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Let's make a character! Dragonlance SAGA, 1996!
The SAGA System was a very late TSR product, which was used to power two different games - a Marvel superhero rpg, and a Dragonlance game (which is what I own), which was positioned as the successor to the Dragonlance ADnD 2nd Edition modules. It very clearly takes a lot of it's design from ADnD - but at the same time, it was enough of a departure that players largely rejected it. It's sometimes held up as being what "killed" TSR, but that's ridiculous - one small game that wasn't heavily marketed and poorly supported isn't going to kill a company like TSR. And additionally - SAGA isn't a bad system! It has an emphasis on storytelling and performance (the GM is the "Narrator", and sessions are played in Acts and Scenes) that I find really nice, while it retained a lot of familiar touchstones from ADnD that made it relatively easy to pick up and fool with.
The major downside is it's dependence on a specific, never reprinted deck of cards. 9 suits, 8 of which are associated with different stats, each with a value, an associated character, and two character traits (one trait, if it was the suit of dragons). The lower value cards had "good" characters on them, and positive character traits, while high value cards had villains and negative traits. This provided an incentive to use the low value cards in character creation to make heroes - to play a villain you'd need to spend a high value card on your personality traits instead of your ability scores. If you want to play this game with regular playing cards, you have to modify them a lot, or figure out how to play it with dice, which would be a lot of work. I've tried!
Anyway. Let's get this show on the road! First things first, here's the character sheet - I hate this character sheet! It's small, it's cramped, it spends a lot of space on the stupid logo. And it doesn't photocopy well. THIS is what killed TSR.
With that off my chest, we deal out twelve cards. I'll include a picture of my spread.
The cards for stats:
And the rest:
In terms of numbers, it's a GREAT spread! Lots of eight and nines, AND the sole ten card in the deck, heck yeah! The major downside though is that a lot of these cards are Dragon cards, cards from the suit of Dragons. These pose a challenge because every attribute comes with two parts - the ability score (reflecting natural ability) and the ability code (X-A) representing training, which reflects how powerful the weapons characters can wield, what armor they can use, how many senses are sharp or diminished, and how many schools of sorcery or spheres of mysticism they can use. Dragon cards are an X, reflecting zero ability in that score's use, even if one has tremendous natural aptitude.
So that 10 of Dragons poses an interesting question. What do we do with it?
First things first, we'll grab out most of our lower value cards to use for personality traits, social status and reputation - that's Dragons (1), Dragons (6), Arrows (4), and Crowns (3). We took one moderately high value card for Reputation - a higher Reputation value translates directly into a larger hand to use in play. More on that later.
That leaves eight cards for the physical side - and as luck has it, a lot of these cards are REALLY good together! Dragons (10), Dragons (9), Moons (8), Hearts (8), Shields (8), Crowns (6), Orbs (6), and Dragons (3). Why do I say that these cards work well together? Because the associated stats have synergy. Let me explain.
As I mentioned, each suit has an associated stat and family of actions. Four physical, four mental.
On the physical side:
Swords -> Strength (Melee actions and brute force actions - you know what I mean)
Helms -> Endurance (Resisting melee attacks, surviving poisons, illness - physical robustness)
Arrows -> Dexterity (Missile attacks, anything that requires you to be "good with your hands")
Shields -> Agility (Shield use, speed, ability to avoid missiles, hide, etc)
On the mental side:
Moons -> Reason (Use magic, deduction, knowledge. Score determines spell points pool, code how many schools of sorcery)
Orbs -> Perception (Alertness, detection, finding hidden things. Code determines sharp/dull senses)
Hearts -> Spirit (Intuition, strength of character and depth of convictions - score determines mystic spell points, code is how many spheres of mysticism (similar to cleric magic))
Crowns -> Presence (Resist mystic attack, the force of your personality, your natural aptitude for leadership)
When you assign a card to an ability, the suit determines the grade. If it's the same ability, you get a grade of A. If it's closely related - like assigning a sword card to Endurance instead of Helms - you get a B. If it's at least the right group - a physical suit to a physical stat - you get a C, and if it's fully unrelated - a Swords assigned to, say, Spirit - you get an ability code of D. Only Dragons will get an X code. This is why they're kind of problematic for ability usage.
So anyway, back to our character in progress. The cards, once again, are Dragons (10), Dragons (9), Moons (8), Hearts (8), Shields (8), Crowns (6), Orbs (6), and Dragons (3). What leaps out to me right away are the high cards that aren't dragons - Moons, Hearts, and we'll set Shields aside. If we want to play to a strength, you could do a LOT worse than that. So let's start there.
Reason of 8(A) and Spirit of 8(A). This character won't have the highest possible amount of spell points, but they'll have access to SIX kinds of magic, as well as the ability to potentially use both at once in combination magic, which is only possible with A codes.
Presence will get Dragons (9) for a score of 9(X) - strong willed and with a powerful sense of self, but no leadership experience at all. And Perception will get Shields (8) - Very perceptive, but with 1 diminished sense - I'll go with sight.
At this point I am getting a good idea of who I want this to be - I'll adapt the character I've written several short stories about on Cohost, Meggie the Mole - Meghanna the Magnificent!
Moving on to the physical scores. As a Magus of the Magisterium, Meg isn't the most physical, but I think she spends a lot of time on research expeditions and hikes to gather specimens. So I imagine her to be fairly sturdy, and physically very robust, but not very fast... So we'll quickly assign Dragons (3) to Agility, Dragons (10) to Endurance, Crowns (6) to Strength, and Orbs (6) to Dexterity. This gives her:
Agility 3(X) - she's not fast, and can only use the lightest, simplest shields;
Dexterity 6(D) - She's fairly good with her hands, but with limited training can only use up to Light missile weapons;
Endurance 10(X) - She's INCREDIBLY healthy and sturdy, not easily harmed, but has no idea how to wear armor of any kind besides reinforced clothing;
Strength 6(D) - Stronger than her slight size would lead you to believe, but with limited knowledge of weapons - nothing heavier than a Light melee weapon, like a bludgeon.
Meghanna is a human, so the human modifiers now come into play. In Dragonlance, Humans are either "Civilized" or "Barbarians" which is it's own whole racist/colonial baggage. In any case, the most important effect that has is that one physical score must be reduced by 1, and one mental score increased by 1. I think That I'll reduce her Endurance from a superhuman 10 to a merely incredible 9, and increase her intelligence from 8 to 9. So now here final scores are
Agility - 3(X) Endurance - 9(X)
Dexterity - 6(D) Strength - 6(D)
Reason - 9(A) Spirit 8(A)
Perception - 8(D) Presence 9(X)
She's really come together! It paints the picture I'm hoping for - a highly talented and powerful wielder of magic, comfortable outdoors, able to go a long haul, but not an athlete - and almost all of her training has been focused strictly on magic, leaving her only the basics in every other field. I think that's why her eyesight is so poor as well.
We'll set aside the stats now, and look at the person. Let's fill out the first three fields of the character sheet quick -
Name: Meghanna the Magnificent (Meggie the Mole)
Race: Human
Role: Magus of the Magisterium
Next up is "Demeanor" and "Nature." If you have a particular character in mind, you can ask the Narrator if you can just pick your own. But the character creation as written says to get these attributes from the cards (See? I said we would come back to this). This is a perfect use for the low cards in the deck, so let's see what we had left, again... Dragons (1), Dragons (6), Arrows (4), and Crowns (3).
Dragons (1) has "Eccentric", Dragons (6) has "Treacherous", Arrows (4) has "Cautious" and "Inventive", and Crowns (3) has "Independent" and "Reasonable".
I think... It's fair to say that Meg is *eccentric*, to say the least. And she's definitely the inventive type. So we'll use those two cards. Next the character sheet asks for her vital measurements and/or a quick physical description and a homeland... We're skipping homeland because I Don't Care About Dragonlance, and nothing on this earth can make me. Physical description...
"Meg is a short (4'8"), fat (~180lbs) human woman, with curly brown hair and brown eyes, with pale skin. She has a round face, and wears extremely thick glasses - and even with those her vision isn't very good. Her squinting combined with her inward-turned posture gives her a rather mole-like appearance - leading to a nickname that has haunted her even into her professional career."
Next up... Social Status. We'll assign Crowns (3) to that, giving her the status of "Commoner" as well as a Wealth score of 3. She doesn't pull a large wage in her role as an academic, but her needs are met! Last is Reputation, which will get Dragons (6) - She has completed six quests and is known as an Adventurer! This means I'll have a hand size of 4 cards - and as an added bonus, after the next completed quest, she'll be bumped to Champion, which will give me another card in my hand.
You really don't want a Reputation less than Adventurer, or at the very least Novice - Novice has 3 card hands, and that's probably the minimum that will let you survive.
This gal is really shaping up! Let's solidify the details with her equipment.
Melee: A Dagger (+2 dmg, VL (very light)) - I picture this being one of those gardening knives that can also saw or dig.
Missile: A Slingshot (+2 dmg, VL) - She can plink someone real good with this thing and a stone.
Shield: None, she needs her hands to cast.
Armor: Reinforced Traveling Robes (-1 dmg, VL) - The robes of a Magisterium Magus, but reinforced for travel - and with LOADS of pockets.
She also has a pack full of travel and camp necessities, a change of clothes, soap, water purifying tabs, journal, pen and ink for writing, and specimen jars.
Quickly I'll pick her 3 Schools of Sorcery, her 3 Spheres of Mysticism, and define her special ability for her role as an academic Magus.
Schools of Sorcery:
Geomancy - manipulating rock, stone, and metal.
Divination - reading the past, seeing elsewhere in the presence, and seeing the possible future.
Transmutation - changing one substance into another. With her A code, any substance can be changed to any other.
Spheres of Mysticism:
Animism - Communing with nonsentient living things, including plants - not "speaking with animals", but meanings can be shared.
Alteration - Transforming a living being into another form, temporarily.
Sensitivity - similar to/synergistic with Divination. Read the auras of a place or creature, what has been there recently, where it went.
And on the subject of magic - her Sorcery points are 81 (9 x 9) and her Mystic points are 64 (8 x 8).
LAst is the Special Ability she gets from her Role...Normally I would hash this out with the Narrator, but I AM the narrator in this case! So I get what I want.
"I took a class on that once!"
She can cast spells that are outside of her known schools! But they require 50% more spell points to cast, and no card she plays is ever trump for magic she isn't expert in - this means she's limited to simple spells only. This gives her a certain degree of versatility - a lifelong learner's specialty.
SO! That's just about everything! I'll put it all into a character sheet... but not the one in the book! Because it sucks! I'll post a different one.
I had a lot of fun with this! I'd LOVE to play Meggie, and I think she would *whip* in a campaign - so if anyone in the seattle area wants to play SAGA sometime, get at me!!
The major downside is it's dependence on a specific, never reprinted deck of cards. 9 suits, 8 of which are associated with different stats, each with a value, an associated character, and two character traits (one trait, if it was the suit of dragons). The lower value cards had "good" characters on them, and positive character traits, while high value cards had villains and negative traits. This provided an incentive to use the low value cards in character creation to make heroes - to play a villain you'd need to spend a high value card on your personality traits instead of your ability scores. If you want to play this game with regular playing cards, you have to modify them a lot, or figure out how to play it with dice, which would be a lot of work. I've tried!
Anyway. Let's get this show on the road! First things first, here's the character sheet - I hate this character sheet! It's small, it's cramped, it spends a lot of space on the stupid logo. And it doesn't photocopy well. THIS is what killed TSR.
With that off my chest, we deal out twelve cards. I'll include a picture of my spread.
The cards for stats:
And the rest:
In terms of numbers, it's a GREAT spread! Lots of eight and nines, AND the sole ten card in the deck, heck yeah! The major downside though is that a lot of these cards are Dragon cards, cards from the suit of Dragons. These pose a challenge because every attribute comes with two parts - the ability score (reflecting natural ability) and the ability code (X-A) representing training, which reflects how powerful the weapons characters can wield, what armor they can use, how many senses are sharp or diminished, and how many schools of sorcery or spheres of mysticism they can use. Dragon cards are an X, reflecting zero ability in that score's use, even if one has tremendous natural aptitude.
So that 10 of Dragons poses an interesting question. What do we do with it?
First things first, we'll grab out most of our lower value cards to use for personality traits, social status and reputation - that's Dragons (1), Dragons (6), Arrows (4), and Crowns (3). We took one moderately high value card for Reputation - a higher Reputation value translates directly into a larger hand to use in play. More on that later.
That leaves eight cards for the physical side - and as luck has it, a lot of these cards are REALLY good together! Dragons (10), Dragons (9), Moons (8), Hearts (8), Shields (8), Crowns (6), Orbs (6), and Dragons (3). Why do I say that these cards work well together? Because the associated stats have synergy. Let me explain.
As I mentioned, each suit has an associated stat and family of actions. Four physical, four mental.
On the physical side:
Swords -> Strength (Melee actions and brute force actions - you know what I mean)
Helms -> Endurance (Resisting melee attacks, surviving poisons, illness - physical robustness)
Arrows -> Dexterity (Missile attacks, anything that requires you to be "good with your hands")
Shields -> Agility (Shield use, speed, ability to avoid missiles, hide, etc)
On the mental side:
Moons -> Reason (Use magic, deduction, knowledge. Score determines spell points pool, code how many schools of sorcery)
Orbs -> Perception (Alertness, detection, finding hidden things. Code determines sharp/dull senses)
Hearts -> Spirit (Intuition, strength of character and depth of convictions - score determines mystic spell points, code is how many spheres of mysticism (similar to cleric magic))
Crowns -> Presence (Resist mystic attack, the force of your personality, your natural aptitude for leadership)
When you assign a card to an ability, the suit determines the grade. If it's the same ability, you get a grade of A. If it's closely related - like assigning a sword card to Endurance instead of Helms - you get a B. If it's at least the right group - a physical suit to a physical stat - you get a C, and if it's fully unrelated - a Swords assigned to, say, Spirit - you get an ability code of D. Only Dragons will get an X code. This is why they're kind of problematic for ability usage.
So anyway, back to our character in progress. The cards, once again, are Dragons (10), Dragons (9), Moons (8), Hearts (8), Shields (8), Crowns (6), Orbs (6), and Dragons (3). What leaps out to me right away are the high cards that aren't dragons - Moons, Hearts, and we'll set Shields aside. If we want to play to a strength, you could do a LOT worse than that. So let's start there.
Reason of 8(A) and Spirit of 8(A). This character won't have the highest possible amount of spell points, but they'll have access to SIX kinds of magic, as well as the ability to potentially use both at once in combination magic, which is only possible with A codes.
Presence will get Dragons (9) for a score of 9(X) - strong willed and with a powerful sense of self, but no leadership experience at all. And Perception will get Shields (8) - Very perceptive, but with 1 diminished sense - I'll go with sight.
At this point I am getting a good idea of who I want this to be - I'll adapt the character I've written several short stories about on Cohost, Meggie the Mole - Meghanna the Magnificent!
Moving on to the physical scores. As a Magus of the Magisterium, Meg isn't the most physical, but I think she spends a lot of time on research expeditions and hikes to gather specimens. So I imagine her to be fairly sturdy, and physically very robust, but not very fast... So we'll quickly assign Dragons (3) to Agility, Dragons (10) to Endurance, Crowns (6) to Strength, and Orbs (6) to Dexterity. This gives her:
Agility 3(X) - she's not fast, and can only use the lightest, simplest shields;
Dexterity 6(D) - She's fairly good with her hands, but with limited training can only use up to Light missile weapons;
Endurance 10(X) - She's INCREDIBLY healthy and sturdy, not easily harmed, but has no idea how to wear armor of any kind besides reinforced clothing;
Strength 6(D) - Stronger than her slight size would lead you to believe, but with limited knowledge of weapons - nothing heavier than a Light melee weapon, like a bludgeon.
Meghanna is a human, so the human modifiers now come into play. In Dragonlance, Humans are either "Civilized" or "Barbarians" which is it's own whole racist/colonial baggage. In any case, the most important effect that has is that one physical score must be reduced by 1, and one mental score increased by 1. I think That I'll reduce her Endurance from a superhuman 10 to a merely incredible 9, and increase her intelligence from 8 to 9. So now here final scores are
Agility - 3(X) Endurance - 9(X)
Dexterity - 6(D) Strength - 6(D)
Reason - 9(A) Spirit 8(A)
Perception - 8(D) Presence 9(X)
She's really come together! It paints the picture I'm hoping for - a highly talented and powerful wielder of magic, comfortable outdoors, able to go a long haul, but not an athlete - and almost all of her training has been focused strictly on magic, leaving her only the basics in every other field. I think that's why her eyesight is so poor as well.
We'll set aside the stats now, and look at the person. Let's fill out the first three fields of the character sheet quick -
Name: Meghanna the Magnificent (Meggie the Mole)
Race: Human
Role: Magus of the Magisterium
Next up is "Demeanor" and "Nature." If you have a particular character in mind, you can ask the Narrator if you can just pick your own. But the character creation as written says to get these attributes from the cards (See? I said we would come back to this). This is a perfect use for the low cards in the deck, so let's see what we had left, again... Dragons (1), Dragons (6), Arrows (4), and Crowns (3).
Dragons (1) has "Eccentric", Dragons (6) has "Treacherous", Arrows (4) has "Cautious" and "Inventive", and Crowns (3) has "Independent" and "Reasonable".
I think... It's fair to say that Meg is *eccentric*, to say the least. And she's definitely the inventive type. So we'll use those two cards. Next the character sheet asks for her vital measurements and/or a quick physical description and a homeland... We're skipping homeland because I Don't Care About Dragonlance, and nothing on this earth can make me. Physical description...
"Meg is a short (4'8"), fat (~180lbs) human woman, with curly brown hair and brown eyes, with pale skin. She has a round face, and wears extremely thick glasses - and even with those her vision isn't very good. Her squinting combined with her inward-turned posture gives her a rather mole-like appearance - leading to a nickname that has haunted her even into her professional career."
Next up... Social Status. We'll assign Crowns (3) to that, giving her the status of "Commoner" as well as a Wealth score of 3. She doesn't pull a large wage in her role as an academic, but her needs are met! Last is Reputation, which will get Dragons (6) - She has completed six quests and is known as an Adventurer! This means I'll have a hand size of 4 cards - and as an added bonus, after the next completed quest, she'll be bumped to Champion, which will give me another card in my hand.
You really don't want a Reputation less than Adventurer, or at the very least Novice - Novice has 3 card hands, and that's probably the minimum that will let you survive.
This gal is really shaping up! Let's solidify the details with her equipment.
Melee: A Dagger (+2 dmg, VL (very light)) - I picture this being one of those gardening knives that can also saw or dig.
Missile: A Slingshot (+2 dmg, VL) - She can plink someone real good with this thing and a stone.
Shield: None, she needs her hands to cast.
Armor: Reinforced Traveling Robes (-1 dmg, VL) - The robes of a Magisterium Magus, but reinforced for travel - and with LOADS of pockets.
She also has a pack full of travel and camp necessities, a change of clothes, soap, water purifying tabs, journal, pen and ink for writing, and specimen jars.
Quickly I'll pick her 3 Schools of Sorcery, her 3 Spheres of Mysticism, and define her special ability for her role as an academic Magus.
Schools of Sorcery:
Geomancy - manipulating rock, stone, and metal.
Divination - reading the past, seeing elsewhere in the presence, and seeing the possible future.
Transmutation - changing one substance into another. With her A code, any substance can be changed to any other.
Spheres of Mysticism:
Animism - Communing with nonsentient living things, including plants - not "speaking with animals", but meanings can be shared.
Alteration - Transforming a living being into another form, temporarily.
Sensitivity - similar to/synergistic with Divination. Read the auras of a place or creature, what has been there recently, where it went.
And on the subject of magic - her Sorcery points are 81 (9 x 9) and her Mystic points are 64 (8 x 8).
LAst is the Special Ability she gets from her Role...Normally I would hash this out with the Narrator, but I AM the narrator in this case! So I get what I want.
"I took a class on that once!"
She can cast spells that are outside of her known schools! But they require 50% more spell points to cast, and no card she plays is ever trump for magic she isn't expert in - this means she's limited to simple spells only. This gives her a certain degree of versatility - a lifelong learner's specialty.
SO! That's just about everything! I'll put it all into a character sheet... but not the one in the book! Because it sucks! I'll post a different one.
I had a lot of fun with this! I'd LOVE to play Meggie, and I think she would *whip* in a campaign - so if anyone in the seattle area wants to play SAGA sometime, get at me!!