Life Path Gambling, or fortune in front

[Thor]

I have been looking for a dice wagering system to allow the players to bet generation points to get bigger returns for their character.

As example, you could go into your fathers business or you could break into show business. Going into your fathers business would have low risk and moderate reward going into show business would have high risk but high reward.

I will put the actual system together later but I was looking for a range of betting options. I'm looking for something simple since you would have to do it several times for the various stages in character creation.

I like the idea of trying out futures and seeing what works. it has been my life over and over.

[Andrew Martin]

As example, you could go into your fathers business or you could break into show business. Going into your fathers business would have low risk and moderate reward going into show business would have high risk but high reward.

What happens when the player fails at at either or both options? Would they start again, or would the GM fudge the results?

[Thor]

You would probably be no worse off. Though you would have lost some creation points. A really big gamble might land you an enemy instead of a career.

I haven't come up with a system yet, I'm just shopping the possible ways of betting points. I have this feeling that there should be a way of random character creation that would lead to an unpredicted lifepath. Few of us are exactly the hero we dreamed of being when we started. But we keep striving tward that goal and setteling for what we can accomplish.

I understand that that may seem a lot like the annoying part of our lives that we game to forget, but I am trying to bring dignity to an alternate view of heros.

[Mike Holmes]

You realize that this is quite a bit like the original Traveller chargen system in how you've stated it. Only with that game there were no points, you just ended up going on to something else, if you couldn't get into the first area.

I think that what Andrew is trying to ask is what happens if a player gambles big repeatedly and loses repeatedly?  Will what emerges still be a hero? I mean, we get that he'll look different than what was desired, but will the character still be interesting to play. For instance, if characters were conglomerations of skills, and what skills you had depended on what career choices you made, and you failed repeatedly to get into new careers, spending all of your points trying, leaving the character skill-less, I'd say that was likely unplayable in most settings. Is there something in what you envision that would prevent this?

Also, if a player gets very lucky, then will less lucky PCs seem as interesting to play? In TNE, if you messed up getting into stuff a lot, characters often ended up criminals and the like. The characters were still fun. If these are actually as interesting as other areas, then why do you need to have a cost system (like below).

The system to do what you state seems very easy. Just have a "Cost" that the player must pay to make the entrance roll. If they make it, they're in and get the benefits, if they miss, then they have to try something else. Again, the question is why make some things cost more. The obvious choice would be because those selections were "better" in some way. But if that's true, then better rolling will get you a better character. Meaning that Andrew's concerns come back.

That is, players will complain about their character until the GM relents and allows them to try again. In which case, why not just have the selections be automatic? Or have everything have an equal value - in which case, why do you need the points?


From another POV, why is it important to make the character play a character that they don't intend to play? The player isn't the character. A player can make a character who is something that the player wants to play, but whom the character didn't intend to be, using a normal point-based or life-path system.

That is, there's a big difference between making a player play a character that he doesn't want to play, and playing a character who isn't who he thought he'd be.

Mike

[Thor]

To my mind the character would be interesting to play.

Let me give you some more background to my thinking. I very much like the life path system in Cyberpunk and in some ways Traveller as well but that was not my primary desire.  After I read Wuthering heights, I thought the character secrets were a cool thing but wanted more attachment to the character. I wanted to have a reason to push some of the possible losses of die rolls into something we will call anguish for now. Characters who made their dreams come true would get big advantages, but, would not have access to things that characters with high anguish would have access to. I imagine that this would be the way into both thievery and Magic.  In the way that they say that writers need to live hard lives so they have something to write about, I have decided that mages need to have a certain rage or they don't get enough of a response.

I didn't just want to have some anguish points but want them to be there for a reason you did not forsee. Life rarely turns out like we imagine. For similar but different reasons, I have been trying to generate a system to reflect the idea of chronic pain so the players have a reason to want to take painkillers.

Also I'm not so much about heros but rather with the people who get heroic by being who they are.

I was looking for a cool dice mechanism to provide some entertainment durring what will be a fairly slow segment of the chargen. I don't even have an idea what sort of stats or skills there would be.

[Andrew Martin]

I have decided that mages need to have a certain rage or they don't get enough of a response.

This seems like a key part of your game setting and system. Mages need "rage" to power their magical effects, to get a good response. What are the disadvantages of having a high "rage"? Would the mage with high rage get easily enraged by delays in service, getting mud splashed on their fine clothes, getting interrupted by pesky adventurers constantly wanting to buy or sell magic items? Conversely, the mage with low rage, might be easy to get along with, but be stuck with low effectiveness magic.

Does the above seem reasonable for your game setting? If so, a balancing mechanic, something like the Number in Ron's Trollbabe might be an ideal mechanic. IF not, let us know if I've got it wrong.

...anguish ...
... a system to reflect the idea of chronic pain so the players have a reason to want to take painkillers.

This seems like another key part of your game or setting. What are the advantages and disadvantages of both high and low Anguish (or chronic pain)?

I was looking for a cool dice mechanism to provide some entertainment durring what will be a fairly slow segment of the chargen.

The best solution to this problem is not to hide slow character generation with gambling dice rolls, but to instead make character generation quicker. Here's two quick and easy suggestions:

[*]Eliminate everything in character generation that has nothing to do with the key parts of the game system and setting. Be ruthless!
[*]Let players add detail to their characters during play as needed, for example, allow flashbacks, or the character says, "wait, I remember this!", or the player simply decides on an appropriate value or descriptor as required.[/list:u]

[Christopher Weeks]

I was looking for a cool dice mechanism to provide some entertainment durring what will be a fairly slow segment of the chargen. I don't even have an idea what sort of stats or skills there would be.

OK, I'm iffy about whether this is actually an asset to a game, but it's a nifty gimick.

•   Characters use a series of lifeblocks.
•   At each transition point between the lifeblocks, there is a binary fork in the road.
•   The player decides what lifeblocks are at the ends of the two paths.
•   Each lifeblock has a value.
•   The character must spend only as many charpoints as the lesser value, but may spend up to the greater value.
•   To determine which lifeblock is used, a roll is made (mechanics to be determined later) and any CPs spent in excess of the minimum, modify the roll upward.  If the value of the modified roll exceeds the greater lifeblock value, then that is the next lifeblock used.  If not, the other is used.
•   The player may stop adopting lifeblocks and start adventuring at will, or as constrained by the game or campaign rules.

This could be completely open within the scope of the designated lifeblocks or there could be other layers of limitations (which blocks can follow which,  lifeblocks add age and you only have so many years, etc).  But it does allow the players to generally direct character development with a player-determined amount of randomness and gambling.  And it provides a skeleton on which to hang the character's history.

Let's say we're using 2d6 for the roll and the born into gentry block has a cost of twelve and the born into the scant middle-class artisanry has a cost of eight.  I spend eight of my (what, twenty?) charpoints and roll the dice.  With a four or higher I'm born rich.  But if I'd chosen born into servitude with a cost of one, I'd need an eleven to be rich instead unless I chose to modify my roll.

The only problem I'm seeing off hand is wondering if anyone would choose two widely divergent values and then modify the roll.  If you're going to spend the CPs on modifying the roll, why not just choose a more expensive lifeblock as the "losing" option?  I guess there needs to be a discount on roll modifiers.

Anyway, it's one way of doing it.

Chris