| Tutorial and Example Character | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 8 2011, 11:36 PM (234 Views) | |
| UberKryos | Aug 8 2011, 11:36 PM Post #1 |
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Almighty Game Master
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Alright. I'm going to guess that while some of you read through the World of Darkness rulebook I sent you guys and are fine creating characters, others either didn't read the character creation section or read it but were still confused about how things work. If you feel confident that you know what you're doing, go ahead and ignore the rest of the words here and just take a look at the example character sheet later on. Character creation as a whole is separated into two sections, the "crunch" and the "fluff." Fluff is things like your character's personality, occupation (or lack thereof), and appearance. Crunch is all of the rules relating to your character that apply when, say, he's being attacked by a legion of the ravenous undead. Can he fight them off with a baseball bat before they gnaw his arms off? The first thing you should do when creating a character is come up with a name and a very brief idea of who he or she is. For our purposes, let's name our example character "John Doe" (imaginative, I know). He's a very quiet, thin man, who does his best to stay out of trouble and works in cubicle number 78 at SpendCo's customer service department. Now that we have the tiny glimmer of an idea, we can flesh it out as we go through the rules. If you want to have a more concrete idea before you start, that'll only make the rest of this process easier. The next thing that we'll do is assign our character Attributes. Attributes are the core physical aspects of our character. They are each rated from 1 to 5, which 2 being an average human. There are nine of them, divided into three categories of three attributes each. The categories are Physical, consisting of Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina, Mental, consisting of Intelligence, Wits, and Resolve, and Social, consisting of Presence, Manipulation, and Composure. In each category, the first skill determines Power, the second Finesse, and the third Resistance. That sounds complicated, but it works out a lot simpler than that. Our first choice that we have to make is which of the three categories our character is best at, which he's just okay at, and which he's worst at. John's spent a lot of time in customer services, so Social is going to be his primary category. However, he doesn't get out much, so Physical is going to be his worst category. That leaves Mental to be his secondary. John starts with one free point in every attribute, making his sheet look like this: Social (Primary) Presence-* Manipulation-* Composure-* Mental (Secondary) Intelligence-* Wits-* Resolve-* Physical (Tertiary) Strength-* Dexterity-* Stamina* Now's when our choice comes into play. We get FIVE points to put into John's Primary category, FOUR to put into his Secondary category, and THREE to put into his tertiary category. John's really good at diffusing tough situations (which falls under manipulation), and good at maintaining his cool when customers yell at him (composure), so we'll put three points in Manipulation and two points in Composure. That leaves us with no points left to put into Presence, which is okay, because John doesn't like imposing upon other people anyway. He likes to stay out of trouble, remember? This makes the Social part of his sheet look like this: Social (Primary) Presence-* Manipulation-**** Composure-*** Now onto his secondary attributes! John is fairly smart (he has a college education) and is pretty good at adapting his thinking, so lets split his four Mental points evenly between Intelligence and Wits. That leaves us with nothing to spend on Resolve. John never did apply for that dream job, he just didn't have the resolve to see it through. That makes the Mental part of his sheet look like this: Mental (Secondary) Intelligence-*** Wits-*** Resolve-* Lastly we'll add points to John's Physical attributes. John's not especially strong, fast, or resilient, but he's not unnaturally weak either, so let's just put one each of our three points into each attribute. That makes the Physical part of his sheet look like this: Physical (Tertiary) Strength-** Dexterity-** Stamina-** Which brings the us to our final Attribute section, which looks like this: Social (Primary) Presence-* Manipulation-**** Composure-*** Mental (Secondary) Intelligence-*** Wits-*** Resolve-* Physical (Tertiary) Strength-** Dexterity-** Stamina-** Now that we're done with Attributes, we have to assign our character Skills. Skills are more specific than Attributes and show our character's talent at things like Computers or Investigation. Skills, just like attributes, are divided into Physical, Mental, and Social groups. Unlike attributes, you DO NOT start with any points in skills, and so they may have a rating of zero. At the moment, John's Skills section looks like this: Social (Primary) Animal Ken- Empathy- Expression- Intimidation- Persuasion- Socialize- Streetwise- Subterfuge- Mental (Secondary) Academics- Computer- Crafts- Investigation- Medicine- Occult- Politics- Science- Physical (Tertiary) Athletics- Brawl- Drive- Firearms- Larceny- Stealth- Survival- Weaponry- Just like before, we get points based on our earlier choice. we get ELEVEN points in our Primary category, SEVEN points in our Secondary category, and FOUR points in our Tertiary category. John's work in customer service is enough that we'll give him three points each in Expression and Persuasion, as they are both important to his work. We'll also give him two points each into Socialize and Empathy, as these are somewhat related. As a customer service professional, he lies enough that we'll give him a single point into Subterfuge, for a total of eleven. Thus, John's Social Skills look like this: Social (Primary) Animal Ken- Empathy-** Expression-*** Intimidation- Persuasion-*** Socialize-** Streetwise- Subterfuge-* John went to college and works on a computer for a good portion of the day, so we'll give him two points each into Computer, Academics, and Science. He also has to look into customer complaints, so we'll give him a single point into Investigation. John's Mental Skills now look like this: Mental (Secondary) Academics-** Computer-** Crafts- Investigation-* Medicine- Occult- Politics- Science-** John was a Boy Scout when he was younger, and dabbled in a few different sports during college, so we'll give him a point each into Survival, Athletics, and Weaponry (he was in fencing club). His last point will go into Drive, because he's a very good defensive driver. That makes his Physical Skills look like this: Physical (Tertiary) Athletics-* Brawl- Drive-* Firearms- Larceny- Stealth- Survival-* Weaponry-* There's one last thing we have to do before we're finished with Skills. We get to give our character three Specialties. Specialties are a narrow focus within a skill that give your character an extra bonus (as if he had one more point in the skill) when he performs that Specialty. There are no predefined Specialties, so we just have to use common sense. Always ask the game master (me, in this case) if you're not sure whether a specialty is narrow enough. Let's remember that John's Weaponry point comes from fencing class, and give him a specialty: Weaponry (Swords). John's Investigation point comes from dealing with bureaucracy, so let's reflect that with Investigation (Bureaucracy). John has to keep himself cheery no matter how rude or silly the customers are, so let's give him his last specialty in Subterfuge (Hiding Emotions). That leaves John's Skills section looking like this: Social (Primary) Animal Ken- Empathy-** Expression-*** Intimidation- Persuasion-*** Socialize-** Streetwise- Subterfuge-* (Specialty: Hiding Emotions) Mental (Secondary) Academics-** Computer-** Crafts- Investigation-* (Specialty: Bureaucracy) Medicine- Occult- Politics- Science-** Physical (Tertiary) Athletics-* Brawl- Drive-* Firearms- Larceny- Stealth- Survival-* Weaponry-* (Specialty: Swords) A final note about specialties: You can assign more than one specialty to a single skill, and there is no limit to the amount of specialties that a single skill can have. The next step on our journey to a completed character is a little bit of housekeeping. We get to compute a handful of extra traits. No choice here, just math. Fortunately, it's easy. First, we find our character's Defense. Defense is equal to the lower of our character's Wits and Dexterity. John has two dexterity and three wits, so his defense is two. Next, we find our character's maximum Health. Health is equal to our character's Stamina plus his Size. The Size for adult humans in World of Darkness is five, and John has two stamina, so his maximum health is seven. Next, we find our character's Initiative, which is equal to his Dexterity plus his Composure. John has two dexterity and three composure, for a total Initiative of five. All characters start with a Morality rating of seven, but we need to mark it on our character sheet because it can change during play. We'll also mark down Size from earlier, though it is much less likely that this will change during play. Next we find Speed which is our character's Dexterity plus Strength plus a number dependent on his species. For humans, that number is five. Our character's dexterity and strength are both two, for a total speed of nine. Lastly, our character's Willpower is equal to his Resolve plus his Composure. Our character has one resolve and three composure, for a total Willpower of four. Now we get to make one of the most fun, character defining choices of character creation. We must pick one Virtue and one Vice for our character. The available Virtues are Charity, Faith, Fortitude, Hope, Justice, Prudence, and Temperance. The available Vices are Envy, Gluttony, Greed, Lust, Pride, Sloth, and Wrath. John likes to keep to himself and keep out of trouble, so his defining Virtue is Prudence. However, he wishes that he had a much more prestigious position than he has, and covets the success of others, so his Vice is Envy. That makes John's Traits section look like this: Traits Defense-2 Maximum Health-7 Initiative-5 Morality-7 Size-5 Speed-9 Willpower-4 Virtue-Prudence Vice-Envy There's only one last thing we have to do before we have a completed character, and that's to pick his Merits. Merits are extra bonuses, like being ambidextrous or having a photographic memory. They, like Attributes and Skills before them, are split into Physical, Mental, and Social categories. However, unlike Attributes and Skills, we get SEVEN points total to split between merits as we see fit, without regard to the categories. There are far too many merits to list here, and many have effects that are not immediately obvious, so I'll have to ask you to look at the rulebook for information on them. Please, because there are so many, list only ones that you have on your character sheet. John is really good at avoiding trouble, so we'll give him Danger Sense for two points. He doesn't have much of a life outside of the office, so he reads a lot of books and watches a lot of TV. We'll give him Encyclopedic Knowledge for four points to reflect all of the trivia he's learned. Lastly, we should show his level of disposable income (not very much, he works in a cubicle) by giving him a single dot of Resources. This makes John's Merits section look like this: Merits Danger Sense Encyclopedic Knowledge Resources-* Now we've completed John, and can write up his full character sheet. It will look like this: Character Sheet Name: John Doe Age: 38 Attributes Social (Primary) Presence-* Manipulation-**** Composure-*** Mental (Secondary) Intelligence-*** Wits-*** Resolve-* Physical (Tertiary) Strength-** Dexterity-** Stamina-** Skills Social (Primary) Animal Ken- Empathy-** Expression-*** Intimidation- Persuasion-*** Socialize-** Streetwise- Subterfuge-* (Specialty: Hiding Emotions) Mental (Secondary) Academics-** Computer-** Crafts- Investigation-* (Specialty: Bureaucracy) Medicine- Occult- Politics- Science-** Physical (Tertiary) Athletics-* Brawl- Drive-* Firearms- Larceny- Stealth- Survival-* Weaponry-* (Specialty: Swords) Traits Defense-2 Maximum Health-7 Initiative-5 Morality-7 Size-5 Speed-9 Willpower-4 Virtue-Prudence Vice-Envy Merits Danger Sense Encyclopedic Knowledge Resources-* Edited by UberKryos, Aug 9 2011, 02:22 PM.
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12:18 PM Jul 11