Character creation

Character creation differs from system to system and setting to setting, but certain aspects remain the same, and those will be addressed here. Also, specific character creation rules for specific settings and systems will be added here too.

Basic Character Creation 101
Depending on the system, a player should start by doing the following when creating a character (in some cases, it might be prudent to make a sheet before making a character concept, but this depends on the game entirely. For longer campagins, always make a concept first. For short one-nighters or D&D, a sheet is the priority):

Concept
Fist note point one through six in the overview just above. All of those headlines describe something you should have an idea about before putting your concept to words, so start by familiarizing yourself with all the points, and then start over again by following the guide. To clarify: You should already have a basic idea about what relations and what important happenings would be going on in the characters life, when you start playing with the concept. If this is too much of a strech for you, then thats fine too, then just proceed one step at a time, but remember to constantly check backwards, and see if things you just added are compatible with what you already made, and alter things accordingly.

Think about the setting... What is awesome to be in this setting? What aspect of existence would you like to explore in this world? Write a few lines to express the thought. Those few lines, however comprehensable, are your concept. Now find a picture on the internet if possible. Download it, and be inspired by it to further flesh out the character and alter the concept. Pictures are worth a thousand words they say, and whether that may be true or not, they can certainly inspire a thousand words. Write some key words about this character concept. Additives, mainly. This will help you construct the personality and appearence quickly.

See the "Attributes, qualities and abilities" section below for an entirely different way of thinking up a concept.

See the "Sheet" section for a guide on how to make up a character based on a sheet.

Attributes, qualities and abilities
Before you can make a character sheet, which is what comes next, you need to think about what your character can do. All people excell at certain things, they've learned something. What can your character do? Look back at your concept. Who is your character in society? What does he do for a living? What other education does he have, if any? How did he use to get by? What are his hobbies? How does he handle conflicts? What sort of things has he experienced? All of these things should help you figure out what your character can do.

When creating a character concept based on abilities, you need to think about who in society have this specific skillset. Some things can be learned by attending classes, some skills might come though a specific education.

Sheet
Consider now the system. Some systems limit character creation greatly, thus your concept must somehow apply to the system. In D&D where the system often takes presidence over the character, it is important to remember that your character must somehow fully adhere to that, or in WOD where character concepts are greatly limited by the starting stats, the concept must be simple enough to function within these guidelines.

When making a concept based on your sheet, you need to look at it, and consider who in society has those skills. A character with overall good fighting abilities might be a martial artist or a soldier. If the same character also has contacts with the underworld, or something of the like, he might be a gangster. Connecting the dots is easy at this point, as the sheet often doesn't leave many options.

Relations
With all of that figured out, you need some details. The shadows in the closet, so to speak. Your character has parents, he was born somewhere, he grew up somewhere and he has had some experiences that has shaped his being. People he looked up to, people who taught him and people he spent time with. All of those old friends that mattered then, but are now forgotten. Old girlfriends, but also current relations, children, neighbours, coworkers, comrades, followers, subjects, patients, anything really. These people should just be briefly described, and named.

Timeline
With things thought out, put them to the paper; write a short but factual background story for the character, as bulletins: Prebirth, birth, growing up the first years, childhood, teenage, adulthood, current situation. All of these points should be briefly described, with focus on relevant information that helps describe the character in question.

Make a background story using this format, and make a character on this wikia by adding a new page and writing an article about your character. The BG and description should be contained in that article, along with a picture. If you want to make an article somewhere else, just leave a picture and a link to your own article on the page (I prefer it if you leave it here though).

Pre-Birth: Describe some important details the happened before your characters birth. For instance: "His parents met each other in Orlais, but fled together when the church hunted them and built a life in the Highlands of Bretonia, an odd place to settle, but they found a home there among the tolerant mountain people.

Birth: If any notable circumstances were present during or immediately after your characters birth, note it here. Example: He was born when the father was away on business, and his mother died in childbirth, and as such, he was raised by his aunt for the first many months, as the father never knew that his wife was with child, and was unreachable.

Childhood: Describe in very general terms, the childhood of your character. Example: Bob was always different, and it first showed when he was a child. "Fire hair", "Freckles", "Shorty" and the worst of them all... "Stub". He hated the nick names. Most of his insecurities come from this age. His father was rarely home, being a merchant, and he was actually quite ashamed of his child, leaving him to fend for himself most of the time. Of course, being rich was nice, and having servants and all, but even his servants laughed at him.

Teenage life: Teenage life warrants a bit more description that Childhood, as it's typically in the "teenages" young people develop the most. Example: Bob knew he wouldn't want to be a merchant like his father, and one day he ran away from home, intending never to return. Wandering through the wilderness of the Highlands for days, he finally found something to do with himself. He joined the Rebellion against the Crown. Perhaps a poor choice in hind-sight, but Bob was angry at the world, and no one laughed at him when he was swinging a sword at them. It turned out the military life-style was to his liking. Brothers in arms tended to be more accepting of teasing and generally able to look past shortcomings.

Adult hood: Describe some of the more recent events in your characters life. Maybe also the moments leading up to why he is part of this game! Example: Don't be ridiculous, Bob never lived to see his adult years. Bob was a fucking idiot..

Free-form: Add anything you want, perhaps a small flavor story describing something your character once did or some such. Fill this out, post it here or mail it to me. You should all have my mail address by now ;) Lesson of the day: Don't be like Bob! Bob died. Dying is bad.

Happenings and experiences
After that, certain episodes, or continous happenings should be put to word (of course, it needs to be explained where in the timeline these happenings fit in, and try not to repeat yourself, meaning if you're going to further describe some happening, make sure not to mention it as anything but a small side-note or quote word on the bulleting bg). This could be an account of a characters first car accident, or maybe the time that he first fell in love. It could also be a description of how his life was plagued by bullying and misfortune, and how this generally lead to other problems, as an example of a continous happening.

Personality
You need to write down your characters personality. When doing so, it's a good idea to refer to your background story and past experiences to show that you actually have a greater understanding of your character on a purely psychological level, than the character has of himself. Example follows: "Bob is generally a little shy and aloof, because he was picked on in school. He has gotten over it somewhat, but he's still a little awkward, especially around people who aren't also addicted to the internet in their sparetime. His mood drops instantly when people make negative remarks about his appearence, because of some insecurities spawned by him having had acne as a teenager, which is a bit ironic, because he actually grew up to be somewhat of an eyecatcher, if he could just figure out to dress properly, but he can't and he is is too insecure about himself to believe that he actually looks good"

Description
You already have a picture, now you need to make a police-style description of your character, starting with height and frame, proceeding with ethnicity, gender, apparent age, hair- and eye colour, other notable features and then style of clothing and how he walks and stands.

"1.72m, slim/athletic/hour glass figure latino woman, weighing probably no more than 65 kg, in her mid twenties, black lightly curley hair with highlights reaching about midback and eyes almost mahogny in colour. She has a friendly smile and generally showing off her full height as she walks. Easy on the eyes for most parts, she dresses mostly in loose pants and tank-tops with some sort of long-sleeve shirt over. "

A discription such as this one is very detailed, without being very long. It's factual, which is very important. Combined with a picture of a likeness, this gives a brilliant idea of what the character looks like.

Belongings
Most people own something. And if they don't, they at least usually have a few items issued to them, or things that they simply have. In modern settings when equipment is considered a given, a lot of players find it hard to write down belongings, but it really helps to keep track of your characters things. In other settings, where the character might be a traveller on the road, it's much easier to keep track of, as every bit of equipment brought along is probably necessary.

Make a list and divide it into "weapons", "tools", "clothes", "armor", "accessories", "other equipment", "supplies" and "Other things of note". If your character has a house, find a picture of a house similar to your characters house, and map the house. If your character has a weapon, maybe find a picture of that weapon. Not only will it be useful for others to know exactly what your characters gun/sword/what ever looks like, but it's useful for you to know as well. If it's a modern day setting, writing brands on your characters belongings, such as "ASUS laptop, iPhone 3s" and so on also helps tremendously, as people can better envision them. Your character wears clothes, and clothes are typically easy to find on the internet. Does he wear a green doublet? Do a google search, you might not find exactly what you are looking for, but maybe you find something that looks along the lines. Or maybe you find a black doublet that looks more like your characters doublet, only it's the wrong colour... People can work with that.

Your character has pets? Transportation? Write it all down. Remember, cars tend to have quirks, dogs have attitudes and so on.

Keeping track of your belongings and what they look like ect. should take up as much of your work as working with the character. If the GM tells you not to spend a lot of time on equipment, it might be a hint that you wont be having access to most of this through out the game anyway, so just listen to him and don't waste precious time.

WOD
WOD character creation doesn't differ much from the above, this is mainly a list of houserules regarding character creation in our WOD settings

Personality
Your characters personality is actually represented by a bunch of factors in the game, mainly being virtue and vice, as well as the morality score. For further fleshing out the character, we decided to add spice;

Alignment
Choose an alignment, as if you were playing D&D. Where you character is, in regards to his alignment, is represented by your morality score. You might have made a character who is "Lawful good". This represents a character who idealises concepts such as law and order, as well as general benevolence. Your character might be at morality 5 however. This means your character is half-way down the morality stairs, and as such, he has reached a netural point in his life where, despite being convinced that "lawful good" is the right attitude, your character has problems living up to those ideals, and generally adopts a more neutral stance. Eventually, the character starts further dropping in morality, reaching a morality score of 3. Your character is now in the low end, representing that he is closer to the polar opposite of lawful good. Your character, despite still idealising benevolence and order, he has become quite chaotic, unpredictable, and perhaps it is his own shortcomings that has driven him into a malevolent nature. Why bother with this system? True enough, this system for tracking alignment might not be worthwhile in certain settings or campaigns, but it serves to represent different codes. You do not need to be immoral or insane to be considered as such by others, if there is, say, a cultural gap.

Nature and demeanor
Something initially from the old world of darkness system, this adds more layers to your character. Nature represents a characters true nature, probably something he is either unaware of or is aware of and is trying to surpress. Very few people are satisfied with their true nature, and spend most of their lives trying to change who they are, that's a fact. Demeanor is the opposite, it's the characters idealisation of his own personality. How he wants to be, or maybe even how he sees himself. A confident character most likely feels that he is very close to his demeanor, while an insecure character realizes that he is infact not very close to his demeanor, but this is not necessarily always the case. Anyone aware of these simplified psychological methods or simply a deeper understanding of the human mind or just ones own mind, will probably be able to find quite a bit of sanctity no matter the situation. Demeanors and natures are listed in the book "mirrors". They incidentally function exactly like virtues and vices. Giving in to the character's nature allows him to regain a point of willpower, but recieving some sort of confirmation that he does resemble his demeanor closely will restore all lost willpower.

Aspirations/goals
Your character has some goals in life. You should pick at least 3 short term goals, and one long term goal before the game starts. Examples of short term goals could be; make a useful contact inside city hall, buy a gun, get high one last time, find the person who murdered your brother, pass your upcoming test. These goals should not have anything in particular to do with the setting, unless the ST excplicitly notes so. Short term goals are all about the character, and completing a such goal grants extra experience points. A long term goal should however be in conjunction with the setting, for instance; build your own crime empire, leave a worthy legacy, raise your child properly, find a way to cheat death. Long term goals and short term goals as well should always be a priority to the player of the character. These are personal goals of the character, and are of the highest priority. It is the players responsibility to play out these goals.

Relations
Your character most likely has some relations. Standard WOD allows for 7 merit dots from creation, but that's ridiculous. 7 merit dots can barely buy the minimum of merits an average young person has. Why? Because of relations. By changing relations and what they mean, we've made it possible to create more realistic characters.

Relation Dots
You make a small sheet somewhere using the completely vanilla world of darkness standard starting stats as far as they are applicable (on the wiki perhaps?) and note down character names and who they are in your characters life, and then you stat them from 1 to 5, and describe the nature of their relationship, and how they regard eachother. Only relations that are statted above 3 needs to have a sheet done. 1 means they're aqauinted and occasionally keep running into eachother, maybe because they work the same place, or go to school the same place, but they have no meaningful relationship what so ever, and 5 means that this person in particular is extremely important to the character. I might be a hated enemy or the love of his life. Family, friends and co-workers should all be statted like this. While family and friends can often be statted by the player, when it comes to noting down the reverse relationship (the NPC's relationship to the PC), and we're talking co-workers, it might be a good idea to consult the ST, as he might have inputs. If these NPC's are at all going to play important roles in the game, leave it up to the ST to decide that. Relation dots are free, but remember, an anti-social character is not likely to have many meaningful relationships, where as a politician might have a list of aqauintances that are noteworthy enough to note down, that you might as well just start picking random names out of a phonebook  (at wich point, it might be better simply to allow the ST to pull a wildcard on you, and rule that you know this person, or that your character knows so many people he can barely remember them all). Relationship dots are a good thing to base an alliance upon. They don't exactly count as an "ally", but your mother will most likely still try to help your character out, it's just that she can't really be of much help unless she's statted as an ally. She's just a frail old lady enjoying her retirement, the most she can do is give the character a lift, or give him a place to stay. Any characters who are statted as dot 5 and described as possitive relationships, if returned in same amount, should most likely be purchased as allies. A manipulative character might have many people who regard him as a dot 5 relation, but the opposite doesn't hold true, but this does not change the fact that they need to be purchased as allies to be of any real value.

Free social Merit dots
To further enhance all characters, any character who has a job will get a dot in status with that job for free, unless the character only just started or some such. This dot is free, and represents that the character is a recognized employee with any benefits that may come from that.

All people, growing up (almost) look up to something, or someone. We're not necessarily speaking of a direct mentor or idol, but something inspires everyone. The first dot of mentor is freely awarded to all characters, but doesn't reflect an actual mentor in the characters life, but more of a self-imagined mentorship. The character can gain the benefits of a mentor, by for instance; referring to books writting by a childhood idol or watching movies starring the idol. It can also be an actual mentor, maybe an old teacher that the character can't contact too often, because it would get awkward, or maybe a slightly estraged father who's somewhat shrouded in mystery, but always was a shining knight in the eyes of the character.

One free dot in contact, in every place of employment the character has worked for more than 6 months, unless it's more than 5 years ago, in which case the time he was employed needs to be considerably longer. This contact represents a person with status dot 1 in that business, and cannot be of any actual help. The person risks his job, by spilling confidential information, and cannot risk breaking any rules, nor does he have clearance for anything important. What can the character be used for? It's a foot in the door, and the character can still be pursuaded to help the character. If your character hasn't worked that many places, but held the same position for more than a few years, the contact, may be upgraded instead, ST's discretion. If your character qualifies for this merit, more than twice, bump his age requirements for professional training dots by one (meaning, if you have 3 free contact dots from having switched jobs, you need to be 25 to get the first dot ect.), and continue with this for every additional contact dot the character has which was gotten free via this rule.

Professional training
A character between 18 and 25 years of age starts with one free dot in professional training. A character between 25 and 30 starts with two dots. A character between 30 and 35 starts with 3 dots. A character between 35 and 40 starts with 4 dots, and a character between 40 and 45 starts with 5 dots. This should never be disregarded. All characters have spent their lives doing something that can relate to professional training as a merit. Your character needs to have worked at least 5 years in the business to qualify for this free dot, but remember that this merit can be purchased as well.

Quirky Passion
All characters get a free quirky passion. It's a speciality that gives a plus 2 to a given skill. The skill must be found in the least dominant skill-section, and the character may not have more than 2 dots in the skill when it's selected. Incorporate this passion in your characters background. It represents something specific your character really cares about. It could be the depressing store workers odd passion for playing smooth jazz, or the athletic socialite's flaire for cooking italian food.

Skill tricks
Pick 3 skill tricks from mirrors. These skill tricks should reflect your characters utmost specialized skills.

Space age science fiction Star Wars WOD
Experimental character creation model:

Starting stats:

15 attribute points, 10 skill points (to be distributed AFTER following the below form!), 10 merit points

Note: Skillpoints may be placed in the following way:

You may take up to two points in any skill that the below form did NOT grant you any dots in.

or

You may take a single point in any skill that the below form DID give you points in.

You start with 1 dot in:

Academics, Crafts, Technology, Electronics, Repair, Combat, Drive and Science.

You're from:

Alliance: +1 Survival or Drive

Federation: +1 Combat

Triumvirate: +1 Politics or +1 Streetwise

You're from this layer of society:

Poor: +1 streetwise or +1 survival

Middle-class: +1 Athletics or +1 Expression.

Elite: +1 Politics

In your youth, your hobby was:

Sports related: +1 Athletics

Art related: +1 Expression

Outdoors related: +1 Survival

You were too busy with your social life to have a hobby: +1 streetwise.

You grew up, predominantly as a:

Spacer: +1 Drive

Colonist: +1 Crafts

Dweller: +1 Politics

Your Bachelor was aimed at:

Science or Academia (add 1 point to respective).

You decided to train as a:

General Technician (+1 Electronics),

General Constructor (+1 crafts),

General Operator (+1 Technology)

or a General Mechanic (+1 repair).

During your initial military service, you were in:

Logistics: +1 drive.

Engineering: +1 Crafts.

Communications: +1 Technology.

Artillery: +1 Combat.

Combat Support: +1 to Repair or Electronics.

Medical Corps: +1 Medicine.

You studied as:

A field in Science (+1 Science)

A field in Academia (+1 Academia)

A servicing field (+1 crafts, repair, electronics or technology)

In the medical field (+1 medicine)

In logistics (+1 Drive)

You belong to this layer of society:

Elite: +1 to Politics.

Criminal: +1 Streetwise

Adventurer: +1 Survival

Wage slave: +1 to either Science, Academics, Crafts, Repair, Electronics or Technology.

Traits:

Noble: Shi-cho Lightsaber style and Makashi or Djem So dot 1

Former military leader: Small Unit Tactics +1 and Shi-cho style

Special Forces: Power Armor graft and Blaster Style 1.

Prodigy: +2 to Science, Academics, Artist or Sportsman.

Wild Card: Fixer and barfly

Merchant: Driving Bargain and Fixer

Multi-Cultural: Linguistic or Language 2.

Species
These are the various species you can choose for the upcoming game.

Zabrak
+1 fast reflexes,

+1 Iron Stamina and + 1 resolve

Twi'lek
+1 charisma,

any one social merit and +1 Iron Stamina

Chiss
In near total darkness or total darkness, the Chiss have Thermal vision.

+1 composure and +1 fast reflexes.

Mirialan
+1 occult,

+1 agility.

Miraluka
+1 Awareness

+1 to psionic power if Force User or Force Adept or Strong in the Force free if Force Sensitive.

If Force Sensitive, +1 Occult as well.

Cathar
+1 Agility

Ability to track by scent and nightsight

Cerean
+1 Intelligence

Counts as having patience in regards to technology, if they already have patience the bonus is doubled.

+1 language (Binary)

Weequay
+1 Stamina

Ignores bashing damage from soaked thermal damage (for instance damage from soaked plasma attacks).

+1 Iron Stamina.

Deveronian
+1 Strength

Always counts as being giant, even though they're not necessarily tall enough.

Duros
+1 Awareness

Can track by scent

Cannot see colors

Their vision is thermal however.

Togruta
+1 Stamina

+1 Iron Stamina and +1 Iron Stomach

Rodian
+1 Agility

+1 Fast Reflexes, +1 Toxin Resistance

Nautolan
+1 Stamina

Can breathe under water and swims with the same ease as a normal character moves (do not need to make swim checks in most cases).