Why PCs should be competent, or "I got a lot of past in my past"

[aramis erak]

Ringworld has specials but not crits if I'm remembering correctly.

checking.
Yup, you're almost right. I was wrong... but looking at it...
It has Special Success, Success, Fail, and Special Fail - but no impale chance. It also has 1/5 success chance for SS, and 1/5 Fail Chance for SF.
The effects of Special Success are actually those of Critical in most BRP games; special fail those of Crit Fail in most.
It's as odd as Pendragon...
Oh, and the minimum failure chance reduces from 96-00 by 1 per full 100 over 500...
Yeah, it envisages characters with skills into the multiple hundreds.

 

[Thomas Shey]

checking.
Yup, you're almost right. I was wrong... but looking at it...
It has Special Success, Success, Fail, and Special Fail - but no impale chance. It also has 1/5 success chance for SS, and 1/5 Fail Chance for SF.
The effects of Special Success are actually those of Critical in most BRP games; special fail those of Crit Fail in most.
It's as odd as Pendragon...
Oh, and the minimum failure chance reduces from 96-00 by 1 per full 100 over 500...
Yeah, it envisages characters with skills into the multiple hundreds.

Yeah, it had stuck out at me at the time because of the differences there (and the sort-of interesting endless melee round approach).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think these folks, and you, both miss the actual point. D&D starts with relatively inexperienced characters because character power growth is a thing that some/many people like to engage in. And the lower you start on the power curve, the longer the game can go with growth of power.

If you want a game in which folks start competent, and don't grow much in power over time, may I direct you to Fate? Other rulesets (like Gumshoe, Cortex, and others) also have similar characteristics.

Honestly, most superhero games also have the characters start competent, and growth in power is very slow and usually not the point.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Baldur's Gate 3 handles things similarly. Most characters available in Act I are experienced and powerful, but their current plot-related affliction has stunted their capabilities.

Video game sequels with established protagonists also often use a similar conceit. Most Zelda games, for example. Of course in a TTRPG you'd have to be ok with that level of GM force.

 

[Corinnguard]

Honestly, most superhero games also have the characters start competent, and growth in power is very slow and usually not the point.

It would be neat if there was a superhero game where the characters were just learning their powers and were not completely competent in them yet.

 

[Umbran]

Honestly, most superhero games also have the characters start competent, and growth in power is very slow and usually not the point.

Yep. The current supers game that has most of my interest is the Sentinels Comics RPG. It has no "character advancement" in the classic sense.

If the character has gone through some stuff, and the player feels that should mean some mechanical changes, the players is directed back to the character generation system - you are okay to go back and remake your character as you see fit. But that won't entail a rise in outright power.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Another thing to consider here is which areas your character is particularly competent at. Some characters are going to particularly competent in combat thanks to whatever class/subclass they happen to start out at 1st level, but they aren't going to do well at exploration or socially interacting with others. Other characters are going to be particularly competent at helping the party find the quickest and safest route from point A or B, or they are very good at convincing others in order to get intel or giving up their money. But they aren't going to do well in a fight.

A solo hero has to strive to be competent at combat, exploration and social interaction. A group of heroes otoh can complement one another in these areas. One of them might not be good at combat, but there is someone who is in their group who is. And so forth. A group also has the advantage of learning from one another.

In WotC 5e though,every PC is particularly competent in combat.

 

[Corinnguard]

In WotC 5e though,every PC is particularly competent in combat.

Ditto for Level Up. I read in another thread on Level Up that the Fighter is much like 5e's Battle Master subclass thanks to the increasing number of Combat Traditions in this RPG. What makes the Level Up Fighter different from 5e is that it's the Battle Master plus a subclass.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Travellers lifepath character creation minigame was superlative, though maybe too detailed for DnD. Backgrounds go part of the way towards it, and Kevin Crawford has essentially a Life path system.

Love life paths! And there's no such thing, IMO, as "too detailed for D&D".

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again, I've never had a problem with 1st level preventing the inclusion of relevant backstory that is actual story with events with allies, foils, contacts, villains and mysteries. You can always have NPCs in the backstory show up and do something plot related. All it precludes is you being powerful, which I do recognize is a deal breaker for some people. But you could totally do Firefly where all the characters are 1st level to start and not already badasses without any real changes in the backstory.

I think "leveled" characters as starting characters works better for gritty campaigns than fantasy campaigns where "levelling" up is colored as a realistic increase in experience. For one thing, it works hard against the typical fairy tale tropes and bildungsroman that is the basis of so much fantasy literature to do that in fantasy. For another, too much backstory and too established of a life raises the question of why the character is suddenly going to make new best friends. For another, the levelling up in a gritty setting probably involved doing mundane things like going to college or working a trade that doesn't actually make for interesting story.

But as a general rule, you should always start the story when it is about to become interesting.

And also as a general rule, how much backstory is valuable to a campaign depends entirely on how many players you have. If you just have one player, the whole campaign is about their backstory and personal goals. If you have two or three players, then the campaign can be heavily influenced by each player character's personal goals and backstory. By the time you get up to six or eight PCs, backstory is secondary to the group goals.

First of all, I don't believe that characters like the ones in Firefly (for the most part) could possibly by considered 1st level at the beginning of the series, if for no other reason than that parts of their backstories would absolutely have leveled them if they had been done on-camera (ie., in-game).

Secondly, all of this assumes that "telling a story" is what you're trying to do. I see TTRPGs more as depicting people in an imaginary world.