Homebrew Custom Arcanum Backgrounds

Based off of the most recent diversion in the excellent "Would You?" thread, I thought it would be a great idea to start a separate thread devoted to some TA custom character backgrounds.

It's important to note that a great background contains, at the very least, the following:

• 1) The background must convey either a specific story or personality type.
  You don't have to recreate Hamlet in a paragraph, but a good background strongly implies a certain specificity. Add reasons why the stats are being adjusted, don't just say they are. Correctly done, the stat adjustments will flow along with your small character blurb, will make sense, and paint the picture of a certain type of character.

• 2) The background must be balanced.
  Creating a background that gives +4 to all of the primary stats without any negatives is, simply put, grossly overbalanced. There should be pros to match the cons. This point can be hard to keep in mind, as even a seemingly point-for-point stat trade-off can still nearly be imbalanced. For example, a background that gives +2 Strength at the expense of -2 PE could vaguely be considered imbalanced, as a melee-type person often cares little for high PE values. Perhaps this type of extreme example is a poor choice, but it illustrates the idea that backgrounds must be balanced!

• 3) The background must make sense within the world of Arcanum.
  Try to keep modern day, pop culture references out of these. If you must add these to your background, do what Troika did with their Frankenstein-esque ones and have them make sense within the technological ideals of the game. Along these lines, remember to include race/gender limitations if necessary!
  I swear to God if I see any Twilight backgrounds I'll start IP tracing people and stabbing them...

• 4) The background must be consistent with the limitations involved in creating custom backgrounds.
  I'm aware that there are limitations to the number and type of additions that can be made in a custom background, but I can't for the life of me find them at the moment. If someone could post them/PM them/whatever them to me I'll add them to this post. However, if you do have a really, really good idea that just won't work technically, post it anyway because it'll be fun to read!

Post your ideas here, and try to keep in mind the above three points. We'll discuss the merits of the ideas here, and the ones that either agreed to be awesome (I reserve the right to put there what I want) will be added to the master post below.

Keep in mind that the original backgrounds can be found right here if you're looking for inspiration or examples. For the sake of comparison there are also several other fan-submitted ideas at that page as well. Remember, you've got base stats, skills, magic affinity, alignment, day/night differences, and all kinds of different things to tinker with. Don't just stick with base stats if your idea merits more!

Perhaps if we create enough good ideas, these can be compiled as a separate add-on pack by somebody with the knowledge? Or added to Rroyo's A:WIP?

Get to it!

 

::Reserved::

 

OK, I'll throw in my background from the "Would you?" thread.

[background]

Name: Lone Thinker

Requirements: All But Half-Ogres

Description: You've spend your life on gathering knowledge and contemplating the world. This has led to a significant rise in your mental abilities (+4 Inteligence), yet reading all of those books about philosophy and nature has weakened your eyes (-2 Perception). Focusing mostly on your mind also means that you didn't spend as much time on phisical activities as your average man in the street, causing a decrease in your body shape (-1 Strenght, -1 Constitution). Your oversized ego has caused you to be arrogant and antisocial (-2 Charisma), but on the other hand conviction about your intellectual superiority made you stubborn and gave you a great trust in your own abilities (+2 Willpower).

[/background]

Slightly changed from my "Would you?" version, namely "science books" turned into "books about philosophy and nature", so it wouldn't suggest technological path and go against magic, since both tech and magic paths are OK with this background and the decision is to be made by the player.


EDIT:

Which three points from the four you mentioned should we stick with?

EDIT 2:

If my spies are correct, the limitations are as follows:
- maximum 5 stats changed pisitively
- maximum 5 stats changed negatively
- maximum 5 skills changed pisitively
- maximum 5 skills changed negatively

 

I was considering this form of thread when I wrote my own background for the 'Would you?' thread last night. Seeing that it's practically my background as I am, I'll just include it here as well, slightly modified. Clearly isn't applicable to females.

The Good One

The more gifted of two brothers, you've always fallen victim to the jealousy of your elder blood. One event left you with a permanent hand injury, resulting in a penalty to Dexterity (-2), and during the time taken to heal, you fell into depression and anxiety, suffering a permanent drop in your Charisma (-1). During your solitude however, you had much time to reflect, which manifests itself as a higher Intelligence (+3) and being the more moral brother, people refer to you as 'the good one.' Your alignment is raised by 15, at your brother's expense. Because of that reputation, any moral missteps committed will incur a greater negative reaction from those around you.

 

Here's mine, straight from the original thread. I think it's pretty much in line with the original backgrounds, in that it actually comes out slightly behind going without. I'd still play it, though.

The Cute Scholar

Available To: Human, Elf and Half-Elf Females
You've always loved books, and you've dedicated a large amount of your life to them (Intelligence +4), at the cost of your eyesight (Perception -2). Your bookish ways and glasses are found make you attractive to no small number of men, especially protective ones (Beauty +2). However, you are clumsy (Dexterity -2) and your health has never been all that good (Constitution -4).

 

Here's mine from the original thread. I may try to concoct another one or two... also, does this seem balanced to you? I think it's actually tipped against the user, stat-wise. I also don't think you can cause a -1 to all attacks in Arcanum...

The Failed Womanizer

Available to: All Males

You've been hitting on women since a young age. You used to be considered cute, but as time has gone by, your looks have changed, and now most women don't find you appealing. At all (Beauty - 20). All the time and energy spent trying to woo women has made you good at talking (Charisma + 2), and that combined with the time you spent reading (Intelligence + 2) makes you a great leader (+1 follower), but you tend to be bookish (Dexterity - 5), with vision troubles (Perception - 1), and a sensitivity to light (all attacks during daylight hours -1 damage).

 

A character with that much reduction to beauty will have a rather...difficult time getting quests. O_O

Added a -10 reaction, hope it makes the background more balanced.

Two-Faced

Available to: All races, both male and female

You never mean what you say, even when you do. You say and do whatever you feel is necessary to get a favorable outcome in whatever situation you find yourself in. Your skill in manipulation gives you a large bonus in persuasion (+4), haggle (+2) and charisma (+2). However your ability to deceive has gained you the reputation of being a hypocrite (-10 reaction), and as such people you speak with tend to react contrary to how they would normally(reaction to dialog choices reversed).

I'm curious if reaction to dialog choices really can be reversed by this background. :-?

 

Not sure which way this is unbalanced but heres an old background I put together, though I must say the character of mine that used this background was intended to be played on hard in real time with sparing turn based sections (decided to switch to turn based for a number of turns based on however many fate points the character has per battle). Another limit on the character was no points after level 15 were to be spent and the character was not allowed to be tech or magic alligned.

{firearms +20, crithitchance +10, crithiteffect +5, st -3, dx -6, cn -5, wp -4}

Stat rundown
Firearms - I wanted this character's firearms skill to be stat based so to raise it only percepion would be needed, one of the serious perks of this was that the character could become a master at firearms by level 5

Criticals - I wanted the character's criticals to have an edge over a standard character

Strength - I chose to reduce strength to put a limiter on the character's use of guns, at least to begin with, as they have strength requirements. Also I wished to limit the characters carrying capacity

Dexterity - This was to eliminate or at least dampen the option for dexterity based options and limit the amount/speed of attacks the character could make

Constitution & Willpower - these were reduced to emphasize that this is a long range character, coupled with the minus in dexterity the player will need to think about how to spend points when levelling up and to try keep weapon ranges in mind

Background description
THE TARANTIAN
World Famous Firearms Instute On Defence Contract
The institute, that has produced many fine marksmen and women in the past such as Doc Roberts and Priscilla Penn, has signed a defence contract with the Tarantian Industrial Council and is said to be sending an official to finalise the contract. Mounting tension between Tarant and Caladon have caused...

Character Description
As you can see I don't like directly relating to my character or their stats in my background descriptions so here is a little more on the character for you

The character is a high standing/exceptional member (teacher or prize student) of a firearms learning organisation and would be highly specialised in that area but would be lacking in physical capabilities unrelated to that specialisation. You need a certain amount of strength to handle the recoil of some standard weaponry but not a great deal for the majority of small to medium weaponry. This particular character excelled in markmanship but wasn't too good at the firearms construction and maintenance.

Perhaps you could have some goodreactionadj and/or badreactionadj tied in as well somehow??

 

Made yourself into an arcanum background?

 

If so, it should start with Dog as a companion.

 

Well, as Xiao said,

, while in the original thread that was more or less the point.

 

I'd make one, but I haven't stooped to that level yet.

 

Ok lets make one for the thread rather than hashing up an old one.

{in -2, wp -3, ch -3. speed +5, badreactionadj *2, resistdamage +10, melee -12, dodge +3, pickpocket +3, repair +3 armtrap +3}

A bit odd

You have a knack for using the wrong words to get your point across (Charisma -3) and people tend to react negatively, twice as badly in fact.
Always picked for the goalkeeping roles in school PE lessons you received increased resistance to damage (+10), speed (+5) and a bonus dodge (+3), however you regularly swiped their belongings for fun (Pickpocket +3).
Despite a difficulty with understanding complex concepts (Intelligence -2) you are constantly taking things apart (Disarm Trap +3) and putting them back together (Repair+3) to see what makes them tick... or squeak in one case... very loudly.
Being very guillible (Willpower -3), a pacifist (Melee -12) and accidentally leaving all your gold at home, you have finally set out find your fortune, or lack thereof...

 

Am I the only one who finds it difficult to envision PE lessons and schoolyard fights in Arcanum? Think the latter was Arthgon in the other thread. I suppose if you're writing a background for real life it's fine, but I was using events from my own life as they could have happened in Arcanum. Or maybe I'm thinking too much.

You should stoop ASAP. I'm curious over what yours would be.

 

Well we don't have much in the way of education based places in Arcanum, so that makes it a little harder to imagine, but in the era equivalent to Arcanum there were most definitely schools and such, and I'm not 100% but I find it hard to believe there wasn't any form of PE, it may not have been called PE though

Schoolyard fights, get kids together, there is going to be fights, that is the beginning and end of it, how often and how public the fights are could be a different matter, the fights could be a shady corner deal or something like

 

No Yuki! Resist! I'll back you.

Writing custom backgrounds is the gateway to fanfic'ing. Do you really want to become that worthless?

 

As well he should.

 

I will never become like them. NEVER!