Character Creation: Retrocausality

Time travel is always fun.

The Game: Retrocausality
The Publisher: Weird Age Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one, though a copy of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or Back to the Future wouldn't go amiss

 
Retrocausality leans hard into time travel as wacky fun, unlike some other RPGs that use it as an element but generally put you in the role of fixing or enforcing the timeline. It saves a lot of page count by encouraging the players to come up with the nuts and bolts of how time travel works, and even says that you could bolt the time travel system onto another RPG if you wanted to do a time travel plot, which I think is a neat idea. The text is fun to read and the art is a little more anime than I enjoy, but it's cute, so whatevs. Let's make a character!

I am first asked to consider my character's "Deal" (as in "what's your deal?"). Hmm. I'm resisting the urge to take inspiration from Vonnegut. Instead, I shall take (very vague) inspiration from this song. Nothing specific, just the general vibe of setting rules and goals to try and fix something about oneself.

So, my character is a late 20-something named Conrad "Connie" Selman. Connie spent his late teens/early 20s very drunk and in the college party scene, skated through his classes because he's actually pretty smart, and wound up with a BA in something marginally useful but no emotional intelligence, no real ability to navigate relationships, and more than a few regrets. And then, boom. Time travel. A way to fix all that - but see, it's like untangling Christmas lights. Every knot untangled just means you can start working on the last one.

Now we do Talents. I get 3, they're numbered 1, 2, 3 (higher is better), and they can be broad enough to encompass a profession. I'll take Knows How to Party at 2 (it's not his primary focus anymore), Bureaucratic Cog at 3, and Self-Reflection at 1 (yes, that's a little wanky, but I'm fine with that).

Time Talent! This is a particular application of time travel that I'm good at, consisting of a skill and a suit. I think it's gotta be Twin (working with past and future selves) and hearts (good with social situations).

Goal! Specifically, goal for time travel. This is easy, Connie wants to retroactively become a better person.

And finally, Details. Anything else I feel like adding? I think Connie works for his Uncle Ned, which affords him some free time. If I were running this game, Ned would definitely turn out to be a stranded time-locked version of future-Connie, but that's just me. I'll say Connie is a handsome guy. Bit of a paunch these days, but his hair is perfect and he aims to keep it that way.

And I think that does it!