With all the new skills, CON and the like, characters no longer become the one skill, one-dimensional object that they used to be. Whilst this is a much-needed improvement (if I may be so bold), it does raise the question of how to create a character with all these new skills and abilities.
Luckily, the answer is very simple and flexible. There are three means of generation characters, from picking a basic character, to a random or points allocation method.
A basic character simply has the
Drive skill at level 2, and 3 CON points. All other skills are at level 0.
Note that the
drive skill will actually be specific to a particular vehicle type (such as car, motorbike. jetcopter or whatever).
The random allocation method is actually a bit of cheat really. Simply determine which table you're generating your character from (such as in
Game Four from the
Dark Future rulebook, or the
Random Driver Generation table from
Dead Man's Curve, part 2), and then skip down to the Converting Characters section below to cross reference the drive skill with the other skills. The
Drive skill will determine what level all other skills are at. CON will usually be fixed at 3 points.
With this method, you need to have an idea of the initial experience of the character you are going to create. This
Experience Rating is simply a number from 1-10 that will be used to limit the skill levels of the character. Use the following table to get an idea of
Experience Ratings for characters, and it is suggested that all characters start off at the same rating.
| Experience Rating |
|---|
| Rookie | 1 |
| Newbie | 2 |
| Average | 3-4 |
| Veteran | 5-6 |
| Elite | 7-8 |
| Road Master | 9-10 |
A character then has an amount of points to generate their character based on their Experience Rating as noted on the following table. These points can be spent on skills and CON points.
| Experience Rating | Points |
|---|
| 1 | 8 |
| 2 | 12 |
| 3 | 16 |
| 4 | 24 |
| 5 | 30 |
| 6 | 40 |
| 7 | 50 |
| 8 | 60 |
| 9 | 70 |
| 10 | 80 |
All skills cost a certain amount of points to get to a certain level, depending on the following chart:
| A Skills | B Skills |
|---|
| Level Required | Per Level | Cumulative | Per Level | Cumulative |
|---|
| 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 8 |
| 3 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 12 |
| 4 | 4 | 10 | 8 | 20 |
| 5 | 4 | 14 | 8 | 28 |
| 6 | 6 | 20 | 12 | 40 |
| 7 | 6 | 26 | 12 | 52 |
| 8 | 8 | 32 | 16 | 68 |
| 9 | 8 | 40 | 16 | 84 |
| 10 | 8 | 48 | 16 | 100 |
A Skill: These include Drive and all vehicle and general skills.
B Skill: These include Gunner and all combat skills.
To gain a skill level, you must pay the cost for that skill level, and all previous levels as well. So to get a skill level of 4 in Drive would cost 10 points (2+2+2+4). To help out with this, a cumulative cost for skill levels is included in the table.
A gamesmaster may state that some general skills cost the same as B Skills, but this is left up to individual choice.
Note that any points not spent during character creation are lost. Multiple vehicle skills are required if a character is required to drive more than one type of vehicle.
All characters start out with 3 CON points. Increasing this costs a flat 3 points per CON point increase. It is also possible to decrease CON points - you gain 2 points back per CON point decrease. You cannot have a character with less than 1 CON point.
The maximum CON point total for a character is 6.
Within the guidelines above, a character can pretty much do what they like with their character, however there are a few guidelines that must be followed.
-
An A skill cannot be bought higher than the experience rating of the character.
-
A B skill cannot be bought higher than half the experience rating of the character (round up).
Of course, restrictions are there to be broken. Skills can be bought higher than this, but it costs a lot more points. To raise a skill above the restrictions listed above costs a number of skill points equalling the next cost higher. For example, if a character with an experience rating of 2 wishes to raise their Drive skill to 3, it would cost 4 points instead of the usual 2 to go from level two to three. If a character with an experience rating of 6 wishes to raise their Gunner skill to 5 (a two level increase), it would cost 24 points instead of the usual 16 (to go from level three to four would usually be 8 points, but as this is above the restriction, it becomes 12 points).
An A skill level may never be more than twice the characters experience rating and a characters B skill level may never exceed the characters experience rating.
In any case, no skill may be bought higher than 10.
These restrictions may not be broken in character generation.
For Sanctioned Op and Outlaw characters, the minimum Drive skill allowed is 2.
For example, generating a new character:
Suppose we had a character that would have an experience level of 5. This gives us 30 points to spend on the character. We decide that we want our character to drive a car and shoot, and pretty much nothing else, so we give them an initial Drive skill of 5 and a Gunner skill of 3. We also want 4 CON points to make a big beefy guy. This costs us 14 points for the Drive skill of 5, a further 12 points for the Gunner skill, and another 3 points for the CON points, for a total of 29 points so far. The remaining point is lost as their are no skills able to be bought for a single point.
Obviously, players using this system may come up against Ops and outlaws already described in supplements and articles. When this happens, use their Drive skill to determine what the rest of their skills are (if any).
Note that their Drive skill will actually be a vehicle skill specific to what they actually drive, which will be either a car or bike.
| Drive Skill | Gunner Skill | CON points | Other A Skills | Other B Skills |
|---|
| 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| 3 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 6 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 7 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 8 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 9 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 |
| 10 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 3 |
A Skill: These include Drive and all vehicle and general skills.
B Skill: These include Gunner and all combat skills.
Obviously, if a description says that a particular person isn't good at a certain skill or is exceptional, then gamesmasters should modify skills as they see fit. Similarly, CON points can be adjusted through any descriptions of the character.
For example, converting a character with a Drive skill of 4. This means that the character will have a Drive skill of 4, a Gunner skill of 1, 3 CON points, and if needed, all A Skills will have a level of 2 and all B skills will be level 1.
Thanks go to Russ Charles for feedback and suggestions to character generation.
