The first step in play here at the Magical World is to create a Player Character. Players are permitted to have any number of characters they wish, however no two characters of any player should know each other. The school and land of Vayle is enormous, there is no reason for any of your characters to know each other, or interact with each other.
To play a non-magi character. IE: A magic sensitive kid, Police Officer, Doctor, Etc. You will have to use the NMF character creation rules
During your time here, certain milestones can be reached which will allow you the option of playing a more advanced character. There are several character status' that can be played in this way, they are as follows:
- Beginner Class
- Advanced Class
- Licensed Arcanist
- Magical Position
- Magical Authority
- Magical Master
These class of Characters indicate a person's power. How studied they are in the magical arts and how respected (or feared) they should be. These classes directly affect a persons "Magical Dice". A new player can make as many Beginner characters as they wish. Upon completion of their second level of schooling, They become an Advanced Class. Any player who has successfully gained the Advanced class on any character, may then create one additional Advanced Class Character if they choose. This character does not necessarily have to belong to RAMA. (More on that in the forums and setting wiki). When a player gets a character to the 3rd level of schooling, they are considered finished with Magical Schooling, they are granted a Magical License, and the player may create 1 additional Licensed Arcanist, again, not necessarily needing to be a RAMA graduate. This flow is true for all levels of Magical Class. You will be able to advance all of your characters eventually to "Magical Master", but achieving the level for the first time in any class allows you one freebie character of that class as a reward for your dedication.
Steps to Character Creation
1: Vital Information
First you should fill out your character's Name, Age, Pronouns, Fear, Motivation and Grade (This is your Class, which everyone should start as Beginner Class unless otherwise permitted).
Underneath this information, you should write a short description of your character, give both a real world description and a magical world description if your character is a different race than human. Elves, Fairies, Centaurs, Satyrs etc. all look human in the real world. Usually this is a version of polymorphing.
2: Attributes
You must assign attributes to your character's six statistics in order of most important, to least important. The way this is done is by assigning your most powerful statistic a D20, the secondary a D12, the Third a D10, the fourth a D8, the fifth a D6 and the sixth a D4. That is not that you roll those dice, but that stat is given that dice. You will roll this dice each time that stat is called. The stat and Magic columns are initially set to 0, However after you are finished picking your stats, you may add a +1 to 2 different attributes under the STAT column to represent areas in which your character is gifted. These do not have to be in your character's highest dice, but it is accepted to do so.
3: Class Schedule
To start with, you may pick 4 classes of interest from the list shown. These classes start with both a Lesson and Grade score of 0. As you earn points you may put them in any of these 4 classes, and when you gain a grade in any of these classes you may add a +1 to either stat or Magic score of one of the associated attributes with that class.
4: Your Broom Information
To start with, this information should be left blank unless otherwise permitted. You will earn your first broom IC.
5: Wand Information
Here you should list the type of Wood, Core and bonus that your wand gives. These will be listed under the wand section. Your wand's wood and core bonus will apply to your character's MAGIC statistic only
6: Familiar Information
Here you should write the description of your Animal Familiar. NOTE that unless special Permission is given, your familiar should be a real world animal no larger than a small breed of dog or large breed of cat, (Owls and other large birds are in this category) Keep in mind that a familiar does not ever attack or give any mechanical benefit, no matter what sort of animal it is. It is simply your eyes and ears, and senses. (Even though you can sometimes cast spells through your familiar)
7: Schoolbag
You will place your inventory here that you carry on you at any given time. Chances are your bicycle doesn't go here, but will go under a separate inventory section.
8: Strengths
You may choose 2 strengths to add to your character.
9: You may choose to add up to 2 flaws to your character. If you do, you may gain +1 to either a Stat, or Magic stat of an attribute. This can increase the bonus to a +2, but no higher. There for, if you get a +1 bonus from a wand to your Fight Attribute, And you add a flaw to the Stat of Flight. Your ending flight can be +2 stat, +1 Magic.
Special Rulings
During character creation, you can never have a bonus affect the same stat or magic more than one time. That means if you gain a bonus to Flight Stat through a strength, you can not also gain a Flight Stat bonus through a wand, Core, or any other means. After creating a beginning character, you should never have more than a +1 anywhere.
Secondly, we use the exploding dice rule. That is anytime you roll a dice, (No matter what dice you roll or for what reason), if you roll the maximum number on that dice before any bonus', you may roll a secondary dice and add it to the total, there is no limit on how many times you do this, EXCEPT that you can no longer add any bonus' once you beat the target number. EXAMPLE: You roll a D4+1 for a brains roll, the target number is 12. You roll an 4, +1 is 5, roll a second time scoring another 4 for 9 (You only add the +1 one time per challenge), You roll a 4 again for 13. You stop there as 13 is grater than 12. (This includes magical dice)
Thirdly we use the degrees of success and failure. Beating or failing a target number by 5 earns a degree of success or failure above or below normal. These will cause increasing affects both good and bad (Depending on success or failure). This is why the rule of exploding dice is important. It is rare that exploding dice will cause a greater degree of success.
Fourthly we use the failing forward rule. That is that anytime you fail a role, you can claim an adversity. These stack infinite times, and reset to 0 after a scene. You may spend any number of adversities you wish for any one situation. These include raising a dice roll by 1 per adversity. You may decrease a dice by 1 per adversity (Pulling a punch), and finally you may spend 2 adversities to roll 2 dice instead of 1 and take the better of the two (Not magical Dice).
Fifthly we use the Health and damage optional rules. You have a level of health equal to the highest number on your Grit score (Including stat bonus) So if you have a D10 Grit, and a +2 stat. You have 12 health. If you attack a target, you do 1 health of damage for every degree of success above their defense. so if their defense is a 5 and you score 23, you do 4 health of damage. (6, 11, 16, 21).
Lastly we do use the rule of Narration and Imagination. This means that we use intent and affect to determine what spells do and do not do. This being said GMs have the final say on whether or not a spell or affect will work or is in the realm of possibility for your character to do. For the most part if you can imagine it, it is possible, though for your level of power, the difficulty may be extremely high. Do not forget, however, that with the rule of Exploding dice, and adversity, nothing is impossible. Very improbable, but not impossible.