Culture & Characters (Option)

[Questbird]

7 hours ago, LivingTriskele said:

Another thing I need to navigate is how to incorporate different species/races that are on average just more powerful than most humans. Giving them more points to allocate over Characteristics doesn’t seem fair, but neither does forcing them start of weaker than the average member of their species.

I suppose I could use in-game disadvantages, like being the subject of xenophobia or having unusual dietary needs.

 

 

As @g33k said, don't worry about balance for such things.

Old One (Elf, similar to Vadagh from Corum)

Aloof, intellectual, distant and long-lived. Must have a special reason to leave Whispering Earth and mingle with the lesser races.

Instead of selecting a set of natural abilities and a cultural background they add 30 skill points to each of the following: Conceal Object, Dodge, Evaluate, Insight, Million Spheres, Natural World, Other Language, Own Language, Physik, Potions and one class of weapon.

They can never begin the game with Chaos points

Old One (Quarmallian)

Now shadows of their former selves, this race now lives underground in ancient Quarmall. A very few agents and exiles creep around the surface world.

Instead of selecting a set of natural abilities and a cultural background they add 30 skill points to each of the following: Bargain, Dodge, Fast Talk, Move Quietly, Million Spheres, Other Language, Own Language, Potions, Scent/Taste, one Mentalism magical skill and one non-Chanelling magical skill from Spell Law* (learning each of which earns a Chaos point).

They can never begin the game with Law points. They cannot learn Chanelling/Divine magic.

* I use BRP-adapted Spell Law from Rolemaster as one of the magic systems

 

Edited April 3 by Questbird
Added Quarmallian example

[LivingTriskele]

19 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

LOL! I recall something along those lines in a Star Trek forum. One guy was wondering why he shouldn't just dump all his points towards  maxing out his phaser and martial arts skills for his security character. My replay was "diplomatic missions." The player was used to D&D and the idea of ad adventure that wasn't solved through combat wasn't something that he had even considered. But It's better to be proactive and teach that to the players before chargen. On the plus side the replacement PCs are usually more rounded. 

But then I once watched a PC mercenary  bleed to death from a minor injury because they put all thier points into greatsword, and didn't see a reason to save any points for anything else, like, say,  First Aid.  The guy got zero sympathy from the other players.

 

 

Yeah, the moment they start starving because they can't find a job, I think the importance of being well-rounded might kick in. I could do something arbitrary like require players to spend at least half their default starting points on noncombat skills. So, 250 for Normal characters would be 125. Or maybe 1/3^rd rounded down, so 83 points. That might make sense.

[Questbird]

3 minutes ago, LivingTriskele said:

Yeah, the moment they start starving because they can't find a job, I think the importance of being well-rounded might kick in. I could do something arbitrary like require players to spend at least half their default starting points on noncombat skills. So, 250 for Normal characters would be 125. Or maybe 1/3^rd rounded down, so 83 points. That might make sense.

 

Don't worry about setting such limits. After a few games of BRP (and maybe some dead or starving characters) your players should naturally start making more rounded characters.

[Mugen]

12 hours ago, Atgxtg said:

That's a nice idea but the trap for D&D players is to try to put all thier eggs into one basket. Since D&D relies on "balanced" (read rigged) encounters  it has all sorts of limits on character improvement, and stacking, which encourages player to focus all their points to one area. Often, when those players play something other than D&D, they bring that tendency with them, and they tend to end up with characters who are over-focused and lacking in all other areas. 

You might need to do something to try and get that point across. 

Yes, and it's the reason why D&D editions after 3rd tied very strictly skills and level, as players usually maximized skill levels or just put the minimum level needed for satisfying a prestige class requirement.

Which lead to worlds where the difference in magical knowledge between the highest ranking wizard in the world and a peasant is just ~60%.

 

[LivingTriskele]

Truth is, I'm trying to write something for the Basic Roleplaying Design Challenge announced last month, and I want to dial in the character creation guidelines in a way so veteran BRP players will appreciate it, but also ensure my D&D players create the most appropriate character they can, the first time around, and get a satisfying introduction to BRP.

Towards that end, I’m thinking it’s worth somehow encouraging the generation of well-rounded characters in the guidelines. So far, the best way I can think of doing this is by having the guidelines require players to spend a certain number of points on noncombat skills.

[g33k]

6 hours ago, LivingTriskele said:

Truth is, I'm trying to write something for the Basic Roleplaying Design Challenge announced last month, and I want to dial in the character creation guidelines in a way so veteran BRP players will appreciate it, but also ensure my D&D players create the most appropriate character they can, the first time around, and get a satisfying introduction to BRP.

Towards that end, I’m thinking it’s worth somehow encouraging the generation of well-rounded characters in the guidelines. So far, the best way I can think of doing this is by having the guidelines require players to spend a certain number of points on noncombat skills.

You might cap the per-source addition to skills, but you also might require "at least 5% into at least <X> number of skills" or similar.

So, for example, no more than +20% onto any given skill, from "Cultural Skills," and/or "must put 5% (or more) into at least 5 of these 8 Cultural Skills"  or similar rules.
These are skills you learn/absorb culturally, growing up;  taught by parents, guild-masters, and even by the slightly-older cohort of kids (just older than them).  Kids mostly don't "max out" particular skills to the complete ignorance of all others... e.g. even the most-athletic & non-CHA-skill kids likely needed to develop some "Fast Talk," just to get out of some of the trouble their athletics got them into.

If you carefully balance the skills-points available and the minimum spends required, you can achieve your desired "more rounded PCs" results very directly.

I've also seen some games opt for a less-homogenous suite of "Cultural" skills, where an "Athletic Childhood" gets one set of skills (as a flat suite of bonuses), while a "Bookish Childhood" gets an entirely-different suite of skills, and a "Social Childhood" gets yet another suite... etc etc etc.  You could add a smaller of "discretionary" skill-points to individualize (i.e. not all "Athletic" kids come from the same cookie-cutter... some run better, some swim better, some have outside-the-athletic-sphere skills (singing, Craft:Woodcarving, whatever), &c).
 

Good luck with the Design Challenge!

Edited April 3 by g33k

[Atgxtg]

20 hours ago, LivingTriskele said:

Yeah, the moment they start starving because they can't find a job, I think the importance of being well-rounded might kick in.

That might teach them the lesson but too late for them to fix it. Once the NPC pilot get's shot, and the PCs are thirty thousand feet up in a 747, it's too late to discuss the merits of someone in the group putting a few points into Pilot (Aircraft). Idealy, you want the players to figure that bit out before they wind up as "BREAKING NEWS".

20 hours ago, LivingTriskele said:

I could do something arbitrary like require players to spend at least half their default starting points on noncombat skills. So, 250 for Normal characters would be 125. Or maybe 1/3^rd rounded down, so 83 points. That might make sense.

I think it's better to try and show them why they want to diversify thier skill set rather than force them to do it. When you force them they tend to resent it, and do a bad job of it, partially out of spite. 

Keep in mind that it's not really the players' fault. Players maximize their combat skills because other RPGs and GMs encourage and reward that behavior. Chance are, in D&D an extra +1 to hit is going to be more useful than a +1 to Play Mandolin. So that's what they pick. It's the same with tactics. Players learn stuff that works in one game, and reuse it because it does work. Then they get frustrated and angry when the play a different RPG and thier tactics don't work anymore. Typically they blame the game and or GM rather than accept that thier "great" tactics don't travel AKA why charging the arches doesn't work in BRP and Morrow Project.

To quote Yoda, your players "must unlearn what you have learned". You got to get them to see that. It's not easy, good luck.

[Atgxtg]

15 hours ago, Mugen said:

Yes, and it's the reason why D&D editions after 3rd tied very strictly skills and level, as players usually maximized skill levels or just put the minimum level needed for satisfying a prestige class requirement.

Yes, the designers decided it was better to just accept that all the players would try to mini-max everything (like in Magic the Gathering) and design the game around it. It's why D&D 3+ has all sorts of "stacking" rules. It's all to ensure that X level PCs have stats within the parameters for a given level. 

15 hours ago, Mugen said:

Which lead to worlds where the difference in magical knowledge between the highest ranking wizard in the world and a peasant is just ~60%.

LOL! That is also partially due to caps combined with level limits that come with increasing escalation. I think it's more obvious with fighters than wizards, though, since "To Hit" bonuses are easier to compare with each other than spells. 

It also plays into why the players are bad in spending their points in another way. In "Class & Level" RPGs stuff like attack bonuses, hit points, saving throws, and spell-casting are mostly determined by level, rather than by what skills and feats the player picks. Even the worst 10th level fighter is going to have a Base Attack Bonus of +10 and ten hit dice. Players can only mess it up so much. But a free form skill system gives them much more of an impact on their capabilities.  

[g33k]

7 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

That might teach them the lesson but too late for them to fix it. Once the NPC pilot get's shot, and the PCs are thirty thousand feet up in a 747, it's too late to discuss the merits of someone in the group putting a few points into Pilot (Aircraft). Idealy, you want the players to figure that bit out before they wind up as "BREAKING NEWS".

...

NB the project here isn't a campaign for his own table, I think; it's a whole RPG (for the BRP Design Challenge).

 

8 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

... I think it's better to try and show them why they want to diversify thier skill set rather than force them to do it. When you force them they tend to resent it, and do a bad job of it, partially out of spite ... 

 

 

Yes, show the players (e.g. with your 747 example, above).

I think some sidebar-text or similar would handle this well.  People tend less to be "spiteful" about their character-creation when it's just RAW from the book, as opposed to GM-set limits on (for example) the wide-open anything-goes BRP:UGE ruleset.

I had one group who explicitly made sure to coordinate a broad range of ancillary skills amongst the PC's during chargen... "Whose backstory best justifies taking Pilot(Aircraft)?  Drive(car)?  Do we need specific Science(X)" skills, or just "Science," and who's taking it (or those)?  It's investigation-heavy, do we need "Forensic Accounting" or is that something we'll go to an NPC for?" and so forth.
 

[Atgxtg]

16 hours ago, g33k said:

NB the project here isn't a campaign for his own table, I think; it's a whole RPG (for the BRP Design Challenge).

Ah, in that case it's somebody else's problem- namely the GM who runs is game.

16 hours ago, g33k said:

 

Yes, show the players (e.g. with your 747 example, above).

I think some sidebar-text or similar would handle this well.  People tend less to be "spiteful" about their character-creation when it's just RAW from the book, as opposed to GM-set limits on (for example) the wide-open anything-goes BRP:UGE ruleset.

Yes, somewhat. It seems to come down to the players understanding that they old methods and assumptions don't necessarily apply anymore. It should be easy, but I've seem that it is hard for experienced D&Ders to give up on something "they know" to be true. It does exist in other players of others RPGs, but not to the same extent. I think becuase those who play other RPGs have played multiple RPGs and have noticed how they are different from each other. 

16 hours ago, g33k said:

I had one group who explicitly made sure to coordinate a broad range of ancillary skills amongst the PC's during chargen... "Whose backstory best justifies taking Pilot(Aircraft)?  Drive(car)?  Do we need specific Science(X)" skills, or just "Science," and who's taking it (or those)?  It's investigation-heavy, do we need "Forensic Accounting" or is that something we'll go to an NPC for?" and so forth.

I had a game where nobody wanted to take first aid since they had a medical doctor, who was obviously going to be better at it than the rest of them, so why waste the points? Guess which character got injured and needed first aid? Guess what skill all the other PCs picked up ASAP? Guess which group of players made sure than they were cross trained and had a backup to cover essential skills?

The Bond RPG was great for this sort of thing. There are only about 15 skills in the game but starting PCs won't have them all, or won't be able to rely on them. So early on players learn to focus on one or two areas to excel in. THen, over time, they pick up more skills and learn to back up the other characters, because four hours into the session is a bad time to find out that the one PC who knew how to fly was the one who got shot. They learned that the hard way, trashed a plane, and burnt off a lot of hero points in the process, but at least they lived. Next mission a couple of PCs had learned a little about how to fly. 

So the players will adapt, once they see the need.It just that they don't want to do it until they see why, and then it's too late to do their characters much good.

 

 

[LivingTriskele]

I just realized that I misinterpreted the rules for Personality Types. If I use Personality Types, that adds an extra 260 Skill points during character generation (on top of the starting amount of 250 points for Normal characters and 40 points I was planning on giving for Cultural Skills). Granted, it’s 260 points spread out over 13 Skills (20 points each), essentially raising the base chances of Skills the players may or may not dump more points into, but it seems like a lot. Even if I significantly lower the number of points for Cultural Skills, or remove Cultural Skills entirely it seems like a lot (which is a bummer because I really liked the idea Cultural Skills and Personality Types). Do you think this is too much?

[LivingTriskele]

Now I’m considering lowering each Power Level’s starting points by 75, in order to include Personality Types and Cultural Skills, so, for example:

175 for Normal characters + 260 (20 for each 13 Personality Type Skills) + 40 for Cultural Skills.

In this way, Personality Type has less impact for higher Power Levels, which makes sense to me.

The reason why I want to use Personality Types and Cultural Skills is to encourage the generation of well-rounded characters. The above plan is theoretical. I’m not sure how it would work in actual practice. I need to make a few test characters to see.

Edited April 5 by LivingTriskele