Section I. Creating Characters

Your character is your alter-ego, and like a character in a play, novel, or action adventure movie. He will have strengths and weaknesses, just like you and me. He will grow and develop his skills, abilities, and quality of equipment. [i]

Character Sheet

Use the STAR FRONTIERS character sheet or make a copy on a blank piece of paper. You’ll also need to get a set of ten-sided dice and a pencil (don’t use pen because some numbers change during character generation and later during play).

How to Use the Dice

Two dice are included in Star Frontiers games. Numbered from 0 to 9, they are called ten-sided dice (abbreviated d10).

If the rules tell you to roll one ten-sided die (abbreviated 1d10), roll one die to get a number from 1 to 10. A zero is read as a 10.

If the rules tell you to roll two ten-sided dice (abbreviated 2d10) roll both dice and add the results to get a number from 2 to 20. A zero is read as a 10. For example, if the rolls were 0 and 4, the result would be (10 + 4 =) 14. More dice can be rolled to give results of 3-30 (3d10), 4-40 (4d10), etc.

If the rules tell you to roll a 5-sided die (abbreviated 1d5), simply roll a normal 10-sided die and divide your result by 2, rounded up. A roll of 1 or 2 is treated as a result of 1, etc.

If the rules tell you to roll percentile dice (abbreviated d100), roll both dice. Instead of adding the results, read the dark-colored die as the first (tens) digit and the light-colored die as the second (ones) digit. A zero is read as a zero. The following table shows several examples of rolls.

Ability Scores

Your character has eight basic abilities, common to all living individuals in the Frontier. These abilities are arranged in four pairs.

These are Strength/Stamina, Dexterity/Reaction Speed, Intuition/Logic and Personality/Leadership. These eight abilities tell players how strong, fast, smart and masterful their characters are. They are explained below.

Each of these abilities will have a score from 1 to 100. An ability score of 1 means the character is very poor in that ability, while a score of 100 means the character has very high ability in that area.

Players find their ability scores by rolling dice. This is explained in the Characters section.

Explanation of Abilities

Strength is a measure of how strong the character is. A character with a low Strength score is scrawny and weak. A character with a high Strength score is very strong. A character with a Strength score of 100 may be one of the strongest characters on that planet. Strength is a physical ability score and is often abbreviated STR within these rules.

Stamina measures a character's physical fitness and general health. A character with low stamina will get tired easily and will be prone to injury and disease. A character with high Stamina could work hard all day without getting tired, and might never be sick a day in his life. Stamina also measures how badly a character can be wounded before he passes out or dies. Stamina is a physical ability score and is often abbreviated STA within these rules.

Dexterity measures a character's coordination. Character's with low Dexterity scores are clumsy, while characters with high Dexterity scores are very agile. Dexterity is very important in combat. Dexterity is a physical ability score and is often abbreviated DEX within these rules.

Reaction Speed measures the quickness of a character's reflexes. If a character with a low Reaction Speed is attacked suddenly, he probably will fumble with his weapon and react slowly. A character with a high Reaction Speed could draw and fire a weapon quickly, jump out of the way of falling boulders, etc. Reaction Speed is a physical ability score and is often abbreviated RS within these rules.

Intuition measures a character's alertness and ability to draw conclusions from what seem to be unrelated facts. Characters with high Intuition scores are more likely to solve problems by having hunches or making guesses than by carefully considering all the evidence. Intuition is a mental ability score and is often abbreviated INT within these rules.

Logic is a character's ability to solve problems in an orderly, step-by-step way. It is the opposite of Intuition. Characters with high Logic scores make good scientists and computer experts. Logic is a mental ability score and is often abbreviated LOG within these rules.

Personality measures how well a character gets along with other intelligent beings. Characters with high Personality scores are friendly, pleasant and persuasive, while those with low scores may be grouchy and hard to get along with. Personality is a mental ability score and is often abbreviated PER within these rules.

Leadership measures a character's ability to give orders that other people will understand and obey. It also measures how willing other people will be to work for the character, take his advice or follow him into a dangerous situation. Leadership is a mental ability score and is often abbreviated LDR within these rules.

Ability Checks

Whenever the referee decides there is a chance for your character’s action to fail, he calls for an ability check. The appropriate ability to be checked is determined by the referee, but is obvious once you have an understanding of the role each ability plays in defining the capabilities of your character.

To make an ability check, simply roll d100. If you roll less than or equal to the ability in question, your check is successful. If you roll higher than your ability score, your action fails.

Example: Garrison is running from security bots, trying to stay away from their identity imaging cameras. He steps out a window on the second story, and sees a wall upon which he could walk to get to safety. The referee informs him that this requires a Dexterity check to make it safely to the other side, warning that failure might result in falling off the 5 meter high wall!

Fortunately, Garrison has a DEX score of 65, so you confidently toss the dice and roll a 4 and a 7, a success! The security robots won’t try to follow, as their simple programming doesn’t define the top of a wall as floor space upon which to tread.

Ability Check Modifiers

Your referee may assess the situation and determine there are bonuses or penalties associated with any given ability check. Difficult terrain, favorable winds, good tactical position, and any number of other factors may help him determine this. When he determines this is the case, he will tell you when he informs you that an ability check is necessary.

Example: Rhainah is a hacker and is trying to break into a computer network protected by fairly simple security software. The referee informs Rhainah’s player that she must succeed in a LOG check with a bonus of +10, to represent the simplicity of the security software. Rhainah’s player must roll less than or equal to ten higher than her character’s LOG score.

Ability Contests

Sometimes you must pit your abilities against another player’s character or non-player character.

The rules work normally, but both parties must make a roll and compare success. Whoever succeeds by more (rolls the greatest amount under his score) wins the contest.

Example: Yinang, an assassin character working for Streel Corp, is trying to palm his sonic sword handle to conceal it from the quick search of his boss’ thug.

The referee determines that palming something that size and shape will require a Dexterity check at -10. Yinang’s player has to roll less than or equal to ten less than his Dexterity score, and must succeed by more than the thug’s Intuition check.

Creating a Character

Roll once on the following ability score table for each pair (thus, four total rolls). Note the resulting ability score for both numbers in the matched pair.

For example, if you roll 49, that results in a score of 45 in both STR and STA.

Personalizing

These attributes can further be modified by shifting points among pairs. No more than ten points may be shifted from one to the other, and points cannot be shifted to or from abilities outside of pairs.

For example, if your STR/STA is 45/45 and you envision a character who’s more durable than strong, you could shift five of the points from Strength over to Stamina. The end result would be a STR/STA of 40/50. You could not, for instance, shift points between Strength and Logic, or between any other non-paired abilities. (An exception to this rule are Mentalist characters, see optional rules.)

Select Race

There are four basic races from which you may choose your character’s racial stock. Known as the “Core Four,” these are not the only intelligent races in the Frontier, they are just the races that have settled many of its systems. Other races are available for players to choose too, at the referee’s discretion. Read carefully

through the list of races on the following pages.

Racial Ability Score Adjustments

Humans are the easiest characters to create, as they have no special abilities worth mentioning. But Humans stress individuality and specializations of abilities, and are entitled to add 5 to any one ability score (not both in its pair, just one single ability).

If you select a race other than human, your ability scores will be modified to reflect racial averages.

This is summarized on the table on the next page.

Your race may also have special abilities that cannot be categorized into “ability score” or “skill” and these must also be noted on your character sheet.

These are summarized in the table below.

Racial Movement Rates

Finally, you must show the movement rate associated with the race you selected on your character sheet. The movement table is shown below, reprinted from the Rules section for easy reference during character creation:

Other Abilities

In addition to the four pairs of abilities, your character has a few other statistics worthy of

mention on your character sheet.

IM: Initiative Modifier is equal to your Reaction Speed score divided by 10, rounded up.

PS: Punching Score is found on this table, using the character’s Strength score:

RW: Ranged Weapons is equal to half your character’s Dexterity score, rounded up.

MW: Melee Weapons is equal to half your character’s Strength or Dexterity scores, whichever is better, rounded up.

Profession and Skills

Your character is not just a collection of talent and potential, he’s also an accumulation of knowledge. At the start of the game, each player must choose a profession – Enforcer, Techex, Scispec, Explorer, Espionage or Spacer – because it provides job security and financial support. Each profession respects and supports its own members above any other profession.

For example, there are reference centers, discount houses and hotel-like facilities associated with each profession on most civilized worlds and space stations. When a character starts the game he receives 20 experience points, gleaned from years of study, practicing and apprenticeship. Immediately, 10 points are spent on joining a profession. In exchange, the character receives a bonus skill that is available only to members of that profession.

Once a character joins a profession he can spend his remaining experience points on any of his profession’s skills or non-profession skills. Some skills require a character to learn other prerequisite skills first before they can be acquired. The notation “Pr” refers to the required prerequisites, if any.

Skill Advancement

To advance in most skills – except Spacer and Mentalist skills/disciplines – use the following chart:

Ability Score Improvements

Players can improve their character’s ability scores with experience points by using the following table:

Starting Equipment

To equip your character, you’ll need money. Wealth in the Frontier is measured in

Credits, or Cr. Starting characters receive 250Cr plus a roll of d100. Refer to the equipment area of this section for complete equipment lists. To help make character generation quick, players may simply purchase the Standard Equipment Pack and then roll d100+100 for additional discretionary equipment.

Final Details

You can fill in any additional details about your character, in order to make him seem more real to your stories. The greater the amount of detail, the more you’ll understand the character. But you can be as detailed or general as you’d like, as long as each of the following is considered:

·         Name

·         Gender (unless he’s a Dralasite, S’sessu and Zethra, who are hermaphroditic; Osakar are always female; Humma who are female until they have their first clutch of children then turn male until old age when they become neuter.)

·         Handedness (unless he’s a Vrusk)

·         Height (in meters)

·         Weight (in kilograms)

You can even come up with a background for your character, perhaps dealing with his family structure, or home world. Inspiration can be drawn from the Frontier section of this book.

If one of the players in the group is a decent artist, draw your character, or find imagery on the internet and print-out. A picture goes a long way to helping you imagine your alter-ego in STAR FRONTIERS or any other role-playing game.