Author Topic: Profession creation guidelines?  (Read 1270 times)

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Offline thrud

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Profession creation guidelines?
« on: October 17, 2020, 08:52:45 AM »
Are there any profession creation guidelines around for RMSS/FRP?
I haven't found any, but intuitively it feels like there must be a set of rules published in some shape or form?
It seems the maneuver difficulty has gone up for my search skill lately. 

Offline markc

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #1 on: October 17, 2020, 09:12:00 AM »
Not that I know of.
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Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
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Offline thrud

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #2 on: October 17, 2020, 09:16:37 AM »
Lol, ok.
I guess everyone just wings it then? At least it wasn't me being bad at searching. 

Offline markc

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2020, 09:58:14 AM »
I think that if there are guidelines then they might be ICE IP and not released for a reason.


That does not mean that you cannot reverse engineer how you think professions are designed and make your own.


If you are looking to do so the easiest way I have seen to do so is take an existing profession and modify it, while looking at other professions to see if your new creation suddenly rules the world so to speak. ie it is so powerful that every player wants to play it and its advantages out performs other professions in many areas.


MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.

Online Hurin

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2020, 10:53:07 AM »
Note that RMU gives specific rules for this (in the Beta2 Arms and Character Law), the Gamemastering section), so you could take a page from RMU and adapt it to RMSS.
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

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Offline netbat

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #5 on: October 17, 2020, 10:58:56 AM »
Since I subscribe to the idea that "professions" are just natural aptitude/genetics, if one of my players has a concept that doesn't quite fit one of the existing professions I use Irregular Realms to customize that character. It works pretty well for my RMSS games.

Tim Dugger. “Irregular Realms.” The Guild Companion, March 1999. http://www.guildcompanion.com/scrolls/1999/mar/realms.html.
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Offline thrud

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2020, 11:05:13 AM »
I was mostly looking fora way to compare and codify the existing professions.
If i were to put something together, it would probably come very close to what we already have in RMU.

In hindsight  it might have been the irregular real. I was remembering, I just didn't know it.

Offline thrud

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #7 on: October 17, 2020, 11:34:14 AM »
If I get an urge to to build a profession generator,  I'll probably use irregular realms with some minor tweaks for streamlining. Some bastard offspring between it and RMU? 1

Offline jdale

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #8 on: October 17, 2020, 01:16:31 PM »
I made an Excel sheet with my method. It's on my webpage at http://www.madreporite.com/rpg/rpg.htm
Have not updated that page in quite a while....
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Offline thrud

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2020, 11:40:03 AM »
Today I sat down with the irregular realms article, and cranked out a rough draft of a template engine.
IMHO, the article is solid and I'm all on board with the concept. However FRP has a huge albatross around it's neck when it comes to the skill costs. All the mechanics are rock solid, but it lacks a proper implementation (which is rectified in RMU).
Lacking a Canon set of rules for profession building,  the skill costs are just way too erratic.
So, I'm curious.
Do you feel it's a benefit that skill costs can be anything? Or would you rather prefer a set of predefined costs like in RMU?
My app can mix and match pretty much anything you throw at it (on the fly) but that won't solve the uncontrolled cost fluctuations.
I would personally be happy to apply a structured set of values,  but you'd loose the "only one rank" and upto 3 ranks per level dev costs. All would have a x/y dev cost...

Offline jdale

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2020, 12:06:29 PM »
Even with RMU, I think you need to be careful to compare the costs you set to other professions, and build the profession around a solid profession concept, not merely around someone's intended character. Otherwise, it's easy to assign absurdly high costs to skills you never intended to purchase anyway, which will result in imbalance relative to the existing professions.

My method for RMFRP uses aptitude steps, like RMU, but with the steps dependent on the category. Irregular Realms gives more structure, but the cost adjustments will give somewhat odd costs (since they are fixed DP modifiers rather than steps). Arguably there is also room to represent the urban vs wilderness focus that is the main differentiating factor between some professions, which is not represented there. Still, if you want to let players design their own professions, the structure of Irregular Realms is a much better approach. If it's you as GM trying to balance a profession you've created to fill a gap in your setting, the other methods will give you a little more freedom and the costs may end up a bit more standardized.
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Offline thrud

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #11 on: October 18, 2020, 12:36:09 PM »
I'm mostly just doing this as a hobby project without any real use case. ;D
Build it and they will come?
Kidding aside, the only real issue I have with FRP is the arbitrary nature of it all. So, I'm just trying to bring a little order to the chaos.
Not looking to have players create their own custom profession. I'm more interested in a structured method for GM to manage professions. A way to compare professions in a quantitative way.
Even reverse engineering the core professions would be great...
But everything just seems so random?
To be honest,  I'm wondering if FRP is just a sinking ship. I might just chuck it and go back to RMU. But, we kind of have to wait for the proper release...

Offline jdale

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #12 on: October 18, 2020, 04:07:59 PM »
I'm pretty sure there was no system behind the RMFRP professions. Just eyeballing things. Some professions are even "worse" by design, like the Chaotic. In general the numbers worked out ok, but it makes it harder to tinker with.
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Online Hurin

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #13 on: October 18, 2020, 04:26:14 PM »

IMHO, the article is solid and I'm all on board with the concept. However FRP has a huge albatross around it's neck when it comes to the skill costs. All the mechanics are rock solid, but it lacks a proper implementation (which is rectified in RMU).
Lacking a Canon set of rules for profession building,  the skill costs are just way too erratic.
So, I'm curious.
Do you feel it's a benefit that skill costs can be anything? Or would you rather prefer a set of predefined costs like in RMU?...

To be honest,  I'm wondering if FRP is just a sinking ship. I might just chuck it and go back to RMU...


That's what I would do (go to RMU). The systems from earlier editions simply aren't balanced; RM2 had wild variations in the power level of the various professions too. That's not to say there isn't some variation in RMU as well, but RMU is far more balanced, at least in terms of skill costs. And it has an actual system for creating professions that makes sense.

Also, RMU is going to be supported...
'Last of all, Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed'. --J.R.R. Tolkien

'Every party needs at least one insane person.'  --Aspen of the Jade Isle

Offline thrud

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Re: Profession creation guidelines?
« Reply #14 on: October 18, 2020, 10:08:36 PM »
That's what I would do (go to RMU). The systems from earlier editions simply aren't balanced; RM2 had wild variations in the power level of the various professions too. That's not to say there isn't some variation in RMU as well, but RMU is far more balanced, at least in terms of skill costs. And it has an actual system for creating professions that makes sense.

Also, RMU is going to be supported...

That's the good news, all the code I'm writing now is easily tailored for any of the versions.  :D