There are a number of steps to creating a character. The steps range from the esoteric: "I want to play a doctor", to the pedantic: "he has two dots (an average skill) in computers, but no dots (no ability at all) in medicine". The steps are:
The first step in creating a character is to come up with a concept of a character, or put another way: how would you sum up your character in three words or less.
Is the character: a Hero, a Deadbeat, a movie star, a homemaker, a crime lord, or perhaps one of the other million or so possibilities.
What type of character do you want to play?
Not all character types work well in a game, for example: It might be really cool to play the moody "Lone Wolf" who's trying to get back at the world, but those characters can be a real pain in rectum in group situations (which most games are). So much so that the storyteller may decide to not let you play such a character.
That's the catch: The storyteller may decide that you're not allowed to play the character you want to.
If that happens, accept it. The storyteller will have his reasons, and will probably share them with you. There are loads of other character concepts out there, choose another.
The characters background is their history. What happened to them, and when, how they feel about the world, and how they normally interact with it. Backgrounds add depth to the character.
I can't stress enough how important it is to create and well thought out background for your character. They serve as reminders to you as to how to play the character, for example: It's a sticky situation, a gun would be useful right now but would a nun really pull out a gun and shoot someone?
Backgrounds help the storyteller guess which characters are most likely to see and do things, for example: Which character is more likely to notice the sniper on the roof up there? The one that used to be a bodyguard or the one that used to be an accountant.
Write the characters background as you would someone's biography. At the very least, it should answer the following questions:
Backgrounds can become quite detailed. Personally, I think this is a very good thing. I will be asking to see it.
Note: If you do not want your character to belong to a tradition then make sure your background mentions what the characters specialty sphere is.
Due to the concept of the game, all characters in Honors Hand must have some kind of Asian connection. I don't really care what it is but it must be present. For example:
Lastly, all characters should have a sense of honor and service. This is important because they will be asked to effectively give up whatever kind of a life they thought they had. If they were not the sorts of people that could at least learn to cope with that then they wouldn't have be asked.
Your characters traits are nothing more than formalizations of decisions you should have made during the concept phase. If you have created a concept and background for your character then choosing the characters traits becomes a real no-brainer.
There are four traits that must be chosen, they are:
The characters essence is a one-word description of what type of avatar they have. The avatar type also describes the way in which they are likely to approach the characters advancement towards enlightenment.
There are nine traditions, each with their own view of how reality works, each with their own bodies, structures and organizations, and each with their own way of working magic.
The traditions are kind of like guilds (they are not guilds, but the concept is similar) where each guild has it's own specialties and it's own ways of doing things.
A character can belong to one a tradition or not - there is no effect on their ability to work magic. However, tradition members have a support structure they can fall back on should they need to, and members are much more likely to have access to knowledge. For example: The character wants to research some type of magic, if they belong to a tradition then they probably have access to a library and to people they can ask, if they don't belong to a tradition then getting the information could be much more difficult.
The last, and sometimes hardest step in the character construction process is the allocation of construction points. In going through the steps set out below it will be helpful if you have a character sheet to refer to, such as this sites sheet.
As an example of the dot representations consider the first aid skill:
| Level | Ability | Example |
|---|---|---|
| * | Novice | Mother of small children |
| ** | Practiced | Boy Scout |
| *** | Competent | Office safety representative |
| **** | Expert | School nurse |
| ***** | Master | Paramedic |
This skill allows a character to give basic medical attention to another character. It is not as comprehensive an Ability as the Medicine Knowledge, but it does allow for a basic grasp of all the practices of first aid, and, at higher levels, techniques known to paramedics. With sufficient skill, this can make vulgar healing appear coincidental.
Allocate points to attributes by:
For example: You could decide that the physical category gets the seven dot pool, that social gets the three dot pool, and mental gets the five dot pool. Then you spread the seven dots around the attributes in the physical category (strength, dexterity, stamina), and then you spread three dots around the social category, and finally spread the five dots around the mental category.
Allocate points to abilities by:
Note: You are not limited to only the abilities listed on the character sheet. A much larger list of abilities can be found here, and if you still can't find the ability you are looking for then feel free to make it up.
If you do make up your own ability, or use an obscure one, please include a description of the skill in your characters background text so that I know how to apply it.
You have a pool of seven dots to allocate to advantages (backgrounds). A list of backgrounds can be found here. Notes:
Allocate points to magic by:
The characters arête level can only be increased by spending Freebie Points (see next section). However you do not get very many freebie points, and the arête level may not be higher than three. So choose wisely.
I recommend that you "bite the bullet" and increase your arête to a total of three (the maximum) it will make your life easier in the game. You may consider that a very strong hint from your storyteller. ;-)
Freebie points are used differently to all other points during character creation - they are used by "buy" other creation points, which can then be used to increase a stat of that type.
See the table for a complete list of how much each type of generation point costs.
| Stat | Cost |
|---|---|
| Attribute | 5 |
| Ability | 2 |
| Sphere | 7 |
| Background | 1 |
| Arête | 4 |
| Willpower | 1 |
| Quintessence | 1 point for 4 dots |
| Merit | varies |
| Flaw | varies |
It is possible to adjust the number of freebie points you have to spend. This is done by acquiring merits or flaws.
Merits are positive character elements that can affect the game, merits cost freebie points. For example: you could buy the +3pt merit "Luck" - which makes you character luckier than normal. The effect of "Luck" is that sometimes you can reroll a botch - very handy. However, it just cost you three freebie points.
Flaws are negative character elements that can affect the game. Flaws give freebie points back to you. For example: you could buy the -3 flaw "One Arm" - which means that your character literally has only one arm. The effect of "One Arm" is that your character simply can't do some of the things a normal two-armed person could, or at least couldn't do them as quickly. However, you now have three more freebie points to spend.
Because merits and flaws can over balance a character there is a limit to the number you can get: You can have no more than seven points of merits and no more than seven points of flaws.
That's it, that's all you need to create a character for Mage the Ascension (the system Honors Hand uses).
Try creating a character or two, and then when you think you are ready to join in submit one.
If you have any questions then I recommend you look in at the mage players guides published by White Wolf, if you have them. Failing that there are many Mage resources on line, or you could contact me (select the feedback button).