I have always theoretically enjoyed the many player options available in those games with detailed character generation, and this began for me when I was first introduced to GURPS sometime in the late '80s. In practice, though, such systems are often something of a dull slog when generating characters and the results become, ironically, rather cookie-cutter. Certain benefits and flaws are perceived as obviously more desirable than others and savvy players invariably learn to manipulate the system to ultimately establish "character builds". It's nothing, though, that a good set of random tables can't fix.
I have established recently for myself and then described here and here a method for utilizing arcane orders to flesh out a character's (and campaign's) background a bit. The method is driven primarily by randomness and I can say, one year later, that it has been successfully implemented in my game. In fact, one such order generated with random rolls from a player (The Malevolent Brotherhood of the Polished Claw) figures rather prominently in a recent series of player-driven events.
While the order establishes the unique magical tradition the character-mage was brought up in, and therefore his or her available spells and general status, it doesn't account necessarily for how well the character was taught. So, here's a random table to be used for generating mage characters in almost any Classic D&D-based game:
Roll 2d6, Your master...
2-3
|
… was mostly a failure as a mage and something
of a lousy teacher. As a result your
education took longer than it should have and still has gaps. Add 1d8 to starting age, receive only 50% of
your starting spells (minimum of one) and take 50% longer when learning or
researching new spells until you attain 3rd level.
|
4-5
|
… was a natural talent with limited formal
training himself. As a result of his
rather specific teaching and casting style, though, you begin play with 1d4 extra
known spells at first level. However,
you find it more difficult to copy or learn the spells beyond those of your
order, which will always take 50% longer and be half as likely.
|
6-8
|
… was a competent adherent to one of
the traditional magic schools and active in an established order of
mages. As a result you have a rather
standard, well-rounded education in magic with no particular benefits or
drawbacks.
|
9-10
|
… was actually a collective of
accomplished mages, possibly teaching in some formal and prestigious academy
setting. You begin play with 1d4 extra
spells in your spellbook and find that learning new spells comes easy to you,
taking half as long and being 50% more likely.
|
11-12
|
… was considered something of a genius
by his peers. Being at the forefront
of research and magical construction he unfortunately had limited time with
which to teach you. Your training took
longer, adding 1d8 to your starting age, but you receive one randomly determined
magic item from your master as a parting gift. No hard feelings, eh kid?
|
PDF
The French rpg Te Deum pout un massacre has absolutely awesome tables for this - I eventually want to adapt them to Flashing Blades.
ReplyDeleteI'd be inclined to give some sort of benefit/tradeoff to each of these, rather than making some all bad and some all good. For example, the 2-3 option, give a bonus to streetwise skills since you had to take care of yourself.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for stuff like this, but all negative or all positive isn't as interesting to me.
Black Vulmea: Any chance you'd be willing to translate and post a particularly good example?
ReplyDeleteJeremy: Just a difference in sensibilities, I suppose. Something being objectively bad but not insurmountable or good with no strings attached is not a design flaw to me.
Also consider, this is not the only random chart that a player would roll on. There's plenty of chances for otherwise high ability scores or other advantages/ perks to provide more balance or even for players to get lucky and come out ahead or unlucky and come out behind.
It is definitely a difference in sensibilities. For me, if somebody is taking the time and effort to sit down and play a game with me, why would I say to them "you have rolled poorly. Here is a handful of suck to add to your character. Enjoy the suck while others enjoy the sweet candy"? "By the way - there is a chance you will get some sweet candy later. But you might just get MORE SUCK."
ReplyDeleteI'm playing to have fun. My players are also playing to have fun. I'm all for getting interesting trade-offs in my background, but giving out pure candy and pure suck - not at all something I'm interested in doing.
Did you read the latter half of my response to your comment at all, Jeremy, or is it that you and your players simply refuse to accept anything less than perfect outcomes when having fun?
ReplyDeleteFurther, I fail to see how being up to 8 years older, having a 12% chance of getting fewer spells to start then everybody else and taking longer to learn new spells up until you reach 3rd level, at which time you will have caught up, is a serious impediment to fun.
ReplyDeleteNo, I read it, I just don't see it as a mitigating factor. Saying "Hey, better luck on the next roll" doesn't improve the fact that your new character is now clearly inferior.
ReplyDeleteI'm not advocating a perfect outcome. I'm advocating balancing downsides with upsides. This is how point-buy system for stats work, for example. Or merit/flaw systems, or even a lot of the perks in a game like Fallout 3.
What is fun about having fewer spells and less chance to learn new ones? The fact that you can say in-character "yeah, my master sucked"?
Having a +2 bonus on all your looting checks because your master sucked and you had to look out for yourself (for example) is both thematic and mechanically interesting. It might not perfectly trade-off, but at least it's a sop.
Games are designed, and what you have designed is a statistical chance that players will see only downsides with no upsides. If you can sell your players on that, more power to you, but I feel it's poor design - which is why you don't see systems like it in any modern RPG or computer RPG that I can think of.
If I have designed such a thing then its in the DNA of every version of D&D I've seen or played. You seem to argue that any objectively bad thing is a design flaw. It conveniently ignores that each player randomly determines a number of things about their character, starting with probably most importantly ability scores.
ReplyDeleteTell me, are there players in your game that have clearly inferior or superior ability scores?
Are these determined as a point-buy or random roll?
If the latter, what happens in your game when a player rolls a particularly good or bad set of scores?
Do you not see the above table as simply an extension of this fundamental principal of the game?
Do you not see that given the probabilities on display here, a number of likewise constructed tables taken on the whole would most often generate the sort of balance you see as lacking without having to arbitrarily and ham-handedly do a put for every take?
Of course if there's a series of random rolls, somebody (not neccesaily at every table) will get a character that just ends up sucking. He will generally be sitting next to the guy who rolled really well and needs an extra page to list all the ways that he is better. Now, there's a lot of people that this doesn't bother in the least. Other people it bugs the crap out of. I know at least one personthat get bugged when they have an awesome character from random luck, not from good playing.
ReplyDeleteAnother idea to help parity along is to give everybody a reroll or a shift of 1 to use at any point. Or I could see these being added to particularly sucky entries and particularly sunny entries cost one.
Honestly Philo, I tend to see the phenomenon you describe as less pervelant in games like pre-3rd edition D&D, where saving throws and to-hit roll progressions tend to dictate a lot of what's going on game-wise, not to mention the acquisition and use of magic items. But focusing on my game only, using the sum of my character generation tables you'd have to be singularly unlucky to roll up an unplayable character by any reasonable measure. At least I haven't seen anybody do it so far.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting - in one aspect, that sort of design IS baked into the DNA of D&D. And from what I've seen, every edition afterwards has added things to mitigate/reduce that aspect of the game. Consider ability scores, if you will:
ReplyDeleteThey start with 3d6, no sorting and you never increase them. Then we get 3d6 arrange to taste, 4d6 drop lowest and arrange to taste, mulligans, point-buy systems, level-based stat modifiers, race-based stat modifiers. All moving pretty much linearly away from "suck it up, buttercup" but trying to do that without totally deviating from the baked-in DNA.
Likewise, when we examine something else very fundamental to D&D: saving throws, we see a clear trade-off system at work. Each class is better at certain saving throws and worse at others. Similarly, rules on weapons vs certain armors, or weapon speed - if you get more damage, you pay with slower attacks. So we could argue that the idea of trade-offs is just as fundamental to D&D as the idea of random chance.
In addition, I don't automatically consider the fundamental designs of D&D to automatically be *good* design decisions. "Trust D&D" is one of the sillier things I've ever heard - this game was designed by amateur wargamers, and it shows. Let's take descending AC. Based on my knowledge, it seems likely that the whole concept was the result of mis-communication between Gygax and Arneson. It's mostly gone from D&D, and no loss, in my opinion.
I also see that given sufficient scale, a set of tables like this would *probably* generate the sort of trade-offs I normally like in a system like this, but I'm not sure how trusting to an arbitrarily designed set of tables is any more "ham-handed" than making thematic and interesting decisions in the design stage.
There can be a certain beauty in the interaction of a bunch of random tables - no denying. And some people love that interaction. Some people also specifically build characters with crippling flaws in a system like Vampire the Masquerade, then drive everyone else crazy trying to roleplay a Bulimic Narcissist with a crippling fear of cats - but I don't find that fun, nor do I require that there be a chance of somebody playing that character if they don't CHOOSE to.
Reading back, I've used the word "Suck" a lot. That isn't how I feel about this idea. I really like it. I think having background stuff like this is AWESOME and adds a lot to the game. It's just that I would either 1)trade-off the negatives with at least one positive or 2)give players who rolled a pure negative a bonus to a subsequent or previous roll or 3) assign +/- point values to each item on the list and let the player sort it out.
Of course, option 3 gets us right back into the problem you're using the random table to get around - that of default optimization, so it's probably not a great selection. If you're all having fun, hey, no harm, no foul. Just because I would deal with this a bit differently doesn't make it a bad idea.
This is how I'd deal with this background table, if I was using it for my usual gaming group:
ReplyDelete2-3 … was mostly a failure as a mage and something of a lousy teacher. As a result your education took longer than it should have and still has gaps. Add 1d8 to starting age, receive only 50% of your starting spells (minimum of one) and take 50% longer when learning or researching new spells until you attain 3rd level.
Of course, the fact that he was crap left you quite a bit of time to devote to other things. Pick an additional skill.
4-5 … was a natural talent with limited formal training himself. As a result of his rather specific teaching and casting style, though, you begin play with 1d4 extra known spells at first level. However, you find it more difficult to copy or learn the spells beyond those of your order, which will always take 50% longer and be half as likely.
6-8 … was a competent adherent to one of the traditional magic schools and active in an established order of mages. As a result you have a rather standard, well-rounded education in magic with no particular benefits or drawbacks.
9-10 … was actually a collective of accomplished mages, possibly teaching in some formal and prestigious academy setting. You begin play with 1d4 extra spells in your spellbook and find that learning new spells comes easy to you, taking half as long and being 50% more likely.
Life at the academy didn’t leave much time for other pursuits, though. You get one less skill than you normally would.
11-12 … was considered something of a genius by his peers. Being at the forefront of research and magical construction he unfortunately had limited time with which to teach you. Your training took longer, adding 1d8 to your starting age, but you receive one randomly determined magic item from your master as a parting gift. No hard feelings, eh kid?
Some interesting points, Jeremy, and I really don't think we're that far out of touch with one another. I'd only add/ diasgaree with...
ReplyDeleteRegarding ability scores I personally stopped at 4d6, arrange to taste and that was primarily a concession to the players. I'd prefer 4d6 and only being able to swap out prime requisite. I'd like to see more wise or charismatic fighters, but I can live without them. That said, if they've got six crappy roles they are permitted and encouraged to roll again.
As for saving throws its notable that sometimes the tradeoff is not another save but a better to hit progression, for instance, but otherwise no argument here.
I've never advocated trusting in D&D personally, hence the rules fiddling that led to this blog. But you also can't dismiss nearly 40 years of relevance. To me the broad strokes of D&D are mostly built on sound, time-tested principles. One of them being that character generation doesn't happen before the game is played, but is part of the game... hence, the dice. To me this feature provides for mor einteresting variance than a list of selected flaws/ perks ala GURPS or its spiritual descendant, Fallout.
One man's thematically interesting is another man's ham-handed, I suppose. I don't see the thematic correlation between having a lousy teacher and being better able to rummage through sacks, so would rather see the latter as a variable on a separate table were I to implement it, and depend on the "magic of their interaction" for your interesting result.
Finally, there are no bulimic vampires in my games, I can assure you. :)
I'd have no problem using your modified table if players weren't already rolling on several others and the balance already baked in to the system as a whole. If anything, my guys generally come out ahead on the deal but nothing that's going to put them too far ahead of their peers... just things to better differentiate them or create more meaningful choices on how to deal with in-game situations.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when I look at your table, there are 2 net positive, 2 more or less tradeoffs and one negative - if all the tables are like that, it's pretty likely, although not assured, that it will be net positive. I would still be inclined to present each as a trade-off, rather than relying on the table spread to do that for me.
ReplyDeleteI'd love to see the rest of your lists - it would be a cool replacement for the Backgrounds currently provided for D&D Next. It would probably make it easier to see how it would all shake out to see it in context like that, too.
For four days I've been trying to figure out how to address this argument without being an asshole.
ReplyDeleteThen someone did it for me:
http://xkcd.com/1112/
:)
ReplyDeleteThat does seem apropos. What really made me laugh is that I *hate* chess. I'd rather play Archon. http://www.archonclassic.com/
ReplyDeleteFunny. Now xkcd has outlined my position on the subject:
ReplyDeletehttp://xkcd.com/1114/