Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Character Backgrounds Defining Attributes

For a time, I ran a homebrew campaign called Neverland. It took place in the 1870s and was about the British Empire's conquest of Faerie. The PCs could be soldiers of fortune, explorers, traders, or even scientists trying to codify the laws of magic and bring back live specimens of mythical beasts. The two worlds were connected by a train line that left London via tunnel and emerged in Periopolis, an eternal city at the boundary of Faerie.

Character creation used a backwards-design process where you selected your career and training first, which drove your attribute scores. So if you chose Burglar, your Dex would increase, if you chose Pugilist, your Strength would increase, and so on. You would end up with a character whose attributes would be a good fit for their chosen career. I threw in a couple of freebie points or tweaks that the player could distribute as they saw fit, so in general, most Infantry Officers had roughly similar attributes, but one might be a bit more intellectual and another, particularly strong. It worked great and I wonder if there are any other systems out there that don't figure your attributes until after you've created a background for your PC.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

[Actual Play] Welcome to the Plunderdome

Had a rollicking good time Saturday morning playing through Welcome to the Plunderdome with my kid.

[Spoiler Alert]
 

When she encountered the three disciples of Lord Reven and their captive haunted skeletons in Area 35 on the map, my sweetheart of a kid used her Resist roll to wrest control of the skeletons from the bad guys and free their spirits from bondage. Totally unforeseen move, but I should learn by now she wants to talk to/reason with every monster she meets! We stopped the game just after she found Fiddle hiding in the store room of the Priestesses of Lady Skew. She's going to have all week to think about how they're going to go about getting the Katasterrod back from the bad guys.

Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I have a very big and very fun commission creating a campaign map for an upcoming RPG publication, and it's been occupying much of my free time.