Making Character Templates

World Building teams can customize every aspect of their character templates as they feel fit. What matters most is they have a character template for every character type being introduced at Session Zero. Its best if there's a consistent format to all the templates. Since everyone is going to be copying the templates to make their personal characters, having a very plug-and-play approach is helpful.

Examples of different template formats for google docs, wiki media sites, and the Storyteller's Guild can be found here.

What To Definitely Include
Here is a list of what should be included in templates for just about every imaginable character type.


 * Avatar Box: Here players can put a copy of their character avatar. We use a 350 x 300 box on our sample templates.  On the templates, this can be concept art for the character type.


 * Personal Information Section: This a set of details that a person might have on a Facebook profile or their driver's license: age, species, gender, ethnicity, date of birth, hair color, eye color, relationship status, etc.,. Your chronicle's genre and the character types you put into your setting are going to influence what type of personal information categories to include.  Include enough space for players to write a simple short answer for each one.


 * Health, Sanity & Morality Pools: This is an optional but recommended set of traits that specify how much damage a character can withstand before it suffers incapacitating Crisis Event.  Our default pools are 10 points in each pool for human (Echelon 3) characters.  Subhumans (Echelon 2) have 5 points.  Critters (Echelon 1) have 3 points.  Superhumans have 13 points (this doesn't mean a creature like a vampire is more moral than a human; it means a creature like vampire can take more 'hits' to its morality without undergoing a morality-based Crisis Event.)  Demi-gods have 16.


 * Your Standard + Special Attributes: Storygame has a suggested list of standard attributes: Agility, Awareness, Brawn, Charm, Cunning, Tenacity, Wisdom and the special attribute Mojo. Use these or make your own.  Have a place for the attributes and their scores on every template.


 * Advantages/Disadvantages/Quirks: Here players will put their non-attribute traits. There needs to be a box or line for the numerical value of these types of traits (+2, +1, 0, -1, -2) just like attributes but room for the total list of these traits to expand time.  We suggest using columns to list Advantages, Disadvantages and Quirks in their own categories.


 * Personality Summary: Here a player can make notes that help them map out how the character typically thinks, feels and behaves. These details may change dramatically over time.  Writing out a personality summary will help players select some advantages, disadvantages and quirks for their character.


 * Origin Story: Just as chronicle settings have a little prehistory written into the metaplot before Launch, characters should too. This section should be large enough for 2-3 paragraphs.  These details don't have to be very complicated, just give a sense of the people, places, and events that shaped the character into the person they are when they are presented into their very first scene.


 * Connections & Resources: This a blank section for the character's assets, the useful and valuable stuff like friends, families, property, vehicles.  These details can easily add to advantages and disadvantages when they are something unusually good or bad for the character's type.  If a connection or resource is pretty normal for the character type in the core setting and its quality/existence (or lack of quality/existence) is normal, then it doesn't even qualify as a quirk.


 * Completed Scenes: This is a section for characters to keep track of scenes they completed and submitted to the archive.


 * Other Notes: Finally, this is a place for players to type other notes they want to remember when they bring their character into a scene. It should be highly expandable as the chronicle progresses