Creating Younger Player Characters

[JohnK]

Hullo, folks,

I was wondering what guidelines folks can offer me about the creation of young player characters, say around 10 or 11 years of age. How would you handle the character creation process in this regard, and what kinds of limits or the like would you place on younger player characters?

Thanks, in advance.

[Iris]

Hello !

I would say :

• no profession (they learn it between 14 et 20)
• no automatical combat skill

And now, there is the question of the experience / advantages / weekness... Only certain of them may be available at a young age... I think you could choose how many experience point you give every year. I tried a similar system (at home for FIM and Artland ). It seems to function, but I did not test it a lot of time.

Culture & éducation
Dès 7 ans, l’enfant a le bénéfice de quatre sources d’expérience, à raison de 1pt dans chaque :

• Instinct de survie
o Adrénaline (douleur, stress)
o Observation (vigilance, sens de l’orientation)
o Opportunisme (ruse, surprise)
o Résistance (endurance, maladies)
o Acrobatie (escalade, saut)
• Jeux d’enfants
o Altérité (langue, langage du corps)
o Concentration (autodiscipline, mémorisation)
o Sensibilité (ouverture, rêve)
o Génie (idée, inspiration)
o Négociation (compromis, réseau)
• Culture : 5 compétences représentatives de la civilisation dans laquelle l’enfant grandit
• Famille : 5 compétences représentatives de l’éducation qu’il reçoit




Expérience & apprentissage

À cela il faut ajouter 2pt par an, réparti librement entre : Com-pétences apprises, jusqu’à concurrence d’un total de 10 ; Attri-buts ; Ressources (Vie, Magie, Forme, Volonté).


Vécu & Historique

Une enfance et une adolescence agitée, riche en expériences, agréables ou douloureuses, rapporte 5pt : Tournant (étape marquée de l’existence, changement radical, unité de vie, car-rière…) ; Révélation (horreur, initiation, transformation…).

Traits infantiles & juvéniles

L’enfance et l’adolescence peuvent se traduire par des traits paradoxaux infantiles ou juvéniles qui disparaîtront avec l’âge, ou de défauts qui accompagnent une qualité qui se révèlera pleinement plus tard. Les exemples proposés ne sont qu’indicatifs, pour montrer le fonctionnement d’un système en doublets inséparables portant sur le même domaine d’attribut :

« Terres crues » (+6) et « Ne comprend pas les adultes » (-6) est amené à disparaître, chuter à (+4 / -4) vers 12 ans, puis (+2 / -2) à 13 ans avant d’être annulé à 14 ans.
« Mignon » (+6) et « Timide » (-6) pourrait disparaître pro-gressivement au cours de l’adolescence tandis que le physique se modifie, que la physionomie de l’enfant change pour devenir celle d’un adulte en devenir.

« Intelligent » (+6) et « Perdu dans ses rêveries » (-6) pourra disparaître, signalant un enfant qui semblait doué, mais se révèle un adulte normal ; ou alors le Joueur investit en Astuce de manière à compenser progressivement le malus. Ainsi l’intelligence seule demeurera, sans les handicaps et faiblesses de l’enfant.
« Créatif » (+4) et « Incapable de convaincre » (-8) est un duo qui sera progressivement compensé,

Changer de traits


Les enfants et les adolescents changent beaucoup et vite. Le Joueurs peut donc changer ses traits chaque année à l’arrivée de nouveaux points. Pour éviter des changements trop brutaux, il serait sans doute préférable de gommer ou introduire des traits à raison de modifications d’un cran (de +2 à +4 ou +2 à 0…).
Jouer la croissance par les traits

Outre les traits paradoxaux amenés à s’atténuer durant l’adolescence, le Joueur pourra choisir des traits négatifs amenés à s’atténuer lors de futurs ajouts de points dans l’attribut. Quelques exemples :

« Laideron » (-4) peut disparaître brutalement en deux ans à l’adolescence, pour peu que le Joueur place 20 et 20 en Charisme, passant d’un personnage moqué pour son allure disgracieuse et qui reviendra comme une vraie beauté avec « Séduisant » (+4). Le vécu de cette transformation de la chenille en papillon peut être en soi une expérience de jeu ou une occasion de surprendre.

So, I gave experience every year. We have 200XP at 16... that mean... about 12.5 / year... so we could give :

• 10 XP every year (200 XP at 16, 190 at 15...)
• you could buy special advantages or weekness that could by change when you grow older (that's what I ment with the "traits", it' easy to take them, just putting +1/ +2 instead of +2 / +6)
• the trauma are different and easier to suffer of : orphan, ...
• but you could also add the resilience mecanism : ability to normaly cure some trauma with time, and some RP conditions

... I would try something like that...

[Dragoslav]

Out of curiosity, why would a player want to play such a young PC?

[iznurda]

Well I think I would use that rules :

• WAYS :
  1 point max per 3 years of life.
  • 0-3 yo => consider have 1 max point in each ways
  • 4-6 yo => consider have 1 or 2 max points in yours ways
  • 7-9 yo => 1-3 max
  • 9-12 yo =>1-4 max
  • 12-15 yo => 1-5 max
• Domains & disciplines
  Idem but with a 2 years period. No discipline possible before 10yo, average the entry in the third circle.

If you want you can permit to change the ways scores each 5 years until 15 to simulate the growing and evolution from the birth to the adult.

Rest the advantages&co. Hmm 5 yo to apply the bonuses/maluses seems good to me, except some case like blindness etc.

my 2 daols.

iz

[Clovis]

Out of curiosity, why would a player want to play such a young PC?

Maybe the Players want to play the childhood of their PCs as a Prelude before they get to the campaign proper with adult PCs ?

As for how to manage such Characters, I'll stick to what I mentioned in another thread: go with the same process as for the creation of a standard NPC, except for the 100xp each character gets to start with.

Novice (a child): -100XP (meaning that he must have Disadvantages (Frail, Weak, or Fragile are good examples), or lose points in some Domains, which will give him XP according to the rates on p.212)

Regarding what iznurda said, I wouldn't advise restricting the ratings in the Ways. After all, one of the basic principles of the Ways is that you always have 15 points in them (unless your psychological condition is altered, as it can be with the consumption of drugs, for example), no matter how old you are and how you have lived. They represent the PC's personality, so saying that a ten-year-old has less personality than an adult is... kinda strange.

[Dragoslav]

Maybe the Players want to play the childhood of their PCs as a Prelude before they get to the campaign proper with adult PCs ?

You know, I had considered doing something like that (not anything very involved; just a way to get the players accustomed to some of the rules), but I had never thought about how to do that mechanically. That's a neat idea, though.

[JohnK]

Salut, Iris!

Hello !

Thanks for responding to my post about this, much appreciated.

I would say :

• no profession (they learn it between 14 et 20)
• no automatical combat skill

Hmm, this is an interesting pair of points on the subject, Iris.

While I can agree with you that the character might not start off with any Profession, it seems to me that apprenticeships and learning some of the skill related to professions may start earlier, since apprenticeships would start really early in these societies and communities. Life is harsh, and everyone has to work when they can.

On the subject of the weapons and combat skills, I would argue that these children would learn how to use a knife at least when they were quite young, simply because the world of Esteren is so dangerous. Am I mistaken in this regard?

And now, there is the question of the experience / advantages / weekness... Only certain of them may be available at a young age... I think you could choose how many experience point you give every year. I tried a similar system (at home for FIM and Artland ). It seems to function, but I did not test it a lot of time.

<Experience System stuff deleted>

Whew! That was a lot of material to go through, and to be honest, seems overly complicated for the Esteren system. I agree with you that only some of the Skills, Advantages, and Disadvantages would be available to younger characters, but exceptional circumstances could arise here, too. The character History (and possibly Personality) would go a long way to determining this sort of thing.

In any event, thanks for the ideas and thoughts on this, Iris. Much appreciated, even if I don't think I'm going to go for a system that complex in terms of determining this. Hmm...

[JohnK]

Hullo, Dragoslav,

Out of curiosity, why would a player want to play such a young PC?

hehe Well, there are plenty of reasons this could arise, notably because the players want to play out the childhood of their characters in a sort of prelude to starting a campaign with their adult characters. Especially, perhaps, some of the trauma and stuff that they went through, to get a better feel for it.

However, in this case, the player wants to play such a young character, because they are 10-11 years old and want to play a character of that age. Sometimes, the obvious is the answer, you know?

[SeigneurAo]

Sometimes, the obvious is the answer, you know?

Dear, dear Ockham.

[JohnK]

Hullo, Iz,

Well I think I would use that rules :

• WAYS :
  1 point max per 3 years of life.
  • 0-3 yo => consider have 1 max point in each ways
  • 4-6 yo => consider have 1 or 2 max points in yours ways
  • 7-9 yo => 1-3 max
  • 9-12 yo =>1-4 max
  • 12-15 yo => 1-5 max

Hmm, while that's certainly an interesting way (no pun intended) of handling this, how do you deal with a character who's special or a prodigy in some of their psychological aspects? For example, the child who is extremely creative and will be a master painter when they grow up? The child with extremely logical thought processes who will change the way Magience is thought of when they grow up? Stuff like that.

That said, the real problem with the Ways aspect of the character, especially when creating characters who are younger, is that personality and psychological elements are not set yet. While some youngsters may be emotionally mature, others are not, and this should be reflected in their psychology in the game, which the Ways represent here. This method certainly seems to be able to handle that for the most part.

[*]Domains & disciplines
Idem but with a 2 years period. No discipline possible before 10yo, average the entry in the third circle. [/list]

This is pretty good as well, but to be honest, I think that it makes characters far more skilled in some ways than they will be as adults. I'd have to test this method to see how it works. I don't know whether one can't have a Discipline before age 10. There are prodigies, after all, who re geniuses in a field even at that age, and regardless of the world set-up in Esteren, I still think that prodigies are possible.