There are some design assumptions built into this system: 1) The system should create "adventure"-type characters. 2) The system should create characters that are mostly compatible with each other and less likely to kill each other on sight 3) The Species, Culture, Childhood and Education Paths should allow as many choices as possible with increasingly more limited lists as the character advances through the paths.
I am looking for very specific feedback at this point: Do the Keys, Secrets and Abilities match the path taken? That is, are there any that are missing or superfluous to the path indicated?
I want to focus on the mechanical variations of this Lifepath system first. Then come back and re-write the descriptions to match the characters that this system actually creates. Does that make sense? Can you take a look and tell me what you think please? I am not married to any part of this Life Path system at this point, so Any and all suggestions are welcome. -- Dave M DInDen...@gmail.com
> I am looking for very specific feedback at this point: > Do the Keys, Secrets and Abilities match the path taken? That is, are > there any that are missing or superfluous to the path indicated?
To tell the truth, this set-up based on long, long lists isn't doing it for me. Have you considered simply saying that the player can pick any Ability/Secret/Key and have the SG verify that it suits the background in question?
Which is a constructive way of saying that I couldn't really say which bits of the list are extraneous and what might be missing. Depends entirely on what kind of characters you want to create.
One potentially interesting approach here would be to make the choice randomized, by the way - that I could get behind, as then the player wouldn't need to go through this long list of approved contents to pick something for his character. A randomized character could actually be pretty interesting to play, now that I think about it...
Another approach would be to condense the lists considerably - I wouldn't have more than five options per category myself, actually. Any more than that will have so much choice that you might as well let the player name any "suitable" Ability. If the player decided in the first place that he wants his character to be a slave, surely he won't need a list to tell him which Abilities are permissible for a slave, for example.
Eero, Thanks for the quick reply. I guess I am trying to guide the payers into the right mindset for this game. Trying to avoid D&D-isms of my character is a Gandalf clone or whatever. Honestly, I think the "you can make any character" approach might not work with my group. I don't think they are going to read the book before character generation, so I want to be able to introduce some of the setting in a way that is more approachable. And also try and come up with characters that match the backgrounds that the players describe. I do see what you are saying and will take those suggestions to heart in the next revisions (less is more). Laundry lists aside, do you like the overall flow of the paths, do they evoke a Near feeling in your mind's eye? Or am I missing a "cool" element of the setting in there somewhere? Dave M
> On To 12.6.2008 19:22, Dave M kirjoitti: >> I am looking for very specific feedback at this point: >> Do the Keys, Secrets and Abilities match the path taken? That is, are >> there any that are missing or superfluous to the path indicated?
> To tell the truth, this set-up based on long, long lists isn't doing it > for me. Have you considered simply saying that the player can pick any > Ability/Secret/Key and have the SG verify that it suits the background in > question?
> Which is a constructive way of saying that I couldn't really say which > bits of the list are extraneous and what might be missing. Depends > entirely on what kind of characters you want to create.
> One potentially interesting approach here would be to make the choice > randomized, by the way - that I could get behind, as then the player > wouldn't need to go through this long list of approved contents to pick > something for his character. A randomized character could actually be > pretty interesting to play, now that I think about it...
> Another approach would be to condense the lists considerably - I wouldn't > have more than five options per category myself, actually. Any more than > that will have so much choice that you might as well let the player name > any "suitable" Ability. If the player decided in the first place that he > wants his character to be a slave, surely he won't need a list to tell him > which Abilities are permissible for a slave, for example.
> Laundry lists aside, do you like the overall flow of the paths, do > they evoke a Near feeling in your mind's eye? Or am I missing a "cool" > element of the setting in there somewhere?
Well, speaking for that, you seem to be largely missing a shamanistic religious background, which is a big deal in Qek, especially. Although I guess that might go under "apprentice".
Also, one thing you might want to seriously consider is having a generic crunch list the player can pick from at any point. At least it seems to me that the actual information is drowned out here by all the common options. The elf Ability list alone has what, 24 Abilities, of which one is actually elf-specific and the rest are just there because they're "allowed" for elves. This might be swell if you created a computer application for chargen, but here you might be just making things difficult for little reason.
(Speaking of elves, they don't even go through a childhood and other life phases in a conventional manner; unless you're playing a very young elf, those parts of life are so far in the past that they hold no relevance for who or what the elf is. Might cause some cognitive dissonance for making elves in this system.)
But other than that, I'm curious - have you done chargen for TSoY earlier? I'm not trying to tell you what is the right way to do it, but I've personally found that the crunch is actually pretty well controlled by the confluence of species and culture; if the player chooses character species and culture first, then he has these pretty well-contained sets of crunch to pick from. I haven't found that the amount of choice would be particularly crippling. Usually players just read through the half a dozen key points about their character's culture and pick some of the most obviously cool features for their character. The actual deeper development of the character then happens in play.
Of course I'll be interested to read an actual play report on how your chargen system does, if you get around to trying it.
Judd, That was a typo, thanks for the heads up! Dave M
On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 11:36 AM, Judd Goswick <steelh...@gmail.com> wrote: > One thing I noted was the use of "Zeru" as opposed to "Zaru". Is that a > typo or was the name changed to avoid some unintended meaning?
> On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 12:22 PM, Dave M <dinden...@gmail.com> wrote:
Eero, I have messed around with Chargen before in SoY. And to be honest, I think it is simple and elegant. But, my concern is that I know my players won't read the game before chargen and that they won't absorb enough of it during chargen for Maldor to be any more or less meaningful to them than Amani. So, what I am trying to do is find a way to capture the essence of these choices in bite-sized pieces and lay it out for the group in a logical way that is easy to digest. I wouldn't make this system mandatory (that would be my approach, this is how to make a character, or you can use this lifepath), but I want it to be a working, fairly balanced system to help my players see the world in a graduated way. Does that make sense? And I'll go back and look at the Qek more closely. They don't do anything for me so I just sort of hand-waved them. Thanks! Dave M
> On To 12.6.2008 19:45, Dave M kirjoitti: >> Laundry lists aside, do you like the overall flow of the paths, do >> they evoke a Near feeling in your mind's eye? Or am I missing a "cool" >> element of the setting in there somewhere?
> Well, speaking for that, you seem to be largely missing a shamanistic > religious background, which is a big deal in Qek, especially. Although I > guess that might go under "apprentice".
> Also, one thing you might want to seriously consider is having a generic > crunch list the player can pick from at any point. At least it seems to me > that the actual information is drowned out here by all the common options. > The elf Ability list alone has what, 24 Abilities, of which one is > actually elf-specific and the rest are just there because they're > "allowed" for elves. This might be swell if you created a computer > application for chargen, but here you might be just making things > difficult for little reason.
> (Speaking of elves, they don't even go through a childhood and other life > phases in a conventional manner; unless you're playing a very young elf, > those parts of life are so far in the past that they hold no relevance for > who or what the elf is. Might cause some cognitive dissonance for making > elves in this system.)
> But other than that, I'm curious - have you done chargen for TSoY earlier? > I'm not trying to tell you what is the right way to do it, but I've > personally found that the crunch is actually pretty well controlled by the > confluence of species and culture; if the player chooses character species > and culture first, then he has these pretty well-contained sets of crunch > to pick from. I haven't found that the amount of choice would be > particularly crippling. Usually players just read through the half a dozen > key points about their character's culture and pick some of the most > obviously cool features for their character. The actual deeper development > of the character then happens in play.
> Of course I'll be interested to read an actual play report on how your > chargen system does, if you get around to trying it.
