RuneQuest 6 - Review - Part the Second - Let's Add Some Background to That PC

Alright, last night we looked at the basics of character generation. Tonight, we look at fleshing out that character in Chapter 2 of RQ6, Culture and Community.

Culture is the first aspect of that background that we come across. It's divided into Barbarian, Civilized, Nomadic and Primitive. Your choice of Culture will give you a list of Standard Skills and Professional Skills that you can choose from (and possibly a Fighting Style - not quite sure what Fighting Style does but I'm sure i was as we go through all of this). 100 Skill points to play with in this step to allocate among the skills you have chosen.  I'm beginning to think I need to read up on skills next.

Oh, there are also Cultural Passions, which are optional. They include one Loyalty, one Love and one Hate. They are also dealt with later in the rules. I'm going to assume that they are there for roleplay and story hook purposes, but I guess we will find out for sure later.

Next up is Background Events. They're optional but useful for fleshing out your character's background and possibly even generating a campaign hook or two. You may roll or choose from the table, or roll until you like a result I guess. Which would be like choosing your roll ;)

Ah, Social Class. I remember when AD&D's Unearthed Arcana added that to AD&D. Didn't fit there. Seems to fit here. This is generally a random roll, because wealth does equal more power, or at least better starting equipment.

Starting Money gets determined by a 4d6 roll multiplied by anywhere from 10-75 silver pieces, depending on the PC's culture. This is then modified by the Social Class result - x 1/4 if you are an Outcast all of the way up to x 5 if you are of the Ruling Class (Civilized Culture). See, I told you Social  Class meant power ;)

You can also determine your family size, if you have living parents, if you are married (what spouse would let their significant other go adventuring?), family reputation, allies, contacts, rivals, enemies - all the crap that a good DM knows to make sure the players are part of a campaign setting that feels real for them. This part is easily yokeable to other RPGs.

Passions - didn't have to wait nearly as long as I thought to find out more about them. They get rated like skills, and generally start at around 50% + or -. Wait, they really are dealt with in Chapter 6 - this is just the initial generation of them. Ah well.

Damn, that was all of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 is Careers and Development. Tomorrow we'll get get to distribute even more skill points. I don't remember all of these points back in RQ 2+3, but I'm not complaining.