Brain is farting here...Now, in an open ended system like Realm has, where players select the skills they desire and whatnot and don't rely on random dice rolls akin to D&D pr Palladium games systems, how can I logically enable "professions".

It seems easier in most ways to simply have the character decide based on their skills and simply SAY "yes, I was an Honor Guard for the King" . However, it could be just as good to have a preset "list" of professions which are popular in the gameworld, each of which has a few special abilities. If this was the case, I suppose it would make sense to simply have them with pre-selected skills and "feats" and leaving them with a few left-over points to spend as they want. I want to stay away from Class based gameplay since I always hated the restrictions inherent to such a form of play.

The dilemma though, is how to add these to the gameworld and not make it feel rigid and pre-defined. I can either forgo the Professions completely or have them with pre-set abillities but allow some maleability on behalf of the player. Or I can have them exist to simply be guidelines (as an aside...for example [Scouts wander the woods, blah blah blah, and are most likely to have high Agility, Perception, blah blah, and the Feat "Yadda Yadda"] but not actually make the profession anything but a word.)

I can't seem to decide which fits best, since all could work. In a campaign where no one wants to play a dreamer , for instance, would they be more useful? Or would the presence of the "profession" at all , hamper the game? Any suggestions, ideas and comments are of course welcome.

Heya,

You might want to do something like a "Character Theme." It would be something like an archetype that denotes a character's 'job' during chargen but then after the character is first made, it would not dictate how the character progresses. It's a lot less stringent then classes like in DnD et al.

It might matter some on what your advancement mechanic is like. Could you describe that a little for me?

Peace,

-Troy

A typical trick is a supernatural classification. Earthdawn and WoD have done this. The advantage is, that no one can deny the existance of such classes, but I'm not sure if that suits your idea.

Another option might be social background. If there are rigid social classes in your world, you might use those.

Burning Wheel, with its life paths, grants access to certain skills due to professions chosen--just for character generation. You might want to check it out just as an idea.

If you want all skills to be accessible to all characters without such restrictions, you can simply make it easier/cheaper for characters with certain professions to gain or raise certain skills. That way you don't make them exclusive, but players still gain an advantage from linking into the game world.

Players could also create their own professions, if you simply present guidelines. E.g., you could say: Characters without professions simply get x amount of skill points. Characters with a profession select three core skills of that profession and gain an extra x points in those skills, but they also gain the "Allegiance to X" feat (or the "Hunted by X" feat or the "Outcast" feat or ...) that the GM can invoke. That way, players can work with the GM in creating part of the Setting and connecting it usefully to their characters before play begins.

In short, if you pre-create professions, you need a LOT of them to avoid stifling your players' choices (again, see Burning Wheel). Otherwise, I'd suggest giving guidelines for creating them.

I think the easiest solution in your case is to treat professions as a resume. "Here are the skills you need to be considered for the role of Palace Guard: Halberd: 15, Etiquette: 10, Observation: 10, Sense Motive: 10, Heraldry: 5"

Then each "profession" carries with it certain perks. "Palace Guards receive room and board, 30 gps/mo, and a semi annual uniform and equipment stipend of 100 gps. Each year of service they also have the opportunity to acquire 1 Contact either among the courtiers or Palace Staff. Each year make a skill check for each of the required skills. If all checks are successful then the character received a commendation for meritous service that year earning a small medal worth 75GPs, a 5gps/mo increase in pay, an award of items or currency worth 100GPs and an additional Contact among the courtiers.

I'd make all awards be in game social and financial awards. Not "special abilities".

Troy - Advencement Mechanic: Leaning towards a "skillpoint" concept. Per session, players are awarded a set number of skillpoints, plus whatever the GM decides on as a bonus. More than likely the most you would get in a given session would be 2 to 4 SP.

These SP would then be spent on skills/stats etc. But, not just on-the-fly. Most would require training. IE: You cant just mystically get stronger. You need to work at it. And I would not allow skills you do not use to suddenly get better without any reading, instruction or training. Because that is dumb.


Xeno-the lifepath idea I very much like, and have considered using that sort of idea. Right now, races also give bonuses to skills though. IE: The "warrior" style race ha a natural aptitude for combat and thus combat skilsl cost 2 less SP to raise. The "art" race gets the same bonus on creative skills. Does it seem more logical to add this to professions instead?

Valamir - Also interesting. Similar in a way to D&D (in that you need minimum requirements) , but it could also be applied to lifepath concept. I also like the perks idea. Especially since "special abilities" coudl be applied in the form of "feats" (Boons, in my system). Additionally, however, I am considering a "Techniques" set of abilities which would be trained "powers" such as "shield bash" and such. Those could be applied to Professions. for instance a Palace Guard might learn to excel with Spears. As such, they could learn "Impale Strike" or something in their training. Others could learn it, but all palace guards would start with it.

So, an example:

Palace Guard

Notes: Trained to be effective with spears and polearms. Also familiar with sword combat. Palace guards are well paid and looked upon as honorable by the general population. They are granted a great deal of respect.

Requirements: Melee 2, Bureaucracy 1, Politics 2, Leadership 1, Athletics 4, Perception 4

Statistics:
Income: Room and Board, 75 gold crowns/month, 100 crowns military equipment,uniform
Rank +1
Status +1

Skills: 7 Skill points + 4 in combat skills.
Aptitude: +2 Physical, +1 mental, +1 social
Boons: Contacts 1 (royal house, courtiers), Ally (Royal House)
Jinxes: Enemy (Brigands), Enemy (Pirates),
Techniques: Impaling Strike (1), Rally (1)

Bonus: Per year of service, a Palace Guard can gain contacts, allies and income based on his record of service. For every year in the service of the Royal House, roll your Rank+Status+d10 vs Demeanor+Charm+d10. If successful, you gain a 5godl crown raise and +1 Contact. On a failed roll, no reward is given. On a BOTCHED roll, you lose a rank for poor service.

that seem about reasonable?

Sure. Just keep in mind that the more stuff that gets added to a profession the more specific it becomes. For instance, do all palace guards everywhere learn Impaling Strike or just those in one particular kingdom? Palace Guards in another kingdom might be all Janissary-esque slaves who don't get rank bonuses and learn Great Cleave instead. If you define things as specifically as you and I did in the above examples you're really not making "Palace Guard" as a profession but "Palace Guard of the Kingdom of Arondel during the 3rd Dynasty" (or whatever).

This can be a VERY good way of ramming home alot of cultural setting information in a very succinct way without writing hordes of flavor text. See Burning Wheel's character burner for a great example of this. One read through the Orc Life Path section and you'll know more about the society, culture, and organization of orcs than if you'd read an entire Orc Splat Book.

BUT its ALOT of work.

IMO if you're going to try this I HIGHLY recommend picking 1 city or small kingdom as your focal point and create alot of professions unique and specific to that small area. In otherwords go for depth of setting rather than breadth. If you go for breadth the project will be either a) enormous, or b) very sparse and incomplete.

Funny you should mention that actually, Var....see, the world in my setting is sparesely populated. There is one massive city where all the species are forced to co-mingle, and a few small hamlets beyond that.

There is one "rival" city at the opposite end of the continent. They arent at WAR by any means, they do trade with one another , but due to the dangerous territory between them contact is very limited.

I also agree with the Techniques listing idea. Impaling Striek was mainly an example. Id rather say "Select one of the following: Yadda (1), Badda(1) or Dadda(1) " then say "You get this. period." . Many reasons, but mainly because I hate when every "first level" character, so to speak, is a virtual clone of the next.

Sure, every D&D character in 3rd Ed that is a Level 1 warrior might be different. But not by a hell of a lot. Get nine guys to make a Human Warrior and see how many are almost the same. End-level things are different but its just as important to be diverse from the start.

I say you should go with one of your original ideas. Create professions as guidelines for PCs, but have them affect nothing mechanical in the game. Professions would mainly be used by a GM as a way to create NPCs in a way that the world sees fit. One thing that can be said about many systems is that they don't give enough information for a GM to know enough about the world to make things the way the designer intended. The auther usually leaves so much open, that it stifles your ability in the end. Make sure to mention, for example, that the average adventurer will make it to level 5 in his lifetime and that going above that is rare. Stuff like that tells the GM what kind of populace to expect, what talented people might be and what average people might be. Professions, as anything more than a guideline, draws you back closer to a class system that will hinder the players. Adding limits or restrictions or paths changes the game from what the players think a scout is to what you think a scout is, thus changing it from a players game to a designers game.

Personally my favorite method was with the now defunct Twilight 2000, version 2.0. You would be allowed to pick from career packages which gave you set numbers of points to add to your skill, plus a point or two for hobby skills to put wherever you wanted as a "hobby". In this manner, the older you got the more skilled you got in your career, or you could become a Jack of All Trades. Of course, you always ended this process when world war III broke out and the game began.

I'm thinking about doing a similar system for my game.

so many different ideas. And of course no single one is "right" or "wrong". The issue lies in making sure it suits. I suppose while it is more than possible to offer more than one possible method (in fact this could be a good idea, to add flexibility based on player and GM preference) the overhead in writing could be extreme in the end.

Based on the previous post I had regarding the game concept, and what I stated in this post previously, what seems to make the most sense in the opinions of the board-goers? Ie: If you were playing the game, based on what I have related thus far, what would be more enjoyable?

a. Freeform creation, where you have a set number of points to add into different skills, attributes etc and then apply racial advantages

b. Racial advantages, after which lifepath sort of choices are taken to develop them further (downside here being that there are only a few cultures/places in which people live and most are simple urban dwellers or farmers. Slavery doesnt exist, etc)

c. Racial details, after which players can opt to either freeform spend points OR select from a variety of profession templates which alter their points.

d. Racial, followed by profession selection which grants them a few bonuses and sets their skills up by allowing them to choose from a certain SET of skills. IE Palace Guard, heavy in combat and social but not so great in mental?

also bear in mind that there are not a gajillion skills in-game. I follow a similar structure to White Wolf where there are several skills but each covers a broad area.

characters can specialize in areas though. (ie: Melee 2, but also specialized in Swords:Long 2, which means they are 4 with Long Blades, but only at 2 with a Cudgel for instance)