Topic: Test Balloon

[Defendi]

Still languishing in reduced productivity from no laptop.  Just so you know.

Now that you know that, on to the real purpose of this thread.

I had another product idea, and I want to feel you all out on the matter.  I wouldn't be writing it myself, so it shouldn't hurt productivity much, but here it goes.

My funnest character creation experiences have been with games where you can randomize events in the character's past.  The Cyberpunk rules, Twilight 2000, the heritage tables in L5R.  I haven't worked out much in the way of mechanics issues, but I'm thinking of a character background generator.  You can use it on NPCs or for PCs, either randomly or by picking and choosing with the help of your GM.  Basically, you'd start out with an origin, (such as farmer, rural lord, city lord, craftsman) etc, and roll year by year the things that happened to your character.  Things like love affairs, death of siblings, murders, winfalls, disasters, enemies, lifelong friends.  There would be some twists and turns like, "Your parents are slaughtered and your local lord is so guilt ridden that he adopts you, move to the rural lord charts" (that would be rare).  There would probably be seperate charts for WAR! and CHAOS! for years when countries are in turmoil.  If we do it right, I think that it will be fun enough that all the players will want to gather round to watch each other roll (that's what always happened when we played cyberpunk.)

Anyway, this would be several months down the line.  I don't even know if it will technically be EoH (that will probably be the model world, but until the writer starts working, I don't know how much setting will be on the charts).  I'm determined that it will be useful to every fantasy RPG player that plays a roughly Rolemaster like milleu, but other than that, it's too early to tell.

Anyway, this is here so you can put in wishes for the product and sound off on whether you'd be interested in buying it.  I suspect it will be short enough to be a low Price Point (not too much longer than a datanet or quarterly).  Then again, if it takes 96 pages chocked full of different interesting happenings, that's just more reuse value, so we'll see when we start outlining.

So pipe up with opinions.

[mocking bird]

We use Central Casting for random ealy life events - with some GM modification for things that make sense.  Oddly enough many times the rolled background ends up similar to what the player wanted, or likes if going completely random.  Considering all the dice rolling, and different kind of dice needed, it can take several hours.   Also there are many events that just don't make sense and are changed.  If you tailor made it for a world setting it would go much smoother and you could add some customized quirks and keep it d100 or d10 would make it appealing for us.

[Defendi]

Yeah, the thing about a GOOD random background generator is it comes up with a lot of little details missed by even the best character histories.  Things like, "Yeah, I have one rank of singing because of a ex-girlfriend.  Don't ask.  It ended messy."

[mocking bird]

The thing about Central Casting is that 75% of the time you end up drafted into the military and can spend 10 years there, get out an officer and still only be 3rd level where you wanted to start in the first place.  It can end up with some interesting plot hooks for the GM to feed upon though - like strange birth situations.  Or it can be used as a substitution for Talents as you usually end up with ranks in stuff.  For example military history we often gave ranks in combat skills or a shield use talent.  In EoH if you could get a stat bonus you could have some Nephilim blood generations ago, i.e. descendant of Anak/Goliath - unless it contradicts the cosmology.

[Defendi]

Too bad I've never seen central casting. 

[mocking bird]

Task Force Games circa 1990.  Amazon has one for $59, but I am saving up for Felric's Redoubt.

[Defendi]

Good boy. 

[TheShadow]

I'd love to see such a product. Especially if it was fairly generic Rolemaster-ish that I could slot into a campaign.

TheShadow

[Defendi]

It will be DECENTLY generic.  I know we want it to be useful to everyone.  There might be some setting specific stuff, and that will come from Echoes, of course.