Meta-Mechanics Worth Stealing

[Master of the Game]

Has anyone put together a lifepath system for D&D? (I assume they have...)

Funnily enough I'm working on this in another window...

 

[Land Outcast]

Funnily enough I'm working on this in another window...

Care to share? here (when finished), or at a thread at House Rules (no matter the stage it is in, you can finish it there... maybe even get suggestions)

 

[Land Outcast]

The other meta-rule I LOVE that hasn't been mentioned so far was Underground's "Changing the World" mechanics.

Oh... someboy explain?

 

[Frostmarrow]

I wasn't aware of that one. Vampire recommends that you play out clairvoyant dreams with expendable characters? I may have to give that a go...
How did a "Drop your weapon..." card save you from being eaten by a byakhee?

Sorry about that, but the Drop your weapon-card gives you a take 20 intimidate check opportunity. I yelled at it and it hesitated for a moment allowing me to escape into a crown. The Byakhee was content with eating some random guy instead...

 

[mmadsen]

My goal is to write up the history for the setting, and then when rolling your lifepath, you roll to see how you were involved in specific major events in the timeline. This way, even newbies will know SOMETHING about the game world just because they rolled up that they were involved in such and such a battle, or witnessed it, or their friend died there, etc..

Roll, roll, roll. "Apparently my father died in the Clone Wars..."

 

[Pbartender]

Roll, roll, roll. "Apparently my father died in the Clone Wars..."

Roll, roll, roll. "Nice! I inherited a magic ring from my uncle!"

 

[mmadsen]

Roll, roll, roll. "Nice! I inherited a magic ring from my uncle!"

Hehe. Yeah, this sub-thread could quickly spiral out of control. Suffice to say, I love the idea of a life path with game-world history built into it.

(Addendum: I spawned a new thread for amusing life paths.)

 

[HellHound]

I got the idea from the new version of Pendragon, where characters roll to see what their father did in each year to determine when he died, and how much honour he had at the time.

The lifepath gives you a nice little history lesson about the conflicts in the region in the past 40 years, and helps the character feel attached to his family and fiefdom.

I just figured moving that over to the character proper instead of dear old dad would work well. Especially for a cyberpunk / futureshock RPG where the players start out knowing tragically little about the setting.

 

[Pbartender]

Hehe. Yeah, this sub-thread could quickly spiral out of control. Suffice to say, I love the idea of a life path with game-world history built into it.

Incidentally, T20 Traveller has a prior history system designed for D20 that would be pretty easy to adapt to other games and settings.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

Incidentally, T20 Traveller has a prior history system designed for D20 that would be pretty easy to adapt to other games and settings.

roll, roll, roll: "I'm dead!? WTF?"