Creating Younger Player Characters

[JohnK]

Hullo, 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 ?

See my reply to Dragoslav in this regard, but yes, this is certainly one reason for playing a young character. In my case, the reasons were much simpler than that.

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)

That sounds like an excellent suggestion of how to handle the matter, and keeps character creation relatively simple. I think exceptional circumstances surrounding the History and Personality of the character can modify this character creation somewhat, and I see that as a strength of the game system, given the modular nature of character creation.

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.

While that's true, 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. Especially when the character is still so relatively young. 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. I don't know whether to allow the assignment of the full 15 points in the Ways, or whether to limit this somewhat as Iz suggested.

[Deorman]

Well even if the personality of a child is not set it's still there. A child can be turbulent and grow up to be a wise man later. All you have to keep in mind is that his ways have better chances to change in the future.

[JohnK]

Hullo, Deorman,

Well even if the personality of a child is not set it's still there. A child can be turbulent and grow up to be a wise man later. All you have to keep in mind is that his ways have better chances to change in the future.

While I agree with you on your points here, the question remains how do you handle this when creating the younger player character? Or are you saying that giving them the full 15 points in Ways is the way (no pun intended) to go?

[Dragoslav]

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?

Haha, just don't give the kid nightmares... or better yet, do so.

[JohnK]

Hullo, Dragoslav,

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?

Haha, just don't give the kid nightmares... or better yet, do so.

The kid in question is my goddaughter! Her mother would *kill* me if I give the girl nightmares about the game! That said, she's been playing in the group since she was 7 or so, although having her early nights abed means that her involvement was strictly to the point of her going to bed.

[Deorman]

To clarify, yes I think children must have their 15 ways points.
I think in the rule of esteren every creatures/animals have these 15 points in some kind of way (haha).
Even if reason and Ideal would probably have to be replace by some new ways.
(Even so, one could argue that dogs may have a good ideal stat and an unconditional faith towards their master I suppose you can't count that as the same Ideal humans have).

[Clovis]

Hullo, Deorman,

Well even if the personality of a child is not set it's still there. A child can be turbulent and grow up to be a wise man later. All you have to keep in mind is that his ways have better chances to change in the future.

While I agree with you on your points here, the question remains how do you handle this when creating the younger player character? Or are you saying that giving them the full 15 points in Ways is the way (no pun intended) to go?

Truth be told, seems like a no-brainer to me: there is nothing preventing a child from having any rating in any way, since it can very realistically be considered that it would fit a kid's persona.

Let's take an example, with characteristics picked quickly, without any particular reason:

Combativeness 2 Creativity 1 Empathy 4 Reason 5 Ideal 3

Here we have what seems like a very mature child (5 in Reason), but who may be quite rigid in the way he thinks, and often seek the opinion of his elders (1 in Creativity). However, he is very calm (2 in Combativeness) and is easily able to relate to his comrades (4 in Empathy). Moreover, while he has never been particularly exalted by the values of tradition, he has never stuck to what he was taught (3 in Ideal). Looks like this young fellow might have a bright career ahead of him as a scholar, or maybe a physician, or an apothecary?

Well even if the personality of a child is not set it's still there. A child can be turbulent and grow up to be a wise man later. All you have to keep in mind is that his ways have better chances to change in the future.

Agreed: according to what the player has lived, he may very well decide to alter his character's Ways to reflect the changes in his personality as he grew up.

Taking the example above, I may for example decide that my character has gone from 4 to 2 in Empathy, from 3 to 2 in Ideal, and from 1 to 4 in Creativity. Maybe he has gone through some sort of traumatic event that has made him lose faith in what he formerly believed: he has grown distant, and has developed a more rebellious attitude.

[JohnK]

Hullo, Deorman,

To clarify, yes I think children must have their 15 ways points.

I'm actually inclined to agree with you on this. Some might argue this isn't true, but I see no reason that a player with a younger character can't shift the Ways around later, thus altering the psychology and personality somewhat as they mature and reach adulthood.

I think in the rule of esteren every creatures/animals have these 15 points in some kind of way (haha).

I don't know if this is true, since for the English version of the game we've not seen all that many animals and creature game statistics.

Even if reason and Ideal would probably have to be replace by some new ways.

Why? Reason and Conviction (what the French version calls "Ideal") are still pretty valid ways for children, even if they don't necessarily have the same meaning in the younger child.

(Even so, one could argue that dogs may have a good ideal stat and an unconditional faith towards their master I suppose you can't count that as the same Ideal humans have).

Perhaps, perhaps not. Human faith and conviction isn't likely the same as that in dogs (or other pets, for that matter), but I still think they're valid aspects of dog mentality.

[iznurda]

How old the character we are talking about is ?

The world is hard in Esteren so I think a child with 12 or 13 yo may have the skills to survive. So Just use the normal rules of creation and possibly apply a raise of the difficulty level then the age may be a problem.

Starting with a full skill at 12, the malus will be calculate something like 6 - (age/2), round to the inf.

So at 5yo you have a -4 malus on your tests dependant of the age.
6 yo => -3
8yo => -2
10yo => -1
12yo => 0

Thus, a 8 yo child can fight an adult but have a -2 on the attack test. But no malus to climb a rock.

I don't like to say that a child have already all his points in domain/displine but It can be maluses, so...

iz