 July 31, 2015 - 8:44pm | This originally came up in talking about D&D, but I think it could apply here, too. Do any of you have familes of PCs? That is, say you had character Abc that played long enough to retire, so you say/write something about "marries NPC Xyz, has kids, bought a house on Gran Quivera." Some later game, you play the son/daughter of Abc & Xyz. And maybe that one's child. It came up in D&D, because I remember having characters that retired from hitting level limits, and/or winning a castle somewhere and settling down. I remember (20+ years ago) writing up names for children of a character, and setting aside those names for later use. I never actually did that, but I certainly intend to next time. So, I figured people playing this game may have been at it for long enough that your characters have had offspring, how about it? |
 August 1, 2015 - 4:14am | I know of one person around here who has played 2nd generation PCs but I let him explain that as I don't really know the details. I had a character concept that I briefly played in a game that I loved but the game was cut short and I latter brought that PC back as an NPC- not necessarily as the same character but simply as a new character with the same name and skills, a defrocked yazirian priest kicked out of Fo1, who's lost his faith in what he believed in and will struggle to find his faith again over the course of play. He's started the Volturnus series twice perhaps I should explore the character through fiction to get him out of my system. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 August 1, 2015 - 1:44pm | I have a second generation character...the illegitimate son of my primary character when said primary got a little too skilled to be fun & challenging anymore. Junior is teamed up with Rinny from the crashed Hepplewhite ship sample scenario, with his back story being placed in foster care with a yazirian clan (along with the rescued Rinny) while the primary was off making a name for himself. Once I began playing the secondary, the primary ended up serving as an influencing NPC for the bulk of my camaign. Coincidentally I'm developing the primary character's father as well in my Historic Adventures project. |
 August 1, 2015 - 2:45pm | In the old D&D rulebooks, they note that players need to establish a beneficiary for the money and magic items they collect, and the inheritor should not be the replacement character out of hand — it is assumed that it goes the the character's family. Unfortunately, old-school D&D is not known for encouraging deep character background at the get-go, as adventurer mortality rates at low levels — actually, any level, really — is really high! There was a chronic level of "Bob XXVII" (the cousin of Bob I, 27th removed) type characters with no real background or personality. Although, 5e did great work to add rules that encourage character backgrounds. Although, I — as GM — do encourage players to give some background to their characters, that would allow the players to give greater life to characters beyond the generic "I'm a Human Tech" description, and to allow me to better accommodate the scenarios based on the character's fears and motivations (as well as to exploit their flaws). I like to give players a PC Q&A about their character (with notes for female players to keep it simple, as they tend to go way overboard with family info that reads like an old Nordic epic.) Questions include:
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August 2, 2015 - 12:16pm | Malcadon, I have a few of those questionnaires on file, too. I used one my current Pathfinder game-- I got OK answers from one player, great answers from another, and never received replies from the other 4. Guess who's character is getting the plot hooks to look for? I did like reading the 5e background things, but since I've only played a few one-shots of that, it hasn't registered completely. I started to wander off topic on this response, so I'm going to make a separate post on that. Instead, I will ask: does anyone think that fantasy RPGs (read: D&D, of course) lend themselves to thinking dynastically more than than SF? In the back of my head is the fact that my favorite D&D setting (still run in it) is Birthright, in which the PCs might have inherited a magic bloodline, and sketchy rules are available for passing that bloodline, as well as one's realm, on to heirs. |
August 3, 2015 - 1:54am | Instead, I will ask: does anyone think that fantasy RPGs (read: D&D, of course) lend themselves to thinking dynastically more than than SF?
I imagine the answers will vary depending upon which edition of D&D is being compared. 1e AD&D or classic boxed sets, you probably won't get much. Later editions where an entire evening is spent resolving a single encounter while determining which fingernail gets chipped and other finite events, well the details probably favor those players a little more. |
August 3, 2015 - 2:37pm | Interesting you should say that. It's only been in later years/editions that my characters or my groups have been lasting very long. I think in high school and college, games lasted only a few sessions (one exception), even though we sometimes played every week-- translated to no more than a few levels in AD&D. After college, once we'd settled into grown-up jobs and houses, we started playing less often (soon became monthly), but the games started lasting more than a year (12 sessions). My last 5 D&D campaigns have each gotten to 13th level or so in 3-5 years of play. Meanwhile, not-D&D games seem to last only a year or less (again, one exception). Longer games = more attention or attraction to individual characters? More likelihood of wanting to think about that character's life after adventuring, and to think about their legacy or progeny? That's my experience, anyway-- YMMV. |
August 4, 2015 - 12:46pm | True, an actual campaign would also enable more details over a few sessions of basic play. |
August 24, 2015 - 2:59am | I stumbled across this...perfect timing for the topic at hand: http://ssknightowl.20m.com/photo2.html |
August 28, 2015 - 12:19pm | I had completely forgotten about that page, I made so many 20m.com sites back in the day. I think they have been disabled since 20m went to pay-only format as they were free sites, I can't access them and I have the passwords to each one written down at my desk. As such I have not paid much attention to them in years. |
