Just wishlisting, I know... but high on my wishlist are optional rules for point but characteristics. I know, people disagree... random is fun/realistic/true to the setting/whatever. I don't care. When I sit down to create a character, I start with a vision of that character is my head. I want to be able to create that vision. Randomly generated characteristics don't support doing that.

Just tossing that out there in the hopes that Ross has already put them in.

Why not just create one? It is easily done (if it takes more than 15 minutes you are overthinking it) and you can easily tailor it to the power level you desire. Remember every single rule in the game is optional if your group wants it to be.

llsoth said:

Actually, I think I've created 3. But, by that same logic, why not create my own Rogue Trader game... or my own 40K RPG? Answer: because I'm willing to pay Ross & Co. $60.00 to do the work (and playtesting... above all, the playtesting!!!) for me.

I do see your point. For the amount they charge for their games you should expect quite a bit. But ...

Well for me anyway the reason why I don't create my own rogue trader game is the enormous amount of work involved, months to years. With an alternate character creation method it is only a few minutes. Since NO game will ever be 100% what you want you have to expect to spend a little time on modifications.

This is not meant to defend mistakes or inadiquacies in a game. In other words if the system is broken in some way then blame the game (no hive world adepts in DH.. why?). I wanted to see more info on trading and the marketplace in DH but DH is not about that soo... it is up to me unless they come up with some supliments.

IMHO with something like a point buy system I would rather make it myself as there is so little work involved and I would get exactly what I wanted.

Of course, since it is unlikely that Rogue Trader is going fall too far from Dark Heresy 's tree, you could always see if Ross/FFG are willing to support a "semi-official" points buy system that they publish to their site, made to look pretty in typical Dark Heresy fashion, and made freely available. Sort of a, "Well, we didn't really want a points buy system for our game, but someone produced this stonking fan interpretation and we thought that it was good enough to be made pretty and made available on our site for other people who might need or want something similar."

Ha, they could even make a micro-competition out of it. Winner gets to, well, erm have their work on the FFG website associated with Dark Heresy and/or Rogue Trader / Deathwatch .

Probably equally as unlikely, but just a thought anyway.

Kage

Or an Apocrypha supplement. They might make more of those.

Aye, that's the kind of thing that I was thinking about. I had forgotten about the Vehicles Apocrypha .

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Which is why those rules need to be collected in a real book. Those, and the Xenos Generator.

As far a chacracter generation goes, I use various methods. Based on AD&D styles, Such as reroll one stat, assign the 2D10 rolls as you like, roll 18D10, add up the points and apply them as you like and so forth.

One player even tried to get me to do the 3D10 drop the lowest, yeah, that didnt work. But I do allow, sometimes, for players to replace any one die with a 10.

They you have shylla's mercy (from WFRP).

I also have all the players roll their Emperor's Tarot and before the assign them I allow them to switch them around.

Variations to the standard rules, like the above, would also be interesting to see collected with various examples characters. The above probably wouldn't entirely suit someone that wanted a true "point buy" system for character generation, though...

Or would it?

Kage

Kage2020 said:

Not this someone. I'm interested in pure point buy, of the "you have X points to divide among characteristics, wounds and fate, with costs for the latter two determined by some arcane calculation." I'm OK with rolls for the Divination thing because it's entirely optional.

Depending on what tactic they take, Ascension might be necessary to fully round out a points buy system...

Kage

This is just an Idea but looking at Dark Hersy ,I think a points system for it should be fairly easy. If 10 is the minimum we should have on a character and 45 is our starting max, we can work out a points system like this: 10 = 0 points, 15 = 1 point, 20 = 2 points, 25 = 3 points, 30 = 4 points, 35 = 5 points, 40 = 6 points and 45 = 7 points. With the average ability running at 30 or 35, you would want 4 or 5 points per ability. With 9 characterisitics you are looking at a point scale between 36 to 45 points. Now you just take this same idea and put it into the Rogue Trader characteristics system once it is available. WHat do you think?

Are "points buy" systems purely about the characteristics, or is it about moving away from the class-based system? I ask merely because it doesn't take much to have statistics on a points buy (as indicated above), but changing towards a more open, template rather than class-based system might be a bit more problematic. (Even then I don't think so, but there we go.)

Erm, anyway.

Kage

Kage2020 said:

I was specifically referring to characteristics, hence the thread title. Moving away from a class-based system to another topic entirely. While I would also like to see that, it moves so far from the essentially "d20 with the serial numbers filed off" nature of the Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader character engine that it would really involve a ground up re-write of the game.

Now, Kage, if you want to have that conversation, just tell me when and where and I will be there.

LuciusT said:

Ah, my bad. "Point buy characteristics" as described is so amazingly simple that I didn't think you could be talking about just that. I mean, decide on how many points you want to spend on a characteristic and you're done. Heck, the only complexity that you might introduce is to have certain characters more or less "expensive" for a given character class.

Again, my bad for the mistake of believing that we were ultimately dealing with something more... expansive. Mea culpa .

/Kage

Kage2020 said:

I didn't say it was hard. I just said I hoped to see it in print in the Rogue Trader rulebook.

Seems that it would be a complete waste of space in a product where people frequently complain about the lack of space and the decisions made to put information in there. But, again, my bad.

///Kage

Kage2020 said:

Frankly, I think putting in the stuff about rolling dice to generate characteristics, randomly determine origins and careers is a waste of space that would be better given over to a clean and simple characteristic point buy system... but I try to be polite to those with differing opinions (unlike some).

LMAO. I think the random generation material is not to my liking either. And while admittedly a points buy approach isn't that much to include... Well, what you want and what you get is another matter entirely.

I'll leave inappropriate comments politeness where they belong, so be well.

Kage

I don't know I'm torn on the whole systems.

I mean point buy is cleaner and more efficent leaving more control of your character in your hands, but also allowing more room for players to exploit the system. It also tends to make very static characters without the fluctuations that you see in a random roll, and sometimes those fluctuations are what make a character so colorful.

At the same time, random gen can lead to super characters, or super-bad characters just on the whims of Lady Luck and dice rolls. You also can't always create the character you want, even if the character isn't designed to be over the top gonzo. Sometimes the dice just don't cooperate with it.

Then there is the concept of point-buy and random rolls combined, which can be interesting, but usually they turn out to be clunky systems that barely fix the issues with the other two.

And multiple systems in the same game just lead to confusion and bulky rules systems.

While I have to agree that the character attribute creation system in Dark Heresy is far from perfect, I would say we just keep it now for all the core rulebooks.

Then when you create the obligitory "optional rules handbook" you can put optional rules in there for things like point buy characteristics.

Deathwatch better be point buy. Can't power fantasy properly with random rolls.

Xathess Wolfe said:

That's one of the reasons that I prefer points-buy mixed with a template based approach. You get the flavour of a class-based system, just without any of the restriction.

Xathess Wolfe said:

Kage

Kage2020 said:

The problem I guess is, what's the agreement with GW say about mechanics and changes to the game system, even "unofficial" ones? My guess with the changes it appears with Rogue Trader in mechanics (if we're extrapulation it properly) that they have free reign with them, but who knows.