Creating a captain

[ironape]

I am struggling throught the creation of a Captain PC.

What are the rules for advancing a character from the initial character (ensign) to a more advanced character (captain). Is it outlined anywhere or is it strictly Narrators perogative how many professional/non professional skill points to allot.

Does anyone have a Captains template that i could use as an example??

Race Human

Skills: leaning heavily towards the command skills with some physical mixed in.

Thanks for the help in advance.

Ape

[AllenS]

There are guidelines in the PG for advanced characters but nowhere do they tell you "Build a Captain on this many advancements". Basically, you either layer on the Advancements until the character has the abilties and skills you think a Captain should have, or you set a maximum number of advancements. What I did was give my Captain 20 advancements and the other officers 10. No one seemed to mind, as they liked their characters and felt that the Captain should be more experienced. (I later adjusted the First Officer to 16 advancements for much the same reason).

Allen

[Lancer]

Like many many other things in Coda this depends entirely on the result you want to achieve: If you want to have a captain that can beat Jim Kirk in a brawl and outsmart Mr. Spock just give him enough advancements to do it. If, OTOH, you just want someone who has a decent tactic skill and just the right skill levels to run a ship without ever engaging in any kinds of heroics, than just give him enough advancements for that.

Come to think of it, this seems to be the one most defining feature of the Coda system - once you know what you want you get, you have a lot of options to achieve this result, but if you want to just design something without a clearly defined goal you are likely to hit a dead end. So the old advice "think before you jump" seems to be even more true for Coda than many other RPGs.

That being said I realize it might not be very helpful to you, so let me offer some more advice.
It might be useful to just advance the professional skills and abilities first. Once you have the essentials set you can always just give the character another advancement or two to account for hobbies, non-professional skills you deem important or and edge or two. That way it might be easier for you to stay concentrated on what's necessary first, without getting lost in all the options the game offers - a risk I see as quite great, as there are so many different things you can buy with your advancement picks.

The era you play in may have an influence on how you design a character as well. If your series is defined as "swashbuckling adventure" or "dangerous exploration" better reactions and more courage points might be in order. If you run in a "thoughtful and civilized" era higher skills (especially social skills) might be a better choice instead. If you have the Narrator's Guide at hand take a look at the series characters and I think you'll see what I mean.

Yet other way to look at it would not be in terms of skill levels alone, but what you want your character to be able to achieve with his skills and abilities. As you are advancing skills keep the relevant attribute modifiers in mind. With low attributes you'll need more skills (i.e. advancements) to achieve the same end result as someone with high attributes. Take a look at the skill difficulties listed in the PG with each skill. Once you know what your character should be able to achieve with an average dice roll it's easy to work out what skill levels he'll need for it. Then just give him the advancements necessary to get to that level of skill.

[Tilarium]

Funny you should mention that. I've begun to roll up the other 33 members of the USS Blizzard. Currently I'm finishing up the captain, I decided to go with 27 advancments, not counting promotion, commendation, famous event, and command edges.

Kyle

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

FOr Commendations, Promotions, Famous Events, and command. I give those to my crew for free. They can only be earned though if given out by me(the narrator) Anyone interested in being a Captain.... I need one. Email me usspinnacle@hotmail.com

[EliasVaughn]

When creating the captain (Captain Joseph Eddleson) for my potential Star Trek: Commonwealth series, I went an unusual route: Eddleson started as a Merchant, and then "bought in" to the Command Officer SOEP.

Of course, he's a fresh Captain, having been "fast-tracked" through early-Starfleet's Advanced Officer Program from a career on trading vessels. The Commonwealth is his first command.

All this has been designed so a Player doesn't have much command history to live up to. But the character was built on 12 Advancements, and just about all of it went toward developing the prerequisites and Edges (such as Promotion and Command).

This guy ended up being a very intriguing character: a genetically reqequenced child who fled into the Merchant fleets to escape his parents and his past, ends up parlaying a promising career in middle-management into a captain's chair on a Starfleet vessel. In my mind, this is what is beautiful about the CODA chargen system: it really builds "character" into your characters. Each advancement had an event tied to it, all of which combine into an interesting background section on his char sheet (ala the NG NPCs).

[Doug Burke]

Well, I can tell you that in the game I'm currently running, all of the PCs (and the lion's share of the NPCs) were converted over from ICON. And they (at least the PCs) came out to the equivalent of of anywhere from 5 to 10 Advancements each.

I like the sound of EliasVaughn's captain though. A greta use of the Coda system to make a fascinating character. I did something similar with our resident expert in Vulcan medicine (an NPC). He started his career as a scientist (using the Medical Doctor Professional Development Package) on Vulcan and had a lengthy career there before joining Starfleet during the Dominion War (all told about I think he had 11 advancements). He's an 80 year-old Lieutenant, but being Vulcan still has a few good years ahead of him. And he tries to have a sense of humor because he has learned it helps to have good bedside manner with non-Vulcans.

[Sea Tyger]

For the one CO character I put together, I already had a strong character concept, then used the suggested advancements for time in service in the PG.

The character ended up with 21 advancements, for a 36-year-old hotshot.

On the flip side, my Caitian engineer, Lt. Karlinarsti, started out as an enlisted character and has served for 28 years, giving him 40 advancements (Karl was heavily involved in the Tholian-Federation War).

So, I will echo the sentiments of others here in recommending that you get a concept for your character, and give him/her enough advancements to achieve those goals. For ease, I would suggest using the 1 per year in peaceful service, 2 per year in wartime, and 1 per 2 years of civilian professional life.

[MightyCthulhu]

Originally posted by Sea Tyger
For the one CO character I put together, I already had a strong character concept, then used the suggested advancements for time in service in the PG.

What page is that on?

[Lt Cmdr Matt]

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