Step Seven: Finishing Touches
The character gains:
One value
+1 to two attributes
+1 to two departments
One talent
One or more pastimes
Adjust attributes and departments that go above the maximum ratings for each.
Record derived ratings—Stress and bonus damage, if any—plus the character’s name, pronouns, rank, character role, department, and starting equipment.
At this stage, the character is almost complete, and needs a few final elements and adjustments. This serves as a last chance to customize the character before play and cannot not be completed randomly.
Value
The character receives one final value. This might reflect the Career Events from Step Six, or it may represent some other element of the character. It may be a relationship, connecting the character to another character in the crew, or to another organization or culture in some way. If you have other values you haven’t chosen from earlier steps, you should also choose them here.
Attributes
A character may not have any attributes above 12, and may not have more than one attribute at 12 (if the character has the Untapped Potential talent, from Step Five, they may not have any attributes above 11 instead). For any attribute with a rating above those limits, reduce it until it is within the limit. For each point reduced on an attribute, increase another attribute by 1, though the limits noted above must still be obeyed.
Once this has been completed, the character may then increase two attributes by 1 each; again, the normal limits apply.
Departments
A character may not have any department ratings above 5, and they may not have more than one department at 5 (if the character has the Untapped Potential talent, from Step Five, they may not have any departments above 4 instead). For any department which has a rating above and those limits, reduce it until it is within the limit. For each point reduced on a department, increase another department by 1, though the limits noted above must still be obeyed.
Once this has been done, the character may then increase two departments by 1 each; again, the normal limits apply.
Focuses
A character should have six focuses, plus any additional ones granted by species or talents, prior to this stage.
Talents
You should have chosen three talents by this stage. Any talents which you’re permitted to take, but which you haven’t selected yet, choose them now.
In addition, you may now select one extra talent, bringing you to a total of four.
Final Details
Finally, there are a few other things that need to be determined:
FINAL CHECK: The character’s attributes, added together, should add up to 56. The character’s departments added together should add up to 16. The character should have a species ability, four values, four talents, and six focuses.
PERSONAL DETAILS: Choose the character’s name and age and decide on a rough description of the character’s personality and appearance, if this hasn’t been done already.
PASTIME: You may select a pastime (see sidebar opposite), which represents a hobby or passion the character enjoys when not on duty. This should only be useful occasionally, but it can be a fun roleplaying prompt.
ROLE: This should be done with the rest of the group and is described in more detail on page 135. Your role grants you a Role Benefit. If the character is Starfleet or military, you’ll also have your rank determined here.
EQUIPMENT: The character receives a communicator and additional equipment described on page 141.
Once these final details have been resolved, the character is complete!
Personal Details
This step is about turning the choices and numbers of the lifepath into a person, whose story can be explored as the game progresses.
NAME
Every character needs a name. This can be anything, though it’s probably best to avoid anything that would break the mood of the game. A character’s name reflects their culture—different species and cultures have different conventions for how they give names, and many cultures ascribe traditional meanings to names, or require that a name take a certain form. For alien characters, the name may fit their species—and some guidance for that is provided here—while for Human characters, their name should be reflective of their culture and upbringing. In any case, it’s better to give a character an original name, rather than adopt one from another source, as it’s likely to be less distracting to the other players.
As cultures intermingle and influence one another, approaches to naming evolve, and characters may have several names for different purposes, or different versions of their name.
The species entries (beginning on page 100) provide a rough overview of each species’ naming conventions, sample names, as well as examples of complete names where the species has unusual naming conventions.
PERSONALITY
Once the players have an idea of what their characters are like, and have thought about what experiences and career choices have shaped their life to date, consider what sort of personality the character has. Are they grumpy, by-the-book? Adventuresome? Wise? Thoughtful? Tired of routine? Calm? Even choosing a few adjectives like this can help lock down the personality of a character. It doesn’t mean they’re always like this—the crewmembers should be three-dimensional, complex characters that make the game more exciting. Characters can evolve and change over time, but it’s good to have an idea of how the character will behave from the start.
A character’s values are a good basis for a character’s personality, and vice versa. If a player has had difficulty devising any of their character’s values during character creation, this is a good opportunity to consider them.
APPEARANCE
What does the character look like? A character’s species will give you some idea of what features they will have, but the finer points such as their build, height, or any distinguishing features will give the players something to picture when thinking of their characters. Are they distinctive or average-looking? Do they have any habits, or behavior quirks? It’s often useful to give characters some sort of visual description.
Given Star Trek’s history on television and in movies, it may even be useful for players to think of an actor or actress who they could imagine portraying that character. This can help both with the character’s appearance, and with other details like their voice and mannerisms, which can all provide inspiration for a player.
RELATIONSHIPS
While a character’s values may define some of their relationships, life aboard a starship on a continuing mission of exploration places many people in a confined space for long periods of time. Consider the character’s family relationships: where are the rest of their family? Do they have a spouse or partner (or multiples) aboard the ship? Is the character in contact with the rest of their family regularly, and how did they respond to the character being assigned to a mission in deep space?
What about the people around the character? How do the main characters get on with one another? How does the character regard the rest of the crew, and how are they regarded by them? Is the character close friends with anyone else on board, relaxing with them when off-duty? Does the character have any enemies or rivals?
A character may have relationships to organizations, institutions, or even cultures as well. How does the character regard Starfleet? How do they relate to their own culture? Do they have positive or negative experiences with a foreign culture or institution?
These details can make the interaction between the characters more interesting and add more depth to the character. Like a character’s personality, a character’s relationships can—and should—evolve over time, and some relationships may become so strong (whether friendly or adversarial) that they can become values for the character.
PASTIMES
At the end of character creation, you may select a pastime which represents a hobby or passion, something reflecting what the character enjoys doing in their spare time, or which the character is interested in but which isn’t really related to their day-to-day activities or their duties.
These pastimes are unlikely to be used during ordinary gameplay—it’s rare for an adventure to hinge upon a character being an expert kadis-kot player, or a fan of 20th century Earth literature—but they can help flesh out a character and their personality and give a sense of what they do when off-duty.
If they do become relevant to a task being attempted, the gamemaster is encouraged to reward this unusual occurrence by letting the player use the pastime as a focus, connected to whichever department seems appropriate: the actual choice matters less than allowing the character to use the pastime on something they’re passionate about.
Characters may gain or change pastimes as the players sees fit; even in the enlightened future displayed in Star Trek, people pursue hobbies and then often let them go in favor of other interests over time. There is almost no limit to the variety of things which could be counted as pastimes. Suggestions include:
Creative pastimes involve practicing or studying some form of artistic expression. A character might enjoy painting, sculpture, writing fiction, photography or holography, or they may have a fondness for the works of a specific era or culture (or both), such as Vulcan poetry, Andorian expressionist painters, or Cardassian enigma tales, and may collect examples of those works to admire.
Crafts are like creative pastimes but tend to involve making things which have a practical use. Even in an age of replicators, characters often enjoy the practical act of making something. Cooking is an example of this, but carpentry, fashion design, holo-programming, or similar are all options. Many an engineer or pilot has grown up building model spaceships or tinkering with computers and other machines.
Knowledge is often the simple joy of discovering things and expanding one’s understanding of the universe. Many characters may have a love of learning and spend their spare time reading up on history or a specific field of scientific inquiry. This can often overlap with a character’s more job-related focuses, and something a character enjoyed doing during their formative years may lead them into a career pursuing these hobbies. Still, many characters have an interest in learning about topics unrelated to their duties.
Performance pastimes are similar to creative ones, but often involve an audience as well. A character may play a musical instrument such as a trombone, clarinet, or Vulcan lute, or they might sing, practice some form of dance, or they may be a fan of theater, whether writing, directing, or acting. Similarly, a character might find enjoyment in specific genres of performance art from various cultures and eras, such as the plays of Shakespeare, Klingon opera, or Andorian blues, and enjoy recordings of classic performances rather than performing themselves.
Self-improvement covers a character’s desire to better themselves and to test their own physical and mental limits. This can cover things like meditation, but also physical fitness, whether in general terms, or in more specific activities such as swimming, distance running, climbing, and skydiving. It can also cover activities such as horseback riding, wilderness survival, and camping.
Sports and games are common pastimes in many cultures, and a character may spend much of their spare time playing and mastering them. This can include strategic board games, like chess (2D or 3D), kadis-kot, the Vulcan game kal-toh, or games of chance and skill like poker, dabo, the Ferengi game tongo, chula, or the Klingon game t’Sang. It can also include physical sports such as baseball, water polo, or ice hockey, all originating from Earth though finding popularity elsewhere. This can also include competitive martial arts, but characters who practice a martial art as a sport are also likely to be able to use it in a real fight (and would likely have it as a focus).