Until now, the character creation process has focused on “What does the character do?”. This step deals with the other side of a character: what do they believe?

Every character has five drives—Duty, Faith, Justice, Power, and Truth—which are described in the previous chapter. These are rated between 4 and 8, representing how important that drive is to the character, with 8 representing the most important thing to the character, while 4 represents something the character cares little about.

During this step, you must rank the five drives according to their importance for the character. Then, in order, assign the associated rating:

You can determine this order in any way you want, but the key is that this is the point where you determine who the character is and what they believe. Each archetype includes a couple of suggestions about the drives that might be interesting to play for that archetype, but these are suggestions only, and shouldn’t be considered limits on what you create yourself.

Example: After much thought Claire chooses Faith 8, Duty 7, Power 6, Truth 5, and Justice 4. Kara believes that family and House are the bedrock of success, but that ambition is what drives it. While she is not a liar, she feels Truth is too easily manipulated and Justice is rarely found in the Imperium.

Once you’ve defined the order of your character’s drives, you’ll need to define some drive statements—a statement for each of the three most important drives. Drive statements are described in more detail in The Measure of a Character, with numerous example statements available there, but this can be a tricky part of character creation, so additional guidance is provided below.

• A drive statement is one of the driving forces of the character’s worldview and personality, shaping how they interact with the worlds around them and providing motivation for the things they do.
• Drive statements should be easy to understand, so that you and the gamemaster can both understand when they’re helpful, when they’re a hindrance, and when they don’t apply at all. If you don’t know if a drive statement applies to a situation, you’re not able to use it.
• You will want to have at least one drive statement that poses a problem for your character, because that’s how you can gain more Determination to spend.
• Similarly, you’ll want at least one drive statement which is helpful to your character, because that gives you more opportunities to use a higher drive score, and more opportunities to spend Determination.
• Drive statements do not have to be positive about the drive they’re attached to. Someone with a strong drive in Truth doesn’t have to be honest, and someone who believes strongly in Faith may believe that faith and religion are dangerous or harmful.
• Your drive statements can and should change over time. The game allows for a character to challenge their beliefs, changing the order of priority and the attached statements, to reflect how people’s feelings and opinions can shift over time. Because they can change, you don’t need to worry too much about choosing the perfect statements right away; simple statements might be a better way to start, becoming more complex as you play the character and their feelings grow more nuanced.
• It doesn’t matter if your drive statements contradict one another. A person can hold conflicting beliefs, and the situations when those conflicting beliefs clash is often a source of interesting roleplay and tension in play.
• A broad range is also good so you have the option to use a statement on any test. With this in mind, you may want to pick one that reflects how you respond physically, one that reflects how you tend to respond mentally, and one that reflects how you respond socially.

Example: Claire needs to pick drive statements for Kara’s three highest drives, which are Duty, Faith, and Power. Remembering Kara’s faith in her family and House, and her own ‘enlightened self interest’, she chooses “I am the heir of my House” (for Duty),”My family trusts me” (for Faith), and “I get what I want” (for Power).

One Way to Choose Drives

One possible method for choosing how to order your character’s drives is to compare each individual drive against the others, weighing which of two drives is most important to the character.

With five drives in total, this will take ten questions (listed below, for convenience), and whichever drive wins most often is the most important, second most often is second most important, and so forth, until you’ve gotten your order. If two drives are tied, look at the question asked about those two drives—that’ll tell you how to break that tie. If you get three drives all scoring the same amount, you’ll need to think about which one your character prioritizes, as there’s no easy way to break that tie.