[TSoY] Life Path System, whadya think?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  http://tsoy.crngames.com/Dave%27s_Life_Path_System
  What do you guys think?
  Some of the verbage is still sloppy, but the keys, secrets and abilities are near final...

[oliof]

Sorry if this comes over harsh. I know writing life paths is hard, and I generally love them.

If I think of life path, I think of stuff like Traveller, Cyberpunk or Artesia, where I get ideas about a characters backstory and then some mechanical choices I can make, both adding up to a character-specific interpretation of 'what happened and was learned by that thing happening?". Burning Empires/Wheel's Life Path System is something similar, but I don't like the model very much, since it's too much of trying to find the right progression for the concept I have in mind. REIGN's life path is a special beast because it's random and made in a way that it's fair compared to a point buy character, which I deem ingenious.

As a life path system, this comes over to me as not being inspiring, and being restrictive without needs. Why Ex-Slaves? Why not Slaves?  On the other hand, the list of choices is just too broad to make any choice more meaningful than to pick from the way the same data is presented in the books.

I still prefer Eero Tuovinens alternate character generation: Decide on an event that showed your characters potential for greatness – make that her adept level ability. Then decide on the things she mostly does for a living – these are her competent level abilities. Select a secret, path, distribute pool points, spend advances, done. The grouping of skills and the different 'lumps' of secrets and paths by culture and species IMHO give enough structure to build a 'sound' character.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  No prob. I want the lifepath system to give a sense of what the games is about. I picked ex-slave instead of slave, because that is pretty much a one-off concept, its not a common character that would be made. But an idea that two or more players share, know what I mean? So, in that case, the players have a strong feel for what the game is about and what kind of character they want to make. They don't need my to make their char. But, for some players, this tool might propel them into a character concept that is a little deeper than Elven Archer. Not that there is anything wrong with Elven Archers, but if I can push for more without being pushy, I will. You said what you didn't like, what do you suggest will make it better. I cut my teeth on CP2020, I just wanted to take that a step forward and take out the random numbers. Any ideas?

[Rich F]

I like to run a Q&A after the player has created the base character and just throw some questions at them. 

Can you sum up your character concept in a simple sentence?

What does your character hate (and why)?

What does your character fear (and why)?

What is their proudest moment so far?  What are they most ashamed of or regret most?

What do they want to do with their life?  What's standing in the way of them achieving it?

What are they willing to sacrifice to achieve their goals?

It's fine if they don't know the answer yet, or if they want to change their answers before or during play - part of the reason for playing is often to find out what the answers are, but this process can help players get a handle on their character outside of the numbers, and can help develop 'proto-kickers' and give you some ideas of what to throw at them.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Hm, OK, seems like I should have asked a more focused question.

  First, here are my goals for putting this thing together:
A) Introduce Casual gamers that have never played TSoY to the setting in a slow, gradual way
B) Produce characters that are of a similar mold (adventurous) and compatible with each other
C) Fast and not random
D) Give meaningful choices, but not limit the players because of choices they make/like
E) If the player already knows the system/setting, they can use the system as presented in the book and skip this system if they already know what pools, abilities, keys and secrets they want. This is not a mandatory thing, just an aid for players that are lost/overwhelmed.

  Contrary to what might be assumed, I am open to any/all suggestions for changes. I will not need to use it in actual play for 1-3 months depending on how long Scion goes on, so we have time to work it out.

  So, to that end, here is what I need to know:
1) Is there any "cool" elements of the setting that aren't well represented/explored by this life path system?
2) Is there part of the canonical setting that is misrepresented here?
3) Is there a step you would add that would awesomify this life path system?
4) Is there a step here that detracts from the awesomeness or is otherwise, distracting or redundant?

  Thanks for your help guys!