Hey all,

Unsure which forum is the appropriate place to put this, but for what it's worth, Travis Casey has credited Ron for the concept of Kickers in the latest character creation essay at Skotos.net.

Cool.

Best,

Blake

Well, I've always believed in credit where credit is due. :-)

--Travis

Thanks Travis!

I'm certain that Kickers have been a procedural part of role-playing in various groups since the beginning of the hobby. But I'm reasonably certain that most textual techniques that aim or hint at them (e.g. Hunteds in Champions, lifepaths in Cyberpunk) have tended to stumble in practice.

The closest thing to an outright textual Kicker-rule I can think of, before
Sorcerer, is the "Why you came to Al-Amarja" part of character creation in Over the Edge. Even that, though, can be interpreted as throwaway text, given a different perspective on the goals of play. I tried to write the Kicker rules to reinforce the specific Narrativist perspective.

Best,
Ron

I know that in all the Cyberpunk I have ever played, our ref almost always patently ignored everything in our Lifepath, which annoyed me to no end. To some of the players in our group, Lifepath was nothing more than a chance to get extra skill points ("Met a Combat Teacher: +1 to any Combat Skill").

But then, I don't play with these guys anymore -- granted, for reasons more severe than this, but it goes with the whole "incompatible style" thing.

-- Ben

I'm forced to admit that I've never read Over the Edge, so I didn't know about the "why you came to al-Amarja" thing. I've seen similar ideas (hunteds, etc., as Ron mentions), and I've even used "why have you come to this city" as a background question for players in a campaign I ran once, but I've never seen the idea of a Kicker stated as well or -- viscerally, I guess is the best way to put it -- as in Sorcerer.

Speaking of credit where credit is due, I was happy to see that Skotos acknowledged Flying Buffalo's "Monsters! Monsters!" as the first "play the monsters" game in their press release for their new "Grendel's Revenge" game. It seems Skotos worked out some sort of deal with FB to use the "Monsters! Monsters!" name on the game. Being a freelancer rather than a Skotos employee, I have no clue what the details are, but I hope it gave FB some money they could use to finally get the sixth edition of T&T out... :-)

And tooting my non-profit horn in the same vein, I've started doing a series of "historical reviews" on rpg.net. So far, my review of The Fantasy Trip: Melee has been put up; you can find it here. I've submitted a review of TFT: Wizard, and am working on TFT: In the Labyrinth. I'm planning on doing the original D&D, T&T, High Fantasy, Adventures in Fantasy, Chainmail, and DragonQuest... will probably do others as well, especially if response is good.

--Travis

Gad, I miss my copies of TFT. They disappeared on one of my numerous moves back in the late '80s. Haven't found any on eBay, dammit.

Nice article, Travis. I didn't realize you posted here, though in retrospect, it's a no-brainer.

Best,

Blake