Post by Darth Eolais on Oct 8, 2015 1:49:54 GMT
Hello, and welcome to the Beginner’s Guide to Bio Creation!
This document began its life as a step-by-step explanation for a friend who was having some trouble understanding what all those blank spaces meant. Around the same time, I realized that many newcomers to this site were having trouble puzzling out where things were, and the questions being asked in the shoutbox were very similar -- and then I recruited another friend, and reused some explanations to help her with her bio, and by the end of that, I had a sizable portion of this guide.
While I’m writing under the assumption that you, dear reader, have never come into contact with the New Sith Brotherhood and our quirky custom system before, I’ve also found that this has helped me quick-start a couple extra bios of my own, as it’s a nice little collection of links and important information pulled from the neatly organized formal articles that make up our rulebook. Perhaps it will be of use to other veteran members as well; in the meantime, here’s how this will work: my name, as you can see, is Amorata (Amor, for short), and most of the time I’ll be speaking in this lovely shade of green. The white text under the break indicates the fields in the actual Bio Creation Template (otherwise known as a blank character sheet -- better go ahead and copy this into a word document, as this might take a while). My explanations follow.
Caveats:
iii. This is meant to be an informal, non-intimidating intro to the character creation process. As such, I often don’t bother explaining every little detail, instead providing you with handy links to the articles where such explanations are given. Sometimes that’s still not enough to clear up a point of confusion, so if you find yourself running into a roadblock or in need of ideas, don’t hesitate to ask the shoutbox! That’s what it’s there for, after all.
iv. Have fun.
[/ul]
We’re almost ready to get rolling, but first, let’s open some Useful Links. Tabbed browsing is your friend here.
1. As I mentioned before, you’re going to want a clean copy of the bio template.
2. About 90% of the articles I’m going to link to are found on the Bio Creation board.
3. Please, please visit Wookiepedia for in-depth articles about pretty much everything Star Wars. This was and still is my primary resource, especially since I came into this site knowing zero about the Legends (then Expanded Universe) canon, and I hadn’t even watched all of the original movies. Species, weapons, history -- it’s all here.
4. Once or twice, I’m going to use snippets of my own bio to illustrate an example. If you’d like a couple more examples of completed bios, try checking out that of the bio mod himself, or all of the approved bios over in Welcome > Bios > Protagonists.
5. This is, ultimately, about writing a story together, and the best way to learn about the world you’ll be writing in is by browsing around in the Fanon section. I recommend skimming a number of articles (especially those in Organizations) before you begin working on your backstory, both for inspiration and for accuracy.
Tabs open? Keyboards at the ready?
Ladies, gentlemen, aaaaaand others… we’re off!
Name: This is what your character was named before he or she became a Sith. It’s not strictly essential, but the more backstory you have, the easier it is to play a character! A character’s real/birth name is often a fairly private and secret thing, shared with only a few other people in-character, but that’s because most Sith don’t want themselves to be connected to the person they were previously, especially if they used to be a Jedi. If that’s not the case for your character, your name can be as public as you like. In fact, some people use their character’s real name as their primary display name, and hold off on picking/using a Sith Name until knighthood, when the “new” name might have more significance to the character and they can adopt it with pomp and ceremony.
Sith Name: If your character has reason to hide your identity, as many characters do, this is the pseudonym you use to do so; if your character wants to signify their break from their old life, this is the new name they take. Usually in the format “Darth Somethingcoolsounding”, although some use “Lord” or “Lady”. Which honorific you use is entirely up to personal preference -- there’s no fanon dictating who gets what, although I personally think “Darth” sounds more Sithy, fairly gender-neutral, but slightly less elegant than “Lord/Lady”.
Whichever name you use as your display name is going to be the name that gets used most in roleplaying, and the name that your OOC nickname will be derived from by community consensus. Technically, you only need one or the other name-wise, but having both your character’s birth name and their Sith name picked out can be quite helpful. Oh, and don’t worry -- it’s possible to change your display name if you need to.
Age: Pretty straightforward. How old is your character? Most of our characters are in their 20s or equivalent for their species; some are much older; a very few are younger. The New Sith Brotherhood… probably does not accept 12-year-olds and younger.
Species: What species are you? Species affects homeworld, appearance, personality, backstory, and also grants racial bonuses, which of course affect your core stats and sometimes other stuff like skills and perks. This is what this handy species list is for! It is quite possible to play a species that is not on the species list; find the article on Wookiepedia, give it to Xaos or Ares, and they’ll come up with racial bonuses for you and add it to the list.
Homeworld: What planet were you born on? Your most likely options can usually be found in the Wookiepedia article on your species, although some species (such as Twi’leks and Humans) are very numerous in the galaxy, and so have many options for homeworlds.
Gender: Male, female, or other (please specify)?
Height: Pretty self-explanatory. We use the metric system because that’s what’s used in the source material, so this should be listed in centimeters or meters. Average height for your species can also be found in the relevant Wookiepedia article, and should be referenced.
Weight: Same as above; list in kilograms.
Eyes: Color; this may not apply to some species
Hair: Color; this may not apply to some species
Skin Color: self-explanatory
Appearance: In essence, what you look like. Body type, facial features, manner of dress / style of clothing, general first impressions people get from your character, and so on. Affected by species, obviously, although generally you only need to describe the ways in which your character deviates from the absolutely generic member of their species. If you prefer, you can fold the eyes/hair/skin color blocks into this description and not bother having separate lines for them.
Personality: Who is your character? What do they want? How do they go about getting it? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Are they smart, funny, arrogant, compassionate, insane, vicious, gentle, manipulative, brutally honest…?
I found this page on TVTropes to be an invaluable resource when updating the Personality section of my own bio, especially the numbered questions under “What is Personality?” and “Goals and dreams”. But don’t worry if you can’t answer all those questions right away; it’s enough to start with a basic outline of the kind of character you want to play, and then introduce complexity and detail into their personality as you explore how they react under various circumstances. My very first personality description was as follows:
Compare that to my current personality description! If you spend time playing your character well, development is practically unavoidable.
Speaks, Reads & Writes [Languages] These are the languages you speak, read, and write, determined by your species, your intelligence, and whether you’re willing to spend extra skill (slash perk) points on being a polyglot. If you can find a language on Wookiepedia, you can theoretically learn to speak it.
Equipment: What do you normally wear / carry when in the field? Don’t go overboard -- make sure that what you’ve got makes sense based on your character’s backstory, resources, etc. For example, most characters won’t have a lightsaber when you make your bio, but a blaster pistol or some kind of sword / other simple weapon is pretty likely. You’ll also start with this nifty little standard-issue field kit.
Ships: While it is possible to possess a ship at character creation, the ship in question cannot be larger than a gunship. Furthermore, if the ship requires a crew of more than one, you will need the resources to hire crew members, which are nearly impossible to acquire at level 1. This means that in practice, you will likely be limited to a starfighter, and will need to spend points on the Pilot skill. (You may also want to acquire the skill Astrogate, although it’s not strictly necessary.) A short backstory section explaining how you came to possess the ship will increase your chances for approval. Please see the full ship rules for more details.
Backstory: What happened in your character’s life up until the point at which they joined the Brotherhood, or rather, up until current events? What was their family like, if they had one? When and why did they join the Jedi, if at all? Most importantly, what made them decide to join the Sith? As with personality, it’s OK to leave some parts sketchy and fill them in later, but the more detailed you can get the better, to a point.
Level: 1
And now, on to Dark Paths! I won’t bother linking to each in the commentary below, because that would be a pain and I’m sure you can find them on your own. The Basic Paths are in the third article down on the Bio Creation board; Advanced and Master Paths are over here, in their own subboards. Paths are more or less like classes from other roleplaying systems -- they give you specialized abilities and stuff -- but which one you choose also affects your character arc and should have something to do with your character’s story.
Basic Path: This doesn’t affect an extreme amount in terms of story; if you like, your choice of Basic Path may be totally unrelated to your backstory, although the flavor text in the path descriptions can be a jumping-off point if you’re stumped for backstory ideas. However, it’s a good idea to leave the article open in another tab, as it’s going to keep being relevant through character creation. Your choice affects what kind of stuff you start out knowing and the order in which you learn stuff; each path also has a couple unique features and abilities. Certain Basic Paths are associated with certain Advanced Paths. Those associations aren’t hard and fast rules, but they exist because, for example, a character who wants to be a combat genius isn’t likely to start out as a Dark Jedi Consular focused on academics. Although that sort of crossing of traditional path trees might make for a really interesting backstory, as well as an oddly-balanced character...
Advanced Path: This is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make on this site at this point in time. Your advanced path affects everything -- your character’s hopes and dreams, the stats you choose, even the color your name becomes once you hit level five. Not to scare you or anything! We used to require that people know what their Advanced Path would be, because that information was used to sort people into a House system that mostly affected who could train you. The House system no longer exists, so it’s not essential to choose an Advanced Path at character creation, and the choice you make at character creation is not completely set in stone -- see the second parenthetical in my note about Master Paths -- but it’s still really good to know where you want to go with the character.
Master Path: This is your goal. This is what you are aiming to become. For each Advanced Path, there are three Master Paths, sort of like three specializations, representing the different directions in which each Path can go. Oftentimes, if you have more than one Path that looks good to you, looking at the Master Paths can help you decide. (Looking at Master Paths helped me decide between Inquisitor and Acolyte, as a matter of fact.) Many people find one Master Path that really, really calls to them, and build their character around that. (Other people find an Advanced Path first and only later choose their Master Path. Still others change their Path while in apprenticeship; that’s a thing you can do, if you decide that the Path you originally chose doesn’t fit the way your character is developing, as long as you do it before you hit level five.)
To be honest, my decision-making process here was a visceral “that sounds cool! I want to do that!”, and I built the entire rest of my character around that. There wasn’t a great deal of actual debating involved in the decision. But once you hit level five, you’re stuck with your Advanced Path. And once you hit level 15, you’re stuck in your Master Path. So make sure you’re happy with what you choose before then, or you might end up hating the character and deciding to kill them and start over, which would be a real bother!
Core Stats: Details on Core Stats, including in-depth descriptions, may be found in this article right here.
Stats directly affect your skills and martial abilities (notably, skill with certain weapons) in addition to giving a GM an idea of your basic abilities in each area. Low Stats impose various penalties, while higher Stats provide various bonuses and extra points at character creation. Personally, I think the way the Bio Creation articles are set up, with Stats as the first step, is a bit misleading. Very few people choose their path based on their stats; most choose their stats based on their Path!
Each stat starts at a base level of 10. You get 12 additional points to add to these, for a total of 72 stat points. You can also take points away from stats and move them to other stats.
The minimum stat you can have in any one category, before racial bonuses, is 3. The maximum is 18. Your total number of stat points must add up to 72 before racial adjustments.
A tip: min-maxing isn’t a great idea under our system -- at best it’s an interesting choice, at worst it will seriously hamper your writing flow, because once a stat starts getting below 8, the penalties become pretty detrimental. If you’re the kind of person who likes to know what stats you should focus on for your Path, as opposed to winging/intuiting it, the closest thing we have to recommendations is the list of stats that can be raised above 18 by path, at the very bottom of the Core Stats article.
Strength:
Agility:
Toughness:
Intellect:
Presence:
Spirit:
OK. Here’s where we start getting into the nitty-gritty of the rules, and where the homebrew fun really begins. NSB runs on a ranking system, which details how good a character is in some area. You advance in ranks by gaining various types of points. Our ranking system goes from 1-3, or beyond with perk bonuses, path abilities, and stuff like that. It breaks down more or less as follows:
0 / unlisted: untrained
1: some training, fairly basic
2: fairly proficient / skilled
3: standard mastery
4 (3 +1): you’re a wizard, Harry!
5 (3 +2): ...what
6 (3 +3): how is this even possible; you are a god
Ranked traits are listed as following:
Name of Ability: # of ranks + bonus ranks (reason for bonus, usually a perk)
For example, Amorata’s skill in Computer Use is listed like so:
Computer Use: 3 + 1 (Gearhead)
Gearhead is a perk that grants a +1 bonus to Computer Use and Repair. I used to not have any actual ranks in Repair, so I listed that skill like so:
Repair: 0 + 1 (Gearhead)
If I hadn’t had that bonus, I wouldn’t have needed to list Repair at all, because I was untrained.
The four types of points are Combat Points (CP; not to be confused with Action Points, which detail how much stuff you can do in a single post / turn during combat), Skill Points (SP), Perk Points (PP), and Force Power Points (FP). Points are gained through completing missions, as rewards, and through leveling up. In training, and oftentimes in missions, rather than awarding generic points, the GM will look at what abilities you used and directly award you ranks in those abilities rather than giving you points to assign wherever you wish. In fact, in training, the whole point is to practice and rank up in one specific ability.
Combat Proficiencies: Here’s the relevant article. The first half of it focuses on our optional rules for roleplaying combat -- interesting, but not super relevant right now. Scroll about halfway down to the Combat Proficiencies section. These essentially lay out how good you are in various areas of combat, i. e., how well trained you are with various weapons (sometimes weapon groups, sometimes specific weapons) and types of armor. This is where your basic path first comes into play. Additional ranks in combat proficiencies can be purchased with Combat Points.
Skills: Skills are abilities which aren’t directly related to combat, but can be very useful in various situations; if you’ve played tabletop, or one of a number of PC/console RPGs, the way they work should be pretty familiar. High ranks in skills will also net you special abilities called Skill Specializations. A list with descriptions and a fuller explanation is located behind this elegant and finely-crafted link.
Perks: Perks are “special abilities or traits a character has acquired through experience, personal transformation or innate possession”; list is right this way, good gentleperson. Perks are purchased with Perk Points, but aren’t ranked; once you have a perk, you have it and that’s it. Most perks give bonuses to other abilities, especially skills; some allow your character to fight unarmed, or with weapons in both hands, and other cool stuff like that.
Assets: Assets are advantages you get mostly from your life before joining the Brotherhood (they used to be called Backgrounds), although they may also be added to or subtracted from as a result of missions, high ranks in some Skills, and some Path abilities. They’re ranked as usual, and every character gets 5 points at creation. These points can be spent on Fame, Status, Resources, Alternate Identity, Unusual Ability, Unusual Item, Sidekick, or Artifact. Up to 3 of the points can be spent in any of the other ability categories instead. For the Assets you do take, writing a short description of what precisely the asset is and why you have it is a very good and helpful idea. Choose wisely! Chances to change your Assets after character creation are few and far between.
Force Powers: Your standard physics-breaking uses of the Force. List and explanation found in this corner of the meadow. If you choose to spend Asset points on Force powers, or if your Spirit stat is of sufficient level (at least 12) to acquire the relevant bonuses, you can only purchase and use Apprentice level powers categorized under the Key Power you possess. (Sorry, Dark Jedi Guardians, no Force powers for you at character creation, period -- you get Lightsaber Training instead and will have to wait to apply any Spirit bonuses.)
Level (Path) Special Abilities: This is where you’ll list all those special things you get from the paths you chose as you climb up the ranks. You can list them either as
lvl# Ability1, Ability2
lvl# Ability3
or with colons, like so
lvl#: Ability1, Ability2
lvl#: Ability3
At level 1, this’ll end up looking like this (or this with a colon):
1 Key Power (or Lightsaber Training, if you’re a Guardian), Starting Abilities
and that’ll be all. I chose to split up my levels with Path subheadings, because I think it looks prettier that way, but it’s really up to you.
Whew! Bit of a wild ride, but congratulations -- you’re done! (Unless you’re skipping ahead, in which case, you’re not; but you will be soon, I imagine.) The only thing left to do is to post your completed bio over with all the others and wait for approval. Once you’ve been approved, you’re cleared to send your character out into the wide, wide world.
May the Force be with you.
This document began its life as a step-by-step explanation for a friend who was having some trouble understanding what all those blank spaces meant. Around the same time, I realized that many newcomers to this site were having trouble puzzling out where things were, and the questions being asked in the shoutbox were very similar -- and then I recruited another friend, and reused some explanations to help her with her bio, and by the end of that, I had a sizable portion of this guide.
While I’m writing under the assumption that you, dear reader, have never come into contact with the New Sith Brotherhood and our quirky custom system before, I’ve also found that this has helped me quick-start a couple extra bios of my own, as it’s a nice little collection of links and important information pulled from the neatly organized formal articles that make up our rulebook. Perhaps it will be of use to other veteran members as well; in the meantime, here’s how this will work: my name, as you can see, is Amorata (Amor, for short), and most of the time I’ll be speaking in this lovely shade of green. The white text under the break indicates the fields in the actual Bio Creation Template (otherwise known as a blank character sheet -- better go ahead and copy this into a word document, as this might take a while). My explanations follow.
Caveats:
iii. This is meant to be an informal, non-intimidating intro to the character creation process. As such, I often don’t bother explaining every little detail, instead providing you with handy links to the articles where such explanations are given. Sometimes that’s still not enough to clear up a point of confusion, so if you find yourself running into a roadblock or in need of ideas, don’t hesitate to ask the shoutbox! That’s what it’s there for, after all.
iv. Have fun.
[/ul]
We’re almost ready to get rolling, but first, let’s open some Useful Links. Tabbed browsing is your friend here.
1. As I mentioned before, you’re going to want a clean copy of the bio template.
2. About 90% of the articles I’m going to link to are found on the Bio Creation board.
3. Please, please visit Wookiepedia for in-depth articles about pretty much everything Star Wars. This was and still is my primary resource, especially since I came into this site knowing zero about the Legends (then Expanded Universe) canon, and I hadn’t even watched all of the original movies. Species, weapons, history -- it’s all here.
4. Once or twice, I’m going to use snippets of my own bio to illustrate an example. If you’d like a couple more examples of completed bios, try checking out that of the bio mod himself, or all of the approved bios over in Welcome > Bios > Protagonists.
5. This is, ultimately, about writing a story together, and the best way to learn about the world you’ll be writing in is by browsing around in the Fanon section. I recommend skimming a number of articles (especially those in Organizations) before you begin working on your backstory, both for inspiration and for accuracy.
Tabs open? Keyboards at the ready?
Ladies, gentlemen, aaaaaand others… we’re off!
Name: This is what your character was named before he or she became a Sith. It’s not strictly essential, but the more backstory you have, the easier it is to play a character! A character’s real/birth name is often a fairly private and secret thing, shared with only a few other people in-character, but that’s because most Sith don’t want themselves to be connected to the person they were previously, especially if they used to be a Jedi. If that’s not the case for your character, your name can be as public as you like. In fact, some people use their character’s real name as their primary display name, and hold off on picking/using a Sith Name until knighthood, when the “new” name might have more significance to the character and they can adopt it with pomp and ceremony.
Sith Name: If your character has reason to hide your identity, as many characters do, this is the pseudonym you use to do so; if your character wants to signify their break from their old life, this is the new name they take. Usually in the format “Darth Somethingcoolsounding”, although some use “Lord” or “Lady”. Which honorific you use is entirely up to personal preference -- there’s no fanon dictating who gets what, although I personally think “Darth” sounds more Sithy, fairly gender-neutral, but slightly less elegant than “Lord/Lady”.
Whichever name you use as your display name is going to be the name that gets used most in roleplaying, and the name that your OOC nickname will be derived from by community consensus. Technically, you only need one or the other name-wise, but having both your character’s birth name and their Sith name picked out can be quite helpful. Oh, and don’t worry -- it’s possible to change your display name if you need to.
Age: Pretty straightforward. How old is your character? Most of our characters are in their 20s or equivalent for their species; some are much older; a very few are younger. The New Sith Brotherhood… probably does not accept 12-year-olds and younger.
Species: What species are you? Species affects homeworld, appearance, personality, backstory, and also grants racial bonuses, which of course affect your core stats and sometimes other stuff like skills and perks. This is what this handy species list is for! It is quite possible to play a species that is not on the species list; find the article on Wookiepedia, give it to Xaos or Ares, and they’ll come up with racial bonuses for you and add it to the list.
Homeworld: What planet were you born on? Your most likely options can usually be found in the Wookiepedia article on your species, although some species (such as Twi’leks and Humans) are very numerous in the galaxy, and so have many options for homeworlds.
Gender: Male, female, or other (please specify)?
Height: Pretty self-explanatory. We use the metric system because that’s what’s used in the source material, so this should be listed in centimeters or meters. Average height for your species can also be found in the relevant Wookiepedia article, and should be referenced.
Weight: Same as above; list in kilograms.
Eyes: Color; this may not apply to some species
Hair: Color; this may not apply to some species
Skin Color: self-explanatory
Appearance: In essence, what you look like. Body type, facial features, manner of dress / style of clothing, general first impressions people get from your character, and so on. Affected by species, obviously, although generally you only need to describe the ways in which your character deviates from the absolutely generic member of their species. If you prefer, you can fold the eyes/hair/skin color blocks into this description and not bother having separate lines for them.
Personality: Who is your character? What do they want? How do they go about getting it? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Are they smart, funny, arrogant, compassionate, insane, vicious, gentle, manipulative, brutally honest…?
I found this page on TVTropes to be an invaluable resource when updating the Personality section of my own bio, especially the numbered questions under “What is Personality?” and “Goals and dreams”. But don’t worry if you can’t answer all those questions right away; it’s enough to start with a basic outline of the kind of character you want to play, and then introduce complexity and detail into their personality as you explore how they react under various circumstances. My very first personality description was as follows:
Personality: At first glance, she seems like a nice, quiet, diplomatic young woman. Maybe a bit sarcastic, but nothing too biting.
And some of that impression is correct.
Thing is, she's...very manipulative. She's the sort of person you don't really think about, and she likes it that way, because then you're not going to realize that she's pulling the strings until it's too late -- and even if someone figures it out, they might just go along with it. After all, what harm is someone like her going to do?
And some of that impression is correct.
Thing is, she's...very manipulative. She's the sort of person you don't really think about, and she likes it that way, because then you're not going to realize that she's pulling the strings until it's too late -- and even if someone figures it out, they might just go along with it. After all, what harm is someone like her going to do?
Compare that to my current personality description! If you spend time playing your character well, development is practically unavoidable.
Speaks, Reads & Writes [Languages] These are the languages you speak, read, and write, determined by your species, your intelligence, and whether you’re willing to spend extra skill (slash perk) points on being a polyglot. If you can find a language on Wookiepedia, you can theoretically learn to speak it.
Equipment: What do you normally wear / carry when in the field? Don’t go overboard -- make sure that what you’ve got makes sense based on your character’s backstory, resources, etc. For example, most characters won’t have a lightsaber when you make your bio, but a blaster pistol or some kind of sword / other simple weapon is pretty likely. You’ll also start with this nifty little standard-issue field kit.
Ships: While it is possible to possess a ship at character creation, the ship in question cannot be larger than a gunship. Furthermore, if the ship requires a crew of more than one, you will need the resources to hire crew members, which are nearly impossible to acquire at level 1. This means that in practice, you will likely be limited to a starfighter, and will need to spend points on the Pilot skill. (You may also want to acquire the skill Astrogate, although it’s not strictly necessary.) A short backstory section explaining how you came to possess the ship will increase your chances for approval. Please see the full ship rules for more details.
Backstory: What happened in your character’s life up until the point at which they joined the Brotherhood, or rather, up until current events? What was their family like, if they had one? When and why did they join the Jedi, if at all? Most importantly, what made them decide to join the Sith? As with personality, it’s OK to leave some parts sketchy and fill them in later, but the more detailed you can get the better, to a point.
Level: 1
And now, on to Dark Paths! I won’t bother linking to each in the commentary below, because that would be a pain and I’m sure you can find them on your own. The Basic Paths are in the third article down on the Bio Creation board; Advanced and Master Paths are over here, in their own subboards. Paths are more or less like classes from other roleplaying systems -- they give you specialized abilities and stuff -- but which one you choose also affects your character arc and should have something to do with your character’s story.
Basic Path: This doesn’t affect an extreme amount in terms of story; if you like, your choice of Basic Path may be totally unrelated to your backstory, although the flavor text in the path descriptions can be a jumping-off point if you’re stumped for backstory ideas. However, it’s a good idea to leave the article open in another tab, as it’s going to keep being relevant through character creation. Your choice affects what kind of stuff you start out knowing and the order in which you learn stuff; each path also has a couple unique features and abilities. Certain Basic Paths are associated with certain Advanced Paths. Those associations aren’t hard and fast rules, but they exist because, for example, a character who wants to be a combat genius isn’t likely to start out as a Dark Jedi Consular focused on academics. Although that sort of crossing of traditional path trees might make for a really interesting backstory, as well as an oddly-balanced character...
Advanced Path: This is one of the biggest decisions you will ever make on this site at this point in time. Your advanced path affects everything -- your character’s hopes and dreams, the stats you choose, even the color your name becomes once you hit level five. Not to scare you or anything! We used to require that people know what their Advanced Path would be, because that information was used to sort people into a House system that mostly affected who could train you. The House system no longer exists, so it’s not essential to choose an Advanced Path at character creation, and the choice you make at character creation is not completely set in stone -- see the second parenthetical in my note about Master Paths -- but it’s still really good to know where you want to go with the character.
Master Path: This is your goal. This is what you are aiming to become. For each Advanced Path, there are three Master Paths, sort of like three specializations, representing the different directions in which each Path can go. Oftentimes, if you have more than one Path that looks good to you, looking at the Master Paths can help you decide. (Looking at Master Paths helped me decide between Inquisitor and Acolyte, as a matter of fact.) Many people find one Master Path that really, really calls to them, and build their character around that. (Other people find an Advanced Path first and only later choose their Master Path. Still others change their Path while in apprenticeship; that’s a thing you can do, if you decide that the Path you originally chose doesn’t fit the way your character is developing, as long as you do it before you hit level five.)
To be honest, my decision-making process here was a visceral “that sounds cool! I want to do that!”, and I built the entire rest of my character around that. There wasn’t a great deal of actual debating involved in the decision. But once you hit level five, you’re stuck with your Advanced Path. And once you hit level 15, you’re stuck in your Master Path. So make sure you’re happy with what you choose before then, or you might end up hating the character and deciding to kill them and start over, which would be a real bother!
Core Stats: Details on Core Stats, including in-depth descriptions, may be found in this article right here.
Stats directly affect your skills and martial abilities (notably, skill with certain weapons) in addition to giving a GM an idea of your basic abilities in each area. Low Stats impose various penalties, while higher Stats provide various bonuses and extra points at character creation. Personally, I think the way the Bio Creation articles are set up, with Stats as the first step, is a bit misleading. Very few people choose their path based on their stats; most choose their stats based on their Path!
Each stat starts at a base level of 10. You get 12 additional points to add to these, for a total of 72 stat points. You can also take points away from stats and move them to other stats.
The minimum stat you can have in any one category, before racial bonuses, is 3. The maximum is 18. Your total number of stat points must add up to 72 before racial adjustments.
A tip: min-maxing isn’t a great idea under our system -- at best it’s an interesting choice, at worst it will seriously hamper your writing flow, because once a stat starts getting below 8, the penalties become pretty detrimental. If you’re the kind of person who likes to know what stats you should focus on for your Path, as opposed to winging/intuiting it, the closest thing we have to recommendations is the list of stats that can be raised above 18 by path, at the very bottom of the Core Stats article.
Strength:
Agility:
Toughness:
Intellect:
Presence:
Spirit:
OK. Here’s where we start getting into the nitty-gritty of the rules, and where the homebrew fun really begins. NSB runs on a ranking system, which details how good a character is in some area. You advance in ranks by gaining various types of points. Our ranking system goes from 1-3, or beyond with perk bonuses, path abilities, and stuff like that. It breaks down more or less as follows:
0 / unlisted: untrained
1: some training, fairly basic
2: fairly proficient / skilled
3: standard mastery
4 (3 +1): you’re a wizard
5 (3 +2): ...what
6 (3 +3): how is this even possible; you are a god
Ranked traits are listed as following:
Name of Ability: # of ranks + bonus ranks (reason for bonus, usually a perk)
For example, Amorata’s skill in Computer Use is listed like so:
Computer Use: 3 + 1 (Gearhead)
Gearhead is a perk that grants a +1 bonus to Computer Use and Repair. I used to not have any actual ranks in Repair, so I listed that skill like so:
Repair: 0 + 1 (Gearhead)
If I hadn’t had that bonus, I wouldn’t have needed to list Repair at all, because I was untrained.
The four types of points are Combat Points (CP; not to be confused with Action Points, which detail how much stuff you can do in a single post / turn during combat), Skill Points (SP), Perk Points (PP), and Force Power Points (FP). Points are gained through completing missions, as rewards, and through leveling up. In training, and oftentimes in missions, rather than awarding generic points, the GM will look at what abilities you used and directly award you ranks in those abilities rather than giving you points to assign wherever you wish. In fact, in training, the whole point is to practice and rank up in one specific ability.
Combat Proficiencies: Here’s the relevant article. The first half of it focuses on our optional rules for roleplaying combat -- interesting, but not super relevant right now. Scroll about halfway down to the Combat Proficiencies section. These essentially lay out how good you are in various areas of combat, i. e., how well trained you are with various weapons (sometimes weapon groups, sometimes specific weapons) and types of armor. This is where your basic path first comes into play. Additional ranks in combat proficiencies can be purchased with Combat Points.
Skills: Skills are abilities which aren’t directly related to combat, but can be very useful in various situations; if you’ve played tabletop, or one of a number of PC/console RPGs, the way they work should be pretty familiar. High ranks in skills will also net you special abilities called Skill Specializations. A list with descriptions and a fuller explanation is located behind this elegant and finely-crafted link.
Perks: Perks are “special abilities or traits a character has acquired through experience, personal transformation or innate possession”; list is right this way, good gentleperson. Perks are purchased with Perk Points, but aren’t ranked; once you have a perk, you have it and that’s it. Most perks give bonuses to other abilities, especially skills; some allow your character to fight unarmed, or with weapons in both hands, and other cool stuff like that.
Assets: Assets are advantages you get mostly from your life before joining the Brotherhood (they used to be called Backgrounds), although they may also be added to or subtracted from as a result of missions, high ranks in some Skills, and some Path abilities. They’re ranked as usual, and every character gets 5 points at creation. These points can be spent on Fame, Status, Resources, Alternate Identity, Unusual Ability, Unusual Item, Sidekick, or Artifact. Up to 3 of the points can be spent in any of the other ability categories instead. For the Assets you do take, writing a short description of what precisely the asset is and why you have it is a very good and helpful idea. Choose wisely! Chances to change your Assets after character creation are few and far between.
Force Powers: Your standard physics-breaking uses of the Force. List and explanation found in this corner of the meadow. If you choose to spend Asset points on Force powers, or if your Spirit stat is of sufficient level (at least 12) to acquire the relevant bonuses, you can only purchase and use Apprentice level powers categorized under the Key Power you possess. (Sorry, Dark Jedi Guardians, no Force powers for you at character creation, period -- you get Lightsaber Training instead and will have to wait to apply any Spirit bonuses.)
Level (Path) Special Abilities: This is where you’ll list all those special things you get from the paths you chose as you climb up the ranks. You can list them either as
lvl# Ability1, Ability2
lvl# Ability3
or with colons, like so
lvl#: Ability1, Ability2
lvl#: Ability3
At level 1, this’ll end up looking like this (or this with a colon):
1 Key Power (or Lightsaber Training, if you’re a Guardian), Starting Abilities
and that’ll be all. I chose to split up my levels with Path subheadings, because I think it looks prettier that way, but it’s really up to you.
Whew! Bit of a wild ride, but congratulations -- you’re done! (Unless you’re skipping ahead, in which case, you’re not; but you will be soon, I imagine.) The only thing left to do is to post your completed bio over with all the others and wait for approval. Once you’ve been approved, you’re cleared to send your character out into the wide, wide world.
May the Force be with you.