Sphere RPG Character Creation

Character Generation

Step 1) Character Concept

The character concept is the most important thing to have to start a character. Are they a rugged freedom fighter? A cultured oligarch? An untested rookie? A free trader on his third career? Where do they come from? All these things are fundamental to making a character.

Step 2) Determine Genetic Background

Now that you have a character concept, the next step is to determine the character's genetic background. It may form a fundamental part of a character's identity, conversely, the specific choice made may be broadly irrelevant to the character concept. Either way, a character's genetic background will have substantial effects both on character generation, attributes and how they interact with people and institutions.

Sphere has several ways to determine a character's genetic background and consequently the GM should apply this equally. Find out what method your campaign is using first - it may allow for unlimited choice, or may result in some hard limits.

Step 3) Assign Attributes

Attributes are a core element of your character, determining what you are naturally good and bad at. Mechanically speaking, they are your dice pool for performing skill tests.

A character must assign one attribute as a Strength (3) and another as a Weakness (1), while all others are rated at 2. These will have substantial long-term effects on a character's growth and development; barring cyberware or extensive biological reworking, their Strength will always be a strong point and their Weakness a weak point.

Finally, many genetic backgrounds have specific attribute allowances or limits; for example designed-for-socialization Ishtars do not allow Charisma as a Weakness.

Step 4) Lifepath

Once a character's starting attributes are assigned, he or she is essentially 'born'. They will now enter the lifepath, which is a series of choices that determines a character's skills, merits and other elements. This gives a character a basic skeleton for their personal history to date - what sort of school they went to, what previous careers they engaged in, so forth. Conversely, it provides hard statistics for characters following

Genetic Templates

Sidebar: Yes, they really are superior

"Why are transgenic templates free? That's not very fair."

Emergent Properties is an unabashedly transhumanist setting. A fundamental element of the setting is that the human body and mind can and will be improved through the application of technology. Moreover, and more importantly, Emergent Properties does not take a position on the morality of human enhancement. Like any other technology human enhancement can be used to improve the lot of those affected, or be used to conduct repression on a grand scale.

What Emergent Properties does not make any apologies for is the simple position that transhumans are superior. That is, after all, the entire point of the multigenerational exercise that a substantial segment of the human population has been engaged in. Transhumans in all their myriad forms are improvements upon the 'normal' humans that we, the players and GMs, are familiar with. In Emergent Properties being a transhuman is not just an informed attribute; it is a very real thing .

Life Events

Any excess CP for a skill that would be insuficient to reach the next rank (eg, having 6 CP in a skill - enough to get rank 3 but 2 CP short of rank 4) can either refund the excess into a character's general CP pool or spend CP to make up the shortage.

Rank 3 skills (4 CP each)

Rank 2 skills (2 CP each)

Rank 1 skills (1 CP each)

All characters must take one Educational Background to determine their initial skill spread. These fill a character's early life up to the point at which they stopped focussing on education

Childhood/family situation? Have to determine what it affects.