Characters are the heart of role playing games. Fully Automated makes it easy to build characters that reflect whatever concept you have in mind.
Creating Unique Characters
The mechanics of building a character come down to allocating points between seven base Attributes; assigning Skill points to the skills that matter most to your character; and picking out Abilities from a tree of options that fit your concept. Between the available options, players can create characters that demonstrate a diverse array of skills and weaknesses.
Narratively, character sheets and the character creation process try to counteract a lot of common tendencies in RPGs that create a 1000 variants of the badass loner. Characters are encouraged to briefly describe their living arrangement, family, neighbors, and community.
The game offers instructions for playing unmodified or minimally modified humans; heavily augmented humans (adapted for the ocean, forests, space, etc.); talking chimps, gorillas, and birds; non-verbal non-human animals; androids; disembodied sentient computer programs; and transhumanist cyborgs. We don’t provide instructions on playing as a sentient beehive or three kids in a trench-coat, but if your GM is cool with it we’re confident that you can make that work.
Character Types
Fully Automated doesn’t use character classes. Any character can build out their skills and special abilities in whatever way suits them. But if you’re looking for advice on building characters that fill certain functions within a team or a narrative, we offer the following suggested character types.
Hacker
You like to manipulate the technosphere around you to gain entry, control, or advantage. Sometimes hackers specialize in modifying electronics and other physical devices, and sometimes in network penetration and code.
Recommended Skills: Hacking Software, Hacking Hardware, Assess Tech, Detection & Analysis, and/or Physics & Engineering
Recommended Stats: Intelligence, Observation, and Knowledge.
Tinkerers, engineers, technicians, and any characters who like to apply lateral thinking to solve problems make great hackers.
Investigator
You see what others miss and draw out data where others see noise. You can bring the hidden into the light and make sense of mysteries.
Recommended Skills: Situational Awareness, Research & Investigation, Detection & Analysis, Assess Tech, and any subject matter expertise
Recommended Stats: Observation, Knowledge, and Intelligence.
Detectives, journalists, and puzzle-solvers make great investigators.
Healer
You restore the injured. Sometimes it’s in a clinic. Sometimes it’s unexpectedly out in the world. And sometimes you’re friends with people who get into situations that require a lot of urgent care. Some healers depend more on brains, and some more on heart.
Recommended Skills: Care, Medicine, Chem & Molecular Bio, Empathy, and sometimes Physics & Engineering.
Recommended Stats: Intelligence, Knowledge, Observation, and sometimes Strength and Dexterity
Doctors, medics, clerics, nurses, therapists, and anyone who likes to give care all make good Healers.
Negotiator
Growing up, you were told to “use your words”, and you’ve found that really works for you. You know people, culture, and what to say. You pay attention to those you interact with and demonstrate high emotional intelligence to find solutions to problems you encounter.
Recommended Skills: Charm, Intimidation, Acting, Art Music & Culture, Empathy, Psychology, Community Contact, and possibly Psionics
Recommended Stats: Charisma and Observation and sometimes Knowledge or Strength.
Actors, lawyers, government delegates, union reps, and other positions that require cooperation make natural negotiators.
Knower
In a world overflowing with data, some people don’t quite appreciate the purpose of storing a mind-full of facts. But besides paying off when a situation doesn’t allow for a cyberspace search, you know that data isn’t knowledge until it’s understood. The difference between grasping the world and floating into ontological relativism is context. Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? As Decartes observed, to think is to be. And you like to be.
Recommended Skills: Any of the subject matter skills (History & Geography, Law & Crime, Physics & Engineering, Chem & Mol. Biology) as well as Research & Investigation, Community Contact, and Art Music & Culture,
Recommended Stats: Knowledge & Observation
Archivists, Librarians, Analysts, and Scientists make good Knower characters. Highly technical workers like supply chain analysts with a hobby interest in one or more esoteric liberal arts offer a fun way to be the character in a group who has the most understanding of the game world’s inner workings.
Athlete
Your body is a tool. With it you can go places, do things, survive and thrive. You take care of your physical form to keep it ready to serve any need. Whether you’re racing a mountain bike down a forest trail or leaping between rooftops, you trust your muscle, bone, and/or metal to take you where you need to go.
Recommended Skills: Athletics, Will, Riding & Piloting, Stealth
Recommended Stats: Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance
Competitive athletes, physical trainers, dancers, outdoor enthusiasts, adrenaline junkies, explorers, firefighters, construction workers, any other physical profession or anyone else who enjoys pushing their limits or challenging themselves can make good athletes.
Fighter
The last arena of conflict resolution is physical resolution, and you prefer not to be at a disadvantage when such situations arise. Maybe you believe that projecting your ability to face violence is the best tool of discouragement. Maybe you find joy in the challenge or the movement. Maybe you just think civility is a pretty myth humans tell one another. Fighters can exhibit a variety of styles, such as specializing in close-quarters engagement or ranged. Make sure to talk to the GM to determine whether a Fighter will be useful to a campaign.
Recommended Skills: Combat, followed by Athletics.
Recommended Stats: Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance
Most characters who would make good athletes would also make good fighters, though characters who enjoy confronting conflict or who have a passionate moral alignment are especially suited. Adventurers, monks, and other clergy members may make good fighter characters. Soldiers and other military characters are a natural fit, but be sure to review the culture of armed forces with players and make sure their character concept won’t create unwanted friction at the table.
Premade Characters
If you’re looking for examples of the kind of characters you might create in Fully Automated, check out these premade characters.
