Scarlet Heroes Character Creation Thoughts ========================================== After looking through a lot of OSR systems, I finally settled on trying out Scarlet Heroes. It looked like it offers the best balance between what I wanted out of a system. For the first game, I am a player, and someone else kind enough to be the GM. It's going to be a duet game, which Scarlet Heroes is designed for. The first step for me in this is to create a character. First Character, Cookie ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My original character concept was a slippery magic thief named Cookie. A small, high energy kenku with a playful spirit who uses illusory magic to disguise themselves, act, and pull off theft right under people's noses. They love to make a game out of the chase, and are a bit of an escape artist, should they get caught. They love to make a show of it too, using their illusions to create an act to explain their sudden disappearances from capture. For example, creating sounds of a large creature shuffling through the trees. Slowly ramping it up to make the guards who've captured them nervous. Then for a finale, have an illusion of a large beast jump out from the trees to grab them and carry them away, while at the moment of the grab, turning themselves invisible to run the other way. What motivates them is making people laugh or teasing others. They believe life should not be taken too seriously. They live constantly on the move so suspicion doesn't build up around them. (An intentional design decision to make it easier on the GM to insert them into whatever adventure modules we use.) They're generally fending for themselves, just well enough to scrape by, but will help the downtrodden people in need they encounter. Even to a fault, where they will put other's needs before their own, believing they'll be able to make it up for themselves more easily. Unfortunately, Scarlet Heroes couldn't handle a character like this. In particular, the magic system is too restrictive. Characters are restricted to a set of very specific spells with very specific effects, and none of them matched this character. Where I wanted them to have things like illusions, invisibility, teleportation, and levitation, the game insists every magic-user instead knows something among spell effects like sleep, detection (thrice), summon a friend, stay clean, change the phase of inanimate matter, charm person, and throw lightning. Some cool ideas, but useless for mine. Even if we swap out the spell list with that from Basic, there's no options to build what I wanted. This is of course even before we address the fact that they'll only be able to cast ONE spell per day, and likely only have 2 or 3 spells total to choose from. In early editions, cantrips did not exist, so they only get to do one thing before it's over and they're relying on their sidekick Bonky, the feral tree branch. No combining spells like described above to create interesting situations. They won't be able to perform such grand escapes. If my GM agreed, we could have compensated for this by allowing the character to have magic items like wands that hold the spells. It changes the flavor of the character, but even so the rules don't cover this. Not wands, not staves, not how to start with magic items, magic item prices. We'd have to figure out how they get recharged, how much they cost, how they started with these items, etc. If we managed to resolve that, the next issue is that a class structure restricts what kind of skills they're allowed to have. I could have started them off as a thief to get access to those kinds of skills, and use the magic items to compensate their magic side. And then multiclass later? It's such a hassle trying to make the idea work. Scarlet Heroes is more flexible than other systems here because you use traits to describe the thief talents, but still, it's trying to split the concept across classes. They'd have no innate magic. My first character could not survive character creation, and not in the Traveler sense. The game literally could not handle the character. I'm going to save this character for another game with a system where it's not forced. It just does not work here. For fun, I tried creating the character in Fate Condensed instead. I had no issues other than trying to decide how I wanted magic to work. I think they'd be a lot of fun to play. ___________________________________________________________________________ / / \ | NAME: Cookie (she/her) REFRESH: 2 FATE POINTS: 2 |_ | | DESCRIPTION: Small black feathered kenku wearing dark tied robes |_\_/ | and a matching pointy witch-style hat. | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | ASPECTS | | - Tricky magical kenku thief | | - Life is a game | | - Puts others before themselves | | - Slippery escape artist | | - Always on the go | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | SKILLS | | +4: Deceive | | +3: Will, Burglary | | +2: Athletics, Stealth, Provoke | | +1: Rapport, Empathy, Notice, Shoot | | +0: Academics, Contacts, Crafts, Drive, Fight, | | Investigate, Lore, Physique, Resources | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | STUNTS | | - Illusory Magic: May use Deceive to Create an Advantage from magical | | spells that trick the senses into believing something is there | | that's not or hide something that is. | | - Levitation: May use Will in place of Physique to Overcome by using | | magic to levitate objects up to a short distance away. | | - Teleportation: You may teleport a short distance in a puff of smoke | | up to three zones as an action, as long as you can see where it is. | | - Mind Over Matter: Physical Stress may be taken in part or whole as | | Mental Stress instead. | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | Physical Stress: [ ] [ ] [ ] | | Mental Stress: [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] | | | | CONSEQUENCES | | 2: |___ | 4: |_/ \ | 6: | | \________________________________________________________________________\__/ And her faithful companion. -------------------------------------------------- / NAME: Bonky, the feral tree branch / \________________________________________________\ / ASPECTS / \ - Is a small tree branch \ / - Literally just a stick / ------------------------------------------------- Sidetracked ~~~~~~~~~~~ Suffice to say, this kind of game greatly limits the kinds of characters that can be made. I suppose it is partly my fault to start with a character idea before anything else. They're too high fantasy while the game is low fantasy. I should be trying to come up with something that fits the world better, and the rules help shape that. Magic users don't work like above. OSR grognards will likely say the reason that character didn't work was because I was starting with a fleshed out concept instead of letting that be developed through play. Or maybe they'd say character doesn't matter, just play. This is kind of a deeper issue with OSR. You're not supposed to have interesting characters. That only happens retroactively if they survive the meat grinder. A good character, in my mind, should have an origin, a reason to accept the call to adventure, skills to handle the adventure, hobbies, ambitions, personality, and maybe some connections to somewhere in the world. (Lessons learned from Fate.) These kind of traits help make roleplaying easier. I don't think this is how OSR characters are supposed to work, but I wasn't really given an alternative. Everything about character creation is about what they can do, and it's mostly combat. Am I supposed to assume every character is a wanderer who wants to kick butt and grab loot, and we're all out of loot? Are they supposed to be a blank slate that's literally just me in a fantasy body? Perhaps this is why people describe their characters as "A level 3 Elf Wizard" rather than "Geraford the apprentice court wizard of the elvin city Mirtholda". I'm getting sidetracked thinking about the theory. But the design that comes from that theory is impeding creativity. (I thought OSR was supposed to have greater creativity than modern games..?) Okay, back to creating characters. Trying Again ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I decided to reverse my approach and try to build an interesting character concept out of the mechanics. I still wanted to try playing a magic user, because I haven't really done so before. Magic in this setting comes from a lot of study. Wizards with massive text books that they record all their spells in so they can temporarily memorize it before they forget. So let's make something based on that. ... Perhaps they are a student of a secretive clan who protect the knowledge of their way of magic, with a code of ethics similar to Bushido. One day they find their encampment destroyed, and cut off, must head out to the rest of the world to continue their learning and find who is responsible. ...Nah, it doesn't make sense. All magic users are the same. What they could learn there would be the same as magic public college. Does not fit the world. ... A magic user who uses their spells to create a superhero persona. ...No, not enough spell slots to do that. I'm getting too far from the mechanics. ... An arcane librarian, who's job it is to keep records of the spellbooks, histories, and other magical tombs at a magic college. While not a student, they have the means to study the arcane arts in their own principled manner. ...Eh, they're missing a reason to accept a call to adventure. They're too anchored in place with a job like that. Would work better in something like Call of Cthulhu. ... Just... a regular magic college student. Uh, they're a drop out which is why they're still level 1. Going adventuring for money. So how would they still be learning new spells as they're out adventuring? And this character sounds boring to play. ... It turns out to be a real challenge trying to come up with a character that both fit the rules and would be interesting to play. Another Sidetrack ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't think it's ever mentioned how magic users actually learn their spells. Sorcerers make sense because it's an innate thing they can practice and come up with new combinations themselves. But this is the era before sorcerers. Wizards are supposed to learn it through vigorous study, but that's not mechanically enforced. You earn new spells by leveling up. This creates discontinuity between the fiction and the rules. Wizards can also find scrolls and transcribe those into their spellbooks to learn new spells. This is does match the mechanics to the fiction. It makes sense. But the GM has to ensure they're only finding the correct spells for what the class is supposed to learn and at the right level. And for some reason the rules disincentivize this by making the process wicked expensive? From Scarlet Heroes: "To add a new spell to their spellbook they must learn it from another wizard, copy it from another sorcerer’s spellbook, or inscribe it from a magical scroll. Scroll-copying is simplest but requires both one day and 100 gp worth of ingredients per level of the spell. It also expends the scroll." Bruh, what kind of ink are you using?? Not even India Ink costs that much. Are you snapping quills left and right here? Money doesn't suddenly turn into components, so what do I need to buy? What *are* the components necessary? I can only think of two things needed to write in a book, and they do not cost that much. Gosh, imagine how complicated and expensive magic photo-copiers would be. The other magic users are clerics. I didn't want to play a cleric because I didn't want to bring religion into the game. I like it when characters do things themselves. They have a lot of the same issues anyways, like spell slots, but they have a reason for spontaneously learning spells. "A god gives it to them." It's a lame reason, but it is better than none. Final Character, Quarrel ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I gave up on magic users and ended up using my example character from testing. I actually created them originally in Basic Fantasy as an exercise to come up with an interesting character that fit the old ideas of alignment when it was just Lawful, Neutral, Chaotic. Scarlet Heroes doesn't have an alignment system though, which is honestly preferred. Quarrel is a gnoll warrior. Gnolls aren't in the rules, but it was easy enough to improvise mechanically by taking the dwarf and replacing "dwarf senses" with "gnoll senses". The rest is narrative dressing, such as weapons being made with bones instead of steal. She used to take on the role of a hunter and guard at their gnoll encampment. There she learned about survival and hunting, and how to make her own traps and gear from leather and bones of the hunted animals and plants in the area. She grew increasingly fed up with incompetent leadership. On her last night there, she was assigned guard duty, which she used to steal gold and her starting gear to head off and try her luck alone. Now as she wanders, she'll be encouraging those living under a higher class of power to revolt and break free as she once did. Mechanically, warriors are a lot simpler, which makes them a lot easier to fit into ideas. Relying on traits instead of convoluted subsystems allowed me to tweak them into what's really more of a ranger. ___________________________________________________________________________ / / \ | NAME: Quarrel (she/her) LEVEL: 1 XP: 0 |_ | | CLASS: Fighter RACE: Gnoll |_\_/ |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | STATS | TRAITS | | Str: 14 +1 HP: 9 / 9 | - Gnoll senses 1 | | Dex: 17 +2 AC: 4 | (smell, hearing, darkvision) | | Con: 13 +1 Attack Bonus: +1 | - Survival hunter 2 | | Int: 12 +0 Fray Die: 1d8 | - Stealthy Ambush Predator 1 | | Wis: 8 -1 | - People's person 1 | | Cha: 10 +0 | | |-----------------------------------------------------------------------| | GEAR ( Carrying: 68 / 80lb ) | | | | ARMOR ( 20lbs ) | | - Leather armor, 7 AC 10lb (10gp) | | - Hide shield, -1 AC 10lb ( 5gp) | | | | WEAPON ( 9lb ) | | - Hunting knife, 1lb ( 2gp) | | 1d4+Str/Dex damage | | - 2 light bone tipped spears, 4lb * 2 = 8lb (15gp * 2 = 30gp) | | 1d8+Str/Dex damage | | | | BACKPACK, 2lb ( 37lb ) | | - Camp gear 15lb ( 5gp) | | - 2 Days rations 2lb * 2 = 4lb (3sp each, 6sp total)| | - Half Gallon Waterskin (filled) 5lb ( 5sp) | | - 50ft hemp rope 10lb ( 2gp) | | - Flask of oil 1lb ( 1sp) | | | | TREASURE ( 2lb) |___ | - 54gp |_/ \ | - 8sp | | \________________________________________________________________________\__/ I rolled pretty well for stats. I promise I only rolled them once. I didn't keep them in order, though. I guess I should have done that to be 100% authentic, but it's even more restrictive. To make it easier to count carrying capacity, I broke it into sections to tally, then add the sections together for a final total. Trying to fit all the equipment an adventurer would need within the allowed carrying capacity was a challenge. I might consider looking into getting a mount. Water only came in full gallons, but the GM let me get a half sized one for half the weight and price. Skipped torches, so I'll be relying on darkvision. Still kept a flask of oil in case I need to set things on fire. I rolled pretty average for my starting gold, but it still felt like I had more than I knew what to spend it on. Maybe it will get used for places to stay, but I was expecting my character to spend most time out camping. So, I was finally able to make an interesting and fleshed out character. But it was outside the system, and the system happened to be able to accommodate this idea. I think what came out is a lot better than picking whatever stats look best, but it took more work than usual to get there. The process could have been even worse in other OSR systems. This one offers more flexibility than many others I looked at. I'm quickly coming back to the thought that OSR is not for me. This could all be a waste of time since OSR expects characters to die every session. I'm hoping Scarlet Heroes rule changes increase survivability.