Burning the Midnight Oil

As I burn my midnight oil and avoid the elephant in the room in the United States, an idea for the game/setting/whatever I'm putting together came to my mind. A (sort of) custom character sheet.

This sheet is born out of wanting to sort of smash together Circle of Hands with D&D 5th edition for this *thing* I've been tinkering with.

Main ideas:
-Dice rolling and mechanics/logistics of the game follow Circle of Hands rules. Combat, Charm, Spells and all that.
-Removed the numbers from Traits, felt right to me. Added negative/opposite traits. The plan is that the person chooses one from each. That way the Traits still embody their intended role of "this is your person's general pattern of behavior", but have less of what almost felt like "financial incentive" to choose the really strong traits. It makes sense in my head and since none of this has played out yet, subject to change.
-Integrated the choice of humanoid species for the person you're making rather than homeland since it won't be as important for this game. Subsequently, Special features come from being a lizardman, elf, dwarf, human, etc. I'm debating allowing players to come up with their own special features.
-Since circle knights don't exist in this game… ((as I typed out the previous sentence I think the Circle might make an appearance as a faction/guild within the setting in some fashion. At least as a call back of sorts)), not everyone has spells. Ought to make those that are able and choose to be Wizards stand out a bit more starkly from the rest of the travelers.
-Your Things: Rather than distinct ventures, it'll be more long-form like D&D campaigns. They'll be finding things, picking them up, and putting them away, then using them later on.
-I like integrating rumors about a person/character as well as giving some other prompts to help shape who the person is and ought to help prompt some initial interpersonal interaction until the rust is shaken off.
-I died, setting a bit of an expectation, but as I was putting in the tear in the paper I thought to myself… what if this is how they cheat death. They get one chance. Rip off the corner. Then explain how they miraculously survived. From then on there is the physical reminder of this character's mortality.

All this is unknown territory and it'll probably be messy, but I think the core rules in CoH ought to be enough to get through the standard bits of wandering around, fighting things, and people.

 

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2 responses to “Burning the Midnight Oil”

  1. I just envisioned this set-up

    I just envisioned this set-up as being laid out almost like a booklet/pamphlet to flip through rather than a stack of loose-leaf paper.

    • I love the idea of a

      I love the idea of a character dossier rather than merely a sheet. A few years ago, I always bought special folders for each person in the group to collect their personal debris or writings or artwork for their characters. I just unboxed a remarkable collection of these dating from the late 90s through the late 00s, and some of them are impressive. Organizing this idea through actual game-specific instruments would be very enjoyable for me.

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