pink corner piece The Drones

Creating a character

Basic character statistics

The Readies Determines affluence and spending power.
The Old Grey Matter Determines intelligence, plausibility, gullibility, willpower and occasionally decision making ability.
Appearance Determines looks, sartorial taste, general likeability and degree of respect they command.
Vim & Vigour Determines fitness, health, ability to run, jump, climb etc. and capacity for good food and drink.

A player character is built up by distributing character points amongst the four basic attributes, modified by any advantages or disadvantages taken. For '1st level' characters, 8 might be a sensible number to start with. Alternatively, player characters could be built from, say, 1d4+4 points to keep some close to the Average Drone, who is on 0 for everything. Non-player characters may be built from more or less character points, depending on what suits them.

Every character is built up from 0 in each attribute.

Level 1 in any attribute costs 1 character point
Level 2 costs 3 points
Level 3 costs 6 points
Level 4 costs 10 points
Level 5 costs 15 points
Level 6 costs 21 points
Level 7 costs 28 points
Level 8 costs 36 points
Level 9 costs 45 points
Level 10 costs 55 points

Thus it can be seen that upgrading from one level to the next costs a number of points equal to the level to be gained.

Character points are also used and gained by the taking of advantages and disadvantages. A player may decide to keep character points in hand to use later if they wish.

During a game, players may earn extra character points at the Game Master's discretion to distribute as they wish at the end of the game. Sometimes something in the course of a game may modify player's statistics permanently, for example they might win a lot at a casino, or inherit money or land. The GM will decide when this has happened and ask the player to amend his or her notes accordingly.

The tables listed below give rough guidance on what might be expected of, or be representative of, someone or something at that level - the suggestions are by no means meant as rules but should help in deciding on character statistics and in running a game.

See also Examples of character generation.


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Copyright Ian Crowther, Sheila Thomas, Victoria Uren 1995-1996