Game System
A character is initially defined by his species or world of origin, which affects characteristics (for example, by determining the gravity to which it is accustomed). Then the players roll randomly for a certain number of defects, character age, and characteristics. The system used is Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing, with eight basic characteristics: Strength, Constitution, Mass (equivalent to Size in other BRP games), Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, Appearance and Education determining secondary attributes such damage modifiers, hit points, and skill rolls.
At creation, each character gets to spend a number of points (based mainly on age, Education, and Intelligence) on skills determined by interests or career choice. Each of the three playable races has specific tables for the creation of characters. Character Skills are based on percentages. To succeed in a skill, the player must roll under the relevant skill with modifiers on percentile dice.
Another critique of the game system has been the large effect of character age on skills, usually considered the most important character attributes. In Niven's future world, the deterioration of age has been largely reversed, so humans live hundreds of years. Therefore, a 200 year old character will have vastly more skill points than a 20 year old, with little compensatory advantages for the younger one.
Read more about this topic: Ringworld (role-playing Game)
Famous quotes containing the words game and/or system:
“There are no accidents, only nature throwing her weight around. Even the bomb merely releases energy that nature has put there. Nuclear war would be just a spark in the grandeur of space. Nor can radiation “alter” nature: she will absorb it all. After the bomb, nature will pick up the cards we have spilled, shuffle them, and begin her game again.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)
“While the system of holding people in hostage is as old as the oldest war, a fresher note is introduced when a tyrannic state is at war with its own subjects and may hold any citizen in hostage with no law to restrain it.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)