Occupational Hazard – A Haunted DevBlog [8]

As we develop Haunted – Beyond the Veil we want to maintain the core ‘real life’ element of the game. While the content may be fantastical (to cynics at least) the fact that the characters portrayed by the players are people you could meet anywhere today was important to us.

Variety is the spice of life! The aim was to create a system that supported realistic options for players to be able to create any character they could think of, including themselves! Our take on the ‘classes’ used in other RPG systems comes in the form of a character’s occupation, grouped by the standardised industry view… with just a few tweaks to allow for Haunted’s broader view of reality. As character’s progress they also gain a Specialisation that grants further customisation options, while these specialisations may have some restrictions or barriers to entry placed upon them the overall aim is to allow for a wide variety of builds.

You do you! Want to play a skeptical accountant who spends all his free time in the gym, sure! How about a labourer with latent psychic abilities and a firm belief in the power of crystals? Knock yourself out. Me? I’d be easily able to construct a nerdy data analyst with an RPG obsession. Couple these core character choices with the various talents and skills already discussed, and the options are limitless (well, not quite but I’m willing to bet it’s a REALLY big number!). Of course, not all occupations are for life. Sometimes a change is as good as a rest, right? Well, the Veil trilogy has you covered there too. A character can feel free to change career in much the same way as other systems allow multi-classing. Ultimately we want players to build whatever characters they like, in the way they like… want to min/max, flavour build, or create yourself, just do it! The game supports experts in one particular field or builds who are merely average in a range of areas, the whole range of options has a role to play in an investigation.

Team work makes the dream work… or not, whatever… With Haunted we wanted to create a system that supports groups of any size, from 2+ (well you could play solo using the randomised options but where’s the fun in torturing yourself?). With the occupation/specialisation choices it is entirely possible for a single investigator to succeed in resolving a haunting but as with most things, it is easier when done as part of a well balanced group. Until next time…

#hauntedRPG #mechanics