Bethorm - making the first character

What a better way to get to know a rules set, and to get a feel for the book than to make a character! I took the dive, and Biyúnu hiViridáme was the result. Here are some thoughts that arose through the process.

There are eight different sections in chapter three, character generation.

1. Clan
2. Personal Info
3. Religion
4. Attributes
5. Personal Traits
6. Skills 
7. Defence Values
8. Contacts

I find it interesting that stats or attributes come first on the fourth step. So, first it starts with your clan. Anyone who knows even a little about Tekumel knows that its social structure is not like your pseudo medieval fantasy at all. The individual is not the central social unit, but the clan. Here is the first step wherein you have to start looking ahead in the book, and then go back again. You have a attribute called Prestige, and it's a sum of your clan influence, and your professional influence. But, you wont know the latter until much later in the procedure. To be fair, this is actually noted in the rules, that you will have to go back and forth a bit.

The step where you note down your personal information is where the prudes and close minded people who raged about D&D5 and its gender and race inclusiveness gets to go bananas. If you like you can roll on tables to get to know not only the biological sex, but also the gender identity and gender expression of your character. I'm almost disappointed the dice gave me such a middle of the road result.

Naturally the step about Religion will matter. Tekumel is, like Glorantha, not only a game where the gods are real, but religion affect all social interplay and interaction. This is my first stumbling block. To me, the gods of stability varies from staid and bland to slightly attractive and convincing in their outlook. Nothing really sticks out, and it feels like classic rpg pantheons. Then there's the gods of change, which varies from the grotesque to the repulsive. I have something of a hard time understanding why anyone would worship them. But, it's part of what makes Tekumel attractive, to make sense of its very different social mores. I also note that the author of Bethorm suggest most people are not all that ideologically engaged in their religion. Might make sense.

When we finally come to the stats it turns out there are not that many of them. Traits and Skills are also very unsurprising. It's a classic Advantage/Disadvantage system, and skills strongly based on their dependent stat. I did find the list of the former fewer than expected, and the latter more numerous than expected. By not focusing too strongly I managed to buy 7 skills.

Since Defences are bases on your skill rankings, it makes sense you calculate them after you have bought skills. But, I have a hard time figuring out exactly how it's supposed to work. Are your Melee Defense based on the lowest of those skills listen? An average? The highest? Dependant on what you use in a particular situation? This section could have been clearer.

Finally we have the most involved section, Contacts. Remember how I mentioned Prestige was something you had to go back and forth to calculate? Now you get to do it again, for every contact you buy and stat out. Sure, you can skip on the stat out part for them, but you need to figure out their clan, if they belong to a certain lineage and go all the way to the end of the book to find the listing of professional ranks. I think I managed to get the costs right on my three contacts. This probably is where a newcomer to Tekumel will stumble a bit. What kind of character do you want as a contact? Many different clans? All walks of life, or people who can help you professionally. The GM will have to guide their players a bit there I think.

After all that, Biyúnu hiViridáme the arrogant and hot headed merchant negotiator novice and worshipper of Hrü'ü was finished!

There are a few things in the character generation process I find interesting. The first thing you encounter is the clan. Before you even know a thing about your character you will decide what clan she belongs to. Then there's the Advantages/Disadvantages. I'm not sure I like them any more. Back when me and my friends generated characters for Ars Magica 2nd ed. we all thought it was great fun. One legged dwarfs, colourblind and with deadly enemies as well as humongous skill ratings gained from those odd ball flaws. Good times. But, there are some good hooks for role playing in there.

Finally, though, there are the contacts. It's interesting that those are not a Advantage you buy, but something everyone has. It kind of squares the circle doesn't it? You start with the social context, and end with the social context. If there's one thing character generation does, it is pointing the players in the direction for the playing of the game. This way it's emphasized that a lonely individual in Tekumel is an anomaly. If there's one thing I'm missing, that would be the "Fate fractal", where everything can be thought of as a character, with Aspects and Skills. Since that idea took root in my brain, any kind of social role playing makes me want to add stats and skills to organizations. Maybe it can be done within the confines of Bethorm, I have actually not thought that through until the end.

It was fun making a character! To exercise the system I will probably try to make a spell casting priest as well. But, that's all for now.

Savage Worlds - issues with character generation

I was just starting to listen to a podcast, and they were playing Savage Worlds. Ever since I first read the original 40k miniatures rules, I have thought it would make an excellent rpg. Now they have published some, but none of them seems to fulfill the promise that first book hinted at. But, I think Savage Worlds might be the game to do it. I downloaded the cast, and started listening.

Guess what? It sounds like these guys also have some issues with the dice size system for the attributes! They repeatedly ask what they start at, what the max is and how much they get for a point and what they start at. I'm not saying these guys are stupid, and I know for a fact that my players are not. But, oddly enough I hear see another set of players have problems grasping the ideas about the core abilities. In the comments for my last post, Jeff mentioned similar problems in his experience. Peculiar, I say.

Now, why is it so?

When I read the Savage Worlds rules, I thought many things were slightly queer. But, one of the things I found quite simple was how the die size system worked, and how you spent your 5/15 points on abilities and skills. Now I have had three pieces of evidence that what was clear to me it far from it. Is the idea of die sizes that strange? I remember seeing it back in the oddball game Tales from the Floating Vagabond. But, I only remember it rating the size of the guns. Maybe it was all abilities and skills. It was almost 20 years ago. I'm old. Maybe that's why I got it. I'm old and have seen dozens of game systems, and nothing surprises me anymore. Maybe.

While we wait for me to find something intelligent to say about our current Savage Worlds game, I felt like bringing some worthy cause some attention. Check out this blog about focusing on latent homophobia. Next time you make a character in a game, think about why it should be a straight, white guy. Just think about it.

See you later.

Thinking back on 7th Sea

I ran a short arc of a revenge story in AEG's 7th Sea a few years back. The idea of swashbuckling is seldom far from my gaming thoughts, and the game system had enough interesting knobs and dials for me to long to try it out.

When I had decided I wanted to run it, and had read the books, a new problem appeared. The game was set in an imaginary Europe with new names for everything, and magic to boot! I liked the idea of filing off the serial numbers. I remembered that Dave Arneson had thought that taking the adventure into fantasy was a great way to stop arguments about historical minutiae, that was not the problem. The magic on the other hand, was.

For some reason I wanted a regular world, with none of that "gamey stuff". I wanted exciting fencing and swinging in chandeliers, but no fireballs. I also decided to ditch the culture inspired by ancient Norse culture. Those are always corny when done by Americans.

Starting the game it also became clear that even though the game system had some really good ideas, for example the incentives to do dramatic stuff, it did have problems. One of the most glaring ones showed up already in character generation, where the sheer amount of knacks and skills made it take too long to whip up a character. I like that part of a game to be quick and breezy, which is why I fell out of love with GURPS.

Now this weekend when I saw the movie I posted about yesterday, I realized I had been wrong about the magic, though.

While my 7th Sea game was a success, the way that musketeer movie shoved in non-historical air-ships and steampunk features showed me the joy of mash-ups. I still think vikings through an American lens is just corny. But magic, swords, Napoleon, cthulhu, intrigue and lost treasures actually goes just fine together in the soup! One reason I liked the movie was those elements which were contra factual. Hey, what was it Dave had done again?

I'm thinking about revisiting 7th Sea, and this time I'm not going to take things out. I'm going to put more gonzo stuff in! There are still issues with the game system I will address, like a hack to limit the amount of skills you get. Maybe even eliminate the fact that there are skills and knacks. That was a bit fiddly. More of that will be posted here, shortly.

Character personality as crunch

I read a post on The Douchey DM, by Stu from Happy Jacks RPG Podcast. He posts on the topic of whether character personality chould be part of the game mechanics. I have on more than one occasion in both posts and blog comments mentioned how I by far prefer to randomly generate my characters and than designing them through, e.g., point by systems.
For me it works better by far to play the character and in play develop personality traits. When I don't, I find more often than not that I run out of ideas and the character becomes a one trick pony.

Now, what happens when the character personality and psychology is supported by game mechanics?

I think the crunch heavy game, where I get to game (so to speak) the personality, it works better for me. Even if I decide beforehand some character traits, I tend to get more out of them if I can use them as an excuse to roll dice. Maybe it's because most games have some kind of mechanic for those traits to change and develop. It kind of is a way to support my implied way of developing a character with a game system.

Interestingly enough, many new school game, like those from the Forge community, are not only quite crunch heavy but also quite "in your face" when it comes to supporting the psychology and personality of the character and its relationships with game mechanics.

Thus, we have three groups of games.

1. the old school game where there's not much game mechanical support for anything but combat.
2. the 2nd generation game where the designers left the random tables behind and you "can build anything". Premier examples are GURPS and Hero.
3. the new school game with few rules, but they often focus on the character personalities and interpersonal activities.

What I find interesting is how this is also something of a chronological series. Really new games and old ones have interesting similarities for supporting a style of play where you "game the personalities of your character. One game by leaving you to your own devices, and the other by focusing the rules on that thing.

For me this explains why I find some games so fascinating, but still can't make them work for me. This is also why I do things like this, where I try to merge the qualities I like most from games of different eras and generations. The true test of skills would of course be to find a way to hack GURPS to be what I want.

T&T hacks - Over The Edge

 Since Over The Edge showed up in 1992, designers Jonathan Tweet and Robin D Laws have designed more games, and all are very much talked about. I don't know if it started with OTE, but it has been a very influential design. Let's take a look at why.

The setting of the game is very surreal. It's a game where every oddball tabloid conspiracy is out there, fighting over reality. It makes my head spin every time I read it. It is also the only have I have played where That Guy(tm), don't even stand out, he is just like the rest. Yes, it's that odd. But, I don't think it's why the game is so highly regarded, it's the rules.

To make a character, you pick one defining trait, a few supporting ones and assign them some dice. Easy enough, eh? The really interesting thing is that those traits are not picked from a list, or even limited very much at all. Basically, you can take any descriptive phrase at all, and make it your defining ability. In one game I made a character that had the trait Playboy. I used it for seducing, gambling, shopping and intelligence gathering. On the other hand, you could make it quite narrow, and then you get some more dice to assign to it. More dice are good when you roll them, add and try to beat a target number. But, I guess you see how that is the least exiting part of this. No two characters will look alike, and you have lot of freedom to define the characteristics of your character. Now let's see how we can take this system and put it into the guts of T&T.

In this hack, you have one trait called the Expert trait. This defines what your character is all about. Write down whatever you feel define your character, and roll 2d6+6 for that trait. Now, write down two more Good traits. These are the abilities that you feel gives you some breadth and is important, but not as defining. Roll 4d6 and pick any three for both those traits. Lastly, everyone has a Flaw, the ability that always gets you into troubles. Roll 2d6 for that trait. For any other trait you feel you need, roll 3d6.

Now, in order to be able to use as much as possible of the standard T&T rules we need to think of combat adds, combat hits and magic. Designate one of these traits as your Health trait. It can be your Flaw or your Expert trait. This is going to work just like CON usually does in T&T. You also need to define three traits that is level defining, and contribute to combat adds. Pick any three. Lastly, pick your Mystic trait, which works like INT and WIZ does in T&T.

Got that? Let's summarize.

The traits

• One Expert trait - 2d6+6
• Two Good traits - 4d6, pick any three
• Flaw - 2d6
• Other traits - 3d6

Their usage

• one Health trait - works like CON
• three combat and level traits - works like STR,DX,SPD and LK in T&T
• one Mystic trait - works like a combination of INT and WIZ

This replace the regular T&T character generation, but after that you play as usual, with SR on the traits in place of stats, and roll weapon dice plus adds just like usual in combat.

Since this is very different from the usual fare, expect the games you play be very different. Tweak those numbers a bit and roll some different dice, but keep the distinction of one one trait higher than the rest, two above average and one sub par.

D&D character generation. Return of an old... friend?

So, tonight I made my first new D&D character in a while! Some friends of a friend have been playing in a campaign for the last five or six years, and now they had an opening. Never being one to pass an opportunity to play, I jumped at it.

Have you made a character in 3rd ed. D&D recently? I can tell you I haven't. I bought the book when they were new, never got on the revised bandwaggon, and ran a campaign for some years. I don't even remember how long time it was! Five years? Three?

I at once felt how some things in that game didn't make sense, already at the character generation step. Many skills are kind of wonky, and the cross class system is clunky. Also, the feat tree is something of a mess. The fact that I got to generate a level 8 character to be on par with the rest of the party might have made it fiddlier than usual, though.

Tinkerer as I am, I started thinking how you could streamline things. How about you take out the hierarchical system for the feats, making it all flat? How about you remove some skills like Use Rope and Escape Artist and merge agile manoeuvres into a few sensible skills, and social interaction skills into active and passive ones? There are many loose ends to start pulling on! I still really like the idea of metamagical feats, though.

I ended up with a multi-classed human Rogue 3/Wizard 5 character. It will be interesting to see how it feels in play!

A Traveller rule for general empowerment and player satisfaction

Even though I hate the idea of a "balanced" party, there are some value to having game system support for everyone getting involved. Today I noticed, reading my new shiny rulebook from Mongoose, that the latest incarnation of Traveller have a solution for that as well.

I guess everyone have heard it said, or something to that effect, the dread question of who wants to play that class nobody else wants. Usually the cleric. If we leave the question aside if the cleric is a bad/boring class or not, I think the phenomenon is till interesting. Apparently many think a party "needs" a thief/cleric/whatnot to be "balanced" or competitive.

So, why? What can be done about it? Should something be done?

Well. There have been many arguments about the folly of trying to balance the rpg experience for maximum "fun", and I think we are all kind of tired of that. So, just let us assume that the idea is here to stay and maybe there are something to be learned from it.

In Trail of Cthulhu the idea is that since it is a game about investigation, all the skills that can be used for investigation should be covered by the party. The way it is done is basically that the number of points available to by skills for is dependent on the amount of players. You will have enough points to cover all the skills, by design. That is one way of doing it, and it might make sense for a skill based system.

In Traveller, the Mongoose incarnation thereof, they have something that I feel might be of slightly greater utility. After character generation, you get a "skill package", which is a set of skills bundled by the kind of campaign you'll play. Everyone gets to pick a skill, then everyone gets a second one, and so on until all are picked. That way, if you are going to do a trader campaign the basic foundation is there.

Some might say that in a sandbox, no such thing should be allowed. Everything should be shaped by the players, and having a skill package thrust upon the players by a campaign theme is hearing the steam whistle in the distance. Personally I think one reason why I have not managed to get any of my Traveller games off the ground is that we have not been explicit enough about what kind of campaign we have wanted, and thus we have gotten mismatched expectations and player characters. Bringing it out into the open like that, maybe the players can pick a campaign theme? Maybe the referee does not have a say in it at all, if you are that adverse to GM led story gaming? I think that is stupid, but what the heck.

Apart from that idea of having everyone on the same page, can it be used for something else? Well, I know one reason many people hate random character generation is that they want to be competent. They will feel bored or lost if their character does not have a guaranteed time in the spot light. Maybe having such a Skill Package is a way to soften the harsh experience of a pure random generation of characters? Whatever happens, those weird stats you got wont handicap you that much, since you are sure to have at least one or two picks of "good" skills? I think it is an interesting option.

Now let's tackle the cleric issue.

If the reason it is felt that there has to be a cleric in the party, maybe that can be alleviated by something like Skill Packages? Maybe it will even stack with previously picked skills, making sure that the party not only have the skills needed, but also emphasize the abilities of those who already picked the "party support" skills. That way those would be sure to shine. In the case of a class based instead of a skill based system, it might be tougher to jam in additional abilities. If you don't want to soften up the walls between classes and just and the "needed" abilities outright, consider making the Skill Package be mundane and magical items to choose from! If they have charges, and limited charges to boot, the "pure" game will reassert itself when those charges have run out, and hopefully the players have adapted to their character abilities and can use those to best effect.

Maybe I'm kicking in open doors, but I felt there was a tool to be used in general in that little paragraph in the latest incarnation of the rpg workhorse, Traveller. New uses for old tools, eh?

Traveller - the game I thought I had quit

Traveller is one of the icons in the hobby. For me the acronym LBB always meant Little Black Books, and referred to the three volumes of Classic Traveller from 1977. I have never seen the OD&D books in real life, so I maybe they look more brown than I think, but for me they have always looked more cream or khaki coloured, but I guess LBB looks better than LCB or LKB does.

I have a quite decent collection of Traveller books, from all the eras of the game. The first one I owned was MegaTraveller, and while I agree with James Maliszewski that the name is daft, I still have a lot of fondness for that edition. But, after having tried to start playing Traveller for multiple times, I have never managed to make it work. More often than not, science fiction fails for me. It is as if I can't present it the way I want, and my players don't seem to grasp what I'm aiming for. My last attempt turned into "accountants in space", and was a real bore for everyone.


So, guess what? I decided to put my collection, quite a few kilos of it, in storage and forget about Traveller. Until I started to listen to Happy Jacks RPG Podcast.


Listening to Stu discuss how he set up his game, and the players to talk about how their characters emerged through the life path system of character generation, made me interested again. The edition in print right now is the one published by Mongoose Publishing. I guess nobody have managed to miss MGP? The company have sailed up as a power houses of the hobby, with lot of licences and some interesting core system like RuneQuest and Traveller.


When Noble Knight Games had their latest sale, I succumbed to temptation. I bought another edition of Traveller, that game I had given up upon!


So, how does it compare?


Well, very favourably actually! It seem to have all the good things from the LBB, and then some. Let me take one example where the have gone beyond the original in a good way. One thing I never liked with the LBB, and find very grating when people talk about Traveller as an engine for any kind of science fiction game, is the fact that the career choices in LBB are very limited. All except one, are military careers! I don't know about you, but I have read quite a lot of sf books where there are more scientist or scoundrels than military men. 


MGT, as I dub it, have done like MT and included a more general set of careers. Sure, you have your army, naval and scout careers, but also things like Entertainer and Nobles. 


Some things are slightly less brutal that LBB, and you can no longer die during character creation and if you fail a Survival roll you get to roll a mishap. Another really cool addition is the roll every term for an Event, which can give you some extra background and skills. That and the rule that any event and mishap can generate a connection between two PCs and give both a skill is just inspired. 


So far I have not looked that closely at the starship combat system, nor the trading system. Both seem to change somewhat between editions and especially the former never really seem to come out right.


But the life path system to generate character is great fun. It has inspired many games after it, and for good reasons. It usually deliver something memorable. I did try to roll them bones, and this is what the life path system spat out:


UPP      Rank: Dilettante 1 - Wastrel; Diplomat 0 - Intern
63424c/0-1-1-2-1+2  Age: 24


admin 0
advocate 1
carouse 1
comms 0
computer 0
diplomacy 1
flyer(any) 1
investigate 0
persuade 0
streetwise 0


Managed to charm his way into high society and managed to get on Ally and one Rival. Learned to Fly and weaseled his way into an internship in the diplomatic corps. Due to his limited intelligence and enormous arrogance, he was involved in a mishap which cost him one eye and made his abysmal dexterity even worse. Was kicked out of the corps and now is about to step out into the world with only his name and 6 shares of a Yacht. (I added the die modifiers after the stats for people who recognize the system to see how they did that part).


What do you say? I'd absolutely love to play this miserable twit! Just imagine a noble so stupid, so ignorant and in general without a clue. I think the Connections rule which might tie him to another character, probably due to his flying skill, will be his way to survive. Unless of course the other players would not join hands to strangle him! Imagine the fun in playing such a worthless character, but with influence, family and a starship. 


Some things Traveller do deliver...

CoC character generation

So, this weekend we generated some character for CoC. I will be running The Hills Rise Wild when we next meet. It will be interesting.

I decided to include as much cool stuff from Trail as I had earlier been pondering. Drives, Pillars of Sanity and all core clues from Occupational Skills of 30% or above. I also added in a starting max of 85% and the Trigger Event from Unknown Armies. I think it will fit well.

We now have a lady reporter, a private eye and a businessman and gentleman scholar. It will be interesting...

A new game in town

A while ago I decided I was fed up my the gaming drought, and decided to follow the advice of Jim Raggi. He had an article in on issue of Fight On! about how to find players, and I did like he said and printed up a flyer and spread it around. Not any bloody response at all in the fourth biggest city in the country, with a university and lot of people coming and going. It just didn't work.

I would like to think that Swedes are insular and scared of letting anyone talk to them. It's almost as if you have to be drunk, or mentally unstable to address another human being in this place. Can you tell I'm a bit disappointed? Yeah, and maybe a bit bitter and unfair as well. Sometimes I wish I was back in North America, though.

Heck, I could probably fail there too.

...or we should all move to Finland.

Anyway. I did attend a character generation session last night, though!

Blogging seem to have brought me into contact with some really cool people in a way the flyers did not, and yesterday night we fixed up some characters for Unknown Armies. I have no idea where this will lead to, but I have a character named Frank, and he is stupid and into "darkness" and have some obsessions and social misadjustments. Simply put, he is a nutjob. I think that makes him a perfect PC in Unknown Armies. I'm really looking forward to this game!

One thing struck me about our PC gen session. We talked a lot about how we imagined our PC to be looking or sounding like this or that celebrity. Maybe this is the way to go when you are left with a game devoid of randomness? Pick an arena to be famous in. Say, pick an actor or a musician. Then think of some distinctive feature, like Sean Connery's way of speaking with his teeth clenched. Bring that look and feel into your game and try to stat it out.

It wouldn't surprise me a bit you you couldn't get a deck of cards and scrawl the names of actors/singers/writers/whatever on it and go from there at random. 

GURPS through a FATE lens

I have been thinking about GURPS a lot lately, and it feels like it wont leave my head.

GURPS is a very crunchy system, and while I have no fear of crunchy systems (I did start out with MERP and Rolemaster after all) something scares me off GURPS. That something is character generation. One problem with point buy systems is that it necessitates a lot of thumbing through the rules books, and recalculating and juggling numbers around. That takes time. I hate that part.


Still the allure of a generic and universal system have never left me. While I have never actually played GURPS, I imagine it could be pretty smooth in actual play. So, how do I take out the points while keeping the customization possibilities? Today I got this idea of merging GURPS with FATE.


FATE, Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment, doesn't only have the worst name ever, it's also a pretty slick game system. Even better, I have played it, and enjoyed it. FATE is a game engine, an outgrowth of FUDGE, that can be used for lot of different settings. It almost start to sounds like "generic and universal", doesn't it? I took a stab at combining the two flavours.

Step one. Roll your stats, ST, DX, IQ and HT, on 3d6 - in order. That's your basic stats, and you can calculate Move by averaging HT and DX, or something similar.

Step two. Now pick your Aspects. This is where we bring in FATE. You can have any kind of trait as an Aspect. It could be a personality trait, an advantage or feat like Advantages in GURPS. The important thing is that this is a defining aspect of your character, and from this you generate your skills. Eyeballing it I'd say you pick three Aspects for a 100 pts GURPS character. Maybe add another one per 25 pts?

Step three. Now you get to pick skills. My first idea was to say you get a bunch of points to spread around. Then I remembered the idea was to get rid of points, and decided on picks instead. Make of it what you will, it's all for free on my blog, right?

So, skills. I suggest you now pick five skills per Aspect. Make them all relate to the Aspect in some way. The rating is eight to start with, and if you spend more of your picks on the skills they get +1 per pick. Got that? If one of your Aspects are a Power of some kind, like magic or psionics, you get 5 free "skills" for free, at rating 6, before spending picks.

Step four. Roll 3d6 x 10 for money. Or credits or dollars or whatever you want to call it.

How's that for a slimmed down GURPS? What? How to use those aspects? Well, this is what I'm thinking.

For every Aspect you have, you can once per game day invoke it to add +2 to any skill roll, i.e. 3d6 against your skill rating. Once every session you can invoke it for +3. Take your pick. The gamemaster can do the same to give you a penalty of -2/-3 instead. What helps sometimes hinder, right? Untrained skill use I'd say you roll 3d6 against a relevant stat -4, or 10 if that's lower.

Will this work? Will it feel like GURPS? I have no idea. Feel free to test it and tell me. Some days I feel like tinkering with rules, but I seldom get a chance to play test them.

House rule - leveling in T&T by combining editions

I have been thinking about T&T again, in the midst of all CoC I have been preoccupied with.

Some people seem to have an issue with the 7th ed definition of level as something tied to your stats, and some other people really don't like the idea that level have nothing to do with your abilities and only is a measure of XP gained. Never the twain shall meet, eh?

Then there's this idea about humans. In T&T every race except humans have stat multipliers. Not just a small addition, multiplier. That means that a dwarf often start with a STR of 30! How do you make humans viable as a playable character race, again? Don't bother?

I think I have an idea about both these issues.

How about you roll up your character like usual, using the 7th ed rule that the dwarf with a STR of 30 is level three. Rolling 3d6, in order, I assume. That way you will get a party with some difference in levels, it's ok. You are using the "character stable" rule to even it out anyway, aren't you?

Next is what happens in play. After character generation, you pencil in the amount of Adventure Points needed for next level. What do I mean? Well, take a look at your 5th ed rulebook. That dwarf needs 7000 points for level 4, and like every other starting character he has nil. Compare that to the puny human companion he has, who probably start as level 1, but only needs 1000 points to level up.

In this setup you kind of eats your cake while still keeping it. I'm liking the idea of it, but somebody with maths skill might have to tell me it's broken. I'll play test it at first opportunity.

An insight into "rules lite" systems

Yesterday we met for the first real session of 7th Sea, the new game in my "indie Wednesday" group. We had met once before but had not finished making characters. This time I had decided to set a time when everything had to be done, so we could play at least one scene. Having accomplished that goal I was struck by a sudden insight about "rules lite" systems.

I know some of my readers are familiar with The Bat in the Attic blog, and might have noticed the posts about GURPS there a while back. If you would have asked me two weeks ago if I wanted to ever pick up my GURPS books again, I would horrified have said "Never!". After last night, I think I might have changed my mind, slightly.

Just like GURPS, 7th Sea is a game where you build a character from points. Just like GURPS, there are dozens of things to spend those points on and choosing can take a while. A long while. That was really my main beef with GURPS.

Looking closer at the rules in GURPS, both from The Bat posts and my own copies, I realize it can be a fairly smooth game. On the other hand, if you spend all that time making characters, you not only feel an urge to cushion those Player Characters from danger (as a GM) but also risk loosing all interest in the game if it takes two sessions until you get to roll dice.

I don't know if I'd call GURPS a "rules lite" system, but it sure looks like a lot of the clunkyness can be found in the character generation system with point builds. This brings me to my newfound insight and hypothesis that the "rules lite" aspects that are so fondly spoken of in the OSR, is mostly the fact that the games most talked about are games where you get to dive into the action, right from the start. The reason "rules lite" is so popular is that "rules lite" = no point buy systems.

There, now go find a game popular in the OSR which have a quick character generation system with complex rules once play starts. I think that combo could be a seller.

Rolling or designing

I have been thinking a bit about how I experience the characters I play. I have said before that I am a firm believer in rolling the dice and see what I get. But, in some games it's not even an option.

There is one game I'm playing in right now, and I am not totally satisfied with it. Some of it is the GM style of our GM, which don't suite me very well. I think he is not as much of a referee as I would like, but there's also the issue with my character.

When I have to design a character I usually have a hard time coming up with something, and when I do it usually result in a "one trick pony". I think I have begun to understand why. Designing a whole persona I will think of personality traits I want to emphasize, some core skills and then turn that into game mechanics.

My problem is that after doing this I act out those traits, use that skill and then it's over. Even worse. I might sit there waiting for my meticulously designed character to get spot light and focus in a way that make just those abilities come alive. Sometimes it wont even happen, and I'll be bored.

On the other hand, if I roll for my character this wont happen. When I bring some dice to the table they will provide me with something far more multi-faceted. At all times I will roll with the punches and try at every moment in the game to look at my character sheet and think "do I have anything I can twist to fit here?" Basically, the dice will "design" more posibilities that I can.

What is a die? More than one choice, and improv creation. That's how I roll.

Reading T&T 7.5 - Character Generation II p.p20-28

Now we have come to the part of the rulebook which talks about attributes. I find it odd that these are described after the Types, since they are more basic. Also, you early on is told to roll up your attributes, but the descriptions of them come much later, even though that might be useful information for deciding what type to play! Ken has said that this is not bad editing, since it's just that he thought about things in that way. Personally I think a game editor should be doing that kind of reshuffling of the text to make it flow more easily and make more sense. You can find a long debate about the state of editing in the business elsewhere.

After this comes something interesting. T&T have since the early days been a game where you can play a "monster". Any kind of race, or kindred, is defined by attribute multipliers. You basically have a table with a multiplier for STR, DEX etc. for all races. This is fun, and an easier way than calculating effective level, level limits or any such scheme. A dwarf with x2 STR just is stronger than a human. Learn to live with it. In my games we had a crazy assortment of kindreds and it was fun. Basically I see no reason to hestiate to bring in a new funky race, since many players will bring in new interesting problems or adventure seeds that way.

There is one thing I find annoying with this table though. Some creatures obviously have special abilities, and some are even hinted at in other parts of the book. But, none of them are described anyway. Of course, some of this data comes from the older Ken St Andre game, Monsters! Monsters!, but since it's not in print it is hard to refer to it. It do make some beings kind of oddly "amputated" though. What is just terrible unprofessionalism, though, is the fact that FDP managed to print 7th ed with a note saying that all Leprechauns have the spell Wink-Wing as an inherent ability, but they forgot to put it in the book! Even if the oversight was Ken's fault, it's just terrible to let such a thing slip by. Did they even read the book they published? In 7.5 ed. they did include it, but in a additional spell book, and not in the list of standard spells in the main rule book. Palm, meet forehead.

In this part of the book we have some real goodies, but the most interesting part of characters like AP, Level and Talents, I'll cover in my next post.

A new way of looking at combat adds

Over at the Trollbridge, the very creative mind known as "Toad-Killer-Dog" put forth his suggestion on how to use different attributes to calculate combat adds for your T&T characters. I've seen many suggestions how to do this, many of them interesting, but none that so sharply went for the kill and just formulated the way to make the Types special.

This was his suggestion:

What if Warriors get to choose three attributes for combat adds.
Rogues get one attribute plus Luck for combat adds.
Wizards Luck alone for combat adds.

I really like this suggestion! In many fantasy rpgs the fighting man fades into obscurity as the mighty spell slingers aproach godhood. In 3rd ed D&D it's a common complaint that the Fighter is the less interesting combat character to play. That problem is usually solved with more feats and just more stuff. With T&T my canine friend have solved that problem far more elegant. I can see even now how much role playing potential there are in those attributes choosen by the players. Imagine the difference between a Rogue with LK & DX and LK & CHA.

Yes, I'm an old schooler that belives in role playing, like Ed Greenwood, not just moving pieces around on a board. Live with it. 

Reading T&T 7.5 - Character Generation p.6-20

Who said it was slow on Fridays in the blogosphere!? Here I am again, reading T&T from cover to cover. This week I'll look at Character Generation.

After the introduction we get a nice little summary of how to play a rpg, including the very nice suggestion for game masters to not prosaically deliver the adventure, but actually get in character and why not goof off? Ken starts off the section on generating a character by telling us how to roll dice and generate stats. For some reason the stats are listed, but no detailed description is available on these pages, even though one is promised to show up later. After that, and the import rule of "TARO" (Tripples Add and Roll Over), the listing of classes and their ability fill the rest of the pages until p.20. I'll stop at TARO for a second

While our rule designer tells us we can roll in order or distribute the stats according to taste (he rolls in order), he also tells us something of the thinking behind the TARO rule. "Trollworld is full of heroes, freaks, and monsters -- not a bunch of averages." I find this interesting, as it gives us a glimpse of the mind of the designer not missing a fact, but actually designing around that fact. More than once I have read rules and wondered if the designer didn't see that it was broken. One effect this rule has, which the "balance police" will complain about, is that it will probably cause one PC in every second party to be seriously powerful. So, what if one PC has a STR of 65? He will strengthen the party and help you survive longer and get up to that STR yourself! Also, it will take ages for such a PC to get higher STR. No big risk of him building upon that and leave you in the dust. The experience ruled will handle that. Calm down!

Then we have the list of classes. In T&T the classes are called Types, and we have Citizens, Rogues, Warriors, Wizards, Specialists and Paragons. Warriors fight, Wizards cast spells, Rogues do a little of both badly and the Paragon do a little of both well. As you can see they all have their niche in a fantasy adventure. Specialists are basically doing one kind of fighting or spell casting and then some. Even though Ken St. Andre tells us we need the Citizen for NPCs like farmers and fishermen, I can't see the point of this Type. Sure, in a class based system like T&T, you will ask the question "what class is the owner of the inn". But, I think it is a question wrongly asked, and answered wrong as well. The owner of the inn is either a source for for resources, or an opportunity for the GM to act out funny voices and chat with his players in character. Who cares what Type he is! He needs to use a spell or an ability? GM fiat is the right answer, not a new Type.

The rest of the Types are all interesting, with the Warrior being able to get double value of armor, the Wizard being able to know all first level spells. The Specialist deserve a special mention. They all use the same concept, of having one specific talent triggered by a Saving Roll and the prerequisite being rolling triples of one specific stat when those where generated. From the ones mentioned (Leader, Ranger, etc), it's very easy to see how to expand this system to build other Specialists based on this mechanic. The rules show very clearly how they can be used in a toolbox manner. Very neat and modular.

Now, after this and a descriptions of the concept of race or Kindred, the stats are finally explained! Why not before the mentioning of Kindred, and the long descriptions of Types? This is where the editing of this rulebook show neglect. I don't mind the designer writing it that way, but why was it left that way when edited? You think I harp upon something trivial? After the stats we revisit the subjects of kindred again, and the first mention is not enough to choose a kindred for your PC or tell you what it means. It needs reshuffling.

Next up: Generating characters II