Character Creation: Adventure!

Who knows what evil etc etc.

The Game: Adventure!
The publisher: White Wolf Game Studio
Degree of familiarity: Not much. I played it once at MarCon some years back, and people made characters for a chronicle in Atlanta, but then drama ripped the game apart.
Books required: Just the core.

That bit above oughta give you a clue as to where I'm going. 

OK, Adventure! is White Wolf's pulp game. We start off making a normal human character, and then the character becomes Inspired.

Now, I loved the Shadow when I was a kid. The folks who used to drive me to grade school had a bunch of Shadow cassette tapes, and I knew "Death from the Deep" by heart at one point in my life. I would love to see radio drama return via the Internet (watch, someone's going to post a link now and I'll feel dumb). And Lamont Cranston...hell, yeah. So, despite having done the dark-shadowy hero routine a few days ago (here), I'm going to do it again.

Step one, of course, is Concept. My character is from humble origins. The son of a country doctor, he went to the Big City to visit his uncle and walked in to find said uncle dead, murdered by a robber. Amazed and sickened, he grilled the policeman on what would make a man do this kind of thing. He dedicated his life to understanding the criminal mind, becoming expert in sociology and psychology in the process.

There, so Origin is "Philosopher." I can take a dot of Followers or Sanctum. I like Sanctum better.

OK, now I choose Nature. For Virtue, I choose Explorer. It's an odd choice, but he wants to learn about the mind and the soul, and to him, that journey is the most important thing in the world. For Vice, I pick Caregiver. As he learns more about the "criminal mind," he learns how dire straits turn otherwise law-abiding folks into criminals, and he knows that if the more fortunate people stopped to help, this could be avoided.

For Allegiance, I consider being Independent, but I like the International Detective Agency. Interestingly, their work is really peripheral to his cause, but it puts him in contact with the criminal element, and that's perfect. I note one dot of Backing from that.

Step Two: Choosing Attributes. I get 6/4/3 in this game. I'm definitely Mental first, then Social, then Physical. I think he's not by nature an athletic person, but he'll make up for that with skills.

Mental: I put two into Perception, three into Intelligence, and one into Wits. Smart and sharp, not so witty.

Social: One each into Appearance and Manipulation, but two into Charisma (makes a good first impression).

Physical: One each across the board.

Step Three: Choose Abilities. No categorization here, I just get 23 points to spend, but I can't go above three in any one of them. OK, let's do it.

Man, those go fast. I put one into Martial Arts (I'll raise it later) and three into Stealth. I throw two into Awareness and three into Investigation (detective!). I put three into Academics, because I'm a scholar, and one each into Bureaucracy and Medicine. Two into Science (good with chemistry). Three into Disguise (Holmes, Cranston, Wayne, and me), two into Subterfuge, one into Command and one into Intimidation. I can already see my freebies or whatever are going to get dumped into Skills.

Step Four: Backgrounds. I get six points to spread around here. Well, since I'm shadowy and mysterious, I'll need Cipher. Three points. I want to have a secret crime lab, so I'll put two more points in Sanctum. My last point goes into Mentor - the Old Man of my local IDA chapter.

Step Five: Finishing Touches. Willpower 3, Inspiration 0, Initiative 4, Movement speeds 4/14/26. Bonus points: I get 15. I'll add a Sociology Specialty to Academics, and a Criminal Mind Specialty to Investigation. I buy two dots in Athletics, one in Firearms, one in Legerdemain, one in Resistance, and one more in Martial Arts. Last point goes into Cipher - terribly mysterious.

Phase Two: Transformation. Here's where the real fun starts. I get 1 Inspiration, and I have to figure out what happened to my character to make him who he is. I think his Inspiration happened gradually. As he searched for the answer - why morality meant everything to some people and nothing to others, he came to realize that he was possessed of a mind that was truly extraordinary. He tested his theories, always continuing with his studies - interviews in prisons, discussions with DAs and cops, posing as a reporter, even getting arrested to spend time among the down and dirty. And finally he understood. It wasn't enough to watch. If he wanted understanding, he had to make things happen. He had to go where the discoveries were.

He's definitely a mesmerist, so I'll mark that down. Now, I define the Inspiration. I only have 1 Inspiration point now, and it definitely goes into Reflective. I might put some into Intuitive later if I have the points.

And now, Transformation points! Whoo! I get 13, and I need to be careful not blow them all on Abilities.

First off, let's put three points into Abilities. That gives me 15 dots to throw around. I want to jack Academics, Investigation, Stealth, Disguise and Martial Arts to 5. That takes 11 of them. For the other 4, I'll put two into Legerdemain, and one each into Athletics and Awareness. I may come back and do more here.

OK, three into Attributes gives me six dots to throw around. I put them into Dexterity, Stamina, Perception, Wits and Charisma. I've spent six Transformation points thus far; down to 7 total.

Better buy a Knack or two. I know I want Cloud the Mind, and I think that Command Voice and Brain Skimming are awesome, too. Problem is, those latter two work on Abilities I don't have. Hmm.

OK, I'll suck up the four points to buy Cloud the Mind and Command Voice. That leaves me with three points left. With one, I'll buy Command up to 5 and put the other point into Rapport. I'll spend one on Willpower, raising it to 5. And the last one goes into Backgrounds: Resources 2, Contacts 2.

The last bit is Details. First, I recalculate my traits now that I've raised stuff. I have a bashing soak of 3, and no lethal soak (my plan is to be unnoticed). I put my other Inspiration point into Intuitive facet. And now the story bits.

Malcolm Danvers made the decision to walk out the door one night and stop any crimes he could find. He found them, all right. He found muggers, mob beatings for protection, rapes and assaults, kidnapping. He found that criminals would often throw down their weapons at the sound of his voice, and that they could never quite draw a bead on him, but that wasn't enough. He needed to know how to take the fight to them. He became expert in tracking them down and in fighting them off, studying the fighting techniques of the Far East with members of Asian gangs. He learned to use guns, but refused to carry one. He wanted to understand, not kill.

He wasn't exactly clean, though. There was money at the scene of crimes, and he was happy to take it. He discovered a mob house in the course of an investigation that no one had ever signed for, and so he took it. It's in a valley, and once he makes the turn-off onto his drive, the road dips and makes him almost impossible to follow (Sanctum gets one special trait; that's it).

Malcolm Danvers is, by day, a scholar, sociologist and sometime journalist. He's considered somewhat an expert in criminal investigation, but he doesn't think of himself as a detective. His real passion is his nocturnal work, when he dons a gray suit, a wide-brimmed hat, a long gray coat, and his signature red scarf. Criminals remember white gloves, too, and soft-soled shoes that never make a sound. Malcolm hasn't built up much of a reputation in the underworld yet, but he prefers to remain anonymous. But once in a while, a drunk criminal in a bar tells the story of how a man that he never quite saw came from out of the dark and disarmed him. The voice comes from all around, and it asks questions, questions of a personal nature. Why do you steal? Whom do you seek to protect? Do you regret what you've done? Would you go straight, if you could get away with this one crime?

One criminal asked his name, once. Malcolm replied, "I am the Querent - the one who seeks answers."