Dragon Warriors

I thought it might be interesting to see how different people roll up characteristics for their games.

I've included what I think are the common approaches I've seen, but it's not exhaustive.

What do I mean by 'fudging'? I mean, if you, for example, have some mechanism in your game that allows a player to make sure they have the scores needed to play a profession with minimum requirements - so nobody is stuck playing a warrior rather than a wizard because they rolled a Psychic Talent of 4!

'In order' means rolling in the traditional order of Strength, Reflexes, Intelligence, Psychic Talent, Looks (or a different order if for some reason you've changed it, but the key is "let the dice fall as they may").

You can choose multiple options, if multiple options apply.

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Life and Death Are Only a Dice Roll Away!

Shaun Hately
co-author A Weak Pleasure
co-author Friends or Foes
co-author Dragon Warriors Players Guide

I selected 3d6 in order with fudging. my most common method.

If a player wants to use a certain profession then a roll below a minimum requirement will be rounded to the minimum unless they have a particularly high stat elsewhere.

I'll also let them Rob peter to pay Paul, but only sometimes and when it's workable. Eg. St 17, reflexes 5, everything thing else average. But any robbing comes off the highest stat first.

In general if a number of the rolls are really bad i'll let them roll a full new set of stats.

I have never allowed players to assign rolls to the stats they want. that just creates super beings.

I'd just ask em' to roll 3d6 5 times and assign them as they wish. But I do think looks scores are out of their control and should be random. I just think its peoples natural inclinations, if they want to be strong let them. I guess they don't have a choice over their looks though.

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Speech!





And so the show begins!!!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dwp ... ssages/640

I found that the distribution of scores with 3d6 is too broad - yes they tend to congregate in the 9-12 range, but scores in 3-5 and 16+ range are also surprisingly common (5 characteristics, 5 players = 25 characteristic rolls). And if you then allow players to assign attributes, guess where the low scores go? So you end up with a load of ugly and dumb adventurers.

My approach to character generation is:

• Player chooses the profession they want to play.
• Roll 5d6, discarding both the highest and lowest results, once for each characteristic.
• Assign results to characteristics in the order they were rolled.
• If the character fails to meet the minimum requirements for their chosen profession, roll 3d6 for that characteristic until a score that at least equals the minimum requirement is rolled.

This results in improved odds of characteristics falling within the playable 6-15 range, prevents low scores being assigned to 'dump stats', and provides some interesting attribute scores that players can role-play (sorcerers with higher strength than barbarians, knights with better reflexes than assassins, etc.). Players then have more to work with when coming up with their personalities and backgrounds - a character with high strength (sorcerer or otherwise) is likely to have had a very physical background - working in the fields, local athletic champion, trained militia, etc. I'd generally expect any stat outside of the 9-12 range to impact the player's interpretation of the character and how it's played (for some inspiration for playing low scores, I wrote this article).

I have also removed dump stats from my game - everything now has an impact, regardless of your profession. For example, a character's intelligence score represents their maximum rank, psychic talent is required to use magic items, including magic swords and armour, and I've replaced Looks with Presence, an attribute with direct consequences for characters expecting to be a brave, confident and charismatic adventurers.

By not being able to put your best score in your favoured attribute, it makes adventures more of a challenge and can upset some of the standard tropes - if the sorcerer is the guy with the highest strength, he gets to roll the boulder from in front of the blocked passage and gets his moment to shine, but how does that make the knight or barbarian react to the sorcerer?

My players were (very) skeptical at first, as they are used to the super-powered fantasy of D&D, etc., but it maintains the distinction of DW as not the game for high-fantasy epic superheroes, but for ordinary mortals, thurst into a life of adventure and frequently overwhelmed and outclassed by the eldritch horrors to be found in the depths and lairs they explore, struggling to remain true to their heroic path.

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Cobwebbed Dragon (Lee)

https://www.cobwebbedforest.co.uk/
https://www.dragonwarriors.uk/
https://twitter.com/CobwebbedDragon
Now on YouTube!

I've used a range of methods, but whatever I use I've always left Looks random, with player control only over the non-dump characteristics.

Cheers,

-Kyle

I think I saw a quote attributed to Sigmund Freud, anatomy is destiny, try as hard as you may, you can't build up your looks score....

_________________
Speech!





And so the show begins!!!
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/dwp ... ssages/640

Just to give context - in my version of the rules Looks is not a dump stat, and a low looks score can
be physically disadvantageous to the character (provides between -2 and +2 health points depending on value).

I get the players to list their attributes in order of preference (for example, Reflexes, Strength, Looks, Intelligence, Psychic Talent).

The player then rolls 5 sets of 3d6.

The player assigns the results to their attribute list in order of value. In the above example, the highest score would go to Reflexes, the next highest to Strength, etc. with the lowest score assigned to Psychic Talent.

This strikes a nice balance between allowing players to 'design' their characters somewhat, yet retaining a degree of randomness to the actual results, which avoids min-maxing or 'gaming' the system.