This chapter will describe in detail how to give a character form and shape, how to write down a history for a PC, how the GM extract useful game information from this history and how to make him feel like an interesting character and not a piece of paper.
Characters in most RPGs are created backwards: attributes are determined first usefully by rolling dice or some other random method, then skills and other powers are selected to create the most powerful character possible, finally a history is written about the character trying in vain to describe all the player's choice. Due to the way ARC is designed, GMs should insist that a character's history is written first.
The first thing that a player should do is to begin writing a history about his character. This first step is the most important step because often a character's personality, wishes and wants, likes and dislikes are more important during a game than his ability to swing swords, fire guns, land spaceships or hack into corporate computers. This will not only make the other steps easier but will create a more interesting and complete character.
Christopher Kubasik argues that the basic plot form of the story goes something like this: "A central character wants something, goes after it despite opposition, and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw." What this basically means is that every adventure is filled with interaction between the personality of a character and various elements of the story.
Ever session should offer something exciting the characters want to be part of. Saving the fair maiden, killing that nasty red dragon, helping with the rebels' attack and so on. Characters have many desires, but not all of them make good stories. The examples I just mentioned are heroic. That is, they are worth telling a story about, albeit not a very original one :)
A Goal is a character's primary motivation - his life's purpose if you will. Everything a character does should somehow move him one step closer towards this Goal. If this Goal or something related to it comes in sight, then the character forgets everything else, and concentrates on his Goal.
A story plot is begun by the GM, suggesting a path that may lead the characters to the accomplishment of their Goal. The players interact in this story, modifing the path along the way. The players are not competing with the GM but simply seeking to entertain everyone and also complete their Goal.
Because Goals are not easily reached and a character's quest may last years, players needs short term Objectives that allow them to concentrate on things that are related to their Goal but are accomplished more easily. Objectives basically define how they proceed towards the accomplishment of their Goal, and they are the building blocks that GMs use to create stories.
For instance, a character's Goal may be to "Attain political power in Great Britain" (this is Arthurian times - or there about). So, how is he going to do this? How about "Marrying Princess Biea" as an Objective. A character knows that to marry her he needs to become very well known and respected and also rich. He defines "Become a knight" (Objective) which would require that he has "lands and wealth" (another Objective). But what lands? He decides that he wants to take the lands from Sir Foulon with whom the character's family has a long-lasting hate. To take the lands he has to get rid of Foulon (which creates yet another Objective). All these should be discussed with the GM, so he has some idea what the character is trying to do, what objects he will quest for and for what reasons will he risk his life.
Before, and sometimes after, each game session the GM should do a short interrogation with each player seperately and retrieve information that will be useful for the game. Remember that as a GM you shouldn't force a pre-planned storyline on your players and as a player you should play your character with passion and explore all possibilities. Holding back and playing carefully so that you can keep a character alive is not fun for anyone. If your character has a Goal or an Objective calling he should respond in a way that demonstrates that. Call of Cthulhu or Paranoia are good examples of games that demand such players.
The WECD (pronounced Wicked) is an interrogation technique that GMs can use to help players create interesting and enjoyable characters that won't be out of place in the GMs campaign.
After you have made up the history of your character you must isolate the characteristics from the description. Characteristics is anything that describes the character, or something he owns, belongs to, etc. A characteristic can be an attribute, a skill, a special gift, a piece of inventory, or even a character's race, club, etc.
Characteristics are described by ranks in a uniform manner for ease of comparison, but in a manner also allowing creative freedom. A rank is basically an adjective that describes the quality, intensity, or the overall power of a characteristic (what traditional RPGs call "levels").
The rank includes the symbolism, for instance (++), or (-). The adjective is provided for comparative reasons. When writing out your history you may substitute other, more appropriate adjectives.
Attributes represent a character's natural assets, without the advantage of training or education. They are the natural physical or mental talents that a character has had since birth. All creatures in a game world share the same attributes, but not neccesarily at the same rank. There are eight standard attributes (or four, if the players wish for more simplicity) for all characters. While this restricts character creation somewhat, it really pays off to have a consistent way to compare all characters.
They are described using ranks.
Skills describe things you can do because you've been taught how to do them. They represent schooling and not natural aptitude. Schooling means both proper educational institutes and the school of life (i.e. experience). Examples of skills include: advanced mathematics, driving, proficiency with melee weapons, acute hearing, magical ability etc.
Players may also use skill packs, if the GM or the setting allows them to. A skill pack is a number of skills grouped together usually according to occupation or race. For example an "average thief" in a fantasy campaign is average at all those rogue abilities (pick pockets, open locks, stealth, climb walls, backstab, etc). This was an occupational skill. A racial skill pack, for example "Elf" or "Klingon", will include common language among the members of the race, typical traits, customs, etc.
Some skills, like "psionic powers" or "spellcasting" for instance, may require that the person was born with this skill. In ARC, these things are not separated into some other category since they function as skills. Hereafter, when I refer to "powers" I will mean these types of skills that are above and beyond the mudane kind of skills that most humans are capable of. These are further detailed in Chapter 4: Powers
Skills are described using ranks.
Inventory describes what the character owns. Some of these might be ranked, some not. For example your Porsche is a very good (++) car, while an old broken-down Dodge is very poor (--). Similarly a dagger crafted by men could be average (0), one crafted by elves could be (+), one crafted by dwarves could be very good (++) and one crafted by the gods themselves could be exceptional (+++).
Background info is everything else. A character's past, future, feelings, thoughts, phobias and so on are all considered background info. Usually background info is not rated, but a character may have an intense (--) phobia of water, or something similar. Use common sense.
The attribute list is sorted as follows: two broad categories divided in four base attributes (two for each category), further divided in eight specialized attributes (two for each base attribute). You can either use the base attributes (Coordination, Physique, Intellect, Essence) or the specialized attributes (Agility, Dexterity, Endurance, Strength, Reason, Perception, Wisdom, Spirit). You can also use both: having your players to use the eight specialized attributes but fleshing out unimportant NPCs using only the four base attributes.
Write next to each attribute or skill how well you rank in it. For instance "Exceptional Strength (+++)", "Poor Spirit (-)" and so on.
Characters are assumed to have an Average rank in all "typical" skills. Of course "typical" depends on the game played. For instance, in a modern day game it's reasonable to assume that all characters can read and write in their mother tongue and that they have a basic level of mathematical knowledge. In a medieval campaign most characters wouldn't know how to write their own name, but they would probably know how to skin and cook a deer (something most modern day folks don't know how to do).
Also, the ranks are relative to the setting. For example, an exceptional chartographer in Ancient Athens cannot be compared with an average modern day one, because the modern day cartographer has much more advanced equipment and much more knowledge related to cartography than his Ancient Athenian counterpart.
While this "writing history" system may, at first glance, appear to be easily abusable by munchkins and min/maxers, as you'll see in practice, this is not the case. The idea is that sensible histories make sensible characters. For example: the more powerful a character is, the harder it will be for the player to write a decent history for him. I mean, how can you write up a sensible description for a character who characterizes himself as "God-like"? Even when not taking into account such extreme examples you will see that most players will not be able to explain "far-out" characteristics, because otherwise their character's history would lack coherence and logic.
Besides, if a character's characteristics are too powerful and unbalancing, the GM (or even the other players) may pitch in and require the player to create a more sensible character.
Unfortunately this system works well for everything but attributes. The reason for this is simple: attributes are characteristics which are born with the player. This makes it very easy for the player to say that his character "had good genes" and rate all his attributes exceptionally. If this occurs within a group the GM should talk with the player and find a rational solution. If the player won't budge then the GM may use the following method to balance attributes:
A character's attributes all start at Average (or above if the campaign calls for above-average characters). If a player wants to increase a attribute by one rank (that is, take it to Good) then he must decrease another attribute by one rank (so this second skill will fall to the rank of Poor). So the total of all the attributes stays constant (zero for Average characters). This allows the creation of highly balanced attributes, but takes some of the power (and fun) of character creation from them. Despite it's limitations, this is a very good way to create well balanced NPCs.
The other thing to remember when writing a character's history is that skills are the result of training or at the very least experience (which means spending a considerable amount of time with the object of the skill). Both of these require time and expenses (and I'm not always talking about money - other ways to "pay" for something exist) and the character better explain how he learned that particular skill. A decent rule of thumb to remember, is that for every two or three years spent on a skill, the character attains a rank.
It has been suggested that a similar system as the one proposed above for attributes be used for skills also. Unfortunately this don't work very well, because a player might raise Kung-Fu to exceptional (+++) and lower Cooking to (---). Obviously in a combat intensive campaign it's not a fair trade off. You'll have to just let your players to handle this sensibly by themselves.
As you may have noticed, the concept of experience points is lacking in ARC. The reason I decided not to use experience points in ARC, is that they usually end up being used as a mechanism to reward players. For example: "You killed a monster, you get this many experience points" and "You saved the maiden, you get this many experience points" or even worse "You have enough experience points to increase level and become instantly much more powerful!".
Actually, there's a much simpler, and also much more realistic, method of rewarding players: Stop handing out all that experience points/skill points/gold pieces/spiffy items/magic/whatever. Players are rewarded when their objectives or goals are accomplished. I mean, that's what the players wanted to do in the game. Shouldn't that be their reward?
This works better than I expected once the players get the hang of it. They soon realize that, for example, if they want their fighter to learn how to fight with two weapons that they have to actively seek out a mentor and study under him (or whatever) and not wait for the next level. This gives the GM an opportunity to turn even the most mundane changes in a character's profile into an entire adventure.
Besides, accomplishing one's objectives and goals is much more fulfilling than having ye oldie treasure chest buried in the backyard, full of stuff the players won't ever use or sell. It gives the players a motivation to play their characters and it gives their characters life.