Thursday, March 17, 2016

Progress report 11C Random Character Generation Booklet

Here are some mental models and notes of my progress.  I know if I keep needling in useless details my progress will be stalled.

  • 11C is the default. (if you follow the First Crusade, Komnenian Restoration, the Norman Conquest of England, and Reconquista this may be an awesome era for you). This can be 11C in the Real World History OR a setting with Tech and Economics equal to 11C. 
    • In China its the Song Dynasty, a great Rise and Fall. Also a very well documented Dynasty. Check out the Houizong Emperor in Chinahistorypodcast or the Book. Chock-full of very interesting tidbits that give you a sense of scale and economic situation of the time.  
  • Had to do an updated writeup for GURPS Wealth and Status. This took most of the day (5 hours; not counting the 6 hours during the workweek I had to set aside for this lolz) and needs some polish. 
  • Military Service Tax and duties. I switched from Hides to a more general term many other names and tends to be universal is incorporated. 
    • I moved from hides to just calling it a Warrior's Service (tax or duty). A warrior's service has an upkeep cost of a handful of tenant households
    • See Knight's Service, Flyrd,  Roman Legion,
    • The warrior's service depended on Institutional traditions of the culture for the availability of the role of warrior: light, heavy, archers, or cavalryman.  Later on I'll provide notes for the people who don't depend or measure themselves in Tenant Households: the Merchants and the Horse Nomads.  
    • Made provisions that Warriors services like Mounted Warriors (who needed 5 more tenant households to provide the horses) and Cavalry (who needed 10 more tenant households to provide the warhorses). 
    • Economic Efficiencies. I'm aware that there is economic efficiency and infefficiency when it comes to tenant households. 
  • Time to write up the Backgrounds and thats 36 entries. I hope to simplify it by grouping them like the Religious Backgrounds, Freeman or Mechant Backgrounds, Agents and Clients Background, and the Elite. Probably 6 hours again doing this. Maybe 3 hours needling to edit it and polish it (I wish I can have someone else do this lolz). 
  • You will notice I put a "Mundanes" which has worse stats than PCs. 
  • From where I am it will take 20 hours for the TRAITS d36 because of the number of Sub Trait tables. 
  • Then about 20-30 hours for the Professions as it requires a lot of page references and sorting work.  

Reiteration of Design Goals

  • This Booklet will help someone make a complete character and some of his story in 5-15 minutes. (1 minute if I can make a google spreadsheet do all the work lolz). 
  • Organic Characters (they do not exist in a vacuum) and definitive set of motivation and goals. 
    • That the traits and the circumstance is enough material for the GM to create a story. 
  • Make Newbie Introduction quick and easy to learn. Minimize the biases built into an overloaded Option set. 
  • Do many of the Heavy Lifting for the GM. Provide a useful set of mental models. 




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