Character Concepts

Overview

This section covers the various concepts that Fatewalker uses to define characters. Each of these ideas are represented on the character sheet for the game and heavily references in other sections of the rules. Characters are defined by the following categories of detail: Attributes, Dice Pools, Traits, Wounds, Skill Trees, Backgrounds, Relationships, Story Attributes, Abilities, and Advancement.

Attributes

Attributes define essentially all of the concrete/visible details about the character. Some attributes are relevant to mechanics, others are simply there to help define the character for other players.

Basic Profile Information
Height, Weight, Age, Eyes, Hair, Scars etc. These are the basic details that help describe the image of the character to players.

Visible Range
Used primarily for ranged combat and is defined by the maximum range the character can accurately identify an object roughly the size of a watermellon. (Average of 100 meters)

Size
The base size of your character (10 is human average), the following chart lists the sizes for different creatures.

• Size 1 = Mouse (<1kg)
• Size 2 = Rat (1-2kg)
• Size 3 = Cat (2-5kg)
• Size 4 = Human Baby (5-9kg)
• Size 5 = Human toddler (9-14kg)
• Size 6 = Young human child (14-20kg)
• Size 7 = Average Dog (20-30kg)
• Size 8 = Human child (30-45kg)/Midget
• Size 9 = Human Teenager (45-60kg)
• Size 10 = Average Human (60-80kg)
• Size 11 = Above Average Human (80-110kg)
• Size 12 = Large Human (110-150kg)
• Size 13 = Giant Human (150-200kg)
• Size 14 = Lion (200-300kg)
• Size 15 = Tiger (300-450kg)
• Size 16 = Bear (450-700kg)
• Size 17 = Cow (700-1000kg)
• Size 18 = Rhino (1000-2000kg)
• Size 19 = Elephant (2000-5000kg)
• Size 20 = Dinosaur (5000kg+)

Speed
Speed is defined as the distance (in meters) the character can move while walking in six ticks (3 seconds). (Average of 5).

Resilience
This attribute essentially defines how tough the character is. Mechanically it represents how much damage from every hit taken that can be deflected into the Glancing Damage Chart. Also dictates how many permanent wounds a character can absorb before they begin to die. (Average of 4)

Grit
Grit represents Social/Mental Resilience and is used to determine how naturally resistant the character is to social and mental influences. (Average of 1-2).

Blend
How easily identifiable the character is, how much they stand out. This value varies wildly based on culture and behavior patterns.

Disposition
The character's default social disposition. This attribute is used to determine first impressions.

Dice Pools

The dice pools are used as the basis for nearly every skill roll in Fatewalker and as such are pretty important. The average dice pool is 6-8.

Awareness
Awareness vaguely represents mental acuity and alertness. It serves as the pool for most social and perception actions.

Prowess
Prowess represents how efficiently a character can effect any given physical action. It serves as the pool for nearly all physical actions.

Focus
Focus is the pool for nearly all reason, memory, and understanding actions.

Traits

Traits are a series of unique characteristics that help mechanically define a character. There exist two general categories of Traits, general and special. General traits work on a simple rule, they add their current rating to any dice rolls that fall within their purview. General traits are not allowed to be overly-generic and should not refer to any specific physical activity. Finally general traits are not allowed to affect combat rolls. Special traits can do all of the above, however the scope in which they add dice (or do other things) has to be very narrow. The complete list of traits can be found here.

Wounds

The wound chart is broken down into several distinct sections, each defining a different type of wound the character has or will take.

Temporary Wounds
The temporary wound chart is dominated by a large empty space where the player is welcome to use any mechanism they please to keep track of temporary wounds. Chicken scratches seems to be the most common choice but any mechanism from dice to shiny rocks to binary seems appropriate. The only thing that's interesting here is the upper left hand box labelled Max. Max represents how many temporary wounds a character can take before they run out and must only take normal wounds. The base value for Max is Size + Resilience.

Normal Wounds
The normal wound chart is represented by the giant, thinly traced grid in the center of the wound section. The player is expected to outline the wound boxes available to their character with a pen or marker and then track wounds within these as they come. There are two flavors of wounds, Stun and Physical, both outlined in the Damage and Wounds section of Dramatic Scenes. Characters begin play with a base number of wound boxes equal to Size + (Total CP put into Reslience).

Mortal Wounds
The mortal wound chart looks strikingly similar to the temporary wound chart (hint: They're identical). As with temporary Wounds the base value for the Max box is Size + Resilience.

Wound Effects
This section at the bottom of the wound chart is reserved for players to list out any concrete effects of the abstract chart above. For instance if the player is blinded in one eye (presumably until they are fully healed) or has a broken ankle or anything else requiring special handling. This is an entirely optional section left open for creative yet sadistic GM's to fill with agony and broken dreams.

Skill Trees

There are 8 primary skill trees (Vigor, Weaponry, Primitive, Criminal, Internal, Interpersonal, Society, and Technology) and 3 secondary skill trees (Knowledge, Anthropology, Artisan). Each tree has a Root (listed above), three Branches, and any number of Leaves (also referred to as specializations). A character’s skill for a given action is defined by the total number of dots in the Root + Branch + applicable Leaf. In general practice the GM will call out a given Branch for a given action and it's up the to the player to petition for the use of a given Leaf. Skill trees are advanced by spending character points and as such the only functional difference between primary and secondary trees are the character point costs to raise them (secondary trees are half cost).

In addition to the trees there exist a handful of Special Skills that are outside of the 11 core skill trees. These represent highly specialized fields of knowledge and mechanically allow the character to leverage core skill trees to perform actions. Finally magic users have separate skill trees for the various disciplines they employ.

The entire forest of skill trees and categorical skills can be found here.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds function very similarly to Traits in that they help to uniquely define a character, however they are at best mechanically ambiguous. As such instead of being Character Point based (as traits are), they are Story Point based. They come in many forms, some being attached to the character's various lifepaths and others simply defining important story aspects of the character. The complete list of backgrounds can be found here.

Relationships

Relationships function as a highly specialized type of Background and are used to define the specific people or groups of people the character is affiliated with. Relationships come in many shapes and sizes and it can be as important for the character to track who they like as who dislikes them. Relationships are fluid things and often can and should evolve through play so they can serve as a key part of the character's story.

Story Attributes

Story attributes represent the values that have mechanical purpose but are also a large part of the character's personal story. They say as much about who the character is as what they can do.

Theme
There are 6 core themes (with variants): The Destroyer, The Noble, The Architect, The Master, The Protector, The Adventurer. Theme is tied directly to Fate and Fate Powers and is a critical part of the character's personal story.

Status
Status represents how important the character is in the world and is a key mechanic of many social interactions. Depending on the audience status can be either bane or boon. Status comes in two flavors, global status (as defined by the overarching culture of the game world), and scene status (as defined by the current scene the character is interacting with).

Presence
Presence represents how much verve the character has. It is the unmistakable mark of experience and toil, completely unrelated to any other social factors. It affects everyone around them in subtle ways and players can use influence to impress, intimidate, persuade, or convince others ... even those who have never met them and know nothing about them. Unlike Will or Fate, Presence isn’t a pool that is spent to activate abilities. Instead Presence simply affects disposition rolls in social situations, adding its value to a players dice pools whenever they are rolling to Impress, Intimidate, or Project to others. This is not something the players can choose to turn off, the stain of experience affects them and others take notice and sense it and are usually attracted to it. The downside is that Presence can have a negative effect on attempts to blend in.

Will
Will represents how hardened a character is, how hard they can work towards a goal or objective before they break. Players spend points of will on a daily basis (or during combat) and recover it by resting or taking downtime. As with most other charts, the Will chart can be filled in two ways (use '/' and 'X' marks), the second state is called Exhaustion. When a character runs entirely out of Will (all available boxes completely fill with Exhaustion), they essentially collapse. More on Will can be found in the Abilities and Powers section.

Fate
Fate represents how much the universe loves the character and how much control they have over this. Players spend points of Fate to either undo unfortunate circumstances or to activate powerful, thematic abilities. As with Will, spending Fate can result in two different forms of expenditure (use '/' and 'X'), the second state is called Apathy. When a character completely fills up with Apathy they go into a fugue state that can result in total character self destruction. More on Fate can be found in the Abilities and Powers section.

Personal Objective
Each character will always have a secret personal objective (while there is space on the character sheet for it we recommend players don't fill it in). This will define a secret story arc for a character that will help explain their motivations. Completing or failing personal objectives will allow for major advances in story-attributes.

Immediate Goals
Each character will have at least one secret immediate goal. This has to be something the character can accomplish within 1-3 sessions. If they succeed they get a moderate bonus to story points.

Abilities

In addition to the abstract abilities a character is granted through the combination of skills and attributes they are also able to earn and learn powerful and unique abilities that offer specific effects. All Fate and Will powers fall into this category as do other unique abilities that can be picked up along the way. Abilities can be thought of as magical powers unique to the character. They are covered in detail in the Abilities and Powers section.

Advancement

In Fatewalker there are four vehicles players have to advance their characters.

Character Points
These are simply earned by participating and are the primary mechanism players will use to advance the standard attributes and skills of their character

Learning Points
These are earned from lessons learned during play and from effort and training put forth during downtime. Learning points convert directly to Character Points.

Story Points
These are awarded per session as well based on a variety of factors dealing with effort put forth to be creative, in character, or dramatic. Story points are primarily used to modify the more esoteric parts of one’s character.

Objective Points
These are earned when completing personal objectives and when the group completes a story. These are used to make major personal advances and are the most powerful currency in Fatewalker.