Character Creation: AMP Year One

First character of the new year, and only...19 days in. Welp.

My goal for this year is 60 characters (I did 53 in 2018, which beats my goal by 1). I'm not off to a promising start, here, but this being a long weekend I can at least get caught up to one-a-week, and then maybe I can get ahead over spring break (or over snow days, if this weather continues).

The Game: AMP Year One
The Publisher: Third Eye Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, really, which is odd. I need to try and play this at some point.
Books Required: Just the one.

 
So, AMP takes place in a world (IN A WORLD WHERE...) where people are beginning to develop superpowers and go do super-stuff. There's a lot of government involvement and conspiracy; all the supers ("AMPs", for Accelerated Mutant Potential) are what the Marvel universe would consider "mutants."

The setting reminds me more than a little of Aberrant, though while that game tried to go satirical and focus on fame culture as much as super-hero tropes, AMP seems to play things a little straighter. Character creation looks a lot like what we've seen from other Third Eye games (Sins of the Father aside); we've got splats and a mostly point-based character build. Suits me.

Chargen is a five-step process, beginning, as is often the case, with Step One: Concept (but also including some other things that are all concept-adjacent). As is often the case for me, I shall start with a theme song.

I haven't made a ice-controller, and this is a song I enjoy, particularly the line "If I freeze, I can't decay." Suggests to me someone who shuts off his emotions because of past trauma, and maybe his powers tie into that. There is plenty of AMP-related stuff in the setting to cause trauma, so I think I'll go the Jessica Jones route and say that his parents and younger brothers were killed in collateral damage during the Battle of Reno. My character, Brett Voss, lost everything at 17 and became an "adult" five months later.

Brett is thin, but filling out. He buzzes his hair because he hates the smell of barbershops. He wears t-shirts and jeans, and cleans up nicely, but doesn't shave his face often. Brett has a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but he doesn't lash out of act angry, he just shuts himself off. That's going to become bad at some point.

Loyalties! There are actually more like ideals (Justice, Family, Self) than loyalties, I think, but whatevs. I get 10 points, and I can go 0 to 5 on these. Let's see. I think I'll Truth 3, Self 3, Perfection 3, and Humanity 1. He's still got some love left for humanity, it's just weak.

And then I choose Affiliation. Oh, this is interesting. AMPs have a natural instinct to fight each other, so the game actually bakes superheroes' tendency to kick the snot out of one another into the setting. If I join Seekers of Enlightenment, I get a bonus to resist that. It's either that or unaffiliated, and I can totally see Doctor Luminous deciding to recruit this kid before, say, UHF did.

Step Two: Skills. 35 points here. The book recommends that if we're making inexperienced characters to cap skills at 5 (Expert), but they go as high as 10. I'll try and keep everything under 6, then, but if I think Brett would have something higher I'll make break that rule.

Oh, and there's a handy chart for the skills, and they're listed on the character sheet. Hallelujah.

Well, I think Athletics is appropriate, so I'll dump 5 into that. Deception, sure, 2 points. Discipline, holy shit, yes. I'll start with 5, but that's one I might boost. Fighting, 2. Fortitude, 4. 18 spent so far, 17 to go.

Intimidation makes sense, so I'll put 3 there. 2 into Intuition. Perception is always a good choice, 3 points. 9 points left. I'll put 3 into Speed, 3 into Stealth, 1 into Technology, and the remaining 2 into Discipline. Done!

Step Three: The Fun Shit. Powerz n' so on. First up I pick a Strain, which is kinda my inborn splat. I think Brett is pretty clearly...well, I was gonna say Shaper, but it looks like most of the Cold stuff is bound up under Blaster. Hang on. Yeah, looks like if I want ice powers I'm a Blaster, but I can take secondary and tertiary powers outside my Strain. Cool. OK, for my Primary power I want Flux; if I take the right Augments, I can do the Iceman thing where I cover myself in ice. I'll put 3 points there for now. Oh, wait, I get Augments at even levels, so maybe I should bump up to 4. I kinda wanted to take more powers, though. Can I do that? I can by taking Drawbacks. Groovy. OK, I'll dump 4 points into Flux, and that gives me two Augments. I'll take Ice Form (the aforementioned Iceman effect) and Energy Effect.

Two more points. I'll take, as my secondary power, Heartstrings, which lets me manipulate emotions. I'm putting two points there, because I want the Apathy Augment, which lets me shut off emotions I don't want in myself.

No tertiary power, at least not yet.

Step Four: Bonus Points. This is the standard Merits/Flaws, Ads/Disads, Edges/Drawbacks kind of thing. I get 12 points to throw around, and I can of course take Drawbacks to get more.

Well, right off, I want to spend 3 to buy a level of Bolt as a Tertiary power. Actually I want 2 levels, because I want the Encase Augment. I think that's legal, I just can't have a secondary power higher than my tertiary. Lemme check. Yeah, seems fine if they're equal. So I spend 6 to buy Bolt 2.

I use Marksmanship to use Bolt, so I better, uh, buy some. Skills are 1 each, that's handy. I'll buy Marksmanship up to 3, and spend a fourth point to buy a Specialty in Bolts. I've spend 10 of my 12. Lemme check for Drawbacks I might like. I'll take Shy - Brett isn't actually shy, but the effect is much the same. I also want Limitation for Heartstrings - Brett can remove emotions, but not cause them. That seems pretty severe to me, so I'll call it a 5-pointer. That gives me 8 more. I'll spend 3 and buy up Flux to 5. I'll buy Empathy 2 for 2 points. 5 points left.

I'll take Pain Resistant at 4, and with my last point, I'll take one point of Untraceable.

And, finally, Step Five: Derived Shit. Integrity is how much wear and tear you can take; it starts at Fortitude + 10, or 14 in my case. Juice is 10 to start. Base Movement is 13, top speed is 195, etc. There's no formula in this section for some of the stuff on the sheet. I'm sure it's in the book somewhere, though. Oh, wait, it's all on the character sheet, glorious.

I think that's about it! Oh, other than a handle. Brett calls himself Rime when he's doing super-stuff. His costume, such as it is, is a constantly-refreshing coating of ice and mist. It obscures his face because it pours out of his mouth and eyes, and he crackles a little when he moves. I think he'd be fun to play.