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.

[therantingsavant]

Hmmm OK I'm using v2.2 PDF from DriveThruRPG... and there's nothing in the main text nor any worked out full character sheets, although occasionally the v1.0 character examples are still referenced.

What I mean is a character example taken from starting rolling / assigning Attributes, all the way through to final skill choices etc.

Am I missing something here?

[Legbreaker]

Yes, that's exactly what's in 2.0. One character generated using the assignment method, and the other the roll for stats.

[therantingsavant]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Yes, that's exactly what's in 2.0. One character generated using the assignment method, and the other the roll for stats.

Thank you for the clarification good sir - I'll have to track down the example characters then... not sure why they aren't included as they don't appear to be in the FFE CD ROM collection either

[Legbreaker]

My guess? They were judged unnecessary for the 2.2 version - the worksheet was easy enough to follow without "wasting" several pages on examples.

[therantingsavant]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

My guess? They were judged unnecessary for the 2.2 version - the worksheet was easy enough to follow without "wasting" several pages on examples.

Hmmm yeah that could be.

Can anyone confirm the DriveThruRPG PDF has the additional characters included or where I could find them - I already have the V2.2 PDF and both the 1st and 2nd edition FFE CD-ROMs as difficult to access the print products.

(Also easier to write posts and articles from the OCR text scans by searching and pasting quotes when needed from the original text)

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by therantingsavant

Also easier to write posts and articles from the OCR text scans by searching and pasting quotes when needed from the original text

Absolutely! My hardcopies hardly ever see daylight any more.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by therantingsavant

Hmmm yeah that could be.

Can anyone confirm the DriveThruRPG PDF has the additional characters included or where I could find them - I already have the V2.2 PDF and both the 1st and 2nd edition FFE CD-ROMs as difficult to access the print products.

(Also easier to write posts and articles from the OCR text scans by searching and pasting quotes when needed from the original text)

I didn't buy my pdf from DriveThru, I bought the CD-ROM from Far Future many years ago but considering that the DriveThru 2.2 pdf is sourced from Far Future then it's likely that they are one and the same - so, the DriveThru 2.2 pdf likely has no character creation examples.

I vaguely recall that when Far Future was trying to compile all the material on pdf, they didn't have hardcopies of their own to scan so they asked fans if they would be able to assist. While that could be seen as a reason they weren't included I'm pretty sure that 2.2 just didn't have them at all.
I'll drag out my dead tree version of 2.2 to check but as Leg mentioned, I think the creation examples were not included in that edition to save space.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

I'll drag out my dead tree version of 2.2 to check but as Leg mentioned, I think the creation examples were not included in that edition to save space.

The 2.2 BYB is the only hardcopy I don't have at least one of.
The PDF page numbers and contents page all line up and indicate there was never examples in there anyway.

[therantingsavant]

OK so given I have two PDFs (scanned and OCR) I'm not overly.keen to purchase the V2.0 just on the chance it has these example characters so would be interested if someone can confirm or source them befo4e rushing in...

Otherwise I could do an example.writeuo myself as part of the "Starter Kit" concept I've been developing but it's always good to have an exame template to work.off regardless of the system...