Thunk! Message for you Sir!

One of the more interesting features of the All for One game is how resources work. Each is purchased for the character using experience points. In this game, things like Wealth are transformed into story material rather than goals. It's the player, not the GM who decides, how wealthy the character is going to be. For example, two character buy Wealth 1, they each get, at the end of the month after expenses 50 extra livres. Are they both as wealthy as each other? Not necessary. Character One is a Noble (he has Status 2) and Character Two is an Army Sergeant (he has Rank 2). Each has spent the same number of experience points on resources and each ends up with the same amount of cash at the end of the month. But the Noble eats fine food, has many expensive and stylish cloths, lives in a large house with servants and throws balls and parties. The Sergeant lives in a barracks, eats at the mess hall and likely owns only one or two sets of clothing other than his uniform. Disposable income after expenses are paid is the same. Neither wants for anything outside of their normal life style which is defined by what the player purchases for their character. Of course, in the case of the Noble, it may be assumed he has a large estate in which to throw parties and live and what not, but to actually use it in the game, it has to be purchased as a Refuge.

Resources are story materials, but they also have a mechanical impact in the game. In this way, the game eliminates one of the classical reasons for adventuring, money. It's not important in All For One, the game doesn't revolve around treasure, rather it revolves around the story. The reason for seeking adventure in All For One is adventure!

One of the most interesting Resource available in the game is the Lackey. Given as a freebie, every Musketeer gets a personal man servant in the form of a level 0 Follower Resource. This is Alfred to Bruce Wayne. Not a main character, but important enough to the story to require special note. While the Follower Resource may be purchased by any character, this one (given for free, but improvable) is unique. This lackey is NOT an NPC. Rather, in a neat bit of game mechanics, this lackey is created and played by another player at the table. Think Monty Python's Holy Grail movie. Just about everyone played more than one role in the movie. In All For One each player gets to play two characters; their main Musketeer character and another character's lackey!

The game states "In addition, a Musketeer is a gentleman, and all gentlemen have servants, better known as lackeys". This is a very important distinction between the lackey and other followers. The lackey is a paid employee of the Musketeer (although they don't actually have to worry about paying them as the game assumes the lackey salary is part of normal expenses) and serves at very least as the characters valet. Traditionally this means that the valet does things like laying out their masters clothes, taking care of personal items, drawing baths and shaving their master. Valets were also responsible for making travel arrangements, dealing with bills and handling money matters concerning his master's household. Valets answered messengers and managed their master's schedules. In short, they did all manner of things for their masters. While some of these things might be considered beneath a gentleman, most gentleman employed valets to save themselves time by not having to personally deal with tedious tasks.

I had none of this in mind when I asked the player whose Lackey I'll be making and playing what he wanted for his Lackey. While I was flattered by his response that he trusted me to come up with something awesome, something else he said was the inspiration for this post. He said in real life he wouldn't have any say in the matter. The more I thought about it the more I thought 'no, that's not entirely true'. A lackey is a paid employee. His Musketeer hired this person, after presumably looking for someone to hire. He would have hired someone he likes, with skills and abilities useful and desirable.

Now that doesn't mean I cannot as a player makeup whatever I like that fits the mold. After all it is going to be my secondary character. Why shouldn't I make up just what I like and what will be fun to play? But consideration needs to be paid to who and why the other player's character would hire this lackey to be their servant. The game also states that the lackey should have some skill that complements the Musketeer and the group in general. So asking for input from the other player makes perfect sense.

To that end, it makes sense to figure out what my character Jean Baptiste would want in his own lackey. As a noble, Jean Baptiste would want a lackey that fits in properly with the other upper class servants. Someone who is socially acceptable and a good fit. As far as skills go, Jean Baptiste doesn't have any sneaky or underhanded type abilities, so something like that might balance out the character. Alternately, some sort of herald like skills might complement the character. A lackey who is an encyclopedia of Paris nobles and houses would be an invaluable assistant and great complement.

Now all I need to do is make up my second All For One character.

All for one, and more for me.

Keep rolling my friends...
(FYI - it is inappropriate to allow your lackey to roll for you!)

Names have Power

Amber is dead. The game that replaced it dead. Characters got almost made, but the GM couldn't get the high level of outside interest in the game he wanted. Now we will be playing (or more specifically are playing as we already had a partial session) Pathfinder, the Kingmaker line of adventures. Meh.

It's D&D. Granted it's not 4e (and thank god for that), but it's D&D. Basically improved 3rd edition. Or improved 3.5 or 3.75 or 3 and seven eighths or wherever the hell they left off before they bastardized it for 4e. Don't get me wrong, now that I'm ranting a little, 4e is an alright system. It's just not D&D. Don't look at me like that. It's not. It's table top MMO. Everything is equal and balanced and vanilla. It's too easy to look right through the fluff and see the system.  

3rd edition was deceit. So Pathfinder. My friend who is running it is a big fan. I was not thrilled with going back to multiple book, crunchy system, fantasy. Not that there is anything wrong with crunchy systems or fantasy (there is something wrong with multiple book, but that was a rant last month). I just wasn't in the mood for it.

So I decide on the front line fighter. Sword and Shield. That way I don't have to invest in the whole spell or special ability thing and can just play it simple. Have fun with my friends at the table was my goal for this game. The whole 'great character thing' kind of went out the window when planning for this game. Again, my attitude on the approach was 'meh'. I do take my gaming seriously, and while I didn't make the time for this game the way I was doing for All For One, when I had the time I did my due diligence and came up with the basic character concept. I also reviewed the rules and Kingmaker setting.

When we sat down at the table, to 'make characters' and play the first session, I had just about everything I need to play. A human fighter. Long sword and shield. Out came a character sheet and pencil to transfer everything over and fill in the details.

First on every character sheet ever made (alright, maybe not every, but 99% of them at least) is a spot for CHARACTER NAME. I thought for a second and skipped over it, writing instead everything I already had. While I was doing so, I looked back up at the NAME line. A borrowed rule book to look up tables and buy equipment and a glance back at the NAME line. I borrowed an Advanced Player's Guide to look up traits (the GM decided to play with them) and I glanced again back at the NAME line. I went outside to smoke (yes, I smoke, sue me) and thought about the NAME line. When I sat back down I wrote Cyrus in on the Character Name line.

And like that I wasn't playing a Fighter. I was playing Cyrus. A former student of the cloth who didn't have the calling. Not a soldier, but a leader, a warrior, a future general. Strong, tough, charismatic. A swordsmen he, no mere brawler. Tall, blonde and handsome. Friendly and loyal. A man of his word. Someone who enjoyed the simpler things in life. I began to wonder and make up more about him. Thinking of what his plans will be, how he will fight. Suddenly I began thinking I might want Cyrus to become the King of the lands we were out to conquer.  

All of that because of a name. Names have power. Names define things, make them real. It's why many older civilizations attached so much important to a name. Even to the point of naming ceremonies for new born children or the taking of an adult name when a child reaches the proper age. My own interest in the game didn't get sparked until my character was born. And that didn't happen until he had a name. Before that he was stats on a piece of paper. The information needed to play the game with my friends. Now, with a Cyrus, I will be in the game with my friends not just playing it.

Names have power.

Of course such inspirations don't work for everybody. Sometimes a rose is just a rose. While my character was being born, all of my friends were creating their own characters. One of them, before the game started, announced the name of his own character, a total and blatant rip off of a character's name from a novel. This drew and incredulous response of 'Really?' from one of my other friends while several of us just snickered. The friend with the stolen character name responded without missing a beat, hey I changed it, I added an apostrophe in the spelling. Too which I lost it and almost fell out of my chair laughing. I assume there was additional conversation, but honestly, I didn't hear any of it.

All of which wasn't totally fair. Names have power. If that name, or the character it represents, speaks to my friend and tells him something about his own character, then so be it. It's not like we are writing a novel here and are going to be sued for plagiarism or anything. Of course he is our friend, so we have been merciless in our ridicule of him. But none of us are totally innocent of doing the same thing, we are just not as blatant about it. I fully expect one day to be playing a futuristic space game with my own character escaping from the bad guys next to Han So'lo.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." 
William Shakespeare 

Keep rolling my friends.

He who has the most dice in their die pool wins!

My last post, where I posted Jean Baptiste de La Pointe and my thought process in creating him, inspired a bit of discussion. Not here, in fact, I'm not even sure how many people beyond the three that have admitted it even read this, rather in an e-mail thread. The first point in that discussion was the GM clearing up how he intended to deal with heavy combat orientated characters. Basically he intends to take advantage the rules pertaining to multiple attackers in a single round by having a large portion of the bad guys team up on the killing machine characters. The second point in that discussion was about Melee skill versus the Fencing skill. Fortunately we will have a definitive answer on that soon. Bonus when the GM knows Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams (author of the game) personally.

In that discussion, one of my fellow players made a comment that inspired me to think a little more about Min/Maxed characters in this game. As previously noted, I am a recovering Min/Max player and to be honest, did do a little Min/Maxing with Jean Baptiste as far as his combat skill goes. I am hopeful that the GM's strategy will be effective should my fear of 'killing machine' characters become a reality. Thus I plan on tweaking my character a little to bring down his Melee skill some, and possibly replace it with Fencing depending on Wiggy's answer.

I do feel that, especially looking at the pre-generated characters in the book, Jean Baptiste was not overly done combat wise as currently devised. I decided to actually build a Min/Maxed killing machine character, just to see how far it could actually be taken. Sort of as a this is what would have made before and how does what I did make compare.

So, Mousier Hinny-Punter (a bad French name for Mr. Ass-Kicker) was born. To start I chose an Archetype of Swordsman and Motivation of Fame because Swordsman and Badass wasn't available. With 15 points available for Primary Attributes and Hinny-Punter being a pure melee fighter killing machine type (I could have done ranged version as well, but didn't feel it necessary) I decided on Body, Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence and Willpower of 2 for a total of 10 points and a Strength of 5. That gives him all average stats but an excellent strength. Good because all melee combat goes off of strength. Secondary Attributes worked out to be: Initiative 4, Perception 4, Move 7, Size 0, Defense 4, Stun 2 and Health 4. As a pure fighting machine, I'm a little worried about the low Defense and Health ratings. I might consider lowering Charisma to 1 and raising Body to 3 just because that helps add one to both.

Skills are next. Well, that would be 4.5 of 15 points right into Fencing because you may not purchase more than five skill levels in any one skill during character creation and Fencing is the big one for this type of character. With Fencing you have to choose a school, which will be Spanish Style. Why? +1 to Thrust and Slash. He will have to take a -1 to Disarm and Feint, but those are not killing moves, so who cares. It's not like he will be Feinting and the only Disarming he will be doing will be in removing arms with his blade. Additionally, Hinny-Punter will specialize in the Spanish Style for another .5 points gaining him one extra die. The game only allows that once during character creation so for the moment his attack is Strength 5 + Fencing 5 + specialized 1 for 11 dice and any attack will be either a thrust or slash so 12 dice. Nice.

At this point I'll expend another .5 points in each Firearms and Ride will and have spent 6 of 15 skill points. I get one more skill for free at 0 and it will cost .5 to make that a one. For that skill I choose Melee. Why when I already have Fencing? Because I will spend the .5 and 3 more points to get Melee 4 and can now use Skill Synergy giving Hinny-Punter +2 dice to Fencing attacks. I've spent 9.5 of 15 points and will be rolling 14 dice to thrust and slash attacks without adding in the weapon or any talents! Next comes Brawl 5 and something to be determined later at 0.

With Talents and Resources next, I am going to skip any thought of Resources and also use the 15 experience points at the end of character creation to take two talents. I have a couple of choices here to add to my kill-e-ness ability.

I could go with Skill Aptitude Fencing and Strong. That would bump my Strength to 6, Fencing to 7 and move to 8. Take Great Sword as his weapon (because I'm Maxing here) and I'm rolling 22 dice (6 for strength, 5 for Fencing, 2 for Synergy with Melee, 1 for specialized in Fencing, 2 for Aptitude in Fencing, 1 for thrust/slash in the Spanish Style and 5 for the Great Sword) and it's just like playing Shadowrun!

Of course with a Defense of 4 and Health of 4, when the GM throws a group of melee enemies or a couple of guys with pistols at Mousier Hinny-Punter, he's toast. So, I look at another option for Talents. Taking Parry and Riposte he can substitute his Fencing Rating (13 in this case) for his Defense, doing so as a reflex action Parry against all melee or brawl attacks. Additionally, any time he beats his attack with a parry, and with 13 dice that should be often, he deals out damage with the Riposte! Sick.

He is still vulnerable against ranged attacks, but then so is almost everyone in this game. Oh, and he's almost totally useless unless he's fighting someone. And unless fighting lots of really good someone's he's pointless. But isn't that what Min/Maxing is all about?

Now that I've disgusted myself with this exercise... keep rolling my friends.