Some suggestions...?

[Brian Leybourne]

Hi all.

I'm starting up a tRoS campaign shortly (as soon as the book arrives), and I'm working on the backstory at the moment. I'm looking for some suggestions for some starting advantages for my players.

Y'see, I like to start things off interestingly when I start a campaign. I once started a fantasy game by giving the players blank character sheets and told them they were standing in a forest. I gave them a chance to describe themselves, then had the militia attack them. As they described their clothing, weapons, armour and actions, I built the characters up (one guy described himself as wearing robes, so I started to put points into magical skills. Later during the fight he described himself throwing blasts of fire at foes, so as he did that I started building up his fire magic skill. Another guy described himself in leather with a bow, so I immediately put points into light armour, missile weapons, etc). Anyway, you get the idea. Once the characters were full fleshed out (it took nearly 2 sessions) I gave them their filled-out sheets. Went really well.

Anyway, the point is that I like to have something interesting to start off the campaign. I also like to give characters a slight boost in return for player contributions (stories, diaries, artwork, etc). I thought that with tRoS, I'll make them assign their priorities without giving them specifics of what each one does (other than b/f for race) so that it'll be about what's important to the character rather than what'll give the most points vs. cost.

But, as the "bonus" I want to let them choose from a list of adsvantages, without telling them what those advantages do. After they have picked, I'll tell them what the advantage they picked gives them.

Examples might be "jack of all trades" which might give a -1 bonus to a certain number of skills, or "Silver spoon" which might double starting wealth. Some might give a bigger bonus, but also a small penalty, such as "sword master" which might give +3 proficiency points in a sword proficiency, but give -1 to all defaults from that. Some might be even more "out there", such as "favored" which might give an extra major gift, or Lucky, which might give auto success on any one skill roll per session.

So, any ideas guys? Give me all you've got.. the more I can get the better it'll be.

Brian.