Expedition RPG Design Diary: Where Have You Been, Old Friend?

Posted: January 26, 2012 | Author: Dennis N. Santana | Filed under: Expedition, Homebrew, Meta, Other Systems, RPG |Leave a comment »

Hey, Expedition is not dead yet! In fact, I’ve gotten a lot of good work done!

(No release date yet, but nearly all the character bits are complete. The GM and Monster sections will, as usual for me, be more complicated to serve. I’m shooting for a spring release of the playtest though.)

A long time ago I wrote an RPG called NAA D6. It was fairly playable if a bit esoteric in places. I liked a lot of the rules of that RPG, and since getting out of that minimalist rut I’d thought to trap myself in, I’ve brought back some of those rules. But today isn’t really about that. Instead, I’m going to post the “tutorial chapter” called “Character Generation Steps” which will summarize the character generation, then post a few examples of what you’ll be looking at in some of the sections. There will be no commentary on it, because I feel I’ve more or less exhausted my design commentary at this point. We sort of know the general goals here by now, and it feels like in each of these post I try to find a fifth leg on a cat for something to say. So here we go.

WARNING: Sword Girls visual spoilers at the end of the post. (Like you care.)

This section will guide you through the basic steps for building your Expedition character.

Step 0: Try to have a character in mind when you read the following section, to inform your decisions. What is this person like? What are his or her talents and goals? Is he or she well known, affluent? Has he or she had a hard life?

Step 1: Choose a character’s Titles. There are three types of Titles: Origin, Talent and Combat. Each will give your character basic but pivotal abilities in the game, as well as provide some inspiration for your character’s story.

Step 2: You have 100 Character Points at the start of the game, and can use these to buy Perks. You can only buy the first ability of any given Perk at character creation. Select Perks you find interesting and might develop in the future. You might want to list how your character earned his or her Perks, but it’s not necessary. Think of them as part of your character’s intrinsic abilities.

Step 3: You start the game with 100 Wealth to buy your starting equipment with. Try to spend as much of this wealth as possible. This is the equipment your character starts the game with – he or she might have inherited it, requisitioned it in the military, found it lying around, or just bought it. Once you’ve spent your starting wealth, you can do whatever you wish with the rest of the Wealth granted by your Titles. (If you have the Affluent Title you begin with 500 instead.)

Step 4: Wrap up your character by writing down the benefits of his or her Stamina Level and Magic Level. Your Titles offer boosts to each of these. Take note of your remaining Wealth and Reputation. Both of these scores can be spent within the game to gain benefits. Your character is essentially complete.

* * *

So let’s slap together some titles and perks and equipment really quick here.

I’ll be making a divine-like character that wears armor and hits people and maybe has a gun if I can swing it.

EXALTED (Origin)

Basic Values: 2 Stamina, 2 Magic, +20 Reputation, +50 Wealth.

Favored Skills: +2 Culture, +2 Strength, +2 Worship, +2 Expression

Life of Worship: You were born into, brought into, or volunteered for a life of religious devotion from a very young age. You are an ordained member of a religious order, initiated into its mysteries. You know divine magic, and one might say you even have a guardian spirit looking out for you. Once per event, you can reroll a single failed roll and use the new result. Once per expedition, at an appropriate time chosen by the GM, your character has vague prophetic vision or dream of future events (the vision must be of something that has a chance to come true), which gives you an Edge point in addition to the cryptic information.

The all-important Exalted title gives not too shabby stamina, magic, rep, wealth and other goodies.

AUTHORITY (Talent)

Basic Values: +1 Stamina

Favored Skills: +1 Awareness, +1 Expression

Great Authority: You are well versed in laws and politics, and can count on your connections to render services to you for less personal cost. Your words, promises and person go farther than others. Boons cost you 10 less Reputation than normal: so Minor Boons cost you 15 Reputation, Major Boons cost you 40, and Greater Boons cost you 90. You can gain two Greater Boons in a single Expedition, if you have the Reputation to afford them, rather than the limit of one. You earn +1d5 Reputation whenever a Deed would award you Reputation.

I’m a magical religious figure, so please listen to me when I ask for something.

SENTINEL (Combat)

Infinite Vigil: You wear the largest armor you can get your hands on, and stay in the fight for as long as you possibly can. You have +10 Armor and +1 Resistance in Heavy Apparel. Bonuses you gain last 1 extra round.

I really want to hear heavy armor even if I can’t afford the very bestest ones at character creation.

SUPPORTER (Perk)

[50 CP]: If you’re a Support character in an event, your successful Support rolls give a +1 bonus to Active characters in addition to reducing penalties by 1

I like being helpful in some situations more than taking charge, and there’s some stuff for me!

IMPROVE MAGIC (Perk)

[50 CP]: You gain +1 Magic Level. The maximum Magic level is 10.

Now both my stamina and my magic levels are at 3. This is nice, though not strictly necessary.

There is actually only one way to get level 10 stamina or level 10 magic, and never both.

Now for my equipment. I have 150 wealth.

Weapon	Cost	Type	Size	Load	Attack	Dmg	Pen.	Glance	Special
Blade	50	Slashing	Any	-4	+3	+1	2	Strike	Reliable

A sword, because why not?

Weapon	Cost	Ammo	Size	Ld	AT	DM	P	Gln	Cap	Special
Smoothbore	40	Pellet	Any	-3	+2	+3	1	Graze	3	Concealed

Everyone should have a gun and smashy bit, it should be the law because it is so cool.

Also everyone starts the game with some free bullets.

I use my remaining wealth for the cheapest heavy armor and the cheapest clothes.

Normally the Greatcoat isn’t all that incredible, but with Sentinel, it’s right up there with armor that costs three times as much as it does. And if I really want to wear the greatcoat all of my adventuring career, I can improve its Quality, which will grant it a few boosts. Quality items are pretty rare, so our little-coat-that-could would likely be as good as plate armor worn by the evil henchmen of that endgame necromancer lich thing we’re gonna be fighting.

As for what Concealed means, since you’ve seen it twice: it means that the enemy can’t judge whether you’re armed or armored well if you’re using concealed-type armor and weapons. So if you’re walking into a situation where it’s imperative that you look unarmed, concealed stuff is the way to go. You wouldn’t think someone in a big coat is that well protected. Of note though – Heavy size weapons cannot be concealed, so when I buy the weapons, I’ll choose to make it all Light size. Light and Heavy is really a matter of which Perks you want to buy. Heavy and Light weapons have different Perks. Oh, we also get some Free rations, water and salves to begin the game but we don’t care about that.

Well, that’s everything I wanted to show you today.

Hmm, what am I picturing here…I guess it’s roughly this.

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