Characters for The Lost Regiment are members of the 35th Maine regiment, the 44th New York Light Artillery, sailors from the "Ogunquit" or nurses from the Christian Sanitation Commission.  Their birthplace, language and background should reflect this.

There are no Native American or African American members of any of these units however there may be a small number of immigrants from Europe.

Over the course of the campaign, players will have the opportunity to generate additional characters from the new civilizations their Yankee characters discover.  Rus, Roum and Chin characters allow players to explore multiple cultures and character options.

Character Development Checklist

1) Choose a name to set up account/character sheet/description (it can always be changed later).

2) Read through the Character Generation thread.

3) Roll dice for character attributes.

4) Once you have determined your base scores add +5 to one of your 8 basic scores and decide if you want to shift any points between each of your 4 pairs of attributes.

5) Decide if you want to be a private of the 35th Maine (Infantry), 44th New York (Artillery), a sailor from the Ogunquit crew (Transport Ship) or a nurse from the Christian Sanitation Commission.

7) Choose your PSS.  I have set each character to Military by default however if you want to choose another PSS feel free.  Choose two skills, the first one MUST be from your PSS, the second skill can be from any PSS.

6) Choose your Vocational skill and also 2 skills from Hobbies or Languages (one of each or 2 of one and none of the other).  These skills reflect what your character did before the start of war.

8) Determine starting money and age (dice rolls).

9) Choose your place of origin, and native language.


Character Generation

Characters for The Lost Regiment begin the game as members of the 35th Maine regiment, the 44th New York Light Artillery, sailors from the "Ogunquit" or nurses from the Christian Sanitation Commission.  Their birthplace, language and background should reflect this.

There are no Native American or African American members of any of these units however there may be a small number of immigrants from Europe.

Character Stats
Roll 1d100 once for each Ability pair.
STR/STA      DEX/RS      INT/LOG      PER/LDR

Keep rolling sets of 4d100 until you have 2 dice rolls of 56 or better.  Use these dice rolls to determine your base score.

Find the ability base score on the table below.

Strength Strength determines a character's chance to break open doors, bend metal, shift heavy objects or anything else requiring brute force.

Stamina A character's Stamina score is the number of points of damage the character can take before being killed. It is also the character's percent chance to resist the effects of poison, gas, drugs, disease, extreme heat or cold, starvation and fatigue.

Dexterity A character's Dexterity score determines his base chance to hit in combat. It also is his percent chance to sense things by touch, throw or catch an object, keep his balance, jump into a moving vehicle or perform delicate actions like cutting a wire without touching any surrounding wires.

Reaction Speed A character's Reaction Speed score is his percent chance to react quickly, to avoid falling rocks, to catch something he knocked over before it hits the floor, to jump away from a vehicle that is racing toward him, to grab an animal or to dive through a door before it slams shut.

Intuition A character's Intuition score is his percent chance to notice small details or hidden objects, to sense an ambush or trap and, at the referee's discretion, to make sense out of seemingly unrelated or illogical facts. When a character passes an Intuition check, the referee should tell the player that they notice something unusual, and describe what the character sees (or hears, smells, feels or tastes). The player must decide what to do with this information. Referees should urge players to figure out puzzles on their own; Intuition checks should not be allowed until after the players have tried (and failed) to solve the puzzle themselves.

Logic A character's Logic score is his percent chance to follow complicated instructions, to figure out the best way to do something he has never done before or use something he is not familiar with, and to make accurate predictions from facts. The referee should roll Logic checks secretly. If the character fails the check, the referee can tell him either that he does not understand whatever he was studying, or can give him false information. A character's Logic score can be modified by the complexity of the situation and the amount of time the character spends studying it. The referee should encourage players to draw their own conclusions from information; like Intuition, Logic checks should be a last resort.

Personality Personality affects how likely a character is to get a friendly response from a stranger and how long he can hold someone's attention. The referee should encourage players to role-play their attempts to use Personality and talk to NPCs.

EXAMPLE: Paddy the Irishman has just insulted a Scandanavian thug by accidentally spilling a drink on him. The Scandanavian is very mad. Paddy decides to try talking his way out of the situation. "Oops, pardon me, my good fellow, how absolutely clumsy of me," the player says. "Here, let me buy you a drink and let's forget about it. Paddys' Personality score is 40. The referee notes that the Scandanavian is mad and wet and itching tor a fight. He tells Paddy to subtract 20 from his score. Paddy rolls 91, which is greater than his modified score of 20. The Scandanavian punches Paddy.

Leadership. A character's Leadership score reflects his ability to command with authority and have NPCs obey his/her orders. Leadership checks are needed only if a character orders an NPC to do something dangerous, or has mistreated the NPC. Under normal conditions NPCs who work for a character will always obey that character. If characters try to give orders to strangers, the referee must decide how likely the stranger is to obey.

Leadership also is used to bargain with NPCs. The referee should not let characters with high Leadership scores trade junk for valuable merchandise, but a successful Leadership check will get a better deal for the character, or convince reluctant NPCs to deal with the character. Characters can bargain for information as well as merchandise.

Players can increase their characters' ability scores by trading 1 XP to raise an ability score 1 point. No ability score can ever be raised above 100.

Example:
00:47, Sun 01 Dec 2019: Lieutenant John McLean rolled 42 using 1d100.  Character Stats.
00:47, Sun 01 Dec 2019: Lieutenant John McLean rolled 63 using 1d100.  Character Stats.
00:47, Sun 01 Dec 2019: Lieutenant John McLean rolled 97 using 1d100.  Character Stats.
00:46, Sun 01 Dec 2019: Lieutenant John McLean rolled 51 using 1d100.  Character Stats.

The 4 rolls = 42, 63, 97, 51 are applied to the table below giving us:
45/45  50/50  70/70  45/45 a pair of these values are applied to each attribute.


You can assign these values to your Attributes in any order you like.  You do not have to use them in the order you roll them.

Humans add +5 to one of these 8 ability scores (not both scores in the pair).

Example: Lieutenant John McLean adds +5 to his LDR

Players now can modify their ability scores by subtracting points from one ability and adding them to the other ability in that pair. No more than 10 points can be shifted this way.
Example: Lieutenant John McLean has a Personality/Leadership base score of 50/50. The player decides he wants his character to be a leader. He can increase the character's LDR score to 60 if he reduces the PER score to 40

IM: Initiative Modifier is equal to your Reaction Speed score divided by 10, rounded up.

PS: Punching Score is found on this table, using the character's Strength score:

RW: Ranged Weapons is equal to half your character's Dexterity score, rounded up.

MW: Melee Weapons is equal to half your character's Strength or Dexterity scores, whichever is better, rounded up.

Starting money = 2d10 dollars, 1d100 cents

Starting Age:  16 + 1d10


So a character aged 17 0r 18 will have no modifiers.  A character aged 19-35 will add +5=STR/STA & INT/LOG

Choose a name, gender, birth place, native language and handedness.

Now that you know your character's attributes and skills you can write a brief description so that other players know what you look like and what you are wearing etc.  You will also need to write a brief background that includes where you are from and you used to do before the war and then joining the army.
This message was last edited by the GM at 02:29, Mon 12 Feb.

Player Expectations

By and large most players tend to do the right thing however in every game I have run on RPoL there is always a percentage of players that for whatever reason end up causing problems or slow the game down or just ghost the playing group.  It is possible this is partly because I may not have clearly explained what is expected of players in my games so I hope the following will address some of these issues.

Posting Rates: I do not expect players to post every day however if you want to post that often you are most welcome.  At the very worst you should be trying to post a couple of times a week.  Any slower, then you will either hold up the game for the rest of the playing group or fall behind on the storyline.  Obviously Real Life commitments overule a mere game however if you cannot play for an extended period of time it is not unreasonable for the group to expect you to at least take a couple of minutes to post that you will be unavailable for a certain amount of time.  This is just old fashioned common courtesy.

Inactive Players: If any player is MIA for 2 weeks they will be considered retired. This could result in the character being written out of the story, put up for adoption by another player or coming to an untimely and often gruesome end.  Play by post games are slow enough without having to deal with players who ghost the group.

(In Character Vs Out Of Character): In the majority of cases there will be (IC) threads and (OOC) threads. The game will be played (In Character) and the (Out Of Character) threads should be used to discuss game mechanics issues, ask the Referee questions or discuss other topics not story related. Once players have discussed their issues/topics then they should make appropriate posts (IC) to include their actions or discussions In Game.

Role Play & Real Life:  Sometimes interactions between characters can become heated and sometimes interactions between players can become heated.  There is a difference, be careful not to blur the lines. Disrespecting or insulting other members of the playing group will not be tolerated. This is a game and games are supposed to be fun so keep the discussion civilised.

Teamwork: My role playing games largely rely on team work for the players to succeed.  If you don't play well with others or want to constantly be the centre of attention, this may not be the game for you.  If you enjoy co-operative, collaborative gaming then you should fit right in.

Most important of all, have fun :)
This message was last edited by the GM at 10:01, Tue 09 Jan.

Having developed the Skill system further than the game I based the system on it could probably do with a better explanation than what I have already published.

The original system only had three Primary Skill Sets: Military, Science and Engineering.  Every player character belongs to one of these three groups.

To add flavour I introduced some more mundane types of skills as what were originally just called Miscellaneous skills but the amount of skills I introduced ended up becoming grouped as Vocation Skills and Hobby skills with the addition of extra languages and literacy.  As the new game system expanded I also added more optional skills for the original PSS's as well.

So to be clear, most characters can learn any skill if they have access to an appropriate teacher and facilities and the time required to learn or improve the skill.  All the Miscellaneous skills are the same price for all characters and are relatively cheap compared to the PSS skills.  Any player can learn or improve any PSS skill however the cost of the skill depends on your PSS.

The skill costs are listed above but to use a level 1 skill as an example: To learn a level 1 Military skill cost 3 X Points, an Engineering skill 4 points and a Science skill is 5 points if that is your PSS.  If you are learning a skill from outside your PSS the cost is doubled to either 6, 8 or 10 points.

When you first generate your character you will start with 2 primary skills, one must be from your PSS the second can be from any PSS so if you choose a skill from outside your PSS it will be more expensive to improve that skill level but it is an option to start with the basics in another skill that you may not really plan on improving in the future.  Probably the most common use of this by players would be someone considering a role like a combat medic.  They start with a Military PSS, choose a Musketry - Rifles Lvl 1 for their military skill and Medicine Lvl 1 for their second skill.  Or Blacksmith Lvl 1 is another popular choice as a second skill outside your PSS.  So there are lots of options for skill choices at character generation.

So these Primary Skills are the skills that characters will spend most of their X points on (6 Skill levels max for each skill)

Most characters do not spend many X Points on Vocation skills though there are quite a few useful hobby skills that can be acquired cheaply as well as extra languages etc

I hope this helps explain the skills system a bit better, I will try to add to this post if a get questions on other aspects of the skills system.