Character building.

So this is a series of catch up posts for a game in progress.  This is primarily to help me recordkeep and facilitate my writing for more meaningful things (i.e. my book) by keeping my fingers moving and paper flowing with words.

As expected with the 'A Time of War' character build process, we ran into a LOT of snags.  It's a clusterfluffle and there's very little way around it.  We spent probably 5 solid hours or more prepping people's character.  There's absolutely a way this could be streamlined, though I'm not sure what it would be. 

The first problem, is finding a system you want to use for building your character.  In this case, there are numerous spreadsheets which offer to do the math for you.  Unfortunately the contingencies of 'which background did you choose, what school, etc' leaves for such a myriad level of choices it sort of overwhelms most spreadsheets I found.  In the end, we used the BTCC (battletech character creator).  I highly recommend this method.  It is by far the fastest, though not without it's nuance.

So a little background for the uninitiated - A Time of War is the Battletech RPG (pen and paper) system.  We're using roll20 out of convenience to run our games. 

It's a heady system with a lot of moving pieces.  The manual is some 500 pages of info and is packed with table upon table.  One of my players complained about his 'table boner' frequently.  You get used to it and actually as a GM can get pretty fast at it but it's a slog at first.

Character creation

Anyways character creation is a either/or system.  You can either spend your points as a form of currency in a weird, stacking system that will probably require explanation or you can do it as a package purchase system in modules that ... then requires spending currency in the weird stacking system.  So why add the complexity of the modules?  Well, it takes care of initial setup, simplifies backstory for players, and gives you 20% more exp to spend during modules 3/4.  That's no small amount.

So with the BTCC (Found here: https://github.com/bearchik/Battletech-Character-Creator ) you will get MOSTLY through unhitched and it's fairly simple.  Pick your life modules starting with affiliation, per the ATOW core book.  Then spend flexible experience.  Then hit next, choose your early life, choose interests, spend flexible experience.  Rinse/repeat.  Do this until you get to module 3.  Then do it all and hit next and... get told you're not complete and then you will lose all your work.  Huh?

So ... here's what you messed up.  Basically at some point along the process you choose your schooling and if you look to the left of it there's this tiny arrow pointing left.  You have to choose that to 'select' the choice.  Only until that's done does the process work correctly and retain your settings.

Not terribly inaccurate, this picture.

It's a simple error, but relevant.

So yeah.  After you do that, you can continue normally until you reach the part where you undo 90% of your work for the 'optimization' phase.

Now assuming you don't have the quick learner or slow learner trait (traits are sort of set in stone character elements), then you are are aiming for the following:

• Around 4+ points in most of your stats (except edge).  This represents 'average'.  It's important as it determines your raw abilities and a significant portion of your character will be based on these values.
• Skills will be removed if unnecessary (trust me, many are) and traits are paid for or paid off.  This is important because a significant amount of traits cost a specific amount.  For example, a great many characters start with like 215 points in combat sense.  You need 400 to have combat sense, period.  So either pay 185, or refund 215. 
• Certain traits can only be removed in certain fashions - example: illiterate is removed by having a high enough 'language' skill score.  Negative traits, if kept, must be rounded up.  If not kept they must be paid off.  Positive traits can be rounded down if available in a range.  Do not allow players to keep like 185 points in a trait.  Either round it up to  -200 if it's a negative or round it up/down based on player input if it's a positive.
• Skills need pruned, and will need pruned badly.  This follows (for standard, not quick learner/slow learner) the following method:  20 points = skill level zero, but you can list the skill.  30 (or level 1 X 10) = level 1, 50 (previous level + level 2 * 10) = level 2, 80 = level 3, 120 = level 4 and so on.
• Skills follow this bizarre flow:  20 to be 'skilled' - i.e. skill zero.  This means you get the more optimal choice of a lower MoS (margin of success) roll for your skill.  Example:

Let's say you are checking a room for a trap.  You roll perception which has 20 points (making it level 0).  Your MoS is 7.  You roll 2d6, and essentially need a 7 or higher to get it.   If you have 0 points in perception, then you roll raw stats.  Your int is a 4.  So you roll a 2d6+4... against an MoS of 12 (single stat check rolls are a raw MoS of 12).  That means you need an 8 or higher to make your MoS check.  As you can see even having a BASIC understanding of a level 0 skill is superior to having an average stat check against a skill.

So anyways, the objective of 'optimization' - which I as the GM did for literally every single person in my campaign, is to:

1. Not have wasted experience.  There's no point in having 410 points in strength.  10 extra points could be used for skills and since traits are done by the nearest 100 value (rounded down), then even having 499 makes no sense.  You still only have 4 strength until you have 500
2. More efficient use of skills.  There's a TON of bloat.  I mean sure, 'interest/inner sphere' might be useful, but it's probably just unnecessary, from a GM point of view.  You can easily package that up  as something else for the player.
3. More RELEVANT use of skills.  Players at a minimum should be gently persuaded to have:
• A decent (2-4) martial arts score.  Melee combat is highly reliant on this.
• A way to fight (melee, small arms/ranged)
• Relevant skills (3025 era is really hard to find battle armor in, for instance).
• Make sure they have some kind of weapon/vehicle/etc.  I'll get into this more in the next one.
• Some basic pen and paper stuff like perception, negotiation, etc.  Avoid bloat/filler. 
4. Make sure they meet the minimum criteria for their modules.  Example: Title 500, Wealth 500, Property 500 for a noble.

That's about it.  After that, keep the character sheets, get them to spend money on gear, keep track of that separately as it's not stored very well in BTCC.