fatal

Chapter 3: Abilities
Chapter 3: Abilities
Abilities are a character’s capacities. With
few exceptions, abilities are unchanging. There are
5 core abilities (Physique, Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence,
and Wisdom), each with 4 sub-abilities.
To determine a character’s abilities, begin by calculating
each of the 20 sub-abilities. Sub-abilities must
be rolled in order and the order cannot be altered.
For each sub-ability, roll 10d100, divide the sum by
5, subtract 1 from the result, and truncate the remainder.
This creates a range of 1-199 for all subabilities
and the average of each sub-ability is 100.
It may be easier to look at the formula 1 :
(10d100 / 5) - 1
Then, simply average each group of 4 subabilities
to determine the core ability. For example,
average the sub-ability scores for Physical Fitness,
Strength, Bodily Attractiveness, and Health to determine
the ability score for Physique.
Modifiers from other chapters may affect
your sub-ability scores, such as modifiers from race,
gender, and Chapter 2: Body. On the following tables,
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a score of 100 is the average for all humans. For
instance, if a male rolls a Strength sub-ability score
of 100 and is horrified that the average Bench Press
is 113 pounds, as noted above this is also an average
for gender. To resolve this example, males receive a
bonus for Strength. For now, simply determine your
sub-ability scores and record them on your character
sheet, which is available in the back of this book
in Appendix 1: Character Sheets. Finally, sub-abilities
may need to be modified depending on age, if a
character is not a Young Adult. After the sub-abilities
are described and the tables presented, aging
effects are presented, which must be considered
throughout the character’s life. The last part of this
chapter details how Physical Fitness, Strength, and
Intelligence may be increased by Persistent Exercise.
Finally, an alternate rolling method for subabilities
is presented.
Lastly, these abilities are arranged not in an
order of importance (they are all important), but in
an order that progresses from concrete (Physique)
to abstract (Wisdom). Physique is immediately obvious,
while Wisdom is not.
1. The distribution for abilities and sub-abilities attempts to model the bell curve of intelligence. In their book The Bell
Curve, Hernstein and Murray note the distribution for intelligence in the standard “IQ metric” has a mean (M) of 100 and
standard deviation (SD) of 15. For more information, see the References section at the end of this book. The tables for
abilities and sub-abilities presented later in this chapter have highlighted columns to indicate M and SD.
As a test, sub-abilities were determined in the Fatal Character Generator and entered into SPSS. Descriptive statistics
were computed on 1,000 sub-abilities (M = 98.79, SD = 18.74). The range was 42-155. The formula [(10d100 / 5) - 1] has less
central tendency than the bell curve of intelligence, though it is a close approximation. Since this is a realistic, but timeconsuming,
method to determine abilities, it is recommended that characters are created in the Fatal Character Generator,
available free at fatalgames.com.