The first thing that you do after you decided on your setting is determining the ruleset. There is a basic rule within tabletop that goes somewhere along the lines of:"Don´t do work yourself that somebody else has already done". I know that my campaign will take place 2500, and there are space stations around, so the first step is to look for ruleset which has these 2 things in it.
Now Diremongoose told me to take a look at http://eclipsephase.com/
Which according to their website has the following features:
Selling Points
For Players
---
After deciding on what ruleset you use, you have to read up on stories that took place in that setting to get a feel for it.
Bla bla humanity almost killed themselves, bla bla only huge cooperations are left bla bla.
Ok I can work with this.
Starting from here, there are 2 ways of continuing.
1. Create the world and then based on this world create the character sheets.
This has the advantage that you get to mess around in the world first and then you can just adjust the character sheets to fit it.
2. Create the character sheets first and then the world.
This allows you to not leave special cases back, or create skills that are only used once.
Since I want a compact character sheet that is clear, I will go with option 2.
Now again, apply the rule from before:"Don´t do work yourself that somebody else has already done" we will take a look at the eclipsephase character sheets:
http://eclipsephase.com/downloads/EclipsePhase_Morphless_Charactersheet_v1.pdf
Going through it:
Character, Background, Actual Age are something that you always need, so these stay on the sheet.
Faction is something I will decide later on, once I have created my world, so this might or might not stay.
Morph, Moxie Points, Rez points are all things I´m not going to use, due to condensed ruleset.
Motivations is always something interesting to have, but I often feel that it limits the character, so I leave that one out.
Armor, Melee Weapon and Ranged weapon stay in, albeit I will only give them easier stats.
The Rep-block will be tracked for the entire party, not on a person to person basis.
Aptitudes are morph stuff, that is not in.
Stats, that is an important point so I will be more descriptive here.
For stats I want a system where there are only 3 states. Average, below average, above average. Again, this is due to not rolling all the time and thus having fixed numbers is not really necessary.
Also I looked at the stat block. While I do really like the stats that they have created, since this RP campaign will not be focused on fighting as much, a lot of the stats are simply not necessary. I´m going to fall back to some of the traditional DnD ones, here explained on an example:
There has been an explosion causing a leak in the Space station:
Your Dexterity will determine how fast you get to the leak. Your Constitution will tell if you fall unconscious from the running or not. Your Intelligence will determine if you find the right spot to put the metal plate on. Your Strength will tell if you can fix the metal plate on the leak. Your Charisma will decide if you can ask somebody else to hold the metal plate on the leak, so you can continue on with your daily business. And since I liked that ability so much from the Eclipse rulest: Your Moxie will determine if you can overcome weaknesses in any of these abilities. It governs your determination to get stuff done.
Positive and Negative Traits, similar to motivations, these can be fun to keep in, but since they limit the character once they are written down, I will keep them off. This doesn´t limit your ability to give them traits.
Gear/Implants/etc. I am tempted to keep that in, to give you more options to define your character. So these stay in.
Psi Sleights, is something I am not going to use so out.
--- Just a quick interlude, that ruleset is amazing. A lot of thought went into it, maybe I have to run a proper campaign ---
Skills as stated before should at least partially be determined by the job you pick. Now here the average rule doesn´t make sense, so I´m going to put them from 0-4. Here is an example what that means when you look at the skill cooking:
0: Cornflakes+Milk = Fire
1: You can make basic recipes like sandwiches, but nothing too complicated
2: You can cook a tasty meal with the right ingredients and a recipe.
3: You are able to improvise missing ingredients and can cook free-form.
4: You can make a tasty healthy meal from toxic waste and old rubber wheels.
There is similar scaling on other skills. Now let´s see what it suggests:
First let´s go through the weapon skills. These will be condensed down to Melee weapons and Ranged Weapons.
Skills I will keep in, I will give without explanation:
Animal Handling, Climbing, Deception, Disguise (merged with Impersonation), Hardware, Infiltration, Intimidation, Investigation, Medicine, Navigation, Programming (merged with Networking), Pilot, Perception, Persuasion, Protocol (maybe), Research.
Looking at these, there are no obvious ones missing, and I should def. be able to build a world around these skills.
The ones that I left out either didn´t fit my setting, or are some that I will not use (like swimming, I hate water levels)
Now at the bottom is an addtional bar filled with Academics, Interest, Profession, Art and Language
I will give everybody the option to pick one, and leave language out. There is only one language in my world.
And with this we are done. Everything on the sheet has been talked about, so let´s put it all together.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxSV-_MTvYsFRE1wdllRTEtkc3M/view?usp=sharing
This is actually a form you can fill in, very nice and easy.
Next up either skills or world generation I will see what catches my fancy...
Now Diremongoose told me to take a look at http://eclipsephase.com/
Which according to their website has the following features:
Selling Points
For Players
- The ability to switch your body at will, from genetically-modified transhumans to synthetic robotic shells, optimizing your character for specific missions. This is something I will probably leave out, we will see.
- The ability to back up your character’s mind and be restored from backup in the case of death--a built-in system of “save points” and functional immortality. That is a cool feature.
- Characters are skill-based, with no classes, so players can customize their team roles and specialize in fields of their choosing. This is exactly what I am looking for. Basically I want everone to pick a job and based on that they get their skills asigned.
- A focused set of psi rules enable some characters to enhance their cognitive abilities. Hmm, I will think about it.
- Playing a role in a secretive and dangerous conspiracy that seeks to save transhumanity. Well you are going to try to save your space station, but that works with me.
- A setting custom-built for numerous scenario types, from faction-based intrigues to high-tech dungeon-crawls, from mind-scarring mysteries to dangerous exploration of alien worlds via wormhole gates. This sounds perfect.
- An eclectic assortment of intriguing factions, from techno-anarchists to future-chasing hypercorps, from soul-trading criminals to uplifted animals. Great
- A range of NPC antagonists to choose from, including rogue AIs, extreme posthuman factions, stand-offish aliens with their own agendas, and transhumans infected and transformed by the virulent Exsurgent virus. So I already get ideas what to throw at you. Hehehehe
---
After deciding on what ruleset you use, you have to read up on stories that took place in that setting to get a feel for it.
Bla bla humanity almost killed themselves, bla bla only huge cooperations are left bla bla.
Ok I can work with this.
Starting from here, there are 2 ways of continuing.
1. Create the world and then based on this world create the character sheets.
This has the advantage that you get to mess around in the world first and then you can just adjust the character sheets to fit it.
2. Create the character sheets first and then the world.
This allows you to not leave special cases back, or create skills that are only used once.
Since I want a compact character sheet that is clear, I will go with option 2.
Now again, apply the rule from before:"Don´t do work yourself that somebody else has already done" we will take a look at the eclipsephase character sheets:
http://eclipsephase.com/downloads/EclipsePhase_Morphless_Charactersheet_v1.pdf
Going through it:
Character, Background, Actual Age are something that you always need, so these stay on the sheet.
Faction is something I will decide later on, once I have created my world, so this might or might not stay.
Morph, Moxie Points, Rez points are all things I´m not going to use, due to condensed ruleset.
Motivations is always something interesting to have, but I often feel that it limits the character, so I leave that one out.
Armor, Melee Weapon and Ranged weapon stay in, albeit I will only give them easier stats.
The Rep-block will be tracked for the entire party, not on a person to person basis.
Aptitudes are morph stuff, that is not in.
Stats, that is an important point so I will be more descriptive here.
For stats I want a system where there are only 3 states. Average, below average, above average. Again, this is due to not rolling all the time and thus having fixed numbers is not really necessary.
Also I looked at the stat block. While I do really like the stats that they have created, since this RP campaign will not be focused on fighting as much, a lot of the stats are simply not necessary. I´m going to fall back to some of the traditional DnD ones, here explained on an example:
There has been an explosion causing a leak in the Space station:
Your Dexterity will determine how fast you get to the leak. Your Constitution will tell if you fall unconscious from the running or not. Your Intelligence will determine if you find the right spot to put the metal plate on. Your Strength will tell if you can fix the metal plate on the leak. Your Charisma will decide if you can ask somebody else to hold the metal plate on the leak, so you can continue on with your daily business. And since I liked that ability so much from the Eclipse rulest: Your Moxie will determine if you can overcome weaknesses in any of these abilities. It governs your determination to get stuff done.
Positive and Negative Traits, similar to motivations, these can be fun to keep in, but since they limit the character once they are written down, I will keep them off. This doesn´t limit your ability to give them traits.
Gear/Implants/etc. I am tempted to keep that in, to give you more options to define your character. So these stay in.
Psi Sleights, is something I am not going to use so out.
--- Just a quick interlude, that ruleset is amazing. A lot of thought went into it, maybe I have to run a proper campaign ---
Skills as stated before should at least partially be determined by the job you pick. Now here the average rule doesn´t make sense, so I´m going to put them from 0-4. Here is an example what that means when you look at the skill cooking:
0: Cornflakes+Milk = Fire
1: You can make basic recipes like sandwiches, but nothing too complicated
2: You can cook a tasty meal with the right ingredients and a recipe.
3: You are able to improvise missing ingredients and can cook free-form.
4: You can make a tasty healthy meal from toxic waste and old rubber wheels.
There is similar scaling on other skills. Now let´s see what it suggests:
First let´s go through the weapon skills. These will be condensed down to Melee weapons and Ranged Weapons.
Skills I will keep in, I will give without explanation:
Animal Handling, Climbing, Deception, Disguise (merged with Impersonation), Hardware, Infiltration, Intimidation, Investigation, Medicine, Navigation, Programming (merged with Networking), Pilot, Perception, Persuasion, Protocol (maybe), Research.
Looking at these, there are no obvious ones missing, and I should def. be able to build a world around these skills.
The ones that I left out either didn´t fit my setting, or are some that I will not use (like swimming, I hate water levels)
Now at the bottom is an addtional bar filled with Academics, Interest, Profession, Art and Language
I will give everybody the option to pick one, and leave language out. There is only one language in my world.
And with this we are done. Everything on the sheet has been talked about, so let´s put it all together.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxSV-_MTvYsFRE1wdllRTEtkc3M/view?usp=sharing
This is actually a form you can fill in, very nice and easy.
Next up either skills or world generation I will see what catches my fancy...
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