Character creation: making non-balanced characters

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Donjon's almost done, and I'm soon going to start work on my next game, provisionally titled Riptide. This game will focus on Exploration of Setting and Character, and will be much more of what you'd think of as a "traditional" game than usual for me.

The mechanic I'm starting with involves character creation. I've often been frustrated in a game as I get an idea for a character that can't happen in character creation as it tends to be "balanced." That is - if I choose to up a character's intelligence, something falls. Being that this game has at least one foot planted in Simulationism, I can't see that making sense. We all knew that guy in high school that was captain of the football team and an honor graduate and had all the ladies, for example. (Strangely, he was in my D&D group, too.)

So, I'm trying to think of a way to create characters where:

a) Characters don't have to be balanced. Assuming I'm using a 1-5 scale, and the attributes are Jock, Brain, and Cool, you can make a character that has Jock 2, Brain 2, Cool 1 or Jock 4, Brain 4, Cool 5 with the same system.

b) The game, however, is balanced. Someone who chooses to make what appears to be a "weaker" character gets some advantage.

So far, I've thought of one idea. I like the idea of disadvantages being advantages in a game - that is, if you play them up, you get rewarded (a la 7th Sea.) So, I've thought that a player would add up all the points they spent on attributes, and look at a chart, which might look something like this:

3-4: 5 points Disadvantages
5-7: 3 points Disadvantages
8-9: 1 point Disadvantages
10-11: 1 point Advantage
12-13: 3 point Advantage
14-15: 5 points Advantages

Disadvantages would give you Currency when you use them (whatever the currency in the game is - we can call it experience points for now.) Advantages, however, cost Currency to use. This seems to fit in a Simulationist aspect (people with lower attributes get disadvantages - whether the low attributes caused the disadvantages (low Cool = Shy Around Girls), or the disadvantages caused the low attributes (Broken Home = low Cool) is immaterial. This also seems to fit in a game balance aspect, though - people with many Disadvantages can get Currency quicker, and work off those Disadvantages, while people with many Advantages have to work harder to get more.

I think I answered my own question here, but I'm looking for:
a) thoughts on this, and
b) alternative ideas.

[ks13]

After reading through you proposed mechanic, I decided to put on the "traditional player" hat to see how I would response to such a setup (overall game balance vs segment or rule specific balance). My immediate objection was that paying for an advantage seems unfair. If my character has super high Jock, Cool, and perhaps even Brain, and has the "drop dead sexy" advantage, why should it cost me anything to used that advantage? Should things be much easier for such a person?

Yes, and as it turns out that is also the answere to why the sytem you proposed could work. My approach would not be to spend currency to use the advantage, you just don't get any. After all, if I'm getting by on my looks, I don't have to work particularly hard or overcome any obstacles. Thus I'm not gaining anything (other than the immediate resultion) that can improve the character in the long term, or assist in situations where I can't get by on looks alone. So in terms of rewards, there should be some standard method for all characters, a significant bonus for those using or overcoming their disadvantage, and nothing extra for anyone relying on their advantages.

To me, this feels less like a punishment for having advantages (and where would one get the currency in the first place to paid for the use of the advantage anyway?).

Al

[DaR]

I think I answered my own question here, but I'm looking for:
a) thoughts on this, and
b) alternative ideas.

I like the idea.  It sounds mostly similar to how Nobilis handles its flaws, through the mechanism of Restrictions and Handicaps.  Handicaps put a limitation on your use of one of your major attributes, and for that, you gain extra currency related to that attribute each time your pool would refresh (like between story segments).  Restrictions are more general, they can relate to largely anything, and give currency every time they're invoked.  Have a shy geek?  Every time his shyness causes him to miss an opportunity, he gets some currency.

One of the things I love best about the idea is that it prevents the 'crack dealing 12-year old addict parapalegic nun' syndrome that games with more traditional flaw/virtue systems tend to create.  There's no incentive to pile on the flaws, knowing you can get around them with clever tricks, because very time you get around them, you're simply not rewarded.  And it truly rewards those who develop a character with a good tragic flaw or two and then play the character so that the flaw matters.

-DaR

[Matt Gwinn]

I really like the idea for many of the previously mentioned reasons.

The one concern I have is that a player can not have both advantages and disadvantages.  The current idea can allow for a slow witted, weak ass, unsocial alcoholic, but not a smart, strong, social butterfly alcoholic.  All stats aside your character is either blessed or cursed, but never both.

,Matt Gwinn

[Andrew Martin]

...the attributes are Jock, Brain, and Cool...

Would Jock, Nerd and Prep be better choices for attribute names?

b) The game, however, is balanced. Someone who chooses to make what appears to be a "weaker" character gets some advantage.

At the moment, I can see that my Star Odyssey game could suffer from a similar problem in that players can choose any degree of power for their character. In compensation, I might have the Token rule system compensate the player for character skill/attribute failure with a token reward; as success in a skill/attribute is it's own reward. But that seems to lead to another problem.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

...the attributes are Jock, Brain, and Cool...

Would Jock, Nerd and Prep be better choices for attribute names?

Andrew,

Those were just placeholders for whatever the attributes end up being. And "Jock," "Nerd," and "Prep" are completely inappropriate, being loaded with connotations that are irrelevant. Thanks, though.

[Valamir]

I like the concept alot (even the paying to use advantages...assuming the currency is something suitably metagame.  Paying something with actual character application (like XPs) would be a little hard to justify as Al suggests.

However, I agree with Matt's assessment about having both.  I think having to play a disadvantage to earn points to spend on activating an advantage is pretty cool.

Perhaps instead of totalling the attributes you look at each seperately.   Each very high attribute gives an advantage.  Each low attribute gives a disadvantage.  Possibly tieing the 'vantages (as Andrew would say) to the attribute.

In this way you could have a mixture

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ralph,

That is a crazy incredible idea. I love it.

The currency will be meta-game: drama points, if you will. Advancement will be through a different mechanism.

(Ok, super secret time. If everyone promises not to bug me about this [because I'm taking a vacation of sorts after Donjon], my next game is about high school, but in a good way. Read the comic "Blue Monday," if you want a good idea of the kind of stories I'm going for: John Hughes meets John Waters, perhaps. And it's set in Santa Cruz, CA. And it's all about making it with the girls.

And because it's a role-playing game, and gamers can't live without powers, it's magic teenagers. It's Harry Potter surfing, drinking beer under the docks, and smoking reefer, while trying to feel up Hermoine. So that's that.)

[Paganini]

And because it's a role-playing game, and gamers can't live without powers, it's magic teenagers. It's Harry Potter surfing, drinking beer under the docks, and smoking reefer, while trying to feel up Hermoine. So that's that.)

Having seen the Harry Potter movie something like 3 times in the last two days (my sister's not feeling good... what can I say?) I couldn't help but crack up when I read this. :)

Now, I want to offer a solution that's slightly different from what's been discussed so far. I wasn't sure how well this would fit with a simulationist game, but since your game is what it is, I think it might work okay. This is not quite as meta as what you guys are talking about, but I've seen it / used it a couple of times myself, and it's pretty fun.

The way this works is that there's no limit on how effective you make your character. However character effectiveness is defined in your game, you can max your character out, if you want to. The catch is that whenever the mechanics are used, there's a chance that a complication will occur. (You can give them an appropriately snazzy name for your game. :) The greater the character's effectiveness, the more likely the character is to complicate. So, you can make a character that will never fail, at anything, but everytime he succeeds at something he pretty much gets whacked with whatever screwed up thing the GM feels like.

Tailoring the mechanic to a given game mostly consists of moving the breakpoints around; that is, deciding what the maximum / minimum effectiveness is in the system, and how each level of effectiveness ties in to a chance of complicating.

Frex, if character effectiveness is based on attributes, you could say that the chance to complicate depends on the total number of points distributed between the attributes.

[Jared A. Sorensen]

(Ok, super secret time. If everyone promises not to bug me about this [because I'm taking a vacation of sorts after Donjon], my next game is about high school, but in a good way. Read the comic "Blue Monday," if you want a good idea of the kind of stories I'm going for: John Hughes meets John Waters, perhaps. And it's set in Santa Cruz, CA. And it's all about making it with the girls.

And because it's a role-playing game, and gamers can't live without powers, it's magic teenagers. It's Harry Potter surfing, drinking beer under the docks, and smoking reefer, while trying to feel up Hermoine. So that's that.)

Ah, Clinton...you had me at "hello" -- then the wizards? Aw, man.

But hell, you'll kick ass. And the idea of a "Fast Times at Hogwart's" is...well, it's pretty darn cool.

Damn.

I hate you now.

Again.

- J

*grumble*

[Le Joueur]

So far, I've thought of one idea. I like the idea of disadvantages being advantages in a game - that is, if you play them up, you get rewarded (a la 7th Sea.)

...Disadvantages would give you Currency when you use them (whatever the currency in the game is - we can call it experience points for now.)

...I think I answered my own question here, but I'm looking for:
a) thoughts on this, and
b) alternative ideas.

Well, this sounds a whole heck of a lot like what I described I was doing for Scattershot.  In that application, when you 'activate' your disadvantage, it yields you some Experience Dice (which can be spend on bending anything in the game to your will).  We tend to call this 'pumping' your Experience Dice.

I'm curious how your approach to advantages will work out.  "Advantages, however, cost Currency to use."  I have to echo Al's comment, I'm not sure that will work too well.  I mean, what happens when you bottom out of Drama Points?  Likewise, where does the "captain of the football team and an honor graduate and had all the ladies" get his Drama Points?  If all he has are advantages it'll cost for him to be what he is, won't it?  How does he 'refill his tank?'

And that brings up the question of what you mean by advantages?  Are they like abilities themselves (Teenagers from Outer Space - TfOS - style)?  Will you activate advantages (like Incredibly Cute or Connections) and they do something separate from your regular skills or abilities?  Or are they magnifiers of things that anyone can do or of classes of abilities (like Filthy Rich or Run Like Heck)?  It makes a lot of difference.  In the former, characters with few disadvantages are going to run around hardly able to use what is called an advantage.  In the latter, they'll be able, but not 'super able' much of the time.

In Scattershot we took a slightly different direction.  Our advantages are more like the latter and when employed, they throw a little more 'ooph' into what you're doing (if you use Filthy Rich while buying a car, you get 'a lot of car').  How this works is in how advantages and disadvantages compare in Scattershot.  Disadvantages yield Experience Dice that can be used later; advantages kick in extra Experience Dice (not ones you already have) only when you make use of them.  (Anyone can buy a car, Filthy Rich adds to your 'score' when you purchase one.)

Another thing I find confusing is where you first say, "Characters don't have to be balanced" and then you say, "the game, however, is balanced."  Which is it?  Are you balancing efficacy or aren't you?  Are you making it so the BMoC (Big Man on Campus) can't really make much use of their 'perks,' while the nerdy geek can twirl the world around his little finger (provided that that is what you can do with Drama Points)?

I'm sorry to say it, but "This seems to fit in a Simulationist aspect (people with lower attributes get disadvantages..." sounds contradictory when you point out that "advantages, however, cost Currency to use."  That sounds Gamist to me, but I'm no expert.  Personally, if you want to 'balance a game' where the 'characters aren't balanced,' I'd say go with something with a similar outcome to TFoS'.  As Paganini suggests, use of an 'effective' character attracts more "complication."  Characters are in no way equal, but the game 'equalizes' them.  (In TFoS, if you roll too high, 'bad' good things happen to you; it's a deterrent to taking all high attributes or even singular 'spiked' attributes.)  The life of a 'chosen one' is much harder than average is much harder than that of the misfits.

Kudos for 'going back to the source,' I think everybody needs to do the 'gaming in high school' thing at least once 'to get it out of their systems' (high school that is).  I'll have to add this (after to Donjon), to my list of accursed 'I can't afford them, wah' games.

Fang Langford