Editing Character: Raymond Plantain

[[Category:Character|Raymond Plantain]]

A character for Dragonball Z, created by Thanatos02.

All of my characters follow the same basic rules, as noted here, though I don't expect anybody else to follow them. All of the characters are starting characters as outlined in the books. In generic books where a setting is assumed, I build a character that would fit in the setting. Where no setting is assumed, I build towards the contemporary era as the setting allows. In games that have no set point values or start character generation rules, I'll list specific guidelines built towards my assumptions of a 'beginning' or starting character.

My rules regarding fat-splats or series of games that utilize the same core mechanics is that when rules create suitably diverging types of characters, I'll construct one per setting I own. (For example, using Exalted, Dragon-Blooded and Solars are sufficiently different. In OMage, Order of Hermes and a Hollow One are not sufficiently different. In games with classes, different classes are not enough. They must essentially be different characters. Other people's opinions on what are different 'enough' really arn't my area of expertise. I build in good faith.)

In any event, should the character posted not be according to the assumed structure of the Challenge Wiki, it will be alter shortly, and was probably the result of a time crunch. Thanks! I hope you have as much fun with this as I did. ^_^ 

== Campaign ==

Characters don't exist in a vacuum. You may want to give a brief description of what kind of campaign or chronicle you have in mind for this character.

== Character Stats ==

Name: Raymond Plantain <br>
Personality: Friendly and Outgoing <br>
Value: Love <br>
Most Valued Person: Friends <br>
How You Feel About Others: Every Person Is A Valuable Individual. <br>
How I Learned to Fight: Mentored <br>
Shticks: Always dresses as if it were summer. Tries to talk down opponents in a fight. Always accepts a surrender. <br>

'''Power Level:''' 350 <br>
'''Power Up Rating:''' 170 <br>

'''Characteristics''' <br>
Physical: 10 <br>
Mental: 7 <br>
Combat: 13 <br>
Move: 10 <br>

'''Skills''' <br>
Body Skills: 15 <br>
Mind Skills: 10 <br>
Evasion Skills: 15 <br>
Weapon Skills: - <br>
Power Skills: 10 <br>

== Character Description ==

Normally I write up what the character does, how s/he goes about doing it, et al. Not here, really, because there really isn't anything to add. Raymond fights, and, sadly, isn't very good at it. His power level is lowish, and he's human. There's really no way to model different fighting styles or characters except by creating different special effects or catch phrases. There's a stock of 
special abilities that anyone can add to their character's energy attacks, so there's no differentiation in special techniques, and special hand-to-hand techniques are resolved by a simple +difficulty, +damage 1:1 ratio. 

All the listed NPCs and example characters have a list of 'janken' that are their signature maneuvers, but since I can do the basic math needed to compute the ratio, I didn't bother to write any down.

There are no listed ways to get special techniques listed in the books and all the listed NPCs from Yaijirobe to Goku pwn you right from the get-go.

So, what does Raymond do? He participates until his paltry power level and inability to keep up get him killed, and then he gets raised by a Dragonball and hangs out chewing the scenery after his player rolls a 1 or a 2 on that character generation die. A better idea is to just play Exalted.

I imagine him in a Hawaiian shirt. There. Characterization.

== Commentary ==
I hate saying mean things about other people's work, because I know writing a game is hard and Dragonball Z has the unique problem of having what is easily the biggest, ahem, power level of any setting I can think of. Sadly, this is pretty much the worst game I've ever actually laid eyes on. It's not just a problem of scale, either. The game has little to no redeeming qualities. 

The book is a little different. Fact is, I actually like it. It's written with a kind of good-natured humor that I enjoy. But that doesn't help the problems I have making a character in it.

First of all, the layout is an utter pile. I mean literally, since it just looks like someone cut and pasted information into boxes as it occured to him to add it. Like, "Oh, I forgot I need to add a section on how to compute Power Levels. I'll drop it in here." and then the rules to learn how to power up are in a totally different spot. There's no index. The game doesn't even use the full system rules. There's literally no differentiation between fighting styles or energy attacks. A character would take about 2 minutes to fully stat up if all the rules were in one place, but it took me about half an hour. You could literally put all the rules for generation and play on 5 pages. And, even after all that, once you actually start playing, the differences in abilities that come into play make it nearly impossible for a weaker character (even by only a few points) to hurt a stronger one.

And while true to the setting, pretty much makes it no fun to play. 
I wanted to like making my character, and wanted to like the game, but it's pretty unplayable.
@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 == Campaign ==
-There was really nowhere to go with this character, once I started. There's really no recorded way to bump up your Power Level artificially, no gear that really gives you a bonus, no real resources, and no real recorded way to learn the uber-secret techniques of Goku & Co. (mostly Goku, I guess). You roll a d6 to see if you're a race other than human, and there's three to pick from the base book - Saiyan-related, Namekian, and human. Saiyan's pretty much get a free pass to Real Ultimate Power and Namekians get to regenerate body parts. There's really no reason to be a human, except that it's hard to get out of. On a 1 or 2, you can be Saiyan, on a 1, 2, or 3, choose to be green.
+Characters don't exist in a vacuum. You may want to give a brief description of what kind of campaign or chronicle you have in mind for this character.
-I rolled a 6. Go humans!
-In a feeble attempt to keep to the spirit of the show, I named my character after a banana.
-Because he's from the islands, mon!
-Oh well.
 == Character Stats ==