Announcement: First off, back from hiatus. Back to posting daily (or as close to it as possible). Will give a state-of-the-blog sometime in the next week or so. Now to the post.
When it really comes down to it, the most important thing at a game table isn't the dice, or the map. Hell, I've been in games where we rarely, if ever, used either of them. It's not really even the Dungeon Master – contrary to popular belief. They may run the game, but they aren't the reason for it. He may be king of his castle, but the king must serve his serfs.
That is who this article is geared towards – the players. Specifically, the players and the process of creating their characters. This is going to be a multiple part article that is half to help people, and half to prep this character for a campaign being run by my friend Dan.
First off, I'd like to throw a disclaimer out to begin with. Character creation does NOT end when the campaign starts. The number of times I've created an awesome character, only to realize he needed some tweaks after the start of the campaign, is countless. You not only should permit – but EXPECT – that characters change drastically over the first session or two as you get used to them.
The running example I'm going to use is a character I made for a campaign that just started. His name is Cedric Skavis. He is a white court vampire from the Dresden Files (the system we're using. I've talked about it before. >Link< ) Cedric is a white court vampire – which means he feeds off of an emotion instead of blood.
After thinking for a bit, and knowing that the White Court is known for it's subtlety, I decide that I want to choose rage as my emotion. This leads me quickly to begin identifying Cedric as set apart from his 'family.' He doesn't do things the way they do. He would rather solve a problem with his fists than by employing catspaws and plotting.
As charactrer creation went on, that aspect of his character expanded and eventually took over. “Punch it in the face” became the guiding principle, and I was excited about it. He took some enhanced toughness and recovery options to help him survive the bullshit he got himself into. I picked up methods for him to inspire rage for him to feed on.
And then we started the campaign, and it didn't feel natural.
Sure, he was a raging berserker vampire with a meth habit. It was an interesting character, but the reasonable answers to situations he was in (Charge, Maim, Kill) weren't going to fly in a campaign that was going to rely – at least partially – on diplomacy. We're going to be dealing with Faeries a lot, and Vampires the rest of the time. If all I do is go around punching things, this is going to be a very very short campaign for me, at least. Plus, it's gonna get old and annoying eventually. I decide to make some modifications to the character.
Here's the old skill list:
Great (+4): Intimidate, Fists
Good: (+3): Endurance, Athletics
Fair (+2): Presence, Discipline, Lore
Average (+1): Rapport, Empathy, Contacts, Conviction, Deceit
We're gonna shave off some of that hate and make a slightly more well adjusted being – socially, at least. Just looking at the list, I like his +3's. Endurance and Athletics both benefit his defenses in huge ways, and I see the character as being accustomed to taking hits very well. Fists I'm becoming increasingly unhappy with, but intimidate seems fine. We'll note that Fists is getting moved and take a look at the rest. Moving down, having a two in discipline is necessary from a mechanical standpoint. Any lower and I'll be running around without power most of the time, but any higher and I'd be straining to justify it. Presence I'm likewise unhappy with. The character has a strong drive to prove himself, but exists on the fringes of things. Bumping this one down too, possibly removing it altogether. Lore seems correct where it is, given his supernatural experience.
Rapport is going to be the first thing I pump up. He may not be the go-to guy, but he should know what he's talking about and be able to talk about it. I could see bumping that up to a three or so. Empathy also seems a little bit low. Possibly to be increased to a 2. Contacts will remain a 1, because although he's becoming more diplomatic, his family still thinks that feeding off rage is weird, so he doesn't have the full force of his potential contacts behind him. This might be a good one to pump up with levels. Conviction seems solid where he is. He fixates on things, but he's spastic enough for it to not be an especially good stat. Deceit likewise shouldn't be high, but should be present. Lying comes naturally to White Court vampires, but he's not good at it.
So, overall, we want to do something like this.
Lower Fists
Lower Presence
Raise Rapport
Raise Empathy
If we drop Fists by 2, and Presence by 1, we have 3 points to work with. Jumping Rapport up by two and Empathy by one gives us a final chart looking something like this.
Great (+4): Intimidate
Good: (+3): Endurance, Athletics, Rapport
Fair (+2):, Discipline, Lore, Empathy, Fists
Average (+1): Presence, Contacts, Conviction, Deceit.
With his skills neatly packed away with a solid array of diplomatic skills – and an answer to conflicts other than punching things – we need to meddle with one other thing to finish re-polishing the character. Aspects are quick lines that fully describe your character. The first is a High Concept – the core of the character. Then is the Trouble – that which is the constant thorn in your character's side. Following that are 5 (6 in our campaign, since the DM gave us an extra one) that act as supplemental information.
Cedric's old list looked like this:
High Concept: Right now, I'm thinking Wrath
Trouble: Family Pariah
Other Aspects: Talk once, Punch Twice
Attention Whore
Sleezeball
Battered and Bruised
I Started It
Meth Head.
I'll be honest. I'm not terribly happy with most of these. Two or three of them basically refer to the same thing, and few of them really give deep information about him as a character. The ones I do like are “I Started It” (because chances are, he did, and he's blunt enough to say so.) and “Meth Head” (because his drug addiction is going to be a recurring problem for him).
That gives us a lot of room to play around with. We're gonna revisit both the High Concept and Trouble, plus four other aspects, to see if we can't nail that down.
That, however, is going to be in tomorrow's article. Comments today? Try and come up with the High Concept, Trouble, and 5 aspects that describe a character. Doesn't have to be hugely in depth, but think about them for a minute and see what pops up. I'll be interested to see what you guys come up with.
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