Characters are built around
Phases -- significant periods in one's life during which one has a
goal. (PUG 3) From a level-based game perspective, each level can be thought of as a Phase (for conversion's sake), but you can also have phases set up before that.
| For IDC, characters will be converted over with the following phases in their lives: |
|
1. Adolescence, high school, college (life prep)
2. Post-grad or non-collegial work/life experience
3. Agency recruitment and training
4. Life during 1st level
5. Life during 2nd level
6. Life during 3rd level |
|
| That makes for six Phases. You (at the time of this conversion) three quarters of the way to your 7th Phase (4th level). |
Aspects
For each
Phase, choose one
Aspect. You cannot have more levels in a given Aspect than half the number of current phases (rounding down). (PUG 4, 35) The Aspect for the Phase should reflect that Phase's events in some fashion, become part of the story. (Eventually this process, during play, becomes a matter of establishing a
Goal for the Phase which then can become its Aspect when complete.)
| This works out to 6 Aspects in IDC, max level of 3. From a holistic "life of my character" standpoint, looking at this as six phases of Aspects, rather than 6 Aspects, makes more sense. These 6 Aspects should be oriented toward Profession, Avocation, General Passtime. Character classes, things like that. One 3rd Phase Aspect taken here must be "Agency." |
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| You also get 6 additional free Aspects. These must be non-professional -- people, items, personality, etc. -- though you can take additional levels of "Agency" as well. |
|
| And, yes, I know that Calvin has "missed" at least one of those. He gets it anyway as "Potential." |
As indicated in the box above, it is possible to do character creation with more than one Aspect per Phase. These should, in general, be qualitatively different from the "normal" Aspects -- e.g., character background, relationships, GM-chosen (vs. player-chosen), etc. (Note that this begins to get into an interesting convergence between Aspects and Skills -- 2 Aspects per phase, 4 Skill points per phase, Aspect die flip gets you a +2, 2 Skill points get you +2 ... interesting).
[1]
Skills
For each
Phase completed, choose and deploy four
Skill ranks (each rank starts you at
Average on
The Ladder in a skill; most untrained skills start at
Mediocre or below). The skills should be appropriate to the events (or
Goal of the Phase and, likely, the
Aspect.
Skills must be allocated according to
The Pyramid.
During a
phase, you will get
skill levels awarded at intervals (with the fourth coming when the phase ends). These are applicable when awarded. They do not have to fit
The Pyramid until the phase ends (which means you shouldn't get too far out of whack). The skills taken should (but needn't) reflect the past events, and the
Goal of the phase.
| Ordinarily, the four skill levels per phase will be divvied out over the phase itself (I haven't figured out the precise interval -- one per module? two per module?). To that end, assuming you are 3/4 of the way toward 4th level, you can also during the conversion allocate another three skill levels for the Phase you are in the middle of. |
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| Since we are mid-phase, you don't have to be perfectly balanced in The Pyramid -- but you'll need to be at the end of the phase. |
Skill levels can also be used to purchase
Extras. (FUG 25). If you end a phase with one or more of your Extras having been lost or destroyed, you can either respend the skill levels on other Extras, or agree with the GM on a narrative device as to how you got it/them back.
It is suggested as a possible house rule that phases that emphasize connections between the player characters might garner, as a "reward"/bribe, additional skill points.
[2][3]
Goals
Each
Phase requires a
Goal - which may well become the
Aspect you get at the end of the Phase. That's the intent, though it's not graven in stone.
Fate Points
FP can be given over time, or even after each session, if it feels like the interval between phases or skill level rewards is too great. (FUG 34,
[4])
| Character Building Progression shows the number of Aspects and Skill Points for my IDC campaign (since I am awarding both a "profession" and "personal" Aspect for each of the first 6 phases; as of phase 7, we'll be going up one Aspect per phase). |
Character Rules
