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Characters
in Charmed follow the same basic mould as those in Buffy and Angel. There
may only be three ‘Charmed Ones’, but there are plenty of Witches.
This means your players could meet up with the Halliwell sisters without messing
with the canon of the show. So you can have more than one ‘chosen one’
as witches are not nearly as unique as slayers. While you could all be Witches,
there is also room for police detectives, helpful supernatural entities, and
even attractive next door neighbours as player characters. It is up to the
Director as to how many Witches he will allow as player characters. There
is no hard and fast rule that limits this, but remember Witches are still
rare, so more than three is probably too many. Including other character types
in the group would also give the party a wider range of skills and abilities.
The main difference with Charmed and Buffy is that the Heroes are no different to the White Hats. In the earlier seasons, the three sisters are usually terrified of what they have to face and behave more like Xander than Buffy. Fighting demons is a learning curve for our heroes as much as their assistants. So every character starts with the same points, even though some may have access to better abilities. Beginning character points are allocated like this:
Attribute Points 15
Quality Points 15
Drawback Points Up to 10
Skill Points 25
Drama Points 10
Apart from that, character generation is very much the same. Obviously you can’t choose qualities like ‘Slayer’ or ‘Watcher’, but there are plenty more to choose from. Some qualities may still work statistically in Charmed, but with a different name and background. For instance, you may allow an occult scholar to take the Watcher quality to represent his experience with the occult, even though he isn’t actually a ‘Watcher’. The ‘Slayer’ quality could be a convenient quality to assign to a powerful demon fighter; they just won’t be ‘the chosen one’. The ‘Initiative Agent’ quality would suit any member of a military task force. Feel free to add a few more qualities to the list when running a Charmed game. You will probably think of quite a few more, such as ‘Owns a club’ (which would be a 5 point quality, and if it begins to fail it could become a 2 point drawback). However, there are one or two qualities (old and new) that we need to review in greater detail.
The Whitelighter Quality
Whitelighters are the guardian angels of the Charmed world. They usually look out for Witches, but also keep an eye on those with the potential to join their ranks. All Whitelighters have lived before, and died peacefully, but are under orders not to try and reconnect with their old life. This is usually not a problem, as they lived content lives and rarely have any old business to continue. They have chosen to return to help people in need, not carry on where they left off. It is suggested that this quality is used for NPC’s rather than player characters. Whitelighters get messages from beyond that are helpful to guide the Witches, but have many demands on their time. In the show, Leo (the Halliwell’s Whitelighter) often pops up to tell them the plot, and then vanishes off so they have to deal with it alone. They are usually there to heal and offer advice, but not get involved. Having said that, as the series goes on, Leo becomes a more definite part of the group and could easily be considered a player character. This quality costs 12 points, and grants the power to orb and heal in the same way as a Witch. However, it grants no power to cast spells or use sorcery. In addition they are able to speak to any of their ‘charges’ in a language they understand (although they don’t get this ability with anyone else) and know when they are in trouble or need help.
The Sorcery Quality
While most of the systems in Buffy work perfectly well for Charmed, the sorcery quality does need a few adjustments. Firstly, you must be born a Witch, so if you don’t take the Witch quality (see below) you can’t get sorcery any other way. Well, not without selling your soul or something similar anyway. Once you have the quality you can improve it as much as you like. The other downside is that you do not get telekinesis as a bonus power for having sorcery. All it does is grant its usual bonus for spell casting and magic use. However, those points were not wasted, as unlike ‘Buffy tVS’, only someone with the sorcery quality can cast spells at all. It doesn’t matter how many books you read, in Charmed; you need to have the gift.
The Witch Quality
So if you choose to be a Witch, how does it work? The Witch quality costs 12 points and grants you one level of sorcery and a power (see below). By the way, a Witch doesn’t have to be female either; a male Witch is just fine. This doesn’t give a Witch many more Quality points to play with, but those are the breaks. If you want more sorcery you can improve your level with more character points should you wish. The powers come in all shapes and sizes; many are already available in the Buffy game. However, you can only take one power with the Witch quality, and no others at any other point in character generation. As your sorcery levels become more powerful you may be able to take a second power as your primary power develops. However, you’ll have to wait a while for that. Some powers may require you to make a dice roll to activate them, which we’ll call a ‘power roll’. Regardless of what the rulebook may usually suggest, you should use Willpower and your sorcery quality rating plus 1D10. Using your sorcery quality means you do not need a separate skill for your power, which also means it can only improve as your sorcery improves.