So after running Savage Worlds the other week, I started thinking about what adventure or adventures I would want to run for the Anime USA convention in November. While some people on another message board strongly suggested focusing on one game, I think I'm still going to try and have three or four ready. While this means generating enough characters for each game, I believe I can make it work. The adventures lend themselves well to allowing practically any type of hero to be played, so I could easily use the archetypes in the book and then select which ones I felt worked best for each game. Then when it came time to run, I'd pull the appropriate characters and off we'd go.
However, this year I'm going to allow the players to customize their characters to a point. Savage Worlds makes this very easy. I can simple pre-select two or three hindrances (both major and minor) and put them on the character sheet. Then the player can choose which hindrances they want, if any. And then duplicate that process with edges. While some players will load up on the negatives to get the bonuses, others I foresee wanting to keep the characters pure. Which is great. But one thing comes to mind though. I may have to create a character generation guideline -- which may turn some people off, as those who just want to play won't want to deal with "figuring things out."
So I am open for some suggestions. Do I create the characters 100% or leave parts unknown for the player to fill in? Do I have multiple games on hand, or run just one game, and make it awesome?
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While I mull that over I'm starting to look at another RPG. With Fantasy Flight Games releasing the BETA test for their Star Wars RPG I thought it would be cool to give the setting my own twist. So I picked up, and dusted off, my copy of Dark Hersey. (Forgive me if I am repeating myself from a previous post). I'm currently reading through the Classes section of the book, and starting to generate some ideas. I'm getting adventure ideas in mind, but I do have a copy of Wizard's only Epic Adventure for Star Wars called Dawn of Defiance. I intended to use this adventure with the Saga Edition rules, but then I thought it would be even cooler to use Dark Hersey (or Rogue Trader, if I can get my hands on a copy of the book). So here I go on my next quest. First to read the core rulebook or Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader, then to read through Dawn of Defiance.
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I don't know why I have such a problem with creating a single character. Not that I have a problem with the actual creation process, instead its limiting myself to ONE IDEA. Sometimes I can go into a game knowing exactly what I want to play. But in the past month I've noticed a major hesitation in committing to one choice. Two for instances:
1) The brothers, Chris and Tim, asked for me to join their Sunday Pathfinder game. As far as I know, the players are just Tim and our mutual friend Byron (the host of the podcast: Rho Pi Gamma). While each player was willing to play two characters they (Chris and Tim) wanted to get another body in on the game. And since the three of us had been rping rather recently I came as the logical choice to fill a chair. So I set out to create a character., in which I created four. Here-in lies the problem. I only need ONE character and I came up with four. I had a general idea for a character, but knew there could be several ways to take said character. Here are the classes I looked at: Samurai, Monk, Cavalier, and Rogue. In the end I chose the Samurai, but it was a hard elimination process. The Samurai won because he had the most compelling background story. But the fact that I even had to do this entire process is ridiculous. While I didn't go through entire character creation with the classes (which I find myself doing now for another game), I had to really dig deep to limit myself to a character class.
2) Chris and Tim are heavily involved in roleplaying in forums (AKA play-by-post), and got me into it some time ago. More to allow me to kill time while at work, but also to give me further opportunities to roleplay. Which has been nothing but awesome so far. But in one particular game they are using D&D 4th edition rules, and requested I play my famed Kennedy character. I warned them that he probably wouldn't be the exact character that brought him into infamy, but I would give it a shot. So we posted a couple of times and then I introduced an NPC into the game. As it's turned out I want to make this character into a PC. So I'm now finding myself struggling to choose not only a class for this character, but a race as well. At least I've limited myself to two races: Human or Half-Elf, but I'm stuck with three classes (Sorcerer, Wizard or Warlock) and each have two intriguing builds I can choose from. While that is potentially twelve different builds, I have chosen to limit myself. I'm taking one build and choosing a race, then the other race gets the other build. This way I can see what the potential differences could be and not spend all my time creating characters (although I'm far too late for that anyway).
I think my biggest problem is that I'm a visual person. I need to see the character in all its glory (sometimes -- as I stated in the Pathfinder game, I was able to make my choice based only on background story). But in the latter case the character's background could fit any of the listed classes or races. So what to do. I may just have to ride this one out, but if anyone has a suggestion for me, please post a comment. Thanks!
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