Creating stuff

[Balbinus]

Ok, here's an experiment at creating a protagonist for a fantasy game, let's see how it goes.

Hag'rik, Swashbuckler = 1 (because that's what he is)
Traits wily 5, Grenadier 3 and resourceful 4 = 24
Package of Swashbuckler 5 = 20

So I'm up to 45 story points for this guy now.

I based this character very roughly on a real NPC I had in a game, one who became intensely popular with the party and became a protagonist in his own right.  45 points though is way expensive, doesn't feel right to me.

Where am I going wrong?  

Also, I had a bit of trouble judging what levels were appropriate, some guidance on this would be handy.  Perhaps some worked examples in different genres.

As an aside, v4 is definitely an improvement on 3.3, much cleaner and simpler to follow.

[Mike Holmes]

See, Ralph, I told ya.

Ralph and I have had a running debate over the cost of stats, and previously he said they were too low. I like the two for one becsuse of it's simplicity, and because the costs are fairly relative.

And that's one of the problems that you're finding with the character's cost. These stats are probably high. The reason I say probably, is becsuse that's all relative to how you rate other things. If the average seaman has the Swashbuckler package at 4, then Hag'rik isn't all that outstanding. If the average character has only level one, then he is extremely outstanding. In earlier editions we said that level three indicated a character of professional level of competence in a field. But then for this edition we decided to go with the relative notion. Just how powerful that is will come out in play as players make things that compare.

OTOH, a character who has no level listed is considered to be "average" in whatever the trait is, more or less. That's fairly subjective. The point is that most people cannot do anything that a swashbuckler can (with any fecundity, or IOW the ability to generate Story Power). So they'd all be rated zero. No strength trait listed? The character is probably average strength. In fact Level 2 Weak is required to make the character particularly weak.

Another problem is that you are giving an example out of context from the game. By the time you create this character, you have obviously decided to play something that includes swashbucklers. But you've probably also decided a number of other things as well, like if it'll be gritty and realistic, or high-flying action. Which means that if this example character was to be a protagonist character in a high-flying game, that his stats would be considered high (and most would have much less, by convention).

Also, let's consider what you get for your money. In the scene after creating Hag'rik, you leverage his Resourceful, and Swashbuckler traits to create cash for the purpose of making up a contact character. For two coins you get nine or a profit of seven (which you use to purchase Ord'gak, the explorer with his Level 4 Knows Ostria, nine points total). As you can see, you'll make up your investment in no time (Even quicker in complications that Hag'rik wins). In fact, you will automatically realize a profit on your investment after just three activations.

And yet another point that you may not have considerer is illustrated with Ord'gak above. Note when creating him that I didn't bother to rate him in terms of his swashbuckling trait (assuming he's a brother swashbuckler) since it was not important and did not come up. This is how you should create all characters and things. Make all designations relate to play. I prefer to just pay one point for my character, and name him and maybe give a type of role the character is to fulfil. Then as play progresses, I'll buy his charcteristics as they need to appear.

This is one of the most revolutionary parts of Universalis. It is similar to how actual books get written and stories get told. Didn't know that Commander Riker knew how to mountain climb? Neither did we until it became important to the story. Make up traits as you need them, not before hand. This means that you can flesh out the character more as you accumulate more Coins, making it more affordable at the time.

This has a bunch of benefits. Character creation is on the fly and characters "develop" whenever you want them to. No character creation sessions, or even any time to set up. And, just like in literature, the character will surprise you with whatever it turns out he can do.

What limits character expenditures? Total coins available and sensibility. If you think that somebody has taken the concept of a characcter and gone outside the reasonable limits, challenge. Or better yet, discuss these niches, possibly even creating game structure items to keep everyone in line. Or, let it go and see where that creativity goes. Yes, Macguyver will probably have a jillion traits after a while that explain just why he can get out of any mess.

You'll find that as the game progresses, you can leverage other traits to create that portagonists traits. You make the Character Ord'gak, then I leverage his Knows Ostria to create four Coins to create a Level 2 Shifty trait for Sil'mak. I explain, since Sil'mak is from Ostria, Ord'gak has heard of him and announces to the group that he's heard that Sil'mak is a shifty sort. Level two trait, cost one coin. Later on, Ord'gak might remember that he also once heard that Sil'mak has some skill with a blade. Heck, if you spent one coin to create the fact that Hag'rik was from Ostria, he'd be able to save you twelve coins or so on the cost of that character. Maybe more if you were more creative about it.

This is a much cooler way to introduce traits, as you link the elements of the world together as you do so. So, for Hag'rik, I'd try to get his Swashbuckler into play early to establish the essence of the character, then, in later scenes I see the other traits coming out. Or not. It's interesting in Universalis how your plans never pan out (those other three or four GMS will have it all messed up by the time it gets back around to you). Instead something more interesting pans out instead. In this way the game keeps you on your toes, and very interested. IME.

Does that all make sense, or does it still seem out of proportion?

Glad you like the new edition, I think that Ralph really did a great job.

Mike

[Balbinus]

Actually, this makes a lot of sense to me.

Hag'rik appeared as an NPC in a high-action, high-magic over the top fantasy game.  When he first appeared I had worked out his stats and abilities but the players of course did not see all this at once.

From a Universalis perspective, on first appearance Hag'rik was

Hag'rik, Goblin adventurer = 1 (because that's what he is)
Traits Grenadier 1 and resourceful 1 = 4
Total = 5 points.

Why now so cheap?  Because when first encountered all that was evident was that Hag'rik was a grenadier and was resourceful in tricky situations.  During play the many other aptitudes he had (which I had pre-designed of course) became slowly apparent.  Further, his story importance increased as the players became fond of him so that rather than a disposable NPC (as I had intended him) he became a vital story component.

In Universalis I would have started off with my 5 point Hag'rik.  Later, I would have bought up his resourceful maybe to show quite how good he was.  In another scene I give him a swashbuckler package, it hasn't come up before but it's in keeping so I spend the points.  As the other players like him they spend points on his importance.

That makes sense to me, oddly it's almost how things happened anyway.

Hm, food for thought.

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

In the interests of historical accuracy ...

Story Engine, especially in Maelstrom, explicitly states that "buying new traits" with Story (experience) points may be an act of further illustration or clarification of what the character already was, rather than literally learning or acquiring new abilities.

Also, Cover in Sorcerer carries this same quality, in that being an "FBI agent" means that new applications realized by the player, during play, are just as fair game as any laundry list of associated skills conceived prior to play.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

Hey, looks like Mike's already nailed just about everything that I would have commented on.  Of particular note to highlight is that the Story Power you spend on a Component is very much an Investment because, as Mike notes, you start to reap dividends every time you Activate for Leverage.  If you spend alot of Coins buying high levels for a Trait you never use than that probably isn't money well spent.  Our hope is that this does 2 things.  1) it keeps players focused on what aspects of the characters (or any other Component for that matter) is important to the story being told, and 2) keeps the story focused on events and situations appropriate to the characters who already exist.  Once you have Created your cast of characters being able to Leverage key Traits throughout the game starts to make moving the story cheaper and cheaper.

Another note appropriate to bring up here is Importance.  This Characteristic is somewhat new to V4 (at least its far reaching application is) and so it has not been tested as thoroughly as other aspects of the game.  It also may not be pointed correctly as far as cost.  

I won't go into the total rule here, but conceptually it would work like this.  You've spent 45 points on Hagrik.  On my turn "Hagrik slips from the rigging and plummets to his death"  Assuming Hagrik's already been established as being up in the rigging this would cost 2 Story Power.

2 Story Power to write off a 45 point character...why?  Because so far Hagrik's Importance is merely 1 (which actually means only 1 SP would have been necessary).  He may be super guy but he's not the main character.  To make him the main character one should buy up his Importance.  If you've spent 20 SP on his Importance than I COULD not write Hagrik off so easily.  I'd have to use at least 20 SP of my own (and justify it) before I could remove him from the story.

The reason Importance must be bought seperately is two fold.
1) It allows for super powered mentor type characters who always manage to disappear / get killed before the end forcing the young protagonist to go alone.  Think of that Paladin type hero in Book 1 of Jordan's series, or Obi Wan in Star Wars ep IV.  High Traits, low(er) Importance.

2) It serves as a balance mechanism against Trait creep.  Over the course of many sessions you may wind up having built Hagrik into a tremendous power house with all kinds of high level Traits by buying them gradually as Coin are available.  In the end Hagrik is providing tremendous Leverage.  However, Importance provides a mechanism whereby Hagrik could be written out ("given a mission by the king and sent away to parts unknown" for instance).  This is especially important if using the Add-on Ownership and PC rules.  If Hagrik was YOUR character the Leverage provided might be giving you more control over the story than the other players desire.  If you haven't bought up Hagrik's Importance you may find him being interfered with.


Regarding Guidelines for Trait Levels.  In the oldest versions of the game, Traits provided a number of dice and a seperate stat called Skill Level provided the Target Number for a d10.  This made Skill Levels cap at 9 and is where Mike's comment about 3 being "standard professional level of competance" comes from.  When we eliminated the distinction we kind of just fell into thinking of Traits still in terms of the 3 and the 9.  However, in V4 I realized that was completely unnecessary (and had been in V3 too).  The Death Star's Planet Killing ray gun could be +1000 if you wanted, so the upper level went away.

At the same time the game became more flexible with how it allowed Declarative Statements to work.  For instance, if you had a horse which you bought Fast +4 for and I had a car which I paid 1 Coin to Create but added no Traits, I could still narrate using Story Power my car out running your horse.  This is justifiable simply because of scale obviously a car has a higher top speed than a horse, even an average uninspiring car.  

With this in place it no longer became so important to think of Traits as being tied to some simulative value of "how good is it" (although I do mention the possibility in a sidebar).  This is why no table of "Poor, good, excellent" type adjectives were provided.  I think the closest I come is a mention that Level 3 is a minimal level of professional competance.  


Regarding Ron's note:  He is absolutely correct.  Aspects of Universalis are influenced by Story Engine a good bit.  The traditional fantasy RPG I mentioned in another thread that mutated into Universalis was, in fact inspired by the idea of taking the best (IMO) concepts of Story Engine and transporting them to a traditional game structure...probably similiar in some ways to Fang's goal with Scattershot.