As this is a free form game, so the points don't matter when used to make your PC. Well, they do, but only as a rough comparison of how good your PC is to how good others are. It also gives your GM a good idea of the skills your PC has and what he or she can do overall. In other words, don't agonize over it.
There. Simple, isn't it? It should be. Now, copy it into wordpad or something and we'll work on what they mean and how to actually make the PC.
The basic basics
What is your pc? What is your name, what race are you, and what do you do for a living? Having a basic idea of what you are is essential to making your pc and deciding where the points end up. You mght want to have a basic idea (discussed with the DM) about your races abilities and skills.
The Stats
Ok, you're now making your PC. Effectively, each PC has 120 points to spend on the four stats the PC has, those being Strength, Speed, I.Q. and Appearance. In general, having 20 - 25 points in a stat is the universal average, and 100 the maximum. Most NPCs would be made with 100 points, giving PCs a minor advantage over others.
Your Toughness is a combination of Your Strength + Speed.
Strength: This stat defines your physical strength. How much you can lift, how tough you are and how easily you can whap people and hurt them. A good strength and good appearance often gives a body-builder look while bad appearance could mean you look like a thug.
Speed: This is how fast your PC is. It determines how quickly you react physically to events, how good your balance is and how good your reflexes are.
I.Q.: This is your I.Q.. For game purposes, this lists how quickly you learn things, possibly how smart you think you are and, to a certain extent, how quickly you retain things. It is the basis for your skills.
Appearance: This is your physical beauty. It can add to a characters charisma and such but doesn't have to. Appearance is the basis for your quirks.
Toughness: Toughness is how tough you are, how much damage you can take and avoid. Add your Strength and Speed together and you have it.
What You Have
This involves what you can do as a result of being your chosen race and occupation.
Racial Abilities:
These are the abilities your race has, including the negative ones. It includes any racial statistic modifiers and the like.
For Example, Dave decides his sci fi game PC with 25 strength, 30 Speed, 40 I.Q. and 25 Appearance is going to be a Grak. He's decided Grak's are quick and agile but have strange, greenish skin that looks like vomit and a tendency to mark their territory on people and places and no social graces.
Dave gives the Grak +5 Speed, +2 IQ and -10 appearance.
He also decides that they their skin colour is a result of a production of a special drug that, when they touch another, can be used to force them to speak the truth. When used on machines it tends to short them out. They can also turn their skin acidic as a defensive mechanism against predators.
Dave gives Truth Serum, Acid projection and Computer damage as racial abilities. After a bit of thought, he decides that their culture is primitive and they tend to short computers out of fear, which can be a big problem. To aid this, he makes the "serum" also work as a smell around the PC, not only shorting computers but making others more truthful than they might like.
Occupational Traits:
These are other abilities that can balance out a low I.Q. and the like. Basically, depending what your PC does for a living, he or she can modify stats or skills as a result of what you go for a living. Typical changes are +/- 1-3 to stats, a bonus skill at 1-5 (ish), bonuses to other skills as well as limitations of skills.
Dave decides his Grak is going to be have been smuggled onto a vessel and been conscripted as a pirate among them. They don't know of his ability to affect computers and the PC is currently in shock and unable to use any of his abilities due to homesickness and trying to adapt to space.
Dave decides his PC was a herder and gets tracking at 4, Animal empathy at 2 and has to take vet skills. He also decides that his PC has spent more time with animals than people and can't take any beneficial diplomatic of social skills and tends to treat people like animals in a herd.
What You Can Do
This is basically yout Skills and Quirks. Skills are based on I.Q. for how many points you can spend and Quirks are everything else, such as being really lucky and the like.
Skills:
When putting points into skills, a player has to look at how good they can be. For starting PCs, having more than 10 in a skill isn't possible: You can only learn so much. As an overall basic, 1-5 in a skill is average, 6-15 is good, 16-30 is very good and higher than 31 is a master. Getting higher than 40 requires training from someone with that skill at that level and higher than 50 in a skill is legendary.
Quirks:
Quirks are a catch-all term for everything else with your PC. Points are put in a quirk only in case you meet someone else with the same basic one and would have to see who is more lucky, or better at adapting to changes or some such. With the DMs permission you can have negative qurirks to gaoin more points to place into other perks or skills (or to balance out needing more skills). Generally, being up to 3 points over the 120 shouldn't be a big problem. At 5 or so, you might be asked to take a negative quirk.
Dave decides that his appearance of 15 doesn't give him much, so picks Friendly with Animals: 8; Enhanced sense (smell): 3; and Enhanced sense (hearing): 5
He gives his PC extreme reluctance to harm animals and a need to defend them as quirks, but places nothing into them since he thinks the PC is fine as he is. He could have put points into them to make them stronger and have his PC forced to act on them, but decides his PC would be moving too far from his roots for it to matter as much.
Weapons and Armour:
This is basically what your PC has in regards to weapons, armour and such. You can add other supplies as needed to this. Ask the GM what kind of weapons exist in the game.
Finishing Touches
This is the last part of your PC.
Description: This is a description of your PC for the channel. there, simple enough.
Background: This is a background for your PC. If you invent your own race, it should also include a brief background of the race itself.
Character Advancement
Since seeing ones character grow and change is one of the reasons people play RPGs, this system is no exception to the rule. Generally speaking, characters gain 1 - 5 exp per session. These points are given based on:
Spending points can be done as soon as they are gained, or saved for future times. To increase a skill or stat, the PC must have used that ability very recently and/or learned something new dealing with it to justify the skill increase. To gain a new skill one must be taught it soehow and spend 2 points for each of the initial 5 points in the skill.
A section on magic and psychic powers as well as superhero powers exists also. If the PC is for Chaos`^ Outlaw Star game, the magic, psychic or super heroic abilities can't be used.
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