Character Creation: Mutant City Blues

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups, unless of course superpowers are involved, in which case the HICU gets involved and we're all in trouble.

The Game: Mutant City Blues
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: None specifically with this game, though I have some experience with the underlying mechanics.
Books Required: Just the one. 

 

So, Mutant City Blues is meant to represent police procedurals, only with super powers. I love me some Law & Order (the original series, not so much the spinoffs) and I love superheroes, so that's cool.

The basic premise: 10 years from now, a special flu hits, but fatalities are low. And then a year later, about 1% of the population develops superpowers. And yeah, some people do put on costumes, but mostly it's like Aberrant without the pulp influence - people go about their lives, only now there are super powers!

The book spends a good deal of attention considering things like the legal ramifications of reading minds or invading dreams, which I enjoy. What I don't enjoy is that the book gets a little too up its own ass crowing about the innovative GUMSHOE system.

See, here's the thing: GUMSHOE is a cool system. I enjoy running it a lot (I'm poised to do it again, in fact, after my Hunter game ends), and it suits my GM style nicely. But its reason for being is farcical. The book posits that investigative games grind to a halt if someone blows a roll and misses a clue, and the truth is, if that happens your GM sucks. I don't enjoy reading about how other games suck; when I want that, I go to RPG.net.

For the record, Trail of Cthulhu isn't nearly so pretentious about it (see that? I used "pretentious" to mean what it actually means, i.e., the game is trying to be something it's not, insofar as it's a fix for a nonexistent problem. Despite what assholes have, for years, been saying in various online spaces, "pretentious" does not mean "includes vampires").

Anyway. Ooh! One other thing. The game mechanic for superpowers is this nifty thing called the Quade Diagram (careful, that's a pdf). You start with whatever power you want, but you have to progress along the lines in a certain way. What that means is that if you meet a super with, for instance, "Command Mammals," there is no way that person also has the "Blood Spray" power because they're too far apart on the diagram.

Yes, that means that it's not your typical supers game where you cherry-pick your powers according to your concept, but it also grounds the notion of superpowers firmly in the setting, and given that I have lots of supers games, I like that.

So, starting out. The book just shoves me right into Buying Abilities. But maybe I should think about concept a little first?

Well, my character is a cop and member of the HCIU (Heightened Crimes Investigation Unit). These guys can fight, like any cop, but they're detectives. So, was my character a cop who became Heightened, or, like Stew's character, someone who became Heightened and then got shoved off to work with HCIU?

I think my character was a cop first. He had just made detective and been assigned his first homicide case when he came down with a raging case of ghost flu. That took him off the streets, his case was assigned to someone else, and his partner got a temp while he recovered (11 days with the flu, plus a couple more because, y'know fuck, long as I'm on leave). Then he came back and got back onto the force.

He started working cases, but a few months later, his powers showed up. He was still green - hadn't closed out a single case yet (arrests, yes, but no convictions). His powers appeared somewhat spectacularly, and he got sent to HCIU whether he wanted it or not (that'd be "not"). Now, in addition to being a relatively new detective and a relatively new mutant, he's got eyes on him, because HCIU is a media focus and the one place you seriously do not want to fuck up.

That's a start. Let's do abilities. Figuring that I'd have at least five players in my group were I to play this game, I get 21 Investigative points. I get Cop Talk 2 for free. As with Trail of Cthulhu, I'm encouraged to spread out my points.

OK, I put one into Forensic Psychology, one into Law (seems reasonable), two into Research, two into Textual Analysis (did a lot of reading while sick), two into Trivia, one into Bureaucracy, one into Bullshit Detector (seriously, it's a skill), two into Flirting, two into Negotiation, two into Reassurance, one into Streetwise, two into Evidence Collection and one each into Data Retrieval, Document Analysis. Good spread, and avoiding the mutant-specific stuff, which still makes him nervous. That's all my investigative points.

I get 60 points to spend on General Abilities. I start with Health 1, which is good. Right off, I'll put 10 points into Health and Stability. This guy is pretty well put together. I'll put 8 into Athletics and 8 into Scuffling (he's a good hand-to-hand guy), and 7 into Shooting (goes to range, but maybe not as much as he should). I'll put 5 into Preparedness (good skill to have, I learned), 6 into Infiltration and 6 into Sense Trouble. Good spread for a cop. Looking at his skills, I figure that this guy was a good cadet, distinguished himself while in uniform, and passed his exams well. What he lacks is some practical experience, and he's trying to get that, but weird things keep happening to him first.

Now, powers! I have 40 points, and I need to pick where I start on the Quade Diagram. Hmm. I'm half-tempted to start randomly, because it's not like this guy picked what powers he got. Why not? I "roll" and get a 1, so my first power is Absorption. That allows me to absorb other mutant's powers. Hmm. That might explain why I got booted to HCIU so fast; that's a power that's really only useful around other mutants. OK, sure. I pay 4 points to have the power. Now where?

Well, following the line straight down, I hit "Fangs." Eh. I'll pay two points and skip it. I can't avoid the Defect in my way (Plasma Deficiency). The next power is Possession, and I'm OK with that. I'll pay my 4 points. Next up, Command Insects. Again, sounds fun. 4 points. Now, I could branch out along the dotted lines to Webbing or Spread Pathogen, or I could go down the solid line and take Blood Spray. Screw it, that's weird enough to be awesome.

I have 4 powers now, and a rating of 1 in each, with 22 points left. I'll put 5 into Absorption and Possession, and 6 each into Command Insects and Blood Spray.

Last thing: Sub-plots. This is like Lenny Briscoe's ongoing issues with his daughter, or Jack McCoy's habit of banging his ADAs. It doesn't come up every episode, but it's kind of cool when it does, and it gives some insight into the lives of the detectives. But it does require I think a little more about my blood-spitting cop.

OK, so here's what happened. Right after he got back from sick leave, Detective Prescott "Scott" Marple got caught a case that looked pretty standard. Guy shot in his house, looked like a robbery but wasn't, big insurance payout, his brother was the beneficiary. Marple and his partner tracked the guy down and questioned him, and the guy ran. Marple's partner fell and twisted his ankle; Marple unwisely chased the guy and the guy rounded on him in an alley with a gun. Marple, acting on instinct, unleashed a gout of blood at the guy, and the perp dropped over, vomiting his guts out. After it was determined that Marple was not ill (and, moreover, didn't have the Spread Pathogen power), he was tested and then reassigned to HCIU.

So, sub-plot one: That guy is suing him, claiming mental distress and physical ailment brought on by exposure to Scott's mutant powers. There's nothing to it (is there?) but it does mean that Marple is occasionally forced to go for medical tests and the like. And the guy has a good, and persistent, lawyer.

Sub-plot two: The blood-spatter expert (yes, like Dexter) who works for the force is a blood fetishist, and he knows about Scott's powers. And they make him all gooey inside. Ew. Scott, straight as they come and not really enthused by his own powers, wants nothing to do with this.

Sub-plot three: Scott was kind of thrown onto HCIU and never really got a good grip on being a detective. He left some bureaucratic shit undone before he got sick, and it resulted in a guilty-as-hell perp getting a second trial. Scott can't testify (hell, he barely remembers it), but if this guy goes free, victim's family and even other cops might take it out on Scott.

And there ya have it. Ready to go to work defending Mutant City. CHUNG-CHUNG.