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. For a brief understanding of how they work here, you start out with each stat at 5 and you may subtract to add to a pool of 5 points, with a maximum of 40 points in total. You do not level up, get any implants or traits which increase your stats beyond this, for the sake of consistency between player characters.

Note to Players about enforcement of this system: the staff are not here to peer over you and watch you like a hawk that you're observing these ideas. There will obviously be some exceptions to certain circumstances, however when it is brought into question regarding your characters appropriate skill level, please take into consideration your distribution of your points and re-distribute them accordingly if asked. No one wants to micro-manage other peoples characters, but we do have a standard so we ask you at least try  to adhere to some semblance of reason when it comes to this. It is not a system contrived for arbitrary reasons but is intended to help you find a direction to take your character within the Fallout universe, as well as enable other characters to get better first impressions within the constraints of the BYOND engine.

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. There are seven attributes to choose from, below will be a list of what they are and what they can do for you in the context of our server.

Strength: Having points in strength will determine your skill checks when it comes to strength-related tasks, whether that mean physical activity or as a means of intimidation. The more points put in here, the more your character will have capability to affect their environment and others by pure brute force. If you do not have a lot of points in here, your character may have some difficulty doing physical tasks that are very demanding, such as lifting heavy things or efficiently using heavy weaponry.

Perception: This statistic determines your characters ability to be aware and notice things, ranging from hidden traps/doors, to diagnosing a medical issue, to figuring out how to pick a particular lock. It is also used in figuring out if your character is spotting someone who is sneaking and their general awareness of their environment. Another thing that is important to consider is that perception is used in understanding your characters ability to perceive space when using weaponry, something worth consideration for energy weapon and sniper users who must determine the path of their projectile surely if they wish to be effective in combat. Someone with low perception may have a hard time really noticing what is going on, even in their view, whether they're short-sighted and wear glasses or not.

Endurance: Endurance affects your characters ability to sustain punishment, whether it be straight trauma or through the means of radiation, poison, lack of air, etc. While the stats do not affect your characters actual hit-points, this statistic is important for determining the amount of toughness your character has in a roleplay sense in terms of their environmental resistance, their healing rate, as well as their stamina. Those with low endurance may need to take some breaks to recover from extraneous activity, and may not be able to resist and shoulder off the effects of the wasteland with such ease as someone with higher endurance.

Charisma: Understanding the role of charisma in a roleplay sense has to do with your characters ability to be convincing to others to do things, peoples potential disposition to you (the aura you give), your ability to barter prices, as well as your characters word choice and general knowledge of how people work. A character with low charisma will likely have trouble communicating in one way or another, whether its through speech impediment, poor word choice, a bad 'vibe' that your character gives off that makes others distrust your character, and many other ways. If your character has high charisma, they have the propensity to effectively communicate with an assertiveness which gets them heard and may even inspire and encourage people to have the motivation to do things.

Intelligence: The points invested into Intelligence will net you advantages that allow your characters to make skill and speech checks with others, as well as open up possibilities for certain competencies that require a high intelligence. Such skills are, but are not limited to; understanding how to research, how to perform medical procedures or understand medicine, how to properly solve complex issues with ingenuity, how to deal with computers, etc. A character with high intelligence will be able to use their knowledge to piece together solutions for issues and be able to handle complex technical tasks that might require specialized knowledge often lost to time in the wasteland. With low intelligence, your characters ability to piece together issues and come up with solutions, wrapping their head around complex concepts or technical skills, will be severely hampered as they do not possess the necessary knowledge to structure their thoughts. Remember there is an aesthetic common to the Fallout games that goes along with low intelligence (3 and below), use that to your advantage and have fun with your low-int characters - sometimes it can somehow be an advantage!

Agility: Agility is the characters ability to do anything with both control over their movements as well as their general dexterity. Additionally, agility is used in some skill and speech checks, most notably pick-pocketing, sneaking, fighting unarmed as well as proficiency with firearms. A person with high agility will likely have a lot of finesse when it comes to mobility when it comes to reflexive decisions, as well as greater hand-eye coordination in general but most usually with weaponry. Someone with low agility may have butter fingers and fumble things, may react clumsily to impulsive, time sensitive tasks that require physical activation, and generally do not posses the skills to be physically subtle.

Luck: A characters luck is important to their every day function, as it can determine the outcome of their present reality beyond their control in both their environment and in others. Luck is used in a wide range of skill and speech checks which can be generally described as 'things going right' for one way or another. This may be, but is not limited to, remembering a specific piece of information from somewhere a long time ago that just now has relevancy, to hitting just the correct pressure point to put someone out, to coming across hidden doorways and traps, to making assertions that are risky but provide results, and on and on. A person with high luck often lets the dice roll and allows the pieces to fall in place before them so that everything works out, perhaps not perfectly, but almost effortlessly and without specialization where it would be appropriate. A person with low luck is someone who may be afflicted with maladies of all kinds, from making small mistakes that domino into larger ones, saying the 'wrong thing' to the 'wrong person' especially at the 'wrong time', to trying to find or do one last thing to no avail - the possibilities for potential tragedy are endless as long as you're willing to roleplay them.

How To Avoid Common Character Development Issues
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. 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. Also, with some exceptions most surface-dwelling characters will not be especially attractive, either due to malnutrition, hereditary defects, lack of basic medical care, or physical trauma; on the plus side, the necessities of survival make beauty less of a priority for most. A character would realistically exhibit distrust and suspicion toward at least one foreign faction as well as towards most wastelanders in general, and the in-character experience of a street-smart person is that anyone may be looking for an opportunity to rob one blind or worse.

Anti-Sue: The opposite of a Mary/Gary Sue is a character who is unusually frail, naive or incompetent for a setting to the point that it breaks immersion. This is important to consider when developing a character for Desert Rose 2, as the wasteland is a harsh, cruel place where the weak rarely survive and the strong usually don't have mercy. The typical wastelander can be expected to be lean, rugged, and cautious towards new faces or offers that appear too good to be true. Vault dwellers would tend to be the most naive–as well as among the best well-fed–of any faction, yet they are still expected to be able to contribute to the function of the vault in some way. Similar care must be taken when role-playing a mental illness, trauma, or vulnerability. Anxiety, depression, PTSD or other disorders can help flesh out some characters depending on occupation and history, but the tacit reaction of the wasteland should be assumed to be almost wholly unsympathetic. Mental or emotional breakdowns or suicidal urges are a serious risk to not just an individual character but also a circle of peers which would lead to being considered a liability; therefore, unlike in Rimworld such serious issues ought to be justified by special roleplay circumstances. This should not discourage one from creating heavily flawed or even "broken" characters. Beggars and addicts living on the fringes of semi-civilized society would not be an uncommon sight and may offer unique role-play opportunities if they're played for more than a "woe is me" angle.

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.