Chatty’s Review: Silvervine, Character Generation

This post is part of a series that tackles the reading review of a yet unpublished RPG called Silvervine. Please note that this game is still in development, my review is part of the pre-playtest feedback.

Last time I tackled the games 1st chapter and the mixed feelings I got as a first impression. Now it’s time to tackle Character Generation.

This post is massive (more than 2000 words), impatient readers are invited to skip to the conclusion at the bottom…. 🙂 

One of the core philosophies of the Silvervine RPG will be to allow the exact character you want to design with minimal constraints such as character classes or arbitrary restraints.

In order to do so, Silvervine takes an hybrid ‘point-buy’ + dice rolls approach. The great majority of character variables like Attributes, Skills, Combat abilities and powers (called Focuses) are purchased with points, while some others are acquired with dice roll (World specific bonuses, number of known languages and ‘starting money’).

The chapter starts with a character generation example where we follow a player called Melissa create a Feychild (a race: think cross between fearie/elf ) Swift Conniving Unlucky Gunner (Archetypes).

At first read, this part of the chapter can be confusing as it discusses the numerous mechanics behind Char Gen without going into details. I needed to read through it twice without going deeper in the chapter to understand it enough to grasp the core ideas.

I would suggest that the example be broken up and added to each sub-section of Char-gen (as a sidebar or boxed text maybe) to strengthen the concepts shown.

Anyway, on with the actual meat of Character Generation.

Rolling on the Archai Chart

Character creation starts by rolling on the world-specific chart (called the Archai Chart) to determine a few things:

• The character’s Elemental affinity, which comes into play if he/she becomes a caster.
• The character’s birth date in the Settings Calendar.
• The potential blessings (various bonuses in attributes, free skills, powers or spells) that the (I assume) divine Archai can bestow to the character

I must note that while a player rolls this up front, the actual goodies gained are conditional to spending character points (the equivalent of 15 points out of 275). I find this a bit odd that one must learn a rather clever but complex series of dice roll, only to get bonuses conditional to actually spending points to get them…

I’d consider giving them to all characters for free (15 points out of 275 is 5.5%, probably not that significant)

Select Archetype

The player then thinks up a character archetype that would function in the game’s default setting (called Cyrus). The setting appears (from my reading this chapter) to be an anime-inspired Steampunk-sprinkled (Guns and Airships) fantasy world featuring the classic races (Human, Elves, Orcs, Dwarves) mixed with anthropomorphic Animals (Furries!).

The chosen archetype, in the form of adjective, adjective title (or variation thereof) serves to guide a player’s choices through the very numerous skills, combat abilities, focuses and equipment that make up the bulk of this chapter’s (100 pages). It also serves as a way of introducing your character to the other players.

This is a rather clever and simple idea that I like. In that sense, my McWod character would be a Schizophrenic Shy/Megalomaniac Detective Gunner. 🙂 I’m stealing this idea!

Choose Race:

The players then gets to chose between over 20 sub-races roughly divided in Human, Elves, Animalia Orc and Independent (Dwarves, Ogres and FeyChylde) categories. Each has a set of abilities modifiers and focuses available at half cost.

This is one of Silvervine’s key differences from Gurps and BESM. The race were not designed to be purchased with character points (called experience points here). You chose one and you get its abilities ‘for free’.

I like this from a crunch perspective as it makes me feel like races are not just rubber suits you tack on human bodies. This is probably due to my being raised on D&D.

While I haven’t read all of the race entires (each one comes with a very detailed setting’s specific background), all races seem balanced (playtest should address this).

I particularly like that racial abilities are all put together at the end of the various fluff writeups for easy reference.

In fact, I’d go one step further and move the rather voluminous fluff (that doesn’t really help character generation) later in the book and replace it by shorter (1 paragraph) description beside each set of racial mechanics and a page reference to the race’s full background later in the book.

Assign Attribute Points

This is where the player spends a certain number of points (different from the experience points used later in Char Gen) between the different attributes. I’ll go into more details in the next post that’ll focus on Game mechanics.

I must point out two things here. First, the fact that players use a different pool of points for attributes than experience points here can create some confusion for those learning the system. It’s a rather minor point but it’s a complexity that might be challenged.

A possible solution I have would be to unify both point pools and tell players they get 500 XPs for attributes and 275 XPs for everything else, including additional attribute points. (Extra attributes are worth 50 XP each).

Second, at this stage of the rules, the player is not reminded of what attributes are, so it becomes necessary to go to the next chapter to learn them and get to know what values are considered average.

Aside: As I write this, I’m thinking that if the main marketing model for that game is going to be PDF, I think that Bookmarking the document and creating internal reference links to jump from one section to the next should be implemented (it’s probably planned). It’s a lot of work, but adds a tremendous value to a PDF product.

Choose Basic Profession /Field of Study

The player then gets to chose a free ‘job’ or ‘Field of study’ that represents the character’s “day job” before he/she became a PC.

This allows the player to get a bonus (an extra die roll) whenever this past knowledge can be applied to any task or challenge the character faces.

This is a nice idea, I just wonder if I were to chose ‘Ex-Military’ would I get these bonuses in combat?

Spend Initial Experience Points

This is the meat of the chapter and weighs in at a massive 60 pages (Which I must confess I haven’t read completely) and covers the following aspects:

• Purchase additional Attributes
• Purchase additional HP (initial HP are derived from attributes)
• Non-Combat Skills
• Combat Skills
• Fighting Styles and Combat techniques
• Focuses (Bonuses and Powers)

Non-combat Skills are arranged alphabetically and each have a paragraph description and an experience cost varying from 15 to 35 points per skill level (there are 5).

A rapid scan of the skill shows that what drives the cost of a skill is not so much it’s impact on the game (as a Point-buy system’s balance should strive for) but the perceived effort to learn the skill.

For example, Biological Sciences, a skill not that often used in a fantasy game, costs 35 points, more than twice that of Foraging at 15 points. I’d suggest putting skills which have a more pronounced effect in the game (or a wider application) to cost more.

All skills are defined in a vague enough way to be easily applied in many situations. This is a very good approach to allow exotic and numerous use of skills.

Actually, this is as good a time as any to mention that Silvervine seems to be torn between the flexibility associated with a loose, simple game and the excruciating details to cover as wide a range of concepts as possible. I think that simplicity could also be achieved in skill selection by combining a lot of those in one skill.

For example, I’d easily see Foraging, Fishing, Hunting, Knowledge (Nature) and Tracking into one single skill called Woodman’s lore or something.

Similarly I’d combine all sciences as less expensive Knowledge skills.

I urge John and is friends to pay particular attention to skills no one takes during playtest and challenge themselves to fit those into the ones taken by playtesters.

The combat skill section is organized with basic fighting skills (Unarmed, Melee, Ranged, Firearms) and martial arts-like fighting styles. The styles regroup a series of maneuvers that a player buys as a bundle. Alternatively, you can pick and chose individual maneuvers for a higher cost.

For example:

Fisticuffs
(A barroom brawl)
Cost: 20 exp Req: 1 Level Hand Fighting

• Jabs (Hand Fighting) (5)
• Strong Block (General) (10)
• Uppercut (10)
• Speed 1 (Hand Fighting) (5)

Each individual maneuvers are then described (Fluff and crunch).

There is also a 2 page section that tackle ‘Modular weapons’ which appears to be a sub-ruleset to allow building multi-purpose weapons.

All these sub-systems make me realize that when compared to other already marketed games like Gurps, D&D and BESM, Silvervine seems to be aiming to be a Role Playing game that includes material that is usually made available in additional Sourcebooks (and accounts for the page count).

It’s like Silvervine contains the material found in the Gurps basic sets, Martial Arts, Magic, High Tech (low tech weaponry) and Supers.

That’s a lot of material to absorb all at once.

Actually, I’m a bit overwhelmed by it all and would be hard pressed to create a character using it.

A Silvervine Lite version, bundled with a demo adventure and pre-made characters could be a great way of introducing the material.

Another way of tackling this could be to have some of the game-world specific skills and fighting styles be bundled later in the book (or seperately if the decision to seperate engine and setting is ever made).

Following fighting skills are Focuses which are powers ranging from the ‘Mundane’ (Alertness) to the Supra-natural (Demon Bashing Weapon) including classics like flight, natural armour and Reputation, each with various costs.

Much like skills, the palette is very varied and has a lot of cool looking things. All available by default without having to, in theory, ask the GM.

(This reminds me of Robin Laws’ observation that RPG is the activity of having men shop for Superpowers without having to leave the basement)

Acquire Languages

Players then roll based on mental attributes and determines the number of free languages (on top of those you can buy as a focus). I find that this sub-system somehow jars with the whole point-buy system used to up now. I’m not sure what this random element adds to character creation. It’s like you can devise a rather smart, xenophobic Barbarian and by the luck of the roll find out he’s a ployglot.

It’s very minor but its the only Point-buy game I have ever read that has such a system for initial language acquisition.

Acquire Equipment:

Equipment are bought with another resource called asset points. Asset points are determined by a die roll based on the Profession. (Once again, creating a semi-random sub-system different from the experience point mechanic used in most of the rest of Char gen).

Asset points are an abstract way of dealing with cash and allow the purchase of adventuring equipment (Weapons, Armour, non-combat gear, etc). I really like this in games where loot does not play a key role.

Armour are described in detail and can be purchased abstractly or be built by levels and Add ons (lighter, Stronger, full coverage, etc) using the game’s currency (this means you need to trade some asset points into cash). These add ons reduce penalties (probably explained in the combat section) or add bonus dice to protection. It’s clever but I wonder if this can be broken by optimizing the choice of armour level and add ons to max min it’s effectiveness. Another pointer for playtesting.

Like I said for attributes, I’d think about making equipment purchases with actual XPs (with or withour dice roll) to unify Char Gen under a single core system

Conclusion:

So far, Silvervine seems to deliver on one of its core philosophies: Fully flexible character creation.

I’m pretty sure that it covers most if not all archetypes of the Fantasy Kitchen Sink genre and that’s preety cool.

Reading through it makes me want to try it. However, I’d want to generate a character with someone who knows the system to guide me through it (or get a pre-generated one and a demo adventure) as the game’s learning curve is made higher for the sheer amount of options it offers.

When compared to Gurps and BESM’s character Generation, Silvervine shows itself as being a more complete game than the core books of both other games.

However, I believe it could gain from some additional streamlining in it’s mechanics and maybe be packaged in such a way to separate it into basic and advanced character options.

Thanks for reading this massive post!