FADAD
Free-form, universal, do-it-yourself gaming engine for Advanced Dungeons And Dragons
by Peter Mikelsons
Version: February 2000

Chapter 1, Character Creation

Table of Contents

Legal Stuff

1 Character Creation

This chapter contains the information you'll need to create human and demi-human characters, including character traits and trait levels, and some different ways to allocate them.

For really odd non-human characters - or characters with supernormal abilities (spell casting, psionics, etc.) - you will also need to read Chapter 2, Supernormal Powers, before your characters will be complete.

1.1 Character Creation Terms

Trait:
anything that describes a character. A trait can be an attribute, skill, inherited gift, fault, supernormal power, or any other feature that describes a character. The GM is the ultimate authority on what is an attribute and what is a skill, gift, etc.
Level:
most traits are described by one of seven adjectives. These seven descriptive words represent levels a trait may be at. In addition, the Objective Character Creation method grants the player free levels, and demands he keep track of them. In this case, one level is required to raise a trait to the next better adjective. Levels can also be numeric, as with Potential and Ité.
Attribute:
any trait that everyone in the game world has, in some degree or other. See Section 1.3.1, Attributes, for a sample list of attributes. On a scale of Terrible ... Fair ... Superb, the average human will have an attribute at Fair.
Skill:
any trait that isn't an attribute, but can be improved through practice. The default for an unlisted skill is usually Poor, though that can vary up or down a little.
Gift:
any trait that isn't an attribute or skill, but is something positive for the character. Some GMs will define a certain trait as a gift, while others will define the same trait as an attribute. In general, if the trait doesn't easily fit the Terrible ... Fair ... Superb scale, it's probably a gift.
Fault:
any trait that limits a character's actions, or earns him a bad reaction from other people.
Supernormal Power:
supernormal powers are treated in 1.3.3 Gifts and Chapter 2.

1.2 FADAD Trait Levels

FADAD uses ordinary words to describe various traits of a character. The following terms of a seven-level sequence are used (from best to worst): These levels should be written on each character sheet for easy reference.

To remember the order, compare adjacent words. If, as a beginner, your eventual goal is to become an excellent game player, for example, ask yourself if you'd rather be called a Fair game player or a Mediocre game player.

There is an additional level used in FADAD listed above: Legendary, which is beyond Superb. Those with Legendary Strength, for example, are in the 99.9th percentile, and their names can be found in any book of world records.

1.3 Character Traits

Traits are divided into Attributes, Skills, Gifts, Faults and Supernormal Powers. Not every GM will have all five types of traits in her game. These traits are defined in Section 1.1, Character Creation Terms.

1.3.1 Attributes

Gamers often disagree on how many attributes a game should have. Some prefer few attributes, others many. Even those that agree on the number of attributes may disagree on the selection. While FADAD discusses some attributes (Strength, Constitution, etc.) in later sections, none of these are mandatory. The only attribute the basic FUDGE rules assume is Damage Capacity, equivalent to Constitution in FADAD.

In FADAD, players may choose which attributes their characters have. They must have at least one, but no more that six. Some demi-humans have mandatory attributes. Consideration should be given to choosing from the traditional six attributes (listed below). For every two attributes chosen that are not Fair (or the racial default), the character gets one free attribute level to add. Beginning attribute levels are usually limited to Superb and Terrible, except as noted for demi-humans.

Remember to calculate effective Damage Capacity, usually Constitution + Size.

AD&D's Traditional 6: quotes are from Player's Handbook, 2nd ed.
Charisma "...persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead. It is not a reflection of physical attractiveness..."
Constitution "...physique, fitness, health, and physical resistance to hardship, injury, and disease." Subtracts from damage taken.
Dexterity "...hand-eye coordination, agility, reaction speed, reflexes, and balance." Used for determining initiative in combat.
Intelligence "...memory, reasoning, and learning ability, including areas outside those measured by the written word." Important for wizards.
Strength "...muscle, endurance, and stamina." Adds to damage done with muscle-powered weapons (along with Scale).
Wisdom "...enlightenment, judgment, guile, willpower, common sense, and intuition." Important for priests. Excessively broad and vague definition, so this attribute is not recommended.
Useful Others:
Perception/Awareness
Magic Resistance Sometimes known as Reté (pronounced REE-tay). Natural or acquired ability to avoid or mitigate effects of hostile magic. By default, a rolled degree of Great is required to avoid the effects of spells.
Toxin Tolerance Unless noted for a character, equal to Constitution. By default, a rolled degree of Good allows a character to resist the effects of a poison.
Willpower Unless noted for a character, equal to Wisdom.
Esoteric Others:
Mental Resistance Sometimes known as Maté (pronounced MAH-tay). Degree to which the mind can avoid being affected by outside supernatural forces. Not the same as Willpower.
Aerial Dexterity
Anti-Magic Sometimes known as Até (pronounced AH-tay). Generally only possessed by extraplaner creatures. Some unfortunates have it such that it works against friendly and useful spells. Até checks occur before Reté checks. Even if Reté is ignored, Até can still take effect. A result of Fair+level of caster-Potential negates the effect.
Bravery
Comeliness
Magic Item Use

1.3.2 Skills

A skill is some trait that for most people is worse than Fair. Most skills describe the ability to perform a fairly narrow set of activities and the ability of the skill-user improves with practice or study.

 Skills are not related to attributes or their levels in FUDGE. Players are encouraged to design their characters logically - a character with a lot of Good physical skills should probably have better than average physical attributes, for example. On the other hand, FUDGE allows a player to create someone like Groo the Wanderer (TM), who is very clumsy yet extremely skilled with his swords. The GM may double the difficulty of raising skills to higher levels than their relevant attributes.

Skills are specific abilities such as "Barter, Seduce, Repartee, Persuade, Fast-Talk, Bully, Grovel, Carouse, Flatter, Bribe," etc. Combat skills require special consideration. They are broken down by specific weapon type: longsword, broadsword, shortsword. But if a character is Great with longsword, but has no skill at broadsword, the GM may allow a skill of Fair if the character finds herself with only a broadsword.

SOS's 5-Point Fudge contains a good list of skills, many of which would be appropriate for FADAD. It can be seen at http://www.io.com/~sos/rpg/fud5.html#descrip

1.3.2.1 General Skills

These sample skills are either somewhat unusual or are shown here to highlight their existence. Some have rules given for using them in the game.

1.3.2.2 Sample Weapon skills

Characters can use similar weapon skills if they lack a specific weapon, at -1 level in skill. For example, if a character is Good with Longsword, then she is (at least) Fair with Broadsword and Scimitar. Generally weapons with the same category given in parentheses can be used at -1 skill. Not all weapons are available to all characters, check with GM.

1.3.2.3 Sample Supernormal skills

Skills which are appropriate for wizards, priests, or psionicists.

1.3.2.4 Sample Spelljammer skills

These are some skills appropriate to the Spelljammer setting, shamelessly copied from The Complete Spacefarer's Handbook.

1.3.3 Gifts

A gift is a positive trait that doesn't seem to fit the Terrible ... Fair ... Superb scale that attributes and skills fall into. Usually, a character either has a gift or does not. For these gifts the player can often choose whether to have a gift ("Keen Vision") or another attribute ("Vision: Great"). Alternatively, some gifts have levels, but they are numbered: zero (no gift), one, two, and up.

In general, if a gift isn't written on the character sheet, the character doesn't have it.

SOS's 5-Point Fudge contains a good list of gifts, many of which would be appropriate for FADAD. It can be seen at http://www.io.com/~sos/rpg/fud5.html#gifts FADAD specific gifts include:

1.3.3.1 Races

Belonging to a non-human race provides a package of attributes, skills, gifts, faults, and other modifiers. Attributes and skills can usually be modified during character creation or development, using the levels given below as starting points. Gifts and faults are usually much harder to change, so check with the GM before trying to do so.

Read such books as the AD&D Player's Handbook for more detailed descriptions of each race.

1.3.4 Faults

Faults are anything that makes life more difficult for a character. The primary faults are those that restrict a character's actions or earn him a bad reaction from chance-met NPCs. Various attitudes, neuroses and phobias are faults; so are physical disabilities and social stigmas. There are heroic faults, too: a code of honor and inability to tell a lie restrict your actions significantly, but are not signs of flawed personality. SOS's 5-Point Fudge contains a good list of gifts, many of which would be appropriate for FADAD. It can be seen at http://www.io.com/~sos/rpg/fud5.html#faults

A major kind of fault in the FADAD game is Alignment. Alignments are ethical forces that underlie the FADAD universe. Not only do alignments influence human and non-human behavior, but they manifest in the physical structure of the outer planes. A character who chooses to identify with and uphold the tenets of one or more alignments is said to be aligned. Characters can also become aligned from magical effects, or they can become effectively aligned by behaving in accordance with an alignment. The alignments are divided into two polar axes, Good-Evil and Law-Chaos. An aligned character decides where he sits on each axis. Being strongly aligned on both is counted as two Faults, being Neutral on one and strongly aligned on the other is counted as one Fault, while being True Neutral (aligned but Neutral on both axes) is counted as one Fault. So a Lawful Good character has two faults, while a Chaotic Neutral has one fault.

Principles of each alignment. Note that these are my definitions of these words for purpose of FADAD only. I make no claims about what is good, bad, evil, or otherwise in real life.

An aligned character must behave according to the beliefs of his alignment. If an aligned character's behavior or beliefs deviate enough, then the alignment may be lost or even change. If this happens, the forces of alignment punish the character with the loss of one level of Potential. Skills and other Gifts are effectively reduced to the maximum allowed, although they will go back up if the Potential is regained. If the alignment change was involuntary, the character can atone and restore the previous alignment, and the level loss is restored.

Effective alignment comes about when a character behaves according to an alignment's beliefs for a long enough time. The character is then treated as aligned for purposes of magical effects, such as Detect Good/Evil. Effective alignment does not cause level loss if it changes. However, effectively aligned characters may find themselves targets of recruiting campaigns by members of the alignment.

Alignment has some benefits. Some groups/societies will only accept members who have a particular alignment. Priesthoods almost always have such a requirement. Aligned characters are eligible for membership in the semi-secret, plane-spanning societies dedicated to their alignment. There are 9 such societies, one for each alignment combination and one for True Neutral. Each society has an alignment tongue, a secret language especially suited for discussing issues related to that alignment. Alignment tongues have secret gestures, signs, and phrases that can be slipped into normal speech to identify the speaker's alignment to other members. 

1.3.5 Personality

A character's personality may be represented by one or more traits, or it can be written out as character background or description.

As an example of the first case, courage is an attribute, a gift or even a fault. As an attribute, Superb Courage or Terrible Courage has an obvious meaning. As a gift, obvious bravery gives the character a positive reaction from people he meets (assuming they see him being courageous, or have heard of his deeds, of course).

However, both Very Courageous and Very Cowardly can be faults because they can limit a character's actions. A courageous character might not run away from a fight even if it were in his best interest, while a cowardly one would have a hard time staying in a fight even if he stood to gain by staying.

Or a character's level of courage might not be a quantified trait at all, but something the player simply decides. "Moose is very brave," a player jots down, and that is that. It doesn't have to count as a high attribute, gift or fault.

If the player wants the personality trait to have a big impact on game mechanics, then the trait should be an attribute, gift, or fault. This is the case when the trait is an important part of the character. Most personality traits should just be written as part of the character description, however. However they are handled, characters can only benefit by having their personalities fleshed out. 

1.3.6 Fudge Points

Fudge Points are meta-game gifts that may be used to buy "luck" during a game - they let the players fudge a game result. These are "meta- game" gifts because they operate at the player-GM level, not character-character level.

In FADAD, spending one Ité is equivalent to spending one Fudge point. There is no separate Fudge point pool.

  1. A player may spend one Fudge Point to alter a die roll one level, up or down as desired. The die roll can be either one the player makes, or one the GM makes that directly concerns the player's character.
  2. A player may spend one Fudge Point to declare that wounds aren't as bad as they first looked. This reduces the intensity of each wound by one levels (a Hurt result becomes a Scratch, for example). This may be done during combat, or right after combat during the "licking of wounds" phase. The intensity of only one wound is changed, and the normal effects of the new wound level are assessed. For example, suppose a character is Hurt and also Very Hurt. She is injured yet again, with a Very Hurt level wound. If she spends one Fudge point, the new wound only causes a Hurt, but the effect of the new wound is still to Incapacitate. If she spends two Fudge points, then the new wound is only a Scratch, and she is not Incapacitated.
  3. A GM-set number of Fudge Points can be spent to ensure a favorable coincidence. (This is always subject to GM veto, of course.) For example, if the PCs are locked in the city jail, perhaps one of the guards turns out to be the cousin of one of the PCs - and lets them escape! Or the captain of the fishing boat rescuing the PCs turns out to be someone who owes a favor to one of them, and is willing to take them out of his way to help them out . . . And so on. This option will cost a lot of Fudge Points.

1.4 Allocating Traits

Character creation in FUDGE and FADAD assumes the players will design their characters, rather than leaving attributes and other traits to chance. The GM may allow randomly determined traits if he desires - a suggested method is given in Section 1.8, Random Character Creation.

There are no mandatory traits in FADAD. The GM has listed which traits he expects to be most important, and the players may suggest others to the GM for his approval.

When a character is created, the player should define as many character traits as he finds necessary - which may or may not coincide with a GM-determined list. If a player adds an attribute the GM deems unnecessary, the GM may treat that attribute as simply a description of the character. She may require a roll against a different attribute than the player has in mind, and the player must abide by her decision.

As an example, the GM decides he wants characters to have a general Dexterity attribute. A player takes Good Dexterity for her PC, but wants to show that the character is better at whole body dexterity than at manual dexterity. So she writes: Great Agility and Fair Manual Dexterity. However, the GM can ignore these distinctions, and simply require a Dexterity roll, since that is the trait he has chosen. (He can average the PC-chosen levels, or simply select one of them.) Of course, he can also allow her to roll on the attributes he has created.

In FUDGE, a character with a trait at Fair will succeed at ordinary tasks 62% of the time - there is usually no need to create a superstar. In fact, Great is just that: great! Superb should be reserved for the occasional trait in which your character is the best he's ever met.

Any trait that is not defined at character creation will be at a default level:

For attributes: Fair.

For most skills: Poor (easier skills are at Mediocre, while harder ones are at Terrible). A skill default means untrained, or close to it. However, it is possible to take a skill at Terrible (below the default level for most skills), which implies an inaptitude worse than untrained.

For most gifts, supernormal powers and certain GM-defined skills: Non-Existent. (That is, the default is non-existent. The trait itself exists in some character, somewhere.)

Each player should expect the GM to modify his character after creation - it's the nature of the game. The GM should expect to review each character before play. It would, in fact, be best if the characters were made in the presence of the GM so he can answer questions during the process. 

1.5 Subjective Character Creation

An easy way to create a character in FUDGE is simply to write down everything about the character that you feel is important. Any attribute or skill should be rated using one of the levels Terrible through Superb (see Section 1.2, FADAD Trait Levels).

It may be easiest, though, if the player uses the list of attributes given in Section 1.3.1, Attributes

The GM may give the player a certain number of free Potential level gifts. Often this is only 1 Potential level for starting characters. This Level will tell the player the maximum attributes and skills the character can have. In addition, the player may chose one attribute or skill that can exceed the maximums. Making this choice can help to focus character creation around that special trait.

The GM may limit the number of skills a character can take at character creation: 10, 15, or 20 are possible choices.

Gifts and faults can be restricted this way, also. For example, a GM allows a character to have two gifts, but he must take at least three faults. Taking another fault allows another gift, or another skill at Great, and so on.

These limitations help the player define the focus of the character a bit better: what is his best trait (what can he do best)?

In the Subjective Character Creation system, it is easy to use both broad and narrow skill groups, as appropriate for the character. In these cases, a broad skill group is assumed to contain the phrase, "except as listed otherwise."

For example, a player wishes to play the science officer of a spelljamming starship. He decides this character has spent so much time studying the arcane sciences, that he's weak in most physical skills. So on his character sheet he could simply write:

He also decides that his character's profession would take him out of the ship's gravity field quite a bit, to examine things. So he'd have to be somewhat skilled at zero-G maneuvering. So he then adds: Even though this is a physical skill, it is not at Poor because he specifically listed it as an exception to the broad category.

When the character write-up is done, the player and GM meet and discuss the character. If the GM feels the character is too potent for the campaign she has in mind, she may ask the player to reduce the character's power - see Section 1.9, Minimizing Abuse.

The GM may also need to suggest areas that she sees as being too weak - perhaps she has a game situation in mind that will test a trait the player didn't think of. Gentle hints, such as "Does he have any social skills?" can help the player through the weak spots. Of course, if there are multiple players, other PCs can compensate for an individual PC's weaknesses. In this case, the question to the whole group is then, "Does anyone have any social skills?"

Instead of the player writing up the character in terms of traits and levels, he can simply write out a prose description of his character. This requires the GM to translate everything into traits and appropriate levels, but that's not hard to do if the description is well written. This method actually produces some of the best characters.

1.6 Objective Character Creation

For those who don't mind counting numbers a bit, the following method creates interesting and well-balanced characters.

In this system, all traits start at default level. The GM then allows a number of free levels the players may use to raise selected traits to higher levels. Players may then lower certain traits in order to raise others even further. Finally, a player may opt to trade some levels of one trait type (such as attributes) for another (skills, for example). The whole process insures that no single character will dominate every aspect of play. 

1.6.1 Attributes

Players may choose which attributes their characters have. They must have at least one. Some demi-humans have mandatory attributes. Consideration should be given to choosing from the traditional AD&D attributes. Players then have three attribute levels to spread around.

All attributes are considered to be Fair until the player raises or lowers them. The cost of raising or lowering an attribute is
+4 Legendary+1
+3 Superb
+2 Great
+1 Good
0 Fair
-1 Mediocre
-2 Poor
-3 Terrible
Example:

A player may raise his Strength attribute (which is Fair by default) to Good by spending one free attribute level. He could then spend another free level to raise Strength again to Great.

When the free attribute levels have been exhausted, an attribute can be raised further by lowering another attribute an equal amount. (See also Section 1.6.4, Trading Traits.)

1.6.2 Skills

In the Objective Character Creation system, each player has 30 free skill levels with which to raise his skills. Most skills have a default value of Poor unless the player raises or lowers them - see Section 1.4, Allocating Traits.

Certain skills have a default of non-existent. These would include Languages, Open-Hand Fighting, Dwoemercraft, or Knowledge of Drow Rituals, which must be studied to be known at all. When a character studies such a skill (puts a level into it at character creation, or experience points later in the game), the level he gets it at depends on how hard it is to learn. Putting one level into learning the Sueloise language, for example, would get it at Mediocre, since it's of average difficulty to learn. Dwoemercraft, on the other hand, might only be Poor or even Terrible with only one level put into it. It would take four levels just to get such a skill at Fair, for example.

For ease in character creation, use the following tables:

Remember to stay within the skill limits imposed by a character's Potential.

Once the free levels are used up, a skill must be dropped one level (from the default Poor to Terrible) to raise another skill one level. (See also Section 1.6.4, Trading Traits.) All choices are subject to GM veto, of course. The GM is likely to take a dim view of players who lower their basket-weaving skill to Terrible in order to raise their Two-Handed Sword skill to Great, at least if the game has the traditional lack of emphasis on arts and crafts.

1.6.3 Gifts & Faults

Player characters start with a number of gifts equal to three times their "Level." The GM will tell the player what Level they may start at. Games may even start at Level 0. If Level is more than 1, this may seem like a lot of Gifts. What you are supposed to do is put 1/3 of them into Potential and 1/3 of them into Max. Ité. If you want to be a Priest or Wizard, then the rest go into spell casting ability. Otherwise, trade them in for skill levels. Any further gifts taken must be balanced by taking on a fault, or by trading traits.

There is no minimum number of faults, but the game is more fun if you have at least one.

A player may gain extra trait levels by taking GM-approved faults at the following rate:

However, the GM may rule that a particular fault is not serious enough to be worth two attribute levels, but may be worth one attribute level or three skill levels. On the other hand, severe faults may be worth more attribute levels. 

1.6.4 Trading Traits

During character creation, free levels may be traded (in either direction) at the following rate: So a player with three free attribute levels and 40 free skill levels may trade three of his skill levels to get another free attribute level, or six skill levels to get another free gift. 

1.6.5 Objective Char Gen Summary

1.6.6 Character point FADAD

Those who are familiar with GURPS or Hero might prefer thinking about objective chargen this way. Characters start with 39 "character points", plus 18 per additional Level. Adding a Fault gives 6 "cp"s. Gifts cost 6 cp, attributes cost 3 cp per level, and skills cost 1 cp per level. Lowering attributes gives 3 cp per level to be spent elsewhere. GM veto still applies.

1.7 Uncommitted Traits

Whether the character is created subjectively or objectively, each character may leave some free uncommitted traits (perhaps two or three). At some point in the game, a player will realize that he forgot something about the character that should have been mentioned. He may request to stop the action, and define a previously undefined trait, subject to the GM's approval. A sympathetic GM will allow this to happen even during combat time.

Potential imposed skill limits are still in effect, of course.

1.8 Random Character Creation

Some players like to roll their characters randomly. Here is one possible method to use in such cases. It produces a fairly limited set of characters, but you can depart from the random generation at any time and make your own decisions.

The player rolls 4dF twice for each of the following attributes, taking the best of the two rolls. Reroll any +4 or -4 results. Random attributes: Charisma, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Strength, Perception, and Maté.

Determine which attribute is highest in the following list: Dexterity, Intelligence, Strength, and Reté. If there is a tie, then randomly pick one of the tied attributes. Next determine skills. Skill levels are found by rolling on the table below for all designated skills. 

4dF   Skill
roll  Level
----  -----
-4    Poor
-3    Terrible
-2,-1 Mediocre
0,+1  Fair
+2    Good
+3,+4 Great
If Dexterity is the selected attribute, roll for these skills: Pick Pockets, Move Silently, Hide in Shadows, Climbing, Acrobatics, Fast Talk, Backstab, Dagger, Short Sword, Short Bow, Dodge.

If Intelligence is the selected attribute, roll for these skills: Spellcraft, Reading/Writing, Alchemy, Dagger, Staff. Add the Wizard and Wizard Level 1 Gifts.

If Strength is the selected attribute, roll for these skills: Sword (pick one), Mace, Dagger, Bow (pick one), Wrestling, Punching, Dodge, Two Weapon Style (pick one), Shield, Blind Fighting, Survival (pick area).

If Reté is the selected attribute, replace it with Faith, and roll for these skills: Mace, Sling, Shield, Dodge, Wrestling, Theology, Turn Undead, Spellcraft. Add the Priest and Priest Level 1 Gifts, and take at least 1 alignment Fault.

All characters get to roll an additional skill from this table: 

d8 Skill
-- -----
1  Swimming
2  Reading/Writing
3  Horse Riding
4  Sailing
5  Farming
6  Climbing
7  Blacksmith
8  roll twice more
If any skill is rolled twice, take the better of the two rolls.

All characters get the Gifts Potential 1 and Max. Ité 1. If any skills were rolled as Great, the character gets the Specialization Gift for each such skill.

1.9 Minimizing Abuse

Obviously, character creation in FADAD can be abused. There are many ways to avoid this:
  1. The GM can require that the character take another fault or two to balance the power. ("Okay I'll allow you to have all that . . . but you need a challenge. Take on another weakness: maybe some secret vice, or be unable to tell a believable lie, or anything that fits the character concept that I can use to test you now and then.")
  2. She can simply veto any trait (or raised/lowered combination) she feels is abusive. ("I see you raised Battle-Axe in exchange for lowering Needlepoint. Hmmm.") This allows the GM to customize the power level of a game. For high-powered games, allow most anything; for less cinematic campaigns, make them trade equally useful trait for trait.
  3. She can simply note the character weaknesses and introduce a situation into every adventure where at least one of them is significant to the mission. ("You'll be sent as an emissary to the Wanduzi tribe - they value fine Needlepoint work above all other skills, by the way . . .")
  4. She can use the "disturbance in the force" technique of making sure that more powerful characters attract more serious problems. ("The bruiser enters the bar with a maniacal look in his eye. He scans the room for a few seconds, then begins to stare intently at you.")
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