Making a Character

Ten minutes. Six decisions. Go.

1. Attributes — assign 4 / 3 / 2 / 2

• Body — power, mass, endurance
• Reflex — speed, precision, evasion
• Mind — perception, tech, deduction
• Will — nerve, control; the throttle on your own powers

Four goes on the one you want to be known for.

2. Approaches — six points, maximum 3 in any one

Spread across Force, Finesse, Focus, Fade and Face. Three points in one Approach makes you the person the table turns to for that kind of problem. Zero in another is not a weakness; it is a shape.

3. Powers — two of them, at Rating 3 and Rating 2

Write them. Do not pick them off a list, because there is no list.

A power is a name, a Rating, and one to three Aspects — freeform words that say what it can plausibly do.

Kinetic Field 3 — Absorbs · Redirects · Shapes

Neural Overclock 2 — Predictive · Tunnel Vision

Aspects are the whole contract. Make one of them a limitation you will actually run into. @Missing file is layered and durable, and it also takes four seconds to set and everyone can see you doing it — those four seconds have made more interesting scenes than the durability ever has.

4. Scale — you are Scale 1

Peak human. Six hundred pounds, one bullet with armour on, rooftop leaps. You cannot buy your way off this number and you should not try.

5. Ties — three named people from your civilian life

Not contacts. Not assets. People. A brother, a union steward, the doctor who did not file the report.

Each Tie gives you one free Push per session when you act to protect or honour them. Each Tie is also the reason the mask stays on, and the GM is allowed to use them. That is the trade and it is a fair one.

6. Creed — one sentence

The line you will not cross, or the promise you made. Not a slogan — a sentence somebody could hold you to.

"Nobody in this building goes down a stairwell alone."

Acting on your Creed at a genuine cost earns XP. So does leaning on a Tie. The system pays you for playing the character you wrote.

Everything else starts at zero

Strain 0 of 5. Wounds 0 of 4. Heat 0. Identity Clock empty. Ascensions none.

If you would rather start from a finished sheet, @Missing file is built exactly to these rules and shows you what the numbers look like in place.