Author Topic: First up: Comments on character creation  (Read 14793 times)

Bedwyr

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First up: Comments on character creation
« on: 25 January 2011, 20:53:57 »
I finally finagled my friends into trying out ATOW.  This is honestly a first outing for all of us into roleplaying as well as Battletech roleplaying.  The life modules?  Pain-in-the-butt-long.  I really appreciate what they accomplish and would recommend a newbie going through them in spite of the length, but if we ever "re-roll" I'm doing points only.  Unless I can get hold of a spreadsheet that largely automates the process.  I made one during the beta but don't know if it'll still work properly.

Wish me luck.  I'm going to take a Marik guy, Outworlds guy, and a Ghost Bear through the DotJ era.  They know very little about the world so Nukes, shocks, and surprises will figure very heavily.  It'll be 'Mech oriented so we can switch game systems depending on our mood.  Given the diversity of characters probably a unit themed along the lines of a Rainbow Six group.
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Winterborn

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #1 on: 25 January 2011, 21:17:41 »
Good luck, I like the point-buy system a bit better than life paths, since I can custom tailor my character to skills and traits for the character and not be stuck with to many points to completely get rid of the skill, not to mention since I am going to put points into EDG anyway no point in having all the negative edge you get from life paths anyway.

Bedwyr

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #2 on: 25 January 2011, 21:21:51 »
It is pretty complex, but well worth the flavor and story you get from it when someone new is going through the process.  If I were to do it through a gui as with a CRPG where you're just clicking buttons, I'm sure it'd go a lot faster and be more enjoyable.

Eh, six of one, half a dozen of the other.
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Klat

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #3 on: 25 January 2011, 21:43:57 »
It is pretty complex, but well worth the flavor and story you get from it when someone new is going through the process.  If I were to do it through a gui as with a CRPG where you're just clicking buttons, I'm sure it'd go a lot faster and be more enjoyable.

Eh, six of one, half a dozen of the other.

A GUI along the lines of SSW would be a godsend for ATOW. All the same I really like the life path\module system because it forces the players to flesh their characters out, though the time it takes can be tough for casual games.
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Winterborn

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #4 on: 25 January 2011, 22:17:35 »
I was going to suggest sending Daryk a pm to see if he has his excel spreadsheet he did, but I see he already posted it.  Very good spreadsheet and works well with ATOW.

Tempus

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #5 on: 25 January 2011, 22:23:50 »
Good luck, I like the point-buy system a bit better than life paths, since I can custom tailor my character to skills and traits for the character and not be stuck with to many points to completely get rid of the skill, not to mention since I am going to put points into EDG anyway no point in having all the negative edge you get from life paths anyway.

Are you talking about the classic battletech RPG character creation?  the old rules?  then yes I agree, there was a lot of room for abuse in the lifepaths.  and pretty easy to end up with a low edge score.

I'd strongly suggest however that you have a look at the character creation in 'A Time of War' the new 4th gen rules for battletech universe RPG.   the character creation is a lot more streamlined, compared to MWIII/CBTRPG, and there's none of the random 'oh crud this character is toast now' rolls like in the old lifepaths.

I LIKE the new life modules a lot, and I think they present some good basic 'package deal' sort of arrangements that anyone going through that particular life phase in that place would end up with, along with enough flexibility and choice that each character can still be an individual.  It also produced fairly well rounded characters, which is something you don't get on a points buy only system where anyone with a bit of munchkinism is concerned.

Some of the guys in our group who are not very good at coming up with character concepts, found themselves deciding what their character was about as they had to make the choices (as they went along) for how to spend the flex exp..  you could see the character growing in their mind. 
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Winterborn

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #6 on: 25 January 2011, 22:49:55 »
I was talking about ATOW, for some reason EDG and CHA kept getting negative points in char creation, and yes if you don't know the type of char then the life path is great, same goes for new players a lot easier than the old ways.  Now once you know the direction you want your char to take, point buy is a bit better way to go since you can just assign as you go.

Tempus

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #7 on: 25 January 2011, 23:04:06 »
I was talking about ATOW, for some reason EDG and CHA kept getting negative points in char creation, and yes if you don't know the type of char then the life path is great, same goes for new players a lot easier than the old ways.  Now once you know the direction you want your char to take, point buy is a bit better way to go since you can just assign as you go.

{montoya}You keep using this phrase, "Life Path"  I'm not sure it means what you thin it does {/montoya}

I'll have to look through the Life Modules in ATOW to see what you are talking about..  we covered quite a few of them in the process of creating characters for our current game, and I don't remember too many that threw negative points into edge or cha..

That said, since all the modules are balanced points wise, there is always an upside to that downside..  Unlike the prior rules where your character could get really borked, so your character is getting something to compensate for that negative edge etc..   thing is, if you don't want that downside, you just have to find a way to pay it off..

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Winterborn

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #8 on: 25 January 2011, 23:08:54 »
I meant Life Modules not Path's, I was looking through my old 3rd Ed stuff earlier to help with a char idea and history and I fell back into the whole life path not module lol.

Klat

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #9 on: 26 January 2011, 00:53:36 »
I meant Life Modules not Path's, I was looking through my old 3rd Ed stuff earlier to help with a char idea and history and I fell back into the whole life path not module lol.

I keep using those terms interchangeably myself. While I certainly don't miss the 3rd Ed life path system I've found that it's a great way to kick start ideas for character backgrounds.
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Cannon_Fodder

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #10 on: 26 January 2011, 05:30:16 »
I like the AToW modules. They add a bit of flavor and help with a back story plus it lost those random rolls that I hated about MW3/CBT:RPG. About the only thing I didn't like about AToW over MW3/CBT:RPG is going back to 2D6. The probability curve on 2D6 is pretty steep. You go from impossible to succeed to impossible to fail WAY too quick. I would have been much happier if table top Total Warfare rules came to 2D10 rather then drag the RPG back to 2D6.


A GUI along the lines of SSW would be a godsend for ATOW. All the same I really like the life path\module system because it forces the players to flesh their characters out, though the time it takes can be tough for casual games.
Now that there isn't a random roll at each stage a program to aid in character creation is a lot easier. We just need to sucker.....I mean convince a program to take on the task.

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #11 on: 26 January 2011, 07:13:00 »
There is a program for aToW character's located here http://bthub.net/.
I haven't had the chance to try it yet, so I can't let you know if its 100 percent correct.
« Last Edit: 26 January 2011, 07:15:08 by Conspiracy »

Cannon_Fodder

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #12 on: 26 January 2011, 08:05:50 »
Who made this program? What was their old forum name? Is BTHub Trusted?

Would be nice to know before I go off and run an .exe file downloaded from an unknown source.

The screenshots look great. I hope it is legit.

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Winterborn

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #13 on: 26 January 2011, 09:26:53 »
I downloaded it then sent it trough 2 Malware scanner and 2 antivirus scanners and it came out clean.

Huggybear

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #14 on: 26 January 2011, 12:25:54 »
Can anyone tell a layman to the AToW rpg, if it is similar to Shadowrun rpg? Or is it an entirely different beast altogether? I have yet to see a live copy so I am unfamiliar if it is at least somewhat compatible with Shadowrun.

Peter Smith

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #15 on: 26 January 2011, 12:29:41 »
Can anyone tell a layman to the AToW rpg, if it is similar to Shadowrun rpg?

Nope.

Or is it an entirely different beast altogether?

Yup.
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Bedwyr

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #16 on: 26 January 2011, 13:18:22 »
More specifically it's a 2d6 system.  You roll dice and add and subtract modifiers against a target number.  You have a set of attributes and skills.  The target number depends on whether you are using attributes (not trained in the skill) or skills (trained in the skill).  It's highly compatible with Total Warfare and indeed large chunks of AtoW can be inserted into a Total Warfare game if you wish.
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Carbon Elasmobranch

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #17 on: 26 January 2011, 15:48:54 »
Out of curiosity, has anyone else found that making a character with OCS in the life modules is guaranteed to leave the rest of the character's stats woefully deficient, or is it just me?  Especially if they have a special field; you'll have far less than 1000XP left after taking one tour of duty.

monbvol

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #18 on: 26 January 2011, 19:37:19 »
So far the program seems to be correct and works fairly well but I'm not that deep into testing out various modules.

monbvol

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #19 on: 26 January 2011, 19:40:48 »
Ah just found the first hitch.  It seems to be missing Military School.

Daryk

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #20 on: 26 January 2011, 19:55:39 »
Who made this program? What was their old forum name? Is BTHub Trusted?

Would be nice to know before I go off and run an .exe file downloaded from an unknown source.

The screenshots look great. I hope it is legit.
Norton gives the site an "unknown" rating, which is enough to dissuade me from downloading any exe's, regardless of how interesting the program sounds.

monbvol

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #21 on: 26 January 2011, 20:05:13 »
Well Norton is pod 6.

There are missing modules and the maximum number of modules seem to be a bit screwed up but overall it isn't bad.

Cannon_Fodder

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #22 on: 27 January 2011, 00:24:54 »
Who made this program? What was their old forum name? Is BTHub Trusted?

Would be nice to know before I go off and run an .exe file downloaded from an unknown source.

The screenshots look great. I hope it is legit.
Norton gives the site an "unknown" rating, which is enough to dissuade me from downloading any exe's, regardless of how interesting the program sounds.
Well with monbvol and winterborn not having an issue with it I may load it on a backup machine that I don't keep on my network.

The Wordpress blog on the site only only dates back to Nov with no comments on blog entries. I know blog dates can also be faked. Grammatical and spelling errors in the posts. Plus I have been pretty active in the BTech forums over the time this project has been going on so I was surprised I didn't hear anything about it. Then add in the forum hack I am a lot more gun-shy then I would normally be.

EDIT: Also the public forum is in Russian has no posts or topics.
« Last Edit: 27 January 2011, 00:27:07 by Cannon_Fodder »

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #23 on: 27 January 2011, 03:12:08 »
Norton gives the site an "unknown" rating, which is enough to dissuade me from downloading any exe's, regardless of how interesting the program sounds.

Well with monbvol and winterborn not having an issue with it I may load it on a backup machine that I don't keep on my network.

The Wordpress blog on the site only only dates back to Nov with no comments on blog entries. I know blog dates can also be faked. Grammatical and spelling errors in the posts. Plus I have been pretty active in the BTech forums over the time this project has been going on so I was surprised I didn't hear anything about it. Then add in the forum hack I am a lot more gun-shy then I would normally be.

EDIT: Also the public forum is in Russian has no posts or topics.

If you want to play with it I'd recommend using virtual PC 9or sun virtual box), setup a basic system with no personal data etc.  enable undo disks, after you download the exe change the settings to remove the network card, don't give it access to usb or any shared resources.   You now have a clean isolated sandbox to play in, when done, have it discard the changes to the disk and it's like nothing ever happened.
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Cannon_Fodder

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #24 on: 27 January 2011, 04:58:37 »
If you want to play with it I'd recommend using virtual PC 9or sun virtual box), setup a basic system with no personal data etc.  enable undo disks, after you download the exe change the settings to remove the network card, don't give it access to usb or any shared resources.   You now have a clean isolated sandbox to play in, when done, have it discard the changes to the disk and it's like nothing ever happened.
or just use the 12 year old computer I have with a newly formatted hard drive.

But what's the point? If I can't trust the program developer why bother toying with it. It nice to look at but I wouldn't trust it to make characters correctly, would never hook it to my network so I couldn't use my network printer.

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Daryk

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #25 on: 27 January 2011, 06:11:25 »
...
EDIT: Also the public forum is in Russian has no posts or topics.
The way the English was constructed made me suspect that.  I have nothing against Russians in general, but quite a bit of cybercrime is based there.  Even if the site itself was legitimate, it might be hijacked by others.

Cannon_Fodder

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #26 on: 27 January 2011, 07:09:13 »
Well hopefully somebody will see the GUI program and get inspired to take up the project thats a little more trustworthy.
« Last Edit: 27 January 2011, 07:11:57 by Cannon_Fodder »

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #27 on: 28 January 2011, 01:07:54 »
Just downloaded, and am running it right now.  It seems to work, so far.   :P

Klat

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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #28 on: 28 January 2011, 01:19:40 »
The program seems a bit rough to me right now. Perhaps a later version will be better but for now I don't care to use it. All the same YMMV and my computer didn't blow up or send any money to anyone in Moscow so I'd encourage folks to give it a whirl.
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Re: First up: Comments on character creation
« Reply #29 on: 28 January 2011, 01:23:55 »
Yeah, it's a bit...  Quirky.  But, hey, it's better than nothing.

 

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