Simplifying traits

[Morrus]

This is just an idea right now. Something I'm toying with. I've felt the descriptor is a bit cumbersome for a while now. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

This is what a character's descriptor looks like in my current O.L.D. iteration (so it applies to the other games, too).

NAME is a AGE ATTRIBUTE RACE TRADITION who TRAIT
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NAME. This is the character's name.
AGE. Age has lost its associated exploits, but still remains part of the descriptor for flavour purposes.
ATTRIBUTE. You have one attribute trait based on your highest or lowest attribute.
RACE. Your race.
TRADITION. Your current tradition.
TRAIT. A broad phrase which covers personality/interests/background elements but cannot be used for combat.

The main changes you'll see is that the two bonus hobby/trivia skills are gone and have been replaced by the trait, and that Age is now only a flavour descriptive item.

TRAIT could be:

... who loves animals
... who climbs mountains in her spare time
... who is fascinated by military history
... who runs a small farm
... etc.

The trait works exactly like a skill. It's basically a very broad skill. It cannot help you in combat, though - it will never affect an attack or damage roll. Otherwise, it grants +1d6 to the dice pool when relevant.

It takes the place of a skill, so you can't use a trait and a skill at the same time. And it's only 1d6, so a trained skill will likely be better.

The GM decides whether or not your trait is applicable to a situation.

Hikaru is a nimble adult human pilot who has a passion for botany.

Gardolph is an erudite old human wizard who plays with fireworks.

Templeton is a persuasive adult human con-man with a weakness for the ladies.

Jean is a commanding middle-aged human captain with a penchant for literature.




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[LucasC]

Are you dumping Age exploits altogether?

 

[Morrus]

Are you dumping Age exploits altogether?

I might do. I currently find them a bit arbitrary..

 

[LucasC]

I like the concept of age having a character impact, but I am not a huge fan of the exploits. My players all wanted to be an age different than what their Career-derived age suggested anyhow, but with game stats tied to it, I had to approach allowing that cautiously.

 

[LucasC]

BTW, I like the general simplification that seems to be suggested above.

Characters will end up with one attribute trait, some sort of background, and some Universal Exploits if I read it right...

 

[Morrus]

I like the concept of age having a character impact, but I am not a huge fan of the exploits. My players all wanted to be an age different than what their Career-derived age suggested anyhow, but with game stats tied to it, I had to approach allowing that cautiously.

My vision was always that you'd play a character through his/her life, with big downtime periods, and the character would age. Like Kirk did, and like the Star Wars cast will have done come December. And I wanted the players to feel that, but not by penalizing them.

 

[RisTigger]

I like this idea of a simple personality trait. It simplifies the system, making it easier on players and feels more freeform. Getting rid of the age exploits, I have mixed feelings. It's probably good for balancing to get rid of them, but I liked the idea of them. Maybe you could try to make them more low impact?

 

[Nidrog]

I personaly really dont like the idea of making attribute traits just one trait that you can chose. I do like the whole picking one high and one low. It kinda makes characters more intresting sense you have these choises. I mean I play Vera in Ristigger's campaign and yeah I'd never go to space moe's before getting the alcoholic exploit.