(Reposted from the HERO TIME website.)
“Road to the Rulebook” is a series explaining the basics of “HERO TIME” and how it is played. All of this can be experienced once the Core Book is released, coming soon!
Quite possibly the most important part of the game is the heroes. They are the avatars of the players, and they are the ones who go on adventures and change the world. The first step in beginning an RPG is quite possible the most fun one: creating a character.
In most fantasy RPGs such as this one, the two most important choices in character creation are picking these: the character’s race (species) and class. They determine the character’s capabilities and skills and help him stand out.
First, the character’s race is the species he belongs to, like Human, Elf, Dwarf, or Hobbi– er, “Halfling”. For obvious reasons, the term “race” has fallen out of favor, and most modern games use something like “ancestry” or “heritage”. I myself favor the word “species” because it communicates the idea most quickly. Each race has different biological traits, which is reflected by bonuses to certain statistics and unique abilities. It should be noted that this entire concept is the source of some controversy in the RPG industry, but that is how it has generally worked to this point.
Second, the class is like a character’s job. The term itself seems, in my own humble opinion, to be a leftover from the industry’s early days with no precise meaning. Still, it is ubiquitous, highly popular, and carries a certain mystique to it, so it is unlikely to see change. The class reflects the character’s occupation and determines what kind of abilities and skills he has. It defines what he can do in the game, more than anything else.
RPGs have a lot more character creation options in addition to those, but they vary with the game, and those two are the most common. In fact, they are nearly emblematic of the industry.
When making their characters, players print out “character sheets” and write on them so that they can see the character’s statistics at a glance and don’t have to remember all of it.
If someone can’t or doesn’t want to go through the effort of making a character, most games offer pregenerated (or “pregen”) characters that are ready for use immediately. If you want to see some examples, I’ve made 14 characters for the Genesys version of HERO TIME, and soon I will release 10 for the SES version. They can/will be found found in the Freebies section of this site.
That’s all for now. See you next time!
–Neal