In response to a question about what could fill the racial pref list holes...

James wrote wrote: And I, for one, would LOVE to see those two gaping holes filled. They just bug the you-know-what out of me! :)

Hm. What about one being like "During the Day and Night of the star you were born under, you receive a +1 die to all checks" and a second for during like full moon, new moon, etc?

One occuring once a year, the other once a month, basically? (of course with 6 moons it would be a different story, but you see where I'm driving at).

Also, maybe just a +1 per year is too weak. But I'm just trying to trigger a conversation here.

When working out race priorities for my China setting, I stumbled upon an interesting idea to fill the D race priority. This is the Exemplar.

Exemplars are humans, they are merely extraordinary individuals of their nationality. A Welsh Exemplar would be a crack shot with a bow -- even if he had never picked one up before. A Odean exemplar would be able to walk through blizzards in light clothes, and be tough as a bear. A Mongol exemplar could ride like the wind and gather armies in a matter of months. They are simply the best that their nation has to offer.

Exemplars are a D racial choice, and double all bonuses associated with their nationality.

What do you all think? I'm thinking about tripling the bonuses and making them a C choice (so that they are cooler but rarer.) Conceivably, there could be two levels -- Exemplars and Paragons, say. Any other riffs on this concept?

yrs--
--Ben

Hmm. Double all positive and negatives? Or just the positives?

One thing that I've always hated about bonuses like this is that they result in all PCs of that sort having those stats maxed out. I mean, what use is it to have a +2 ST, and only take a 3 for a total of 5? I mean basically given that you still have a limited number of points to spend, and the penalties balance out with the advantages pointwise, all these really do is raise or lower the maximum for the two stats affected. Presumably a stat mod represents a trend from the norm of other races. That is, if 4 ST is average for one group, then a 5 ST is average for the group with a +1 racial mod. But PCs will invariably be the max allowable to take advantage of the usefulness of that's provided (and then this subsequently leads to all characters from one country being the same sorts as the others from the same place following the high stat).

Just bugs me. Call it the "23 STR Dwarf Syndrome" from the predictable strength of all Fantasy Hero dwarves.

How about some bonuses to skills instead? Basically an extra little skill package that you can't get any other way.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: Hmm. Double all positive and negatives? Or just the positives?

One thing that I've always hated about bonuses like this is that they result in all PCs of that sort having those stats maxed out. I mean, what use is it to have a +2 ST, and only take a 3 for a total of 5? I mean basically given that you still have a limited number of points to spend, and the penalties balance out with the advantages pointwise, all these really do is raise or lower the maximum for the two stats affected. Presumably a stat mod represents a trend from the norm of other races. That is, if 4 ST is average for one group, then a 5 ST is average for the group with a +1 racial mod. But PCs will invariably be the max allowable to take advantage of the usefulness of that's provided (and then this subsequently leads to all characters from one country being the same sorts as the others from the same place following the high stat).
Just bugs me. Call it the "23 STR Dwarf Syndrome" from the predictable strength of all Fantasy Hero dwarves.

How about some bonuses to skills instead? Basically an extra little skill package that you can't get any other way.

you could do exemplar level 1 to fill the first hole in which the Seneschal dictates a special ability that fits the characters nationality and background and then level 2 to fill the other hole where the player gets teh same as level one plus a bonus of some sort that likewise fits teh highest attribute: tough guy immune to cold, strong guy deals an extra die of damage, the nimble guy has an extra die when dodging etc...

I had an idea or two:

Idea #1: Raise humans as they stand to E. Create a new Wretched which doubles negatives, at F, and Gifted or High Men that double the positives, at D.

Idea #2: At priority E, you become known as Gifted. Take your highest bonus, and apply it also to a stat that is randomly determined. There are 10 stats, so roll a 10 sider. Or, gain any one skill at your best SKILL score that you possess. Or select a single weapon proficiency, and gain a bonus to it equal to your best stat bonus.

At Priority D, you become known as Legendary. Your best stat becomes legendary, and you are occasionally capable of feats involving that attribute, albeit with effort. You may, at any time, choose to add as many additional dice to that attribute as you wish, but no more than doubling it, for a single feat. After that feat is attempted, however, you gain a number of fatigue points automatically equal to the dice you applied:

Example 1: Herodinus, known throughout the land to be a mountain of sheer muscle, must lift a boulder that has fallen on his friend when an avalanche fell, during their travels through the mountains. He doubles his strength, and attempts to lift the boulder. He has a 7 strength, so he rolls 14 dice, plus any SAs that might apply. Once he succeeds - or fails - in the attempt, he gains 7 dice to fatigue.

Example 2: General Talonis, a well known strategician, with a sharp mind, is known for his legendary Wits. Gazing across his map of the enemy, he sees no weaknesses in the enemy line, and he is outnumbered and in trouble. He spends all night pouring over the maps and intelligence he has, looking for a weakness. He has a Wits of 6, and chooses to double it. He rolls his Wits/Strategy, and in the early dawn, finds the solution he needs... although he will ride into battle, exhausted from his lack of sleep.

Or, instead, Legendary in a Skill: select a single skill; it becomes equal to your best skill you possess, plus an additional -2.

Or reduce the CP costs of a single combat proficiency by 1 and all TNs by 1.


Idea 3:

Priority E: Minor Gift. One of your attributes, skills, proficiencies, or other has some unusual, very minor supernatural gift attached to it. Perhaps you can see in the dark, or can feel the crawl of the presence of the supernatural around you.

Priority D: Major Gift. You have some major, if very selective, gift. Perhaps, if someone meets your gaze, and you peer into their eyes, you can hypnotize them, or perhaps you get weak inklings of the future.

-----------------------

I realize none of these might be any good, but I'm just brainstorming to inspire several lines of consideration and discussion. Feel free to rip these apart, as I gave them about 30 seconds thought and I'm not even close to being married to them. :)

I have 1 concern. The first is locking everything into a set pattern. Let's say we add 5 new things to the racial priority list. Do all 5 exist everywhere? Does every culture in the setting have its own exemplars? Does every country assign the same meanings to astrological signs?

Dealing with this doesn't make things easier, but I think it's important. If we're not careful, we could either undercut TROS' focus on diverse beliefs, or create a complex web of exceptions and particularities.

A Good example of what I mean I think would be the exemplar talked about above. IMHO, the exemplar works best when there is a very strong identity. Stahl, Xanarium, and Fahal come to mind as places with VERY clear ideas on what the 'ideal man' is. I doubt that Taveruun would have such a man, as their is not a clear concept of what the ideal would be.

How about Oustenreich? What's twice zero?

If one thinks that Oustenreich has some kind of strong cultural identity, then the answer would be they get increased knowledge on folklore and the forest.

If one doesn't think so, then, well, back to my post above.

Actually, I'd say that in the less "exceptional" countries is where the most exceptional Exemplars would be born. Not someone who embodies what the country is, but rather what it needs to become.

Jake

Jake Norwood wrote: Actually, I'd say that in the less "exceptional" countries is where the most exceptional Exemplars would be born. Not someone who embodies what the country is, but rather what it needs to become.

Morfedel: Someone is listening to you. :)

I like the Gifted/Legendary split. However, I'm wary of anything with a random roll. I don't want to be Gifted in a stat that's rolled randomly. I'm creating this character for my own vision; rolling a die isn't a happy way to accomplish that.

I guess I should say "I like how you've made Legendary work, but I'd still like to see something different for Gifted."

Sure. I hadnt even given it much thought, frankly; as I said, I was brainstorming. If it ends up spinning off something else, great!

(it's late, so forgive me if I don't make this as clear as I could)

While talking with Ben Lehman in the Indie Netgaming OOC chatroom tonight, we came up with the following. Please let us know what you think. We (or at least I) hope this could be a suitable generic template from which one could deviate, yet still helps fill the open slots. Do note that this slightly increases the available magic of the setting, but I don't think it would do so too much.

I'd like to give thanks to Morfedel, your brainstorming DID help with this, at least on my end. Heck, your brainstorming was enough to change me from "lurker" to "poster" in the tRoS forum. You might regret that later. :)

Ben wanted the F human to be worse than normal, a shaft like all the other Fs are a shaft. I liked the idea of making things different, but I also wanted to keep the Race column as a "safe space" for putting an F (which keeps non-magical humans common). So I wanted to keep it safe, but still figured I could encourage people to try for the D and E slots. Here's what I came up with:

A Gifted Siehe
B Gifted halfling or human
C Ungifted halfling/legendary human*
D Exceptional human*
E Normal human*
F Bland human*

Now to explain the asterisks:

A Bland Human is a tabula rasa. He has no cultural bonuses, and also should probably suffer from a reduction in starting SAs, but how many remains in question. Or perhaps only a reduction of SAs, I'm not too sure yet. In fact, as I type this, I'm more sure it should ONLY be a "less starting SA points" penalty, and nothing else.

A Normal Human isn't, really, but we all knew that. He gets normal starting SAs. In the earlier idea, he had the choice between cultural bonuses OR a lesser knack. Knacks will be described later. If the Bland Human has cultural bonuses, so does this guy, he gets no choice.

A Exceptional Human gets cultural bonuses AND a lesser knack (if the "no cultural bonuses" option for bland human, above, is used, then he has a choice between those two things OR taking a greater knack).

A Legendary Human has cultural bonuses and a greater knack. Even if the no cultural bonuses option is used. This one's simple as pie.

Knacks

A character with a knack gets a sorcery pool. However, this can only be used for one single effect (lesser knack) or three effects (greater knack). Using a knack can cause you to suddenly age, or whatever penalty for sorcery you have decided to use. This is effectively a lesser form of sorcery, so the penalties should be similar. As Ben put it, "the flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long," a saying I love, and seems to be in effect here.

What is the knack? What is the effect you get? That's up to you, and to some extent your setting. The stat-pushing of Morfedel's "Legendary" could be a knack, as could being better at a skill or in combat. Perhaps each nationality has a knack, or set of knacks, that are appropriate for it (if I knew Weyerth better I'd suggest a list). Perhaps you want a couple knacks per element, or want to relate them to vagaries somehow, or perhaps astrological signs. Perhaps you'll even let the player choose, or base it on their SAs (and have them change over time). It's all up to you.

In Conclusion

I hope this is suitably generic enough that it can be accepted. I don't know the game well enough to flesh out the mechanics, but at least this is another option, another way to look at it. I'm less enamored of the "no cultural bonuses" part of my suggestion to ben, but am leaving it in for completeness.

And now, to bed! Goodnight. :)

Looks great. Thanks for posting this.

Lxndr wrote: What is the knack? What is the effect you get? That's up to you, and to some extent your setting. The stat-pushing of Morfedel's "Legendary" could be a knack, as could being better at a skill or in combat. Perhaps each nationality has a knack, or set of knacks, that are appropriate for it (if I knew Weyerth better I'd suggest a list). Perhaps you want a couple knacks per element, or want to relate them to vagaries somehow, or perhaps astrological signs. Perhaps you'll even let the player choose, or base it on their SAs (and have them change over time). It's all up to you.

Lxndr wrote:
In Conclusion

I hope this is suitably generic enough that it can be accepted. I don't know the game well enough to flesh out the mechanics, but at least this is another option, another way to look at it. I'm less enamored of the "no cultural bonuses" part of my suggestion to ben, but am leaving it in for completeness.

I respectfully disagree with the notion of filling in the empty slots. I support creating numerous half-magic, half-fey racial preferences, but I do not agree that the A through F spectrum should be fully used. One has to ask why race needs the empty slots filled on. I don't personally buy the argument that racial priorities need to be as adjustable as skill or social class. If anything, I think they should be less.

Priority chargen allows for a distribution. Admittedly, the distribution is intentionally in blocks (ie.e, attributes in intervals of 4), but a distribution of sorts is created. This allows compromises to be created to a degree. Be excellent at something, be kind of good at something else, and be bad at a third. Priority systems usually remove 'average in everything' as a possibility.

The racial preferences intentionally under-utilize the possible spread. Instead of having 6 ranks, it has effectively 4 (D, E, & F all are 'human'). The potential compromises involving racial preferences are much, much smaller. There is no 'just a little magic' preference. If you want anything magical about your character, it is at least priority C.

Jake does not appeal to game balance to justify this. It is about rarity, the inherent 'specialness' of magic. Any magic.

By filling in the empty slots for racial preference several things happen. By adding more categories, magic becomes a bit more systematic, and a little bit less mysterious. A martial arts black belt is a lot more mysterious if there are no white belts.

I am very, very hesitant to make not just a system, but an extensive hierarchy of racial and magical characters for TROS. I believe that would fundamentally shift some assumptions it makes about color & setting. A full spectrum of wizards, sorcerers, enchanters, and dabblers would work fine in other game worlds, but that's not the 'feel' magic has in TROS.

A third aspect of my concern is the link with SA's and character exploration. At the moment, if a character has a preference that is not 'normal' human, there is IMHO, a good chance that his nature (be it as a wizard or a fey or whatever) will be expressed in his/her SAs. Creating an extensive, detailed, and hierarchical system of difference kinds of people will weaken that link.

Creating new kinds of racial preferences are advantageous only when its existence adds detail to the color? Gols, sure. More changelings based on local myth? Sure. Living emobidments of a nation's ethics? Quite possibly. The point is they need to START with these rationales, not 'what is appropriate for slot D'

Nick Pagnucco wrote: I respectfully disagree with the notion of filling in the empty slots.

...

Jake does not appeal to game balance to justify this. It is about rarity, the inherent 'specialness' of magic. Any magic.

...

Creating new kinds of racial preferences are advantageous only when its existence adds detail to the color? Gols, sure. More changelings based on local myth? Sure. Living emobidments of a nation's ethics? Quite possibly. The point is they need to START with these rationales, not 'what is appropriate for slot D'

Oh, I completely understand your point.
Or, actually... let me see. If I understand you, your points are:

1) All other elements of characters exist for A to F, get more powerful the closer you get to 'A'. With that as the case, why shouldn't race work the same way? Leaving it the way it is now is inconsistent, and makes it ludicrous for any player to have an "F" in something when D, E, and F for Race are all the same.

2) The rarity argument only really applies to choice C, As full blown mages and their ilk are potentially godlike.

Are those fair? Just trying to make sure I can put in in my own words.

I'd change "ludicrous for any player" to "ludicrous for any player not playing a non-human or gifted human." Obviously, if they're playing C, B, or A, it's not so ludicrous to put something else in F.

Basically, yes.

Maybe its just me. Maybe its just my intolerance for inconsistancy. Some people might say "So its inconsistant, so what? Its just a game...." I just like a game to be as consistant as possible. And I see that these areas could be more consistant without harming, and in fact, helping, the game.

I also am not fond of plain jane vanilla ice cream; at the minimum, it has to have chocolate syrup, if it isn't another flavor entirely. My brother, on the other hand, likes nothing else... maybe this is just a flavor thing.

But the point being, a choice of C in race is very under rated compared to what you get with a C in any other priority, or compared to what you achieve in A and B in race. Meanwhile, where everything else has all these choices, there is this big gap with D and E for race. It just... glares at me.


---
James

Nick Pagnucco wrote: Oh, I completely understand your point.
Or, actually... let me see. If I understand you, your points are:

1) All other elements of characters exist for A to F, get more powerful the closer you get to 'A'. With that as the case, why shouldn't race work the same way? Leaving it the way it is now is inconsistent, and makes it ludicrous for any player to have an "F" in something when D, E, and F for Race are all the same.

2) The rarity argument only really applies to choice C, As full blown mages and their ilk are potentially godlike.

Are those fair? Just trying to make sure I can put in in my own words.

I won't have time to post something thought out until tonight, but James, it is partially a flavor issue, which means it is for you & me both. That being said, finding people who completely and utterly disagree with you are good times to refine what you actually mean. Being around people who agree leads to sloppy thinking :)

You know, I was going to post something longer, but I changed my mind half way through. The only possible goal I would have is to try to beat people into submission with my POV.

Morfedel, I think it is safe to say you & I are concerned about different consequences. You are concerned about giving players more chargen priority options, and making race preference D & E something other than pointless. I, on the other hand, have been focusing on how changing the racial preferences affect the setting & color of TROS. I would argue they are both a form of conistency, but different kinds. You're looking at the internal consistency of the chargen mechanic, and I'm looking at its implications on other things. Both are valid points of view.

As I doubt consensus is possible, and I think both of us have been pretty clear, I erased a post praising the virtues of what I was doing, blah blah blah.

Does anyone else have an opinion about this?

Agree to disagree, eh? :) Works for me ! :)

Nick Pagnucco wrote: As I doubt consensus is possible, and I think both of us have been pretty clear, I erased a post praising the virtues of what I was doing, blah blah blah.

Does anyone else have an opinion about this?

I've always played it kind of loose with E and D priorities. If someone takes them in one of my games, then it does mean something special, but they never know exactly what. I just tailor it to the campaign and character.

One guy who took E turned out to have a very special gift with animals, who would all trust him and (in one case anyway) die to protect him. One D turned out to have a familiar, as if he had taken the Weires/Familiars gift.

The Hameh in OBAM also sprang from a priority D figure who was murdered in one of my games as well, I knew of the old Arabian legend and just adapted it. Worked really well which is why I put it in the book.

Etc. Just have fun with it, that's my advice :-)

Brian.

Actually, thats a neat idea brian.