Difference between revisions of "Character creation"

Latest revision as of 22:57, 4 April 2007

Gemini Index

Types of Missions/Characters/Crews: Something to consider when embarking on the creation of a group of characters with this system is what sorts of stuff the group actually does. As such, I'm including a non-comprehensive list of the types of missions crews in the Gemini typically undertake. Some of these are more profitable. Some of them are more dangerous. Some of them are more "honest". Etc, Etc.You can all feel free to add to these if you feel I've missed one, although I reserve the right to annex additions into categories I find more appropriate if I feel like it.
List of Mission Types your character/crew may be interested in

The Introduction:

For this game, this is the “hook”. It is what brings the characters together, decides what kind of shit they have, decides what sort of ship they are on, where they are from and where they are now, how they know each other, etc. Basically, it is a way to dynamically create the backstory. The introduction breaks into three parts: Dramatis Personae, Prologue, and character creation.
How it works:

Dramatis Personae: The prologue uses, as per Jason's idea, two decks of cards. The players get one, and the GM gets another.

1.) Everyone comes prepared with 1-3 character concepts (depending on how flexible your concepts are in terms of points values). This concept should not be more than 3-5 sentences: it can be as little as a single word ("soldier", "jackass", etc.). Obviously, if you have a very well developed concept, you will want to use the prologue to solidify some of the things you want your character to have experienced, while if you have a very skeletal concept, the prologue will give you a good chance to begin to create a background for that concept.

2.) Each player draws a card. The cards character point values are (card value)*18; (jack=11, queen=12, king=13, ace=14). Add this to 200 to get your character point total. You will use these points in the second part of the introduction (character creation) to give your character stats.

3.) Subtract the card value (2-14) from 14 to get your Fortune Points. Fortune points have a number of uses:
    a. Fortune Points may be used to negate the last card played during the Prologue (more on this later)
    b. A Fortune Point may be used to negate a “only by GM permission” for the purposes of character creation.
    c. Fortune Points may be used to draw additional cards during the prologue. (more on this later)
    d. However many fortune points you have remaining during Character creation become your Fate characteristic, to a maximum of 10.
    e. a fortune point may be spent to give the ship a permanent fortune point. Note that the ship does NOT get re-rolls for fortune points: it only gets permanent fortune points which may be used to miraculously save the ship in the event of capture, crippling damage, or outright destruction (or some other major story effect). A ship may have at most 10 fortune points. Once Fortune Points are spent, they cannot be retrieved.

4.) If you are unhappy with the card that you drew, BEFORE spending fortune or character points, you may do the following:

    a.Players may trade cards with each other. You may only make one trade. The character accepting the lower card automatically gains 1 additional fortune point. Three way trades are acceptible,         but no player then receives an additional fortune point.
    b.Once all trades are complete, any players still unsatisfied with their cards may discard their card and get a re-draw from the GM's deck (ie, the one from which no cards have yet been drawn). This         second draw must be kept and CANNOT be traded.
Instead of taking a redraw, a player may automatically exchange his/her card for a "seven". In this case, the player does NOT get any bonus fortune point accrued from trading prior to this switch.

In order to compensate for missing players/guests at the prologue, the GM will play 1-3 random cards from the GM deck immediately before the prologue, after all players have finished trading/redrawing. These are the "supporting characters": they are part of the crew, they are tied into the story, but anyone who shows up to a session can play any one of them, they are not specifically tied to a player. During the prologue, these characters do not play fortune points, they do not receive cards: they each have a story pile in front of them, which may be played into by anyone. During each turn, the GM may play one additional card for each supporting character, but ONLY into their story piles or the group story pile and ONLY for the purpose of tieing these characters into the group. Then, when a player that missed the prologue, or a guest, comes to play, they can take one of these characters.

5.) Reshuffle all cards back into their respective decks.

The Prologue: The purpose of the prologue is to define how and why the group is together, on this ship, in this place.

1.) In the center of the table three piles are designated:
    a.)Loot: this is equipment/money/etc. associated with the ship (ie communal). The more points that accumulate here, the better the gear your team has acquired.
    b.)Ship: This is your ship. The more points that accumulate here, the better your ship will be.
    c.)Story: This is what your team has been through as a group: the friends you've made, the enemies you've pissed off, and the places you've been. The more points that accumulate here, the longer         and more illustrious your ship/crew's history (yes, this will affect game play: this value will determine the reputation, focus, and path of your ship). For every card played into one of the other two piles by the players, at least one card must be played into a         “story” pile by the players. The GM may play into any pile in any order.

2.) In front of each player, there is also a “story” pile: this pile is not additive like the three communal piles, but rather describes your characters history and, most importantly, his/her connection to the other characters.

3.) 30 cards are distributed among the players: if there are excess cards after each player has received the maximum equal number, these are placed in a "communal" pool from which any of the players may draw by the consent of the entire pool. These cards are placed face up to the side: these are all the cards that they will have for the prologue unless they use fortune points. The GM draws cards equal to a player from the GM deck: whenever the GM plays a card during the prologue, he/she draws a new card.

4.) The GM begins the prologue by playing at least one card into a story pile. Any time a card is played, the person who played the card must attach a narrative of what sort of event that card represents (keeping in mind the scale of card values, which should reflect the momentousness of the event). Play then proceeds clockwise, with each person playing a card into one of the piles (observing the rules above), until one of the players is out of cards. Fortune points may be burned at any time to obtain new cards (even out of turn sequence, and even for multiple cards at once, if multiple points are burned). The GM may play up to half as many cards (rounding down) as the players per turn.

5.) The person playing the card describes the narrative, even if the card is played into another character's story pile. This may be used to make other characters loyal/friendly to you, convince them to be hired onto your crew, or whatever. It can be used to turn more powerful characters (in terms of character points) into your mentor, or weaker ones into your followers. Note that other players may only modify the event that you have narrated by playing a card of higher value than the one used to create the narrative piece (or by burning fortune points, see above).

6.) Cards played into the Loot or Ship piles are additive: that means that at the end of the Prologue, the total value of all the cards are added and may be spent by the group to build their ship/possessions. Cards played into the Ship or Loot piles by the GM subtract from the total. The cards played by the GM into the pile can be removed through the use of fortune points. The first card played into the Ship pile should describe how and when the group got their ship (again, keep in mind the value of this first card: a 2 isn't going to get you an ex-military corvette). Further cards can be used to represent improvements to the ship, trade-ins, captures, lucky finds, whatever. Although they may wish to, the characters do not have to stick exactly to this narrative in actually designing their ship during character creation.

7.) Players should not discuss the cards that they have with each other.

8.) If by the end of the narrative every pile has at least one card, and the narrative contains a logical explanation for the presence of all characters on the ship, each player may immediately draw one additional card, and the prologue proceeds for a “bonus round”, beginning and ending with the GM, if the players wish. The GM may only play one card during each of his/her turns during the "bonus round". (what do rich boys eat?) When play ends (ie, when the character with the least cards has run out), and the bonus round has been completed, characters that have cards remaining in their hand may continue to play cards: during this phase, the GM may play no more than half as many cards as the players (rounding up).

9.) The GM finishes the prologue with cards in his/her hand. During character creation, these cards may be used to create additional NPC crew members if appropriate. Alternatively, these cards are recorded by the GM, and may be used by the players to make important contacts, friends, whatever: if a character dies/leaves the crew, replacement crew should be drawn from this pool of characters that are already tied to the story. Not all of the cards must have designed characters associated with them at the start of play.

Character Creation: Character creation includes five sections: the creation of the crew members, the creation of the Loot, the Creation of the Ship, Background composition, and designation of Path/Focus.

Important change: Based on the card you drew, there is a maximum "storytelling attribute" that you may have:
card: storytelling max
2: 10
3:9
4:8
5:7
6:6
7:5
8:4
9:3
10:2
J:1
Q:1
K:0
A:0
The implication of this is that you *must* spend some of your fortune points during the prologue or during character creation: basically, two at least per character. This is up for discussion if players really think it is unfair, but I would very much like to avoid people hoarding their points and trying to get low card people to bail them out: I'd rather make sure that people will spend at least some of their points before it gets down to the nitty gritty of the character sheet. Like I said, if you think this is really unfair, or if you think that people will probably do this anyway, I'll remove it, but I feel like it's not a bad idea.

1.)Gemini Crew Members: Characters are made based on the number of points you got from your initial draw. For an 8 or above, the player must either have an overarching reason or burn a fortune point. rough, rough draft of the character sheet and points costs for what I've got so far a low-medium character example a very powerful character example

2.) L00tz creation

3.) Ship Creation