Miles away from metropolitan life, in a town small enough for family feuds to make local news, kids are collecting trading cards, teens are making extravagant promposals, adults are stressing over taxes, and exciting mysteries loom overhead. This is where Kids on Bikes thrives, before GPS and camera phones, in a place where gossip travels fast and there’s only one supermarket. It is also where your story begins, where your character and their companions will descend into rich drama and intrigue. Although, at this point, everyone in this tiny town knows your name except for you. 

This is your guide to building your new Kids on Bikes character. Together, we’ll learn about the main statistics of your character, develop their personality traits, build relationships with other players’ characters, and of course, design your bike. In great RPGs, characters are at the core. Putting time, effort, and consideration into the person you’re going to play enables you to have a much deeper connection to them and tell a more engaging story. Thus far in the Kids on Bikes setup, you’ve determined the setting with your group; the time, place, and general tone. Use this as a jumping-off point as we dive head-first into who you are going to be!

Tropes

For a quick start, the gracious minds behind Kids on Bikes listed 24 ‘tropes’ that can be a foundation for the character you want to play. For example, a comic relief role may adopt the ‘Funny Sidekick’ and fast-track character creation. Other tropes include: Overprotective Parent, Freakazoid, and Seasoned Babysitter. The benefit of the tropes is that they prefill the mechanical stats and provide suggested personality traits. While these models translate many common archetypes in the small-town world of Kids on Bikes, they’re not only types of playable characters.

Starting From Scratch

Building your character entirely from the ground up? Begin by assigning their statistics. The six core statistics of Kids on Bikes are:

• ‍Brains - Intelligence, cleverness, analytical thinking. This stat is for attempting actions like solving a puzzle, hacking a computer, or translating a foreign language.‍
• Brawn - Muscle, athleticism, physical strength. This stat represents how powerful your body is. It determines how much you can carry, throw, break, or do other physical tasks. ‍
• Fight - Technique, intimidation, combat prowess. This stat decides whether you win or lose a brawl, weapon proficiencies, and overpowering an opponent.‍
• Flight - Agility, stealth, evasion. Being slippery and light-footed, this stat is used when performing feats of acrobatics, skillful vehicle maneuvers, and dodging harm.‍
• Charm - Guile, smooth-talking, intuition. This stat is used when navigating social situations, trying to persuade someone, detecting a lie, or telling one yourself. ‍
• Grit - Willpower, endurance, stoicism. This stat depicts a character's ability to withstand physical and emotional adversity. It is used when tanking a hit, keeping calm when in trouble, and being ‘street-smart.’

Your character will be good in some of these stats, and poor in others. This is represented mechanically by assigning a dice type (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20) to each. The higher the dice, the better the character is at the corresponding stat. A character with a d20 in Fight may be a highly trained martial artist, and a character with a d4 in Charm may be a socially inept bookworm.

Consider the character the stats portray— who would have the skills and weaknesses you’re distributing? Why is a stat high? What do their lower stats say about them?

Anyone Can Ride The Bike

The name ‘Kids on Bikes’ may be a misnomer, as your character can be any age. However, they will be one of three age groups: child, teen, or adult. Age plays a crucial mechanical role in the game, as each group gets bonuses and Strengths derived from their stage in life. ‘Strengths’ are character attributes that grant them special advantages in-game. 

Children receive the Quick Healing Strength and a +1 bonus to Charm and Flight checks. 

Teens receive the Rebellious Strength and a +1 bonus to Brawn and Fight checks.

Adults receive a +1 bonus to their Grit and Brains checks. They also gain the Skilled at ____ Strength, the blank being a proficiency your character has picked up, maybe in their occupation or hobby. 

Beyond the technical aspects of age, keep in mind how age impacts your character’s life, it decides whether they’re in school, have a full-time job, or are studying for the SATs. These are vastly different stories, so choose wisely!

Superpowers Come With Kryptonite

Alongside their age-assigned Strength, your character will have two more powerful Strengths, and naturally, a Flaw. If you’re using a Trope, it’s recommended to pick two from their suggested Strengths, but generally, you can choose any two on the sheet. Be aware that certain Strengths are age-specific, so read their descriptions thoroughly. 

Some Strengths require or influence ‘Adversity Tokens.’ These ‘Adversity Tokens’ are a kind of currency for bonuses, and are spent on a roll to add a +1 per token to the check. You start each session with three Adversity Tokens and gain one more when you fail a check. 

The Strengths you choose should represent aspects of your character that shine, skills they’re proud of, or central personality traits. Maybe your character is a lone wolf, an introvert who thrives alone, so they align with the Unassuming Strength.

Similarly, a character’s Flaw should be an aspect of their personality that causes pain or gets them into trouble. While not serving a mechanical purpose, Flaws reflect how people aren’t perfect. Kids on Bikes lists potential Flaws, including Lazy, Insecure, Patronizing, and Superstitious, but your characters may be unique. 

Meeting The Neighbors

If you haven’t yet, give your character (only) a first name. Your characters do not appear in this small town out of nowhere, they’ve made friends, enemies, maybe dated and broken up. In fact, it’s likely your party’s characters have already met. 

As a group, go around and introduce your characters to each other. Describe who they are, details of their life, and potential organizations they’re in. Players suggest connections their character may have to another— perhaps they’re best friends, coworkers, rivals, or related (hence waiting for a last name). Aim to have two to three interesting relationships.

For deeper bonds, Kids on Bikes has an optional ‘Bonded Actions’ mechanic, which are skills that two connected characters can activate when cooperating. For example, characters who were Prom King & Queen together may share the Sweet Talkers Bonded Action, giving them Charm bonuses when making a check collaboratively. 

By the end of this section, you should know your character's full name, and how they fit into the setting.

Rounding Out Your Character

Finishing up the personality development of your character, you should define their Fear, Obligation, and Knack, then consider your character's Backpack. Being more familiar with your character, these traits should now be much easier to specify. 

When encountering your Fear, your character suffers mechanical conditions. You can only make ‘Snap Decisions,’ meaning you won’t be able to take half the max roll of your dice for checks, you can’t use Adversity Tokens for others, and suffer up to a -3 penalty to checks. Try to choose something age-appropriate, as where a child may be afraid of the dark, adults may fear losing their jobs.

Your Obligation is something your character has to do. Potentially mundane, like chores or homework, or serious, like securing a scholarship. It’s without mechanical function but directs your GM to parts of your character you want to highlight.

A character’s Knack is something they can always do, a skill or feat they’ve mastered. A thief can always pick locks, and a baseball player can always catch well. Once per session, you can automatically get a 10 on a check involving your Knack, but must justify invoking it.

Your character’s Backpack is simultaneously figurative and literal. Think about the resources available to them, useful items, and connections they have. These fill your ‘Backpack’ as they’re always accessible. 

If you chose a Trope, you answer the suggested trope questions on your sheet.

The Bikes

The Bikes are powerful tools for your characters, and for many, representative of their freedom to adventure. The Bike will have a color and an upgrade granting you bonuses when riding it. Kids on Bikes offers personality traits for these Bike cosmetics, such as Neon Pink being ‘Fast’ (+1 to Flight Checks) and Milk Crate being ‘Big Hauler’ (Bike can carry one Large Item). Personalize your bike, name it, and think about how your character received it— as a crucial part of your character, it should be meaningful to you somehow. 

Ready to Roll!

Finally, your character is completed! You’re ready to enter the exciting and thrilling universe of Kids on Bikes. This game provides an intuitive system built to combine collaboration and creativity, resulting in an unforgettable TTRPG experience. Watch out world! Your character’s created, and it’s time to start pedaling!

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by Finn Halpern