Party Leader verse Player Leader Part I

My eyes swept over the walls. I had steady reports and knew the situation, but now that I had returned to my command post I instinctively looked for myself. The battle raged and we were being pressed, but still we held.


I looked down calling “Tevian!” although it did not register until I said his name that the boy might not have returned. I felt a small measure of relief when he appeared beside me, covered in soot and blood looking much I must have looked.


The enemy had breached the wall nearby and I had lead the command staff and guard contingent into the fray to push them back. The boys, doing their duty, had followed to run messages and maintain the communication with the other sections.


“My compliments to Captain Arian and Lord Woolsack. Ask them to report at once.” Without a moment's hesitation the boy was gone. For a moment, I envied his youth and energy, and then wearily returned to battle.


“Gentlemen, the enemy breached our defenses. Although they could not maintain their foothold, it is a victory that will embolden them. Their next thrust will be devastating.”


Woolsack was an old man of many years experience, this news came as no surprise to him. Arian was younger, but a competent officer. Both shifted their eyes to the enemy.


“They prepare to pull back, my lord, …” observed Arian seeing the same thing I had seen.


“With enough daylight left to reform and come at us again.” Finished Woolsack, echoing my thoughts.


It did not matter that they assessed the situation the same way I did, nor did it matter what else they were thinking. I did not call them here to seek their advice. What could they give? My men were spent. If the enemy came again today, we would loose the wall. I knew it and they knew it. No I did not seek advice. I called them to issue orders.


“Woolsack, call up the Reserves and Rear Guard. I want every man and every bow on the wall.” I could see in his eyes the resolve to fight to the end, he approved of staying on the wall and not falling back.


“Arian, rig the catapults for maximum range. I want them loaded with the fire oil. All of it. When the enemy blows their recall, unleash hell. We pin them between arrow and fire.”


Woolsack and Arian looked confused. Both understood the orders, but could not see the purpose. Breaking a forward charge they could see, but hitting an enemy pulling out was just wasting our own time to rest and re-group.


“You have your orders gentlemen. Everything. Hit them hard.”


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The men huddled and were afraid. Their horse’s pawed nervously on the ground, sensing their riders’ unease. ‘Suicide’ moaned Kron. They were beaten and they knew it. Falling back to the keep made sense, what the name of the Seven where they doing in the marshalling yard? The entire Calvary was there, and Kron could see only one reason for it.


Five minutes ago, the enemy had blown their recall, the walls above singed with bows and the heavy catapults crashed near by, the heat of their destructive payloads could be felt even here. It would be hell on the other side of the gates.


The clink of a bit, the rub of leather and quite muttering of five thousand men silenced between two heartbeats. Lord Erland entered the yard. Kron watched him as did every man there. Watched as he mounted a charger and moved to the front of the formation.


The terror of knowing that they were going to sally out into the madness on the other side of the wall was gone. The King was coming with them.


“Riders! Stay with me! Hold the line! Our archers support us on either side. The enemy stands before us. Our catapults have blocked their orderly retreat. With horse and steel and courage ... We will drive them into the flames.” He spoke in a normal voice, almost quite it seemed. But every man in the yard heard his words.


The gate swung open and the sally ramps dropped with a crash.


“Let us go among them.” He said calmly and spurred his horse forward.


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Woolsack stood on the wall. The catapults lay still. Eighty thousand men cheered. He shook his head as he watched the riders return. Beyond them the enemy fled. Woolsack looked down and saw his King, bearing a wounded man across his lap back into the city and felt a flush a pride, honor, and most of all hope.


An hour ago, he was sure all would be lost. The enemy had the advantage; they had captured a section of wall. They would have taken it had they come again. First the wall, then the city, and then the keep.


His King had snatched that from them. As the enemy withdrew to regroup for another charge, he had mauled them. Throwing fire into their path and peppering them with arrows, then the charge. That is what had done it. An orderly withdrawal had been turned into a route.


No army who’s moral had broken like that could be made to fight again!


 It would be days before the enemy commanders could reform their troops. 


Days. 


By then the armies of the East would arrive.


They had not survived this day ...


They had won.

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It has been a long while sense I posted, the Holidays at work are brutal. But that doesn't mean I haven't been devoting some time to my blog. The short 'story' and I use the term loosely, is an introduction to a concept I've been thinking about: The Party Leader and Player Leader. The next two parts of this entry (coming in a few days) will deal with each in turn.

I would be remiss if I failed to note that the reason I've been thinking about these issues is that Jean-Baptiste has been elected Party Leader in the All For One game.

Till part two, Keep Rolling My Friends.

Great Character Revisited

Two sessions of All For One down and one 'episode' or adventure in the can. It is time to revisit the Great Character concept for Jean Baptiste de La Pointe. Unfortunately it is already apparent that my character is somewhat flawed. Jean Baptiste was designed to be a socialite/high-skill character. The first adventure proved that the All For One skill system is almost totally unforgiving in making successful skill checks when a character doesn't actually have the skill required. Despite the initial character design of spending all starting experience on skill, Jean Baptiste is still seriously lacking.

In order to make a skill check in All For One, a player rolls a number of dice equal to their skill rating. Each die rolled is either a success or failure. The number of dice that are successes are counted up and compared to the difficultly assigned to the skill check. Exceeding that difficulty is a success, coming in under is a failure. If a player doesn't have the skill in question, their skill rating defaults to the associated Primary Attribute minus two. With all of Jean Baptiste's Primary Attributes being twos and threes, that means any skill check with a skill he doesn't possess starts with at best one and at worst zero dice!

Now, having read the rules several times, I knew this going in. It is possible to gain additional dice by using style points on a one for one basis. It was my plan to make up for any lack of skill in this manner. However, I quickly discovered this works once. Given our limited play time (3-4 hours) blowing through all starting style points on the first roll gives a chance to make that particular roll, but style points are not awarded fast enough to be useful again in this fashion (i.e. they won't be flowing like water which the rulebook seemed to indicate would be the case). With 30 skills in the game, odds are good that a player will have to make several skill checks with skills they do not have. Jean Baptiste started with ten skills. More than any other player, but still only one third of the total number of skills.

Fortunately, the skills are quite varied and many of them are not likely to come up as a necessary skill challenged very often. And many of them will not be something that every player will have to make. Some of them however, are skills that most if not all players will have to make. In the adventure we just finished, several of the combats required either an Athletics or Acrobatics roll. Jean Baptiste had neither and, at the time, didn't have any style points to spend making them automatic failures. Not good for a Musketeer. Also, the second part of the adventure started off in a chase with Jean Baptiste driving a carriage. Not a problem I thought, driving a carriage is a Ride skill check and I was driving because I had the most skill in Ride. The second roll however in the chase wasn't a Ride challenge, it was a Survival Check! The road forked and navigation falls under Survival, a check was needed to take the correct fork in the road. Despite having lived in Paris for nine years according to his established background, it appears the Jean Baptiste (mechanically anyway) has no clue how to get around in the city because he doesn't have any ranks in Survival. While that's an stretch, clearly Jean Baptiste knows how to get to places he's already been, but without Survival, in a pinch he cannot figure out where he is or where he is heading.

So, right off the bat, Jean Baptiste has proven flawed. The GM awarded a full fifteen experience points after the adventure for character improvement and indicated that this would be the norm. Also a departure from the indications in the rule book where three to five was recommended. While this made my original plan of banking two points to help with my first planned character improvement, the Talent Parry, totally obsolete, it definitely would help with correcting the flaws I see in Jean Baptiste. There are two ways in which I could about correcting these flaws.

The first is by utilizing a Talent I thought about during Character Creation, Jack of all Trades. This Talent eliminates the negative two penalty for using a skill you are not trained in. It also gives you access to all of the specialty skills that cannot be used at all, unless you are trained in them, by letting you use them at a negative two penalty. While this is a Talent that makes a great deal of sense for what type of character I wanted Jean Baptiste to be, I shied away from it during character creation because it's a feat/talent available in a lot of systems that I have used often in Min/Max builds. Looking back, that may have been a mistake on my part. At the moment, I cannot purchase that Talent for Jean Baptiste because, while I have the experience points to buy it (fifteen being the requirement for a new Talent) I don't have the prerequisite of a three intelligence stat met. I could boost Jean Baptiste's intelligence to three (again, fifteen being the requirement for that, new score times five) with his current experience, go through one more adventure with the skill flaws I see and buy Jack of all Trades after the next experience award. Doing so would however, in my mind anyway, kind of waste all the starting experience I spent at Character Creation on skills. I could also petition the GM for a retcon (thanks to my brother there is precedence for retcons in our games) and switch out Jean Baptiste's purchased skills and intelligence stat and buy Jack of all Trades with starting experience points, then use the awarded experience to buy it again (the Talent can be purchased up to three times, each after the first giving a plus one bonus) which would put him right where I wanted him to be at this point.

The second method would be spending all of the awarded experience points and one of my banked points to purchase eight new skills at level one (two points each to improve a skill from zero to one and no more than a one point increase at a time by rule). By using this method, I would go from ten of thirty skills to eighteen of thirty skills with most of the ones Jean Baptiste not being trained in being the less often used or obscured skills. I say that now, but just you watch, in the next adventure we will have to fire cannons and I'll be sitting there going, "yup, ten years as a French Army officer and I've got no idea how to fire a cannon because I'm not trained in Gunnery". This method does however put him very close to what I imaged him to be and doesn't require wasting his starting experience points or asking for a retcon and being teased by my brother for doing so.

At this point I've done up a version of Jean Baptiste using the second method. I plan to also make up a retcon version for comparison. After our post game web hangout next Monday where we discuss the game, I will make a choice on where to go from here. The retcon clearly needs GM approval and that may require some lobbying, but in truth, he reads this Blog and the whole thing is already laid out. And truth be told, without seeing a copy of a retcon version, I'm not unhappy with the second method except it's kind of sort of the long way around to do what I didn't do because I was trying too hard to stay away from Min/Maxing. In either case, the object, as all ways is the Great Character, so my decision will be based upon whichever method brings me closer to that.

I think that the entire issue actually has to do with perception. I based my perception on what Jean Baptiste was and will be on the background created for him. We didn't want to start off as newly recruited Musketeers. So Jean Baptiste is a man of 19 plus years experience. While only 36 years of age, which is still fairly young by modern standards, in 1636 France, he'd be middle-aged and at the peak of his professional career. Joining the Army at age 17 and spending ten years as a military officer then nine years as a Musketeer it was easy to picture him as a contemporary of Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Unfortunately, while we decided that the characters wouldn't be newly recruited Musketeers, the game system for creating characters is designed for beginning characters who have room to grow. It wasn't possible to roll up the character using the rules and make him actually fit the background as a man with 19 plus years of experience. When it's all said and done, despite what we planned on, creating established Musketeers, we were still rolling up the equivalent of first level characters. I lost track of that and so my character didn't meet my perception of him.

Until next time... Keep Rolling My Friends.

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.

Character - One for All!

I have gone through a lot of what's has already happened in making up Jean Baptiste de La Pointe. Here is, the first draft so to speak of the character. Unless something dramatic happens, I expect this is the character I will be playing in the next few weeks.

I took Archetype Noble. It seemed like a no brainier with the free resource of Status 2 given by the GM. Two other choices here would have been soldier, given his background, or one of the concepts I was toying with in the back of my head was a doctor of divinity and medicine. Common given the time period and not likely to be something anyone else would have come up. Given that I decided to make him a full out Noble, doctor more or less was no longer a choice. That was a layman's profession in the time period. Historically, it did happen very rarely and this is a fantasy game, I didn't feel as a player that I'd want to combine the two.

With a Noble Archetype duty or honor seemed a strong motivation that would work within his background. I went with honor because it's more fun than duty.

The character's stats are a good strong mix of 2's and 3's. I wanted an even mix and strong skills for this character so pushing for a 4 in there would have been an issue. Besides, the cost versus the return in a die pool game like All For One just isn't worth even that little bit of Min/Maxing. Secondary Attributes calculated right off the primary.

Skills came next. All For One give Musketeers Melee (or Fencing), Firearms, Ride and one other skill for free starting at 0 with only a half point needed to buy them up. I took Warfare as the free bee as it made sense given his soldier background. A skill rating (die pool) in All For One of 4-5 is average, 6-7 is good and 8-9 is great. Given that Jean Baptists attributes are all 2's and 3's, expending 2 points on any skill puts him into the average range, which, theoretically should be good especially seeing how style points can be used to boost things. I took firearms, ride and warfare up to 2's by expending 1.5 points on each giving him a solid average in each. I spent 4.5 to bring his melee skill up to 5 (the maximum allowed for starting character) giving him a rating of 8. More on why later. I went ahead and purchased Bureaucracy, Diplomacy, Perform and Brawl to round out his starting skills. Bureaucracy because he's a noble and soldier, helps deal with the administrations and organizations of the world. Diplomacy because that handles leadership (he was an officer) and etiquette (he's also a gentlemen). Preform because that covers dancing (a lively tune, I'm inspired to dance). And Brawl because I learned very early in the test combat that if you want to hit someone, strength alone isn't going to do the job!

I don't see Jean Baptiste as a master swordsman, and with a rapier in his hands, his starting die pool would be 10 dice. That is above good and rated as excellent. During the play testing, 10 dice against an average opponents 5 dice was a bit of overkill. So why do it? Some of what I've heard from my fellow players and the GM has lead me to believe that I can expect a certain amount of Min/Maxing in the game and to be frank, I was worried that in combat situation designed to be challenging for those Min/Maxed characters, Jean would be left behind. So I maxed a little to give him a better chance to be just one cut below the killing machines. I expect to see players stepping into combat with die pools of 14-18. As I stated before, against an average opponent (5 dice) this is waaaayyyy overkill and a total waste of points that could have gone somewhere else. On the other hand, somewhere along the lines, the GM is likely to throw that right back at us to provide 'a challenge' and with 10 dice, Jean might at least be able to defend himself.

Resources and Talents came next. You get one or the other. Jean already had rank 0 Rank and Follower for being a Musketeer, and the free Rank 2 Status that comes with a +1 bonus resource. I chose wealth for the bonus so I could live a little. A man's got to have some standards in Paris. I decided during the background creation phase, that I wanted Jean to have a home outside of the Barracks so I took a Refuge resource rather than a talent.

A character flaw was next. I decided to go with Merciful as nothing else really fit my vision for Jean Baptiste and I wanted a flaw for him. So despite his great melee score, he is not a man who is willing to kill lightly. Plus I figure it will make for great role playing dealing with the other musketeers, who shouldn't be killing either.

Finally, some experience points to spend. These are suppose to represent the character's development from being an experienced Musketeer. I could have gotten a talent or another resource with these, but looking him over, I felt he was lacking some Musketeer like skills. I boosted his Brawl up because if he's not a killer, he has to have some way to deal nonlethal damage. Then I got investigation and streetwise to represent some experience with life on the streets of Paris. Done.

Keep rolling my friends.

The devil is in the details.

The GM has released some information pertaining to character background, mainly, a free (randomly generated) level two resource and an NPC that has to somehow be linked with the character. For me, the resource was Status and the NPC was the Madam of Whispers from Engine Publishing NPC book MASKS. 

I struggled with this for a while, firstly because I didn't want to do any work on the character without knowing this information. I was worried I would come up with something and then the resource wouldn't fit. Second, because I got Status. Working noble into many backgrounds I was considering would have been a bit tough. Alright, no it wouldn't have, it's easy to say, oh yeah and he's a Count, but he ignores his titles and lands and wants nothing to do with them. That however squanders a perfectly good free resource and smacks too much of Athos from the Disney version of the movie. Embracing Status of noble does, by default, define something of the character. While a lot of that is still my choice, it is still a minor limiting factor as far as I'm concerned. But as I didn't come up with much of the character before hand, I decided it's not a major issue.   

Here then is the background for Jean Baptist de La Pointe

de La Pointe is an ancient Nobel French family that, like most aristocracy of the time, can trace their line to the Throne. A certain percentage of the nobility of Europe would have to die before a de La Pointe would sit on the French Throne (and oddly enough, in that case, they would be able to claim the Austrian Throne before the French one), they are, none the less, related to Louis XIII.

The de La Pointe family is not however known for its ties to French Royalty (most nobles can do that), rather the de La Pointes are famous for their military contributions to France. The families ancestors include many heroes of past wars, a long line of generals and even a few admirals. Holding a Dukedom in North Western France, the family has been in decline for several years.

The Current Duc Aubry de La Pointe has no surviving brothers and only two male cousins. He is an elderly man but is still in good health. A retired General himself, The Duc married late in life. He sired three boys and two girls. The eldest boy, Galien was a sickly child who has grown into a sickly man. Galien, unable to participate in physical pastimes has become something of a scholar. The youngest boy, Renier, has just finished his schooling and joined the Army in accordance with family tradition. The girls Ameline and Bonassias both still live at home, although they have many suitors and are of prime marrying age.

The middle boy, Jean Baptiste, born right after Galien and before Ameline, Bonassias and Renier (in that order) also followed in the family tradition and joined the army. Both his name and natural ability severed him well moving up through the ranks till he held the post of Major in the infantry. Although it was possible for his father to just purchase this, or even a higher rank, for his son, Jean Baptiste insisted upon earning his own way up. At least to the point that it was possible.

Jean Baptiste, although his personal career was strong and positive, quickly became disillusioned with the overall stupidity and laziness inherent in the French Army. Most intolerable to him was superior officers who obtained their rank through favor or money and where poor leaders and worse military men. 

After ten years of service, Jean was considering leaving the military. His father had recently elevated him with additional lands and titles clearly expecting that he, not Galien would one day succeed him as Duc. Jean knew that although he was now a Vicomte, with his father still ruling, there was no need for him to visit or manage his new lands.

He was debating what to do about his future when the question was answered at a party in Paris. A young woman, beautiful, intelligent and charming became the target of ridicule when her low birth was reviled. Jean stepped in to defend the girls honor. His opponent did not know he was the son of a Duc and a skilled military officer and he did not know that the fop he was facing in a duel was a Musketeer. Jean won quickly scoring first blood much to the dismay of Guiber Hamund, his opponent. Guiber was, if nothing else, a gentlemen and offered his apologies to the woman.

Considering the matter closed, Jean Baptiste was surprised when a few days later, he was summoned to the office of M. de Trèville who heard of the duel. M. de Trèville was investigating allegations against Guiber which he had already proven to be false, but was being thorough. During the interview talk quickly became less about Guiber and more about Jean Baptiste's background. When it concluded, de La Pointe began preparing to return to the field as his leave was almost at an end. Before he could leave Paris, M. de Trèville offered him a position in the Kings Musketeers.

Jean Baptiste did not need to considered the offer before accepting. He would have to surrender his commission, but he was considering doing that anyway. He wasn't needed at home and enjoyed Paris immensely. Plus no member of the family had ever been a Musketeer.

Duc Aubry de La Pointe owned property in Paris near the Musketeer headquarters and the palace. A large Hotel and several attached townhouses. Writing to his father, Jean Baptiste obtained a letter of introduction to the manager of the properties, a woman named Sybille la Fère (the Madam of Whispers) who still runs one of the more prestigious brothels in Paris, the House of Whispers. Jean took one of the townhouses as his residency and began his new career as a Musketeer. 

Keep rolling my friends.

Supplement Rant

So the group is discussing starting a new game, more on why later, when one of my fellow players ask “Are we using the supplements?” My heart fell a little...

See, generally speaking, I hate rule supplements

I understand that game companies and individual designers make their money by selling books. I don’t begrudge them that. I will purchase the core rules for any game that interests me, happily handing over my hard earned cash for the entertainment, adventure and imagination that these books offer. Furthermore, should a game come out with some sort of supplement for, oh say a unique setting or a book of equipment, I will often times hand over more cash for it if it interests me.

It’s when these supplements include more rules for the game that I start getting pissed. I don’t want to lug three or four or five rule books around to play a game. I don't want to index my character sheet to reference which book stuff is in.

When designing a game is it too much to ask for the designers to put some thought into the process and include all of the rules in a single rulebook? Then publish their fluff books?

Sure, I get it when a game comes out and several years later, the game designer, having though up a whole lot of new and cool stuff wants to release a supplement for the game. I am actually ok with that. I’ll buy that book.

I am fine with releasing a generic rule set, then specific setting and source material and specific rules in another book.

What I don't need is six supplements with twelve pages of addition rules, skills, feats, training and or equipment packaged with two hundred and fifty pages of background, fluff and filler! Put those twelve pages into the core rules where they belong and if your background, fluff and filler book is interesting enough, I'll buy it.

This is annoying people!

Have you ever forked over forty bucks for a core rule book, then thirty more for a players guide, then thirty more for class supplement book, then thirty more for a racial powers handbook and after spending a hundred and thirty dollars the game company announces a new edition!

Other than a grab for money, what it the point of a new edition?

“Oh, we are fixing the flawed game system to make a better experience during play.”

Really fuckers? You didn’t notice that the game system had problems before you released twenty, now obsolete, rule supplements?

I will say that most game companies don’t make it their business plan to screw over their consumers. There is this game company, a bunch of spell casters who live by the seashore, you know who I mean, who's whole goal is now a blatant grab for as much money as they can squeeze out of their players!

This company, who was very creative and innovative back in the day, had a good game with lots of supplements, source material and history. Then they changed their core rules. Predictably then came the releases of supplement after supplement.

Not only do these supplements have additional rule material, but it’s the same recycled crap from the last rule system! What happened to creativity? What happened to imagination? This is role-playing isn’t it? Isn’t imagination supposed to be part of that?

How is this new version of the Dracula rip-off setting any different from any of the other Dracula rip-off settings you have already published?

We are gamers' people! I don’t know what I’m more insulted over; some company recycling a setting for their new rule system or lazy gamers who buy it. Again!

It’s a fucking setting! Nothing has changed!

Don’t drink the Kool-Aid people!

‘But they included setting specific rules for the new system, I have to buy the new version.’

No you don’t moron! It’s the same fucking setting! Things work the same way! Make up the setting specific rules based on the new rules and old supplement! This isn’t Tax Law! You don’t have to follow the official version!

'But if we make up our own rules, they might be flawed and upset the balance of the game.'

You know what? GOOD!

I want my game unbalance! I don’t want a simple, mathematically liner progression that makes the threat level my character faces exactly even throughout his entire career. If that were what I wanted, I’d never accept advancement and stay low level! The GM could give the monsters different names, different descriptions, a couple swappable special powers and we could have the same fight over and over and over again!

I like being the low level porn star spell caster, relying on the warrior type to keep me alive till it's time to blow my wad in one encounter!

Nap time for the mage!

I also like working my way up to the high level caster when the warrior type gets to stand by and watch while I blow shit up!

And if you just cannot deal with having your carefully crafted, balanced game disrupted by a flaw in the rules you made up… then fix it. This isn’t that hard people.

Murphy’s law states that if you mess with something for very long, you will screw it up! What do you think all these supplements are doing? Messing with shit! Knowing they will screw it up. Why? So they can declare the system broken and come out with another new edition and recycle all their old crap yet again!

Fortunately the GM decided on core rules only, so we're all good. Sorry about the rant.

Keep rolling my friends.

Min Maxing

"I have a 3 intelligence? Outrageous!" Rogar the Barbarian.

After our test character generation exercise, I became slightly worried as a recovering Min/Max gamer. All For One doesn't do anything to protect against creating the swashbuckling fighting machine, and as demonstrated by some of the characters created, it is actually easy to do. In game, if everyone is playing a Min/Maxed character, it works fine. If some are and some are not, it causes problems for both the GM and everyone else in the group. It becomes two different games being played. In order for a GM to challenge the Min/Max character, the bad guys have to be able to stand up to him. The problem becomes, the rest of the character now have no chance against the bad guys. On the other hand, if the GM keeps the villains reasonable, the Min/Max character wades through them like they are mooks.

Additionally, outside of combat, the Min/Max character has nothing to do, so to keep everyone engaged in the game the GM has to hand out lots of fighting. While this isn't a blog about GMing (I leave that to the experts at Gnome Stew) players and their characters definitely have an effect on the GM, his style and how the game plays. I personally don't want to create a well balanced character and be useless in combat. Nor do I want to invest in a lot of skills and abilities I either never get to use, or only get to use them to get to combat I am useless in.

Determining the play style of the group for a specific game can be very important for you during character generation. You don't want to come up with a character that isn't fun to play because he doesn't fit with the groups plays style. Also, players have a certain responsibility to the Game Master and their fellow players to make a character that fits so the game is fun for everyone.

The GM for this game is a long time, very experienced GM. He is usually excellent at bring all players and characters into the story, playing towards their strengths. There is a large group for this game however, and a fractured group of characters will mean more times when players are out of the mix if their characters don't fit the situation. I spoke with him about the Min/Max concerns with this game right after our test run. While he shares some of those concerns, he has not yet come up with specifically what he plans to do if it happens. 

Upon further investigation into the game and rules, I came to the conclusion that he really won't have to do much beyond encouraging players to not Min/Max.

All For One doesn't do anything about Min/Maxing characters for several reasons. The setting/game assumes that game style will reflect a cohesive group and that, if players are playing this game, they won't take the Min/Max route. All For One is not a combat heavy game and as such, the super awesome fighting machine character is pointless to play. Furthermore the super awesome fighting machine character is useless in All For One. In most combat situations killing is not the objective. Trying to create alter the game to make it combat heavy or creating situations where multiple killings doesn't equal multiple murders will quickly destroy the games overall base setting and tone.

All For One is a game designed for balanced characters. Without classes as such, the game, on a basic level, does away with the traditional character roles. Roles that have been further refined and defined by MMOs. There are no strikers, no tanks, no DPS, no leaders, no support character roles in this game system. They are not there for a reason. The game assumes that each character can and should be able to function in almost every situation. You are playing a Musketeer. When you have to fight, you can fight. When you have to dance and impress the nobles, you can dance. When you want to woo the court ladies, you can woo. When you have to search for clues, you know what to look for and who to talk to. Style Points and the die pool play a big part in this. For the most part, having too many dice available for a situation is far worse than not having enough. If a player thinks they need more dice, they can get them. If a player has too many dice, they are wasted. It is assumed that all character will be good enough in everything that they will only need a few more dice to compensate for their poorer skills and attributes to overcome a situation. If the player spent too much in one area, they will need far more Style Points than they could reasonably be expected to have to compensate for their poorer skills and while they will dominate in the area they spent too much in, they do so by wasting dice!

In Summary, All For One doesn't discourage players from Min/Maxing, the Ubiquity system punishes players foolish enough to do it.

Keep rolling my friends.

   

Musketeers assemble!

Earlier in the week my game group got together for an All For One character generation test run. The system is smooth and I really like it. All For One uses a simple point buy generation system. First you pick an Archetype, then a Motivation, then purchase six Primary Attributes which generate six Secondary Attributes, then purchase Skills, then pick one Talent or Resource and finally a flaw if you want one. With the basic character now created the final steps are spending some Starting Experience Points to reflect the characters past and the Finishing Touches (name, history, appearance, background, and so on).

Both the Archetype and Motivation go a long way to defining who the character is. They are broad enough to allow for player input, but give a great deal of guidance right off the bat and help the rest of generation flow. Buying six Primary Attributes with only 15 points might not seem like a lot, but a rating of 2 in this game is human average, so at worst, each character will be above average in half of their attributes. Because the six Secondary Attributes are calculated off the Primary Attributes, the same principle applies. 15 points in skills is a little tricky as several skills have Specializations that also have to be purchased, so 15 points might not go as far as one might think. But Skills are linked to Attributes thus increasing their die pools.

Talents work much like Feats in this game. They give some in game bonus that is unavailable without that Talent. Some are strictly die pools bonuses, some grant the ability to use different Attributes for rolls, some remove restrictions, and some simply let you do something that you otherwise cannot do. None are particularly grand and all they really do is add flavor and a little bit of an edge to the character.

Resources are used in All For One instead of money. And it is the character's decision to purchase what resource level they want for their character. For an old school D&D gamer, this is quite the change! Gold and magic items (or credits and gear or whatever) are not the object in this game at all. The Adventure is what All for One is about. In this game, if you want something and have the Resource level high enough to get it, it's yours. If not, then you have no one to blame but yourself!

I really like games that have flaws as characteristics. It adds something to a character to not be perfect. While Archetype and Motivation define a lot about a character, the flaw makes them fun to play. In All for One, flaws are optional. All they do is add flavor. Oh, and the opportunity to earn Style Points. Style Points add to your die pool. The die pool is how many dice you roll to determine if you are successful or not in what you are doing.  Style points also reduce damage or boost talents. All in all, they are what makes your character better or luckier than the average shmuck off the street.

Generating these character was more of a learning exercise than anything else. No one in the group has played in a Ubiquity system before and the GM wanted to see what character generation was like. Following my running theme for the Blog, I think this was an excellent exercise. Putting it simply, a character generated for the first time in a new rule system doesn't have the same chance of being a truly great character as one generated after a player has some level experience. Next up will be a actual test game where we take the rules out for a spin using pre-generated characters.

Till then, keep rolling my friends!

Typecasting

“You, boy, are arrogant, hot tempered and entirely too bold. I like that. Reminds me of me.” – Porthos, 1993 Three Musketeers 

Have you ever seen Top Gun? A Few Good Men? Days of Thunder? The Firm? If not, I’d recommend them, as they are good movies. They all have something in common; Tom Cruise plays the lead role in each. In Top Gun the lead character is Tom Cruise the Navy Pilot, in a few Good Men it’s Tom Cruise the Navy lawyer, in Days of Thunder it’s Tom Cruise the racecar driver, in the Firm it’s Tom Cruise the lawyer again. All of these movies have different lead characters, but Tom Cruise plays the role. And no one plays Tom Cruise like Tom Cruise.

Some role-players are like that too. I know I am. One of my GMs recently commented about my character Logan. He said ‘He’s got a lot of Erland in him”. Arrogant, sarcastic, power hungry, gentlemanly… yup that’s Erland… and Logan… and come to think of it that’s most of my characters.

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a good actor. I know I can role-play other personalities, I’ve seen me do it. So why do most of my character’s share the same personality traits? Typecasting. I am both good at and enjoy playing those personality traits, so when it comes time to roll-up my character, those are the ones I’m predisposed towards.

In All For One, I will be playing a Musketeer. Arrogant, sarcastic and gentlemanly does fit well with a Musketeer. I could type cast myself again and go with what I know I am good at and enjoy. On the other hand I could craft a different personality for Jean Baptiste and challenge myself. Both options have advantages and disadvantages.

If I play him like my ‘normal’ character, I am sure he will be well played and I will enjoy him as a character. I  risk having him be normal and uninspiring in both my own and fellow players eyes. If however, I challenge myself and play a different personality it increases the chances that he will be a memorable character. Assuming I pull it off. If not, he could be a disaster and no fun to play.

As my goal is create and play a ‘great character’, I am going to take the risk and go outside of my normal role and take Jean Baptiste in another direction.

Musketeer says flamboyant to me. So that will be the first personality trait I choose for him. Why break down a door, when a perfectly good window and rope is available? Why take the evidence of a traitorous noble too the king when you can throw it on the floor in front of him as a challenge him as a traitor in front of the king? 

Next I usually go with sarcastic because I am sarcastic in real life. I don’t think I would enjoy playing a humorless character and don’t want Jean Baptiste to be sarcastic. So the second personality trait I have chosen for him is good-natured. He is funny and enjoys a good laugh, either at himself or at others, as long as it is safe, good humor fun. Jean Baptiste enjoys life and what he does.

Lastly (three traits seem good to start with) I need something that explains why his personality lends itself to be a Musketeer. This isn’t his motivation, that is actually a step in character creation, rather it what makes him fit as a Musketeer. For the last one, I picked caring. Jean Baptiste is the sort of man who helps little old ladies carry their bag, who steps in to stop a bully, who hands his last few coins to the starving man on the street. He is not a priest and hasn’t devoted his life to helping other, but he doesn’t turn his back when he sees someone in need.

In summary; There is nothing wrong with being type casted in a certain role, but sometimes it’s nice to try a different personality for your character. Choose one that fits both yourself and the game.

Jean Baptiste – Caring, Good-natured and flamboyant – All for one, and one for all!

The Character Creation Section

"I am Jean Baptiste De La Pointe of his most Christian Majesty, Louis the XIII, Musketeers, at your service madam"

For whatever reason, I always get more of a feel for a character when he's got a name. A few quick Google searches for seventieth century French names and I came up with Jean Baptiste. I like the name because it's authentic and was popular during the 1600's in France. Plus it reminds me of Zorg from The Fifth Element (one of my favorite movies). De La Pointe is also authentic for the time period, but less popular.

After reading though the book I re-read the character creation section. There are a lot of Blog posts about the character creation section in RPG's. Opinions vary greatly from 'love them' to 'useless'. Personally, my opinion has evolved over the years. If they are well written, I have always seen them as a good resource. Normally information is presented in a liner fashion and all in one place making it easy to look up. Now, I also see them as the best guideline you are going to get for a given game. In All for One, the character creation section takes you step by step through creating a Musketeer. More importantly, it takes you step by step through creating a Musketeer. I know I just said that twice, but consider, All for One is a game designed specifically for playing a classical, right out of the movies or books, Musketeer. The character creation section in All for One and just about every other game on the market is geared towards making exactly the kind of character the game is designed for.

This is a valuable resource for both novice and experienced players. Many role-playing games produced these days are setting specific games. They are designed with a specific genre and style in mind. The character creation chapter(s) presented in the rules are likewise designed to roll up a character that fits within that genre and style. This is the type of character that the game was most likely play-tested with. As such this is the type of character that works in the game.

Almost all of these games present themselves as flexible to appeal to a larger audience. In fact many games are built these days using mechanical systems designed for other games. Some systems even claim universal setting adaptability. Other types of characters may work within the genre and style just fine, but it's always best to remember that the character created using the chapter(s) presented in the book(s) are always what the writers had in mind when making the game.

Game writers, like GMs, are usually loath to tell players what kind or style of character they should roll up. Guidelines are presented, but there is almost always loopholes and ways to go way outside of the box. Players like to make really cool and or unusual characters. GMs are no more immune to this rule-of-cool approach than their players are. But every step outside of the guidelines represents something that has to be worked into the game, or around in game, or added to the game, or subtracted to the game. In other words, something that is just as likely to be a problem as it is to be cool.

Besides, I have not as of yet, in my two and a half decades of playing, found a character creation section in a rule book that makes cookie-cutter generic characters. Following the guidelines in the books and a little imagination provides for a nearly infinite variety of characters that are just as cool and unusual as characters that are made up ignoring the text suggestions. With the added bonus that they almost always work in game.

In summary, the character creation section presented in the rule books is a valuable resource, don't be opposed to using it.

All For One

As previously mentioned in my first post, the original reason for this blog was to chronicle the creation of a new character for the campaign that my group is starting soon. That game is All for One: Règime Diabolique, by Paul "Wiggy" Wade-Williams, A Triple Ace Games product using the Ubiquity System (Exile Games Studio).

My processes started with avoiding one of the biggest flaws of character creation; making a character that won’t live up to expectations. So I read the rules. All of the rules (except the GM section of course), including side bars and flavor text. Because I’ve never played in the ubiquity system I needed not only a grasp of the mechanics of the game, but also the setting and flavor of the game. Then, I spoke with my friend who will be running the game to get his vision of the campaign. While a lot of that is still up in the air at this point (I’ve read more of the book than he has), I think I have a good idea of what the game will be like. At very least I have enough information to start working on some character ideas.

Before reading the book I came up with a character concept based solely on our groups' initial discussion of the campaign. I knew it was going to be a time period, swashbuckling type game in which we will all be playing a Musketeer. I had no actual intention of using this concept, but wanted to see what I could come up with using the ‘rule of cool’. Here is the concept:

• I decide that this character was going to be an Englishman who was born in the Orient. Everyone else is likely going to be French, so I went with something different.
• From a young age, he was trained in oriental arts to be a spy for Lord Buckingham. Because ninja's are always cool. And for a sword-fighting game what could be better?
• After working in France as spy, he comes to realize that Buckingham and Richelieu are both without honor so he defects and becomes a spy for the King. A little motivation for the character here, already have a built in animosity for the two biggest baddies of the time period.
• Later he is recruited into the Musketeers. 
• He is a hand-to-hand or stealth assassination guy; his Ninja arts take the form of stealth and magic-like affects. Combat style and skills defined here.
• The English, have a price on his head for his betrayal and he’s constantly on the run from their agents. Built in hook for the GM

Cool character concept. I’m sure you already have a vision/expectation of what this character would play like.

Here are the issues: First, the GM is planning on a French political & court romance style swashbuckler game (the book not only supports this type of game, it is actually the default). The English will most likely not be part of his plans because there is enough going on in France that an outside antagonist isn’t necessary. While the GM might throw the character a bone now and then, for the most part, his whole background is a waste of any useful story material for the campaign. Second, the vision for what the character does/acts doesn't relate to the story the GM is planning on telling. A romance style swashbuckler game is larger than life, full of grand fights, heroes swinging from chandlers and duels at dawn. The sneaky guy doesn't fit. A foreigner will be out of place at social event unless he is someone famous or extremely charming. He will be mistrusted in an age of mistrust thus limiting his chances to participate in the social aspect of the game. Third, while I might be able to make this character within the rule system, he’s not going to work well. Fights are suppose to be long, drawn out and dramatic duels; as such the game mechanic doesn’t support a stealth assassination. Also, the magic system really cannot double for anything resembling the ‘Ninja arts’. Throw in werewolves, vampires and demons, and now the character now is really out of place. All in all, the character will be weaker and less effective than intended. He certainly will not live up to the expectations of the original character concept.

Of course this character concept would be a challenge to role-play and that might appeal to some players. However, it also has a lot of potential to become frustrating in this game for everyone at the table. A few tweaks could go a long way towards making the concept work better. However, having read the rules and knowing the system and setting, a much better concept can easily be developed.

In summary; coming up with the concept before doing your due diligence is a mistake, read the book.

Who's 'That Guy'?

That Guy is a Great Character. Which is, unfortunately, almost totally subjective. There are no rules for Great Characters, no method for creating them, no way to even define them. Great Characters are like pornography. I cannot tell you what it is, but I know it when I see it.

None the less, my goal is to create a Great Character. So, there has to be something that I can use to guide me on the way. And there is. Because it is almost totally subjective and because it will be my character, it is my subjectivity that counts.

While there is no way to define what a Great Character is (there are some things they definitely are not), there are a few things they all have in common.

Great Characters are fun. RPG's are a hobby. We play the games to have fun. If it wasn't fun, we wouldn't play. You can have a mediocre character and still have fun playing the game. After all, you're most likely gaming with your friends doing something you enjoy doing. Great Characters always add to the fun of playing for both you and everyone else at the table. It's a subtle difference. Having John at the table playing the game is fun. Having John playing Starstrider in the game is more fun. (Please note that both John and Star strider are fictional and any resemblance to real people or characters is just dumb luck).

Great Characters fit. The game master is telling the story, and every story teller loves to have great characters in their stories. A good game master can pull players and characters into the story and craft things around characters when necessary. Great Characters, by their very nature, contribute to the story and rarely need to be worked around. They fit the setting and the campaign. They don't play in the story, they are part of the story.

Finally, Great Characters are memorable for the right reasons. They almost take on a life of their own. Their players are invested in them and play the character, not the game. With the result being, the character becoming almost a separate person. It's like watching an actor in a movie. You know it's Johnny Depp, but you are seeing Jack Sparrow (sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow).

Bio

I get annoyed reading blogs without knowing anything about the author, so I am starting this one with a little Bio on the off chance that someone might read it. Hey, it could happen. I’m Thom (yes, spelled with the ‘h’ and pronounced without it) and I go by the screen name Erland (or Erland Nimz). I’ve been a gamer for 26 years; I’m overweight, bald with a goatee, never kissed a girl and still live in my parent’s basement. No, not really, well, not the last two anyway.

I game weekly (Sunday nights) in a three week rotating game schedule. I play in two games and am the G.M. of the third. I’m a RPG gamer who sometimes dabbles in MMO’s when I have the time. I don't play board games, card games or mini’s, they really aren't my style. From old school red box (although my first one was brown) Dungeons and Dragons to yellow box Marvel Comic’s Superheroes (Karma for RED!) I’ve played a lot of systems and styles. I would best describe myself as a recovering Min/Max Hack/Slash gamer. Not that there is anything wrong with playing that way, but as I have gotten older the setting and story have slowly taken on more importance for me. These days it’s more fun to tell the tale of how I cut the demon’s head off with my +5 Vorpal Sword of Badassness than it is to actually do the cutting.

So that’s me and this is my blog. Why a blog? I’m glad you asked. In my gaming group, one of our weekly games is coming to a scheduled ending and a new game will be replacing it. We decided this before Gen Con 2011 (great time btw) so I have been thinking and getting excited about the new game. I also had an epiphany. I don’t really like my character in the game that’s ending. I like the system and the setting. The G.M. has a great story and plot and the character is actually a cool concept. He’s just not… ‘that guy’.

You know the guy I’m talking about. That character you sit around with your friends and tell stories about. That character from the legendary campaign that loved playing in. That character that you thought about at work or school instead of work or school.

That guy. The Han Solo of characters, the John McClain of characters.

My character in the other campaign I play in (Erick Wujcik Phage Press, Amber, Diceless System) isn't ‘that guy’ either, but he has the potential to be. One of the characters in the campaign I am running (Margaret Weis Productions, Serenity, Cortex System) is ‘that guy’. In fact, that campaign has ‘that guy’ and a couple of potential ‘that guys’!

I want to be playing ‘that guy’; I want all of my character’s to be ‘that guy’.

Being me and having the time to really think about the new campaign, I decided to put in the extra time and effort to think about, research and chronicle the new character. So, a blog. And as I am starting one; I decided not to limit it to an online journal about the new character, but instead to make it a complete role-playing blog. I am looking at it as a chance to expand my hobby by writing about it.