As moderator, I officially waive the no-images policy for purposes of this post.

I’d like to do a little discussion project here. It won’t be any fun unless a bunch of people do it. It’s not gimmicky, there’s no hidden planned insight, and it’s not much more than a useful platform for discussing some things I’ve been thinking about.

PART ONE

Here’s an image from James V. West’s website, Random Order Creations (please note that other images at the source page, Blood Red Comics, are nekkid; you have been tempted warned:
[img]http://www.bloodredcomics.com/Frostlick-inkedcolored.jpg[/img]

Make her up as a character for an RPG of your choice, stating the game’s name, with the following limitations and guiding points.

1. A beginning character, using exactly the rules as written,
2. The game must permit enough user-choice to arrive at the character, rather than fudging a randomized system. (This isn’t to say a highly-randomized game couldn’t be used; some allow lots of leeway. Just, no fudging please.)
3. The game genre and setting material, if applicable, should be faithful to the picture; don’t use some cyberpunk or other off-type game design.
4. If the game requires setting preparation as well as character creation, include that as well. (You can do it yourself for present purposes even if it calls for group discussion.)
5. Do the full, full process of making the character, all the way down to buying her forearm-band if that’s what it takes in that game to be play-ready.
6. Present absolutely all the steps of character creation in detail.
7. Please do not write fiction or back-story for the character beyond that required in the rules.
8. The filename “Frostlick” is not relevant for present purposes; give the character a suitable name based on your concept and the game you’ve chosen.
9. For purposes of posting, please use one game for one character per person. You can make up more or others, but keep them desk-side for now.
10. You may use a game that someone else has already used in the thread.
11. Feel free to scan and link to a character sheet if you have the capability.

PART TWO

Once people post a bunch of characters, then I’ll choose a few of them, probably not more than five, based on how well they showcase the system in question.

This isn’t a contest, because once those questions and discussions get started, it should be pretty easy for everyone else to infer what they should do with their characters. Nor will my criteria be based on anything to do with quality or achievement or anything else contest-like. I’m only limiting the number of characters I choose in order to stay sane, and I hope everyone else who posts a character will follow along with this part too. The discussion can certainly include characters I don’t choose.

So, it starts pretty light. I’ll ask questions about the system and various possibilities of play. We’ll carry out some steps together regarding the characters which I’ll hold off from explaining, for fear of biasing the initial submission. It’s nothing weird though; I won’t ask you to explain why she reminds you of your mother, or do some kind of reversal. Trust me: it won’t be much more than simply talking about the game’s processes.

Once everyone has taken his or her character through the steps I outline (which are necessarily specific to each system), then I suppose a contest might be made of it. Let’s see: the three final characters which James likes the most will receive a new drawing by him, based on the outcomes of the second phase of the discussions.

Best, Ron

Ah, why not. I first thought that you'd have your hands full with participants and I'd have to drag out some really rare game if I was going to do this, and I'm not even that interested in visual character generation and stuff - but I want to show-case how I wrote the new Solar System character generation, which is quite different from how TSoY does things. This specific system might be pertinent to Ron's point if I'm reading between the lines correctly; I designed major parts of this system with some similar concerns in mind.

(The following includes quite a bit of background-writing, despite Ron's instructions to keep that to a minimum. This is the minimum if I'm going to go by the chargen instructions as written in the Solar System.)

Solar System take

Choosing the setting: According to Solar System, we need to choose a setting first. Let's go with Near from The Shadow of Yesterday - she seems to fit in well.

Focal points: The booklet instructs the group to choose a "focal point" from the setting - essentially a situation or issue that specifically becomes the central concern and emphasis of viewpoint for the character generation step. She seems obviously a bit savage, and this has been on my mind lately, so I'm going with the colonization of Qek: the world is knitting itself together and now there is increasing pressure from the powerful merchant houses of Ammeni to "open the continent" of Qek for exploitation - this is simply the way of things, as Qekians themselves are xenophobic and at this point relatively unable to interact constructively with the rest of the world. It's the African disaster all over again, unless something unexpected happens.

Initial Crunch and variant rules: The rules recommend that we set some baselines for crunch and such. Because I'm going to be playing with some Solar System experts, I'm going to just say that we'll be using the full TSoY crunch set as depicted in the Finnish edition, with the revisions from the above thread, plus a full expectation that we'll be going to create new things as necessary. Because there is no comprehensive plan yet for integrating Effects (a new rule in Solar System) into Near, we'll be going without rulings on them - each player and SG will use those rules freely, and we'll switch out those mechanics on a case-by-case basis if they overpower the old stuff in some ways.

Character creation: Finally, we get to character generation. At this point I know that we're going to be playing a playtest for the new Near setting book, essentially, set in the jungles of Qek. The player characters are supposed to be either Qekians or outsiders who come to the jungles as colonists. The crunch will be a mix of the good old TSoY stuff and whatever I introduce during play for balance. We'll be using the Solar System character generation procedure in full, even if TSoY might benefit from some tailoring.

Heroic Event: According to the rules, I begin creating the character by visualizing her Heroic Event, a sort of colorful trailer scene that communicates a vivid image of the sort of game I want. Looking at that picture, I note that she's not Qek - I picture the natives as black-haired, and that big-eyed anime look is such a striking contrast for the shadowy jungles that it just wouldn't work. Instead, what we have here is Tarzan - she's savage, she hides in the treetops and she hunts the natives, not the other way around; the Qek are fearful and apprehensive of the jungle when they have to leave their accustomed places and paths, they fear the beasts and the unknown. She does not fear, she is home here, more savage than the savages themselves. She surprises them to steal the fruits and berries they've collected, but she does not kill, even if she could. So that's my Heroic Event.

After visualizing the Heroic Event - or before doing it, if I'd wish - I assign one Ability at Expert (2) rank for the character, connected to what makes her exceptional in the Heroic Event. I choose Jungle Travel (R), the specialized survival skill native to Qek. She's learned it from the apes who raised her - more on that later.

Character Background: After getting the Heroic Event down, I need to specify the Character Bacground, which is simply a short explanation of who she is and where she came from. I'm going to say that she was raised by the apes - the name used by the Qek for the primitive goblin tribes that live in the jungle - after a shipwreck stranded her family in Qek. Her background is Ammeni, but she has little to remind her, except the striking white, sorcerous looks that would mark her as part of the old pre-Skyfire aristocracy in the civilized lands of Ammeni and Maldor.

Based on the background I assign three Abilities at Competent (1). Let's make them Gathering (I) she learned from the apes, Charm (I) that comes to her naturally as her birtright and... it'd have to be Hunting (V) to round out the survival skill-set. (These are all in the Finnish edition of TSoY, I don't remember off-hand whether they're in the original; they should be pretty self-evident, though.)

Cultural Identity: Last, after figuring out the background, I fill in the Cultural Identity. This is basically just saying aloud what should, ideally, be obvious already - what she thinks she is, and what she thinks that means to her. I think that this character is intensely curious and uncertain of her background, as she has only sparse material evidence and knowledge of the "sea-land" her parents came from, while she is simultaneously accepted and turned away by the ape society that is getting increasingly afraid of her naturally different ways. Her relationship with the Qek is strained - they don't have a mutual language, and the Qek warriors hate the pale ghost-woman who steals clothes, arms and food from them. Some of them are smitten by her, however, and leave beautiful gifts for her in the jungle, making her uncertain of what to think of the Qek. A mess, all in all.

Based on her identity I give the character some Abilities at Mediocre (0) level. This is something I can do later on as well, but by writing these things down I'm making a statement regarding what I choose to write down and what to leave out. For instance, this gets a bit esoteric Near-wise, but I'm going to claim that she's going to have the Ammeni cultural Ability Torture (R) just waiting to be developed. I'm not going to justify this in length here, but basically I claim for the rest of the group that the Revenant Cult corrupting Ammeni has, to some degree, reached its influence to a level where we have to really question whether being Ammeni is just cultural, or possibly a curse of the blood; can she, being of high Ammeni birth, escape her wicked inclinations?

Other identity-based Abilities I choose to write down right now are Panther Style (V), Wilderness Survival (I), Qek Handcrafts (I), Gem-working (R), Dueling (V), Pray (V), Athletics (V) and Animal Handling (I). That's plenty to begin with, and I can basically write down more whenever I get interested in other Abilities she should have a basic understanding of.

Passive Abilities: Passive Abilities are important baseline Abilities I need to put in priority order for the character. They can be used to get a general image of how lithe, strong, passionate and so on and so forth she is. I'm going to go for Resist (R) at Expert (2), React (I) at Competent (1) and Endure (V) at Mediocre (0), simply because that fits my image of a heroic jungle girl more than the other way around. You can break her body, but not her spirit.

Dividing Pools: I need to spread some points in the three Pools of Vigor, Instinct and Reason. The Solar System book recommends 10 points, but the TSoY tradition is 11, so I'll use that. The rules leave me basically free to split the points however I like, so I'll go for 6 Instinct, 3 Vigor and 2 Reason. This is partially based on what I expect her to be doing most of the time, but also on the sorts of interaction I expect her to be pining for from other people.

Choosing Secrets and Keys: I need to pick one of both of these. This is a pretty technical procedure that has a whole chapter devoted to each concept, but luckily I'm an old hand with this - an inexperienced player basically would need to have help, or spend considerable time researching the rules. These are what I'm going for:

Secret of Sudden Strike (Vigor)
The character can attack by surprise when using a Vigor Ability, forcing the opponent to use a Passive Ability to defend himself. This Secret can only be used from surprise, but may be utilized in extended conflict as well. Cost: 1 Vigor

(Note how that reflects the Heroic Event, above. The Secret is from the Finnish edition TSoY, and is a cultural Secret for the Qek.)

Key of Identity
The character has identity issues, she doesn't know who she is and what she should do in life.
1 xp: Hesitate in the face of choice due to your identity issues.
2 xp: Seek to establish your identity by learning more or creating ties.
5 xp: Let go of ties and choices you've made, burn metaphorical bridges.
Buyoff: Attach a label to yourself.

(I created this Key specifically for the character, which is what I usually do when playing Solar System.)

Finishing the character: As the final step I have 5 Advances to spend on fine-tuning the character. I'm going to raise the aforementioned Ability Dueling (V) one step to become Competent (1), and do the same to Athletics (V) as well. I'll also get another Secret and another Key. One Advance I'll save for the future. Here's the Secret and Key I'm getting:

Secret of Equipment (rare gem-sword wrapped in leather thongs)
The character has a free, renevable Effect related to his equipment. The gem-sword (a bone sword, the blade encrusted with hundreds of sharp gemstones) can be renewed with a Gem-cutting (R) check for maintenance.

(This just because she seems to have a prominent sword in the picture. I imagine that the story behind this acquirement is quite special - perhaps it's the heritage of a powerful Qek family she stole after they tried to trap and imprison her. Could be that the family has a tradition of Death-hunting and the sword has some special powers for that, but at least now she knows not of that; it's just an useful weapon for her in a jungle with few tools of any sort.)

Key of Independence
This character doesn't need anybody, she's quite happy to be alone!
1 xp: Proclaim your independence by thought or deed.
3 xp: Improve your chances for living without community or refuse communal ties.
Buyoff: Commit to a relationship.

Also in the last step I'm probably going to give a name to the character, as I haven't done that before. Looking at the naming conventions of the different cultures, I decide to get an Ammeni name for the exotic sound. Eleta is good. She gave this name to herself after a traumatic fight with her ape tribe, having forgotten that it was her mother's name as well.

Initial Situation: The character creation chapter of Solar System closes off with two choices that can be used as frameworks for beginning play. One is whether the group is going to play party-style, the other is whether you want to write your own kicker. Eleta is clearly not a party character, as her whole point is in whether some handsome prince might be able to lure her out of the jungle in the first place. Kicker-wise I could see going either way; Eleta might currently be living in a stabilized situation, visiting the apes now and then but mostly living alone in the jungle. Or, we might begin the game from the day when her ape foster parents lose their interest in her adult, independent demeanor and require her to leave them. Or, we might start with Eleta seeing another southerner for the first time ever since her parents perished. Depends on what the other players have cooked up.

Regardless of which way I'd go, here are the finished statistics of the character.

a repeat of the above information wrote: Eleta the Jungle Girl

Campaign: colonization of Qek

Heroic Event: Two Qek women, a mother and daughter, walk along a safe-looking path in the jungle, cheerfully chattering in a language we don't understand. They have plentiful baskets full of fruit, roots and berries. A rustle from above alerts them, but she moves too fast to get a good look - Eleta drops down on them and while one basket goes sprawling, she gets a firm hold of the other. The Qek women are far from passive victims - one grimaces and flashes a bone knife, but Eleta kicks it from her grasp and jumps agilely backwards. It's basically an anime depiction of how desperate yet capable she is. The women are left gathering their foodstuffs as Eleta jumps on a branch and disappears in the jungle.

Character Background: Eleta is the only child of a pair of impoverished Ammeni high nobility (basically, Maldorite nobles marginalized by the House Rule during the last century). They were travelling to the Oranite city of Kalderon when the savage Sea of Teeth drove their ship to wreck near the coast of Qek. The survivors managed to scrape a living of a couple of seasons out of the jungle, but were wiped out by hostile natives, or perhaps apes. Eleta herself was taken in by a tribe of peaceful apes living in the jungle highlands, relatively far from the Qek humans. She learned their ways and language, but ultimately was driven out when she grew up and no longer satisfied the child-care urges (addiction, that is) of her foster parents.

Cultural Identity: Eleta is fluent in the ape parlance, which is a heavily accented version of the Qek language. She knows the customs of the apes, but feels that she can't truly love and appreciate them. She feels sympathy for the Qekian humans she spys on, but is also an object of fear and ill-omen for them - they call her the "moongirl" due to her appearance. Eleta knows almost nothing of her southern heritage, but is determined to find any traces of her parents and their shipwreck. She also wants to learn the kayaking skills of the maritime families, which the apes have a superstitious fear of - she has the naiive notion of using a kayak to return to the "sealand" her parents came from.

Vigor: 3
Instinct: 6
Reason: 2

Passive Abilities:
Resist (R): Expert (2)
React (I): Competent (1)
Endure (V): Mediocre (0)

Survival Abilities:
Jungle Travel (R): Expert (2)
Gathering (I): Competent (1)
Hunting (I): Competent (1)
Athletics (V): Competent (1)
Wilderness Survival (I): Mediocre (0)

Other Abilities:
Charm (I): Competent (1)
Dueling (V): Competent (1)
Torture (R): Mediocre (0)
Panther Style (V): Mediocre (0)
Qek Handcrafts (I): Mediocre (0)
Gem-working (R): Mediocre (0)
Pray (V): Mediocre (0)
Animal Handling (I): Mediocre (0)

Secret of Sudden Strike (Vigor)
The character can attack by surprise when using a Vigor Ability, forcing the opponent to use a Passive Ability to defend himself. This Secret can only be used from surprise, but may be utilized in extended conflict as well. Cost: 1 Vigor

Secret of Equipment (rare gem-sword wrapped in leather thongs)
The character has a free, renevable Effect related to his equipment. The gem-sword (a bone sword, the blade encrusted with hundreds of sharp gemstones) can be renewed with a Gem-cutting (R) check for maintenance.

Key of Identity
The character has identity issues, she doesn't know who she is and what she should do in life.
1 xp: Hesitate in the face of choice due to your identity issues.
2 xp: Seek to establish your identity by learning more or creating ties.
5 xp: Let go of ties and choices you've made, burn metaphorical bridges.
Buyoff: Attach a label to yourself.

Key of Independence
This character doesn't need anybody, she's quite happy to be alone!
1 xp: Proclaim your independence by thought or deed.
3 xp: Improve your chances for living without community or refuse communal ties.
Buyoff: Commit to a relationship.

OK, I’ll play.

So Xocotzin is a starting 32-point character for The Fantasy Trip. 

ST, DX, IQ?  Initially I made her a sorceress but backed off on that when I got into point buying for spells and skills.  She looks confident and smart but not really strong or agile.  Maybe somebody who survives using a combination of social skills and subtle magic, all backed up by a bad-ass sword – a wizardly thief type.  ST 10, DX 11, IQ 11, all deceptively average.

Spells are expensive for a non-wizard, but she needs to be able to use that sword, and talents cost double for wizards, so she’s a non-wizard.  Two spells, 3 points each, just under half the IQ budget.  What spells?

Persuasiveness looks good but I can get the effect at no per-use cost from talents.  Summon Bear is pretty boss but she’s too weak to afford it.  Lock/Knock is an obvious choice that can be used to steal stuff and also defensively on the escape.  Sleep seems like a good choice to back it up.  I’d go with Shock Shield if it had a 1-hex range.  Talents?

Sword, naturally, and Silent Movement.  I wanted to give her Charisma but she couldn’t get a job – with Silent Movement and Lock/Knock she can be a “wizardly thief”, which is a good job.  That leaves 1 point, and Courtly Graces seems like a great fit.  Maybe she masquerades as royalty to gain access to her targets. 

No armor, which worries me, but she’ll just have to avoid fighting.

Equipment – she’s wearing upper-class clothing (all that gold) and carrying a cutlass.  She keeps her wealth portable, as gold jewelry worth $250.  Everything she owns totals exactly $500, and weighs less than five kilograms. 

Job – she’s a wizardly thief, $150/week, 4/15.  So a month of steady work would net her the current gear. 

Let’s see if my own game system can be put through its paces using this set of criteria. Once I’ve managed to upload a pdf of the character's final sheet, it will be available at http://www.vulpinoid.com/colourfirst.pdf.

[center]Colour-First Character Development
Using “The Eighth Sea”[/center]

Concept: Savage female warrior torn from the pages of history, left for dead after a vicious battle she was rescued by a crew of temporal pirates who had heard legends of her skill and daring.

I leave the name blank at the moment, in case something really strikes me as interesting as the concept develops.

Attributes: With 10 points to spread across her attributes, I could go with a balanced character [3’s in two attributes, 2’s in the others]. But instead I decide to allocate them in order.

Does she look like she’s more athletic and combative, or more in tune with her instincts? The easy option says her physical nature would be a priority, but I like character to have a bit of a twist, so I make this secondary to her intuitive side. As for the other attributes, is she more social or cerebral…she doesn’t look like she thinks too much before she acts.

I go with…Thumpin' 3, Talkin' 2, Thinkin' 1, Feelin' 4.

Skills: I have 10 points worth of skills to play with. All skills come at either a basic level of understanding [for 1 pt], or an advanced level [for 2 pts]. I could distribute these skills however I choose, or I could select a ready made template to speed up the decision making process.

I choose the rogue-like template of Cat [named after Shroedinger’s Cat, due to their stealthy abilities and the concept that no-one ever knows if they are present or not]. This instantly provides the five skills of “Acrobatics”, “Awareness”, “Melee”, “Research” and “Stealth”.

To round out what I can see in the picture, I decide to give her an extra level of “Awareness” (because the eyes seem to be a focus in the picture), “Intuition” (to reflect the way she trusts her instincts more than reason), an extra level of “Melee” (because that sword looks pretty focal to the character as well), “Riding” (because she seems to be from an ancient culture or nomadic group) and “Survival” (again because the picture looks like she’s spent a decent amount of time in the wilderness).

Power Level and Traits: All styarting character start with a Coherency/Power level of 6.

All characters begin with 2 positive traits that help define them while giving some extra advantages. Looking at the picture, I decide that her feral appearance lends itself to the trait “Instinctive”, and her lack of armour seems to imply that she’s “Tough”.

To get extra positive traits to play with, I need to purchase a couple of negatives. Three should make things interesting. I decide that she’s an “Outcaste”, that she tends to be a bit “Antisocial” and “Callous”.

With the three extra points to play with I spend one to make her “Alluring”, a bit like a Red Sonja type. While I spend the extra two points to pick up the skill of “Animal Ken”. It might have something to do with the hilt of her sword which looks a bit like an eagle’s head.

Integrity-Piracy Scale: A scale of Ace[1] to King [13], where Ace represents the most law abiding individuals who go out of their way to restore the timeline, while King represents those who will abuse time and space to any degree as long as it gets them what they want. The character looks a bit savage, so she probably doesn’t have a lot of respect for the laws of the civilised world; this is reinforced by the “Outcaste” trait that I just picked up. But there’s a look of anger in here eyes, if she angry about something then she must have a sense of vengeance, and vengeance implies a code of some type. So she can’t be too chaotic.

I give her a 9.

Details: Here’s where we get into the meat of the character now that the basics have been outlined.

Goals: All characters have a pair of goals, actions that motivate their decisions and choices. Following these goals asserts a characters place in the timeline, and identify them as individuals. So these choices really reflect the inner nature of the individual. I decide to go with a pair of goals that link back to the original concept now that it’s been refined with skills and traits.
 
[1]: To destroy all trace of the clan that left her for dead on the battlefield [Clubs]
[2]: To bring “magic” from the future back to her people to guarantee their survival [Diamonds].

Equipment: All characters in the Eighth Sea begin with a basic weapon and a temporal compass. The weapon is bestowed on them by their captain once they are deemed competent, and their temporal compass is a significant item that helps them understand their place in the fluctuating timestream. She didn’t spend any points on equipment so she doesn’t get to upgrade either of these items.

Clearly two of the focal pieces of equipment for the character are the sword across her back and the golden baubles on her belt. I simply make the sword a medium sized basic weapon [it doesn’t make things easier or harder to hit, but it has a chance of doing extra damage if it does hit.]

The baubles on her belt remind me of the coins that gypsies often wear on their veils. So that’s what her temporal compass will become. A string of coins tied to a scarf around her waist. As a temporal compass, these coins shift with different dates reflecting the time period she is currently in, and changing appearance based on the coins of the local culture. She would never spend these coins, so they don’t count as a “wealth” advantage.

Narrative Traits: All characters begin with 2 narrative traits that are used to help ground the character in the setting by modifying the degree of success for mystic effects, social reactions and other mechanical elements. Because I selected a template for half of her skills, she automatically begins with a narrative trait reflecting this…in this case “Cat”. A second trait can be chosen based on her race, religious beliefs or something dramatic about the character, I decide to go with the Outcaste flaw she picked up earlier and make this more of a focal point to the character by adding this as her second narrative trait..

Background Elements: Background elements are generated in the game through playing a game of 21, and cross referencing the results to a table. The basic nature of the background is determined by the cards in the starting hand, and the background get better the more times you “Hit” for extra cards without busting.

[9D-6H, Final Hand-3 cards] With the Nine as the initial high card, this means that there was a period of training in the characters background. Since this high card is a Diamond, it means the training was mystical in nature. I look at the array of skills I’ve given her and decide that Awareness is her highest skill of a mystical nature so this becomes the focal skill for the background element. Having a Six as the low card means that the period of training still has moderate importance in the character’s life.

The total is 15, and the more cards you have in your hand, the better…so I draw an extra card, the Four of Spades, bringing the total up to 19. I hold it there. With three cards in my hand I cross reference the table and read the following. “At the end of your training period, your mentor decided you were ready to learn on your own. You still occasionally speak.” It’s not a great background, but it certainly wasn’t catastrophic either…it also gives a good hook for the mentor to be introduced as an ally later, or could allow the mentor to require rescuing as a potential story hook. Considering everything, I pencil in the idea that the mentor was a shaman who taught her to see with the eyes of an eagle (which links in nicely to the hilt of her sword).

[5C-2H, Final Hand-Bust] With a Five as the initial high card, this means that the character has an enemy in their past. As a Club, I know that this was a rival with whom the character physically fought. The low card is a 2, indicating that the character’s life focuses around this…they are obsessive when this person/event is mentioned. 

The total is 7, and I really want to reduce the impact of this negative character aspect (and if I’m lucky turn it into a positive). I draw an extra card…Six of Hearts, which brings the total to 13. A three card hand means we still don’t like each other. With 8 points to play with until I bust, the odds are with me…so I choose to draw another card. 10 of Diamonds….s*&t!!!

Since my hand has busted, I reference the last column of the table. “Things have really gotten out of hand with this person. They want you dead and you probably want the same of them”. I can tell that this is now going to be the crux of the story for this character.

I decide to end up naming her in a shamanic manner that reflects the images and the choices I’ve made.

“Eagle-Sky of the Snow Clan”

Final basic character stats [non-character sheet version]
[center]

Eagle-Sky of the Snow Clan [Cat, Outcaste][/center]
Attributes: Thumpin' [clubs] 3, Talkin' [hearts] 2, Thinkin' [spades] 1, Feelin' [diamonds] 4
Skills: [Clubs] Acrobatics, Melee x2, Survival. [Hearts] Animal Ken, Riding. [Spades] Research, Stealth. [Diamonds] Awareness x2, Intuition
Positive Traits: Alluring, Instinctive, Tough
Negative Traits: Callous, Antisocial, Outcaste
Coherency Level: 6
Integrity-Piracy Level: 9
Goals:To destroy all trace of the clan that left her for dead on the battlefield [Clubs], To bring “magic” from the future back to her people to guarantee their survival [Diamonds]
Equipment: Sword [Basic Medium Weapon], Scarf of Coins [Temporal Compass]

I can hardly believe that I'm crawling out of the woodwork to respond to this post, but I just can't resist that great James West cartoon. Anyway, I am making up a character for original Dungeons & Dragons (with Supplement I, Greyhawk). Like a lot of people, or so it seems, I got kind of obsessed with following the back trails of D&D history after Gary Gygax died.

1. The first thing that happens is the referee rolls 3d6 six times to determine, in order, the prospective character's Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. There's no referee here, just me, so I'll have to be on my honor. I roll and get Strength 8, Intelligence 11, Wisdom  8, Dexterity 18 (my hand to God!), Con 6 and Cha 8.

2. Now I (as player, not referee) roll 3 dice and multiply the total times 10 to find out how many Gold Pieces I have. I roll and get an 11. 110 Gold Pieces.

3. Now I pick a class. Since I'm using Greyhawk, Thief would be the obvious choice. I check the book to see what awesome bennies being a Thief with 18 Dexterity gets me: +10% experience, nothing more, and even that I have to extrapolate by inference. While finding this out, however, I also discover (Greyhawk, p. 8) that as a Fighter with 18 Dexterity, I would give all opponents a -4 to hit against me! Holy shit! Fighter it is. Due to my 8 Strength, I'm taking a 10% XP penalty, but what the hell. I mean, my character can be wearing that bikini and it's just like she's wearing chainmail. Chainmail bikini. There you go.

4. Now I pick an alignment. I can be Lawful, Neutral or Chaotic. I feel like this character is Chaotic.

5. Now I buy equipment. The only thing I see in the picture that qualifies as equipment in OD&D is the sword. So, one sword for 10 Gold Pieces, leaving me with 100 in the bank, or under the baseboards, or something.

6. Now I roll hit points. Using Greyhawk rules, as a Fighter I roll a d8, but have to subtract 1 point for my crap Constitution score. I roll a 4, so I have 3 hit points. Could be worse!

(I just now noticed that I can pick an extra language due to having an Intelligence of 11. Common is everyone's default language; I add Orcish, in anticipation of picking up some orc henchmen.)

Now I name my character (I note that while the sample character in the rules has a name, nowhere is this step actually required). My character's name is Paulina. That should be everything!

What's the deadline for this endeavor?

Cheers,

Hi Peter,

I didn't think in terms of deadlines. Fortunately, with four posts so far, I don't have to worry about no one responding. On the other hand, given responses, when will I get to Part Two? I'd like to stay a little flexible. Let's say a week from today, with these two modifiers: (1) no characters show up for a couple of days, (2) a zillion characters appear right away; in either case, I'll move on to the next part. To be even more maddeningly vague, "a week" is subject to my mood and time availability on that day as well.

I am really enjoying the retro + new so far. Jason, the Fantasy Trip! Oh, yes! And hi Rod! But again, everybody, any game you want for which the picture works. Oldy-old or shining new.

Best, Ron

I have elected to create a character for HeroQuest using the Continuum 2008 Special Playtest Preview rules. This new edition of the game is scheduled to be published by Moon Design Publications.

I ignore the parts where the GM sets the parameters of the game (genre, setting, narrative mode, and premise). I assume that Ron's instructions for Part One of the endeavor is what the GM has given me to work with. I am the only player, and Ron is the GM.

I'll use the Prose Method for character creation, writing a 100-word character description. The description must include a character concept, a keyword, the character's name, a flaw, and a driving ambition. I'll add anything else that strikes my fancy.

(I'll use the ”Keywords as an Umbrella” approach, where keywords are treated both as collections of abilities and as raisable in their own right. Also, I'll settle for two keywords per character, one that defines a character's core area of expertise, and one that defines her cultural background.)

PROSE DESCRIPTION
Karla Sword-Swollower is a former entertainer, who left the streets of Garl in order to track down Mundu the Vivisectionist, who murdered her brother. She carries Aegypius’ Death Sword, which allows her to cancel magic, and smell prey from miles away. It was a reward for saving the life of Alam de Pond, and she knows how to use it. Karla is a voluptuous woman whose scantily clad body tends to provoke the prude city folk. Karla is the leader of the Butcher Street Pack. She knows the deadly Snake Venom Dance, and can spit farther than any man.

GROUPING THE ABILITIES
I can group the abilities any way I want. It is just a matter of convenience, that's all. Note that I write  "Provoke prude city folk" down as a flaw. See the full character writeup, below.

ASSIGNING ABILITY RATINGS
Assign 17 to one keyword or ability. I'll assign it to my Entertainer keywor (automatically raising all included abilities).

All other abilities and keywords start at 13, but I may spend a total of 20 points to boost my ratings. I may not spend more than 10 points on a single ability or keyword. Hm… I'll spend 10 points on my Murdered brother, and 5 points each on Cancel magic and Smell prey from miles away.

KARLA SWORD-SWOLLOWER
Keywords:
Entertainer 17
Sword swollower
Streets of Garl 13

Special Abilities:
Use sword 13
White hair 13
Piercing  cold eyes 13
Snake Venom Dance (deadly) 13
Spit farther than any man 13

Flaw:
Voluptuous 13

Enemies:
Mundu the Vivisectionist 13

Family:
Murdered brother 3W (i.e. 23 for those unfamiliar with the system)

Friends & Allies:
Saved the life of Alam de Pond 13
Leader of the Butcher Street Pack 13

Equipment:
Aegypius' Death Sword 13
Cancel magic 18
Smell prey from miles away 18
Scantily clad 13

That's it. I had forgotten how fun HeroQuest character can be.

Oops. I made a few last minute changes to the character and forgot to update the fuill writeup. Here's the correct version (I hope). Sorry about the fuckup.

KARLA SWORD-SWOLLOWER
Keywords:
Entertainer 17
Sword swollower
Streets of Garl 13

Special Abilities:
Use sword 13
Voluptuous 13
Snake Venom Dance (deadly) 13
Spit farther than any man 13

Flaw:
Provoke prude city folk 13

Enemies:
Mundu the Vivisectionist 13

Family:
Murdered brother 3W (i.e. 23 for those unfamiliar with the system)

Friends & Allies:
Saved the life of Alam de Pond 13
Leader of the Butcher Street Pack 13

Equipment:
Aegypius' Death Sword 13
Cancel magic 18
Smell prey from miles away 18
Scantily clad 13

I love this picture so much, I must make a character. If using a game system that not everybody has access to is a problem, I'll happily bow out. I'm going to use Principia, because it's what I'm working on right now and is topmost in my mind.

We start with the bare-bones setting description. The setting is Renaissance Florence at a vaguely defined time when any major historical figure of the renaissance might be alive. The GM will pick an affiliation (a group all the PCs belong to). I'll say they're all mercenaries hired by the ruling council to keep the peace in an era of factional conflict punctuated by street fighting.

Now I choose my position (analogous to character class). This character looks rather savage and out of place in a Renaissance RPG, however there is one position that is suitable: the merchant. Merchants are world travelers in Principia, and include strange foreigners from far-off places, which is what this character will be.

With my position, I get to choose from a list of statements describing how my chosen position fits into the world. Only one of the available statements for a merchant really works for this character: "Trade routes for a tenuous network connection all regions of the world, including the New World, and possibly even more exotic, magical places, giving merchants access to esoteric knowledge and goods." I'll flesh this out by saying that my character is a mercenary from an island of white-haired amazon warriors far to the north, perhaps at the approximate location of Iceland. A lot of her questions are going to do with barbarism (so-called) and civilization. She's a merchant because she sells her military and combat abilities to the highest bidder.

Now I choose three advantages from a pre-defined list. I choose these ones:
- Hungry for honor
- Truthful and blunt
- A military commander
- Merchant (an automatic choice under the rules because it's her position)

I see her bluntness getting her into interesting trouble. Her air of military command should turn some heads in male-dominated Florence.

Now I get to write two facts about her, which can be almost anything I want and which the nobody ever gets to contradict.
- I am an exiled Amazon commander
- I am never taken by surprise

Now I need three drives. When these are engaged in play, I gain resolve (currency).
- I am the better of any man
- Is there a place for me in civilized lands?
- I must find the secret of alchemical fire and return it to my homeland

Now I make up her name: Lilja

Also, with her position come several pre-defined special actions she can do. This also goes on the character sheet.

When I relieve someone of their money, I can produce ready cash or one significant trapping of wealth, and the GM gets to demand a contractual obligation or promise from me.
When I provide goods or services, I can make a declaration about the people I’m providing it for, and the GM gets decide how those resources are used and who knows.
When I allude to foreign lands, exotic goods, or unusual contacts, I can produce useful goods, resources, or personnel, and the GM gets to create and determine a relationship with someone.
When I create or exercise a binding contract, I can create a relationship with someone, and the GM gets to decide how that person views the relationship.

I see this character working as a mercenary, occasionally producing exotic weapons or talismans from her travels, and getting into difficult relationships with employers and rivals.

I beg to differ. She is in fact, Scathine the Ice-Reaver of Jotun, my character for a SenZar campaign.

(Yeah, I've been wanting to dig into some SenZar for a while.)

Here's her chargen process:

Step 1: Choose Race

There are 21 to choose from. The first, in order of presentation are the Akir. They're half-human, half giants, hailing from the harsh northern lands. I was immediately drawn to them for Scathine, but went through and considered all the races that seemed human-looking or shape-shiftery enough for the illustration. (SenZar has a lot of powerfully non-human character races. Demonians, Drakkans, Goblins, Saurans, Taurans, Tygors, various dark- and golden-skinned synthetic and shadow races, etc.) Human would have been an easy choice. But with so much other badassery available, I just couldn't do it.

Ultimately, I went with my heart and chose the Akir Race, despite the illustration's variance from the "generally red or reddish-blonde" hair color specified in the text.

Actually, I read through the available Professions before settling on the Akir Race, to find one I liked in conjunction with it. And interestingly they do the same thing with the example character in the text, choosing Race and Profession together ("For the purposes of this example, we'll choose a Silestion Witch Hunter."), despite listing them as separate chargen steps.

Step 2: Choose Profession

There are 25 to choose from, as well as three "Freak" Race/Profession combinations. I seriously considered probably half of the available options, including Witch, Witch Hunter, Mystic, Mystic Assassin, Mystic Warrior, Assassin, Rogue, Stalker, Ranger, Shy'R Warrior, Warrior, and Shapeshifter.

But I went with the VoidSpawn "freak" Race/Profession combination. The text says the Creator (SenZar's term for GM) must decide whether to allow or disallow VoidSpawn characters. But I'll just walk away from your bullshit game if you pee in my Wheaties, so I figure I'm good on the VoidSpawn choice.

The cosmic background of SenZar is a struggle between the forces of the Shadar, the Spawn of the Dark Earth, and their antitheses, the Anshadar, the Children of the Light. It's an eternal struggle spanning multiple Ages of the world's history. The Dragon, the life-spirit of the world, benefits from the lack of resolution in the struggle, and so has evoked the VoidSpawn to fight for balance between Light and Darkness (i.e. play both sides) and kill immortals and shit.

The VoidSpawn are described as not being able to disobey tasks assigned to them by the Dragon.

Step 3: Assign Fate Points

Character Attributes are established by spending Fate points.

The Races all come with a payload of 100 Fate points. I gave Scathine an additional 5, which is suggested for campaigns with a "Small Group (2 or 3)" of players.

And then you can get more Fate points for chargen by taking Karmic Attributes (essentially, defined character traits like Bloodlust and Greed you have to "save" against to avoid manifesting in play) and Codes of conduct.

This part of chargen is rather snarly. As you have Attribute minimums called GenMins for your Race and Profession you have to meet.

For Scathine, my GenMins were, with the special exception of Willpower, all higher for her Akir Race than for her VoidSpawn Profession. (This also seems generally true for all the game's Professions. And it surprised me. My sense is that most similar Race plus Class/Profession games set higher thresholds for Class/Profession than they do for Race.) So, Scathine's GenMins:

Strength 16
Speed 14
Dexterity 14
Constitution 16
Willpower 20 (FREE!)
Intelligence 14
Presence 15
Perception 15
Power 10

The Willpower of 20 is a freebie for VoidSpawn. But still the minimums represent a total cost of 182 Fate points. Ouch! And if I want to raise any of them above the minimums, take any Special Powers (like Combat Sense, Regeneration, or Pigmentary Shapeshifting) beyond what I get from Race and Profession, and have any Fate points left over for cool stuff in play like editing my bad die rolls to what I wish I'd rolled, and minimizing the damage rolled against me by opponents, I'll need even more.

Upon reflection, I think I'll aim just for the minimums, but also to have enough points for the special power The Sight, which costs 10 Fate points and gives me random revelations concerning the future, and still have 5 Fate points left over for editing rolls in play. So it looks like I need find 92 Fate points by taking Karmic Attributes and Codes.

My one question at this point is whether the "VoidSpawn (unwritten Code, Total Manifestation)" I get as part of my Race package (it's defined as being subject to the Dragon) precludes me from buying the the Code of The Good Earth, which is also defined as following the Dragon; does the VoidSpawn "unwritten Code" lose me the Karma. Seems a bit harsh. That's 20 points of Karma lost if I were to take The Good Earth at Total Devotion. But maybe the other powers, like Pro Combat and the VoidSpawn Pro Power Progression more than compensate.

I'll assume the VoidSpawn "unwritten Code" precludes me from buying The Good Earth and try to find 92 Fate points in Karmic Attributes. For anything over 10 I have to pick a descriptor called a "Manifestation":

Attitude: 13 (Grim)
Confidence: 15 (Alpha Behavior)
Discipline: 17 (Wanderlust) 14 (Curious)
Fear: 1
Greed: 1
Harmony: 16 (Nightmares)
Luck: 3
Sanity: 10

And that's as close as I'm going to get. It's only 90 points. I even used the legal "cheat" of cramming more than one Karmic Manifestation into the same Karmic Attribute. Yeah, I'm only 2 points off my goal, but Scathine's personality is starting to lose cohesion for me. So I'll suppress my desire for 5 Fate points for spending in play and hope 3 is enough. I'll be wanting them for editing irritating die rolls, but I should be earning them as an ongoing part of play for defeating opponents and solving "deadly" problems. (Interestingly, they're used if you want to raise Attributes in play, but they aren't used for level advancement. The game has Experience Point awards--for largely the same stuff you get Fate points for--that are used for advancement. Except I can't figure out in the game what happens when you gain a level. The text says "the PC gains lots and lots of nifty-keano abilities, stats, and things," but I can't find a description of the process. All that's currently apparent to me is that Level contributes to Combat Values and to the phases you act on in combat if you have Pro or SemiPro Combat.)

So, Scathine's Codes:

VoidSpawn (unwritten Code, Total Manifestation)

Her Powers:

VoidSpawn (Pro Power Progression)
Magick Sense
Pro Combat
The Sight
Immunity to Normal Cold

And her Skills:

Survival (Arctic)

And her Languages:

Language: Jotun

Step 4: Embellish!

Zodiacal sign: Selena (The Witch)
Height: 7'1"
Weight: 395 lbs
Combat Movement Rate: 5

Connections:

All PCs get two. The Akir are described as occasional and opportunistic slavers, so I want to use some of that color here.

Galbaglinte, a Sauran bandit warlord of the frozen northern steppes (i.e. far from his homeland). He's a warrior slave of mine who escaped me several decades ago. We have an occasional non-romantic sexual relationship.

Havokk, a Mokarr Assassin. Our paths have crossed in the past. His tongue was removed for having spoken the forbidden language of Druus.

Fame: 1%
Hit Points: 16

There's also a bunch of stuff I needed to calculate at this stage (like "Base Damage & Max Lift" and "Fighting Blind Combat Value"), but I'll spare you the details here. I'll have it all on the scanned character sheet when I get a chance to do the scanning. (It's 11 pages long!)

Step 5: "Time to shop! Time to hoard!"

I hit The Marketplace (the price list) with my 1000 Stars to outfit myself, and get distracted (for like an hour) by the pimptastic Weapons section that lets you "artifice" the weapons by having them encrusted with Power Stones or made out of exotic materials like Borazon and Supremium and Vermix that modify some or all of Damage Value, Attack Value, and various magic and ability rolls when using the artificed weapon. Unfortunately I don't start with enough money for anything pimptastic. So I buy myself a standard bastard sword for 500 Stars, a dagger for 25 Stars, a small shield (my metal bracelet) for 10 Stars, and three doses of Toad Venom for 100 Stars each. I'm left with 125 Stars.

And with that, she's done.

I'd love to acquire an Akir Warhorse (1000 Stars) at some point. (And I'm vaguely surprised there aren't rules for purchasing slaves.)

Paul

This is, in fact, Filthy Jackie, a Poison'd character.

Position

Surgeon

Sins committed

Adultery x2, Robbery, Murder

Suffered

Arrest, Beating (at the hands of Brimstone Jack), Imprisonment, Lashing (at the hands of Brimstone Jack), Rape

Ambitions

To be captain, to be pardoned, to be revenged upon Admiral Southgate, to fuck Admiral Southgate

Weapons

A fucking huge hatchet
Not a weapon, but she is quick, wiry-strong and vicious.

Devil 4, Soul 4, Brutality 5, Ambition 4, Brinkmanship 5, Profile 4

Outstanding bargains

Drunken Jack swore to back me for Ship's Captain.

The Dagger

It has a grim reputation
It's frightening to see.

Profile: 10

Strength: Boarding and repelling boarders

The company of the Dagger

Its members are, by and large, unreprobate murderers.
It's well-armed and eager to fight

It's been badly mistreated by Brimstone Jack.

Profile: 6

Graham

Freydis from Valgard for the Barbarians of Lemuria rpg

So, following the BoL Book we start with...

Attributes

All attributes starts at zero and the player gets 4 points to divide among them. You cannot start with an attribute score higher than 3, you can lower one attribute to -1 to get an additionnal point.

Strength 0
Agility 1
Mind 2
Appeal 1

Next comes...

Combat abilities

Points allowed and levels are the same than for Attributes. Considering the lady's sword, I'd go with

Brawl 0
Melee 3
Shooting 0
Defence 1

Heroic careers
Careers regroup skills, knowledge and appropriate connections. A character starts with four careers (to choose among 25). Points allowed and levels are the same than for Attributes and combat abilities (except you can't lower a career to -1 to get an extra point).

I choose :

Barbarian 2
Mercenary 2
Slave 0
Sorcerer 0

Heroic beginnings
Now I must choose a place of origin for the character. This allows me to select a Trait linked to my origins (each origin offers specific Traits and Flaws). I can take a second Trait if I also select a Flaw.

I choose the Valgard origin. Valgardian are "tall, muscular red or fair-haired race of warlike tribesmen" and select the Marked by the gods trait (Freydis starts with an extra Hero point).

I take the Landlubber flaw (not very good when at sea) and take the Valgardian blade trait (extra die when fighting with a genuine Valgardian blade).

Origin : Valgard
Trait : Marked by the Gods, Valgardian Blade
Flaw : Landlubber

Languages
All characters know their native tongue and can speak a number of additional languages equal to their Mind attribute. They can also choose literacy instead of choosing a language.

Native tongue : Valgardish

And as Freydis has a Mind score of 2  I take a second language : Lemurian (sort of common language) and Literacy (which counts for every language she she knows).

Hero points
All characters start with 5 hero points. You can buy additional Traits for the character at a cost of 2 hero points/trait. The Marked by the gods trait gave Freydis an additionnal Hero point bumping her total to 6.

I spent two hero points to buy the Quick recovery trait.

Hero points : 4

Starting gear
According to the rules "give the players what they want !".

So I pick :

A Valgardian blade (damage D6)
Bracers (armor 1)
Boots (armor 1)

Total armor rating is 2.

It's over, Freydis is ready to go.

The first thing that sprung immediately to mind was that *obviously* she was a Donjon character. I mean, clearly. That should have been self-evident.

Layla Stonecrusher

Race: Human
Class: Barbarian Princess
Flesh Wounds: 4

Virility 4
Cerebrality 4
Discernment 3
Adroitness 1
Wherewithal 3
Sociality 2

Wealth: 5
Provisions: 3

Save vs. Illusion and Confusion: 2
Save vs. Poison, Paralysis, and Transmogrification: 1

Main Ability:
Wield Fearsomely Large Weapons: 4

Supporting Abilities:
Dodging Weapons: 2
Boob-tacular Charm: 3
But It’s a CHAINMAIL Bikini (absorb damage from sharp things): 3
Find Hidden Trails: 1

Well, the two that immediately leapt to mind--TSoY/Solar and Heroquest--are covered. So let's try:

Sorcerer and Sword

Setting: Gorias--a wild and untamed iron-age land based on Roman-conquest-era Gaul or Britain. People live in insular villages with occasional commerce or raids, bards and druids contact and protect from the world of spirit, law and government is clannish and based on honor/shame. Wanderers are common and tolerated, but mistrusted. A monolithic conqueror--the Empire of Appolon--encroaches from the South. Their city-settlements are roiling nests of political intrigue, urbane pleasure, and poverty-stricken strife. To the North And East the Crag Sea devours unwary mariners and strange island lands abound. To the West the mountainous Wildheath looms, home to painted and naked savages with strange magic. Deep in the forests of Gorias are hidden Faerie Woods, pockets of otherworld where travelers do not emerge unchanged--bedazzled, transformed, or consorts with imps and spirits, these Fey-touched are respected but feared.

In terms of Sorcery and Demons, ritual would mostly have a flavor of tribal or druidic animism, naif characters employing base superstitious gestures, folk charms and the like. Appolonians would use a more orderly ritual and ceremony with temples and priesthood. Demons would mostly be Pagan Things, for minor sprites, pucks and faeries, with an occasional Lord of the Fair Folk as an Old One. Strange and deadly Beasts would populate the land as well, especially in the Crag Sea and its islands. Human beings who are Fey-touched would carry Parasites, and the odd Magic Weapon would not be amiss.

I'm not sure what if anything to do with Immanents. Could there be earth-native Elves of Faerie Descent, maybe? Overall I'm happy with Pagan Thing to describe the reclusive Fey.

Character: Yaeta Fey-touched

Destiny: To either banish Faerie from the mortal world, or flood the mortal realms with the Kingdom of the Fey. How she is personally treated by the inhabitants of either realm should come to influence that decision.

Scores:

Stamina 4 Savage-raised (Barbarians of the Wildheath)
Will 4 Brush with the Unknown (Faerie)
Lore 2 Changeling (in this case, she wasn't born that way, but was "touched" by the Other and irrevocably changed.)
Past 4 Outlaw (wandering fortune-seeker and brigand, especially against the Appolonian dogs)
Price Unlucky in Love +/-1

Humanity 4

Telltale Ice-blue hair

Demon: Taibhse, Parasite

Telltale Glimmering eyes that can hold one transfixed.

General appearance Taibhse ("tah-eh-vsh", all running together quickly) is Yaeta's Second Sight, manifesting as the unendurable depth of her gaze. With Taibhse she has uncanny insight which is unnerving and threatening to others, and can occasionally see glimpses of some terrible truth. When she brings her Fey power to bear she is commanding and unassailable, and those who meet her gaze are bedazzled.

Binding Strength 2, Demon's favor

Stamina 2
Will 5
Lore 4
Power 5

Desire Ruin (mortal civilization)

Need To see Mortals brought low (i.e. shamed publicly with Perception-based pronouncements, or driven to terror and despair with Hint)

Abilities
Perception: Desires of others--not telepathic but "reading" attitudes and postures (host)
Boost Will (Self)
Daze (Host)
Hint (Host)

Kicker: While visiting her Sapphic lover in a valley settlement, Yaeta finds the bedchamber surrounded by a torch-bearing mob intent on putting an end to the bedeviled Fey-woman--led by her lover's father, the town Druid.

Process: After deciding to use Sorcerer and Sword, I went through the S&S book section by section, referencing the core Sorcerer book when needed. So setting creation came first, followed by character scores and descriptors, which easily slotted into the setting blurb I had constructed. I had the Faerie-touched concept in mind right from the start (just look at that hair and eyes!), and the "Saphic Lover" popped into my head while setting Scores. From there it was over to the core book to design the Demon (after perusing the S&S Sorcery chapter and inserting a paragraph on ritual and demons into the setting blurb). I had a general idea of a dangerous and bedazzling look, with the weight of otherworldly knowledge. I picked some powers, then flailed a bit on Desire and Need, until I hit on just the right construction to encompass Taibhse's relationship with the world around it: "To see Mortals Brought Low." From there it all clicked together.

All that was left was the Binding Roll. 5 Power vs. 4 Will got a result of 10, 10, 9, 9, 6 and 9, 7, 3, 1. I wavered a bit on reading the result-does the extra 9 in Taibhse's roll cancel out Yaeta's singular one, yielding 4 (!) Victories? But in the end I believe I read it aright: compare highest single die, then check for victories by seeing how many winner's dice are higher than the loser's highest. Which yielded a 2 in Taibhse's favor.

I'm not sure what your intent is with the exercise, Ron, but I'll tell ya if nothing else it's got me hankering to play Sorcerer an Sword!

Peace,
-Joel

PS. S&S wasn't actually my first choice for the exercise. Heroquest and Solar System having been covered, I was initially at a loss. I was on the verge of doing up a D&D 3.5 character, but lamenting because I would really want her to be a Sorcveress/Barbarian, and by the rules of the exercise I can't multiclass. Then I hit on In a Wicked Age, having just played a pickup game of that at a New Year's party. I went as far as an Oracle Draw from Blood and Sex and assigning Forms, with Best interests popping into my head all over the place. But then it hit me that A) She's not exactly Bronze-age Fertile-crescent material a la IaWA's implied setting, and B) while I did indeed get a usable draw for the character (She was a Bandit Captain in hiding with Best Interests directed at the the pregnant Seventh Wife of a Tyrant King--Sapphic love again!), it's entirely possible to NOT get a workable draw from the Oracle for that character. So for those reasons I was uncertain if she'd meet Ron's requirements. And then S&S popped into my head and I was more interested in that, anyway.

A D&D 3.5 character could multiclass on the first level with the DMG optional rules, if my memory is not failing me. Something about only getting half of the features of each class on the first level and filling the rest on the second. I never had any use for those rules, though - seems like something just put in to satisfy some players with much too fragile character concepts, if they couldn't stand waiting until second level to multiclass.

I realise this is breaking the rules and I do apologise. But I thought the world would poorer without a Toon version of the above character.

Connie The Barbarian

Species: Human
Occupation: Barbarian

Muscle: 4
Zip: 6
Smarts: 6
Chutzpah: 4

Hit points: 7

Description

Connie is a loin-clothed barbarian. See picture above.

Natural Enemies

The Emperor Of Zarg

Beliefs

1. Men are stupid.
2. Animals are as intelligent as humans (and more intelligent than most men).

Goals

1. Outwit big stupid men.
2. Flirt with big stupid men to get my way.
3. Hit things.

Possessions

Rope
Lipstick
Pictures Of Family
Bottle Of Glue
Sword Of Extraordinary Fatal Doom
False Moustache
Dynamite
A Barrel Of Beer

Muscle Skills

Break Down Door 7
Climb 7
Fight 9
Pick Up Heavy Thing 4
Throw 4

Zip Skills

Dodge 9
Drive Vehicle 6
Fire Gun 6
Jump 6
Ride 8
Run 6
Swim 8

Smarts Skills

Hide/Spot Hidden 6
Identify Dangerous Thing 6
Read 6
Resist Fast Talk 6
See/Hear/Smell 6
Set/Disarm Trap 6
Track/Cover Tracks 6

Chutzpah Skills

Fast Talk 9
Pass/Detect Shoddy Goods 4
Sleight Of Hand 4
Sneak 7

Shtick

Incredible Strength

Graham

Aw Graham, you know I can't let that stand, because everyone who's posted so far is itching to send in versions from other games. So it's really really not fair.

But yes, a Toon version was irresistible. I see that too.

From now on, everyone, if you want to post another character, ask me first through private message. Before doing that, though, consider poking a friend who's mentioned maybe they'll post something if they think of it, and suggesting the game that's gnawing a hole in your ethical cortex. And finally, if you must, you can make up the other characters for the other games and merely keep them on hand without posting, to bring into the discussion later.

Thanks!

Best, Ron

I'm going to use The Affairs of Wizards.

Spend 100 points on her ratings in Strength, Symbol, Specialization, Sanctum and Stuff. Then define her Symbol, choose her Specialization, and describe her sanctum and stuff. Also choose a Flaw, which always starts with a rating of zero.

Each rating is worth pyramidally more than the last one, so the prices for increasing a rating one level are 1,3,6,10,15,etc.

Strength: 3

Symbol: 5
Her symbol is a black panther.

Specialization: 3
Her specialization is Wildwalking.

Sanctum: 5
Her sanctum is a large, peaceful grove in the jungle.
Unique Feature: Healing Spring. Water drank from this spring helps quicken recovery from all wounds or illnesses.
Unique Feature: Peaceful Aura. Anyone within is lulled into non-violence.
Unique Feature: Grabbing Vines. These thorny vines grasp and cut anyone not wanted.
Unique Feature: Giant Ferns. These ferns provide protection from the elements, as well as concealment when needed.
Unique Feature: Pitfalls. These dug-out pits are covered in foliage. They will catch anyone getting too close to her private quarters.

Stuff: 3
Level-two artefact - Tool: A sword made from the thigh bone of a panther which is stained with the blood of her past enemies.
Level-one artefact - Focus: A golden bracer.l

Flaw
Her flaw is Mistrust. She feels that others are not looking out for her best interests and has a hard time accepting what others say as the truth.

Although it isn't specifically required by the system, I'm going to give her a name. I think I shall call her Praveena, which is a Hindi girls name meaning 'skilled'. (I don't speak Hindi, so this may be wrong; I found it on a website.)

Eero wrote:
A D&D 3.5 character could multiclass on the first level with the DMG optional rules, if my memory is not failing me. Something about only getting half of the features of each class on the first level and filling the rest on the second. I never had any use for those rules, though - seems like something just put in to satisfy some players with much too fragile character concepts, if they couldn't stand waiting until second level to multiclass.

Melinglor wrote:

Eero wrote:
A D&D 3.5 character could multiclass on the first level with the DMG optional rules, if my memory is not failing me. Something about only getting half of the features of each class on the first level and filling the rest on the second.

I believe that's how it worked in 2nd Edition, actually. . .you had to track a half-level of each class through your advancement. Anyway I own the DMG but couldn't find anything in there about it. It was actually an interesting exercise in gamer assumptions. . ."everyone knows" that you can start at a higher level, but it certainly doesn't say so in the Character Creation chapters, and I was hard pressed to find it anywhere else.

That's the conclusion I came to yesterday, Rafu - I checked around for the rule and thought that I'd gone crazy, but then realized that I was of course remembering the 3.0 DMG which I read much more carefully than the 3.5 in the first place.

I'm using Storming the Wizards Tower, Vincent Baker's semi-ashcan of Red Box-esque goodness.

1) I roll six six sided dice for each stat, in order. I get 4,6,2,1,3,5. In Tower your lowest roll is always gives a  3 to your stat, your highest is always a 6, 2's and 3's give a 4 to the stat and 4's and 5's give a 5. My stats are...

Arcane:5
Command:6
Endurance:4
Perception:3
Skill:4
Strength:5

Since my endurance is four, I get four still fighting boxes and four endurance roll boxes to use to track my wounds.

2) Every game of Tower is tied to a specific setting, which determines what equipment and character types are available, and grounds your character in a community. I chose the Horsehall setting from the book, which are, semi-matriarchal iron age people with an economy based on herding. I choose the Sword Maiden from character type, which is a fighting priestess of the horse clan. I choose the name Unora from the Horsehall name list.

3) Most character generation in the game comes from choosing your weapons, spells, maps, gear, and persons, which can be used to get extra dice in a conflict. A Sword Maiden gets three weapons, three spells, one gear or map, one of any of the four types, and one person. All Sword Maidens start with the same special power-Divine Protection, which gives an extra dice to defense. I choose:

Weapons:
Broadsword-2 red combat dice
Shield-2 blue defense dice
Spear-2 red combat dice

Maps:
A spell book: 1 extra dice for spell casting

Gear:
Jewelry: 1 extra dice when appropriate

Spells:
Bath of healing light
Luck for Warriors
A Warning Vision

KCassidy, you should also choose one person from the Horsehall list, right?

All right here you go. From the big Talislanta book the compiled all the smaller books.

Talislanta

Choose an Archetype (culture):
Arimite Knife Fighter (technically she is half arimite)

Record Information:
Str +1
Dex +3
Con +2
Spd +1
Per +1
Cha -1
Wil 0
Int 0
CR +5
HP 26
MR 0

5'2", 95lbs

Personalize:
Done see above

Determine other Characteristics:
Also done see above

Choose Skills:
Arimite Knife Fighting +4, Brawling +3, Big Fing Knife +2, Guard +4, Mounted Combat +1, Climbing +2, Scout +1, Stealth +1, Ride +3, Low Talislan +10, Barter -1, Swim +3

Record Equipment and Wealth:
Equipment: Fur vest, hide boots, sackcloth bikini, armbands and earrings of black iron, knives, big Fing knife, pouch, iron flask of chakos, 25 gold lumens

Contacts and Character History
Contacts: Muse Telempath, Dhuna Witch, Thrall Warrior
As per Ron's rules no backstory here

Name: Frost (yeah I am being lazy)

ara

That's it. I have a couple of others I did up in other systems which are sitting desk-side right now.

Ara

That picture has a very strong resemblance to one of my favorite Polaris characters I made, but I want to do something new with this so I picked Tunnels & Trolls, Fifth edition.

Step 1: Roll 3d6 for each attribuite:

Strength: 6
Intelligence: 14
Luck: 11
Constituition: 10
Dexterity: 6
Charisma: 8

Step 2: Give it a name and sex.

I like the name "Bella", and she's definately a girl.

Step 3: Choose Type (Class)

The options are "Warrior", who ware "modelled on Robert E Howard's Conan" and are "psi-defieicent" or Wizards who are totally complicated and psi-imbued and shouldn't be your first character.

With low strength and dexterity it looks like it would be hard for her to be a warrior. But at the same time, she's very conany and this is my first time playing, so I think I will go along with being totally nerfed. Myabe I'll get along just being very clever and making the most of magical devices.

Step 4: Choose Kin (Race)

You can choose human, elf, fairy, hobbit or leprachaun, with each modifying stats and changing classes around a little in case of the leprachaun. I consider possibly fairy but decide to stick to human.

Until I read the Were-section. And then I'm like fuck that, Were-puma. I get x7/2 to CON and STR (making them 21 strength and 35 CON), drop DEX to 3, and convince my fellows that puma's are sexy and charisma should stay the same (Its pretty miserable anyway.)

Step 5: Note level.

Its 1.

Step 6: Get additional languages.

I have 2 more intellgence than 12, giving me 2 more languages than common, which I choose to roll for:

The rules say I should roll two 20 sided dice to simulate a d100 for the table (How the hell are you suppoed to do that with d20s? I ended up using d10s). I rolled once again on Common Tongue (Dangit) and on the second roll, picked up Dwarvish. It looks like I'm chatting up kobolds!

Step 7: Calculate persional adds

My dismal strength and Dexterity give me -6 for personal ads. Ouch! Forutantely, in Puma form, I'll get +3 instead.

Step 8: Roll for gold

I get (8 on 3d6x10) 80 points of gold.

Step 9: Height and weight

I roll up 5'8'' and 280 lbs. That's a little ridicolous for weight, so I roll again: 180. That makes more sense for the picture.

Step 10: Weight possible.

Strengthx10. so 60lbs for me.

I can't even carry all my gold! They'll have to stick in on my back when I'm a Puma.

Step 11: Buy shit

My non-dagger weapon options are the blugdeon, the baton, the piton hammer, I go for the bludgeon.

I decide to go without armor because my picture doesn't seem to have much armor, I can't afford anything good and I can't carry much either.

I would've bought poison for more combat punch but its all out of my price range.

I also get provisions, 30 feet of silk rope, latern and knee-highboots. I look around my companions to see who's gonna carry my stuff.

My total weight carried should be 55 in normal circusmatnces (I persuaded someone else to carry my provisions, latern and rope, and hold my gold back home)

And done.

I'd do her up as an ORX character, but I haven't gotten around to talking about doing ORX with non-orcs, so...let's see what's unpacked around here...and I went and did an ORX version anyways. Me: rule-breaker. Setting it aside and...man, I really like the ORX version I did. Pfui. Oh, hey! Risus! Why not? It's kind of a spiritual brother to ORX anyways.

1) Give 'em a name.

Clearly this character is "Jelena, the Hired Blade"

2) Describe the concept.

"Jelena is a platinum-haired, pale-skinned human female, well-endowed and bearing exceptional curves, both fleshy and forged, who doesn't believe in armor, as she finds a bared-midriff helps more in battle (and in avoiding battle) than one might expect. For the times it doesn't, a big sword and a bad attitude get her through. She's looking for money and flesh-toys."

3) Come up with some Cliches, describe what those Cliches are good at, and assign 10 dice among them, with no more than 4 dice to any Cliche.

Warrior (good at swinging a sword at things to kill them and polishing sharp metal stuff) (3)
Bimbo (good at flirting and distracting, charming and stealing your husband, not getting pregnant, and drinking games) (4)
Mercenary (good at taking money for swinging a sword at things, swearing, knowing where to find paying fights, and showing up late) (2)
Novice Wizard (good at casting spells poorly, stealing their master's magic stuff, and using magic items with uncommon results) (1)

4) List whatever Tools you have you need to do your stuff with (otherwise you simply have anything you probably would).

Jelena has a golden armband and carries a large, curving, cleaver-type sword. She wears...little: black panties attached to a belt of golden discs, and a crude-but-revealing-so-it-hardly-matters army-green bustiere.

5) Advanced Option: Hooks & Tails Tales (kinky), each which gives you one extra die to play with, but you must detail an obsession or flaw, or a juicy story.

Tale: Jelena is a fully trained member of the Order of the Blade, having spent her childhood in the warrior monasteries of the Order, and is ranked "Mistress of the Blade", but if her former compatriots in the Order ever catch the Mistress-turned-mercenary, blood will flow...

Hook: Jelena's armband, supposedly, is a special armband given to her by her superiors in the Order and contains mighty and secret magics, but if so, she has never awakened its powers.

Hook: Jelena also has a brother she knows nothing about.

That's a total 3 extra Cliche dice to spread around. The Tale could be longer, but let's go with it.

6) Advanced Option: Double-pumped Cliches: cost twice as much, but you can buy them up for a round (2 extra die per die to be lost).

I'll make her Wizard Cliche double-pumped and increase it by one, so it's now [2] and cost me four of my dice. Now I can pump it to roll four dice instead, though I'll take two injury dice afterward.

7) Advanced Option: Funky Dice for superheroes and demigods and People Who Like Math. No thanks. Not using this option.

So there we are.

Jelena the Hired Blade

A white-haired, pale-skinned human female, well-endowed and bearing exceptional curves, both fleshy and forged, who doesn't believe in armor, as she finds a bared-midriff helps more in battle (and in avoiding battle) than one might expect. For the times it doesn't, a big sword and a bad attitude get her through.

Warrior (3)
Bimbo (4)
Mercenary (2)
Novice Wizard [2]

Tale: Jelena is a fully trained member of the Order of the Blade, having spent her childhood in the warrior monasteries of the Order, and is ranked "Mistress of the Blade", but if her former compatriots in the Order ever catch the Mistress-turned-mercenary, blood will flow...

Hook: Jelena's armband, supposedly, is a special armband given to her by her superiors in the Order and contains mighty and secret magics, but if so, she has never awakened its powers.

Hook: Jelena also has a brother she knows nothing about.

Rafu wrote:
KCassidy, you should also choose one person from the Horsehall list, right?

Hey everyone,

What great characters!

I'd like to ask that folks consider doing a real character sheet for their characters, and get it scanned. I'd like to set up a reference page with all of them on it. If you aren't scan-savvy (e.g., I'm not), then someone can speak up and offer help. No rush, but look into it if you can.

Kcassidy, lilomar, what's your first name, if you're OK with disclosing? Rafu, is that your name? Sirogit, I know I know your name, but I'm blanking, so remind me please.

To clarify the deadline for posting characters, let's make it 5 PM on Tuesday, U.S. Central Time. The discussion will begin shortly afterwards.

Best, Ron

Cool, Ron! On that note, are there Sorcerer and Sword character sheets done up and avaolable anywhere? Or am I just using a plain Sorcerer sheet, crossing out "Cover" for "Past," scribbling in "Destiny" somewhere, and so on?

Also. . .should we do this for our second-string, unsubmitted characters as well? Will they go in the reference page?

I'm really curious to see how this would work with the current draft of my game-in-progress, Delve.

Pre-char-gen group agreements:

Preferred Secrets in order: daemonology, history, magic, metaphysics

Preferred Activities in order: risky fights, thinking on your feet, negotiating, strategic prep, puzzles

More social?  More physical?  Even mix?  physical

Campaign length: extended (months of play)

Campaign location: Southwest: Germanic names/culture prominent over Icelandic, Roman, English

Char-gen: pick:

Life Goal: become feared warlord

Path: path of power

Next Destination: get a lead on how to learn magic[sup]8[/sup]

Age: 16

Background:

          Family Trade: cottagers & bandits

          Siblings (roll randomly): one older brother, one younger sister

          Life Events (roll randomly):
          Year 1: prosperous year -- family got steady work in village
          Year 4: village wiped out in an attack of the Cursed -- older brother killed
          Year 5: bad year -- povery forced us into bandit life
          Year 7: illness kills mother
          Year 9: hostile men steal property -- rival bandits force us to brink of starvation
          Year 10: disfiguring accident -- ugly scar on right arm
          Year 12: prosperous year -- father ascends to leadership of bandit group
          Year 15: drought -- less trade to prey on, more raiding villages
          Year 16: monster attack -- kills father

          Impetus for Adventuring: bandit group disbanded, violence is the best way I know to make a living

Name: Methild DuvGunnar[sup]1[/sup]

Color:
          Skin: pale
          Eyes: bright blue
          Hair: blue-tinged white
          Scars: right forearm
          Height: 5'5"
          Weight: 135 lbs
          Apparent Age: ~18

          Primary traits: quick to anger, impulsive, reckless
          Pleased When: moving, hunting, climbing, fighting, competing, in pain, giving orders, up on high places
          Displeased When: sitting, waiting, too comfortable, taking orders, down in deep holes
          Shows pleasure by: laughing fiercely, subtle smiles, teasing
          Shows displeasure by: throwing tantrums, making threats, stalking off
          Other non-practical habits: fidgets with knife, meticulously cleans & trims fingernails, chews & spits strangleweed[sup]7[/sup]

Perception Powers:
          Sense: (when it manifests, GM will pick)
          Works on: people[sup]2[/sup]
          Signs: (when it manifests, GM will pick)
          Meanings: (to be discovered)

Open-minded/Grounded: very grounded[sup]3[/sup]

Curiosities: 0

Char-gen: point-buy:

Starting with 104 character points.  Concept is impoverished, so trade in 6 of 12 shillings for character points.  Spend 110 points on:

Attributes:
Agility: good - 24pts (color: explosive)
Toughness: excellent - 64pts (color: rock solid)
Luck: poor - +16pts (color: misfortune magnet)
Strength: average
Coordination: average

Skills:[sup]4[/sup]
General skills: climb (skilled - 2pts)

Weapon skills: 1-handed slashing sword (pro - 24pts)

Combat skills: press[sup]5[/sup] (pro - 8pts), unarmed combat (4pts)

Unspent character points: 0

Gear: purchase:

Half-shirt (bare belly)
Belt
Loincloth
Scabbard
Sword
Right arm sheath
contains[sup]6[/sup]:
money
flint
knife

Unspent money: 1 shilling 6 pence

GM's sheet:

Barrier Rot: 0

Marks: 0

Play Awards: 0

Weakness points from: Heat: 0, Cold: 0, Hunger: 0, Thirst: 0, No sleep: 0, Overexertion: 0, Illness: 0

Injuries: Head: 0, Torso: 0, RArm: 0, LArm: 0, RLeg: 0, LLeg: 0

Shock: 0

Explanations:

[sup]1[/sup]"Methild" is one of the most common female names of the region -- I wanted something unglamorous.  "DuvGunnar" is short for "daughter of Gunnar" -- that formulation is associated with the setting's oldest culture, a hardy, Viking-esque line.

[sup]2[/sup]Methild's first Perception Power will manifest in play once she's accrued a sufficient combo of Marks from encountering weird shit and Play Awards from other players digging my contributions when I play her.  When it arrives, this power will give her insights related to either plants, animals, or people -- I chose "people", thinking that social insights would provide the perfect ammo for the forceful personality I envsion.

[sup]3[/sup]Because she is Very Grounded, the Marks she accrues will have a relatively small chance of permanently scarring her with Barrier Rot (which makes you more in tune with, and susceptible to, the supernatural).  I want her to remain relatively focused on material concerns and worldly matters and not get caught up in the magic she learns and the "other realities" it describes. 

[sup]4[/sup]I spent a lot of points on combat stuff (as the play group wants "physical" encounters and "risky fights"), leaving her without too many skills.  Cranking up her Sword skill to rank 3 (pro) was expensive, but a common choice.  Giving her Unarmed Combat was more about concept than effectiveness -- I figure it'll give me a way to bring "quick to anger" into play without making her a complete psycho.  Decking rude people is a lot easier to smooth over than beheading them. 

[sup]5[/sup]Just to give her another angle to apply "fierce and reckless", I also bought up 3 ranks of Press -- although it's unlikely that I'll wind up in a situation where it's not suicidal to try to close in on an armed opponent and punch them, just in case I do, it would be so cool!  Plus, Press will come in handy during a sword-to-sword fight where an opponent tries to disengage -- Methild's too aggressive to let that work.

[sup]6[/sup]Methild has no place to carry most standard adventuring provisions; in an "adventuring party" game, this will be a nice opportunity for her to scoff at other PCs' bedrolls, rope, and travel rations... and maybe suffer some Weakness for roughing it.

[sup]7[/sup]Strangleweed is generally chewed by the Cursed, the enemies of mankind, so she'll automatically be distrusted for chewing it, but also be respected by some for being tough enough to stomach the disgusting stuff.

[sup]8[/sup]Her Next Destination is a flag, with the concept being that, although she's built to dominate physically (high agility, toughness, and fighting skills), she hungers for power and influence of a broader nature.  This combines with the group's Preferred Secret of daemonology to suggest "Hook me with hints of magical ways to control daemons!" as one option for the GM.

Hi Joel,

Think of it as playing Sorcerer, supplemented by Sorcerer & Sword. The latter is not a stand-alone game or book. Which is to say, use the existing sheet as you describe.

I have no idea about the unsubmitted character sheets. Both the page and the scans of the posted characters are entirely imaginary at this moment, so I'll deal with that first and think about second-order issues later.

Best, Ron

Sure. The only thing that gave me pause about using the existing sheet was the renamed or added elements.

Hmm, it also occurs to me that i should do the "Gorias" one-sheet for completeness' sake. Sounds like a good opportunity to draw a map.

Game: FreeMarket

Key Name: Juno (my character's name on the Donut... it sounds like a goddess / cool chick / fantasy warrior name)
User ID: Jared (my real name)
Concept: LARP Goddess (Juno was created to be a sexy NPC in a MRCZ's live action game system)
Template: Blank, a kind of human clone created on a bio-printing machine using living cells instead of ink or toner. This template is one of four available to the player and serves to give me my base ratings.

I write down "Bode" as a geneline, an homage to an artist that drew hot fantasy babes. As a Blank, Juno gets 3 points in geneline. For the tags I choose what she was built for: being sexy and being wild. Sarcasm is an unintended trait that crept into the Bode geneline.

As a Blank, Juno gets 3 points worth of experiences. I want her to have several at 1 point each so I select Negotiation and Social Engineering (for dealing with other players) and Wetwork (for beating their asses down).

She gets 3 points of Interface (cybernetics/internal software). I want to complement her three experiences so I choose three interfaces, each at 1 point. One is an instantly accessible and frequently updated version of the LARP rules (with various enhancements available to her as an NPC). Another is her rapid reaction courtesy of neural webbing. Her "Frostfire" eye implants are ice-blue and devastatingly beautiful, enabling her to melt the heart of any player who meets her gaze. Her single piece of technology is a 1-point bastard sword fitted with a stunning "blade" that knocks you out when it connects.

Her two long-term memories occurred in real time and were not flood/bleeded (neither during her printing nor after she was completed). One involves a cool LARP she was involved in where she was "killed" and the other is about a love affair with a musician. Whether or not he feels similarly is left for the players to discover during the game.

Finishing touch is to determine her flow rating. As a Blank, she starts with 5 points of flow. Because she is experienced at negotiation, she gets another point. Add to that one more point from her negotation-related interface for a total of 7.

Here's Juno's character sheet.
http://www.memento-mori.com/juno_charsheet.gif

This is Tyris, the Amazon Queen, from Sexy Deadly.

First thing first, we consider her style. As an Amazon, she is obviously a bit savage and primitive, but deceptively sophisticated. She uses her apparent primitiveness to put her opponents off guard. With that in mind, we look through the Archetypes. I narrow it down to The Sphinx or Death by Surprise. The Lioness was tempting as well, but as an amazon, she's likely to look down on men too much to consider using her allure as a weapon as a first option. I decide to go with the Sphinx; The warrior code of the Amazon is her creed, and she prizes learning, patience and careful planning over stealth. It doesn't matter if they see you coming when you've got them right where you want them. This gives me the once-per-game special ability to play any card as an Ace of Diamonds, beating even the real Ace of Diamonds if it's played against me.

Next up, we need to choose her Aspects. First is More than a Woman. What is it that sets her above her peers? as an Amazon, it could be her unrivaled skill with bow and blade. It could be her empathy, because a queen must understand her subjects. It could be the code itself. Wait, I know. it's.. It's forethought. She's always run through every possible scenario in her head before going into any situation. She always knows what can happen, and she's already considered her options. So that's what it is. Forethought. I have to pick a suit to go with it. This is Obviously Diamonds, as it's Smart, moreso than it's Sexy, Deadly, or Tough.

Second, I pick her Less than a Woman. This one is easy. She's Contemptuous. The Amazon way is a proud way, and she believes all men and most women to be beneath her. Its suit is Hearts, for Sexy.

Finally, her Motif. I could go with something in Diamonds, to add to my dominance there, or in Hearts to shore up my weakness there.. But I think instead I'll go with something in Spades, Deadly. Her Motif is her flickering blade, moving in complex patterns which give no hint of when or where the strike falls.

That's it. She's mechanically finished as a character. But let's go ahead and do some of the earliest part of scenario generation, just to get a better idea of her. I take a deck of cards, remove the jokers, and make sure it's fully shuffled. Then I draw the first card, for the Target. A 5 of hearts. The 5 tells me that it's an Artifact. The hearts means nothing, but maybe I'll see if I can work it into the concept. I know! It's a wedding set made with rare stones which, unbeknownst to most, bears a cryptic inscription that could mean a great deal of power in the right hands.

Now, normally the previous step would be done jointly with my fellow Ladies. But we'll just say that they helped me come up with the concept. Now we all draw a card from the deck. I draw the 3 of diamonds. The three tells me nothing, but the diamond means that my goal is to steal the Target. I (collectively with my fellow players) decide that the Target is on display in a museum for the first time ever, and I wish to steal it to decipher the script and take the power for my Amazons.

Let's sum it up:

Tyris, the Amazon Queen
Archetype: The Sphinx
Special Ability: 1/game, I may play any card as the Ace of Diamonds
More than a Woman: Forethought, diamonds
Less than a Woman: Contemptuous, hearts
Motif: a flickering blade, moving in complex patterns, giving no hint of when or where the strike will fall, spades

Goal: Steal the wedding set so she can decipher the inscription, and take its power for her Amazons

Here is the character sheet for Freydis of Valgard using Barbarians of Lemuria (sheet is of my own design though)

Karla the Sword Swollower

Hi all.

I'm travelling, but want to play.  (Driving from Virginia to New York today, flying back to Los Angeles tomorrow.)

I happen to have my Sorcerer books with me, but nothing else. But I could track down other rules via the Internet.  (I'm still curious about In A Wicked Age..., Primetime Adventures, as games that haven't been done yet.. but that would make a complicated task more complicated for me right now!)

Ron, am I allowed to created characters from games already created?

Christopher

Hi Christopher,

I was hoping to avoid multiple uses of the same game for purposes of initial posted characters. Later additions to the discussion are welcome, though.

Would you consider The Pool?

Best, Ron

Noted.

I'll see what's possible on my end for other options. Either way, I'll be reading with interest.

Oh, and my first choice would be a Pendragon character using the Picts sourcebook... but that ain't going to happen on the road!

Apocalypse World.

She's clearly a battlebabe, so I grab a copy of the battlebabe playbook.

It says "To create your battlebabe, choose name, look, stats, moves, gear, and Hx. Choose in any order you like." I'll go ahead and do them in the order given.

1. Choose a name from the list: Snow

2. Choose look options from the lists: Woman, display wear, sharp face, gorgeous body, frosty eyes

3. Choose a set of stats from the list: Cool+2, Hard-2, Hot+1, Sharp+1, Weird+1
All the sets are Cool+2. I happen to know that there's a move I can choose that'll offset the Hard-2, so I don't worry much about taking such a negative stat. I really want all three of the +1s.

4. Choose moves. I get to choose 2 from the list. I choose: ice cold and impossible reflexes

Ice cold: when you go aggro on another player’s character, roll+Hx instead of roll+hard. When you go aggro on one of the MC’s characters, roll+cool instead of roll+hard.

Impossible reflexes: the way you move unencumbered counts as armor. If you’re naked or nearly naked, 2-armor; if you’re wearing non-armor fashion, 1-armor. If you’re wearing armor, use it instead.

Everyone introduces their characters by name and by look. Take your turn.
List the other characters’ names.
By default, you don’t get too attached too quickly. Your base Hx with each character is =0.
By default, though, you yourself are an open book. Give everyone else +1Hx with you.
In addition, choose the character your character trusts the least. Discard all modifiers and make your Hx with that character +3.
Go around again. On your turn, everyone else compares their Hx with you. Whose is highest? That person chooses which of your stats they find most interesting and you highlight it. The MC also chooses which stat she finds most interesting, and you highlight it too.

lumpley wrote:
Character sheet scan

-Vincent

Fixed!

-Vincent

System:  Escape from Tentacle City

*First thing we do is play Escape from Tentacle City.

Me:  Hey Ron, do you want to play some Escape from Tentacle City?
Ron:  Sure!

*Next, someone- not me- has to come up with a survivor group.

Me:  Do you have an idea for a survivor group?
Ron:  Boffer LARPers.
Me:  I hate you.

*Then I pick a name.  This is a humor game, so usually the names are a little silly.

This character is “Stephanie Glumwort AKA Frost-Queen Titania”

*Next I write down my group affiliation.

Ron already picked it for me.  It's Boffer LARPers.

*I pick a Positive Attribute from a list.  This determines what Titania is good at.

It's a tough choice between Attractive and Fighter, but I think I have to go with Attractive.  Titania, as it turns out, actually isn't that good with that boffer sword.

*I pick a Negative Attribute from my imagination.  This determines how annoying my role-play is to the other players.  This is probably the most important step.

I choose “Never Breaks Character.”

*I pick two items of equipment for my character.

I write down “Big Boffer Sword,” and “White Princess Wig.”

*Then I finish up.

I write down that Titania has four stress available to spend, with one already spent.  For reference, I write down the names of the other Boffer LARPers so I can figure out what's going on when our scene comes around.

(Imagine Ron kicking me under the table.)

Oh right! I'll be happy to host character sheet scans for anybody who wants. Email 'em to me at lumpley at gmail.

Hell, send me a physical copy, I'll scan it for you too. PM me for my address if you want to do that.

-Vincent

I’ll bite. I was also thinking of The Pool, but I’m not creative enough for that today. Therefore, I’m using the Unisystem Lite, specifically the Angel RPG, by C.J. Carella. I could just use the “Barbarian Queen” Archetype, assign a name and be done with it. But I will go through the full process of character creation – obviously, this girl is not only a barbarian from some other dimension, but also a half-demon! (I mean, seriously, look at her hair.)

DEMON PACKAGE

As she’s a half-demon, I have to create a demon package first before I can make up the Protagonist. I get to chose from a number of supernatural Qualities and Drawbacks that all have a point cost that is simply summed up to see what cost the Demon Package will be at. Looking at her hair and eyes, I’m thinking “ice”. Looking at her sword, I’m thinking “physical combat”. There we go. I pick:

Antisocial Impulses (violence), severe, 2 pt Drawback
Enhanced Attributes (+2 Strength, +3 Dexterity, +3 Constitution), 8 pt Quality
Hypnosis (Gaze Into My Eyes; defense zero for one attack if successful), 5 pt Quality
Immortal (not getting older), 0 pt Quality
Increased Life Points (+30), 3 pt Quality
Reduced Damage (limited: frost, half damage), 1 pt Quality (also allows her to walk around half naked in New York in December, or so I figure)
Vulnerability (major: fire, five times damage after armor and modifiers), 3 pt drawback

This leaves me with a 12 pt Demon Package.

CHARACTER TYPE

I have to pick a character type. Usually the Veteran type is not eligible, leaving me with the choice between the ass-kicking Champion and the sidekick Investigator. Of course I pick the Champion, which means I can spend 20 points on Attributes, 20 points on Qualities (plus up to 10 from Drawbacks), 30 points on Skills, and start with 10 Drama Points.

ATTRIBUTES

I can spend my 20 points on 6 Attributes, up to 5 on a 1-for-1 basis. My bonuses from the Demon Package get awarded afterwards. Here I go:

Strength 4 + 2 = 6
Dexterity 5 + 3 = 8
Constitution 3 + 3 = 6
Intelligence 2
Perception 3
Willpower 5

Based on her Strength and Constitution, I look up her Life Points in the Life Point Table, and add the ones from the Demon Package.

Life Points 58 + 30 = 88

QUALITIES AND DRAWBACKS

Now I can choose a number of Qualities from a list. All of them have a point cost. I can also choose some Drawbacks to buy more Qualities. I have to spend 12 points on my Demon Package. After some shuffling, I end up with:

Half-Demon (as above), 12 pt Quality
Adversary (her father the frost demon), 3 pt Drawback (the point cost is GM’s discretion but I made it up by my best judgement)
Attractiveness +2, 2 pt Quality
Fast Reaction Time (+5 Initiative), 2 pt Quality
Hard To Kill 5 (+15 Life Points, +5 to Survival Tests), 5 pt Quality
Humorless, 1 pt Drawback
Love (relationship starts shortly after season begins), 2 pt Drawback
Resistance 5 (pain; -5 wound penalties, + 5 to stay conscious), 5 pt Quality
Resources (hurting), 2 pt Drawback
Situational Awareness (+2 Perception to sense danger), 2 pt Quality

I have to go back and add the Life Point bonus from Hard To Kill now:

Life Points 58 + 30 + 15 = 103

Yeah, three digits, that looks right. Girls are always most tough in the Buffyverse.

SKILLS

Now I get to spend my 30 points on skills. Up to level 5 it’s 1 point per level, after that it’s 3 points per level. I pick the skills from a list of 18 skills on the Protagonist Sheet, and get to decide what my Wild Card is. In the end, I’ve got:

Acrobatics 4
Doctor 2
Getting Medieval 6
Influence 2
Kung Fu 3
Languages 1 (English)
Notice 4
Occultism 3
Wild Card (Arctic Survival) 3

COMBAT MANEUVERS

I am asked to fill in the Combat Maneuvers on the Protagonist Sheet. I pick the ones that appeal to me from the appropriate chapter in the book and jot down the bonuses. While I’m at it, I also fill in the “useful information” section.

Initiative d10+13
Perception d10+9 (for spotting danger)

Decapacitation d10+9
Disarm d10+12
Dodge d10+14
Grapple d10+13
Head Butt d10+9
Kick d10+10
Knockout d10+9
Melee Weapon d10+14
Parry d10+14
Punch d10+11
Stake d10+14
Takedown d10+9
Target Limb d10+12
Through the Heart d10+11
Toss d10+8
Whirling Sword d10+10

In order to make sense, I’d also have to make notes on how each of these work. More likely, in play, I’d just be looking them up in the book. Therefore, I don’t really need these numbers on my Protagonist Sheet, but the book says I should write them down and so I do, for the purpose of this example.

DRAMA POINTS

I get 10 Drama Points as a Champion, which I can spend on rolls, plot twists or other fun stuff and which I gain in specific ways appropriate to the source material.

FINISHING TOUCHES

Finally, I am asked to look beyond the numbers and make up some basic things about my protagonist.

Name: She is called Svenja. Back where she came from there is no second name, but when asked for, she goes by the name of Frost.

Look: See picture.

Other Characteristics: She always stares at people. Her laugh is cold and short, without humor. Her voice is deep and husky. She speaks in a Swedish accent.

THAT’S IT!

I would fill in and scan a Protagonist Sheet but I’m at home now and would miss the deadline if I did.

Hey, that was fun! Now I’d like to play her right away. She’s a real combat monster, easy to portray, and very Angel-style! Okay, normally the girls in the show are thinner, but I like her curves.

- Frank

My real name is Jacob, although, I answer to Lil' Omar in real life, so, your choice.

I created a character sheet, although it is not a 'real' sheet, in the sense of being an official The Affairs of Wizards character sheet, since there is none. I whipped it up on my computer in a few minutes, so the quality isn't high. I haven't gotten a chance to play Affairs yet, but when I do, I'm not planning on using character sheets at all.

I also hope that it's alright that I typed the values onto the character sheet instead of printing it off, filling it out by hand, and scanning it back into the computer. I can do that if you would like, but this is more legible, and eco-friendly.

Praveena, my Affairs of Wizards character.

Vulpinoid wrote:
Let’s see if my own game system can be put through its paces using this set of criteria. Once I’ve managed to upload a pdf of the character's final sheet, it will be available at http://www.vulpinoid.com/colourfirst.pdf.

Vincent, I must know: does "Skimpy Fashion" count as "nearly naked" or "non-armor fashion" for the purpose of "Impossible Reflexes"?

Also, what does Hx stand for?

Hey!

Here's the thing. I always thought that Traveller felt a lot more like Moebius/Taarna than any 'hard' scifi. I never got to play it that way (thanks, MegaTraveller...), but I always wished that I could have. Ergo, good ol' Black Box Traveller.

Although the hardcore character-gen rules don't specify that you need to detail backstory events as-you-go, I always did (and so did Millar in the example!) And the rules certainly do ask for "special assignments (interesting episodes in the individual's career)." The rules are completely silent on exactly when this stuff is meant to be invented; I'm putting it in the context of the lifepath (which is exactly when it jumps into my head anyway!)

Die rolls are in red.  For the uninitiated, Traveller statistics are all in hexadecimal. 1-9 as normal. 10=A, 11=B, etc.

Roll Stats:
Strength 7
Dexterity 9
Endurance 4
Intelligence 6
Education 9
Social Standing B

Name:
Dame Kuula Ben'on

Age 18, begin first term of service:
- apply for enlisment in Merchants (7+): 7+3=10, successful.
- Survival (5+): 8, ok.
- apply for Commission (4+): 9+1=10, successful. Kuula is now a 4th Officer.
- apply for Promotion (10+): 9+0=9, unsuccessful.
- skills (3):
  personal table: 3, +1 Endurance
  personal table: 6, Bribery 1
  personal table: 4, +1 Strength
- Special Assignments: Some sort of striking out from home. Definitely seeing the grubby side of service. Probably some scrapping, hard labour and wheeling-dealing going on. Interesting question is why is a noble-born girl consorting with these hooligans?

Age 22
- Re-enlistment (4+): 7, choose to re-enlist.
- Survival (5+): 6, ok.
- Promotion (10+): 8, unsuccessful.
- Skills (1)
  Advanced Table One: 2, Mechanical 1
- Special Assignments: Kuula gets in some sort of an altercation with her crewmates and gets beaten pretty badly. She gets reassigned to the engineering detail and shows some acumen.

Age 26
- Re-enlistment (4+): 6, choose to re-enlist.
- Survival (5+): 8, ok.
- Promotion (10+): 7, unsuccessful.
- Skills (1)
  Service Table: 4, Steward 1
- Special Assignments: Kuula must be really irritating.  That blown Promotion roll explains why she gets busted down to waiting tables for a term.

Age 30
- Re-enlistment (4+): 7, choose to re-enlist.
- Survival (5+): 9, ok.
- Promotion (10+): 5, unsuccessful (ouch!)
- Skills (1)
  Advanced Table Two: 3, Engineering 1
- Special Assignments: After spilling some drinks (It was an accident, honest!) on some obnoxious passengers, the brass re-think their previous disciplinary action. They assign the problematic Kuula some real scut work; she's leading a janitorial detail in the engine room. Out of spite, Kuula keeps her eyes and ears open and learns as much as she can while her deckhands are scrubbing.

Age 34
- Aging
  Strength (8+): 9, ok.
  Dexterity (7+): 8, ok.
  Endeurance (8+): 7, -1.
- Re-enlistment (4+): 10, choose to re-enlist.
- Survival (5+): 10, ok.
- Promotion (10+): 4, unsuccessful.
- Skills (1)
  Personal Table: 2, +1 Dexterity

Age 38
- Aging
  Strength (8+): 6, -1.
  Dexterity (7+): 4, -1.
  Endeurance (8+): 8, ok.
- Re-enlistment (4+): 8, choose to muster out while the UPP is still tickin' (and James' picture doesn't look old anyway.)
- Mustering Out (6 rolls)
  Benefits: 1, Low Passage
  Benefits: 4, Body Pistol 1
  Benefits: 2, +1 Intelligence
  Cash: 2, 5000cr
  Benefits: 2, +1 Intelligence
  Benefits: [color=red]2, +1 Intelligence
- Retirement Pay: 4000cr/a
- Special Assignments: Looks like over her career Kuula has learned a fair bit of self-restraint (the hard way!) She's definitely no honour to her family name, that's for sure. The 5000cr should buy her some meager equipment (where did that sword come from, anyway?) That low passage is undoubtedly thanks to one of the few friends she has from her service years; she'll be lucky to get smuggled into a cargo hold.

[color=blue]Birthworld
  Sepsis Minor
  No Navy Base
  No Scout Base
  Gas Giant in System
  Starport C
  Size 5 (5000mi diameter)
  Atmosphere 4 (thin, tainted)
  Hydrosphere 4 (40% coverage)
  Population 5 (100s of thousands)
  Government 6 (captive government, ie: colony)
  Law 3 (military weapons prohibited)
  Tech +2 (Starport) +1 (Population) +[color=red]3 (roll) = 5 (circa 1930 earth)
- Special Assignments: hunh.  Kuula's family is some sort of puppet regime on what's essentially a coaling stop overseeing a fuel source (the gas giant). There are probably some shipyards and privateer-type law enforcement. Their spacefaring capabilities are clearly thanks to the colonial powers, as the actual settlement is too rudimentary. I could see a starry-eyed young Kuula wanting to get out of here! She must have lied about her identity when she signed on with the Merchants. I wonder if her family's looking for her...

[color=blue]Dischargeworld
  Garto Prime
  No Navy Base
  Scout Base
  Gas Giant in System
  Size 8 (8000mi diameter)
  Atmosphere C (Insidious)
  Hydrosphere 3 (30% coverage)
  Population 7 (10s of millions)
  Government 7 (Balkanized world, factions to be detailed)
  Law 9 (Weapons for home defense only. This may vary by faction, but it's a pretty draconian baseline!)
  Tech +1 (Atmosphere) +5 (roll) = 6 (circa 1950 earth)
- What a hell-hole to get dropped off on. The once-proud planet has been backwatered by internal bickering (I'm picturing some iteration of Palestine/Israel) and strife. Kuula has no choice but to go underground.  She probably picked up that big-assed sword because it says "FUCK OFF" really well, not that she knows how to use it...drop a few more creds on a body pistol and some accoutrements and she's hustling with the worst the black market has to offer.

This is really cool.  I'm digging Kuula a lot. She's beaten down and loaded for bear. It'll be keen to meet her fellow Travellers...and see how quickly she needs to use that Low Passage to get the hell outta dodge...

Apologies for dropping the ball on recording the planet generation rolls...I guess you'll have to trust me.

The character sheet (will upload on January 6).

Excelsior!
D

Hey Willow,

Given the Boffer LARP survivor group, what survivor group would you make up? For everyone reading, each person playing Escape From Tentacle City makes up a survivor group, so this is part of prep for play.

Best, Ron

Environmental Protestors.  I'm envisioning some sort of wooded area (Tentacle City National Forest), where one can hold a boffer LARP, or chain oneself to a tree, or both, with hilarity ensuing.

Kingston Cassidy's character sheet scan is here: Ulora.

Joel: Just look at her! She's clearly nearly naked.

Hx stands for history, like Rx stands for prescription.

-Vincent

lumpley wrote:
Joel: Just look at her! She's clearly nearly naked.

lumpley wrote:
Hx stands for history, like Rx stands for prescription.

So, I looked and looked at the picture, and then realized that the cartoon woman before me had nothing to do with Picts from Pendragon (I was about to order a PDF version of Beyond the Wall to stat her…) 

And when if I tried to writer her up in Primetime Adventure, I couldn't imagine her in anything but a kind of Ralph Bashki animated TV series.  But I would never watch a Ralph Bashi animated series!  So that put the kabash on that.

I also tried In a Wicked Age…  But as Joel predicted, the only way to pull it off would be to fudge the Oracles.  So that was out.

So, I went with The Pool.  If the task was to work with the image first, that seemed like the best choice.  I could create directly from my response to the image.  (And I just played The Pool with my niece and nephew last week – twins, age 10 – so it was fresh in my mind!)

BAROOSA in THE POOL

As a GM, I set conventions for the game world. 

This is a notion taken from James' fantastic Pool variation, The Questing Beast, but not described in the basic Pool rules.  The purpose is to set the "baseline" of what is real for the game world – a kind of focus for player creation and play.

[font=Verdana]The setting is a dry, dusty red world with two moons, purple and black
There are humans and lizard men
Generations of war
Barbarians
Glimmering cities of glass that shine in the starlight, falling into decay
Air ships skip over the surface of the world using forgotten technologies
The two moons are Gods, and people worship them[/font]

That might be enough.  I'd most likely discuss the list with the players, and as they created characters.

As a Player, I create a character.

First, I write a 50 or so word description of the character (As a GM I allow a little leeway if the Player isn't going all list crazy with the word count!):

Baroosa is the daughter of a Barbarian chieftain killed by a lord of a crystal city. Even as her mother flees with the tribe deeper into the desert wastes, Baroosa stubbornly set out to gain vengeance.  She is armed with Magocck, her father's sword, which speaks the seven languages of wind.  With her prayers to the Purple Moon to guide her, she sets forth to kill the man who killed her father.

Second, I draw from the list key words or phrases that describe the character.  These will be Baroosa's traits.  They can range from abilities to characteristics to objects to relationships to whatever. 

The traits do not describe quality.  One can't be "the best swordsman in the world."  The die rolls determine effectiveness. 

These are the traits I pull out of the description:
Daughter of Barbarian Chieftain
Stubborn
Vengeance
My Father's Sword, Magocck
Seven Languages of the Wind
Purple Moon
The Man Who Killed Her Father
Mother
Tribe

Third, I distribute values to any of the Traits I want.

In the Pool I start with a Pool of 12 dice I can use to increase my odds of success.  (Basically, I can bet them into a die roll.  If I succeed in the roll, I get them back.  If I fail, I don't.)

I can spend these dice as values to my Traits, marking a trait as 1 Die, 2 Die, or 3 Die.  Any dice from the Pool left over are dice I get to carry into the game and gamble as I see fit.

For example, I could have a Trait: The Man Who Killed My Father 2; which means that every time I do something where I could invoke this Trait, I get to roll in two more dice to my die roll to succeed at my action.

(The way the game's odds work, it doesn't make much sense to make any trait a value of 3)

I distribute my dice like this:
Daughter of Barbarian Chieftain 2
Stubborn 1
Vengeance 1
My Father's Sword, Magocck 2
Seven Languages of the Wind 1
Purple Moon 1
The Man Who Killed My Father 2
Mother 1
Tribe 1

This means I've spent all 12 dice from my Pool, and will have to succeed at some tasks to build my Pool back up.

Hey Ron,

My name is Sean Musgrave.

Someone really has to do the Prime Time Adventures Ralph Bakshi show character. It should be a combination of Wizards and Heavy Metal and be cancelled during the first season due to too many veiled drug references.

Someone should!

It just can't be me.

Christopher wrote:
...I couldn't imagine her in anything but a kind of Ralph Bashki animated TV series.  But I would never watch a Ralph Bashi animated series!  So that put the kabash on that.

Here's the character sheet for Baroosa.

Also, you'll note that the sword, Magocck, speaks the languages of the seven winds.  In HeroQuest style, that is as yet undefined.

http://playsorcerer.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/baroosa.pdf

My character is based on an ashcan that does not have a predefined character sheet. It also lacks instructions for naming the character so for now she is nameless.

The Path of Journeys

Official Title in the May Court: The Advocate
Secondary Title: The White Shadow
Conflict: Empathy/Manipulation
Fate Words: Exile, Sacrifice, Purpose

Attributes (based on the rules for "Balanced Method")

Motivations (spend 4 CP, default rank is 4)
Travel (2): I want to travel
Control (3): I want to control my destiny
Bewitch (3): I want to bewitch strangers

Traits (spend 5 CP, default rank is 0)
Famous for sword fighting, rank 2
Famous for keeping silent, rank 2
Known to speak to ghosts, rank 1

Character Skills (spend 6 CP, default rank is 4)
Quick escape, rank 2
Song, rank 2
Know other's desire, rank 3
Bird sight (can use raptors to spy), rank 3

Essential Skills (default rank is 1)
Health, rank 1
Confidence, rank 1
Argument, rank 1

Julie

Paul wrote:

Christopher wrote:
...I couldn't imagine her in anything but a kind of Ralph Bashki animated TV series.  But I would never watch a Ralph Bashi animated series!  So that put the kabash on that.

Does anyone own this?

Paul

But I would never watch a Ralph Bashi animated series!

I just don't think his style could sustain a long form TV show.

And you know what?

I'm right!

The deadline closes in 4 hours and 40 minutes.

Best, Ron

Trollbabe!  She is Griselde, a trollbabe with tragically deformed horns so small you can't see them under her hair in this picture.

Chose a Number of 6.

Her Trollish item is a Mojo Skull, which she uses as a sword-pommel.
Her Human Item is a pair of Well-Worn Bracers.

her specialties are Hand-Held Weapons, Human Magic, and Feisty.

Her appearance:  Icy-white hair, tragically tiny horns, looks like Bode & Frazetta's love child.

Additional equipment: Big Bauble Belt, Big Ass Sword, slung against Big Ass.

She is currently walking grimly towards the gates of Kragg Keep.

Character sheet hosted at Imageshack at the following link -- hey, Ron freed us up to use thumbnails in this thread!

[URL=http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/867/trollbabemn4.png][IMG]http://img386.imageshack.us/img386/867/trollbabemn4.th.png[/img][/URL]

Not sure if it matters, but in the interest of accuracy, my TFT thief-lady needs to have a bronze sword, since iron messes with magic.  Same weight and cost, -1 damage, so it's a 2-3 cutlass instead of the standard 2-2. 

So, this picture looks remarkably like my friend L, who sometimes has blue hair and, if she entered a fantasy world, would probably rapidly acquire a huge-ass skull sword and some kicky jewelry.

Let's say that this is L in the Land of a Thousand Kings. Of course, she'd actually be in charge of what she did and said there. So this is my speculation, not anything binding.

Now, unfortunately, set-up for the game starts out very simple, and you develop your attributes and such as you explore the world. But the guidelines say "starting character."

So let's say L and A and I are playing. We're going to give Lesley some attribute values.

I say "L, nothing every bothers you, and you're always pretty chill. That's why I know you're Strong."

Let's say A says "L, you have totally great fashion sense. That's why I know you're Beautiful."

L declines to give herself an attribute.

So she gets one Strong and one Beautiful.

She also knows ahead of time that she has an artifact. Her artifact is a huge fucking sword with a skull on the end. Let's say it originally belonged to the War King. So she circles "artifact" as opposed to "excellency" and writes "War King's Sword" under it.

So, in all, she looks like:
L***
Strong: 1
Brave: 0
Sharp: 0
Kind: 0
Beautiful: 1

Memories: None
Lessons: None
Artifact: War King's Sword

The rest will be filled out during her travels.

I was wondering if anyone'd pull the "um, can't see'em" trick for trollbabe horns. I figure as well that if people Ed played with grumbled, he'd sketch-em in, barely visible, anyway. So that's cool.

Ed, actually I didn't authorize images in this thread. My first post specified it was for that post, so I could include the illustration. But the thumbnail is no big deal.

Jason, thanks! That's actually important, as you'll soon see.

Best, Ron

Well, I'm going to try In A Wicked Age, because I reckon there's enough leeway in the Oracles to squeeze that image in where ever.  (Confession: I've drawn the cards already, so I know it's going to work - but this was my first and only draw.)

Choose An Oracle

I'll choose Blood & Sex, for some reason.

Draw Cards

8D - Some great wizard's magical messenger, brass skinned.
JH - An altar overflowing with flowers and bowls of honey, and the childless women who tends it.
QS - A warrior-priestess of a truly bloodthirsty cult.
JD - A band of demons, laughing and malicious, authors of debauched sensuality and corrupt appetites.

Identify Characters

Two separate priestesses of rival cults, one with blood sacrifices, the other flowers and honey.  The  altar is to a group of demons, who are visited by decadent visitors who come from far and wide to experience the pleasures that are to be found there.  (So, we can add decadent visitors to the shrine to the characters.)  The bloodthirsty cult are an illegal much feared cult, dedicated to the purifying the civilisation of its corruption of decadence by whatever means necessary.    The demons are bound to the altar by means of a magical brass bracelet, an intelligent item, stolen decades ago from a great wizard.

Choose Characters

I'll take the childless priestess of the altar, mistress of the demons,

Creating a character sheet:

Name:  Zahri
Description:  The childless women who tends the altar.
Particular Strength:  Priestess of the Altar
Covertly:    d10
Directly:    d6
With love:  d6
With violence:  d8
For others:  d12
For myself:  d4

Priestess of the Altar
Given the respect and protection of those who visit the altar.  Knows the secrets of the demons.
Form:  For others / Maneuvering
Significance:  1
It's Unique

Best Interests:
It's in Zahri's best interest to leave the altar and get married.
It's in Zahri's best interest to kill the warrior priestess.

Adam.

She's *clearly* a Psi-Run character.

Elena MacIntyre.
When I look in the mirror, I see:
A very curvy woman with heavy dark eyeliner and awesome bleached platinum blond hair with electric blue ends brushing my shoulder blades. I have clear, fair skin; lips a little quirky, glossed frosty pink; and I'm wearing an artfully torn army surplus T-shirt, black bikini panties, and a yellow cast on my right arm. I've got a heavy belt of gold and ebony, in the shape of three moons, slung low on my hips, and I'm carrying a kick-ass huge sword with a gold vultures head on the hilt. My eyes are bright blue, and where other folk's pupils are black, mine are the color of skim milk.

Important Questions:
Where the hell are my pants?!?!
Why do I have to get this sword to Ankara?
Who has the missing moon on my belt of power?

(Weird. It cut off the last two questions)
I am blind, but I can see EVERYTHING! What's up with that?
How did I hurt my arm?

Hilarious, that.

Ron wrote:
Rafu, is that your name?

Legendary Lives

First, I need to pick a race. I can roll randomly, but I'll pick in this case. Given her pale hair and fair skin, most human races are out. I'll choose Elfin, "a child born from the union of a human and an elf kin." They are mainly human with some special traits.

Next, I roll her base skills. They are determined by her race + a d6 roll, like so:

Agility 9 + d6
Alertness 6 + d6
Charm 13 + d6
Cunning 3 + d6
Dexterity 11 + d6
Fate 10 + d6
Intelligence 8 + d6
Knowledge 7 + d6
Mechanical 2 + d6
Nature 12 + d6
Stamina 4 + d6
Strength 5 + d6

Here they are:

Agility 15
Alertness 10
Charm 15
Cunning 7
Dexterity 14
Fate 16 (Nice!)
Intelligence 9
Knowledge 10
Mechanical 8
Nature 13
Stamina 10
Strength 7

I need to record her Specialities and her Racial Ability, as well as determine her age, height, and weight.

Elfin Specialities are Empathy, Memory, Jump, and Stealth; they have no night vision; their Racial Ability is True Sight, which they can use twice per day.

Her age is Intelligence + Knowledge - 6 years, so 13. Hm. We are going to assume here that Elfin sexual maturity is about 3 to 5 years early; otherwise, this is a little weird.

Her height is Strength + d6. I rolled 6, so she's Tall. Her weight is Stamina + d6. I rolled 4, so Very Heavy. I wouldn't call that picture Very Heavy, but this lovely lady does have some meat on her bones, which is nice.

Next, her family background. That's Fate + d6. I rolled a 1, but that's fine: the maximum on the Elfin family background table is 17. That would mean she comes from a family of sages. I don't really like this, so I ask the GM if I can choose a different one (Artist), as the rules say I am allowed to do. The GM says OK, and so she comes from a family of artists. Artists are wealthy, so this means she starts with $310 worth of bronze coin, two new specialities (Intuition and Artistry), and 5 free specialities.

I move on to determine my character's type or profession. She has a high enough Fate to be a spell user, but I'm not sure. I want her to be a Rogue (they have a Seduction talent), but she doesn't meet the Cunning requirement. All the fighty-type professions have too high of Strength or Stamina requirements, and I'm starting to wonder if Elfin was a good pick. There's a lot of skill requirements of 11+, which knocks out almost every single profession. Maybe Bush People would have been a better pick, but I'll keep going. Here's what I have to choose from:

- Archer
- Priest
- Shaman

I would kill for an 11 Alertness or Stamina. Still, Shaman's not a terrible pick for her. I get more Specialities: Preach, Medical, Divination, Protection, Heal, Control, Shapeshift, Alter. Her Devotion is 3 + d6 = 7. I have to choose a totem animal, since she's a shaman, and given her icy hair, tough demeanor, and ample body, I'm choosing Polar Bear.

Next, I need a religion for my character. According to the game text, I have to roll for this because "a character's initial beliefs are usually the same as his parents, [so] a player cannot choose his starting religion." She has to follow a religion from her human parent, so I'm choosing Forester as her human parent. A roll of 4 tells me that she worships Fritz, the Animal Tamer.

Now, I get to make a character history, using either random tables or by choice.

I'm choosing sex, hair color and eye color to match the picture. For her core value, I'll choose Vengeance. I rolled randomly to see who she idolizes - a craftsman. As her most prized possession, I rolled a picture, so it's a portrait of her elf father painted by her mother, a man she's never met. I'll choose one key feature (small chin) and roll for the other (18 - uh, third nipple.) Ah, and 2 personality traits. I'm rolling for them, and get Curious and Traditional. That's an interesting one.

I'm rolling randomly for her Lifeline, or her past:

- Her enemy, who spurned her, is a cult leader.
- Her friend, a member of the gentry, saved her life.
- Her two-timing lover tried to kill her.
- She was sold into slavery for 3 years.
- Inherit special item.

I get to select my 5 free specialities now, so I pick Sword, Dodge, Tame, Stealth, and Interrogate. I can buy Specialities for $100 each, and she needs some more. I'm going to buy Quickness and Aim, leaving her with $110.

Lastly, equipment!

- Short sword, $20
- 3 daggers to throw, $30
- Musical instrument (flute), $50
- Mess kit, $5
- Bed roll, $2

She's got $3 left and is ready to adventure!

I'll fill out a character sheet and post it soon.

I neglected, in my cut and paste, to highlight the game system for the character above. It's Legendary Lives by Joe and Kathleen Williams.

Tech problems here, so no hosting for now.  I sent the sheets to Vincent.

That's it, guys! Many thanks!

More posting soon.

Best, Ron

Jesse alerted me that I built Baroosa with an error.

Players start with 15 Dice, and Stat Dice values are squared for purchase.  (1d costs 1d from pool, 2d value costs 4d from pool, and so on...)

Here is the corrected sheet  (She dropped one die off her dad's sword.  She still has no pool dice.)

http://playsorcerer.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/baroosacorrected.pdf

(Posted while in the air, traveling hundreds of miles an hour to Los Angeles.  Cool!)

Hi all,

I realy needed something like that to de-lurk and send my first post.
I'll do a character for the game I've played the most for about a year : Eric Provost's RedBox Hack (2nd Edition).

James did great with this picture. And for a "color-first" contest, I must say that I realy like the colors of this one, specialy the green thingy. ahem...
So back to character. She has this look in her eyes that I expect from my RBH adventurers. Let's give her a name : Nora.

Considering the RBH character classes, this girl just screams "Warrior" to me. The sword of course but also the fact that she's half naked. Let me explain :  Armor factors a lot in a characters surviving potential in the RBH but there is also a special little place for people who fight unarmored in there. They get more xp than the others when they fight. Not a lot but that's enough for me. Also, there's this special warrior power that gives a lot of bonuses when you fight without armor.

Now, I roll the dice and I assign them to the attributes one by one. They range from -1 to +5. I roll and assign :
• -1 : Sneakiness (she doesn't need to be sneaky)
• -1 : Size (look at her sword, the girl must be small. Goes well with the no armor thing)
• 0 : Alertness (okay that's pretty bad for now)
• +5 : Daring (yeah, now she can have that leopard look in her eyes)
• +3: Eloquence (if her green brassiere isn't eloquent enough)
• +2 : Stubbornness (goes with the look)

I love this kind of random result because, I would never have done that with point based creation.

That should be the point where I choose the class. As I am alone here, I can choose the class I want without taking it from another player. Otherwise we would have discussed it a bit before. So Warrior it is. I take the limitation "Self absorbed" because I will be fun to have this dangerous looking girl always search for attention.
Class (level) : Warrior (1)
Limitation : Self absorbed

For the talent I don't hesitate one second. In fact I chose warrior as a class for this talent. But let me use the name it had in the first edition of the game :
Loincloth Sexy ! I said Eric that it's far better than the 2nd edition name (Beefcake/Cheesecake) specialy for this character. This talent gives me a lot of Oumph when my character fight without armor : +2 on Show-off actions (that give the awesome tokens you need in combat) and Eloquence rolls. That's great.
Talent : Loincloth Sexy (Beefcake/Cheesecake)

Arms and armor : the -1 size don't let me choose any heavy equipement. That's good. I already stated that she didn't have any armor. The sword despite her look is a light weapon. The weapon's balance is so good that Nora can swing it without a problem.

Specialist gear : I thought using the green bra here but the belt seems to have more potential for usability (attract the eyes, hide some poison in there, ...). Lets name it "The three moons belt".

A motivation : one day I'll go back on my world on my space vessel. Before that, I must be challenged here, ripe this world richesses and pleasures. Pretty straightforward.

You'll note that without a setting in the book, my group's version of the RBH universe can range from Lyonesse to pulp science fantasy fiction. Last week's game had a WWII pacific pilot stranded in a lost valley complete with T-Rex.

I love this character.

Nora's sheet is here : http://www.ruedesbroussailles.com/telechargements/nora.jpg

Note : I am in France, I hope this message is within the time limits of the project.

I allow it! However, as of this post, all entries are concluded.

Best, Ron

OOOOOhhh. Cheatery! I was going to do Trollbabe, but she had no horns, so I said, "No, she is not a trollbabe, her horns are not cheesily too tiny to be seen, and she does not have the necessary big hair in which to hide them." Cheatery, I say! (Just kidding, Ed.)

But really I'm posting because here is my character sheet for Jelena. (I'm assuming it's still OK to post links to character sheets for our entries.)

It's cool. The thread's not close (yet). But remember, get the sheets/files to Vincent, 'cause he's making the collected-version page.

Best, Ron

If you've linked to a character sheet here in the thread, that's good enough, you don't need to email it to me too.

Unless you, like, really want to for some reason.

-Vincent

Hey, Vincent, if I mail you a sheet, can I include a S.A.S.E. to get it back?

Man, I've wanted to send a S.A.S.E. since I was twelve.

Jacob -- Affairs of Wizards -- is that a cat you just let out of the bag?  In terms of what it's about, it looks like a game that my adolescent self would have loved way way too much, the way that some adolescents maybe love Vampire a little too much.  I don't see any mention of it on the Forge until this thread.  I'm gonna go read the rest of the rules.  Looks hella fun.

Wow.  I'm boggled by all the grooviness in this thread.  Props to Darcy for using a decades-old character sheet!  Kudos to Clinton for rocking the Legendary Lives (I swear at one point, long long ago, i owned that game, but I think it got lost in a move).

I'm learning so much about so many new games, and enjoying shout outs to many old games.

If you are asking if I created it, the answer is no. If I was the author of such an awesome game, you can be sure I would have mentioned it in my first post!

I came across the link on the second page of this thread on RPG.net while researching for my Fudge magic system. After reading the rules I immediately thought of this thread as a wonderful way of seeing what making a character in AoW would be like. (that is, after I got over my amazement at the way it seems to capture the idea of the classical wizard - this is something I have never seen done so well)

I have not yet had a chance to play, as I only just discovered that link myself a few days ago, but I will be suggesting it to my gaming group as a diversion from our longer-running campaigns once I get back to school later this month.

Joel: sure.

-Vincent

  I didn't see this until it was past the deadline so no entry for me.

  However -- I am shocked, shocked that no one thought to use Everway where starting with the picture is more or less how the game works.

  Goofy little game, Everway.

  Sadly, I don't have my copy of Everway anymore.  If I had entered, I would've done Nobilis or Dying Earth (probably the later for a Turjan-level game).

later
Tom

lilomar wrote: I came across the link on the second page of this thread on RPG.net while researching for my Fudge magic system.

For the record, before starting the thread, I'd already worked up characters for Sorcerer (& Sword), Solipsist, Primetime Adventures, Space Rat, The Pool, and Extreme Vengeance. I'll be using some of those in the upcoming discussion, probably. I'd already taken notes for a Legendary Lives character (also an Elfin!), but hadn't started the rolls and such.

Games I hope to see utilized along the way as well (these from a list I'd made a while ago) include Everway, Hahlmabrea, The Dying Earth, Polaris, and Universalis. My friend Chris also provided a "boink" moment for me tonight by saying he'd totally use Vampire (I can't remember which variant).

Best, Ron

I think the time has come to close this one.

Please check out the new thread for the next step.

Best, Ron