Tinkering with a DW-based thing. It’s science fiction, somewhat more hard than, say, Adventures on Dungeon Planet.
Anyone think it’d be bad to skip the name/looks thing for classes?
Tinkering with a DW-based thing. It’s science fiction, somewhat more hard than, say, Adventures on Dungeon Planet.
Tinkering with a DW-based thing. It’s science fiction, somewhat more hard than, say, Adventures on Dungeon Planet.
not really.
I think so, actually. They’re a really important part of defining your character as a character, not just a playbook.
I think of the inclusion of names and looks on a playbook is a signal to the players that this isn’t a game about anything and everything – it’s a game about a specific genre/setting/whatever and these are the names and looks that are relevant to what the playbook/game is trying to capture.
That being said, there will always be at least one player in any group who is such a special snowflake that they absolutely must choose their own name and appearance…
Some players have a hard time just coming up with a name. Having a list of 10 or so per gender, and the instructions to ‘Choose a name or make one up that would fit on the list’ can save a lot of character creation time.
Keep ’em, they’re a way for you to define some of the look and feel of your setting.
Also, I’m looking forward to any DW scifi!
Names are super valuable. They can communicate a lot about of a setting (just look at AW). Look does the same thing—it says “this is the type of person that looks like this” and “this is a world where people look like this”. So when AW has stuff like androgynous and transgressive on its lists it’s putting those ideas into the minds of players even if they don’t choose those options.
So in a hard SF setting maybe you want to say “spacers look like this” or communicate some curveballs about future fashion.
I agree that you should try to keep the name and looks to help define your game, but you don’t have to have everything in your first draft. Let your players play test and help.
I say don’t drop it, for the same reason Tim suggests. For folks who aren’t quick to envision the perfect name and look for their character, it’s a huge boon, and for people who come up with such things in second nature it’s just as easy to ignore.
Any implied setting-building you get to do aside is gravy.
Let’s put it this way. If I had to drop two things from a playbook those would be the two.