How to Create a Character

by Xerakon
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This guide was written with the purpose of seeing a new player through the process of creating a new character (chargen).

LotJ’s immortal staff have built a vast universe that is constantly being tweaked, updated, and improved. Our players have taken this universe and created intrigue, plots, and events via roleplay that can change the face of the galaxy overnight. Whether you are interested in being involved with galactic politics or simply keeping up with other characters in a small conversational fashion across one or two planets, the first step you will need to take is to create your character in order to begin their journey.

Character Name

So, let’s start off first with your character’s name. Your character’s name reflects who you will portray, and there are a few guidelines you must adhere to when creating it. ‘HELP NAME‘ can assist you with this, but the basics to remember are: No taking names from aspects of pop culture (novels, movies, television, anime, video games, etc.) – Please be original! Your name also must make common sense and belong in the Star Wars universe. Deke, Bob, McKalon are all perfectly acceptable names – SithDarkness, TheGreatOne, FlyHighGryffindor are not.

For this guide, I have gone with the name Ratt. You will be asked to make sure that the name you have selected is correct, and then to create a password. Pick something that you can remember, as you will use it to log in each time you join LotJ. A disclaimer will then be presented to you, informing you of our terms of service and media rights and such. Please read it carefully, and type in ‘I AGREE’ (if you do agree) to continue.

Next, you will be asked for your e-mail address. This is to assist with password recovery, and can be changed at any time. LotJ will never send spam to you.

You will next be asked if you have played Legends of the Jedi before. If you have not, it will ask you how you found us. Please answer this in as much detail as possible – We want to be able to focus our recruiting efforts appropriately.

Race Selection

Tip: Please read the following information very carefully, but do not be afraid to create a basic Human to get into the game, access all of the help files, and conduct further research before creating a true “first character”. The race-related commands (once you are in the galaxy) can be accessed with ‘SHOWRACE’.

Advanced Races and Account Points

There are a few things you will need to know about before deciding which race you would like to play. First and foremost are your account points. As a new player, you likely to do not have an account, much less any account points. Account points (‘HELP POINTS‘ for more information and how to gain them – or visit the Account Creation and Account Points System guide) are required to purchase most of LotJ’s races. However, the staff have set aside a diverse selection of races for a new player to begin with. On the racial selection prompt, you will notice there are four categories and four colors with special identifiers:

Light blue: Free races

Dark blue: Races that requires points to purchase.

Green: Application-only races.

Red: Application-only races for which your account has been approved.

*: These are the only races that are allowed in the Empire or Imperial-type clans. ‘HELP IMPERIAL_RACES‘ for more information.

Application-only races are considered as being very powerful, era-specific, or having a very stringent roleplay requirement. As a tip, a brand-new character will likely not receive approval for an application-only race. Your best bet will be learning to play and proving your roleplay on a free race, and then applying for an app race later!

Race Research

We strongly suggest that you use our help system to find general information on the race you are interested in. During chargen, you are limited to viewing racial stats and help files for basic information. However, there is a lot of information to be aware of. If you wished to play a T’Surr (which are a more advanced and costly race), you would know by their help file that they are an overly aggressive race. This is important because there is a rule on LotJ that states: “If you choose an alien race, you must roleplay it accordingly. Failing to adhere to racial role play styles will result in a warning by an immortal, and you will be given one week to adhere to the racial role play of the character you are playing. In the event that role play is still inadequate, you will be stripped of the race, and any applicable deposit will not be refunded. When in doubt, ask for advice.” Essentially, you must roleplay the race as intended. There are exceptions, but they are on a case-by-case basis. In this example, roleplaying a pacifist T’Surr is against the rules.

Class Considerations

The next consideration for your race will be what you want to end up doing in the galaxy. Due to how chargen flows, you will finalize your class after your race, but it is important to know what you want to do while you are looking at your race. Your stats (strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, and luck – ‘HELP STATS‘), combined with your racial strengths and weaknesses, play a crucial part in what you can do as a character. The admin staff have created summaries and tables for each race that will help you to determine best fits for what you would like to do.

Typing in the name of a race will bring up a summary table for that race. It will display any bonuses to stats that the race inherently has, starting hit points, account point costs, and the racial class table. If you have points to spend on the race, it will prompt you to ensure that you want to spend your points on that race. However, you may not have points as a new player, so we’ll pick a free race to look at.

Racial Class Tables

Racial class tables lay out a grid of each class with a point value assigned to show how good they will be able to perform as a main in a certain class. Point values denote a range of levels attainable as that class main. Looking at the Human race, for example, you can see that if you want to be a fighter, a Human Combatant is going to give you the strongest ability to do so. That race/class combination gives you the most amount of combat levels at point value 5. You also will be able to see that you will be a decently capable diplomat(3), leader(4), espionist(3), and scientist(4). Knowing the entire range of your intended race/class is very important, as it will tell you what skills you can expect before you commit to a race. Once you have a character created, you can use the command ‘SLIST ALL’ to tell you what skills are available in each class at each level.

Level Expectations

It is important to note that the class point values are generally very good ranges of what levels you can expect for your character. However, they are just ranges. It is not uncommon to not get the exact level that you want. If you do find yourself creating a new character that is a little below your goal level in a certain class, it is possible to achieve your goal via training, random stat gains, and cybernetics later in the game – but only up to a certain amount. Take heart, however, in the knowledge that Humans will always reach maximum level in their main class – so they are a perfect starting race to learn your way around your chosen class.

Gender Selection

Once you have decided on your race, you will be asked to confirm the selection and reminded of your starting health points, and asked for your gender. The gender you select is for roleplay purposes only. No stats or other factors will change due to your choice of gender.

Class Selection

Next, you will be asked to choose your class. This is where all your planning during racial selection comes into play! Following our example of a Human fighter, you will want to select 1 for Combat. You will again be reminded by a prompt that you are choosing your race and your class, and it will ask you if you are ready to continue. If you are an experienced player, if you press Y here for a paid race, your points will be deducted. You also will have the opportunity here to enter an advanced screen to purchase levels, if you can afford them via account points. New players will be directed towards features.

Custom Features

The first feature you can customize is your hair color. Races have pre-set hair colors, and hair colors can be changed later in the game via dye kits. Once you select whatever color you wish, you will need to input ‘DONE’ to move on to the next customization: skin color. Again, each race has their own range of skin colors, and skin color can NOT be changed later – so choose wisely! Confirm your selection with ‘DONE’ once more, and you will move on to prompt selection. Your prompt is very important and shows general information about your character after each line that appears in LotJ. The staff offers four default prompts, and prompts can be customized after chargen via LotJ’s very robust prompt token system. On our forums, you can find threads where players have submitted their own prompts for others to use. As a starting prompt, I would suggest #3, as it will give you the most information – including who is close to your character. For more information on prompts and prompt tokens, ‘HELP PROMPT‘. Once your prompt has been chosen, your character is ready to enter the galaxy. Congratulations!

Login Number Check

You will be shown a brief welcome message and your character is created in the Newbie Academy Station. Typically, at this point (and every time you log in), there will be some sort of prompt followed by numbers that you will need to enter to gain access to the MUD. This helps to combat against botters and auto-loggers. In this example, you would just type in ‘9484’ and continue with the logging in process.

Any time that you go through chargen after this first time will be a very similar, if not shorter, process. Now that your first character is created and logged in, you can begin to explore the Newbie Academy and enjoy all that Legends of the Jedi has to offer! Please visit the other guides on LotJ’s website for more assistance in getting started.

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