One of the things that's rather dandy about RMFRP (and also the sadly-no-more MERP) is the inclusion of tables that replace adolescence development with cultural options. If a character is, say, a Wood Elf, they receive a set number of ranks in various skills. There is a reasonably wide range of cultures available (one for each race, and several human cultures). There were some interesting developments in RMFRP Races and Cultures, where the system expanded to include mix-and-match races and cultures. This meant you could be a Wood Elf, with all the benefits and disadvantages of membership in that race, but you could have grown up in a human city, thus altering your set ranks and Hobby Skills. In addition, there was variation within each cultural option to reflect class and location (so that a riverside city-dweller of lower class had quite different options than an upper-class dweller in a plains city).
This was very welcome. However, for someone like yours truly who wants a really wide and nuanced range of options available, this didn't quite go far enough - and also didn't exactly match my New Kingdoms setting. I tried several different approaches: for the RM2 incarnation of my campaign, I created different versions of the RMFRP tables (which I also did for RMFRP). I also made a set of development costs for each race and culture: this had several advantages, including giving the possibility of playing a racial or cultural 'profession'. But it was also rather labour-intensive, and created the annoyance of changing development costs after adolescence level. I've tried something similar for RMFRP - less work, thanks to the category system, but not much player uptake.
Now if you read the previous couple of posts on Professional Builds for RMC, you'll note I've mentioned 'cultural packages': this is my latest attempt at a solution - for RMC, in any case. It's meant to pair up with the build system outlined in those posts. It takes most of the labour out of character creation. The player simply adds their Cultural Package and their Profession Build together to create a functional 1st-level character, hopefully in good time!
I've posted a Cultural Package here. It outlines the Plains Marauder culture - i.e. raiding steppe barbarians - and their given skills, granted talents and selectable Background Options. I will be posting rather more of these as time goes by, reflecting the full range of available cultures for the New Kingdoms. This runs the gamut from many - many! - human variants (from Petty Nobility to Urban Working-Class to Villager) and cultural packages for every New Kingdoms race.
This was very welcome. However, for someone like yours truly who wants a really wide and nuanced range of options available, this didn't quite go far enough - and also didn't exactly match my New Kingdoms setting. I tried several different approaches: for the RM2 incarnation of my campaign, I created different versions of the RMFRP tables (which I also did for RMFRP). I also made a set of development costs for each race and culture: this had several advantages, including giving the possibility of playing a racial or cultural 'profession'. But it was also rather labour-intensive, and created the annoyance of changing development costs after adolescence level. I've tried something similar for RMFRP - less work, thanks to the category system, but not much player uptake.
Now if you read the previous couple of posts on Professional Builds for RMC, you'll note I've mentioned 'cultural packages': this is my latest attempt at a solution - for RMC, in any case. It's meant to pair up with the build system outlined in those posts. It takes most of the labour out of character creation. The player simply adds their Cultural Package and their Profession Build together to create a functional 1st-level character, hopefully in good time!
I've posted a Cultural Package here. It outlines the Plains Marauder culture - i.e. raiding steppe barbarians - and their given skills, granted talents and selectable Background Options. I will be posting rather more of these as time goes by, reflecting the full range of available cultures for the New Kingdoms. This runs the gamut from many - many! - human variants (from Petty Nobility to Urban Working-Class to Villager) and cultural packages for every New Kingdoms race.
No comments:
Post a Comment