Unworthy Setting to Burning Wheel

[Enoch]

I always like to test new systems for my baby setting Unworthy, and the system I designed myself came up wanting heavily after playtest. So I started work on translating it to Burning Wheel.

(As a side note Unworthy has been through the following rules: The Window, Theatrix, Unknown Armies, my Tarot card system.)

For reference Unworthy is a post-apocalypse game. It is very similar to Revelations where people just up and dissapear leaving behind a perfectly fine world. The big differance is that only certain types of people were left behind. Namely minors, elderly, insane, terminally ill, handicapped, and convicts. It is set seven years after the Abduction (it is said that otherworldly sentient beings were responisble for the mass disappearances. There are several PC types. The Sleepers who fell into a strange dream world and were trained with otherworldly powers. The Dreamers who dreamt everything that happened to the Sleepers, but could not interact. The Knights who knew about the Abduction and were trying to stop it (but failed). And the Survivors, which is basically everyone else who has been awake for the past seven years.

The first thing that I set out to do was detail character creation. At first I tried to make modern lifepaths, but slowly realized the massive undertaking that would be. So I scrapped the idea of lifepaths and am now working on a character creation process without them.

I plan on posting my progress on this board for other peoples use. Like my lifepathless character creation system, modern firearms, a few rules expansions for vehicles, etc. Hopefully at least some of it will be useful to someone.

-Joshua

[luke]

oh god! please rock me with this!

nice setting, btw!

:twisted:

[Catalyst]

Not meaning to hijack the thread completely, here, but I was wondering about character creation using other than lifepaths in BW for the reason given above, it's a massive undertaking for a new non-fantasy setting. It adds a bunch of depth to the setting to create the lifepaths, but it's a killer for time/energy.

Have you thought about building an abbreviated generic character creation system, abzu? Or anyone?

Sounds like a cool setting to me, too. What kind of dream worlds are the trainings going on in?

[Enoch]

Ok here's the character creation stuff I have done so far.

Throughout this whole process I have tried to use my knowledge of the averages of character creation. I have only made maybe a half dozen characters for my Fallen campaign (which I will post about in the campaign section of this forum), but I have started to get a feel for the average bonuses gained by lifepaths.

Stats.

Everything is based on age with a few bonuses based on character type.

Ages 1-16 are the same (at this point no lifepaths would give much of a bonus).
17+ are like the chart, but you add 2 to both Mental and Physical pools. I have considered lowering this to 1.

Survivors gain a +1 bonus to Mental and +2 to Physical. Technically Survivors were originally seperated into two groups. Squatters and Survivors. Survivors were supposed to be those who were left behind that were competant enough to actually do more than hide and forage.

Sleepers bonuses vary depending on the type (there are 22).

Knights bonuses vary depending on faction (there are four).

Dreamers gain +1 Mental.

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Skills

This one was pretty tough. I considered making an age chart or something like that, but I decided to just go with pools of skill points. I did go through the skill list and added and subtracted skills from it. One of the dissapointing things about not having lifepaths is that you lose some of the cool little uber-specific skills that just add character. I'll post my skill list changes (additions, subtractions, etc.) later on.

Every character starts with a base 20 points. These work just like General points in Burning Wheel.

Survivors are seperated into three groups by age. The youths gain a +10 bonus. Adults gain a +15. Elders gain +20. I have thought about restricting the first 10 points gained from this to only a certain group of skills like Survival, Vehicule, Martial, etc. I have yet to decide though.

Knights gain +15 points.

Sleepers and Dreamers vary, and both will probably be restricted to spending their bonus points on only a few skills.

Traits
This one was tough like usual just because I needed to estimate the average amount of Trait points gained.

Survivors: 7 (Elders get 10).
Sleepers & Dremers: 3 (+ traits gained from the dream world)
Knights: 7 (plus a few free traits)

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I have yet to test these numbers by actually making characters, but if anyone sees something that seems to high or low, please give me some feedback.

My next post will probably detail the three new attributes (Soul, Stress, Depression).

Well the dream worlds are each differant. I based them on the Major Arcana from the Tarot. So there are 22 differant worlds and types of Sleepers.

I am working on uploading the PDF of my latest incarnation of Unworthy onto my site (hopefully I have enough room left). So you can check it out here. (http://www.msu.edu/~smith465/unworthy/unworthy.pdf). A word of warning. The file is 3.13 MB in size. Mostly because of the photos I inserted (all of which I purchased rights to for like 50 cents) and the layout. There's very little information on the setting, originally I was going to write it out in the GM's section with guidelines on how to convert your local area into an Unworthy-version of it. But I have yet to start on the GM section. I was also working on a setting book for my own area (Lapeer, MI).

-Joshua

[Enoch]

Ok, at first I was thinking about making Stress and Depression like Grief with obstacles and the like. But I think the way I have it currently is pretty independant and can be used in pretty much any rule system. Except for a few things like the effects of stress and the like. For more info on Stress and Depression look at my PDF as linked above.

A major change I am making for both Stress and Depression though is that it will require 10 Temporary points to make 1 Permanent, instead of basing it off of a stat.

Stress

Additional Ways to Gain Temporary Stress
-Everytime a character fails a Steel test they gain 1 TSP.

Effects of Stress
After gaining a PSP (permanent stress point) a character must immediately make a Steel test (normal results occur).

Other than the immediate fight or flight reaction there are more long term effects on the body and mind. There are three levels of stress effects. Light Stress, Moderate Stress, and Severe Stress. These levels are gained at 3, 6, and 9 respectively.

Light Stress: Frequent headaches and feeling tired all the time. At this point the character is also getting irritable, impatient, and restless. It is more difficult for you to work carefully as you can become frustrated rather easily. Instead of a +50% time you have to take +75% time increase to reduce the Ob.

Moderate Stress: Aches and pains, lack of appetite, difficulty sleeping. The character becomes hostile or helpless. Along with the penalties from Light Stress the character also has a +1 Ob penalty to all Steel tests.

Severe Stress: Becomes ill quite often. Reduce Health by 1.

When a character reaches ten stress they have a breakdown and gain a permanent mental problem that makes it difficult to live normally.

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Depression

Effects of Depression

Gaining Temporary Depression Points has little effect except for a feeling of dread, despair, or just plain old sadness. Gaining a Permanent Depression Point results in an immediate mental fugue where everything around a character becomes meaningless. The character will just stare blankly into space.

Also much like Stress, there are three levels of Permanent Depression. Light Depression, Moderate Depression, Severe Depression.

Light Depression: Loss of enjoyment of ordinary activities, pessimism. No real game effects.

Moderate Depression: Empty feeling, decreased energy, feeling of helplessness. Can only ever FoRK and Help people with one die, even if they have enough skill to add more.

Severe Depression: Loss of appetite, aches and pains, chronic crying, loss of sleep. Cannot use Soul stat at all.

When a character reaches the cap for Depression they start thinking about suicide and death.

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Soul
Soul is an abstract measurement of the character's spiritual power. It is used for most supernatural abilities. It is an open-ended Attribute.

This attribute is determined by a character's type. Survivors start with a Soul of 2. Knights have a Soul of 3. Sleepers ahve a Soul of 4. Dreamers have a Soul of 5. A character with a Will of 5 or higher gain a point of Soul.

Soul advances as Perception where only successful challenges count towards advancement.

-Joshua