Short guide on Accel World RPG character creation using Fate Accelerated rules

Introduction

For years, I have attempted to devise the “ideal” stats system for Accel World. However, there is usually one problem you run into: the “Player Character” and “Duel Avatar” duality. The Player Character is a distinct individual with a life, things he’s good at and bad at, and then there’s the Duel Avatar which as its name states, is used for combat purposes. It would mean you’d usually need stats for two characters for each player, making it to put it bluntly very confusing…

That is, until Fate Accelerated comes in play. I recommend reading it, especially since it’s only 50 pages long and it’s a free download on Evil Hat.

The beauty of this system is that it has six approaches: Careful, Clever, Flashy, Forceful, Quick and Sneaky. Approaches don’t care about what you do, as much as how you do it.

For example, let’s say you want to design a gunslinger kind of character. However, there are many different kinds of gunslingers! You can create a sniper whose main approach is aiming carefully at his opponents and choosing his timing (which would mostly use Careful), a marksman with abilities focused on creating opportunities (who would use Clever) or even a forceful type of gunner who tends to burst in guns blazing ready to shoot anything that moves from minute one (forceful).

You can do this with almost anything to customize any kind of character, regardless of what they do. If you wanna create a boisterous melee type, you can give him a high Forceful rating.

There is a high concept (which in our setting it fits perfectly as the trauma), a trouble (something that the character suffers from), and 3 additional aspects which we are going to borrow to shape a little your character and his Duel Avatar to give us an idea on what you look like and how you fight. We also have stunts, which we will customize into Abilities and Special Moves.

The Fate system also has a convenient advantages system which we will use as the Special Gauge (you gain advantages as you get hit/dish damage/hit the stage, and then you spend them to activate Abilities and Special Moves that require them) and then a Health Gauge, using consequences to signify special things that happen to you beyond losing damage (losing an arm, dizzy from a heavy blow to the head, temporarily blinded by a flashbang, Enhanced Armament broke…)

The Fate system also involves dice rolls using Fudge die, which have 2 neutral, 2 - and 2 + faces. You add up the total, and you decide in which way you try to perform your action. And then, you can also use something known as Fate points invoking your aspects to change the results. You should read the rulebook, as Fate points will come up often during play.

For example, let’s say you’re being gunned down but you invoke the aspect of “high-speed reflexes like the world has not seen” and add +2 to quick, managing to avoid it without taking any damage and leaving you advantaged in your turn to counter attack.

It should be noted this is a narrative-based system as opposed to numbers crunching system (which works in our favor, given how Accel World is a narrative setting and not one which favors number use anyway, with Player, Duel Avatars, and then Incarnate System being hidden in the corners of the system.

So, without further ado, let us jump into the meat of the Accelerated World: your character. As you follow this guide, you will fill in your character sheet hopefully quickly enough and end up with something you love as an end result.

2. High Concept

In the Accelerated World setting, your High Concept is your character’s trauma and resulting innermost wish. The thing they, and only they alone deep down want, and it varies from individual to individual, and it will define everything about them and their Duel Avatar. It has to be something definite, concrete, and not more than a couple lines. Less is more here.

To provide a couple examples from canon:

Arita Haruyuki’s High Concept would be “I was abandoned, so I want to reach out to those I love regardless of distance”.

Mayuzumi Takumu’s High Concept would be “Pierce my bullies’ heart with a stake”

Chiyu’s High Concept would be “I don’t like how things are chaning so I want to go back to how things were before”

Noumi Seiji’s High Concept would be “My big brother stole everything from me, so I will take from others what I never had”

Kozuki Yuniko’s High Concept would be “I was mistreated so I will prevent anyone from getting close to me”

Ash Roller’s High Concept would be “Riding a bike and rocking hard for the sake of my little sister who is the NL’s actual owner”

The point being, this says a lot about who the character is and what they want, and hence why it should be the first thing you come up with. This is going to play a huge role in defining your Duel Avatar’s abilities and in defining your character’s personality, so choose carefully.


3. Trouble

That which gets your character into trouble often. It can be a glaring flaw, a recurring enemy or an important debt to someone else. It is something that complicates your character’s life.

In Arita Haruyuki’s case, for example, his Trouble in the story is “I owe Kuriyukihime-sempai everything”, so when it comes to her requests and orders, he cannot refuse her at all, becoming nearly her personal manservant and object to obsess and fawn over.

Another example would be Mayuzumi Takumu’s Trouble which is “I have to atone for my past sins”, forcing him to often perform reckless, if not ironically detrimental actions towards the group while desperately trying to seek the approval of those he’s harmed.

Choose wisely, as this lets you gain Fate points by being compelled into action or being put in difficult situations.








4. Approaches

To summarize how approaches work, they are not what your character do (they are Aspects or Abilities), but instead it’s how they do it. You have six approaches, in which you must distribute a +3, two +2s, two +1s and leave one at 0. That means your character will be extremely good at one thing, have a couple other things he’s good at and 3 he’s average to mediocre at.

What each of the approaches mean in our setting:

-Careful: You take your time and pay close attention until the job is done. This means that your Duel Avatar acts with great precision, performing fewer actions but said actions matter. Carefully lining up a headshot. Paying attention to what your enemy is doing and learning about their skills and abilities. Scouting the area for things of interest, such as traps or enemies in hiding. These actions typically involve foresight and meticulous execution.

-Clever: Clever actions require fast thinking, solving problems, or accounting for complex variables. Finding a gap in the opponent’s otherwise impenetrable armor. Deflecting or dodging an attack in a way that leaves an opponent exposed for a counter attack the following turn. Finding the right place to place a trap for an enemy, figuring out the best position to attack from… Generally, the smarter your character is, the better he is at solving problems spontaneously as they come.

-Flashy: Flashy actions are over-the-top, stylish, and draw a lot of attention towards you. Being able to inspire a comrade low in morale; what is known in fighting games as “styling” on opponents by embarrassing them with flawlessly executed moves, your ability to draw aggro from enemies. This is your ability to leave a long lasting impression and to mesmerize those around you with your skills.

-Forceful: Forceful actions aren’t subtle: they’re raw, unfettered power at their finest. Wrestling an opponent into submission. Spraying and leveling an area with machinegun and laser fire. Casting a powerful magic spell. Specialists in this area tend to take the straight path from A to B, powering through any obstacles in their way to success no matter what it takes.

-Quick: Quick actions demand you act quickly and with dexterity. Dodging a projectile, getting in the first blow, getting out of the blast radius of an attack. Quick characters’ main characteristic is their lightning-fast reflexes that allow them to react in time to instantaneous, one time threats.

-Sneaky: Sneaky actions place their emphasis on deceit, misdirection and stealth. Talk your way out of a battle with a ridiculously strong foe. Sneaking around an enemy packed area without being noticed. Feinting an opponent so that they defend against the wrong attack.

Which attribute is used to check against an action depends on the way players and GM narrate their actions. If you spot a couple thugs armed with rifles blocking your path and you decide to find cover and line up a good shot to take them out, you will check for Careful. However, if you decide to just charge at them guns blazing and fill them with holes before they can react, that’s a Forceful approach. A Sneaky approach will let you climb and jump on buildings spiderman style and go unnoticed or trick them into thinking you’re a thug worse than they are and avoid fighting entirely. It’s up to you how you handle any given situations.

They also provide a way to narratively personalize your character. Here’s an example:



Haruyuki Arita: +3 Quick, +2 Flashy, +2 Clever, +1 Forceful, +1 Sneaky, + 0 Careful

Haru’s renowned for his amazing reflexes, his over-the-top maneuvers and by how he can figure out things as he goes, being incredibly flexible mid-battle. However, he also has a couple weaknesses: he’s lacking in sheer grit to take the hits, he’s not exactly the greatest liar nor manipulator around, and most importantly, if he has to concentrate for too long he gets exhausted meaning his biggest lack is long-term planning and battling, often getting tricked, conned, or losing due to lack of preparation or observation of his surroundings.


5. Aspects and Duel Avatar creation

As you can see, on the character sheet you can find different Aspects. We will use one of these to further personalize our characters and two to make it clear what our Duel Avatars are like, with one tying in your character to his Duel Avatar. For that, we will use colour and what sort of thing they specialize in.

Depending on the colour of your character and what your Avatar is like, you may have your life made easier at some points of the adventure. or you can expend Fate points to do so. In some cases, the GM may do likewise.

5.1 Colour

Duel Avatar colour defines your character’s relationship with his High Concept or, as it is known in our setting, Trauma, and it’s one of the biggest things in our game. You can get so much narrative mileage out of a mere colour.

The outline is as it follows:

-Blue coloured Duel Avatars origin from players who face their hardships head-on.
-Red coloured Duel Avatars try to distance themselves from their problems.
-Yellow coloured Duel Avatars try to joke or downplay about what is troubling them.
-Green coloured Duel Avatars choose a middle path between assertiveness and trying to ignore their problems: wishing or praying.
-Purple coloured avatars have an ambiguity between facing and running. Ambivalent and hence, possibly kind of unstable.
-Metal coloured Avatars have repressed their traumas and formed a shield encasing it from their daily lives, they have chosen to forget.

From this, you decide your character’s unique relationship with their Trauma and a colour you feel is fitting for good reason. Furthermore, you can customize further his personality with the following  information: as colours darken or whiten, their relationship with the trauma becomes more complicated (whiter in our setting means you mask your High Concept through a façade, darker shades that you become obsessed with your High Concept). You even may mix Metal colours with white or black to create unique materials, like Mirror Masker, with Mirror being half Silver and half White with unique properties (detailing why)

Just keep in mind that the more complicated it gets…

a) The harder work it is to summarize it in a sentence

b) The easier it is for the GM to use said aspect to screw you over the course of the game.

The colour specializations tend to be as it follows. However, there are instances such as Blood Leopard or Cherry Rook who lack firepower yet have amazing mobility, so they still fit the bill as Red Duel Avatars, and Ash Roller who despite being a Green has poor defense himself because it’s all in the bike and there may be colour mixes, hence why these should be taken with a grain of salt.

-Blue colour: Melee
-Red colour: Ranging and long distance combat
-Yellow colour: Status effects/Jamming/Annoying
-Green colour: Defense
-Purple colour: Area of effect attacks
-Metal colour: Special defenses

A short explanation on what you can do with colours or avatar types:

If you are for example a Green Duel Avatar, which are renowned for being absurdly sturdy and you have to tank an otherwise lethal blow, you can use a Fate point to gain a +2 to whatever you’re rolling with since Green Avatars are known for being tanks in human form.

If you are a Red Duel Avatar which are known for being long distance combat experts and rangers and you roll for making a difficult jump or trick shot, you can use a Fate point to gain a +2 to your roll.

If you are a Metal Colour and you’re about to get hit by say, a dragon’s fiery breath, you can roll to survive unscathed.

And so onwards. Likewise, depending on your relationship with your trauma, if say you are usually repressing bad stuff that happens you may expend a fate point to recall a vital piece of information your character forgot until then because it was something really awful, or if you tend to face trouble face on you can gain a +2 to your next roll, as long as you’re facing head on a challenge or obstacle. So use it wisely, as it’s really important.

An example:

Player A sits down with the GM. He has decided on a character whose parents filed for a divorce and never got to see his dad again, so the GM says “wow that’d make a nice High Concept, but, what does he want to do about his dad moving out?”, so he says “he reaches out to those he loves regardless of distance”.

Note how, for example, he would have “cursed his father for leaving him”, “wished to push his mother away”, and so onwards. The human psyche is weird as hell, so go nuts while keeping in mind that someone who wishes to punch his dad square in the face isn’t someone who is going to have a healing ability but the diammetrical opposite. Your ability is directly tied to your Wish, so get creative and make it count.

Then we decide on a Trouble which is up to you, but keep in mind that the more interesting it is, the more Fate points you’ll get as you play and the better mileage you’ll get out of it, and your character’s Personal aspect. It can be something like Haruyuki’s high speed reflexes or something like “Good at keeping my identity a secret” or “Shooter games near professional player”.

Then, you settle on a colour based on how your character’s personality, approaches and High Concept mesh. In this instance, since we Haru wants to reach out, it’s going to be movement based for sure, and he’s got Quick as his highest priority so he’s good. But, oh, he doesn’t really fit anywhere in the colour wheel from what I think, and I want to play a character with a mysterious backstory that will be revealed as I progress… So, the GM agrees it’d be for the best to pick a Metal colour with the aspect of “I tend to quickly forget my woes”.

Arita Haruyuki/Silver Crow:

High Concept: I was abandoned so I reach out to those I love regardless of distance
Trouble: I owe everything to Kuroyukihime
Personal Aspect: Has superhuman reflexes (Haru)
Duel Avatar Aspect 1: I tend to forget the source of my woes very quickly: Metal Colour – Silver

So far, so good.

5.2. Duel Avatar’s aspect

In the Light Novel, there are mentions of many Duel Avatar types, such as Speed types which are speedy, light armored Avatars and Battle types, which are combat specialists. You may use that, or simply describe something noteworthy, such as limbs that may not be human, attachments, etc. Or both, provided you don’t go over a couple lines.

Arita Haruyuki – Silver ???

High Concept: I was abandoned so I reach out to those I love regardless of distance
Trouble: I owe everything to Kuroyukihime
Personal Aspect: Has superhuman reflexes (Haru)
Duel Avatar Aspect 1: I tend to forget the source of my woes very quickly: Metal Colour – Silver
Duel Avatar Aspect 2: Very light and nimble Speed type Avatar.

Aspects: +3 Quick, +2 Flashy, +2 Clever, +1 Forceful, +1 Sneaky, + 0 Careful

We have now here a good idea of what kind of character we’re creating. Now that we have an idea, we can tackle the final part of character creation: Abilities.


6. Stunts

So here comes the last but not least important part of character design. Your Duel Avatar’s oomph. That which has going for it that no other Avatar can replicate.

Firstly, you get three stunt slots to distribute between abilities, special moves and Enhanced Armaments. Meaning that it is technically possible to start out with an Enhanced Armament, a special move and a skill…

But I would advise against it. The stronger an ability/special move/Enhanced Armament, the more stunt slots they consume. A one slot stunt will get you a weaker ability than if you spend two or in some very special cases, three. For newcomers, I would advise spending two.

So let’s break down what you can get and how it works. The GM will be in charge of giving the proper bonuses to the abilities and drawbacks as they come, keeping in mind the more slots used the stronger the ability will be, and the more specific the ability is/tied to the character’s High Concept, the better it will be. You give it a name, tell me what it does and I give you the details proper.

6.1 Enhanced Armament

Enhanced Armaments are in RPG terms, equipment. In this case, however, it’s an Equipment intrinsically tied to your Duel Avatar’s High Concept/Innermost Desire and hence it’s custom, badass, and awesome at doing what your character wants to do.

They do not cost any Killer Gauge, but instead they have limits such as a Fuel Gauge that decreases as it’s used, a certain amount of ammo that can be used at one time, and they all have limited durability.

You must write down its name, what it looks like, and its ability’s name and what it does.

6.2 Abilities

There are two kinds of abilities, Passive and Active. Passive abilities are, as their name states, permanent abilities that are activated either by the user or permanently active with no cost.

Active abilities have a Killer Gauge upkeep, and are obviously stronger. Killer Gauge is represented in this game by KG Advantages that are gained when you take damage, dish out damage, or damage the stage. Some abilities may be activated even when there is no Killer Gauge, but for weaker/negligible effects only.

As with Enhanced Armaments, they must be related in some way to what your character wants to do in his High Concept.

6.3. Killer Moves

Killer Moves consume a given % of KG to execute an action, and they need a large amount of Killer Gauge Advantages to be used. They tend to be more powerful than abilities, although they are also instantaneous. If an ability is like a continuous machine gun fire, a Killer Move is a missile.

Killer Moves can belong to two categories. Tied to your High Concept or not. In the first instance, they are flexible since they are the only thing your character has and they tend to be pretty strong and able to perform a variety of tasks. Those which aren’t tend to be somewhat on the weaker side of the spectrum, especially those at the start such as Silver Crow’s Headbutt (which has a defense-penetrating attribute that’s not to be scoffed at, anyhow)