Post by Gravedust on Jun 11, 2010 22:49:30 GMT -8
GEAR
The primary function of gear in the game is to improve a character's stats. Equipping a piece of gear will add the gear's stat bonuses to the character that it's equipped on. (These bonuses should be marked in Bonus area of the of the Equipment section, AND the bonus area of the Stats section of the Character sheet, in order to keep track of them more easily.)
There are Nine 'slots' where gear can be equipped:
Head (Hats, helmets, goggles, etc.)
Chest (Various types of clothing or armor)
Hands (Primarily Gloves)
Back (Usually large bags or heavier pieces of hear. Larger guns are carried here as well)
Belt Left (Belt slots are interchangeable and usually carry weapons or gadgets)
Belt Right (Belt slots are interchangeable and usually carry weapons or gadgets)
Belt Center (Belt slots are interchangeable and usually carry weapons or gadgets)
Legs (Pants or other clothing)
Feet (Shoes, boots, etc.)
Each piece of gear will indicate where it can be equipped. An item that goes in the Belt slot may be placed in any one of the three.
Each piece of gear will have it's own stats:
Name (What it is)
Slot (where it goes)
Bonus (What it does)
Rarity (How hard it is to find)
Cost (How much it costs)
Size (How bulky it is)
Accessories (Bells and whistles)
Description (A short description.)
____________________
When a Character puts on a piece of gear, the name of the item should be written on their character sheet in the correct slot in the Equipment section. Likewise any bonuses the gear provides should be noted as well, in the Bonus section. Note that ONLY the gear that is equipped on one of the 9 slots will have an effect on a Character's stats. Gear that is in a character's storage does not count.
Size, and any Storage the gear has built in should be marked as well, in their corresponding areas.
____________________
Size
Size is a general measurement of how large a piece of gear is. the Sizes of all equipped gear should be tallied together and put at the bottom of the Equipment Section, under Totals. The Total Size of your character is used for a number of rolls, most notably the ones for ranged attacks. Carting a lot of gear around makes you a bigger, slower target and easier to hit. Likewise, Size is a negative modifier in many agility difficulty rolls. Carrying a lot of bulky gear tends to make it harder to be light on your feet.
____________________
Storage
Some gear will come with pockets or other spaces where extra gear can be stored. Considering that most characters will need a little spare room to carry around extra gear, ammunition, or other consumables, (Since you can't fight with your hands full) finding a bag or other piece of gear with some Storage is very handy. Gear can have between 1 and 5 slots of storage on it. Every point of storage allows 1 Size worth of gear to be stored.
I.e. If you have a Belt item with 2 storage on it, it can fit either two size 1 items, or one size 2 item.
If an item is too bit to fit completely within a bag it can't be stored there.
When Gear with storage is added, it should be noted on the character sheet.
Remember to include the name of the item the storage is associated with, and mark off the amount of space available. Whatever is stored there should be marked as well. Remember that if an item is larger than size 1 it will occupy multiple slots, so indicate that as well.
The .pdf character sheet is already set up to account for bags, but let's do an example using the text character sheet, since it's less obvious as to how it works.
-------
Rucksack (5 Storage)
1. Solitaire reload (1)
2. Solitaire reload (1)
3 Fire Mask (1/2)
4. Fire Mask (2/2)
5. -empty-
-------
Here we have a 5 slot bag.
In it are 2 reload cartridges for a handgun,and a Size 2 Firefighting mask. There is 1 slot left over as well. The sizes of the items are listed to the right of their name. The Reloads are both size 1, indicated as (1) , but the Fire Mask is Size 2 and so is lasted twice with (1/2) and (2/2) indicating the slots it takes up. The empty slot is marked as empty.
____________________
Duffle Bag
In addition to the Storage on their gear, every character has a Duffle Bag, a large canvas bag that can hold 20 slots worth of equipment. The duffle is heavy and unweildly, (and counts as Cargo) and as such usually stays somewhere aboard ship or in some other safe spot, so whatever is stored in it isn't always accessible. At present the Duffle Bag storage slots don't fit on the .pdf character sheet, so for now you will have to keep track of them manually.
____________________
Starting gear
When each character is created, they automatically gain $200 with which to buy their starting gear. This isn't much. Clothing and gear is expensive, and Weapons are VERY expensive, so it is probably best to invest in your primary tools, (the items most important to your character) and then see what you can afford afterward. All guns are sold with enough ammunition to fill their chambers, but you will probably want to buy a reload for it. It's also useful to have 1 or more storage spaces as well.
Anything on the gearlists is available to buy as starting gear, so long as it has a rarity of 50 or less.
Chances are good you will run out of cash before you have all the gear slots filled.. This is normal. (And no, this does not mean they're naked, it just means that whatever they have on is light clothing and isn't doing anything for them.) Throughout the rest of the game there will be plenty of opportunities to get your character more suitably kitted out.
Any cash you don't spend on choosing starter gear is lost, so get the most use out of it while you can.
When the Character first comes into play, they will recieve $30 (and a free money pouch!) So they don't start completely broke. The money pouch isn't really an item, it is just an entry that denotes that money is somewhere on a character, usually somewhere in storage. The amount of cash contained is usually put in parentheses.
____________________
So, as an example let's choose some starting gear for Alex.
He's a mechanic first and foremost, so let's start with that.
I'll get him a Toolkit, which adds a +5 to his Mechanical and Repair skills for $90. The Trixywrench looks tempting even thought it's very expensive.. but it's 52 rarity and so unavailable.
With $110 remaining.. I'll see if I can find some more things that play into his primary skills...
I find some tech gloves that offer another +2 Mech/Repair skill for only $35, so I pick those up as well.
$75 left.. Let's look into some storage options...
I wind up taking a Satchel for Alex's belt slot, adding 3 storage for $40
With $35 left I settle on a pair of Cargo pants, which offer a little bit of Toughness and 1 space worth of Storage.
I've got nothing left over, so that's it for Alex's starting equipment. Let's mark it all down on the sheet:
--------------------------(Showing just equipment section)----------------------
Head: -
Chest: -
Hands: (Item:Tech Gloves) (Bonus: +2 Mechanical/Repair ) (Size:1) (Storage)
Back: -
-
Belt Left: (Item:Toolkit) (Bonus:+5 Mechanical/Repair) (Size: 1 ) (Storage)
Belt Right: -
Belt Center: (Item: Satchel) (Bonus: - ) (Size: 2 ) (Storage: 3)
-
Legs: (Item: Cargo Pants) (Bonus: +1 Toughness) (Size: 2 ) (Storage: 1 )
Feet: -
------------
Total Size: 6
________
STORAGE
========
Satchel (Belt Center)(Storage 3)
-empty-
-empty-
-empty-
Cargo Pants (Legs) (Storage 1)
-empty-
DUFFLE BAG
Money Pouch: ($30)
-empty-
-empty-
-empty-
etc...
Okay. So we've got his gear all set up.. Note that I removed all the information from the slots with nothing equipped.. This is simply to make the sheet easier to read. Also, any gear that goes into the belt slot can go into left, right, or center without any restrictions.
You'll notice that I've put the $30 Alex gets automatically at character creation in his Duffle Bag. I could put it in his satchel or pants pocket if I wished as well, but for now I don't mind that it's stowed away. (and I wanted to show something in the Duffle Bag)
Now let's confer the bonuses from his gear to his Stats section:
----------------(showing just the Stats Section)-------------------------
Physical
Toughness: 10 (Bonus 1) TOTAL =11
Strength: 5 (Bonus 0) TOTAL = 5
Agility: 0
Combat
Combat Tactics: 0
Swashbuckling: 0
Musketry: 0
Skills
Airship Tactics: 0
Piloting: 15 (Bonus 0) TOTAL = 15
Cannoneering: 0
Firefighting: 0
Mechanical: 10 (Bonus +7) TOTAL = 17
Repair: 30 (Bonus +7) TOTAL = 37
Social
Intimidate: 0
Charm: 0
Impress: 0
Skulduggery[/color]
Stealth: 0
Spot: 0
Medical
Medicine: 0
Special
Damage Control: 10 (Bonus 0) TOTAL = 10
Lie Detector: 0
___________________
Again, I simplified the stats without scores or bonuses for ease of reading.
Really there are only 3 stats that are being increased. Mechanical and repair (which receive bonuses together) and Toughness.
The Toughness bonus is minor, but the +7 (5 from the belt, 2 from the gloves) bumps Repair up to 37, which is nice. Mechanical is now also 17.
And with that, we have a fully developed character, ready to play! Before we do that, though, let's explain a bit more about the system the game runs on.
Oh.. But first, one more thing:
____________________
Character Approval
There is one more step, and you'll be ready to play!
After your character concept is written up and your stats and gear have been allocated, you need to post a copy on the site in the Character Section for approval. This is just to make sure that you've set up your character correctly , and that it's more or less suitable for the game.
Once I've had a chance to look over your sheet I'll either mark it approved and ready for play, or I'll explain what needs to be changed/fixed in order to be acceptable.
After the initial posting of your character setup (You can use the text template or post a photocopy of your printed sheet) you don't need to post it again at a later date, unless you want to. Though you SHOULD NOT LOSE YOUR SHEET as it's the best way to keep track of your character. If you like you can use the online version in tandem with your printed one, or just the online version if you really want.
____________________
Care and feeding of your Character Sheet
I'd highly recommend downloading and printing the .PDF character sheet over using the online version.
It's a good deal easier to use, and more intuitive.
Due to the online nature of the forum game, I'll be keeping and maintaining my own copy of everyone's character sheets, but each player should remember to update theirs as well.
At the end of every GM post there will be a list of all the different changes that need to be made to the sheets. In order to keep things synchronized between my sheets and the players, they should be very careful to reflect these changes on their own sheets, or at least the online sheet.
If a player misses an update of their stats, or loses their copy they can ask to see my copy of their sheet, which for the game's purposes will be considered the 'official' one.
When a player wants to use CP to buy some stats for their character, they should announce their intent to do so in their post, and WAIT FOR GM'S APPROVAL (which should be in the next GM post) before making changes to their character sheet.
____________________
That about finishes covering how to make a character. To see how the game itself is played, have a look at the How To Play threads:
How To Play - Free RP
The primary function of gear in the game is to improve a character's stats. Equipping a piece of gear will add the gear's stat bonuses to the character that it's equipped on. (These bonuses should be marked in Bonus area of the of the Equipment section, AND the bonus area of the Stats section of the Character sheet, in order to keep track of them more easily.)
There are Nine 'slots' where gear can be equipped:
Head (Hats, helmets, goggles, etc.)
Chest (Various types of clothing or armor)
Hands (Primarily Gloves)
Back (Usually large bags or heavier pieces of hear. Larger guns are carried here as well)
Belt Left (Belt slots are interchangeable and usually carry weapons or gadgets)
Belt Right (Belt slots are interchangeable and usually carry weapons or gadgets)
Belt Center (Belt slots are interchangeable and usually carry weapons or gadgets)
Legs (Pants or other clothing)
Feet (Shoes, boots, etc.)
Each piece of gear will indicate where it can be equipped. An item that goes in the Belt slot may be placed in any one of the three.
Each piece of gear will have it's own stats:
Name (What it is)
Slot (where it goes)
Bonus (What it does)
Rarity (How hard it is to find)
Cost (How much it costs)
Size (How bulky it is)
Accessories (Bells and whistles)
Description (A short description.)
____________________
When a Character puts on a piece of gear, the name of the item should be written on their character sheet in the correct slot in the Equipment section. Likewise any bonuses the gear provides should be noted as well, in the Bonus section. Note that ONLY the gear that is equipped on one of the 9 slots will have an effect on a Character's stats. Gear that is in a character's storage does not count.
Size, and any Storage the gear has built in should be marked as well, in their corresponding areas.
____________________
Size
Size is a general measurement of how large a piece of gear is. the Sizes of all equipped gear should be tallied together and put at the bottom of the Equipment Section, under Totals. The Total Size of your character is used for a number of rolls, most notably the ones for ranged attacks. Carting a lot of gear around makes you a bigger, slower target and easier to hit. Likewise, Size is a negative modifier in many agility difficulty rolls. Carrying a lot of bulky gear tends to make it harder to be light on your feet.
____________________
Storage
Some gear will come with pockets or other spaces where extra gear can be stored. Considering that most characters will need a little spare room to carry around extra gear, ammunition, or other consumables, (Since you can't fight with your hands full) finding a bag or other piece of gear with some Storage is very handy. Gear can have between 1 and 5 slots of storage on it. Every point of storage allows 1 Size worth of gear to be stored.
I.e. If you have a Belt item with 2 storage on it, it can fit either two size 1 items, or one size 2 item.
If an item is too bit to fit completely within a bag it can't be stored there.
When Gear with storage is added, it should be noted on the character sheet.
Remember to include the name of the item the storage is associated with, and mark off the amount of space available. Whatever is stored there should be marked as well. Remember that if an item is larger than size 1 it will occupy multiple slots, so indicate that as well.
The .pdf character sheet is already set up to account for bags, but let's do an example using the text character sheet, since it's less obvious as to how it works.
-------
Rucksack (5 Storage)
1. Solitaire reload (1)
2. Solitaire reload (1)
3 Fire Mask (1/2)
4. Fire Mask (2/2)
5. -empty-
-------
Here we have a 5 slot bag.
In it are 2 reload cartridges for a handgun,and a Size 2 Firefighting mask. There is 1 slot left over as well. The sizes of the items are listed to the right of their name. The Reloads are both size 1, indicated as (1) , but the Fire Mask is Size 2 and so is lasted twice with (1/2) and (2/2) indicating the slots it takes up. The empty slot is marked as empty.
____________________
Duffle Bag
In addition to the Storage on their gear, every character has a Duffle Bag, a large canvas bag that can hold 20 slots worth of equipment. The duffle is heavy and unweildly, (and counts as Cargo) and as such usually stays somewhere aboard ship or in some other safe spot, so whatever is stored in it isn't always accessible. At present the Duffle Bag storage slots don't fit on the .pdf character sheet, so for now you will have to keep track of them manually.
____________________
Starting gear
When each character is created, they automatically gain $200 with which to buy their starting gear. This isn't much. Clothing and gear is expensive, and Weapons are VERY expensive, so it is probably best to invest in your primary tools, (the items most important to your character) and then see what you can afford afterward. All guns are sold with enough ammunition to fill their chambers, but you will probably want to buy a reload for it. It's also useful to have 1 or more storage spaces as well.
Anything on the gearlists is available to buy as starting gear, so long as it has a rarity of 50 or less.
Chances are good you will run out of cash before you have all the gear slots filled.. This is normal. (And no, this does not mean they're naked, it just means that whatever they have on is light clothing and isn't doing anything for them.) Throughout the rest of the game there will be plenty of opportunities to get your character more suitably kitted out.
Any cash you don't spend on choosing starter gear is lost, so get the most use out of it while you can.
When the Character first comes into play, they will recieve $30 (and a free money pouch!) So they don't start completely broke. The money pouch isn't really an item, it is just an entry that denotes that money is somewhere on a character, usually somewhere in storage. The amount of cash contained is usually put in parentheses.
____________________
So, as an example let's choose some starting gear for Alex.
He's a mechanic first and foremost, so let's start with that.
I'll get him a Toolkit, which adds a +5 to his Mechanical and Repair skills for $90. The Trixywrench looks tempting even thought it's very expensive.. but it's 52 rarity and so unavailable.
With $110 remaining.. I'll see if I can find some more things that play into his primary skills...
I find some tech gloves that offer another +2 Mech/Repair skill for only $35, so I pick those up as well.
$75 left.. Let's look into some storage options...
I wind up taking a Satchel for Alex's belt slot, adding 3 storage for $40
With $35 left I settle on a pair of Cargo pants, which offer a little bit of Toughness and 1 space worth of Storage.
I've got nothing left over, so that's it for Alex's starting equipment. Let's mark it all down on the sheet:
--------------------------(Showing just equipment section)----------------------
Head: -
Chest: -
Hands: (Item:Tech Gloves) (Bonus: +2 Mechanical/Repair ) (Size:1) (Storage)
Back: -
-
Belt Left: (Item:Toolkit) (Bonus:+5 Mechanical/Repair) (Size: 1 ) (Storage)
Belt Right: -
Belt Center: (Item: Satchel) (Bonus: - ) (Size: 2 ) (Storage: 3)
-
Legs: (Item: Cargo Pants) (Bonus: +1 Toughness) (Size: 2 ) (Storage: 1 )
Feet: -
------------
Total Size: 6
________
STORAGE
========
Satchel (Belt Center)(Storage 3)
-empty-
-empty-
-empty-
Cargo Pants (Legs) (Storage 1)
-empty-
DUFFLE BAG
Money Pouch: ($30)
-empty-
-empty-
-empty-
etc...
Okay. So we've got his gear all set up.. Note that I removed all the information from the slots with nothing equipped.. This is simply to make the sheet easier to read. Also, any gear that goes into the belt slot can go into left, right, or center without any restrictions.
You'll notice that I've put the $30 Alex gets automatically at character creation in his Duffle Bag. I could put it in his satchel or pants pocket if I wished as well, but for now I don't mind that it's stowed away. (and I wanted to show something in the Duffle Bag)
Now let's confer the bonuses from his gear to his Stats section:
----------------(showing just the Stats Section)-------------------------
Physical
Toughness: 10 (Bonus 1) TOTAL =11
Strength: 5 (Bonus 0) TOTAL = 5
Agility: 0
Combat
Combat Tactics: 0
Swashbuckling: 0
Musketry: 0
Skills
Airship Tactics: 0
Piloting: 15 (Bonus 0) TOTAL = 15
Cannoneering: 0
Firefighting: 0
Mechanical: 10 (Bonus +7) TOTAL = 17
Repair: 30 (Bonus +7) TOTAL = 37
Social
Intimidate: 0
Charm: 0
Impress: 0
Skulduggery[/color]
Stealth: 0
Spot: 0
Medical
Medicine: 0
Special
Damage Control: 10 (Bonus 0) TOTAL = 10
Lie Detector: 0
___________________
Again, I simplified the stats without scores or bonuses for ease of reading.
Really there are only 3 stats that are being increased. Mechanical and repair (which receive bonuses together) and Toughness.
The Toughness bonus is minor, but the +7 (5 from the belt, 2 from the gloves) bumps Repair up to 37, which is nice. Mechanical is now also 17.
And with that, we have a fully developed character, ready to play! Before we do that, though, let's explain a bit more about the system the game runs on.
Oh.. But first, one more thing:
____________________
Character Approval
There is one more step, and you'll be ready to play!
After your character concept is written up and your stats and gear have been allocated, you need to post a copy on the site in the Character Section for approval. This is just to make sure that you've set up your character correctly , and that it's more or less suitable for the game.
Once I've had a chance to look over your sheet I'll either mark it approved and ready for play, or I'll explain what needs to be changed/fixed in order to be acceptable.
After the initial posting of your character setup (You can use the text template or post a photocopy of your printed sheet) you don't need to post it again at a later date, unless you want to. Though you SHOULD NOT LOSE YOUR SHEET as it's the best way to keep track of your character. If you like you can use the online version in tandem with your printed one, or just the online version if you really want.
____________________
Care and feeding of your Character Sheet
I'd highly recommend downloading and printing the .PDF character sheet over using the online version.
It's a good deal easier to use, and more intuitive.
Due to the online nature of the forum game, I'll be keeping and maintaining my own copy of everyone's character sheets, but each player should remember to update theirs as well.
At the end of every GM post there will be a list of all the different changes that need to be made to the sheets. In order to keep things synchronized between my sheets and the players, they should be very careful to reflect these changes on their own sheets, or at least the online sheet.
If a player misses an update of their stats, or loses their copy they can ask to see my copy of their sheet, which for the game's purposes will be considered the 'official' one.
When a player wants to use CP to buy some stats for their character, they should announce their intent to do so in their post, and WAIT FOR GM'S APPROVAL (which should be in the next GM post) before making changes to their character sheet.
____________________
That about finishes covering how to make a character. To see how the game itself is played, have a look at the How To Play threads:
How To Play - Free RP