Basic Role Playing character generation without the math

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Moracai

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I'd like to start a campaign with some form of BRP engine sometime in the future. But I find it tedious to do all the math, like DEX+10 as a base for dodge. It's not like a few points here or there in a skill is very game changing. Everyone starts, in my previous example, with a dodge of say between 18 and 28, before any points are spent.

I've tried looking at OpenQuest, Magic World and some other rules lite BRP descendants, but haven't found what I'm looking for yet. Is there an easier way? I'm asking because the campaign could potentially be quite deadly for the characters, if the players don't take the careful approach, and could be rolling new characters too often for their liking.
 
Some BRP games start with a flat base for everything, and then you add skill points on that, so that's one way you could go. Otherwise, you might automate it. When I was thinking about running a modern BRP campaign, I made my own character sheets with auto-calculating fields. Attached, if you want to see what I mean: put scores in the eight characteristics, and you'll see it start to fill in skills, via the base score. Then add skill points to the SP column, and it'll put those together. (EDIT: Obviously, this specific sheet is (not helpful if you're playing something not-modern, but just to give you the idea of what you could do for your own character sheet, if you're inclined.)
 

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Yeah, the flat base approach might speed things up for you. Elric! and Call of Cthulhu only have a couple of calculations and the rest is basically flat-value with pools of points assigned to them. I prefer it to skill calculations and skill category modifiers (based on stats).

I'd also recommend the Delta Green Rpg, which includes occupational packages with predefined skill levels (which are modified with 8 +20% skill bumps, chosen by the player). That's a really fast chargen option and produces characters that have the starting skill levels they should, based on their chosen occupation. But, it sounds like you're running a fantasy campaign so it might not be the best source. Or just require a lot of conversion and homebrew work).
 
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In Mythras, a quick way might be to have the player roll STR, DEX, etc. for a character and pick a profession. Have the player choose 2 professional or combat skills to start at 3x base value and all other standard and professional skills for the chosen profession start at 2x base value.
 
I guess I'll go ahead and shamelessly plug my own BRP-Magic World, auto-calculating sheet that I host in the resources section here (and at BRP central). You should be able to make a character in as little as 10 minutes with it.

But if you don't like Magic World I'm not sure how much utility you'll get out of it. Do you want something lighter, crunchier, "different?"
 
Thanks for the answers everyone! I didn't remember the CoC did have that base flatline in place. It has been quite a while since I played it last time.. The setting I have in mind is not quite historical fantasy. But it is historical fantasy, kinda. Characters from renaissance to near Victorian periods get whisked away to another dimension, from which they have to find their way home, or perhaps some would have reasons to stay, I don't know yet. So I'm looking at Renaissance (A free Clockwork & Chivalry variant) and now I guess start looking into Cthulhu by Gaslight :grin:
 
So far I think Magic World has the quickest character gen for any BRP game. Very clean and fast.
But Renaissance is also reasonably quick, and probably more appropriate for the desired setting.
 
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There is Roll20 Mythras sheet that helps a bunch. You can also use the Mythras encounter generator for characters and it pre-fills in blanks for the stats, which I found incredibly helpful
 
Thanks for the answers everyone! I didn't remember the CoC did have that base flatline in place. It has been quite a while since I played it last time.. The setting I have in mind is not quite historical fantasy. But it is historical fantasy, kinda. Characters from renaissance to near Victorian periods get whisked away to another dimension, from which they have to find their way home, or perhaps some would have reasons to stay, I don't know yet. So I'm looking at Renaissance (A free Clockwork & Chivalry variant) and now I guess start looking into Cthulhu by Gaslight :grin:
I think Renaissance is very good and would probably fit what you're shooting for -- It's just about custom made for quasi-historical, alternate history, or historical BRP games.

For some reason I possess a form-fillable version of this sheet http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103766/Renaissance-Character-Sheet?manufacturers_id=4595 but I have no idea where I got it from (It doesn't appear to be in the Downloads section of BRP Central, and the Cakebread & Walton website is defunct now, so I can't check there). I've thought about adding a little bit of Javascript code to it to make it auto-calculate things like Damage bonus, base skill %, etc., but I'd be reluctant to distribute it, since it's not my IP.
 
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