Scars of War - Character Generation

Corwin

On The Razorblade of Life
Staff Member
Moderator
Joined
August 31, 2006
Messages
12,806
Location
Australia
This week's Scars of War Blog has an interesting piece on ways to be creative with character generation. I found this part caught my attention:
To elaborate : First you get to pick your childhood background. Under what circumstances were you born. Were you a simple peasants son, working in the field? Or perhaps you were a gutter rat, an orphan surviving by his wits on the cruel streets of a big city. Maybe you were the offspring of a famed scholar and explorer, well educated but spending little time with a parent who was always away exploring foreign lands? Anyway, you choose an option, and that represents your childhood. Each option will provide different character customisation effects. A peasant may have grown strong and hardy through long hours of hard work, but lack much in the way of education/knowledge related skills. The Gutter Rat knows how to steal and stay hidden, how to bluff his way out of trouble, but isn’t particularly fit (malnourishment has that effect). I also want to provide roleplaying attached to these. The scholars son might be known amoungst academics, the Peasant might recieve bonuses/different dialogues when talking to other farmers, etc etc

Jump over and check out the entire article.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
12,806
Location
Australia
A good way to add on to that would be the ability to lose those effects of your previous life by how you go along on your adventure. An example is that say you were a gutter rat so you know how to steal and stay hidden but say you decide that you don't want that kind of life anymore so you stop; you would then start to lose that over time. Another example is if you were a peasent and you rarely talk to peasents on your journey so you would gradually lose the influences you have with the peasentry.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
1,596
I think it would be even cooler if they could ad both systems together. Both seem very interesting
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,086
Location
belgium-genk
Thanks for the link Corwin. :)

@ Guenthar : Hmm, I dunno, over the time scale of the campaign it seems unlikely that you would forget things that quickly. I know I remember plenty of arb nonsense from my childhood.
 
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
195
Um, how would you implement this in an actual game other than using something like an alignment system?

To me this makes the DnD alignment system make more sense. (and I'm not sure if that's what anybody was hoping for)

I mean really, random crap like stealing food and bluffing your way our of it? That's a background? That seems...um...slightly more limited compared to using an aligngment system.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
461
Why would you need alignment? I am going to work it the same as in real life. You perform an action or say something in a certain way and people will remember that.

Arbitrary example : If I offer a scenario where you betray a friend, the friend will remember that you betrayed him. Simple. No need to track your alignment. When you talk to the friend he will tell you to piss off/be antagonistic. Etc etc. Other characters who might know of the situation will react based on how they view your betrayal of your friend. So if you choose a whole bunch of options which make you out to be a treacherous scumbag, people aren't going to act as if you are the virtuous hero come to save their kitty trapped in a tree.

In the context of SoW it will be more about your time in the military, how you acted and what you did during the war.
 
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
195
You may not forget the past but skills and other things will dull over time like if you were a thief as a kid but you stopped doing that for a long time you couldn't just go back to doing it and think you will be just as good. Your skills will have dulled from disuse but it would still be easier to relearn it then to learn it from the begining. This would effect conversation skills also since you will start losing the conversation skills needed to say talk to a peasent.

It is more of a dulling of the skills then forgeting them all together and you would have to relearn them to use them again.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
1,596
Back
Top Bottom