First of all greetings to you all, as this is my first post here. I found this place a few days ago via a link in someone's blog about rpg design. it might have been Ron, but I'm afraid I can't remember. Now, I have always been quite interested in game creation, so finding this place was quite wonderful. I tip my hat in greetings to you all.

The request I have to make is in regards to an RPG I have been working on and off at for the past few years. It started as somewhere to put this magic system idea i had (more on that some other time), turned into a generic rpg system, and has evolved into a game with a theme and a it's own fantasy setting.
One of the primary themes I have been trying to incorporate is the concept of free will (I very much do NOT want to start a discussion about it, interesting as it may be, for that would last forever and definately get us all off track). This is somewhat represented by the forces of freedom and anarchy versus stability and stasis.

Anyway, my initial question is if anyone has any ideas about implementing this "freedom and control" theme into character creation. I have considered it for a while and seem to be at a block. At the moment characters a a list of attributes with values and roll 3d6 with various modifiers against a target number.
I know the information is rather minimal at the moment, and I would certainly enjoy sharing the madness I have come up with at a later time, but this is my immediate question.

This seems so obvious that you've probably considered it already, but how about if players could choose between rolled attributes and point-buy based on whether the character is more chaotic or orderly leaning? You could even have degrees of order and chaos by instituting some mixed roll/buy-schemes.

Welcome to the Forge, Krytos!

In addition to the excellent idea above (and complimenting it), have you considered incorporating a mechanic that uses both dice and a bidding system (or some other system that lacks randomizers)?  On a scale of Order and Chaos the player could be invoking different mechanics - random rolls for everything on one end and careful resource management on the other.  It might be a bit much, but I think it could be fun.  As characters drifted one way or the other new mechanics would open up to the player while old ones were closed off.

To Eero:
I hadn't thought of that, and now I feel like an idiot. ;)
I poked the idea a bit and came up with allowing players to choose which way to determine how many points they have. On one end is the default value (say, 15), and as you move along the scale your range of possible points gets larger and larger, until at the other end you could have anywhere from 3 to 30 points. No risk, no reward.

To Richeson:
I'd considered some sort of bidding system earlier, but discarded it because I didn't want to generate player competition in that way. However, I really like the idea of having a scale that determines your mechanic in some way (perhaps similar to the character generation above?). Your comment about resource management made me think of having both dice and tokens, the tokens could be spent to add a flat value to the roll. And on the extreme end, you'd have only tokens. The only problem I see is when to 'reset' the number of tokens, because otherwise those using dice could have an advantage in the long run as everyone runs out of tokens.

And a thank you to both of you! Your suggestions have been very helpful.

Greetings Krytos!

Chosen, by Clockworks games, has one of my favorite freedom v order mechanics.
the game is sci-fi with a twist that the metaplot is about Wizards (order/stasis) vs Mythical Beasts(freedom/chaos). Characters start with a dice pool of 3d10 (average player characters) then based on the choices they make, and the characteristics that they play. They either become a avatar of a mythical beast or they have the option of joining the Wizards. Mechanically, there are two stages to either side of order and freedom. Starting at 3d10, players take the two highest dice, which total potential adds up to 20.

On the Wizard track, as an apprentice there pool changes to 2d10, 1d20; and they take the highest of either the d10's or the d20. Full wizards get 3d20 and choose the highest.

starting beasts get Beasts get 1d4+1d6+2d10. next stage gets 1d4+1d6+1d10;1d12+1d8. final stage beasts get 1d4+1d6+1d10; 1d12+1d8; 1d20

My two cents.

Well, I've spent a few days number crunching and generally poking some options.
I discarded a "dice + tokens" system because I couldn't find a balanced way that I like.
Eventually I decided on a scale of dice combinations. Not quite like Chosen, but vaguely similar (in all cases you add the appropriate attributes after rolling).

The scale is as follows: 2d10,  2d8+2,  2d6+4,  2d4+6,  1d3+9

On the far left of the scale you have some chaos, whereas on the far right you have stasis. And, of course, all combinations have the same average (11 in this case). The combinations with higher dice are more likely to roll the higher numbers (13 or higher) than the other dice, but the lower dice with higher bonuses are more likely to roll the lower numbers (10 and lower). This is not to say that the higher dice are better, they just have more potential. They sacrifice stability when it comes to easier rolls in exchange for a slightly better chance at making the harder rolls.

I have some trepidations about the 1d3+9, as it is extremely limiting. I may shorten the scale to just the first three.
Anyway, over the next few days I'm going to have some volunteers make various types of characters, just to see how other people take to this system, but I'd love to hear your opinions of it.

1D3+9 Is knida limiting. However, could you imagine that a player would exchange the limit to get predictablity? if so, leave it in. In a game where will and choice are part of the setting, i say give as many options as posible