This section covers all aspects of building a character. Character Creation in other systems can be complicated, having players bounce back and forth between different books or PDFs. In Crabs and Caverns, character creation is broken down into a few simple steps in this one repository.
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Determine Your Character's Concept
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Allocate Points to Traits
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Add Starting Experience to Skills
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Select Starting Tags
See? In four easy steps, you'll have a character that's ready to go on an adventure. But what are Traits? And how much starting experience do you have? The rest
A character is how a player interacts with the world, and they can take many forms. Maybe you're choosing to play a farmer who was driven from their home, or a mercenary who's just on another mission. No matter what, you can
Characters, like real-life people, are dynamic and multi-faceted; people rarely do drastic things for no reason. Think about the motivations driving your character. Do you want power, money, or respect?
Traits are the major statistics of C&C, and define how your character is described. The higher a character's Might, the more likely they'll be described as "strong" or "muscular". The higher a character's Coordination, the more likely they'll be described as "swift" or "agile". Likewise, if a character's Brilliance is low, they may just be described as "stupid" or "simple."
Traits are only modified during character creation and major events, like losing a limb or being blessed by a God, Goddess, or other major figurehead or indescribable entity. Your Traits also denote the starting value of your Skills. Refer to the Traits-Skills Matrix for a more coherent explanation.
Skills are the minor statistics of C&C, and are how characters accomplish tasks. Their starting value is derived from the trait that the skill draws from. The higher a skill's value is, the more likely your character will be able to accomplish that task; a skill's value is effectively their percentage for being successful at passing a test.
If a character has a 66 in the skill Quick Attack, they will likely hit 2 out of 3 times. If a character has a 2 in the skill Persuasion, then they are inherently unconvincing; that being said, there's always a chance that it might work. Swing for the fences!
Skills are modified by the player, and go up to 99. That leaves a 1% chance of a skilled character failing a given test. Nobody's perfect, even you.
Tags are Crabs and Caverns' way of giving characters proficiency with skills, weapons, abilities, and knowledge. They're a vital part of the C&C system, as they allow for characters to "feel" different, mechanically speaking. This way, you don't always make the same wizard that plays the same way as the last fifty did.
By spending experience on a Tag, a character could get something such as proficiency with a weapon or skill, or become more knowledgeable about certain topics.
Tags are designed to be modular and easy to understand. Characters are capable of only knowing, doing, or being whatever that Tag explicitly states. If you want to do something special, there's probably a Tag for that.
Characters have common Equipment, but flavoring your character and their actions is a massive part of Crabs and Caverns. Standardized, flavor-able equipment allows players and game masters to reference relatively simple equipment tables, while still letting players craft the character's actions, look and style however they want.
The following example serves to explain:
While Pirate Captain Parker and Condor the Indefatigable both have short swords, the Pirate is equipped with an ornate, stylish, and recently oiled cutlass purchased mere minutes ago with stolen coin. It shimmers in the seaside sunlight, catching reflections and blinding himself occasionally.
Likewise, Condor's short sword was taken from the torso of some slain enemy countless decades ago, the chipped, rusty blade and wobbly handle both looking and feeling their age. However, both weapons are mechanically identical unless otherwise noted. They both use the statistics of the short sword weapon, listed in the Weapons table on the Equipment page.
Describing your character, their equipment, and how they interact is half the fun! Crabs and Caverns seeks to avoid the pitfalls of other game systems where a stick-figure character swings a sword twice, misses both times, and then waits twenty minutes until it's their turn to miss again.
Perhaps your character, who has a very high Coordination trait, gracefully ducks and rolls to avoid damage; if another character has low Coordination, they may instead stumble and drop items carelessly.
Work with your Game Master and other party members to describe combat, investigation, and other interactions within the world.
Characters interact with the world by passing or failing Tests. The outcomes of tests vary in severity; failing to persuade the grumpy, hungover bartender for free drinks at the bar may have you thrown out, or worse.
One important difference between Crabs and Caverns and some other game systems is that, just like in real life, characters are free to attempt any test, whether or not a character is capable of that skill.
Whether they pass or fail the test is up to their skills (and, of course, the dice gods), but there should only rarely if ever be a situation where the party is locked out of most options. One of the biggest pain points of building a character for a game is being locked out of interesting options because you didn't understand how the system worked.
Additionally, some tests are flexible; in many cases, most people are willing to bend the rules. Just because your character failed a test doesn't mean that your character has lost everything, just that particular avenue.
Pirate Captain Parker has just arrived at Cobalt Atoll, and the first thing he sees is a wanted poster emblazoned with his caricature. The second thing he sees is the dockmaster, who is rather quickly approaching him and his vessel. Having previously failed a Disguise test to conceal his face, he quickly thinks of another option; perhaps the dockmaster would be willing to ignore Pirate Captain Parker and his vessel if he was paid handsomely...
Passing and failing tests is also how combat is conducted. To attack, you must pass a Quick Attack, Power Attack, Focus, or Knowledge skill test, depending on the attack.
After the test is passed, damage dealt must be at least as much as the soak value of the enemy. After the damage exceeds the enemy's soak value, the remaining damage is turned into exhaustion. This is a very, very brief overview; for more information, refer to the [[#combat|combat subsection]] in the [[#resources|resources section]].
Building characters from the ground up can be difficult, but
[!check] Determine Your Character's Concept
The first step[^StepZero] to making a character is knowing what you want to play. Perhaps you've always wanted to pretend to be a knight in service of the forces of good; maybe you're a farmer-turned-freedom-fighter seeking to stop the oppression from authority.
Get a vague idea of who you want to play, flesh out the concept to a refined final image, and then follow the next steps to bring your character to life.
[!tip] Ahoy! In the case of Pirate Captain Parker, he is a defector from the Royal Navy of Keflos. He was not particularly loyal to King Stuna the Unfortunate, whom Parker believes was a weak leader; instead, Pirate Captain Parker and his band of merry crewmen decided to abandon the military life and seek out treasure.
Unfortunately for Captain Parker, his old ship was discovered by Royal Navy forces off the southern coast of Troydal and was sank with almost all hands. Now, with a grudge against anyone loyal to the King of Keflos, Pirate Captain Parker seeks to employ his skills elsewhere.
Now that you have an idea of what your character is, you can now build the character's mechanics to reflect that concept.
Ask the Game Master and the other players in your party if you're struggling for ideas; this game is a game of cooperation, and that starts at character creation.
[!check] Allocate Trait Points From the Standard Array
[[#Traits|Traits]], the seven defining characteristics of your character, are chosen from a standard array of predetermined numbers.
A standard array was chosen to avoid the misfortune that the dice gods can sometimes inflict, while also avoiding the "balancing" some game masters insist on.
The standard array is as follows:
| 60 | 50 | 40 | 40 | 30 | 20 | 10 |
|---|
To build a character, determine which of the above numbers you want to apply to which trait. When you apply a number to a trait, that trait's derived skills gain that base number.
Pirate Captain Parker's Assigned Traits:
Pirate Captain Parker's breakdown will look like this:
[[#Might]] [[#Coordination]] [[#Senses]] [[#Brilliance]] [[#Reverence]] [[#Guile]] [[#Endurance]] 60 70 50 20 30 40 50 [!abstract] Arr! Pirate Captain Parker is a strong and stupid pirate. He can dodge and swing from ropes like a scallywag, yet still take a punch and keep his liquor down.
That being said, he's not very capable of resisting magical attacks or piecing together clues.
Now that we have the basic traits of Pirate Captain Parker established, we can add his starting experience to his derived skills.
When you gain experience, you can spend them to increase skills; traits only change if something drastic happens.
[!danger] Do note: Traits and Skills can only go up to a 99/100. There is always a chance that someone will fail, no matter how skilled or powerful they may be.
If Pirate Captain Parker is blessed by the Goddess of the Seas, his Senses trait (and its derived skills) may increase. Likewise, if his leg is removed by an attacker, the Game Master may rule that his Coordination is decreased.
[!warning] Your character should feel the effects of battle, but it shouldn't be overwhelming and annoying. Work with the Game Master to reach an outcome that feels reasonable.
After your character's traits have been settled on, you'll add your starting experience points to your individual skills.
[!check] Apply Starting Experience to Skills
Experience points are gained by completing quests, remediating side objectives, and finishing chapters. Experience is always awarded at the end of a chapter; side objectives and quests are "pooled" until the chapter is complete.
By base game rules, C&C doesn't apply bonus experience for participating in a session; Game Masters can apply it, but I feel that it discriminates against people who have real-life stuff come up.
Players start with 100 starting experience, and they are free to spend it as they wish.
Skills, like Traits, are measured from 1 to 100. If players roll a 1 to pass a test, they have a critical success. Likewise, a 100 is a critical failure. The higher a number you have in a skill, the higher your chance of success is.
For character creation, your starting skills will mirror the trait they are derived from; if you have a 60 in [[#Might]], then the derived skills [[#Athleticism]], [[#Power Attack]], and [[#Intimidation]] start with 60.
[!abstract] Yaahargh! Pirate Captain Parker attempts to bribe the dockmaster. To do so, he'll make a Diplomacy roll, which gets its starting number from its base trait, Guile. During this step of character creation, Parker's player added 8 skill points to his Diplomacy skill, leaving him with 4 starting experience left.
Unfortunately for Parker, his Diplomacy roll was at disadvantage, because the dockmaster looked at the wanted poster which had a very handsome reward for turning in the pirate.
After a roll of the dice, Parker's player rolled a 21 and a 49. Since it was at disadvantage, the lower (and better) number is discarded. Since that 49 is higher than Parker's Diplomacy skill (48), Parker fails to bribe the dockmaster, who yells for the guards.
Below is a table showing how many experience points are needed to raise skill points by one.
Skill Point Value 1-10 11-20 21-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-99 Experience Cost per Skill Point 1 XP per Skill Point 2 XP per Skill Point 4 XP per Skill Point 8 XP per Skill Point 16 XP per Skill Point 32 XP per Skill Point 64 XP per Skill Point 128 XP per Skill Point 256 XP per Skill Point 512 XP per Skill Point Refer to the [[#Traits-Skills Matrix]] to map out your starting skill points, then add your starting experience to skills of your choice.
[!Check] Select Three Starting Tags
[[#Tags]] are how Crabs and Caverns can have a classless character system while still making characters feel different.
Your character, who we'll pretend is a city guard who strictly enforces the law, should feel tangibly different than another character who is a farmer-turned-adventurer. Your character shouldn't just feel like another guy with a spear.
By using Tags, you can give your character proficiency with different abilities, weapons, tools, and knowledge. For example, an all-knowing wizard would take many Knowledge Tags. A person who specializes in daggers would take the Dagger Tag.
Characters are given 3 Tags to start with. If you want to take another Tag later on, you'll have to spend Experience to gain it. The costs are located in the table of the relevant tag.
Some tags have prerequisites; be sure to check the requirements of a tag, and ensure that you meet the requirements before you take a tag and apply its benefits.
[[#tags| Click here to navigate to the Tags list in the Resources section.]]