Character Creation: Phaethos

Spring break! I figure I can get caught up and even ahead of myself on this project this week. I'm actually only two characters off from one-a-week from the beginning of the year, so that shouldn't be too hard. And it ain't like I have a hell of a lot else goin' on, as Strong Bad says.

The Game: Phaethos
The Publisher: Simian Circle Games, which seems to be still in business, although this particular product seems to have been taken down, and I don't see any chatter about it after about 2009 (though of course I'm not gonna do a really deep dive on it, because all I want to do is make a character)
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one.

This is one of the games I've been putting off for a while, because it's pretty clearly a fantasy heartbreaker - someone's home campaign that they slaved over lovingly for a long time and tweaked from some earlier edition of D&D. That's fine, but it's not my usual jam.

Reading through the opening section, though, there are some interesting ideas. Sure, it's basically D&D in a lot of ways (you go and adventure!), but the classes are a little more interesting than "fighter." Several options of magic- and magic-ish type characters, which I like, and the setting overall includes elements of sci-fi and (the book says) steampunk. I'm getting a kind of Dark Tower vibe in some places, too, but I'm not sure if that's just because there are gunslingers.

I'm seeing a "ine" suffix on some classes, and it's weird to my ears, but that's probably my own issue. That doesn't mean anything as far as the game goes, but it's in my head and it's 8:30 in the goddamn morning and I ain't had coffee yet, so basically whatever tumbles out of my skull is getting typed.

OK, so let's try and get a sense of what we do in this game, and if there's anything to hang my hat on before I start trying to make sense of character creation (it actually looks pretty simple). There's a history section in the Introduction, but...ugh.

Y'know, I've ranted about this before, but see earlier comment (early, coffee, skull, etc.). The history section starts in mythological pre-history, with the creation of the worlds and the diddlings of the gods, and that's all very interesting (it isn't), but it tells me nothing about what I need to know as a player. Likewise, there is a section called "What do you do as a player?" but the answer is basically "control your character and do PC shit. You know, like in D&D."

I'm not saying that every game needs to be some dirty hippie indie thing with a razor-sharp focus on one particular kind of game, but some attention to making a game unique would be nice. Although, again, I like some of the classes in this game, so I'm thinking that's where the creative energy went, as far as trying to differentiate it from its parent games.

OK, as I'm looking through the book, this gets even weirder. There is no GM section. There's no bestiary, which really surprises me. There's a whole chapter on combat (duh), and then one on loot and rewards, and then one on NPCs, which is where I thought I'd find monsters, but it's just human NPCs. The book has an "Atlas," which has a lot of setting info, including other planes of existence and a primer on the various religions of Phaethos, but still no info on how to actually play this game other than having fights. Very weird.

Well, clearly I'm not going to get a lot of help from the text on the ins and outs of my character, so I'll just get started. Character creation has "three easy steps." I'll bet.

Step One is Choosing a Class. This choice actually decides a lot of your starting shit (chargen looks pretty fast) - in some ways, it's approaching playbooks. Let's see!

Oh, now, this is interesting. There's a class called "Symbiote." They're basically just people with this manta-ray looking thing living on them, bonded with them telepathically. They don't get any real cool powers other than the symbiote makes them heal faster, need less food, and communicate with other symbiotes ("we favor unreasonably huge subsidies to the brain slug planet"), but other people tend to view them as freaks or abominations.

Which, like...OK, that's kind of cool, but what the hell does it mean for group dynamics? Like, why is "Symbiote" a class and not just a thing that can happen? Other classes are all designed around what you do - Monster Hunter, Assassin, Engineer, etc. Symbiote is the only one designed around what you are, and I'm having a hard time figuring out what such a character's role in the group would be.

Anyway, I'm not picking that. I'm torn between Guine (gunfighter), Kineck May (magicky people who have magical tattoos, which is always something I find compelling), and Ragewine (psionic warriors).

I think I'll go Guine, actually. I like gun-fu and the new trailer for John Wick 3 just dropped the other day. The class write-up is interesting. Guine have a subculture; they're trained from youth, highly disciplined, and they wear black with the symbol of their respective Lodge on the shoulder. They're also banned in some places because people who show up brandishing guns aren't welcome in civilized society (something we in the modern day could stand to internalize), and there are Guine-hunters who make a point of killing them.

(Getting a kind of Ballad of Buster Scruggs sort of feeling, here, inasmuch as the Kid that takes down Scruggs might have been a Guine, since Scruggs himself was clearly a bad guy, despite the white hat.)

Next step is Attributes. I get a spread: 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3 and then a +1 in Dexterity (shit, this is like playbooks). I'm not idiot, I'll put a 3 into Dexterity to soak up that sweet, sweet bonus. I'll put my other 3 into Wits, I guess. Now the only question is: What's my dump stat? I think I'll make it Agility. I want my guy to be fat. You never see fat PCs in these games, and gunfighters in particular tend to be lean (at least, the successful ones are; there are some larger fellas in The Quick & The Dead but they all get shot).

Focus is the average of AGL, DEX, and WITS, or 2 (round down, boo). Age is 16 + a d10; a roll of 8 means I'm 24. Health is Endurance + 16, or 18. PE is Endurance + 8 (10), ME is Wits + 6 (9). Kore is magic stuff and I don't have access to it. Luck starts at 3.

I start with Firearms at 3 and Control Mount, Evaluation, Manipulation, and Tracking at 2 (and I'll get some points to buy more Skills in a minute here). One thing I absolutely love about this game is that they list out the equipment you start with:

 

Step Two: Skills. I get six points to buy Skills (twice my Wits), but this is annoying: They have to be applied to skills I don't have from my class, which means I'm locked in at being so-so at riding a damn horse and so on. Ah, well. Let's check 'em out.

OK, why is there a mathematics skill? When would I roll that?

I think I'm gonna take Jeweler at 2. This guy's family worked as jewelers in one of the bigger cities, I think. Actually, I'll just take it at 1; he was never really trained in the family business.

I'll take Move Silent (which should be Move Silently, but whatever) at 2. He's a big guy, but he can be stealthy. I'll take Bare Knuckle at 2 (figure he should be able to fight a little without a gun), and finally Reading & Writing at 1 because this game is stupid.

Step Three is Personality, and it has a bazillion questions to answer about the character. Normally I like that kind of thing, but the questions have nothing to do with a character of a given class or anything, it's just a lot of generic character-building stuff. That's OK, but I'm not gonna answer them all.

I am, however, going to look at Boons and Flaws. They're exactly what you'd think they are, but they're awarded at the discretion of the GM based on your character backstory, which I'm not a huge fan of (I've known too many GMs who try to be cute with shit like this). But I'm gonna take a look.

Wait, no, these are all stupid. (There is, in fact, a Flaw called "Dumb," but it doesn't make you mute, which is a separate flaw, it makes you cognitively impaired. Not...great.) Most of the Boons just give you bonuses to a given Skill, which, like...just take another point of the Skill. So I'm-a skip these and go right on to history and personality and whatnot.

Oh, lord. So, the Atlas chapter tells you that towns, cities, and whatnot exist, but doesn't give you any. There are a lot of geographical features (The Swamps of Insanity! The Maidenhead Mountains!), but no described civilizations. FFS.

OK, fine. My Guine is named Trine Cutstone. Trine was born to a family of jewelers in one the largest cities (probably near one of the mountain ranges), and was learning the trade when he fell in with a bad crowd. His new "friends" conned him into robbing his family of a bunch of uncut stones, but Trine wasn't great at keeping secrets. His family found out and the city guard arrested his buddies. They were all imprisoned (and probably still are), but Trine, as his family was wealthy, got sent off into the hinterlands to learn to be a Guine. He's recently completed his training and is in no hurry to go back home, but figures sooner or later he should go and see his parents. He keeps a small, uncut sapphire on him at all times - a reminder to always evaluate what people are asking him to do.

Trine has put on some muscle since becoming a Guine, but he's still pretty big (runs in the family). He wears a beard because if he doesn't, he looks like a giant baby. He's got a mop of brown hair that makes him glad that Guine are expected to wear hats, but he's got surprisingly long and nimble fingers.

There, that'll do it.