GamePhil

I don't remember if I ever asked you, but are you familiar with James Jandebeur's Incomplete Character rules (also appeared in Digital Hero #10 IIRC)?

"Oh, he's not dead. Not yet."

That's me! Here we see the drawback to using a screen name. I wonder if I can change it?

In fact, if I was still running a game and it were to come up I'd use them. But I have a feeling that there are advantages to a change in point of view, so I'm exploring them.

Yup, issue 10, I'll add that to the introductory post. Thanks for pointing it out.

D'oh!

I just realized. GamePhil = Gaming Philosopher

PS -- you can change your screen name by asking an admin.

I first started thinking that I disagreed with the paragraph on "special needs." Although I understand what you mean by saying "the EFFECT of 30 points of Life Support" (emphasis mine), it just seemed wrong to give the NC what amounts to a "benefit" for no cost. I realized that the "power" called Life Support is, from this point of view, just buying off some of the defining disadvantages of being human.

It got me thinking about what you are defining here. What I see the Null Character as is a blank slate, a template upon which an interesting character can be built. To this end, I thought that it should literally start with nothing. However, even a rock (a nonliving object) has 2 defining characteristics -- DEF and BODY. So I thought about it some more, and I now think that a NC should have the bare minimum that is necessary for a living being, but that its net cost must be zero. So, any benefit that it gets needs to be offset by Disadvantages. For example, if I say that a living being needs at least a minimal amount of BODY and CON (1 point each, maybe) to be considered "alive" then those need to be paid for by, say a Dependency on "taking in nourishment" (I am not saying "must eat food" because that implies a great deal about the type of nourishment, as well as how it is taken in) and/or Susceptibility to high/low temperatures, etc.

At this point, the NC is about as alive as an amoeba, and doesn't even have its ability to move. With just BODY and CON, most of the figured characteristics will be zero. Interestingly, even without a DEX, it still has a SPD of 1. END and STUN will be positive, however.

From here, you could create a large set of basic species Packages to add to the NC. I would see these as "minimal" packages, not "average" packages. Whether these packages should have a net cost of zero or not, I am not sure.

Interesting topic. I like things that get me thinking.

Thinking. A dangerous passtime. Glad the blog is doing its dangerous business!

Part of the idea of the NC is that it can be built into any kind of "character", not just living creatures. Bolt on one set of Characteristics, and it's a Vehicle; bolt on another, and it's a living creature. So, for the moment, I was staying away from giving the NC anything at all, even the basic components of being a living creature or a rock.

However, the next step for actually making this a usable system would be to create packages of abilities and possibly Disadvantages that would make them recognizable things, and I like the suggestion of that step all being 0 point "package deals". I don't know if that can be done without fudging, and am almost certain that the Characteristic levels (for instance) won't be what we're used to, but I like it. I suppose they could be called Zero-Point Characters, the next step up from Null Characters. Hmm, that could cause confusion, though.

I confess I was so focused on using this in conjunction with Everthing's A Power that I hadn't even considered Figured Characteristics. I suppose it might have a Speed of 1, but if it can't do anything with it it really may as well have a 0.