Knights of the Hidden Sun December 2012 Update: Adventures In Character Creation

As per my last update here’s what I have to look at:

1. Fix up 1 section in my Magic/Tech chapter.
2. Go over the Knights Chapter with a fine-tooth comb.
3. Tweak the Character Creation chapter.
4. Tweak the Rules chapter.
5. Make sure the GM chapter reflects the changes above.

It would have made sense to start with 1 but I chose 3 instead because I’m a rules monkey.

Here’s the gist of what I did:

Lower The Dice Pools

In the first draft of KoTHS a starting character could end with a 12D dice pool in his primary skill. This was a little much so I scaled back to afford smaller pools, around 4 dice smaller to be precise.

The lower dice pools, when used in conjunction with simple dice saving mechanics, has kept the dice hoard to a minimum. This in turn has lead to a much smoother game.

Everything In Its Place

Previously in KoTHS you’d list all your character’s Edges and Flaws, even ones that affected Attributes, in one place; a place that happened to be no where near Attributes. I found this lead to confusion; often players would simply forget such bonuses and penalties in their rolls thus making them meaningless.

The solution?

List Attribute Edges and Flaws under their prospective Attributes; easy peasy.

Edges and Flaws Are Meaningful

My original list of Edges had some minor advantages such as Desert Adaptation and Claws and minor Flaws such as Arrogant or Eccentric. In play-testing I found these never came up.

Desert Adaptation was no good because very few adventures ever required a desert survival roll, as for Claws, Hidden Sun weapons blow them out of the water. Also, most PCs are arrogant to start with and eccentric was often funny but rarely flaw-worthy.

So I decided to remove such  from my Edges and Flaws list and only keep meaningful ones such as Immunity to Fire and Bane: Silver.

That being said you can still get the minor Edges, they just cost a pittance  Being a clawed desert dweller is more a fun description than an appreciable advantage in KoTHS. As for the minor Flaws, I’m regulating those to ‘you’ll get rewarded with Character Points or Will Points for throwing your character into tough situations’.

The Results

I ran these by my play-test group and I’m pleased to say they were able to draw up comprehensive, interesting characters in a mere 1/2 hour. If they had to do it again I imagine it’d take them 15 minutes tops, even the ones who aren’t rules monkeys like me.

This makes me happy.

What’s Up Next?

I’m going over Character Creation once more. This is just to check for typos or grammatical silliness.  Unless play-testing reveals a major oversight I won’t change anything further.

I’ll move on, get’er done.

After that I’m going to tackle the minor addition to the Magic/Tech chapter. Not a big change and nothing to do with rules. Completing it will simply make Hidden Sun one step closer to realization.

Expect another update soon.