Yet another FBH careers update/blog-thingy:
As I mentioned previously, I’ve been working on the Occult career. I had originally intended there to be two “magic” careers (Arcane and Occult), two “divine” careers (Chosen and Devoted), and two “psi” careers (Telepath and Kinetic). However, that ‘spread’ might be taking FBH too firmly into the realm of fantasy. While some fantastical elements are necessary to emulate the various flavors of sci-fi (I’m looking at you, WH40k), I need to be judicious.
I’ve taken the Occult and broken it between the Arcane and Chosen, the two careers that have the most outright “magic/supernatural” in them. This allowed me to strip out some semi-useful filler Skills from each career, and I feel they’re a lot stronger. I’m also stripping out the overt religious overtones of the Devoted career, making it more of a “fanatical devotion to a cause” and thus more applicable to a wider variety of obsessive archetypes. It’ll be simply called the Fanatic career.
Furthermore, I’m currently looking at adding a Xenologist career, to provide tools in dealing with alien beings. The career will hopefully serve characters in diplomatic, combat and mercantile situations, depending on the skills chosen.
Current crop of careers:
– Arcane
– Chosen
– Fanatic
– Telepath
– Kinetic
– Augmented
– Xenologist (??? Still not sure about the name, open to suggestions for a punchier name)
Still open to career or skill ideas, or even just archetype suggestions. I hope to have a new batch of previews soon. Also, keep an eye on the community in the coming week for possible playtest news.
-SG
My 2 cents:
– “Devoted” seems like a much cooler name than “Chosen”
– “Augmented” seems like it could be cybernetic or biological, which makes me think splitting it would be cool. Unless that’s what a Xenologist is? Is “Mutant” a better name?
“Devoted” is being changed to “Fanatic” (though I’m still open to other names). “Chosen” is a separate divine career. Perhaps “Inspired” instead of Chosen?
Augmented is definitely meant to be Cybernetic. However I don’t want to use Cybernetic because the career can apply to robotic characters (thus “augmenting” them).
Still on the fence about Mutant as career rather than Mutant as origin.
Oh I misread the Fanatic bit. I’m cool with that.
I feel like Mutant could be both, depending on how you want to run with things – the “born this way” trope and the “something changed me” trope. More like a Mad Scientist type. Do you have a mad scientist type?
Of course we have a mad scientist! Academic Fanatic (Surgery, Chemistry and Terrify).
I support this design decision. There are an infinite number of fantasy games out thee. I’d love for FBH to have what I need to play a Jedi, a ninth-level Pa’u, or a member of the Shiar Imperial Guard.
Oh, and Time Lords.
The Arcane also covers Technomages nicely. (It isn’t really magic so much as reeeeeeally advanced technology, but it can be hard to tell the difference.)
Are there any plans for alien careers or origins? As in species that are truly nonhuman, like a big space squid.
Matthew Browne For aliens, right now I’m looking at doing a Species supertype, so your character would go [Species] [Origin] [Career] [Career]. Most traditional “humanoid” species will be Xenosapiens (including humans themselves).
That said, I still have to find a balancing factor to the Terato (“monstrous”) vs Xenosapiens.
About Xenologist career, would it be covered by Academics based archetypes? Like academics/personality for xenoambassador, or academics/military for xeno-bounty-hunter?
So Xenologist would be its own career, and the skills within would help dealing with creatures not of your species. So you could be an Academic Xenologist to study them (‘Xenobiologist’), or pull a Daniel Jackson as a ‘Xenolinguist’/’Xenanthropologist’. Or a ‘First Contact Specialist’ as a Xenologist Personality. Or you could indeed be an ‘Alien Hunter’ as a Military Xenologist.
…
Xeno xeno xeno xeno xeeeeeeeno
I wonder if there could be some kind of ‘Focused/Master/Elite (Hmm, that’s fitting 🙂 )/?’ special career, if someone wants to focus clearly on single career. Something like extra career-related data points, reputation or turning all 7-9’s and failures strongly related to the career so they always are for reasons other than character’s ineptitude.