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Asking for help; creating a character.

Tried making a character, finished making a character... realized that I'd made one having no idea what I was doing as far as the stats and whatnot. Then I realized, when writing history up, that I'd have rather been able to change things about my character...all in all, I just had a confusing time of figuring out what I was doing in chargen until I finished that and the chargen sort of stuff that follows actual chargen, like history and the like. Then I discover that all I can do is kill my character and start from scratch with a completely different one...

After apparently wasting a full day making a character I can't use any part of, and having to start completely from scratch, I was kind've ready to just quit and not bother with this mud, but I'll give it another try. I just want to be sure, before I get through chargen, that I have everything there is to making a character done first, since I didn't see to making the other half until reading @newbie stuff post-chargen.

With that said... I really would just like to know a brief overview of what making a character entails. Are there any stats that everyone should have? Or skills that are useless? Are there 'roles' that are more or less difficult or viable? Even just a tiny list of what actual things to write up beforehand, like 'history, description, skills, stats, etc.' or something would be invaluable. Does everyone need some means of combat? Is there a reason strength starts so high in the stats thing? I just really don't know and it's overwhelming and intimidating and I just can't go and start playing with a character that's based on the information I have myself, because I know nothing about the game and apparently that makes me an idiot.

Just really confused and don't even know how to make another character to begin with command-wise. But if anyone who's played any amount has any advice for chargen, that'd be great-- the alternative would be to run around with a character I already know is screwed up in twelve different ways and hope to figure out how else I've screwed up, which is apt to be difficult since I don't have a control of 'working' to begin with. @_@

My dear, I don't think you understand why I wasn't willing to send you back through char-gen.

Your character is going to die. Horribly.

Do you want your best idea thrown away because you didn't know the game world enough? Run charlotte around to get your legs under you. Or spend all this time on your first best idea and have it destroyed pretty quickly ...

Don't seek perfect out of char-gen, everyone starts off terrible and its through survival that you truly create your character.

You can read the boards, the timeline, the lore. We don't tell you what kind of stats or skills to choose. In fact, discussing skills and stats out of character is against the rules. This game is about immersion. You immerse yourself in the game and the character.

I don't want to say you're spending to much time thinking about who your character is, what they should be doing, etc, at this point, but it kinda seems like you are. Instead of focusing so much on chargen and generating the perfect character, why don't you go out and enjoy the game? Get some RP in. Let the RP dictate who you want to be in the game. It will help you learn the ins and outs of the game.

You aren't stuck with only the stats and skills you get during chargen. You get experience points to improve your character each day you play (@assign ue)

Try: help stats help skills for more info on skills and stats.

Honestly though, take your character, meet some people, RP, get to know the game. Don't get frustrated, everyone experiences the learning curve. Most people go through a few characters before they figure out what fits.

Was aware and prepared for my character dying horribly; used to roguelike systems and such where it's about 'get as far as you can', and was just asking about redoing before getting too involved in case I did unlikely-ly enough survive, just because I don't get the chance to try the same character twice. More than anything, was just afraid of ending up forging on with a character that, to me, retrospectively feels half-assed.

Appreciate the info on how the 'meta' stuff isn't important to know in-depth; and he help stats/skills information looks like exactly what I was looking for as far as figuring out what things actually, like, -do-. Hearing about the UE (and looking up how it works a bit) is a bit of a relief, as well.

Thanks, this takes some of the pressure off. Felt like I was between a rock and a hard place 's far as feeling like I was apt to be yelled at for not playing and learning or yelled at for being useless by doing so-- kind've used to having to expect the worst out of things. >_<

My only remaining question, then, is, upon death, how does one actually go about making a new character, command-wise? I'm assuming it's a one-character limit, though. If it isn't, then I've just missed what commands or website-things or whatnot would be used to that end.

We only allow players to play one character at a time. When you die without a clone, you are only given two choices. Sit in the death funnel or start a new character. When you get there, it will be clear.
Okay that makes sense; thanks.
Since this isn't a traditional MUD, it matters fairly little what your initial 'build' is. Partly because you're not gonna be very good at anything out of chargen, even if you heavily specialize, and partly because it matters more what you do with a given character, than what their stats and skills are.

Though SD is incredibly fleshed out with coded support for so many things, that isn't what matters. Sure if you want to be a gunslinger, you'll need points in pistols, or if you want to be an artist, you'll need points in artistry, but beyond the obvious things like that, there are no real guidelines. While there may be an unequal benefit to different stats and skills, that doesn't matter unless you're planning on trying to min-max and ignore RP, which will get you killed faster than anything once staff notice.

I've played SD on and off for over twelve years, with a rather wide range of character types, so I'll give a few points:

One: Reputation and who you know (both earned through RP) are far more powerful than stats or skills. I had a 'badass thug' character many years ago who was feared in Red sector for a time, but his combat-related stats and skills were quite lacking compared to most combat-oriented characters of the time. He got his power through RP, not through flexing the virtual muscles of points he had in certain stats/skills.

Two: With a few exceptions, most people I've RPed with have taken weeks to months to fully develop their character, and quite often means going in a fairly different direction than what they had created in chargen. Adding that with the fact that you're a weak, untalented nobody out of chargen, there's pretty much zero reason to worry about initial stats/skills. Though if you want to be a tall, handsome man and chose a fat, unattractive woman with your chargen options, then you are indeed in a rather tough spot.

Three: Because characters often go in a very different path than originally conceived (and because new features come out after people have used up all their experience points), there's the option to 'respec' your character, given admin approval, and reallocate your experience points (UE) in a way more fitting to how your character has progressed.

Four: Stop worrying about things and just play the damn game.

Welcome, Charlotte,

If someone really was nasty, that's... Well, nasty. Hopefully what you felt as "being treated like an idiot" was just a reaction to frustration, and not to being judged. Otherwise... it's everyone's loss. We want people to join, have fun, and roleplay with us, we don't want you "kept out of the pool" for not grokking this complex game your first day in.

A whole day is definitely a long time to spend in char-gen. Your character's story is roleplayed out daily in-game, not stuffed into your @history forever to define you.

If no one has pointed them out, there are a couple of "tips" posts which might be worth a read:

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/open-discussion/anything-really/some-new-tips-for-new-players-645/

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/open-discussion/anything-really/some-tips-for-everyone-205/

http://www.sindome.org/bgbb/open-discussion/anything-really/the-principles-of-playing-sindome-628/

Above all, be ready to go live a story. If part of that story is that your feeble, naked immigrant of a character learns a thing or two about their world as they explore their new city, then, it's a part of their story which you share as their player. Yay, right?

Another point of benefit is that you don't have to have your character fully defined before you play. The history is only so you can get an automated job (which is really like background fluff and not a way to get rich). My @history was 5 paragraphs long, if I really wanted to write it out, it'd be a couple pages in length now, and I really only had basic details in the original history.

You're not earning a grade that gets you special brownie points by writing something that only a handful of people will ever read, so it's much better to just get in and develop on the go, once you have your basics in place.

And to put it in perspective, you gain (up to) 3 UE per day, for a maximum of 2 years. You start off with an absolutely pitiful number of skill points, with a cap to how high you can even raise a skill in chargen. So...even if you completely bumble it up, you really can make up for it in only a couples of weeks.

And as far as what skills or stats do you need? You could roll 0 (or whatever is otherwise the minimum) in all the stats and 0 in all the skills and you'd still be able to play!

I would say that if there is a correct process to go about this is decide first who your character is, where s/he comes from. What his/her personality is, the basic experiences s/he's had so far that have made him/her be the person s/he is the day s/he walks into the city.

You need to understand that the ue that you are granted in chargen as so few that even if you 'waste' some on a skill/stat that you later decide is not the way you want to go about your character, it doesn't really matter. There are no worthless skills or stats because there are no races/classes as in other roleplaying games. Your character is a very much realistic person. A person is not a computer generated programme that is an expert in one thing but completely disfunctional in another. You need to focus on their personality, aspirations, motives, rather than stats/skills. Let the game and your char's IC experiences and interactions with the world take him/her to new paths, evolve, change, grow.

The beauty of Sindome is that you can make the nicest non-combat character who due to IC experiences may eventually grow into a bastard street sam. You can make an ex-convict who somehow sees the 'light' and becomes a church advocate preaching salvation. You can make a street-rat who grabs opportunities and becomes a high-end fixer, a criminal, or perhaps finds protection and its perks under the wind of a wealthy patron and becomes an educated corpie. Anything is possible because it is a game based on rp interactions between your character and many others.

To sum it up, come up with an idea of a character. The way they are now,as they cross immigration. What do they aspire to *now*? What do they kind of know how to do *now*? Start like that. And then, following this character's development in a realistic manner, strengthen, adjust or change this character's main talents. It is a game that you can't win anyway; all you need to care about is roleplaying an interesting personality and do interesting stuff that makes your time in the game well-spent.

The stats also come into play a lot less than you'd think, depending on the kind of character you create. Without giving away any IC info, I can say that I've gotten involved in plenty of exploits, and my character's stats have only come into play at all a few times.

The roleplay is the engine that drives the conflict and adventure in Sindome; the stats are just there to provide occasional impartial conflict resolution.