CHARACTER CREATION

## **PERSONA**

Players who join Medieval Chaos are expected to create a character or persona that they can use to interact with other characters. Players take on a new name, race, and guild and act their characters out  to the best of their ability. The setting, however medieval sounding and appearing, is really intended to be a fantasy world; therefore there are no specific time periods, historic locations, or re-enactments. The game setting is a world with magic, metahuman races, and a colourful history. Players are encouraged to remember this when creating their persona.  Peasant characters are meant to be very basic, with little history and few titles or responsibilities. It is wise for a player to take this time as a peasant to learn about the history of the realm and the social workings of the Medieval Chaos world.

## **BUILDING CHARACTER**

Everyone has their own distinct way they go about creating a character; talking to your fellow players and/or searching the internet will turn up a plethora of useful ideas. We cannot possibly cover all the ways to create a character in this handbook; nevertheless, here are some guidelines:

* Both before and after reading through this wiki, consider what sort of character you would enjoy playing. What does your instinct tell you would be fun? Remember, your primary goal at MC should be having fun, so you should base your character around either a class or a concept you think you'd enjoy playing, and take into consideration your personal play style.
* Guilds and classes exist to represent what characters can actually do mechanically, and though they provide excellent archetypes to base one's character around, don't feel constrained to play or dress your character as stereotypical example of their class. Players are free to portray a cowardly fighter, an honest rogue, or an inept caster. 'Play your character, not your class'.
* Although class mechanics represent the competency of a character and what they are able to do, it's the character's personality, desires, and faults that bring them to life. A few players enjoy playing hyper-competent characters with no drawbacks or needs, but for many that becomes stale and repetitive. Consider what traits your character may have that will add flavour to their interactions with other characters. Traits that cause conflict tend to be the most flavourful of all. For example, if most other characters are pro-nobility, it may be more fun for all if you are anti-nobility and thus create conflict to act upon.
* Even though it might be your nature, avoid creating a purely introverted character. MC is a social game, the basis of which is interacting with other characters either by talking to them and/or fighting them. Unless other players are forced in some way to interact with you, your character’s aloofness in game usually works against you. MC provides the perfect opportunity to step outside one's personal boundaries without worrying about real life consequences.

### ROLE PLAYING ADVICE

For many inexperienced role-players, the concept of portraying a character different than themselves can be daunting at first, especially when that character's actions or desires would run contrary to their own. But like a great many of things, role-playing only appears difficult at first and the more you practice it, the better you become at it. A good general guideline to keep in mind is: “when appropriate, great role-play trumps mechanics”.

Provided it's not used to gain/grant any overt mechanical advantage, we encourage players to be creative with the rules when it comes to role-play. An example of this would be a character who has not actually suffered the dismember effect choosing to role-play that the injuries they sustained during a fight were enough to cause them to limp badly.

Role-playing is a lot like improvisational theatre, and a good principle of improv acting is to avoid negating fellow players' role-play with your own but instead to seek to expand upon it. Good role-players tend to avoid solely focusing upon their own character, and look to involve others in their role-play.

## **NON-PLAYER CHARACTERS**

Every player at Medieval Chaos will undoubtedly play a non-player character role at some point. Non-player characters are commonly referred to as NPCs simply for ease of use while creating scenarios. Scenarios require orcs, zombies, brigands and many other types of foes for battle. They also require travelling merchants, bards, or fighters for plot and even foul demons or clever sorcerers for main antagonists. All of these roles have to be filled by players in order for the characters to complete their mission successfully. These players will be handed their orders by the current Game Master and told to meet with the NPC leader for more information.

After playing the same character for several years a player might decide that it is time to “retire” that character and make them into an NPC. A character must have reached high guild and have actively attended at least 2 full seasons of Medieval Chaos before applying to become an NPC. To make the character into an NPC, a player whose character meets this criteria must announce to the Storyline council of Medieval Chaos that they have decided to turn their character into a non-player character.

Be warned though, NPC status isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, NPC characters can get up after being killed in a battle or take new abilities for free, but they lose all their in-character freedom. Non-player characters cannot own land, money, scrolls, or potions and any and all magical items they possess are fully lootable to player characters. Worst of all, NPCs have to ask the Game Master's permission to attend a mission, and can never compete in tournaments. Once a character has been changed from a PC to an NPC the decision can never be reversed.

## **CREW CHARACTERS**

Many of the background characters at Medieval Chaos give up their days to work in the bank, the bar, the gatehouse, or to play the town guards, the town crier, or the town candler. These jobs take valuable role-play time away from players, thus any player who is placed into a crew role will be compensated with 1 crew point. Crew points can be spent as per the Crew Point Chart found HERE.

## **IN CHARACTER & OUT OF CHARACTER**

Players are expected to interact with each other both as themselves and as their character. To avoid confusion between what is the player and what is the character, players are encouraged to make their characters significantly different than themselves. Characters may talk differently than players, have a different tone of voice, different posture, or a different attitude.

Players must also remember that when acting as a character, they must act as if they only know what their character knows and not what they themselves know. Players must make decisions based on character knowledge rather than their own personal knowledge. This form of improvisational acting and character based decision making is called being “In-Character” or IC. When all players are IC it makes the game run more smoothly, and it helps if all players are IC as often as possible. When a player is talking and acting normally as themselves and not their characters they are considered “Out of Character” or OOC. Players must remember that information gathered OOC is not intended for use IC as it could ruin the game play for fellow players. Once signed in and past the gatehouse, all players are expected to be IC.

## **FACTIONS**

Within Medieval Chaos there are many factions. Factions are groups of characters, normally united under a leader, who are brought together for a common goal. Factions offer no ability, skill, or noteworthy bonus other than sheer power in numbers. While exploring the world of Medieval Chaos players are encouraged to find a faction that will work with their character's goals and general personality. For example, an acolyte will seldom be a part of a thief faction. It is good to remember  that factions are simply collectives of individuals, whereas guilds are where a character gains their abilities and hit point ratings. A faction can hand you an axe but your guild says whether or not you can wield it. Factions factor prominently into the Kinship effect detailed within the following chapter.

## PEASANT

Everyone who joins our game begins as a peasant. This gives new players the opportunity to learn game mechanics, crucial rules, and where they fit in on the guild tree before being thrown fully into game play. Peasantry is designed to help new players learn the mechanics of the Medieval Chaos world without being too overwhelmed. Therefore, all racial benefits and hindrances do not take effect until the character becomes an apprentice. New players are urged to remain a peasant as long as necessary. The longer a new player plays a peasant the better they will understand how the combat, rules, and game mechanics all work to make our world interactive; as well as the specific abilities, hindrances, flaws and merits of each race and guild. Once a player has created a character and advanced beyond peasant-hood, any alternate character they create won't start as a peasant and instead starts as an apprentice.

### ADVANCEMENT

Peasants level up to apprentices once they have decided to advance within a desired guild (fighter, caster, or rogue), and successfully completed the Minutes To Live (MTL) test; afterwards they are required to create a character on the website (if they haven't already done so) and notify the Advancement Marshal of their advancement.