Streamlined v2.2 Character Creation

[therantingsavant]

I find the character generation for T2k v2.2 somewhat disorganised, so here's the link to the Google Spreadsheet I used to generate my half-dozen pre-generated characters that I hope others find useful. This initial post deals with the "starting packages" ie Background Skills, Education careers and Basic Training - I found ordering the Skills by relevant Attribute much more useful than the default alphabetical listing.

Have a look at the spreadsheet (which includes more tabs, including a breakdown of skills by US Military and Civilian careers) - comments are most welcome either here, via the FB groups, MeWe or directly on the blog - I'd be interested to see if others find this "hack" useful.

[Legbreaker]

The only problem I've ever run into with 2.x character generation is choosing the career for each term. Using the worksheet I've found even total novices can churn characters out in fairly short time.

[therantingsavant]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The only problem I've ever run into with 2.x character generation is choosing the career for each term.

Yes that's what the spreadsheet helps with if you have an idea of what you want your character to have reasonable Assets in - by cross-referencing it's easier to have an idea what careers might work well for a given skill build.

As an example, I want to build a character with a good Mechanic asset to leverage a high STR Attribute. I note that Mechanic is only available from a Technical education and not as a Background, Secondary Activity or Basic Training. It's accessible via the Support Arm, but also through Armor (both enlisted and officer), Aviation (Mechanic/Enlisted), and Military Intelligence (Enlisted). From a Civilian career perpsective, it's available from Mechanic but also Farmer, Factory Worker and Truck Driver. This quickly helps me to consider which careers might work well for the concept I'm building and allows me to check other skill availability for a second or third main focus.

And yes the worksheet is a great concept as it offsets some of the disorganisation of the rulebook, surprising more games don't use one actually, particularly those with complex character generation.

[Legbreaker]

The book seems laid out fine to me. The order is in basically the same as the worksheet.

[therantingsavant]

The worksheet is great true, more games should have this seems so obvious.

The parts I find difficult (perhaps compared to my experience with more modern designed RPGs):

* There's no suggestion of creating a "Concept" initially - maybe this is due to the randomisation aspects but it seems like an omission to me and would be a useful optional approach to complement the "allocation" method. This was an issue for me when working out the pregenerated characters.

* The random "War Breaks Out" mechanic limiting the number of "Terms" leading to potential party imbalance - I'd like an option of setting the number of terms +/-1 for a beginning party as Terms are roughly equivalent to levels, correlate with starting gear and there's minimal negative offset for Terms until about 6th Term (risk of STR loss from aging) although AGL loss can kick in from 4th Term onwards. It's unlikely given the probability spread and most characters average out at 2-4 Terms but there is the chance of a party with a 1st Term character and a 6th Term character leading to imbalance and potential conflict unless handled well.

* The Careers section and skills being in a separate chapter and the layout being text rather than tables - I found myself flipping back and forth a lot even with the worksheet and think the summary / introduction including the mechanic for Promotions could be in the main character creation section. Most of the "Officer" careers just add the NCO skills +/- a few other CHR based skills at the expense of a few of the enlisted equivalent skills.

There's also no fully worked out character as an example - I find this useful in most games I've read and played, so I think a written out example interspersed through the text for the one character would be great especially for new players.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by therantingsavant

There's also no fully worked out character as an example.

2.0 has two of them.