Fractayle: The Collision of Worlds
Character Creation
Creating the Tale Behind the Numbers
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Choose a World
Each character in Fractayle: The Collision of Worlds comes from either the Far World or the Realms of Wonder. Although they might be traveling in any world, they were born and essentially belong to only one world.
This is the starting point from which you will build a character: choosing which world they come from.
Of course this decision is very dependant on what type of campaign the group has decided to play. If they are playing a purely sci-fi or purely fantasy campaign, then the character will have to have been born in the respective world. On the other hand, if the campaign is going to be a cross genre campaign, then the character could be from either world and be living in either world. In this case you would have come up with a brief tale to justify were they are and how they came to be there.
Choose an Alliance
Within each world there are many different powers, be they factions, tribes, kingdoms, cults, or anything else.
Choose which one your character was born into and/or which one they are now. Give a motivation for the choice--if it was conscious--and a brief tale of how this has evolved along their lifetime.
Your character could even have more than one alliance...or have backstabbed one...or has none but themselves in mind...
Choose a Personal History
Hand-in-hand with an alliance a character has a back story leading up to the present.
Why are they here?
What are their goals?
What have they experienced and what do they still want to experience?
Their fears, loves, vices, attachments, hates, and any other emotions.
Detail the Personality & a Look
From this base add a few character traits that are unique to your character. Perhaps he smokes heavily, has a barbarian accent, is constantly surfing Moomle for religious reasons, has tattoos and long hair, or is dressed in blood shaman robes stained with the blood of enemies.
How do they speak? Common expressions...
Are they quick to loose their temper or cool under pressure?
What is their sexual orientation? Are they smooth talkers, loud and abrasive, cocky, funny...lisping or even shy?
...and...what is their name? Titles? Nicknames? Forum names? Ritual names?
All these thoughts build up the character that you are going to place into the Fractayle and adds colorful dimension to a memorable story that contains a being as real as your dreams.
The Numbers
After sketching out what and who your character is you are ready to put numerical values on these details.
All of a characters attributes begin at zero (which is equivalent to the bottom of the human race) and then each player gets 20 points to allocate to between these attributes. Note that bardic is included as an attribute here, as a character may be weak but have a great destiny about them.
An attribute may be left on zero--not advisable--and the allocation of points to the attributes should reflect the broad sketch of the character created in the previous section.
Other Details
Magick
When creating a character with a magick score it is important--if you wish to adopt this rule--that you choose an element or elements that the character draws their power from and channels their power through.
Namely, one of the following: fire, earth, air, water, wood, metal, and blood...possibly even light and darkness.
All magickal actions performed by this character will take the form of an aspect of the chosen element(s). For example, a fire-aligned magickal action to cause damage to a distant foe might take the form of a large ball of exploding fire; a fireball. Maybe a character is aligned to both air and water, thus a spell to make him fly might take the form of a solid cloud that carries him (and anyone else he wants) upwards like a gliding boat.
Tech
When creating a character with tech it is advisable that details beyond this are added. Tech can take one of a number of forms: robotic accessories, cybernetic enhancements, Conduit upgrades, micro-computers, nano-bots, programming knowledge...and anything else the imagination can touch.
The reason that "defining" the tech is important is that it will also define how you role-play the actions and come up with uses for the abilities of the character. This is role-playing after all.
An example of the importance can be given with two characters with identical tech scores of 10. On paper they look the same, but if the one has tech in the form of robotic limbs and inbuilt missile launchers and the other has tech in the form of advanced programming knowledge and an upgraded and self-modified Conduit...clearing each character can logically use their tech for difference purposes.
The Demon is in the Detail
Other details like starting possessions and any other details should be agreed upon by everyone and should not unbalance the tale. These other details should add to the flavor of the game, rather than attempt to make characters start off at an advantage.
Character/Game Advancement Alternatives
There are two ways that characters and/or the game can advance.
Learning through Doing
After each gaming session that a character survives each attribute that was used during the game can increase by 1 point (rewarding action through learning). This alternative allows progression, but restricts it to logical advancement and rewards the actions that the character took during the game.
"Modular" Gaming
This is a very new and radical--but potentially very rewarding--alternative to the basic character advancement offered above and focuses more on the story and advancement of time than actual arbitrary attributes and points.
At the start of each gaming session new characters are made and played...but each character must be related in some way to the tale that was told in the previous session.
I.e. each gaming session takes place at a different time after--or before--the tale told in the previous one and leads from--or to--it...but does not necessarily have the same characters acting in it.
This way the story advances--almost like a TV series--and the players feel rewarded for the previous tale.
It is suggested that if gaming sessions are long, involved, and infrequent that this method is adopted, as it is more fun for session where characters can be developed thoroughly (i.e. long sessions) and it is useful for when the attending players differ or cannot remember the previous session so well.
Another Alternative
An alternative to the above to advancement of characters and the tale is simply ignoring the advancement and arbitrary awarding of points. Characters stay the same throughout the campaign, which could last a couple of gaming sessions.