Homebrew Diary: Copper Coins! Character Creation Steps
Posted: June 18, 2011 Filed under: Copper Coins!, Homebrew, Other Systems, RPG 2 Comments »Character Creation in Copper Coins! is pretty simple. In fact it’s about as simple as I could make it.
Barring non-rules steps (coming up with a backstory, knowing what your character is like), it goes like this.
1. Pick a class. There’s four of them (well…) and they’re fairly open-ended archetypes.
2. Are you okay with the default Perk choices? If not, pick 1 combat and 1 adventure perk.
3. If you want to, roll the class’s Wealth die. If not, just stick with its normal starting Wealth.
4. Buy a weapon and armor. There’s not many anyway, but I wanted to give a choice rather than just foist it on you.
5. You are done! You’re pretty much ready to play. Go come up with a story now.
I could actually eliminate a step with the equipment-buying so it would just be “pick a character class” in essence, since the default Perk choices are simple, functional and good. But I couldn’t squeeze it into the sheet plus I don’t want to go like “clerics always use maces” and “rogues always use daggers” and give some choice in the matter instead.
Most of the depth of play is external to the character classes. For example, the Strike system allows any class to inflict any penalty upon any enemy. You just have to whack them with a Strike and convert the Strikes on the enemy character into a condition. Every character can do this, external of their character class, even the monsters can do this (although monsters are actually limited to dealing specific, appropriate conditions). Similarly, any character can spend Expedition Points on Expedition Boons. More than character creation and character power advancement, Copper Coins! is about playing the game, in the moment.
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How many perks are there by now? How many could a single character take (given unlimited resources)?
There are currently 7 combat perks and 7 adventure perks. There’ll be more, I’d like to have 15 of each, but on Alpha only 7 and 7. Each Perk has 3 benefits: the Primary benefit you start with, then the Professional and Paragon benefits you can earn by making good use of your Perk.
The thing is, they’re not actually bought with resources. There’s nothing like XP. You start with one of each, and you advance them by playing to their styles – they have associated skills, resources and courses of action, and basically if you use one a lot, you advance it.
If you do other stuff, you can qualify to take a new Perk at Primary, again if you worked toward it by playing in the style that befits that Perk, using the resource that Perk likes, etc.
You’ll usually advance like once per Expedition, more if the GM wants, less if the GM wants. When the GM calls for a “Character Development” moment, you’ll get an advancement of some kind.