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my suggestion is dont do it...
it only leads to head aches and flipped tables...
well in my experience anyway

MT-NME wrote:I was wondering if anyone has made any guidelines/rules for creating a character based on yourself?

1. Don't be your own Mary Sue.
If you really want a character based on yourself, include your flaws and don't exaggerate your strengths (not much, anyway).
When you role-play yourself, think about how you'd really act in the situation, not how you'd like to act.

2. Do some research.
-Take an IQ test. You don't have to get fancy, just something decent online or a test from a bookstore. That'll give you your in-game intelligence score.
-Find out how much you can lift. This is kind of screwy, since Palladium never defines "lift"; do they mean deadlift? Bench press? Or what? Play around with some weights, and try to judge how much you could pick up and chuck at somebody. OR find out how much weight you can comfortably carry for extended durations, then assume that you can lift 2x that.
-There are skills and effects based on Physical Endurance, if you can find them. Swimming maybe? I think I remember something about you can run at full speed for your PE in minutes/seconds/whatever. I don't have my books, but you could probably come up with a reasonable approximation of your in-game PE.
-Ask other people for input on your PB and MA. Average all the opinions and try to figure the score from there.
-Find out how fast you can run, and you have your Speed attribute.

3. Be Realistic.
When I made a character based on myself, the guy ended up being a Vagabond, because I just didn't have the right skills for any other class. If you're in the National Guard, that doesn't equate to CS Special Forces or anything. If you're a park ranger, that probably doesn't make you a Wilderness Scout.

MT-NME wrote:I was wondering if anyone has made any guidelines/rules for creating a character based on yourself?

Pick up dice. 3d6 to be exact.

Roll them and total them up. Repeat 7 more times.

Starting with your first total, put that under IQ, working your way down to SPD.

Pick personality traits (or have someone pick for you) that fit your own personality, and be sure to RP them when you play.

If you're playing in a HU setting, choose the educational level of skill-selection that you currently have, and select skills that best fit your own personal knowledge and capabilities. For example, if you go to the gym take athletics (general). If you go to the gym and jazzersize, take athletics (aerobic). If you go to the gym and kiss your muscles in front of the mirror everyday because they're huge, take body-building and weight lifting, as well as a day off from the gym (you juice-monkey).
Repeat until all available skill-choices have been made.

If you are playing in a different setting, pick an OCC as your own life choices would be different if you had been from a world like Rifts or Wormwood.


You should now have a character based on yourself.

Add 10 years to your age. If you're making you, make it the you that you plan on being in 10 years (realistically). This gives you a little bit of leeway in setting yourself up. As it's been said, assign your physical attributes to fit (if you give yourself a 24 Spd and 21 PE and you're not an Olympic Marathon runner think again). This is you in an RPG where the characters are extraordinary; pull out a few features that you like (or dislike) about yourself and exaggerate them. Make it you in an alternate dimension. What I mean is if you're married, have kids or a devoted dog, take them out of the picture. An old GM of mine wanted to run a modern-day mid-apocalyptic survival campaign and told us we could play ourselves if we wanted to. I did it then just after we started, I told him to change reality. Yes, it's just a game, but I don't want to RP the possibility of the death of my wife and kids. We just basically loaded from a saved game just before I met my wife, that way she and the kids wouldn't be killed by those damned Ruskies, because let's face it, if I want to play in character and I just see my wife and kids executed by the KGB, I would more than likely eat a whole bottle of my meds (and any others I could find) or else use my Ruger to paint the walls in a pretty brain-style pattern.

Back to the creation though, make you and exaggerate a few key flaws and admirable characteristics. I don't care who you are, more than likely as much as you imagine yourself as Jean Claude Van Damme when you watch his movies, you'll never be like him, so go ahead and make yourself super.

Only one rule when rolling up me -

Use 5D6 for PB! (I wish)

Remember that if Palladium's attribute rolls are supposed to represent the normal human range (and it's a fair assumption, since half a percent of all human characters will have a 3 in any given attribute, and roughly 3.9% of all human characters (almost 1 in 25) is going to have at least one attribute that's a 3.

Which means that statistically speaking, half our attributes are likely to be 10 or less, and at least one or two of our attributes are going to be significantly crapper than average. Not that you'll see many people actually give "myself as a PC" these sorts of attributes. They'll almost always give themselves high scores in whatever they think they're awesome at, and 9-12 in whatever they know they're not awesome at, and think that they've been hard but fair on themselves

paxmiles wrote:IQ:13 (My IQ is like 135 when I took the test last, at age 15. I'm 25 now.)

But in the last ten years you've smoked so much crap that now your IQ is 35.

I'd create a character from when I was in my best shape.
Ya, I still play rugby, but sometimes the shrapnel in my back gives me a hard time.
So, Id make my character probably from right before I went to Bosnia.
Granted, I wasn't as good at kenjutsu-do then as I am now, or was before I joined the army (due to lack of practice while I was in), but that could be "fudged" a bit since it would be my "hand to hand" skill (really, it strikes me as odd since I'd also studied shotokan and aikido plus what the army taught me when I went into group, that one can only have one hand to hand skill... or can't more or less combine traits of two or three; I do).
Hadn't been to college yet, which would reflect in my other skills. My hunting, tracking and general wood-lore was about as sharp as before I went in.
So really, you just have to give yourself an honest appraisal from wherever you want to be your character's "starting point".

I did this once for the attributes only. I figured I'd be a Vagabond because my skills are more along the lines of something for BtS, not Rifts.

IQ: 14-15 (I scored 146 on my IQ test so depending on how you round it my attribute would be 14-15. And no it wasn't one of those cheesy internet ones)
ME: 13 (Based on my friend's opinions based on the situations they've been with me in and the fact that despite sliding out of control [in both lanes] on ice on a narrow road with an 18 wheeler coming at us they remarked that I just seemed calm and collected with my game face on)
MA: 13-14 (Based on my scores for every presentation I've had to do, the fact that I will convince my friends that they're wrong about things when they're really right and then once they admit they're wrong tell them that they were right all along and I just wanted to see if I could change their minds. I'm also the GM because of my apparent ability to craft a story and tell it.)
PS: 10 (At one time when I was right into my physical fitness kick I would have probably said something closer to 15 but I've gotten lazy lately)
PE: 12 (I'm not sure about this one but I tend to get sick less than most people and probably due to my size I've always been able to take a beating and have a rather high pain threshold as remarked by my doctor)
PP: 13 (Assigned to me by my group... I would probably say it's close. Juggling, and other crazy activities means my hands go where I want them when I want them... quickly)
PB: 11 (My group gave me a 14 [females included] but I'm hard on myself so I see myself as good looking, but not crazy above average)
SPD: While I've never actually tested my speed, in every event I've ever ran in I came in last. So I'd say this would be my lowest stat at something like 7 maybe 6, I dunno. I am pretty slow.

I hate that the stats are all where they are and I feel like I'm bloating my stats but we actually had a long discussion/debate at my table for over an hour statting out all of the players and I know they all weren't just picking high stats because a number of the players at the table concluded stats from 7-11 for themselves so I feel we were being fair and realistic. Maybe I'm just above average and too humble to accept it?