Charts for Randomly Creating a Character

[Aaron der Schaedel]

Hoi, Aaron der Schaedel here. Some of you might remember me as being that guy that made a review for OVA on Youtube.

That's not exactly what I'm here to show you all, though -- you probably don't need to see that if you're here, since you're likely already a fan of the game. (That's also not the title of this thread.)

What I am here to show you is a set of charts I made. (Click here)

Their intention is that they can be used to come up with a completely random character, or used to randomize just part of a character.

You roll two dice, and read the results to determine what weakness or ability it refers to. I added a few other notes on the charts for making a character completely at random, but you can feel free to ignore those.

And for those interested in seeing the charts in action...

https://youtu.be/zluJjDoMkuo

[Clay]

I tend to lean towards games with point-buy character creation, but I admit there is something amazingly fun about randomness—it’s also a lot less taxing on the brain when the game makes decisions for you. It was certainly fun to see a character come together on your YouTube completely through chance!

Something I’ve picked up from Japanese tabletop RPGs is the “d66” chart. Instead of adding results (as is common with d6s) you read them like you do percentile dice. (ie, a 3 and a 6 would give you “36”.) I think this would give you an ability to cover large swaths of data without leaving the standard cubes behind. (This was a result of the fact polyhedral dice are simply MUCH HARDER to get a hold of in Japan.)

Likewise, you can accomplish Levels in a similar fashion. For Abilities, 1-5 is your Level, 6 is a reroll. Weaknesses just divide you result in half (eg, 1–2, 1; 3–4, 2; 5–6, 3)

…Of course there’s no reason you can’t use a variety of dice, it just strikes me as a good idea to use the same dice as the game itself. Keep up the good work!

[sniffycrab]

Why is it titled I hate pumpkins?

[Aaron der Schaedel]

LOL LATE REPLY

Clay:
Randomized character videos for my channel are more successful than I expected, so I'm making those a monthly feature. (OVA being one of the ones people want to see more of!)

To that end, I'm re-writing the charts. I took up a new design when I made my random Ryuutama charts, and I'm applying that new design to these.

And I'm also re-numbering everything so that it'll be able to work with d6s -- it's probably going to wind up more like HERO System 5e's system for randomizing what kind of powers you get in the Champions sourcebook.

That is, it uses d6s to generate 2's and 3's as well.

d666 can easily cover up to 216 options if used the way you described, but there's only 79 weaknesses and 56 abilities: that leaves a LOT of empty options on the chart!

d66 on the other hand only covers 36 options, which is CLOSER to what we'd need, but not quite! So my plan is to use a combination of d66 with yet another d6 for 2s and 3s. (Which minimizes the amount of empty options I need to fill.)

sniffycrab:
Probably the same reason that Vincent Baker's website (link) is titled "anyway."

[Aaron der Schaedel]

As I said I would, I updated the charts. (link)

They use 3d6 now, but some of the charts are a little bit more confusing looking than I'd like, due to how the amount of possible outcomes increases whenever you add and extra dice.

A 2d6 gives you 36 outcomes, while a 3d6 gives you 216. With that in mind, I had to get a little creative with the ways a d6 can be used, which lead to it requiring an additional page at the onset, as well as there being quite a few opportunities to re-roll.

Also, for anybody interested, I also demonstrate how to use them. (link)