4 replies to this topic

[Synik]

Character generation

1. Have a think

Read through the next few sections and make some notes on what character you're thinking about playing. I don't need a full character sheet straight off, just a bit of background that fits in with the game setting. Once I have your basic idea, I can fit that into the game and you can move on.

I'll post a template sheet later on for you to copy your character's details into. If you have any questions, drop them in the OOC.

2. Pick a race

Dark Age has just humans in it. Everyday folk like you and me..... but with the arrival of ever cheaper cosmetic surgery and biotechnology, there are a number of 'varients'. Not everyone's vanilla. Some changes are lifestyle choices, while some folk are 'made' that way. The summary is here and the full version is here. Some varients have bioware as standard - namely Breed have been 'made over' and Necs have vamp implants.

3. Stats

Once you've picked a race, head over to the stat gadget and spend your points. Rating 2 is pants, rating 10 is very good. Some races have better scores than others: SHARCs are very strong and Metas are clever so-and-sos.

Keep an eye on the Character Point total. You have 100 points to spend. No more, no less.

Make a note of the dynamic values below the line. These are your characters core stats (strength, dexterity, etc) and then their dervived statistics. Size has a negative impact on your agility. Your skills will be based on your derived stats.

4. Career Skills

There are lots of different careers in Dark Age and you have 50 points to buy skills. It is not a point for point purchase - higher skills cost more points. This is discussed here. I've also put together a small web page that lets you enter the skill name and select what skill rating you want. The web page will then calculate the cost for you.

You can browse the careers section here. You may want to check with me over what you're picking. I doubt I'll turn you down, but it is best to check first.

5. Pick up Skills

These are 'life skills' that your character has just picked up. They cost the same as career skills (see above). However, corporate brats don't tend to know how to use a rifle and street kids are short on society skills. A list of backgrounds can be found here.

6. Equipment

Everyone starts with $4,000 and in addition to the basics, you can purchase modifications, weaponry or other personal effects with it. I'll be generous and skip on the surgery prices.

The lists are:

Equipment
Bioware - Chrome is no longer sexy. Metal rusts. Meat rocks.
Cyberware - Given the setting, I'd prefer you to stay away from cyberlimbs. Other stuff is fine, but check if you're not sure.

Gun-wise, some of you may not need one - indeed getting into a Corporate Zone is going to be tough if you're tooled up. It's your call but I reserve the right to remove minisile launchers or flame throwers.

Edited by Synik, 27 May 2008 - 10:47 AM.

[Synik]

Okay folks... I'm going to add a walkthrough which I hope will make things a bit easier.

I'm going to pick Meta as a race as I'd like my character to be a bit clever.... or an arrogant little s*** depending on your point of view.

First, I'll open the stat generator. The top row is the unadjusted scores I can pick. If I was to play a human, then there would be no modification to the scores I select. Notice as you change the scores, the box marked 'character points spent' changes. You want this to be 100. Oh, if you do play a non-standard human, it does cost points to play. These point costs are listed at the end of each character type, but I'll put them here for reference:

humans: no CP cost and no modifications

metas: no additional CP cost and +1 INT (max: 11); +1 DEX (max: 10); -1 HT, -1 STR and -1 CHA

breed: 4 CP cost. +1 QUI, +1 STR (both max 11). -1 CHA and -1 DEX. Animal/vamp teeth and animal claws. Unnatural skin / hair.

necs: Basic Nec = 3 CP and are 'beautiful' with vampire teeth. Full nec = 8 CP and are 'beautiful' thanks to a full body surgical make-over with retractable vamp teeth and low-light bio-optiocs.

SHARCs: 8 CP cost. They gain +2 STR and +2 QUI (max: 11), but loose - 1 INT, -1 CHA and -1 DEX. Armoured skin and have low-light + anti-dazzle vision.

meatboys & meatgrrls: 10 CP cost. +4 STR and +2 HT and +2 SIZ. -1 CHA. They have the promise flaw (4 points) to never have cyberware and a compulsion (flaw) to pump iron. They cannot have bio-weave, muscle grafts or body enhancement implants.

tritons: 8 CP cost. +1 STR and +1 QUI (max 11) but -1 DEX, INT and CHA. Armoured / cold resistant skin. Can see in low-light / dazzle conditions and underwater with no problems. Enhanced swimming ability. They can breath underwater and hold their breath for up to half an hour (15 mins if swimming).

asex: 8 CP cost. No special abilities (bonuses to disguise? Although they're likely to dislike 'pigeon-holing' themselves. They may get social skill bonuses as being sexless, they can be thought of as more trustworthy - hence many 'Neut' bodyguards).

trix: 8 CP cost. No special abilities (bonuses to disguise?)

posthumans: 6 CP cost. STR by -2 and HT, QUI & DEX by -1. Increase INT and CHA by +1. Appearance should be average. Extra cash and an extra 15 CP to spend on skills.

Looking at the list above, playing a Meta character isn't going to cost me any character points. If I wanted to play a Nec instead, I could only spend 92 character points (because 100 - 8 = 92).

So.... on with the selection! Using the menu I pick:

Strength 6
Health 7
Size 7
Quickness 9
Dexterity 7
Spirit 6
Intelligence 9
Willpower 8
Charisma 7
Appearance: Average

I then tick the box on the right hand side of the word meta. The generator gives me my new stats and tells me I've spent 97 Character Points (or CP). I know that taking a stat from 6 to 7 costs 3 CP, so I increase my character's strength. This gives me a nice round 100 CP spent.

I now look below the horizontal line and the generator tells me my new stats:

Strength 6
Health 6
Quickness 9
Dexterity 8
Spirit 6
Intelligence 10
Willpower 8
Charisma 6
Appearance Average

I also get a series of secondary stats and these are predominately physical characterists.

Size 7
Movement 8
Endurance 7
Luck 6
Hits 14
Stun 15

Movement is how fast I can move, size is how big I am. Hits is my character's ability to absorb lethal damage (like being shot) whereas stun damage is non-lethal (being punched etc).

There's also a row of other characteristics and these are used as base scores for my character's skills. They are:

Knowledge +9
Agility +9
Manipulation +8
Tech +8
Communications +8
Sorcery +8
Perception +8

Let's say that my character has +4 in SMG. This is a manipulation skill, so I would roll D10 + manipulation ( + SMG skill (+4). This is a basic example as weapons have accuracy modifiers and cybernetics or other equipment can improve your skills.

What about a more social angle? Okay, let's say my character has fast talk at +2. This is a communications skill, so the skill test would be D10 + comms ( + skill (2). If my character had been attractive, then to members of the opposite sex (and otherwise!), I'd get a bonus to the roll.

I need to record these stats on my character sheet as:

---------------------------------------------

Name: Kinn Drake
Player: Synik
Race: Meta
Sex: Male
Career: ?

Strength 6
Health 7
Size 7
Quickness 9
Dexterity 7
Spirit 6
Intelligence 9
Willpower 8
Charisma 7
Appearance: Average (no social mods).

Size 7
Movement 8
Endurance 7
Luck 6
Hits 14
Stun 15

Knowledge +9
Agility +9
Manipulation +8
Tech +8
Communications +8
Sorcery +8
Perception +8

[Synik]

In order to help you buy skills for your character, I've put together a small web page.

There are 10 fields on the page which should be enough for your character's career skills. Put the name of the skill in and then use the drop down list on the right hand side under Rating to assign what skill level you want. The higher the better!

If you are curious to what's a good enough level, a typical skill test - or 'average' test - is rating 15. That means you need to roll above 15 with a D10 plus your skill base (knowledge, agility, etc) + the skill level.

Keep an eye on the box at the bottom marked 'total'. This is (natch) how many points you've spent and this should not go above 50.

Once you've got your skills set, click the button marked 'Click here to push to a flat list'. This will copy the skill names you've put in and list the ones you've assigned points to. You can then cut and paste that into your character sheet.

Career Skills:
KNOW: Programming +3
AGIL: Athletics +4
MANIP: SMG +2
COMMS: Contacts: Corporate +6

If you've got any questions, drop me a line in the CharGen OOC.

Edited by Synik, 27 May 2008 - 02:13 PM.

[Synik]

Moving on to Career, I decide my character is going to be a gangster... or more accurately, a member of a Corporate Family.

According to the blurb, the skills package is:

accounts or investment, contacts: family, culture: family, facilities (pick two), fast talk, melee or unarmed combat, perception (type), psychology, write.

I then paste each of these a line at a time into the skill calculator.

I have 50 skill points to spend, but skill costs are not point for point. Instead, the high the skill, the more it costs you. In summary:

Rating..Total.......Cost.per.rank
.+0........0.5..... 0.5
.+1........1........0.5
.+2........2........1
.+3........3........1
.+4........5........2
.+5........7........2
.+6........9........2
.+7.......12........3
.+8.......15........3
.+9.......18........3
.+10......22........4

Okay. So what the hell does that mean? To buy a skill - say Contacts: Family at +3 - would cost me 3 CP. I look down the table for +3 and see that the cost is +3. Perhaps +3 isn't enough for Drake as I want him well connected. I pick +6 for the skill and that would set me back 9 character points.

Why is the cost per rank in there? Let us say that I finish creating Drake as a character and I find myself with 3 spare CP. I see that I've got Melee at +4. The difference between +4 and +5 in that skill is 2 CP (7 CP for the +5 skill but I've already spent 5 CP on getting +4). I dedide to increase Drake's melee skill to +5.

Using the skill calculator, I'll start spending some character points:

accounts or investment: I pick investment and select +3. The tool tells me I've spent 3 CP so far.

contacts: family: I spend 9 CP on this skill giving me Contacts: Family +6. Every 3 points in contacts gives me a 'contact' NPC. We'll flesh this out later on. The tool tells me that costs 9 points and I've now spent 12 CP.

culture: family: I spend 3 CP on this skill giving me Culture: Family +3. Every 3 levels of 'culture' gives a character +1 to social tests when dealing with someone from that background. That's another 3 CP spend - a total of 15 so far.

facilities (pick two): I have to pick two types of facilities here - facilities is a bit like Streetwise, only with more class I got and look at the skill list (here) and find out what derived characteristic facilities falls under. It's communications, so I go look up the entry. Looking at the choices of: Cyberware, Information, Medical, Net, Tech or Weaponry. I go for Information and Weaponry. I put +2 in information and +4 in weaponry. That's 2 CP and 5 CP each. I've now used 22 points.

fast talk: let's make that +5. So 7 CP more and 29 points left.

melee or unarmed combat? Melee I think because Drake's a bit of a wimp. +2 in that for 2 CP and a total of 31 points.

perception (type) - I'll go with visual perception and put +3 in there for 3 CP. I've spend 34 CP now.

psychology - I'll put +5 in this which costs me 7 CP and I have 41 CP left.

write - Hmmm.... +2 I think. Drake's not a boardroom kinda guy. That costs 2 CP and I've spent 43.

That leaves me with 50 - 43 = 7 CP left. Well, I could go and buy some edges, but instead I'll up some of the other skills. I increase Drake's Facilities: Information to +3 and Perception to +5. That leaves me with 1 CP left. I've only got one skill that I could 'up' with that, and that's Write. SO that becomes +3.

I hit the publish button and the web page gives me this:

Investment = +3
Contacts: Family = +6
Culture: Family = +3
Facilities: Information = +3
Facilities: Weaponry = +3
Fast Talk = +5
Melee = +4
Perception (visual) = +5
Psychology = +5
Write = +3

I could paste that straing into my character sheet, but if I go and track down what those skills are, it'll make dice rolling a bit easier. I take a look at the big skills list (see here) and I get:

Career Skills:

KNOW: Investment = +3
COMMS: Contacts: Family = +6
COMMS: Culture: Family = +3
COMMS: Facilities: Information = +3
COMMS: Facilities: Weaponry = +3
COMMS: Fast Talk = +5
MANIP: Melee = +4
PERCP: Perception (visual) = +5
PERCP: Psychology = +5
KNOW: Write = +3

I can now paste the above into my character sheet.

I now need to work out some Pick Up skills. We can reuse the skill calculator but do watch out for the 'double cost' if you pick a skill outside your character's background!

Edited by Synik, 28 May 2008 - 12:47 PM.

[Synik]

Pick up skills

What's all that about then? (Ted)

Pick up skills - as there name suggests - are ones that your character has picked up as they move through life. They could be chance learnings, a hobby or an inanate talent they have. They are linked to your character's background:

There are four standard backgrounds:

Corporate brats are people sent off to private schools, home education networks or even educated by their nanny. They don't tend to be worldly wise due to their sheltered upbringing.

Burb kids are from the suburbs and posh housing projects. They include the middle class and low income kids who got some schooling from the suburbs. Not all tenant children are wise ass street trash.

Streetkids run riot on the street as homeless or in crap housing projects. The world is not always a kind place and many die young. Those that don't, might make it - well they'll live a bit longer anyway.

Clansmen are the mobile crusties, they drift from sprawl to sprawl looking for work. Some even abandon society to join extended families; moving to self-sufficiency or sponging off the state. Romantic it isn't.

The two specialist backgrounds are:

Highriders are people who lived in low earth orbit. In space, ignorance kills.

The Miliary still has it's own schools, jobs for life and places to live. Some people never see civilian life until they get injured and ditched; or just ditched.

I'll accept Highrider or Military as a background, but you'll need to come up with a decent backstory.... and "raised in the military by a rogue SWAT team leader won't cut it."

These first four - corp brats, burb kids, street-kids and clansmen - are the ones you should concentrate on. You can pick skills outside of your background - indeed, everyone can pick stuff from Universal - but learning a skill outside of your character's social background comes at a price:

• Corporate brat, burb kid, streetkid and clansman are all standard backgrounds and you can buy skills outside your background at double cost.
  
• Specialist backgrounds include highrider and military and buying skills from those packages costs standard characters tripple! (However, specialist background characters can buy the other skills at only double cost - subject to ref veto of course).
  
• All characters have access to the universal skill package. Skills from the specialist backgrounds can be bought by other background types, but their cost is triple(!).
  
• Corporate brats, burb kids and highriders also have access to the education skill package as normal. Skills bought from here are at no extra cost, unlike the other backgrounds who must pay double.

In the above, Education Package and Universal were both mentioned. The education package gives you a raft of skills for a few character points all in one go. Universal on the other hand, means anyone can take skills from it at the usual cost.

The Education packages are pre-set and contain:

School (3 CP):
Any science subject (see below) +2 and either maths, writing or language (type) at +2.
(Choosing this package includes the basics of being able to read & write).

College (6 CP):
Computer use +2, Library Use +1 and choose +3 from one of:
any science subject; History; Writing or Programming.
(Choosing this package includes a good level of reading / writing ability).

Graduate (12 CP):
Writing +2, Library Use +1, Computer Use +2 and choose +5 in one of:
Any science subject; Programming; Electronics (type); Mechanic (type);
Law; Psychology; Criminology; Programming or Literary Study

Valid science subjects include: Biology, biotech, botany, chemistry, geology, genetics, pharmacy, physics, zoology. Please note that genetics or physiology are unlikely to be taught in schools to any serious degree. Graduate characters may choose a different key skill not mentioned above (subject to Referee veto).

Universal contains: Athletics, Climbing (Type), Computer Use, Dance, Fast Talk, First Aid, Hide, Language (Type), Perception (vision or listen), Play (instrument), Running, Seduction, Sneak, Style, Swim, Throw

But I already have that skill from my career!

If you have the skill already AND the skill is repeated in the Education package - you may combine the two.

E.g.: Drake has the Write skill at +2 from his career. The education package gives this at +2. I get to combine the two to make Write +4.

However, if the skill is listed in your background then you buy it as normal.

Drake doesn't have the skill 'sneak', so any skill ranks I want to put in that, I would need to buy normally. If I wanted Sneak +3, that would cost me 3 CP.

Step by Step

Let's do a run through shall we?

First of all you have 50 CP to spend on Pick Up skills. The same cost per rating prices apply as before. You could use the skill calculator if you like. Just remember to double up the cost of any skill that is outside your character's background!

For Drake, I'll pick Corp Brat because he's part of a corporate family...pretty much as close as you can get to the Mob these days. This skills available to him are:

Accounts, Contacts: Corporate, Culture: Corporate, Cycle, Drive (type), Education Package, Etiquette, Evaluate, Facilities (type), Investment, Perform, Pilot (type)

The universal skills include: Athletics, Climbing (Type), Computer Use, Dance, Fast Talk, First Aid, Hide, Language (Type), Perception (vision or listen), Play (instrument), Running, Seduction, Sneak, Style, Swim, Throw

1. Education

Given Drake's background, I think Education is a must so I look at the Education packages and go for Graduate. This gives Drake: Writing +2, Library Use +1, Computer Use +2 and +5 in a selected subject. For the latter I'll take Law.

As we said earlier, Drake's got Write +2 already and as this is a package skill, I get to combine the two! This means:

Writing +4
Library Use +1
Computer Use +2
Law +5

This package costs me 12 CP and so I have 50 - 12 = 38 points spare.

2. Stuff from Universal.

This package includes: Athletics, Climbing (Type), Computer Use, Dance, Fast Talk, First Aid, Hide, Language (Type), Perception (vision or listen), Play (instrument), Running, Seduction, Sneak, Style, Swim, Throw

I go for:

Hide +3 (costs 3 CP)
Running +3 (costs 3 CP but increases Drake's movement by +1!)
Style +4 (that's 5 CP)
Swim +2 (2 CP)

I've got 25 CP left.

3. Other skills.

I notice that Drake doesn't have much in the way of firearm skills, so I decide to pick him Pistol from the street-kid range. As this is outside Drake's cosy corporate brat upbringing, this is going to cost me double.

I go for Pistol +3 which would cost me 3 CP normally. As it is outside Drake's background, it's now 6 CP. I've got 19 CP left.

I'll have SMG too... at +3, so that's another 6 CP because of the doubling. I now have 13 CP left.

4. Corp Kid

This includes: Accounts, Contacts: Corporate, Culture: Corporate, Cycle, Drive (type), Education Package, Etiquette, Evaluate, Facilities (type), Investment, Perform, Pilot (type)

I'll have:

Drive (Car) +4 (5 CP)
Evaluate +3 (3 CP)
Pilot (anti-grav flyer) +4 (5 CP)

That's all my CP gone.

If I wanted, I could have saved some CP and bought some edges. Alternatively, if I'd have wanted more points, I could have taken on some flaws (which give me more CP to play with).

All in all, Drake's pick up skills end up as:

Computer Use +2
Drive (Car) +4
Evaluate +3
Hide +3
Law +5
Library Use +1
Pilot (anti-grav flyer) +4
Pistol +3
Running +3
SMG +3
Style +4
Swim +2
Writing +4

My next step would be to go and find what the skill bases are for these. SMG, Pistol, Drive and Pilot are going to be manipulation skills.

Once I have these listed, I should add them to my character sheet.

The next stage is spending cash. You have $4000 to spend on equipment. A weapon would be a good choice - something easily hidden! - as would some armour (again, something covert, the walls have eyes). A bit of bioware would also be a good idea.

Edited by Synik, 28 May 2008 - 10:07 PM.