It might just be where I grew up, but my elementary school actually had a dedicated science lab room for the teachers to use. Then again, I don’t know that it was a fully-featured chem lab, so point. (It was strange in other ways, too: my junior high had rotations, and the regional school was actually a full 1-12 school with the high school at the other end of the same large building. I came from a small town.)
Fair enough. I did have the chargen window open to compare to adult professions, so I’ll explain my reasoning as I go through, though I can understand if the response to some of these is “the adult professions need to be rebalanced too,” as has been mentioned. Also I may be approaching from the perspective of an experienced player who’s past the point of needing good starting gear/skills to get through the early game, so I may be undervaluing them relative to the balance points you’re aiming for.
[quote=“KA101, post:19, topic:8645”]Some general pointers: access to fire and a cutting implement at game start are significant factors, as is storage/protective gear (the submissive’s suit is pretty decent protection, forex) and skills. I try to price skills at the initial point-buy cost, so a point in a skill is half a point added to the profession cost. Blackbelt is actually quite discounted, FWIW; Martial Artist will get buffed in a bit and I might see about rebalancing Scoundrel.
Bionics are worth at least one char point per, possibly more. It’s very difficult to get someone who starts with the IT, for example.
Addictions and lack-of-gear are about the only ways to make a profession less expensive, unfortunately.
Skater: go full blades and/or have the Skater profession; since xe has a hoodie for storage and is rather mobile I’d charge a point or two.[/quote]
I did include the Skater trait. 
I also went with rollerskates because that’s what the roller derby player starts with and the rollerblades description mentions that they’re hard to dodge in but the rollerskates description doesn’t. It occurs to me these may not represent the actual difference in effects between the two, so if you recommend rollerblades, that works. The hoodie struck me as not quite being worth a point, and the Skater does lack a cutting tool/fire–does this balance out to 0, or might knocking the point of Dodging off do it?
Starts with backpack, food (perishable, but it’ll help them get through the first day or two alive, which is pretty much the timeframe where starting gear is that important anyway), holy symbol, and KJB. I’d figure it should actually dovetail very well with a Spiritual character, but I could see not wanting to balance around it. I did consider giving them fancier clothes, like the Rich Kid, and actually calling the “profession” the Pastor’s Kid or something, but I got the inspiration to take it in more of a right-wing American guns god and whatnot jingo direction, as CDDA already includes a lot of stuff that reads kind of like a satire of pre-Cataclysm American society (I actually found a house with about a school’s worth of zombie brats and the three tables with an American flag, KJB, and large quiver all right next to each other, oh my god).
Yeah, I was approaching from the direction of adult professions that start with cigs or cannabis but no addiction. Then again, a lot of those don’t come with skills right out of the gate, either. I took away the JD’s backpack (originally all of these professions had backpacks) because they were getting a bit too over-prepared for my tastes, and I limited the skills to one point each in fairly generic combat skills because this is basically the “fighter” profession for a demographic not known for its fighting prowess (pre-pubescent brats). Double-checking the gear list, they snuck some interesting things in (cigs, a firestarting tool, slingshot), but those were largely there for flavour and I could strip them out for balance purposes and possibly slip in a blurb about the principal being an asshole who took your slingshot. This would work even better if principal’s offices spawned juvenile contraband (i.e., cigarettes, lighters, slingshots, marbles, comic books, handheld game systems, etc.). Maybe they already do and I didn’t notice last time I rampaged through a school.
Also, I’d considered giving them a leather jacket, but decided that would be a bit too over the top.
I don’t really imagine the PDA/cellphone/watch are worth a point, either; the watch makes the PDA and cellphone pretty extraneous except as a shitty flashlight and something to rip apart for batteries (so not totally extraneous I guess). Also, the rich kid starts with no cutting implement or firestarting tool, so I imagine that’s -1 point of balancing, but I did consider that the fancy clothes dovetail well with Stylish (probably not a good balancing point, granted). I did consider giving them a gold watch instead of a regular wrist watch, but that’d probably age them too much, and the “fancy watch” is also probably going a bit overboard. I also considered giving them fried morel mushrooms or a boiled (quail) egg in a bit of jest about rich-people dietary habits, but decided against it. You’re probably right to regard the point of Speaking and the copy of How to Succeed in Business as being beneath-notice at this point in NPC development.
You’re also right about the Adderall being pretty good. I hadn’t considered that fully–starting with a powerful stimulant like that is pretty much a guarantee that you’ll be able to outrun zombies on your way to safety, making it a very survivable start for a player who knows Adderall works as a “run like hell” drug and not just a study drug.
The HHGttC was just something that seemed to fit, somehow; I also considered the Zombie Survival Guide, but its inaccuracy would probably make their parents balk. I compared to the Survivalist when balancing, so I figured it should definitely cost less than 3 points–some of the gear is a bit better, some of the gear is distinctly worse (can’t butcher, lacking a very nice early-game weapon in the survival knife, can’t start fires without direct sunlight, no 6-volume liquid container wearable on the waist), and the skills are much worse–but this is definitely one of those points where I expect the response to be that the Survivalist is too cheap. That said, I probably wouldn’t choose this profession if it cost 4 points, but that’s my experienced-player perspective talking again. I’d rather downgrade/remove some of the starting items.
[quote=“KA101, post:19, topic:8645”]Bionic student: Interesting question whether a kid could medically get bionics installed–physical ones would be out thanks to the “growing” thing, mental ones might physically work and theoretically would be better installed young so the kid’s brain gets used to the connection.
Same gear as the rich kid; the membank is situational and useless if one turns off skill rust, but +2 to IN is worth at least two points right there. Thinking 3 points for this one, possibly 4.[/quote]
I could see 3. I was comparing to the bionic boffin, and compared to that, this profession gets fewer bionics and no skills, though the messenger bag is nice. I’d also argue that to an experienced player the Cerebral Booster bionic is actually worth at least slightly less than two points of raw INT, since if the points went into INT instead, you’d be able to get another +2 by installing a found Cerebral Booster later. That’s that specific perspective talking again, though.
Also yeah I figured it’d raise some questions, but I made the assumption that certain bionics would be possible to install in a child without causing absolutely horrific problems as they grow. (And it’s too bad that many wouldn’t, too: can you imagine how awesome Hydraulic Muscles would be for an Str 6 character who needs that boost of Strength to do things like move furniture or open manholes? At least adrenaline injectors and the adrenaline pump are still a thing.) That said, it also occurred to me that it’d probably be controversial and likely a bit experimental, but it’s also intended to be a bit of commentary on the (nigh-abusive) lengths to which affluent parents push their children to succeed, as suggested by the blurb.
Also, good catch on the similarity between Rich Elementary Student and Bionic Elementary Student. They’re forks that actually began as the same concept until I decided to drop in a non-bionic version. The starting toys actually are a bit different, though: the Bionic Elementary Student loses the Adderall, which means it doesn’t have the Rich Elementary Student’s significant advantage in fleeing alive. They also lose the point of Speaking and the copy of How to Succeed in Business, though this is fairly unimportant, and they gain a stack of batteries (probably unnecessary if bionic characters start with full power storage; somehow I haven’t started as a bionic profession yet).
Also, I’m glad that this didn’t get put in the “too unpleasant to happen” bin. I didn’t actually expect it to, given that I figured a child surviving can’t be more unpleasant than hordes of children dying and becoming zombies, even if there may be spider jerky made in a jury-rigged cooker powered by fat carved from the bodies of the walking dead involved (have I mentioned that survivor mess kits are awesome?), but it’s often a touchy subject.
How’d I do on the blurbs, by the by? I know they need some editing/pruning, especially ones like the Prepper Kid, but I had fun. If this has any chance of making it into a future update I can do some editing and maybe come up with some more professions.
