Focusing in on the lifepath

(Yes, I've changed the format of the blog... there might be a few more changes oved the next few days as it settles into a new style.)

Numerous times over the years, I've commented on how I love the lifepath system in Cyberpunk 2020, and how I love the career progression system in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying. Trying to get a good hybrid between the two of them has been a long term goal for 20 odd years. Sure, I've done plenty of other things too, but this has always sat in the back of my mind as something I'd like to reconcile.

No game system is completely balanced. Even carefully designed point-buy games can't be completely or perfectly balanced because they don't (and arguably can't) take into account the nuances of activity as the game interacts with players at the table. A balanced point system sees a social butterfly character having more narrative agency than a lethal swordsman if the game revolves around political intrigue, while in a combat game those roles would be reversed.

I'm never going to turn Walkabout into a game for everyone. It would lose a lot of it's power if it were watered down to be palatable for the lowest common denominator... but it shouldn't be the kind of game that drives away the kinds of players who I'd imagine enjoying it. This leaves me with some artistic compromises to accomodate.


Roleplaying to me isn't about min-maxing characters and powergaming, it's about confronting difficult choices in character, and learning about our avatars in the game world through those choices they make. I don't necessarily want to see players portraying the same identities they inhabit in every other game, I want them to be challenged, but to be able to control the creation of their characters enough to feel comfortable in the skin tney've created. Besides, I've always found that the characters I've carefully built according to deliberate point buy systems have rarely played the way I envisioned them once a fame narrative begins. I'd rather a character I can learn about along the way, but painted with broad brushstrokes under my control, rather than one I have preconcieved notions about, with fine details that end up either not being relevant, or not accurate once the dice start rolling.

That's why I've embedded the idea of characters being given a limited number of choices, but the player is still able to make choices. The whole point of the SNAFU system is basically that players can tell a story based on specific hard choices, often working out whether it's worth succeeding in light of any potential collateral damage.

We're still looking at 7 general cultures in the game, which occur at the following ascending levels of rarity...

  • Scavengers - who reclaim the pieces of the past, to forge a new future (very common)
  • Cultivators - who work the last patches of land to survive (common)
  • Nomads - who roam the riverways, highways, and rails to trade and keep ahead of any new problems (less common) 
  • Primitives - who have reverted to a non-technological existence (uncommon)
  • Outlanders - who were twisted by mutation during the dark times (uncommon)
  • Sheltered - who have remained in armoured bunkers and arcologies, but are now starting to re-enter the world (rare)
  • Skyfarers - who have taken to the skies in drifting airships to escape the chaos on the planet below (very rare)

Each of the cultures is bakanced in it's merits and flaws, but because there are plenty of players around who will gravitate toward the Sheltered and Skyfarers because they love portraying unique and beautiful snowflakes, it's hard to roll members of these cultures, and a player will typically have to sacrifice something else special in order to choose one of these.

Still working through the specifics here.

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