MechWarrior RPG Character Creation

MechWarrior RPG Character Creation Affiliations Early Childhood Late Childhood Higher Education Real Life Traits Quirk Listing Stigma Listing Skills Field Skill Groups

In MechWarrior, every player portrays a character in the game. The character is the player's window into the BattleTech universe. This section contains rules and pointers for creating characters with unique skills, histories, personalities and styles.

The quickest and easiest way to begln playing NBT-Solaris is to turn to the Generic Characters available to all. These generic characters are fully fleshed-out and ready to play. Just choose one, come up with a name for him or her, and you can begin. Of course, sooner or later you will want to create your own character from the ground up. To do that, follow the steps described below and you will have a character ready to jump into action! This section begins with an Overview of the character creation process. Following are descriptions of the various elements that make up a character: Attributes, traits, skills and affiliations. There are sections the section describes the Life Paths and how they effect your character. The final subsection, Finishing Touches, offers rules and tips for completing your character.

Overview

The process of creating a character includes the following steps: finding a concept, choosing an affiliation, choosing a Life Path and adding the finishing touches.

Find A Concept

For many players, the first step in creating a character is coming up with a character concept: an idea of what kind of character you want to play. This concept can be as general as "a MechWarrior" or something much more specific, such as: "A street kid who beat the odds to become a doctor. Drafted into the FedCom military, he used his skills on the Clan front until a stray bullet cost him his hand and his commission. Bitter and haunted by images of war, he sells what remains of his skills to the highest bidder in the Chaos March.

Some players prefer not to start with a concept. This is perfectly workable, as the MW3 character creation system is designed to let the player draw ideas from the creation process. Players without a concept should proceed directly to the next step, choosing an affiliation.

Team Play

In order to make the game more fun for everyone, all the players in a campaign should cooperate to create characters that work well together as a team. Because the MW3 character creation system can sometimes take unexpected turns, players are encouraged to create their characters together and discuss their options as they go through the process. Each player can then make choices to ensure that his or her character will be an important and unique asset to the team.

Choose An Affiliation

Every character has to come from somewhere, symbolized in MW3 by affiliations. Each affiliation represents the culture and style of a particular region or group in the BattleTech universe. Players choose their characters' affiliation based on where the character did the most learning and growing-where he spent his "formative years." For example, if a character was born in the Draconis Combine but moved to the Free Worlds League at the age of two and has lived there ever since, Free Worlds League would be the most appropriate affiliation. Choose the one that best fits your character concept, or simply one that you like. The rules for your chosen affiliation will restrict some of your choices later in character creation but will also provide unique opportunities.

Choose A Life Path

Most of the character creation process takes place in the Life Path. These choices will determine your character's story before play begins. What kind of upbringing did you have? Where did you go to school? Were you in the military, and why? What lucky breaks or tragedies did you have along the way? The Life Path determines a character's access to Attributes, skills, traits and more, based on your choices and occasional dice rolls.

This section describes the Life Path before the affiliations because players must understand how the Life Path works in order to make an informed affiliation choice. In practice, you should always choose an affiliation before beginning the Life Path.

Assign Skills, Attributes & Traits (SAT)

After completing the Life Path, you can give your character Attributes and traits and determine your character's final skills and skill bonuses.

Finishing Touches

The final step in creating a character is to round out the character's description, personality, history and any other details: determining a vehicle assignment, finalizing the character's military rank (if any) and so on. Once you've worked out these details, your character is ready to play!

Feel free to leave some of these details vague for the first game or two. Some players prefer to let their characters develop "organically" in game play. For example, a player might not have a specific personality in mind for his character before play starts, but a clash with a Civilian Guidance Corps officer in the first game session might lead him to decide that his character is rebellious and brash.