Character Creation Rules and Guidelines

These are the rules and recommendations that set the general boundaries for CS approval, on the player side. If you want information on how to create a character that will get approved, here it is! Staying within these boundaries should get your character approved, no problem.

All characters are taken on a case for case basis, one character getting something approved doesn’t necessarily set precedence for another. Oftentimes, the player will be considered as much as the character.

1. Approval
To play a character, you must have a CS that contains that character's vital statistics (see rule 2) which is approved by an op (Check the staff list under Information). The "Otter of Approval" and such is merely a tradition and doesn't need to be given, a simple "approved" also counts. After approval, characters are approved until the user is banned (at which point they must be reapproved when/if the banned user returns) or requests that the CS be deleted.

Note: Any major edits to character sheets must be run by the staff first, and if considered serious enough (such as a total remake, a massive acquisition in wealth or equipment, or finding of a piece of offworld technology, etc) may warrant a re-approval before the character can be played again. Use common sense here.

2. Formatting and information
All fields do not need to be filled out on the CS, however the bare minimum is name, age, species, description, world info and character history. The character history and character description have to be longer than two sentences and the character history generally must be longer than the character description. While not required we do strongly suggest proofreading for any errors in spelling or grammar before posting.

3. Effort and player considerations
Generally, the more effort you put into the character’s personality and background, the more comfortable the staff will be with the character - and in turn, the more reassured the staff will be about you playing them. Having the correct attitude when writing a CS is essential - thinking of a character as a person you play rather than as a vehicle for you to show off, or a means to “be better” than other people, will show in your writing. Do your research, put effort into the writing, and give real consideration to how your character thinks and acts as well as their background.

4. Keep your character reasonable
Infinitas is not an arms race. It’s strongly recommended that your first character be fairly simple, and not extremely powerful. Combat is uncommon in the main area’s of play, and like real life is not usually undertaken lightly - social play is far more common. (It’s often more entertaining to play individuals that grow more skilled and stronger as time goes on.) Even when combat does occur, raw brute force is rarely the only deciding factor in any encounter.

Your character’s personality and his occupation are generally more important than their combat performance, so keep this in mind. Try to make an interesting character that you can “grow into” and develop a personality for - a person that has the capacity to think, feel, operate in society and interest others in day to day interaction.

Ops are often loathe to approve characters that seem to be made just for the purposes of fighting rather than as interesting characters capable of growth. Note this does apply for other characters that seem too focused on a specific area, rather than having attention paid to making them ‘playable’.

4a. Bulletproofing
Characters that require resorting to unusual or extraordinary means to inflict significant injury or potentially death are not allowed. An example of what would be considered an unusual means would be having to destroy an entire building with explosives or other area effect weapons while the character occupied it or being hit by numerous high caliber rifle rounds in a short period of time into their center of mass. As a general guideline, if the character takes more than small arms fire to disable, it will face heavy scrutiny when being approved. Note that this DOES include durability granted from things like health regeneration and implants.

5. Item Guidelines
As Infinitas is technologically unsophisticated, bringing in certain items may destabilize the current status quo in ways that leads to uncomfortable questions having to be asked. In addition, some items are simply too advanced or powerful for your average Infinitas character to have hope against - for example, imagine trying to take down a powered exoskeleton with a black powder musket! Most all weapons and technology will be taken on a case by case basis, and other forms of technology that could significantly alter any balance of power in an industrial revolution era town will be closely scrutinized.

A good rule of thumb is that the more powerful or complex a piece of gear or technology is, the more detailed and thorough its explanation on the CS must be for potential approval. However keep in mind that certain items, such as WMD’s or large armored vehicles will be immediately disapproved. Please exercise common sense when deciding what your character may or may not have on them when arriving.

6. Intellectual property restrictions
A character cannot be a preexisting character from a setting that is not the creator's own. (If you created the setting, you can play any character from it you so wish, regardless of preexisting status.) You can also play characters from any setting, so long as they have not been premade. For instance, you can't play Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Master Chief, Gordon Freeman, or Frodo Baggins, but you could play a Rebel soldier, a stormtrooper, a UNSC Marine, a City 17 refugee, or a hobbit, so long as you come up with the character history and description yourself.