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[Fire and Sword] Ideas for 4th Edition?


raymond_turney

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For my next campaign, I'm thinking of going over to 1D6+3 experience checks at the end of each adventure.

I'm also thinking of stealing an idea from Spirit of the Century, which SoC calls aspects. I'll call them tags. These are prominent things about a character, rash, talkative, etc. When a player does something that is "in character", but not wargame optimal, the character gets an experience check, up to a limit of three checks per session. A character could start out with up to 5 tags. The idea is to encourage players who help the GM a little by acting in character, without this becoming totally crucial to successful power gaming {characters whose players who can manage to bring characterization into play will tend, over time, to have a wider variety of skills, but 1D6+3 basic checks, suitably invested in combat skills, should insure that hack and slash characters are still possible}.

I'm open to ideas for complicating experience generally, if something is gained by doing so. Since you roll experience only once per session, complexity in this are is much less costly than complexity in the combat rules. I've also considered adding edges from Saage Worlds, and good old RQ experience in what a character uses.

What do other people think?

Edited by raymond_turney
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Ive use aspects in a d100 BRP like system and found they worked quite well, I allowed re-rolls on the spending of a fate point in an aspect related way.

As regards advancement on of the systems my group has been using with BRP for quite along time is the idea of definite progression. Basically whenever a skill gets a tick then the skill will definite advance at the end of the advanture. But the amount of the advance completely depends on ho advanced the skill currently is. See the chart below

Current % / Advance per tick

0-30% / +5%

31-50% / +4%

51-70% / +3%

71-90% / +2%

90%+ / +1%

Seemed to work well for us and avoided all that rolling at the end of each advanture.

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In the Deadlands game I play in our GM will toss us poker chips when we do something he deems to be particularly in character (good roleplaying)... the chip can then be used either as a 'fate point' to boost a roll, etc.... or held to the end of the game and spent on skill increases.

I'm not up on 'aspects'... but in every RPG I've ever played I would write down a set of adjectives to encapsulate my character's demeanor... 'cowardly, greedy, lazy, smelly... whatever... sometimes more complicated stuff... motivations and fears.

This goes way back to high school days... I'm not sure if my first GM suggested doing that or what.

In Deadlands there isn't a specific entry for traits on the character sheet... but I've got a list and try to stick to it... and that has gotten me plenty of chips.

Edited by Simlasa
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In FATE the "Aspects" you write down are actually the most mechanically significant parts of your character.

The coolest thing about aspects is the way they are Invoked, a player can invoke an aspect to get a bonus to an action, but by the same token the GM can also invoke an aspect to force a PC to do something not advantageous to the PC but within the spirit of the aspect. The Player must pay fate points to invoke an aspect bu so must the GM.

EG: If a PC has the aspect "Heart of a lion" he can pay some FATE points to overcome fear, enhance his combat rolls, resist torture etc, but by the same token the GM could invoke this aspect by paying the PC some FATE points to force the player to do something stupidly heroic or tactically dangerous like taking on the evil dukes personal champion in one on on combat even though he knows he is outclassed. The beauty of this is that the FATE points just payed to the PC can now be used to help defeat the dukes champion.

Edited by AikiGhost
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