SIFRP has Narrators and players. The Narrator sets the stage, shapes the general direction of the stories told, manages secondary characters, and serves as the game's referee. The players are responsible for their characters and their noble house. They make the decisions presented to them in the story, and it's about them that this shared story is told. Characters, then, are special. They are the playing pieces that serve as the primary point of interaction with the imagined lands of the Narrator. Therefore, your choice of character, your character's attitudes, motivations, objectives, what she looks like, what he hates, what she loves, and everything else that makes up a person are all factors on how you play the game. Some are mechanical choices, being matters of numbers and dice, while others are purely designed for roleplaying to help you portray your character in a way that interests you and works well with your fellow players. This thread, then, is your guide to building and playing characters in SIFRP.
Rules - Character Creation
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Eanwulf
- Level 18 Elite
- Posts: 7226
- Location: FL
- Title: The Grey
-
- User Class: Berserker
Rules - Character Creation
An Introduction
SIFRP has Narrators and players. The Narrator sets the stage, shapes the general direction of the stories told, manages secondary characters, and serves as the game's referee. The players are responsible for their characters and their noble house. They make the decisions presented to them in the story, and it's about them that this shared story is told. Characters, then, are special. They are the playing pieces that serve as the primary point of interaction with the imagined lands of the Narrator. Therefore, your choice of character, your character's attitudes, motivations, objectives, what she looks like, what he hates, what she loves, and everything else that makes up a person are all factors on how you play the game. Some are mechanical choices, being matters of numbers and dice, while others are purely designed for roleplaying to help you portray your character in a way that interests you and works well with your fellow players. This thread, then, is your guide to building and playing characters in SIFRP.
SIFRP has Narrators and players. The Narrator sets the stage, shapes the general direction of the stories told, manages secondary characters, and serves as the game's referee. The players are responsible for their characters and their noble house. They make the decisions presented to them in the story, and it's about them that this shared story is told. Characters, then, are special. They are the playing pieces that serve as the primary point of interaction with the imagined lands of the Narrator. Therefore, your choice of character, your character's attitudes, motivations, objectives, what she looks like, what he hates, what she loves, and everything else that makes up a person are all factors on how you play the game. Some are mechanical choices, being matters of numbers and dice, while others are purely designed for roleplaying to help you portray your character in a way that interests you and works well with your fellow players. This thread, then, is your guide to building and playing characters in SIFRP.
Last edited by Eanwulf on Fri Nov 06, 2009 10:32 am, edited 3 times in total.
When Life Hands You Razorblades. You Make A Baseball Bat Covered In Razorblades!
-
Eanwulf
- Level 18 Elite
- Posts: 7226
- Location: FL
- Title: The Grey
-
- User Class: Berserker
Re: Character Creation
Creating Characters
Archetypes have their place: they are useful learning tools, and they facilitate play, but they do have their limitations. The included archetypes reflect a small fraction of the possible characters that might appear in the Campaign World. In addition, without some adjustment, they don't address the influence of culture and region, the rich history of a house, or even the events that shaped the characters life up until the point that the game begins. For these reasons, SIFRP includes a robust system to help players conceive and create interesting characters worthy of being the heroes (or villains) of any story.
Character creation is quite simple, but it is spread out over a number of steps to help guide you through the process and avoid the inevitable pitfalls that lay in wait. Each step sets out to help you make good mechanical decisions about your character and assist you in realizing the character's concept. As you become proficient with character creation, you can move through these steps quickly, but at the start, take your time, and consider the mechanical and roleplaying consequences of each step.
'¢ Step One: House & Lands
If you and your fellow players are creating characters for the first time, you must choose your family's house (clan) and lands as a group first. You can skip this step if you are using the default house provided by the Narrator. If you are creating a replacement character for a dead one or are joining an established game, you use whatever best suits the group at the time. For details on houses and clans, see the appropriate Forum Thread.
'¢ Step Two: Character Concept
Easily the most important part of character creation is to establish a concept, a vision for what you want to play, what you want to achieve in the game. A good concept at the start helps you make good decisions about your character's function and place in the group, as well as help you lay a foundation for your character's objectives in the game. The concept need not be fully realized at the start, but you should have some broad concepts in mind.
'¢ Step Three: Assign Abilities
With a clear idea of your character in mind, you're ready to improve your abilities. All characters begin with rank 2 in each ability. Using the starting Experience determined by your character's age, you can improve an ability by purchasing additional ranks. The higher you improve an ability, the more Experience it costs. During this step, you must spend all Ability Experience, and you must purchase your Status rank first. Costs are shown below.
'¢ Step Four: Assign Specialties
Once you have allocated all of your Experience for abilities, your next step is to invest Experience into specialties. As described in Abilities & Specialties, specialties are areas of expertise within an ability, places where your character can develop a specific training to improve your chances on tests related to the specialty by granting one or more bonus dice. Remember, bonus dice are not added to the result; they let you roll more dice and take the best dice from the bunch. No specialty can offer more bonus dice than your rank in the attached ability, so if you have Fighting 2, you can't have any more than 2B in any one Fighting specialty.
Your age determines how much Experience you have to acquire specialties. Each bonus die of a specialty costs 10 Experience.
'¢ Step Five: Destiny Points & Benefits
Destiny Points and benefits are next. As with other aspects of character creation, age determines how many Destiny Points with which you start the game. Younger characters have less experience and fewer opportunities to lose Destiny Points by escaping danger and death. You can invest some of your starting Destiny Points into benefits (see Destiny & Qualities), though there are limits.
'¢ Step Six: Flaws & Drawbacks
Flaws represent the ravages of time, the accumulation of nasty wounds, and the effects of life on your character as he ages and develops. To reflect the dangers and perils of the Rjurik Highlands, characters accumulate flaws and drawbacks. A flaw imposes '€"1D on one ability. You may burden the same ability with multiple flaws, but the penalty dice cannot exceed your rank in the ability '€"1. Thus, if you have 3 in Athletics, you couldn't take more than two flaws in Athletics.
Drawbacks, on the other hand, are less painful to a specific ability, but they impose challenges that affect many aspects of your character.
For a full list of flaws and drawbacks, see Destiny & Qualities.
'¢ Step Seven: Starting Possessions
Determining your starting possessions comes next. All characters begin play with a set of common clothes appropriate for their gender, boots or shoes, and a dagger. Heirs also begin play with a signet ring. Record these possessions on your character sheet.
Next, roll a Status test. The result is how many gold dragons you begin with to purchase your starting possessions. Obviously, you don't begin with a sack full of gold; rather, this starting fund reflects your accumulated possessions. You must spend at least half of your starting coin. You may keep the rest in reserve or invest it into your house as you wish.
EQUIPMENT includes full price lists and descriptions for all the common sorts of equipment one might find in Cerilia.
'¢ Step Eight: Derived Statistics
You're nearly there. Now that all of your equipment is listed, your abilities and specialties purchased, benefits and drawbacks selected, and Destiny Points recorded, you are ready to fill out the derived statistics.
'¢ Step Nine: Play the Game!
The very last step in character creation is to fill in the rest of the sections on your character sheet'€"your character name, your place of birth, your parents' names, siblings, and so on. You might even sketch out your coat of arms and write down your motto if it's not the same as the rest of the players. Once your character sheet is fully filled out, you're done and ready to play!
Archetypes have their place: they are useful learning tools, and they facilitate play, but they do have their limitations. The included archetypes reflect a small fraction of the possible characters that might appear in the Campaign World. In addition, without some adjustment, they don't address the influence of culture and region, the rich history of a house, or even the events that shaped the characters life up until the point that the game begins. For these reasons, SIFRP includes a robust system to help players conceive and create interesting characters worthy of being the heroes (or villains) of any story.
Character creation is quite simple, but it is spread out over a number of steps to help guide you through the process and avoid the inevitable pitfalls that lay in wait. Each step sets out to help you make good mechanical decisions about your character and assist you in realizing the character's concept. As you become proficient with character creation, you can move through these steps quickly, but at the start, take your time, and consider the mechanical and roleplaying consequences of each step.
'¢ Step One: House & Lands
If you and your fellow players are creating characters for the first time, you must choose your family's house (clan) and lands as a group first. You can skip this step if you are using the default house provided by the Narrator. If you are creating a replacement character for a dead one or are joining an established game, you use whatever best suits the group at the time. For details on houses and clans, see the appropriate Forum Thread.
'¢ Step Two: Character Concept
Easily the most important part of character creation is to establish a concept, a vision for what you want to play, what you want to achieve in the game. A good concept at the start helps you make good decisions about your character's function and place in the group, as well as help you lay a foundation for your character's objectives in the game. The concept need not be fully realized at the start, but you should have some broad concepts in mind.
With a clear idea of your character in mind, you're ready to improve your abilities. All characters begin with rank 2 in each ability. Using the starting Experience determined by your character's age, you can improve an ability by purchasing additional ranks. The higher you improve an ability, the more Experience it costs. During this step, you must spend all Ability Experience, and you must purchase your Status rank first. Costs are shown below.
'¢ Step Four: Assign Specialties
Once you have allocated all of your Experience for abilities, your next step is to invest Experience into specialties. As described in Abilities & Specialties, specialties are areas of expertise within an ability, places where your character can develop a specific training to improve your chances on tests related to the specialty by granting one or more bonus dice. Remember, bonus dice are not added to the result; they let you roll more dice and take the best dice from the bunch. No specialty can offer more bonus dice than your rank in the attached ability, so if you have Fighting 2, you can't have any more than 2B in any one Fighting specialty.
Your age determines how much Experience you have to acquire specialties. Each bonus die of a specialty costs 10 Experience.
Destiny Points and benefits are next. As with other aspects of character creation, age determines how many Destiny Points with which you start the game. Younger characters have less experience and fewer opportunities to lose Destiny Points by escaping danger and death. You can invest some of your starting Destiny Points into benefits (see Destiny & Qualities), though there are limits.
Flaws represent the ravages of time, the accumulation of nasty wounds, and the effects of life on your character as he ages and develops. To reflect the dangers and perils of the Rjurik Highlands, characters accumulate flaws and drawbacks. A flaw imposes '€"1D on one ability. You may burden the same ability with multiple flaws, but the penalty dice cannot exceed your rank in the ability '€"1. Thus, if you have 3 in Athletics, you couldn't take more than two flaws in Athletics.
Drawbacks, on the other hand, are less painful to a specific ability, but they impose challenges that affect many aspects of your character.
For a full list of flaws and drawbacks, see Destiny & Qualities.
Determining your starting possessions comes next. All characters begin play with a set of common clothes appropriate for their gender, boots or shoes, and a dagger. Heirs also begin play with a signet ring. Record these possessions on your character sheet.
Next, roll a Status test. The result is how many gold dragons you begin with to purchase your starting possessions. Obviously, you don't begin with a sack full of gold; rather, this starting fund reflects your accumulated possessions. You must spend at least half of your starting coin. You may keep the rest in reserve or invest it into your house as you wish.
EQUIPMENT includes full price lists and descriptions for all the common sorts of equipment one might find in Cerilia.
'¢ Step Eight: Derived Statistics
You're nearly there. Now that all of your equipment is listed, your abilities and specialties purchased, benefits and drawbacks selected, and Destiny Points recorded, you are ready to fill out the derived statistics.
The very last step in character creation is to fill in the rest of the sections on your character sheet'€"your character name, your place of birth, your parents' names, siblings, and so on. You might even sketch out your coat of arms and write down your motto if it's not the same as the rest of the players. Once your character sheet is fully filled out, you're done and ready to play!
When Life Hands You Razorblades. You Make A Baseball Bat Covered In Razorblades!