FASA Games, Inc.

Did you guys ever did something like this:

1- Start the character creation and ask the players to build their PC until they're done with Upbringing. Have them write a first part of their background.

2- Play a small startup game with the PC been young and "friends", having an adventure all together (good or bad) to help them bond somehow or give them ideas for so.

3- Ask them, depending on how the startup ends, who split up or not and write the next part of their background for their Apprenticeship and/or Early Career.

4- Start the campaign with an event that will bring them together.

This strikes me as something that works better done in narrative. The Life-path doesn't really construct a capable character until the end of character creation.

I started building a campaign where the players would meet in in a local tutoring group and the story would follow their journey through seminary school and possibly into the priesthood, solving mysteries and thwarting bullies just like kids do. Not only was a lot of the material too far outside of my bailywick but the idea of developing a character like that presented a lot of challenges.

If you're really attached to this idea I'd consider reconstructing chargen so you have characters that can accomplish tasks at the beginning of the game.

(I'm not trying to defend my point here, just trying grasp any useful hints to do or not do so)

I suppose so (that the life path doesn't construct a capable character), but isn't normal that a character in his upbringing (8 to 10 years old) can't be a complete and capable character?

There are more than surely tasks they won't be able to do or at least they are going to be very hard to do.

I do not intent to play multiple sessions with PC "kids", probably a 2 to 4 hours session.

Which chargen?

The classic world of darkness had some elements of this with the character preludes.

I don't mean to say that characters that only partially complete their life path will be less-powerful, but that their stats will likely fall far short of the sweet spot on a die curve and they will disproportionately fail even at tasks that would make sense for them to be good at. I think if you build a character with only one or two steps of their lifepath complete and roll some basic skill checks for things you expect the players will want to do in the game it will start to become clearer where partially completed lifepaths become problematic.

From what I recall of the character building section they have more or less used the same 'points' for the life path as point by system. If I am recalling correctly you should be able to work out how many points they didn't use when you stopped early to do the prologue (part 2) and then just put that amount in additional any of the 'extra' points you get to spend at the very tail end of the life path build. (end of part 3) If that makes sense.

Keeping in mind the challenges that attributes and skills will still be low, which would be pretty accurate for an 8-10 year old, it sounds like a really fun concept if all the players buy into it as well.

If you still wanted to use the LifePath system and also run a small adventure where the characters were all children I think the easiest way would be to just add a blanket +2 through +5 modifier to what they are trying to do if it is something that fits in with where there character is going.

If you don't want to do that though, I am assuming too that you aren't going to throw in anything extremely challenging that will kill them indiscriminately so it could be possible to just make them depend more on working together and aiding each other's rolls and just role-playing through situations.

NPC's could be a big help here. The children could use NPC alliances, caretakers, bodyguards, helpers, etc. to do some of the heavy-lifting skill-wise and it gives you, as the GM, more NPC friends, contacts, etc. to use in the future. Maybe suggest that if the player comes up with a creative NPC they can get them as a free contact or ally on their character during creation rather than paying for it.

Thank you all! It's starting to take form. Good thought here with NPCs help Bogie, thanks.

Let us know how you worked it out when you're all done.