Player vs Character

Still buggering around with rules.

I'm worried that I've made it all too complicated. Check out this page: EE Core Skills

It was inspired mostly by Fallout. I wanted a well-rounded universal system- not complicated enough to have forty gazillion attributes (Looking at you, Shadowrun), but complicated enough to have definable characters inside the rules. I'm all for three attributes (Combat/Movement/Special would be my choice), but that's not the point.

Rules are a way to express story. A tough character will have a high strength score, mechanically allowing him to do tough things. He's much more likely to punch through a door than go shopping for tuxedos. That doesn't mean he can't dress up, but that's not how he usually works. There's a certain oracular power in the stats: each number is a chance of him/her performing that action. Higher numbers are more likely for that character.

"I've got 16 Strength and 3 Coordination- I think I'll try to pick the lock on this door" said no one ever.

A character sheet should tell a character's story. You should be able to look at it, and know basically who they are and what they do. A classical gunslinger will have high toughness, coordination, and reflex. An astronaut will have high education and coordination. An actress will have enough personality to flip over a bus. Etc. Suppose the astronaut goes into movies later in his career? He'll start buffing his personality.

This brings a certain paradox, though; characters become more and more identical the further away they are from the middle of the stats balance.

At XP 0, characters have no stats. No bonuses to any rolls whatsoever. Same HP, same Fatigue, etc. The only difference is player personality, and equipment choice. As they get more XP and pick up better stats, they start to differentiate. There will be tough guys, smart guys, sneaky guys, etc. Even more stats, and they start to fall into archetypes. This is where a character's actions can become more defined by what stats they choose, because of distance between often-used and dump stats. Cowboys, astronauts, and astronaut cowboys start to emerge here.

But, as they max out more stats at the 20 point, they get more identical. The only thing left to spend points on (aside from perks, which I'm planning to incorporate later on the EE's development), is lower skills. The bottom line of their skills rise. The gunslinger becomes well educated, and the actress gets enough toughness to survive a strafing run. This continues, until everyone hits 20 in all stats- identical, again. Just like the beginning, the only thing setting them apart from each other is player personality.

So, my answer is to cut off the characters before they make it to the end, where nothing (aside from the truly insane- not out of the picture) is challenging. Everyone loves a good character, but once they reach that God-level... what's the point? They're all interchangeable, and the only thing setting them apart is equipment. This could be used to narrative effect, but I can't see it right now. Maybe later.

Consequently, I don't like the idea of starting characters at 0 XP without a good purpose. It could be a metaphor for identity, and finding a purpose, but I plan to start Project Sunburn by divvying up 210 XP between the characters evenly, and letting them customize from there.

~Intermission~

Now that I've rambled around about the interplay of numbers and stories, let's get to the meat of the issue. Players versus characters.

inb4 characters kick player's asses.

Tabletop games are all about the escapism. The purpose is to be someone else, instead of just watching them- like in movies. Video games (and some sculptures) are the closest entertainment venue, with players having meaningful interactions to the piece of work. To quote Darkon, "You could watch Brad Pitt, or you could be Brad Pitt."

Old-school D&D had the right idea. The players are the character's brains. They analyze the data, work out puzzles, and make the shots. If there was a puzzle, then dammit, YOU had to figure it out.

But, with the advent of knowledge checks, the player is really just guiding the character around to look at things. See a strange alien device which takes metal in and spits out odd-looking devices? Roll the dice, and it's a grenade-maker. Odd picture on the wall? Roll the dice, it's the tribal creation story.

Escapism means having characters stronger, smarter, and usually better-looking than us (When was the last time anyone made a deliberately ugly character? The last time I remember was about three years ago, and it wasn't me). Stronger is easy with numbers- your fist makes short work of the wooden door. But smarter is a little more difficult. I choose to think of it as pure encyclopedia knowledge. If the grenade-maker is in the basement of a candy shop, it's up to the player to figure out if anything is seriously wrong. It makes the player feel smarter, and more involved.

The only downside is the player NOT getting the implications of what they see and identify. If so, they have my pity. But it is a game, after all. To quote my psychology course, "the approximate truth is better than no truth at all." I've been leaning on that a lot recently.

Ow, my head. I think I've ran my mouth enough for the time being.