House Rules

[vertigo25]

Has anyone done any tweaking to the rules yet?

I'm a big fan of character driven story, and games that have mechanics that actually make it a part of the game (like, say, Spirit of the Century). I'm also big in to "heroic" characters that have an advantage over typical NPCs.

To that end, I've implemented a small change in char gen that also effects task resolution.

After initial character generation, the players choose a "Motivation" for their character, two advantageous "Traits" and one negative "Trait."

Motivation would be what drives the character. Things like revenge, love, etc.; but with a somewhat specific focus: e.g. "Revenge against the corporation who stole my one true love from me," or "Love of discovery."

Traits would be a bit like advantages and disadvantages in GURPS, but should be tied to the events and mishaps that happened in the char gen process (or at least fit in with the back story of the character).

Motivation gives the character a +1 to any roll where they are directly doing something within their motivation. The GM is final arbiter on this. In addition, the GM can attempt to compel the character to do something due to his motivation. The player can attempt to bypass that, however, by making a standard attribute check with the appropriate attribute at a -1.

Traits work in a similar fashion, but can not be used to compel the character. Advantageous traits bestow a +1 in appropriate situations, and negative traits a -1. Again, GM is final arbiter.

These are all cumulative with your standard roll. So a character can have the bonuses or penalties for their skill level, attribute, trait, and motivation all in any given roll. With the one caveat that only *one* trait may be invoked at any given time.

Thoughts?

 

[Stormraven]

I've come up with one house rule, at Character Creation. Players roll an extra 2d6. They can take points from that roll to either increase stats (Maximum increase of 2 in any one stat, no more than two stats affected.) and/or as 'Luck' during character creation, allowing them to make rolls they would otherwise fail, as long as there are points in their 'luck' pool to bring the roll up to a success.

They can also spend one point from there to re-roll events or injury rolls.

 

[mhensley]

I'm probably going to be starting up a game either this week or next and I'm trying to work out my house rules right now as well.

Reroll one's when rolling for stats - makes for a bit better pc's

Fate points (spend one to survive a lethal injury) - stolen from wfrp. These are given at character creation and they depend upon the number or terms you go through-

1-2 terms : 4 fate points
3-4 terms : 3 fate points
5-6 terms : 2 fate points
7-8 terms : 1 fate point
9+ terms : 0 fate points

You also lose a fate point if you suffer a mishap during a term. This makes pc's a lot harder to kill and also gives them another reason not to push for a 60 year old character.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I use, and have always used, a "roll 3D, take the best 2" approach for character creation. I then let the player assign the rolls to characteristics as desired.

Also, during character creation, they can roll the dice THEN pick the table to select the skill from. This gives them 3 or 4 skills to pick from so that they can taylor their character as desired. If the roll gives multiple instances of the same skill, too bad.