Character creation: Narrative or Numbers

[lensman]

I know my world better than any player. My argument is this, players supply a character narrative, his life , events, actions, faults, abilities. No mechanics.

As GM, I build that character and the conversation continues to hone the player choices until the character build is complete and turned over to the player.

 

Defeat my argument if you can.

 

I cannot build a character creation guide complete enough that Players will not find cracks or make reductive or mechanical constructs that I must tear down and create a more adversarial atmosphere, based solely on what they read vrs. what unknown to them, yet, known to me as GM.

 

This is compounded by the use of a published HERO setting, the Turakian Age, where I have added details left undiscovered, compounded again by a middle step Black box approach to magic, from a mechanics POV.

 

Likely someone will make the claim of micro-management or even a claim of egomania on the part of the GM.

 

Which is a smaller set, player expectations and the hammering it would take to bring into compliance, or the tuning back and forth after the GM receives the character narrative with any conversation to explore what is possible?

 

HERO system is a construction set, I get it, can I write enough on all possible Optional rules, from all available HERO sources to shed light on all edge cases? I do not think it can be done. Hence, better to build from narrative of, war orphan, street urchin, pocket dip, gutter Ear, wharf scrounge, Guild member, second pilfer, Quarter rook, whisper-broker, implausible savior, reluctant contact, unlikely pupil, sociable rogue, amiable agent, clandestine disquisitive.

 

 

[Tjack]

I agree with many of your main points, as you can see from a number of my previous posts.  

[Panpiper]

4 hours ago, lensman said:

Defeat my argument if you can.

There is no defeating your argument. If you are the GM, you get to define the terms of your game. It is up to everyone else solely whether they want to play or not.

 

For most new players, this is likely to not just be the easier choice, but will result in a more effective character. I have frequently seen newbies show up to a game with a character they have built themselves with such glaring flaws in their construction as to be functionally useless. A character you build will not likely suffer from such faults.  The downside of course is that many players are drawn to Hero System precisely because they enjoy the process of building characters, and this approach deprives them of much of that pleasure. That can be mitigated to a degree by allowing players some freedom with how they spend experience points. Also perhaps while building, leave a few points free that the player can allocate as they choose before the first game, so they can feel some personalization for the design you hand them.

 

I can well understand your motive, and it is not wrong. I have been frequently tempted to do something similar on those rare occasions I have GMed. Players have a natural tendency to power creep, to push as close as they can to maximum effectiveness. If everyone does this to the exact same degree, there is no problem for balance with the game, the GM just tailors encounters to the power level the players have defined for themselves. The downside is that it is never equal. One or more players will emphasize combat to the max and be quite a bit more powerful than someone else who emphasized role playing, which can skew both balance and enjoyment. The role player will feel slighted in combat and the powerful one will have so little to do outside of combat that they will enjoy nothing else.

 

I would again return to my suggestion made before. Build the characters yourself based upon description, with some discussion, but leave something like ten points unspent. Let the player spend those ten points however they want. The power player will buy up their strength and a couple of levels with their favorite weapon (or similar) and the role player will add a few skills and/or skill levels. Things will not be completely out of whack and the players will feel more ownership of the resulting characters.

[Panpiper]

Something to consider... A rule I have given to myself in a couple of games run by GMs who were themselves new, running new players who invariably had, to be generous, less than optimum characters... New GMs have no idea just how effective an experienced Hero player can make a character.  However without cheesy exploits, there is still a power limit defined by available points.  My trick in those cases was to give myself the rule, communicated of course to the GM so he knew what I was doing, that I could spend half my character points on combat, in any way I chose (excepting cheese), and the other half had to be spent on non-combat utility and RP.  If everyone held to such a rule, I suspect you might have a fairly balanced group while still allowing players to build their own.

[Doc Democracy]

On 5/25/2020 at 11:03 AM, lensman said:

Defeat my argument if you can.

 

If you never give the players the chance to build stuff you will never get to play the game as they will never build up the skills necessary to run the game.  More experienced people are going to spend their time potentially chafing within your vision of how a power is built to concept.

 

🙂

 

Otherwise it is a reasonable way to play with inexperienced HERO folk. 

[theinfn8]

I'm going to take your challenge as a call to open discourse and not argument, so please take anything I say with that perspective in mind.

 

Everybody's game, group, and players are different. I trust my players with character creation Rule #1: Don't cheese your character. If everyone follows that rule, then there are usually no issues, since Hero character creation really needs to be with a concept in mind (which is going to be narrative at that point).

 

I'm also never so wedded to my vision of the world and fiction that *I* want to create that I can't tweak things to fit the fiction that the *group* wants to create. I imagine creating everyone's characters would feel a little... on rails, after a couple times. Now, I also run short format campaigns, no more than six months (usually aimed at about three) because giant epic stories usually die out and never finish. So, new characters is a relatively frequent occurrence for us.

 

I'm also a firm believer in a session 0. The players come with their ideas and we all sit down and hash out the basics of what everyone expects, times (if it's not already my regular group), and everyone should leave with a mostly complete character. Everyone has buy-in, character creation with your friends sitting there is faster, and everyone can police for cheese or be clarified on a plot point that might be contradicted.

 

All that being said, everyone runs their game different and that's ok.

[Hugh Neilson]

This also means, to me, that the GM takes on the responsibility of ensuring that each character's points spent will have meaning in the game, that each character will be able to meaningfully contribute in-game and that each character will have their moments to shine.

 

It can be a very good result, or a very poor one.  It's one step further down the road of pre-fab abilities to choose from (the player does not construct those either, whether in pre-constructed Hero or in a d20 game).

 

I would say, like most things Hero, there is a balance.  If I want, for example, the Finest Archer in All the Land, and you tell me an OCV of 6 and 4 skill levels with the bow does the trick, then I expect that this will mean I rarely, if ever, miss and never meet a better archer.  If I rarely hit with the bow, and am constantly outclassed by other archers, you did not deliver.  But if that was my character vision, I should have asked you first anyway, not showed up with an OCV 4 (or 8 ) character with 2 (or 12) skill levels with archery.

 

Especially with players who are either new to Hero or new to the balance and parameters of your setting, this will be as, or more, effective compared to "player builds and GM tweaks/suggests tweaks".  However, I would also be open to player input, especially Hero-familiar players, and to input after a session or two, should the character not perform to expectations, just as I expect players to be open to toning down abilities which turn out to be problematic in unexpected ways.

[bluesguy]

The rule in any campaign is the GM has the final decision on whether or not a character will work in the campaign setting.  If someone came to me and said I want to play an elf (blah blah blah) I would say no because there aren't any elves in my campaign world.  Any counter argument from them about being the one elf in the whole wide world and they were accidentally dropped into the world would end with no you can't play an elf.

 

I have provided my players with a set of parameters for building characters in my campaign (see here).  It covers races, min/max characteristics, OCV/DCV, overall combat abilities, magic, etc.  Over the years we (players and myself) have had to tweak certain aspects because my initial concepts didn't work.

[MordeanGrey]

I definitely prefer the players to be involved in creating character concepts.

 

To further this, I normally request them to write at least a page of character history/bio so they know who they are, where the come from, what their motives are, and what they've experienced. This is also very useful to me as the game master as I have details I can weave into the plot to keep their characters directly involved, and give them the chance to know something from their past that is useful in the present.

 

I ask them to create balanced characters, and not just stat monsters with few skills. All of the regular players in our group have gamed together for more than 20 years, so everyone does the right thing and we don't have problems very often.

 

Now, if I was running a new group that was unfamiliar with the HERO system, I would either take the time to work with them individually as they build their characters and begin to learn the system, or start off with pre-generated characters for the first round to let them enjoy the game action without worrying about a book full of new rules.

 

 

 

 

[pawsplay]

That sounds like a lot of work. It also means the players don't have to think about tradeoffs, and don't get to.

Okay for newish players.

I personally don't have that kind of time.

[LoneWolf]

The biggest problem with that is that people often interrupt things quite differently.  You could have three people try to describe something they all saw and end up with three different stories.  This is known as the Rashomon effect after the classic Japanese film.  This also applies when people are describing their concept.  So no matter how much you listen, or how carefully you design the character it will not match what the player originally envisioned. 

 

The second problem is that you are denying your players the ability to add to the story.  While the GM is the one who creates the setting the players also deserve the chance to contribute to the story.  When the players are contributing to the game as much as the GM it is a lot more fun and enjoyable.  To me this seems to be more about the GM’s wants and need than those of his player. 

 

The third problem I see is that often people write up character they know how to play.  When someone else writes up the character it often ends up being less effective because the person who wrote it up may not think like the person playing it.  This often leads to a situation where no one is happy with the character.

 

So while you know the world you created better than your players if you want it to become more than that you need to allow your players input or all it will ever be is your world.  The way I see it you can either keep total control of everything in your game, and only allow your player to do what you think they should, or you can engage your players and create something bigger than your original world.  I know what kind of game I would rather play in, how about you?      

[pawsplay]

i think it robs something of the experience for players not to at least try to come up with spells, Psychs, etc.

[Ninja-Bear]

3 hours ago, LoneWolf said:

The biggest problem with that is that people often interrupt things quite differently.  You could have three people try to describe something they all saw and end up with three different stories.  This is known as the Rashomon effect after the classic Japanese film.  This also applies when people are describing their concept.  So no matter how much you listen, or how carefully you design the character it will not match what the player originally envisioned. 

I’ll second Lonewolf here. Some players don’t mind how their built and others might. 
 

Lensmen I would not  try to account every edge case. That’s why their called edge cases. That route will drive you crazy. I’d deal with them IF and WHEN they come up.

 

if you can trust your player to not try to make a character that breaks the game then let him or her do it.

[lensman]

Here now my reply, in order of post, by author.

 

@ Tjack : Well I will get to looking those posts up, later.

 

@ Panpiper : You have hit upon the point, I am going to be starting a game with six, three newbies to HERO, three veterans. I am not looking to deprive anyone of the building process. It does start and end with the player. The narrative created by the player is Step 1, then begin how well I understand it, then with my questions, we explore, expand the narrative.  Then the drafting, showing the work to the player, then the iterations, questions, and agreement. I do not see how this collaborative process deprives any player o anything, except the pride of exploit or mastery of mechanics knowledge.

 

Both of these will be born out in the process, while also integrating world lore. Any choice that happens where, as we know, HERO can build things many ways, where player build and GM build differ, that can be talked about and hammered out, as opposed to player build being submitted and thought of inviolate and unimpeachable.

 

Yes, it is interesting, this idea of narrative as expressed by 175 starting pts. If the narrative is thin, then points are left over, gigantic amounts of narrative can consume all of the starting character pts.  As example, D'Artagnan, I am a simple farm boy raised by a Master swordsman, My skill with rapier is matched only by the finest swordsmen in the King's Guard. Simple, good for a two hour movie, not enough for a campaign. However, I agree, where possible, if possible, points should be left to assigned by the player.

 

How you think that this entire process is not personalized to that player, enabling his vision of the character, as expressed solely by them is a mystery.  You must be arguing some other, as yet unexpressed, point.

 

You pointy out that I am not wrong, yet.., you spent a good bit telling me that my error is " they can feel some personalization," by implication saying, they will have none, or next to none. If you are trying to convince of , "You can please some of the people, some of the time, not all the people, all the time."  I do agree with that, yet with decades of GM'ing I feel I have run into this very concept many times, and solved it for ... let just say, most of te people. These games will be me dealing with unknown players, literally the only thing I will know is whether they are new to HERO or not.

 

The idea is worthy, it will be used.

 

What ever the percentage comes out to be, every character has to be Danger-worthy.

 

@  Doc Democracy : Safe to say, we disagree. Players build everything, they build it in narrative and then if misunderstanding is with one or both, it gets hashed out, and then, transparently, the mechanics are shown, and polishing can begin. Some players will chafe at the process, I am not inflexible, where I can make accommodation, I will.  

 

I counter the idea of, "Never let them build, they will never learn to build, " with , they will see the translation of narrative, a word problem, into mechanics, ask questions, receive answers, compare result with narrative and see the whole process. It is not a black box, it is transparent and where clarification has to be made, it will be on one or both sides. If you want to defend the hill where if the character appears to be the same, GM build and Player build, so why not let the Player build it, in my experience there is no problem and maybe a little shared respect.

 

Also, a lot more to the game than the initial character build

 

@ theinfn8 : Yes, I get it, you are not trying to impune my motives, just take the worst motives and ascribe them to the process, as a cautionary point. I am looking for the players to take the ink and draw what they see, put it into a character narrative and have it join to the existing campaign. Not all concepts are equal or valid.  Demi-God, out.  Extra-dimensional traveler, out. Dragon, out. Monstrous creature, out.

 

Now I agree that all this is for a series of min series runs, the restraints, if you see them as that, loosen as I see players develop through the run(s).

 

If that is your experience with grand epic stories, it has not been so with me.

 

I define a Session 0 differently, it is a solo run, sans other players, or it could have one or two, call those Session 0.5, where we get the character in motion and setting direction, becoming familiar with expectations.

 

@ Hugh Neilson : Hugh, you're preaching to the choir. Were it ever so. Some players, you can pull out the chair, yet... they never sit at the table. If that happens, it happens not through my inaction as a GM.

 

As for your example, I council that the ask for a beginning character is too high. Best in your village, best in the county, best in the Duchy, but unless you have been everywhere, challenging every Archer, you can not know whether you are the best in the Kingdom. That form of fiat does not exist for beginning characters, though they be mighty and a clear step above the ordinary or trained. We agree of course, fulfilling the expectation of th e player is the point, a reasonable point.

 

I can see that a thread is running through the replies, yes, with the GM as unknown, caution and reason are indicated.

 

@ bluesguy : Right. I do not have the luxury of knowing the players online, and the work I see in the link, well done.

 

You get that I am trying to avoid: Player makes entire character, submits entire Elf build to GM, GM says, no Elves in my game, players goes and makes entire Demi God build, GM says No Demi gods in my game... etc.

 

Though this is mostly avoided since I am using a published campaign setting, Turakian Age. Mostly.

 

@ MordeanGrey  : 100% spot on. Mechanics can show me what the character does, not who the character is.

 

At one time I was part of a group that gelled for many many years. All things must and do.. change.

 

Your point is a good one, I credit most for understanding the mechanics. My concern is balance and seeing the character concept fulfilled.

 

@ pawsplay  : Maybe we envision too different amounts of time being consumed. Given that the player has to make the character and ask questions and learn or incorporate, how could you not invest the time . To be sure, for character generation, I make the time.

 

Though I am unsure exactly what you mean by trade-offs, it is a process, so decisions, ie trade-offs, will be made. Also i think the narrative creation smooths out the decision process, if the player puts exactly what he wants down and communicates it clearly. Some players just need feedback and options.

 

@ LoneWolf : I am going to take " interrupt " as interpret. To your first point, I say, Let not the Perfect be the enemy of Good."

To be clear I do not agree the Rashomon effect applies to defeat character creation, unless you all talking about going out past 5 decimal places.

 

Since this has been answered above to others, I will reiterate, player narratives always change, add, effect the world to enable the character to exist, barring destruction of whole Empires, even the, it is a discussion. To do otherwise leads to madness.

 

In the spirit of warding off the worst possible conjuration of motive and aberration, my only motivation is seeing the player vision completed, within reason. The risk is reversed, if the GM does not build to the narrative provided by the player, the player bounces, as the kids say. It is a conceit, I have enough faith in my ability in HERO and to communicate that  the risk, from a reasonable process, of failure,  is low to extremely low.

 

While I like a good rant and rail, as objective warning to the worst possible outcome, you make assumptions about the process that are unwarranted, however, it does serve as an example of what an idea could be unchallenged. 

 

@ pawsplay  : Since the player supplied narrative covers all of the character, spells, and psychs are completely within their domain, to be modified as the player sees fit, given they understand the mechanics, or learn the mechanics and adjust one way or the other.

 

Complications may be the point where players have to be aware of mechanics to best see the concept realized.

 

@ Ninja-Bear : My point is not that players will break the game.  The point is that balance is required, certain points, that players would see as wasteful are required for balance and fulfilling narrative. These omissions, or trade-offs, are made by players in an attempt to maximize survivability, or just plain paranoia.

 

The larger picture will be seen by the GM concerning all the characters, and thus balance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

3 hours ago, lensman said:

@ Hugh Neilson : Hugh, you're preaching to the choir. Were it ever so. Some players, you can pull out the chair, yet... they never sit at the table. If that happens, it happens not through my inaction as a GM.

 

As for your example, I council that the ask for a beginning character is too high. Best in your village, best in the county, best in the Duchy, but unless you have been everywhere, challenging every Archer, you can not know whether you are the best in the Kingdom. That form of fiat does not exist for beginning characters, though they be mighty and a clear step above the ordinary or trained. We agree of course, fulfilling the expectation of th e player is the point, a reasonable point.

 

I can see that a thread is running through the replies, yes, with the GM as unknown, caution and reason are indicated.

 

This comes down to game expectations as well - if I envision a game of great, near-mythical heroes (players will be in the Robin Hood and Hercules style) and you envision a "zero to hero" style game, then either I buy into the vision of the game, build my "Level 1 Robin Hood" and rely on building him up over the course of the campaign, I shelve the concept for a more appropriate game, or I look for a game which is designed around legendary characters at the outset.

 

It does not change the need to meet expectations, but does highlight the need to manage the expectations consistent with the campaign world.  If I want a character whose strength is Legendary, and every village blacksmith ends up 3-5 STR higher than my character, that is a problem with the character build.  If I want a character whose strength is Legendary and the game is not intended for Legendary characters, that is a problem with the character expectations.

[Killer Shrike]

If you're the GM and those are your terms, then the players who agree to play in your game are opting in. As long as, in the end, people have fun, there's no harm. Part of the GM's job is to be a quality filter on what makes it into play. If you feel like the best way you can provide that level of quality is to fully own the character creation process, and you have players who don't mind then it is a non issue.

 

Personally, I prefer to start new players with an array of pre-gens to choose from, which is an even more extreme form of what you are talking about here. Saves time and allows getting into the action right away with characters intentionally designed to be relevant to the setting, reliable at their shtick, and to be interesting in some way. This is one of the reasons I write up a bunch of "Iconics" for my various settings; not only do they help me build out the setting, and demonstrate the range of possibilities as archetypes, and provide benchmarks for stats, they also serve as potential starting pre-gens for players to choose from.

 

Later, after some trust has built up, if the player wants to make their own character and put the time in to do it then I'll work with them through some number of rounds of back and forth. They submit their character, I make some tweaks and bat it back for acceptance or negotiation. My main concern is that the character make sense within the setting (lore, power level, etc) and equally important be distinct from the other PC's in the campaign. 

 

Every now and then, a player submits a character that is 100% in line with the setting and campaign and is mechanically clean and free of exploits or problematic mechanics. But it is definitely the exception. :) 

 

Back in the day I would sit with each player in person and help them make their character, but it was a huge time sink, and in the grand scheme of things not really any more successful than the approach I settled into over the years.  As my available free time shrank over the years, I began to optimize for trying to make every face to face session focused on actual play as much as possible. Dinking around with a character build with a given player...some of that is unavoidable and will happen if necessary, I but I really prefer for it to be handled between sessions via email or direct 1:1 communication and not at the table.

 

So, tl;dr: if it works for you and your group, then more power to you.

[pawsplay]

Pregens are cool, but generally I just expect players to submit their characters a week before the game starts.

[Panpiper]

I like having pregens, not because I would necessarily want to play one, occasional exceptions not withstanding, but because it gives me a FAR better idea as to relative power balance to aim for when building a character myself, than does a set of abstract guidelines. That's in my case at least. As always though, I expect a GM to want to tweak any character I submit and do my darnedest not to make too much fuss about their decisions.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 5/27/2020 at 6:55 AM, Killer Shrike said:

Personally, I prefer to start new players with an array of pre-gens to choose from, which is an even more extreme form of what you are talking about here. Saves time and allows getting into the action right away with characters intentionally designed to be relevant to the setting, reliable at their shtick, and to be interesting in some way. This is one of the reasons I write up a bunch of "Iconics" for my various settings; not only do they help me build out the setting, and demonstrate the range of possibilities as archetypes, and provide benchmarks for stats, they also serve as potential starting pre-gens for players to choose from.

 

Later, after some trust has built up, if the player wants to make their own character and put the time in to do it then I'll work with them through some number of rounds of back and forth. They submit their character, I make some tweaks and bat it back for acceptance or negotiation. My main concern is that the character make sense within the setting (lore, power level, etc) and equally important be distinct from the other PC's in the campaign.

 

14 hours ago, Panpiper said:

I like having pregens, not because I would necessarily want to play one, occasional exceptions not withstanding, but because it gives me a FAR better idea as to relative power balance to aim for when building a character myself, than does a set of abstract guidelines. That's in my case at least. As always though, I expect a GM to want to tweak any character I submit and do my darnedest not to make too much fuss about their decisions.

 

Buried in the middle of the pregens is pregen abilities - you can take the Elf template, the Burglar template and the Street Urchin template, for example, and you can buy these pregen combat tricks, skill tricks, spells, what have you.

 

All are useful in setting the standards for the game, and the characters.  To my mind, there would also be nothing wrong with taking the pregen and saying "This one is pretty close, but I want him to have those skill levels with a bow instead of the sword, and trade off 4 less STR for 2 more DEX.  Is that OK?"  Which is a lot less work for the GM than "here is my designed from scratch character that is completely off base with virtually all of your campaign standards and doesn't fit the world anyway because you may not have pixie-housefly crossbreeds".

[Killer Shrike]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Buried in the middle of the pregens is pregen abilities - you can take the Elf template, the Burglar template and the Street Urchin template, for example, and you can buy these pregen combat tricks, skill tricks, spells, what have you.

 

Ya, I did the template thing for many years; many many package deals...for instance Fantasy

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/HighFantasyHERO/racePackages.aspx

http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/PackageDeals/professionPackage.aspx?profession=all

and so on.

 

And also a form of rapid character creation where you just slam a few templates together maybe do a fit & finish pass, and go ( such as: http://www.killershrike.com/FantasyHERO/Content/CharacterTemplates/CharacterTemplates.aspx )

I kind of was an innovator in that space, so to speak. It works, but it isn't much different than a pregen...it's pregen'd chunks (in the form of packages), and totally generic so you are still left with the burden of describing the setting, and it is also possible that just mixing and matching a bunch of packages still wont result in a competitive or interesting character and still eats up time. 

 

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

All are useful in setting the standards for the game, and the characters.  To my mind, there would also be nothing wrong with taking the pregen and saying "This one is pretty close, but I want him to have those skill levels with a bow instead of the sword, and trade off 4 less STR for 2 more DEX.  Is that OK?"  Which is a lot less work for the GM than "here is my designed from scratch character that is completely off base with virtually all of your campaign standards and doesn't fit the world anyway because you may not have pixie-housefly crossbreeds".

 

Yes, exactly. Taking a pre-gen and tweaking a few things around (fit & finish) or re-skinning (new name, new picture, tweaked bg) is quick and easy. In fact several memorable PC's of campaigns in more recent years started off in exactly that way. In my current (on hiatus due to quarantine) campaign three out of the six PCs were pre-gens and another was basically a re-skin of a pre-gen. 🤷‍♂️

[Hugh Neilson]

The reality is that a lot of our characters are effectively "pre-fab".  The more points the characters have, the more that becomes the case.  2 SPD?  Not likely.  Warrior with 8 STR and 9 CON?  Probably not.  Just the "basics to play" purchases chews up a lot of points.  Toss in the campaign expectations for various character types (say, for example, that Wizards have specific knowledge skills, a school, etc.) and more points are pre-spent for all characters of that type.

 

We can get to the extreme where all Rogues look the same (and that's merging closer with recent d20 models where there are more "pick a power" options at various points in character generation and leveling up), but the reality is that  Hero characters can be problematic on the other side - too many choices leading to analysis paralysis.  Starting with a pregen that is the basic type of character you want to play, maybe tweaked a bit for a specific ability you want the character to have, is a good intro to Hero, at a minimum.

 

As well, when the mechanics are taken care of quickly and easily, we can get less focus on "stats and powers" and more on "personality and character".  That's never a bad thing.

 

And KS, you don't do your work justice with "kind of was an innovator in that space, so to speak".  IMO, you are one of the best users of the Hero system to build desired tone, effect and style.  That is, the use of the game system to build a real game.

[Scott Ruggels]

Killer shrikes approach was about the same as mine back when I was running 4e FH.  I knew my world fairly deeply and would hand out package deals (not Templates), and the players could pick and choose.  I also handed out thick print outs of the world background for the players to read. I definitely do not have that sort of time any more, but I do have some examples of the old Package deals. Most of them were built to be "nested", so you would buy a base package and the next one represented a higher level of the same organization. Mix and match and it was all legal. (at the time).