Sagatafl FAQ
From Sagataflwiki
Revision as of 18:57, 24 September 2011
Q: What is Sagatafl?
A: Sagatafl is first and foremost a character creation rules system, that is an objective set of procedures that a player can interact with, to make choices that together shape up to a coherent whole of a human (or otherwise) being, defined in terms of its inborn developmental potential, and its acquired abilities, with all choices having knowable consequences (all combinations of choices also have knowable consequences), and the resulting character being guaranteed (once playtesting is over) to not exceed the overall competence/goodness level one should except from the amount of Goodie Points that were allotted to the character creation process.
Mostly following logically from the character creation rules is a character advancement subsystem.
By necessity, since Sagatafl was never intended to output character sheets for use in other roleplaying gaming rules systems, Sagatafl also has its own subsystems for resolving actions, both physical and non-physical actions, and dealing as objctively as possible with the consequences thereoff.
Finally, because the primary use to which the chief designer intends to put Sagatafl is to run RPG campaigns in his Ärth historical fantasy setting, Sagatafl also has several magic systems, and rules for how they interact or fail to interact with each other.
Q: What is Sagatafl about?
A: Sagatafl is about human variety, the ways in which Humans can differ from each other, and how different Humans have different potentials for change. Sagatafl not having a subject is good, because it means that once one is equipped with knowledg of human variety, one can think up a character independently of Sagatafl, and once the character is fully formed in one's mind, one can go to Sagatafl and see that yes indeed, Sagatafl facilities the creation of that character in vidid and highly individual detail.
Other RPG systems are created to explore a very narrow subject and so by necessity require players to think up characters who conform to that subject, making system-independent character creation impossible. Or else theyare meant for use in an extreme ideological fantasy in which humans have infinite capacity for change. Or both.
Q: Does that mean that players have to create their characters wihthout looking at the rules?
A: Not at all. It is merely important to state clearly and frequently that it is possible to do so. To envision a highly detailed and defined four-dimensional individual human being, and then ome to Sagatafl and find that the infrastructure required to express that individual in game-mechanical terms is present.
The vast majority of player characters, and all NPCs, will be created via a back-and-forth process of the player (or the GM, when creating an NPC) interacting with the rules, his choices influenced by the rules, and some of the time a character will be created built around one or two special and interesting traits, possibly traits that no other RPG system simulates well (if at all). And that is a perfectly valid way to create a character.
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