Life happened, and Unisystem
The Star Wars game I was running went on hiatus due to my course load putting me in "mind-bogglingly busy" mode. I don't have the mental bandwidth available to run it and get all my class projects and homework done. The fantasy game I was going to run for the Sunday group is waiting for the end of the semester for the same reasons.
Because of this, another member of the Saturday group decided to start up an Angel game. We picked up the Angel Corebook last week and the group sat down to make characters Saturday night. Not much special about that, except that one of the players reacted differently than usual. Her characters tend to be very one-dimensional, little more than a personality trait slapped on top of "I want to be able to kill stuff." Saturday she started out saying "I just want to fight well," but she then spent a good hour poring over the qualities and drawbacks in the Angel corebook. She often said things like "Well, I could use that, but it isn't right for the character." This is a marked contrast to how she made characters in AD&D2 (which isn't as dynamic) or in the few Fudge games I've run (which had the players pick skills, gifts, and flaws free-form, with no lists).
I'm a firm believer in "Let the players make the characters they want within the setting." A list of gifts, flaws, or skills always seemed to be a restriction to the players, telling them "This is what you are allowed to do and no more." After watching her actually get into character creation for the first time I can remember, I'm starting to think I may be wrong about that.
Because of this, another member of the Saturday group decided to start up an Angel game. We picked up the Angel Corebook last week and the group sat down to make characters Saturday night. Not much special about that, except that one of the players reacted differently than usual. Her characters tend to be very one-dimensional, little more than a personality trait slapped on top of "I want to be able to kill stuff." Saturday she started out saying "I just want to fight well," but she then spent a good hour poring over the qualities and drawbacks in the Angel corebook. She often said things like "Well, I could use that, but it isn't right for the character." This is a marked contrast to how she made characters in AD&D2 (which isn't as dynamic) or in the few Fudge games I've run (which had the players pick skills, gifts, and flaws free-form, with no lists).
I'm a firm believer in "Let the players make the characters they want within the setting." A list of gifts, flaws, or skills always seemed to be a restriction to the players, telling them "This is what you are allowed to do and no more." After watching her actually get into character creation for the first time I can remember, I'm starting to think I may be wrong about that.