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Post by ilina on Apr 19, 2016 19:53:00 GMT -8
i typically play faeries that impersonate 12-14 year old human females, but faeries can really be any age. but here is why i default to that. playing a real child or elder is going to get your character killed quickly either due to the reduced pool of points to spend for being young or the reduced physical ability of old age. i personally believe that there are better alternatives to giving the child fewer points or the elder lower physical stats and i wanted your feedback as well as any alternate methods you have devised for your tables.
while i am fine with age based modifications for NPCs. i prefer that for PCs, that the player take thier characters age and size into account when assigning thier points. an elder probably spent less of thier points on physical features and spent the difference on mental ones, while a child probably doesn't have a crazy high strength or toughness, but might have agility from thier small frame, stamina from the vigor of youth, or the charm of innocence. said child would have mediocre to average ratings in most skills with 1 or 2 as focal points. using Savage Worlds as an example, 1, maybe 2 easily trainable skills at a d8 based on background, a handful at a d6 and a bunch at a d4. children generally haven't chose thier defining focus yet, so they pick up a smattering that is mostly forgotten or retrained upon adulthood. same pool, different distribution. in fact, a child is far more likely to have a few recreational skills that fade from lack of use from teenage years to adulthood. some skills might not even be available to children from specifc regions such as firearms or surgery.
what are your opinions on this method? what methods would you insert?
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Post by jonas on Apr 19, 2016 20:58:42 GMT -8
I usually do as you do: tell my players to have their characters age in mind and divide skills and stats properly, instead of forcing on age related restrictions.
But I do have players that actually like to pick the Young Hindrance when we are playing Savage Worlds (to get the extra bennie). But I wouldn't mind if I had two players playing young characters, and only one picked the hindrance - people of the same age don't need to be a homogenous group.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
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Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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Post by fredrix on Apr 19, 2016 22:05:50 GMT -8
Point-buy character generation systems are not about re-creating reality. They are about making sure every player starts with an evenly matched character, so that round the table every character gets roughly equal time in the spotlight. Points are thus player facing, nothing to do with the diagesis. So a system that advocates allocating fewer points to younger characters is just being stupid, the designers forgetting why they are using point-buy in the first place.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 19, 2016 22:36:24 GMT -8
Gah, have you never seen 'Home Alone' - children obviously get BONUS points that they loose as they get older . . . Aaron
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2016 23:50:54 GMT -8
All depends on the game but generally I don't care so long as it makes an internal sort of consistency. I've rarely seen people player characters that young as their continual presence during adventures rarely makes sense outside of certain specific settings.
As for which skills, again it comes down to internal consistency and genre. Look at most Young Adult novels and the (typically) teenage protagonists tend to be hyper competent even when their peers are clueless.
My question to any player wanting to play a child would be how do they fit with the group template and the game as a whole?
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 20, 2016 2:33:26 GMT -8
I can answer that - child PC's make good meat shields, strap them to your arm and you're good to go . . . Aaron
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Post by ilina on Apr 20, 2016 8:00:28 GMT -8
child PCs are meant to fill Roles Similar to Anakin Skywalker or Arya Stark. or heck most of the major Characters in Lyrical Nanoha when they start out. most of them are actually hyper skilled as children and i usually treat the young and elderly hindrances or similar things as if they don't exist. you wanna be really young? just distribute your points based on how young you want your character to be while accommodating for skills that might be restricted based on background. a child probably doesn't have more than a d4 or d6 in most skills. but probably has that focus skill they have the d8 in. the difference being that the focus skill is something probably easier for somebody of their background to train. for example, a Schoolyard Bully probably has d8 fighting and d8 strength while likely being brawny. they probably shouldn't start with d10s or d12s.
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Post by Kainguru on Apr 20, 2016 8:49:35 GMT -8
Aaron
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Post by ilina on Apr 20, 2016 10:52:38 GMT -8
child PCs have legitimate Excuses in most campaigns if you coordinate a party around their inclusion. such as a Knight's Squire, a Wizard's Apprentice or the Tagalong that was adopted after a recent rescue in a fantasy game, or the Loli Synth created as a humanoid weapon in a Sci Fi or Supers game.
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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Post by fredrix on Apr 20, 2016 11:22:02 GMT -8
ilina! Right that's it! I'm declaring this forum a "Safe Place"! Will you stop going on about "loli" girls. I don't give a fuck if you think "Loli" is a legitimate word in Otaku culture, it's not. And one look at your "husband's" Facebook page is enough to show that such a word, with its association (on the aforementioned page) with up-skirt images of "loli" girls with swollen pudenda are not a word that can or should should ever be legitimate. I seriously don't even see why you keep going on about your preference for "child-like" body morphology in your characters. Take this thread for example. Pretty much everyone agreed with you that such characters shouldn't be penalised, yet you are still going on about it, and bringing up "loli synths". I honestly don't want to know what goes on in your head, but shut the fuck up about it. Personally I'm convinced that you hang around on these boards fishing for sad old perverts to share pictures with. I may be wrong, but if I'm not: Can we please assume that every one in this community that might be interested has already PM'd you, and will you just pipe down?
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Post by ilina on Apr 20, 2016 11:29:40 GMT -8
i'm going to pipe down for a bit. i am sorry. i will Pipe down and calm down. sorry if i misinterpret the term. i'm a hardcore Otaku and even a Weeaboo. i'm sorry. it isn't sexual reasons for which i play these characters whatsoever. i play them because i am a hard core fan of cutesy anime and have a desire for cute things or to be cute. i am sorry if i come across as annoying or perverse.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2016 11:40:17 GMT -8
child PCs have legitimate Excuses in most campaigns if you coordinate a party around their inclusion. such as a Knight's Squire, a Wizard's Apprentice or the Tagalong that was adopted after a recent rescue in a fantasy game, or the Loli Synth created as a humanoid weapon in a Sci Fi or Supers game. Right, but nobody expects the knight's squire or wizard's apprentice to contribute as much as the knight or wizard does, and it would be kind of jarring if they did. The only time when you'd expect the squire and apprentice to contribute as equal members would be if they're on a team with other young characters, like a Teen Titans thing. Magic doesn't need to work that way, though. Since kids should be inferior to adults in every aspect of the game that is based on our own reality, you can balance them for gameplay by giving them advantages in areas that aren't based on our own reality. Maybe magical power doesn't increase with age, or actually decreases as you get older. Maybe you're young, but you're a young dragon, or from a powerful alien race such that one of their kids is as on par with a human adult. Or if you're playing one of those hippy games, then maybe the player with a young character can get extra narrative control to balance out their lower stats - isn't that what Savage Worlds does?
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fredrix
Master Douchebag
Posts: 2,142
Preferred Game Systems: Fate, L5R, Pendragon, Gumshoe, Feng Shui
Currently Playing: Pendragon, Song of Ice and Fire, L5R, Feng Shui, Traveller
Currently Running: Fate, Coriolis, Nights Black Agents
Favorite Species of Monkey: 1970's NTV, dubbed by the BBC (though The Water Margin beats it)
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Post by fredrix on Apr 20, 2016 11:51:33 GMT -8
[Right, but nobody expects the knight's squire or wizard's apprentice to contribute as much as the knight or wizard does, and it would be kind of jarring if they did. The only time when you'd expect the squire and apprentice to contribute as equal members would be if they're on a team with other young characters, like a Teen Titans thing. Errrr Tintin? young Arthur in The Sword in the the Stone? The kids in the Dark is Rising sequence? Katniss Everdeen? Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island? Most of us don't play games to simulate a (made up) reality, like you do. We play to have fun.
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Post by ilina on Apr 20, 2016 12:11:59 GMT -8
[Right, but nobody expects the knight's squire or wizard's apprentice to contribute as much as the knight or wizard does, and it would be kind of jarring if they did. The only time when you'd expect the squire and apprentice to contribute as equal members would be if they're on a team with other young characters, like a Teen Titans thing. Errrr Tintin? young Arthur in The Sword in the the Stone? The kids in the Dark is Rising sequence? Katniss Everdeen? Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island? Most of us don't play games to simulate a (made up) reality, like you do. We play to have fun. Exactly my point. i like playing Childlike Characters, especially female ones, because i personally haven't grown up, because i identify with a female identity, because i always wanted a younger sister to look up to me, even if i took related traits i can relate towards, because i was raised by women my whole life, and because i am Drawn to the "Moe" Subculture of Anime, where childlike characters use endearment to win the hearts of their audience. i play not to simulate reality, but to play an idealized version of the small and adorable female self i want to be. the self i know i cannot be. Roleplaying allows me to enact the small and adorable female persona i desire to have. maybe childlike is the wrong way too look at it and maybe going too far, i don't like sexualizing my characters, but i do want to be a small and cute female like what is seen in anime. i would willingly drop the childlike portion from my future characters if i am still able to play small statured adult women with cliche adorable anime quirks and a focus on good skincare. it is being small and adorable that matters to me, not really being childlike. if i were exposed to more adorable things outside of anime, i would incorporate them. though i need help coming up with a new term to use.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2016 12:29:28 GMT -8
If you just want to play a character who looks and acts like a young girl, but you still want to be powerful, then you're right on track with the fey. As mentioned, that falls into the category of magic, where we would expect it to not necessarily mirror our own reality.
Other than that, you could probably press your GM into accepting a 14-year-old as a young adult, for the purposes of not suffering age-related penalties. It's a little bit on the young side, but heroes tend to be pretty young anyway, so it's not that much of a stretch.
Or for that matter, you can just play a character who looks young, and continues to play the part, even if she's 30. Some people just have good genes.
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