Non-random Character Generation in Lace & Steel

Copyright 1996 by Steffan O'Sullivan

Lace & Steel is an awesome game of swashbuckling in a low-magic world much like earth. I personally dislike random character generation systems, however, so the game is a little irritating in that sense.

But take heart! Those who dislike random character generation can still use Lace & Steel quite easily. Use the following rules instead of the listed rules.

P. 16: Rolling a Character

Stage One: unchanged.

Stage Two: Instead of rolling for Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, Drive, Charisma, and Magical Aptitude, players distribute 80 points among the eight characteristics as they please. (For more cinematic games, the GM may increase this to 85 points or even more.) There are only a few restrictions on how the points may be spent:

  1. The minimum score for any characteristic is 5.
  2. The maximum score for Magical Aptitude is 20.
  3. The maximum score for any other characteristic is 15.
  4. Certain races have different maximums and minimums as follows:
    • Pixies: Only 78 points to spend on characteristics. Strength between 2 and 6, inclusive. Dexterity and Intuition may be as high as 16.
    • Satyrs: limits as listed.
    • Modifications to Half-Horse characteristics are unchanged.

    Stage Three: unchanged.

    Stage Four: P. 30. The GM will tell the players which Social Classes their characters may be from. The players will then choose the Social Class they wish to play from this range. Follow the skill rules exactly using this information.

    Other rules that need to be addressed:

    Experience points: unchanged. Each player has (Reason+Drive) experience points at character creation to spend on either characteristics or skills. Each five experience points spent on a characteristic raises it one level, as stated on p. 16. Skills may be purchased as listed in the table on p. 32.

    Significators: allow the player to choose a card from the list as his/her character's significator. If the card refers to a "bonus" or "slight" in a given characteristic, the character receives no actual bonus or penalty. Instead, this simply means that any characteristic labelled as a bonus must be higher than ten, and any labelled as a slight must be lower than ten. If the player doesn't wish to set the appropriate characteristic to these levels, he or she must choose a different card as significator.

    Note that the Significator chosen also has an effect on Disposition - see p. 44.

    Starting Tie/Antipathy Experience: instead of 2D3 as listed on p. 45, use four levels to distribute among starting ties. The GM may vary this number, of course, granting each player five or even six levels of ties, for example.

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