Yesterday I built a custom class/character with Class Warfare, a couple of hours before playing.

Yesterday I built a custom class/character with Class Warfare, a couple of hours before playing. I had previously just perused the book, and used the PDF version to copy+paste in a Gdoc file the different Specialties before deleting the things I did not need (multiple race/backgrounds/equipment and advanced moves since it was a beginning first level game).

Observations:

Having an idea of the organization of the book and a concept for the character, I managed to get something close to what I was envisioning.

The final class had some problems in the “build”. It was a Warrior with one Disciple specialty, and my choices made it mechanically dependent on 3 different stats, making it less effective in its combat role. Also, two of the moves had an “when you enter a fight” activation with an hold mechanism.

For sure a new player would have found it confusing. I became aware of this problem during the creation phase, but decided to ignore it.

To sum it up, I was able to build a character/class in a limited amount of time before playing, and with little previous study of the book, but next time I would make it a  two passes mechanism.

I would start with a  creation phase, and then a review of possible mechanical problems. So, while there is an explicit discussion of this specific issue in the introduction, the system gives full control and it’s up to the final user to evaluate the class as a whole.

As a final note, I would have liked to have the Specialties in a simpler text format with limited layout, and a word processor file to fill up in electronic form, to speed up the process of creating the playbook.

There is a PDF file with an empty sheet in the electronic bundle, but I think that hand-copying 25 full moves is a little bit to labour heavy (and in my case, would give a sheet covered in unintelligible ramblings).

Tagging who has seen the class in action.

Tim Franzke Kasper Brohus Allerslev