A few weeks ago I started contemplating the idea of having much more abstract rules for character creation. But what do I mean by abstract in this case? “Abstract” for me means having a player create a character less by filling out a character sheet, but more about writing out some description of the character and running with it.
Abstract Dice Image - from Clipart.com
When it comes right down to it, your typical party of PCs doesn’t really need much to describe it. Sure, most games use character sheets to note scores, skills, and stuff for each character as reminders of how to describe such things, but do we really need it?
What if we could simply take a character concept and describe a few basic things:
- How does your character appear to the others? (A brief paragraph that you can read or hand to a player to answer this essential question.)
- How does your character see him or herself? (Another brief paragraph that is more for the player than anyone else.)
- How does your character behave around other people? (What is the character’s personality like? Are there any behavioral triggers that produce an emotional response?)
- What is your character good at? (A list of the top 5 things the character does well.)
- What is your character bad at? (A list of the top 5 things the character does poorly.)
- What does your character own? (A list of the “stuff” your character has currently on his or her person.)
Now… Some may not like that this approach takes a lot of writing. I know many people who think writing is evil, difficult, and to be avoided at all costs. So it could probably be boiled down to a set of lists.
Some of these qualities would change over time, so you’d still need a character sheet to write things down on.
And the only thing missing is a way to resolve actions and/or damage in combat. If you boil #4 and #5 down to simple lists of common skills or actions (i.e. Swordsmanship, Acrobatics, Jumping, etc…) you could use a single die and modify it…
So let’s say you get, in your top 5 “good” actions – an Amazing, an Excellent, two Goods, and an OK. Your “Amazing” action would get you your base die + 4 dice. Your “Excellent” would get you your base + 3, etc. Or perhaps it’s just the base die + 4, 3, 2, 1… Though people like to roll lots of dice sometimes, so who knows…
Same on the other side… A “Horrible”, “Poor”, etc… Maybe we don’t really need this and just go with the base die for anything not explicitly called out in the “good” actions. Naked roll.
And it’s just roll vs. roll. Each character would have 5 “hits” before unconsciousness and a coup-de-grace hit after that kills them. Each time an action resolves not in favor of the PC, it counts against a “hit”. And they heal a “hit” per “day” in the game.
This is beginning to sound suspiciously like the old Vampire game with its dots. 
Are there any games out there that already work this way? Or have you played with more abstract roleplaying concepts in the past? Let’s start a conversation! I’d be interested to see where things end up…
–Fitz
