Rethinking Simulationist character creation

[xiombarg]

Interesting. I'm only vaguely familiar with those (and I knew my idea wasn't exactly new). Couple questions about that:

First, how specific were the choices/rolls? Was it things like: Attended Military Academy: Tactics +20, Firearms +10 (or whatever)? Or, was it more open-ended? How much so?

Also, how many steps/stages were there, and/or were these compartmentalized for different aspects of the character -- Like a "skills" path and a "attributes" path?

Uh, well, all of the above.

In all incarnations, it's essentially a flowchart. Where you go on the flowchart is either determined by random roll or, as I said, you can just override randomness and choose. In Cyberpunk, there were certainly sections of it that were like "raised on the streets, gain +1 to your Streetwise" or whatever (I don't have a copy at work so I'm making up these examples, to some extent). But in all versions, it determined things like how many siblings you had, and the Mekton Zeta version went further, where you could come up with things like: "I have this enemy, who used to be my lover, who hates me because I was responsible for an accident in which she was disfigured." The latter was determined by a part of the chart where you determined how many enemies you had, and then for each enemy who they were and why they were an enemy, though the medium of several charts.

In both versions, the Lifepath was seperate from stat generation, and influenced but did not determine all your skills (moreso in Cyberpunk), as in both Cyberpunk and Mekton Zeta you chose an archetype or role, like "Solo" (aka Street Samurai) in Cyberpunk or "Pop Singer" in Mekton Zeta.

(Mekton Zeta was also notable in its very Simulationist attitude toward the Anime mecha genre: Characters were either "rookie" or "experienced". Rookie characters had very low skills, but could increase them greatly through play, like Rick Hunter in Robotech. "Experienced" characters had high skill levels, but they didn't increase them much during play, like Roy Fokker  in Robotech. This very much was like character "advancement" works in a lot of mecha-oriented Anime -- either a character goes from competent to incompetent rapidly or remains more or less the same throughout a given Anime series. But I'm getting off the topic, I think...)

[Matt Snyder]

Also, the "choose your own adventure" idea I have is much more atomic and specific about helping you craft aspects of your character's personal history.

How so? I think I'm not entirely clear on what you're proposing.

Stuart

More than fair question! I'm getting pretty abstract here, and probably not using the best word-choice.

Ok, the reason that this process I'm conceiving helps more with backstory is that each stage is a decision or event in your character's history. You as a player have to make a choice about which "path" your character chose, then you have to specify what it was and why he did it.

So, rather than saying your character is, say, a House Decados Noble and therefore you get skills X, Y, and Z, this concept instead says something like this:

Stage 3 (or whatever)

Is your character educated?

No, he learned to live on the streets. (+1 Body, Knowledge: Streewise +1): Go to stage 4.

Yep, but just high school. (+1 Influence, select any skill +1)
Go to stage 10.

Yes, some college  (+1 Wits, any Science skill +1)
Go to stage 22.

Yes, graduate level or better (+1 Wits, any Science skill +2,
Go to stage 24.

Before you go to Stage (whatever) however, the "quiz" prompts you to write down how and why your character was educated. Maybe this stage includes even some more details, requiring you to detail a contact you made in school, or maybe why your first love dumped you at the prom.

Or whatever. Point being that this process would have MANY possible steps (far more than Fading Suns 2-3 step process) that get down to the details of your character. All your characteristics, skill, traits and more are defined by this process -- you do not roll or buy characterisitics in any other fashion, nor do you get freebie points later. Instead, this process builds your character and at each step you're also building a colorful backstory.

So, while it sounds neat-as-can-be, I'm concerned that it's just too granular, and therefore limiting. If I try to define even just whether your character went to school, am I ignoring possibilities like: None of the above--I was born, raised and educated by wolves? Or something like that.

[Matt Snyder]

Man, somehow while composing I missed Mike & Gareth's posts. Anyway, thanks for the prodding on that front, guys. I've been using Flash aps a lot at work, and though this would be a bit of a "step-up" from my proficiency, it'd be a great learning tool with an awesome result. I'll give it some serious thought. I'm going to start writing some notes/flowcharts on how this path thingy would work, then perhaps set on getting it "encoded."

[szilard]

So, while it sounds neat-as-can-be, I'm concerned that it's just too granular, and therefore limiting. If I try to define even just whether your character went to school, am I ignoring possibilities like: None of the above--I was born, raised and educated by wolves? Or something like that.

...or went back to school later in life, or whatever. Remember that if you are going linearly, temporal order of stages might become an issue.

I see where you're going. It is certainly an interesting twist.

I'm inclined to think, though, that it might just be a somewhat-less-granular version of what FS does. Is it still to granular/limiting? I think that depends upon the setting and the realm of possible character choices for the game...

Stuart

[Matt Snyder]

...or went back to school later in life, or whatever. Remember that if you are going linearly, temporal order of stages might become an issue.

I see where you're going. It is certainly an interesting twist.

I'm inclined to think, though, that it might just be a somewhat-less-granular version of what FS does. Is it still to granular/limiting? I think that depends upon the setting and the realm of possible character choices for the game...

Stuart

Ah, two crucial points. It WOULD NOT be linear/chronological. You're right that this would cause problems.

Second, is that this WOULD be for a defined setting, a cyberpunk setting that I define (or other setting should I use this system elsewhere ... ). Therefore, you're absolutely right that one cannot simply have "Any" character. Rather, the engine should spit out characters suitable to what's going on in the game.

[RobMuadib]

Matt

Hey, thought I would mention one of the most detailed of these types of systems I have seen. That is the character creation system for Aria.

Aria was all about detailed character creation derived from the setting, which in this case was a medieval period deal. Anyway, you developed your character year by year I think it was, typing from memory here. Based on your character's status within the society, you had options for various skills you could learn that cost so many Design Points.

Along the way you character could get special event based development points that allowed to get skills from different social status/cultural heritages, along with a defining bit of character history. So you developed character year by year determining skills, advantages, etc year by year for the character as I recall. It was interesting because it allowed for special opportunities, and was initimately tied into the characters cultural/racial heritage as developed from the game world.

Anyway, if you are interested I can drag the book out and provide some more concrete info on how it was constructed.

HTH

[Stuart DJ Purdie]

Just another entry in the bibliography really.  Twilight 2000 and Dark conspiracy boh use a set of careers option to character generation.  It's based of the Traveller system.

It bears examining for a few reasons.  Firstly, it's totaly deterministic.  Secondly, it's not total.  That is, there are elements of chargen outside of the lifepath.  I've got the book in front of me, so a description is in order:

The first step was to determine the characters attributes: strength etc. Notable inclusion of Education and Empathy (generic mystical catch all).  Skills are cheaper to buy up to the level of the stat, and more expensive once over the stat level.

Next a set of 4 skills were pick, and start at level 2.  We are now on the path proper.  Each 'career' represented a 4 year chunk of the characters life.  Options have various pre-requisites, such as education 5+ for university, or two terms spent at grad school for professor.  Each career gave a number of skil points.  Typicaly it was fixed list the first time it was taken, and then x points to split between limited list of skills for the subsequent terms in that career.  Notably, each career also allowed one (in general) point to be allocated to a large (but not complete) list of skills, representing a secondary activity.  

After taking several terms, ageing caused the player to check for stat loss, in the physical stats.

Had it's flaws, but seemed to work.  The main flaw was that a small number of careers gave acess to all of the 'important' skills - in other words, Currency issues (in this case character age) tended to steer character to certain careers.  A larger number of smaller careers would have resolved this, or a smaller number of carrers.  Note that the latter is the route that DnD3 took.

[Mike Holmes]

Good notes in general, Stuart. Note that Traveller: the New Era used the same system as Dark Conspiracy (which as you note was derived itsef from earlier Travller editions), which was considered GDW's "house system" at the time. Had no name, interestingly.

I'm a little baffled by the deterministic comment, however. Stats were random, and the player picked each career move (except in the funny case of the "criminal" selection which could result in a subseqent "Prisoner" term).

Had it's flaws, but seemed to work.  The main flaw was that a small number of careers gave acess to all of the 'important' skills - in other words, Currency issues (in this case character age) tended to steer character to certain careers.  A larger number of smaller careers would have resolved this, or a smaller number of carrers.  Note that the latter is the route that DnD3 took.

This is a problem with the system's predilection towards combat. If combat skills were not so emphasized, then players could have felt more at ease selecting the professions that instead were more interesting to them. Or were you referring to some other skills? I personally liked the range of characters that the system produced, especially for Dark Conspiracy. I don't see it having lots of replayability, but then, that's not a concern of mine. See, given that I would never run it more than once for anyone (what's the point once they know the secrets?), the players didn't know the system, and picked what sounded interesting. I've run the campaign for three separrate groups and it's been great each time. DC is a marvel of focus.

Mike

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Matt,

I'm not sure what to say except to point you toward both early Traveller, the first edition of Cyberpunk, and most especially, the under-rated game Mutant Chronicles. The latter especially builds nearly all of the character's capabilities via a mostly-randomized series of sequential events in his or her life to date prior to play.

Otherwise, I hope you can see that most of the questions in this thread are hugely general or demanding in their current phrasing. I'd do a lot, lot better (especially for this forum) if they were specified to a particular game with text-so-far that I can see.

One comment I have about almost all the posts on the thread is that they demonstrate rampant within-mode Synecdoche: "Sim has to have both attributes and skills? But why?" I didn't say that. I'm talking about many historical examples and why that structure has been robust for so many years.

Best,
Ron

[Stuart DJ Purdie]

I'm a little baffled by the deterministic comment, however. Stats were random, and the player picked each career move (except in the funny case of the "criminal" selection which could result in a subseqent "Prisoner" term).

I was refering to the lifepath aspects, not total chargen.  (I'd also forgotten the random stat generation option.  We always used to point allocation).

If combat skills were not so emphasized, then players could have felt more at ease selecting the professions that instead were more interesting to them. Or were you referring to some other skills?

The main skill groups were the Combat skills, Intellectual skills and Empathic skills.  We tended to find each character covered one of the three, by limited routes.  

The 'problem' may well have been the groups play style, which was Sim / Gamist.  Also it was played continously, so we could learn the careers.

[Matt Snyder]

Hi Matt,


Otherwise, I hope you can see that most of the questions in this thread are hugely general or demanding in their current phrasing. I'd do a lot, lot better (especially for this forum) if they were specified to a particular game with text-so-far that I can see.

Best,
Ron

Ask and ye shall receive:

Avatar-13 playtest version 1. (PDF file)

The text is very much a work in progress, so forgive any goofy editing errors. The game is "mostly" there -- key elements missing are metagame mechanics and, naturally, some character creation engine (though the character rules and such are there).

Unleash the Simulationist hounds ... I offer up this sacrificial lamb as a "real-deal" model for criticism and analysis, especially in light of this thread and Ron's recent essay.

[Andrew Martin]

While I agree that a game can certainly work under this means as you've described, I'm similarly puzzled why the entrenched stat + skill paradigm is so often challenged. Now, I've had this discussion before with Ron and Mike Holmes, and have some notion of why they have objections to it (some of them purely mathematical!). While I acknowledge potential problems, I also find it something that 1) players recognize and therefore can easily "grok" play and 2) something that does make some sense. It's not the only way characters "make sense," but it is one way, I argue.

Hi, Matt. I've been reading through Avatar-13, and I'm roleplaying a munchkin player. :) Avatar-13 seems much like Star Wars D6 from WEG, with the addition of Wagering D6s before rolling dice.

I've noticed that "Will" seems to be the most valuable attribute (the best attribute to buy as high as possible), as it's the limiting value for "skimplants", and it's combined with "Body" to get "Health" (hit points). So as a munchkin, I'd get Will as high as possible at the start because in the game it gives me the most "plusses", then probably Body as it's the second most important attribute, then Coordination. Wits and Influence would be as low as possible.

Also, I'd go for "Alpha class Augmentations" (cybernetics that enhance attributes), as this would improve skills more than most "Beta class Augmentations" (cybernetics that improve or add skills), after getting a "Skimplant" (Beta cyberware that negates the need for skills).

For Traits, I'd pick: Deadeye several times (because it's not forbidden); Gear Head, helps with mechanical devices (guns); Lightning Reflexes (better dodge), and maybe Fast as Hell.

For skills, I'd go for Small Arms, and Long Arms (rifles) and Profession (Mercenary), and I'd point out to the GM that in certain situations Skills don't have to be rolled, so as Profession (Mercenary) and "Gun skills" are clearly complementary, can I combine both? :) :D

During game play (combat for a munchkin), I wouldn't bother using wagers unless I knew what the opponent's skill level was or the difficulty number. That's because the examples for the wagers seem too limiting, compared to other games that feature player narration. I'd prefer to just use the biggest guns my PC could get, reduce NPC's health levels with damage from big guns, and then moan and whine at the GM for taking the big guns away. :) I'd probably use Traits as Wager levels in most situations.

In your earlier post, IIRC, you mentioned that you wanted Action for combat. Avatar-13 combat doesn't seem to provide this. That's because characters seem to have too many hit points. It looks like it will be too hard to get a one shot kill. This tends to provoke "foolish" behaviour in games that are intended to simulate action movies. Also, it's harder for PCs to great things because it take too many rolls to put down a NPC. For example in many action movies, the hero takes down a unimportant guard in just one stroke or shot. To do so in Avatar-13 seems impossible without using a big gun. To best simulate an action movie, PCs need to be able to do this regularly and well, if they're at all skilled.

This is based on my experience in playing Starwars D6 and in designing and playtesting a cinematic/gritty combat system.

I hope that helps!

[Matt Snyder]

Curiouser and curiouser. The Star Wars angle I had not at all considered. The mechanics ARE rather like Jared Sorensen's Ars Mechanica, but I only found that out (from Jared!) after I had proposed the thing to him indirectly.

Anyway, by munchkin, I presume you must mean Gamist player (someone who makes generally Gamist decisions), especially since it appears to me that all your "munchkin" techniques were aimed at 1) presuming combat is the end-all, be-all of "what you do" in this game and 2) you've taken the best, safest routes to combat victory.

So, what lead to this decision? Purely devil's advocate? Because I think that type of player would be sorely dysfunctional in this game. It is, in fact, not especially geared toward combat, any more so than it is, say investigation or infiltration.

I think there are two problems from my end. One is that I've got a few misleading or poorly written areas that need to better guide folks in another diretion upon reading the system. The other is that much is missing here, not least of all metagame mechanics which might help improve some things you observed.

Couple specifics: You cannot take a Trait more than once. So, no you can't take Deadeye for everything. HOWEVER, I think the effect is the same, because Deadeye applies to nearly everything that shoots or is thrown. Same difference.

There is no differentiation between Small Arms and "Long Rifle." Small arms covers all firearms, except for big, huge machine guns you can't carry.

On Wagers (important stuff!):

Should players always know what the target is? I have assumed yes, but it's interesting that you were planning on hedging bets if not. I'll consider that issue, but I think it likely that they should be open and transparent to all. You will know your target, and therefore what kind of risk you're taking. Other thoughts on this issue, anyone?

Too many hit points?!? I figured there were far too few. Average folks will have 5-6, I think. Perhaps a bit more. That's pretty easily one or two shots from a gun to put you down.

Consider it like this: A decent "Combat" character should have about 7-8 (4 attribute, 3 skill, maybe a trait) in his action pool when shooting, if not more. Even against a slightly above average character who is passively defending, his target might be 16. With 4 dice, he can pretty reasonably hit that, allotting 3 or 4 to extra damage. For a weapon that does even just 1 or 2 Trauma + effectiveness, that's 4-6 Trauma. Six trauma should ruin most character's days.

In addition, there will be mook rules, such that dispatching goons will be easier than dispatching a "real" character. Hence, action galore. Those security goons Neo and Trinity blast to pieces in firearm choreography? Yeah, they're toast here too.

Further, I think the Fortune mechanics are crucial, because the way I'm thinking they'll work right now is that you'll get to add Fortune as "Free Wagers," meaning you get to increase your Wager by spending Fortune, but not affect your Aciton Pool. Crank up the damage, the targets, you name it! Of course, that's pretty much absent from the playtest PDF so far!

Finally - - your observations DO help! I don't mean to sound like I'm getting all defensive. Far from it -- you've got some great points, and I'm doing my best to keep up with "patches."

[Andrew Martin]

Anyway, by munchkin, I presume you must mean Gamist player (someone who makes generally Gamist decisions), especially since it appears to me that all your "munchkin" techniques were aimed at 1) presuming combat is the end-all, be-all of "what you do" in this game and 2) you've taken the best, safest routes to combat victory.

So, what lead to this decision? Purely devil's advocate? Because I think that type of player would be sorely dysfunctional in this game. It is, in fact, not especially geared toward combat, any more so than it is, say investigation or infiltration.

I picked Munchkin (gamist approach), because my play group includes two munchkins and a powergamer in it. Munchkins test a RPG to "destruction" and they can very quickly point out problems with a rules set. I prefer RPGs where munchkins and powergamers make decisions with the same effect as a role player would. I also don't want players disadvantaged because they don't know a RPG well enough to min-max  it to get the most game power.

I also picked combat as the mode of play, because I noticed that combat was emphasized in the rules, and combat defeated opponents conclusively. The interaction rules didn't work like combat, and implied that an opponent could still act after being defeated. So it becomes obvious that high character combat "power" has the most in-game power in that it definitely defeats opponents.

If Avatar-13 isn't intended to have combat as being important, I'd suggest deemphasizing combat and combat related stuff like health and weapon damage values. In other words, making combat act just like a skill roll.

Should players always know what the target is?

Managing information flow is very important, I've discovered in play. While role-players can act as if they don't have this information, both munchkins and power gamers will find ways to utilise this information and play accordingly. This produces behaviour in players that causes the roleplayers to be offended by the munchkins ("They're not in character!"), and the munchkins to assume that the role-players are being needlessly silly ("we know it's dead, nothing can survive 134 points of damage!"). By keeping information indeterminate to players until their characters find out about it, both roleplayers and munchkins behave (their characters act) in the same general way, which is usually the desired way to best simulate the setting/genre.

It's also why I prefer to use setting specific numbers or descriptor values for character attributes and skills. That way the roleplayers aren't offended by the munchkin describing his character with the numbers on the character sheet. Instead, a player describing their character using the setting specific descriptors sounds like a normal inhabitant of the setting, instead of a crazed loon! :)

I hope that helps!

[Matt Snyder]

I've been mulling this latest response over, and it's struck me why I can't sufficiently answer some of your points  ...

You've said you chose to "roleplay" a Gamist critic (for the fine reason that your particular groups includes such players). However, my reply was that this would be dysfunctional. I realized how to better explain why that's troubling to me.

What your role as Gamist critic laments is that the game as presented is NOT incoherent. (or possibly abashed?). That is, the game is "broken" from a Gamist standpoint, and therefore I should attempt, presumably, to fix the some of those issues.

But, isn't doing that going to break the game more so by actually making it incoherent? What games are successful, in your estimation, of allowing "munchkins and powergamers make decisions with the same effect as a role player would?" (This isn't a rhetorical question -- I'd be curious to hear!)

Is "mode-proofing" a coherent game necessary? I'm not sure either way, because Ron seems to imply in the Sim. essay that it is probably a good thing to avoid "Gamism creep." But, on the other hand is "fixing" Gamist concerns in a game intended to be coherent Simulationism rather like putting one's finger in the dyke? Can you ever satisfy Gamist concerns that the game is "broken?"

Remember one key context here -- you proceded to explain how you'd choose this and that superior combat advantage. BUT, this thread itself is a means to question whether you'd be allowed to do so in some new, re-thought character creation system.

So then my question is, can't a Gamist "break" most games? Godlike, for example, has the Hyper Sniper, a deadly dude indeed. But one of Ron's criticisms of Godlike is that its system, or key parts of the system, seems to be a stop-gap to address concerns like this, rather than a good, solid reason for its own sake (Exploring setting and situation, for example).

This is not to say your criticisms here aren't valuable. They are -- for example, whether and how to rewrite the thing to de-emphasize combat. That is one area I'll be looking at in particular, and thanks for putting the critical eye there. And your gamist approach in general I view as a helpful Devil's Advocate position.