Design Notes: Character Creation & Advancement
This is pretty rough, but I want to share it anyhow because I do not want to design this game in seclusion.
What I want is the ability to start playing a character at different points in their career. The sweet spot for me has always been characters that were at the rank of Mediocre for most of their traits. It gave the games a feel of real progress as the characters began to develop and gain more abilities.
So here is my rough draft of the character creation and improvement rules for the game. It only addresses attributes and skills at this time, but other traits such as gifts, faults, aspects, or stunts will be added later depending upon what I decide to use.
Attributes are set at a default level, and all four attributes (Physical, Mental, Social, Spiritual) begin at that level unless adjusted. An attribute may be raised if another attribute is lowered by the same number of ranks. No attribute may be lower than Terrible. No attribute may be higher than Superb.
The levels are as follows:
Terrible – Children with very little experience and guidance. 10 skill points.
Poor – Pre-teens to early teens with some natural talents. 12 skill points.
Mediocre – Mid-to-late teens with very little training. 16 skill points.
Fair – Young adults with some training but little to no experience. 20 skill points.
Good – Accomplished adventurers. 24 skill points.
Great – Seasoned veterans hardened by harsh events. 30 skill points.
Superb – Champions of the highest caliber. 38 skill points.
Skills are purchased using skill points (number determined by the starting level). The rank at which the skill is purchased determines the cost in skill points. The costs per rank are given below:
Terrible – 1 point.
Poor – 2 points.
Mediocre – 3 points.
Fair – 4 points.
Good – 5 points
Great – 6 points.
Superb – 7 points.
Once a character is in play these are the costs of increasing a skill one rank by spending Fudge points earned through actual play. The cost to acquire a new skill is determined by the rank at which the skill is to be acquired. The costs per rank are given below:
Terrible – 2 points.
Poor – 4 points.
Mediocre – 8 points.
Fair – 12 points.
Good – 18 points
Great – 24 points.
Superb – 32 points.
The costs to increase an attribute are given below:
Terrible – Not applicable. No attribute may be less than Terrible.
Poor – 5 points.
Mediocre – 6 points.
Fair – 8 points.
Good – 10 points
Great – 14 points.
Superb – 18 points.
That is all for right now. Feel free to comment on whatever strikes your fancy.
sounds good, patrick. looking forward to part 2!
Bearing in mind that this is a draft…
I think your descriptions of power levels are spot on, even if the specific numbers that describe them aren’t necessarily the final ones. I think that a more exponential system makes sense, both as control on campaign length and overall power level.
10-12-16-24-30-46-78 is the way my brain chugs the math for startup characters. I’m also making the assumption that since this is point-based, we’d be using the points to also buy our “goodies” such as ASPGs with remainder becoming FPs.
Idunno – Let’s test and see!