Saturday, December 22, 2012

Charater Creation

In Volant, I introduced a new kind character generation. In this scheme, you are given a number of build points based on the character's age, and with these points may purchase Templates, which each have a number of Skill ranks, and possibly Edges and/or Attribute improvements. You add up all these ranks given by the Templates, assign 7 points to Personality traits, and the character is complete, with personality, history, Skills, and Edges. It takes about 5 minutes to create a character of moderate (mid-30s) age - longer to create older characters. This compares very favorably time-wise with the usual year-by-year generation the StarCluster system requires, at a small cost in flexibility. Volant also has a much smaller number of skills - though they are still center-defined, just broader - than typical StarCluster games, which also helps a bit.

I haven't yet released Volant - it's due for release early next year - but I am considering using it for upcoming projects as well. My Alpha group has really liked using it, and the results are compatible with other StarCluster games. What do you all think?

-clash

4 comments:

  1. Cool! I don't think I will use it for everything, but It is another tool in my toolbox. :D

    -clash

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like the template system, it's ease and speed of use, it's ability to handle specialists and generalists but mostly because it can result in interesting age mixes within the party. I can imagine doing a Swiss Family Robinson/Lost in Space set-up, or a school field trip in peril.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cool, Geordie! There is some loss of flexibility, I know, but this is, I think, more than made up with the speed of generation and the ability to link skills in a way so as to define competence within a job. For example you have a group of five Scouts. GM asks "Anyone here an Advanced Scout?" and two players raise their hands. "Anyone a High Scout?" One hand is raised. "OK - The High Scout is the leader, and the Advanced Scouts are her deputies."

    ReplyDelete