Prophet - A Modern Conundrum

Character Generation

Introduction

In setting "Prophet" in the Modern Age I could have used any of the rule systems I've played with over the years, including any of those I developed on my own, or the now very heavily re-written Diceless Amber rules orginally based on the "Netbook of Amber".

However, the system which I've played most with, and explored the most, at least in terms of it's Universal nature is the Palladium System.

Like every other system it has it's detractors and it's proponets, and like every other system has it's flaws, especially in the Rifts® Setting.

Despite this, it is a versatile system, and like any other tool, works when used in the correct manner, for the setting in which it is played.

The one particular area I like, having explored the Myriad of genres and settings, and the way Palladium have used there system, is that it is very malleable and can be shaped into a new tool very easily without substantial effort, although shaping it for the "Prophet" setting has built uppon a significant numer of years of developement work, not all of which has been done by myself, to overcome some of it's flaws

Whilst at it's core, the Palladium System, like a lot of others, relies on Classes and archetypes, Palladium demonstrted in Beyond the Supernatural™, how part of this could be bent and circumvented

"Prophet" goes a stage further and throws classes and archetypes almost completely out of the window

Almost is the key here, there are sorts of classes, what in the Modern Real World, are called "Occupations". Since we are playing in a Modern Age, a system that more closely reflects how lives are led in this world much better suits Roleplaying in it

Removing "Classes" does have a downside - no "Character Levels", and in the traditional Palladium system you "Class level" is what's used to determine your level with a skill.

This association between "Character Level" and "Skill level" has several flaws some of them quite significant, and assumes that you use all skills at the same rate and to solve the same complexity of problem which increases as you "level".

Of course in reality this is not the case, you have a key set of skills you use all the time, that "level" as you use them to solve more comple tasks as you rise up the career ladder, others you use less often, and some you gain as you progress through life, and some of this rapidly rise and surpass earlier skills because you use them more.

This was one area I addressed in Rifts® in relation to magic and psionics, introducing the concept of a "usage" level for spells and abilities that solely depended on their frequency of use, not the "character level". "Prophet" takes this to it's logical conclusion, all skills are "By Use" skills as there are no character levels

Process

Creating a character for "Prophet" follows much the same process as any character creation for most traditional RPG systems

  1. Roll your Attributes - See Attributes and DC Below
  2. Determine your Education and Occupation- See EducationEducation
      Note - this also determines your starting age
  3. Select your Skill Programs and Secondary Skills - See
  4. Determine the "level" for each of you skills - see Skill Levels Below
  5. Apply any bonuses accrued due to leveling "Physical" skills to your Attributes
  6. Apply any Aging degradations (if applicable) to your Attributes
  7. Determine your Starting Wealth and Equipment
  8. Fill out any other relavent characteristics relating to your character, marital status, siblings, dependants, ethnicity, hair and eye colour, height, weight, etc

At this point you should have a character ready to play.

In the "Prophet" setting all players need to do this together, as it is very important that they know one another well, and that there are strong reasons for them doing so, and for knowing a substantial amount about each others lives.

Attributes and DC

As said I’m using a modified Palladium System, and therefore the Palladium system for attributes. Roll 4D6 for each of the attributes below, except REF which is calculated, and PERC which is the sum of 3 dice.

For each of the attributes, unless otherwise noted, sum the highest 3 dice. If the total rolled on 3 dice is 16 or more, add the result of the fourth die. Roll each of the attributes in order. If you roll 23 or 24 for M.E. let me know! For all attributes except PERC if you roll a 1 on the dice re-roll it.

Some of your attributes may be changed by your skill selections so leave completing your DC until after you have selected all your skills. You may wish to make reference to Parts 1 and 4 of the Rifts Guides.

Skill Levels

The base method of determining skill level is based on the number of successful uses, and is a modified version of the “by Level” spell rules for spell casters in Rifts. An arbitrary use of the skill which does nothing to further the story does not count as a successful use. A successful use can be bought with XP at the rate of 1 use per 10 XP.

 
Level To next Level Total Times Used   Level To next Level Total Times Used   Level To next Level Total Times Used
0 12 0   6 56 164   11 160 620
1 16 12   7 64 220   12 208 780
2 24 28   8 96 284   13 272 908
3 32 52   9 112 380   14 450 1170
4 32 84   10 128 492   15 N/A 1620
5 48 116                

Characters begin the game with careers (broad term) which results in them having skills, either “primary” as the result of a “Skill Program” selection or “Secondary”. As there are no Classes and Class Levels, the characters must start with some sort of “level” in each skill. This is where “Age” and therefore experience comes into play…

For each complete term of 4 years above the age of 16 the character gains 2D10 uses for a secondary skill and 6D10 uses for a primary skill. All characters start at a base of 12 uses.. i.e. they are basically competent at level 1.
At age 24 and for each 4 years after they gain a 52 uses for a primary skill and 24 uses for a secondary skill.

 
24 28 32 36 40
52 104 156 208 260
24 48 72 96 120

Age has another advantage, to a degree, starting at age 28, a character can gain an additional secondary skill, and for each 4 years beyond that another secondary skill. These additional skills progress only from the age at which they are gained, so a secondary skill gained at age 28, gains 2D10 uses if the character’s starting age is 32 or more, 4d10 if their age is 36 or more, etc. Additionally for each 4 year period they gain the +24 uses bonus.


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