Character Creation: Kuro

Trying to get ahead of myself a little, since this week is unlikely to hold many opportunities for chargen, unless I do something really quick and easy.

The Game: Kuro
The Publisher: Le 7éme Cercle, I guess?
Degree of Familiarity: None.
Books Required: Just the one.

So, Cubicle 7 published this game at one point, but the relevant page on C7's site doesn't seem to work, but then, on the 7C's site (how confusing), there's no mention of Kuro, but the games are being sold through 7C on DriveThru, so I don't know what's going on. And honestly I don't much care.

Kuro is a sci-fi/horror game set in futuristic Japan, so right away it's not really my thing (so why do you own it, Matt? Who can say?).

Anyway, the basic setup is that in the future, technology is bananas. We've got androids and cyber and nanobots and so on, but the geopolitical situation is pretty awful. An earthquake and some mechanical fuckups wound up getting a nuke launched at Japan, but it never landed. It just disappeared, in what has become called "the Kuro Incident." Since then a China-led blockade has been enforced around Japan, and here we are.

Clearly there's some magical shit going on, here, but for my purposes, what I want to know is what the assumption is for characters. The example characters pretty much seem to be people who live in Japan and have cool-sounding jobs (PI, celebrity singer, and so on), which is great, but that probably means this is the sort of game that the GM would need to provide a framework before chargen so that we don't end up with a group with no sticky.

Hmm. I like the idea that there are androids around that aren't quite recognized as people, and I like the idea of playing someone surrounded by androids as the token human. I'm gonna make a night watchman. He works in the Chiyoda district of Shin-Edo (formerly Tokyo), guarding one of the government buildings at night. He's been doing this job since the 2020s, so he's seen a lot of shit in his time, and he's gone from his staff being all human to him being the only one on the night shift. All of "his guys" have been promoted, moved to day shift, retired, or died, and he's the only one left in a room full of robots.

(Of course, in play, that would give him freedom to go do player things, since the robots don't really need him.)

That's probably good for concept, though of course I'll do a little more as we go. Next up is Characteristic Points. There are 8 of them, and I get 16 points, so of course I can go 2 each. The minimum is 1 and the max is 3 (during chargen), so even if I want to spread things around I can't do much. I'm inclined to go 2s across the board, but let's see if there's anything in particular my guy would be better or worse with.

Kinda no, actually. I think his strengths are going to come out through skills, rather than raw ability. 2s everywhere!

Next up, secondary characteristics. They're all calculations based on characteristics. Hits is 30, Serious Wound Threshold is 10, Death Threshold is -10, Movement is 2 meters per move action, whatever the hell a "meter" is, Defense (misspelled as "Defence"...OK, I'll stop) is 12, Reaction Speed is 3, Actions is 2.

Age actually matters in this game, because it helps determine skill points, which I kinda like. I figure my character started working as a security guard at 21, and it's been 26 years, so he's 47. That gives me 30 Skill Area points and 25 Specialization points.

OK, this is pretty easy. Skill Area points just buy ratings in broad skills, and Specializations in, um, specializations. So let's do one first, then t'other.

Skill Area Points:
Hand-to-Hand 2
Firearms 4
Humanities 3
Social Sciences 4
Communication 5
Deception 3
Drive 3
Investigation 3
Popular Culture 3

That's Skill Areas, and now Specializations.

Grappling 2
Handguns 2
Foreign Languages 3
Bureaucracy 3
Law 1
Politics 1
Intimidation 2
Lockpicking 2
Sneaking 2
Cars 2
Awareness 2
Legal Expertise 1
Searching 1
Politics 1

Cool. And now, Kaiso (social standing). Hmm. Cop is 3, laborer is 2. Let's check the templates. No help. I guess 2; he's not really a cop, has no real authority, and he works at night and rarely sees people.

Equipment! The standard, I guess. I doubt he's armed, but maybe. If he is, a handgun (and not one of the newer hi-tech ones, either, they make his teeth itch). No biotech or nanotech.

Finishing touches! I need a name, first of all. Let's call him Naoki Nakamura. Naoki, as mentioned, has been night watchman-ing at a government facility for the last 26 years. Six months ago, of course, everything went all whack-a-ding-hoy when the missile was inbound...but Naoki actually slept through most of it. He woke up after the plane crashes (there were a couple of plane crashes associated with electromagnetic disturbances), and then for weeks afterwards his building was humming all night and all day - no time for naps! It's settled down a little now, but everything is still tense, and Naoki still notices people coming and going at odd hours in the halls of power. One night he might just saunter over and see who they are. Not like these robots can't handle things here...

And that'll do it!