HOW TO CREATE YOUR CHARACTER

[Atlas]

Alright, so you came to XL and saw the Arena. Upon clicking around or just being arsed into doing it, you've decided to join the Arena. There's a problem though. You have absolutely no idea what you are doing.

That's where I come in. I'm Atlas, the Global Mod of XL and also the Overseer of the Arena(there's also Eilorae). I'll be getting you through the first few steps in how to work the Arena, and then promptly coming up with ways to kill you in your adventures.

This section will offer you from the first second a step-by-step guide on how to get your character ready to go.

First off, let's take a look at the totally completed character sheet.

Completed Character:

NOW HOLD UP! Don't think I can't see you running away scared at all the tables.

The above posted is the COMPLETED character sheet. That means after I tinker with it to make it nice and purty for when it needs to be combed through. What I'm going to ask out of you is going to be much simpler and much easier to put into a post.

Alright, let's start:

Step 1) Copy the format.

Open up a Word document, Notepad, or just your about to be created character thread and copy + paste this:

(insert picture)
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Height:

Background:

Description:

Class:

Weapon:

Skills:

Talents:

Traits:

Additional Notes:

These are the fields you are going to be responsible for in character creation. It's very simple and a lot easier to write than table code.

Step 2) Fill in the roleplay categories.

There are two types of categories on a character; roleplay and gameplay. The former is used in the parts of the game when you aren't in combat, and the latter is when you are. As a side effect, roleplay has absolutely no numbers so you'll be fine.

a)First, there's the (insert picture).
I want you to find two pictures of what your character looks like. One picture will be for your Earth appearance, and the other will be for your Lyoko appearance. No, the two pictures will not have to be of the same person. What they do need to do however is to be reasonably sized. There's no specific size so it's on a case by case basis, but if I don't like it I will pm you and remove that picture until you find a more suitable one.

Once you have found the two pictures, just list their urls there. You should have something like:
http://th07.deviantart.net/fs10/150/i/2006/111/f/f/Turd_Burglar_by_tvskyle.jpg (<- this was the first)
http://www.gamasutra.com/db_area/images/news2001/23568/thiefthree.jpg (<- this was the second)

b) Name, Age, Gender and Height

All entirely up to you though I'll veto anything too ridiculous. There'll be no 15609 year old, 7'11" hermaphrodites named Charles von Bitterbottom in the Arena.

For Percival I put:
Name: Percival TurdBurglar (<- about as ridiculous as I'll go btw)
Age: 48 (<- 12 is floor. I accept basically any age within human lifespan. Might be fun to rp a 60 year old with a group of kids.)
Gender: M (<- you can use letters, full terms ie male or female, or the symbols if you prefer)
Height:5'3" (<- feet, then inches. If you use metric I'll grumble a bit but that's fine too.)

c)Background

This is the section where you detail what kind of life your character has been on until the Arena. While there's no right or wrong answers, there are good and bad things that will help you out in roleplaying with a good background.

Good:
-Answering the whys, whats and hows. Why does your character help with Lyoko? What does your character want to do? etc etc

-Putting in ~1-3 events in your life will help when trying to have basic discussions. For example, in Percival I mentioned that his dad was a master thief. That's something that could be interesting in roleplaying.

-"What does your character do when he/she's not blowing up monsters?" Hobbies, school life, family etc etc.

Bad:
-Retconning. This is sort of an original sin in that everyone seems to do it, but I'll ask that you keep it very minimal. I'll allow a little bit of it, but about the closest I'll let you get to the original series is being in Kadic at the time the original LWs were, and maybe being close to a side character of the series. (ie best friends with Emily or something like that.) This is set after Season 4 and I'd like the number of kids who were best friends with the Schaeffer family to be kept to a minimum.

-Mary Sue tendencies. For those that don't know a Mary Sue is generically classified as a character who comes across as absolutely flawless and seemingly overly talented. It's very easy to fall into this trap, but just remember that there are no superheroes in Code Lyoko and that your character will actually be better off with some flaws. For example, Percival could very easily have been Mary Sued, but I kept how awesome of a thief he was to a minimum and as you probably detected in the writing he's kind of a self-absorbed schmuck. My other character George is very Sueable as well, but it's balanced with him not being overly talented and having the temperament of your racist Korean War vet neighbor seeing your lawn being cut by the Orientals you hired.

-Creating your background on the basis of getting bonuses in game. A rare case, but I've seen it. Your background and your actual stats are divorced from each other. So when you get a roll that is just barely not high enough, don't turn around and say "But my character spent 10 years in a Shaolin monastery! He should be able to punch through that monster's chest!". While it does make a sort of sense, this invites very munchkin-like gameplay and encourages Mary Sue behavior. So if you want to have your stats and your background match, good on you. Just don't make it solely because you want extra attack power or something.

d)Description:

This is a supplement to your pictures. It's used to describe any features on your character that aren't seen/seen well in the pictures or any details you would like to change on it.

e)Traits:

Leave it blank for now, but when you post the character sheet I'll tell you what traits you are eligible for on your first level. The first trait is based off your background, but the rest of them will be decided by your character's actions. For more info on Traits, visit the "Traits" section in the Index.

Step 3)Fill in the gameplay categories.

These categories do deal with some numbers, so bear with me. They're all whole numbers though so don't worry.

a)Class
There are six classes you can play as in the Arena and two specialties in each class. You can find all the relevant info under the "Class Info" sections in the Index of the Arena. I'll need you to list your class and the specialty you pick.

Percival went Assassin -> Thief, but there's up to twelve combinations like Reaver -> Commander, Ranger -> Hunter etc etc

b)Weapon

Before you start, be familiar with how the weapons stats work. You will find that in the "Weapons" section of the Index.
For weapons, first copy and paste this into that category:

Name
Type/Range

Damage:
Precision:
Balance:
Effect:

After that, think of what weapon you want to use. Daggers, Axes, Swords, whatever. As long as your class supports the probably range of your weapon anything will do. The ranges each Class supports is listed in their Class info.

After deciding just what kind of weapon you want, fill in the name and type/range of it.

With that done, add in the appropriate number of points into either Damage, Precision or Balance and leaving the Effect area blank.

c)Skills:

Be familiar with how skills work. Consult the "Skills" section of the Index if need be.

Your character starts with three skills. One is your class ignition skill, the other is your class skill and the third is your entirely unique one. I only need the unique skill. For that, copy and paste this format:

Name
Range and Type of Target (only one, multiple (<- and how many))

Effect:
Cost:
Casttime:
Cooldown:

Fill in the appropriate sections, and I will go through it and iron out any problems. If you have no idea how to put it in, just describe to me what you want to do in the effect section instead and leave all the numbers blank.

d)Talents:

At level 1, each character has access to one of two talents. Simply tell me which one you want. For Percival, he chose between Thief's Guile and Scoundrel's Luck.

e)Additional Notes:
In this section, you'll be telling me where you want your starting points to go towards. You get 3 Primary points and 6 secondary points. Just tell me where you want them to go.
-------------

At the end of all this you should be sending me something that looks like this:

Sent Character:

[Atlas]

Post in this topic with any further questions.

[VGCats_Rocks]

For current characters, do we update the post, or just make an new thread?

[No.1JerlitaFan]

I've been updating my post, that has been working out for me. But I would get the opinion of one of the actual admins since i'm just sort of clueless. xD

[Atlas]

For current characters, do we update the post, or just make an new thread?

You can either start from scratch or I'll do my best to convert them to th new format. Same thread would be nice.

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