New Characters/Dead Characters Introduced to Game

[Woas]

Hi gang. We had our first character deaths (a two-fer one!) this past Wednesday. The characters were found guilty of 5 counts of murder in cold blood along with a laundry list of other broken laws and sentenced to death.


So new characters were made. I had a question in regards to the Skill Packages and gained skills from Contacts. None of us can remember which skills the players picked for their original characters as their Skill Package when we initially divided them up.
So how do the new characters fairly receive bonus skills from a skill package after the fact? Just wing it? Try to compare what they don't have with the skills of older characters? Any other suggestions?

 

[saundby]

I'd just have them work with the other players to pick skills out of the appropriate skill package that they felt complemented the group. Since these are new characters, I wouldn't even try to have them pick the exact same skills as the dead ones.

So, if each party member got, say, two skills out of the package originally, I'd let them pick two from that list (or another if I chose a different one as a result of a shift of scene for the adventure or whatever), and suggest they work with the party to figure out what those should be.

I keep pretty detailed info on what happens in character generation to allow new characters created to work with the same group mesh in well. Not all the connections get fully sorted out in the first pass, for example. They might just get left as "enemy from Marines first term" or whatever when we start the adventure. Then when a new character gets added, from a new player or a replacement for a dead character, I'll take advantage of that.

"Remember that enemy you made when you screwed up a training exercise in your first term of the Marines? That was Fred--you put your dropship into the middle of the tea soiree he was holding for the base commander. Fred, meet Sam, ,the dumb jarhead who turned your big opportunity to impress the brass into 'gazpacho soup day', resulting in five terms with no advancement."

Instant party bonding.