Creation Guide

All right. So you've found our site and decided to give us a try.

If you're a d10/Cinematic Unisystem veteran - if you've played a game using it before or know about it enough, then you may be able to skip this. It's a tutorial for people who haven't done it before or who need a refresher.

At a glance, the Character Generation process looks like this:

1. Concept Creation - Names, Ideals, Goals, Background, etc.

2. Choose from our Character Types.

3. Choose Attributes, Drawbacks, Qualities, Skills, and - if applicable - Powers.

4. If you started making a character before you started Applying on the MU*, then now would be a good time to submit your creation for approval to moc.liamg|xumdeksam#moc.liamg|xumdeksam.

Getting Started

First and foremost: make a character. It's important to first come up with a conceived character and to then make him or her from there. Don't just make a character for the stats - you'll find it harder and harder to play and will likely make a two-dimensional character.

So how do you go about doing that?

Start with an idea. What are they? What are they good at? Bad at? What do they stand for? Does he or she have Powers? Why do they do what they do? What do they do? What makes them unique? Why? Just think about it for a while and you'll get somewhere.

Who's, What's, Where's, When's, Why's

Basically: who, what, where, when, why, and how. Who are you? This includes metaphors and who will play your character. You'll need an actor. Ben Styx is 'played' by Dave Franco, for example, so you'll need someone as well - it can be an actor, an artist's rendering of a character, or any graphic representation of a person or symbol of the hero. Any one is fair game as long as another player isn't already using them.

Next, what do you do? Where do you live/where have you lived/where are you from? When were important dates in your life? Why are they important and how did they shape you?

After you have your concept (for the purposes of this tutorial, I'll be using Spider-Man as played by Tobey Maguire), you'll want to write a background - it's required for all characters.

Backgrounds

Most sites will tell you short and sweet is the way to go. But we're masochists (and Image is an English major), so here at Masked make it long enough to tell the full narrative arc.

For any character, we'll need a life story (nothing too in depth but a few anecdotes that will demonstrate who the character is and why they do what they do) in addition to an outline of the life, a reason for being a hero or villain, how you gained your abilities or skills, and what you have been up to until this point.

A Little Less… A little More…

The background is what lets us, the staff, know if we'll let the character be created and passed into the game world. Again, you're the one who made the character, so you know what will work and not work for them.

At Masked we won't care if your powers are far-fetched and your abilities make comparatively little sense. Be as self-fulfilling and campy as you want. Make Stan Lee proud.

We don't encourage outright overpowered characters, but a good background might be enough to get the tables in your favor to make your character just that with XP after a few months of RP. There are soft limits to what we allow at CharGen (this tutorial demonstrates some of the higher powered characters we would allow to be passed), but we'll never definitively disallow an idea - at most we'll work with you to have you come in at a good level comparatively but not break the game.

Back to the Backgrounds

Okay, so you've made a concept (Spider-Man), and have even written a background. It should look something like this:

Example: Peter Benjamin Parker is the son of Richard and Mary Parker, who worked as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and were killed on a mission involving an impersonator of the Red Skull. The infant Peter Parker is left in the care of his Uncle Ben and Aunt May Parker, who live in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York. The aging couple love Peter, but he grows to be unpopular among his peers. Between an uncle who is too old to join him in physical activities and an aunt over-protective of the orphaned child, Peter gravitates to more non-physical hobbies such as photography and home chemistry, encouraged in these endeavors by his guardians. He grows to be a lonely, timid but exceptionally bright teenager who shows more interest in his studies (especially science, for which he has an uncanny affinity that is nothing short of genius) than in social life. He is often the target of jokes and bullying by more popular students like Flash Thompson, the high school's star athlete.

Peter Parker attends a science exhibition where he is bitten by a radioactive spider. Peter later discovers the spider bite has given him an array of spider-like powers, including wall-crawling, superhuman strength, speed and agility, and an extrasensory "spider-sense".

Peter initially sets out to find fame and fortune, winning a match while wearing a makeshift disguise against professional wrestler Crusher Hogan. He attempts to interest a television network in the idea of featuring him as a costumed hero (with the advantage that he can actually do the things his character can), and creates the Spider-Man name, costume, and web-shooters. After quickly becoming a minor celebrity, Peter appears on a television special, but afterward allows a thief to escape the TV station, asserting that it isn't his problem. He comes to regret his inaction when he finds out that the same burglar subsequently killed his Uncle Ben.

Realizing that he could have prevented his uncle's death, the guilt-ridden Peter commits to a life of crimefighting and lifesaving, driven by his uncle's words, "With great power there must also come great responsibility". (The phrase is often shortened to: "With great power comes great responsibility".) This disarming mix of selfless obligation and self-recrimination brought about by his uncle's death arguably makes up Spider-Man's moral core.

His first encounter with superhuman heroes is with the Fantastic Four, and he also fights his first costumed foe, the Chameleon. After his uncle's death, he and his aunt become desperate for money, so he gets a job as a photographer at the Daily Bugle selling photos to J. Jonah Jameson, confronting the Vulture for the first time this way. Peter dates co-worker Betty Brant and clashes with his high school rival Flash Thompson (whose girlfriend, Liz Allen, he informally tutors. Liz also later develops a crush on the unpopular 'Petey' which further serves to infuriate Flash). He encounters many of his most famous enemies for the first time during this period, including such foes as Doctor Octopus, the Sandman, the Lizard, Electro, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, Kraven the Hunter, the Scorpion, and, on the day of his graduation, the Molten Man.

For all of Spider-Man's solo adventures, he amassed a great deal of allies as well including the likes of the X-Men, Daredevil, and the Fantastic Four (of which he was a part of a replacement team for when the original team went missing. The other members were the Grey Hulk, Wolverine, and Ghost Rider.

Peter graduates from high school, and enrolls at Empire State University, where he meets Harry Osborn and Gwen Stacy. His aunt introduces him to Mary Jane Watson, whom he dates for a short time, but Peter soon falls in love with Gwen. Meanwhile, Harry becomes Peter's roommate and best friend, but starts using illegal drugs. Peter's relationship with Flash also changes, and they slowly become close friends over time.

Harry's father, Norman Osborn, is revealed to be the Green Goblin and discovers Spider-Man's secret identity. Spider-Man first fought the Rhino, the Shocker, and the Kingpin of Crime, and also cleared his dead parents' names, during this time in his life. After Gwen's father, Police Captain George Stacy is killed in a battle between Spider-Man and Doctor Octopus, Gwen's relationship with Peter is put on hold when she travels to England. Harry suffers a drug overdose shortly after she returns.

Spidey creates a chemical cocktail which is intended to eliminate his spider powers. However the potion increased his spider powers, rather than eliminating them, which gives him six arms. Dr. Curt Connors uses the blood of new villain Morbius to create an antidote that turns Spider-Man back to "normal." But it never sticks (god damn that was a good pun!).

… You get the idea. You can use a Wikipedia-esque style, like this one I've graciously copied from them, or you can be a bit more original and do something else. Maybe something first-person? Something abstract? Something not stolen from Wikipedia?

Yeah. That. Don't do that. You'll want to have something generally like this - though something written less like an outdated British encyclopaedia and more like a real story is preferable. Other than that, what you put in your background is your call. Just make it work for the character and you'll be off to a good start.

Making Stats

After the initial character background, it's time to create the stats. First, choose from our Character Types. Next, Drawbacks, Qualities, Attributes, Skills, and Powers. Probably not in that order, but something like it.

I guess the best way to do this is lay-out the good and the bad in your character.

Example: I'll use Spider-Man to demonstrate how a character is made.

First, he has a lot of Power and a lot of Skill. He'd be a Virtuoso, since that mixes high skills and high metahuman potential.

Spidey has moderate superhuman strength, high superhuman speed, good superhuman endurance, the abilities of a spider, and some cool technology to help him out.

Unfortunately, he's also out-of-luck, often financially unstable, dramatically tragic, and life hits him really hard.

Drawbacks

It really is a good idea to start with Drawbacks, if only so you have all your points to work with from the get-go. Remember your character and background concept? This is where it comes in. For every point you gain from taking them, a point adds to your Powers or Quality Point pool, depending on which you prefer.

Look back at the concept and the background information and see any obvious drawbacks that you can buy. Then start to look for ones your character has that hadn't necessarily made their way to the background yet but shape his or her role-playing and outlook.

Immature? Try Peter Pan Complex. Socially awkward? Go with Misfit. Accident-prone? Bad Luck could be for you. You can't use your bone claws without making sure you go for the throat or just ate a steak? Take Limited Use or Compulsion. Any thing you know your character has that would be a drawback, you should take.

The point isn't to maximize possible Powers or Quality points, but to make a fully-rounded individual. Just remember - you will suffer in-game repercussions for every Drawback you take.

Example: Going back to Spider-Man, there are multiple possible drawbacks.

Firstly, he has some pretty rotten luck. So we'll add -2 for Bad Luck, then.

Second, he's never quite able to hold on to a stable job, so he'd have Resources -1.

After that, he has a sickly aunt he must take care of (though some times she takes care of him), so he has a Dependent, a -1 point drawback.

That's four, which is pretty good, but Spidey is severely flawed.

He's got adversaries up the ass, so it could range anywhere from a 2 to 5 point drawback. We'll go with -2.

Then, there's his jokester vibe, a -1 point drawback, since he actively tells jokes and a player would regularly role-play a pretty funny character. That's from Clown.

After that, he's got Secrets, Obligations, Love, and more, but we'll say he has Love -2, for Tragic Love, and Secret -1 for his secret identity.

That's 10. The maximum. And the end of Drawbacks.

Qualities and Packages

Once you've gotten all of your drawbacks sorted out, you may want to move to Packages and Qualities. These represent skills and training a character has gone through that are the result of hard work. What you choose just has to make sense to the character background.

You'll want to remember bonuses from these so you can apply them later on. Having a pen and paper or a text document should suffice for some notes and stats.

Example: As a Virtuoso, Spider-Man has a lot of Powers and a lot of skill.

He is also really smart. A Brainiac, even. So he'd get a +2 to Intelligence, and a +1 to another mental stat. In this case, I'm applying it to Willpower. In addition, he gets 4 points to put into his skills, which I'll apply equally to Science and Doctor. He would be obsessed with his latest brainy project (and just need to role-play busy-bodying and absent-mindedness) and suffer social penalties. That cost him 5 Quality Points.

Spidey fits the mould of a Nosy Reporter. So he'd get a +1 to Perception and a +1 to Intelligence. It's alright to take packages that stack bonuses to the same stat. He'd also get a +1 to Notice and a +1 to Art: Photography (which I chose as his extra skill yield). He'd have Contacts 2 (Criminals), and also need to make a doubled Willpower roll to stifle curiosity in a lot of scenes. That uses up his other 5 base Quality Points.

Every other Quality he buys at CharGen (character generation) is now thanks to his Drawbacks.

Spidey is quite Highly Skilled, so I'll buy two ranks of that for 4 Quality points. He's also got Situational Awareness for 2 more points, but doesn't have web-slingers (he would make those in-game after some XP gains, perhaps, and buy them as a Gadget). That just leaves four more point from the Drawbacks to boost his Powers.

Skills

Your Skills determine how well you perform tasks.

For every level after the fifth you buy in a skill, it costs you three points for one level. So if you bought five levels in Kung-Fu, and wanted seven levels, it would cost three to elevate your ranks to six (totaling eight spent) and a further three to get a seven (making the total spent an eleven to get the 7 in Kung Fu). This is all detailed in the Skills page.

But how many skills are enough for CharGen? That depends. What did you emphasize in your background? We're probably not going to accept a character with two 8-level skills and the rest at zero. Sorry, but it's not realistic. At all. We'd prefer you to have quite a number to make real people and diverse abilities, but realize that isn't always the case. It really is subjective. But try to have enough relatively well-developed skills to be a real, adjusted character.

But for the most part, if you stay true to the character and don't get outlandish, you'll be alright.

Example: Spider-Man is a well-rounded man, so he'd have a lot of skills with a good amount of training.

He starts with 20 skills points, but moves up with his two ranks of Highly Skilled to 28 (he has an Intelligence attribute of 4 - detailed under Attributes below - and is allowed four points maximum per rank from Highly Skilled, so he gains eight extra Skill points).

Highly Acrobatic, a Spider-Man at the beginning of his career relies more on superhuman Dexterity than skill, so he'd already have a monstrous 5 in that skill. That costs him 5 points. Even though he doesn't have a Background that emphasizes Acrobatics training, it is sufficiently tied to his powers and persona that a nexus forms, and Acrobatics can be high for his level.

Peter Parker is pretty good at Photography, so he'd have a 3 in the Art skill, with a subset of Photography (all Art skills need a specific artistic ability), so a 3 in that skill, one of which comes from his Nosy Reporter Package Quality for free. That costs him 2 skill points.

Spidey is well versed in crime after having seen so much of it, so this far in his career, it's around a 2. Which costs 2 more points.

Being so smart and having a past fraught with injury, Spidey has some pretty decent Doctor skills, too. He'd have a 3 in that. Which, thanks to his Braniac package, only costs 1 Skill Point.

Spidey eventually becomes very intelligent, but this early in his career, it is likely he'd have 4 levels of Knowledge. This will cost him 4 more points.

Relying almost exclusively on his own body to end fights, Spider-Man is a great fighter, even at a young age. He'd probably have a 4 in Kung-Fu. That would cost him 4 skill points.

Now Spidey's got 10 skill points left, most of which could come from his Highly Skilled quality.

The intelligent and resourceful Spidey would have 3 levels of Mr. Fix-It. It would cost him 3 more skill points.

He'd have a 3 in Notice, so that would cost him 2 points, since one level comes from his Nosy Reporter Quality.

His science skill, even at a young age, is outstanding and would be a 4. It'd cost him 2 points, since he already gains two levels from Brainiac.

Finally, he is Spider-Man - so you have to give him a little something… wild. He'd spend his last Skill point for a level in Wild Card: Jokes. Unless McFarlane is writing him.

Arguably, he could have other skills, like Survival (but this early in his career - I'm generating Issue 10-level Spider-Man - he'd not know much at all other than the Fantastic Four). He could have Computers, but since they didn't really matter back in '64, that's a no-go.

Powers

After all that, if you have Powers, you'll want to spend those points, too. Just choose what your character has and try to represent the concept well.

If you have an idea for a power we haven't got, it's probably because we've disallowed it. But if we've just forgotten one, please e-mail us and just ask. For the most part, we're very open to new powers. Just make sure it isn't already disallowed or impossible in Masked.

Example: Spider-Man would have Superhuman Dexterity, Strength, and Constitution. It would cost 6 points for the right to go Superhuman in those attributes (2 each), and from there he'd probably have a +3 in Dexterity, a +3 in Strength, and a +2 in Constitution. That would cost him 14 Powers Points.

He'd also have Battle Precognition, worth 2 points, and Wall-Crawling, for another 2. That's all 19 points.

Attributes

After you've gotten qualities and packages, you'll want to set your Attributes. Depending on your Character Tier, you'll have a certain amount of Attributes for free, and from there, you'll gain or lose some depending on drawbacks, qualities, packages, and powers. All Attributes are 1:1 in buying, so just make what you feel represents your character well. Remember, an average person would have a 2 in an attribute (and usually one or two attributes with a score above that), while the peak-human level is 6. Anything after is superhuman, and requires Powers Points to attain.

There are six attributes to choose from, and they are all explained on the attribute page.

Example: Spider-Man is known for his incredible speed, agility, and balance, as well as the proportional Strength and Constitution of a Spider. So he'd have a very high Dexterity score. He is also known for his Perception and Intelligence. As a Virtuoso, Spidey starts out with 20 Attribute points.

He'd probably have an 7 in Strength, which is great, but lower-rung among heavy-hitters in his world. He gains a +3 from his Superhuman Attributes, so he'd spend 4 points to get his seven.

Spidey's highest Attribute would be Dexterity, and it's an 9. He'd have to spend 6 points to get that.

Next would be his Superhuman Constitution, which would give him a 7 for 5 more points.

At this time, you'd have 5 Attribute points left.

Spider-Man's Intelligence would eventually increase (represented in-game by gaining knowledge and abilities as years go by and in game-mechanics as XP spends), like all his other Attributes, but at this stage in his life, he'd have a 4 Intelligence, and thanks to his Brainiac and Nosy Reporter packages, it only costs him one point.

His Perception would be a 4, and cost him only 3 points, again thanks to his Nosy Reporter quality.

Finally, he'd have a normal mental fortitude, a 2 in Willpower at this stage, being impulsive and a teenager, but still driven. Spidey would only have to spend one point, due to his Brainiac quality.

The End

Yes, you're done. Please, just follow the rules and you'll be fine. We're not going to make fun of you for being new, or for hating the system we use. Sometimes we hate it, too. Let us know if you have questions or we've messed something up.

After you've made your character, submit it by e-mailing us (at moc.liamg|xum.deksam#moc.liamg|xum.deksam) or logging in and creating it on the MU* and @mailing us.

We'll look through the BG (background), check your stats, make sure everything makes sense, adds up, is allowable, then get back to you with our reply. Hopefully it should only take a day or two.

And

Remember: this game exists for no other reason than to have fun. So do.

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License