Back-story is your friend

I had a great moment last weekend that, at least for me, proved the maxim that "A solid backstory is more useful than a million stats."

We only had two encounters:  One, a random encounter while journeying... and the dice (well, an online random encounter generator) selected... a young green dragon... I quickly decided his motive was simply hunger, quickly read his stats, and we're fighting... and I'm reviewing stats.... and we're fighting... and I'm looking over abilities... and we're fighting, and I'm trying to decide if my players creative solution might work... back and forth, back and forth.

The second encounter was the one I "planned."  And by planned, I mean I knew my players would be heading to talk to NPC-Z, to get information about Macguffin-X*... I wanted to use the lego bride minifigure, and I wanted an NPC that was probably friendly, but had a weird twist and could go badly for the players... I remembered another bride (Zack Smith's Hollow Bride), so I stole a lot of the idea from that, and decided that NPC-Z had been replaced by an interdimensional traveler who really really wanted to socialize and make friends, but who had a really nasty temper and would freak out and revert to her natural form (the hollow bride) if the players offended her.

The face of evil-ish.

So of course the rogue looked up her dress.  And got caught.  And couldn't bluff her way out of it.

Battle ensued.    

There were 7 creatures involved in this battle, and figuring out what they'd do and why, was about 100x easier than the "simple" dragon battle.  And in both situations I spent about 30 seconds looking over their stats, but in the latter, I knew why the monster was doing what she was doing, and that meant the stats were secondary to the story I wanted to tell, and I worked less.

So note for self:  Next random encounter, spend an extra minute and make up a quick backstory.

*The gang found an elvish wizard, he managed to open a planes gate between earth and fairy.  They managed to kill him and steal his tome, but they don't have the skills to understand it.  They took it to the NPC who explained she needed 3 other tomes to figure out how to close the gate (of course.)   I know, Troperific.