Season 4, Episode 012: Test our Skills: Outline and Character Creation
Greetings Gamers! This month, we are wanting you all to test us on just how well we do with our gaming. For the past few months, we’ve been giving tips for Players, Game Masters, and over all how to be a better Gamer, well now we are putting that knowledge to use!
For this month, we’ll be recording a couple of gaming sessions, and we want YOU to tell us how you think we did, what we did wrong, what you liked, and over all if we’re as good of Gamers as we say we are!
So e-mail, tweet, catch us on Facebook, or post here on the blog and let us know what you think!
Month’s Theme: Test our Skills
Weekly Theme: Outline and Character Creation
Helpful Links: D6 Holocron: The Star Wars D6 Wiki
Roll High, Play Well, Die Hard!
Rho Pi Gamma, The Gamer's Podcast 
January 10, 2014 at 9:01 pm
I think this episode was rather boring. The three players were not treated as Noobs, but rather as seasoned gamers. If you wanted to get the most out of the episode you should have done things from the perspective of the first time gamer. And I’ll explain:
Let’s say I, your loyal listener, have never played an rpg game, or at the least never played D6 Star Wars (a shocker I know, but it could happen). I know nothing of the system, nor anything about the character sheet. Sure you have provided the link to D6 Holocron, but let’s just say I downloaded this episode and am at the gym working out (yes another shocker consider I haven’t gone to exercise at a gym since years before I was married). I press play to listen to this cast and off you go talking about Attributes and Skills. Maybe I can follow this a little bit, but for the most part I’m now lost. The banter between the personalities on the show are entertaining, but you’ve now lost me on how character creation is done for D6 Star Wars.
Character creation is a special process. You are getting an opportunity to look at life from a different perspective (and hopefully not be ridiculed by it). You are creating a unique (or plagiarized, if that’s your thing) personality who will be placed in a world of pure imagination. In that world you will interact with new people and creatures that you’ve never seen before. You may have read about them in stories, but you’ve never been apart of the story, and now you ARE. But where do you begin?
A blank character sheet can be very intimidating. While the rulebooks will help you flesh out such things as class, race, skills, equipment, etc. but where do you start? To help me focus the new player’s thoughts, we’ll talk specifically about Star Wars D6, and go from top to bottom of the character sheet. [What is great about D6 Star Wars is that they do offer pre-generated characters. This can be very tempting as a brand new player, and should definitely considered, but we’ll assume these aren’t available in this instance.]
So at the very top of the character sheet we first find “Character Name”. For most players I’ve encounter picking a name for a character can be difficult, because in a game, like Star Wars, who wants to here about John Smith? No one. And you’d be right. I once heard someone (an actor I think), say “What’s in a name?” Everything! It’s your identity, and once the character is created that’s the name you’ll live with for the rest of that character’s life. So how do we choose a name? Stealing one from a movie, tv show, book, or video game is a favored choice among players. Some, like myself, research names to find one that has certain meaning, a meaning that will help shape who this character is and what they will become. You can leave this for last, or let it point you on the path to greatness. Your choice.
The second line on the page is “Type”. What type of hero are you going to unleash on the Star Wars Universe? Are you going to be a Brash Pilot? The Arrogant Noble? A Tongue-Tied Techie? Or perhaps a Jedi Knight! The meaning behind “type”, in this case, reflects what career you are starting off as. As you’ve probably seen in the movies the path the heroes think their on, doesn’t mean that’s the one they’ll end up on (Lukke Skywalker is a great example). This selection is probably the next most important aspect, besides Name, that you’ll want to choose. As it will dictate what choices you make later on in Attributes and Skills. So before moving forward with anything else, choose a “career”.
Next comes Gender and Species. Picking a gender can be rather easy — if you’re female player, you’ll likely player a female character, same goes for men, male player = male character. But if you want to go outside your comfort zone, by all means do so. As for species, you can’t go wrong with being Human, because in Star Wars they’re everywhere. You’ll fit right in whether you’re a member of the Rebellion, or a wayward farmboy enlisting as an Imperial Stormtrooper. But if you wish for something more exotic, play a Wookiee (give me your best growl), or maybe a Mon Calamari (no wait, It’s a Trap!). Playing something other than human can be very rewarding, and provide interesting roleplay opportunities when confronting the Empire.
Age, Height, Weight, and Description round out the top of the Star Wars character sheet. Actually, everything I just talked about is pretty basic on any character sheet for any RPG. Figure out what (or who) you want to look like, and put that information here. Want to be Burt Reynolds? Make sure you describe your stylish mustache. Julia Roberts more your flavor, describe her smile and red hair.
The next section is the biggest, and longest part of character creation (I’ll try to be brief). As Byron stated the character starts out with 18 Attributes to be distributed between: Dexterity, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength, and Technical. Byron touched on this portion pretty well, so I will not reiterate it here. Just keep in mind the Type of character you created. If you’re playing a Sports Star, don’t make your Dexterity your lowest stat (it just wouldn’t make sense — unless you’re an ex-star who broke a leg and is now retired, but then your type should be ‘Retired Sports Star’).
How good your skills are will be reflected in by how you distributed your Attribute dice. If you wanted to be a superior marksmen, then you better not have put 2D in Dexterity. Sure if you started off character creation with 4D in Blasters, you’ll do well, but compaired the person who put 4D in Dexterity and now has a 6D in Blasters, you’re sub par. So make sure your skills reflect the type of character you decided to be when you chose ‘Type’. So if you’re a Jedi, you’ll likely take Lightsaber as a skill. Doctors will want First Aid. Hackers may want Computer Program / Repair. PIlots or Drivers will need skill in their chosen vehicles.
Also keep in mind that Skill points can be broken into Specializations (1 Skill Point = 3 Specializations). If you choose to do this there are definitely Pros and Cons. Pro: you can obtain more skills; Con: you limit what you can do (and with whom or what). Let’s continue to look at the Marksmen. Let’s say you choose to take a Skill Point and split it into three specializations. You decide that the Marksmen is a Sniper, and therefore needs to focus their skill in a long-range blaster. So you choose your first specialization Blaster (blaster rifle). You’ve now restricted yourself from having as good a skill in Blasters, the general skill. But that’s okay, rifles aren’t big .. and … um … bulky. So much for concealing the weapon.
Alright, so you’ve chosen your skills and now we’re on to the bottom of the character sheet. Special Abilities consist of Force Skills and attributes gain from your chosen race. For simplicity we’ll say the Marksmen is Human, so no special abilities, and is not a Jedi, so no Force Powers. Also down here is some other info that the GM will help you fill out (Move, Force Points, Dark Side Points, and Character Points). The only other part is whether or not you’re Force Sensitive — we’ve got no Force Skills, but that doesn’t mean the Marksmen can’t eventually learn. So we’ll put Yes, next to Force Sensitivity to round out this portion of the Character Sheet.
Last but not least is a series of fill-in-the-blanks. Equipment is pretty basic, it’s what you have on your person, including starships. The Background you provide should pertain tell your sotry, what brought you to this point and life, and why you’re so damn good at what you do. Was it all by accident or design? The Personality section tells others, and reminds you, how your character acts around others, and what mannerisms they may have. The Objectives portion is what your goals are: rescue the princess, save the damn, become a Jedi Knight, etc. If you like saying a particular phrase, or find yourself becoming a broken record, put that line under Quote. Finally, any Connections with Characters you may have, or have before game begins will go in this final section.
Congratulations you have yourself a character!
That’s how I would have done this episode. Broken down each section and explained what was what, and how it all works together.