Writing a character, part 2: picking your skills

The second post in the series ‘how to create a character’. This week we will be focusing on how to pick your skills. This is actually very easy so this post will be a short one.
Good luck with choosing your skills! Alexjuh

After you’ve written your background it’s very easy to choose your skills. There are certain steps to make depending on the rules.

First of all, choosing your skills when you are going to a LARP where the races, classes and skills are set.
When you follow the guidelines described in the rules you’ll find that you get skills from your race. These skills depend on the race you’ve chosen.

For example: when playing an elf you could get more Skill Points to spend but les Health Points. Playing an orc you could give you more Health Points. Each race will have it’s own pro’s and con’s.

When you look at your class you either get pre-set skills or you have to pick a number from a list of skills. When you’ve received the skills from your race and class, you can also receive a number of skills or Skill Points to spend.

The second possibility is that you are going to a LARP event where you are free to choose your skills no matter what race or class you have chosen. You’ll get a certain number of skills or Skill Points to spend.

Time to pick your skills. It is easy to copy the list of skills in a Word document so you can delete or mark skills you won’t be buying.

1. First of all make sure a skill is viable. Some skills are locked because of your race or class, or sometimes because you need a tutor for a certain skill.
2. Rule out the skills that are too expensive to buy. Of course you can save your Skill Points so you eventually can buy a skills, but make sure how much Skill Points you earn each event. When you only have 10 Skill Points to spend and you want a skill that costs 25 Skill Points but it will take you 5 years to earn enough Skill Points to buy it, you might consider whether it’s worth it or nit.
3. Then look at the remaining skills and select those that fit your character. Of course there are skills that you like because they are cool or very useful but don’t fit you character; don’t rule them out yet because maybe you can choose them if you have some Skill Points left.
4. Now pick the skills that you like AND befit your character.
5. When you have Skill Points left chose some skills that can come in useful but still keep in mind whether those skills befit your character. You can also chose to save those Skill Points. At this stadium you’ll find yourself playing with possibilities. For example: when playing a warrior you probably have picked armour and weapon skills. You can pick a healing skill because out on the battlefield it can be logical that a warrior can apply a bandage when wounded. But you can also choose a magical skill related to fighting such as a disarm-spell or a strength-spell.

When you have spent all of your Skill Points you are ready to create/buy/borrow a costume. Maybe there are some skills you’d like to buy in the future; you can put these in your character document so you won’t forget them.
When you’ve been to an event and survived, you’ll earn more Skill Points. Just follow the steps above again to pick your new skills.
When you need a tutor for a skill you want, search one in-game. But also when a skill doesn’t require a tutor, you can search for one. It gives you something to do at the event and sometimes you can even buy the skills cheaper when this occurs.

Picking skills can be fun but it can also drive you crazy. It will always be a mixture of what is possible, what fits my character and what is useful? If you get stuck, ask people to help you; whether these are friends or people from the organization of the event.

Special mention for this entry: Doomsday General. Thank you for reading the first draft and helping with translation, grammar and filtering out little mistakes.

Next week’s entry: Additives to previous posts.

Click here for the previous post: Writing a character, part 1: writing a background.

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Dit artikel is oorspronkelijk gepost op Alexandra’s blog (6 januari 2014) en is opnieuw beschikbaar gesteld voor LARP Platform.

Alexandra is momenteel actief met het organiseren van Dark Union, een unieke bad guy LARP in Nederland. Daarnaast is ze heel creatief meer leerbewerken onder handelsnaam Layers.