So, I finally decided that I'd hack to death a few systems to get the kind of characters I wanted for this game. I figured I'd kind of document the process here.
The first thing I should do is at least pin a title on the game so we know what we're talking about... in this case, it's called "Skin of the Naranpelo." We'll call it "Skin" for short, and perhaps humourous opportunities. (The Naranpelo is an alchemical fruit that's very important to the Arancimar royal family, and thus, the characters.)
OK, what do we start with on every character sheet? Ah yes, Player Name. Why? I mean, I'll know people by character name quickly enough... Is there any other reason than when we pass the sheets back out between games we want to know who has what?
I've slowly grown into the "take them back at the end of the game, pass them out in the beginning" for three main reasons.
- It allows me to review and revise against my information when I have a chance to look at it. This also provides the option to see, "Oh, X has a specialty in wine tasting. I so need to get that into play."
- It is a central location where it goes with the rest of the "game stuff" and is less likely to be lost in-between sessions. I mean, if my notes are gone, everything's gone. The players don't have to leave it in the car, or accidentally turn it in with their homework or that sales report...
- It prevents any temptation for player fraud. This is a low-priority item for me, but maybe your group isn't quite as liberal.
So maybe we'll start with Character Name instead. And I'll let the players choose that... I've been tempted otherwise at times, and I should probably give them some guidelines as to the "feel" or cultural style to names. In this case, Arancimar could have kind of a Mediterranean feel (at least, that's the climate I'm picking for it.) So I'll make some kinds of suggestions along those lines.
Character Gender will actually have an importance in this game - most of the people in power are women. Men are having a bit of a renaissance in authority, and that's a political point the characters could influence, but all the economic influence are in families noted by their matriarchal lineages.
If I want to include Character Race I need to have some differentiation. It's not about attribute bonuses - everyone's human (I might accept a half-elf) but it'd be a cultural designation. I think this is something I might want to tilt towards the aspect side of things, because otherwise it starts to be more pre-game study for the players and, well, PCs are (IMO) exceptional individuals so they might not fall into the various stereotypes of their races anyway. They'll learn in-game about the stereotypes for sure.
Physical characteristics? Hmmm. Maybe in the next segment.