Starting at higher levels

[capmarvel]

After ordering my Castles & Crusades books the other night I got to thinking...and yes, that can be dangerous.

Awhile back I had a GM say "make a 4th level character". Well - I could do that with the numbers on the characters sheet but got to thinking: how did this guy get to 4th level? What happened at Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3?

So - inspired by Dungeon Crawl Classics zero-level funnel...I thought of a "chunnel" for higher level/rank characters. Basically - some random tables to help fill out what happened to you from level 0 until "now". Such as:

How many successful adventures table
How many failed adventures table
How many spouses table
What happened to your spouse table
How many kids table
How much loot table
Magic item found table
Magic item lost table
Something great you did table
Something lousy you did table
etc
etc


Maybe make the entries intentionally vague so player/GM can fill in as needed. Possibly each level counts for # of entries (ex. Level 1 = 1 entry, Level 2 = 2 entries, etc). For example:

Level 1
cleared the town's forest of bandits

Level 2
was imprisoned and rescued
saved a town leader from a monster attack

Level 3
solved a great mystery
made an enemy of someone with vast power
was defeated in combat and vowed your revenge

Level 4
met the love of your life
was chosen to go on a quest by royalty
failed to defeat an invading army
beat a superior foe in one-on-one combat

Anyway - wondering if others may find something like this useful or if you do this already? Perhaps you just "start at Level 4" and don't worry about the prior adventures.

[Go0gleplex]

Sort of depends. If just a one off session then worrying about a lot of the background is sort of wasted effort. A few highlights off the cuff is usually enough. If the character is for a longer term use such as a replacement character for one slain during the course of the campaign, then a bit more effort on the part of the player may be desired. This can be developed in bits as the rest of the party learns about their new friend or all at once but is ultimately up to the player as long as there is enough information provided to the CK to allow for integration. I've rarely required much more than a quick paragraph or two right off the bat for such.

[serleran]

There was a random system for determining stuff about advanced PCs in Crusader. I think it was across two issues. Forget the specific number(s) though.

[capmarvel]

Looks like Crusader #8 has something (thanks for the tip) - but appears to be more of a mini-game (a la Traveller character generation) than what I was envisioning.

[Captain_K]

I think its a great idea. make them general. Roll on Table A for every odd level and table B for every even level. Have A be largely good things, like MIs and good things and table B largely bad things. You can draw from all the typical things that happen to PCs, death, resurrection, MIs, loss of items, loss of limb, reduced scores, raised scores, etc. Money, title, lands, nicknames, etc.

Make the tables and submit them to Treebore for the next Doomsday... we're 2/3 of the way to the first publication!

[Go0gleplex]

Once upon a time there was an instant background generator published in Dragon magazine. Also a less detailed one in the Armory d30 tables if I remember correctly and maybe in the toolbox book (I'd have to check to make sure).

[Treebore]

Once upon a time there was an instant background generator published in Dragon magazine. Also a less detailed one in the Armory d30 tables if I remember correctly and maybe in the toolbox book (I'd have to check to make sure).

Not to mention a great little series by Jaquay, called Central Casting. Good luck finding them, though. It took me a couple of years to hunt them all down, once I decided to 5 or 6 years back. I got the last one just 5 or so months ago...

Edit: A MAJOR contributing factor to that was I wanted them for cheap.

[Captain_K]

I usually make a big pile of items, money, etc. I would expect that group to have. I write them up on index cards cut in half. I then play "pass the cards" with the group, when we're done they have one card for treasure, one for magic items, one for armor, one for equipment and one for stat changes.

[Treebore]

As far as equipping goes, for higher levels, I look at the Rogue XP table and give 50% of that in gold to the Players to equip their characters with, then give additional guidelines, such as nothing above +2, no more than 6 potions, Wizard/Illusionist gets a number of spells equal to the spells they can cast per day for free, buy anything beyond that as Scrolls. It works pretty well. They are usually under geared/poorer in comparison to characters actually played to those levels, but since they get to select exactly what they want, it works well enough.