Re: (nothing to do with) followers

From: Jane Williams <jane_at_...>
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 2000 20:57:32 -0000

No, be fair, it comes up with some suggestions. P21, "minimum target numbers should be in the 12/10/8/6 range". Which seemed a bit low for what I wanted.

> If you want my suggestions for a low-power campaign, I would not
lower
> anything by more than 4 points, and cultural skills not at all.
Ergo, one
> ability at 1w, two at 17 and everything else at 13.

Almost exactly what I've done, though I used 12, not 13, as that's the
value given for new initiates created in play. I may increase the 12s to 13s, though: others have suggested it.

My only real trouble is that HW only allows one "profession", and several of these guys have had more than one. They go hunting with mum, and brewing beer with dad, or something. So that 12 or 13 got split, and I'm still very unsure how to do this.

> Except... I do have one idea about using an old set of scenarios
for
> fast-forwarding a group of characters through the first few years
of
> adulthood. In this case, I would start everything off at exactly
13,
with
> only keyword abilities plus one or two hobby skills, and then give
hefty
> one-off improvements between episodes to bring them up to standard
> medium-power levels by the time the mini-series had run its course.

This is roughly what I have in mind. We'll see how fast they develop due to play, and maybe say " a year passes... your skills all go up by
1" Or something. It's now 1598: I want to play through 1602, 1613, and
1625 with these characters.

> By
> which time I would also expect the players to have completed their
> 100-word narratives.

By which time at least one of mine will have written the first five or
six chapters of his autobiography.

> >What on earth do you mean by "balancing", anyway? Cutting down the
> >stats of all published NPCs (and half the rules) to fit the halved
> >stats of your PCs, or something?
>
> Nothing of the sort. What I meant was that you seemed to be asking
about
> the balance of one ability against another, within your character
> concept. And since you had dreamed those numbers up yourself,
well...  

Not dreamed. Based on the HW rules and published scenarios, in so far as there are any. But it's horribly unspecific about just what different numbers mean in terms of how good you really are. I'm trying
to use the rules as written. Only they haven't been written.

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