Getting started

Welcome, welcome! Plonk your elbows on the bartop of Davey's Saloon, order a glass of Wildsnake and we'll get going..

Let's assume you've already created a character in the game, read the Rules, and generally made a noise on the chat channels.

By now you are likely idling away in the OOC Center wondering what to do next.

Character Generation

First step is CG, hopefully by this point you've already got some idea of the kind of character you want to play, maybe looked at the Wanted Characters bboard in game (Board 5) and talked about it a bit over the chat channels. If not, don't worry. For some diving right in and starting to build a character can be the catalyst needed to spark inspiration.

Step on into Chargen..

Demographics

After a brief intro you'll find yourself in the Demographics room where you can set your character's basic info. A full name, age, and faction etc. More info on factions and similar can be found ingame.

Note: Whilst we really have no control, nor wish for control over the age of a Player on Grimwood, due to the nature of the game a Character's age must be 18+. Though the presence of minors can be alluded to (Odds are there'll be a schoolhouse at some point) minors MAY NOT BE PLAYED, either as a Player Character or NPC

We've also limited maximum starting age to 75. If you want to play a character older than that contact staff ingame.

Abilities

Now we set up the meat of your character. The Attributes and Abilities are all listed ingame, but we'll go over them here for extra reference.

You get 80 points to spend on making your character, though 10 are initially assigned to your Attributes and a Language skill.

Attributes, first. These are the four defining statistics of a character, and they are:

  • Body: Physical fitness - Strength, Constitution and Agility
  • Mind: Mental fitness - Intelligence and Creativity
  • Presence: Personality - Charisma and Will
  • Reaction: Reflexes - Dexterity, Hand-Eye Coordination and Wits

You can raise those stats from the initial setting (Or lower them!) as long as each stat is between 1 and 4. You can also only spend 12 points on your stats.

Now skills. Skills come in 3 flavours:

  • Action skills: These are pre-named skills that most characters are likely to want to pick from.
  • Background skills: These skills are freeform and entirely up to you to come up with.
  • Language skills: Somewhere in between the two other types.

There are 19 set Action skills and a player may take as many or few of these as they like at whatever levels - There are some hard limits on these that you'll find ingame via the +limits command and also in the Rules. Bear in mind also that any skill set at 7+ will require an explanation in a character's Background , and the younger a character is then the lower their skills should be.

Skill name Description Ruling Attribute
Alertness Noticing things and being aware of your surroundings Reaction
Archery Skill with a bow and arrow Reaction
Athletics Running, jumping, climbing, swimming Body
Demolitions Creating, defusing and setting explosives Mind
Farming Crop farms and their running Body
Gunslinger Specific for the dueling shootist Reaction
Medicine General medical knowledge and practice Mind
Melee Hit him with a chair, or that knife Body
Pistol Skill with, and maintenance of pistols Reaction
Prospecting Panning for gold, divining for water Reaction
Ranching Animal ranches and how to keep them Body
Repairing How useful you are when it breaks Mind
Riding Horse handling, also wagon driving Reaction
Rifle Skill with, and maintenance of rifles Reaction
Shotgun Skill with and maintenance of boomsticks shotguns reaction
Smithing Use of a forge, making metal objects Body
Stealth Shh! Reaction
Survival The skill you wish you'd taken when you're dying of thirst Mind
Unarmed No chair? Punch his face in Body

There's no set list for Background skills, players are free to make up their own. For example, a Prospector might add Mining as a background skill to complement choices of Prospecting and Demolitions.

More examples:
A science skill - Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Mathematics.
A humanity skill - History, Literature, Psychology, Philosophy.
A profession or trade - Cook, Farrier, Bartender, Carpenter, Brewer.
A game - Chess, Poker, Dice.
An art skill - Sculpting, Painting, Sketching.
A form of expression - Acting, Singing, Dancing, Playing an instrument, Writing.
A craft or hobby - Gardening, Butterfly collecting, Fishing.
An unusual interest - Philately, Grave-robbing, Trainspotting.

Language skills are any languages your character might be able to speak or read, for example: English, Spanish, Navajo. - English is set by default as a character with no fluency at all in the language would have a very tough time indeed. If you wish to remove this, contact staff ingame.

You'll notice letters after a Language Skill, this denotes if a character can Speak/Read/Write in that language. If you do not want your character to be able to Write and/or Read in English, remove the skill and re-add it appropriately.

There are no levels set for languages, it is up to the player to RP their character's level of fluency/ability appropriately.

Lastly are Quirks. Quirks help to add an extra element of flavour and uniqueness to a character. You must have at least one, but are free to take more. Quirks do not cost any CG points.

Some examples: Left-handed, Sadist, Pious, Drunkard, Scarred, Kleptomaniac

If you'd like an online staffer to look over your +sheet whilst in the process, just ask!

Now move on, you're making the room look untidy..

Background & Description

The background is an important part of any character and should describe how they came be where they are. A couple of paragraphs is usually enough, though it can be as long as you like.

If you're struggling at all consider where your character was born, and the events that shaped them. Looking over your Abilities and Quirks is good for generating ideas. Got Mining as a Background skill? How did that come about? How did they come into whatever profession they do, if any? Why is your character in Colorado? Are they new to Grimwood, or have they lived here for a while? (Note that the town was only founded in 1860). You can of course ask over the chat channels for help with ideas.

Your character's description is equally important as a character you meet for the first time will often use it to form an initial impression of you. So what does your character look like? Blue eyes, brown hair? Do you have scars, an eyepatch, a tin leg even? What are they wearing? (There is an inbuilt wardrobe feature, see +help +desc for details) Are they carrying a gun?

That's the tough bit done!

Approval

Once finished the last thing to do is submit your character for approval. At this point you may be asked to make changes to your character by a staffer. Approval can take up to 48hrs, but will likely be a lot quicker!

The last bit

Once your char is approved and on the IC grid (Hooray!) it is highly recommended that you make a page for them here on the wiki. This shows off how awesome your character is, gives the opportunity for others to find out a little about them, and allows any published logs featuring your character to be listed in their name.

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