Line #18 Mooks/TabletopRPG


1	* ''TabletopGame/SeventhSea'' divides antagonists into three categories: Villains, Henchmen, and Brutes. Brutes are transparently Mooks: their purposes are to buff a villain or henchman, and to provide the heroes with easy victories (players are encouraged to come up with creative ways to knock down two or more brutes at a time). Since in ''Seventh Sea'', it is assumed that no character is killed unless someone ''specifically states'' that they're doing so.
2	* ''TabletopGame/CartoonActionHour'': Justified, as the game is a kiss-up to 1980s cartoons. They call them "Goons", which are just an unarmed, armed weapon or ranged weapon check which is either up to the Player or the GameMaster.
3	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
4	** 3.5 had the Warrior NPC class, which is pretty explicitly meant to represent this: the class has okay hit points, the ability to use weapons and armor, an attack bonus, and that's it. No unique skills, no special training, just the ability to swing a sword without hitting themselves. Consequently, the class is designed for characters who are either mooks for the bad guys or {{Red Shirt}}s for the good guys -- random thugs, guards, footsoldiers, or police, who don't have any reason to be particularly trained or experienced. Nine times out of ten in a ''Monster Manual'', if a race is given a "generic soldier" statline, they're a 1st-level Warrior.
5	** 4th edition has "minions", a category of monster that explicitly serves purely to fill out the ranks in encounters. They have exactly one hit point each (though they never take damage from missed attacks, even those that would normally do half damage otherwise -- you do actually have to hit a minion to knock it out of the fight), attacks that deal fairly low fixed damage, and simply much less detail in general than their fully fleshed out counterparts because they're ''meant'' to go down easily and aren't worth the effort; XP-wise and for encounter planning purposes, a single regular monster is considered the equivalent of ''four'' of them. (It's worth noting that some monsters come in both regular and minion flavor, depending on the level of party expected to encounter them and general role.) In earlier and subsequent editions, the traditional "mook" niche would often be filled by low-level monsters, which mid- to high-level characters could pretty easily kill in large numbers without worrying overmuch about getting seriously hurt in turn.
6	* ''TabletopGame/FantasyCraft'' has two kinds of characters, Standard and Special. Standard characters are the normal enemies, but they can be given the quality "mook" which makes them instantly fail their save against damage and die.
7	* ''TabletopGame/FengShui'', the "Action Movie Roleplaying Game", divides foes into two categories: Mooks and [[NominalImportance Named Villains]]. Villains with a name are built from the same archetypes as player characters and get all the benefits the players do -- [[HitPoints Wound Points]], deadly skills and feats, the works. Mooks get the ability to attack poorly, and are out of the fight when someone hits them with an attack whose Outcome after subtracting the mook's attack skill from the action result is five or more, and the player can choose whether or not they're either knocked out or dead. Unarmed fighters usually prefer knocking mooks out, though those with deadlier weapons will often go for killshots. One of the schticks available to Feng Shui players is a Gun Schtick called 'Carnival of Carnage.' It has four levels, the first two of which reduce a gunslinger's shot (action point) cost when attacking mooks, and the second two of which reduce the Outcome needed to take them down. Meaning a character with 4 schticks in it, can easily take down three lots of four mooks, in the same time another character takes one swing/sword strike/table flip/hail of bullets at a named opponent.
8	* Creator/GamesWorkshop games:
9	** While they have no specific mechanics for it, the rulebooks and scenarios for ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'' and ''TabletopGame/DarkHeresy'' usually contain "minion" characters with no names, subpar stats (they will usually never stand up to a PlayerCharacter overall, and their best scores are average by PC standards) and have less than 10 wounds, which allows all but the most unfortunate attacks to instantly splatter them. They also die the moment they take a CriticalHit, where player characters and named foes (usually) take at least one or two penalties called "critical damage" before croaking, giving the minions an on-average shorter lifetime of one to two rounds.
10	** ''TabletopGame/{{Deathwatch}}'': While in the other games players can both encounter enemies that are essentially mooks and can over the game acquire their own henchmen, it's at least encouraged to give everyone some character, story or uniqueness. As long as the players are human most enemies will still retain a certain level of threat, as the games are very deadly and even a single mook with an assault rifle can kill a player in some unlucky cases and needs to also be killed individually. Most mooks were still at least on the same base level, both beeing human. In Deathwatch however, the players are superhuman {{Space Marines}} in {{Powerarmour}}. Due to that an entire horde-mechanic was created to represent large mobs of mooks being formed into a singular entity with "mass" instead of wounds. Only by attacking as one have the hordes remote chances to damage the [=PCs=], while killing the mooks one by one would slow the game down. Instead of individual attacks on both sides, the horde just swarms over or drowns the Marines in barrages of fire, while said Marines tear through them in the dozens.
11	** ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'':
12	*** Gaunts are the most common foot-troops of the Tyranids. They're individually fairly weak, but their relative simplicity allows them to be manufactured quickly and in huge numbers and makes them easy to customize and modify. Consequently, Gaunts are deployed in vast hordes intended to overwhelm enemies through sheer attrition and to protect more valuable organisms, and come in a great variety of specialized subtypes tailored to numerous different environments and battlefield needs.
13	*** ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000KillTeam'' rules in the 4th Edition rulebook see the elite Kill-team go up against enemy Mooks known as Brute squads. These Brute squads consisted of a number of enemy rank-and-file troops who generally outnumber the Kill-team but were less competent in combat.
14	* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'': This is represented by the "Cannon Fodder" rule. Minor {{NPC}}s under its purview always fail attempts to dodge and are taken out automatically by any amount of damage.
15	* ''TabletopGame/HongKongActionTheatre'': Anyone of Minor importance is a mook. They can mow down characters of no importance, and take down a Moderate importance character, but against Major and Extreme importance characters, they tend to die in droves, particularly since explosions, which do not affect Major and Extreme importance characters, can take them out instantly.
16	* ''TabletopGame/MutantsAndMasterminds'' have 'minion' rules that make them easier for the heroes to drop in large numbers quickly. The rules make them very weak, including allowing the hero to "take 10" on the attack roll, making missing them unlikely, and the feat "Takedown Attack" allows you to drop unlimited Minions as long as they are within melee reach and each one falls in 1 hit. In theory, you could place the "Minion" template on pretty much any enemy, allowing for ConservationOfNinjutsu-type situations where the heroes battle a dozen villains at once.
17	* ''TabletopGame/PrincessTheHopeful'': Darkspawn are physically dangerous but grotesquely inhuman, and most have little more mind than an animal. Unless led by a [[EvilSorcerer Mnemosyne]] or [[MonsterLord Cataphract]], they are usually relatively simple for a Princess to defeat.
18	* ''TabletopGame/RocketAge'': These are the most common enemies. If you have a larger number of them the excess ones basically become set dressing, [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy firing widely]] and doing nothing useful.
19	* ''TabletopGame/SavageWorlds'': Any character with some degree of plot importance (even if it's just as a BossBattle or similar) is a Wild Card: they get Wound points, their own bennies (used to re-roll dice and soak damage), and generally better gear and Edges (feats). While all player characters are Wild Cards by default, enemy characters generally aren't.
20	* ''TabletopGame/UnknownArmies'' provides [=GMs=] with generic ''Goon'' stats; though in earlier stages of the game (given its intentionally weak combat skills) they can be quite dangerous when armed.
21	* Creator/WhiteWolf games, such as ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'', ''TabletopGame/{{Scion}}'' and ''Franchise/TheWorldOfDarkness'', use "extras" whose sole purpose is to be mowed down by the players. They have three health levels instead of seven, take greater wound penalties, and serve no purpose except to slow down the players (unless they're on the players' side, in which case they serve as cannon fodder/footsoldiers) and to show how impress the heroes and villains are.

Context Mooks / TabletopRPG