Difference between revisions of "Book:Character Creation"

Revision as of 16:58, 14 August 2009

Each player needs to create a character before he or she can play the game. One could create a one-armed, colorblind, psychic carpenter who charges into battle wielding his over-sized pipe-wrench, to a charismatic brigand, robbing from the rich, giving to the poor and wearing fantastic tights. Characters can be classic or original, simple or complex, the choice is the player's.

The Sheet

The Character Sheet is the central item to the Elysium game. It is where you keep track of your character’s condition, abilities, hurts and health, weaknesses, strengths, possessions, contacts, and anything relevant to staying inside that character and playing the game. As such, you should get to know it pretty well, as you'll need to reference it fairly often. At the end of this book is a blank character sheet which you may photocopy or scan and make copies of.

Now let's take you through the steps of creating a new character.

Step One: The Big Idea

Concept

The first thing you should do when creating a character, is to come up with a Concept. This means you need a rough idea of what kind of character you want to play. Some example Concepts might be orphan, soldier, farmer, witch, magician, bounty hunter, or diplomat. A Concept is essentially what the character does, as opposed to the next step, Personality, which is what the person is like. Concept can also very easily be the character’s occupation, and many times is. Remember: most people in Elysium don’t go off slaying dragons and fighting evil—that's what makes heroes special. So maybe your character would pick up a trade somewhere along the line; most people know one.

Personality

Personality is a listing of traits that describe what your character is like, and what people might say about him or her. Personality helps a player get a feel for how to roleplay the character’s actions and reactions, speak as the character, and represent the feel of the character. To choose a Personality for your character is very simple. Just choose at least one of the Personality Traits listed below. The less Traits you choose, the more one dimensional and predictable your character will be. The more you choose, the more dynamic and three dimensional. Choose as many as you like, but keep in mind that it will be more difficult to accurately roleplay your character if you choose conflicting traits or too many.

• Personality Examples

Motivation

Motivation is another integral part of defining what purpose your character has. Motivation details what your character wants. This serves a number of functions in the game. First off, it lets the GM in on what you, as a player, desire out of the game. If your character wants to become rich and make the world a better place, there are a number of ways the GM can go about challenging you with this. Or if your aims are narrower, such as wanting to recover your ancestral sword of your forefathers’ time, the GM can look for a way to slip something into the storyline. Secondly, it helps give you a reason for playing. There are no “winners” in roleplaying games; winning is about having fun. But having a goal can’t hurt. There is no list of suggestions for motivations, but I can throw some ideas out there for you.

Is your character running from something or someone? Does the character want to acquire something? For whom will he/she acquire it? Is the character protecting someone/something? Is he/she hiding someone or something? What about revenge? This is an old classic. Hate and Love are very strong concepts. Who/what does the character Love/Hate? If that is too strong, what about Like/Dislike? Does the character have an occupation? Is he/she happy? What changes would the character like to bring about? What impact would he/she like to have?

Alignment

Alignment is the last of these theoretical questions you have to ask about the character. Alignment is about what the character believes. Not necessarily a concept of spirituality or religion (though these can be alignments), it’s more about the character’s limitations. Alignment is probably the least important of the three, so if you can't come up with anything, don't worry, there aren't any rules that correspond to your alignment.

Ask yourself: is the character lawful or opportunistic? Do they believe in Government or Anarchy? Does he/she subscribe to the idea of Good and Evil? Now which one does he/she believe she is? Which one is he/she really? Bwahaha. Spiritualist or Materialist? Industrialist, Entropist, or Naturalist? Animalist or Humanist? Religious or Atheist? Hedonist or Pragmatist? Egoist or Altruist? Socialist, Communist, or Free Democracy? What does the character believe? (Do you need to look up any of these?) Use some of these if you like. Oh, and also rate, on a scale of 1–5, with five being the strongest, how strongly the character feels about each.

Step Two: It's Alive!

Race

For more information on races, flip to the Races section located later in this book, which details many playable races for Elysium.

Abilities

These are your character's core attributes. Every character, regardless of race, gender, or anything else, have these 12 abilities. They describe your character's natural potential, while Skills, on the other hand, which come later, describe what your character has learned. Both Abilities and Skills have ranges from 1–10, with 1 being the lowest possible score and 10 being the highest. Some supernatural creatures or highly advanced characters may have higher scores than 10, but this is extremely rare. Any Ability (not Skill) with a score of zero means the character is out of commission, one way or another. So, you need a rating of at least "1" in each Ability. Even then, that's very low. A character with a "1" in Muscle would be near dead and a character with a "1" in Intellect would be near brain-dead. So it might be a good idea to have at least two in everything to start off with. At character creation, you receive 50 points to divide up between the 12 abilities as you see fit, however your GM may see fit to give you more or less. Below, Abilities are categorized into Physical, Mental, Social, and Spirit stats.

Physical

• Muscle
• Agility
• Endurance

Mental

• Intellect
• Insight
• Cunning

Social

• Personality
• Presence
• Persuasion

Spiritual

• Courage
• Psyche
• Self-Control

Derived

• Magic Points
• Spirit Points
• Reaction

Advancement

As game time passes, you may feel the need to increase one or more of your character's abilities. It also makes perfect sense in-game—a soldier would spend time working out to up his Muscle, a monk spends his life attempting to refine his Self-Control. You can buy an additional ability point in exchange for 5 Expoints.

Action Points

Action Points (AP) represent the number of activities you can perform in combat. Everything costs AP, from swinging a sword, to launching a spell, to grabbing a monkey out of your pocket. Everyone starts off with 6 AP, but more can be bought with Trumps. See the Trumps and Faults and Special Powers chapters for details.

Health Points

• Health Points

Expoints

• Expoints

Skills

Skill ranks represent a character's expertise and experience with a given activity. The more ranks in a skill, the better the character gets. Ranks can be bought for mundane tasks, such as climbing or hiding, weapon skills, which enables a character to better pose an offensive threat, and magic school skills which allow a character to cast spells. You receive 50 points to buy skills when creating your character. Regular skills and weapon skills cost 2 points for 1 rank. Magic school skills cost 3 points for 1 rank. See the Skills chapter for more details.

Trumps and Faults

Trumps can be bought to customize your character with benefits and bonuses. Faults can be bought to further give your character a personality, and with it come hindrances. You can use the points from Faults to buy Abilities, Skills, Trumps, or Special Powers. Trumps and Faults are all further detailed in a later chapter.

Special Powers

Special Powers are supernatural techniques your character can utilize. Unlike trumps and faults, you purchase Special Powers in ranks up to a maximum of 5. Each rank is more costly than the previous and each rank bought further increases the attributes of the special power. These are further detailed in a later chapter.

Magic Spells

One of the more popular Special Powers is Spellcasting. Once a character has access to the realm of magic, he or she can learn its wonders by researching magic spells. Each spell costs one or more Expoints to learn. Some spells span several schools, and can be learned a little differently each time. A character has no limit to the number of spells he or she knows, but specializing usually makes for a more powerful character at the expense of diversity.