12 Greenwater Premade Characters

I have been noodling on an adventure-in-a-box with simple premade 5e characters for a while. It would be based on my first dungeon map from, oh, thirtyish years ago.

Here they are as they stand, based on some combination of official 5e sidekicks, the Unearthed Arcana approach, and whatever I felt like. Four warriors, four experts, and four casters, each ready to face a challenge in the temple at the edge of their town. The hope is that everyone in an online group would be able to pick a column out of this spreadsheet in a minute or two, then the DM hides the others, and we're off.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1inS0S0eb8PCRIUcjfzguGGgbihuexiRSMkO5VKGQnv4/

These use the alternate rules from the DMG where there are no individual skills, just ability checks. It's pretty clear except for expertise. Here expert characters get to double their proficiency modifier for one ability's checks.

Casters, of course, require a little more consideration. They can choose between ritual casting and armored casting. Here are their spells and magic rules boiled down to a single page each. The grandparent is the oddest of the bunch, for sure.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OcNjERLh75Q_YB0gYP7dLC9eiKxJkE2y 

Some spells and effects in this adventure are different from published rules. Mainly, healing via second wind, potions, or magic restores 2d4+2 HP. That's just to keep things simple in the mind of new players. 

Considering how to manage leveling up in the course of the adventure, if at all.

Fate Vis Major Playtest Characters

Piecemeal over the past few days, I've been converting the characters used in the first playtest of my homebrew system for the Vis Major setting over to Fate Core. It was surprisingly easy from a system perspective - way too much of that time was spent trying to find nice little quotes to put on the character sheets.

Also spent more time than usual for a playtest on the character sheets themselves. I really want to grab the group with these, and I hope that making it look like a "real game" will help with that. They're done up as trifold legal-sized sheets, single-sided, in a Google presentation. Playtest is this Thursday!

Skills

The skill list is customized for Vis Major. I'll post the full list at some point in the future but here's a summary.

• Athletics, Deceive, Empathy, Fight, Notice, Provoke, Shoot, Stealth, and Will are handled just like core.
• Physique was renamed Brawn, Burglary was renamed Thief, and Rapport was renamed Charm, but they work basically the same. I just like one-word skills.
• There are three magic skills: Blood, Ether, and Gnosis. Each of these has some limited stand-alone benefit, so it's not a waste tossing a +1 or +2 into them. However, there are Aspects that grant them new uses, so if you're putting a +3 or +4 in one of these you will probably also be taking one of those.
• Contacts became Clout, representing not only who you know but your standing within your various affiliations and capacity to pull rank.
• Resources became Trade, which is your ability to apply your skills to making money, and is another one-word skill.
• Then there's Gambit. I'm really just going to have to see how this plays out, but it's your capacity to plan ahead for potentially outrageous circumstances, your machinations, and your perfect bits of gear you happen to have. It will likely allow for a lot of retconning by the players.

Lore, Investigate, and Drive/Ride are not on the list. Lore is determined by your Aspects, Investigate I plan to do with challenges, and Ride will be handled with Empathy, Charm, or Provoke.

Aspects

Unlike Fate Core, I felt the Aspects on these sheets needed a little more explanation than a single phrase. We have a sense of what a "Fireman" or "Librarian" would be invoked for, but "Aleph" or "Acadian Walker" aren't immediately evident, even though they're common enough in the setting. So a couple fragments to provide an archetype and perhaps a quote.

The magic aspects needed some detailing too since I rather wanted the facts that "your blood is independently alive" or "you can blow up golems" to be staring the players in the face constantly.

There are some blank Aspects left for the players to fill in. Only one character got a personality trait of "Mousy" assigned, and that's only because she was played so memorably that way in the last round of playtests.

Stunts

I've only played Fate once, and it was actually FAE, so we'll have to see if these stunts feel balanced. I'm using an alternate initiative system based on Marvel Heroic Roleplaying where you basically just choose who goes after you, so some of the stunts are based off that to give the decisions more weight.

Then there are some that further enhance magic skills, and a few left blank to fill in at the players' discretion.

Extras

There are no plans to use weapon and armor ratings, so there's just some simple lists of what they're wearing and wielding. I'm hoping that having some of the aspects deal with specific types of weapons will be sufficient. Other gear is suggested by their Aspects.

I listed out some specific foods they're carrying instead of generic "rations" in an attempt to reinforce cultural identities. A common theme I've noticed in works of fantasy that resonate longer is the author tends to describe the foods the characters encounter in greater detail. Tolkien dwells on dishes, and I often think of this bit from Narnia:

"And immediately, mixed with a sizzling sound, there came to Shasta a simply delightful smell. It was one he had never smelled in his life before, but I hope you have. It was, in fact, the smell of bacon and eggs and mushrooms all frying in a pan."

I've gotten a bit obsessive about the food situation in Vis Major, but it's an important way to delineate cultures.

Then there are mounts for most characters. I couldn't find any rules for managing mounts in Fate so I'm just going to wing it. One of the characters has an imp servitor - this is a more complex Extra that I felt was worth knocking his Refresh down by 1 for. Note none of the other magic stuff costs Refresh, just skills and aspects.

Stress & Consequences

The only thing abnormal here is that the Physical stress track is build on the combination of Blood and Brawn, and the Mental on Ether and Will. This is one of the reasons it can be nice to "dump" a point or two into those skills.

Potions

Extracted and stored magic forces in various solutions and salves. Potions are a relatively cheap resource that can get you +1 on a roll, but if you can hold off on dipping into your stock, you can store up enough to try and imbue or enhance an item with them.

Umbrham Characters

A couple weeks ago I improvised a hybrid of Monsterparts and Dread that came to take place in the small New England town of Umbrham (pronounced as only a small New England town can be pronounced). All the characters were in 7th or 8th grade in the year 1986 and were created simply by answering seven of the following questions each.

I wrote the questions on index cards, then the players passed them around and chose one at a time that appealed to them. After they answered the questions, and at the start of each session, they read their questions (but not their answers) aloud to the group. Everyone was also allowed to pick two possessions they would always be assumed to carry.

I'm presenting the questions here grouped by how they were chosen to make characters.

• What did you spend your [Bar/Bat] Mitzvah money on?
• How can you afford to spend so much time at the arcade?
• Why do you spy on [Player A’s character]?
• What did you name your dog?
• What's the password to your tree house?
• Whose blood stained your concert shirt?
• Why don’t you eat meat?

• What did you learn at overnight camp?
• Where do you carry your heirloom?
• Why did you miss the last couple track practices?
• Why is your kid brother hiding a bruise?
• When did the dreams start again?
• Which of [Player B’s character]’s family do you idolize?
• Why did you fail math last year?

• How long since dad left?
• Where do you get your cigarettes?
• How did you get that scar?
• Why don’t you show anyone your poetry?
• How much longer do you have to wear that cast?
• How did you lose your virginity?
• What do you know about [Player C’s character]’s family that they don’t?

• When did your twin die?
• Do your parents know you’re pregnant?
• What’s the only thing Grandad says to you?
• Why do you trust [Player A’s character] so much?
• How did you earn a scholarship already?
• What book do you read again and again?
• Who buys you all your tapes?

At some point I'd like to run it again with the same questions in a different group and see what characters emerge. I'll write up what I remember of the story in a future post but mention briefly that flashlights are an excellent prop for the horror game GM.

Wayshielders Characters

I originally posted this at http://wayshielders.blogspot.com/2013/09/characters.html but am rolling that blog over to this one.

The structure of characters has fluctuated a lot during design, but I feel like the the current setup captures things properly.

Rules here.

Classes

Originally classes and races were distinct choices. However the stuff I'd come up with for racial abilities felt pretty uninspired and was focused too heavily on skills. I started thinking about switching to an older "races-are-classes" model and a couple ideas jumped out at me immediately. When I brought them up in conversations with friends I got the same excited response from each independently, and that sealed the fate of the races.

So we have our favorites, Fighter, Mage, Cleric, and Rogue, joined by Elf, Dwarf, and Orc. If I get carried away there will also be a Golem. I'm very likely to get carried away.

Abilities

I wrote the first draft of Wayshielders on a weird Saturday, lying on the kitchen floor and just putting down what felt right. A very early decision was to use the "classic" abilities, but leave out Constitution and Charisma.

Hit Points work well but I've never really enjoyed having a whole extra ability score whose primary purpose is to determine them. It's been called to use for other things over the years (system shock, Fortitude, Concentration, etc. etc.) but those always felt like consolation prizes. So let's do HP and all its friends without Constitution.

Charisma always felt out of place in older games, where you're supposed to rely more on your roleplaying in social situations than a number. It works fine in games where you have social skills and checks, but I wanted to discard those for Wayshielders, so it was easy to let go.

That leaves just Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom. These are also abilities I'm fine using with monsters, which is nice. I do like having one system for PCs, NPCs, and monsters.

Strength

• Strength takes on much of Constitution's old role as it's what's used to determine HP.
• It also affects melee attacks and possibly the Armor or Fortitude defenses.
• Strength also sets Load - how much you can carry.

Dexterity

• Armor and Reflex are influenced by Dexterity.
• It's part of the Initiative modifier.
• In sort of a weird role, Dexterity in Wayshielders is also a bit of luck, so a high Dexterity helps your Saving Throws.

Intelligence

• Intelligence can help the Will and Reflex defenses.
• It also determines how many Spells you know, which is independent of class (though Mages and Elves are going to have the highest Intelligence scores).

Wisdom

• This factors into Will, Fortitude, and Initiative.
• It also determines how many languages you know. Languages may sound like a fairly weak benefit, but they do open up social and communication options, and scrolls use is dependent on knowing the language it is written in.

Talents & Focus

Each class has nine talents. You start with four, and over the course of the character's life and career can get up to eight, so there's always one you can't have.

Each talent has a focus, which improves its efficiency or effect - characters start with two and can get up to four, so about half your options are preferable most of the time, but you have others.

Characters have to start with at least one Guard talent and at least one Assist talent. Guard talents do very weak damage, usually d4, but have very high chances to hit and usually cause some additional effect when they do. The defenses they target and the effects they cause are more effective against some enemies than others - a major strategic element of combat is determining who is best able to keep opponents weakened.

Assist talents aren't intended as attacks, but rather benefit and heal allies. Using them builds Peril though. I'll write about Peril in a future post but it's a global counter of all the harm, danger, risk, stupidity, panic, and indecision the party has built up.

Other talents are generally used to hurt things in a manner consistent with the class's style.

Kits

I have a huge, unfinished list of kits. Characters pick two and each gives a nice passive bonus. The Verdant Disciple for example gets +1 damage with wooden weapons because they grow thorns in her hands.

Kits let characters of the same class differentiate themselves from each other. They allow for archetypes to be reconstructed without needing special classes - you can build a perfectly recognizable Ranger out of a Rogue who took some ranged talents and the Archer and Animal Trainer kits. 

Each kit also gives a way to earn bonus XP. These aren't as well fleshed out yet, but are supposed to hearken back to the 5 or 10 percent bonus characters would get for having high ability scores. I wanted to shift this reward to roleplaying, but still tie it to things that happened at character creation.

Kits each have four options which become available as the character levels. These provide some new spell uses, or special attacks, or such and such. The first one is available at second level, to provide some sense of immediate reward and hopefully hook players on their character. They get access to six over the course of their career though so won't ever get to use all eight of them.

Background

There's a list of possible backgrounds, but since their impact is so broad, it's fine for players to take this opportunity to present whatever backstory they want for their character. 

Relation to the Wayshielders

Every player character is a member of the Wayshielders guild, so in addition to the background, this is a chance for them to define their more recent history.