From: joe@astro.umd.edu (Joe McMullin)
Subject: New Character Generation System
Date: 14 Feb 1995 21:06:30 GMT

Here's a new character generation system; it's actually inspired by
someone on the net who tried to do a Shadowrun system for D&D.
I welcome all comments or criticisms.

Each player has 10 points to generate a character. These points
are spent on Race, Stats, Benefits and Birthright.
 
Race: Human (1) Gnome/Halfling/Half-Elf (2) Elf/Dwarf (3) Other (4)
Stats:  80 pts (1)    85 pts (2)      90 (pts) 3
Benefits: (1-6)
Birthright: Low (0)   Middle (2)     High (4+)
 
Race: The values in parentheses are the cost to be a race (this is
sort of a Shadowrun-esque style of character generation for AD&D).
The cost reflects the relative advantages of the race combined with
their relative frequency (how rare a race). There are no race
restrictions on class (now's the time to play that halfling Paladin!).

Stats: The number of points you have to distribute amongst the
six attributes; no attribute may be greater than a 15 unless
purchased with a benefit!
 
Benefits: Various advantages the character can opt for.
Magic Item (only one per character) (1-3)
Exceptional Attribute (1-3); each character may have from 1 to 3
attributes over a score of 15. Each attribute over 15 costs 1
point.
Latent Psionic: character has a single psionic devotion (2-4)-
the point value is judged by the DM.
Multi-class: (1); any character race may multi-class. Dual-classing
costs no points and is also available to any race (I basically felt
it's tough enough attribute-wise to dual class so if you can, you
can.)
 
Birthright: This reflects the characters relative station, education,
resources, influence,etc. 
Low-character has limited access to equipment and some NWPs; the
character has no contacts of any importance and is essentially
anonymous even in his/her home town.
Middle-character has normal access to equipment and NWPs; character
is known within his home town and has some local contacts.
High-character has unlimited access to normal equipment, reduced
cost on some education-based NWPs, some equipment of high quality,
good name recognition beyond local geography, valuable contacts
throughout a region, exceptional resources (periodic free-healing),
and others. A value of 4 gives the above; pumping more points into
it raises the character into the upper echelons of royalty in a
region.

J.McMullin