Thoughts on this?
How do folks feel about the type of game where generating a character is almost a mini-game that takes the entire first session?
They're a lot of fun for goofing around with the rulebook on your own. The mini-game can be a fun mini-game, and I am certainly not immune to the charms of working up a half-dozen characters that I'll never play. Sometimes it's more what I'm in the mood for than Bejeweled.
But I do sort of object when the game expects me to spend a lot of time in the presence of my friends but not really with them, because we're all heads-down like we're at the SATs, trying to work our way through our individual characters. That's just really not my idea of a fun social evening.
If I could somehow get the best of both worlds, I'd be all over that!
Right, I have reservations.
And for the record, I am tinkering with such a system right now.
On the one side, I think a system that lets you really know your character is useful, but Im thinking maybe I should back off from a full-blown lifepath.
You could do it like Lost, with the person's past getting filled in, life-path by life-path, in flashbacks.
Then you don't even have to have character advancement. It turns out they were that cool the whole time, and the audience is only privy to it now :D
A very common flaw is the 60 year old ubermensch syndrome that was common in Traveller. Generally I feel you need an atrophy system of some sort built into your life path system. Or at least automatic instead of random aging penalties.
Traveller is very nice in many ways, but without the risk of death in character generation there's really no reason not to reenlist.
My own Galaxies in Shadow has a life path system. I finally settled on skill caps that can be exceeded with learning experiences instead of atrophy as it was just too much book keeping. You can pretty much be an olympic athlete at 18 so as you get older all you can really do is broaden you skill set.
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckThoughts on this?
How do folks feel about the type of game where generating a character is almost a mini-game that takes the entire first session?
I used to be interested in the idea, than I hated it for a few years.
Now it's growing on me the last two years, although I haven't seen many games do it in a way that really connects with me. I think it's really cool, as long as you make sure there's a way to create interesting NPCs in a shorter amount of time. But for PCs? Yeah, this is great!
The only solution I've come up with for that kjind of thing is to have a one on one character creation hour or two with just myself/the GM and a player where we create the character and talk about character backstory. We usualy do this sometime in the week or two before the first game session.
That way we don't make the rest of the group wait while characters are being worked on.
The old TRAVELLER character lifepath thing was kind of fun, so was the similiar character creation mechanic in the old FASA StAr Trek RPG.
- E.W.C.
I'll try to contain myself and give a constructive response to the question.
Yes.
YES....
YES!!!!
Oh, "YES!!!
Ahh, YES YES YES!
YESSSSS!!!!!!!
Umm.... yes....
Thank you.
Quote from: David JohansenI finally settled on skill caps that can be exceeded with learning experiences instead of atrophy as it was just too much book keeping. You can pretty much be an olympic athlete at 18 so as you get older all you can really do is broaden you skill set.
GURPS 4e has an optional rule for skill maintenance (it's labeled "harshly realistic") that militates against the 60-year-old übermensch. Basically, skills you don't use degrade -- you can't stay at Delta Force-level sniper skill (for instance) unless you constantly practice, and high enough skill levels require so much practice that you don't have time for much of anything else, like acquiring new skills or for that matter doing anything social.
More games should have rules like that.
Quote from: balzacqGURPS 4e has an optional rule for skill maintenance (it's labeled "harshly realistic") that militates against the 60-year-old übermensch. Basically, skills you don't use degrade -- you can't stay at Delta Force-level sniper skill (for instance) unless you constantly practice, and high enough skill levels require so much practice that you don't have time for much of anything else, like acquiring new skills or for that matter doing anything social.
More games should have rules like that.
Actually, that's interesting. Back when I was tinkering with a game system of my own (and haven't we all) I was considering how to have a game where characters have extended - possibly indefinite - lifespans, based on genetic engineering. I had each century divided into blocks of about 25 years each, and as technology advanced, the characters had to spend points to learn "new" skills based on advancing tech, AND they had to spend points to maintain their OLD skills or they'd eventually forget them. Some of the examples I gave involved a PC that lived in an era of fusion technology but who spent the points to keep their auto mechanic skills sharp so they could maintain their really REALLY valuable 1990 Mustang. Or another - to be able to use and program computers from an era of C++ when the "modern" systems used direct mind-link. If you didn't spend the points to maintain those skills, you'd have negatives for each 25 year block that seperated your current time from the time the skill was cutting-edge, until you essentially forgot it.
Ever use the Central Casting books?
Those were pretty good, primarily for lifepath but tables in it were great for coming up with city streets and all sorts.
Quote from: GRIMEver use the Central Casting books?
Those were pretty good, primarily for lifepath but tables in it were great for coming up with city streets and all sorts.
I have, those books rock.
Initially I had a system where you received a certain number of life experiences, rolled randomly (not the experiences, how many you had) and I think that will probably be what I go for.
For a time I was playing around with a system where you just picked what you wanted and each took a certain number of years, with age penalties to all stats (not just physical) as you got older.
I think that might be a little much though.
An entire session generating characters? I've done that for Warhammer, and the party enjoyed it so much that they were asking other gamers at the pub to join us. :p
I can see it possibly being interesting. I dunno. I am mostly doing this non-d20 game as a mental exercise in between the gigs I count on to pay rent ;)
So work is sporadic at best, since the chances I crack open a doc and do some writing for fun after a day of writing for pay are slim and none ;)
Mostly it gets worked on when I have writer's block for something. But of course, once you get going writing ANYTHING, the gate's open (for me anyway) so then I can go back to working on what I should be working on.
Chuck
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckI have, those books rock.
For a time I was playing around with a system where you just picked what you wanted and each took a certain number of years, with age penalties to all stats (not just physical) as you got older.
I think that might be a little much though.
I've been toying with the idea of putting something similar out, just a little less whacky.
The way I was going to do it in Galaxies in Shadow, was that skills started at half their base characteristic, you got 30 points per year, any points you put into a skill over it's base characteristic were lost over the course of the year. You could also raise your skills by putting in points, but they'd always be lost over the course of the year.
It's simple, elegant even, right up until you're knee deep in trying to track the loss of points to skills from characteristic decline.
Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckI have, those books rock.
Initially I had a system where you received a certain number of life experiences, rolled randomly (not the experiences, how many you had) and I think that will probably be what I go for.
For a time I was playing around with a system where you just picked what you wanted and each took a certain number of years, with age penalties to all stats (not just physical) as you got older.
I think that might be a little much though.
That's the StarCluster Chargen system in a nutshell. It also allowed me to drop XP, so characters used the same system to advance after Chargen. It also allows neat stuff like flashbacks with appropriate skills, or skip a few years between adventures, with the characters aging appropriately.
-clash
Yes please. R. Talsorian, Burning Wheel/Empires, Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne & Adventures in Glory chargen), Traveller, all good sparks for characters I'd not normally come up with on my own. And as was pointed out in a previous random chart thread also good at depicting a setting.
Haven't fully gotten through Starcluster 2 type chargen yet but it's on the to do list.
I love a good lifepath. Even the one-roll character generators being whipped up for ORE games do it for me, but Talsorian's CP2020 remains my favorite in-system lifepath. Who could forget rolling up a character who spent six years making enemies, then befriended a young orphan girl in the CZ?
"I'm a people person!
....who drinks."
I like lifepaths. In point-buy character generation systems, whether crunchy beasts like GURPS 4 and Hero, or medium ones like d6, or even light ones like d4-d4, you often find yourself staring at a blank page and... end up making a pretty bland character, a skill from here, a skill from there, some disadvantage you got for the points but which you don't know how it fits in with this other advantage, and...
If you have a clear idea of what sort of character you'd like to play, then lifepaths suck. If you don't have a clear idea, then they're great! There are only three problems with them, and these are easily fixed,
- Player has a clear idea of what sort of character they want - solved by letting them pick each step, instead of rolling for it.
- Player doesn't have a clear idea of their character, but know what they don't like, and get this roll they hate - just let them pick one or two steps.
- 60 year old ubermensch - two solutions which are good, first is simply to have all lifepaths end at 18 or 30 or whatever, second is a random roll which stops it, "you are given a medical discharge out of the service."
Quote from: GRIMEver use the Central Casting books?
Yes. As a player I can't seem to come up with interesting characters.
Central Casting does the job for me, pretty well.
Regards,
David R
I don't like Lifepaths because I don't like the idea of developing the character before I start. I want all the development to happen during the game.
Quote from: Abyssal MawI don't like Lifepaths because I don't like the idea of developing the character before I start. I want all the development to happen during the game.
This is certainly reasonable, and I think BW and Traveller are the only times I've seen them not be optional in a game; I've certainly run with CP2020 characters with no lifepath just fine; they happen to have lived an unremarkable life until now.
I would counterpoint, however, that some of us don't like the idea of a character springing into the world fully-formed at the start of the first adventure like Athena, and thus enjoy lifepaths.
QuoteI would counterpoint, however, that some of us don't like the idea of a character springing into the world fully-formed at the start of the first adventure like Athena, and thus enjoy lifepaths.
I'm saying I don't like the character to be springing into the world fully-formed at the start of the first adventure like Athena,
either. That's essentially what a lifepath does.
I think it's important to have a name, and a basic idea of the character (some starting skills? maybe something like that) , but for all the real development to take place in the game. The game
is the lifepath.
In my campaigns we award people who write background stories with a little extra XP. But we don't allow the background story to be written until
after the character reaches 2nd level (which is at probably 2 sessions away the way I run things).