Author Topic: Lets Generate Characters  (Read 5088 times)

DanghenWoolf

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 94
  • Incoming fire has the right of way.
Lets Generate Characters
« on: 30 October 2015, 15:32:42 »
So I have been generating some mechwarriors for my MegaMek games and like to have a little fluff behind them so that when Joe Bob gets blasted out of his Commando I don't just say, oops, should have had that extra +1 mod, rinse him out of the cockpit and hire a new one.

I am not using the standard ATOW rules as they are a bit cumbersome for what I need so I have been using the MW 3rd Edition Life-paths. Here are two examples:

Seo-Young Hwang "Jasmine"

 Circinus Federation

 LP1: Farm
 Event: Most successful farm on the planet

 LP2: High School
 Event: Local sports hero

 LP3-1: Military Enlistment
 Event: Training stand out

 LP3-2: AIT (Mechwarrior)
 Event: None

 LP4-1: Tour of Duty - Inner Sphere
 Event: Promotion

 LP4-2: Tour of Duty - Inner Sphere
 Event: Raiding Missions

 LP4-3: Tour of Duty - Inner Sphere
 Event: Raiding Missions
 Event: Promotion

 Rolled skills on generation were:

 PS: 3
 GS: 2
 Small Arms: 5
 Tactics: +1
 Leadership: +2

 Melee Specialist
 Iron Man

 I have left out all of the bonuses and other effects of the events but here is the personnel file I created to go along with the rolls.

 Originally from the Circinus Federation,Seo-Toung, was raised in a farming combine on Zorn's Keep. Her family was quite wealthy and controlled majority shares in many of the surrounding farms as well as holding the titles to some of the processing and shipping facilities on the planet. Her parents were not the rich aristocratic nobles so common in the Inner Sphere and ingraned a work ethic into their children from a young age and even participating in the day-to-day operations of the farms themselves. This ethic combined with her natural physical aptitude led Seo-Young to persue several sports in school and earned more accolades for the family and even early acceptance into military service. Once enlisted her natural aptitude shined again and she was selected for advanced training with the Black Warriors.
 Her first garrison mission was rather uneventful but when given the task of working with some raw recruits she excelled and was rewarded with an early promotion to Lieutenant. This showed she was ready to lead other mechwarriors and she was immediately tasked with tracking and destroying several raiding pirate bands operating in Circinus space. One notable mission included "Jasmine" battering a pirate Warhammer with its own arm. While comical, it was not known at the time that the pilot of the Warhammer was the leader of the pirate raiding unit. Several more successful missions resulted in another promotion to Captain and her own company of Black Warriors. Her successful time in service and increasing noteriety made her a target for several "career" officers who made it their mission not only to discredit her but completely undermine her command.
 Once the conspiracy was found and revealed to the command, another officer assisted in setting all of the records straight but even that was not enough. She asked for a discharge from her service, was given an ancient Shootist battlemech as a reward for her time as a Black Warrior and left the Circinus Federation to seek a life as a mercenary, forming the ...

--------------------------------------------------------------

Domingo Rousseau "Raptor"

 Draconis Combine

 LP1: Street
 Event: Hotwiring hovercars paid the bills

 LP2: Street
 Event: Powerful underworld mentor

 LP3: Yakuza
 Event: DCMS scouts discover natural aptitude (Ghost Regiment)

 LP3: Tour of Duty - Inner Sphere
 Event: Captured

 PS: 3
 GS: 1
 Tactics: +1
 Leadership: +1

 Melee Specialist
 Natural Aptitude: Piloting

 Living on the streets in the Draconis Combine is a life few would ever survive but the natural skills that Domingo was born with carried him not only through the toughest places on Tok Do but also managed to get him noticed by a benevolent man with connections to the Yakuza. While the jobs were not always pleasant, nor were they always illegal his kyodai always taught him that to survive is trust in ones self above all else. He was accepted by few of the members of the group due to his name but once he had proven his loyalty they gradually warmed up to him fully brining him into the organization after the death of his kyodai.
 Several years after the old man's passing he was working directly for the Yakuza and holding a steady job in one of the many facilities owned by Alshain Weapons running one of the loadermechs on the testing grounds. An unfortunate incident with one of the mechwarriors accidentally finding a knife in his throat gave him an opportunity to pilot a 'mech on an exercise. What he did not know was that the leader of the exercise was working with the DCMS to find new pilots for on of the Ghost Regiments that had been formed a few years before.
 Domingo's natural aptitude and tenacity allowed him to be recruited and after training put him on a mission running rebel and bandits to ground. When a lucky shot from a soldier's SRM penetrated his armor and detonated an ammo bin he was forced to eject from his 'mech and was captured. Even though he managed to escape his disgrace at having been disabled and captured by infantry left a burning brand on his record that would ensure that he would never be in the DCMS again nor would his former Yakuza brothers accept him.
 He took what savings he had left, called in a few favors and headed to Outreach to see if even he could find a unit there to call home.

----------------------------------------------

My methodology is to generate the pilot name, skills, and origin location and then roll for the LP1 value based on the origin. Once that it selected I chose the next path based on the logical steps and roll events as directed by the tables. Since I am running pre-Clan Invasion those options are all off of the table. I try to keep the fluff with the info presented on the rolls but creating specific types of characters especially mechwarriors has few actual paths to get them in the cockpit.

Would anyone want to help generate characters based on these? I will post the generation rolls and their outcomes and any that end up posted can be freely used by whomever. I figure with the breadth of players and their specific faction knowledge here the back stories would be that much better than the general knowledge I have of all of the factions.

BTW anyone who knows more about the DC feel free to make that one more believable as I have never been much of a Kurita player...

Escudero

  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 66
  • Think forward.
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #1 on: 01 November 2015, 16:32:19 »
Is Seo-Young a Korean pureblood?
Aura Wings Mercenary Group

DanghenWoolf

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 94
  • Incoming fire has the right of way.
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #2 on: 02 November 2015, 16:40:21 »
I do not know, I use a random name generator either the one in MekHQ or online to generate names. As far as ethnicity goes I like to think that the amount of mixing that happened in the BattleTech universe allows for names that are not representative of any specific ethnic group.

DanghenWoolf

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 94
  • Incoming fire has the right of way.
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #3 on: 10 November 2015, 07:56:27 »
Here is one I could use some help with...

Name: Jonathan Walker <- Real randomly generated name...
Callsign: Burndown
Age: 29
Affiliation: Lyran Commonwealth

LP1: White Collar
Event: Your family immersed you in culture [Art/Any +1, Language/Any +1]

LP2: Military School
Event: Training works almost too well [CHA -1, Brave]

LP3: Military Academy - Buena
Event: You graduate Summa ****** Laude. The universe is yours for the taking! [SOC +1, Promotion, Good Reputation, Well-Connected, Vehicle (5). May take OCS next, then return and continue this Path]

LP3: OCS
Event: None

LP4: AIT (Mechwarrior)
Event: None

LP4: Tour of Duty - Lyran Alliance
Event: Garrison Duty

LP4: Tour of Duty - Social General
Event: Political motherlode (Enemy 2)

beachhead1985

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4065
  • 1st SOG; SLDF. "McKenna's Marauders"
    • Kilroy's Wall
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #4 on: 15 November 2015, 20:25:10 »
So you're making these characters in MW3 and converting them?
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

These, in the day when heaven was falling,      Their shoulders held the sky suspended;
The hour when earth's foundations fled,         They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
Followed their mercenary calling,               What God abandoned, these defended,
And took their wages, and are dead.             And saved the sum of things for pay.
     
A.E. Housman

DanghenWoolf

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 94
  • Incoming fire has the right of way.
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #5 on: 16 November 2015, 07:34:25 »
So you're making these characters in MW3 and converting them?

I am not really converting them as much as giving my pilots some background but if others can use them for NPCs then awesome. I have a hard time sometimes generating good fluff stories simply because I know so little about each specific faction, especially after 3050.

DanghenWoolf

  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Corporal
  • *
  • Posts: 94
  • Incoming fire has the right of way.
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #6 on: 16 November 2015, 16:45:11 »
As an aside if anyone has some generated personnel they do not mind posting a background for I will update this string with any battle information they participate in. I am currently in 3045.

PurpleDragon

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 1667
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #7 on: 24 January 2016, 23:56:48 »
I really like 3rd ed character generation more than any other I have seen, including other games like D&D.  The lifepaths are supposed to help generate a background story for the character.  That way, not all characters are then just "cookie cutter" or "two dimensional" numbers and stats. 

Now I know you are looking more just for background stories than game mechanics; however, I actually use the lifepaths from 3rd ed to generate XPs then use my own method of conversion  to make them AToW characters.  for the most part, skills get 5 xp per point given, then add another 1 xp per year in lifepath to each skill gained.  then the XPs gained for traits tend to be by the trait type and then a threshold gain for the attributes tends to be a straight 75 per point given.  You still spend edge during creation as you would but then you have to buy back those edge you spent plus meet the minimums before you can do anything else.  After life paths you then get an extra amount of xp (something like 2000-2500) to finish fleshing out the character.  I had a word document with an excel-like table in it with explanations that I used.  If you'd like, I will post it here for you. 

Let's see now, for Jonathan "Burndown" Walker:

His family was the owner of a popular brewery doted on their son taking him to see many new and classic theatrical viewings.   Being enthralled by the shows he had seen, Johnny became a bit more than his parents could handle and so was sent to military school in the hopes it would "straighten him out".  Having a like for all things military, Johnny was the model student at the military school and even went on to a prestigious military academy where he excelled, in spite of, or maybe, because of his somewhat rebellious nature.  His "out of the box" thinking earned him a candidacy to the officer corps.  Having to choose a proffession within the military, Johnny pursued his dreams of becoming a mechwarrior just like his "on screen hero".  His 2 year tour of duty gained him virtually nothing as he had a boring assignment.  Then he opted to pursue the path many Lyran officers do and found himself swept up into a political scandal. 



This is just a rough go at it based on the information you provided.  I am not too particularly fond of following canonicity so I will apologize if anything is not quite right with the write up. 
give a man a fire, keep him warm for a night. 
Set him on fire, keep him warm for the rest of his life!

The secret to winning the land/air battle is that you must always remain rigidly flexible.

I like tabletop more anyway, computer games are for nerds!  -  Knallogfall

Archer_Wirth

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 273
Re: Lets Generate Characters
« Reply #8 on: 30 March 2016, 19:34:54 »
I just picked up the 2nd edition MechWarrior book, which I've read was one of the best. Was hoping to be able to give my long-time character an actual background. Since he's a "Colonel" I gave him 3/4 skills for battle in both boardgame and MegaMek.

It's pretty awesome that you rolled such low skills for a new character. That's deadly. lol
Col. Archer Wirth
25th Whiskey Rangers
Mercenary Wizards