Retroactively assigned abilities

[Ben Morgan]

But this is moot. The real question I want discussed is: Do PCs have pasts? If so, how much? Are their people from their lives that once mattered? If I had written the PC background of the Orphan who knew no one, I'm guessing Lon would have made strong comments about that too. So where do you draw the line? Is the PCs life just sunny until the day the Kicker arrives? Well, if not, what do you do about previous conflict? Is it handled in certain way? Ignored? What?

I've been thinking for a while now about the feasibility of a system in which the majority of a character's abilities are not all laid out for them upon character creation, but through some sort of resource (which I haven't quite worked out yet, maybe some sort of point system, or maybe a roll of some sort), they can actually gain abilities in-game, which are retroactively justified to have always been there. Sort of a "Does anyone know how to fly this plane?"--*roll*--"Yeah, I do."--kinda thing (or the old "Is there a doctor in the house?").

After reading the abovementioned thread, I'm thinking that this could be expanded to include any element of a character's background (granted, my line of thinking is a bit sideways). Long lost loves, an old enemy, and so on. After all, this is usually how character elements (abilities, skills, connections, personality quirks, backstory) are usually introduced in movies, novels, etc. A situation comes up, and the relevant element is brought to light (a character demonstrates a skill that was not previously disclosed, or someone from their past shows up, or something).

I guess my basic question is: Is there currently any system which either directly supports this sort of thing, or comes close?

-- Ben

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I guess my basic question is: Is there currently any system which either directly supports this sort of thing, or comes close?

octaNe characters start out with seven skills (that represent their "pasts" - learned skills, unique talents, whatever) -- during the game, new skills may be discovered (learned, remembered, whatever) by spending a plot point and justifying that new skill.

[xiombarg]

IIRC, Hero Wars allows both a "design ahead of time" and a "design in play" style of game.

[Laurel]

I'm a big fan of design in play mechanics to account for a player's growing awareness of their character's history.  I've been toying around with additional ways to do this, including the creation of some kind of pool that players can draw from slowly over time, perhaps refreshed with some kind of XP that is used specifically to account for skills and knowledge that are discovered through narration.

[Mike Holmes]

Yep, lots of games do this. And since Jared is tooting, I'll do so as well, and point out that in Universalis this is entirely how most characters are created. They just come to have abilities as people "remember" them, or dramatically reveal them on the spot. This is such great fun that I can't even describe it.

Paraphrased from an actual game (I think it was Doc Midnight):
"But as it turns out Rose was taught how to shoot well when she was married to Black Bart. She pulls a gun from under her dress, and fires."

Up until this point we didn't know that Rose knew how to shoot, was married to Bart, that she had a gun, or that she'd shoot someone in this situation. All came out of left field. Such stuff is pretty much the subject of play in Universalis.

Mike

[Paganini]

The EPICS system by J. Scott Pittman http://dragonslayergames.com/games/ is devoted to DIP.

[Victor Gijsbers]

Hm. The issue of 'Creating a complete character at the start of the game' versus 'Creating a character through play' is indeed rather interesting. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

In Sorcerer, people are overtly encouraged to use the Cover score to "reveal" abilities and skills in-play.

In Maelstrom, the "experience system" is encouraged to be used for this purpose as well; ie, spending Story Points for an Affinity in (say) outdoor survival is not necessarily learning outdoor survival, but rather bringing the character's knowledge into "fictional existence" as a reliable part of the character's identity.

Way back when, we also used this idea when improving superhero characters in Champions. Sometimes it was a matter of learning things or having the powers beef up or change, but other times it was a matter of "my X power can do this, always could have, but this is the first time the readers are seeing it."

Best,
Ron

[Jared A. Sorensen]

In Sorcerer, people are overtly encouraged to use the Cover score to "reveal" abilities and skills in-play.

Actually, I think being able to re-write your character at the end of the game is an even more relevant example of DIP.

[Paganini]

In Sorcerer, people are overtly encouraged to use the Cover score to "reveal" abilities and skills in-play.

Actually, I think being able to re-write your character at the end of the game is an even more relevant example of DIP.

This one of the things I especially like about the Pool. Most games would make it a requirement that the words added to the Story after the game summarize that session of play, but the Pool doesn't make this requirement. You can write whatever you want. You can even rewrite the whole thing as long as it stays in keeping with the current understanding of the character.

[Matt Gwinn]

This may not be entirely related, but during games I often allow players to alter aspects of their characters, so long as what they change has yet to come up in play and does not alter the overall concept of the character.  

For example:  Let's say a player takes the biology skill during chargen because he thinks it might be useful.  Well, we play 4 sessions and the skill hasn't been used.  The group is suddenly faced with an engineering problem, but no one has the skill.  Since the player never used the biology skill and no one has needed the engineering skill until now, I simply allow the player to switch the skills.  on harm no foul.

,Matt G.

[Le Joueur]

Actually, I think being able to re-write your character at the end of the game is an even more relevant example of DIP.

...You can write whatever you want. You can even rewrite the whole thing as long as it stays in keeping with the current understanding of the character.

This may not be entirely related, but during games I often allow players to alter aspects of their characters, so long as what they change has yet to come up in play and does not alter the overall concept of the character.  

This is exactly the thing I am trying to write into Scattershot's Sine Qua Non Technique regarding persona improvement/evolution (though it might not be coming out that well).

Fang Langford

[Tim C Koppang]

My gaming group is somewhat dedicated to developing systems that generate all or part of a character on the fly.  We call the general idea, "just in time character creation."  In one such example, a game called Persona, the only requirement for character creation before play starts is a name on the top of a "univeral character sheet." (eg a blank piece of paper)  During the course of play a player may spend from a pool of points to purchance any of the listed "fragments."  If you are interested you can download a list of the fragments here:

http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~hewner/fragments.pdf

During play a player may purchase a fragment or increase an existing one at any time.  The example we always use is combat:

"Alright the thugs are charging you.  What's your gun skill."
Player looks at his character sheet.  Sees that his skill is way to low.
"Ummm... (scrible, scrible... big grin)  Well now it's 15."  etc

Players tend to really love this sort of thing.  And it works escepesically well for pick-up games or in any situation where you don't have a good feel for your character's skills at the start of play.

Incidently I would like to see a game modificaiton that would allow you to buy down your fragment levels when you are low on points.

As far as justificaiton goes, we usually just assume that the character is revealing a skill that he always had.  Alternatively, the system works equally well when a character picks up a trait during the course of play.  No waiting till the end of the session to advance.  Sometimes we expect an in-game explanation, sometimes we don't.  But becasue we handle everything in the game through fragment (items, attributes, friends, foes, etc) convienent situations tend to pop up a lot.  It's fun.

[Ben Morgan]

All really great suggestions. I have a lot to look over and think about now, and I'll see what develops from this. Later.

-- Ben