Play to win.
Attributes: The gamer is a winner, and player of games. He devotes his life totally to games, not just any game but gaming in general. He can’t just focus on card games, or board games, or role playing games he has to play them all and learn them all, and master them all. The gamer continually seeks to improve his game play, and failure is just another opportunity to improve further.
Taboo: The gamers taboo is three fold. First off the gamer obviously can’t cheat, he shouldn’t even think about it. Second when playing competitively he must always play to win, that is to say play to the best of his ability. The only exception is that he may experiment outside of tournaments but still must play to the best of his ability with whatever style he is experimenting with. (And experimenting to go easy on someone definitely doesn’t count.) Finally as the gamer seeks not to win but to improve himself he must never hide new strategies he discovers in games, he must share this information publicly.
symbols: Dice, Cards, Nintendo cartridges. Anything that can be used to play games with.
Suspected Avatars in History: David Sirlin, Kazuki Takahashi clearly sought to do something involving this archetype with yugioh before his manga was overwhelmed by duel masters, however most gamers never become well known because of there devotion to gaming as a whole instead of becoming well known at any one game.
channels
1-50%: The first channel is simple, the gamer is a master of all games and can use his Avatar : The Gamer skill in place of any skills required for a game.(A game is any challenge of skill or luck with agreed upon rules.)
51-70%: The second channel manifests through the gamers desire for constant self improvement, anytime he fails a non-magical skill check he can roll an Avatar : The Gamer check and if successful increase that skill by 1% permanently.
71-90%: The third channel applies the gamers prescription against cheating to everyone, any game which the gamer is playing in or is judging players who dare to cheat will always lose.
91+%: The fourth channel grants the gamer absolute mastery of any games, he can instantly comprehend rules and strategies with only the barest familiarity.
There needs to be some kind of limit on the second channel to keep gamers from gaining skills too fast.
I suggest only being able to use the second channel every month or so. Note that it also requires a failed skill roll as well.
It wouldn’t be hard to get a failed rolls for a gun skill, just move the target further back as you get better.
How about,
51-70%: The second channel manifests through the gamers desire for constant self improvement , when training for an upcoming contest of skill, each exp point raises the pertinent skill by 2.
The contest has to be a serious matter with a decent amount of prize money or prestige on the line and there has to be a reasonable amount of uncertainty about the outcome.
This also applies to informal contests of skill. If a gamer regularly gets into gunfights or car chases, he can apply the second channel to those skills. Both the gamer and his opponents must be using the same skill, so gun VS magic/monster/unarmed civilian doesn’t count.
I reeeeeally don’t like the fourth channel. It… doesn’t feel right (as in, not really that mystical except in REALLY rare conditions), sort of self-invalidates (how can the gamer keep seeking to LEARN new games if he sort of already KNOWS them all?), and just doesn’t feel like it has much flair. I think a more fitting one would be something like… “Can apply one rule from a commonly played game to a single real-life action which, depending on the action, may be instantaneous, last until the action can be carried out (if the rule restricts the action from occurring, such as only being able to attack someone you are diagonal to), or for as long as the Gamer is nearby (such as forcing a religious figure to only be able to move diagonally).”
Having the gaming skill replace all other skills in a game for the first channel seems to undermine the self improvement aspect of the second channel. If all you need to win is a high gamer avatar skill, why improve anything else?
How about:
1-50%: A gamer can attempt an avatar skill roll to flip-flop any other skill roll made while playing a game. (A game is any challenge of skill or luck with agreed upon rules.)
Doing it that way would make a low-level gamer avatar skill useful to a world-class poker player. But wouldn’t let a high-level gamer avatar be expert at basketball, poker, quake, etc while having poor body and mind stats.
New suggestion for the second channel:
%50-70 : The gamer learns from his opponents. Once per week, during a test of skill against an equal or superior opponent the gamer can make an avatar roll to raise the pertinent skill by 1. If the test of skill involves the risk of serious injury or loss (gunfights, gambling with mortgage of your house, etc.) the gamer can make a roll as often as once per day.
and for the fourth channel
91+% : Life is a game. Any time the gamer faces an opponent in a test of skill, he can attempt a gamer avatar roll to flip-flop another skill roll.
To qualify as a test of skill, both opponents must be using the same (or very similar skills). For example pistol VS rifle or Motorcycle VS car are close enough to count.
Yay lots of comments, lots of criticisms. But that’s good.
On the first channel- The thing is, without this channel the gamer is going to need quite a few gaming skills to really lay claim to the title of gamer. So the channels necessary to prevent that problem from cropping up.
On the second channel- Yeah, this is too good.
On the fourth- Honestly? It’s sort of a cop out, it feels appropriate as far as it goes but the first channel is letting you roll 91% even if your new at a game(talk about beginners luck.).
Ashwood- yeah those look better than mine.
A gamer should have quite a few gaming skills. Like Bibliomancers, it’s the love of gaming that creates the avatar, not the other way around.
Also, you might want to narrow the focus a bit on the avatar. The gambler takes care of traditional games like poker and craps. The MVP has sports. The g@mer avatar can focus on things like MMORPGs, Magic the Gathering, Quake, and tabletop war games a la Warhammer. With a narrowed focus, you could probably manage a gamer avatar with only two additional skills. Twitch gaming and Strategy gaming
The gambler plays games where winning inherently produces actual value for the winner. The gamer plays games where winning the game is the point. The MVP plays games where winning is the point, but which are won through an intelligent body while Gamers win through reflexes/strategy alone.
So, yeah, I agree. Needs to be constrained.
Of course, it’s an interesting alternative to The Gambler, IMO? A version some OU-savvy nerds might be gunning to push.