What? ???
The existing rules cover a large number of starting "factions" (if you include sub-affiliations, which is the only way you get to 50).
In the 3050 era alone, we have seventeen clans, five great houses, the FedCom, three major periphery powers, Comstar, Word of Blake, Pirates and Dark Caste, and the generic Minor and Deep Periphery. Once you add in other eras, you have the RWR, the TA/TH, the Great Houses, the various other Periphery powers....in the Age of War, Star League and Dark Age era - each of these being different enough to warrant major changes form a 3050 baseline. We also have a plethora of minor factions such as the Brotherhood of Randis, the various mercenary groups, and so on -and that is before we even start to count the sub affiliations, Clan Mongoose and so on.
You might want to dispute the number by nitpicking over what exactly is a faction - but, however you want to cut it, BT has a LOT of groups and factions players can belong to, a lot of groups that need to be described and statted. And AToW doesn't really do justice to many of them
I really do think the existing system works quite well.
It doesn't. It is overly complex and poorly explained. It is offputting to new players, many of which are not willing to do the math involved.
It is simple math - they aren't willing to do it. And I can't blame them
A character creation system that drives players away is not, to my mind, working well.
I'm fully in agreement that it creates nicely detailed characters. I just say that a Lifepath system that takes up over fifty pages...and is still incomplete because it doesn't include all backgrounds (and cannot)...and which drives players away because they are not willing to deal with the math involved is NOT a system that should be embraced. It could create the best characters around, but if it drives players away, it is still a system that is not fit for purpose.
Players, IME, will run with a point based system. They understand the concept of paying for something. of having a pool to be divided.
Players, IME, will deal with quite complex math as part of the character creation process.
Players, IME, are quite willing to spend an hour or more creating their characters and developing their back stories.
And Players, IME, will not sit down and start adding up 5XP here, 3 XP there, take away 35XP there, add 200XP there, sum it up after an hour, discard the remainder and start again.
Some will, especially if they are aware of the BTU...but most won't.
So - no...the life path system does NOT work well.
Add in that it takes up more than FIFTY pages, nor counting Traits and Skill, and as far as I can see...there is no argument for keeping it at all.
BT has too many factions, too many eras, too many backgrounds and end archetypes for a Lifepath system to be viable. It is too math heavy. It is badly laid out and poorly explained in book but even fixing the issues with layout cannot change that as a character creation system, it is largely as failure. Not because it doesn't work...but because it deters players from playing the game.
The system is overly and unnecessarily complex.
It is offputting to new players.
It takes up far too many pages in a game where critical information and rules are already on the cutting room floor.
And it does nothing that a more compact and simpler character creation system does not do.
AToW has many flaws - and the character creation system is one of the biggest.
Whether it works well or not is actually irrelevant.