The Gaming Den

By colourful here I mean systems which consider setting/in-fiction elements to define characters and gameplay, while "grey" would be the opposite, systems which are mostly math-based or generic skill list-based.

Dont know the first time I saw the "colourful" feature, but I fell in love since then. I would go as far as stating its something I would like to have in all games I play from now on.

The last example of which I came across being Apocalypse World with its playbooks which bring a lot of in-setting "rules" and assumptions during character creation. While another, more "classical" one, is Runequest with its in-fiction cults that define your character and gameplay as much (if not more) as number crunching.

Contrast this with games like Shadowrun 4e and Gurps, which makes characters a matter of (almost) pure numbers and math, and you get the point.

What do you guys prefer? Are there other games you know that makes something like those ?

thee would be a lot of blurring in there with shades of grey or darkened colors, but Vampire was a colorful one in the sense of LARP about 20 years ago. not sure ever how the TTRP played.

I presume Rogue Trader's character building methodology to be a good example of a colorful system.



There is obviously room for improvement.

It is rather arbitrary for why the trees branch to one another. It also would be even nicer in a game where you aren't mostly concerned with picking the character options to maximize your numeric stats.

Ideally I'd like a character creation with either no border limitation on branching, or branching options that made sense. And also for the options to be giving horizontal power rather than vertical. Give me neat toys and special niche skills in character creation, not +numbers.

Could work for a fantasy heartbreaker just fine.

Homeland:
Heritage:
Mentor:
Crucible:
Motivation:
Career:

Yeah? Yeah! Fuck yeah!

Could even throw a more setting specific character building option of course.

The danger with these sort of things is when one option is so good it becomes mandatory. Like everyone has a background as a clown because acrobatics is so fucking awesome. Then everyone in your post-apocalyptic magic sci-fi saga is spraying water from flowers and honking red noses.


Fucking Rifts Circuses.

The Black Eye does this, making you choose a race, a culture available for that race, and one or two professions from a long list based on culture.
These three mostly influence your starting skills, but also come with perks, drawbacks, and equipment (although not necessarily exclusive ones).
Amazons, for example, are usually good warriors and riders (duh), get weapons and the amazon uniform/armor, and some hefty prejudices against men.
Most of that is tied to profession, although you can either reinforce these tendencies with a amazon cultural background, or broaden your skills with another culture.
In result, TBE characters are very much bound to the setting. Also character creation without digital help can be an up to four hour process.

Many FATE implementations enforce a (much weaker) bond to the setting by making players tell short stories about their characters childhood, puberty, as well as 3+ previous adventures. The other players then contribute to one of these adventures each.
Thus not only a background is mandatory, but one can skip the 'you all meet in a tavern' scene. As for the derived mechanics: each of these 5+ background elements is used to derive one of the characters aspects (strength/weaknesses), which see a lot of use in gameplay to grant temporary skill boosts.
That might not seem much, but is a rather central mechanic in an rpg as rules-light as FATE.