Topic: Social Class!!!

[providence13]

Not wanting to get into a profession/class issue...

I love the way professions can be absolutely anything.
Yet shouldn't ppl start with something more than a bit 'o racial culture and a few hobby ranks?

Toyed around w/ the idea of doubling Hobby ranks. This doesn't give a huge boost; just fleshes them out as more well rounded adults; IMO.

Then I remembered something about SEC in Cyberspace and thought that it could be applied in RM.

Now, this might not mesh well in some groups. Maybe in a more city/social setting.

Higher SEC could have an easier time picking up Lores, Sciences and  a hard time getting Frenzy, Foraging and some weapons/armors.

Lower SEC would find subterfuge, brawling and stalk/hide, for example.

Or just give them a few ranks in certain skills (as per Cyberspace).
This could change some BO's.
Higher SEC might have to take a wealth option, maybe Lower SEC would pick contacts...

[markc]

 I do not know if you have Talent Law but there is a formula for creating racial packages. IMO you could also create a social package that goes along with it. So a full PC would have a basic race package as well as a social package that could depend on the PC's location.
 So for example a elf has some basic "elfy" skills and since he grew up in a elvish village in the forest he gets some more skills and last but not least he gets some skills since his father is in charge of the village. Op's that's 3 packages. But I think you get the idea.

 Also IMO it really depends on what system you are using as if the system has more DP to give you can make a much fuller PC. Also just to not you might want to have GM ranks that are either defined by the GM based on there background or are agreed upon by the PC and player.

 Also if you have a chance look at SM:P and what they do with TP's. You could easily use that concept in any version of RM as well as maybe add on some Talent buy's to represent various experiences, skills, bonuses, etc.

MDC

[RandalThor]

Or you could just start them off at 3rd level and say that that is thier post-apprenticeship, beginning level.

[markc]

Or you could just start them off at 3rd level and say that that is thier post-apprenticeship, beginning level.

Or like RandalThor said you can give them 3 levels worth of DP and start them out at 1st level.
MDC

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

I am working on this for playing in historical settings and, after a lot, lot of painful failures, I came to the conclusions that social classes are dependent on their relevant folk/culture.

Example 1:

Frank society had from bottom to top:

Wargs (cast out people, they are considered animals, a warg being a feral beast turned mad that attacks human settlements... most of the time they were wolves. Standard wolves - the ones staying far from settlements - were called ulf(en))
Slaves/servi (roman style ones)
Slaves/thralls (german style ones)
Leti (latin name, members of other german tribes that have been conquered)
Ingenui (latin name for free men - most franks richest gallo-romans and members of other tribes that have joined peacefully the frank confederation)
Meliores (the nobility, people bcame "noble" through education, wealth and honor... consider the meliores as the top of ingenui... nothing may prevent an ingenuus to become a melior)
Merovingian family (kings, queens, princes, princesses)

Inside ingenui and meliores, there were separate classes, some of them stading "out of" or "above" the social ladder. Basically, they were people that played a part in the administrative ladder or who had accumulated enough honor to be considered extraordinary beings.

Thengn: local leader, village head. chosen for his wits and valor.
Rachimburg: elder who counsels the thengn during trials.
Antruscion: Member of a "trust", a group of wxariors bound together by oath of fidelity to a rich and powerfull man. They are honored and respected more than anyone besides kings.
Paladins: palace officers, often antruscions of a king or queen.
Nutriti: people fed and educated at the king's table. Meant to be a core of administrative officiers. often very loyal and obedient.

Besides this ladder, add the religious one.


Example 2 : Byzantium

Slaves
Free men
Soldiers
Nobility (i.e. army officiers)
Emperor


And that's all. Yet there are some specifics but public officers are protected by the law, they are not a "social class" in the stricto sensu.

When you formulate social classes, I'd recommand tying a social system to a given folk/culture and see how you can link some benefits to it.

For example, if you say nobility is the core of warriors in a given culture, give nobles a +1 ST stat bonus and hand them a -1 to RE.


Other than that, don't consider taht you can't access sciences and lore when you are a peasant. Taht's wong. PEasants knew far more about healing herbs, seasons, crop growing, flora and fauna taht rich town citizens did. Even nowadays, I can find in France people that are able to cure some illnesses just through popular knowledge (for example, aspirin was devised from plants found in marshes, as was velcro (it comes from bardane).

Rich people may know more about reading, advanced maths (not mandatory), trading, influence and so on where peasantry would know better about growing and living things, crop tending and healing.

My 2 cents.

[providence13]

These are great ideas and I'll check those books for more...
(How many piles of ICE books are laying about the house? They're neat piles...)

Fenrhyl, your campaign sounds fleshed out and beautiful in detail.
Wild wolfen/varg/gnoll guys or various human types. I love it. Most games have too many races anyhow. Something kinda similar:Chris Moeller's Iron Empire/Shiva's War comics.

I also totally agree that this issue is dependent on culture. That's kinda my point. Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

Other than that, don't consider taht you can't access sciences and lore when you are a peasant. Taht's wong. PEasants knew far more about healing herbs, seasons, crop growing, flora and fauna taht rich town citizens did.
Never dreamt of saying rural folk couldn't learn herbs.

Thanks for the responses; these are great ideas.

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

Thank you for your appreciation, really ^^

(Wargs were human beings though they shared the name with mad wild beasts, in my game *most of them* are human... a few however look like humans but hide dark secrets...)

What language do you speak? I may give you the references to some books that are good sources about social classes and interactions in english and french. That's how I got started.

[Old Man]

I allow my players to spend a background option (or 100 pts if using ROCO IV) and I run them through Central Casting (see http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=3061 ), which in the first part sets up social standing for the character. The ranks of skills given out translate fairly well to RM (and can be modified as one sees fit).

Regards,
Old Man

[RandalThor]

Or you could just start them off at 3rd level and say that that is thier post-apprenticeship, beginning level.

Or like RandalThor said you can give them 3 levels worth of DP and start them out at 1st level.
MDC

Actually, I was saying that they should be 3rd Level to reflect their post-apprenticeship experience because I do not agree with the ideology that a 1st Level individual is a full-grown adult.

If you institute a required number of ranks to be taken for "world"-skills, like lore/knowledge skills, then the characters will defineately feel more a part of the world. (Though the Player's getting a write up of what their characters know is an even better way. Of course, you cannot give them all the information, but stuff stating what they know of history and the current world as well as the general attitudes that their people - and, hence, they themselves - have for other cultures goes a loooonnnggg way. I know, as I once handed out a multi-page document (5-7 double sided pages, roughly) for each Player with all that info on it and they ate it up!)

You could go with a more comprehensive "asolescent development" list that not only works for their culture, but their social class within that culture - a noble does not learn the same things as a commoner.

[GrumpyOldFart]

Actually, I was saying that they should be 3rd Level to reflect their post-apprenticeship experience because I do not agree with the ideology that a 1st Level individual is a full-grown adult.

I gotta admit, I could easily picture a kid growing up as a street urchin being a "1st level thief" at the age of 8 or 9.

 

[markc]

 I was just saying that as a GM you can go through adolescence, apprenticeship and 3 normal RM level advances and declare the PC is first level now.

 Yes good players love background material and it helps them create better PC's for the game.

MDC

[Kalu]

I reworked Races and Adolescence Skills for my setting, and in that process introduced Social Standing. It's a bit simple compared to Fenrhyl's and lacks the fine descriptions, but my experience is that if helps giving well-rounded characters, while reducing the need for extra skill ranks (hobby ranks or extra DPs).

Taras Races and Cultures.

//K

[RandalThor]

I was just saying that as a GM you can go through adolescence, apprenticeship and 3 normal RM level advances and declare the PC is first level now.

 Yes good players love background material and it helps them create better PC's for the game.

MDC

OK, I can see that if you don't want to slow down their progression to reflect that they are now doing things they don't normally do - which is very good for gaining abilities (like skills) fast.

Of course, I don't see why there should be increasing XP requirements for higher levels as the lessening return on high-ranking skills shows the slower return for well known skills.

[markc]

RandalThor;
 I am going to guess as I have not idea what the game designers had in mind.
1A) Increasing cost to advance was probably carried over from D&D.
1B) Also higher level monsters are worth more Exp so to prevent rapid advance, the difference between levels is higher after a specific point.
 2A) I also think that it is a double diminishing returns system. ie both in skill and in Exp.
 2B) This allows a system that allows the user to learn new skills in the same way not matter what thier level is. Yes in RM2/C/X you have level bonuses and in RMSS/RMFRP you have categories and category bonuses that also modify the beginning skill amount after buying 1 rank. But in general they are the same no matter what level you are.
 2C) I like the diminishing returns in skills as IMO it is a little closer to how I think things work in RL. I am not really a fan of really huge differences in skill amounts like I have seen in MERP and that was used in a RM2 and SM2 game I played in.

Hope that helps.
MDC

[RandalThor]

Well, the statement wasn't so much of an official question as it was a statement of preference, but you bring up some good points.

1A) For sure man! Much of gaming is a carry-over from the early days of DnD - RM is no exception.

1B) I can see where you wouldn't want that first level fighter to jump to 6th level just because he got lucky and killed the dragon by himself in one blow (not likely, but possible). Though, he better get something!!

2A) Looks to be about right. Though, I don't think you need it except, that you shouldn't necessarily get the same XP for killing your 100th goblin as you did your 1st one. Yes, the increased amount of XP per level does take care of that - but it does it going the other way and it is easier than having to keep track of how many of what you have *dealt* with so the GM knows when to lower the amount you get for some things.

2B) If you mean that a 20th level guy and a 5th level guy start getting the same amount of skill bonus from brand new skills, then I agree. That is fine, but doesn't have any bearing on the rest of the stuff here.

2C) I too agree that the diminishing returns off of skills you know is realistic. I do not know what you mean by:

I am not really a fan of really huge differences in skill amounts like I have seen in MERP and that was used in a RM2 and SM2 game I played in.

Could you elaborate please?

[RandalThor]

The reason I go with the starting them off at 3rd level, or even higher if you wish, is because, unlike other games RM/SM doesn't really have level caps. [Technically in DnD you could go higher than 20th (or 30th, now)* but what would it get you? Not much. Unless, of course, you branch out to another class altogether.] You could go to a 100th level or higher (and look at some of the powerful Shadow World NPCs for examples of this), so those first 3 levels, do not count quite as much as in other games - like Earthdawn which caps at level 15th.

[markc]

RandAlThor;
 2C) Example: Balrog of Moria OB 275 th&wh, Missile OB 120pa/ro DB 165; also Gothmog 455th&wh, Missile OB 405ma*, DB 115. Both of those are taken from Lords of Middle Earth Volume 1 and use some high level rules expansions. The game I played in used a mixture of the MERP high level rules as well as some home rules. Thinking back I think the house rules were almost as big as the book back in those days as the GM created and merged material from a lot of sources. I remember a big change was using the stat expansion rules for high value stats in RoCo 1 or RoCo 2, IIRC.
 Now in RM2 you can have very high DB from Adrenal Defense [restrictions very few or non-existent], weapons with +20-+75 OB, armor and other defensive items +20-+55 [maybe a +60 but that was rare]. The bonuses are smaller in RMSS but can still add up to a big chunk of your OB and DB, but still the max amount of Skill is less in RMSS then in RM2+MERP High Stat+MERP High Level+other bonuses.
 We had a lot of fun in the game but there was also times when a lower level PC came into the game and just had to hide otherwise they were just paper combat targets drawing the opponents attacks allowing the higher level [OB/DB] PC's to take them out.

MDC

[providence13]

Thanks people. These are great ideas.
I decided to go with and increase in Hobby Ranks (~double) and 100 DP/lvl.
Most likely, the gang will also begin at 3rd lvl.

This may seem like an enormous boost to some, but I think it will fit into the game.
Everyone will have to take non-wpn/combat/spell skills because of the advancement caps built into the system.
So, we have characters who are actually skilled enough to proudly be a member of their profession and will have other "life" skills without railroading... (never thought I would use level advancement as incentive for character development; but the game works as-is just for this). 

[RandalThor]

Markc:

I still don't see what you mean. By that, I mean that I (me, personally) don't know why the differences between the Balrog's and Gothmog skill bonuses are a problem as they could be drastically different levels with drastically different stats and skill levels - so the different bonuses seem fine. Some things are better than others. Still don't see the problem here - I guess I am just not getting what you are saying. (No surprise there.  )

[markc]

 I am saying that I like a more finite set of numbers to work with. In RMSS if you have 30 ranks in a combined skill or 30 ranks in a category and 30 ranks in the skill, you will have a bonus of 95+Stats+Profession [max 20 I believe] + magic item+ magic. So lets say around 130+ is about the max OB or skill total.
 With RM2 and MERP high level rules it essentially blows the 130+ rank bonus out of the water. Stat bonuses and Profession bonuses can really skew high level NPC's skills. To me there is some break off point where you just cannot learn anymore even if you spend a lot of time trying to learn something new. For example if I devote my life to learning skill A it may take me a while but eventually I will get to a point where I can not lean anything new or how to do anything better related to that skill. The high level rules does not allow for this situation as you can always buy a rank and get +5 to the skill. No limit, no max.

MDC