Character Comparison #1: Fvlminata

As threatened two weeks ago, here is my Fvlminata character for comparison, as well as my overview of the game itself.

You will notice that both characters are remarkably similar.

Similar enough that I don't know that there's any point to breaking down specific differences - it's more important that I talk a bit about why they are so similar.

"It's the system, stupid."  Yes.  Really.  The game only has four attributes, and when you only have four attributes - and a dedicated pool of points for attributes - you are going to have a lot of similar characters (unless you game with math geeks who optimize).

I, by a strange coincidence, DO occasionally game with math geeks who optimize.  I'm not saying that it's a bad thing - dealing with munchkins is a fact of GM existence, and you need to make sure the game is interesting and challenging for all players involved.  But that's another rant for another time.

I showed the game (and its probability curve, which you can see below) to one of my more math-oriented friends.  Here is what he had to say:

Most builds should have 2 @13 and 2 @7 with the last 2 points distributed in a manner dependent on how the xp tables function (15,15,7,5 may also work, if you can fully sacrifice one attribute).
3 skill points into balancing humors, some into dabbling in survival and the rest into being awesome. Precise distribution dependent on how any difficulty modifiers break out and how xp works (in the absence of difficulty modifiers, 1, 3, 5 and 9 are the breakpoints for the high attribute based skills; 1,3 for the 7 and 1,3 for the 5).

Of course, I wouldn't allow that set of stats into one of my games, which is one of my restrictions.

All in all, I wound up with a character I think I'd be willing to play, but I also learned some things to watch for in character generation (and elsewhere) when I end up writing my own game.

Here are my takeaways from generating this character that I can use when working on my own game:

1)  Chapter Organization: Explain the system before character generation in the book. Even a two-page "system in a nutshell" intro will make it easier to make useful characters.

I see this in a lot of games, and it goes all the way back to Dungeons & Dragons. There are games where knowing the system doesn't matter, either because you don't have a lot of control over the finished product or because you're just going step-by-step through a lifepath of sorts.  For point-buy games, however, it's a good idea to know what these numbers mean before you are stuck with a useless character.

2)  I was astounded at how little of Fvlminata's page space was given to combat compared to the rest of the system.  Many games will devote an entire chapter to combat.  This devoted only a few pages of the system chapter.  It almost felt like combat was an afterthought for the Fvlminata designers.  Magic also had a surprisingly small footprint on the finished book. These are neither good nor bad - merely interesting.

3)  Layout: Don't put page numbers in the middle of the page.  Put them in the outside corners.  And if you have art in your margins and along the edge of your pages, leave a gap for your page numbers.  Obscured page numbers in the center of the page make an index extremely frustrating to use, even if it's a good index.

4)  Function: Don't require custom dice for your game.  They can screw with the odds in a weird way that you may not have anticipated, which will make the more math-oriented customers a bit twitchy. Not only that, but gamers don't want to spend extra money on custom dice when we already spent $30 or more on your book.

Note that when I say "custom dice," I'm not counting the (by now) gaming standards - d4, d8, d10, d12, and d20.  Fvlminata uses custom d8's which are numbered 1, 1, 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, and 6.  Or, more accurately, I, I, III, III, IV, IV, VI, and VI.  Yes.  They used Roman Numerals.  They also provided stickers if you didn't want to buy custom dice - you could just sticker up some of your existing d8's (rendering them useless for anything else).

Also worth mentioning on this point: For some reason, FUDGE doesn't trip this button for me. Maybe because FUDGE dice are more versatile than Fvlminata's tali.

5) Setting: Make it interesting.  Fvlminata has a very interesting setting.  It really does. The core concept is fascinating, and I like what they did with it.  That said, however, the authors managed to publish a game book that reads like a history book.  They took an awesome concept and made it dry and dull to read.

When all is said and done, what do I think of the game?

It has potential, and there are things in here I can borrow for other games, but I'm not likely to one-shot this one.  It's headed back to the shelf.

Character Generation Project: Fvlminata

To the right, you can see the first character Stephanie created for our character generation project.  I'm not entirely sure why, but she chose Fvlminata as her first public foray into character-making.  Okay.  That's a lie.  Check the questionnaire below and she'll tell you why this was her first choice.

The scan you see is actually a second scan - the first one was done in pencil, and didn't scan very well so she recopied it in pen.  For the record: I think that recopying in pen made both of us a bit twitchy.

I don't think I've ever done a character in pen - it's generally not a good idea - I can see writing new skill names in pen, but ratings do change with time and experience, so I would never put any numbers on a character sheet in pen. And I don't think I'm alone in that.

If you can't read the sheet, by the way, clicking it will take you to the image's page on my Flickr photo stream.  We will likely refine a few things which are project-related as we go along.

As promised, here are her answers to the questionnaire:

Which game is this for?
Fvlminata

How long did it take you to make the character?
About 90 minutes.

What was your character concept going into generation?
A merchant who is able to defend herself, but does not actively look for trouble.

Did you feel like character generation captured the flavor of the setting? Did this influence your decision-making process during character generation?
Yes and no - I didn't feel that this was particularly different from historical Rome, other than giving me a bit more freedom as a female character than I would have had in a strictly historical setting.

How much control did you feel like you had during character generation?
Quite a bit

Did the game help you make the character you wanted, or did it feel like you were fighting the game?
The game helped guide my character in a way I didn't expect, but I don't feel like it wouldn't let me do what I wanted to do.

Do you like the character you ended up with?
I do - it wasn't entirely what I started out with, but I liked what it turned into.

Do you think your character fits your initial concept?
Yes

Do you feel like your character would be effective and/or useful in a game?
I think she would probably be good for reconnaissance and information-gathering, but would not be the best in a fight unless she was cornered.

Was there anything in particular that you struggled with mechanically?
It took a little while to wrap my head around the humors and the temperaments were a bit difficult to understand. I also wasn't sure, with the skills, whether it would preferable to be reasonably good at a lot of things or to be really good at only a few things.

Did anything run more smoothly than you had expected?
There was a little bit of a stumble with the humors, but otherwise it went smoothly.

What changes would you have made to the character generation process?
I think the combination of occupation and rank could be better explained, but other that, it seemed to fit the system.

Did anything leap out at you as obviously broken or unbalanced?
It would be easy to make an overpowered fighter, with the skills and attribute point-buys, but I think it would end up coming down to GM discretion to prevent that.

What led you to choose this game as the next one to make a character for?
The concept caught my attention, and I was curious about how it was implemented.

How would you compare your experience with this game to your experience with other games?
It struck me as odd that I could theoretically create a character who would have no ability in combat or magic, and would be basically useless - other games I've played have made it pretty near impossible to create a truly useless character.

[Eric's Note: Prior to this, Stephanie's experience consists of D&D and pre-generated characters for one-shot games]

Is this a character you would be willing to play in a campaign?
Yes.

Does this character make you want to play this game?
Yes.

Do you have any other questions, comments, etc.?
I would have appreciated a better overview of the system before going straight into the character generation portion of the book - while I appreciated the charts that indicated what was average, above-average and extraordinary in terms of the skills and attributes, a brief intro into what one would be rolling before setting those numbers down would have been nice. The book goes straight into character generation, however, and I didn't really delve into the mechanics of the game much as I would going through "by the book", as it were, and working my way through based on what came next in the book.

Did you consider creating a magic-using character?
Not really, no.  I didn't even look too much at the magic system.


Were you afraid that a magic-user would be too complex for someone new to the game?
For some reason, the idea of magic and Ancient Rome just didn't click.

Did the availability of gunpowder in an otherwise mostly historical setting impact your character generation at all?
Nope.  It just didn't seem to come up, other than as a possible skill choice that didn't fit the kind of character I was creating.