quick write-ups for seven types of animals that might wander into a Ghostbusters adventure. They were chosen for B-movie Atmosphere and Urban Folklore Silliness. Ghostmasters who want detailed information about these creatures should consult an encyclopedia and/or The Weekly World News. In a related vein, I also used the guidelines given above to describe some non-ghostly beasts like Bigfoot and The Loch Ness Monster. Alligator An alligator’s natural habitat is, of course, the sewer. These reptiles can serve as an extra obstacle in a normal adventure (i.e., Ghost ducks into sewer, Ghostbusters chase ghost, alligator chases Ghostbusters), or a mini-adventure unto themselves (i.e., sewer workers are disappearing, the city mistakenly assumes supernatural causes, and hires the Ghostbusters). Brains 1 Find Sewer Worker 4 Cool 3 Ignore Sewer Odor 6 Moves 2 Swim Very Quietly 5 Muscles 3 Chomp Very Loudly 6 Goal: Eat Surface People Distinctive Mannerism: Avoids dry land Bat Bats live in caves and abandoned buildings. Vampires like to have a lot of bats around, and some other spooks call them up with the Summon Pests special ability. Brains 1 Find Roost 4 Cool 1 Ignore Spelunker 4 Moves 3 Sonar 6 Muscles 1 Fly 4 Goal: Hang Around Distinctive Mannerism: Gets tangled in peoples hair Big Cat, Alien Alien Big Cat (abbreviated ABC) is the Fortean term for any large carnivorous cat (lion, tiger, black panther, etc.) mysteriously found in the wrong part of the world. (Usually, ABCs are escaped exotic pets.) Ghostbusters investigating cattle mutilations might run into an ABC when they were expecting an entirely different sort of alien. Brains 1 Locate Herbivore 4 Cool 3 Ignore Naturalists 6 Moves 2 Stalk 5 Muscles 3 Bite 6 Goal: Kill the Weak and Infirm of the Herd Distinctive Mannerism: Takes a lot of naps Cow Cows are placid herbivores that don’t bother anybody or move very fast. This makes them obvious targets of all sorts of mischief, ranging from the abnormal (cow-tipping) to the paranormal (cattle mutilations). Brains 1 Avoid Electric Fencing 4 Cool 1 Ignore Danger 4 Moves 1 Ring Cowbell 4 Muscles 7 Produce Milk 10 Goal: Avoid Men With Cold Hands Distinctive Mannerism: Stands in one place chewing cud Pit Bull Terrier Pit Bulls are used by anti-social people to scare their neighbors, keep out prowlers, and kill door-to-door salesmen. Sooner or later, any Ghostbuster working in a large city will run into one. Brains 1 Detect Prowler 4 Cool 5 Bark 8 Moves 3 Sniff 6 Muscles 4 Bite 7 Goal: Maul Prowlers Distinctive Mannerism: Drools and froths Shark, Man-Eating Just in case the Ghostbusters ever visit the Bermuda Triangle, eh? Brains 1 Locate Swimmer 4 Cool 5 Chomp Power Line 8 Moves 1 Sneak Underwater 4 Muscles 7 Swim 10 Goal: Close Beaches Distinctive Mannerism: Only kills people in bathing suits Wolf Now come on, if every wolf your PCs meet is a lycanthrope, they’ll just start shooting every canine they meet, won’t they? You need the occasional normal wolf just to keep them guessing. Brains 1 Locate Herbivore 4 Cool 3 Howl At The Moon 6 Moves 2 Stalk 5 Muscles 2 Bite 5 Goal: Become Alpha Male Distinctive Mannerism: Howls off camera Ghostbusters RPG
Unholy Toledo: NPCs for Ghostbusters October 24, 1996June 13, 2025 Some example Midwestern NPCs for the Ghostbusters RPG. Read More
Ghostbusters RPG Cryptids in the Ghostbusters RPG August 28, 1998June 13, 2025 Advice for adding non-ghostly cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster to the Ghostbusters RPG Read More
Unholy Toledo: Ghosts for the Ghostbusters RPG August 5, 1995June 8, 2025 Want my advice on making simple but interesting "zap and trap" adventures? Start with the location and design the ghost to match. Like the librarian ghost in Ghostbusters, most of my ghosts are designed to match specific settings, such as movie theaters or jazz clubs. (In fact, many descriptions specify… Read More