Character Creation: TimeZero

How many goddamn blog posts are you gonna make today, Matt!?

AT LEAST ONE MORE.

The Game: TimeZero
The Publisher: GRAmel Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game in particular, but it's Savage Worlds, which I know pretty well
Books Required: The TimeZero book and the Savage Worlds core

 

OK, so! The central idea here is that folks work for the Timeguard, which travels through time to stop other time travelers from fucking up the continuum. This is a pretty...I don't want to say obvious setup, but like, if I said you worked for "Timeguard" and you were familiar with sci-fi at all, that's what you'd assume you did, right? But the setting info is pretty nicely put together, it's detailed enough to feel like you could jump right, and what I think is really cool is that the characters can come from any era. You just have to be not-famous and someone who doesn't have a lot of connections, so that you can just disappear.

With that in mind, I'm asked first to choose a Background. Having just watched the new Jumanji movie again, I'm kinda inspired by Nick Jonas' character, the rascal/pilot sort of fella. I don't necessarily want to make a pilot, but I do like his kinda rogue-like set of expertise (Michelle pointed out that when they're in the tunnels, he's the one telling the others how to avoid traps). The Background that's closest to is "Outlaw," but it's not like Background has a mechanical effect anyway.

Next up is Origin, which also doesn't have a direct mechanical effect, but is important - it's what era I'm from. I kinda want my character to have been supposed to be present (and killed) at some big famous disaster, but not to be famous himself. The Hindenburg is one possibility, but it was coming from Germany...actually, what the heck, I can make this work.

Brutus "Butch" Hagen was a small-time booze-runner and thug in the New York mafia. He made some money during the Prohibition years, but when the 18th Amendment was repealed, he found his prospects drying up (ironically), and his old bosses were largely either dead or in prison. He figured he was next - booze might be legal again but shooting people wasn't - so he figured he'd flee to Germany and live with his cousins there (the fact that he was fleeing to Germany in 1937 is perhaps evidence that Butch is not the most forward-thinking of cats, but never mind). Officially, Butch disappeared on May 6, 1937, but authorities of the time know he had a ticket to take the Hindenburg's return flight to Frankfurt. The thinking is that he either died when the thing crashed (in real life there was only one ground casualty, but hey) or that he fled the country via other means. He was never a big priority, so case closed.

Except that what really happened is that Butch got recruited to be a Timeguard. What the hell, beats shaking people down for protection money.

My race is "human", of course, so I get a free Edge. That's later, though. At present, let's do Attributes. Standard array, d4 in each plus 5 points to divvy up. I'm gonna leave Smarts at d4 (again, Butch is not the smartest of folks). I'll pump Agility, Spirit, and Vigor to d6 and Strength to d8; Butch is a pretty big guy.

Skills, then, I get 15 points. Driving, Fighting, Gambling, Guts, Intimidation, Shooting, Streetwise, Throwing...sounds good. Yeah, I'm gonna break my usual rule and eschew Notice. I'll bump them all to d6 except Gambling (he knows how, he's just not terribly good).

Hindrances, then, because (say with me, y'all!) derived traits go at the end! OK, I'm totally taking the Recruit Hindrance (I'm the new guy and that causes some problems for me). I'm gonna take Greedy (I mean, consider his life). And then I think I'll take Vengeful as a Major Hindrance. Business is business, but you make it personal and Butch is gonna cut you.

Right, then I get one free Edge. None of the Edges in the TimeZero book really make sense, so back to basics. Well, Brawny seems to fit, so there.

Now I get 4 points. This is something of a conundrum; I had planned on raising Agility and then putting up some of my Skills, but see, there's this thing called Hypnotraining - I pick an Edge and two Skills that I can swap out via hypnosis. It does not make sense for Brawny to be a hypnoedge, because like, I don't get smaller if I'm sent to a different time, so I really should blow two points and buy another Edge. Hrm.

OK, well, you know what, I'll take Berserk. Ties in with Vengeful; Butch kinda goes nuts if you hit him. That'll be a good Hypnoedge, too, so I don't have to use it all the time. And then with my other two points, I'll jack Fighting up to d8. I'll tag Fighting and Driving as my Hypnoskills; not every mission requires Butch to punch things, though not knowing how he finds deeply uncomfortable.

Derived traits, then: Charisma 0, Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 6. Gear we skip because it's boring, and that's me done!