What does Veeky Forums think of lifepath based character gen? Love it? Hate it? A fun subgame that adds depth and bredth to a character or a waste of time that just makes it harder to replace dead PCs and may force you to make a character you don't like?
Also, what systems have good lifepaths? I know Traveller and pic related are supposed to be pretty decent, but I was wondering what else does it well, or even does it at all. Bonus points if it's a fantasy game.
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Seems like a clunky way to do what everything already does.
How so?
it's a good way to get players who aren't good at creating characters have them with a bit more stuff on their sheets other than class, race and numbers
Speaking of Burning Wheel, I can't find a pdf of the codex anywhere. Unabashedly requesting it here because yolo.
It's in the trove in the sharethread, my man. Just got it myself today
I love 'em, but I'm the kind of person who likes to randomly roll for things and then piece together a character that makes sense based on the statline.
>what systems have good lifepaths
The 2d20 ones (MC3e, Conan, Infinity) have pretty good ones. They also give you ways to buy your way through if you don't think a result fits your character.
It's fucking amazing. It helps create a fleshed out character through both lore and mechanics. The natural organic feeling of the process is awesome to get the players into the world.
The Infinity roleplaying game has lifepaths but the process is way longer and feels less engaging than other systems.
Fun, but not fast or hassle-free in any respect.
I don't think anyone would argue that they're fast or easy. I think that the main draw is going through your character's history and watching it take shape, and in the case of more random/involved ones seeing where luck will take you.
Depends on system. I've found most lifepath systems to be faster if not as fast as class-based or point-buy systems
Beyond the Wall has a simple lifepath thing, designed to get you up and running in a couple of minutes.
There's also PDF related, for any TSR D&D/OSR games. I guess you could use it for WotC D&D too, maybe with a bit of tweaking.
As for what Burning Wheel does well, it encourages players to get their characters into trouble, which is great fun.
Classic Traveller's is simple and fast, as is necessary in a game where you can die so quickly. Mongoose stretches it out a lot, but doesn't mitigate the fragility of characters too much, which is a poor decision IMO. But then Mongoose and poor decisions go hand-in-hand.
It's interesting, it forces characters to follow certain routes through life, which makes them fit into the world better than characters can in looser character creation systems. This obviously doesn't make it as suitable when the PCs are supposed to be exceptional/weird/heroic but it works well for stuff like BW or Traveller which are generally more grounded.
Obligatory hot circle chargen crunch made easy and fun link charred.herokuapp.com
although you should really still have the character creation section of the rulebook to hand while using this since you can't see the skills, traits, and requirements of unselected lifepaths with this
You can uncheck "Enforce lifepath requirements" on the settings tab to get full list of lifepaths. Do it in a separate tab to build "backwards" or compare lifepaths.
>What does Veeky Forums think of lifepath based character gen?
Never played one,* but it sounds fun.
*I have played CP2020 but I'm not gonna count that one because the life path it generates has fairly limited influence on your stats.
I've just played mongoose traveller, but I really enjoyed making characters for it. It did wind up going a different way than I intended. I started off trying to be a mercenary, instead I wound up as a successful executive in the robotics industry.
I like lifepaths on the principle of it, but the ones I've seen often give results that are silly or limited somehow. The advantage they give is that the player is forced to think a little about what his character's history is before the game begins (and no, players don't do that on their own, stop pretending). The disadvantage is the above plus time consumption.
This is one of the best things about lifepaths. Once I rolled Skippy, the Luckiest Pirate. He had shit stats and low skills across the board.
Depends on the group I’m with and what they want out of the campaign.
It's great. You can even play just making characters without using them or barely.
I've played with making a super barebones lifepath system and I don't think the problem is that they're limited, it's that too often they have a glut of options and skills that are too finite instead of generalized and robust. It's why I don't like BW.
I'm still trying to balance meaningful choices that define the character without going into that zone where the options are limiting.
I don't like burning wheel's lifepaths because it's all choice driven - it's just a weirder mechanism for building a character you have complete control over. I much prefer something like Traveller where you make some decisions but also don't have total control. It makes the character actually feel more organic.
Same. The little surprises and misfires really make the character feel more alive.
Know any good fantasy games like that? I haven't found one yet.
No, unfortunately. It really irritates me since you'd think that there'd be some sort of demand for that sort of thing, but ti doesn't seems to exist. There are several semi-finished projects to convert Traveller's system, lifepaths included, into a fantasy setting but none of them ever really produced much, other than this obnoxiously tantalizing mockup
Conan 2d20.
Adventurer was completed. Google for Doc Grognard's blog.
I personally love burning wheel, the only downside is that since combat is so deadly no one wants to play it.
>what systems have good lifepaths?
Runed Age/Z-LAND has. Both games are based on the same core system so it's the like the same character creation just in different flavours.
I personally like lifepath systems since you create a whole character and not just their stats. Also, the more random it is, the better, which is why I like the Runed Age one.