[sterlingice]

My bad- I didn't realize that this is also on another forum and that makes sense as there are a lot more roles to fill.

To me, it seems like the story rotates around a few key players (Duling, Rakes, Palmer, and a couple of the ship captains) so if I were, say, any of CW's characters or PM's, this wouldn't be interactive dynasty for me as the characters are just a footnote, hoping to eek out a few years of a career before getting culled by the budget one year. I would even argue that as "prolific" as Sterling's career has been, I'm almost certain, I can count the number of times that she (I think she was a she and not a he) has shown up in the story outside of on the end of the year report as "good job, you saw no action".

This is not to argue for my character or anyone else's to get any more "screen time" as I think the narrative is working great as it. I just think that limiting people by "dice rolls" is unnecessary. Even if the player characters were always given the top couple of characters each year and the NPCs relegated to the weaker ones, the situation will dictate that even those top of the class characters won't make much of a dent in the narrative as there are only a couple of real "starring roles" as we have run through how many characters in the history of the dynasty and only a few even make it onto the stage.

For instance, the administrators are pretty visible as there are elections regularly and posts for all of them. But who is the fifth most famous administrator at SPACE in history? I don't think I could name him or her. And that's the fifth best in 30+ years - that's not even the best every year or best every couple of years. And this is to say nothing for not caring about scientists in wartime, ground forces in peacetime, etc.

SI