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Cyro Xero

Rune Mage

Rave Atom








Since: 02-23-05
From: Minnesota!!

Since last post: 2598 days
Last activity: 2511 days
Posted on 03-02-05 10:48 AM Link | Quote
Create-A-Character Guide
by Cyro Xero

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Hello. It's good to see that you've taken an interest in creating a character for sim battling or RPing. If not, then you're at least interested in reading this. Maybe you might be inspired to make one after going through this guide. In any case let's get started.

For some people who participate in a simbattle or RP using themselves as a character with out any special skills or abilities is sometimes common, and comfortable for them. They're maybe trying out the "game" just to see what it's like and get a feel for how things work. Or, they may simply be in it and not have an interest in character development. Then there are the majority of participants who do have character development. Those are the people who enjoy creativity and the imaginary realms of sim battles and RPs and characters, creating and improving fantasy warriors with unique stats, skills and equipment. As you see on the different boards, which harbor these forums, some characters are good, some could use a bit of work.

Never created a character before but would like to try? Easy. This guide will help you create a character, a good character. Steps provide examples and will insure you don't make something too weak, or something cheap that no one will want to fight. Already in the business, but want to find ways to improve your stats and fighting skills? No problem. Observation in the past and experience will provide tips on improving both your creativity in character development and realism. With a little work on your part you will soon have a character(s) that is fun to fight and worthy of admiration by others. Literally.



Step 1: Character Ideas

This is the very core of your characters. What you come up with here will alter the outcome of who the character is. What the name is. What the person can or can't do. What the person is strong, or weak against. If you're not careful, or just don't care (in which case you probably shouldn't make one in the first place) you could end up making somebody who sucks. And no one wants to have a sucky character, right? Not unless it's being used for RP purposes. Before you make a character, and some people probably already do this, it's a good idea to come up with a certain theme for him/her/it. What type of person interests you? Do you find a holy priest-like character to be cool? Or do you fancy someone who is a barbarian with the ability to run faster than the wind? A martial arts master? Is he from the future? The past? Another planet? Does the character have to be strong? Can you make him weak with certain defensive stats? Are their certain attacks you want it to have? It all depends on your taste. Sometimes characters are based off pictures on the Internet, games and other visual objects. Sometimes even music and blank stares. Usually, people base their characters off magic elementals, and doing this can be of a lot of help in development. Elemental based characters eliminate longer thinking, because the character has a theme. It's already formed a certain way. One very common character type that many people use (and sometimes too many) is a badass hellish figure with strong, dark powers. It would seem that many have a thing for Dante from the "Devil May Cry" series. While not exactly a bad thing, it has started, if not already, to become quite a cliche in character creating. If that's what you want to go for then by all means, go for it. This brings us to the next part of character ideas- uniqueness. Why have a character be like everyone else's?

Unless you're making something similar to another person's creation because there aren't many like it that exist or because it's a group thing, making something different is probably better. Have you ever seen that old Arby's commercial from several years ago, the one with the black and white burger factory scenes and that little jingle phrase? "Saaame, Saaame, Same, Same, Same. Arrrbys is different!" Yeah, they were advertising how their burgers/sandwiches were different from what the other fast food restaurants make, whose were essentially the same. That's one thing you should do- make your character advertise that he's different. Unique. Now, that's not to say having a character somewhat similar to a common theme is bad. Having common things can be good too. You just may want to make the person different in a few ways so that he stands out in a large crowd of that type.

Finally, there is a very special question that very few people ever ask themselves when trying to come up with ideas, one that you should definitely think about- Does your character have to be human? Or, an even better question, does you character have to be humanoid? We'll get more into that right now in the next step.
*As an example in this step we'll create a character. This character will be male, from the present time. He has no particular theme to him other than being just your average human sim battler.*


Step 2: Behind the Scenes: The Making Of Your Character

You've gathered some ideas about what your character should be like. Awesome. Now you can begin to form it. Since the last step explained most of the stuff you need to know, this step won't have a whole lot to talk about. As mentioned above, your character doesn't have to be human like everyone else's. It can be something different. There is a member within the Acmlm board community by the name of "hebesphenocorona", or something to that extent. During his time with the old Acmlm board he had a sim battle character called "The SHAPE". This "character” was very unique from the rest because while everyone else had a human or humanoid character his was something totally different. There were none like it. It was sure to be the only non-humanoid battle character to ever exist at an Acmlm board at the time, and probably still is today, if he still uses it. This is a prime example that you do not have to have a human-like character. Sure, some people have dwarves, or elves or futuristic people, but they're all humanoid. Another member, Hiei, has a monster-like alien for a character. The member Zerodius has a Pikachu name "Ex". The only limitation is your imagination during character creation. ....Heh, that rhymed. So, with that in mind you should have an even better grasp of what your character should come out to be like. The next thing you'll want to do is define the character's type. Is (he) big, strong, smart or little? Or maybe all of those? That's up to you. You combine your ideas with a certain body type. Of course you may already have this factor covered when thinking of something. Most people do, and it's not in any way a bad thing if you don't. Next comes the details and skills. Just about every character you see will have special powers, and some will even harbor certain physical, or mental, features apparent on or about their bodies. Like a mysterious hole on the left arm, or the ability to absorb partial energy from magic attacks. My character, MES-SBOCC 1, has the ability to cast two spells at one time. That's something you don't really see anywhere. Or maybe you do, but the amount of people who have that idea is pretty scarce. You can have as many details as you want on your character. That is the fun part.

One very important thing to note about forming your character is this: unless you're making a character for RP purposes DO NOT MAKE HIM A SUPREME GOD. Just don't. Not only will people complain about how insanely cheap and boring it is, others will look at you as being a little on the stupid side, as if you were a total newbie. This means no super one-hit-kill attacks, being able to block every offensive action that exists, infinite invincibility and etc. This is called "God-Modding". Most of the time there will be rules set up in a sim battle forum at a board to prevent this, and if anyone violates this particular rule will have their fight deleted and, in very rare cases, become banned from the entire board for prolonged actions. So please don't do it. This guide is here to help make your FUN to fight, remember? God-Modding will be explained later. With that, you should be pretty set. And in fact, you're pretty much done as far as creating goes. All that's left is to dig deeper into the details.
*For our example we will have the character be a young person, in his twenties. A fairly weak guy with an average body frame. He has intelligence, but he's not the smartest guy in the world. He'll have light gray hair, have a scar going diagonally down his chest and another scar on his neck that he got from an accident in the bathroom. Don't ask how it happened. There is also another feature about him, but that will be explained later on.*


Step 3: What's Your Name?

Keep in mind that you do not have to do these steps in this particular order. It will be said right now that some people get their character ideas from anything, be it certain magic elementals, a class, equipment, fighting styles. Heck, even movies. So going through every step in this guide is not necessary if you are able to move ahead.
Getting to the good stuff, this step will help you come up with a name for your character.

Naming you character can be either a simple task, or, depending on how creative you want to be, very time consuming. To many, naming characters can be pretty hard, because they want it to be cool and unique at the same time. Problem is, most of the cool names now days are used a lot. Names can single handedly determine who your character is and what attributes it will have. It is "naming first, then creating" that can bring about the hour-long brainstorm- you have a name in mind and then see if you can create a character based off that word, making changes here and there in your mind. And if it doesn't work out then you're forced to either come up with different name to match the character you've just created or come up with different name all together and start the process over. It may be best to stay away from this approach unless you are able to do it well. Some people are, most probably aren't. However, successfully doing it can bring about a pretty amazing character, so there is some reward for the hard work. For now we'll focus on the "character making, then name" style.

You'll see during your fights and RPs that some people choose to have names that are of a fictional character most of the time from an anime or game. Doing that isn't very creative. You want to be creative, right? Outstanding! So what is your character like? This can make naming him easy. Naming characters based off there elementals seems to be the most common thing to do, and it works great. If you have a fire-based character you could use a name that relates to that particular aspect. Pyro, Firestorm or even "Fire" itself. Or, you could take a creative, but slightly risky approach and pick a name quite opposite from what your character is. "Ice" for example. Doing this could throw a new opponent into thinking, "Oh, his character's name is 'Ice'. So that's means he is ice elemental.", when actually he is fire-based. Bam! You got him there. But, you should be careful when doing this- it may end up sounding stupid. So give it some though first. Still, "Ice" for a fire character is pretty cool, don't you think? If you have a holy character then the name "Astral" is a good one. For a water-based fighter, "Maelstrom" is a good choice. A fantasy name is always a good choice for a sword fighter or any other warrior. Just look one up or make it up yourself. Here's a neat little trick I've done in the past- get a name by reading a word backwards. "Atosennim" is a name that could be used for a character who vaguely seems to be sided with evil. Read that name backwards to see where it was taken from. Other things you can do are scramble the words around in an existing word or name, come up with or use acronyms and abbreviations and even take a bunch of random letters, mix them around and get something out of that. Flipping through a dictionary is an excellent way to bring up tons of name ideas.
*Now, let's name our example character. He doesn't have a magic elemental for himself yet, so we can't go by that. So what about him can we pick a name from? Looking up at the previous example we find that there isn't really anything that could generate a cool name. Let's pick a random one from an object in front our very eyes. This is being typed at a desk, and a stapler is the first thing I see. So our character's name will be "Stapler". Everybody say "hi" to Stapler.*


Step 4: Clothes And Equipment: What to wear?

This is a very staple (pardon the pun) thing to have for your character. In a sense it can even be more important than having a name. Unless you're participating in an RP that doesn't have fighting, how will you fight with no equipment? Of course, there are people who have characters that fight barehanded, and that has to do with the character creation. What clothes your character has should be something you have an idea about already. If not, that's okay. No big deal. You can make him have anything that comes to your mind, and by this it means that you do not have to have a certain wardrobe your character wears, although most do have their characters with a certain set. Generally, you may want to have clothing that set or accent the mood or style of your character. Visualize in your mind what you character looks good in. Jeans with a muscle shirt, black pants with a white shirt, gray overcoat and boots. Try to imagine it vividly. Clothes can also give your character a small amount of personality. For example- a pair of black shades will indicate that a character is the popular "badass" type. Almost always is this true with anyone who wears them. Try to have your clothes match with the type of character you have. After you've picked your characters clothes, think about the possibility of adding any attributes to it. Can it have some sort of enchantment to reduce magical damage? Does that white padded shirt give your character an increase to a certain stat? Do you want the right glove to give its wearer the ability to swing a weapon faster?

For some characters armor is the main defense for their bodies. If you have no interest in armor and have different means that your character can protect himself then you can skip this part. But for those who are then read this.
Armor is usually better than clothes in a few ways. The most obvious is that it provides much better protection than clothes. A second reason is that it can look way cool, and a third is that armor is realistically going to have a better chance of having special powers than clothes. What armor you want to have your character to wear again depends on your imagination. A quick question to ask yourself- does he have to wear full body armor, or can he get by with just a strong vest plate? Remember, to make your character more realistic, think about the weight of what you have it wearing. The full armor will be quite heavy and reduce the character's speed, unless it's made from some special lightweight metal allowing it to be fast at the same time. Please, refrain from having full armor that is super strong, light and has superb defense against both magic and physical attack. No one will like that. On the other hand, having only one or two things on, such as arm guards or the vest plate, will be much lighter. Although it will provide protection to those areas the rest of the body is open, so that evens out the defense and weakness factors together. Another thing to have in mind is the color of the armor. Will it be an opaque color? Transparent? Or will it be like a mirror to reflect bright light into the opponent's eyes?
*So getting back to our character, Stapler. Oops!! Looks like he doesn't have any clothes on right now! No wonder why his face was red._ Why don’t we put a pair of khakis on him to cover his “embarrassment”. There we go, all better. But wait! He has on khakis now. What does that suggest? Does it mean Stapler is a church-going fellow, or is he some kind of computer whiz? Who knows? One way to find out is to fight him. Or, we can wait until the rest of his clothes are put on him. For a shirt he’ll have a blue short-sleeve. Shoes….. those can be brown Dockers for now. Stapler won’t have any armor. So, although he may seem like some kind of office geek, that doesn’t mean he’s not super strong. But in this case we’ve already made him weak. Sorry, Stapler.*

Now what you need is a weapon. Weapons are easy to choose. All you have to do is determine what weapon type your character uses. It could be a spear, axe, gun or, as mentioned earlier, your character can go bare-fisted. If you want to create a special weapon,as many people do, then that will require a bit more creativity. As long as we’re on the subject we can just touch up a bit on that. As most people do for their characters, making a weapon that fits their elemental type is a good choice, but you don’t have to do it that way. Again this is where the option of opposites proposes itself. If you have a character who is dual-lemental then you could have the weapon imbued with the secondary elemental. Like before, you imagination is all that limits you in coming up with one. And again, don’t go making a weapon that is able to destroy all of mankind and use in a sim battle. Yeah, it does seem like an ultra-cool thing, but do you think people will have fun fighting you? Not likely. If you do make a weapon with that much power, limit it to an RP or reduce its power when in a sim battle fight to make it a fair match.
*Stapler seems to be most useful with a taser gun. Although not very range effective, we could say that if he were to hit somebody with it tons of damage would ensue. As you can see there is a balance between the range of the weapon (very short) and the strength of the weapon (very strong). One bad, one good. You can have as many attributes to a weapon as you please. Just don’t over do it. It may become too complex.*

Now that we have this portion out of the way there is something else that could be added to your character- Accessories. No, not just the accesorries that give you boosts of power, but rather simple, not-battle items (that could possibly be used for battle if one looks at it that way) hanging on your character’s body. A trinket, if you will. I’d like to use Arpegius as an example for this. One of his characters, Ka’el Thas, has a flask of liquor on him. An interesting concept. Although it presumably does nothing to aid the character’s fighting, or so one would think, it adds a bit of content, and content is always good. So you could have your character carry a pouch of money tied to her left side. Why do you have it there? For no reason, really. Just because it looks cool. An extra, unused sword could stay sheathed on the person’s back. Whatever you want to have.
*The example charcter can carry a pager on him. The pager does nothing, but it is there anyway. Although, it does tend create annoying beeps when it goes off sometimes.*


Step 5: The Magic of Elementals/ Special Attacks

No matter what board with sim battles that you go visit you are guaranteed to see that 90% of the participants’ characters use some form of magic. It can be argued that magic spells are the 2nd most used form of attack, if not the first. Everybody uses it at some point. You will mostly use it too if you have not already. If you don’t know a whole lot about magic and elementals of sim battles and RPs then this step will help you learn the basics of them both to get you started.

Now first you have to decide what elemental you want your character to be. This of course could have already been determined from the get-go and thus no thinking is required here. But if you’re not sure, then pick what you like. Magic has a pretty wide range of elemental types- from the poplular “fire” to “dark”. It should be an easy task to figure this out. Or if you prefer, your character doesn’t have to be innate with an elemental at all. He can simply be able to use any type as he pleases based on the limitations you put on him. The same goes for characters who are of a certain element. Have you ever thought about letting your character be flexible to use a spell that isn’t his type? Think about that and have the thought in your mind when deciding what to use. Also, if you want to you can choose an elemental to go along with your character’s personality. One thing to know is that you can make your character dual-elemental, as mentioned earlier. This means he can be innate with two different elements, such as Wind and Ice. If you want to take it a step further, make him multi-elemental, meaning being innate with 3 or more. As far as which elemental people use more of, based on observations, the most commonly used elementals are Fire, Ice and Dark. The least used elementals are Electric, Poison and, the rarest, Earth.

If you so choose to make up an elemental of your own be very careful. Unless it’s a tad short of being realistic you probably shouldn’t’ even think about doing this. More often than not, people will reject your idea if it doesn’t seem like it could be something able to exist in reality if there were such a thing as magic in the real world. If you still want to after reading this, spend a lot of time thinking of what your created elemental could be, how to make it as realistic as possible, how it could tie in with existing elementals (strong or weak against), what spells could be made from it and why everyone should even try to accept your new elemental. If you do use your made-up elemental make you tell your opponent and get his approval to use it. Otherwise he may think you are trying to cheat in some way. Here is a list of the currently existing magic elementals:
Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Electric, Ice, Dark, Holy and Non-elemental.
Note that some people prefer to have to similar elementals as just one- Ice being part of the Water elemental and Electric being part of Wind (used for storm-like spells). For myself, the liberty has been taken to actually split up elementals. Holy is now Holy and Light Elemental, Dark is now Dark and Hell. Each group may seem similar to each other, but in fact they are four different elementals.
*For our example character, Stapler will be innate with Plastic elemental. (a fictional elemental used only for this guide) For one of his spells he will be given one called “Plastibox”. This spell puts the enemy inside a giant piece of tupperware. Each time a fire spell is cast on the enemy, or the enemy himself uses one while inside, the tupperware will heat up and shrink. It will continue to do so each time fire is used until the enemy is crushed to death. Not a bad attack for such a weak guy.*

Next up we have skills, or special attacks. While many people have them, they aren’t necessary. It’s just fun to have and to maybe showoff to your opponents. Once again, this requires thinking on your part. You can “borrow” attacks from fighting shows or even other people, but it’s usually best to make your own unless you’re playing as “real” character from somewhere, like a GI Joe. … okay, maybe not that. And once again you may find it best to make an attack that reflects your character’s style or elemental type. That being only a suggestion. For instance, if your character is wind elemental then you could have a type of sword attack that creates fast moving, razor-thin wind-sickles when swung. And you don’t have to have only weapons perform this. One using bare hands can do it as well.
*Good ol’ Stapler here has a bit of a secret (the one from Step 2). Remember how it was mentioned way up top about a scar on his chest? Well, guess what? It turns out that whenever this scar is cut open it releases a good amount of energy onto the attacker. That’s pretty suprising. The only draw back is if the enemy knows about it he will be able dodge it if he is fast enough. So that balances it out for the most part, wouldn’t you think?*


Step 6: Personality Traits

Your character has everything you can think of: A theme, maybe, magic, clothes, some armor, a legendary weapon and a nifty pair of jet-black badass shades that strike fear into your enemies’s hearts. Or so you think…

There seems to be something else to go with your character, something you may or may not already have. A personality. Personalities are one thing that can make your character fun to fight compared to everyone else. This also includes talking during a fight when in a sim battle. But, it is not just having a personality for him, as one might think. It is also how well you play the part of the personality; how much you get into your character, the same way actors play out their roles during in movies. Sure, 99% of creators put personality into their creations, but how many of them truly show it a lot, with every battle. Now, you don’t have to be a total geek just to get really into it, nor will you seem like one if you do. Actually, it would sort of make you seem like you could act a bit in the real world if think about how people look at you. Not bad at all. Now do you want somebody who is the typical badass type, a character who has other common traits, or do you want someone who is different from the rest? Once you know what types of personalities are out there you are granted selection from a wide variety of personas. You could have your character be lazy, or patriotic about his homeland. Heck, you could even have a female character that likes to seduce male opponents. It’s all about fun here, and what you choose could ultimately affect the way others look at your character.
*Stapler here seems like the kind of guy who is a bit of a geek who doesn’t have much of a social life, but he can become very frustrated if things don’t work out for him or go his way, sometimes resulting in a bit of a tantrum. So we’ll have that be his personality.*


Step 7: The Boundaries of Limits

This step is one that everybody should stop to think about. Every character, no matter how strong or weak they are, has limits to their abilities and skill. Even you’re imagination for making a character does. No one wants to fight against a super god who can not die, unless of course it is part of the fight itself. In order for your character to work properly (and so you don’t make stuff up at the spur of the moment) you need to set some limits for your character, some boundaries that it he cannot go past. Believe it or not, this makes fighting a bit more fun, because you are then sometimes forced to come up with strategies based off your limits in order to win. Doing this can make you a bit ore creative in attacking and defending. Now, your limits can be set to whatever you want. Every single attribute to your character can have a limit to it. From your weapon and items, down to the very unsuspecting thngs like your hair or thos jet black shades you have. Basically, you’ll still want to balance everything out, just like in the example on step 4. If you have a very strong attribute you may want to have something of a weak point- a strong defense, but a below average attack maybe. But you are not limited to just that. There are other things you can put limits to as well. One is the amount of special attacks and magic spells you have. You should create a set number of these that your character is restricted to. Simply being able to come up with anything you want is quite unfair. If you do have a lot of skills, make sure they’re not all super strong. It’s much more realistic and interesting that way. Another thing is your character’s physical manueverability. Your character may be able to dodge attacks easily, but would he really be able to move like that forever? If so, would he be more suseptible to magical attacks as a tradeoff for that skill? Think about things like that. Also, with skills and magic, if you have an attack that is almost unavoidable, at least make it fairly weak. And if you have a strong attack, limiting it’s hit rate is also a fair trade. Always make sure that your strong attacks, and maybe even weak ones, have a dodgable in some way that is not to difficult for your opponent to figure out. No one like it when a super-ultra-uber sword slash attack that is unavoidable, negates dimensional jumps, goes through any type of known armor, metal and force fields, cannot be negated by magic, and is so fast that there is absolutely no one in the universe that can even come close ot dodging is made by someone. Frankly, you'd most likely be annoyed at that, and the person doing it. And there are people out there who do make attacks just like that, be it magic or with weapons. So please don't be like them. If faced with that situation, you can simply ask how your opponent how his character managed to achieve such power in all the universe. See what answer he comes up wiht.
*Although our example character seems pretty dumb, he has a sharp skill in evading magical attacks, somehow. However, his limitation to this is that he cannot dodge an Electric elemental spell, or a spell that has multiple targeting. Other than that, he’s still not too fast on his feet when it comes to physical attacks. We will give Stapler an arsenal of 4 magic spells- one weak, one very strong, and two of average strength. He can only use his very strong spell once in a while, so he’ll have to choose the right time to cast it. In addition, he’ll also have his taser gun, his secret special skill (the one with the scar on his chest. Now, including the ability earned for this step, these are all he get’s for fighting. Stapler will have to use some strategy (and a heck of a lot of luck for how weak he is) if he is to win a fight against anybody. But, we know he is capable of doing it.*


Step 8: Story Time: Background Info

Here is where you creativity can be greatly used, or not have much of a role. A story is pretty much optional for your character to have. Usually, only fans of role playing will have story for their character. Doing this can be great. It provides background for your character- where he’s been, what he’s doing- and uncovers interesting facts about him. Some people like to create long, indepth stories with a lot of past events leading up to the present. Others like theirs short and sweet. Either way, you might be able to learn how to fight someone better by reading their character story. How you make yours isn’t something this guide can help you with much. That all depends on what past experiences you’ve an interest in. So if you want to make one, take some time and do some thinking. Look around on the internet if you want to get some ideas. Just about anything will help you with this.
*The story begins with Stapler in an office. He was having a boring life until one day he was sent by his bossy boss to make some copies of TPS reports. While doing so the glass panel broke and he was struck by a somewhat radioactive light tube from the copy machine across the chest when it popped out(thus, getting that scar and strange power of his). In an attempt to get the bleeding cleaned up in the bathroom he slipped and cut his neck on a urinal (the scar on his neck). Afterwards he went back to the machine and punched it (his frustration part of the personality). When he pulled his hand out he was holding onto a taser-like device (his weapon). He was electricuted and became weakened with every electric jolt thereafter (one of his limits). It was then that he decided to start a revolution on his own. With taser in hand and a newly created Plastic elemental set of magical spells, he stood tall, and with no apparent goal in mind. His pager went off, indicating that his boss wanted to see him. He smiled. This is how Stapler’s fighting journey had begun...*


Step 9: True Colors

The concept of the last step of this guide is probably the most neglected by everybody. Everybody. What could be the main cause of people accusing others of cheating or “god modding” is indeed the most important factor of sim battling- staying true to your character’s abilities. This is a little more on the defending side. We’ve all cheated ourselves of this at some point just to stay in the game. No one wants to be defeated by a one-hit blow early in the match. So people tend to make up something at that instant to avoid a dire situation. The question is, do you feel the least bit guilty of doing it? Honestly? It’s certainly not the easies thing to do In the realm of role playing, but you should definitely have the integrity to fight fair. By “staying true to your character’s abilities” you decide what happens to your character based on what skills, defenses or anything else you can use to protect him. A lot of people don’t exactly like doing this. Sure, they have their fighters running around doing damage, but when it comes time for them to get some can be so reluctant that they avoid it totally through a surprise manuever previously not created before the match began. Let’s get one thing straight: don’t be afraid to lose. So what if you do? A tournament? What’s so important that you should win it? Winning isn’t everything. Remember that. Take a loss and be done.

This is the basic idea to go by, and it cannot be stressed enough: if your character isn’t able to avoid a certain attack don’t create a sudden manuever that you didn’t already have and use it to dodge. Just get hit. On the other hand, if your character truly is able to avoid a coming attack then say you dodged it. And for heaven’s sake, do not say you got hit simply for the sake that it would seem like cheating if you didn’t. If you think your character slipped up and would have gotten a little nick then that’s fine. Don’t’ fight according your opponent’s opinion, fight according to your character’s abilities. This sentence should be in the mind of every simbattler. Just remember that. This step doesn’t have much to explain, it just has a long explaination. It is because despite how people fight, they are almost sure to succumb to the will of cheap dodging. You should avoid this. That is why the beginning of character creation and limitations are so important. If you have a person using Earth elemental magic and use supporting spells a lot, is there a realistic one that allows you to move out of the way of speeding laser beam? Use your skills and abilities in strategic moves if you have to. Think of ways to use them that affect not only your opponent, but also your opponent’s ability to fight. Overcoming many obstacles sometimes requires clever thinking. Warriors and generals in the human race’s history had to look at what resources they had and come up with different way to use them during war time. Did a lot of them win? Yes. Did a lot of them still lose? Yes. The point is, there isn’t a cheat code in real life situations. Why should there be one for role playing? Use what you have and use it wisely. That is the key to being to your character.
*For the last example our renegade, Stapler, is up against an opponent, who to his dismay, has a strong liking for electricity. This opponent is none other than Stapler’s boss, who had paged him a short while ago after the whole copier incident. Despite his difficult struggle of enduring the weakening electrical blasts our hero is defeated and brought down to his kness. He couldn’t win simply because of his weakness to electric attacks. Thus ended Stapler’s ideal, but short-lived revolution against his workplace. His boss made him stay late for an entire week as punishment. But, he hasn’t quite given up so easily. Stapler is using this extra time to find ways to increase his defense against electricity….*


So there you have it. This guide should have given you much better knowledge on creating a character fit for great fighting. As you go from board to board you’ll encounter people with different skills, views and ways of fighting. Some cheap, some worth fighting over a dozen times. All you have to do is make sure your character is prepared a ready to win or even lose a match. What you learn afterward can be put to use in the next battle. So go out there, make your awesome character and leave others in awe of your fairness and role playing ability!

-Cyro Xero-



Tips on various aspects of creation:

When created magical spells think about this: do they have to have only one function? Can they also have an effect to them when they are cast or hit the target? Also, do you have to use your magic directly at someone, or can you use is on something else, like a rock or a building to indirectly damage your foe? Adding different effects and changes to your spells can make for some interesting and fun combat, not ot mention creative ways of defeating your enemies. The same goes for your physical attacks.

While in a battle, try not to make up a cool attack and use it during a fight. Instead, wait until after you’re finished and participate in another battle before putting it to use. Would you really have enough time in real life to sit and think about creating a new attack while you are fighting someone?

If you look and observe enough you’ll notice that some people have multiple characters. You’ve already made one character, so why not make another. There may be different things you can do with extra personnel to choose from, such as tying in one background story with another. If you have a large arsenal of weapons and spells you can distribute them among your different characters. You can have as many characters as you want. Just make sure you’re able to, and do, use all of them.



(Last edited by Cyro Xero on 03-02-05 01:48 PM)
True Flight

The One








Since: 08-21-04

Since last post: 2663 days
Last activity: 2648 days
Posted on 03-04-05 08:23 PM Link | Quote
Good GAWD Cyro you're very detailed. Heh I am too... But I have mine written on a peice of note book paper and I keep up with it every day. If I have a new character I test it out BEFORE I put it up. If I don't like it. I throw it away and start over.

The fact is I test them at school not online. I still have YET to put up mine.... Argh...


(Last edited by True Flight on 03-04-05 11:24 PM)
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