Effects of Age on Characteristics… and Skills
In this part, dear Friend Game Master, you'll need a whit of sense and practical orientation. The following is given as a guideline.
Create a Character younger than usual…
Zebra Island : a game for (almost) all 7 to 77-year-old urchins! And it seems at least difficult to allow younger ones in… At an age of 7, with the distributive method, one can allocate one point as a base to each of the Characteristics and then distribute 16 additional points among them.
The Character receive then 2 additional points per year until the age of eighteen.
As for the Skills, on can follow the rules for Character's Creation by replacing the basic amount of 160 points by an amount of 56 points. Each additional year allows to start with 8 more points in that amount.
Do not forget to take into account in the initial amount the Mali and Boni due to the Level of Characteristics. Taking that into account may lead to an increase of more than 10 per year…
A Character's Skills according to age (at Character's Creation)
As for Skills, they evolve as follows, out of exceptional events and interventions of common sense:
| Age bracket | Increase per year for the basic amount of Skill points |
|---|---|
| 21 to 30 | +6 per year |
| 31 to 40 | +4 per year |
| 41 to 50 | +2 per year |
| 51 to 77 | +1 per year |
| beyond 77 | Zebra Island: a game for (almost) all urchins from 7 to 77! |
Create a Character older than usual…
The Characteristics are stable between twenty and fourty.
From fourty-one on, Characteristics may decrease by one point each year; you can use the following table:
| Age bracket | Result of d20* | Number of Rolls per year** |
|---|---|---|
| 41 to 50 | 1 to 2 | 1 |
| 51 to 60 | 1 to 4 | 1 |
| 61 to 70 | 1 to 6 | 2 |
| 71 to 77 | 1 to 8 | 3 |
| Beyond 77 ans | 1 to 10 | 4 |
Here again a call on your whit of sense, dear friend Game Master: the evolutions can be slowed down or more probably accelerated in function of the lifestyle or other parameters which might appear to you important to take into account. Similarly for the choice of the Characteristics to be modified, a whit of sense will do.
Some incidental decreases may have to be applied following major events experienced by the Character, for instance, like a fall from the crow's nest onto the deck (the first assumption being that the Character survives the fall…). In such a case, there are few chances that the Character come up without after-effects like, say for instance, loosing part of his or her Nimbleness…
* Causing a decrease in a Characteristic** Number of d20 Rolls per year to be effected (distributed over one or several Characteristics)
Evolutions of a Character due to Aging
The above given evolutions for Skills are only applicable at Character's Creation. The Skills then increase usually by Experience.
With common sens however, particularly with great age, the Game Master will take care thereof that some Skills might evolve negatively in function of the evolution of the Characteristics, especially when the Level decrease becomes significant…
Characteristics evolutions are managed, using the same chart as for Character's Creation, given above. It is recommended to take the character's activities and affinities into account before deciding on the evolution of a Chracteristic Level.