I started doing this earlier with my "Attributes" post but I kind of got caught up on the Attributes portion of the whole bit while forgetting that breaking a character down into numbers is much more involved. Like I mentioned earlier, D&D, which is the basis for most RPGs, a character is broken down into an assortment of numbers: abilities, ability mods, skills, feats, powers, etc., etc., ad nauseam. There are so many numbers and they are hard to understand unless you've played before. It intimidates new players, and sometimes confuses even experienced ones, so for our game to work we need to simplify it.
We already have the "test attributes" as I'll call them and they have absorbed the ability score modifier by becoming the ability score modifier. (I honestly have no idea why WotC hasn't done this already ... it seems so obvious.) So we have knocked that out pretty easily. Yay us.
Now we look at the other things, let's go ahead and keep skills, personally I like skills, skills make sense. They are broad, cover a lot of actions (granted, not all actions), and just help point players in the direction of what their character can do/what they should be thinking about doing. However, that being said, you could just do ability checks for the most part to take care of these things, Strength for Jump distance, Constitution for Concentration, etc. I don't know what to do here.
On the one hand, we could easily simplify this by just basing them on the Attribute score completely and leaving the checks up to the GMs, but that could lead to some arguments about what Attribute works best for what thing, etc. On the other hand, if we use skills they reduce arguments generally but it can also lead to a more cluttered character sheet, more confusion, the whole bit.
Not really a shining winner of a solution here unfortunately.
Personally I think that we should keep skills and consolidate the list a little bit, make skills based on things that your character would have to be trained in to know. Every character knows how to Spot, Listen, and Search (well ... maybe not search but we'll come back to that), they all know how to Jump, Climb, and potentially Tumble. Now Handling Animals eh... maybe not. Or Tracking. Or Survival. Or Knowledges. Or Spellcraft. So on and so forth. (Oh and Use Magical Device ... no. If magic is that inherent in the world, everyone will know how to use it. Maybe not certain items, but that's what proficiency is for.)
So let's see if we could potentially consolidate the skills into a smaller list, say 10 - 20. These are given to you based on your class and your upbringing. Class skills get +3 to them. Upbringing skills get +1 to them (because if you're in a class that means you've focused your life around them. Upbringing is just things you learned in passing growing up). You add that to your Attribute for your Skill Total. Roll a die (whatever number) add to the Skill Total that's your check.
Eh ... still somewhat complicated, I may need to work on it farther. But if we cut out skill ranks and cut back on the number of skills, I think the system is simple enough to understand. It's basically simple addition at best.
So anyway our STEP 1 to improve and speed up Character Creation is to dispose of or improve the Skill System.
Next let's take a look at the next big part of characters: the feats. d20 loves its feat system to death. It was supposed to make fighters be on par with the spellcasters and frankly it failed miserably, but that's a story for another time. The point is that feats are complicated. There's thousands of them (each book adds at least a dozen), and they have prerequisites and sometimes they aren't written well and ... Blegh. I don't like feats. Feat selection is the second longest part of character creation there is. (Besides spell selection) Even buying equipment goes faster. I don't like feats and I don't want them in game.
But how do we add the character progression and diversity to each individual character without feats?
Simple, we use cards. I mentioned this in an earlier post and the more I think about it, the more I think that it's a really really solid idea. First of all, it's random so no minmaxing, no wasting time pouring over the various books and coming up with that perfect loophole of feats that turns you into a fireball spitting, miracle shitting demigod. Secondly, you still don't remove the player's choice. Like I said, put 3 things on the card that they can choose from, one that benefits each class in some way, and let them choose.
Not only does the card idea eliminate the need for feat selection, it also eliminates the need for leveling up, because drawing a new card is essentially leveling up. It keeps the GMs happy because the leveling is much smaller, so it's easier to handle when the players get a boost, and it's easier for the players to keep track of their numbers instead of trying to find a blank spot on their coffee stained character sheet to write their new feat and scribble in what it does.
STEP 2 to improve and speed up Character Creation is to dispose of feats and leveling and implement Cards.
Now let's take a look at some of the other things on a character sheet, I'll label this section "Defenses aka Things that will keep you alive ... maybe". We have the standards here: HP, AC, and saves. So let's break down how to make these less complicated and better.
HP is something that needs to be there. It's something that everyone understands. Video game players, board game players, card game players, RPers, etc. all understand the concept of HP. So let's keep it. It's simple to understand, it takes a very abstract concept and knocks it into numbers, and overall it makes it pleasant to look at. I've played other games that had limb damage and scarring and different states of being, etc, and they were complicated and confusing. Let's not bother with that, let's stick with HP. It's simple and efficient.
Also let's go ahead and standardize HP. I've never understood exactly why different classes earned themselves different HP. Is a human rogue automatically more fragile than a human fighter? No, not at all. But according to D&D they're a good 2 HP per level different. It makes no sense to me. They are the same species, so why would their HP be different based on class? I understand the constitution modifier, it makes sense to me, a stronger built person can better take a hit than a weak one, but a class does not automatically make you weaker. I find the very concept annoying.
So I'll be Oprah and go ahead and give everyone 20 or 30 HP.
If we need more variance I'll have the characters race control HP, but I don't think it's necessary.
As for when they level, their HP will increase every time they get a new card. How much will it increase by? I don't know. 2 points flat? Their Bravery attribute score? I'm really not sure. But we'll work that one out.
STEP 3 to improve and speed up Character Creation is to standardize HP, and simplify it when "leveling up" aka receiving cards.
Now let's move onto AC. Armor class is ... frankly, complicated. It's based on your Dexterity and your armor and your shield and any dodge bonuses you have, and your feats, and yadda yadda yadda. It's too much. So let's take a step back and look at it objectively.
AC basically is an abstraction of how hard your character is to hit/damage, that's it. It's not necessarily the strength of your armor, or the size of your shield, it's also how fast your character moves, how large/small he is, etc. So what needs to go into our AC? In my opinion I think that AC should be based on essentially 3 things: whether or not you're wearing armor/what kind of armor, what your Bravery or Guile score is, and whether or not you're wielding a shield.
There, simple. Now let's be more specific. We should divide armor into 2 types: light and heavy. (Why does medium exist?) Light armor allows you to keep your Bravery or Guile bonus to AC. Heavy armor doesn't but it gives you a big increase on AC to make up for that fact. Shields take up an arm to use and add to your AC. Spellcasters can't use shields. But can they wear armor? I don't see why not, especially light armor. Heavy armor ... eh, that's arguable. I'd say no but I don't mind if they can.
So let's break it down: AC is based on armor, shield, and Guile or Bravery (whichever is higher we'll say).
That doesn't sound too bad. Add together 3 numbers that will all probably be less than two digits? I think even the newest of players can handle that.
STEP 4 to improve and speed up Character Creation is to simplify AC and condense it from the 30 variables to 3.
Now let's look at saves. Saves make sense to me, they are the body's ability to shield itself from bad things. That makes quite a bit of sense, because we as humans do similar things. Our minds will shut down to protect us from horrific things, adrenaline kicks in to help us move faster or become stronger, so on and so forth. Players should have some sort of mental and physical defense against spells and poisons, etc.
Otherwise they'd die very very quickly.
But do we really need separate numbers for the saves? Especially when you just go ahead and add your ability modifier to them anyway? Why not just make the attribute the save? Sure, let's do that.
So the main saves in D&D are WILL, REF, and FORT. Ours shall instead be Determination or Faith for WILL, Martial or Passion for FORT, and Curiosity and Guile for REF. However we'll call the saves MIND, BODY, and SOUL instead. Determination and Faith = SOUL, Martial and Passion = BODY, Guile and Curiosity = MIND. Doesn't quite rinse out ... but we'll tinker with it.
You take whichever of those two attributes is higher and that's your save. So if you have high Curiosity but below average Guile, your MIND save will be your Curiosity attribute. There, simple, and efficient. And a lot less complex.
STEP 5 to improve and speed up Character Creation is to simplify the saves.
As for the rest of the Character Sheet, most of it is just extra really, it's mostly class based stuff like Spells and Abilities, and also things like Equipment. We'll deal with these things in due time, because I don't consider them the main parts of character creation, since not every character has them.
I wrote in ideas to simplify everything here, but to reiterate, this is what we need to do to speed things up and simplify:
Step 1: Dispose or Improve the Skill System
Step 2: Dispose of Feats and Leveling and use Cards
Step 3: Simplify and standardize HP, "level" HP using Cards
Step 4: Simplify AC into fewer variables: wearing armor, shield, Guile or Bravery. (And then spells...)
Step 5: Simplify or dispose of saves, replace them with Attributes
Half page character sheet, here we come.
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