I've just finished adding up some of the numbers behind character creation and I wanted to throw them up for discussion and comment.

Homeworlds:

6 Homeworlds, each with 2 +Characteristics and 1 -Characteristic, as well as a Bonus and Fate Point Threshhold.

2 of the bonuses are 200xp Talents (Feral and Forge World). Are the other Homeworld bonuses equivalent to 200xp? Should the Feral World and Forge World get something unique, rather than Talents?

All of the Homeworlds have a Fate Point Threshhold from 1 to 3, except for Feral Worlders which have 1-2, and Highborn which have 0-4. Thoughts?

Here are the numbers on on which characteristics have + and which have -

Strength (1+, 1-)

Toughness (2+,1-)

Agility (1+, 0-)

Intelligence (2+,0-)

Willpower (2+,1-)

Perception (1+,1-)

Fellowship (2+,1-)

Influence (1+,1-)

Backgrounds:

7 backgrounds, each offering 3 to 7 Skills, 3 to 5 talents, 1 to 6 pieces of equipment, and a Bonus.

With skills, something to keep in mind is that due to the starting skills and skill costs being in separate choices, characters can start with characters that have different XP values. An Outcast Assassin only gets the 100xp Acrobatics Skill, but an Outcast Chirurgeon gets the 200xp Acrobatics Skill. Something to keep in mind.

I've also done some math to compare all of these Backgrounds. Each starting skill is worth 1 point. Each talent is worth 1 point per XP cost. Starting equipment is worth (+30 Availability: 1 point; +20: 2 points; +10: 3 points; +0: 4 points; -10: 5 points; etc.). I also counted multiple doses of drugs as a single item, even though the rules as written would count them as multiple items. The Totals represent the overall "value" of the Background. This is obviously inexact, but here are my results

Background Total Skills Talent XP Total Equipment Totals Total Bonus
Administratum 5 900 14 28 All Availability +10
Arbites 4 900 20 33 Add +2 to destroying Cover
Astra Telepathica 3 1400 13 30 Sanctioned Trait
Mechanicus 5 1200 27-28 44-45 Cybernetics Availability +20
Ministorum 5 900 21 35 Fate spent grant +30
Imperial Guard 7 800 22 37 Add +2 for Carrying Capacity
Outcast 7 800 25 40 Add 1 to Characteristics for Fatigued

So do these seem even to everyone? Mechanicus get an okay amount of skills and lots of high XP talents and Equipment, and Astra Telepathic get almost no skills, a lot of talents, but next to no good equipment. Administratum characters also get the shaft.

Here are the numbers for how many times each skill is a starting skill:

Acrobatics 1
Athletics 2
Charm 1
Command 2
Commerce 2
Deceive 1
Evade 2
Investigate 2
Intimidate 2
Linguistics 2
Logic 2
Medicae 2
Navigate 2
Observe 3
Pilot 1
Psyniscience 1
Remembrance 2
Stealth 1
Subterfuge 2
Survival 2
Tech-Use 1

Roles

Every role gets 3 cheaper characteristics and 2 expensive characteristics, 4 cheap skills and 3 expensive skills (except Sage which gets 5 and 4) and a bonus.

This seems pretty fine in terms of balance, although I think the Sage should get knocked down to the same number of skills for the sake of consistency.

Here are the numbers on the Characteristics

Cheap Expensive

WS 2 2
BS 2 2
S 2 2
T 2 2
A 3 2
I 4 2
P 4 1
WP 2 1
F 3 2

And the Skills

Cheap Expensive
Acrobatics 1 2
Athletics 3 2
Charm 3 1
Command 1 1
Commerce 1 1
Deceive 1 1
Evade 2 1
Investigate 2 1
Intimidate 1 1
Linguistics 1 1
Logic 2 2
Medicae 2 1
Navigate 1 1
Observe 2 1
Pilot 1 2
Psyniscience 1 1
Remembrance 3 1
Stealth 1 1
Subterfuge 1 1
Survival 2 1
Tech-Use 1 1

So what are people's thoughts? It looks like the Backgrounds are pretty unbalanced right now, and there's already been a lot of discussion on the Homeworld Bonuses being more flavorful and unique. I'll try to run the numbers on the Background/Role combinations to see what differences in Starting Skill xp come up. I'll also add my own commentary to these numbers after I have some more time to look at and process them, but I wanted to throw them out to the community to take a look at.

While I agree with you that the character creation system might generate characters of varying xp costs, I believe the freedom the system offers in return is worth it, as it would be impossible to actually balance this equally for the various background/role combinations. However, starting equipment and talents should definitely be balanced, as this is a very achieveable goal and currently not quite the case

I think starting XP on skills could be balanced pretty easily by simply having different backgrounds just giving a flat amount of XP to spend (perhaps varying by background) rather than specific skills. That actually gives MORE freedom to the system, and solves the problem.

It kinda eliminates the point of the backgrounds, however, as they're meant to represent training the character has. If you simply replace that with a flat amount of xp, it might become more balanced, but the distinction suffers, since players are invariably going to pick skills fitting their roles, not their backgrounds. I think one of the nice things about backgrounds is that it allows you to start with a couple of skills outside of your role, broadening the tools at your disposal.

Backgrounds would still be important because they would provide a set of thee unique (in most cases) bonuses and traumas/malignancies.

As with nimsim, I would favor a more open system. I'm good with (example) the "Highborn" world origin giving you the unique ability to lose less influence along with the writhing phobia. But I'd favor making skills, talents, and equipment more like "all characters pick 5 skills, pick 4 top-tier talents, and pick six pieces of equipment of -10 or better."

If that's too open for the game designers, I'd offer the compromise of at least loosening it up a little bit. Have each of the three origins give 1 skill, 1 talent, and 1 special, and bringing the PC's back up to the current chargen level by giving them open slots (e.g. "pick one weapon skill talent") or just, as nimsim suggests, more experience to spend.

As a compromise,

Alright, here are the numbers on different XP values. These numbers reflect the amount of XP that starting skills are worth based on background/role choice.

Adeptus Administratum: Average=721.43 Standard Deviation=116.3 Lowest=550 Highest=900 Range=350

Adeptus Arbites: Average=587.5 Standard Deviation=58.25 Lowest=500 Highest=700 Range=200

Adeptus Astra Telepathica: Average=431.25 Standard Deviation=70.39 Lowest=300 Highest=500 Range=200

Adeptus Mechanicus: Average=743.75 Standard Deviation=41.73 Lowest=700 Highest=800 Range=100

Adeptus Ministorum: Average=725 Standard Deviation=70.71 Lowest=600 Highest=800 Range=200

Imperial Guard: Average=1031.25 Standard Deviation=84.25 Lowest=900 Highest=1150 Range=250

Outcast: Average=1043.75 Standard Deviation=94.25 Lowest=900 Highest=1150 Range=250

The ranges are pretty important. Having a difference between starting characters of up to 350xp is pretty big. That's nearly an entire sessions worth of play!

Assassin: Average=771.429

Chirurgeon: Average=735.714

Desperado: Average=778.571

Hierophant: Average=742.857

Mystic: Average=750

Sage: Average=757.143

Seeker: Average=757.143

Warrior Average=757.143

Average XP for Roles: 756.25

Standard Deviation of XP for Roles: 13.996

Lowest XP Average for Roles: 735.714 (Chirurgeon)

Highest XP Average for Roles: 778.571 (Desperado)

Range of XP for Roles: 42.857

So the Roles are a bit closer in value for XP, but there is still up to a 43 point difference, which is close enough to round to 50 points, a minor XP award.

I don't think it's right for some characters to get a bonus in XP just because of the combination they chose. The two solutions I can think of would be to just give a different backgrounds XP to spend on skills rather than specific skills, or to have backgrounds give both starting skills and skill XP costs, and roles give starting talents and characteristic costs, etc. What do people think of those solutions?

How exactly did you figure out the costs for the roles, since they give you nothing except an ability and aptitudes?

I calculated the average value of each combination of role and background. So for Assassin, I would take the value of Assassin and (Administratum, Arbites, Telepathica, Mechanicus, Ministorum, Imperial Guard, and Outcast) and average all of those. I did that for each role.

Ah, okay. So if you look at the numbers from the perspective of roles, they are fairly close, but there is wider discrepance from the PoV of the backgrounds, I see.

Yes, but keep in mind that the Roles are less unbalanced because they're separated out a degree from the backgrounds in my math. However, if the Backgrounds get balanced, the Roles will become balanced as well.

A good piece of work !