Character Creation

Given that this system is no longer among the living, and that its... quirks caused no few kerfuffles during character creation for even our seasoned veterans of the polyhedral club, I figured it might be handy to have this little cheat sheet up, just in case anyone found themselves floundering a bit.

I want to be really clear, here: this is the system as this group has understood it. As with any written word, it is very much open to interpretation at its source. But anyway.

On page 30 of the Serenity RPG book, there is a 'no frills' checklist. If you have experience creating characters for RPG's, this is the checklist for you. First thing is getting your GM to decide on a "heroic level", because that's where you'll get your numbers from. There are 3 heroic levels: Greenhorn is the sort of beginner designation and lets you play as sort of unknown-ish characters without worrying about your reputation as a crew or individual proceeding you; from there you graduate to Veteran, where you have a bit of a name to worry about, either good or bad; and the final level is Big Damn Hero, where you're so famous in the 'verse that people kind of go quiet when you walk into a room and then rush up either looking for handshakes or to get the hell out of your way.

These levels don't differ hugely in terms of actual number of Attribute and Skill points, but they do restrain you on how many of your points you can put into one particular skill or attribute. It seems to mostly come down to the type of game, and the type of universe you want to play in. Want to explore at your leisure as just another face in the crowd and level as you go along? Greenhorn. Want to rocket from epic battle to epic battle, six shooter a-blazin' and a-firin' (as Daffy Duck would say)? Big Damn Hero.

Anyway, once your level is sorted out, it's time to get down to the nitty gritty of purchasing skills and attributes and whatnot for your character. Remember I said your numbers were determined by your level? They are, but the fun part is that while the attribute points are listed with the different heroic levels, for some unknown reason the skill point amounts are hidden away in the last paragraph in the Skills section on page 34. It works out to whatever your Attribute points are plus 20. I'm going to lay them all out together, because I'm good like that.

Attributes: Strength, Agility, Vitality [the physical Attributes], Alertness, Intelligence, Willpower [the mental Attributes]. You also buy your Traints (minor and major Assets and minor and major Complications) from this pool. By fiddling with the math from all those, you get your derived attributes (a more complete list of different derived attributes as well as when to roll for them, see page 142 in the book):
Life Points = Vitality + Willpower
Initiative = Agility + Alertness
Endurance = Vitality + Willpower
Resistance = Vitality + Vitality

Skills: You start with a General Skill, and can specialise within that. If you're looking for Lockpicking, you need the General Skill 'Covert', and then you'd buy the Specialty Skill 'Open Locks' on top of that. It's worth reading through them all carefully, as a lot of the standard rpg language was changed to be more "Firefly-esque" and it can be both frustrating and misleading - I think we were on our third or possibly 4th session before we figured out that the standard term "Lockpicking" had been replaced with the more 'electronic world friendly' term "Open Locks". Skill descriptions start on page 55 if you want to take a look.

Greenhorn:
42 Attribute Points
62 Skill Points
Can purchase Attributes up to d12

Veteran:
48 Attribute Points
68 Skill Points
Can purchase Attributes up to d12 + d2

Big Damn Hero:

Can purchase Attributes up to d12 + d4

Attribute Rules: NO ONE can start with an attributes lower than d4. A d6 is considered an 'average' level.

Trait Rules: All minor Traits cost 2 points, all major Traits cost 4. A character can have a maximum of 5 Assets (of any level) and 5 Complications (of any level).

The actual purchasing of Skills and Attributes is dead easy. Essentially the level of your die = the cost in points. You want a d6 in something? 6 points. You want a d12 + d2? 14 points. There's only a couple quirks to keep in mind for each pool:

Attributes pool: Don't go above the maximum for your level or below d4 in anything. You have do have to purchase that d4 minimum though, just as you would anything else; but if you're going straight to a d12, you just pay 12, you don't pay 4, then 6, then 8, then so one. Just the 12. And remember your Traits are purchased out of this pool as well. Trait descriptions start on page 41 with a blurb on creating new Traits on page 170.

Skills pool: There doesn't seem to be maximums per Heroic level for Skills like there are for Attributes, so you can pretty well do what you like (as long as your GM is ok with it). Again, skill descriptions start on page 55. The only 3 constraints are:
1: Before you purchase a Specialty Skill, the associated General Skill has to be at least d6
2: A General Skill can't ever go above d6 (because otherwise everyone would just be masters at, say, the General Skill 'Athletics', and would never have to actually explain how that made them amazing at both the Specialty Skills of Contortion and Weight Lifting)
3: Paying for Specialty Skills are slightly different. You pay for the "step up" from the General Skill that the die your buying represents, rather than paying for the die itself. For instance, buying a d8 in the Contortion Specialty will cost only 2 points on top of the 6 you spent on Athletics - General, not 8 points. There's a table on page 34 that should help. Oh, but you don't have to symbolically re-purchase your general d6 every time you buy a new specialty. Once you've spent that 6 in Athletics, it's 2 points to gain a d8 in any of the specialties in there.

Combat rules start on page 149, with healing coming right after on page 158. The use of Plot Points are covered on page 145. Examples of ships start on page 115, with rules and such on how to "play" the ship starting on page 106. Maps of the 'Verse are found on page 208 and 209, with descriptions of the different planets starting on 210. Blurbs on Corporations, Guilds, Gangs, Priests, and Reavers start on 202. The super fun slang appendix is right at the back, page 219.

I hope this is at least moderately useful. Good luck!