Your first step in playing an adventurer in the Contingency Role Playing Game is to imagine and create a character of your own. Your character is a combination of game mechanics, roleplaying hooks and your imagination. You choose an Ancestry (representing your heritage and appearance, such as being a Human, Elf or Dwarf), an Archetype (representing how you draw upon your powers, such as being a master of using weaponry or wielding the forces of arcane magic) and a Vocation (represent what your know for, such as being a healer, criminal or a commander). You also generate your character's personality, appearance and backstory. Once completed your character serves as your representation, or avatar, within the game world.

Before you dive into the first step of character creation, take some time to brainstorm the kind of adventurer you want to play. Do you want to play as a courageous fighter, a skulking thief, a fervent sage or a flamboyant wizard.

Once you have your concept in mind, follow the steps listed in this chapter, making decisions that reflect the character you want to play. The concept of your character might evolve with each decision you make during creation process, and will continue to develop as you play the game and build relationships with other characters. What's most important is that you build a character that you are excited to play and helps to bring enjoyment to, not just yourself, but also the other players (including the Game Moderator) participating in the game.

Selecting Playbooks

Contingency RPG uses a set of Playbooks to define your character. Each playbook is a double-sided A4 sheet of paper that can be folded up into thirds, each of which may introduce varying styles of play. When starting a new character you'll begin with five playbooks:

• Core Character Playbook for recording skills and injuries, every character has this playbook;
• Ancestry Playbook for defining who your ancestors are and what lineage you come from;
• Archetype Playbook for defining your core powers or training;
• Vocation Playbook for defining your background and things you are knowledgeable about;
• Inventory Playbook for recording your tools and equipment;

Over the course of your game, as your character "levels up" you'll gain the ability to extend your current playbooks or gain new playbooks to further shape your character. Most of these advancement will define a set of requirements that need to be met in order to progress down that path, so it is important to read over your starting selections and plan accordingly.

Initial Setup

When you've selected your initial playbooks, take the time to read over them and understand how they work before moving on to the next steps.

Core Character Playbook

You can download a copy of the playbook here: Core Character Playbook PDF File.

1. Wellness Tracker

   Unless otherwise instructed by your Game Moderator, set your character's Wellness Tracker to the center d8 position (for ease of reference it should appear bolder than the other spaces on the tracker).

   If you are using physical character sheets, remember to mark this in pencil as it will shift and change throughout the game.

2. Attribute Dice

   Select the dice values for each of your character's attribute; Agility, Charisma, Constitution, Finesse, Knowledge, Strength, Willpower and Wisdom. These eight attributes represent your character's raw talent and prowess.

   Assign each of the following dice to an attribute, ensuring each attribute is only assigned a single dice value: d4, d6, d6, d8, d8, d10, d10 and d12.

   Select your attributes carefully as they are permanent and do not change or upgrade as you progress through the game.

3. Skill Training

   Skills represent your character's particular proficiencies. Remember to be aware of what skills each of your playbooks may rely on.

   • Expert Training: Select two skills from any of the skill categories and gain d10 - Expert training in them.
   • Apprentice Training: Select four skills, each from a different skill category, and gain d8 - Apprentice training in them.
   • Novice Training: Select a number of skill, from any of the skill categories, equal to half your Knowledge attribute and gain d6 - Novice training in them.

   For all the remaining skills you are d4 - Untrained in them.

Knowledge Attribute	Additional D6 - Novice Skills
d4 - Inept	One (1)
d6 - Ordinary	Two (2)
d8 - Adept	Three (3)
d10 - Exceptional	Four (4)
d12 - Legendary	Five (5)

4. Stamina

   Stamina is a measure of how how much energy your character has to perform multiple strenuous actions. Your character's Stamina Limit is equal to a third, rounded down, of their combined Willpower and Agility attribute dice.

Willpower vs Agility	D12	D10	D8	D6	D4
D12	-	7	6	6	5
D10	7	6	6	5	4
D8	6	6	5	4	4
D6	6	5	4	4	3
D4	5	4	4	3	-

5. Injuries

   Injuries are an indication of when your character has taken damage. There are a total of five severity levels for injuries.

   When creating a new character you automatically gain one injury slot for each of the five severity levels. Additionally you gain a number of points, equal to your Constitution and Strength attributes combined to purchase additional injury slots. Each injury slot costs a number of points equal to its severity level. An additional Minor Injury slot costs 1 point, whereas an additional Serious Injury slot costs 3 points. You cannot exceed a total of five injury slots in any one severity level.

6. Conditions

   Conditions represent the emotional or psychological impacts on your character and offer different role-playing aspects for players to engage with.

   Each of the five conditions you selected start with one available slot each. You may then add a number of additional slots, split across these five conditions, up to a number equal to half of your Willpower and Wisdom attributes combined. But remember the more slots you assign to a condition, the harder it is for you to be afflicted by it, but will also be harder to recover from it. If you are new to Contingency RPG, then we would recommend distributing your slots as evenly as possible.

Willpower vs Wisdom	D12	D10	D8	D6	D4
D12	-	11	10	9	8
D10	11	10	9	8	7
D8	10	9	8	7	6
D6	9	8	7	6	5
D4	8	7	6	5	-

7. Afflictions

   Similar to conditions, afflictions represent the more physical impacts on your character, such as suffocating or bleeding out. However unlike conditions, Afflictions will naturally worsen over time instead of being a direct result of your character's actions. A character that is currently holding their breath underwater will gradually incur marks against the Suffocation affliction the longer they continue to hold their breath.

Afflictions is still under development.

8. Luck Dice

   Luck Dice are additional dice that may be added to any skill roll to improve its outcome. The maximum number of Luck Dice that your character can accrue is equal to one less than a third, rounded down, of their combined Charismaand Knowledge attribute dice.

Charisma vs Knowledge	D12	D10	D8	D6	D4
D12	-	6	5	5	4
D10	6	5	4	4	3
D8	5	4	3	3	2
D6	5	4	3	3	2
D4	4	3	2	2	-

Ancestry Playbook

Select an ancestry for your character. Your ancestry will denote a lot of the physical characters your character will have, such as their visual features, skin tones, height, age etc. Depending on the type of setting your game will be based within, your chosen ancestry may influence how you play your character when they interact with the world around them.

Besides from your character's size category, there are no mechanical differences between each of the available Ancestries.

The full list of Ancestries can be found on the Ancestries page.

Archetype Playbook

Your chosen archetype playbook represents how your character draws upon their powers. There are four main styles of archetypes being:

• Skills and Training; your character has relied on regular practice to develop their abilities.
• Innate Power; your character has something deep inside that provides for their abilities.
• Faithful Follower; your character believes in a higher power and gains abilities in response to praying.
• Deal Maker; your character has formed a pact/bargain with a greater being in exchange for using their abilities.

When first starting out, you may notice that your chosen Archetype feels generic. This is an intentional design choice for the Contingency Role Playing Game as it allows you to set up your character in a way that better aligns with your preferred play-style. As your character levels up, they will grow and advance into more specific fields of training and powers. A starting fighting based character, may lean into being a heavy hitter and eventually become a gladiator or they may lean into their sneaky side and become more rogue like. These options are called Character Pathways and are discussed in more details on the Character Progression page.

The full list of Archetypes can be found on the Archetypes page.

Vocation Playbook

Your chosen vocation playbook represents your character's role in society. Vocations generally focus more on out-of-combat experience and abilities. Similar to Archetypes, your initial Vocation may feel very generic but over time will evolve into more specialised fields.

The full list of Vocations can be found on the Vocations page.

Inventory Playbook