House of Cards: Build on Points

This page describes how to build a character on points. The process is the same for characters built at any point in the game.

Initial 20-Point Build

Players have 20 points with which to build their characters, with the possibility of two additional points in contributions. They can spend points on Elements and Powers.

• Elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water. [information about scores]
• Powers, Amber and Everway.
  • Everway powers function on Variable, Frequent, and Major, per the Everway rule book.
  • Amber Powers function on an exponential 10-point scale, like Elements.

There are limits on how a character spends his or her points initially:

• We recommend a minimum score of 3 in each element. In ADRPG terms, a score of 3 is "Amber rank".
• A character can have a maximum score of 7 in any element.
• A character can have a maximum score of 5 in any Amber power.
• A character's power score in an Amber power cannot be higher than the character's score in the associated element.
• A character can leave only 1 point unallotted at the start of play, usually for an initial Patternwalk or training in another specific skill.
• A character can have a maximum of three points invested in a single item, with each point representing a different standard quality. The player has to justify how the character obtained the item and how its qualities apply to the game in the character's background.
• A player whose character has any Amber power other than self-taught Pattern must justify the power with background details.
• We do not allow the purchase of a Shadow.

Each character is also entitled to a zero-point power.

Zero-Point Powers

Each character in House of Cards has a unique minor ability, power, or signature item as a freebie. This is the "zero-point power", because it costs no points in character creation.

The zero-point power can be any one-point Everway power, which means it can be frequent, major, or variable. You cannot combine a zero-point power with an existing power to get a two-point power for one point.

The purpose of the zero-point power is to give each character a unique power or ability.

Examples of zero-point powers include:

• Speaking with birds.
• Ability to find perfect lighting (for a Trump Artist).
• Panache.

The utility of zero-point powers varies a lot. You can choose something extremely useful or something with almost no game effect that will round out your character. You cannot change your character's zero-point power after entering play, with one exception: you can buy it up to a regular power with experience gains and gain a new zero-point power to replace it.

Contributions

As in ADRPG, we allow contributions to increase the number of points a player can allot during character creation. There are two contributions we regularly allow:

• Trumps: Five Trumps for one point. These can be drawn, painted, created in Photoshop, etc, You can make Trumps of NPCs whether or not a Trump artist could actually make a working Trump of the character. One Trump must be completed before the character enters play.
• Quiz: Five questions, each with an answer of 200 words or more. The quiz must be completed before the character enters play.

Other creative endeavors for points may be agreed with the GMs. In our experience, players give up on ongoing contributions like diaries, so we no longer offer them as a regular option. We initially offered creating Shadows as a contribution, but we no longer need additional Shadows and thus aren't accepting them as contributions.