Freeform Characters and Dungeon Fantasy RPG Template Privileges

Dungeon Fantasy RPG uses mandatory templates by default.  Each template comes with a selection of attributes that you can buy with points.  Some also some with some special abilities that are free if you take the template and unavailable if you do not, which I'll call "privileges" for this post.

In a game with mandatory templates, privileges are straightforward.  You're either a Knight, and you get the Knight's privileges of being able to buy melee skills at any time and being able to buy HP up to 1.5 times your ST.  Or you're not, and you don't.

But without mandatory templates, who counts as a Knight?  In the Five Easy Pieces Pyramid article, Sean Punch says that characters built with that system never qualify for special privileges.  They've lost that in exchange for flexibility.  I don't want to be quite that harsh, but pretty close.

Whiterock is going to allow freeform character construction.  Freeform characters don't have to use templates.  And Whiterock is a 150-point game, so it's not possible to take everything on a 250-point template even if you wanted to.  But I'll say that if a PC is an almost strict subset of a DFRPG template when built, that PC qualifies for that template's special privileges, forever.

Let's look at how much freedom by-the-book DFRPG characters get.  Most of the positive points are spoken for: you have to buy things off the template.  But DFRPG Adventurers 14 says that "some disadvantages are mandatory, but the ones chosen on tables aren't."  So taking different disadvantages doesn't disqualify you from a template.  And quirk points are mostly free; you can spend them on whatever you want except other templates' special traits.

This game requires taking a free language at Accented, so that doesn't make you not-templated.  (Otherwise nobody could qualify for a template that doesn't have languages on it.)  And nothing you got from a racial template makes you not-templated either: if you make an Elf Barbarian, the Magery 0 you get from being an Elf doesn't make you not a Barbarian.

So, that's the first way to qualify as a template: if you're a strict subset of a character you could have made with that template by strict DFRPG rules, you're in.  And once you qualify this way, you qualify forever, even if you start spending earned character points on stuff outside the template.  (This is the "you started as a First Level Barbarian so you'll always be a Barbarian" house rule.)

The second way to qualify for a template won't matter for a long time, because it costs a lot of earned character points.  But if any PC ever manages to have enough of the positive things from a 250-point DFRPG template to have been built that way, it qualifies for the privileges of that template.  So, for example, if you have ST 12, DX 12, IQ 14, HT 12, Clerical Investment, Power Investiture 3, 45 points from the Cleric advantage list, enough points in the big list of Cleric skills, 20 Cleric spells, etc, you count as a Cleric and can now buy Will up to 25.  Even if you have tons of non-Cleric stuff too.  (This is the "you Dual-Classed your way to Cleric" house rule.)

So, you count as a full member of a template either if you're an almost-strict subset of the 250-point version of that template when you first make the character, or if you're an almost-strict superset of the 250-point version of that template after earning and spending a lot of character points.  That gives a small bonus to players who want to fit into a defined niche.  The template privileges aren't that important, though, so flexible freeform characters are still great.