Keyword Questions

[rylen dreskin]

Hey,

I've got a few questions and two ideas I'd like an opinion on.

**Most PCs start w/ 3 keywords at 17 -- a homeland, an occupation, and a magic/religion.  

The homeland is pretty much set in stone.  

There's talk of changing religion, both w/in cult aspect (Orlanth Allfather vs. Orlanth Thunderous) and b/w cults (Humakt vs Orlanth).  When that happens, any improved skills from the first keyword are dropped and new skills from the second are picked up?  (I'm not worried about the affinities.  That's well described.)

What happens when an occupation changes?  Is the player expected to buy all relevant skills (starting at 17)?  Does he receive them for free?  What sort of HP cost is involved in the change?

The advanced experience idea works for someone who has stays in a job for a while.  What about a person who did something else for a while and now has an adventuring role?  For instance, a middle age farmer who becomes warrior before starting play?  Or the reverse, a now settled warrior forced back into a traveling life?

**
I have two ideas I'd like comment on.
1 -- For Orlanthi, from Thunder Rebels, God-Talkers are described as frequently being part timers with a second occupation and God-Talking doesn't offer that many abilities.  So, I'm considering as part of creation, letting folks take a 2nd occupation keyword at 13 (or 14) OR starting their occupation keyword at 18.  Good, bad, indifferent?

2 -- As an encouragement for big actions and big sacrifice, I'm thinking of importing the "Radiation Accident" from Champions.  In the superheroic version, the character is exposed to something and undergoes extreme change.  Essentially they bring in a new character with the same history and point value.  My HQ version would let people build up and then loose important atributes and items, and then trade them in at part to full value.    For instance, someone takes Rival of X.  After the competition leads both of them almost to disaster, this would let him trade that relationship in for Refuse Challenge.  Again, good, bad, indiffferent?

Rylen

[droog]

You keep your skills when changing religion or occupation. Some skills might not be useable (eg you become a Healer and never use your 14W2 Axe skill again), but I would keep them on the sheet (you might not always be a Healer).

Changing your occupation isn't dependent on a specific set of skills. If you want to join King Throb's bodyguard, convince the King that you're a good warrior. Thus, you don't have to have every skill in the corresponding keyword before the fact. Keywords represent a general type, not every individual.

You might negotiate that a character spending several years out of play receives a new keyword (with its skills)--check the rules for experience.

On your examples: I'd give the farmer the usual keywords appropriate to his station, with a Warrior keyword at reduced skill levels. But there are several ways you could handle it, including telling the player to spend his 20 points on warrior skills. The retired warrior would have keywords for Warrior and Farmer--no problem (he might also have the target numbers increased as does Hengal).

I would probably just give the god-talker two keywords and leave it at that.

The changing of passions into another form of passion makes for great story and character development. I think it's a good idea. You know, it's a thin line between love and hate....

[lightcastle]

droog gave mostly what I would think is good advice here. Adding a new profession in play without some time break should not involve keywords. Like he said, convince someone you belong in the army, and you're a soldier, no new keyword.  

As for the farmer who then became a warrior and then started adventuring, one option is to make him buy warrior skills, the other is to charge him a bit extra and use the "broad skills" idea from the rules to just give him Warrior as a keyword at 13. He pays everything else out normally.

God-talker I would probably let be two keywords, or do the staggered (1 keyword at 17, the other at 13) thing.

As for your radiation accident, I was asking about this on the HeroQuest-rules list, and most people seem to think it is a reasonable way to do things. I certainly would allow you to shift something over if it made sense storywise. This seems most common in relationships, (thin line between love and hate) but might also sometimes apply in other aspects. (The example I used was someone with an ability like "Driven to find the Sacred Rock" who then finds it, and should get to transform that to anything like "Sacred Rock" or perhaps if you don't want an item that powerful, "Protector of Sacred Rock" at the same level.

Note that in Theist magic, this idea already exists, with you simply moving your score in "Initiate of [deity]" to "Devotee of [deity]".  However, note that same progression isn't true in Wizardry.  So I would say if it makes sense for your game, feel free to do it.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, what everyone said. :-)

Basically, consider that the chargen rules are just the included method for generating a "starting" character. Characters later on in life, or "experienced," whathaveyou, will have more keywords, not just higher abilities. What I'm saying is that characters have as many keywords as they have - all you've described is one way to start characters.

For instance, I have one character who grew up in one country, and was taken to be a slave in another, and then escaped to a third. I think that we just gave him a heavily modified Homeland to model this, but there's no reason that you can't have a character who's from two cultures. In fact it's a really interesting concept.
 
I made it a policy in my game to give out something special to each character, and that was often taken as an additional keyword. One has the "Traveler" keyword per the book (which is a really neat one), a couple have species keywords for odd species, one is a shaman (requiring the heightened abilities to qualifiy), etc

One thing to remember, per the "advanced experience" rules is that older keywords may actually have degraded over time. Thus, if the character was once a famer a life ago before becoming a warrior he might have the farming keyword, but only at 13 or something. This is neat, characters can become "rusty" with skills. That is, if you're advancing characters using the advanced experience rules, or the saga system, consider what abilities might go down as a result of not being able to (or just unwilling to) practice them. So, that healer with the Axe skill may over twenty years nearly forget how to use it (and when he does pick it up again, any rapid ascent of the ability level can be represented by "remembering" what he forgot).


Which segues nicely into the part about the "radiation accident" (the Saga System being like a long term Radiation Accident if you consider the forgetting). As it happens, I have a player who had managed to stack up 25 HP over time, and another with a big pile as well. The guy with 25 (Bob), is considering getting a new fetish. But I mentioned to them that they should think about having a radiation accident - I'm a big hero system fan. So we might soon see one. I'll let you know if we do.

Mike

[rylen dreskin]

Thanks for the comments.  Here's what I've got....

In game changes -- buy the skills, probaly starting at 13 up to 17.  Once the player has invested a fair number of points in the package (say 4 to 6 at 17 or 20 pts) -- snap -- he gets the keyword at 17 and the other default skills.

Over longer periods, I'll let a player drain points from one ability to improve another.  If it makes good sense -- Strike Weak Spot to Anatomy -- 1:1.  If its less solid -- Fight w/ Axe to Find Healing Herbs -- at 1:(2-3)

Out of game changes.  Use advanced experience.  Things that were stopped a while back probaly atrophy.

I'm not sure what the saga system is.

Appreciate this.

Rylen

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not sure what the saga system is.

Box text on page 152, IIRC.

Mike