Playing with no Orders

[Almos]

The only thing that professions/orders do is to put a leash on you! It limits what your character can become. It limits your options greatly, and with the following rules you could create any character you'd want!

I'm not so vhemently oppsed to professions/orders as some I could name, but I’m still looking for a house rule that will eliminate professions/orders. This may be more than a "house rule" since it changes the game so dramatically. It may also be unsuited for Star Trek, but I think that it could work well in Lord of the Rings atleast. Anyway, here’s a draft:

When you create your character simply avoid choosing a profession/order. You may of course choose a profession/order skill package as normal.

(This is the core of these rules ofcourse. Simply avoid anything in the book that refers to profession or order!)

All through character creation and when assigning picks from advancements, treat all skills as professional/order skills. In other words, you may always purchase skills at a one for one cost. However, during each individual advancement you may not increase your skill ranks with more than 3 picks, though you may acquire as many specialties as you wish.

(This is meant to limit your skill progression since all skills are now profesional/order skills. This might be done in some other way, but I'm not yet sure how else to do it. In the Lord of the Rings game you could say that only racial skills - the once you can use your racial picks for - are available as order skills. But I'd like to eliminate this destinction between skills alltogether!)

At character creation and during all advancements you may pick any ability from any profession/order, as long as you fulfill all of the requisites, if any, for the profession/order you pick the ability from. You must also fullfill the requisites for the ability itself naturally.

(This removes the greates constrain on characters I see it. The limitations of professional/order abilities. Now all abilities will be available to you, and thus your options will be near limitless!)

During advancements, treat all reactions as non-favored and all attributes as favored.

(This I added because I don't see why you shouldn't be able to advance all attributes and reactions at an equal rate, if you only work on them.)

I think that this about covers it.

You must realise that I’m just brainstorming here and I’m looking for feedback. Can it be done?

[AllenS]

Some people feel that professions and/or orders provide a framework. I have never found such things to be limiting. I have yet to find a type of character in either Star Trek or Lord of the Rings that I can't build, with a little bit of that most useful of gaming supplements, imagination.

Allen

[Almos]

But a system that does not use professions/orders might be more true to real life! It's not easiy to classify a real person although a fictonal one might be fitted perfectly into these frames. I've tried to classify myself and the only way I can do that is by making myself a scienctist/loremaster. That's not how I see myself. Several skills are non-professional skills for the scienctist/loremaster, skills that I haven't had any problems aquiring. Why should I be limited by the scientist/loremaster profession/order? "I am a free man!"

[Dan Gurden]

Thats where the Imaginatoin comes in.

I think the problem here is in labels rather than effects.

As you say you describe yourself as a scientsist/loremaster... You could equally describe this as;

Academic.
Researcher.
Librarian.
Student.

If the name that is assigned doesn't fit, then change it, why create a whole new system that is equally unrealistic to compensate;

For example, I as a civilian might well have the physical and mental capabilities equal to say a soldier, but that doesn't mean that I have access to the same training to be able to react and fight like one. I might have a certain Moral 'flexibility' to match being an assasin, but that doesn't mean I have the opportunity to learn skills and abilities relevant to that job either.

In reality you need a mix and match of both, some restrictive, some more than open.

[AllenS]

Originally posted by Almos
But a system that does not use professions/orders might be more true to real life!"

if this comes off short or snotty please forgive me. I am sick at the moment, and I certainly mean you no disrespect ( don't know if it will, just wanted to issue a disclaimer).

Perhaps a game which is designed deliberatley to be a cinematic, non-realistic game is not the best choice for trying to model yourself in?

"realism" as a game design concept is overrated anyway, in my admittedly humble opinion. I have played games that purported to be realistic, and frankly, they were uniformly unfun to me. Neither Star Trek nor Lord of the Rings (which of course are both based on Coda) aspires to reflect reality any more than the sources they are emulating. They reflect Trekality (or..Ringality? Lordality? Hobbitality?)

Besides, everyone knows that reality is just a crutch for people who can't handle role-playing games

Allen