Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 zombiegleemax Mar 09, 2004 23:55:23	I was wondering if anyone is considering implementing a system for implementing character trees, and what people who have used them thought of them. I kind of like the idea because it solves some of our group's difficulties. I think i tend to hold back as a DM, and knowing that my players have a back up character concept might prevent me from holding back. Dark Sun won't work if I'm not willing to be oppressive. secondly, sometimes the players tend to lose interest in their characters. The option of jumping to another character when its not working for them, maybe for just a little bit, may help keep game interest. thridly, it helps to build a cohesive group... with only four players we often have two players ending up with similar characters. Nobody likes to be told they have to play the cleric, but someone may be more willing if one of their characters matches another players'. I think that kind of framework might help. And sometimes one of the players ends up as the black sheep. trying a fresh character might be helpful. Anyway, reasons aside, I was wondering what worked for people. It wouldnt be hard to translate directly, but I want to tweak it some. -A player might be less willing to change to a more enjoyable character if the player would inevitably be playing a lower levle character. So I think I will be starting out all characters at level 4, and allowing players to level up secondaries to a level equal to their primary, instead of a level below. The level drop might defeat the purpose of some of the benefits above. -Four characters is a bit much, especially since my players love their histories. I think three is a good number. -rather than simply leveling up the character, an experience point award would be preferable. If the player switches characters, I don't want all his work to go to waste simply because he leveled. Plus the way I want to set it up, i think there should be some payoff to paying experience to a low level character. Here are my thoughts... The experience award is equal to the difference between his old level and his new level. For instance, Dan has three characters: Brax, Morag, and Breen. Brax is his primary character, who just leveled to level 7. Morag is 6th level, and Breen is 4th level. The difference between Level 6 (the level brax used to be) and 7 (the level Brax just attained) is 6000 xp. (21,000-15,000=6000) He can choose to award all his experience to Morag, Making Morag 7th level as well. If he were to choose to give his experience to Breen (who has not received any experience) this would bring him up to level 5, and put him only 3000 experience points short of 6th. I don't feel that it would be unbalancing to allow the player to parcel out experience betwen secondaries. Any thoughts on this? I think if any penalties are applied, it should be making the CP award less generous. Athas is, after all, a poorer world, and i am more comfortable awarding less treasure to secondaries than less experience. Anyone have anything to add?
#2 Kamelion Mar 10, 2004 3:10:35	We're using a variant on the old character tree system in my game. I'm not sure how well it works so I stuck a big red "playtest" sticker on it - the players all know thaty it'll be ditched if it's too broken or whatever. I started the first run of characters out at ECL 3 and used the old 5d4 system for some beefy stats. All other characters on the tree start at 1st level and use the "4d6, drop lowest die" system to generate stats (I wanted to test 2e vs 3e methods in the long term and strike a differene between heroic and non heroic PCs). Each level-up of an active character allows the player to level-up one lower-level character from the tree. After 12 sessions, it's readily noticeable that the 5d4 characters have a small but clear edge over the 4d6 bunch. But they also get themselves into trouble (or killed) far easier (no deaths yet in the weaker bunch - heh). The players have all approached it differently. A couple have fleshed out their entire trees, a couple more are concentrating on just two characters and the other two are taking it a character at a time and are saving all their level-ups. At the end of the day, I like the system because it allows the PC to keep developing replacement characters while they play. Without a tree, you have to generate a replacement out of thin air when your regular pc dies or is busy. This is the chief advantage of the tree system - that it provides you with replacements who are already part of the story. When your regular pc dies, you're going to make a new one anyway, usually a level or two behind the rest of the party. I like the tree idea because it incorporates the replacement process into the story (as opposed to "Umm, you are walking through the desert when you see Bob's new kreen..." ) Wow. What a lot of waffle. Heh heh heh...