Talk:Character Creation: Difference between revisions

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  sounds like we have ten alignments! :)  i'll fold that into the writeups.  for the record, I'd argue that 'detached' is a player-only term, 'unaligned' is the 'true neutral' "i'm asynchronously religious" guy...  hrrrm. or would more monsters count as detached, vs unaligned?  hrrrm....
  sounds like we have ten alignments! :)  i'll fold that into the writeups.  for the record, I'd argue that 'detached' is a player-only term, 'unaligned' is the 'true neutral' "i'm asynchronously religious" guy...  hrrrm. or would more monsters count as detached, vs unaligned?  hrrrm....
maybe the new 'tru neutral' could be called aficionado?





Revision as of 00:30, 28 November 2019

rename alignments, rewrite descriptions
Lawful Good
True Lawful
Lawful Evil
Pure Good
Detached
Pure Evil
Chaotic Good
True Chaotic
Chaotic Evil

started tinkering on this, and ran into a hurdle with fixing all the alignment callouts in the monster templates. help me, obiwan! should I rewite the base page then you fix the templates to match?

Jen has pointed out that there is a place for an actually true neutral character to be, philosophy/moral-wise... perhaps we should have a Neutral and a Detached alignment?

i'd vote that 'true neutral' IS detached. if we really want there to be a difference, we could have 'detached' mean a meta player, and 'unaligned' or 'ascended' or 'unmoved' be true neutral. that would make ten alignments, which actually works just fine with the celegian pantheon, come to think of it.... 

The idea is that there is that odd character that wants to find balance between all things, without regard to their own biases or feelings. They want to maintain parity between the forces of law, chaos, good, and evil, without favoring one over the other (and, in fact, going out of their way to cripple one or more of them if they gain too much of an edge in the greater balance of Things). This person is VERY invested in the divine domains, and in the power plays between deities in the celestial bureaucracy. Contrast that with someone who isn't interested in any of this, wants the gods to leave them the hell alone, and doesn't want to play in their stupid reindeer games.

sounds like we have ten alignments! :)  i'll fold that into the writeups.  for the record, I'd argue that 'detached' is a player-only term, 'unaligned' is the 'true neutral' "i'm asynchronously religious" guy...   hrrrm. or would more monsters count as detached, vs unaligned?  hrrrm....

maybe the new 'tru neutral' could be called aficionado?


change 'half-elf' to 'fey-kin' or 'fey-ken'
change 'half-orc' to 'bru-ken' or 'bru-kin'  -- how about 'arruk'
change 'oread' to 'grund'
change arborian? it's too many syllables in my mind. maybe to something witchy, or foresty? 'verdant'? 'greenkin'?

how do you feel about 'bolgi', as in firbolg?

vishkanya seems ok to me, the racial backstory covers the complicated name
change halfling?  as long as we're looking at the race names? maybe hostling'? as in good hosts?

At some point I really want to have a better sense of why all these races are wandering around, and why things are so diverse. It felt a little contrived to try to squeeze all these races into Red Sails, for example. I ended up saying that all the non-human races could be born to human parents, as a way to make them feel more included in a society that was supposedly a majority human. This despite the fact that no player has ever picked human as their stating race, out of, what? like 9 playtest campaigns, now?


Base AC & Base Touch AC

Class Base AC Advancement for Base Base Touch AC Advancement for Touch Net change
Alchemist 9 - 10 +1 -1
Barbarian 10 - 10 0
Bard 9 11 0
Brawler 11 9 0
Cleric 10 9 -1
Druid 9 10 -1
Fighter 12 9 +1
Monk 9 11 0
Paladin 11 9 0
Partisan 11 11 +2
Prowler 10 10 0
Ranger 10 10 0
Rogue 10 10 0
Sorcerer 8 12 0
Warlord 11 9 0
Wizard 8 12 0
  • first draft; let's examine custom base AC for various flavors of rogue, barbarian, fighter, etc.
  • touch AC is gone now, but this chart shows the very small magnitude of the first draft changes.
  • re-look at dynamic range for starting values: +/-1 (9 to 11), or +/-2 (8 to 12)? (maybe 8-11? make this a net decrease in AC across the board? if not, then 9-10 or 9-11 would be something to look at)

Character Background

  • Update 'Character Background' section with more information, and get rid of the d20pfsrd link.
  • use character sheet as starting point; list of questions each player should consider when creating the character:
  • where were they born? orphan? adopted? first-born or fourth-born? seventh son of a seventh son?
  • who are their parents? Are they close to their parents? do they have siblings? Do they like their siblings?
  • do they have a social rank? are they lowborn? were they educated? can they read the written language?
  • does their society have any adulthood rites? have you undergone these rites? did anything unusual happen?
  • who taught them their character class and skills? Do they have a mentor? Did they learn on their own? School of hard knocks?
  • have they met any interesting people? contacts? friends? enemies? ex-boy/girlfriends? dependents?
  • are they religious? do they have habits, rituals, routines?
  • GM's are encouraged to allow players to create NPC's relevant to their character's backgrounds, but are cautioned to avoid any NPC's that might alter the campaign's story in too major a way.

Quirks

  • add a list of quirks and personality traits to help people come up with a few ideas; non-game-mechanic notes about how the character acts, what they like/dislike, etc.
  • physical mannerisms (e.g. nervous tic, always touching hair, seeks out mirrors, can't stop moving, hates walking, smokes a pipe, etc.)
  • speech mannerisms (e.g. accent, catch phrase, talks loudly, talks quietly, weird laugh, says "dude" too much, etc.)
  • social mannerisms (e.g. arrogant, friendly, know-it-all, dangerously curious, easily startled, always hungry, always drunk, etc.)
  • psychological mannerisms (e.g. hears voices, mutters to themself, exuberantly happy, terrified of weird things (bunnies, trees, fingers), paranoid, gullible, etc.)
  • material quirks (e.g. naming your equipment (and talking to it!), always wears an ascot, always wears a particular color, constantly buying new clothes, fingers lapels, wears a monocle, carries a pocketwatch, etc.)
  • alignment-based quirks (e.g. hates cops, loves the law, thinks civilization is an atrocity, thinks nature should be paved, despises philanthropy and charity, insists on doing good deeds, won't lie, etc.)
  • some advice about keeping quirks interesting, but not annoying. "Spies on their friends," "likes to wander off alone," "can't follow orders," "only cares about themself," are all quirks that will probably create conflict in the party. Find quirks that let you cooperate and value your party members, even if you're playing a selfish, evil bastard of a character. Intra-party fighting is destructive to the campaign's story, and often leads to real-life conflict or hurt feelings. Just don't.
  • avoid quirks that lower your involvement in the game; 'doesn't pay attention' isn't a good quirk if you're actually not going to pay attention. A better variant might be 'doesn't really get it, most of the time'. Keeps you involved in the game, but gives you an opportunity to bring out differences in your character.
  • share the spotlight; you're only one of the stars of this show. give your friends a chance to shine too.
  • abusive quirks - either those that interfere with other players' ability to enjoy the game, or that try to backdoor into game mechanics.
  • "cute the first time" - some quirks work only in very limited quantity. Paint the picture but don't overdo it (talking loudly, spits when talking, no sense of personal space, overly flirty, etc.)
  • some notes about changing quirks as character concept solidifies. Quirks are just guidelines for playing your character; they're not set in stone.