Off Topic OOC

Welcome ctme! A psychic or eventual psychic would be neat!

Almost done with my character, just need to shore up the backstory and take a look at this other way of sharing the character sheet. I'll have him posted tomorrow for sure.

Sounds good ctme2000.

@FlyingSucculent no rush just checkin' in! Let us know of you need any thing. We'll get rolling once we have sheets submitted from everyone or confirmation they've completed one.

Character submitted.

Issac d'Cortez - a traveling performer, part of a 2 person act with his sister, Isabela d'Cortez. He's impulsive, with his words often getting him into trouble. During what they thought was a chance to finally make it big, his sister was abducted by the villainous Terrio Le'Cauchemar, and he was on the verge of being beaten to death, when a stranger, nay, angel, nay, a Gold Coat (!) saved his life. Now driven to find his sister, he joins the Gold Coats to assist them where he may, all the while looking for the whereabouts of his sister, and perhaps exact vengeance when the time comes.

woot!

Approved, boom!

FlyingSucculent let me know if you want us to get rolling and you can hop in when you're ready, or if you're on the verge of completing a character.

We're starting in the thick of a scene so it's always peice of cake to hop in on the fly!

Yeah, sorry, I've been making the sheet in silence, I should be able to proofread and submit it in a bit! :)

Submitted the sheet! Descriptions are a little disjointed as I wrote them in parts, but I hope to refine her character during the game. :D

Just to summarize, my character Elaine is a young daughter of a prominent count, and she pretty much lied her way into the Golden Cloaks - she has next to no skill with sword or diplomacy, and conspired with her twin brother to force her way into the ranks of musketeers via good old twin swap scenario. Their reason for that was primarily dissatisfaction with the fate their father pushed them both in, so they sabotaged his plan with her brother pretending to be her and passing the recruitment process, and her forging some messages to delay their family's discovery of the ruse and helping the brother to run away from home in the meantime. In other words, two rebellious twins give their father a headache, part 1.

I also wanted to make her motif be forgery of documents, but wasn't sure which standard skills would fit it the best, so I added a knowledge type skill Forgery - I hope it's okay! If not, then I'll probably exchange it to Language (if we are using it; are we?) or redistribute between Persuasion and Science.

Oh, and I can't upload an avatar right now, so it's coming tomorrow!

Thanks @kinghottrash! I know, we're all, including Elaine apparently, the anti-paladins/dirty dozen of the Gold Coats! Nazi scum, here we come!

Elaine is mostly self-serving, the word paladin probably shouldn't be in the same sentence as her name, even with a prefix. :P That's going to be an interesting dynamic though (I hope)!

Wow, I am impressed by everyone's colourful character ideas, and very much looking forward to see what this unusual bunch will be up to, in-game!

It's also fantastic that we have a super experienced SW GM in the director's chair...

I completely agree with Dr_B in that you all have such great ideas, color and flavor!

@FlyingSucculent , Elaine is fantastic looking! I'm pumped to see what capers she gets in to! As for Forgery--my SWADE mentality is that forging documents falls under Thievery, and also opens up many other skill possibilities for the character that you can choose to engage with or not: "...acts of misdirection, sabotage, subterfuge, and manipulation are called Thievery."

An alternate path for forgery could be a custom Edge that mimics Streetwise (this used to be a Skill in earlier edtions!). For example, Streetwise used to be used to, essentially, network in shady circles. But now, as an edge, it simply gives a +2 when narratively using skills (Intimidation, Persuasion, or Common Knowledge) to do the same thing.

A Forgery Edge with similar requirements (Novice, Agility d6+, for example) could give +2 when using Thievery to forge documents, recognize such documents, etc., as well as giving +2 to Common Knowledge checks relating to knowing things that pertain to forgery.

This is just a suggestion, but it keeps the SWADE skills tight and broadly applicable and opens up some similar style possibilities in the future, and moves the burden of specialization back to Edges where it generally lives!

Let me know what you think of that--again I'm open to you having a custom skill, for sure; I just wanted to convey that I do feel like it's already covered and make sure you're not backing into a corner.

As to Language, I was not planning on including it at this time.

Oh, but I approved the character, and with that we are ready to roll!

I'm glad you like Elaine! :D

I thought about using Thievery, but my problem with it was that its base is Agility, improving which beyond d6 clashes with my image of the character a bit. And it also feels a bit strange? I can agree that one does need Agility for forging documents, but I'd argue Smarts are more important... Similar with Spirit for manipulation. That's why I'm personally not fond of making skills too broad, they group things somewhat weirdly at times. XD

Is it possible for me to take Thievery, but tie it to Smarts and promise not to use it for lockpicking or sabotage? :D Or is there an edge which can switch it to Smarts? I remember a trait in 13th Age which made Charisma abilities use Intelligence instead; anything similar here?

If not, would it be possible for me to use another skill for forgery actions? Research, perhaps? It can be justified by the fact that one does do research to learn how to mimic handwriting, official seals and other details to make documents look legit, and since I'm only interested in forgery specifically, it also won't give extra skills Elaina wouldn't realistically have.

Or actually, maybe it can be an Edge which allows her to use Research for forgery?

I am, of course, alright with a custom skill too though! It is all in the end just another flavor of specialization, and I'm not concerned about her being not very good character gameplay-wise. (Evidently, seeing as I took One Eye edge for a character who is already bad at fighting... :'D)

Damn, these are good ideas.

OK, I see see now. Let's just say that Forging is part of Research! That makes complete sense to me, narratively (and mechanically really...I mean, you'd be needing copies of signatures etc., and your explaination was perfect).

Then if you still want a custom Forging edge in the future we can do it like Investigator.

Also, sorry if any part of my previous post seemed game-splainy or anything! I'm not sure who knows what SWADE-wise, but your explanation and justification for all this blows my suggestion out of the water and was way better 😆

Great, that works! I'll move 3 points from Forgery to Research, Common Knowledge and Science respectively then.

And no worries, I thought your post was completely reasonable, and I love discussing game mechanics and ways to adapt them! If anything, sorry if I ever come off as unwilling to compromise due to way too many suggestions. XD

an exciting full-action beginning!

I hope it's OK for us to introduce reasonable elements into the game - like the haystacks and pitchfork I am (excuse the pun) pitching, or Elaine's shortcut idea.

Please bounce anything that doesn't work for you, @Dunko - or adjusts rolls if I picked ones that are not appropriate.

The other factor we do not know, is possible circumstantial modifiers to rolls you might impose. I guess these can be retroactively subtracted from the rolls?

Yeah, hear-hear! Just let me know if something doesn't fit, I don't mind editing my posts to fix things! Same goes for other players, in case I write something about your character that is incorrect. :D

Also, love your post, Dr_B! Throw that pitchfork at them, Sans, and throw it hard!

Thanks, I also enjoyed Elaine trying to act musketeery and blend in despite the required horseback antics 😁