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Alt CharGen Life Paths - Draft 1 - Playtest Q Responses Only

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Wed, 2013-05-22 11:00

RobBoyle

Alt CharGen Life Paths - Draft 1 - Playtest Q Responses Only

Download Alt Character Creation: Life Paths - Draft 1 FYI: The PDF is in landscape format to more easily accommodate the tables. A Few Development Notes

Many of the tables required to use this system are in the Alt Character Creation – Pack System draft. You’ll need both.
Many of the random life event tables are incomplete. Once the Traits chapter is finalized, we’ll be adding some events that incorporate those. We’ve plugged in a few numbers, so you have a general idea of where it’s going, but for now you’ll have to wing it.

Questions: Q. 1 – How did you review the material in this draft? Did you try them out in actual play with your group? For how many sessions? Using what kind of PCs? Did you crunch some numbers in a marathon character generation session? Or simply read through them with a critical eye? Q. 2 –What’s the most critical problem you’ve identified in these rules? Is there an endemic problem you think is underlying this rules set? Is this material too complicated for your liking? Is there a specific rules item you think is egregiously broken and needs to be fixed? Is there anything that you simply think *must* be changed? Q. 3 – What’s the best part of these rules? Is there anything that you absolutely loved? Something that you sincerely think *must* make it into the final version? Anything that really contributes to the game in a positive way? Something that shouldn’t be changed? Q. 4 – Does this system have too many steps? Not enough? Just right? The real question here may be: how many times do you want to roll on an event table? We aimed to strike a balance between variety and too much. We’ve contemplated combining the Background and Pre-Fall steps into one single stage. Q. 5 – Should we include free CP at the end for Customization? We’ve toyed with idea of offering a small amount of CP at the end for final tweaking (no more than 50). We didn’t include it so far because it’s easy enough to tweak a character by dropping points in one area to add to another. Q. 6 – Any typos, bad grammar, or other errors? Go ahead and hit us with proofreading corrections. Q. 7 – Have A Life Event Suggestion? If you could add one event to any of the event tables, what would it be, and which table would it go on? Please only post suggestions you don’t mind us using in the book without credit or compensation. The events are fun to write, but there are only so many ideas two brains can come up. Help us add some variety!

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Rob Boyle :: Posthuman Studios

Thu, 2013-05-23 02:29

polyinfomorphism polyinfomorphism's picture

Q.5 - CP customization

Q.5 - CP customization I don't know if there needs to be extra CP for all characters. In sticking with the story/event driven character creation, it would seem better as a final specialization choice/package where the player has a broad range of choices that reflect an aspect of their character, but not CP directly. Or else specify that the CP must be put towards 1 thing and describe (open ended) the life event or character trait that it represents. Also, I like that the system creates inherent character flaws through randomization, however getting randomly really screwed always kind of sucks no matter what the game (or maybe i'm just brainwashed into equality thinking!). Maybe the more negative traits/events could come with customization CP, representing the learning or skills that the character came out of the situation with. Alternatively, maybe not CP but the player chooses/rolls on a Table for how they want to solve a catastrophic life problem/event, with the results being benefits of some kind.

Thu, 2013-06-27 20:48

DivineWrath DivineWrath's picture

I was trying to hold off

I was trying to hold off posting until I did more reviewing of this playtest, but I ended getting distracted again and again... At my present rate, I might never get my review done (at least in the time frame that might be relevant for you guys writing transhuman). Also considering that its been over a month and you only got 1 reply, I figured you were in need of more feed back. If I stop getting distracted and become able to set more time aside to do more reviewing, I'll try to give this playtest another look. ---- Q. 1 – How did you review the material in this draft? Critical Eye. Plus I didn't think I would get a good grasp of things without trying to make a character using this system. I figured I should try to make at least 6 characters, but I've been distracted. I've only rolled up 1 character thus far. Q. 2 –What’s the most critical problem you’ve identified in these rules? Rolling aptitudes (Step 1) - The Dilettante aptitude template (roll result of 2) has aptitudes of 15 all around. The result for roll result of 9 is also 15 for all aptitudes. I think this is redundant. Rolling Native Language (Step 2) - I couldn't find a table at first. I didn't realize right away that this was something to be rolled in the packs playtest thing. I was expecting a table with languages right after mentioning the rules covering languages. Most of the other tables can be found shortly after the rules are mentioned. Some warning of where to look might be useful. Q. 3 – What’s the best part of these rules? I suppose it does help to create new characters that you wouldn't think of before. I ended up creating an AGI that was over 100 years old, became a thief at some point, became a singularity seeker after the fall, and now associates with the Barsoomians (probably to get close to the TITAN quarantine zone on Mars). Q. 4 – Does this system have too many steps? Not enough? Just right? It seems to take a while, but then I keep a lot of notes. I think I took an hour to roll up a character (and keep notes), but that may have been me trying to learn the rules, and figuring out how to keep the kind of notes I think are relevant (read lots of details). Then I spent many many hours writing up a full history of the character and giving a paragraph as to why the character has each skill, trait, and what have you... I might get around to posting some of the characters I make (and other details), so you might be able to see where I (may have) went wrong. Q. 5 – Should we include free CP at the end for Customization? Maybe. The steps don't cover gear yet, so it might be a good idea to leave some cp aside for extra purchases. In the original character creation rules, you did get things worth cp before you got those 1000 cp to customize. 10 packages worth 100 cp each is 1000 cp, which is less cp than what a character generated normally would have. I think its safe to leave some cp aside for some customization. Q. 6 – Any typos, bad grammar, or other errors Let me get back to this... Q. 7 – Have A Life Event Suggestion? Not interested at this time...