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Old 09-04-2018, 03:42 AM   #1
The Colonel
 
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Default Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

So ... has anyone actually created a fRPG with a lifepath generation system? The nearest I have encountered so far is Harnmaster, which settles for a very detailed background, including generating how well you get on with the head of the extended family.

Lifepath seems to be a Sci-fi system so far ... but I'm a long way from having read every RPG out there...
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Old 09-04-2018, 06:12 AM   #2
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

Does Nobilis count as fantasy? How about Fate -- in particular, the old Dresden Files RPG is keen on defining aspects in terms of backstory events. Ars Magica also had a "significant milestones in the character's history" system during character generation, as I recall.

Burning Wheel is supposed to have a lifepath system, but I've never read or played it.

In the obscure category, I remember there was a fantasy hack for the Traveller rules, but that's literally all I know about that one.
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Old 09-04-2018, 07:16 AM   #3
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

I think I've got about 90% of a system worked out:


Roll 1d10.


1-9: you are a peasant farmer. You may legally forbidden from leaving the land you work, you may be an outright slave, or you may rent the land you work, leaving little money left over. You have several obligations to the local noble.
10: work in progress.
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Old 09-04-2018, 07:39 AM   #4
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

The appendices to RuneQuest II contained a system for taking your character from their original rolls social class/cultural background to what they were after a few years experience. That was sort of a lifepath system.
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Old 09-04-2018, 08:48 AM   #5
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
The appendices to RuneQuest II contained a system for taking your character from their original rolls social class/cultural background to what they were after a few years experience. That was sort of a lifepath system.
Was that the Avalon Hill RuneQuest? I can never figure the editions...
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Old 09-04-2018, 10:05 AM   #6
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

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Originally Posted by The Colonel View Post
Was that the Avalon Hill RuneQuest? I can never figure the editions...
Definitely not. It was the Chaosium RuneQuest, reissued a couple of years ago as the Classic Edition: https://www.amazon.com/Runequest-Cla.../dp/1568820844 . I bought a copy; I still consider RQII one of the high points in the history of RPGs.
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Old 09-04-2018, 11:27 AM   #7
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered View Post
I think I've got about 90% of a system worked out:


Roll 1d10.


1-9: you are a peasant farmer. You may legally forbidden from leaving the land you work, you may be an outright slave, or you may rent the land you work, leaving little money left over. You have several obligations to the local noble.
10: work in progress.
Yet another reason why I say "realism" has little if any place in FRPGs. (I mean, aside from the fact that they take place in worlds where someone with the correct training can twiddle their fingers and mutter something, and the room down the hall will suddenly erupt into flame...)
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Old 09-04-2018, 11:30 AM   #8
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

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Yet another reason why I say "realism" has little if any place in FRPGs.
Extra letter in there. Realism doesn't have much of a place in non-fantasy RPGs either.
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Old 09-04-2018, 02:50 PM   #9
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

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Originally Posted by Irish Wolf View Post
Yet another reason why I say "realism" has little if any place in FRPGs. (I mean, aside from the fact that they take place in worlds where someone with the correct training can twiddle their fingers and mutter something, and the room down the hall will suddenly erupt into flame...)
That distinction is why I talked about "realistic versus cinematic" and "fantastic versus mundane" in GURPS Adaptations. You can have cinematic mundane narratives (say, the Jack Ryan novels); you can also have the realistic fantastic (Tolkien was already pointing in that direction with his hobbits complaining about mosquitoes and worrying about short rations, and a lot of science fiction tends that way).

But I think that why you're calling realism may be an exaggerated form of it. It's not unrealistic to write about people with unusual wealth or exceptional abilities, so long as such people do exist in reality; "reality" includes the whole bell curve, not just the middle ±0.5 standard deviations. What makes it realistic is that you figure out the consequences of actions in terms of actual cause and effect and not of "keep the story going" sweeping aside of small details.

There was a literary movement, naturalism, that went for the center of the bell curve, telling stories about typical people; it tended to emphasize the struggles and sufferings of average people, and it allowed them very little agency, seeing them as products of society. (A volume of literary criticism I edited two or three years ago pointed out that the authors assume that THEY had agency and could exercise it by reforming society through the publication of unflinching accurate accounts of these ugly details—it didn't occur to them that they too were "products of society.") You could do that in a game by having nothing by lifepath all the way, I guess. But I don't think realism requires that rigid adherence to maximum probability. You can have a realistic rpg if the player characters have to make choices and exercise agency based on probable alternatives.
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Old 09-04-2018, 02:55 PM   #10
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Default Re: Lifepaths in Faaantasy!!!

I've noticed that lifepath systems tailored to the outcome work better. If you say you want to be a Wizard, that's one lifepath system. If you want to be a powerful noble, that's another. It gets you over the simple fact that more than 90% of people in medieval societies were farmers with no other options.
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