Martyn Webster

Personally, I prefer to have fantasy character start off with as few points as possible and allow circumstances and need drive development - say 50 to 75 pts plus 50 complications. Otherwise, you get power-designed characters who have a backstory just to explain how they got so perfect. This way, they have almost no back-story as they have no heroic history, just a pretty normal upbringing with perhaps some personal struggles, advantages and achievements. You can be generous with experience points at the start and make skills learning not too difficult (e.g. friendly mentors are available) and they can decide how to develop their characters in response.
 
I would also expect a minimum points spend on background skills and talents since you can't logically develop these quickly later. 50 pts of complications can seem a lot at that early stage, but you can go soft on those at first until they get more powerful (eg their hunters are rumored to be near, but they never actually show up in force until much later).
 
If they start off weak and grow fast, they will develop according to what you throw at them and in ways that fit the campaign setting. If there are lots of combat tasks, they will naturally spend point on combat. If there is more talking, sneaking, travelling or mysteries, they will naturally spend points on skills to be better at those things. They will then work out that they don't need everyone to be good at everything, so strategic decisions about who specialises in each area of ability naturally occur and everyone feels they have an important individual role in the party.
 
This is particularly useful for starting players, but it's also an interesting challenge for experienced players who may have a "road map / master plan" in place but can then adapt their concept to fit the campaign and work with other party members more effectively.
 

Personally, I prefer to have fantasy character start off with as few points as possible and allow circumstances and need drive development - say 50 to 75 pts plus 50 complications. Otherwise, you get power-designed characters who have a backstory just to explain how they got so perfect. This way, they have almost no back-story as they have no heroic history, just a pretty normal upbringing with perhaps some personal struggles, advantages and achievements. You can be generous with experience points at the start and make skills learning not too difficult (e.g. friendly mentors are available) and they can decide how to develop their characters in response.
 
I would also expect a minimum points spend on background skills and talents since you can't logically develop these quickly later. 50 pts of complications can seem a lot at that early stage, but you can go soft on those at first until they get more powerful (eg their hunters are rumored to be near, but they never actually show up in force until much later).
 
If they start off weak and grow fast, they will develop according to what you throw at them and in ways that fit the campaign setting. If there are lots of combat tasks, they will naturally spend point on combat. If there is more talking, sneaking, travelling or mysteries, they will naturally spend points on skills to be better at those things. They will then work out that they don't need everyone to be good at everything, so strategic decisions about who specialises in each area of ability naturally occur and everyone feels they have an important individual role in the party.
 
This is particularly useful for starting players, but it's also an interesting challenge for experienced players who may have a "road map / master plan" in place but can then adapt their concept to fit the campaign and work with other party members more effectively.
 

I haven't run a fantasy genre campaign for some time now, although I play in several and follow some online DnD campaigns to get ideas.
 
The things I am looking forward to doing is that the healing magic of healers has a superficial impact on the target, and that provides for some interesting roleplay and makes sure that the "cleric" (or any other type of healer) is noticed by the party and not just taken for granted as a source of healing.
 
Some ideas:
- Good cleric healing which only works if the target says prayers to that god, or at least says or does something that the God likes ("Say your prayers if you want your BODY back!").
- A druids healing where the target has to touch a natural plant or the ground and wines/roots reach out and touch the target. There is a residual effect such as a leaf found in a pocket or a green tinge to the healed area.
- An evil cleric/warlock whose healing looks just nasty (but works as normal). Afterwards, the target has an mild uneasy feeling of guilt, paranoia or anger, etc (based on the god).
- A necromancer who can heal but you need to find something alive to drain the life force of - he insists that the target provides the life source for their own healing.
 
If cheap and "clean" healing is freely available including in the form of potions bought at a shop, the cleric is not valued... but if every source of magical healing in the world comes with such minor effects, those needing healing will be more interested in finding a source they can live with and value a cleric/deity who is relatively less demanding or more compatible with their character's ethos.
 

Personally, I prefer to have fantasy character start off with as few points as possible and allow circumstances and need drive development - say 50 to 75 pts plus 50 complications. Otherwise, you get power-designed characters who have a backstory just to explain how they got so perfect. This way, they have almost no back-story as they have no heroic history, just a pretty normal upbringing with perhaps some personal struggles, advantages and achievements. You can be generous with experience points at the start and make skills learning not too difficult (e.g. friendly mentors are available) and they can decide how to develop their characters in response.
 
I would also expect a minimum points spend on background skills and talents since you can't logically develop these quickly later. 50 pts of complications can seem a lot at that early stage, but you can go soft on those at first until they get more powerful (eg their hunters are rumored to be near, but they never actually show up in force until much later).
 
If they start off weak and grow fast, they will develop according to what you throw at them and in ways that fit the campaign setting. If there are lots of combat tasks, they will naturally spend point on combat. If there is more talking, sneaking, travelling or mysteries, they will naturally spend points on skills to be better at those things. They will then work out that they don't need everyone to be good at everything, so strategic decisions about who specialises in each area of ability naturally occur and everyone feels they have an important individual role in the party.
 
This is particularly useful for starting players, but it's also an interesting challenge for experienced players who may have a "road map / master plan" in place but can then adapt their concept to fit the campaign and work with other party members more effectively.
 

Personally, I prefer to have fantasy character start off with as few points as possible and allow circumstances and need drive development - say 50 to 75 pts plus 50 complications. Otherwise, you get power-designed characters who have a backstory just to explain how they got so perfect. This way, they have almost no back-story as they have no heroic history, just a pretty normal upbringing with perhaps some personal struggles, advantages and achievements. You can be generous with experience points at the start and make skills learning not too difficult (e.g. friendly mentors are available) and they can decide how to develop their characters in response.
 
I would also expect a minimum points spend on background skills and talents since you can't logically develop these quickly later. 50 pts of complications can seem a lot at that early stage, but you can go soft on those at first until they get more powerful (eg their hunters are rumored to be near, but they never actually show up in force until much later).
 
If they start off weak and grow fast, they will develop according to what you throw at them and in ways that fit the campaign setting. If there are lots of combat tasks, they will naturally spend point on combat. If there is more talking, sneaking, travelling or mysteries, they will naturally spend points on skills to be better at those things. They will then work out that they don't need everyone to be good at everything, so strategic decisions about who specialises in each area of ability naturally occur and everyone feels they have an important individual role in the party.
 
This is particularly useful for starting players, but it's also an interesting challenge for experienced players who may have a "road map / master plan" in place but can then adapt their concept to fit the campaign and work with other party members more effectively.
 

Personally, I prefer to have fantasy character start off with as few points as possible and allow circumstances and need drive development - say 50 to 75 pts plus 50 complications. Otherwise, you get power-designed characters who have a backstory just to explain how they got so perfect. This way, they have almost no back-story as they have no heroic history, just a pretty normal upbringing with perhaps some personal struggles, advantages and achievements. You can be generous with experience points at the start and make skills learning not too difficult (e.g. friendly mentors are available) and they can decide how to develop their characters in response.
 
I would also expect a minimum points spend on background skills and talents since you can't logically develop these quickly later. 50 pts of complications can seem a lot at that early stage, but you can go soft on those at first until they get more powerful (eg their hunters are rumored to be near, but they never actually show up in force until much later).
 
If they start off weak and grow fast, they will develop according to what you throw at them and in ways that fit the campaign setting. If there are lots of combat tasks, they will naturally spend point on combat. If there is more talking, sneaking, travelling or mysteries, they will naturally spend points on skills to be better at those things. They will then work out that they don't need everyone to be good at everything, so strategic decisions about who specialises in each area of ability naturally occur and everyone feels they have an important individual role in the party.
 
This is particularly useful for starting players, but it's also an interesting challenge for experienced players who may have a "road map / master plan" in place but can then adapt their concept to fit the campaign and work with other party members more effectively.
 

Some ideas to spice up generic adventures:
-Hostage rescue situation - either in a hot "just happened" chase situation, or a longer negotiation/investigation/infiltration type scenario
-Friendly/neutral NPCs are turning bad in some non-too-obvious way and the party has to find and "cure" them (whatever you decide that means)
-A rival group has been assigned to the same task, so it's a race to achieve the objective first and get the credit/reward
-The main mission turns out to be a trick by a rival person to get the party to do the hard work and steal the reward/credit at the end - they find out about it at some stage if they find the right clues so need to deal with that afterwards
-Collapsing building/caves put a frantic and random time factor to the mission