Introduction: Arcadian and Silvervine Games

[Arcadian]

Hello all,

My name is John Arcadian. I'm one of a group of people who are currently working on an Indie game design called Silvervine Games. We're publishing a d10 system that is currently aimed at a fantasy world and a classless system.  Stumbled across the forum from treasuretables.org and I've been reading and looking at the community for help. Figured I'd finally register and get involved.    To introduce it and show you the place I'm coming from our silvervine system is a d10 attribute + attribute vs difficulty with a REQUIRED number of successes. Any skills you purchase lower the difficulty. It attempts to have a classless kind of creation system by listing skills and focuses at the same cost for every type of character and no benefits or bonuses for being a "knight" or "gunangel" or "mage", etc. 

I guess I wouldn't say that we are really trying to be original or have a breakout game, but to present a style of gaming that exists between the two extremes of fully story driven and fully combat driven.  We're aiming for a more character driven in your options for creating unique characters with enough combat and action based numbers and rules to satiate the power gamers and the butt-kickers in the groups.    The main way we do this is by making our skills very open to interpretation.  Say you have a skill in blacksmithing, it can lower the difficulty of a variety of actions such as: actually forging a sword, appraising a piece of metal work, finding flaws in the hinges of a door, etc.  I don't want to get too wordy here but you can find more about this at http://www.silvervinegames.com. We've got an about silvervine and I"ll be working next week on finally getting our LEVEL 0 guide up.

My question is what do you think of this type of system?    I'm sure it bears similarities to other indie or mainstream systems in some ways, and we're okay with that.  We just don't want to do the same things in the same way as other people have been done.  We want to present a partially carved block for people (players and GM's) to interpret in their own ways.  We're aiming for a rich world, easy rules and open skill interpretation.

The book (core rulebook and guide to the first world of cyrus) currently weighs in at 320 pages, with about 100 being description of the system, and the second 220 being world description, crunchy bits lists spells, etc.  yada yada yada yada.  I'm sure I"ll be peppering with more specific questions later and browsing old posts.   So anyways hi guys. Feedback always welcome.

[TonyLB]

We're aiming for a more character driven in your options for creating unique characters with enough combat and action based numbers and rules to satiate the power gamers and the butt-kickers in the groups.

Well, character-driven gaming is about more than letting people create different types of characters.  Indeed, some games that support the most character driven gaming (Trollbabe, My Life with Master, The Mountain Witch, Polaris) have virtually no starting difference between characters at all.  So I interpret what you're saying as that your "character-at-the-beginning" creation system is very flexible.  All well and good.  How about your "character-at-the-middle" creation system, sometimes known as character advancement?  Can people take their blacksmith and have him evolve into a barbarian warlord if circumstances warrant?  How much influence do the players exercise over how their character changes?  How much influence does the environment and their failures or successes exercise?

[Arcadian]

How about your "character-at-the-middle" creation system, sometimes known as character advancement?  Can people take their blacksmith and have him evolve into a barbarian warlord if circumstances warrant?  How much influence do the players exercise over how their character changes?

Character advancement is handled through raw experience.  You recieve experience points (8 - 15 roughly) at the end of each game session and can use those to purchase skills and focuses, weapon skills, attribute raises etc.  everything with the same set of experience points.  So if you start out as a blacksmith (by purchasing blacksmithing skills and a Profession of blacksmith) then you can proceed and purchase more weapon skills, leadership, focuses which give you mystic powers or weapon/armor breaking etc and flower arranging (because every barbarian warlord has to have a sensitive side) to make yourself out to be the barbarian warlord.    The GM has control over his game but there is nothing written into the rules that says no you can't do this.

[TonyLB]

Okay.  Do player choices in game have a direct impact on how they can spend that experience?

Like, in Polaris, your choices determine whether you even get experience checks.  They come with your progression through the hope-to-despair cycle of the game, and so callous disregard for your fellows can push you to experience faster than otherwise.  Basically, the players have a great deal of influence (through their choices) over how and when their characters advances.  In CoC there are (I hear) skill checks which help you to develop in the skills that you're consistently using.  That sort of thing.

Consider a blacksmith who, having been shipwrecked on an island, doesn't build a boat and try to get home, but rather uses his knowledge of metal to make some weapons and take over the local tribes.  If I'm playing that character, making those choices, then I'm obviously slanting my guy toward a certain path of development.  That's one reason I made those choices.  Does my guy have a mechanically superior ability to pursue the whole barbarian warlord thing, compared to a person who goes off and makes his experience by (say) helping the dwarves to re-secure one of their cities that has been overrun by goblins?

[Arcadian]

Player choice doesn't really say you have to spend the experience in a certain way.   The GM awards experience based off of what they did in the session.  Most of the experience is assigned on the GM's assessment of your playing.  Action (0 to 3 points) is awarded in how you did in action scenes (fighting a monster/enemy, chase scene, etc)  Some things like goal achieved though the GM asks what goal you had achieved and awards experience based on how well you describe it.  If you didn't do action, you wouldn't get action experience, but if you role-played well or used your mediation, blacksmithing skill to effective use in some situation you get experience for that.  This is a list of the experience categories that we've been using in playtests, but it's like everything up to GM choice.    You get experience more on how well you played your character, however you choose that to be.

Action (GM)
Role-playing (GM)
Story Impact (GM)
Character Development (ASK)
Goal Achieved (ASK)
Teamsmanship  (GM)
Good Skill Usage (ASK/GM)
Archai Rules (If ritualized 1EXP per rule followed)
Unique Solution(Optional) (ASK/GM)
Code of Ethics (Optional)(ASK/GM)
Record Keeping (optional) (GM)
Game Contribution (optional)

[TonyLB]

The GM awards experience based off of what they did in the session.  Most of the experience is assigned on the GM's assessment of your playing.

Why do you want to do it this way?  What are your design goals for that decision?

It puts the GM in quite an awkward place.  If she gives out less than 3 in a category she's saying "I don't appreciate your roleplaying as much as I might," which is a very disheartening message to someone who thinks they did a really good job.  If she gives out 3 to everyone in every category then she's saying "I value you all exactly the same," which is a very disheartening message to anyone who feels like they're doing a better job than their fellows.

[Jack Aidley]

Hello John, welcome to the Forge,

This quote caught my eye:

I guess I wouldn't say that we are really trying to be original or have a breakout game, but to present a style of gaming that exists between the two extremes of fully story driven and fully combat driven.

Why do you feel "fully story driven" and "fully combat driven" offer two extreme of gaming styles? And what design features of your game do you feel mean that your game supports this middle style better than other similar games?

Could I ask what roleplaying games you've had experience with?

[Arcadian]

It puts the GM in quite an awkward place.  If she gives out less than 3 in a category she's saying "I don't appreciate your roleplaying as much as I might," which is a very disheartening message to someone who thinks they did a really good job.

There is a possibillity of that if people lose the thought that it's just a game.  Let me break down the experience a little bit more. Each category is in a table that says from 0 to 3.  0 is labelled as NA, 1 is labelled as basic (performed in the category somewhat) 2 is labelled as good (performed in a decent way) and 3 is labelled as great ( you excelled in the action).     I've never seen it as a problem with any of our playtests and none of the people have complained if the GM is awarding experience fairly.  Jyre didn't do much fighting so only got a 1 for action, but she did act out her character well so she got a 2 there.  3 is more reserved for did an incredible job. 

I've never really seen with any of the groups that I've played with where someone had that big of a problem with it.  It may be the group I've played with though.  That's kind of the beauty of this forum, you get perspectives that aren't your own so you can take the mirror from a different angle.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya John,

Welcome to the Forge.  Your system looks workable, though I must say the GM is given a great deal of power when it comes to awarding exp.  Not unusual, but not the only way either.  What I really want to know about your game is the following:

1.  What is your game about?  Not the resolution system or advancement.  But what is the essence of your game?

2.  What do the characters do?  Not advancement, buy skills, or "develop".  What do they do in-game.

3.  What do the players do?  IE, what kinds of behaviors by the players does your game encourage?

If you can answer these, we might be able to evaluate your game as a whole a little bit better :)

Peace,

-Troy

[Arcadian]

Why do you feel "fully story driven" and "fully combat driven" offer two extreme of gaming styles? And what design features of your game do you feel mean that your game supports this middle style better than other similar games?

Could I ask what roleplaying games you've had experience with?

Thanks for the welcome, glad to be here and get the insight.  Story driven and combat driven are the two mainstream styles that are out there and can be found in every game store.  The rest of gaming tends to be even more selective within small groups or specialty stores.    I've played in of course DND and whitewolf, done a little gurps, some of the cheapass games ala ninja burger and kobolds, and I've been in a session of ironclaw and inomine(sp?) but never got deep into them.   I've never been a fan of dnd 3rd edition, but I fit more into a storyteller/method actor category of roleplaying. 

Design features (which we hope keep to the character driven) The game is fairly centered around a fantasy world so we are working in that paradigm.

• Chances of success based off of character attributes - every level in an attribute = 1 dice to roll
• Two attributes are added together for any task, (strength and reflexes) (Perception and knowledge) (reflexes and perception)
• Skills make tasks easier, removing from the difficulty 1 - 10 of the task
• Skills cover wide areas not just the common sense uses (your stealth skills allow you to sneak well, but could also be put to use on a perception and knowledge roll to help put up defenses against ways that people might sneak into a house, or used to determine when someone is sneaking up on you.
• Skills can also cross categoy.  Say you have a skill in gardening and someone else has a skill in herbalism.  You both may have access to similiar knowledge.  As a gardener you may not know as much as an herbalist for mixing and preparing an herb, but you may know which herbs are suppossed to do what.  You might see yourself as a warrior with a bit of gardening, you can still bring that into play in your character.
• Focus Proffessions give you a wide variety of knowledge that might come under a proffession.  FP:Sailor givs you an extra dice when attempting any task that would be covered under the profession of sailor.
• Combat works on the two attributes vs difficulty factor minus skill system that everything else works on.  It lets you build your combat style as you want and favors speed and skil more than strength. We've found that you can do just as well in almost any combat style, big weapons, small weapons, ranged, martial arts, etc. and can build up your defense without having to have big bulky armors.

Maybe I should tell the genesis of why we even started this.  My friend has been writing, working on a novel in a fantasy world that I really liked. He eventually convinced me to run a game of it, so I ran it in DND third edition.  He brought up an interesting point in the game.  His character was a drummer with a drum that tightened by ropes and knots. In the game he tried to tie a knot but didn't have any kind of rope use skills.  He argued that he should know something about it since he has to tune his drum he should know something.  The logic was valid and we got to talking about some of the limitations of DND style play but how we liked the basic ideas of it. So we started working on ways that fit that idea but enabled more of a character driven free-er style of play.


If you'd like to take a look at the character sheet here is a direct link to it.
http://www.silvervinegames.com/downloads/cyrus/cyrus/character%20sheets/character%20sheet%206.3.pdf

I've always thought the biggest teller of a system is the character sheet.

[Arcadian]

Thanks tony.  It's kind of hard to drop it all into simple phrasing. 

1.  What is your game about?  Not the resolution system or advancement.  But what is the essence of your game?

We're aiming for a more character driven experience.  Where the characters can choose their ways of developing. If you want to make a dwarven samurai gardener you can. We've had alchemist fighters, dark wizard hunters, airship pirates, elven rangers, ogre philosophers, summoners, nordic fighters.  We're kind of aiming for people getting to make their characters in the ways they want.

2.  What do the characters do?  Not advancement, buy skills, or "develop".  What do they do in-game.

Well in the first world called Cyrus we're going for an anime/fantasy type of feel.  The world is based off of tolkien, arthurian, oriental, fantasy and all of the career paths and options are open to the characters.  We also try to emphasize that characters are actual people to. Everyone gets a job that is what they were raised with or do outside of what history records.  Sure the guy who discovered lost tomes of magic and became a premiere mage is recorded for that, but he discovered them because he was a shepperd looking for a place to get his sheep out of the rain.  The dwarven samurai was  a happy gardener until he got caught up in shakesperean schemes that forced him to accompany rare trees to clave where he was told he was to stay and take care of the trees, so he stayed to become a samurai.  Heis stil a gardener, the mage is still a shepperd.  Nordic fighter was also a blacksmith, the summoner worked as a warehouseman for the del-mars until he grabbed some summoning tokens out of a shipment, the alchemsit fighter started out as a farmer etc . . .

3.  What do the players do?  IE, what kinds of behaviors by the players does your game encourage?

Well I think what we are trying to do is lay out the rules in such a way that people can get the experience they want out of the game.  If you want to play it as a typical dungeon romp then it can go that way.  If you want to do it as more social interaction and intrigue then the people can build the characters in that way and play that kind of game.  A lot of the user of the system is up to interpretation. The game kind of encourages the players and GM to build their own game out of it.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

We're aiming for a more character driven experience.  Where the characters can choose their ways of developing. If you want to make a dwarven samurai gardener you can. We've had alchemist fighters, dark wizard hunters, airship pirates, elven rangers, ogre philosophers, summoners, nordic fighters.  We're kind of aiming for people getting to make their characters in the ways they want.

Okay, so your game is about customizing the character that you want.  Okay cool.  I'd like to know how you implement that customization.  How set are a characters' attributes (including race, class, skills, stats, appearance, relationships, abilities, powers, etc.) at character creation?

gets a job that is what they were raised with or do outside of what history records.  Sure the guy who discovered lost tomes of magic and became a premiere mage is recorded for that, but he discovered them because he was a shepperd looking for a place to get his sheep out of the rain.  The dwarven samurai was  a happy gardener until he got caught up in shakesperean schemes that forced him to accompany rare trees to clave where he was told he was to stay and take care of the trees, so he stayed to become a samurai.  Heis stil a gardener, the mage is still a shepperd.

This is the essence of what the characters do in your game.  They start out mundane (gardener) and end up legendary (archmage).  What are the transitions like in your game? IE when a character goes from being a gardener to a prodigy to a master to a savant, what kinds of mechanical things take place in your game to denote those changes?  If this question is unclear (and it might be) let me know and I'll try to rephrase :)

Well I think what we are trying to do is lay out the rules in such a way that people can get the experience they want out of the game.  If you want to play it as a typical dungeon romp then it can go that way.  If you want to do it as more social interaction and intrigue then the people can build the characters in that way and play that kind of game.  A lot of the user of the system is up to interpretation. The game kind of encourages the players and GM to build their own game out of it.

This doesn't really answer my question, but if I may presume to do so for you, I'd say players in your game "Design and implement a path toward a destiny for their characters that is purely of their choice, design, and direction.  The GM facilitates this path by providing opposition, opportunties for advancement, and complications for the player-character to overcome."  Does that sound about right?

I have a few other questions I'd like to throw at you also.  Let me know if this is too many at once? :)

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

5.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

6.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

I hope these can help guide further discussion of your game.  I am quite interested in your answers.  :)

Peace,

-Troy

[Lance D. Allen]

Hello Arcadian,

I was almost laughing when I read your earlier posts because what you were saying sounded so much like what I was saying when I first brought Mageblade to the Forge. Don't get me wrong; I'm not the wise-old-game-designer seeing the younglings making the same mistakes; I'm just a young, still struggling game designer recognizing the same goals I had when I was a younger game designer.

I'm guessing, from what you've said so far, that the setting has lots of different magical choices, probably a couple different magical systems (or at least variants within the over-arching system) a broad setting with the full spectrum of typical fantasy races and probably one or two of your own creation. I also imagine more pages of rules are devoted to character generation than to task/conflict resolution. If I'm right, then the reason is because that's exactly what I brought to the Forge. And if I'm right, I see the Forge doing one of two things for you; Either it will overwhelm you to the point that you have to honestly sit down and say you don't have an answer to all the questions, and you'll either just keep plugging away at what you've been doing without further Forge input, or you'll quit/shelve the game for a while. Or you'll really think about the questions, and pare down all the excess stuff to get a really focused game, which is what the Forge ideology generally promotes. Both things have sort of happened to me; I shelved my game for over a year before I was finally ready to answer these questions that Troy is putting to you. I'm still answering them, still paring down the excess. I'm a slow worker when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Anyhow, what I really want to say is that you should really listen to Troy's ideas. Not necessarily use them, but think about them, find something you like better, and go with it. The most important decisions you should walk away from this thread with shouldn't have to do with what people think about your ideas, or whether or not people think your ideas will even work. What you need to decide is precisely the answer to Troy's questions:

What is your game about?: If it's about exploration and finding new and cooler things to kill, make sure there's lots to explore and lots to kill. If it's about a character going from zero to hero, make sure there's a system in place that not only allows for that but causes it to happen; If people don't want to play a character who starts out as a farm-boy and go on to topple the empire, then they shouldn't be playing your game. and that's okay. Your game should do what you want it to, and if anyone wants something else, then they should look elsewhere. No game can be all things to all people. Not saying you're trying, but I know I certainly was.

What do the characters do?: Hugely important. Most games don't answer this question explicitly enough, or at all. Often times, they don't want to limit what you can do; they're trying to do what I said above, be all things to all people. Do NOT do this. If your characters are supposed to go adventuring, don't worry about mechanics that allow you to run the myriad details of a medieval town. If the game is about social intrigue in a royal court, don't stress about combat rules of any sort (unless duels are meant to be important) or rules about adverse weather conditions on the trail. As it seems to be a game about characters becoming heroes, heroic path rules might be a good idea, as Troy suggests. Other times, game designers assume that players will know what their characters are supposed to do; It's a roleplaying game! Go kill stuff! Don't do this either. You'll want to spell out what the characters are supposed to do, so they can get down to doing those things and enjoying your game the way it's meant to be played.

What do the players do: Again this is an often overlooked aspect of the rules text. What sort of *player* behavior is appropriate? Do you want the players to think tactically, either for combat or for political maneuvering, etc? Make sure the rules encourage this, then. Make smart and clever decisions and ideas count, and people will be more likely to play smart and clever. Do you want the players to stay IN CHARACTER as much as possible? Reward this, then. Maybe give dice bonuses for particularly cool narrations, the way Sorcerer does, and people will be more creative in their descriptions. Do you want character backgrounds to be important? Then don't expect the GM to just bring stuff up from the characters' backgrounds. A good GM will probably do it anyway, but make it a player responsibility, too, and give either the player, the GM or both the mechanical tools to bring in character background stuff, as well as rewards for doing so.

Also, to comment on something said earlier, about how the GM has a lot of power in doling out XP: It may not ever be a problem if the GM is fair, but sometimes the GM's honest idea of fair differs from the players' idea. I try to be fair, and I frequently look for reasons to give XP, but I've still been accused of being stingy. Explicit reward mechanics are a good thing. Most times, the GM isn't going to resent the book telling him what to reward, how much to reward, and in what fashion; Me, I'm generally very grateful for the guidelines, or even for strict rules.

Finally, another important thing to note: XP isn't necessarily the only form of mechanical reward, nor are in-game items or money. A method of reward I've become fond of is the sort of reward that allows the player to highlight or elaborate on their character; Perhaps new traits, or spotlight time can be a good reward. Some games, new traits are the only form of reward or punishment, and they generally work really well, and the characters are fully realized and have depths and stories to tell by the time you're done. Another form of reward is the ability to change or add to the setting, or even the rules of play... Anyhow, if you can't tell, Reward Mechanics are a big thing for me. Make them good, and the game's half sold.

Anyhow, looking forward to hearing more from you, and hopefully I've not rambled on too bloody much.

[Arcadian]

thank you for the incredible and very tough questions.  I'd answer them now if I had a minute to spare.   They really do help you look at it from another perspective.  When I can over the weekend I'll try to put in a post with a level 0 guide that explains all the basics, I'll be writing it up with some of the questions I've been asked in mind and trying to answer them there.  I'll try to answer some of the new questions while I"ve got a chance though.  Then I'll get back to the others later

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The initial setting of Cyrus is an anime/fantasy type of worl. If the essence of our game is giving the players the options of defining their characters without limits (which is the best way I can think to put it now) the setting is a very open and diverse world.  The other main person involved in this and the writer of the setting is a franciscan monk (3rd order) so there is a little bit of influence there from that, I'm a taoist monk (no classification) and so I bring more of the openness to it. 

The setting gives a fairly wide variety of options for the player to choose from.  It is entirely possible in cyrus to play a typical knight, ninja, mage, etc.   The setting does not limit what that particular knight, ninja or mage can actually do.  There are orders of knights that people can join, (whytegaard) but which have many different classes within them.  It isn't uncommon for a knight of whytegaard to be well versed in poetry, guns, herbalism, etc or for the knights to not wear armor (bladesingers) or to wear standard steel armor (palladin masters).  These classes though don't actually effect the way the mechanics give the character bonuses. They are archetypes the character can fit into . 

The setting also has enough generic space for a character to build their own background.  We've defined a basic system of how much technology, agriculture, commerce, transportation, etc. an area is known for and a small amount about some of the things that go on there.  So if you did want to build your character in a certain way there is a seeding ground for them.  In the world as well there are oriental areas, standard european, dessert, celtic, etc. . .     

What most really gets that though is the fact that there is that possible feel in the definition of the world.  One race the Animalia travel everywhere and so bring and share culture with everyone. It's not uncommon for someone to come from a "european" "arthurian" themed area and still be able to find someone to teach them martial arts.

5.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

6.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

I'll try to give these two at the same time since I think the answer is fairly the same.  We like to encourage roleplaying above action, but leave in the action elements as well.   The system encourages you to bring out your character in your roleplaying and to have background reasons for most of your skills or other focuses (generic term for non skills).   I'm a firm beliver in 70% of any game is up to how the GM runs it so we try to give a base for the GM to build off of. There are rewards (low to high) for roleplaying your character, for engaging in action scenes, for developing your characters skills and keeping to the same path. 

There isn't really anything to say this is his persona and you are punished if you don't follow that except that the GM awards less experience if you don't meet the varius roles.  I guess to say it concisely it awards roleplaying and characterization but has a base of a dungeon crawl.  It can be more open and give your character the option to be 1/2 fighter and 1/2 social character, thinker, etc. 

Sorry if I'm not adequately giving good descriptions.  We're trying to build a ruleset that can be open to interpretation in various ways. For now the main setting is fantasy but at some point we may branch our and try to get the system working on other levels.   

[Arcadian]

Thanks wolfen for the depth and insight.  It's a lot to design a game and I'd like to think we're ready for the challenge or at least ready to be batterred down and get right back up like ali.  Reading all the posts helps me to define the concept a little more. 

As of today (maybe not tommorrow) I'd say the SVG system is aiming to be an open adventure game in the setting of choice. It still does focus heavily on action but with a wide variety of character defined options for that action.  While your characters are primarily adventurers and world savers (depending on the adventure) their other skills and previous life can come into play in adequate ways. The game is about the story of your characters and what is built around them. The GM's role in our game should be to set the stage around the characters, create a story with challenges for them to overcome.  The players goal is to bring out their character through their story. 

Do you want the players to stay IN CHARACTER as much as possible?

I think very much so. 

Our playtests have proven very popular among storytellers and method actors.  We've got a few butt kickers and power gamers and hope to get some more of their opinions soon, but so far they've been able to buy enough crunchy bits and use them in combat situations to make them happy. We're finally brining our first worlds monetary system in line and have started to create some magical items and "rewards", but in our playtests we've aimed our GOAL ACCOMPLISHED exp at the power gamers and tacticians.  Did you achieve something you set out to do?    This is one of the categories that we have the players explain how they achieved it. I do admit it is still a very GM controlled system, but we attempt to give the player power in the aspect of being able to use their skills widely.  There is an EXP reward for using your skills well though.  GOOD SKILL USAGE.  This doesn't apply to combat.  Did you use your stealth well? Yup snuck past guards instead of getting into fight, used mediation and speaking skills to bluff my way into the museum. 

I do see our prime use of reward is experience, which are used raw to purchase new skills.  If you fulfilled a category well you get experience in it, if you didn't no experience.  It is the GM's discretion as to if you did or not but there are enough categories that isn't easy to get very little experience except by not participating much in the game session.

Your game should do what you want it to, and if anyone wants something else, then they should look elsewhere. No game can be all things to all people.

I've always felt this and I guess I'm trying to re-emulate the feel of 2nd ed DND homebrew style we played.   We never had massive dungeon romps but highly defined characters with challenges outside of their combat skills who still went on dungeon romps or fought a big monster but not in the typical way. We were a group of definite ROLEplayers.   

With the setting I guess we're trying to emulate the feel of a tolkien book or an square RPG without the need for multiple hours of level up and build.  Sure cloud (ff7) might just have been a soldier with a sword, but he was well defined with a unique story.  We want the system to support that and the characters to write up their own backgrounds, but find outlets and skills (and uses) within the game and the system.