Characters & Points

Real life is full of times when clearly the number of character points we have affects the outcome of what we are doing. Wouldn’t it be so much better if we actually knew what our attributes were?

The trouble is, we don’t. Unless we actually undertake the act, we never know ahead of time, if we would have been good enough to manage it.

I like to carry this forward into the game world – which means that while there clearly are points involved in the game, the players are mostly not going to be aware of them.

The other clearly obvious fact from real life, is that not everyone has the same number of character points. When you look at the little kids in a kindergarten class it becomes obvious that people don’t even start out with the same number of character points. Well – Aurellis is a bit the same way. Not everyone will have the same number of points. Don’t worry about it. Points don’t matter.

The objective in Aurellis is to play the character and have fun. React to the events around you – try things – pick things up – learn things. Don’t spend time worrying if you have enough points to afford to do something in game. Similarly, if something seems like a really stupid thing to try, and all around you advise you can’t do it, then perhaps it might be better if you didn’t try it – common sense is all we have in real life to work out if we have enough points to succeed at something. Remember – points don’t matter.

The initial creation of characters mostly takes place using a quiz. There is a part of the quiz where you get to give me an indication of where the character’s attributes lie on a sliding scale of really bad through to really good. Equally, the skills of characters are also measured on a scale of really bad through to really good. Here’s a clue – really bad ratings are actually negative scores in things, and really good ratings are positive scores. But remember – points don’t matter.

There are also a few of the questions that will help me decide whether your character has some ‘out of the ordinary’ powers or abilities. Just answer the questions how you would like the character to be, and it’ll all work out in the end. Remember – points don’t matter.

Mostly, the game starts out in the real world. But the real world is a much stranger place that ever was previously believed…