Looking for C&C on the linked
Dark Sun Gladiator Character Creator (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VJuZzQcbFwXP3jJ98P_M5Rl3uMctXvm4PA3IQbA3pn4/edit?usp=sharing); and the game concept accompanying it.
I've recently been inspired to run a Dark Sun campaign, based around the elaborate gladiatorial games of a city state. Players will begin as fledgling gladiators, pressed into the eponymous pits. Their first goal will be mere survival, but there will be plenty of drama and politics behind the scenes (from approaches by nobles with money riding on bouts, to plots by the Veiled alliance, to the ultimate potential for breaking out, being rescued by a patron, being "promoted" to Templar muscle, etc.).
To impress the merciless nature of the pits onto the players, I was thinking of running a "funnel" system for character generation. Players would roll on the generator above to create three characters. Then, over the campaign, those characters would be winnowed down; first very dramatically (with PC v PC fights); and then more slowly (with the focus shifting to PC v NPC beast or team contests).
To create a sense of permanence, impact, and a feeling that the only way to survive would be escape, you would never have more than your three starting characters.
If they died, they died, and if players lost all three, they'd be out of the game (though ofc I'd check in to tell them what happened to everyone else). Indeed, given I'd start with 6-8 people on Roll20, I'd probably want that to happen to 3-4 players during the first few weeks.
What do people think? Any suggestions for the character generator? Ideas for gladiatorial bouts? Thoughts on the campaign mechanics (they are intentionally very brutal, but hopefully not unreasonably so)?