Character Creation: BRP

I am hella behind on characters for the project, mostly because I've had a pretty awful couple of weeks, but never mind that. As of this coming Sunday, I should be up to 41 characters to keep my "once a week" thing going. As of right now, I've done 36 this year, so I'm what, five weeks behind. If I can manage to do a couple extra before the school breaks (Thanksgiving and Xmas), I can get caught up.

Not that anyone really cares, but I care about my silly little lists.

Anydangway, today's thing is:

The Game: Basic RolePlaying
The Publisher: Chaosium, Inc.
Degree of Familiarity: Almost none. I don't think I've ever played this edition, but I know I played some Call of Cthulhu back in the day.
Books Required: Just the one, but read on.

  

So, I want to say first that I'm doing this game today because Greg Stafford, the game designer behind Pendragon, RuneQuest and a lot of others, passed away yesterday. I never met Greg and I'm actually not terribly familiar with his work, at least firsthand - I've played Pendragon but never RuneQuest, and I think that the only game I own that he worked on is BRP, which sounds like an oversight on my part.

But in any case, this tribute by John Wick kind of puts into perspective the influence that Stafford had on the hobby. Again, I don't know, I never met the man and I have only limited experience with his work, but watching all of the outpouring of love from folks I do know over the last couple of days makes me think he's someone whose work I should know.

In any case: BRP. BRP is, like GURPS, a system that can be applied to a variety of games. (Incidentally, as I'm reading the book, I note that it was used in Nephilim, which Stafford also worked on.) As such, before I make a character I really need to have a setting. There's a chapter in this book about settings, and looking through it, it's got a lot of bare-bones ideas for settings (mostly, but not entirely, framed as historical eras). I think I'll make a character for a Western setting, just because apart from Deadlands I haven't really done that.

Step One: Name and Characteristics. Never sure how I feel about naming characters right off the bat. Well, I kinda want to make a cowboy, and I was interested to learn that the word "buckaroo" is an alteration of the Spanish word vaquero. Turns out a lot of cowboys were of Mexican or mestizo extraction (or black, which is something you don't tend to see in Westerns, dammit). I think I want my character to be mixed race, originally from Louisiana and then moved to Kansas after the Civil War (figure on this being 1880 or so, so figure my character was born in 1858, roughly, a few years before the War broke out). His name is Levi Matthews.

For Characteristics, I roll 3d6 for Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Power, and Appearance. One of the suggested optional rules for Western is to choose what value goes to what Characteristic (rather than just assigning them in order), so I think I shall do that.

My rolls are 6 (ugh), 13, 16, 11, 9. Well, something's getting a dump. Hmm. Well, the life of a cowboy isn't really conducive to having a low CON or STR or DEX, so I'm thinking that the 6 is gonna go in APP. I'll put the 9 in POW, the 11 in STR, the 16 in DEX, and the 13 in CON.

Now I roll 2d6+6 for Intelligence and Size. I get 12 for INT and 16 for Size. I have an option for an Education roll, but I'm think Levi's education would be pretty spare (or rather, his formal education would be), so I'll skip that.

Step Two is Powers, and if I was running this game, I might include some magic or something, but for now let's assume we're playing a pretty straight Western and skip it.

Step Three: Age. Oh, wait. I'm meant to roll for this (17 + 1d6). OK, sure. I roll a 5, which means I'm 22.

Step Four: Characteristic Rolls. Derived traits. Well, some, and there are more in the next step. Effort is STR x 5 (55), Stamina is CON x 5 (65), Idea is INT x 5 (60), Luck is POW x 5 (45), Agility is DEX x 5 (80), and Charisma is APP x 5 (30).

Step Five: Derived Characteristics. Like it says. Damage bonus is STR + SIZ and then look it up on a chart, so +1d4. Hit points is the average of CON and Size, or 15 in my case. Major wound is half that, or 8. Power Points I'll skip because I'm not using powers. EXP bonus is half my INT, or 6 (but I don't see a place on the sheet for it). MOV is 10 units per round, so that's easy enough.

Step Six: Personality. Oh, this is interesting. It's less about personality and more about how the character approaches problems - physically, with technique, outsmarting, or persuading. I think that Levi is pretty clearly most comfortable being physical, so I'll take that option. That gives me 20 points each in Brawl, Climb, Dodge, Grapple, Insight, Jump, Ride, Sense, Stealth, Swim, Throw, and any two Combat skills. I'll fill these in later, when I do the rest of my skills.

Step Seven: Skills. Well, hey. So, I pick a profession, and then I allocate points into professional skills. Let's assume we're playing a "normal" game in which the characters are mostly normal people, and I get 250 points for said professional skills. Is "cowboy" an option for profession? Hot diggity, it is.

My professional skills are Craft, Firearm (Rifle), Knowledge (Natural History), Knowledge (Region), Listen, Navigate, Ride, Spot, Throw, and Track. Neat. I can't start higher than 75%, but I already have 20 in some of these, so.

Brawl 20
Climb 20
Craft
Dodge 20
Grapple 20
Insight 20
Jump 20
Knowledge (Natural History)
Knowledge (Region)
Listen
Navigate
*Ride 20
Sense 20
Spot
Stealth 20
Swim 20
*Throw 20
Track
*Firearms (Rifle) 20
Firearms (Pistol) 20

That's where I start. Let's add 55 to Ride (boosting it to max), which takes me down to 195. I'll put 35 into Spot (160), 40 into Track (120), 30 into Rifle (90), 25 into Knowledge: Region (65), 30 into Listen (35) and the other 35 into Craft.

Step Eight: Distinctive Features. I'll say that Levi has a slight cleft palate that (of course) is uncorrected. As such, his speech is often unclear, and so he doesn't talk much and he eats very slowly and carefully (it's one reason he's thin). I'll say, too, that he wears a length of cloth around his face when he rides, to keep himself from inhaling too much dust.

Step Nine: Profession. Hang on, I thought I did this. Oh, wait, I did, this is just the stuff I get based on my profession. Rope, rifle, horse, etc.

Step Ten: Name & Finish. I did the name already, so that's basically it.

That was actually really painless, all things considered. I worry that the numbers are too low (you know how I feel about systems where starting characters are useless), but I'd have to play it to know; it's been too many years.