Editing Character:Stone Dragon (section)

== Commentary ==

Ran into a snag on this one.

<b>DCU</b> committed the ultmiate sin: I didn't enjoy making the PC.

To clarify, the game in question is West End Games' <b>DC Universe RPG</b>, another d6-based system (though not the same one as that which powered their <b>Star Wars</b> game or <b>The d6 System</b> I have used elsewhere for the Create a Character Challenge), and not any of the seemingly-dozens of DC-based supers RPGs.  (At times, it feels like a new DC game comes out every week or so...)  This system uses dice pools and counts successes - a success is 3-6 on a die, with failure only being a 1-2.  Rather forgiving, it seems to me, but then, this is a superhero game - failure isn't really part of the genre so much.

Now, I'm kind of a fan of supers games; other than "non-modern fantasy" - a category so broad as to be almost useless - I have more supers games than any other genre.  In addition to <b>DCU</b> and <b>Aberrant</b>, I'll eventually be getting to both <b>Necessary Evil</b> (for <b>Savage Worlds</b>) and <b>Mutants and Masterminds</b>.  <b>DCU</b>, however, manages to be limiting, counterintuitive and poorly organized, making concept expression a real pain in the ass, especially for beginning players.

I'd also like to take a moment to look at the following sidebar on pg. 20, the very first page of the character creation chapter:

<i>If you add up the dice for Robin, the character used in the solitaire adventure in the introduction, you'll notice that total is about three times that of a typical Power Level 1 starting character.  For a typical starting character, that would be too high.  However, Tim Drake has been Robin in the DC Universe for a few years.  In that time, he's had plenty of opportunities to rank up Character Points, which, in addition to helping with rolls, aid in acquiring and improving skills.  (Later chapters in this book talk about both of these traits of Character Points.)  Playing adventures will gie you the chance to gain Character Points and develop your hero into a true legend.</i>

So, did you get that?  If your character idea is, "I want to play someone like Robin!" then the game's answer is, "Tough noogies."

(sigh)

(creation time: 45 minutes)