Making a Character

Trust me, its actually fairly easy and fun, and building the character is effectively doing all the hard work at the beginning, allowing play to be much simpler.

Concept
First come up with an idea of your character - just like in D&D, but don't think of classes, you are more free here.

Points and Improving Your Character
Next understand that instead of Levels and Experience, everything is bought with Points.

• You start with a budget of points, usually 100-200 or so, as well as some more given for taking Disadvantages (things that are bad for you, but essentially reward you for roleplaying). GM see Power Levels of Character Points Examples for reference.

Attributes & Skills (The Basic Stats)

• Attributes cost more than skills, but affect a wide spectrum. These can be improved over time.
• Skills cost much less and represent the specific things you are good at - nearly anything. You can improve these over time if you practice them and invest points into them.

Advantages
Advantages are more specific abilities/traits or innate abilities/traits that you start with and often cannot learn and/or improve (usually).

• Advantages like Combat Reflexes, Magery, High Pain Threshold, etc. really help with your character's style and often survivability.
• These cover all sorts of things, like your Wealth, what Friends, Allies or Patrons might help out, Social Standing, even Looks! As well as special abilities like magic, psionics, strange blessings, super powers, etc.

Disadvantages
Disadvantages are the opposite of Advantages, but gain you more points to spend! (up to a limit, usually around 50 or so).

• These can be used in super fun ways like a blind fighter who works to overcome his blindness, or a character with an enemy who is hunting them down, a hero with a dark curse or destiny, etc!

Perks & Quirks (Minor Buffs)
Lastly there are Perks(positive) and Quirks(negative) (minor 1 point things, you can get 5 of each - effectively mini Advantages or Disadvantages).

And that's pretty much it!
Keep in mind your GM will likely help walk you through it, or possibly even convert your character idea into reality with/for you.

Species Bonuses and Negatives
Keep in mind here that you can play as another species other than human, but they come as Templates: effectively you pay their price and gain their pre-selected Advantages, Disadvantages and sometimes Skills.

Realism: Keep in Mind
This game is balanced to be more realistic, HP does not go up drastically, meaning a well-placed or lucky pitchfork jab from a farmer could be enough to really put you in a dangerous place!

Further Customization

• Obviously things like choosing Spells is a bit more work.
• Many Advantages can be adjusted to be cheaper for points with Limitations, or more expensive with Enhancements.
• Techniques can be used to show particular focus with a specific part of a skill - these cost less than the base skill, but are much more specialized (eg. A Decapitating Technique with Broadswords).
• This game can be simple, basic and light, but also allows for added depth and complexity if desired - all well balanced and realistic across the board!