My group had our “first” session last night for the 4e Pathfinder campaign. This session was devoted entirely to character creation but there wasn’t a single character sheet on the table. Huh?
Outside of picking race, class, and determining Ability Scores, we didn’t get to any of the “crunch” related to character creation. No feats were picked, no powers were selected, no skills trained…nope…none of that. Instead, I took a page (or few) from Spirit of the Century. I had already discussed with the players that I wanted this game to have something of a “pulp” feel to it so what better place to turn for inspiration? For those who don’t know, Spirit of the Century is a much lauded pulp rpg by Evil Hat Productions based on their FATE game system.
One of the core elements of character creation in SotC is a notion of Background Phases and the selection of Aspects. Each Background Phase covers either a period of the character’s life or an important “story” from the character’s life. In each of the Phases, Aspects are also defined. An Aspect is a word or short phrase that captures a core or key concept of who a character is as opposed to what a character can do. They provide, in a sense, a short-hand of the character in a story-oriented/role-playing sort of fashion.
Aspects, however, are more than just descriptors. In SotC, they have a significant “mechanical” impact as well. When a character is in a situation where the player feels that her character’s Aspect is applicable, the player can spend a “Fate Point” to “invoke” the Aspect to gain a bonus, re-roll dice, or even introduce a small story element into the scene or overall story. Similarly, when a GM feels that a character is in a situation where the character’s Aspect might complicate things for a character or that a character should be expected to respond in a certain way, he can “compel” the player to have the character act consistent with the Aspect in exchange for gaining an additional Fate Point. The intent in both cases is for the player and GM to advance the story, increase the interest or “cool” factor of the scene, and/or to add interesting complications to the situations that the characters find themselves in…specifically in situations of high drama. Aspects are not intended to simply gain some sort of mechanical advantage or to simply replace normal, everyday role-playing.
Do you see where I’m going with this?
Yep, instead of Fate Points, we’re going to try out Aspects in 4e using Action Points. An Action Point can still be used to gain an additional action in an encounter but an Action Point can also be used to invoke Aspects to give the character a bonus or advantage in an appropriate situation that advances the story in some fashion or simply makes the game more interesting. Essentially, the players can use Action Points to gain a small element of control over the direction of the story for a brief period of time. Characters will start sessions with multiple Action Points and these will refresh at “natural” breaks in the story rather than gaining one for each Milestone. Characters can gain additional Action Points when their Aspects are “compelled” by the GM.
That’s the basics of it (check out Spirit of the Century if you want more details on Aspects and Fate Points).
No character sheets came out because we spent the entire session working through various Background Phases, defining the Aspects related to each, and essentially establishing character concepts (along, of course, with a lot of socializing). With this approach, I’m hoping that Action Points become more grounded in character concept and have an important role in, well, role-playing and the game’s story rather than just being a combat mechanic.
Aspects also have an added benefit of giving a nice, colorful, and evocative description of a character. This morning one of my players sent me the Aspects for his character, Tokunbe, that were worked out last night along with a paragraph description of what he thinks he each Aspect means. He had previously written out a “character background” in the more typical D&D sense of the term. I have to say that the Aspects and their descriptions give me a much, much better picture of who Tokunbe is than the background ever did. It has also given me some possible ideas for story hooks down the road that are directly related to Tokunbe and, given that a couple of the Background Phases involved “guest starring” in another character’s story/background, he already has a definite connection or hook to some of the other player characters that will be in the campaign.
I think the players found the whole process challenging (I kind of sprung it on them) but, I hope, also rewarding. I’ll let them chime in with their own comments.
