To Create or To Select?
FFZ has a wealth of pre-made characters available for you to choose from, and also pre-made character components that you can assemble at your whim into a new character, taking elements and arranging them in a new fashion. However, you do always have the option to create a character entirely from scratch. Whichever method you choose, the end result is the same: a character that exists in the game world, that you control the thoughts and actions of.
The Steps
Creating an FFZ character from scratch involves assembling five main components.
Step 1: Archetype/Tribe
The first place you should start with any FFZ character is what is known as the "archetype." This is the kind of character you'll be overall, the theme for your character — all of your character choices will be driven by the archetype.
The Archetype is not a major mechanical element. It has a mechanical aspect to it, but the aspect is largely optional, and there to help you make quick decisions about your character. You can abandon the mechanical element entirely, and it will not affect the game. The archetype is an organizing concept. It is perhaps best to think of it as comparing to other characters that exist: Do you want to be a wise old sage like Merlin, or more of a noble king like Arthur? Perhaps the FF games themselves inspire you: would you like to play a hard-edged warrior like Cloud? Or perhaps you would have more fun with a precocious kid-like character similar to Vivi or Krilie? You can check the archetypes page to get inspiration, or to take a look at a few of the archetypes that have occurred in the FF games and the fantasy/sci-fi genre as a whole, and either use them entirely, or adjust them to meet your needs.
As the Archetypes page shows, the archetype can be very broad ("I want to be physically strong") or fairly specific ("I want to be like Tifa from FFVII"). The idea is to get a theme — even a very big theme — and use it to help you make choices about your character going forward. One particular theme is that of tribe, which is sort of a genetic archetype. The idea of, say, Bangaa being big and strong, is part of the archetype of the Bangaa character — little more than an entire people of big, strong creatures (and variations on that archetype). Tribes also include cultural packages and interesting personality quirks, so they end up being more detailed than most general archetypes. Still, they largely serve the same purpose: an organizing force for your character.
Because the archetype is not overtly mechanical, it really doesn't matter where you draw inspiration from. You should note that your character will not be exactly the same as these characters — they were made for different purposes, and there will be differences in what they can do: a character based on Wakka from FFX might have abilities that Wakka did not, and might not have abilities that Wakka did. Still, the goal is to be thematically similar: a character based on Wakka should still be an athletic, physical character, in good humor, who can debilitate enemies in a fight with ranged attacks. Depending on your GM and the setting, you may even be able to belong to a sports team, or throw blitzballs as your weapon, or you may have to re-interpret your character slightly (instead of a sports team, he belongs to a military troop; instead of a blitzball he uses a bow and arrow). Your character will also probably grow and change differently than Wakka did, because in FFZ, there is no game script, and there is the flexibility to do whatever you want. Perhaps in your game, your Wakka-like character becomes an anti-technological crusader who specializes in hunting Mekanika, perhaps even gaining holy powers from the church before turning against them…or maybe he never turns against them.
As you play more sessions of FFZ, different archetypes might appeal to you, and you might eventually want to forge your own, or build your archetype after you have your character's other details (perhaps you choose their job first, or their tribe, or their highest statistic). You may also choose to randomize your archetype, to discover your character as you play rather than coming in with a pre-concieved notion. All of these are very encouraged: you will feel closer to a character that you forge new ground for than you will to one that comes pre-bottled, and changing the archetype is a remarkably easy way to give even almost identical characters extraordinarily different feel. That the Archetype is Step 1 only reflects how useful of a unifying force it can be. When you don't start anywhere else, begin there, and the rest flows easily.
Step 2: Details
Once you have a clear archetype, you should take a moment to imagine in-character responses to certain questions, perhaps with that archetype in mind.
Adding detail to a character is something of a balancing act: you want your character to have depth and resonance, mostly because you'll be spending a lot of time with the character. A shallow or uninteresting (or even slightly annoying) character becomes quickly stale over the course of a year of gaming. On the other extreme, a character who has a small novel dedicated to their existence is a lot of wasted effort, most of the time, and can wind up hogging the spotlight from the other characters, demanding attention in the game that should be spread around. It is more important in a table-top game to repeat defining traits frequently than to add a lot of defining traits. That is, a strong element that defines many aspects of your character's life and behavior is more evocative than little tidbits that get ignored. In part, this is the nature of the genre, and of the archetype-based character you're making: it's more important to have a character defined by a theme than it is to have a "realistic" or "modern" character, in general (though, of course, you can deliberately go against that tide, if you want).
The details of your character are encapsulated in a "character interview:" a sort of theoretical run-down of some features of your character's life. These features can then be elaborated upon as you go forward, as you prefer (or not), building your character organically from a few basic ingredients.
The character interview is informed by the archetype in that you should keep the latter in mind while figuring out how your character would answer their questions. Each answer to each question is a hook for further detail: like a persistent toddler, you can ask your character "why?" after any of these answers. These questions should come into play at some point during the game.
Imagine your character's response to the following questions:
Character Interview
- What do you look like? Why do you look like that? (This is your Appearance)
- Take us through a normal day for you. What do you do when you wake up? What do you eat for lunch? What do you do before you go to bed at night? Why do you do those things? (This is your Habit)
- What is one defining event from your past? What happened to you to make you the way you are today, and why did it have that deep of an effect on you? (This is your History)
- What do you want more than anything? Why do you want that? (This is your Desire)
- What do are you most scared of? Why don't you want that to happen? (This is your Fear)
- What trait of your character gets the most compliments, or makes others like them? What do they do that earns them respect? Why is your character especially good at that? (This is your Virtue)
- What is your character's biggest flaw, or the thing that makes others hate them? What do they try to hide, or what do they get criticized for? Why does your character suffer from this? (This is your Vice)
In addition, a given GM might have questions to ask you, depending on the kind of campaign themes they envision. The four questions will vary with the GM and the campaign, and some may be fairly arbitrary, but each one reflects the campaign the GM is designing as you design your characters, and certain themes that may crop up over the course of the campaign. The GM may offer different questions to different players, ask that the answers remain secret except to him, or even assume certain things about the character you didn't know until you read the question. Example questions may be…
- Someone close to your character has died. Who is it, and how does your character remember them?
- Does your character prefer the convenience of the big city, or the comfort and space of the open country?
- Why did your character take the job to save Princess Sara from the dark knight? What do they want to get out of it?
- Is your character interested in making friends, or are they more independent and aloof?
- Where was your character when they heard about the Airship Disaster? How did the news affect them?
Combined with the archetype, these are the truly significant parts of your character — the job and tribe and appearance and equipment are all informed by this step. This question helps you define who your character is; the rest of the character creation process basically reflects this central definition, and the rest of the campaign will reflect the choices made in these first steps.
Step X: Base Statistics.
Every FFZ character begins with the same base statistic numbers: 15, 14, 12, 9, 7, and 5. These are assigned to your six main statistics: Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. From these base statistics, you can gain your derived statistics: Vigor, Agility, Vitality, Sorcery, Mind, and Spirit. These derived statistics apply as modifiers on various other character statistics, such as your points, your attacks, your defenses, and your skills. Each derived statistic is linked to two other statistics, and a skill. This step can be fairly mechanical, as there are quite a few derived and character statistics, and you will need to take into account your job when assigning them.
If you want to skip this step, you can just use the base statistics for the sample character from the job you want. The sample characters are made to be fairly "generic," so they will be effective at their job. However, it is also true that a lot of character can be gained from someone who isn't quite as masterful at their job, or someone who takes an unorthodox approach to their job — this can be gained by moving some of the statistics around.
This is the only time in the game where you should have to look at this many numbers at once: all the bonuses and penalties in the game apply to the "highest level" of statistic. When you get a boon that increases your attack power, you might have a bonus to Weapon Power; you won't get a bonus to Strength.
At every level you gain, and at the end of every tier (levels 6, 11, and 15), you can add +1 to a base statistic — if that changes the derived statistic, you may have to re-calculate the character statistics that depend on it, but this is part of your overall character change when you level up. Just keep in mind that derived statistics only change for every two points of base statitic, and that each derived statistic is added to a skill and two character statistics.
If a visual model is helpful, look at the statistics page for the heirarchy.
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