Character Creation: LOO-Nars

That's how Ken Cliffe used to say it at meetings, and we'd chuckle slightly.

Anyway, yup, back to makin' characters, yo. I'm doing Exalted: Lunars today because I won't have the book much longer. See, I sold off these Exalted books to someone in Australia a while back, but they got returned. The buyer just recently emailed me in response to the email I sent her (in which I asked, "um, hey, books returned, do you really exist?") and so I'll be sending them on again, but I figure I'll make a character first.

So, here we g-g-g-go!

The Game: Exalted: Lunars, 1st Edition
The publisher: White Wolf
Degree of familiarity: Some. I ran Lunars a couple of times, and I always thought that of the "fatsplats," this was the one I liked the best. That was until Abyssals came around.
Books required: The Lunars book, and I think the core. I've got 'em both.

 
I know that there's some controversy over Lunars in certain gamer circles. Something about barbarians and their civilization and...ah, screw it. This is why Exalted threads on RPGNet are insufferable. You're playing a badass shapeshifter, what the hell else do you need?

I've had a concept in mind for a lunar character for a long, long time, and I'm finally gonna stat him up. First, coffee. OK, that's better. Now, one of the things I always liked about lunars was that once they drink the blood of an animal, they can change into it. I envisioned building a character around that power (which is reflected in the Background called Heart's Blood). Here's the deal.

He was a refugee from the Southern jungles. For fun, we'll say he grew up not far from Xaal (the home of the Last Hunter of Xaal, probably the only contribution to Exalted I made that I really liked). Since living near Xaal sucks if you don't want your innards consumed by spider beastmen, he started wandering north, and eventually got picked up by slavers. He wound up doing shit work in a traveling circus/menagerie kind of thing. You can probably see where this is going.

One day his circus got hit by a rampaging monster of some kind. It killed most of the workers and smashed open the cages, and in that burst of glorious chaos and savagery as a hundred animals from Creation ran riot, my character Exalted. He killed and ate the hearts of as many creatures as he could, but the one that he wanted, the one that started the whole mess, fled into the wastes. He's been after it ever since, wanting to eat its heart and become it. What he doesn't know is that it was a Lunar Exalt itself, wearing the deadly beastman form, and it didn't hit that circus by accident. But what was its target? And did it even notice when my character (known as Lolk) Exalted to Luna?

Righto, that'll do for a start.

Step One: Concept. I did most of this, but I need a caste and a totem and stuff. OK, at first blush, this guy seems like a Changing Moon, since he's so focused on shapeshifting. But he survived his Exaltation by killing a bunch of things and eating them. That screams Full Moon to me. Now, for the totem animal, this I don't have a good sense for. I think some kind of hunter/tracker would be good. How about a wild dog? I like the African hunting dogs, the ones with the brindled fur on their backs, and I can see something like that, something that takes him back to his roots in the Southern jungles. His Tell, then, is that brindling pattern on his skin - it looks like tattoos unless you look closely. Finally, I think about Nature. I think Explorer is the closest thing to what I want; he's focused on finding that monster, but tracking it leads him into all of the aftermath of that "monster's" travels, and he's starting to enjoy that.

Step Two: Select Attributes. Physicals are my Caste Attributes, so I'll make that primary. I'll make Mental secondary and Social tertiary. He's a shapeshifter, not a trickster.

Physical: I put four into Dexterity and three into Strength and two into Stamina. This guy is fast and lithe, not really a powerhouse. Goddamn it, I did it again.

Mental: Three into Perception, two into Wits and Intelligence.

Social: Big fat nada into Manipulation, three into Charisma, two into Appearance. Cute, charming, not real wordy.

Step Three: Select Abilities. I need to choose four favored Abilities, plus Survival. I take Athletics, Brawl, Dodge and Investigation as my favored Abilities. Now I get 25 dots to throw around, 10 of which must go to my favored ones.

Well, duh, we'll go three in Brawl, Survival, Athletics, Dodge, and Stealth. Two into Investigation, Lore, Occult. One into Medicine, Awareness, Melee, Linguistics. Sounds good.

Step Four: Advantages. Seven dots of Backgrounds, but can't go over three here. Well, duh, first off we'll got three dots in Heart's Blood. Also, I think word has spread of Lolk Hundred-Forms, even though he's young. I'll put one dot into Renown and two into Cult. I'll put my last dot into Artifact, but I'll hold off on defining it for now because I'll want to bump it up a little.

Oh, crap. Now Charms. I get Finding the Spirit's Shape for free, and then I get eight more. At least four have to be selected from Physical Attributes. Let's do this. I want Deadly Beastman Transformation at least once. I start with Essence 2, and I don't know that I'll raise it, so I'll just take this Charm twice for now. I'll come back to this later, once I buy my other Charms, and build his beastman form.

I know I want Towering Beast Form and Humble Mouse Shape, since those allow me to take forms that are bigger or smaller than I'd otherwise be able to. I'm sure Lolk killed an elephant (or the Exalted equivalent) during his Exaltation, and probably snapped up some rodents as well.

And, shit. That's half my Charms, and they're all based on Social Attributes (wtf?) so the rest have to be based on Physicals. Hope I can manage that, because the pre-reqs are wonky. Ooh, unarmed combat. Yes, please. I'll take Body Weapon Technique, right off. Deadly Claw Blow seems like a good plan, too. I'll take Bowing Reed Technique to give me some defensive power, and y'know, is there a hunting Charm in here? Probably is, but I'll bet it's Perception-based. Yep. OK, let's do this. I'll take Stealthy Fox Method, since it's based on Dexterity, and that'll be my Charms for now.

OK, now my Deadly Beastman form. I picture this as a slim, vicious werewolf-like thing. Maybe a little more broad-chested than your typical werewolf, but fast and deadly. I get eight dots in Attributes and three Gifts to pile on. Let's do it.

Gaining Dexterity is expensive, but hey, it fits. I'll dump four of my eight points there, raising my Dex in Beastman form to seven. I'll buy up Stamina to five and Strength to six, as well. Now, the Gifts. Hmm. Just to make me even more ridiculous, I'll take Horrifying Might and bump Dexterity up to nine in Beastman form. I'll take Terrible Beast Claws, too, and finish off with Resilience of Nature. Basically a classic werewolf, with brindled fur!

Now I get 5 dots to split up among Virtues. Conviction and Valor are going to be the high ones, here. I'll put three into Valor, two into Conviction, leaving Compassion and Temperance at one dot, for now. That gives me the Curse of the Raging Bull, which is perfect.

Derived traits can wait, dammit. I get 15 bonus points. I want another two dots of Heart's Blood (4 points) and two more dots of Artifact (2 points). Moonsilver armor, baby. That leaves me with nine points left. I want Sense-Sharpening Change (7 points) so that I can track even in human form. With those last two points, I'll buy a fourth dot of Brawl and two Specialities - one in Tracking (Survival) and one in Claws (Brawl).

OK, now I'll do derived traits. Lolk has Willpower 7. Personal Essence is 16, Peripheral is 38. I have to commit 4 for my moonsilver breastplate, though. I have 25 points of Renown, and I break it up this way: Succor 2, Mettle 8, Cunning 5, Glory 10.

And that'll do me, I do believe. If I were playing Lolk, I'd probably go ahead and list all thirty-six of the animals that he can turn into, but right now I think I'd rather go watch a movie. Panic monkey, though, is definitely among them. 

Origins 2009 - A GM's Report Card, Pt. 2

So, following Dread, we went to bed. (I am not going to continue rhyming, I swear.) Sleep happened, then waking up, then coffee, then Thursday.

The day doesn't officially start until there's coffee, y'know. Which means some days don't start until noon.

Before the first game of the day, which wasn't until 1PM, Heather and the kids and I walked over to the North Market for foodstuff, including Jeni's ice cream. Now, if you've never had it, and you've been in Columbus, you're missing out. Go get some next time. The market is about a two minute walk from the convention center, and you can get yummy brats, there, too.

Anyway, following lunch, we headed back for a game of Aces & Eights. It's a Western game, and I've not really played many of those, beyond Deadlands, which is a different sort of animal. I do like Western as a genre, though, so I figured that the game (which won an Origins award last year for best RPG) was worth a look. Beyond the genre, however, I knew very little about it. Having now played it, however, I have a few things to say, so let's consider both the game itself and this particular game.

The game itself is, as the kids say, crunchy. That means the rules are very dense. Where that really got driven home to me was in combat. It's not the turn-based thing that most of us are used to. Instead, you act in an order based on your Speed, and depending on what you're doing you'll be moving faster or slower than other folks. Drawing a gun takes some time, firing it takes some time, and so on. And every increment of time is one tenth of a second.

On the one hand, for a gunfight, I get the appeal. Coupled with the (high) lethality of the system (getting shot is likely to kill your character), the combat system makes for a pretty darned good simulation of what a gunfight might be like. Appropriate for the genre, methinks.

On the other hand, it takes freaking forever. I think that with a group that knew the rules and enjoyed them, it would move faster and probably be pretty cool. It's a crunchier system than I usually enjoy, but I'd play it again...just not with this GM.

Which brings me to talking about this session of Aces & Eights. The GM hadn't made any characters at all. He told people they could bring their own (which I personally think is a lousy idea on its face), didn't even look at them, and then handed out pre-gens to the rest of us. Except the pre-gens he handed out weren't meant to be played, they were stock NPCs. And that means that, quite apart from any mythical issues of "balance," they were useless in the scenario (which, by the way, was basically "this old guy wants to hire you as cowboys, so you gotta go prove yourself"). The character I played was conceptually OK, but he had no traits that made him useful except a decent Riding score. A high Speed rating (which isn't good, you want that trait low), which meant in combat other characters would act twice for every action I could manage. Oh, and there were eight players.

Thoughts on the game: This game failed for me not because the game itself was bad, but because the GM was careless. The scenario was boring, the characters were cardboard cutouts, and there wasn't even really any attention to bringing out the flavor of the Western genre. I heard later about players who'd played with this GM asking for their money back; I don't do that, because, y'know, caveat emptor. My grade: F

Following Aces & Eights, we had a break in which we tooled around the dealer's room. There were some noticeably missing booths - no Wizards of the Coast (which I really don't care about, personally, and as I recall they weren't there last year, either) but also no White Wolf, which was weird for me. The dealer's room felt a lot emptier than in past years, though from what I heard, attendance for painting minis was way up, so maybe the attendance numbers weren't as bad as some people are saying? I don't know. Ultimately, not a subject I have any real data on.

As we toured the dealer's room, we found the booth for Bucephalus Games. I wasn't familiar with these folks, but I'm always looking for new and interesting board games, both because Heather and I like them (she's not a role-player, so games we can play together are nice) and because it's good to find games I can play with my students.

Another stop in the dealer's room was at Geek Chic's display of gaming tables. They're not all that expensive, and since my dining room table is old and getting ready to collapse, we may actually get one of these puppies soon. Heather was just as enthused as I was. I love my wife.

Now, on the subject of shopping for RPGs, here's something I've learned about myself. Rather, something I've rediscovered recently, as I think I've always known it. I really love buying new games. I love reading new games, and I love running new games. But I don't have to run the games to get the pleasure of reading them (and making characters; if you haven't, maybe have a look at my ongoing character creation project). So last GenCon, I decided that I would start buying new games at cons again, and not sweat whether I'd ever run them. And that worked out well, as without that attitude, I'd have missed out on such awesome games as Edge of Midnight and Spirit of the Century (but more on those later).

So while wandering the dealer's hall, I came across the booth for Khepera Games. I'd heard about this Hellas game a bit, and had people recommend it to me as something that I'd enjoy. So I talked to one of the designers, and he was very friendly and very enthused about his game. I wound up buying it, because dangit, it looked awesome. What's funny is that I didn't really notice the space opera bits of the game until I started reading it, but I was so hung up on the dynastic aspects (that is, over the course of a chronicle, your initial character will die and pass along what he's accrued to a new character) that the sci-fi didn't really sink in. I'm looking forward to reading it more in-depth.

Anyway, we grabbed dinner, and then it was time for Spirit of the Century. Oh, baby.

Now, I'd been looking forward this. I read Spirit of the Century a few months back, and made a character just recently. I knew that this game was a Martian Chronicles kind of thing, and I figured we wouldn't be using the usual method of character creation (which I did use for my chargen project; go have a look), but I was very keen to try out the Aspects system. I'm familiar with it from playing Dogs in the Vineyard; basically, if your character has the "Quick Healer" aspect, and it applies to the situation at hand, you get a bonus. Spirit of the Century takes this in a different direction; if your Aspect would compel you to act contrary to your best interests, the GM can offer you a Fate chip to do so and you have to pay a chip to act differently. I love systems that reward flawed characters, so I was jazzed about this. I was not disappointed.

I played a green Martian, the last of his kind, his family and people slaughtered by the evil Emperor Xang. The other PCs were likewise rebels, part of a ragtag band hunting down the Emperor in this novel, The Swords of Mars. My character wound up heroically sacrificing himself, but taking Xang with him, and the group restored Mars to its rightful Princess while unleashing the power of the Elders, turning the Sea of Tranquility into a real sea.

Bloody awesome. Best line of dialog, for my money: During a fight on an Imperial airship (which we totally owned through superior tactics), my character goes to destroy the ship, sending it to the bottom of a canal. One of the other characters talks me out of it, since we can use the ship in our struggle.

Him: "Stop, Throk! Think of all we've done for Mars!"
Me: "Think of what Mars has done to me!"

I love angst.

Thoughts on the game: There is no substitute for a well-crafted story. This GM knew the genre he wanted, he fashioned the characters appropriately, he responded to our suggestions and desires for the story, and he didn't ever, ever work against us just to keep things from being "too easy." The result? I remember that game vividly. I could see Xang being crushed in the gears of the big machine, with Throk (my character) hanging on with him, willing to die in order to free Mars and avenge his people. My grade: A

By the time that game wound up, it was after midnight, and so sleep was in the offing.

Origins 2009 - A GM's Report Card, Pt. 1

I love conventions. They just allow me to revel in a lot of the things about this hobby that I really cherish, namely: Playing new games, meeting new people, and drinking too much Mountain Dew.

The first con I attended was Tol-Con, back in Toledo, and I couldn't tell you what year that was. Tol-Con wasn't the sort of con that attracted people from all around the country. It was presented by Mind Games, my FLGS in Toledo (which I've learned has closed, balls), and took place at the Scott Park Campus of the University of Toledo. I ran Marvel Superheroes there for a group of strangers, and it was there that I first saw someone first take a character that someone else had created and really make it his own. It was also at Tol-Con (though not that year) that I saw how horrible even a game that I loved could become with a careless GM. Pay attention to that note, incidentally, we're going to come back to it.

Tol-Con declined over the years; last time I went, it was just a one-day deal and I forget where it was. I moved around, I wound up in Cleveland, and I realized, hey, I have some money saved up, I'm not living check to check anymore, maybe we could hit a con this summer? I found MarCon, a convention over Memorial Day weekend in Columbus. Bigger than Tol-Con ever was, but not as big as the "important" industry cons like GenCon or Origins. I went that first year, and I had a great time. Lots of people in a hotel room, some really awesome games, and once again, the lesson driven home that a careless GM can really mess up a good game.

That was May of 2001, and this (2009) was the first year since that I've missed MarCon. Financial issues, nothing more, I'll be back next year. But since that first year, I hit as many cons as my schedule and wallet would allow. I've done the big guys: Origins, GenCon, DragonCon, but I've also hit some smaller ones, like Arisia (which is really more medium-sized than small), Trinoc-Con (where I was a guest of honor, which was amazing) and Con on the Cob. I have my preferences; Origins remains my favorite of the big guys, gitchy registration and all, while I'm finding myself more jazzed about Con on the Cob as the summer progresses on. I've had some great experiences as cons, I've learned a lot about running and playing games, and I've met some of the most important people in my life at these weird gatherings.

It would hard to nail down exactly what aspects of GMing I've taken away from con experiences vs. the ones I've developed from the games I've hosted or run regularly, but I do know that I'm becoming more aware of careless GMing as I attend cons. You'll note that as I was discussing games earlier, I avoided saying that a "bad" GM could screw up a "good" system. Instead, I refer to a careless GM screwing up a game that I like.

As I talk about my Origins 2009 experience, I'm going to spend some time talking about the games I played in, and I'm giving those games a letter grade. I'm not grading the game itself; that's down to taste, and my taste isn't yours. I don't expect you to groove on Promethean: The Created if tales of body horror and humanism aren't your thing, and likewise, don't expect me to whoop for joy if you want me to sit down and play Dungeons and Dragons (any edition, though I might give a Monty Python-esque "yaay!" if it's 4th). But no matter what we're playing, there are some criteria that I think we should be able to agree on, especially for a con game.

For one thing, remember it's a one-shot. You don't get to follow this up. Yes, I know people run multi-part games; I don't get that, maybe it works. But if folks just show up to try a game out, or to experience an old favorite with a new GM, then make sure the plot is something that you can do in three hours of actual play (con games are often scheduled for four hours, but till you get done explaining rules and breaking for food mid-game, you're lucky to get three hours in). A lot of my con games wind up having deeper implications than what's immediately presented, but the plot itself - rescue the princess, kill the bad guy, solve the mystery, whatever - should be resolvable within the time you have.

Likewise, have a plot. Make characters for the game you're running. Don't just pull the pre-gens from the book, throw them at the players, and expect your game to work with any combination thereof (if you can do that, congrats). I typically make characters for my games, and then include six questions, Dread-style, as well as a blurb on that character to help players customize.

Anyway, with all of that in mind, let's get to the specifics! Origins, ho! And yes, there are a few pictures, but not many, because Heather had the camera and she was only there two days.

Wednesday:

We (by which I mean Andrea, Michelle, Kai and Cael) left Wednesday morning and arrived in Columbus that afternoon. Andrea headed to registration; she was volunteering (she pretty much spent the weekend doing that, and apparently had a grand old time with it), and Michelle and I got our badges. Well, Michelle got her badge. I stood in the Special Services line waiting for someone to give me a badge. Finally some nice lady asked if anyone waiting in line had an educator's hall pass badge, which I did (in case you don't know, I'm a speech-language pathologist for an elementary school, so I get into Origins free). I got my badge, and Michelle and the kids and I went up to our hotel room. Cael needed a nap, and the rest of us just wanted to veg after the trip.

I know, nothing too exciting so far. Hang on, I'll get to gaming momentarily here.

Heather, y'see, was on GOBA, and had to wait for her father to get her car back...it's complicated. Anyway, Michelle and I had a 10PM Dread game, which we just barely made. It turned out to be not the game we'd signed up for, but whatever, it's Dread.

Here's the deal on this game, in case you don't feel like clicking the link: It's a horror game in which Jenga is the task resolution mechanic. You make a pull when your character wants to do something, but if you knock over the tower, you're out. Dead, catatonic, arrested, on vacation, whatever. Out of the game. But you never have to make the pull, you can always refuse. Characters are created via a questionnaire, which is a method I've taken to using to help flesh out one-shot and con characters.

An aside, here: If you make pre-gens for a one-shot, you know what you're getting. You know that the characters will have the requisite traits for whatever game you're running, and you don't wind up with a bunch of characters that don't have anything to contribute. Likewise, that enables you to make the game about those characters, and can we all agree that that's really the best situation?

Anyway, the way Dread works pretty much ensures that. The GM has to consider what's on that questionnaire, to work those details into the scenario. Sure, there's a plot to consider, but the real fun of Dread comes from using those characters in that situation. And since the players don't have nifty tricks or numbers to fall back, you pretty much have to roleplay like crazy.

My character, it turns out, was an assassin. Rather than go with the stereotypical cool-as-ice hitman, I decided he was a junkie who had killed one of his dealer's rivals in exchange for free junk, and just kept going from there. He'd kicked his habits, for the most part, but was still hooked on painkillers (and mixed them in with Altoids, which he'd crunch during the game). In the game, our plane crashed and we wound up landing on an island populated by zombies. We only had one fatality - me. I knocked over the tower attempting to move our huge raft toward the water, away from the zombies. But man, by the time I did, that tower must've had 30 pulls, so I don't feel any shame at knocking it down. Anyway, my charater got eaten. Nom.

Thoughts on the game: We started late, which was no one's fault, and so we kind of ran out of time and left off with the zombies chasing the survivors - not exactly great resolution. I think the GM could have made more of an effort to either push us toward the island's interior (where there were apparently some answers) or work toward some other form of resolution. That said, the game was fun, and the GM definitely worked with the details that we gave him about the characters. My grade: B- (but that's only because I've played in some spectacular Dread games, so my bar is pretty high)

That game didn't wind up until after 2AM, so after that, we went the heck to bed.

Character Creation: Low Life

I got a copy of Low Life last year at Con on the Cob, after getting robbed out of victory in a Rock Band tournament. I mean, honestly, I'd rather have the copy of the game than the first prize (free admission to this year's CotC, because I'd have gone anyway), but it's the principle of the thing.

Anyway, Low Life is a Savage Worlds setting. Calling it post-apocalyptic would be both accurate and misleading. Yes, it's after the Bomb drops and all of Earth is blown to Hell...but now the Lowly have risen. Meaning that you can play such scintillating characters as sentient blobs of poo.

I'm not a fan of scatalogical humor normally, but I was 12 once just like all of us, and I'm perfectly happy to unleash my inner 12-year-old. I can appreciate the funny behind the smellcasters and so on. In fact, if I have one complaint about Low Life, it's that "Mutha Oith" should have been spelled "Mudda Oith," since "Mutha" looks like it should be pronounced "Moo-tha".

Anyway. Phonology nerdiness aside, let's get to it.

The Game: Low Life
The publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group, by way of Mutha Oith Creations.
Degree of familiarity: None, though the book was bedtime reading for a while.
Books required: The Savage Worlds book and the Low Life book.

 
Starting off, I need to choose a race. So many awesome choices. Would I like to be a pile (of poo)? Or perhaps a bodul (Being Of Dubious Lineage)? Or, perhance, a t'iznt (t'iznt this, and t'iznt that)?

No. If I'm being honest, I've always secretly wanted to be a sentient Twinkie. Cremefillian it is. Cremefillians are proud of their heritage, but their heritage is fraught with suffering. Rumor has it that the anient Hoomanrace used to eat their ancestors! Oh, the horror! The delicious, delicious horror!

Well, no more. Our creme stays filled, thanks. I mark my racial Edges and Hindrances; I get Foul Taste (if anything bites me, it takes damage); Tweenking (I ignore minimum strength requirements for weapons and I can carry lots of junk) and Spongy Flesh (I get natural armor, for I am spongy).

Now, traits. I need to think about where I want to go with this guy. My favorite creme-filled confection has always been the Twinkie. Legends of the Hoomanrace tell of ancient Cremefillians so powerful that they could stop mighty Hoomans in their tracks, make them give up their dreams and fall to their enemies just to eat these ur-Cremefillians (no, seriously). It is this kind of subterfuge and guile to which my tweenk aspires.

Since my tweenk is going to be all sneaky and stuff, I'll be wanting a high Agility and probably Spirit. I start with a d4 across the board, and I get 5 points to buy stuff up with. I'll buy my Agility up to a d8, my Smarts to d6 and my Spirit to d8. That leaves Strength and Vigor at d4, but eh. I have spongy armor.

Skills! I get 15 points. Now, if I wanted I could take points in hocus poking or holy rolling or something, but I don't see this guy as magical. I see him as a thiefy kind of guy, so I'll just focus on Skill and Edge-based mayhem. Right, so. I take a d4 in Climbing, and a d6 in the following: Fighting, Guts, Knowledge (Tweenk), Lock-Picking, Shooting, Throwing and Stealth. That's 15. 

I'm going to skip my derived traits until the end (which is where they should go) and go on to Edges and Hindrances. In addition to my racials, I can take one Major and two Minor Hindrances, so I shall. I'll take Death Wish - being eaten in the service of the Cremefillians would be a fulfillment of his lifelong dream. I'll take Arrogant for basically the same reason, though I will note that as he's a sneaky sort, it's more likely to manifest as leaving calling cards and otherwise tipping folks off to his presence. Finally, I'll take Quirk. He just can't shut up about how awesome those ancient Cremefillians were.

Now, Edges. I'll take Really Small Guy, since that ups my base Agility to a d6, and gives attackers a -2 to hit me. Now, decisions, decisions. Do I bump my Agility to a d10, or do I move that slot to Vigor or something? Eh. Go for the gusto. Agility d10. I have two points left, so I will bump up Stealth and Shooting to d8s.

Derived stuff: My Charisma is 0, my Pace is 6", my Parry is 5, my Toughness is 4.

Stuff: I get 500 clams with which to buy shit, and I know I want a shooty weapon. Low Life, rather than having a big-ass list of weapons, has a system for creating one's own weapon. OK, I have a really absurd idea.

Now, some of you may remember the Gummi Bears cartoon. No, seriously. Here's the opening titles. There was one episode called "For a Few Sovereigns More" (I didn't actually remember; god bless the tubes!) in which a parody of Clint Eastwood called Flint Shrubwood was hired to hunt down the Gummi Bears. And he did it, too, except the evil Duke Igthorn did what all 80s bad guys do and shot himself in the foot by double-crossing Flint ("Go ahead. Take my pay.").

Anyway, Flint had these awesome pistols that fired boomerangs. And if there was a clip, I'd show it to you, because they really did look cool, considering the show itself. So I want to design something like that for my tweenk.

OK, first I find the base damage I want. A slingshot is 2d4; I want more power than that. Let's say 2d6, just for fun. That means my base cost is 140 clams. That does mean, though, that the Strength requirement is higher. I ignore Strength requirements for hand weapons, but not missile, evidently, so I'll need to fix that. I have to spend 20 clams to keep the weapon lightweight. I'm up to 160, no problem. My range is 3/6/12, unless I wish to increase it, which I don't. I do, however, want Returning, so my boomerangs return if they miss, which takes me to 240. I also want this thing to be Concealed, which takes me to 290.

I blow another 100 on lockpicking tools, 10 on some rope, and 10 on 10 boomerangs (figure they cost about a clam each). That leaves me 90 clams left in the world, which sounds OK. I figure out my encumbrance, but since I'm a cremefillian I'm well within my limits.

All that remains is a name. My character has passed the infantile stage of naming, and has adopted the title "Hosse, the Tess of Stainless Creme."

Character Creation: Spirit of the Century

Stew Wilson unwittingly contributed to this character, but I think his LJ is either deleted or locked, so you'll just have to take Jacob Diamond as read.

The Game: Spirit of the Century
The publisher: Evil Hat Productions
Degree of familiarity: None. I bought the game at GenCon last year, finally got around to reading it this winter, and it looks pretty damn awesome. I'm playing it next week at Origins, in fact.
Books required: Just the Spirit of the Century book. 

My first pulp character was a Shadow-type of dude. Not sure what I want to do here. Well, let's back up first.

Spirit of the Century is a lot like Adventure!, really. They both have the elite clubs of adventurers, and they have the same inspirations (Spirit of the Century even lists Adventure! as an inspiration, which is only right). The system is actually where the tag/invoke/compel thing comes from, which I was first exposed to in Houses of the Blooded.

Characters have lots of Aspects, which, in keeping with the indie game aesthetic (which I fully enjoy), can be just about anything that helps define the character. You wind up getting style points if something happens that hinders your character based on an Aspect, and that's so amazingly suited to my style of play it's not even funny. I love playing my character's flaws, but I want my characters to be awesome into the bargain.

This game also asks you to invite as many people as possible over to make characters, and then run games with whoever happens to be around - it's a "pickup pulp game." Damn, why didn't we have this back in college? This is basically how I ran Chill. Ah, well. Anyway, chargen happens in five phases, but before I start the process, I need a concept and an appropriately pulpy name.

OK, I wish to avoid being dark and shadowy, having done that with my Adventure! character. I think it'd be fun to play up some of the SCIENCE! aspects of the pulp genre. What if Indiana Jones had been a physicist? Or a zoologist? Or a botanist? Hmm.

My character is a biologist specializing in plants. That might not sound exciting, but what he's discovered is that there's a plant for every occasion. Herbs improve your dinner, your memory, your sex life, whatever. Some plants are poison, some are medicinal, some are just fun. As my influences, I see Dr. Seward from Bram Stoker's Dracula, Indy (duh) and Fink from Beerfest. This guy might be a nerd, but he's a party animal, too. His name is Edward Green, PhD., but call him Doctor Green.

Phase One: Background. This covers Green from early youth to about age 14. I'm thinking that his green thumb was always there, but it was mostly helping Mom with the gardening. Not just flowers, but herbs and other exotic plants. Dad was not sciencey, he was a brewer (though there's science there), and he instructed Ed in things like choosing the right wine (or beer) to go with dinner and blending in with different crowds. Ed did just fine blending in with the drunk, loud folks, but never quite got the high society types. But he was damned popular with his mates, since he had access to lots of free beer.

Green is American, and I'm thinking Midwestern. Probably Wisconsin, y'know? Did OK in school, but didn't mine his genius IQ until later. Did some hell-raising as a kid (blame the beer), but Dad had friends in the cops and his trouble pretty much got laughed off.

Aspects: Party Animal, In Vino Veritas

Phase Two: War. What is it good for? Huh. Not much, really. Anyhow, Green didn't fight in the Great War, not exactly. When word came down that folks were using poison gases, Green remembering his mother mentioning that certain herbs could be used to counteract poison. He started boning up on the subject, and discovered he had a real knack for biology. He finished secondary school early and went straight into college, doing research that (he hoped) would help save lives on the battlefield. During that time, he met up with a Centurion (member of the Century Club) who had taken ill from mustard gas and was hoping that Green could save him. Green worked tirelessly, but his patron (Captain Mark Bullion) knew that his time was up. He sponsored Green into the Club, and then passed on. Green never saw a battlefield except through Bullion's eyes, and as Bullion got sicker, he imparted a lot of knowledge to Green that was technically classified.

Aspects: Secrets of the Great War, "Every poison has an antidote!"

Phase Three: Novel. This is Green's first pulp novel! Yee!

Now, Green's a hard character to take center-stage with, honestly. This is where a little of the Indy personality needs to come in. Let's think. How about...

Dr. Green in... Secret of The Walking Jungle! Dr. Edward Green ventures down the Amazon River, looking for a mysterious copse of trees that, according to local legend, walks from one place to the next. He expects to find new medicines and folk remedies in the jungle. But he doesn't expect to find the man who killed his mentor, Captain Bullion, or a secret that could lead to worldwide famine!

Aspects: Collector of World Relics, The Truth Hurts

Phase Four: Guest Star. Here, I guest star in someone else's novel, which is why this would normally happen with a bunch of other folks. Since Stew is the only one doing this chargen exercise who's done a Spirit of the Century character (let's be honest, he's the only one other than me still doing it from last summer - y'all are slackers. Talking to you, Mark), I'll definitely use Jacob Diamond.

Jacob Diamond and the Black Dragon. Gentleman thief Jacob Diamond can hardly resist a challenge to steal the fabled Black Dragon, located deep within San Fransisco's Chinatown. But doing so requires undergoing the Spirit Tea Ritual, and Diamond enlists the help of famed herbalist Dr. Green to ensure his survival.

Aspects: "I can hold my liquor," Chemical Testing Apparatus

Phase Five: Guest Star, again. Same drill, different novel. Since I don't have another idea, I shall do something really wonky.

The Querent vs. The Men Without Minds! The masked crimestopper known only as the Querent seeks answers to a string of robberies and assaults committed by upstanding citizens, who claim to have no memory of their misdeeds. The Querent asks his questions of renowned scientist Dr. Green, believing that the Men Without Minds have been drugged. But will Green's curiosity about the drug doom them both?

Aspects: "I need to get a sample!", Brain Trumps Brawn

Skills: Now that I'm done with Aspects, I get Skills. I get one at Superb, two at Great, three at Good, four at Fair, and five at Average. Everything else is Mediocre. It's called a "Skill Pyramid."

OK, let's see the list. Obviously, Science needs to be my Superb Skill. For my two Great Skills, I'll take Endurance (high tolerance for drugs) and Contacting (beer opens many doors). Under Good, I take Fists (pulp game), Athletics (gotta climb trees to get the juicy samples) and Academics. Under Fair, I take Stealth, Survival, Resolve and Resources. Finally, under Average, I take Engineering, Gambling, Rapport, Investigation and Pilot.

Stunts: I get five of these. They go in trees, though, like Charms in Exalted, and a lot of the good ones are a few steps in. Let's look at my higher-ranked Skills and see what jumps out.

OK, obviously I need Scientific Genius (Botany). I also want Scientific Invention, though instead of taking Gadgets, I'm likely to be mixing nifty new drugs and herbal compounds.

Under Endurance, I really want Developed Immunities, but I need another Endurance Stunt for it. I think Tireless works well; I can see Dr. Green spending all night partying.

Finally, I take Walk the Walk, to represent Dr. Green's travels across the world.

And I believe that's it. Since I have Resources, I get a workspace equal to Resources - 2; Mediocre in my case. Since I want his to be a greenhouse, and therefore only useful for researching plants and related phenomena, that's worth Resources - 1 (or Average) instead. 

[ETA: Not sure what happened to the character sheet, have to rescan.] 

Character Creation: Slasher Flick

Insert the sting from your favorite slasher movie here. 

The Game: Slasher Flick
The publisher: Spectrum Games
Degree of familiarity: None. I've read it, and I have a passing familiarity with the genre.
Books required: Just the pdf of the game, which Cynthia Miller helpfully sent me. I said I'd read it and talk it up on RPG.Net, which I will, after I run it.

Slasher Flick is a nifty little RPG that, as the name implies, takes its inspiration from the myriad "dead teenager" movies that we all know and love. Players make one primary and several secondary characters, and the slasher him/her/itself is a force of nature, unkillable until a certain number of people are dead. Very much up my alley.

Technically, this should happen with the rest of the group and we'd be making the secondary characters along with the primaries, but you know how it is.

Step One: Getting Ready. I am ready.

Step Two: Assign Stereotypes. I like this; slasher flick characters should be able to be described in a two-word phrase. Since I don't have a Director to tell me the movie's setting, I will assume that it's a) modern day and b) a typical 80s-era slasher movie, with the killer going after horny teens who dare to fuck, drink, do drugs, and listen to the Devil's music. My stereotype is "bad-boy musician." I suspect I'll either die quite early on, or be the surprised survivor by revealing that I'm not such an asshole after all (see the remake of House of Wax for more information).

Step Three: Determine Stat Ratings. Stats go by die type (it's a pun, you dumb gopher) and lower is better, because you're looking for matches, not high numbers. My stats (Brawn, Finesse, Brains and Spirit) start at Poor, and can go up to Good. I get four stat boosts to use. I could, therefore, boost all of my stats to Normal, but screw that. I want high Finesse (I'm a drummer, which implies low Brains (any drummers in the audience can feel free to take issue with this assessment, provided they can read this journal to begin with oh snap)). So I'll leave Spirit and Brawn at Normal for now.

Step Four: Create Positive Qualities. I get four of these. Qualities add dice when they apply (or subtract dice, in the case of negative qualities, which are coming up next). I'll take Ruggedly Handsome (Spirit), Natural Rhythm (Finesse), Smooth Talker (Spirit) and Good Memory (Brains).

Step Five: Create Negative Qualities. I could take something like "asshole" under Spirit, but that's too obvious (and it's hard to play). I will instead take "Uneducated" under Brains. I only get one negative quality, incidentally.

Step Six: Perform Alterations. I bust out my needle and thread...wait. No, I get two alterations, which I can use to muck with my stats. I can also gain a special ability, which I would like very much.

An aside: In this game, you get genre points for doing stuff in-genre. Doing stuff in-genre will get you killed (in fact, getting killed gets you genre points), but the points are tied to players, not characters. That means when my drummer dies, I get two genre points that I can spend on secondary characters under my control (the reverse would also be true). One of the things I can spend these points on is a special ability for my drummer. I see this guy going head-to-head with the killer and getting in a couple of good hits before dying, so I'll take Adrenaline Boost.

My other alteration, I'll use to boost Brawn to Good.

Step Seven: Equip the Characters. My guy has drumsticks (literal drumsticks, not turkey), a gold chain around his neck, and a studded belt. That'll do.

Step Eight: Work Out Details. OK, first off, I need a name. Since he's my drummer, I'll call him Anthony (it's a movie reference, anybody get it?). I don't think he's going to live long enough to need a last name. I'd do links to other characters, but that would require some, and I don't have any. And then, tidbits. OK. Anthony rolls his own cigarettes. He loves classical music (but is ashamed of it). And he hates cats, to the point that he'll throw drumsticks at them (the Director should use this to kill Anthony). 

Character Creation: Exalted 1st Ed

Go make a sandwich, this'll take a while.

The Game: Exalted 1st Edition
The publisher: White Wolf
Degree of familiarity: I played a pretty substantial campaign back in Atlanta, and then another one when I moved back to Cleveland
Books required: While I do have a few of the caste-books kicking around, I'm sticking with just the core.

 
OK, when making Exalted characters, I always found it fun to pick their home society and go from there. My Eclipse character (Atlanta) was Haltan (though he wound up marrying Marukani nobility; I suspect he's probably dead now, since the other players in that game hate my guts), and my Twilight character (Cleveland) was from the west (Jale, the Sorcerer-King of Milash). So this time around, I'll pick... the South!

My character is nominally from Gem, deep in the South. Gem's a big city, built into the side of a mountain, but he hasn't actually seen it. His grandfather got into trouble with the legal authorities. It wasn't a criminal matter, exactly, but financial - Gramps got overextended. In order to make ends meet, he married off his daughter (my character's) to one of the city's militia captains. That guy (my character's father) shipped out into the desert, patrolling the southern keeps (if there aren't any, there should be) to make sure that nomadic tribes and monsters and so on don't get too close to civilization. My character was born in the blazing desert, at the moment the sun reached its Zenith.

Fast forward 20 years. My guy is still out in the desert, taking up with Dad and his folks. He hits his 20th birthday while out on patrol, and suddenly a sandstorm blows up. He gets separated from his patrol, and winds up in a dust devil so hot that the sand could sear flesh from bone. And then he finds the eye of the storm, and stares up at that sun. He raises his hands, there's a blinding flash of Essences, and he blows the sandstorm flat. And then he walks into the desert, Exalted, a Pillar of Heaven.

Step One: Character Concept. See above. Obviously, he's a Zenith. My problem right now is that I'm having trouble figuring out his concept and story arc. He feels generic, beyond the backstory. What does he want? Well, he Exalted in the middle of a crazy-powerful sandstorm. I think that the notion of a crucible is fun for him; he endures. He passes through the fire (of the Sun) and comes out stronger every time. I see his arc as a series of getting badly injured and then recovering (injury is nothing to sneeze at in this game, IIRC, because healing magic isn't easy to come by). So I'll take Survivor as his nature. I see his Anima banner is the whirling sandstorm and a wave of white heat.

And, this being a Solar character, if he goes nuts as he grows more powerful, he becomes the sandstorm - uncaring, unwavering, just pure destruction.

Step Two: Choosing Attributes. 8/6/4 split. Boy, tough call. Gotta go with Physical first, then Mental, then Social, though I might raise Charisma later.

Physical: Stamina 5, duh. I'll split the others evenly between Strength and Dexterity.

Mental: Even split, 3 across the board.

Social: One each into Charisma and Manipulation, and two into Appearance. I see him as very clean-cut. Shaved head, neat beard, trim features. Sand never clings to him, even after riding all day.

Step Three: Choosing Abilities. First I've got to choose my Favored Abilities. Well, I know I want Lore (Southerners are superstitious) and Bureaucracy (this guy's very up on the law, I think). I'll take Athletics because the Charms are cool, and I need at least one combat Ability, so I'll take Brawl because I see this guy as a no-nonsense kind of fighter. One more. I could take Investigation, kind of a "nothing hides from the Sun" sort of deal. Yeah, sounds good.

OK, now I get 10 dots to put into Caste and Favored Abilities. Nothing higher than 3 at this point. OK, I'll put 3 into Resistance, Endurance and Survival, and the 10th in Brawl. Right, now I get 15 more than can go anywhere. I'll put two more into Brawl, two into Athletics, one into Awareness, two into Presence, one into Bureaucracy, two into Ride (everyone rides in the south), two into Investigation and three into Lore.

Step Four: Advantages. Here's all the fun stuff. Backgrounds first. I get seven dots, but I can't go over three. I'll put two dots into Influence; he retains his rank in the militia, but he's not well-known in Gem proper (never having been there). I'll put two into Backing for the same reason. I'll take two in Followers (three surviving riders from my unit), and stick the remaining dot into Resources (savings).

Virtues. I get five dots to break up amongst them, and I can't go over four. I think Conviction is going to be this guy's high point, that and Valor. So I'll put two into Conviction, and one each into the others. I like Heart of Flint as a Limit Flaw, but I'm not crazy about the trigger. I think I'd rather have it have something to do with failing to withstand hardship. When people around him seem weak in the fact of obstacles that their lives really should have prepared them for (like, y'know, the sun if you live in the South), he might gain Limit.

And now, Charms. Oy. I know that the 2nd Ed really revamped these, and it's led to new terminology and "builds." And indeed, even in this book, there's a section that says "Better take Ox-Body, or you gonna die!"

You know what? That's bad game design. If there's a trait your character isn't viable without, then it should come standard, or it's nothing but a limiter. So I'll take what I think is appropriate and ask my non-existent GM to remember that this isn't fucking WoW.

Anyway. As it happens, Ox-Body Technique is very much in-concept here, so I'll start with that. And you know, fuck it, I'll buy three slots on it. I have lots of Health Levels. I'll take Harmonious Presence Meditation, not because I particularly like it, but because it's a speed bump to Majestic Radiant Presence, which I do want (that makes people have to roll Willpower to attack me, yo). That's five Charms. Sigh. They go so fast.

OK, under Resistance, I want Durability of Oak Meditation and Iron Skin Concentration. Actually, what I want is Adamant Skin Technique, but I can't quite afford it.

Better take some combat Charms. Sigh. I'll take Ferocious Jab and Fists of Iron Technique. That leaves me one more freaking Charm. Well, it'd be highly out-of-concept not to take Hardship Surviving Mendicant Spirit, which allows me to resist environmental things. So there's that.

Step Five: Finishing Touches. My Willpower starts at 5 (equal to my two highest Virtues). My Essence starts at 2, though I might raise it. I'll figure my Health Levels after I do...bonus points!

I get 15. I'll boost Endurance, Resistance and Survival to 5 (costing me 6). I'll put Brawl to 4, while I'm at it. I'll buy Graceful Crane Stance because it opens the door to so many cool stunts, and I'll buy 10 Magistrate Eyes, because automatic successes on Investigation rolls keep the game moving. That's all my freebies.

Health Levels: I'll take a -0, two -1, and one -1 and two -2, for a total of a lot of Health.

Essence: My Personal Essence pool is 11. Peripheral is 28.

My character's name is Hrun Aric (that's Aric of the Hrun family), but his followers call him "Sirocco".

As for his progression, I seriously suspect that his first "death" will involve his Backgrounds. They should all be stripped away, flayed like flesh in the sandstorm. And then at some point he needs to learn the value of armor. Likewise, I think the "protection from the Wyld" Charm tree would be a necessity at some point. Definitely a long-range character.

Also less of a hardass than a lot of the Zeniths I've seen. This guy is a desert soldier, it's just that now he has a higher calling than killing tyrant lizards. And he's not entirely sure what to do with that, but he needs to burn off the weakness first. I can see this guy becoming very Achilles-like in play, down the tragic end. But maybe he burns off that last bit of mortality, too.

Character Creation: Conspiracy X

The truth is out there, if that's not too cliché.

The Game: Conspiracy X Second Edition 
The publisher: Eden Studios
Degree of familiarity: I think I played it once back in Toledo. I made a DEA agent whose name and basic concept I used years later in my Werewolf chronicle. Other than that, never touched it.
Books required: Just the core. I have the 2nd Ed, pre-Unisystem version. 

ConX is a game about, well, conspiracy, government, and aliens. Lots of aliens. It's higher-tech and more sci-fi than I realized when I played it, and while that took a shift for me, I think it'd be cool to play. I especially like how you can bring the resources of your government agency to bear in order to hunt down aliens.

I will say, though, that the system looks freaky, and if I really felt a burning urge to run this game, I think I'd invest in the Unisystem version.

With that in mind, my first step is Create a character concept. I want to go a little, well, weirder than my last ConX character, who was basically in the dark (I think the one session we played was about learning about aliens and getting into Aegis). So since I'm making someone already part of Aegis, I want to play someone who's in deeper than is healthy. This guy started out following leads like a good investigator, but was probably more a data collector. If he was a cop, he'd be a beat, not a dick. He went down the proverbial rabbit hole, get mixed up with Aegis, and is now so far in that the only way he can ever get out again is to get deeper (if that doesn't make sense, go take a shot, then read it again. Repeat as needed).

Basically, kind like Cypher in The Matrix, but unlikely to betray anyone. Just wants to go back to sleep, but understands why he can't do that. He might be likely to succumb to addiction, except that the little robots in his blood won't let him. Yeah, he's got Atlantean nanotech. On a mission some time back, he walked through a swarm of the damn things (not sure why they had aerosolized) and inhaled them. Now he's got a big advantage, but he's even further into the weirdness than he ever wanted to be. He misses ringing doorbells and doing interviews.

That's a start. Now, Select physical and mental attributes. I like that keeping my stats average would cost nothing, not that I'm going to do that. I'll leave everything average except Perception. My character is observant; made him good at collecting data. That costs me 20 points. And, heck, I'll bump Willpower down to 2, which puts me even again. Everything else is 3.

Modify Luck is next. My Luck starts at 2 (Good) and 12 (Bad). On the one hand, I don't see Lady Fate fucking with this guy too much, but he did walk through a swarm of nanobots. I'll decrease Bad Luck to 10, but up Good Luck to 4. I'm still even, therefore.

Modify Influence. I start with one, and I think that my guy has developed some Influence just by dint of the weirdness that happened to him. I'll spend 15 and go up to Influence 2.

Choose credential. This is the group I work for. Hmm. As much as Secret Service, or one of the more exotic ones (like MKULTRA) appeal, with this concept I think I'll go FBI. My profession is Field Agent.

Pick traits. These are skills and professional trainings. OK. I can go to 1 or 2 in any Skill, but 3 or higher only in my professional skills. And then I get one skill that I can take at a higher level just due to personal interest, which is cool. OK, let's look at the list.

I take Athletics (Running) at 2, Computer Use at 2, Lockpicking at 1, Photography at 2, Small Arms: Pistol at 2, Stealth at 2, Video at 2, Brawling at 2 (one level is free), Drive 2 (one level is free) Occult (Numerology) at 1, Shadow at 2, and Cartography at 3. That's (hang on) 72 points spent. That does net me the Navigation training for free, because I'm good with maps (I see this guy's office hung with maps of crime scenes, "UFO" landings, and so on, and just recently he's gotten into numerology to see if that tells him anything).

Now trainings. I definitely want Awareness (3 points), Investigation (10 points) and Communication (10 points). That puts me to 95 spent. I'm gonna need flaws or something. Fortunately I get other traits that can give me CPs back. OK, right off the bat, since I know I want those freaky nanobots, that's gonna cost me 30. I want the Bio-Battery Energy System, specifically.

OK, need some negative traits. I'll take Deep Sleeper (10 CP; probably relates to the Atlantean stuff, though truth is he was always a log). I'll also take Watched (15), though my character doesn't know that anyone's watching him. And, to dovetail with that, I'll take Creature of Habit (5); he always eats lunch from a brown bag, outside if possible, and he gets really fidgety if he can't.

Let's see, where does that put me? At 95, believe it or not. That gives me 5 more. I'll take Media Leak. I can get information into the papers quickly by acting as an anonymous source. That sounds fun.

History and details. I did most of this. My character's name is John Rostov. Raised some eyebrows from older Bureau guys who remember the Cold War (his grandfather was Russian), but John's not really spy material. He never got to spearhead his own investigations, but he was second in command on a lot of them, and he's good support because he notices things that others don't. He doesn't, however, have an especially strong stomach and he sleeps like a brick, so he's not ready to go at a moment's notice. That kept him back.

And then one day, he dozed off on stakeout. When he woke up, everyone was gone. The agents he was with never returned, but Aegis came calling about what John saw (not much). John noticed that Aegis people's conversation was about aliens (they didn't think he could hear them), and rather than whip out the Mickey, they recruited him. The Atlantean swarm incident happened about a year later, and that's making John Rostov a strange commodity. 

Character Creation: Savage Worlds

I've been reading Conspiracy X of late, and a couple of people requested it, so I was all set...but I don't have a character sheet. And I have the 2nd ed (the one published in 1996), so most of the sheets I've found online are for the Unisystem version. So ConX will have to wait, but it'll probably the next one I do.

Today, though:

The Game: Savage Worlds
The publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Degree of familiarity: None. And oddly, I don't think we're playing any at Origins. I definitely need to play something with this system.
Books required: Well, see below. 

 
Savage Worlds, by itself, is a game engine, much like GURPS. It's designed for more action-oriented games, from what I can tell - pulp, superheroes, pirates, etc. The only setting I own for it is Low Life, but the core book itself gives a brief scenario at the back that's pirate-related. In the interest of making as many characters as I can, I'll do something for that, and then I'll do Low Life some other time.

OK, so, let's get to it.

1) Race. As far as I know, my only option is human, so let's do that.

2) Traits. I start with a d4 in my five attributes, and I get 5 points to bump them up by die type. Meaning I could have all d6s, but that's not really how I roll.

OK, forget I said that.

I'm leaving Agility at a d4 because I play jumpy/flippy characters a lot. Instead, I'll boost Spirit, Strength and Vigor to d6. That eats 3 of my points. I'll boost Vigor up 2 more, to a 10, because I picture my character as a not-entirely-bright young man who just doesn't know when to stay down. When the mates get really drunk, they take turns punching him to see if they can knock him down.

Right, now skills. I get 15 points to spread around. It'll be cheaper for me to buy up skills linked to Vigor, since that's my highest Attribute, but let's see what we got. Oh, wait, there are no Vigor skills. OK. I want:

Boating
Climbing
Fighting
Guts
Streetwise
Swimming
Notice

Buying them all up to d4 eats seven of my points. I'll buy up Guts and Climbing to d6, as that only eats 2 more (9 spent). I want a high Guts, so I buy that up to d10, which eats 4 more points since my Spirit is only d6 (13 spent). I put Fighting up to d6, since it's that kind of game, which eats my last 2.

Derived stats are next: My Pace is 6, my Parry is...weird. It's 2 + half your Fighting, but Fighting is a die. The example seems to take half of the maximum, which would make mine 5. Charisma is 0 unless I take an Edge to modify it, which I might. Toughness is 7, assuming I'm calculating this right.

3) Edges & Hindrances. Why don't these go before Derived Stats? Seriously, WW does this, too, and it's weird. Why do the derived stuff before the stuff that can modify it?

Anyway. I can take one Major Hindrance and two Minor, and then I can take Edges to balance or raise my stats. So.

I like that my character has been punched in the face too many times, and just doesn't know shit that he should. I'll take the Clueless Hindrance. But, he's willing to learn (Curious). He's also poor (Poverty) because he always eventually loses that "punch until you fall down" thing, but he hasn't quite figured that out yet.

Now, I get four points. I can raise attributes (2 points per die type) or buy Edges (2 each). I think I'll split the difference. Agility seems important, so I'll raise that to d6. That also means that that second die of Fighting only cost 1, not 2, so I have another Skill point. But can I do anything with it? Sure, I could raise Boating or Swimming by one, and since I'm a goddamn Pirate, I'll raise Boating to d6.

And I want an Edge. I'll take Fast Healer, seems appropriate.

4) Gear. Eh. I'm a pirate. I have a dagger, a set of raggedy-ass old clothes, a stripey bandana and only a few teeth. I'll say my guy has a tattoo down his back that he's never seen (woke up one morning, there it was, and all of the mates tell him to keep it covered - they won't tell him about it, either).

5) Other Details. I love how the book says that you can do these now, or just start playing and fill 'em in as you go. Like I said, it's that kind of game. Well, my dude's name is Petros. There was a Greek guy on the boat for a while, and he was impressed (and amused) by how my character (real name, Christopher Maspeth) could take a beating, and called him Petros (rock). It stuck, and Petros never really liked his real name anyhow. Off to blunder booty! Yarr!

Character Creation: Don't Rest Your Head

 OK, I want to make a character before I go help Andrea clean. I don't want to do a White Wolf character, since that's what my last one was, but I also need to make a character that isn't going to take too long.

As such, I'll go with:

The Game: Don't Rest Your Head
The publisher: Evil Hat Productions
Degree of familiarity: None. I bought the game on vacation, read it on the way back, and I full intend to run it sometime soon. But for now, let's make a character.
Books required: Just the Don't Rest Your Head book. 

 
DRYH takes place in a kind of in-between place called the Mad City. The mechanics of the game pretty much ensure that you're going to go nuts, which is fine. The tone of the game is kinda CoC, kinda Edge of Midnight, but not as much WoD as you'd immediately think.

Anyway, the characters are all insomniacs. Unable to sleep, their exhaustion has allowed them to unlock supernatural powers, and also to see doors to the Mad City. But there are things in the Mad City that would love to kill them, eat them, use them, whatever. And on top of that, odds are that whatever was keeping you awake is still an issue. Let's get to it.

First, we get five questions. Well, the thing at the top of the sheet is My Name Is..., so let's do that. My character's name is Tracy Carter. Most of his friends call him "Trace."

What's been keeping you awake? Money problems. Trace's family is broke, and he was working two jobs, basically 20 hours a day, to send them money. And then last month he lost one of the jobs, and started doing odd jobs for criminal elements. Running numbers, delivering "packages," whatever. Trace is quick and he's smart, but he's got no criminal initiative. He's not above a hit of speed now and again to keep him going, and he's been on a run for about the last week.

What just happened to you? Man, I love this question. This literally just happened, so the GM immediately has to deal with it. Anyway, Trace and his older cousin Mark just robbed a gas station. Mark pulled a gun, the idiot behind the counter pulled one as well. Mark shot him, he shot back, Trace shot, and they fell dead. Trace isn't sure who shot whom. He just ran. He's half a block up right now.

What's on the surface? Trace appears to be paranoid and twitchy. He taps his fingers together when he's thinking, he watches the exits, he tugs his ear and chews his lip till it bleeds. He tries not to talk because he can't stop once he starts (characters like this are exhausting to play, but that's appropriate).

What lies beneath? Trace is a loyal family man. He loves his mother and his siblings, and he's torn up about Mark. He'd never admit any of this, because he owes a lot of people money (I think we'll up that speed thing to a real addiction, because the heightened paranoia would be interesting to play), and he's ashamed of blowing money on speed that he should have sent home...but he needed to stay awake to work.

What's your path? Trace is a good-at-heart man who just got in over his head. Two people are dead. His prints are on file and they're all over that store. And he doesn't know it yet, but the gun that killed the clerk is in his pocket (see below). I suspect he'll probably go mad and kill someone out of paranoia who's really on his side, or perhaps OD trying to avoid sleep.

Set Discipline. Starts at 3. That was easy.

Choose Responses. When you break, you can either run or fight. I think Trace is more a runner (obviously), but it's not like he can't go nuts. So we'll check off 2 flight and one fight box.

Talents. I get an exhaustion talent. This is something that Trace could already do, but now he's supernaturally good at it. I choose hypersensitivity. Trace can hear your hair growing. He can smell aftershave from a block away, and he can read the print on a newspaper in the garbage from across a room (if this is too broad for my hypothetical GM, I'd narrow it to just hearing).

Now, I also get a madness talent. This is something that's impossible, a superpower that I get from invoking madness. For Trace, I'm tying this in to that gun that mysterious appear in his pockets. Trace can pull objects from anywhere, as long as he can picture them. That's good for pulling stuff from stores or old apartments or grabbing things that he doesn't want to carry. The bigger or more remote the object, the more madness dice I'd have to use. 

Character Creation: Dark Ages: Inquisitor

Really, it should be GURPS, because I'm playing that in about 2 hours, but I don't know GURPS especially well, so I don't think I'd have time to make such a character. Ah, well.

OK, I want to make a character, but it's got to be something I have an editable pdf for, since my office is a fucking sty and I don't want to clean it right now. That pretty much limits me to White Wolf games, which is fine.

The Game: Dark Ages: Inquisitor
The publisher: White Wolf
Degree of familiarity: Lots. I developed it, after all. I didn't outline or contract it (in hindsight, there would have been some very different hiring choices), but I pretty much chucked everything from the original outline that I felt didn't work and reworked it. Most influential writers on the book, BTW? Sarah, Myr, and Janet. Oh, and I've run a couple of one-shot and a very cool five-session detective story.
Books required: The Dark Ages: Vampire book, and the Inquisitor book, obviously. I may grab the Dark Ages Inquisitor Companion, which should have been titled the Dark Ages Inquisitor Catechism, but the brass at WW got scared of that title.

 

Deus vult! That means "God pole-vaults," or something.

Anyway, I enjoy playing religious characters sometimes. That may surprise you, but honestly, most of the time when you're playing a religious person in a game, you've got something to back up your beliefs. Clerics in D&D really can cast spells. Inquisitors really do have magical God-powers. For the most part, that's absent from NWoD, Lucifuge and Malleus Maleficarum aside, and I like that.

Right, so, concept. I admit, I've always loved the House of Murnau. As tempting as it is to play against my gut and make, like, a Sister of Saint John or something, I think I'm going with these guys.

Now, the House isn't a clerical order, it's a noble family that was subsumed into the Inquisition. There's a lot of contention about where the Murnau curse comes from, and there are hints in various books that it might have been an oath with the Fae gone wrong, or involved demons somehow, or something. My character, I think, was born with the Murnau gift, but he wasn't aware of it. While traveling abroad, a scion of House Murnau fathered a bastard child on a recently married noblewoman (her husband was decades her senior and quite impotent, but when she turned up pregnant it wasn't like he was going to admit that). Let's say this all took place in Tours, in the Anjou region of France, just because I haven't made a DA character from there yet.

Anyway, my character was born in 1213 (making him only 17 if we're starting in 1230, which is fine). Note that, according to Dark Ages: Europe, Anjou becomes "firmly part of France" in 1214 with the English defeat at the Battle of La Rocheaux-Moines. This also mentions Melusine d'Anjou, a powerful French vampire (Toreador, and one I always liked) running to England at this point. I think that she left behind a lieutenant, who took up residence in my character's house.

NAME NOW. We'll say the family name was "Gaudet," and his mother named him "Pons." Her lover, after all, came from a faraway land (not over the sea, exactly, but she's not the brightest of women anyway), and she always wanted him to come back and take her - and their son - to his exotic home. Truthfully, Pons' father was German and his home wasn't all that exotic, but y'know.

Anyway, the household was run, officially, by Pons' mother's husband, but in truth by a Toreador vampire. The vampire wasn't very good at keeping things low-profile, and liked to create ghouls of the staff and the pets, and generally made a crazy mess of things. As Pons grew up, he started realizing he could sense something wrong with this household. And then on the night of his 15th birthday, the vampire appeared to him and offered him his first taste of immortality.

Pons threw a rosary at him, and watched as it burned the vampire's flesh. Pons realized then that he was not just sent out amongst the wolves, he had been born to them. He took his horse and a few belongings and fled, and made it to a monastery which, fortunately, was home to some members of the Oculi Dei.

It took more than a year, but the Inquisition finally traced Pons' lineage and figured out that he was a member of Hourse Murnau. They don't want to send him to his father (who, as it turns out, is still out philandering), but they are very happy to have his skills in ferreting out ghouls here in France. At present, Pons lives in the monastery, but it's starting to chafe (and he refuses to take vows himself). He wants to go to Paris, or Poitiers, or someplace that he can be more useful. And, secretly, he wants to go home and clean up Tours. (And the hypothetical Storyteller should totally involve Melusine d'Anjou at some point, like when she comes home and finds that the house is in chaos.)

OK, that's concept. Now, I do Nature, Demeanor and Impulse. Impulse is tied to Nature. I see Pons as a Rebel. He's firmly against the concept of the clerical orders, and while he whole-heartedly believes in God, he feels that God isn't interested in the ritual so much as the result. That makes his Impulse Anarchism, which would be fun to play. His Demeanor is Celebrant - he grew up in a weird household, and he's glad to be out and where things make sense.

Step Two: Attributes. The White Wolf basics, with the 6/4/3 split. Pons is definitely a Social creature, while Mental following close behind. Let's say even split for 3 dots each in the Social Attributes, one dot each into Wits and Intelligence, with the other one in Perception, and even split in Physical.

Step Three: Abilities. 11/7/4. Well, living at home did nothing for him, but living at a monastery has let him discover his bookish side. I'll say Knowledges are primary, with Skills secondary. Talents are last; it's not that Pons doesn't have natural talent, but he's never really been whipped into shape. Still a little soft.

Knowledges: Two each in Academics, Hearth Wisdom, Linguistics, Occult and Theology, with the leftover in Politics.

Skills: Two in Etiquette and Stealth, one in Melee, Commerce and Ride.

Talents: Two in Alertness, one in Athletics, one in Subterfuge.

Step Four: Advantages. I get a dot in any Superior Virtue I want. Given how he got it, I'll take Zeal.

I get on Orison. I'll take Eye of Vigilance, as it allows me to stay up all night (handy when you grow up around vampires).

I'm full-blooded Murnau, so I have to take the Endowment (Legacies). For House Murnau, that gives me a Legacy. I'll take "Surveying the Devil's Flock" from the Inquisitor Companion. That allows me to know things about a servant's demonic master. I'll want a dot of Wisdom to really get the most out of it, but I don't have that right now.

I get 7 dots in Virtues. I pump 3 points into Self-Control and Courage (4 dots each) and one into Conscience (for a rating of 2). Pons is young and immature and a little fucked up, and he's more interested in being brave and smite-y than compassionate. That'll change. Or get worse.

Sadly, I get a Curse, now. For us Murnau, it's Maledictio. Let's be classic Murnau and take Allure of Gentle Hades. He stands out in a crowd, which is annoying, especially among vampires.

Oh, Backgrounds! I get five dots. I figure Pons lost his status and his Resources when he fled, but I'll take Exposure 3 to make up for it, and a two-dot Holy Relic (the rosary he flung at the vampire, which turned blood-red when it fell to the ground). I think I'd leave it the ST to figure what it does.

Step Five: Finishing Touches. I get my Courage + Zeal for Conviction, or 5. Same for Willpower, actually. My Piety starts at 6. I'm not Callous, therefore, which is good.

And now I get 21 bonus points. Sadly, I can't buy a dot of Wisdom with those. I can, however, buy up a bunch of Skills. I'll take one dot each in: Brawl, Leadership, Crafts, Etiquette, Investigation and Theology. My Area of Expertise in Crafts is Architecture. That's 12 spent. I'll buy up Intelligence to 3 (17 spent). I'll buy my Conscience up to 3 (which also raises my Piety), and I'll take two dots of the Mentor Background (the monks looking after me). 

And that's it!