Post by calypsonymph on Apr 27, 2015 4:34:53 GMT
Starting Guide
So, this is an in-depth character creation guide for anybody that wants to make a character. We'll be going through this step by step, to make sure that everybody understands what's going on. If anybody has any questions, PLEASE feel free to ask them here, or PM myself or any moderator.
So, first off! You need to come up with a character concept, some kind of idea of what kind of character you want to play. The world we're playing in is the Divine Blood world, with one significant difference -- the masquerade has been broken. Supernatural is now common knowledge. Unfortunately, the 'physics' of supernatural powers have yet to filter out to the common populace, in large part due to a bunch of 'New Agers' claiming they have all the information. We are playing, more specifically, at Psyche Community College, half a place of learning, half an experiment to see if a bunch of people with psychic powers and normal humans can all learn together peacefully in the same place. It's a wacky hijinks setting, not made for your lone warrior that's seen too much, so keep that in mind!
Taking that in mind, I have decided to make a character called Helen Brown. I look through the racial list to see what pops out, and I pick up on Gorgon. I could have played anything from Human to Succubus to God to Gargoyle, but I'm using Gorgon here. The reasoning is pretty simple -- in the Divine Blood role playing book, it says here that a Gorgon can pop up between two human parents, and that gives me an interesting idea for a character. 'Helen Brown -- First Gorgon in the Family'.
The First Five Aspects
Now, the first thing one must do when coming up with a character, is make the first five character Aspects. I'll describe aspects in a bit, but, for now, I'll show you what Helen's are.
Definition: Helen Brown, First Gorgon in the Family
Ambition: Experiment with and master her Gorgon powers!
Background: A completely normal and mundane life. ...Except for the whole 'not a human' thing.
Conviction: Human will can achieve anything! And I'm something more...
Disadvantage: Buying in to all that New Ager... stuff.
You can see already that, just with those aspects, you can get a good feel for Helen, right? She's from a completely normal background, and is VERY eager to learn about and master her psychic powers. She's willful and confident, perhaps a bit overconfident given the revelation of her new species. ...Unfortunately, she's looking for information in all the wrong places.
Aspect and Fate Points
Aspects are used to empower, explain, explore, and weaken your character, all at once. A core aspect of the FATE system -- the system that we are using -- is Fate Points. Fate Points can be used for a variety of things. Activating certain advantages and powers are the most obvious, but they are more commonly used to give a boost to your rolls or reroll failed rolls -- AFTER you see what you rolled. Pretty useful, right? There's a catch, though - You have a limited numbers of Fate Points, and you can ONLY use them by invoking an aspect.
For example, looking at Helen's current aspects... if she, say, failed a roll in cooking, I could invoke her Background aspect -- "A completely normal and mundane life. ...Except for the whole 'not a human' thing," to get a bonus to her roll, by claiming that, as she had a completely normal life, she would have some cooking experience. ...On the other hand, if she was, say, negotiating with some Gargoyles to not invade her home, I can't see a thing that would help her out, so I'd be out of luck.
Now, Fate Points are AWESOME. You want them. You want as MANY OF THEM AS YOU CAN GET. ...However, there's really only two ways to gain them. At the end of a session -- in this case, whenever the head GM says -- you regain Fate Points up to your total 'Refresh'. We'll get to that in a bit. Or, you can have an Aspect invoked AGAINST you -- by a GM. This gives you a minus to a roll, or makes you do something embarrassing. But... you get one, free, shiny shiny Fate Point. So if I was in a class for Psychics, the GM could 'compel' Helen to stand up and try to show how much she knows... using her "Buying in to all that New Ager...stuff" aspect. ...She'd make a fool of herself, but I'd get a shiny fate point that I can later use for using her Gorgon Powers, with her "Experiment with and master her Gorgon Powers!" aspect. Pretty cool, right? In part for this reason, it's generally a good idea to have Aspects that are spread out a bit. It'll make it easier to invoke and compel them in a variety of circumstances. If all of your Aspects are about how great of a fighter you are, not only will it be hard to gain Fate Points, but you'll have a hard time changing a roll on things that aren't just about fighting!
It bares noting that, while I used the Aspect ABC's of 'Ambition, Background, Conviction, Disadvantage', you don't have to. It's just a convenient starting place for people new to the system.
Abilities
Now that we've got her first five Aspects done, we're going to work on her Attributes. We're in ring 12, so we get 27 points to spread between the following attributes. ...Don't worry about the ring 12 point, it's academic at best. It's basically the campaigns 'power level'. Now, the abilities as are followed, and are under the following banners:
Physical: Agility, Endurance, Perception, Strength
Mental: Craft, Knowledge, Reasoning, Willpower
Social: Deception, Empathy, Persuasion, Resources
Psychic: Manipulation, Metabolic, Sensitive
You can get more information here, but, for the most part, what each attribute means should be pretty obvious. With the exception of the Psychic abilities, of course, so I'm going to summarize them here. Note that Psychic powers are primarily used to activate Power Advantages, as rolls in a few other situations, so they might not come up too much.
Manipulation -- Telekinesis, Energy Control, healing others
Metabolic -- Control over a persons own body - self healing, super strength.
Sensitive -- Telepathy, Oracle, mind scape battles
The average strength for an Ability is 2, and, at character creation, you can not go over 4, or below 0, baring some specific exceptions that you most likely don't qualify for. An attribute of 0 is very poor, and people note how poor you are with it. 1 is below average, 2 is average. 3 is talented. 4, you're the most talented person for hundreds of miles.
That should give you basic information over what they are. Now, as for Helen's attributes...
Physical:
Agility: 2
Endurance: 2
Perception: 1
Strength: 1
(2+2+1+1 = 6)
Mental:
Craft: 2
Knowledge: 3
Reasoning: 1
Willpower: 3
(2+3+1+3 = 9)
Social:
Deception: 2
Empathy: 1
Persuasion: 3
Resources: 3
(2+1+3+3 = 9)
Psychic:
Manipulation: 1
Metabolic: 2
Sensitive: 0
(1+2+0 = 3)
(6+9+9+3 = 27)
You'll note that Helen isn't very good with most physical acts... but she's pretty convincing. ...If a bit callous. Knows a lot, but not that good at reasoning, and has a decent will. Nothing exceptional, though. As far as Psychic powers go, she's decent at metabolic, and has some untapped Manipulation potential, but is as Sensitive as that rock that you always step on when leaving the house. Be sure to leave your math on your sheet so that it's easier for you and the GM's to check it out!
Speciality Aspects
Now, comes the next five aspects. Speciality Aspects. These are basically the same as basic aspects, but with a few additional rules. First, they apply to a specific Ability. Second, they must be one of the five following types: Exceptional Skill, Foe, Gear, Help, Inferior Skill. ABCD, EFGHI. It's the Aspect Alphabet again! Let's all sing along~
These aspects are basically the same as the first five. They can be Invoked by you for a bonus, or Compelled by the GM for a Fate Point. As a note, Foes represent organizations or people that dislike you and will hinder you, and Help means people that LIKE you and will help you. The remaining three should be fairly obvious.
Exceptional Skill (Knowledge): Google-fu!
Foe (Knowledge): Well meaning internet New Ager chatroom
Gear (Deception): Sunglasses to hide her eyes
Help (Empathy): A Loving but Exasperated Family
Inferior (Perception): "Oooh, what's this?!"
You'll notice that Helen's character is further filled out, and you get a good idea about her character. ...You'll ALSO note that I put her New Ager chatroom under 'foe' for knowledge... because, while they mean well? They're all CERTAIN that they know what they're talking about, and are generally a bad influence on Helen.
In addition, it's perfectly fine with having two Specialty Aspects for a single skill... but, I strongly suggest you avoid having three.
Now, there are a few more parts to character creation... but those are in the next post. Again, feel free to ask any questions if you have them!
So, this is an in-depth character creation guide for anybody that wants to make a character. We'll be going through this step by step, to make sure that everybody understands what's going on. If anybody has any questions, PLEASE feel free to ask them here, or PM myself or any moderator.
So, first off! You need to come up with a character concept, some kind of idea of what kind of character you want to play. The world we're playing in is the Divine Blood world, with one significant difference -- the masquerade has been broken. Supernatural is now common knowledge. Unfortunately, the 'physics' of supernatural powers have yet to filter out to the common populace, in large part due to a bunch of 'New Agers' claiming they have all the information. We are playing, more specifically, at Psyche Community College, half a place of learning, half an experiment to see if a bunch of people with psychic powers and normal humans can all learn together peacefully in the same place. It's a wacky hijinks setting, not made for your lone warrior that's seen too much, so keep that in mind!
Taking that in mind, I have decided to make a character called Helen Brown. I look through the racial list to see what pops out, and I pick up on Gorgon. I could have played anything from Human to Succubus to God to Gargoyle, but I'm using Gorgon here. The reasoning is pretty simple -- in the Divine Blood role playing book, it says here that a Gorgon can pop up between two human parents, and that gives me an interesting idea for a character. 'Helen Brown -- First Gorgon in the Family'.
The First Five Aspects
Now, the first thing one must do when coming up with a character, is make the first five character Aspects. I'll describe aspects in a bit, but, for now, I'll show you what Helen's are.
Definition: Helen Brown, First Gorgon in the Family
Ambition: Experiment with and master her Gorgon powers!
Background: A completely normal and mundane life. ...Except for the whole 'not a human' thing.
Conviction: Human will can achieve anything! And I'm something more...
Disadvantage: Buying in to all that New Ager... stuff.
You can see already that, just with those aspects, you can get a good feel for Helen, right? She's from a completely normal background, and is VERY eager to learn about and master her psychic powers. She's willful and confident, perhaps a bit overconfident given the revelation of her new species. ...Unfortunately, she's looking for information in all the wrong places.
Aspect and Fate Points
Aspects are used to empower, explain, explore, and weaken your character, all at once. A core aspect of the FATE system -- the system that we are using -- is Fate Points. Fate Points can be used for a variety of things. Activating certain advantages and powers are the most obvious, but they are more commonly used to give a boost to your rolls or reroll failed rolls -- AFTER you see what you rolled. Pretty useful, right? There's a catch, though - You have a limited numbers of Fate Points, and you can ONLY use them by invoking an aspect.
For example, looking at Helen's current aspects... if she, say, failed a roll in cooking, I could invoke her Background aspect -- "A completely normal and mundane life. ...Except for the whole 'not a human' thing," to get a bonus to her roll, by claiming that, as she had a completely normal life, she would have some cooking experience. ...On the other hand, if she was, say, negotiating with some Gargoyles to not invade her home, I can't see a thing that would help her out, so I'd be out of luck.
Now, Fate Points are AWESOME. You want them. You want as MANY OF THEM AS YOU CAN GET. ...However, there's really only two ways to gain them. At the end of a session -- in this case, whenever the head GM says -- you regain Fate Points up to your total 'Refresh'. We'll get to that in a bit. Or, you can have an Aspect invoked AGAINST you -- by a GM. This gives you a minus to a roll, or makes you do something embarrassing. But... you get one, free, shiny shiny Fate Point. So if I was in a class for Psychics, the GM could 'compel' Helen to stand up and try to show how much she knows... using her "Buying in to all that New Ager...stuff" aspect. ...She'd make a fool of herself, but I'd get a shiny fate point that I can later use for using her Gorgon Powers, with her "Experiment with and master her Gorgon Powers!" aspect. Pretty cool, right? In part for this reason, it's generally a good idea to have Aspects that are spread out a bit. It'll make it easier to invoke and compel them in a variety of circumstances. If all of your Aspects are about how great of a fighter you are, not only will it be hard to gain Fate Points, but you'll have a hard time changing a roll on things that aren't just about fighting!
It bares noting that, while I used the Aspect ABC's of 'Ambition, Background, Conviction, Disadvantage', you don't have to. It's just a convenient starting place for people new to the system.
Abilities
Now that we've got her first five Aspects done, we're going to work on her Attributes. We're in ring 12, so we get 27 points to spread between the following attributes. ...Don't worry about the ring 12 point, it's academic at best. It's basically the campaigns 'power level'. Now, the abilities as are followed, and are under the following banners:
Physical: Agility, Endurance, Perception, Strength
Mental: Craft, Knowledge, Reasoning, Willpower
Social: Deception, Empathy, Persuasion, Resources
Psychic: Manipulation, Metabolic, Sensitive
You can get more information here, but, for the most part, what each attribute means should be pretty obvious. With the exception of the Psychic abilities, of course, so I'm going to summarize them here. Note that Psychic powers are primarily used to activate Power Advantages, as rolls in a few other situations, so they might not come up too much.
Manipulation -- Telekinesis, Energy Control, healing others
Metabolic -- Control over a persons own body - self healing, super strength.
Sensitive -- Telepathy, Oracle, mind scape battles
The average strength for an Ability is 2, and, at character creation, you can not go over 4, or below 0, baring some specific exceptions that you most likely don't qualify for. An attribute of 0 is very poor, and people note how poor you are with it. 1 is below average, 2 is average. 3 is talented. 4, you're the most talented person for hundreds of miles.
That should give you basic information over what they are. Now, as for Helen's attributes...
Physical:
Agility: 2
Endurance: 2
Perception: 1
Strength: 1
(2+2+1+1 = 6)
Mental:
Craft: 2
Knowledge: 3
Reasoning: 1
Willpower: 3
(2+3+1+3 = 9)
Social:
Deception: 2
Empathy: 1
Persuasion: 3
Resources: 3
(2+1+3+3 = 9)
Psychic:
Manipulation: 1
Metabolic: 2
Sensitive: 0
(1+2+0 = 3)
(6+9+9+3 = 27)
You'll note that Helen isn't very good with most physical acts... but she's pretty convincing. ...If a bit callous. Knows a lot, but not that good at reasoning, and has a decent will. Nothing exceptional, though. As far as Psychic powers go, she's decent at metabolic, and has some untapped Manipulation potential, but is as Sensitive as that rock that you always step on when leaving the house. Be sure to leave your math on your sheet so that it's easier for you and the GM's to check it out!
Speciality Aspects
Now, comes the next five aspects. Speciality Aspects. These are basically the same as basic aspects, but with a few additional rules. First, they apply to a specific Ability. Second, they must be one of the five following types: Exceptional Skill, Foe, Gear, Help, Inferior Skill. ABCD, EFGHI. It's the Aspect Alphabet again! Let's all sing along~
These aspects are basically the same as the first five. They can be Invoked by you for a bonus, or Compelled by the GM for a Fate Point. As a note, Foes represent organizations or people that dislike you and will hinder you, and Help means people that LIKE you and will help you. The remaining three should be fairly obvious.
Exceptional Skill (Knowledge): Google-fu!
Foe (Knowledge): Well meaning internet New Ager chatroom
Gear (Deception): Sunglasses to hide her eyes
Help (Empathy): A Loving but Exasperated Family
Inferior (Perception): "Oooh, what's this?!"
You'll notice that Helen's character is further filled out, and you get a good idea about her character. ...You'll ALSO note that I put her New Ager chatroom under 'foe' for knowledge... because, while they mean well? They're all CERTAIN that they know what they're talking about, and are generally a bad influence on Helen.
In addition, it's perfectly fine with having two Specialty Aspects for a single skill... but, I strongly suggest you avoid having three.
Now, there are a few more parts to character creation... but those are in the next post. Again, feel free to ask any questions if you have them!