Game 1 - Sentinels Comics
Just because it's on the mind, let's start with Sentinels Comics which is the RPG based on the card game Sentinels of the Multiverse.
Sentinels Comics has one of the most well-done and interesting random character generation systems I've ever seen. More to the point, it doesn't really generate a character on its own, what it does is narrow down the choices for your character at each point. It gives a bit of a boundary to avoid the option paralysis that happens with a lot of open games.
So, let's do this in steps.
This step gets you your first Qualities and describes what you were before you became a hero.
First, we are going to roll 2d10.
In this case, I get a 7 and an 9. This gives me three choices because I can use the option at either result or use the option that I get by adding them together. This means my options are:
16 (7+9) - Former Villain
Academic would give me a strong quality here but fewer selections on the next step as well as an Expertise principle. Performer would give me a couple of good qualities and full selections next step, along with a Responsibility. Former Villain gives me some good qualities, an Expertise principle, and full selections for the next step with a better dice pool than Performer.
I think I will go for academic.
I'm going to assign the d8 to History and the d12 to Self-Discipline.
For the Principle, I'm choosing "Principle of History"
Most principles follow this pattern. Stuff to color roleplaying things and questions to ask when bad stuff happens. And then an ability that allows you to Overcome using your Max die instead of a Mid die. This increases your effectiveness in that situation tremendously since you're comparing three different dice.
There are some "roleplaying" bits that seem extreme such as the Indestructible principle allowing you to just ignore low-powered attacks in a roleplay scene or the ability to survive in open space... or so on. And there are one or two Abilities that are a bit different than the Overcome with Max standard.
Also note that Principle abilities grant Hero Points. These are spent between sessions for benefits in the next session.
And that leads on to Step 2.
This step gives you your first Powers and defines what gives you your power.
Most characters will roll 3 dice at this point, being able to take any one die or combine any two, creating anywhere from 2 to 6 choices. However, because our Background we only roll 2 dice, a d10 and d8.
I roll a 1 and a 3 making my options as follows:
4 (1+3) - Experimentation
I'm leaning toward Genetic. Here, not going to break down the options this time. Just it leads into the idea I have most. There's other power sources I could have gotten like Cursed, Supernatural, or Relic... but this is cool, makes me think that whatever she stumbled on triggered a genetic heritage like she's a descendant of the gorgons perhaps.
I love the fact that you can tell same story from different angles dependent on your choices. I end up taking Signature Weapon, so she clearly finds a Relic, but it isn't the source of her power. Heck, if Relic had been a choice, I could have later turned to Genetic and discovered the power was mine all along.
So, now we assign the dice that we rolled. I'm going to assign the d10 to a power from the Intellectual powers and choose Awareness which is the catch all physical senses ability. And then apply the d8 to Signature Weaponry and I'll name that the Serpent Bow.
Yellow - Available when health is low or situation is serious
Red - Available when health or situation are dire.
For the two abilities, I'm going to choose Adaptive, and assign Awareness to it, and Area Assault with Serpent Bow assigned to it.
When you roll an action you choose a power, a quality, and take a die dependent on your or the scene's status. In order to use abilities, you must choose the named power or quality. So in order to use Area Assault (which we'll rename later) she needs to use Serpent Bow as her power, but she can use any quality that fits what she's trying to do. Note that Serpent Bow can be used either with melee or ranged combat... she can still hit people with her bow.
Note that Adaptive primarily Boosts her, and since it doesn't specify, it would use the Mid die (ie, if she rolled a 6, 3, and 1 she'd boost with the 3) and then she can also either remove a penalty or heal 1 (her Min die, the lowest rolled).
The main benefit of Abilities are to either take multiple actions, affect multiple targets, or use dice other then the Mid die in some situations. Abilities are either Actions, Reactions, or Innates (passive).
For the Green power, I'm going to choose Growth and it uses a quality, so I'm going to assign Self-Discipline to that. Persistent means the boost lasts the entire scene (like ongoing in Motw) and Exclusive means that if you use it you can only use it, it won't stack with anything else.
EDIT: I have been informed that Exclusive bonuses will stack with non-Exclusive bonuses just fine. They just won't stack with other Exclusives.
This describes how you have learned to apply your powers and gives you a mix of Powers and Qualities. Now, at this point, we roll the 3 dice from Step 2. d10 + d8 + d8.
I roll a 2, 4, and 7 making my options as:
6 (2+4) - Close Quarters Combat
9 (2+7) - Elemental Manipulator
Now, the obvious choice is Marksman. But I'm feeling like going a little bit less the obvious route. I'm going to rule out Elemental Manipulator and Sorcerer, because doing flashy energy stuff isn't what I'm looking for here.
Sneaky type (Shadow) is tempting... and so is Armored. This wouldn't be the first time I've done an unusual Armored (I have a character who is an Armored archetype based on Precognition... she sees the attack coming and thus can dodge).
I think I'm going to go with Close Quarters Combat. Yup, I'm making a melee archer.
I have 3 dice to assign here.
I'm going to assign d8 to Close Combat... Agility is tempting... and yeah, I'm going to go basic there. d8 Agility. And then I'll assign the last d10 to Ranged Combat.
Going for Flexible Stance using Agility, Defensive Strike using Close Combat, and Dual Strike using Ranged Combat. This means that one of her moves requires melee, one can be melee or ranged, and one requires ranged.
Now I get one at Yellow. For the Yellow, I'm going to take Precise Strike using Serpent Bow... which means I can either shoot arrows (or snakes?) from it, or thwack people with it like it's a club or staff (or whip?). Another ability that can be either Melee or Ranged.
I've made a "Close Quarters Combatant" who is actually better at range, but can fight melee as well.
This also means I have to take a Responsibility principle. Let's see.
Detective and Everyman are both tempting... lets see, do I want a Sherlock/Batman-esque type who sees through everything? Or a normal lady who just got power she didn't ask for?
Let's lean into the Academic background and go Detective:
Anyway, this leads us to Step 4.
As with Step 1, this step always gets 2d10 to roll. It will give you one quality which you name for yourself, an Out ability to use on your turn if your character has been taken out of the fight and also cause you to pick your two Red abilities. This will also set how your status die works.
Some of these have weird special things they do, but most are pretty similar and more less just roleplay specific.
I rolled a 2 and a 5 giving me the following options:
None of these do much special. Two of them have d8s at all the Status levels and one starts at d6 and ends up at d10.
I'm going to go with Sarcastic for the Out ability of being able to Hinder opponents even after I've been taken out.
For the backstory quality I'm going to say Descendant of Euryale.
Now I choose two Red abilities. These have to be a from categories of Quality or Power I already have, so let's look at my list:
Self-Discipline d12 (Mental)
Close Combat d10 (Physical)
Ranged Combat d10 (Physical)
Awareness d8 (Intellectual)
Serpent Bow d10 (Hallmark)
This means that I can pick Red Abilities from the following categories
I have a bit of a love for passives, and I'm going to take one here in the form of Endurance Fighting from the Physical category:
Then I'm going to focus on the ability to tackle objectives and rescue people by grabbing Canny Awareness from Mental Qualities.
Now, I choose one thing to add or change about the character so far.
Swap any two dice of your Powers.
Swap any two dice of your Qualities.
Choose a different Power or Quality used in one of your abilities.
Add any d6 Power or Quality from any category.
Increase your Red status die by one size (max d12)
Change either of your principles to any other principle.
Gain an extra Red Ability.
The third option is there because technically you can't choose powers or qualities you haven't taken yet.... but I generally ignore that in character creation so I just don't use those.
But I think I'm going to take the d6 extra power and give her Shapeshifting.
And this takes us to Step 7.
Max Health is determined by adding the following:
The maximum value of your Red status die (d8 in this case).
The maximum value of any of your Athletic powers or Mental Qualities. So I could choose either d8 (Agility) or d12 (Self-Discipline).
Either a roll of d8 or just add 4.
Now, I usually try to maximize Health, but it does occur to me that someone with lower health will get to Yellow and Red faster so there is a a weird sort of reason to go for low health if you want to go for the powerful but fragile route. And I tend to not roll.
However, as a Close Combat type, I'm going for higher health.
So: 8 + 8 + 12 + 4 = 32 health.
There's a chart to follow for breaking this down:
And then we come to Step 8.
Step 8 - Finishing Touches
This is basically where you add color to your character's stats, so this is where I describe the character and rename her Abilities.
So, my idea here is that Sahar Zamani is a historian who was hired to take part in an archeaological dig which was attacked by villains seeking to do a tomb raiding and in the course of the chaos, she stumbled upon an ancient relic which reacted to her buried genetic heritage as a descendant of true gorgons and woke it up, enabling her to fight off the raiders.
