Template based character generation

[Balbinus]

Hi,

I'd like some general views on template based character generation.  In this case what I mean specifically is where a character is created by taking a number of templates which combined give the attributes and skills.

Commercial games which follow this approach include Blue Planet, Dark Continent and Fading Suns.

Firstly, you would select a nationality which would give you certain traits, then a social class which would give some more traits, then an occupation.  These would give combined stats and skills.  The player would then receive some points to round the character off with and the character's done.

The objective is to show right away in chargen how the cultures and societies of the game fit together.  It also makes designing a character for a culture you may not have great familiarity with much faster.  The potential downside is loss of flexibility in character design.

Thoughts?

[Marco]

I've always liked the concept of "packages" in point-based games. This is sort of like that.

I will point out that I think that maybe:

"Background" might be less stereotyping than nationality.
"Race" is good *if* it applies to non-human races.
"Occupation" should really be "Training" (since maybe Martial Artist isn't necessiarily a Job and probably isn't part of a high-tech military package either)

Also: with the "points to round things off" there'll be a currency system in play and some players will stop at nothing to analyze your packages to see if they're equal (and IMO somone will complain that they aren't ... and the complaints may become a high-pitched while like unto a dentist drill ... so be careful if you know one of these guys personally).

Finally: make sure that each occupation (or even grouping) has a good role to play in the world--one problem with class-type systems is if everyone winds up being the same one--or there's a serious dark-horse.

But I do like the concept despite problems I've had desigining it in the past.

-Marco

[Balbinus]

Good points Marco, thanks.

This is going toward my Renaissance game, the idea being that a Genoese Crossbowman would be created by choosing Background:  Genoese, Class:  Townsman (for example), Profession:  Mercenary.  Another character might take Background:  Flemish, Class:  Merchant, Profession:  Commercial Agent.

I'll think about the currency system.  You're right about the pitfall but without it differentiating characters with similar templates may get tricky.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Max,

Most of my thoughts on this topic would be framed in the concepts I laid out in The class issue a little while ago. I think of this rules-technique as a way to allow the characters' "roles" (in the sense of all four of my categories) to be organized more from an in-game-world perspective rather than a metagame perspective.

The "skill package" concept has been around in RPGs for a very long time, dating back to RuneQuest in the mid-late 70s. I think the first time I saw the term was in Fantasy Hero in 1986, but it might have been used before that.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

In that sort of environment Balbinus, I think the template approach would work perfectly.

Its less effective at a more modern setting where every body has this sense (no matter how illusionary it is) that we are all "classless" and characters should be free to choose any combination of skills they like.

But in a historical setting where things like: following in your fathers foot steps, clearly defined and distinct social classes, and guild based mercantilism; are institutionalized, templates should work admirably to enforce a degree of historical authenticity to characters.

I'd go with it.

It might be easiest to select a specific city for the game to start (Paris, London, Genoa, Naples, etc) in order to limit the shear volume of templates you'd need and permit a higher degree of local granularity.

[Matt Gwinn]

Back when I was working on my Sci Fi game Coalition Earth I used a point based skills system.  I didn't require players to choose a template, but I highly encouraged it by giving the players a discount if they took a template.  I'm not sure if it was balanced, because some kits had a lot more skills than others, but the the kit discount was 30% off the price of buying each skill separately across the board so I assumed at the time it was balanced.

Back in those days I was really into "forcing" players to make well rounded characters that had the appropriate skills for their title.  It's always irritated me when a player would make, let's say, a marine biologist that had a super high Marine Biology score, but nothing in swimming or basic genetics.  Using Templates was a good way to satisfy my Ultra simulationist mindset at the time.

I've come to the conclusion that players that want to make well rounded characters don't need a bullying system like the one I used, and those that don't want to make well rounded characters will find a way to exploit the system anyway.

Having played Blue Planet and Star Wars as well as making a character for Fading Sun I have a few opinions on the concept of template based character generation as a whole.  I've noticed that in nearly every case you end up with one of the following problems:

1)  In systems with relatively few skills (Star Wars), you end up with a character that's very generic.  In my experience, every bounty hunter is pretty much the same guy until you've played for a long time.  Then there's the problem of people only using 3 or 4 of the templates at all (Smuggler, Brash Pilot, Jedi and Alien Student of the Force).  

THe solution for this is to either provide a lot of freebie points or use a system that provides for more creative development by using Merits and Flaws for example.

2) In skill heavy systems (Coalition Earth) and systems where you're required to take more than 1 template (Fading Sun and Blue Planet) you end up with a lot of skills that you will likely never use.  For example, in Blue Planet you're required to take 3 templates.  Unless you arrange it so you double up on a lot of skills you end up with a bunch of stuff at really low levels that you won't use or won't succeed at if you do (primarily in the Class and Nationality templates)

The only real solution to this is to make sure every skill has a useful application in the game, even if a character only has it at a minimal level.  If a player realizes that having a 1 in a lot of skills is just as good as having 3 or 4 in a few skills he'll be more comfortable with using a template.  Or at least I would.

Lately, I have been of the opinion of less is more.  Narrativist games that don't make game balance and issue, like Sorcerer, use templates, in a sense, but don't limit you by asigning each template a list of skills.  If you want to make a Marine Biologist you simply take a Marine Biologist template and you're skilled at anything a Marine Biologist would be good at.  In a simulationist game this kind of thing will likely be considered unbalancing as a Nuclear Physisist template would have far more skills than, let's say, a fork lift operator template.

,Matt G.

[Balbinus]

Hi folks,

Ron, I'm aware it's not a new idea (although Runequest's variant was very crude), my concern is more to flush out issues people have with it as an approach.  My intent incidentally is to have the templates part of chargen only.  You may start out as a French Nobleman who is now a priest but once play starts you are not bound by that in the way an old-style DnD class would bind you.  Fading Suns is the closest to what I'm thinking of from stuff currently on the market.

Valamir, exactly.  The point is to reinforce setting and to provide some authenticity, while also making chargen easier in practice.  In a modern setting players wouldn't accept it, although I personally think things are as pre-ordained or free for the individual now as they ever were.

Matt, I like the little skills in BP.  Not because they're useful but because they create a sense of a generally competent and rounded character.  For me the game has slightly too many skills, but the idea of having skills one rarely uses that are part of background is for me more of a feature than a bug.

On the narrativist template idea, I have been very enamoured of OtE recently so I do see the attractions of that approach.  However, the Renaissance is not a sufficiently familiar setting for most people to have that good a grasp of what might be included in a particular template.  Also, as I wish to have non-standard advancement mechanics I would prefer to keep other areas more familiar.

Also, I'm trying to do something simulationist with an emphasis on exploration of setting, so narrativist rules wouldn't be a good fit.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Matt,

That's a lot of good points; I agree with your #1 and #2 assessments. Your point about the "coarse" skill/ability template is interesting though - from my standpoint, "balance" seems to be an odd concern from the Sim standpoint.

Theoretically, in a game like (say) Blue Planet, who cares if Sea Bio Bill has less or more skills than Death-squad Commando Bob? The key would seem to me, for most people attracted to the game in the first place, that Bill and Bob are "correct and consistent" for the setting, and they might be comfortable with them not being "equivalent" in terms of the precise number of skills involved, as long as their existing skills didn't leave out something important.

I'm thinkin' that one of the interesting aspects of strong Simulationist design, historically, is semi-paranoid "Gamist defense." Taking it back to the 80s (and most SF-Sim-games published even now use GURPS or GURPS-derived games as the model), the big fear is that the group's focus on the integrity of characters + setting will be derailed, any moment, by some "dungeon" type who's going to "screw it up" ... hence what appears to be a sore-thumb concern with "balance" creeps into the game texts.

Of course, in my experience, players who are determined to get Gamist will find a way to do so (as I've said before, it's the most powerful "Drifter" of the modes), so the feverish attempts to balance (e.g.) skill packages have - again, in my experience - usually failed to provide the defense, and therefore we get a "worst of both worlds" situation: lots more effort and odd discounting during character creation, for no benefit to speak of.

Best,
Ron

[Balbinus]

I think of this rules-technique as a way to allow the characters' "roles" (in the sense of all four of my categories) to be organized more from an in-game-world perspective rather than a metagame perspective.

Forgot to say, this is precisely the aim.  I wish the mechanic to act as a game-world reality reinforcement, not as a meta-game tool.  The purpose is to assist the simulation of the gameworld reality.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Max,

So if that's the aim, then I want to emphasize my point to Matt even more strongly - going by my designations in the "class" thread, your concern would be to reinforce #3 and #4 without letting #1 and #2 issues muddy the waters. That's the funny thing about character creation in so many games ... they try to set up #1-4 in full even though such a priority isn't consistent with the focus found elsewhere throughout the game text or (especially) system.

Best,
Ron

[Balbinus]

Hi Max,

So if that's the aim, then I want to emphasize my point to Matt even more strongly - going by my designations in the "class" thread, your concern would be to reinforce #3 and #4 without letting #1 and #2 issues muddy the waters. That's the funny thing about character creation in so many games ... they try to set up #1-4 in full even though such a priority isn't consistent with the focus found elsewhere throughout the game text or (especially) system.

Best,
Ron

Quite so, #3 is emphasised as a setting reinforcement tool, #4 is relevant as the mechanic defines what characters are actually good at, #1 and 2 are not a design priority as too much explicit metagame mechanic will clash with the desired simulation.

I'm still ploughing through that thread, so more later.

[Valamir]

On the narrativist template idea, I have been very enamoured of OtE recently so I do see the attractions of that approach.  However, the Renaissance is not a sufficiently familiar setting for most people to have that good a grasp of what might be included in a particular template.  Also, as I wish to have non-standard advancement mechanics I would prefer to keep other areas more familiar.

Also, I'm trying to do something simulationist with an emphasis on exploration of setting, so narrativist rules wouldn't be a good fit.

One of the many arguements I've used in the past against the "system just gets in the way" crowd, is that a well designed system (which to me includes how and what skills are presented) goes a long way to educating the players on the expectations and appropriate behaviors of a setting.

I'd love to see actual social and economic class reinforcement in your game.  Perhaps not as "controversial" as Fulminata's choice to use Social Class as the initiative determinant (as recently discussed on RPGnet), but little mechanics along those lines that mechanically encourages the type of thinking that an actual person of the time would have.

Pendragon for instance gives bonuses to Orate, Courtesy, Romance and several other social type skills based on the Knight's Glory.  High Glory knights can usually pass these skill checks easily even if their actual skill is low.  In a sense it is the behavior of the Glorious that determines what appropriate behavior is.

I'm a huge fan of those sorts of reinforcers...and in a lot of ways, Skill Templates fall into the same category.

[Mike Holmes]

Templates of this sort could save even Rolemaster.  As used in Run out the Guns they take a system that some dread to create charracters with, and make it as simple as three easy choices. Also, note that what you have enumerated is pretty much exaclty Hero Wars.

I believe that Mr. Mearls is on record here as saying that any time you can facilitate things with this sort of "chineese menu" generation, that you will have added a very attractive element to the game for the vast majority of players.

If you do go with such a system, I'd suggest allowing for a some variation in template size. That is in addition, to say National, Social, and Occupational packages, that you also allow something like two (to use Marco's term) Training packages. These would be smaller, and give a very narrow focus to abilities. This has two beneficial effects. It allows for characters of much greater depth to be created, and avoids characters looking mechanically the same. That is, there will be that many more combinations after adding the Training Packages. This also allows you to add those skills that just do not seem to make sense as part of another, larger package.

Another idea would be a Kicker Package, if you will. A tailorable Raison d'etre as far as the game goes. One character might have a Drive Package, which he could tailor to be about becoming the Doge of Venice. Anyhow, this might include a skill or ability or two that's pertinent to the Package in question, in addition to just determining opening action. It also might be useful in getting the players on the same sheet of music as far as their characters having a reason to interact. Perhaps there would be a Key person, place or locale, that would have to be worked into the Package somehow.

Anyhow, the problem with this method is that "niche protection" and "balance" are difficult. The hardest thing to consider is "Stacking" If I get a level of Trader from being Venetian, and another for being Merchant class, and another for taking the Shipper Occupation, does that mean that I have three levels total? The point is that if you do stack, you run the risk of creating optimum package sets for certain skills. Which means that you'll see these a lot. Because, as we all know, one level 3 skill is much more protagonizing than 3 level one skills. People will try to skill optimize in this fashion (it's the first thing I always try in such a system). This will cause certain sets to become

To avoid this, you can do a number of things. A simple solution is to have no skill represented in more than one package. This is difficult, however. Another is to have skills be boolean. Either one has them or one does not. Such that if I have a package in which it exists, and I get another one, that does not increase my ability at all. This can even be done with levels, such that you only take the highest level given; but is hard to explain in-game.  Or one can have a system where adding packages do add, but only in a small way (which is how TROS handles it), which mitigates the effects. I like the last one alot.

OTOH, perhaps balance and niche protection are not at all needed, or worrisome, as wea re assigning levels #1 and #2 or role to otehr things. Can I take a guess, here, and these things will be more defined by the "who you know" aspect of the game?

Mike

[Balbinus]

Mike,

You can certainly take that guess.  Niche protection is in who you know and what they can do for you.  I would wish it to be possible for characters to have broadly similar skills but different contacts.

The training packages isn't a bad idea, though it means more work in chargen which isn't always good.

The kicker package is a nice idea though.

As for balance, this is sim design.  Screw balance.  Some people just have more skills and stats than others.  A commander of the Swiss Guard should be physically tough, he will probably be reasonably smart, will be used to command.  In Gurps terms say he will cost a lot of points.  But, does he get more screen time than the bookish priest with the ear of the Pope?  In this setting quite possibly not.

Balance is an illusion.  The key is to make different templates interesting so that people can have fun playing them and getting screen time.  Blue Planet doesn't go for balance and I think is right not to.  Besides, even where you strive for balance you never succeed.

Alternatively, since dispensing of balance would lose many gamers, balance comes back elsewhere.  Templates which are numerically weaker get compensation in some other part of the game, ideally via an in-game mechanic rather than a meta-mechanic.  Perhaps this takes us back to contacts.

[Mike Holmes]

As long as play revolves around the "who do you know" element, I think that you can ignore the balance issue. But by balance, I was referring to screen time and protagonism. My point being that players, given all else equal, will gravitate towards designs that they can envision being on screen a lot, and more useful in play. As such, any Imbalance in these things tends to lead to design trends.

But given Nich Protection lying elsewhere, I wouldn't worry it too much. As long as there aren't gross differences in applicability of the packages, it should work out fine. Mechanically these are just things to think about.

That all said, I assume from your response that you were going to go with linear addition of overlapping skills? How about using the limited return method? In the additive case, you'd have each subsequent purchase of a sikill add but one to the total. So, in my example, the highest Trader skill might be from Shipping Occupation at six. Then the Trading 2 from Venetian, and Trading 4 from merchant class just become two more points for a total of eight.

What this does is to still retain the incentive to stack, but also provides a disincentive in the form of a diminished return. Again just like in TROS. A very good mechanic, and one wigh I would most heartily recommend.

As far as the training packages being more chargen, well, it goes from 3 choices to 5 chioces. Which is nearly double. Still, it seems like a pretty spteamlined system to me. I'll personally work up the autodesign spreadsheets. :-)

Mike