Pre-gen help!

[Dark_Lightning]

howdy, folks! i am quickly approaching the time for another con, and i'd like some tips or a tried-and-true formula for creating Palladium pre-gens. i have ideas as to how i want to go about doing certain things, but how does one just get the basic pre-gen put together for the other players?

i'll be running a Heroes/N&SS hybrid, Nightbane and Dead Reign. any and all help is most graciously appreciated!

[Spinachcat]

I am doing pre-gens this week for my 4 PB games at OrcCon - N&SS and Mechanoids. There is NO easy method unfortunately. It is one of the reasons I hope that the Rifter.com gets going because Megaversal Ambassadors (and all GMs) could really use a deep pre-gen character database.

Here's what I am doing:

1) My games have 6 players so I am rolling up 8 characters so there is some variety. To save time, I am rolling up one set of 8 human characters and then using those rolls for both games. I type up my own character sheet so I can cut/paste the basics once I am done.

2) Since the character will only exist for 4 hours of the con game, I do not need to go into the same detail as a campaign character. All characters are the same level and I only need to give them a short background / general personality / personal description.

3) I am expecting that 90% of the players will have zero experience. Thus, I am writing out all abbreviations (aka, Mental Endurance 15 instead of ME 15) and I am listing out their bonuses and damage for each type of attack and giving a brief description of any kind of special moves (aka Flying Jump Kick or Special Katas)

4) I am trying something new for this con. I am giving a rating next to each stat. Here is my chart:

3-5 = Poor
6-8 = Low
9-12 = Avg
13-15 = Good
16-19 = High
20+= Great

Then I am giving an Attribute Summary for each character that touches on the low points and high points of each character. Here's an example:

Boxor the Tailgunner
IQ = 7 = Low
ME = 9 = Avg
MA = 10 = Avg
PS = 19 = High
PP = 13 = Good
PE = 20 = Great
PB = 10 = Avg
SPD = 3 = Poor

The Attribute Summary would be: Boxor is uneducated, heavily muscled, agile, extremely tough and can't run because of a bad limp and pegleg. I am hoping that this gives the player an immediate hook to play Boxor and a baseline to know what I mean by the stats.

[mrloucifer]

Spinachcat has the right idea and a good model to work with up there. I would also add that what I do with pregen's is to give at least a few unique skills and attributes and tailor adventures around them so that those who play get a quick moment in the spot light.

AKA: one or two characters have swimming so they can dive into a lake to pull a secret lever, or the only PC with mechanical engineering gets a moment to rebuild a busted motor that will lift a gate that will allow them to escape the oncoming hoarde of zombies, so on and so forth.

Write up a list of the moments what PC thet were made for and add them in throughout the game. In my con games I usually allow 2-3 percnetage rolls during pivital moments like this to help them suceed and get their moment in the spotlight.

[Dark_Lightning]

some good ideas here.


so, it's acceptable to already give a character bio/personality description/etc. for such games? i had planned to let them do that themselves, but if it saves time, how would one go about outlining such?

so far, my partner and myself have been lucky enough to have experienced players at our tables, 5 out of 6 times. would it still be recommended to simplify things?

i also like mrloucifer's ideas, and they are probably something i'll run with. however, the times i have done pre-gens for quick games has shown me that even if a character has a certain build, the player will often surprise you by not doing what they were built for and doing something very different. since i have plenty of books, would it be a good idea to put together the basic skills and let the players decide on their more advanced abilities?

thanks again for the help, guys! this will really help me save time in the long run.