Cross-Species Racial Construction

I’ve talked before about creating custom races and half-breed races, for example in this explanatory post and the posts linked to it. But those posts talk about half-breed races – human plus elf, for example – from the viewpoint of OD&D and compatible systems. But here are my thoughts on fantasy half-breeds from a system-neutral and “cosmology-neutral” approach.

A half-breed character has one parent from one race and another parent from a different race. They are not necessarily the biological offspring of those two races, as you would normally understand it. For example, in a fantastic or mythic setting, if a god, demon, or magical being changes shape or possesses the body of a human and then has a child with another human, the child can be considered to have three parents, instead of two. In an even more fantastic setting, a spider or other creature that frightens a pregnant woman could even be considered a parent. In fantasy, science fiction, or superhero genres, an unnatural encounter could reshape a previously normal human, essentially causing them to be reborn, and the encounter itself acting as a new “parent”.

Half-breed characters will have the physical features of their mother. They will also have one minor physical feature of another parent, and may have up to three features as long as they are all minor and all but one are purely cosmetic.

If one of the parents has unnatural abilities, the half-breed character will have weak versions of those abilities.

Cultural (learned) abilities will match the culture they grow up in. They might be taught an additional language by each of their parents from outside the culture, plus one learned ability from outside their culture.

Constructed Beings can be treated as a special case. A constructed being is made in a laboratory or similar artificial manner and may not have a literal “mother”, so the being’s creator is free to choose whatever physical form is preferred. The physical “parents” of a construct are the mystical essences or biological DNA samples used in the construction, but the creator is the “mental parent” and provides mental abilities to their constructed offspring.

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More on Metagaming

My previous post on metagaming started a mini-discussion. Robert Conley gave his own definition of metagaming in the comments, and expanded on it on his own blog. Dennis Laffey clarified that he didn’t entirely disagree with the original definition of metagaming in the video, but focused more on the natural conclusions you have to draw if you are using a definition like that.

And I totally get that. I didn’t give my own definition of metagaming, either, or really address what I thought of that definition. But now is the time for me to talk directly about how I define metagaming. Or rather, to say I haven’t quite decided how to define it, because I’m not entirely sure it’s a useful concept.

Here’s my line of thought on this: When we make up a new word with the “meta-” prefix, it’s to talk about an abstract level one step above, beyond, or removed from a more direct concept. An example directly relevant to RPGs is metaplot, the story that some RPG products create that overrides the plot ideas individual GMs and/or players create at the table.

So what would “metagaming” be? It’s the abstract level above the level of game rules or game play. Behaviors that override the game rules themselves. Both of the metagaming definitions being discussed incorporate some sense of that. But I’m thinking that roleplaying itself overrides system-level concerns. It’s the real metagame level. What’s usually being discussed in debates about metagaming is something interfering with the roleplaying aspect, because the player is either using knowledge that the group considers outside the character’s reach or socially manipulating the GM or group to get their own way.

The solutions usually proposed to fix the metagame problem are either system level (XP penalties for acting out-of-character, for example) or social level (having a serious talk with a player.) You can, as I suggested previously, see this itself as metagaming… or meta-metagaming… or maybe metaroleplaying. It’s really more like a back-and-forth between game system and player control, with one overriding the other for a while until the balance seems tipped too far in one direction. I’m not sure you can actually pin down what counts as metagaming, or what counts as bad metagaming, even for an individual group. It’s something that’s constantly in flux.

I may have more to say on this after Thanksgiving, as I mull it over.

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Is This Metagaming?

Dennis Laffey has a post on his blog where he responds to a video discussion about metagaming. I’m not going to discuss the video itself, because Dennis has that covered. But the discussion itself got me thinking about that definition given for metagaming: “Using any knowledge the player has instead of knowledge that the character has available.”

I’m surprised Dennis didn’t take exception to that definition, since it seems to depend a lot on the definition of roleplaying as “acting in character” or being an amateur thespian. If you believe the true purpose of an RPG is to pretend to be another person, expressing their feelings and motivations rather than your own, then naturally anything that breaks character is going to seem like a step beyond the game’s intentions.

But what gets me is that people into that kind of roleplaying never seem to see the game rules themselves as a violation of roleplaying. Instead, they frequently try to use game rules to enforce acting in character: dice rolls to see what a character knows, XP awards or penalties for how the player plays their character.

It seems clear to me that a focus on rules is what ruins roleplaying. But maybe that’s just me.

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Reload Last Save?

I’ve been playing modded Skyrim again recently, so it’s reminded me about something that irks me in video games. It’s easy in Skyrim to get suddenly overwhelmed by enemies and swiftly killed… and then the game loads the last save and you start over. The worst things that can happen are:

• forgetting to save for a long while and losing a lot of progress,
• getting killed so close to your last save point that you get stuck in a “death loop” and have to abandon that save, rolling back to a previous save.

Sometimes, it’s even better to die in a couple situations to gather information about coming dangers. All of this can break immersion, if that’s what you’re looking for in your game experience. Dying really doesn’t matter.

Which brings us to a point many OSR bloggers have made before: dying has to matter in old-school games. This is why there’s so much pushback against “fixes” like negative hit points, healing surges, or eliminating save or die situations. There’s certainly room for discussing proper GM practice, or giving players a few more options to avoid instant murder. And honestly, old school play isn’t really more deadly than other RPGs, as long as you play smart. But the general feeling among the members of the OSR community is that play should be thoughtful and cautious, and death should be a constant threat. Remove too much of the threat and you turn the game into a meaningless adventure simulator.

Excerpt: General RPG Usability Notes

Just a quick check... this is an excerpt from the introduction to a book I'm working on:

undead-test1

It's a summary of terms and conventions I will be using that, with any luck, will be broadly applicable to many old school RPGs, with only minor tweaking needed for any particular system. I'm aiming to be clear and concise, but: Is this clear enough? Is it concise enough, or too concise? Can people actually use it to adapt OD&D-compatible game material to games on the outer fringes of the OSR?

Edit to Add: I'm trying out condensed versions of some paragraphs, including the description of the basic stats, which now read like this:

Dice -- How hard a monster is to kill, and how dangerous it is in combat, written as dice + points, for example 1 + 1. 

Armor -- Protection against damage, labelled as Light Armor (equivalent to leather or padding,) Medium Armor, Heavy Armor, and No Armor. 

Move -- How far a monster can travel on its turn and how fast it is in combat. Ordinary humans have Move 12 normally, Move 6 when loaded, and Move 3 when overloaded. 

Damage -- How deadly each attack is. Like Dice, this is written as dice+points, for example 1 + 1, possibly with a type, such as “fire” or “ice”.

Old and Lethal

I’ve briefly ranted about the supposed lethality of old school RPGs before:

I think people make way too big a deal about character death in old school games. I’ve only had one TPK in almost 40 years, and I haven’t had that many individual character deaths. It’s not really that old school RPGs are deadly. It’s just that old school RPGs usually don’t protect characters from death. Characters are just as fragile as monsters, and hit points are typically low to begin with.

That certainly covers the mechanical aspects of lethality, but there’s another side: the perception of what you are doing when you are roleplaying.

Almost all modern RPGs describe what you do as “pretending to be heroes from your favorite movies and novels.” Genre stories give script immunity to main characters, at least until the end of the story. And in Hollywood movies, main characters don’t even die at the end. They want feel-good endings and death is a downer. This is so common these days that when something breaks that expectation even a little (Game of Thrones,) people think of it as super dark and lethal.

So new school traditional RPGs use mechanical means to reduce the chances of characters dying, and indie RPGs (story games) explicitly switch the focus of the rules from character and action emulation to story emulation. Players are given tools to prevent their character’s death until they feel it’s dramatically relevant.

Old school RPGs, I would argue, don’t emulate heroes in movies and novels, even though they are inspired by them. In those games, you are basically pretending to be yourself, but in a fantasy world. Yes, you may have options to make your character stronger or smarter than you are in real life, or give your character fantastic powers, but things that would be crazy in real-life, like rushing headlong into a group of enemies and fighting against 5 to 1 odds, are crazy in the fantasy world, too.

Death is a failure condition. If a player didn’t want their character to die, their death means that either the player or the GM made a mistake.

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No True Nostalgia

In the OSR vs. DIY post, I mentioned “Nostalgia” as one of the OSR Definitions of the Month. And yes, that has raised its head again recently, in a Faerie Tales & Folklore blog post, “No True OSR”. The author, Morgan, believes that all previous definitions of the OSR are lacking, suggesting that they all commit a “No True Scotsman” fallacy, excluding other games that fit the definition as not being pure.

I’m a little baffled by the analysis, since really Morgan is the one applying the “impurity” principal to exclude various definitions. “Rulings, Not Rules” can’t be the definition of OSR, because there are non-OSR games that use rulings instead of rules. Nor can “Less Plot, More Player Agency”. But were these ever proposed as definitions? Or merely discussed as features? And why isn’t the definition with historical evidence included?

The post basically makes the same error I was discussing in the OSR vs. DIY post: treating various features of OSR games as exclusive must-haves to the OSR. But outside of certain highly-technical contexts, hard boundaries and immutable binaries are not the way people do things in the real world. If you define “dog” as a four-legged carnivorous mammal domesticated by humans thousands of years ago, what do you call a dog with three legs? (Answer: Eileen.) Are cats dogs? What’s a sun dog, then?

Plus, there’s some confusion between “old school games” and “OSR”, which Morgan seems to use interchangeably.

The end result is that Morgan defines the OSR as “anything that provides a sense of nostalgia and prior understanding for the player”. This is meant in a positive way, not the way we typically see the “Nostalgia” argument being made (“You only like OSR games because you’re feeling nostalgic for the old days.”) But if you are consistent and used the same technique on this definition as the blog post uses on the other definitions, you’d have to toss it out as well. Lots of games provide a sense of nostalgia and prior understanding. Many of them aren’t OSR.

For example, I talk about The Fantasy Trip from time to time. I used to run TFT games back in the '80s. But although it has a few old school features, I don’t consider it OSR. It’s not D&D or a D&D derivative, and has significant features it shares with new school games, like a feat/skill system and a very game board-centric approach to combat. I prefer OD&D to TFT, but the reason I still like TFT is, in fact, nostalgia.

Or consider Toon. I first saw it in the mid '80s, played it in the early '90s. It’s nothing like D&D, and has a lot of features closer to story games than to either old school or new school games. It’s definitely not OSR, nor are more recent games that resemble it in some way, such as Risus.

We could continue this with examples of modern games that attempt to recreate some of the feel of old D&D, without using D&D mechanics, such as Donjon or Dungeon World. Or those that have a basic recognizable structure, but are different enough that they exist on the fringe of the OSR, such as DCC RPG.

But I’ll say this about Morgan’s argument: it contains something important. Not the definition of OSR, but one of the principles that motivates it. We go back to D&D because its structure is recognizable to nearly every gamer, since all RPGs ultimately derive from D&D. It’s part of the genetics of roleplaying. The OSR gamer says “Since almost everyone knows how D&D works, why not use it when you want a D&D-like experience?” The OSR gamer doesn’t stop there, of course. Otherwise, the OSR movement wouldn’t have abandoned 3e.

There were things 3e added that the progenitors of the OSR didn’t like, and things that were removed that they missed. Any definition of the OSR that neglects these factors is no true OSR definition.

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OSR vs. DIY: Are They the Same?

It seems there’s never an end to the debate about “What is the OSR?” Or rather, there’s a reasonable majority of people in the community who know what the OSR is, but there’s never an end to others proposing competing definitions of what it is. Each Definition of the Month waxes, wanes, and waxes again in popularity. I’ve seen these definitions several times:

• It doesn’t mean anything,
• It’s just a brand,
• It’s nostalgia for any old ruleset,
• It’s one or more specific rules.

But here’s an entirely new Definition of the Month, or at least one I haven’t seen before:

The OSR is DIY gaming, or should be called “DIY gaming” instead of “OSR”"

I saw this one on Discord first, perhaps a few other places. My immediate reaction was “Those two movements intersect, but they aren’t synonymous.” But I should explain my reasoning.

First, it’s no secret where the term “OSR” came from and what it was first used for. It stands for “Old School Renaissance” and first appeared after a couple of significant events:

1. The 2001 publication of Hackmaster 4th Edition, essentially a reprint of AD&D with house rules.
2. The 2004 publication of Castles & Crusades.
3. An ongoing interest in amateur old school D&D modules and resources.

Someone, probably either Sham (from Sham’s Grog 'n Blog) or Delta (from Delta’s D&D Hotspot) found a 2005 post by an unknown author on the Dragonsfoot forums.

From reading the posts on the various rpg boards over the last couple of years it does seem there is a shift in thinking amongst the gaming community concerning what they want from future rpgs. The illusion has been dispelled that the d20 ultra detailed number crunching method would lead to a better gaming experience. A pining for more narrative simpler play and a looking back to the old days seems to be the new way forward […] An old school renaissance could be on the horizon."

(Emphasis added.)

This appears to be the earliest use of the phrase “old school renaissance”, and it’s pretty clear what was meant, since the post’s author spelled it out: a return to “old school” games, specifically TSR-era D&D, to avoid ultra-detailed number crunching and refocus on simpler, more narrative approach to play.

Now, since the coinage of the term, there’s been a few other rephrasings of the term (“Old School Revival” is popular,) as well as more thought on what we prefer about old school D&D and what we dislike about d20 System D&D. But the fundamental core idea of rejecting d20 System D&D and either returning to older D&D or finding/making something similar to it hasn’t changed. There’s also been a lot of DIY material.

But some people use reprinted modules and systems, not DIY material. And others “do it themselves”, but with 3e, or FATE, or Savage Worlds, or PbtA. In fact, there was the whole Forge-spawned indie RPG movement that did a lot of DIY projects and publishing, but rejected everything D&D, old school, new school, and everything in between.

OSR vs. DIY is not a pair of mutually-exclusive definitions, but a spectrum of gaming. You can play with an old school group and never run a game or make up your own material. You can buy a reprint of a TSR-era D&D game (B/X is very popular right now) and either reprints of old modules or indie-published new modules and run a campaign with those, with no changes or just a handful of house rules. You can go completely DIY, download a cheat sheet and improvise off that, using completely made-up classes in dungeons you or a GM designed.

Or, for that matter, your DIY modifications to an old school game might be a bunch of new school rules, or you might run 5e with some old school modifications. Old school/new school is not a hard binary distinction and never was. Some of the earliest retroclones, for example Basic Fantasy RPG, include new school features like ascending AC, and OSR bloggers have commented about new school elements that were present in TSR D&D, such as skill lists in the form of non-weapon proficiencies.

It might be true that most retroclones are only 75% to 90% old school rules, and 75% to 90% of all OSR gamers are mostly either making or buying DIY products. But that in no way means that the term “OSR” is synonymous with “DIY”.

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Old School Player Manifesto: Further Commentary

In the comments on the Old School Player Manifesto, two people suggested additional rules. Will Douglas suggested “Listen to the referee, but don’t argue with them.” I see that as a guideline for decent behavior in general, rather than something specific to old school play, or even specific to RPGs. Plus, I think it’s fine to disagree and suggest something different. It’s just a problem when the GM or another player listens to your suggestion, decides not to use it, and you can’t accept that.

Rod Thompson suggested a different rule: “Characters die.” I have a much stronger opinion about that.

I think people make way too big a deal about character death in old school games. I’ve only had one TPK in almost 40 years, and I haven’t had that many individual character deaths. It’s not really that old school RPGs are deadly. It’s just that old school RPGs usually don’t protect characters from death. Characters are just as fragile as monsters, and hit points are typically low to begin with.
There is a certain sentiment in OSR games, though, that Rod might be thinking of… In old-school thinking, it’s best to just move on when a character dies, rather than fret about it. New school games do a lot more character prep than old school games, and I’m not just talking in terms of time needed or math required.

New school games are more about imagining as much as you can about your character before play even begins, becoming invested in your character. So much so that new school players think a game is broken if it doesn’t support their character concept out of the box. “Why can’t I be a first level Master of Time, Space and Dimension? This game is unplayable!”

Old school games are more about growing into your character as you play and accepting what happens as part of your character’s story. Death has to be possible so that you work to avoid it, but if it happens, it happens… and it’s OK, because some of the best moments come when you are first figuring out a character, not after the character has achieved all their major goals.

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Your Character Doesn't Know That

The Hack & Slash blog recently raised the issues of meta-gaming, specifically using out-of-character knowledge, and asks: “Who cares if players use meta-game knowledge?”

My reaction is mixed.

Honestly, I don’t care if players encounter a humanoid monster and say “This sounds like a troll. Let’s set it on fire!” GMs don’t have to make trolls vulnerable to fire… but on the other hand, shouldn’t change that detail simply to keep the players in the dark. It’s easier to say “Anything you’ve read in fantasy lit, fairy tales, or mythology or seen in a horror movie might exist, or might not. Use that as a guide to what rumors your character might have heard.”

Players shouldn’t meta-game to manipulate the GM or other players, however. And GMs shouldn’t use knowledge about gear the players brought or plans for raiding the dungeon to “win”. There’s also the case of players who interject out-of-place references into play, for example talking about disco music and machine guns when the other players want a more immersive feel. All of these are interpersonal issues, though, rather than rules issues or even rules mastery issues. Those players and GMs are being jerks, and the other players need to consider whether they really want to play at the same table.

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Old School Player Manifesto: An Explanation

I’m thinking over some responses to comments on the Old School Player Manifesto, but wanted to expand on what I’ve already written first. The first half of the manifest was:

1. You shouldn’t have to know the rules.
2. You are not your character sheet.

I’m taking these two together because #2 is a special case of #1. The over-arching principle is that the rules are really meant for the GM, as a way to figure out what happens when a player says “I’m doing this.”

I’ve said it before: the old school vs. new school contrast, to me, is a contrast between fiction-first and system-first. Or, if you prefer, situation-first vs. game-first. What the players are supposed to do, at least in an old school game, is listen to the description of the fictional situation and think “What could I do about this?”

• If it’s a bad situation, how could you avoid it, or turn things around to your advantage?
• If it’s a good situation, what new things can you do that you couldn’t before?
• If it’s a neutral situation, is there some way to benefit from it?
• If it’s a potential future situation, how can you prepare for it or avert it it?
• If it’s a past situation, how does knowing about what happened help you now?

The opposite end of the spectrum, new school, also involves fictional situations, but they are codified in rules known to the player, and players are expected to be able to use the rules to their advantage. It’s much more about system mastery. And, of course, there are groups that fit somewhere in between the two extremes, or that play PC/NPC interactions old school but run combat new school, or otherwise partition their play style in some way.

But the details of how different RPGs use an old school or new school approach are not what’s important here. What’s important is the side effect for old school play: rules are more a distraction from play than the main point of play, and player confidence in the GM’s knowledge of rules or strict adherence to rules is not really necessary. A good old school GM is not someone who sticks to the rules, but someone who sticks to the situation as it is imagined. A GM who changes the details of the situation after it was described in order to meet some metagame goal, for example adding trolls to a nearby room on the fly because they know the party didn’t bring any fire-based weaponry is cheating.

The character sheet is related to all this. Character sheets are meant as a memory aide, primarily for what equipment PCs are carrying and what spells they know. Players should be allowed to try anything they can describe, and the GM will figure out if it works or not. Players should not be looking on their character sheet to see if they have a +5 to hit; they should be using the weapons and attacks they feel are best in the situation.

Now, I was going to save #3 and #4 for a separate post, but you can probably see that I’ve already started to cover them:

3. You’re an adventurer. Adventure!
4. If you want to try something, try it!

Definitely, old school players should be trying things they think might work, or might look cool. Again, the character sheet does not define whether a character can do things or not. The rule about adventuring because you are an adventurer is definitely part of that, but it goes beyond: it’s the summary of what you are supposed to do. Sometimes, players, especially new ones, don’t know what to do in an old school RPG, especially if it’s a sandbox. The new school solution is to have explicit goals and to discourage “going off the rails”. But the old school solution is to always remember that your character is looking for fame, fortune, and excitement. If a player doesn’t know what to do next, they should ask themselves “What sounds like it will get me fame, fortune, or excitement? Which is more important to me?”

This doesn’t have to be a permanent goal. As players play their characters, in-game goals will pop up. “Man, I really hated The Blue Sorcerer of Powder Mountain. I want vengeance!” Or: “I wish I had a spell that sticks enemies to the floor. I want to figure out how to do that!” Those goals will drive the game, bringing up new situations, which creates more in-game goals, and the character will grow.

I said at the start of my manifesto post that it was overly verbose, despite being just four short statements. You can see now why: Pretending to be an adventurer and trying anything you can think of as that adventurer drives everything else about old school play, making rules mastery and character sheets unnecessary.

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Old School Player Manifesto

In response to someone’s request for an old school player manifesto, instead of a GM manifesto, I wrote this very verbose one:

1. You shouldn’t have to know the rules.
2. You are not your character sheet.
3. You’re an adventurer. Adventure!
4. If you want to try something, try it!

I consider it verbose because #2 is a special case of #1, and #3 overlaps with #4. But I’m trying to think if there’s anything else that I would add to it. I could certainly elaborate each of those points in a separate essay, perhaps multiple essays. But as for what a player needs to be told before playing in an old school game, that seems to be it.

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Subhex Coastlines

I wanted to highlight and discuss part of Mphs. Steve's comment on his experience with the Subhex Wilderness Crawl system.

"...The drop die method was better for my purposes since it puts more points of interests on a single sheet. I used two of the paths off the starting point to create a coastline. It ended up being too straight so I used it as a general guide with natural looking irregularity added by using a rule that I borrowed from ICE's Campaign Law for creating coastlines. The end result was a map of a nicely detailed small area with a lot of opportunity for adventure."

I don't know what the rule from Campaign Law was (never had the Rolemaster books,) although I'd be interested in hearing about it. But I can  understand why the subhex system probably wouldn't make satisfactory coastlines.

Theoretically, you can treat a coastline as a path, rolling d12s to establish where the coast changes direction. But the problem is, the path rolls are geared toward the viewpoint of traveling characters. The length of each leg of a journey is based on travel speed modified by terrain. These things should not affect coastlines in the same way. Also, coastlines are more fractal and more "noisy". In theory, what you should do for a coastline would be to roll d12s to establish a rough coastline, then for each segment of the coast, roll more d12s to divide it into smaller segments, and then repeat a couple times, zooming in to smaller and smaller coastal changes.

That's kind of unwieldy.

I haven't fully thought it through, but a good compromise would be to roll some elevation checks -- the roll with three light dice and three dark dice, but use more dice, something like 8d6 light and 8d6 dark. Read them in a line to establish broad details of the coastline: light dice are spits of land or rocky cliffs jutting out into the water, the dark dice are coves and inlets. That's the rough outline, and the places where the first draft of the coastline changes are the defining points. For each pair of defining points, roll 5d12 to establish the deviations of that section of coastline from the straight line. Or, if  you prefer, start at one point and roll 1d12 for every four squares of coastline until you reach the next defining point. That might work better for rolling a coastline on the fly when players decide to follow and map it.

Progress Update: Infernals

I've been working on the infernals as the next PDF document. I know I had listed that as something like Project #5, but it looked like something I could do quickly, with not as much rewriting or layout hassles  as some of the other projects. I think Ranks of the Undead will be the next one after this, so there's also another factor: a couple sections I wrote for the infernals document will be reusable in Ranks of the Undead, so working on those in sequence should go pretty quickly.

One of the interesting developments has to do with my standard ways of writing monster stats. You may recall that I like doing a header line with a quick appearance/behavior summary in parentheses, like: "Manticore (Fantastic Predatory Beast)" or "Banshee (Vengeful Spirit)". I try to fit in as many as many important details as I can ("Invisible Fiery Sadistic Ursine",) but for things like demons and devils, even my stripped-down versions, there may just be too many of these to be practical.

But then I realized that, since all demons would share some features, all devils would share some features, and so on for each infernal variety, I could have a section header that could define each variety. Like:  "Demonic (Chaotic Hostile Destructive Ethereal Monstrosity)". And each demon could then be like "Bat Demon (Flying Demonic Beast)". Basically, it's a macro. I don't have to repeat the terms  that apply to all Demonic creatures, because the label "Demonic" stands for and expands to the other labels.

One final note: I might change it again, but currently, I'm going with the original name of the series, "Our Infernal  Neighbors", as the name of this PDF.

Let 'Em Pick: Random Background Events

So: the plan, as previously reported, is to compile and edit some of the old blog material into useful PDFs for free download. This is before I even try to create commercial material.

The subhex material was slated to be first, but it's around 12 to 15 pages. I needed something shorter to put together quickly to get some LaTeX experience and work out most of my design decisions, so that layout on the subhex material won't be as hairy.

And then I remember some people had also asked for a re-release of the random background event table. The idea is: let players choose between 3d6 in order or just picking whatever scores they want, but then rolling for a random, possibly mildly bad, event that happened just before the character's decision to adventure. None of the events will undo the player's ability score picks, so they get to maintain their character concept.

The PDF is now ready for download: Let 'Em Pick.

I checked the PDF on both my desktop computer and on an Android tablet in a couple different PDF viewers, so it should be OK.