Alrighty, then!
I’m going to generate these characters for use with ForeSight. I have a scan of the original 1986 edition, and permission from the author to distribute it to my players. For the past few days I have been thinking that I ought to run it straight using those rules — not that I expect many players to study the rules for a one-and-done adventure, but so as not to make potholes for any who do consult the rules. But now that I have started character generation and reminded myself of what some of those rules are and why we house-ruled them I have decided that some things just have to go. And once you have opened the jar, why eat just one peanut?
So
- I’m not going to use age rolls and social backgrounds to determine the generation points and education budgets of the characters. I’m just going to suck everything out of a fixed budget with years of education counting as five generation points.
- I’m not going to use semi-random character generation, but I might use a slightly more generous budget for inherent attribute values than the standard “5 in each attribute plus 32 to distribute”. We’ll see.
- Random abilities and limitations won’t be used.
- Temperature familiarities are abolished. “T” will be replaced with a value of two throughout.
- Speed will depend on Agility alone. It will be trunc(AG/3) - 3 plus G familiarity, not (AG+PC)/5)(rounded up) - 5 plus G familiarity.
- The Unarmed Combat Damage Class table will be replaced with one giving lower DC at low strength.
- I will use the damage table out of ForeSight Enhanced instead of the one on p.407, with the effect of making heavyweights’ punches less lethal.
- There will be no skills free at level 1 — it’s less trouble just to pay for them and adjust the budget.
- Fatigue skill is abolished. A character’s fatigue points will be equal to EN + WP.
- Pain Resistance skill is abolished. Roll Endurance or Willpower (whichever is higher) to resist stun — EF 8 if unwounded, EF 7 if lightly wounded, EF 5 if medium wounded, EF 3 if heavily wounded.
- The skill “Confidence” is renamed “Persuasion”.
- The skill “Diagnose” will be easier and cheaper, but not used for designing things.
- The skill “Disguise” is renamed “Dissimulation”.
- The skills “Artistic Composition” and “Artistic Depiction” are combined and named “Depiction”.
- The skill “Gambling” is abolished.
- The skill “Heavy weapons” is renamed “Support weapons”.
- The skill “Implement” is renamed “Analysis”, and is easier and cheaper.
- The skills “Literary Composition” and “Literary Execution” are combined, and named “Writing”.
- The skill “Mechanical Ranged Weapons” is renamed “Archery”.
- The skill “Pickpocket” is generalised in its functions, and named “Sleight of Hand”.
- The skill “Recall” is renamed “Scholarship”, and is easier and cheaper.
- The skill “Seduction” is abolished. Use the skill “Persuasion” with the modifiers in the table on p.303 for the procedures in §3.3.
- The skill Throwing will be used for catching things.
- The skill “Melee Weapons” is renamed “Mêlée Combat” and absorbed striking arts from “Unarmed Combat”
- The skill “Unarmed Combat” is split, striking arts going to “Mêlée Combat” and grabs and throws going to a new skill, “Grappling”.
- I will add new skills: Artillery, Design, Grappling, Sailing, Teamster.
- I’m strongly tempted to merge the attributes Endurance and Willpower.
But I’m going to handle all the character generation, so that won’t matter to anyone else, right?