Character Project: Four Color System

After going through the Marvel files, I wanted to look at the revamped rules put together by Phil Reed and Michael Hammes of Ronin Arts.  I don't know what to say about the product, other than you can get a free .pdf download of it from a number of places (Lulu is one) and that it is intentionally a bare-bones system.  Some people like that kind of thing, and would leave it that way.  I am going to interpret this fact as a gift to the hobby from Reed and Hammes, who don't have the time to flesh out a full system.  It's all open content, published by Seraphim Guard (and Lulu gives credit to 'Public Domain' as the author).  There has been some supportive material, but not as much as OSRIC.  For the most part, the product was put together kind of hastily, but Reed and Hammes met their goals.  The rules are intended to be altered and filled in by anyone that wants to use the basic mechanics to develop a full system.  At least one person is already on that task (ThatArtGuy, who did some nice Judge's screen and character sheet work for the original MSH game), but I don't know the status of that project.

Either way, here is a new character put together with the 4C system.  This is FASERIP compatible, so I'll try to reflect that in the stat block here.

The White Lion (Skilled Human)

Melee 20

Coordination 30

Brawn 10

Fortitude 30

Intellect 10

Awareness 30

Willpower 10

Damage 90

Fortune 50

Lifestyle 70

Repute 50

Known Powers

Invisibility 6

Mind Control 10

Astoundingly Wealthy

Skills

Business/Finance

Meditation

Occult Lore

Martial Arts

Oriental Weapons

Background

When his private plane crashed in the mountains of Tibet, billionaire playboy Trenton Buckner was wounded and lost among the snowy peaks.  On the verge of death, from both the wounds he received in the crash and exposure to frigid temperatures, he was rescued by monks from a hidden nearby monastery.  They nursed him back to health, during which time Trenton had time to reevaluate his life.  Upon his recovery, he begged the monastery's lama to accept him into the order and teach him their ways.  He learned quickly, and in a few short years he returned to America with the knowledge and abilities he had gained.  Realizing he could put his talents and resources to better use than he had in the past, Trenton donned a white suit and mask to become the White Lion!

This game is almost unplayable without more rules.  There are no talent sets and some of the 'powers' extend outside the realm of what are normally considered 'powers.'  Some of these would be better set aside as some kind of resource or background.  More importantly, they violate the concept of powers as they were presented in the original material.  Furthermore, the over-generalized method of character creation (everything is rolled on a single table) makes a character feel less specialized and the different origin options less important.  A character becomes a list of statistics with arbitrary meanings behind them.  

The 'thesaurus disease' seems to have hit this product, too.  I realize that the attributes directly relate to the FASERIP system, but I doubt there is a need to worry too much about a few terminology uses when there have been industry standards for years.   Is it really that much of a problem to keep using Strength, Health and Agility?

As I said, there are some supportive materials for the 4C system so far, but these mechanics need a more complete treatment to be useful.   I'm hoping ThatArtGuy finishes his project (the last reference to it that I've heard was almost a year ago), or that someone else gives it the complete once-over.

Related Links

Marvel Heroes Classic Roleplaying

Ronin Arts