Homebrew tabletop system- playtesters requested

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

I have a homegrown RPG system that has actually been running for some time now; fairly successfully- I still have people willing to play it, after all. On the other hand, it would be good to have things sorted out properly, a lot of the overengineered rule mechanics (that were put in as contingencies originally) slimmed down, the bits of the system that have evolved since the second codification typed up properly, and generally the whole thing cleaned and adequately explained to the point where someone else could manage to run it.

Basically, I'd like somewhere between three and seven people to help me make this work; I'm on UK time but I'm basically a night owl at the moment, so no geographical problems, much.

Some bits are overcomplex, some bits aren't sufficiently fleshed out- I'd want to do this as a proper game rather than a rule hacking session, see the game engine in motion and just have more fun doing it than dry swapping of statistics.

It is fantasy, there was a sci- fi version of the earliest edition but that's long since fallen by the wayside. Tone is, well, me. The group has ended up at various times doing everything from Dangermouse to Dante's Inferno. Generally human versus human, or civilised versus civilised anyway, rather than human versus monster; relatively little dungeon crawling, some back and quite a lot of front stabbing.

No alignment system, but expect characters to be judged by the society around them; game runs fairly NPC- heavy, and playing them off against each other to enable the PC's own rise to power is part of the principle of it all. The big plot goes on anyway, but the PC's should make their way from wannabes and fringe elements to centre stage over the course of a campaign.

Combat skills are necessary but not sufficient; if you don't cross somebody badly enough that they want to kill you you're not doing it right, but equally if that's all you can do you're going to end up part of someone else's plan.

Magic and technological level varies from place to place, the background is broad enough for patchwork, and crucially is in the process of changing at the time of play, from moderate with ocasional spectacular architectural feats to high, with the changes and upheaval that implies.

Social level, if that term makes any sense, is late mediaeval to early modern, with because of the thaumaturgy of it all strong high- feudal anachronisms; mostly human, but most of the standard fantasy races are playable, with predictable social drawbacks and strengths.

Rule- mechanically, picture a family tree including Paranoia 2nd ed, Issaries Industries' version of RuneQuest, White Wolf's Mage, and parts of GURPS. It may be the only system in which anyone has ever had to roll a D37. I like fast and loose, but I need the system to be robust enough to cope with oh-no-it-didn't -oh-yes-it-did rules arguments, and fattening/slimming it for the right balance is part of the reason I want to do this.

Essentially a short campaign, the equivalent of five or six sessions; maybe more, if people enjoy it. Anyone up for this?

[Vehrec]

Color me interested, but unsure as to what level I'll actually be participating at. My style of play tends to be more a responsive one than an active and agressive one, so we'll see if that will work with your needs.

[Master_Baerne]

I'll bite.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Great. As soon as there are enough people I'll start going through character creation, but the first and most important step is deciding what you want to be.

There is actually a story thread in Fanfic that is based around this game and the first playtest group thereof, http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=117092but there's a lot of that, so the short version;

Roughly four hundred years ago, an evil empire, a thaumaturgical dictatorship, fell- to be replaced by a rather more debatably evil empire, a much more off- hand organisation with occasional spectacular bouts of interventionism.

One of them just happened to your country, a disparate patchwork quilt of species; internal difficulties got out of control, and your peace was kept for you with a vengeance.
Morning after that, enter the PC's.

A battered land slowly drawing itself back together, dead lords and vacant lordships, townsmen in open revolt and yeomanry starting to get the hang of this collective bargaining idea- with longbows. Guild structures breaking down, banditry rife and organised crime going legitimate, polytheistic church and state at open feud in some places, older races wondeirng if these humans ought not to be put back in their place, neighbours across the border scenting blood-
there is much that needs to be done, no shortage fo people who need things done to- or even occasionally for- them, and no shortage of opportunities to get rich, famous, or spectacularly killed.

I'll start formal character creation sunday night at the earliest, if enough people are interested before then, but the first and most important question is, whereabouts in all of this does your character fit in? What sort of social strata, what occupation, what species? What kind of place does he, she or it come from?

Feel free to describe generically- there's bound to be somewhere in the background that fits, and I generally assume that all characters have some degree of common sense, and allow players their character's degree of background knowledge to draw on anyway.

I know the background well enough (damn' well ought to) that I can make some sort of plot somewhere out of what combination of characters comes up, so come out with what you want to play and let the numbery but fall in behind that.

PS; cheers. This should be fun.

[Vehrec]

Species-human, or less than one sixteenth other. If you have half-orcs and such that is . Social class, lower upper, not nobility but in service to them. His father's a clerk with ambition, working for some lord or another. Eldest son inherits, middle child to the clergy, last one to the army, wasn't that the model? He's the one who was supposed to become a priest, wound up an alchemist and doctor with a bit of wizard on the side instead. Its a job that crosses paths regularly with craftspeople and rude laborers-miners, woodsmen, artists and tanners for instance. His family did not approve, but he made good money and let them borrow from him so they kept relatively quiet and didn't disown him.

He's a townie by nature, but he sometimes ventured into the wilderness for a day or so to gather critical things that he couldn't buy. Emphasis on sometimes. Would have happily sat on his arse from now 'til doomsday were it not for the recent occupation and evacuation which forced him to flee ahead of it.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

That works; .

Filling in bits of the background, in the Kingdom of Kuquan which is most likely where you'll be, climatographically you're at the southern edge of the north temperate zone. The northern fringe of the country is wetter and more fertile, and estates tend to fission, being parcelled out, reforming, assigning sideways, splitting and reforming- divide between the descendants is relatively common.

Further south, there are nastier neighbours and more arid ground, so primogeniture is more likely and more supported by the territorial nobility, who want relatively intact demesnes so they can count on their military followers being able to equip themselves and their retinue properly. That spreads down the social scale, becomes the fashion for the middle and lower class as well. Fits in well with your chosen background.

Baerne, any ideas? Anybody else?

[Master_Baerne]

Yes indeed. I've had a character concept bouncing around my brain for a while now, a variation on "the loner searching for answers about his/her past." In this case, I was planning on a thief and con artist who's spent her life searching out the dirty little details of everyone's past, because she can't remember her own. Amnesia or magical memory wipe, I hadn't decided, but she'd have absolutely no problem switching identities at the drop of a hat, because she doesn't really have a 'base' identitity. Lies within lies within lies makes everything more fun, after all.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Unusual but feasible. I can think of several options as to how she got to be that way, with varying degrees of trouble attached to them- do you actually want to know, and act the part out, or would you rather go on the same journey as the character and find out in play?

[Vehrec]

Amnesia? Man, that's like putting a 'kick me' sign on your character when it comes to plot twists.

[Master_Baerne]

Yep! I'd rather an interesting story than an easy game. I'd rather not know my character's past, I think.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right, I can run with that- still only two players though, which is doable, but marginal. I've run with a group that small, but one of the characters was a kensei and master of bladecasting and the other was a dwarven runesmith. There's also fantasy precedent, in Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Hawk and Fisher, Elric and Moonglum... all right, maybe that last pair is a bad example. Of pretty much anything you care to name.

Even so, solving problems with mayhem, zappage and open manipulation are things a surgeon/herbalist/hedge wizard and a social chamaeleon con artist are just not going to be able to do on any great scale, and any chance you take, physical or social, gets that much more dangerous the fewer of the group there are to cover each other's backs.

Is there anyone else interested?

If not, we'll go with it anyway, just that the fewer players there are, there's going to be less playtest and more straightforward play, less action and more backstairs intrigue. Might be worth waiting a couple of days to see if anybody wants to give it a shot.

[Master_Baerne]

If not, I suppose we could each run two characters, or something.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Thank you for your optimism, and it has happened, but two characters in a system you're not familiar with is more complexity than I had intended to throw at you, I was going to stick to one at a time.

I did say we would do the mechanics sunday night at the earliest, which was optimism on my part; it is the weekend after all and the board is usually quieter then, so I reckon wait a bit, see if anyone else is willing to sign up then go with it.

Besides which, let's see how much of a nightmare/stroll in the park (delete as appropriate) you find statting up one character before you start multiplying ; I've been doing it so long I reckon I think it's easier than it really is. It's not like it's actually complex or anything, but I have tried to go for a lot of options and choices, and there are some synergies in there that I need to get out on paper.

What the plot ends up being depends on what combination of characters come to the party, and I can make something out of what we have at the moment, certainly.

[Master_Baerne]

Aye aye then. I await the rules.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

An unforeseen problem has just occurred to me. There isn't a random number generator around here anywhere, is there? I might have to do the dice- work, unless there is a better idea.

Where to start explaining it all?

character creation step by step, I think, to make it make more sense and so I can save and edit my posts for working into the new system documents.

It's largely skill based, the core mechanism is- rolling low is good, in opposed rolls furthest under wins. The attribute setup gives you initial skills and baseline- there's no such thing as 'unskilled'; there's a default value for all the skills that come off the attribute so there's always some chance, and even a beginning character can be good enough at a few chosen things that there's very little chance of failure against the environment. Active opposition, on the other hand...

No hit points. Wound levels, determined by attribute- someone more determined needs to be hit harder to take damage, someone big and chunky can take more damage before they get put down, but depending on damage tolerance isn't safe.
it is possible to get tougher, but increasing in skill to see them coming and get them before they get you is vastly more likely to work. Increasing in wealth to buy better protective gear works, too.
(Think of magic items, incidentally, like objets d' art- generally made to specific order, on commission, and bought and sold mainly at auction.)

There is a stunt system, there should be bonuses for good description, but figuring out exactly what description equates to what bonus, to the issue-a-guideline level anyway, was going to be one of the points of the exercise.


Three by three attribute block- three social;

Temper,
which is mainly a measure of personal aggression, drive, sticktoitiveness, and general willingness to bludgeon your way through problems to get things done.

Fellowship,
how well you blend in to a crowd, pass as one of the people, feel what they're feeling, social antennae, manipulation of the mass. A lot fo day to day social skills come off of this, bargaining and banter and culture skills,

Charm,
individual personality projection, shininess, charisma, face- to- face understanding- or deliberate misunderstanding as often as not. Skills like con and acting usually go here.

Design note;
There is a good game design reason to have game mechanics set up to handle social skills, rather than simply let the players act it out; NPC vs. NPC. Sometimes I'm juggling so many characters, mutually bribing, blackmailing and bluffing each other in different directions that the only options are to call a halt, wait for my head to stop throbbing and start drawing influence diagrams, or just say the hell with it, what do the statistics say?

The other reason is to allow players to play characters unlike themselves; I run at a games club most of the time, and I can have anyone round the table from people I've known for a decade or so to kids who just wandered in that week. Friends of friends, wargamers we're trying to educate, et cetera. Having a resolution mechanism smooths that over a lot, and if in doubt it's a lot easier to have a rule that exists and ignore it, just act the situation out, than to end up arguing over what could have happened if there had been a rule.

Three mental;

Logic,
should be fairly self explanatory- how logical the character is, capacity for abstract thought and things that make sense.
Key skills that come under this; Perception. An absolute must.

Creativity,
thinking sideways, indirectly, artistically- a lot of art and things to do with understanding magic come under this.

Education,
the character's store of formal and informal growing- up type learning, how well they have been taught- naturally, most skills to do with things that are taught can fit here.


Three physical skills, a fairly traditional combo,

Strength
straightforward exertion of force, most brute- force weapon skills, most manual labour type skills come under this,

Endurance,
how tough the character is, biologically. Has a lot to do with how much punishment they can take and how long they can keep going. Most of the skills that come off of endurance are about that, or are resistance related.

Agility,
How well the character can throw themselves around; some athletic, most fine- manipulation, and most weapon skills come off of Agility.


Character creation step by step;
1) roll and assign attributes; the heroes are supposed ot be above average, so- every species has it's own combination of attributes, different sets of dice codes to roll. Most of them balance, mostly. The lowest is dwarvish Charm, at D6+2, agility is mediocre and creativity not good, they make up for that with higher fellowship, logic and endurance. The highest is Orcish endurance at 3D6+4- their physical stats are very good but they pay for it with bone between the ears.
humans are straight 2D6+3 across the board, for player characters you roll one more dice than the combination suggests and throw away the lowest. PCs are supposed to be above average; considering the trouble they get into, they need to be.


2) choose advantages and disadvantages, which cost or add attribute points; each race has it's 'characteristic' set that can be taken as a baseline and built on, for humans that is
Advantages; 2-3ap Family, 1-3ap other benefit appropriate to profession (Contacts, Allies, Attuned, etc)
Disadvantages; 2-3ap Enemies (usually rivalry), 1-3ap feudal obligation
'ap' being attribute point, and this is a suggestion, not mandatory.

The cap on the value of these things you can have is the highest attribute as rolled- if the highest dice roll was a 13, for instance, there could be no more than 13 points worth of advantages or disadvantages.
Nailing down how they work in play was going to be one of the big points of this- for instance;

Alice has a 4- point Relationship with Bob. Bob is about to be eaten by wolves. Does that 4- point relationship translate into a +4 bonus to weapon skill when she leaps to his defence? Does it then translate to a 4- point guilt induced penalty if he still carks it? Usually, yes to the first at least.

Bob's brother Cieron sets out to avenge him, and comes face to face with the shapeshifter master of the wolves, who has a 5- point negative Reputation. Does said wolf- lord get a bonus to Intimidation? Yes, usually. Is Cieron's weapon skill penalised because he's shaking like a jelly? That one's harder to justify, so usually no.

Baerne, I can tell already you're going to end up with a three to six point (depending on how much trouble you want to get into) Secret, and possible two to three point Wanted.

The key to how much these are worth;
1AP- minor, may not show up or be of importance; a quirk, really.
2AP- moderately important, enough to query
3AP- a significant factor in daily life
4AP- ever present, major matter, as significant as being married and employed or not
5AP- of critical importance; a vocation, a large part of the character's mental makeup
6AP- a major single factor, life- definingly important.

The full list will follow- as soon as I find the relevant document. There's some chance it got left behind on an old floppy my new system can't read (no drive), and I might have to type it all out manually from the hardcopies. Oh well, I needed an up to date version anyway.

NB; magic is paid for in attribute points, so Vehrec, have a few excess at this point.

3) skills. Each attribute has a list of skills associated with it, and it's at this point that you choose the skills appropriate to the character, or that are essential to simply survive, or that sound like fun. Again, full list as soon as I locate or retype the document.

3a) magic- as good a place to do it as any. Fields of magic are associated with the primary attribute groups, but not directly- in effect they form fourth and fifth attributes, one for the broody and complicated, one for the spontaneous and flashy. Social- introvert being full of things like Misery and Necromancy and Divination, social- insight being things like Fire and Psychometry and Happiness.
The physical- spontaneous group is where healing is, incidentally.

4) kit- I don't bother sweating the minutiae. Basically, any skill that has equipment associated with it, that you have at a semi- professional level or better, you get the kit for.

5) derived values like base initiative, wounds, damage bonus and damage tolerance, error checking, all that jazz comes at the end, and then ready to play.

Posting now for length.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Found the A/D list;


Most of them require more detail; what code of honour, relationship with whom, what’s your phobia of- the player should specify. It helps build character background.

Formal rank;
1ap, petty bureaucrat, junior NCO or untitled member of noble family. 2ap, provincial official, senior NCO, small landowner, knight. 3ap, junior or minor supervisory role, junior officer, knight-banneret or unimportant baron. 4ap, head of something or part of something important, mid-ranking officer, baron, poor count. 5ap, head of sub-department of state, junior general, count, duke. 6ap, minister/permanent secretary, senior general or marshal, actual royalty

Wealth;
apart from generally going with rank,
1ap- enough not to have to worry about day to day expenses. 2ap- can make minor purchases easily. 3ap- can make major purchases. 4ap- enough wealth to own land. 5ap- sizable estates. 6ap- international banking house

Allies;
1ap, popular- can easily get casual help. 2ap, a few close friends prepared to back you up in shady circumstances. 3ap, a small number prepared for something extreme or illegal. 4ap, large number of close friends or moderate group completely loyal. 5ap, closely allied large group. 6ap, large number of people prepared to lay down their lives

Enemies;
1ap, thorough dislike. 2ap, mass hatred or a small number out to kill you. 3ap, dislike of an entire social class or region, a moderate group or a few powerful individuals who want you dead. 4ap, you have casually offended almost everybody, or there is a large group of fairly ordinary people- all the holders of a particular code of honour, for instance- or several powerful people who want to kill you. 5ap, you have managed to get on hostile terms with either the establishment or the common people. 6ap; you are alone; you have managed to antagonise everyone, young and old, town and country, male and female, lords and commons, everybody wants you dead.

Relationship;
1ap- known, friends. 2ap- colleagues. 3ap- close friends or indifferently married. 4ap- do most things together. 5ap- living out of each other’s pockets. 6ap- inseparable.

Code of honour;
1ap, a consideration, no more. 2ap- important but not vitally so; an aspiration. 3ap- a significant part of the character’s moral makeup. 4ap- the rule the character lives by in almost all circumstances. 5ap- important enough to override common sense and survival instincts.

Duties (sense of duty, invoulntary duty, obligation, obsession)
1ap- largely nominal, lip service required. 2ap- equivalent to a part time job, time or effort but not both. 3ap- nine to five job, character’s main working identity. 4ap- unusually stressful or dangerous. 5ap- a vocation rather than an occupation, complete dedication required. 6ap- requires more than humanly possible with exceptionally severe consequences of failure.

Cast iron stomach;
1ap- can eat anything basically edible, however strange and unpalatable. 2ap- can eat things that used to be edible- carrion, tree bark, such. 3ap- can eat anything that used to be alive, or at least carbon based. 4ap- can eat and draw sustenance from most supposedly inedible things.

Supernatural alertness;
1ap- can see further and clearer than normally possible- +50% spot dist; 2ap- begin to be aware of, although hazily, the normally invisible and mystic, recognition range only. 3ap- can feel the presence of things around- spirit touch- almost impossible to surprise. 4ap- invisible things aren’t- half normal distance spotting range. 5ap- 2x normal spotting distances, 3x normal identification distance, full normal range for unnaturals. 6ap- can see the inner nature of things, 4x normal spotting distance


Phobias;
1ap- quirk level dislike, present but not serious. 2ap- would prefer not to have anything to do with, but if needs must. 3ap- will go far out of their way to avoid. 4ap- requires deliberate self control to avoid panicking. 5ap- panics anyway, flight or flight. 6ap- incoherent gibbering terror.

Reputation;
1ap- known within a limited area and occupation. 2ap- known in a small area. 3ap- known in the general area. 4ap- has appeared in minor ballads, national fame. 5ap- internationally notorious. 6ap- of historic stature.

Secret;
Rated by the consequences of it’s being revealed;
1ap- mild embarrassment. 2ap- serious temporary embarrassment. 3ap- loss of face. 4ap- loss of status and probable enmity. 5ap- life-damaging changes, 6ap- complete disaster

Empathy;
1ap- dim awareness of subject’s presence and state. 2ap; clear awareness. 3ap; share senses and general ideas. 4ap- can exchange single clear ideas, divide wounds taken. 5ap, can choose who gets hurt, can conduct full dialogue.

Patron;
1ap- not close. 2ap- barely more powerful than the character or marginally interested. 3ap- prepared to put opportunities the character’s way and bail the character out of minor trouble. 4ap- secure and lucrative employment. 5ap- patron confides in and supports the character. 6ap- patron looks after the character like their own child.

Exile;
1ap; spends more time away from than at home. 2ap- a stranger where they live, although not very far away. 3ap- expatriate, or very far from home. 4ap- would not be allowed back. 5ap- would be attacked if the character attempted to return. 6ap- home state or culture is actively trying to hunt you down and kill you.

Attuned;
In the appropriate situation or environment-
1ap- +1 to all prepared rolls. 2ap-+1 to all rolls. 3ap- +1 to all, +2 to planned, prepared or appropriate. 4ap- +2 to all rolls.
5ap- +3 to all rolls. 6ap- +4 to all rolls.

Secondary attribute modifying adv/disadv;
First find an appropriate name, and;
1pt- +1/10 mana or 1/8 fatigue. 2pt- +1 damage reduction (tough, hard to kill, etc) or +1 mental initiative. 3pt- +1 wounds or physical initiative. Can be reversed- lose secondary attributes to gain character points.

Personality traits;
In general, any particular attitude can be expressed by the general importance notes at the beginning, but it should be roleplayed, otherwise it may turn into other appropriate and more relevant disadvantages. Pick a trait and a value.

[Vehrec]

Will have to do some more thinking, but I think I'll spring for a five-point Phobia of heights. I might have drawn his life story from a biography of Michelangelo, but I don't see why he should be up on any scaffolds, and it's a common enough phobia in real life. A couple points of combined duties and exile make for a thorny problem-he has some obligations at home now, but he's been on the run for a while. Some reason for him to be on the run, maybe his patron wasn't so popular and now he's inherited his share of enemies? I'm unsure if his family should be a help or a hinderance, on the one hand he's not really that fond of them and the concept has him lending them money. On the other, when it comes down to it, he can probably depend on them to at least help him, even if it's slightly less effective than he might hope.

Mmm, work on this some more later. Still hashing out ideas.

[Master_Baerne]

Do we need points in every field, or is an absence of points taken as the character not having any interesting involvement with that specific atribute?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right, a worked example or two might help this make more sense...

one;
Debs decides she wants to play basically a feminist knight, and decides to make her character Dame Melisande a bit of a tease as well; a quick- tempered temptress in a figure hugging breastplate who enjoys taunting chivalric stuffed shirts.

The dice are bounced, and she comes up with a string of attribute values 8, 9, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 14.
Thinking about it, she decides that Agility is probably the most all round important one for combat, and one of the high numbers needs to go there. Second is probably Charm, because with an attitude like that she's going to need to be able to talk her way out of trouble.

Next, she decides to figure out what to do with the two lowest, and decides to dump the worst in Fellowship- vows of solidarity or not, her character tends to want to be off doing her own thing, a bit of a natural misfit. Next worst should be Education- not that she wasn't exposed to tutors and the like, but little of it actually stuck.

She wants the character to be relatively quick- witted, but also stiff- necked and self- willed, so on balance the 13 goes to Temper and the 12 to Logic. That last is something of a judgement call, Creativity would be a better fit to the character design but Logic is both more use for someone doing what she wants to do, and closer in line with how her parents would have tried to raise her anyway.

The 11 goes to Endurance, and the remaining 10s to Strength and Creativity; it would be better if they were higher, but 10 is human average, and good enough to get by, probably.

That much pencilled in, time for Advantages and Disadvantages. First of all, there's the formal Rank of her standing- a 2AP advantage. Then there are her kith and kin- Debs decides Melisande is the middle child of a large family, two older and two younger brothers, and she can count on their support until she really drops the ball- Family advantage worth 4AP.

So, that leaves her needing at least 6AP of disadvantages to break even, or she'll have to sacrifice attribute points to pay for that lot; more than 6AP, and she can start raising some of the lower attribute scores she rolled. Duties is an obvious and natural one, unfortunately given what's been said about the character so far it isn't going to be that high- 3AP. On the other hand, Enemies is one that naturally leaps to mind- Debs asks the GM if it is possible to have more than one set of Enemies, to take it twice in effect. After a bout of note- shuffling, several characters are spotted who have done exactly that, so yes.
A 3AP enmity resulting from a failed arranged marriage that turned into a duel with sacrificial knives over the altar, with the man she was supposed to marry; another 3AP enmity with the priests of the God of War, who consider her anathema and the feeling is mutual.

That will probably do, and leaves her with a positive balance. Any mystic gift she could get with that wouldn't be large, so better use it to bring some of the low numbers up. One each to Strength, Endurance and Creativity, for a final set of;

Social attributes-
Temper 13, Fellowship 8, Charm 14

Mental attributes-
Logic 12, Creativity 11, Education 9

Physical attributes-
Strength 11, Endurance 12, Agility 14

Advantages; Rank 2AP (knight), Family 4AP (close and supportive)

Disadvantages; Duties (knightly) 3AP, Enemy (single, intense) ex- fiance 3AP, Enemies (priests, many but mostly verbal abuse) 3AP

And in the roundup and error checking, Debs relises that Melisande officially owes nothing to her brothers; a reciprocal obligation would have been good for at least a 2 or 3AP disadvantage that could mean she gets that minor touch of magic after all. Proposed and accepted, and moving on to the next stage of character creation, skills.

One of the things I really want this system to do is for the crunchy mechanics to support the roleplay as much as possible, for the rules to embody and support the character concept; for the character sheet to say who the character is. It can look complicated, but I think it makes sense, and if it doesn't tell me where.

Do you want me to do the dice now, roll up sets of attributes for you to take and assign?

(edited slightly to eliminate a gratuitous and unworthy comment by me.)

[Master_Baerne]

That's probably the easiest way to do it; I could certainly handle the dice-rolling myself, but it sounds as if you'd prefer to do so.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Right, let's see if this can get done tonight-
after some rolling, the numbers come out, arranged in descending order, 14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8.
Actually, that's uncannily neat. it's probably an omen of some sort.

Human average is ten, usual minimum is five and limits of normal ability fifteen, AP from disdvantages and spending XP in play can raise attributes to heroic levels- but it's cheaper during creation.

Vehrec, doing the same for your character gives you a baseline of 14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 12, 11, 10, 8.
I like the advantage/disdvantage combo suggested- that works out at,

Advantages; family 2AP (sometimes there when you need them, good for bed and board);

Disadvantages- Phobia (heights) 5ap. Pretty severe, under the right - i.e. wrong- circumstances literally paralysing. (off mike; cackles maniacally.) On the other hand, it's actually a good thing. There are NPCs who would envy that, because if you can't do up, you can't be asked to fly, and therefore you don't have to rush from trouble spot to trouble spot in a never- pausing, never- ending whirlwind of increasingly desparate and maniacal acts of demented heroism.

Family 2ap- a drain on your resources and a stain on your reputation, and you can't get rid of them- in the last analysis you probably wouldn't want to, but godsdammit, they can be embarrassing.

Exile, probably only 2AP- unwelcome in a fairly large area, but not being actively pursued.

Seven AP excess. That trades in for a respectable amount of magic for a beginning character, enough to be reasonably cockup- proof at one thing, a contender at two, or in hail- mary pass territory for three, I wouldn't go further than that.

[Master_Baerne]

For a name, let's go with Valette as the currently-in-use identity. No family name; those tend to be harder to fake.

14, 14, 13, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 - Not bad, not bad at all.

Temper: 9; Valette prefers to go around things, rather than through them. This applies to everything except the defining force in her life, that secret I don't know anything about.
Fellowship: 15 (14+1); it's helpful to be able to blend with the crowd and my character's had a lot of practice.
Charm: 14 (13+1); see above.

Logic: 12; above average.
Creativity: 13; the preference for elegant solutions and the lack of strength combine to help Valette's innate creativity along.
Education: 11; somewhat spotty formal education has been supplemented with scraps of random knowledge performed

Strength: 9 (8+1); Valette is a rather slightly built person.
Endurance: 10; average.
Agility: 14; it's helpful for thieves.


Advantages:
1ap Cast Iron Stomach; self-explanatory.
2ap Wealth; who says crime doesn't pay?
Hmm. This leaves 7ap unbalanced... Guess I'll have some magic.
2ap Attuned; Valette prides herself on her ability to exceed expectations if she can prepare for a situation.
2ap Supernatural Awareness; for whatever reason, she can just barely see hints of the unreal in the world around her.
Which leaves three more. I'll plug those into my attributes with 1 for Strength, 1 for Fellowship, and 1 for Charm.

Disadvantages:
6ap Secret
2ap Reputation - She's a thief and con artist, and despite Valette's habit of switching identities fairly often, she's becoming known for it.
2ap Duty - Off-and-on search for information related to her own identity may require extra effort if a lead pops up; I'm not sure if this counts as a disadvantage or not.



How's that?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

That's basically good, couple of things- I wouldn't describe the search for information as a duty, more of an obsession; the points value stands, though.

The full 6-point Secret? This is going to be fun.

Cast Iron Stomach- well, it's standard for orcs, and it help a lot with roaming around in the wilderness, I'm slightly surprised by it but it'll stand.

Attuned is a shade more complicated than that- it applies to a particular environment or situation. Elves tend to be attuned to trees, for one stereotypical example. Picking something it applies to is basically all that still needs to be done.

Next up, skills. I've found the list, but I was being a bit optimistic when I said that bit about being a night owl. It was right then, but it obviously tempted fate in some unpredictable way- I'm still up to 2, 3, 4AM, but now I have to get up in the mornings again, as well.

Basically, the attribute gives you the default value for all skills based off it, affects how much they cost to learn, and tells you how many points you have to start with. Fourteens and fifteens are very good. I'll post the full list and rules in about thirteen, fourteen hours.

[Vehrec]

I had an idea for another disadvantage, one of the code of honor ones. He's a doctor, so he has to concern himself with what causes disease and how to prevent it in his patients and himself, right? So if he regiments his lifestyle and his diet to match his idealized healthy life, how many points of Code of Honor would that be? Eat red meat not more than once every four days, fish every second day, as little alcohol as possible(in a medieval setting, none at all is probably suicidal)? I'm eyeballing this being very picky and sometimes skipping meals outright if he can't get the right kinds of food at about three points, but this is your game ultimately.

Provisionally, I'm looking at:

Temper:12 Fellowship:12 Charm:8

Logic:13 creativity:14(15) Education:14

Strength:10 Endurance:11(12) Agility:12

Advantage: Family 2pt wealth 1pt.

Disadvantage: Phobia:5 pt, code of honor (diet and lifestyle) 3pt(obsessive about good dietary practice, picky about quality of food) Exile 2pt, Family 2 pt.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Being obsessive to the point where you vocally criticise other people's dietary choices is good for about three pioints, I'd go with that.

Skills; first of all, how much of this do you want to do yourselves, and how much would you want me to do for you? It's not individually complicated, but there are a lot of individually straightforward proceses to work through, most of them play off each other to a degree.

The actual mechanics- thinking about it, I've already made one change to the printed rules that is going to have to be experimented with, it's too elegant to let go.

The attribute gives three things, here; first of all, the default value, the base level for all skills that come off that attribute- the mathematics of it are attribute divided by three, round to the nearest.

As a chart, then,
Attribute------ Default
0-1----------- 0
2-4 ----------- 1
5-7 ----------- 2
8-10 ----------- 3
11-13 ----------- 4
14-16 ----------- 5
...etc.

Second, the learning curve for skills based on that attribute. Up to the default again (2,4,6, etc) one point buys you two levels of skill. From there up to four times the default (4,8,12, etc) one for one. From there up to six times, two points for one level of skill. Up to eight times, three for one, and so on.
The easiest thing to do, in fact, is to express the learning curve as an x2 multiplier of the default.
Attribute Learning curve
0-1------------ 0
2-4------------ 2
5-7------------ 4
8-10 ------------ 6
11-13 ------------ 8
14-16 ----------- 10
...etc.

The third thing it does, for a beginning character, is that the number of points you have to spend is equal to the attribute.

As an example, Valette's Fellowship of 15 means all her Fellowship skills are at 5 to begin with, so a minimum 25% chance to succeed at anything that depends on Fellowship; each skill would take half a point per level to raise up to 10, and one point per level to raise past that up to 20, with fifteen points to spend.
Split two ways, that could be two skills of fifteen, or one fourteen and one sixteen; split three ways, one skill at thirteen and two at twelve.

Would you prefer that I post the skill list and let you have at it, or suggest options, or do most of it for you and let you accept or decline, or what combination of the above?