[Characters] How many "points of differentiation" do you need?

[Kiero]

Something that systems vary on is how many mechanical points of differentiation they provide for. By "points of differentiation" I mean discrete submechanics that allow for variation in characters, and are used to define them.

So for example True20 has quite a few: Ability modifiers; Character roles; Saving throws; Combat Bonuses (which interact with role and ability modifiers); Skills; Feats; equipment choices; Powers for 'casters and probably a few more I haven't throught of off the top of my head.

Feng Shui has Attributes, Skills, Schticks, Wealth and weapons. Some of those have subtypes within them, but those are the broad headings.

Contrast with Risus or Wushu, which have very few. Wushu has one, perhaps two if you want to stretch it. There's Traits and you might consider Chi a variant, except in most cases everyone has the same amount of it. In Risus there's the Cliches.

So how many do you feel are necessary, or do you like to have? Is there such a thing as too few, or too many for you?

[Indon]

Neccessary? I think Kobolds Ate My Baby (All hail King Torg!, btw) has like, two.

I think the degree and number of differentiation should vary on how rules-heavy the system is.

[Winterwind]

Necessary? None. For them to be necessary game mechanics would have to be necessary in the first place, which they are not - one can play perfectly well with no rules at all (beyond such as who decides what is possible or not, as in whether it's up to the DM or the players), just storytelling.

Desirable? Depends on the kind of game experience one wishes at the moment. The more the goal shifts from roleplaying to slaying monsters and collecting treasures, the more differentiating mechanics should be present, because then the game focusses more and more on mechanical and strategical options (which is not bad, it's just a different kind of fun). For roleplaying, as in impersonating a character and trying to immerse in a world, I consider Attributes, Skills, and maybe Skill specialisations to be fairly close to the optimum - not too complicated so that the rules would occupy more gaming time than necessary, and diverse enough to be usable in any situation that might occur.

[valadil]

Hehe, back in middle school we had a guy who didn't care for mechanics or even his own characters' names and only differentiated his characters based on which weapon they used.

On a more serious note, one of my college RPG groups decided that D&D had too many points of differentiation and got rid of prestige classes. The reasoning was that if you have two melee characters in a group they differentiate each other by taking different PrCs. The idea was that if PrCs weren't available, they'd have to differentiate each other through personality instead. Considering that the group was so small I don't think it was a good idea at the time (since we never had two melees at once), but its an interesting theory. It's probably a good idea for less experienced players, but if you're like me and you've played each base class several times over, you need new mechanics to not get bored and you can still play a fun personality regardless of prestige classes.

[Tormsskull]

I don't think you need many at all, if any at all, depending on what you're aiming for.

I personally enjoy a lot of different mechanical aspects that can differentiate the characters because it makes the game more fun to me. I think you can get into the problem of having too many though, when not having a particular skill or ability prevents a player from getting a concept that they want.

If you have Skills, for example, and those skills are incredibly specific, say "Piloting: Class Z-4 Capital Ships", and each character has only X amount of ability to take skills, then making a character who is "Good at piloting all types of ships" might make the character absolutely worthless at everything else, if it is even possible at all.

[HidaTsuzua]

I generally go with roles and concepts to be the major points of differentiation. Typically this will lead to differences in other areas. I generally like to take roles that no one else in the party has yet, mainly to avoid stepping on toes.

For example, if you have two characters who want to be melee combatants. One wants to play a light fighter and focus on movement and the other wants to be tough and slow, things are okay. If both want to play tough and slow, they'll be competing with each other. Personality can affect this, but when you get down to stuff where dice rolls and rules, one will likely outshine the other. It's never a good situation when a character is outshined by another in their role.

[Closet_Skeleton]

On a more serious note, one of my college RPG groups decided that D&D had too many points of differentiation and got rid of prestige classes. The reasoning was that if you have two melee characters in a group they differentiate each other by taking different PrCs. The idea was that if PrCs weren't available, they'd have to differentiate each other through personality instead. Considering that the group was so small I don't think it was a good idea at the time (since we never had two melees at once), but its an interesting theory. It's probably a good idea for less experienced players, but if you're like me and you've played each base class several times over, you need new mechanics to not get bored and you can still play a fun personality regardless of prestige classes.

Ugh...

That reminds me of the all fighter game where one guy who wanted to make everyone play identical characters with differant 'role-playing'.

If people are going to have fun making choices they should be allowed to.

Unmodified early DnD, where the only differance between characters of the same class is that some suck because they don't have 18s, is probably the worst extreme of low differentation. So I'd say the ideal manner of differantiation is just enough that characters can be good in differant ways.

[Winterwind]

Actually, I fail to see the connection between the complexity of the mechanics and the complexity of the character's personality. The mechanics can restrict characters, but not by their complexity, but simply by what they allow and what not. There can even be a positive feedback between mechanics and personality, for example when there are a few skill points left to allocate, which prompts the player to find yet another hobby for the character (yes, I know, a poor example, but no better came to my mind). Anyway, all of this is independent from the "points of differentiation" this thread is about.

[Zincorium]

I'm gonna side with closet skeleton here. If you want to reduce the amount of choices available to your players, that's always in your purview, but don't kid yourself about what it's probably going to do.

D&D has always been poor in terms of providing separate but equally powerful ways of using the same class, which means that between two fighters, a PA'ing chargemonkey and a dexterous, dual wielder are going to have massive inequity in combat. PrCs definitely help with that, which is why as DM I rarely if restrict the use of them.

Differentiation by roleplaying is not going to come by making everyone mechanically the same, especially if it wasn't happening otherwise.

[Morty]

Answer is: as many as possible, at least in rules-heavy game. Sure, you can roleplay characters differently, but it doesn't help if when it comes to combat or other challenge they're exactly the same. Even if rules-light games it doesn't look very well.

[ChrisMcDee]

The system I'm using now (a modified version of Powergame) has been stripped down as far as I'd happily go before I feel you're limiting the players too much.

Five Attributes given a Power Level (PL) ranging from 0 to 8.
Strength, Agility, Toughness, Speed, Will.
These all begin at 1 and are modified by Abilities or Good Things.

Any number of Abilities. These could include Flight, Super Strength, Spell-like Abilities, Fireballs, Scaly Armour. What makes the hero special and are given a PL just like an Attribute.

Any number of "Good Things" and "Bad Things". These include specialist skills, knowledge, perception skills, social skills and also combat skills that function in a similar way to feats but generally less powerful. These are pretty balanced so each one is of equal value, but complete balance isn't this system's strong point. It's assumed that the DM assists the player in creating the character and keeps a similar power level throughout the party. Many of these Good and Bad Things have a "Super Version" that's twice as effective and three times as expensive.

And that's pretty much your character besides equipment. The number of boxes to fill are small but Abilities are customisable and open enough to include pretty much any character or monster suitable for the setting.

An example for your high magic fantasy setting might be:

Norman the Weather Wizard
Strength 1, Agility 2, Toughness 1, Speed 1, Will 3.
Abilities: PL3 Will, PL4 Lightning Bolt, PL2 Dispelling, PL2 Gust of Wind.
Good Things: Super Improved Agility, Knowledge (Wizardry), Wealthy, Companion (Burt the Bird).
Bad Things: Impaired Sense (Hearing), Enemy (Eric the Mud Wizard).
Equipment: Robes, Staff, Pointy Hat.

So you get a nice short character sheet (which I like... it's why I can't get into GURPS) but the options for character creation are still pretty huge.

So there's my two cents.

[Saph]

As many as possible, for me, capped only by the point where I can't keep track of all of them. :)

I'm with Zinc on this - reducing the choices of your players is never all that good an idea. Sometimes you have to do it for one reason or another, but it's unlikely to improve your game. Being able to tailor your character is a big part of the fun of RPGs, and there's no reason to do it only with RPing or with mechanics when you can do it with both.

- Saph

[Zeta Kai]

I think the degree and number of differentiation should vary on how rules-heavy the system is.

I dunno; WoD is pretty rules-lite (even the combat system, which is where almost all of the truly-relevant numbers are), & there are 9 Attributes, 30 Abilities, several Backgrounds, about 3-4 Disciplines, 3 Virtues, as many Merits/Flaws as you feel like roleplaying, your Humanity, & your Willpower. Then there's your character's Nature, Demeanor, Clan, Generation, Haven & Concept.

Judging by the character sheet, there's about 57 PoD's that the average character has.

[Fax Celestis]

WoD is only rules-lite because the mechanics are the same every time: Attribute + Skill in dice, count your successes.

[LotharBot]

Having a "bumpy" gaming landscape leads to interesting choices. So, as much differentiation as you can reasonably keep track of...

[Bosh]

What I really like is the Fate skill pyramid. Basically there's no str/int/etc. but just a set of broad skills that cover pretty much everything (after what mechanical difference does it make mechanically if you're good at acrobatic **** because you've got a natural flair for it or because you've been thoroughly trained). Then in order to have a certain rank in something you have to have more skills with one rank lower. So for example you couldn't have 5 ranks in something if you don't have at least two skills with four ranks, three with three ranks, four with two ranks and five with one rank. Nice simple system that keeps people from creating overspecialized characters.

There's also stunts, fate point, aspects and **** but you could play a game just fine with nothing but a list of skills and your ranks in them.

[Raum]

You don't need any game mechanics to describe a character. In fact mechanics are limitations. Mind, some limitations are a good thing in most games. They provide a common framework to facilitate interaction between different characters. But are they needed? Not at all.

[Bosh]

You don't need any game mechanics to describe a character.

You do if you're playing that character in an, erm, game.

[Miles Invictus]

When kids play "house", are they playing a game? If not, then what are they doing?

[Winterwind]

You do if you're playing that character in an, erm, game.

So playing without dice it's not a game anymore?
Every time you roleplay, interact with NPCs by saying what your character says (instead of rolling Diplomacy checks), describe your character's emotional state, do something only for flavour, you are playing the game, but do not require the mechanics.

Now, it is easy to extend this to every aspect of the game, and go by description only. You don't roll any dice to hit the monster, you just say what you attempt to do and, depending on the group's rules, either you or the DM decide whether your attempt is successfull.
Matter of fact, I consider diceless combat to be far more interesting and exciting, because players are frantically trying to think of a way to overcome this beast, and there's way more room for creativity.

[Kizara]

You don't need any game mechanics to describe a character. In fact mechanics are limitations. Mind, some limitations are a good thing in most games. They provide a common framework to facilitate interaction between different characters. But are they needed? Not at all.

Under freeform:

P1: My character is strong.
P2: How strong?
P1: Um... strong as a bull!
P2: How strong is that exactly? Bulls can vary in strength, and even still that's awfully strong, you said your character is only human.
P1: Well I have 1/8th giant's blood in me.

P3: My character is quite strong as well. He is as strong as a lion.
P2: Aren't you human too?
P3: No, I am 1/4 ettin.
P1: Bulls are stronger then lions.
P3: No, I don't think so, lions, being predators are able to take down herd animals like bulls.
P1: But that's combat effectiveness! Bulls still have more physical strength.

P2: OK, well there's this iron gate that blocks your path.
P1&3: Ok, we break it down!
P2: Um... its more resiliant then what a bull could do to it.
P3: My character has a maul though, and he would so be able to break an iron gate.


Under D&D:

P1: My character has an 18 strength.
P2: That's pretty strong.
p1: yea, he has 1/8th giant's blood in him, it makes him look a bit more brutish and such.

P3: My character is half-giant, he has a LA of 6 (I dont know what it is, I'm just making up a number) but he has a strength score of 26 because of it.
P1&2: Wow, that's really strong.
p1: I wish my character was that strong.

P2: There's an iron gate blocking your path.
P3: I smash it with my warmaul, attempting to break it in one blow.
1d20 + 8 strength check against DC 26.

Mechanics help you roleplay, they define your character and the world he is in. They lower the neccessary suspension of disbelief because the world is a constant, sensical place. You don't have to 'guess' if your character would have enough ability to overcome a certain challange, nor do you feel like your GM 'let' you do it if he says you have enough ability.

Theatrical combat is ridiculous too, here's why:

P1: I have an archer.
P2: I have a sword-and-shield fighter.

P1: I shoot you in the head.
P2: No, I raised my shield in time to deflect it.
p1: No, my character aims and fires his bow with such speed and with such power that you can't deflect it in time.
p2: No, my character is a very skilled fighter and has trained for long hours against similar threats and responds to it effectively.

Who wins? Assuming both players want their character to succeed, its unresolvable unless someone 'lets' his character be less effective.

It's even lamer with magic.

P1: I cast Death on you, you die.
P2: No! My character resists it, and only feels ill.
P1: My spell is too powerful, I am the greatest archmage that ever lived and you are only a hapless rogue.

[Tormsskull]

Theatrical combat is ridiculous too, here's why:

Yeah, it certaintly can be. Diceless systems always reminded me of Role-Playing on a MUSH. You had to verbally convince the other player that your character should in fact defeat them in combat in order for it to happen. I suppose with the right kind of group, it could work, but I personally like the dice themselves to be the all-mighty deciders.

I.E. you can attempt to do anything you want, which is then assigned a chance of success, and then the dice decide if you succeed. The dice are unbiased, don't care who wins, and as such, they are "fair" IMO.

[Kizara]

Yeah, it certaintly can be. Diceless systems always reminded me of Role-Playing on a MUSH. You had to verbally convince the other player that your character should in fact defeat them in combat in order for it to happen. I suppose with the right kind of group, it could work, but I personally like the dice themselves to be the all-mighty deciders.

I.E. you can attempt to do anything you want, which is then assigned a chance of success, and then the dice decide if you succeed. The dice are unbiased, don't care who wins, and as such, they are "fair" IMO.

I comepletely agree and feel exactly the same way. I, in fact, have made that same argument in those exact words to others in the past.

[Zeta Kai]

WoD is only rules-lite because the mechanics are the same every time: Attribute + Skill in dice, count your successes.

Fax, you say that like it's a bad thing. There's something to be said for efficiency & elegance of design.

Also, the skill pyramid in Fate a thing of beauty. It's a brilliant way to craft well-rounded characters.

Lastly, most games aren't like House. In fact, now that I think about it, House isn't a game. It's playing, & it has its place, but in the world of real games, we need rules & structure so that we don't argue about what just happened for all of eternity. Freedom is great, but Anarchy can be scary; use both in moderation.

[Dervag]

I think that diceless roleplaying works a lot better when the players aren't in competition. Competition will lead to "Bang! You're dead!" "No I'm not!" moments, of course. But if there's a well defined person to make the calls and they enjoy the trust of the rest of the group, and if there's no competition between players to see who can describe the most powerful character, it's more likely to work.

[Kizara]

When kids play "house", are they playing a game? If not, then what are they doing?

They are participating in an activity. Games have some level of competition. Even if its co-operative competitive.

Acting in a play is an activity.

Playing in a Roleplaying Game is playing a game. This is because you overcome something and in some way compete, even if its in the most abstract way possible.

[Kizara]

I think that diceless roleplaying works a lot better when the players aren't in competition. Competition will lead to "Bang! You're dead!" "No I'm not!" moments, of course. But if there's a well defined person to make the calls and they enjoy the trust of the rest of the group, and if there's no competition between players to see who can describe the most powerful character, it's more likely to work.

Even if you aren't directly competitive, there's a satisfaction in succeeding on your own merits instead of because others have agreed that you should.

In real life, if I want to accomplish something, (say, win a race), I don't have to convince God that I am better then everyone else, or be totally subject to his whim if I win or not. But of course God could still deem that I don't win (by striking me with sudden crippling pain, for instance).

Basically, diceless RPing works if you never want to accomplish anything, overcome anything, or actually defeat anyone by your character's abilities. it works if you want to sit around and talk, or you can all personally roll opposed Diplomancy checks (to each-other OOC) to try to succeed at anything.

[Raum]

You do if you're playing that character in an, erm, game.

All it really requires is imagination. The mechanics do facilitate interaction, but that is easily done without mechanics when the players cooperate in telling the story.

Mechanics help you roleplay, they define your character and the world he is in. They lower the neccessary suspension of disbelief because the world is a constant, sensical place. You don't have to 'guess' if your character would have enough ability to overcome a certain challange, nor do you feel like your GM 'let' you do it if he says you have enough ability.

Mechanics don't help you define a character, they limit how you define it to define how you can interact with other characters. That's not a bad thing, but it is a limit. As for suspension of disbelief, how does saying "I have an 18 strength" help immerse you in the world? It's more immersive to say "I was the strongest in my village! Won every arm wrestling competition I entered."

Mechanics don't make much difference when it comes to immersion or role playing. Either can be done with light or even no mechanics as well as with detailed mechanics.

-----

I'm not advocating diceless role playing, mechanics do facilitate interaction after all. But they aren't "needed" to play.

Take the "Cops and Robbers" or "Cowboys and Indians" games many of us played as children. You didn't need a mechanic to describe how well you could shoot or how strong you were, that wasn't the point. The point was simply to have fun immersing yourself in a fantastical character. Yes, they occasionally broke down in arguments over who shot whom first...but we were children then.

[Winterwind]

Under freeform:

P1: My character is strong.
P2: How strong?
P1: Um... strong as a bull!
P2: How strong is that exactly? Bulls can vary in strength, and even still that's awfully strong, you said your character is only human.
P1: Well I have 1/8th giant's blood in me.

P3: My character is quite strong as well. He is as strong as a lion.
P2: Aren't you human too?
P3: No, I am 1/4 ettin.
P1: Bulls are stronger then lions.
P3: No, I don't think so, lions, being predators are able to take down herd animals like bulls.
P1: But that's combat effectiveness! Bulls still have more physical strength.

P2: OK, well there's this iron gate that blocks your path.
P1&3: Ok, we break it down!
P2: Um... its more resiliant then what a bull could do to it.
P3: My character has a maul though, and he would so be able to break an iron gate.

Actually, no, that's not how it would work in any freeform group I ever played in. For starters, "strong as a bull"/"strong as a lion" are, again, attempts to quantify the strength of a character, which show that these players want to play with mechanics actually, so they shouldn't play freeform anyway, because it's not what they want. To a freeform player this would not be a relevant question to begin with.
The gate-breaking might go more along the lines:

P2: OK, well there's this iron gate that blocks your path.
P1&3: We thrust ourselves with all force against the gate and attempt to break it down.
Solution 1:
P2: Fine. Do you think your characters are strong enough to break it down?
P1: I'm fairly strong, as humans go; I don't know whether it's enough though.
P3: Well, I'm of giant-blood, and I wield this huge maul here; I tap into the rage building in my heart and attempt to break it down.
P2: Allright. You need a few tries, but ultimately, the gate gives in.
Or solution 2:
P2: You do so, but the gate is utterly unimpressed. Obviously it's way beyond human strength to breach this reinforced obstacle.

Mechanics help you roleplay, they define your character and the world he is in.

I fail to see how they help to roleplay. If anything, they can disturb roleplay by making you fail in situations where you believe it would be more suiting for your character to succeed, or vice versa. They do help defining the character and the world, but both of those can be defined by storytelling just as well, if not better.

They lower the neccessary suspension of disbelief because the world is a constant, sensical place.

Uh? And why would the world become less consistent or sensical without mechanics? After all, in order to become less sensical, players or DM would have to chose nonsensical results to occur - which they won't do for the very reason that these results would be nonsensical. (I strongly suspect somebody is going to say now that players will chose nonsensical results in order to gain some advantage - as if there was such a thing as advantages in a game without winning condition beyond having fun - but I can verify this doesn't need to be the case)

You don't have to 'guess' if your character would have enough ability to overcome a certain challange, nor do you feel like your GM 'let' you do it if he says you have enough ability.

I would rather say, you must not tell anymore if your character has the ability to overcome a certain challenge otherwise, nor can GM or players select the result which will lead to the most rewarding story anymore, but have their story dictated by arbitrary dice-rolls instead.

Theatrical combat is ridiculous too, here's why:

P1: I have an archer.
P2: I have a sword-and-shield fighter.

P1: I shoot you in the head.
P2: No, I raised my shield in time to deflect it.
p1: No, my character aims and fires his bow with such speed and with such power that you can't deflect it in time.
p2: No, my character is a very skilled fighter and has trained for long hours against similar threats and responds to it effectively.

Who wins? Assuming both players want their character to succeed, its unresolvable unless someone 'lets' his character be less effective.

It's even lamer with magic.

P1: I cast Death on you, you die.
P2: No! My character resists it, and only feels ill.
P1: My spell is too powerful, I am the greatest archmage that ever lived and you are only a hapless rogue.

Admittedly Dervag is right about these freeform being more suited to non-player-vs-player situations (which is no problem in my book, since it pretty much never comes up in any groups I have played in so far). Still, usually it's pretty clear who will win - mostly it's the one who has surprise or circumstances on his side, and otherwise it's not like it was not clear what the abilities of the characters are - the warrior will always win in combat against the thief, unless the thief comes up with some truly creative solutions.
You are presenting it as if the players were deciding on who their characters are and what they are able to do on a whim, when it comes up. It doesn't. P1 would not state he was the greatest archmage who ever lived suddenly, it would have been known the entire game that he was - hence P2 would never declare his character would resist, unless there was a really good reason for him to do so.

I.E. you can attempt to do anything you want, which is then assigned a chance of success, and then the dice decide if you succeed. The dice are unbiased, don't care who wins, and as such, they are "fair" IMO.

But GMs and players can be fair, too, and unlike the dice, they are not arbitrary.

Even if you aren't directly competitive, there's a satisfaction in succeeding on your own merits instead of because others have agreed that you should.

First, you do succeed on your own merit in so far, as your character succeeds because of who he is, and a different character might not succeed at all. Like, you defeat the black knight as a warrior, because your character is a warrior and hence the actions you chose against the black knight actually work, which they might not if you were a mere thief - of course, knowing that, as a thief you wouldn't have chosen these actions to begin with, but instead sought frantically for some way to disctract the black knight long enough for you to escape.

In real life, if I want to accomplish something, (say, win a race), I don't have to convince God that I am better then everyone else, or be totally subject to his whim if I win or not. But of course God could still deem that I don't win (by striking me with sudden crippling pain, for instance).

Indeed - you just are good at something, or you are not. If you are not, you try not to do it, or if you are forced to you don't expect to succeed. Which is as good a description of what freeform accomplishes as it is for playing with mechanics.

Basically, diceless RPing works if you never want to accomplish anything, overcome anything, or actually defeat anyone by your character's abilities. it works if you want to sit around and talk, or you can all personally roll opposed Diplomancy checks (to each-other OOC) to try to succeed at anything.

No, that's just not true, see above for arguments why.

I realise I come off somewhat aggressive defending diceless playstyle; that's funny, because I actually prefer to play with light rules, but with rules nevertheless. Sorry about that. The reason why I do so is because I find the way freeform has been presented here to not do it justice at all - it's a perfectly workable system, good GM&players provided, and in some ways even superior to playing with mechanics.

[Jayabalard]

They are participating in an activity. Games have some level of competition. Even if its co-operative competitive.

Acting in a play is an activity.

Playing in a Roleplaying Game is playing a game. This is because you overcome something and in some way compete, even if its in the most abstract way possible.

Main Entry: game
Pronunciation: 'gAm
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English gamen; akin to Old High German gaman amusement
1 a (1) : activity engaged in for diversion or amusement

certainly, that can be a competition of some sort, or can even be an animal that you're hunting... but not all games are competitions.

Dice-less games and free form gaming in general are still games.