Theoretically, a player's character can be of any race. However, interplanetary governments often don't allow alien captains to fly their warships or command their ground troops. As a rule, characters should only come from the main race of that government.
Telepaths
Because of the nature of mental powers, telepathic abilites have little or no effect on the sim and the battles that take place between starships. However, in character-to-character interactions, covert operations storylines and other places where a character is pitted against a personal threat, these powers can be a factor.
If a player wishes to have a character with telepathic powers, they must clear it with both their faction leader and the Game Master. The Game Master will determine an appropriate strength of the powers for that character. Also note that powers can be stripped away if they are abused at any time.
Career Path
While there are numerous careers available to a being in the Babylon 5 universe, the ones that are used in this sim can be lumped into two main catagories: political and military.
Political
A career in politics usually lands the character a position in either the main government or the diplomatic office. While this position gives the character a large amount of functional power, they often never command a large warship or group of warships, leaving them largely out of the combat sector.
Military
The majority of characters fall into this rank. Sacrificing command authority for the most part in favor of commanding troops and taking a part in the battles that occur through the Bablyon 5 universe, the military characters will be the main drivers of the sim and its storylines.
Character Actions
As with real life, a character is capable of executing any possible action that is available to them. Be it from operating the shipboard version of Mr. Coffee to picking up a sidearm and shooting the captain of their vessel, a character has almost total freedome of action. However, it must be remembered that with every action comes a reaction from the people and forces around them. Stepping out an airlock without a suit on is probably going to result in your character becoming a large stain on their side of their ship, and pulling a gun on a superior officer will very likely get you shot. In such a case, the players should work out an outcome which suits them all. Whenever a situation leads to an outcome which is disputed, the Game Master will decide what the best outcome is and how it will affect the players.
Defectors and Renegades
In the event that a character chooses to defect to another Faction or refuse the orders of a higher authority within their Faction, unless there is sufficient storyline background or an agreement is reached, that character MAY NOT retain any of their previous military holdings. Defectors in effect become fugitives from their faction without protection from anyone until they can find a safe haven to shelter then. Note that another Faction is in no way obligated to take that character into its borders and that character is at the mercy of those who they encounter. The road of a defector is a hard one with no certainties.
Character Deaths
Throughout the sim, a character will most likely be faced with death several times. Be it from a lurker hiding in the shadows with the knife or an enemy starship with weapons blazing, a character will have to find ways to escape an otherwise unpleasent fate. To this end, this sim uses the SYOA method of survival, pioneered by Thrax and Baralu.
SYOA, or Save-Your-Own-Ass, dictates that for a character to survive a situation, they have to take some logical steps to do so, or otherwise they are dead. For example, if you don't climb into a lifepod and abandon ship before the systems go dead, you're going to die if the ship explodes or decompressurizes. If you decide to enter that dark alley with no protection and you get mugged, you're probably going to die rather horribly. It's that simple. In these instances, the Game Master will make a ruling if an agreement cannot be reached by the players.
Non-Player Characters
For the most part, NPCs are brought into a storyline to give extra depth to a character. However, NPCs are not treated in the same way as a player's character. NPCs are, within reason, more like public property and as such can be used by pretty much any character as long as it avoids abuse or petty bickering. The deaths of NPCs are much mandated by the SYOA system, though this can be bent in certain cases.