This is a quick rundown of the chargen system I use, if anyone has any feedback let it rip...

Basically you have two main mechanical facets to the character, benefits/flaws and skills. I'm pretty happy with the former but the latter has gone a bit Grand Unified Field Theory on me. I've tied it into a lifepath and trait system and by god you can reference recent world history while you're at it too.

We start out with two pools of points, class points and skill points. Class points are used to buy classes, skill points are used to improve those skills. Traits are just things like 'aggressive' or 'upbeat' that happen along the way, they have no mechanical importance, helping rather to inform roleplaying.

Classes are organised into groups, like academic, professional, underworld and military, we spend a few class points to buy into a group. Within that group we can spend class points to buy classes and all the skills packaged in each class. If we want to change groups we have to buy into the new group, so to move from military to academic it might cost 5 extra points or whatever.

Added to which, there are innate skills like dodge and basic skills that everyone in the class gets when they buy in. There are master level skills that we can't buy until we have certain skills at a certain level, for example we can't take nuclear physics until we have mathematics, physics, and quantum mechanics at a minimum of 8 each.


Much shortened example:
General skills:

• Swimming
• Dodge
• Climbing

Group: Science
General group skills:

• Research
• Analysis
• Mathematics

Classes:
Physics

• Physics
• Astronomy
• Quantum mechanics

Chemistry

• Chemistry
• Materials

Biology

• Biology
• Genetic engineering

Group: Military
General group skills:

• Use pistol
• Use rifle
• Tactics

Classes:
Infantry

• Sniping
• Survival
• Endurance

Motorised

• Mechanics
• Drive heavy vehicle

Helicopter pilot

• Fly helicopter
• Navigation
• Communications (radio)

Artillery

• Use artillery
• Mathematics

Group: Underworld
General group skills:

• Use pistol
• Intimidation
• Streetwise

Classes:
Hustler

• Con artist
• Charm

Second storey man

• Security, physical
• Sneaking

etc

Skill points can be spent to improve skills in those areas. Getting the same skill twice in subsequent classes means you can add 50% of your old skill to the new skill, round down. This can only be done once however, it's not cumulative.

There are also hobbies and private interests, eg learning to shoot guns on your own time. Cultural background may also be a factor here - in places where guns are forbidden to the public, you won't be learning them.

This is run simultaneously with a lifepath system, which creates events in the character's life. This is rolled once during each class, and once when transitioning to a new class. This may cause involuntary entry to the underwold group on a 1 on a d10 when changing classes. A player can choose to spend points to re-roll.

Also we have a trait adjuster as time passes, there are 100 traits, each with an opposite. So grumpy would be the opposite of cheery.

1: Underwold, add 2 negative traits or remove their opposites and move instead into the underworld class group. Roll your new class randomly. Roll again to see if you have a prison sentence.
2-3: Unfortunate incident, add 1 negative trait or remove its opposite
4-7: Nothing of note
8-9: Happy chance, add 1 positive trait or remove its opposite
10: Good times, gain +1 in all skills in your new class, add 2 positive traits or remove their opposite

The written recent history of the world can also be factored in if a player so chooses. If the lifepath reveals they lost a family member, they can link this to a civil war in a country during the same year, which can help build different motivations. Travel to different countries is included in the lifepath too. The player tracks where the character is during each class phase, and what year it is if they like.


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So, too much? Too little? Moar? Less?

Seems overly complicated tbh, might help if you provide and example of the system in use.

Also, what is this trying to achieve?

Quote from: jadrax;685189Seems overly complicated tbh, might help if you provide and example of the system in use.

• Spend class points to buy into a group
• Spend class points to buy a class in that group
• Spend skill points to improve the skills in the class if so desired
• Roll for life path and trait changes when in the class, and when transitioning to another class
• Optonally link lifepath events and careers to recent world history
• Repeat from step 2 until out of class points, or step 1 if you want to move to another group

Quote from: jadrax;685189Also, what is this trying to achieve?

It ties events in the character's life, their personality, and their skills into one cohesive whole, mixed in with the recent history of the world they live in. A player can say, "I picked up that sniping skill when I was with the 42nd during the siege of Johannesburg", among other things, like that's where they acquired the 'talkative' trait.

How many Class Points and Skill Points do you get?

Do you expect people to actually record when they got various skills/traits/etc during their lifepath?

Quote from: jadrax;685196How many Class Points and Skill Points do you get?

Generally enough to get three or four classes and really perfect about eight to ten skills.

Quote from: jadrax;685196Do you expect people to actually record when they got various skills/traits/etc during their lifepath?

That's up to themselves, but it's typical to write down a log of the character's history. Several other game systems encourage similar activities, this merely codifies the process. The opportunities for plot hooks and roleplaying in various scenarios influenced by these histories abound. There's a significant element of player creativity as well of course, the system can only provide the bare bones in and of itself.

It seems like there should be some kind of time invesiture in the classes, based on the difficulty of the skills being purchased.  For instance, if I'm making a character and starting off at 16, and decide that I want my character to have a degree, I might purchase the academic: mathematics class, then spend points into it, but that should take the arc of several years.  Say 6 (he's going for a MS in statistical analysis).  So I should roll 6 times on the lifepath (possibly gaining access to some underworld skills I would be eligible to spend additional points on), to simulate the events of that time.  At the end of it, I'd have a guy with an MS degree.  If I choose to go from there into the military group, I might pick the Aviation class and Officer training.  OCS is much less than a year, but with basic and OCS and maybe another school (usually Airborne or Ranger or some other specialty) you could push that out, and Flight School is another year, so call that 2 more lifepath events.  Then, back to the academic group, as he decides to add some social sciences to his kit bag and get another master's degree.  With all of his pre-reqs out of the way, he can knock that out in another 2 years, so at the end of it we have a guy who's probably a Captain, age 26, with two masters and pilot training and some additional military skills behind him.

Sound about right?  It works for me, but I think you've seen from the Living Steel stuff that it's just the kind of chargen that I like.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;685241It seems like there should be some kind of time invesiture in the classes, based on the difficulty of the skills being purchased.

Yeah there's a time cost which increases if you put skill points into skills in the class, and also when you transition between classes, it's not mentioned because it has no mechanical effects (at least till you hit the mid 40s or so and it's pretty hard to get that far along in chargen).

Quote from: The Traveller;685304Yeah there's a time cost which increases if you put skill points into skills in the class, and also when you transition between classes, it's not mentioned because it has no mechanical effects (at least till you hit the mid 40s or so and it's pretty hard to get that far along in chargen).

What defines when you move out of chargen?  When you've exhausted your points?

Edit: Ah, i see you answered that earlier in the summary, sorry.

E2:  Can you just decide "I spent about six years as a cop" but not spend a lot of points into it as you go?  Say if your concept is a mid-50's actor who had a military stint, 12 years on the police force, and then went into acting around age 37?

Quote from: Panzerkraken;685305E2:  Can you just decide "I spent about six years as a cop" but not spend a lot of points into it as you go?  Say if your concept is a mid-50's actor who had a military stint, 12 years on the police force, and then went into acting around age 37?

You can without difficulty, although this is why I tie trait and lifepath rolls to classes and class transitions rather than years, ideally you want between 6-10 traits otherwise the character becomes too complex.

A lot of it is left loose for the player to fill in the details, they can choose their classes or roll them randomly and see what comes out the other end. Every part of this can be random or by choice, except for bad traits, the player is stuck with them (although they can buy better results to avoid them). Bad traits aren't neccessarily bad for gaming though, stuff like angry or coarse can really add flavour to a character.

The problem with creating rules is that the next guy will quickly find a boundary edge case that either breaks the rule or stretches it way out of context. We've touched on the "Where did those skills/spells come from?" subject in other threads, and my feeling is that it should be part of the character creation process to at least sketch out a life where the abilities the character has were gained. Formalizing it to this extent seems overkill, but these kind of spreadsheet puzzles are mana to many.

The thing about role playing, for me, at least, is to be in character when I play. If my character has Astrophysics at 35% as a skill, I expect there to be an academic period in her history. If it's 75%, she better damned well have been publishing papers since she was in her teens and going to conferences and teaching at a major university somewhere. That doesn't mean that she can't have Archery at 45% -- but she should have a line in her bio about being on the university team.

I guess my point is that it should be part of RPG Best Practices to have a back story that matches the current skill set. But making it formal invites abuse.

Quote from: teagan;696626Formalizing it to this extent seems overkill, but these kind of spreadsheet puzzles are mana to many.

It's not really complicated if you're actually doing it, basically spend points to buy classes and roll a few times for events in your character's life while doing so. WHFRPG's careers are somewhat similar. I'm also not sure how this would be open to abuse?