Heavy Gear RPG Character Creation
Getting your character made in Heavy Gear is pretty simple once you know the concepts. It can be done before the game, but is really best done with all the players and the Narrator together as a sort of session zero. Today we are going to run through the process.
Building the Team, National Origin, and Lifepath
The player characters in Heavy Gear are referred to as a Team. They might be a military, corporate contractors, or even a group of criminals brought together for a heist. The important part is that they are in this together. The Team works for a Sponsor, such as the military the Team serves in, a corporate entity, a revolutionary movement, or just about anything else. The Sponsor helps determine which vehicles the Team can choose from.
Once the players have a good idea of who they are working for and why, they will choose their National Origins and a Lifepath, both of which grant you skill bonuses and a Trait further on in character creation. Lifepaths are short descriptions of the character’s background and profession like “street kid”, “hot shot pilot”, or “warzone survivor”. We provide a list but they can (and should) be created by the player to fit their character.
Character Traits
Similar to Lifepath, Character Traits are short descriptors made up by the player. We talked about Traits in our last article, but as a reminder, they are essentially a personal special rule that defines how your character engages with the world. You will create one Aptitude (almost always a benefit), one Quirk (a benefit or detriment depending on the circumstance) and one Adversity (almost always a detriment). Additionally, your Lifepath grants a fourth trait which can be any of the types above.
You (or any other person playing the game) can activate these Traits to give yourself a bonus or penalty on a roll. Why would you want a penalty? Well first of all, it lets you activate a Trait for a bonus again. But secondly, because any time you take a penalty to a roll for one of your Traits, you gain XP to that skill (even if the roll fails). So you get rewarded for playing your character and adding drama.
Skills
Now to the fun part. You are going to pick Skills for your character that determine how many dice they get to roll when they do something. Typical games have 17 points of Skills bought at a rate of 1 point per level. At creation, characters must have more low level Skills than high level. This forms a pyramid of Skills, with a few high ones and lots of lower ones. Having several Skills in the same domain gets you Domain Expertise, which benefits all skills in that Domain.
While a director may provide you with a list of skills, Heavy Gear does not have one inherent to the game. Instead you will pick from one of twenty categories – called Domains – and then name the Skill.
Why do it this way? Because it allows for many paths to the same destination and much more interesting characters. For example, a Militia Pilot and a Badlands Homesteader might both have Survival Domain skills for the desert and both be able to survive in the wild. But the Militia Pilot’s “Survival: Desert Ops” might let them also use it to predict enemy movements based on tracks in the sand, while the Badlands Homesteader’s “Survival: Desert Life” might be able to patch a broken water reclaimer with the sap of a desert plant. With Skills, just like Traits, your creativity is the only real limit.
Archetype and Attributes
Archetypes are an optional rule. They function like character classes from other game systems, granting additional bonuses and special abilities with each rank you achieve. We have a whole article on them to come, but some archetypes focus on simple numeric bonuses, while others are designed around a special mechanic (almost like a mini-game) allowing you to do things like issue orders to your Teammates as commander, or combo melee moves as a duelist. You can play Heavy Gear without Archetypes and the game will function fine.
Attributes are different than you might expect. You will likely have noticed that Heavy Gear doesn’t have numeric attributes. This is carrying forward the concept of “zero average” from previous editions. Characters in these adventurous professions are all assumed to be smart enough, fit enough, and savvy enough to get the job done. But for those that have something special going on, you can choose from a list of perks and flaws, collectively called “Attributes.”
These Attributes make some categories of activity more (or less) reliable or provide direct numeric bonuses such as winning ties, having more system/shell shock, or a flat increase to move speed. They include equivalents for all ten basic attributes in earlier Heavy Gear editions but also account for social status, cybernetics, or even luck. Each Perk chosen must be balanced with an equal amount of Flaws, but there is no need to have any Attributes if you don’t want them. Some Attributes can also be gained or worked off over time as well.
Selecting Equipment and Vehicles with Priority Level
Heavy Gear uses the concept of Priority Level (or PL) for distributing equipment. We will talk more about that next time, but the short explanation is PL determines the kind of equipment readily available for the Team to use in a mission. It means you can swap to a different vehicle to fit the mission at hand, so you are never locked into a single battlefield role.
Final Details
Think about your motivation, if you didn’t already, pick a name and gender identity and general appearance. You will also define some Contacts who can help you in game or serve as plot devices for the Director. And that’s it, you’re done!
GREL Characters
One last bit to consider is that Fourth Edition allows players to make GREL characters. The process is similar to the one above, but players pick a template which has pre-designed skills and Traits. They will fill in a few choices of their own, and two Traits. Early game this can be an advantage, but GREL have to work much harder to improve their skills, meaning they lose out over time.
Advancement and Hitting the Ground Running
During the game you will get to advance your character by increasing skills, gaining Attributes, rank, and PL, or modifying and customizing your Heavy Gear, weapons, and equipment. We will talk a lot more about that in another article.
Some players might be new to role-playing games, or you might all want to start playing right away. For that, we have included lots of sample characters to simply grab and go. But as you can hopefully see from this, making a character is straightforward and the most important parts are only limited by your creativity. Once you have it all down on paper, you are ready to go and start living your story.
