LBK:Characters


 * These were simpler times, so I tried to make the mechanics simpler. I suspect it won't have worked, but an attempt was made.

Normally, I would put races & classes first since they are usually the first choices. But since they are pretty meaningless in this game, they're at the back.

Attributes
There's a slight remixing in ability scores. Mostly for clarity in what the terms mean.

Differences to D&D:
 * Str and Con are combined as Might.
 * Wis and Cha are combined as Cha.
 * Per (Perception) is added as a mental ability score.

Might:          Puniness          Muscularity Dexterity:      Clumsiness        Agility Intelligence:   Idiocy            Smartness Perception:     Obliviousness     Awareness Charisma:       Creepiness        Charm

(stat gen method tbd; something along the line of standard 4d6)

Skills
There's 8 skills, each skill has specialisations within it. eg. Jumping is a specialisation of Athletics. If you aren't specialised or weak at any specialisation, then all your rolls for that skill just use the skill's bonus.

The first four correspond roughly to physical skills, and the second four to mental. But, there are no key ability scores for skills - you use whichever ability the situation merits (which in some cases is almost always the same one).


 * Athletics
 * Violence
 * Agrarianism
 * Pastoralism


 * Artisanry
 * Performance
 * Social
 * Cleverness

It's probably easiest to start each skill at 3, then +/- 1 (so the sum is still 24) until you are good at what you want to be good at. Technically the max & min is 7 and 0, but I wouldn't recommend going above 5 or below 2.

Specialisations
You can pick a specialisation to specialise in (eg. Clubs is a specialisation of Violence) provided you have at least a 3 in that skill. Specialising gives +2 to that specialisation. The cost of picking one is that you must also have a weakness chosen from the specialisations within the same skill - weaknesses are set to 0 and cannot rise above 0 during character creation.

You can have up to six specialisations but only three can be within a single skill. You can specialise in an item specialisation (i.e. a weapon (Violence) or instrument (Performance)) by selecting a single item (eg. Club or Flute), but you can never make an item specialisation a weakness.

Whether you use all six specialisations or not, as you level up, you can gain specialisations without corresponding weaknesses (and also overcome your weaknesses, should you so choose).

Advantages & Disadvantages

 * These are the optional extras for people who like building characters. You can leave yourself without any advantages or disadvantages and have a ready to go character.

Advantages are good things but cost points, disadvantages earn you points but are bad. You don't need to take any, but taking a few might be fun and distinguish your character from others. There's no limit to how many you can take but, with each one, the amount of mechanics increases slightly so it might eventually become cumbersome.

In an attempt to keep this system optional, I tried to avoid making advantages & disadvantages cross over with personality traits so that you don't have to consider them when wanting to make your character's personality. There are still a few (Cowardice, Bad Temper), but these would be those traits in the most extreme form.

Races

 * Ultimately, you're all humans.

Most people are sapiens. There are a few isolated communities of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons but these guys aren't playable (and are at a significant disadvantage anyway).

Individuals or even the whole tribe could claim to have Neanderthal, Denisovan, or Rhodesian heritage but, true or not, any difference is negligible and cosmetic. It's only as important as you choose it to be.

Classes

 * Basically, there aren't really classes. But there kind of are, optionally.

During the Neolithic, people didn't have specialised roles in society. So, to reflect this mechanically, we're scrapping classes. Everyone is a wanderer, hunter, gatherer, crafter, and probably a bunch of other junk. But different people have differing abilities and training, and some people are especially good at certain activities.

The "classes" are more like special abilities than anything else; there's nothing stopping you from taking multiple "classes" (except perhaps a desire to not spread yourself thin).

(class stuff would go here but it's not fully implemented yet).