Starting as Normals?

[Alcamtar]

Does anyone start their campaigns at 'normal' level? I'm thinking of starting PCs as skilled normals and roleplaying their development to Heroic level and beyond.

Characters would start with most points in characteristics, racial packages, and background abilities (including rudimentary magic talent), since these cannot be easily acquired later with XP. But skills would be almost nonexistent, and most disadvantages would be acquired during play; for example Psych lims could be assigned based on events or how the character is habitually played.

Would-be warriors would need to seek out training, would-be wizards need to get themselves apprenticed, etc. Sort of like the old zero-level idea in AD&D.

I think it would be interesting to have characters grow organically based on needs and not just be "designed" for optimal performance.

[Thia Halmades]

This is a classic genre trope; one way or another, a 'White Event' (as was discussed at HeroCon 2006) hits the characters that forces their change from 'normal' to heroic or super heroic. I did this in a White Wolf campaign in college, changing people from normal to: Werewolf, Mage, Vampire & Quickened/Immortal. It was a fun campaign, but lacked cohesion. It's a sound idea, but requires more pre-planning than most people think.

[OddHat]

I once ran a fairly good campaign like this inspired by David Gemmell's work. The PCs started out as children in a fishing village. One PC was the village witch's daughter (Witch being a respectable profession combining mid-wife and veterinary duties along with minor magic use), one was a young forester, and the third player was a young fisherman.

25 points and no disads to start.

The first few adventures involved village life and dangers (a lost child, a bad storm and a ship wreck, a local fair with competitions, and a small viking raid).

I was generous with XP, and by the time of the big shift the characters were up to 50 points + 25 points in Disads (assigned based on in game events and role playing).

A huge viking raid destroyed the village, and the witch has a vision of the coming of Ragnarök, an event which will mean the death of her people. She sends the youngsters to Londinium to set them on the path first to resist the Viking invasion and then to forestall the coming doom of the world.

Next arc as the characters traveled to Londinium went well, getting them up to 75+25, but at that point the campaign stalled and fell apart. Shame, as I'd planned for a more epic feel.

[Old Man]

Normal level campaigns are a blast, especially as a change of pace from the usual 75+75 near-epic level start. "Look out for that goblin! It's so fast! It's so strong!"

It can get tiresome to play at that level so we tended to hand out a bit more xp than usual for those.

[Edsel]

In fantasy a 50+50 game is about as low a level as I have ever played. I ran a Zombie Hero game once where the players started as normals 0+25 but that is really what is needed to make that genre work.

[Steve]

I might suggest 25+25 to 50+50 to start, which I believe should let you pick up any racial and professional packages to start. The characters will start out fairly generic and can then customize with XPs. Some groups find that to be pretty satisfying. I've never started below 50+50 though that I can recall. Some things to consider:

1) Allow 25-50 points of Disadvantages to be picked up during game play (whatever would max out at 75 Disad points from starting levels), but only at a rate which roughly doubles (or maybe triples) normal experience gains. This shows starting heroes during the time when they picked up those Hunteds, developed Psych Lims, etc. that higher pointed characters have.

2) Start with less disads but greater XPs (maybe 1.5x to 2x normal). This lets heroes be a bit more "sterling" in nature without as many disads.

[Pentoth]

It works great to start the PC's out as norms however it does initially require more XP rewards so that the players get the feel of becomming heroes. After that slow the XP down to a normal pace. I had a campaign that lasted for about 4 years. The PC's started as norms and when it was over they ascended to godhood status. They began with 25 + 25 pts. The players were initially resistant to the idea but by the end they loved it. The game required a incredible level of planning and effort on my part however it was worth it.

[Vondy]

I've run two games like this.

In one the players were suited to it and enjoyed it immensely, but treated it as a madcap, slapstick townsmen run amok and get into weird predicaments sort of thing. They didn't really want to become "adventurers" so I ended up running a bunch of storylines in the city they lived in that were suited to a an innkeeper, a streetsweeper/chimneysweep, a less-than-honest mercantyler, a bar-wench by day burglar by night, and a high falutin' courtesan with lots of contact with the nobility and wealthy burgers. It was very entertaining and some very amusing stories occured, but it did not turn them into a party of warriors, spell-slingers, and ne'er do well anti-heroes running off the slay the great evil of their day, or to raid ancient tombs for treasure.

In the other game I ran like this half of the players weren't suited to it and pretty much refused to cooperate and whined about having 25+25 points to build characters on (which is pretty burly for a "normal") and started engaging in annoyingly obvious dink-fu despite the fact that I assured them they would not face anything unreasonable for characters built on that level - they just didn't like it and I ended up scrapping it after a few sessions because it was clear it was going to be painful to keep it going (which was sad for the other half of the group who were enjoying it and playing along).

My advice is to first and formost make sure all of the players are onboard. After that I would give them 25+25 points to make skilled or competent normals, and I would ask them to make a character who can grow into the character they want. So someone who wants to be a big war-hero might start out as a talented city watchmen or some such. I would also be careful about assigning experience based on "how they play their characters." This is a point of friction waiting to happen. The player may think they should get X for how they played their character while you think they should get Y. Ultimately, if the characters don't grow the way the players want them to the game will fail.

This requires maturity on their part and yours - to make a game where the character transforms from X-Y and the GM manages the growth enjoyable you will have to emphasize communication, communication, communication. It will also require some forthought. If they aren't big heroes already, how do they know eachother - and why do they work together? Also, it means you have to create scenarios designed for specific aspects of character growth. It can work, but it will take work.