Character Creation: Those Darn Ninja

If you don't get the reference, it's from The Tick (comic; sadly they never adapted this storyline for the cartoon). "Those darn ninja. They're wacky."

Anyway, the reason for that reference is that I'm doing a Feng Shui character. I'm on my third cup of coffee tonight, I'm still a little tired, but I don't have to get up tomorrow morning because I'm on Thanksgiving break! Yay! Five days off!

I do so enjoy being on an academic schedule.

More to say? Not especially. Suffice to say that it's been an extremely emotional week, even though it's only Tuesday. More details later if I feel like burdening you with them.

The Game: Feng Shui
The Publisher: Atlas Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, beyond reading it.
Books Required: Just the core.

Wouldn't it be cool if that "shout at your opponents and make them fall down" shit really worked?

Anyway, this is a game of Hong Kong action. Heavy magic, lots of kung-fu combat, Jet Li, John Woo, Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat. It's a genre of movie I enjoy, though I'm not as familiar with it as I'd like to be. I think playing this game would be lots of fun with the right crowd, though as I'm typing this I'm trying to remember the system and failing (probably because, as usual, I get to that portion of the book and all my eyes see is "system system system" because I don't grok systems by reading them).

Oh, right, this is the system when you roll two d10s and subtract one from the other. Weird. No idea how this would work in play. Anyone got some experience?

So, the setting assumes this big ol' war between Dark and Light, with both trying to capture mystical sites of power. There's some time travel going on, too, and there are several different "junctures" through which a character might travel. Character creation is dirt simple; you pretty much grab an archetype and modify it. Step One, indeed, is Pick a Type.

Well, several of them are appealing, really. Magic Cop could be fun; take a kind of Hellblazer sort of dude and switch up the genre a little. Karate Cop is fun and traditional. Gambler appeals because I like the artwork. Ghost appeals because playing the supernatural creature is fun.

A brief aside, here: I find that when I make characters in a group, I like to try and hook my character together with someone else's. I like having a backstory that either flips me right into the group, or at least into the setting, so as to give the GM and the other players an easy reason to have my along. None of this "I sit alone in my house instead of going out to join the other PCs" shit (remind me to tell you about that barrel of fun sometime).

Now, that approach does make ghosts and other supernatural critters harder to play, here. So let's consider the source material and some of the other characters I've made (of which there are a lot, and I'm finding it hard to avoid repeating myself). I really do enjoy cop roles, but I don't especially enjoy the maverick cop who just fucks off and does his own thing. Honestly, my favorite movie cop might be Nicholas Angel, who only resorts to action-movie violence when it becomes clear that the situation has gone so far past surreal that it's not even recognizable anymore. Have I made a lot of cop characters? Really, I think just this one. Well, plus one FBI agent. OK, so I haven't overdone that schtick. I'll do Karate Cop as my Type.

I take as my inspiration Ed Greene from Law and Order. Ed was a good cop, much more by-the-book than his later partner (Fontana), though he did have a little gambling problem which eventually fucked him. But he was fully capable of throwing a beat-down when necessary, and seemed a generally moral person. Take that kind of attitude, mix in some kung fu, and I think we should have something.

Next step: The Melodramatic Hook. Our hero is a cop, and I don't feel like playing a cop with a dark secret. Instead, I'll make his hook be public knowledge - he once failed to prevent an assassination and he's torn with shame and guilt about it. He threw himself in front of the target (some important statesman), but was a second too late and the bullet found its mark. The assassin is dead, cut down by a hail of gunfire from other cops, but that didn't save the statesman. In the aftermath, his department told him it was all right, the effort had been good, and so on, but his feeling is that effort is nothing without the purity of focus to make it turn out right.

OK, now, I tweak numbers. I start with Body 5, Chi 0, Mind 5, and Reflexes 5. Those are primary attributes. I get to add 3 to one and 2 to another. Let's see what they mean.

Well, this is easy. 5 is average, except for Chi, where average is 0. I'll add three to Body and two to Mind; he's above average there, but his Reflexes aren't anything special, which might be why he jumped a little late.

My secondary attributes start equal to their linked primary attribute, and I get to add 2 to one of them and 1 to another. I'll add 2 to Agility, making me a better shot, and 1 to Fortune, so I get some chance to hedge my bets.

Now, Skills. I get Driving, Guns, Martial Arts and Police, and I get six Skill points to add in. I see this character as knowing police procedures pretty well, but also being decent at dealing with criminals on their own terms. I take Detective, Intrusion and Leadership all at +2.

I don't get any Schticks, dammit. Well, that's not true. I can deliver a stirring speech that can get NPCs on my side, which isn't nothing. I also get two weapons. I'll take a Colt 1911A because I'm a sucker for the classics, and a SPAS-12 because they're fun to use in Left 4 Dead 2.

I note my Wealth as "working stiff."

And, some final notes. Banning Gully (look, "Banning" is a family name, just call him "Gull" like everyone else) got a job with the NYPD right out of college. It was that or boxing professionally, and he knew how crooked the boxing world was - too bent for him. He made detective surprisingly quickly, demonstrating a real knack for working on the streets and getting career scum to be straight with him. He also could defend himself; his fighting style uses a lot of downward strikes, axe kick, and the like, capitalizing on his heavy arms and legs.

He's not jumpy/flippy, which might be why he didn't take a bullet for a visiting Congressman. He tried, of course, but jumped late, or short, and the guy died. Everyone on the force was cool about it, but he never quite shook the feeling that he failed - by not jumping sooner, by not spotting and shooting the guy, something. And then one night he saw something oozing out of a rift in the fabric of reality, and he knew that he could not fail in his duties this time.

So there ya have it. I see Gull as the kind of character that gets his ass kicked the first time he meets the opposition, but they leave him alive because they respect his nobility or some shit. I think at the end of the movie, you think he sacrifices himself, but survives to get a medal pinned on right before the credits.