Hi, a couple of newcomer questions

[silverfoxdmt73]

So it's been years since I played the MechWarrior RPG in conjunction with a BattleTech game.

I've been reading through A Time of War and it seems that character generation is a little more complex than before.

Is there a Dummies Guide or similar document/post to help a returning gamer (used to less mathematically challenging games) through my first few characters?

Thanks in advance.

[Lboydmsw]

Most of it is really a running tally of points spent.  The easiest way is to use the life module option and a few sheets of scrap paper to write things down.  Read the beginning of the chapter and the start of the life module section super carefully.  I thought it was the most confusing thing I had ever seen (as someone who has played a wide variety of systems).  There are a few key sentences in the beginning of the character creation section that really makes things make sense and come together.

Once you have worked through the life modules it is about seeing how many experience points you have left and balancing out the things that need to be balanced out or improving the things that need to be improved. Just take your time.  There are a few excel spread sheet options that are out there.  I think a few that are on this forum actually but in my experience the easiest way is to just do it slow and steady the old fashioned way.  Once you make once character it makes everything click and you can make future characters fairly quickly.

[monbvol]

Complex is the wrong word for sure for A Time of War's character creation system.

You pay so much XP for a module and the module tells you what you get for it.  That said keeping track of all the different running tallies and XP can get a bit daunting/tricky, so feel free to use Point Buy instead.  It's right there in AToW as an option and certainly cuts down on how much paperwork/accounting you have to do which is why I actually recommend it for new comers to start with.

There are also some spreadsheets around here that people have put together to help create characters.  Unfortunately I've stopped supporting mine but there should be some other goodies that might be helpful linked in that thread.

[BirdofPrey]

I wouldn't call it complicated.  Life modules are easy enough to understand, and have some semblance of a natural flow, and they give a good jumping off point for coming up with a character backstory (both by the module being a basic description of what the character was doing at the time, and by having traits to justify: eg. who's the character's enemy, what sort of addiction do they have).

It's very time consuming, though, since you have to make sure to correctly add up all the XP from the various modules, and then make sure you hit the proper point totals.

[Acolyte]

My basic way uses a scrap piece of paper with a section each for attributes, skills and traits. The skills section needs to be larger than the others.
It goes as:
get 5000 points (if you're going standard)
subtract 850 from the 5000, add the base stuff. (100 to each attribute, 2 languages at 20 and 10 to perception.)

choose affiliation and subtract it's cost
add all the attribute, skills and traits from said affiliation (choose your languages, one should be english)

Choose life path one
subtract it's cost
add all attributes, skills and traits.

Choose life path two, same steps as one

choose life path 3, same as one
choose skill fields.
add 30 to each skill in the field choice
subtract 24 for each skill. (they say subtract 30 and rebate 6. I just multiply the total number of skills gain by the fields by 24 and subtract that.)

choose life path 4, same as step one.

You can choose more than one stage 4.

Add up the age and adjust points if needed for this (you can use the optional points for being a over 21, and if you're over 25 you get attribute adjustments - its in the GM section under advancing players).

Round all skills, attributes and traits to the nearest full level. Use the remaining points by adding to attributes, increasing skills you already have, adding new skills and new traits. Add more negative traits if you need more points.

It's a lot of repetition, but not really all that hard.
It's a lot of repetition, but not really all that hard.
it's a lot of.... Ok, that's enough.  ;)

Hope that helps!
   - Shane

[Daryk]

Acolyte has it mostly right, but forgot to mention there's an optional rule to add additional XP for age.  The exact amount depends on whether you're Inner Sphere or Clan (the Clans have a lower starting age; both use 100 XP per year above or -100 XP per year below the base age).

[silverfoxdmt73]

Well it certainly appeared more complex to begin with. Though as has been said, its mostly just time consuming keeping track of the choices made then balancing things up at the end of the process.

Thanks for the help.

[Acolyte]

Acolyte has it mostly right, but forgot to mention there's an optional rule to add additional XP for age.  The exact amount depends on whether you're Inner Sphere or Clan (the Clans have a lower starting age; both use 100 XP per year above or -100 XP per year below the base age).

Ya, I added that in after....  ;)

Well it certainly appeared more complex to begin with. Though as has been said, its mostly just time consuming keeping track of the choices made then balancing things up at the end of the process.

Thanks for the help.

Main thing is organization. Goes a long way to making things easier. The scrap paper I mentioned? I divide it in half vertically, then I put the attributes at the top of the left side, the traits under them and leave the whole other side for skills.

One other tip: Whenever you're adding a Trait or Skill, check and see if you already have it.  O0

   - Shane

[Drone]

Well it certainly appeared more complex to begin with. Though as has been said, its mostly just time consuming keeping track of the choices made then balancing things up at the end of the process.

Thanks for the help.

It definitely is complex, at least on the surface. But once you've created a character using the techniques above (personally I just use a basic Excel sheet and update my values for each skill/trait/attribute as I work my way through the individual life modules), it becomes pretty easy to do another one, and it goes much faster. I actually quite like the life modules system now after spending a couple hours figuring it out at the beginning.

My biggest caveat is that it can be easy to overlook certain restrictions or extras in each life stage. For example, on my first character I completely forgot to add Universal Fixed XP at Stage 0, which took the foundation completely out of my character (since it gives you +100 to each attribute plus a couple other vital skills). There are also restrictions for using flexible XP in Stage 2 (there are limits on how much flexi XP you can use for a single trait or skill), and restrictions on taking multiple types of school in Stage 3 (you can't take more than one school in each of the three categories: Civilian, Police/Intelligence, Military) with the exception of Officer Candidate School, which counts as its own school type.

If you have any questions about character creation, post here or PM me. I have yet to actually play AToW but I've found the character creation system fun enough that I've already rolled up like 4 characters in my spare time just because I find it entertaining.

[Deadborder]

I'll second this; I found AToW intimidating at first, but several test builds told me a lot about how it worked and how it all flowed. Generally I found that having an Excel spreadsheet handy to track costs made it so much easier.

[Daryk]

I used the spreadsheet I built to track over 100 NPCs for the game I used to run here.  Granted, most of them used the same template (e.g., Foot Trooper, Jump Trooper, etc.), but it becomes easy with practice.