Character Creation: Shock: Social Science Fiction

Here we go! Let's see if I can get this done before dinner arrives.

The Game: Shock: Social Science Fiction
The Publisher: the glyphpress 
Degree of Familiarity: None, though I've played similar games
Books Required: Just the one

When I say "similar games", I mean stuff like Geasa, Fiasco, Posthuman Pathways, and A Tragedy in Five Acts in which much of the game play is in defining the world, the themes, and the characters at the table. I like this sort of game, and I appreciate that there's a running example of play, though I didn't find the presentation of said example especially helpful (maybe I need to read it again). I also note, with some amusement, that of the examples I listed only one is on my chargen list, because since character creation is so baked into setting creation, there's often not a good way to do chargen without doing a whole setting, and that's not what I'm into, here.

But I think for Shock:, I can make it work. While there's not an example of play that starts from stage one and goes all the way through a game, sadly, there is this example of a grid:

The Shock, in this case, is that Replicants exist. The issues in play are Slavery and Imperialism, which is fine, but although you can't see it in that graphic, the actual grid has space for a bunch more issues (and Shocks, for that matter). Normally I would have gotten to add in an issue and own one, but for purposes of keeping this character creation experience simple, I'll just say that I'm interested in exploring the issue of Slavery in my Protagonist's scenes. (For the record, if I were to add an issue here, it might be Degradation, the idea that everyone, Replicants including, are slowly losing cognition and everything is breaking down. Maybe "Entropy" is a better way to say that.)

Now I need to think about my character. Normally, the group would add Minutae, little bits of set dressing to define the world, but as it's just me, I won't bother. What I will do is make a couple of assumptions: That the process of creating Replicants is putting a strain on the environment (the idea being that this would lead to the degradation of cognition I mentioned earlier, much like the mass lead poisoning we saw before gasoline went unleaded), and that this Degradation can be slowed if not reversed in Replicants.

So, with that in mind, my character is a "neuromasseur," a specialized computer programmer who "massages" a Replicants digital neurons back into place when they start fritzing out. His name is Castle.

I start off with three Features for Castle; these are possessions, personality, traits, destiny, secondary traits. Kinda wish there was a list, because that covers a lot of ground. I'll say "neuromasseur", "afraid of losing my mind," and "my lab is out of date and shabby."

Now I get two Links, which are things that Castle wouldn't want threatened, but that I think would be fun to see get rattled. I'll say Santos, my father, and Belle, my supplier (of gear, software, and lab supplies).

I need a Story Goal, and this can be pretty wide-ranging. So I'll say Castle's Goal is to protect the human mind against degradation, or rather, learn to "massage" human neurons.

Groovy, now Praxis. Normally we'd decide on two opposing methods of getting shit done (Violence vs. Compassion, and so on) and then I'd assign some numbers. I think that with what's established so far about the world, there's a case for legal commerce vs. black market. Commerce vs. Crime? Sounds good.

And then Violence vs. Compassion actually kinda fits, given that helping to heal damaged minds is called "massaging." So now that I have my Praxis, I need to assign a number to each one. That number is the fulcrum, and basically if it's in the middle, I'm more likely to have shit happen randomly, I think. I'm gonna put a 7 in Violence vs. Compassion; better at Compassion, but it's not impossible that he'd succeed violently. For Commerce vs. Crime, I know I want him to be better at the latter, so I'll put my Fulcrum at 8.

Only thing left is my Antagonist. I'll say it's Venn, a Replicant that I massaged at one point, and accidentally triggered some kind of revenge or anger response. Another player would flesh out Venn, so that's about all I'll say about him.

I'll say Castle in his 40s. Black hair (greying at the temples), always needs a shave, a bit heavyset, walks with a limp (knee replacement that didn't quite take), but very steady hands. His lab is the size of a small trailer and it's all he can do to keep it clean and keep the power flowing, but he does his best.

And that'll do it!