DwD Studios

Jennifer is making her first character. Her Referee informs her that the campaign setting will revolve around a group of somewhat-reformed criminals and mercs who take jobs from private “fixers” to solve problems in the shadows for corporations and governments, running afoul of both in the process. Jennifer was wanting a techie character, so she adapts her original concept into a young hacker-type, to provide the technical know-how to her team.

STEP 1. ABILITIES

Jennifer rolls 2D and gets 11 and so records a score of 55 in the margin of her character sheet. She continues this until she has: 55, 50, 50, 60, 45, and 70. She decides to arrange them as follows:

• STR 45
• AGL 60
• CRD 50
• PER 55
• INT 70
• WIL 60

She imagines a spunky brilliant young girl who never attended any university but somehow engineers circles around most technicians. Despite this, however, she wants her character to have the naivety and hope of youth, because she thinks that would be a fun dichotomy to roleplay.

STEP 2. SKILLS

For skills she immediately places her +0 score in Technician. The Referee reminds her that’s a broad skill that requires specialization and she quickly chooses Computers as her specialty. She places a score of -10 in Thief (never know when she’ll have to slip some complex security system) and Pilot (she’s good with technology, why not?). She records -20 for all other skills.

STEP 3. SPECIES

Jennifer decides her character will be Human. She notes that she speaks Terran. She rolls on the origin table and gets 74, Space Rat. She decides she was born on a space station to parents who worked as maintenance techs. Loves life in space. Feels out of place when planet-side. As a space rat, she works with her Referee on two origin positives and decides she is in an advantage in Technician-based action checks when dealing with technology made by Tri-Corp (the corporation who built the space station she grew up in), and has +5 to her AGL score (lower gravity will do that). That makes her AGL 65. For an origin negative, she decides her STR score is five points lower, again due to the lower gravity life aboard the station. This makes her have a 40 STR. She’s fine with that, though. If she gets into trouble where STR would be the deciding factor, she’s planning on running.

STEP 4. EQUIPMENT

Now she gets to select 6 items, +1 for high INT. Looking through the list, Jennifer immediately decides she’ll start play with a techkit and a porta-comp. She also nabs a pair of infrared goggles, a security kit, and a set of lockpicks. That’s five. She hopes she doesn’t need it, but decides it’s best to grab a blastpistol and an energy pack with 20EU. Seven Items. Done. She rolls 1Dx10 and notes she has 20© in her pocket.

STEP 5. PERSONALITY

Jenifer decides her character will be Somewhat Kind, Somewhat Unfocused, Somewhat Selfish, Somewhat Deceitful, and Very Brave (though she doesn’t think she is). As descriptors, she decides her character “Sweet-talks her equipment at critical moments” and “Likes to assume the best in people.” Jennifer is happy her character is shaping up the way she imagined.

STEP 6. FINISHING TOUCHES

Jennifer records 20 Body Points (half of her STR score). Eek. She hopes she doesn’t have to fight much. She records 9 MOV (because her AGL is high) and 1 INIT (her CRD and PER aren’t high enough to help). Her Melee and Ranged Damage Bonuses are +0 (neither STR nor CRD are high). She notes she also speaks Galactic Common and gets one more language of her choice. She knows she could easily pick another spacefaring species’ native language but gets creative and asks her Referee if she could pick “hacker” as a language, claiming their subculture is so full of slang and techno-lingo that outsiders have no idea what they’re saying. He likes this and allows it, adapting the idea into his campaign setting.

Finally, Jennifer names her character Kara and gives her a brief story: Her parents were maintenance techs working for Tri-Corp. They saw something they shouldn’t have and disappeared. She assumed them dead until she got an encoded message only she could decipher, saying they’re alive but not to come looking for them. Scuttle that idea… she stowed away on the first ship leaving port. Discovered living in the maintenance crawlspaces, Kara eventually proved her worth to the corporate troubleshooters who found her and gained their trust. She cares about them probably more than she should, and helps keep them safe while she seeks more clues about her parent’s whereabouts.