More prep help requested

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

After some delays, my ROS play begins this week. Here are some more questions that have arisen as I've prepared for it.

ONE
Anyone with knowledge of Hungarian or Armenian languages is encouraged to send me names that are appropriate for geographic areas/districts and villages/towns.

TWO
Is Conscience a generic SA, like Luck, or should it be customized to a particular application, like Faith, Destiny, and Passion?

THREE
(not a question, actually) I suggest keeping the rapier damage way nasty and high, but put a note in its description that the +3 is dropped when the rapier is being used against hard armor. Compared to some weapons' notes, this isn't much.

FOUR
(the big one) Can SA's be brought into play at any step of the combat process? Think of the implications.

In case 1, we decide that Passion (babe) applies in this fight, so Sir Golova pops his Passion dice into his Combat Pool prior to anything else - we then move to stances and initiative.

In case 2, combat is played as normal until it's time for Sir Golova to make his attack in the Exchange (let's say the other guy went first and his attack was defended against). But look! When Sir Golova splits his Pool, he piles the Passion's dice into the offense!

This distinction really becomes more important when we're talking about an SA that gets used up - like Luck, not like Drive or Destiny.

FIVE
Any hope there might one day be an NPC-list sheet? Making up NPCs is hard work, especially when they have strong personalities (ie SA's) and distinctive Gifts/Flaws. A summary-type layout sheet would be very handy.

Best,
Ron

[Jake Norwood]

ONE
Can't help you there...

TWO
It's intended to be general, but players with a certain unusual stint on the idea of "conscience" should specify.

THREE
Good Call.

FOUR
Technically the two options you're suggesting are the same, at least according to your examples. In my games, I pile it straight into the CP for the duration of the fight. Luck, OTOH, is used on a dice-per-die basis any time you want, but only that one time. So you can add Luck to Damage, defense (even one you didn't declare), etc, but Passions and the like go straight to the Pool/dice in your hand/etc.

FIVE
Been working on it, actually. It's one of the big things we want in the Bestiary, although I'm still officially encouraging folks to send it their characters so that we can put them up online. The quickstart rules (will they ever be done?) will also have several archtypical characters.

Jake

[Christopher Kubasik]

Hi guys,

There's not a list of NPC types?  I just sort of assumed there would be, given the nature of Character generation.

Jake, looking back to Pendragon, will the Bestiary include the likes of peasants, squires, court fops, green mercs, experienced mercs and the like.  That is, examples of folks from different stations and different professions.

(Not every combination, of course, but a broad enough range that a GM could just strip the title and grab the stats for his or her needs.)

Thanks,

Christopher

[Jake Norwood]

The Core rulebook has several pages on NPC types, animals, monsters, and other goodies. I think Ron is asking for specific personalities.

Jake

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Looks like I need to clarify.

What I want is a sheet with lines on it, specifically a column of lines down the left hand side to be filled in with names. Then, running horizontally from each line (name), there'd be a bunch of boxes or spaces to fill in for Proficiencies, derived Attributes, Spiritual Attributes, and other crucial numbers. Maybe two rows per name, considering how many things there are to consider.

In other words, a useful fill-in page to list one's own NPCs on, and have them in one spot. I'm not talking about guardsmen and grunts, but about Adrine Tzerzhybashian, wife of the Voivode and love-interest of a player-character. I'm talking about Svidrigaiilov, burly and despicable Zhibaran nobleman who knouts two local troublemakers to death in the town square.

Such characters are very labor-intensive to build from the ground up in TROS, much as in RuneQuest, Cyberpunk, or Army Ants.

My point is that full character sheets are too much for these characters and a few lines of scribbled notes are not enough. I'm currently using regular character sheets, but leaving blank a lot of things that are relevant only to PCs (stuff, and lots of others).

Maybe the one-page with rows is too brief, and a whole half-sheet is called for.

Best,
Ron

[Jake Norwood]

Those are a good idea (I think half sheet is probably the best way to go), but I unfortunately don't have time to put them together...any of you all want to do it?

Jake

[Christopher Kubasik]

Jake,
Thanks for the clarification.

Ron,
Sorry for the confusion.

Christopher

[Rattlehead]

My point is that full character sheets are too much for these characters and a few lines of scribbled notes are not enough. I'm currently using regular character sheets, but leaving blank a lot of things that are relevant only to PCs (stuff, and lots of others).

Maybe the one-page with rows is too brief, and a whole half-sheet is called for.

Ron, do you have Word, Wordpad, Works or some other word processor? Heck, even Notepad would do for a start. Maybe you could whip something up and Jake could put it on the website for everyone's benefit? It sounds like a good idea to me...

Brandon

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Ron,

I created an NPC sheet for my game. I could only get it to fit one NPC/page, but it works pretty well:

http://www.anvilwerks.com/RoSNPC.doc

Jake,

Is this ok? (Copyright-wise and all, I mean.)

Clinton

[Jake Norwood]

Clinton-

That's just fine, copyright wise, I mean.

Seriously, I encourage this sort of thing. Mind if we link to it from the TROS site?

Jake

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Seriously, I encourage this sort of thing. Mind if we link to it from the TROS site?

Let me make a PDF out of it (tomorrow) and e-mail it to you - you can put the PDF on your site, then.

I'm playing tonight, and there'll be fighting and sorcery this time! I'll post about it tomorrow.

- Clinton

[Jasper]

I'm actually working on a character generation spreadsheet in Excel right now.  I still have to work on a compact, printable output screen, and a way to add extra skill points (from MA) onto the skill packages, but that shouldn't take long.  If anyone's insterested I could put it up on a webpage (or let Jake host it if he wants...).