Describe the setting, for those who want to game in it
Now that you've read through the chapter describing the basic setting, you should be ready to start building your character. Character creation starts with the basic concept; in other words:
What makes your character a unique individual?
What motivates the character?
How does the character interact with society and other characters?
These are questions you must decide in order to conceptualize a character.
Some aspects of these conceptual points may be decided upon or influenced by your Game Master's vision of the campaign, or the environment describe within. If the campaign centers around a tight-knit team of heroes in which your character will be a member, then designing a character who's base personality concept is that of an extreme loner may not be the wisest choice. In fact, because of this, the Game Master may even ask the players to deliberately design characters who are all members of a specific group.
In the campaign type described in this volume, the characters exist with a multi-stellar society. They are superheroes, either by nature of uniquely aquired super-powers and/or skills, or perhaps by being members of an alien race with abilities far beyond those of normal Terrans. The interstellar nature of Champions 3K allows for a wide range of possibilities when designing character. Your Game Master, however, may be planning on a more "localized" setting; one that has the player characters limited to a single planet - if this is the case, the Game Master may wish to restrict the number of alien races available for the player character to be members of.
To expand upon some of the points made in the previous section, Champions 3K is by its very nature an interstellar setting. Many of the characters, both player characters and Game Master controlled non-player characters, may be non-humans. Detailed within the volume are several alien races with natural abilities that would make respectably powered superheroes when taken out of the context of thier native planet. This being the case, the character in a Champions 3K campaign are predominately single focused (limited number of powers grouped together with an extremely tight special effect), inherently powered superheroes.
Due to the high technology level involved in a Champions 3K campaign, the typical gadgeteer type of character will tend to be rare as the archetype only works well if his personal technology is superior in some way to the "normal" technology.
Similarly, due to the prevelance of "powered" alien races mingling in society, the highly skilled, non-powered hero is a rarity.
This campaign setting is designed to allow for almost any power level of superhero, but mid to high is recommended. A variation, though, is to have each player build three character; one low power, one mid power, and one high power; and switch out at the ends of story arcs - this forces the Game Master to periodically change the style of his adventures to accomodate characters of varying power levels. For the low power characters the GM could run mystery/espionage type adventures, for the mid power characters use the more tradiational style of superhero adventure, and occasionaly pull out the "big guns" for galactic threats. This technique also allows for a large well rounded team of superheroes without having to include a significant number of non-player characters.
|
Base Points |
Max Points per Disad Category |
Max Points from Disads |
Total Points |
Classification |
|
75 |
25 |
75 |
150 |
Low power |
|
100 |
50 |
150 |
250 |
Mid power |
|
150 |
75 |
225 |
375 |
High power |
All skill described in the base Hero System (or Fuzion) rules are available. A few require a small bit of redifining in order to make them more applicable to a far future setting.
Computer Programming: Unlike in a modern (or historical/fantasy) setting, Computer Programming is an everyman skill, which means that the charactrer has an 8 or less roll for free.
Combat Driving: This being a for-color futuristic setting, ground vehicles are few and rarely used. This does not mean that Pcs (and NPCs) cannot have the skill, but it may mean that the skill is not a useful as it might be in a different setting.
Lockpicking: The Lockpicking skill stipulates that the character must have appropriate tools for the lock in question. Mechanical key and/or combination locks are rare (almost unheard of) in a comic book far future setting, so traditional lockpicking tools are not the appropriate tools to carry for the setting. The character should be equipt with tools appropriate for opening electronic and/or magnetic locks.
Rank/Rate
As it is possible that player way wish to build characters who are members of the Protectorate Corps, it is necessary to provide a means of denoting the character's position within the Corps - in other words, what rank are they. For a complete list of ranks/rates and perk costs, see the chart in the section on the Protectorate Corps. The basic costs are Corpsmen (E-1 through E-3) is 0, Non-commissioned officers (E-4 through E-9) are 2 points per level, Warrant Officers are 3 points per level, and Officers are 4 points per level. A rank which is unique (ie. There is only one person in the corps of this rank) costs 10 points more than the next lower rank.
All powers described in the base Hero System (or Fuzion) rules are available, subject to Game Master approval, with the following suggestion:
Killing Attacks
I recommend that as a game master, you strongly discourage killing attacks, and avoid using them in your villians as much as possible. This idea stems from a basic observation of the comic-book superhero genre: If Killing Attacks are typified by guns and knives, then most superheroes have little or no resistant defense. Comic-book superheroes tend towards the far ends of the power spectrum: the extremely powerful (you know the ones: gamma irradiated scientists, last survivors of dead planets, metal-plated engineers, cosmic guardians, etc, etc...) and the non-powered (or barely powered) talented normal (the ones with bats on their chests, quivers of arrows on their back, etc, etc...). Even many of the extremely powerful characters have been portrayed as non-bullet-proof, a certain Amazon princess and a particular Norse thunder god both come to mind.
If Killing Attacks are common, the resistant defense becomes common - weather the character concept justifies it or not. The comic-book superhero genre, particularly the optomistic far-future varieties, are rife with "unbalanced" characters. By unbalanced I mean characters who were not built on the basic "x points of attack" plus "x points of defence" plus "x points of movement" template. Unbalanced characters are not nesassarily bad - a typical comic-book martial artist is an unbalanced character. They rely heavily on not getting hit; hence, when they do, the go down; but they rarely ever die. To translate a certain blind, horn headed, "man without fear" to Champions, you end up with a character with rather low defenses and abosolutely no resitant defense; personally, I don't want to completely discourage this type of character.
For these reasons, I can not stress strongly enough the idea of using Killing Attacks sparingly. Blades and traditional guns are one good use - particularly since in a far future game they will most likely be rare; and the deliberate "don't point that ay my planet" type of overpowered, overly nasty, plot device type of weapon/power.