User:Luke/Chargen Help/Stats

Introduction

I am writing this because I found that there are problems with understanding the chargen process. My first chargen went over pretty bad with a sheet that was mostly garbage in the end; and a fellow newbie had big problems to grasp the system. There is already a Player Guide concerning chargen in place; it is recommended to read all the userguides!

The chargen player guide is a (not so) small walkthrough which is great if you understand RP concepts and the DSS skill concept. But here I want to lay things down on a more basic level.

Why read this?

I helped a fellow newbie through the character and background generation process; it needed a good hour of paging back and forth. If you read this carefully, it might save you that time.

I also recommend to read my notes on Character Background Development, if I've actually come around to make it. (i.e. the link is not red anymore)

What will you teach me?

First, I will tell you about all the underlying real-world concepts. Then, I will tell you how the whole thing influences the game. And lastly, you'll get a walkthrough through the whole thing.

What's behind this all?

Behind this all is the DSS - Dahan's Skill System. It is the code which puts this kind of a RP rulebook to life.

A real-world metaphor

Skills

Skills are really that, skills. Skills can be thought of as what you learned of a subject and practised in it. Skill levels go from 0 to 120 in theory; 30 to 40 is the average trained human; more than 90 means you probably invented the whole thing. There are 65 skills.

But skills, your education and training in a certain subject, are modified by your Atributes.

There is a specialty about the DSS System called "focus skills". It means that certain skills are just a collection of other, totally independent skills. For example, there's the "Firearms" skillset, which is focused into "repeating" for automatic weapons, "rifles" for rifles and "sidearms" for small guns. You cannot have an actual skill level in the "Firearms" skill - and your skill in one focus won't influence you skill in any other focus.

Attributes

Think of Attributes as natural bodily and mental traits. They are mainly used to modify you skills. If you are very strong and agile, this will give you an advantage over somebody who is as educated and trained in Martial Arts as you are.

Attributes also go from 0 to 110.

Feats

Feats are outside of the skill and attribute system. They are special traits or properties which you have or have not, for example being color blind, or having Lightning reflexes. Some of them are overall good for you, some are overall bad. Some feats are also locked and can only be enabled by admins.
Feats that give you an advantage cost XP, Feats that are bad give you XP credit.

Most of the feats do not tie into any of the rest of the stats system. They are purely there for RP. In a judged scene, you may want to notifiy the GM of any relevant feats you have.

Language

You can speak in any language you know, and you can understand what is said in any language you know. This MUSH doesn't keep you from learning whatever language you want of the listed ones, but it'll cost you 25 XP.

Experience Points

Experience Points ("XP") represent the time you spend learning and training for a skill or a language. Feats also cost XP or give you XP to charge you for the advantage or reward you for the disadvantages you get with feats.

You can also adjust your attributes, which costs 10 times as much as raising skills.

How these things impact the game

rolling

to roll means to test your skills against a difficulty. the difficulties also go from 0 to 110; a typical value is 40. When a roll is done against a certain skill, the system generates a random number between 0 and the difficulty. This number is subtracted from the relevant skill; if the result is positive, you pass the test, if it is negtive, you fail.

These taskrolls are always used to make a decision about a specific action of a character in RP, mainly if they succeed at it or not; or also if somebody manages to spot something somebody else tried to hide.

Combat

Main page: Combat Player Guide

Attacking is a special form of roll; if the attack succeeds, it will directly deal damage in stun points (potentially knocking the victim unconscious or slowing it down at least) and wound points (potentially killing the victim).
(Another intricacy of the combat system that should be noted is that to avoid going down after a hit, you might need to roll a Willpower Save)

An overview over a character sheet

Call your sheet up with +sheet.

 Somebody's Sheet                                        =>DSS Skill System<=
==============================================================================
| Species: Human           Gender: Male             Age: 23                  |
| Experience Points: 13    Health: Healthy          Archetype: Freelancer    |

This is general info, and also includes how many Experience Points (XP) you have left to spend.

=[ Attributes ]===============================================================
| Attribute      Adj Base  Attribute      Adj Base  Attribute      Adj Base  |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
| Agility:        40   45  Intelligence:   40   40  Technical:      35   35  |
| Strength:       42   42  Charisma:       41   41  Perception:     45   45  |

These are the attributes. On the right, the base values, and on the right, the adjusted values (Here, Agility has been adjusted for the body armour being worn)

=[ Skills ]===================================================================
|  Adj Base Skill                        Adj Base Skill                      |
| ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
|   31  25  Bargain                       25  15  Firearms: repeating        |
|   38  35  Computer Programming          38  35  Firearms: sidearms         |
|   34  30  Computer Use                  36  30  Hide                       |
|   29  25  Con Artist                    30  20  Martial Arts               |
|   35  30  Concealment                   35  30  Move Silently              |
|   28  18  Diplomacy                     32  25  Pick Pocket                |
|   10  10  Dirty Pool                    20  10  Run: long distance         |
|   34  30  Disguise                      34  30  Security systems           |
|   43  40  Dodge                                                            |

This is a skillset. The number on the left is the adjusted skill which will count for rolls, the number on the right is the base skill level (how far you have raised the skill) which does not take into account your attributes.

=[ Feats ]====================================================================
| Allergy                  Paranoia                                          |

These are two selected feats; both of those are to your disadvantage and give you Experience Points (Reminder: There are also feats which give you an advantage and COST Experience points!).

=[ Languages ]================================================================
| Chinese                  German                   Latin                    |
| *English*                Japanese                                          |

The languages you know; marked the language you currently speak.

=[ Gear ]=====================================================================
| Armor: None                          Weapon: None                          |
=[ Health ]===================================================================
| Status: Healthy (100% Healthy)        Stun Points: 0                       |
| Constitution: 40                      Wound Points: 0                      |
==============================================================================

These are ingame attributes we don't need for chargen.

The walkthrough

Finally, the thing you've come here for! Sadly, I haven't come around to this yet. Or I've been to lazy. --Luke 15:39, 6 September 2008 (EDT)