Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5290472" data-attributes="member: 80487">Chaosium RuneQuest and Classic Traveller -- even Empire of the Petal Throne, which adds some twists to OD&amp;D -- generate a lot of differences among characters, but they are not &quot;a game of builds&quot; like TFT, or Champions ... or WotC-D&amp;D.&quot;Oh,&quot; you may say, &quot;but that's because they are not about deciding beforehand just what a character is like. They are about 'rolling up' stats.&quot; That is by default true, and quite sufficient. It is not necessary, however.The way I use Marvel Super Heroes -- what the rules books call &quot;character modeling&quot;, if memory serves -- is also not &quot;a game of builds&quot;. If you don't end up with exactly the character you conceived then it's because I have shot down the concept itself. There is no &quot;mechanical&quot; obstacle to going into as much precise detail as your brain is capable of contriving. There is no guarantee, however, that everyone else is going to find every little thing as fascinating as you do.We can do just the same with any of the games above, from OD&amp;D to 4e-- with any RPG, really -- by substituting this methodology for whatever may be the standard one.So, there are at least these two different ways to depart from &quot;a game of builds&quot;. Both can easily produce character sheets with as much detail as the products of builds.The &quot;modeling&quot; approach is rather likely in my experience to produce more detail, precisely because it is not limited by a &quot;detail budget&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ariosto, post: 5290472, member: 80487"] Chaosium RuneQuest and Classic Traveller -- even Empire of the Petal Throne, which adds some twists to OD&D -- generate a lot of differences among characters, but they are not "a game of builds" like TFT, or Champions ... or WotC-D&D. "Oh," you may say, "but that's because they are not about deciding beforehand just what a character is like. They are about 'rolling up' stats." That is by default true, and quite sufficient. It is not necessary, however. The way I use Marvel Super Heroes -- what the rules books call "character modeling", if memory serves -- is also not "a game of builds". If you don't end up with [i]exactly[/i] the character you conceived then it's because I have shot down the concept itself. There is no "mechanical" obstacle to going into as much precise detail as your brain is capable of contriving. There is no guarantee, however, that everyone else is going to find every little thing as fascinating as you do. We can do just the same with any of the games above, from OD&D to 4e-- with any RPG, really -- by substituting this methodology for whatever may be the standard one. So, there are at least these two different ways to depart from "a game of builds". Both can easily produce character sheets with as much detail as the products of builds. The "modeling" approach is rather likely in my experience to produce [i]more[/i] detail, precisely because it is not limited by a "detail budget". [/QUOTE]

Verification