One of the issues I had when moving from Cepheus Engine to Blades & Black Magic was deciding what level to start my characters. It turned out to be more complicated than I thought.
Starting PCs or Experienced PCs
One of the nice things about Cepheus was that starting characters could have a breadth of experience before they actually started adventuring. This allowed characters to have more skills and experiences than one right out of that gate.
On the other hand, most other games have parties start with literally starting characters–right after character generation. What this means is that every character would be a 32 point character, with only 6 skills in the Trained level.
Unfortunately, for the party that I had planned to start play with, it screwed with their ages and experiences. For the young characters just starting out, there is not much change. But for a few of my characters, who were supposed to be seasoned veterans or even one who was supposed to be a middle aged scholar–having them start out as basic characters would not work.
What Kind of Play
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that how you solve this problem is really based on what you are trying to do. For group play, starting everyone at the same point level, and even rough age, is a good thing. All players get the same experience of bringing their characters along from generation through experienced adventurers.
What it boils down to is what kind of story you want to tell in your solo roleplaying.
For solo play, that may just not matter as much. There is only one player, and the experiences he or she gets is really up to them–all of the characters are part of their party.
What it boils down to is what kind of story you want to tell in your solo roleplaying. If you want to tell the story of new characters, starting their adventuring careers together–start with all beginning characters. If you want a different story where a wider mix of people with different experiences come together–use more experienced characters.
My Solution
What I decided to do is give half my characters 1-3 extra attribute points, plus 1-3 extra skills. The other half would remain starting characters. This scratches my itch of having a more complex party, with some old hands guiding the newer ones how to adventure–which leads to more drama as well.
This also gives the party a higher change of survival. Blades is still a deadly game, and the characters need every advantage they can get. On the other hand, I still get to bring characters along from a low level, building them as I play.
This way of starting characters out may or may not work for you. It depends on what kind of play–and story–you want to have. I do think one key thing to keep in mind when starting a party is keep that feel of starting at a low level. Whether it is through lower experience levels or having the characters not know each other for long, it is worthwhile to keep some sense of a starting point for that story with those characters.
But what do you do? How do you handle character experience levels when playing solo? Let me know!
Marko ∞
[Originally published on middle-lands.com, on 3/29/2019]
