Life Path character generation

David Johansen · March 03, 2007, 09:43:57 AM

The way I was going to do it in Galaxies in Shadow, was that skills started at half their base characteristic, you got 30 points per year, any points you put into a skill over it's base characteristic were lost over the course of the year. You could also raise your skills by putting in points, but they'd always be lost over the course of the year.

It's simple, elegant even, right up until you're knee deep in trying to track the loss of points to skills from characteristic decline.

flyingmice · March 03, 2007, 11:01:39 AM

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckI have, those books rock.

Initially I had a system where you received a certain number of life experiences, rolled randomly (not the experiences, how many you had) and I think that will probably be what I go for.

For a time I was playing around with a system where you just picked what you wanted and each took a certain number of years, with age penalties to all stats (not just physical) as you got older.

I think that might be a little much though.

That's the StarCluster Chargen system in a nutshell. It also allowed me to drop XP, so characters used the same system to advance after Chargen. It also allows neat stuff like flashbacks with appropriate skills, or skip a few years between adventures, with the characters aging appropriately.

-clash

Casey777 · March 03, 2007, 07:22:54 PM

Yes please. R. Talsorian, Burning Wheel/Empires, Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne & Adventures in Glory chargen), Traveller, all good sparks for characters I'd not normally come up with on my own. And as was pointed out in a previous random chart thread also good at depicting a setting.

Haven't fully gotten through Starcluster 2 type chargen yet but it's on the to do list.

Christmas Ape · March 03, 2007, 08:04:32 PM

I love a good lifepath. Even the one-roll character generators being whipped up for ORE games do it for me, but Talsorian's CP2020 remains my favorite in-system lifepath. Who could forget rolling up a character who spent six years making enemies, then befriended a young orphan girl in the CZ?

"I'm a people person!

....who drinks."

Kyle Aaron · March 03, 2007, 09:10:38 PM

I like lifepaths. In point-buy character generation systems, whether crunchy beasts like GURPS 4 and Hero, or medium ones like d6, or even light ones like d4-d4, you often find yourself staring at a blank page and... end up making a pretty bland character, a skill from here, a skill from there, some disadvantage you got for the points but which you don't know how it fits in with this other advantage, and...

If you have a clear idea of what sort of character you'd like to play, then lifepaths suck. If you don't have a clear idea, then they're great! There are only three problems with them, and these are easily fixed,

Player has a clear idea of what sort of character they want - solved by letting them pick each step, instead of rolling for it.
Player doesn't have a clear idea of their character, but know what they don't like, and get this roll they hate - just let them pick one or two steps.
60 year old ubermensch - two solutions which are good, first is simply to have all lifepaths end at 18 or 30 or whatever, second is a random roll which stops it, "you are given a medical discharge out of the service."

David R · March 03, 2007, 09:46:36 PM

Quote from: GRIMEver use the Central Casting books?

Yes. As a player I can't seem to come up with interesting characters. Central Casting does the job for me, pretty well.

Regards,
David R

Abyssal Maw · March 04, 2007, 07:38:47 AM

I don't like Lifepaths because I don't like the idea of developing the character before I start. I want all the development to happen during the game.

Christmas Ape · March 05, 2007, 07:46:48 AM

Quote from: Abyssal MawI don't like Lifepaths because I don't like the idea of developing the character before I start. I want all the development to happen during the game.

This is certainly reasonable, and I think BW and Traveller are the only times I've seen them not be optional in a game; I've certainly run with CP2020 characters with no lifepath just fine; they happen to have lived an unremarkable life until now.

I would counterpoint, however, that some of us don't like the idea of a character springing into the world fully-formed at the start of the first adventure like Athena, and thus enjoy lifepaths.

Abyssal Maw · March 05, 2007, 08:50:21 AM

QuoteI would counterpoint, however, that some of us don't like the idea of a character springing into the world fully-formed at the start of the first adventure like Athena, and thus enjoy lifepaths.

I'm saying I don't like the character to be springing into the world fully-formed at the start of the first adventure like Athena, either. That's essentially what a lifepath does.

I think it's important to have a name, and a basic idea of the character (some starting skills? maybe something like that) , but for all the real development to take place in the game. The game is the lifepath.

In my campaigns we award people who write background stories with a little extra XP. But we don't allow the background story to be written until after the character reaches 2nd level (which is at probably 2 sessions away the way I run things).