Character Creation: Hardnova Sovereign Space

I swear the word "sovereign" gets harder to spell every time I have to type it, which is weird.

The Game: Hardnova Sovereign Space
The Publisher: Precis Intermedia 
Degree of Familiarity: None. I've read it at least twice
Books Required: Just the one

This is one I haven't really been looking forward to, not because I hate the game or anything, but just because it just utterly failed to grab me. Hard sci-fi games have a difficult row to hoe anyway, because if you're going to make a game in the genre, you've got to have the science nailed down and figure out what it means in play. Like, if there's no FTL, OK, does that mean no interplanetary travel? Or a lot of time in hibernative naptosis, as one Turanga Leela would say?

But is this game hard sci-fi, or is it space opera? There's a history section that talks about Earth becoming an interplanetary superpower and fighting wars with alien races before helping to form the USU (which is United Sovereign Worlds, which really should be USW, but aliens had trouble with the concept of a "double-u" which just makes my face hurt).

Anyway, if this were a game that had a fun, intuitive system, that'd be great, but instead, you make checks by rolling 2d6 (your dice total), comparing that to your skill total, and then comparing the margin to a preset difficulty, which is so unnecessarily complex I can't even. Like, I'm sure it works smoothly at the table with someone who knows how it works, but I can't imagine pitching it to any of my groups. The immediate question would be: If we want hard sci-fi, why aren't we playing Diaspora? If we want space opera or some other sci-fi thing in spaaaaace, why aren't we playing Bulldogs! or Slipstream or Scum & Villainy or Synthicide or any of the other games with more personality?

Well, critique aside, let's make a character. The chargen rules are tucked into an appendix because the assumption is you'll use a pregen, which, like, bleah.

Ok, first thing I'm meant to do is think about my character's role in the game. The game itself doesn't have a lot of focus (it's more "here's the setting, go have adventures"), but I'm reading The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet right now and that's definitely influencing my decisions. It'd be interesting to play someone who works for the USU in some kind of official capacity, someone whose job it is to make sure that folks are following the rules. And, yes, this is something like an official bureaucrat in the Futurama sense (which I kinda did for Scavengers), but I think there's a greater focus on cultural communication and, if not linguistics, then the non-translatable aspect of language.

(Jesus, Matt, just make a blaster-slinging smuggler sometime.)

Anyway, with that mind, I must choose a race. I think I'll just play a human, since none of the alien races depicted have any particular facility for the kind of thing I want this character to do. I'll name him Oslo May.

Now I get 12 points to divide between Abilities. There's 5 of them, and the range is 1 to 5. Creativity, Reasoning, and Influence are the ones I think I need to have decent scores in, so I'll put 4 in Creativity, 3 in Reasoning and Influence, and that leaves 1 each in Fitness and Awareness.

30 points for skills. I get Athletics 4 and General Knowledge 4 for free. I'll also take:

Investigation 2
Design 3
Forgery 2
Scavenging 2
Academics 3
Medicine 2
Scanning 3
Streetwise 3
Negotiation 2
Seduction 2
Street cred 3
Composure 3

That's 30!

Now gimmicks. There are positive and detrimental ones, and if I take detrimental ones it raises a stat or a skill, while if I take a positive one it lowers a stat or a skill. Or, I suppose, you could take gimmicks to cancel each other out, but whatevs. Let's start with detrimental ones.

Ugh, these all suck. I'll take Poor, and I'll take Discrimination, and say that Oslo didn't exactly come by this line of work straight out of academia. His knowledge is hard-won on the "streets", as it were, and his knowledge of cultural differences is all practical. He's got a criminal record for fraud and grift (but he's proudly non-violent, thanks).

And look at that, Criminal is a cultural gimmick. Gimme. And then I could take Multilingual, I could take USU Authority, or I could be psionic and take empathy. Hrm. I think I'll take USU Authority, because it amuses me to think he's an ex-con who's now part of the government and how much that annoys some of his more sanctimonious comrades.

Cool! OK, Oslo is a slim man of average height. Black hair, prison/criminal tracking implants, wears his USU uniform most of the time but probably has a way to change out of it quickly in case he needs to be, like, not a fed. Practiced with holographic design, and decent at finding spare parts where he can. Also knows why you don't offer your hand to that race, or why you really should make constant eye contact with that one. Just trying to be helpful, friend.

And that's it!