Group Character Creation
After listening to a podcast interview of Fred Hicks (I think from Theory From the Closet), I was inspired to start working on an alternate character creation system. One of my favorite things about Spirit of the Century is the character creation system. Creating characters is fun, even if you never "play" the game and use the character. In addition, players are forced to make their characters connected to the driving/uniting organization and to each other. The process also makes sure the characters are filled with "flags" to tell the GM what the players want in the game. Fred (correctly) mentioned that these ideas could be ported to almost any game. I think I have a workable framework to do this (as an alternative to standard character creation) in Heirs to the Lost World. It actually is only slightly different from the standard system, adding a few steps where players share their ideas and make some connections with each other.
In doing this, I am also reworking my advice for initial character creation. My current plan is to include a list of standard character concepts (or archetypes) as in many other games, mainly to help those who may be less familiar with the setting. Beyond this, I will recommend players to come up with "something extra" to make the character more than just the standard archetype.
Merging Complications and the Motivations Matrix
I am loving both the complications and the motivation matrix, but they seem disconnected. I am working with a way to merge them in a more concrete way. My current idea is to force them together, making the upper area of the motivation matrix the place where you put complications. Some complications do not fit on the motivation matrix (notably physical complications and a few others). I will include a "Other Complications" section below the Motivation Matrix for these.
After listening to a podcast interview of Fred Hicks (I think from Theory From the Closet), I was inspired to start working on an alternate character creation system. One of my favorite things about Spirit of the Century is the character creation system. Creating characters is fun, even if you never "play" the game and use the character. In addition, players are forced to make their characters connected to the driving/uniting organization and to each other. The process also makes sure the characters are filled with "flags" to tell the GM what the players want in the game. Fred (correctly) mentioned that these ideas could be ported to almost any game. I think I have a workable framework to do this (as an alternative to standard character creation) in Heirs to the Lost World. It actually is only slightly different from the standard system, adding a few steps where players share their ideas and make some connections with each other.
In doing this, I am also reworking my advice for initial character creation. My current plan is to include a list of standard character concepts (or archetypes) as in many other games, mainly to help those who may be less familiar with the setting. Beyond this, I will recommend players to come up with "something extra" to make the character more than just the standard archetype.
Merging Complications and the Motivations Matrix
I am loving both the complications and the motivation matrix, but they seem disconnected. I am working with a way to merge them in a more concrete way. My current idea is to force them together, making the upper area of the motivation matrix the place where you put complications. Some complications do not fit on the motivation matrix (notably physical complications and a few others). I will include a "Other Complications" section below the Motivation Matrix for these.