| Zachary W Anderson |
So here’s my second attempt at a Harrow-based character creation method.
One: Have the player shuffle the Harrow deck.
Two: Ask if there are any information the player wants to have set out beforehand. Age, nationality, race, class, religion, orphan, military, whathaveyou.
Three: Have the player ask at least eighteen questions about the character. As an answer to each question, draw a card from the Harrow deck and lay it on a two-deep three-by-three grid, and then you and the player come up with an answer inspired by the card (and the details already sketched out beforehand). The placement of the card should be inspired by the question as follows: Top row = the world at large, middle row = community or family, bottom row = personal; left column = distant past, center column = immediate past or current, right column = future or plans; if one question is related to another, put one of those on top of the other. However, since there are only two spots in each grid, you’ll have to put some in random slots instead of matching exactly, unless the player is very conscientious about asking exactly one question and then one followup question about the family’s distant past (for example).
Four: A major concordance (card icon matches the location it’s placed) is worth six points in the indicated ability score, and should include an epic about how that situation greatly improved that ability score.
A minor concordance (card icon matches the row but not the column, or column but not the row) is worth five points, and should include a detail about how the character is good at the indicated ability score.
A neutral card (neither same nor opposite rows nor columns) is worth four points. The reader can use this as a place to include a peccadillo or interesting trait about the character.
A concordant discordance (same column opposite row, or opposite column same row) is worth three points and should be used to describe a paradigm shift in the character’s life or outlook.
A minor discordance (card icon has the opposite column or row from the card’s location) is worth two points, and should include a detail about how the character is hindered in the indicated ability score.
A major discordance (card icon is at the opposite column and row) is worth a single point, and should describe a tragedy about what debilitated the character in that ability.
| Zachary W Anderson |
The Math:
The astute will note that there's only a 4/81 chance of getting a major discordance, and a 24/81 chance of getting a minor concordance; i.e. they'll be rolling more fives and very few ones. Having run a few models, this turns into an average score of 11.5. Frankly, I'm okay with this for heroic characters, and it also fits the (4d6 drop one) fairly well. I've found the scores to come out in the upper 60s and lower 70s, which I feel is a good range. If the total score is less than 64, I'd suggest letting the player swap two cards - if they can come up with a good story about how they persevered through such tragedy. The most this can increase the character's scores is by 10, and that's only if they previously rolled 2 ones that happened to be at opposite corners; it usually increases total scores by 8.
Oh! It's also extremely unlikely that you'll come up with exactly 3 cards from each suit. In this case, assuming either the "donor" or "recipient" ability score is higher or lower than 18 or 3 (respectively), one should let the player move "dice" from ability scores with extra cards to those missing cards to come up with three each.
| Cheapy |
Have you seen the work Liz Courts did on this subject? It can be found in Wayfinder 5. Might give you some good ideas!
| Zachary W Anderson |
Drat, missed a few details and bad editing:
- They can ask more than 18 questions, in which case you make a border around the 3x3 (NOT 9x9!) grid; but you only count the 18 cards in the grid.
- If you allow swapping in all cases, not just below a certain score, the average bumps up to 12.75.
- I messed up the respectivity in question should be donor-higher-than-18-more-than-three-cards or recipient-lower-than-3-fewer-than-three-cards. Let me rephrase that, since it's a bit confusing. If a score has higher than 18, move a card from it to an ability "die" with fewer than 3 cards. If a score has lower than 3, move an ability "die" from a pile with more than 3 cards to it.
If there's more than one option, have the player choose which "die" gets moved to which ability score to move towards the character they want.
| Zachary W Anderson |
Have you seen the work Liz Courts did on this subject? It can be found in Wayfinder 5. Might give you some good ideas!
It did! This was suggested to me before, but it took me a while to find both the book and the time.
I'm not sure about her method of stat generation - it seems impossible for true neutral characters to get a score below 10. On the other hand, I definitely like the idea of having a few guided "stock" questions like family/friends/foes. It was especially helpful to be reminded that the cards aren't necessarily literal; not everyone who draws "the twin" as a foe has an evil twin - it could be the man (or woman) in the mirror....granted, this is fantasy roleplaying, so it could also be a mirror of opposition, or a doppelganger, or Spock with a goatee, or...