Offering Two Options for Character Creation Stats

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I envision character creation in three steps. Main stats, skills and other junk, then background. It may sound flippant however; I pretty much categorized all RPGs this way. Of course, I always think D&D when I hear RPG anyway. I relate everything back to these simple building blocks that for most games, are not simple at all.

It’s been a few months since my last post. As a pet project, I only have so much time to put into it, but I am plugging away.

So let’s think about Stats now. For most of the games I play, stats are numbers that define basic attributes of a player character. Things like physical, mental and social ability are measured by these stats. Later skills and some type of extra ability augment them in both negative and positive ways.

I’ve already stated that I’m sticking to dice stats.

I like my games to be deadly. There is nothing to strive for if death equals a quick trip to the local church can. Stats have to mean something. In Coretex, the base is a d6. Above that and you have above human strength, below that and you are weak. Considering the feats I see happen in my home games and in con games I think this is a little high.

So base d4.

What stats to use?

  • Strength – Physical Prowess
  • Agility – Speed and balance in Movement
  • Intelligence – Mental Prowess
  • Stubbornness – Mental Will
  • Alertness  – ability to notice what is around you
  • Health – General Well being.

Nearly all systems use some form of these six. I don’t see any reason to stray from that.

How to get there?

Take a bag of dice (you have that don’t you?) Shake out the first six and assign them to your stats.

Or

Point Method

This always gets me. What is too little? What is too much? If the basis for this system is human, that means the norm is human. I’ve already decided on base d4, so everyone starts with a d4 in each stat. Stat points on a one to one scale means that every stat has two point leeway.

So:

Starting character gets 8 stat points to play with. That’s enough to get two stats to d12. That’s pretty high in Coretex terms. You drop a stat to a d2 or d0 to get some extra points.

Say 2 d10s, a d6, and a d8 a d4 and a d2.

That’s 9 stat points.

Rules for d0

A d0 means you have nothing in a stat. If that is the case you cannot use the stat. Seems obvious? Think about this for a moment. A d0 in strength means you cannot lift, move, walk, eat. You are confined to bed.

D0 in agility means you walk into walls, you fall a lot, any dexterous move ends in disaster. You can’t aim straight or walk with grace. You have a lot of bruises and can be found on the floor in most situations.

D0 in stubbornness means you have no will. You will do anything you are told and cannot resist anything.

D0 in intelligence means you are below any intelligence standard. You cannot communicate; you react on instinct not experience. You have no memory or ability to learn.

D0 in alertness means that you are blindsided a lot. I hate to say it but most  pcs I’ve played and have played with spend a lot of time in this zone. You miss important details, don’t catch jokes, you’re last in initiative and tend to be shot like a target on a cement stand.

D0 in health just means you’re dead. Useful if you’re undead..not so much if you’re not.

Creating Characters – The Bulk of Most Tabletop Role Playing Games

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Character creation is different for every game. From dice rolling on random tables, to carefully laid out points, every system has a good deal of paper dedicated to character creation. It’s also the basis for all rules that follow. That includes advancement and actual game play.

Character advancement is for another post, so let’s not even look at that gorilla right now.

The questions to ask myself include:

  • Races?
  • Jobs or Classes?
  • Abilities?
  • Traits?
  • Hit points, life points, vitality, wounds?
  • Character sheets?

For Cortex, I like the open character creation. Though, I promise to put all the creation data in neat tables. I’m not touching alignment. I don’t like predefined morality because that can change over the course of a game.

Base rules will stick to humans. However there needs to be a template for adding races.

I’ve settled on calling the three sections of stats, Stats, Skills and Quirks. I love dice as stats, so I’ll stick with that as well.

What do you like about your favorite RPG’s character generation?

Of Dice and Things – Stuff You Need to Play the Game

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Got the design for the site down so now I can post more.

Priorities, I know.

The first thing to think about with any game system is the physical objects you want people to use. Since this will be a tabletop system die are an obvious answer. I’m not going to be silly about this so lets say d2 – d20 unless I change my mind later.

I want the die to be the numbers assigned to your abilities. I like that. Every system I’ve played that does this is easy to learn. You only have 7 numbers to worry about.

Then what?

Not much else. I would like to suggest figures and a battle mat simply because I like to paint them and mats are always good. However there is another reason I want to suggest these for use. I would like to include facing.

When D&D 3.0 came out I was disappointed that they removed facing. Sitting on a pivot and moving around always at 360 degrees is as stupid as it sounds. I want players to have to see an enemy, not magically know where everything is…unless they have a spell for that.

So facing and dice. What do you think?

New Rules – I must be nuts.

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Okay so new rule system. Yeah, new rules. New rules….

I’ve actually been thinking about it for a year now. The more recent problems with Cortex, my system of choice, have cemented this. I’ve toyed with switching systems but the rules sets of other systems and other levels of complexity I just don’t want. I had hopes for Savage Worlds but I think this isn’t going to fit what I want.

What do I want? Well, an open system with quick easy rules. GM heavy runs with fast paced combat. Simple point based character, item and npc generation.

I may be asking too much.

With Cortex I already simplify combat and other actions. I find this leaves more room for roleplay. Yes, I know you can roleplay with any system but I find that the more rules the more this gets bogged down, and this is true for any system for rules. So yeah, well YMMV.

I will also be linking this to the fantasy world I’ve been writing games for since 2003. I hope to keep them separate in that the rules themselves stay generic but the world will serve as examples of use and help me suss out application.

So what do you think? What do you like about the systems you play and have you applied it to your own system?