One of the the first things I wanted to tackle with this project is decide how to handle character creation. From my research and conversations I have had character creation processes tended to be more free form that what is commonly seen today. This fact still held true even with the release of the Original Dungeons and Dragons.
So, now I am left with two options. The first option is to go full free form character creation that includes the players answering questions and making some choices such as equipment and vocations. The second option is to still include the free from prompts but also add in some type of basic attribute stats to give the players and the Referee a numerical option to work off of.
There was a long period of time where I was playing around with the second option but then I had a conversion with James Spahn and he brought up a point that made me stop in my tracks. Long story short is that the point of the conversation when looking at game design, take into account what is just habit. What ideas or sensibilities are you falling back on? That conversation reversed my thinking and I decided to focus on the first option.
With the decision out of the way, now it is time to get to work on setting up the questions. The questions need to be personal, be descriptive enough (without becoming a tedious process) to bring a character to life, allow the player to see potential in the character's growth, name, choices for equipment/vocation, and bonds outside of the player characters. These choices need to make the player feel like the character is connected to the world. This connection will allow greater immersion.
The most difficult part with the character creation is I need to make sure that the questions and number of the questions provide enough detail that new players are able visualize their characters and give them something solid to interact with the world without the process becoming a slog. As I have stated previously, I want Secrets of Arn to be easy to grasp for people who have never played this style of gaming before or even new gamers in general.
My first couple rough drafts ping ponged back abs forth between 5-6 questions to 12-15 questions. During these drafts, I also went back and forth between allowing the players to choose a special ability for their characters or magic or both. In Bob Meyer's games he allows players to select special abilities for the purpose of uniqueness and to help keep magic out of the game because it does not matter what game, what idea, what system, magic tends to be a headache.
After screaming endlessly into void, I decided the special ability character creation prompt is going to allow both options. So, a player can decide if they want their character to have a special ability or they want their character to be magically inclined. Special abilities are designed specifically for the character with the player and the Referee working together and can range from being exceptionally skilled at a certain task or aspect, turning the characters arms into tentacles, or even something that may be considered more magical or obscure in nature.
This decision is going to lead to more work down the road as I will have to figure out how magic is going to work and how I am going to limit it.
Though, figuring out magic is a future me problem. For now, I have finalized 8 prompts for the character creation process and I am happy how they turned out. At this point, I feel like the character creation process is done and the page could be handed out to get things rolling with little effort.
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