Vacuous/Knights of the All Mind Character

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Here is an example of a The World's Most Popular Roll Playing Game character written up a-la the new Vacuous Grimoire rules (former Knights of the All Mind supplement).

Grady has been around our game for probably 26 years now. Often used as a rotating character for folks who join the game for a one-off night, mostly run by my Bro-in-law Chris. Being a Barbarian-Techno from the 20th Century means Grady doesn't use magic or spells. However, he does have a lot of barbarian and techno abilities.

Since Grady was used often by a variety of players (10?), some of whom are novices to the game, it is important that his (occasionally "her") attributes and abilities are pretty straightforward.

Grady originally was an all-Arduin Barbarian-Techno, created in 1989 using those particular OD&D-related rules (although, we may have used the Unearthed Arcana version of a Barbarian). During our 3rd edition Wilderlands of High Fantasy campaign began in 2005, Grady was straight v.3.5 Barbarian and "Technician" class from D20 Call of Cthulhu rules.

With our Vacuous Grimoire homebrew of 1e & 3.5, Grady is much more legible for a player. Rather than a list of 20 different and sometimes obtuse skills and skill points for a player to keep track of, there are a dozen self-described abilities. How those abilities might transfer over to related skills is a function of the role playing as adjudicated by the game judge.

Chris actually runs in a straight v.3.5 game every other week, and loves skills for resolving challenges. For me, I think a game judge can set a challenge with modifiers to percentage rolls (just like in the old days) just as she may set a difficulty check. But with these special abilities confined as class (or race) abilities, there aren't seemingly endless bouts of every player making rolls for every skill check. The game moves much quicker and doesn't put off new players quite so much...