This is a slimmed down version on races, skills, and items to get a beginning player going. The specific rules will have more information on larger and smaller races and a wider variety of skills and items to choose from.

Character Sheet

In the beginning, most of your character sheet will be blank with the exception of your Attributes, Experience Level, Actions, and Initiative Dice.

All of your Attributes should be set to 2. This will be increased (and in a few cases decreased) as you pick your Race and Professions, spend your Skill Points, and choose Armor and Clothing, but every character in Dice Mob beings with a standard 2 dice for all of these.

Unless your GM says otherwise, your Experience Level will be initialized to 1. Your Combat, Non-Combat, Defensive, and Passive actions will all be initialized to 1 as well. Your Initiative Dice will be initialized to 2. More information on all of these and what they mean will be covered in their appropriate sections.

The first thing you’ll want to do after initializing your Character Sheet is to pick out a Race. A Race can be anything you want to play from a pixie to a giant or from a werewolf to a regular old human. Does it even need to be humanoid? Of course not. You’re obviously limited by the genre of the campaign and what your GM will allow, but Dice Mob rules really doesn’t limit you. So what kinds of things should you think about when picking out a race. Race generally isn’t much more than an aesthetic thing, but it does affect you in four important ways.

• Movement: How fast and in what manner? Do you have wings or flippers? Are you a biped or a quadruped?
• Size: Size directly affects hit points and starting defenses. Larger races have more hit points. Smaller races have fewer hit points, but more defensive bonuses.
• Skill Restrictions: Body shape and types of limbs could directly affect what types of skills, clothing, weapons, armor, or items. Having horse legs or no opposable thumbs might hinder you in accomplishing certain things like climbing walls or disarming intricate mechanisms.
• Special Abilities and Disabilities: Your race could suggest special abilities and disabilities. Can you regenerate hit points? Is your bane sunlight, silver, cold iron, peanuts, or gluten?

Once you pick one of the pre-made races or build up one of your own, add the increases in Defense (under Race/Profession on the Defense Dice Worksheet on your Character Sheet). Also add the increases to your Attributes. (There isn't a special Worksheet for this because Attributes don't change like Defenses can.) Also check off which Knowledge, Special Abilities, and, if applicable, how many Discipline dice you have on a Discipline. If any of your Special Abilities come with a balancing Weakness, note that too.

A profession is what your character did growing up and what they do now (just prior to adventuring). Usually a character will have a childhood profession (like street urchin) and an adult profession (like banker). Like races, professions modify Defenses, Attributes, Knowledge, and in very rare cases Special Abilities, but they also give intangibles that can be used throughout a character's adventures. (When modifying your Defenses, remember to add/modify the numbers under Race/Profession on the Defense Dice Worksheet.)

Now that you have a race and professions for your character, you’ll want to pick out a name that matches that race and profession. Or doesn’t, if you prefer to be contrary. The name won’t really affect anything in the game, but it’ll be hard for your GM and other players to get into character if the name of your character is just Frank’s elf.

Hit points are how much damage a character can take before falling unconscious. When you picked a race, you also picked a number of hit points. Hit points are determined by the size of your character with smaller races having fewer hit points and larger races more. Generally a character is going to either be small, medium (man-sized), or large, which allots a character ten hit points, fifteen hit points, or twenty hit points respectively. (For the heights and weights associated with these sizes and the other possible sizes, see the section on Hit Points.)

Your Damage Taken is going to start at zero. As you take damage from combat, traps, or other encounters, it is written here. When it reaches the listed number of hit points, a character falls unconscious. Damage can be decreased with rest or by the use of healing skills or items. (See the section on Hit Points for more information.)

Mana is the amount of internal strength a character has. This is used to limit how often a character can use certain skills. Mana starts off at ten and increases at a rate of two per level. Because a character is considered to by fully rested at the beginning of a campaign, the Mana Used begins at zero. If a GM has started your character off at a level other than 1, your mana will increase to whatever is appropriate for your starting level. Otherwise your character will start with a 10 under Mana and a 0 under Mana Used.

Movement is divided into running, swimming, and flying and generic values of slow, average, fast, and very fast. Bipedal races generally run at slow or average based on size. Quadrupedal races generally run at average or fast. Swimming is generally fast if they have flippers or slow without. Flying is generally slow to average for insects and fast for birds.

Note: Slow fliers are relative to other slow fliers, not to slow or even average runners. Swimming is generally slower than running and running slower than flying. (For more information, see the Races - Movement.)

It's now time to spend your skill points. A character starts off with ten skill points to put towards improving their offense, defense, and other intangibles. Up until now, you really haven't had a chance to make your character unique. Here's your chance. It's important to spend your initial points well, but you will get more points later on, so it's not necessarily something to stress over. Every time your character gains a level, you will receive three additional skill points to spend.

Skill points can be spent in three areas: Defense, Attributes, and Knowledge.

If you've already picked Races and Professions, you've already modified these to an extent. Now you can continue to increase what you've already started. Add dice to your Defense (in the “Learned” section on the Defense Dice Worksheet), add dice to Attributes (after 5, this might not simply be a 1 for 1 exchange, so see the attributes section for more information), or use your points to “purchase” Knowledge or to increase one of your Disciplines.

A character is generally assumed to be wearing clothing including shoes or boots for many humanoids. In addition to that, they may pick up to ten other items including warm clothing, armor, weapons, shields, and other items that might be helpful on a journey, often with the purpose of either improving the ten defensive categories, providing an attack method to fight opponents, or for some other purpose that might aid in defeating opponents or keeping the character alive. Remember that monsters and characters alike often have different defensive capabilities, so having more than one way of attacking is often advantageous in defeating enemies.

Here is a suggested list of items a beginning character might carry, wear, or wield:

• Clothing: Most clothing doesn't count again the encumbrance limit unless it has magical qualities or it provides additional elemental protection of some sort, like a parka against freezing. As you add an article of clothing, add the information to the Equipment section and any addition Defense dice to the appropriate Equipment column in the Defense Dice Worksheet. When you add the item to the Equipment also note how much Encumbrance it causes.
• Body Armor: To make things simple, body armor is divided into heavy, medium, and light and either iron or leather. Leather is generally better against blunt weapons. Iron armor is generally better against slashing and piercing. Heavy armors reduce the ability to use skills and must be worn by characters with a high enough strength attribute. As you add Armor, add the information to the Equipment section and any additional Defense dice to the appropriate Equipment column in the Defense Dice Worksheet. When you add the item to the Equipment also note how much Encumbrance it causes.
• Shield: Shields can be large, small, or bucklers. Buckers allow for two-handed combat by the wielder, but they don't defend as well. Shields can either be made of wood or metal, but there is generally no difference between the two when it comes to protection. Heavy shields can only be used by characters with a high enough strength attribute. As you add a Shield, add the information to the Equipment section and any additional Defense dice to the appropriate Equipment column in the Defense Dice Worksheet. When you add the item to the Equipment also note how much Encumbrance it causes.
• Helmet: A helmet may reduce visibility but provides Defense. As you add a Helmet, add the information to the Equipment section and any additional Defense dice to the appropriate Equipment column in the Defense Dice Worksheet. When you add the item to the Equipment also note how much Encumbrance it causes.
• Weapons: Choose weapon(s) and add it as an Offense. Be cognizant of Weapon Proficiencies you received as part of your Race, Profession, or which you've added through spending Skill Points. Note: Not all weapons listed may be allowed as part of your campaign (especially more modern ones), so before you choose a weapon, make sure it is allowed. Note the type of attack (e.g. Ranged Piercing or Blunt Melee), the encumbrance (usually 1), and the amount of damage it does (under Base).
• Miscellaneous Items: Rope and Grappling Hook, Backpack, Waterskin, Healing Potion, Mana Potion

Your attributes should now be set. Attributes are a set of skills, but they also modify your Offense, Defense, Initiative, Hit Points, and other fields. (For example, every 4 points of Strength is an additional die for Polearms or Melee weapons.) Consult the attributes section for more information on how everything is modified. All modifications toward Defense are added to the Attributes column in the Defense Dice Worksheet. All modifications to Offense are added to the + column, as would any benefits from Knowledge (assuming they always affect that Offense).

So far you've been filling out all your defenses on the Defense Dice Worksheet. We're not quite done. Now it's time to add up all your values, including the base of 2 which all characters begin with, and put that in the total column. That same number will be placed in the Defense column on the first page for the player's convenience.

Why use the Defense Dice Worksheet at all? Because some defenses change often, based on the clothing or armor being worn or the Attributes or Knowledge a character has. Rather than having to re-figure out all of the defenses any time something changes, simply modify the column that has changed and add up the values again.

In addition to the defensive dice toward attack types, you should also fill in the additional defensive adjustments based on size on your character sheet. Unlike other defense numbers, this will have to be calculated at battle time based on the size of the opponent you are defending yourself against. This advantage is one per size difference, starting at two sizes different (see Additional Defensive Dice for an easy to understand table). It should be noted that these do not apply to mental attacks of any sort, only to physical attacks.

That’s it. There’s nothing else you need to write down. You probably have some idea of gender (if your race has a gender at all). You also probably have in mind whether you’re going to play as a good guy or a bad guy, but unlike many RPGs, this one allows for you to have some sort of character arc, if you want one. There’s no Detect Good or Detect Evil spells. Hags aren’t all evil. Brownies aren’t all good. It’s all in how they were raised and how they’ve made up their minds as they’ve reached adulthood. Yeah, weird, huh?

So there’s nothing else. It’s time to play!