Character Creation in Transference consists of the following components, more information on which can be found on this page or linked elsewhere on the wiki:

Note: OC means 'out of character' – this is anything about you, the player. IC means 'in character' – this is anything about the character you are playing. For more information about this or any of the other terms used in Transference, see Glossary.

• OC information: Inform the GMs (and eventually your fellow players) about your name and pronouns. If you are under 18, you will need to alert the GMs of this for safeguarding reasons (this information will not be shared, as per our Privacy Policy).
• Ability to join Discord: You will need to confirm that you can join the Transference Discord server and when you do join, make sure that your server nickname matches your real name and pronouns.
• Balloting: Please indicate what you would like to happen in the case where we need to ballot, and status within the balloting process. For more information on balloting, see Balloting
• IC name(s) and pronouns: Select a name for your character. Please also tell us your character's pronouns.
• IC Origin: Is your character a transfer or a local?
• Questions About Your Character: Please briefly answer a few questions about your character, to help us get a feel of how they will fit into the game. These questions don't require long answers – just let us know who they are briefly. For the exact questions, see the sample characters below.
• Quirks: See the Quirks page and below for more details on this.
• Private Bio: A bio of your character visible only to you and the GMs. It's where you can tell us the overall concept for your character, as well as their backstory, their goals and motivations, how they spend their time, and any interesting secrets that you don't want other players to know. Please note that all PCs in Transference must be adults.
• Public Bio: A short description of your character that will be posted on the Player Characters page, visible to all players. It should contain information that other characters could know about your character. Please include whether your character is a transfer or a local.
• OC Notes to GMs: A message to the GMs, primarily to inform them how they can make the game more comfortable for you. Anything that is not covered in the rest of the form should go here.

For examples of what finished character creation may look like, see Sample Characters.

The people in Anchor Rock have modern, ethnically diverse names. As such, any present-day name is suitable. Please also tell us your character's pronouns. These will be listed on the Player Characters page alongside your character's name.

Quirks define your interactions as a player with the world of Transference on a mechanical level. As Transference is a mechanics-light game that revolves primarily around uptime, the Quirks system is also light and strives mostly to provide a 'core' around which players can build out their characters.

Quirks in transference fall into two categories:

• Playstyle quirks, which affect your character's experience with the world in an out-of-character way, in essence defining the ways in which the GM team will interact with your character. You can take as many of these as you like.
• Gameplay quirks, which represent some in-character characteristic. These are more to aid character building than to define gameplay, so don't worry too much about these. You can take one core quirk and as many non-core quirks as you like, provided the total of all of your gameplay quirks is no greater than 1.

For further details and a list of the quirks you can take, please see Quirks.

Please submit a personal bio that consists of your character's personal background and anything else you would like the GMs to be aware of during the game. Your character's background and personal arc will be taken into consideration when the GMs handle your character's story. You may wish to refer to the NPCs listed on GMs and NPCs for some details you might like to include. The bio does not need to be long (and please avoid sending us a novel, touched though we will be). This will only be visible to you and to the GMs, so please do use this as an opportunity to tell us all the secrets you hope will be unveiled over the course of the game if you have any. There is no need to have secrets if you don’t want them!

Transference is going to be a game focused on friendship, relationships and will overall have positive vibes, so make sure your character can fit in with these themes. Feel free to give your character a darker backstory if you wish, but know that there are no opportunities to seriously hurt anyone or be overly harmful in game. Please also refer to the Conduct and Themes Policy when writing your backstory, and if you feel any part of this backstory may clash with one of these themes, please talk to the GMs. Additionally, because the world beyond Anchor Rock is quite wide, please additionally take a look at the Beyond page if you are specifically interested in playing a transfer character, as you will be largely be the one the shaping and defining your home pre-Transference. As ever, please do discuss with the GMs if questions or concerns around this arise.

Please also submit a public bio that represents what is publicly known, rumoured, or speculated about your character. This doesn't need to take any particular form (it could be a simple third person description, a conversation between two passersby, an official register form, anything you like really), but should be a couple of paragraphs at most and not exceeding 150 words. This will be visible to all players on the Player Characters page, and will be posted alongside your character's name and pronouns.

In this part of character creation you can let the GMs know anything important that is not covered by the form, such as if you have accessibility or health related requirements, if there are particular players or themes you'd like to avoid, what you out-of-character want to get out of the game or just to be excited at us. Feel free to put whatever you want in this box, or leave it completely blank.

On Tuesday 16th April at the Larkin Room at St John's College and online over Discord, there will be a character creation event, where you can ask any questions you have, get inspiration, meet others who are interested in playing Transference and get excited about the game ahead! There is no need to be at this event if you want to submit a character, but most Society Game players enjoy coming to these sessions before character submission.

This session can also be used to create pre-existing links between characters. Although this is completely optional, some players like to create characters that have some connection before the game, for example, a married couple, a parent and child, siblings, or best friends.

The preferred method of submission is via the following Google form. If, however, you encounter technical issues with this, we can also accept character submissions by email to gm@transference.oxfordrpg.com, though use of the form is preferred where possible. The deadline for character submissions is 6pm on Wednesday 17th April.