Monday, December 27, 2010

The Rotating Player Character

Sometimes the problem with a group is that they never seem to have the skills they need to accomplish a goal. Enter the Rotating Player Character method.

The rotating player character method (RPC) allows you to play as many characters as you want- just not all at once. This means that you'll earn less total karma, but you'll always have something to do on a mission, and works out well when you have smaller groups that are all fairly trusting towards one another.

Basically you make more characters, and as each mission is explained you choose what character you'll be using for it based on the expected mission parameters. You don't change characters during a mission. The character you play gets full pay, full karma. The other characters gain only day job type pay and only 1/4-1/2 karma at the end- enough to gain something, but not as much as the primary. Averaged out amongst 2 charcters they'll earn 3/4 as much karma as they would have earned, but now have plenty of downtime for day jobs, private goals, maintaining contacts, etc.

While it can be difficult managing so many players and PCs, especially for the GM, not knowing who's being played when, it can make sure a variety of characters all have things to do without becoming reliant one 2-3 PCs who happen to have a more varied character.

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