Character Creation

Character Template Use this to make your characters.

Skills

Rules for Using Skills

Sometimes when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they make a little character and that character grows up to be big and strong and skilled in many things. Sometimes too many things, but that's cool we're all here to play and it's no fun to play an unskilled migrant worker, right? So in order to keep things fair and balanced, a character's Skills (that is to say, the learned, practical abilities which could come in handy in a gameplay setting) are rated from Abysmal to Amazing, with various adjectives in between them.

• Abysmal: The character possesses practically NEGATIVE training and no idea on how to actually perform this skill. This is usually a 'Penalty' rating, like a character who sucks at cooking or navigating for comedic purposes, as most people will not take a skill in something they simply don't know. -1 Penalty
• Novice: The character's level in this skill is beginner, or basic only. He understand the most rudimentary aspects of this skill and can generally perform adequately. +1
• Good: The character has practiced this skill enough that he can generally succeed at it, and understands all the basics thoroughly. +2
• Very Good: The character's level at this is genuinely astounding, and he will usually perform admirably, succeeding almost automatically. +3
• Incredible: The character is world-class at this skill. He routinely does the highest difficulty aspects of this craft, and likely makes a living from it. +4
• Amazing: Mastery. The character is literally one of the best in the world, and makes the impossible possible. +5

Examples of Skills

Skills come in a variety of flavors. For example, there are three major categories of them. Physical Skills are skills which are mostly natural and focus on reflexes, muscle and endurance, as well as motion and other outdoorsy activities most people reading this don't do (let's be honest). Social Skills, focusing on a character's presence, allure or smooth talking, allow schmoozing among high-society or weaseling a deal from a street vendor, and everything in between. Mental Skills require sharp wits, keen eyes and a strong mind, and concentrate on applied knowledge and learning. As such, unlike the other two forms, Mental Skills cannot even be attempted by a character unskilled at them. (Examples: Using a computer ...yes, if you have no training at it, it's basically a huge scary paperweight. Ask your grandma; Reading Latin.) There are, obviously, various other skills unrelated to the main three, and those will be listed as Other skills.

Physical Skills:

• Alertness - This measures your character's awareness of the world around him, of shifts in details and of sensory differences. A person with low alertness is by no means dull, but not exactly detail oriented, whereas someone with high alertness may always be on edge and noticing the smallest changes. Examples: Alertness would be rolled to notice someone sneaking up on you (Alertness vs Stealth), to realize if you're being watched or targeted by someone, or to realize something is wrong, like a trap or people talking in another room.
• Athletics - Athletics is all manner of motion. A novice in athletics is someone who takes care of themselves, like a jogger or a swimmer, but someone who is amazing at it is a true sight to behold. Athletics are used to do things as mundane as jumping over a hole, as impressive as climbing out of a window without breaking anything, or as seriously risky as running across a tightrope from roof to roof. A skilled athlete can avoid even explosions by knowing how to launch themselves away from it, sometimes.
• Stealth - The arts of larceny. A novice may be able to sneak in and out of their room without attracting too much attention, but someone who can walk in and out of a crowded room, take something, and leave without anyone noticing is truly amazing. Most 'theft' skills are covered in this skill, from picking locks and pockets, to breaking and entering, as there is more to stealth than just sneaking around.. though that is obviously included. A master of Stealth can take someone's wallet in a moment, break in a police station, and even surprise one of his opponents in battle (once again, Stealth vs Athletics).

Social Skills:

• Subterfuge - Another catch all category, subterfuge allows a character to lie and cheat, hustle, swindle, manipulate and deceive. From a beginner convincing a friend to lend them a twenty and never paying it back, to an expert convincing someone they DID commit this heinous crime, Subterfuge has many uses, but most are very subtle. The Subterfuge skill is used with you want to lie to a client or ally about what happened during a mission, try to make the enemy see you do in fact mean them no harm while your allies are setting up an attack, and when trying to get someone to do something for your benefit with some risk to themselves. A fair warning. Failing a subterfuge roll usually means the opponent sees what you did, and become immune to further attempts from you. They just assume you're lying or deceiving them all the time now, so exercise discretion.
• Streetwise - Very simply, being able to handle yourself on the streets of your chosen haunt. This is very useful for simply knowing when you're in the wrong part of town, or, more complicatedly, finding a proper contact, dealer or even informant among every piece of rabble on the street. This is also a skill one uses to have 'cred'. Knowing how to dress to fit in and which colors to avoid could save your life. The Streetwise skill can allow you to spot who in a crowd is likely to be carrying a piece, what kind of information you're getting (if it's bogus or reasonably accurate), and how best not to offend the local gangs. It can be a life saver, or a time saver.
• Intimidation - Very simply put, how to scare the $#!% out of people. From the most basic thing of flexing your muscles, to the far more complicated and involved projecting your killing intent through your very gaze, a person who knows how to intimidate can often save themselves both time and effort when dealing with 'grunts', or to get someone to back down from harming themselves or others. Proper intimidation is a mix of presence and display, but it can be used to coy hired thugs into abandoning the fight against you, can convince a drug dealer into giving up their supplier, or can even cause a fight to NOT break out, simply by letting people know if they start, YOU start. Once again, failing an intimidation roll means the opponent (and others who saw you) are immune to further attempts at intimidation, due to the fact that you lose your imposing aura/presence.
• Leadership - The ability to take charge, and be obeyed, basically.. but this is also strategic and tactical thinking, and inspirational ability. An unskilled leader is able to at least rally his allies into fighting alongside him, or trusting him, whereas an amazing leader can immediately dispatch people into the best position by analyzing the opponent quickly and efficiently. Examples of the leadership skill includes rallying a group of soldiers facing unfavorable odds into giving it their all, convincing allies to trust your judgement when making a seemingly dubious call and accepting you know what you're doing, and discerning enemy attack patterns and coming up with a decent counter strategy on the spot. Obviously, it also helps in long term planning (but that's still better settled in RP).
• Expression - The ability to get your message across. Great speakers can fill their listeners with awe and faith, but even novices in the art of expression can get people thinking about what they said a few hours later, even without necessarily agreeing. This is again a more subtle skill, used to convey an idea or an ideal to people, from a small group to a whole country. Unlike Leadership above which is more military/team based, expression allows you to inspire and fill people with either hope, or even despair. The true power of expression needs time and effort to prepare, but a good speech can inflame a crowd, of people or soldiers, to fight for you or for your cause, to take over a conversation and deviate from a subject you'd rather they not think of too much, and when properly applied, can demoralize and defeat enemy troops or even leaders through cutting remarks and brutal truths. *Etiquette - Behaving oneself. But more importantly, this skill lets people fit in almost anywhere. A person newly indicted into the doings of high-society knows when to old his tongue and when to speak (when spoken to), but a true socialite can effortlessly end even quarrels without bloodshed or harsh words. This skill includes diplomacy and proper behaviour, as well as the ability to tell if someone is obviously somewhere they don't belong. While at the core a simple skill, Etiquette can be used to placate guards or enemies by calling upon their need for decorum, can be used to gather information as if you were entitled to it, and can be used to make a strong reputation among the elite, which would make other skills (like Subterfuge, Expression, and Leadership) more useful with their backing. Like those skills, however, failing at an etiquette roll results in a loss of face, and those who saw you flub will not be impressed by you anymore, you boor.
• Performance - A catch all category, players should probably signify what type of performance they have. A novice can play a small piano recital, whereas an expert will win awards on a national or international scale, if so they choose. This is considerably less 'general use' than other skills, but rounds out a character well. The Performance skill will be used within the character's area of specialty, such as musical performance, or performing in a play, with the end result (usually not against a difficulty) being how well the character performs.

Mental Skills:

• Computers - The ability to use computers, an omnipresent commodity in this world, and something most people at least
• Investigation (as in proper, scientific investigation. Anyone can ask questions or notice out of place things, it takes a real Holmes or House to do this perfectly)
• Medicine
• Law
• Occult
• Politics
• Science
• Technology (repair, robotics, mechanics.. that sort of thing.)

Other Skills:

• Driving (arguably physical, but..)
• Survival (as in wilderness)
• Empathy (some people have more than others)
• Animal Ken (some people get along better with dogs than people, I guess)

There are as many skills as there are characters, and some skills can fit in more than one category (Dancing, for example. Graceful display of dexterity, or sexy, seductive and based purely on appearance?), and this is just a general guideline. This isn't an excuse to give your character 11ty billion skills in case they COULD come up, and you should only detail skills which are exceptional or necessary for your character's job (ex: Soldier would have lots of skills, it's possible he rocks at Survival and Firearms but sucks at Knife Fighting and Navigation), and some background cases should be different (it's safe to assume anyone born after 1980 knows how to handle a computer, even if only at it's most basic, but would a time traveler or old-as-f*ck vampire?).. these aren't here to make a SUPER CHARACTER, but to explain what makes your character special and unique among the other snowflakes.

Rolling the Die

For GM purposes, all actions are performed with a difficulty. Difficulties vary between 1 and 15, with 6-7 being relatively average. The harder an action is the more difficult it should be, as logic would dictate, but actions with a difficulty above 10 are borderline Superheroic all the way to Nigh-Impossible. When a GM wants to make it fair to both the players and himself, he might ask for a roll against a set difficulty, where the players roll a d10 and add their skill rating to it. Example, Kuja, an Incredible Hacker, is trying to get Cobra Commander's bank account information from his laptop, a relatively high-security (Difficulty 10) endeavor. Kuja rolls a D10 and rolls a 7. Success! If he had rolled 5 and below, even with the +4 bonus, he'd have failed and probably cause an alarm to start because the laws of movie logic means computers trigger alarms if you fail to hack them. As you can see this was a fairly simple example. More complex actions might require more rolls (Example: Keeping up with an escape car, roll Driving vs Difficulty 8 for 3 actions or you lose them), or opposed rolls (Kuja attempts to hack Umino's WoW account, Kuja vs Umino roll Computers).

• For help using the dice bot, please refer to Hit Chart

Guideline for Rolls and Difficulties

Now, after a lengthy debate and conversation, we've decided to add some rolling guidelines, for difficulties, including a suggested difficulty chart. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind when setting difficulties. GMs should feel free to ignore any of these points if it goes against their game idea, of course, but this is how to best use the system we have in place right now.

• Difficulties Should Be Based On An Average, Not an Expert: When setting a difficulty for a task, think how hard it is for an average person (like say, you), and gauge it around that. Do not look at the group you have and gauge it on the best there (unless of course your NPC is -that- good and personally involved). It may seem challenging to make a hacking difficulty over 10, but that means only the best of the best even have a crack at it, and an average person will probably fail. Making the difficulty insane for even the best means only THEY can succeed, which means any other person attempting it may be wasting their time.
• Roll when you Think it will add Drama or Tension, Not for Everything: A trap is sprung. Agents barely have time to react, the ceiling is falling. Will they make it? Roll Athletics! That's pretty awesome, surprising and gives real consequences to the roll, adding drama and tension. Rolling to dodge from an enemy's attacks every time? Silly. There's cover. There's preparation. There's roleplay. Let them take the hit for a counter-attack and let them dodge if that's what they're doing. It doesn't really add drama to try to shoehorn an HP system on a freeform RPG. Also if you want the players to absolutely find the vital clue, just have it there glowing for no reason. If everyone fails the Alertness/Investigation roll, then you're at a loss for the next step. But getting an extra insight on the puzzle with a roll.. that's dramatic.
• Difficulties Above Ten: Okay, let's come out and say it. These should only pop up on opposed rolls or for superheroic feats. Not for mooks (generic opposition, which for this exercise means as much Security Guards as Ninjas, depending on the mission rank of course). Not for car chases. Not for hacking. Not for noticing something. This should be a roll to locate a hidden Orochiko. This should be a roll to hack through Leben's encryption. This should be a roll to intimidate Dracula (with a +2 bonus for Belmonts). As you can see all these example are named characters. They aren't just 'really good security'. They're SPECIAL. Like the PCs. Keep this in mind. Having to roll against a difficulty 13 from an average mook is kind of silly and makes that 13 seem frivolous. When a difficulty of 12+ is called, it should be shocking and special, not just the GM wanting to add fake diffculty.
• But then the Best will succeed!: The common complaint. Yeah.. that's the point. It's 100% normal that the ninja or master thief easily sneaks by the armed guards. It makes perfect sense that the super smart detective notices something isn't right. That's what makes it special. That's why there's Incredible and Amazing stats. These people SHOULD succeed more often than not. And that's why you should make most things RP-related and not just dice-roll based. If they're completely incompetent in RP, they can't blame a dice roll for bad luck. But if they do a smart thing they should be rewarded. The GM isn't trying to WIN. They're trying to tell a story.

And now the Guideline. These represent an average difficulty for various feats, based on an AVERAGE person (Novice/Good)'s skill level. The GM can adjust these as he or she sees fit, of course, but these are a few examples.
Very Easy: Difficulty 2-3 - This should almost never come up. It should only be rolled if people have Abysmal stats at something, or for borderline comedic purposes.
Examples: Sneaking past a blind man. (Stealth) Noticing the elephant in the room. (Alertness) Not insulting your wait staff. (Etiquette)
Simple: Difficulty 4-6 - Something mundane but that may require a bit of effort. These should be rolled in mundane situations that require some finesse to manuver.
Examples: Sneaking past Security agents. (Stealth) Avoiding something simple thrown at you. (Athletics) Locating some files in someone's laptop (Computer)
Average: Difficulty 7-8 - Probably self explanatory. Almost any roll should be based on this. Most actions here are done against professionals or with the 'expected' level of performance from the opposition.
Examples: Cracking a safe. (Stealth) Finding the point of entry from a burglar in a house. (Investigation) Riding a horse. (Animal Ken)
Difficult: Difficulty 9-11 - This should be notably hard to do. Going up against top of the line opposition, cutting-edge technology and well trained experts in the field. These are challenging for even the best, and they will occasionally falter when luck just isn't on their side.
Examples: Hacking into a Federal Database. (Computer) Hoping over a bridge on a bike. (Driving) Making a mob boss confess in court. (Intimidation/Law)
Heroic: Difficuty 12-13 - These difficulties pertain to nearly impossible tasks, usually set up by exceptional people at what they do. Olympic-level athletes and pioneers in their scientific fields are barely able to accomplish this on a regular basis. These difficulties should be kept for powerful opponents, or exceptionally well-designed obstacles.
Examples: Noticing Susan Richards sneaking up on you. (Alertness) Sneaking into the Hyuga Clan's Main Branch House. (Stealth) Staring down Seiryu. (Intimidation)
Super-Heroic: Difficulty 14-15 - This is near impossible. Even the best of the best can barely hope to accomplish this. This is usually something that was meant to be meant by many, or downright miraculous. Without luck AND immense skills, these tasks are not meant to be accomplished.
Examples: Deciphering Doctor Doom's Dastardly Device Blueprints. (Science) Replacing the Seal on the Profound Darkness. (Occult)

Final Note - The Final Note II: Revenge of the Note

Okay guys. This is important. Both for fair play and because it's one of the rules. You want to give your character a Swordfighting of 'Amazing' and you're going into a fight with a less skilled swordfighter (poor bastard is merely 'Incredible'.. pff.). If both players aren't okay with the simple 'roll it', for the love of God, do NOT use this in actual combat. It should be a relative skill level, yes, the 'Incredible' one should go 'Man this guy is tough.. maybe better than me', but if you're playing it out, PLAY IT OUT. Any rolls for COMBAT will inevitably lead to arguments. It's the sad truth of crossover channels. I don't care if Zoro Jr should beat Kenshin Jr (or vice versa), because everyone has their own idea of who beats whom, and COMBAT is the only way where it can be shown. Don't do it unless you need to save time (Okay my dude fights yours but I need to go, wanna roll it?), because it will INEVITABLY lead to arguments over who can beat who's dad and then play is less fun and more competitive. Be Nice.

Merits and Flaws

Using Merits and Flaws

So, we're trying to use a new system here that'll give a little unique edge to the characters being played and maybe give some ideas. We wanna have a nice diverse cast! Plus, it'll be fun and make interaction more interesting. An entire page of Merits and Flaws has been made for Players to pick and choose them for their characters.

However.

To stop people from picking 2348234732 Merits and 1 Flaw there is a simple system on how to make things fair. Each character gets 5 points to use for Merits. If you go to the Merits and Flaws page, you'll see that each merit and each flaw has a number by it. The numbers need to add up to 5.

For example, if you take the Merit Gall (2) and Clear Sighted (3).. you're done. You have five. Now.. if you take Flaws, you'll get points back.. but only up to 5 extra points.

So, if you take Gall (2), Clear Sighted (3) as merits and you decide to take Pacifist (5) flaw.. you now have an extra 5 points to add to merits again. This doesn't mean you have to STOP taking flaws though. You can take as many flaws as you want for your character if you think it fits and you'd like more of a challenge for your character.

Another important thing about Merits and Flaws. If your character has super powers or is from a mystical race with it's own set of abilities, they may naturally have some of the Flaws or Merits as part of their package (Nightsight for Vampires and Elves, for example). If you take an extra merit, that means your character's special ability is exceptional even compared to his species, so probably even more vulnerable. Keep that in mind before overstacking Flaws and Merits.