Guide to S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system is an acronym for the primary statistics in the Fallout universe. You can find more specific information about how it is used in the context of the Fallout games here. In the context of Fallout 13 on Desert Rose we have decided to keep S.P.E.C.I.A.L. without mechanics, however they are still useful in the context of character development. As such this guide will touch on the basics of character development and set expectations for how to use the system.

People who come to our server come from backgrounds of all kinds. Some people come from backgrounds where developing characters is an art and a science, something one can get a lot of practice with. Other people may not have any experience at all creating a realistic character, and often fall into common traps of character design that are inappropriate for the heavy role play setting we strive for. Keeping this in mind, the material here can be useful for any skill level of role player who comes across this guide. Before we start describing the system, it's imperative to go over a few pitfalls inexperienced roleplayers find themselves in when creating a character:

Mary/Gary Sue / Self Insert: It's really important when you play a character that they are a person unique to the Fallout setting, and not a self insert of yourself or an alias of yourself personified as a character. If you have a character who is so competent or perfect that this appears absurd, even in the context of the fictional setting, then it will eventually come to be an issue among your peers and may cause staff to contact you concerning your character. When you're designing your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. its important you keep in mind what your characters strengths and weaknesses are, and that their weaknesses are legitimate. Here is a simple guide to learn more about this as often this issue is beyond the scope of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L system.

One Dimensional: Every character who plays on Desert Rose 2 ideally should resemble a person who has lived their own life somewhere in the Fallout universe before you actually get in game with them on the server. That said, its important to understand that your character has lived a life up to the point where you've picked up and that they've had a myriad of experiences and situations they've went through before they got to this point. You do not need to know what all those details are, but you must keep in mind that all characters are multi-faceted, and even if they're inclined to an emotion or perspective, they are human beings (or were, in the case of ghouls) and are shaped also by their past and present experiences. New roleplayers often only know how to play extremes rather than nuanced characters with realistic mannerisms and motivations; we have higher expectations than that here. Here are two resources to help flesh out your characters here and here.

Min/Maxing: When you're designing your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. for a character its important to avoid thinking of things as 'dump stats' and you remain committed in roleplay to what you put down. It's tempting to put Charisma at 1 or 2 and bump up your Perception and Agility, but if you're still going to play your character like a silver-tongued motivation speaker, then you're not really being honest about where your characters skills lie. Whether or not the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. system has mechanics tied to it, you're doing a disservice to your character design by weighting your numbers in such a way to position yourself to win in combat encounters or to have the skills to overcome any issues. Some of the fun of Fallout in any of the games is that different characters have different sets of skills to overcome obstacles - you can talk your way out of situations, shoot your way out, smash your way out, sneak your way out - and your character should be better at some things than others. If you find yourself going over putting points and you don't feel there's enough to distribute it may be a sign that your character is over-skilled, perhaps consider re-structuring your character to have legitimate areas of improvement. If you let your character have imperfections, they will be more realistic and will actually likely be more fun to play as limitations make way for creative problem solving.

Distributing S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points
In order to emulate how to build your characters S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points, use this resource from the New Vegas games to add and remove points. You may go on to the next portion of the character development and look into perks, but please do not level up your character. Understanding that our characters grow and develop over time unfortunately it is simply easier to keep everyone at level one, than to try to allow people to manage 'level ups' as they play. As fun as it would be to do this, for reasons of this being a multi-player and having no way to rightly control it other than the honor system, it is best for all of us to keep it simple and stick to starting with 5 in each stat which can be subtracted to add to a pool of 5 points. You are allowed implants, but please do not let it affect your characters S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points.