Sample Character: Prince Goran of Mars

Today, I made a sample character sheet to show how the character sheet looks when it's filled out. This character is for a pulp-style "sword and planet" science-fantasy setting. In this setting, Earth is the evil Terran Empire. It's currently fighting a civil war with Luna, but it has ambitions to conquer the solar system as its birthright (Earth is the birthplace of humanity, they reason, so all of humanity should be ruled under the banner of Terra). The other planets of the system have their own governments and cultures. Mars is a rugged desert frontier world with many crumbling decadent cities and an unknown number of nomadic barbarian tribes that roam the wilderness.

"Prince" Goran of Mars claims to be a prince among his own people but he's really just another proud warrior from one of those barbarian tribes. His tribe lived as hunters and pirates, but they were proud and honorable people. Although they were pirates, they always gave their prey the opportunity to surrender peacefully and they never fired on unarmed travelers. After he witnessed a Terran expedition raiding a Martian town for slaves and greenmetal ore, Goran got caught up in a brawl between the Terrans and some offworlders who were trading with the Martian city-dwellers. Goran joined up with them and now travels the system with a ragtag crew of mercenaries and traders who run cargoes for profit. They carry equipment, personnel, and information for the Lunar rebels and try to give Terra a black eye whenever they can. Although he hates slavers, Goran maintains his tribe's honor code: if his opponent only has a melee weapon, he won't draw his gun; if his opponent only has a knife, he won't draw his saber; if his opponent is unarmed... well, slavers still have to die, so Goran will snap their necks with his bare hands if he has to.

Sample character sheet: "Prince" Goran (PDF)

The Passions provide free Drama Points. Each Passion can be used once per scene to get a free Drama Point (which can be spent for bonuses) if the Passion is relevant to that scene. Goran's Rage Passion is slavery, so he never has to worry about not having any Drama Points on hand when he runs into Terran slavers. His Noble Passion is honor, so he also has a little something extra to give when his reputation is on the line (such as in a duel or when handicapping himself to face a foe with inferior weapons). His Fear Passion is obscurity, so if he finds himself in danger alone, he'll be more motivated to get back to his friends alive (or at least get word to them before he dies so his story can be told). His Focus Passion is "The free winds of the dead seas of Mars are in my blood! You'll never chain or cage me!" so he always has access to one more Drama Point when someone tries to capture or imprison him (or convince him to settle down and retire, for that matter). These are the kinds of scenes that really matter most to Goran.

The Signs are visible manifestations or hints of strong traits. There is a Sign for every Talent or Drawback and every Attribute or Skill with a score of 3D or more. Signs provide a +1D bonus certain rolls in play, but their major purpose is to provide a cool description of the character that is more than just height, weight, eye color, hair color, etc.

+Talents and -Drawbacks are situational modifiers (bonus and penalty, respectively). Goran grew up in the Martian wastelands, so he's an expert in surviving the harsh environments and dealing with the dangerous flora and fauna to be found in such wild places. He's a good fighter, but he excels with the sword which is his weapon of choice and in battle, he has a fierce battle-cry that rattles his foes. Goran also has two -Drawbacks: "Barbarian" and "Lust for Life". The first penalizes him when dealing with polite society and the second makes it hard for him to resist temptations to enjoy himself (i.e. he's easily seduced or lured into drinking contests when he should be doing other things). The -Drawbacks only apply when his player chooses to use them, but he gets a Drama Point any time a -Drawback causes a problem for him, so it's advantageous for Goran if he occasionally acts boorish among high society or parties a little too hard.

The Facets are basically different kinds of "hit points". In this setting, the GM has chosen not to use Mind because there aren't any sources of mental damage. There are psychics, but they don't have telepathic attacks; there are eldritch horrors, but this is a pulp action setting where the heroes don't really get scared (at most, they're reasonably cautious) so there's no need for keeping track of how much their sanity is blasted. For this campaign, the premise is "rogue traders ply the spacelanes for profit as a front for rebel missions", so wealth will mostly be just a cosmetic issue. The character of the captain of the ship probably has a higher Wealth rating for getting a bigger share but that would go toward maintaining the ship and funding the next mission, in the same way Indiana Jones hunts for artifacts to sell to museums so he can afford to go on more trips to hunt for artifacts to sell to museums. The money isn't really important and the Wealth Facet could easily be crossed off here. It's only real use for Goran is to put a limit on the scale of his carousing: he can spend a night drinking in a bar and getting into fights, but he's not going to be buying and crashing sports cars for fun. If the campaign were set entirely within Goran's own honor-obsessed culture, the group could add a Reputation or Honor Facet to keep track of their social standing, but for this campaign, that will just be something Goran worries about.

So, how does it look?