Character Creation: Killshot

Been playing a lot of Hitman 2 lately, so I think this is appropriate. Plus I've had it for a long time and never really got into it.

The Game: Killshot

The Publisher: Broken Ruler Games

Degree of Familiarity: None

Books Required: Just the one

Killshot asks the characters to take on the role of professional assassins, and doesn't shy away from (telling us, at least; haven't played it so who knows how it works at the table) the fact that these characters are not the good guys.

Now, you can play an assassin in any number of games, but I have found that having one assassin in the group tends to cause problems if anyone else in the group has the least shred of moral decency. Martin Blank's protest that he kills for money, while a psychopath kills for no reason, isn't much of a comfort, after all. This is the only game I know of that has the whole team playing assassins. Other games make that possible - Blowback, hollowpoint, Blades in the Dark - but Killshot leans into the modern image of highly trained, skilled killers on a job.

My biggest complaint about this game so far, and one of the reasons I haven't done anything with it until now, is that the print in the book is so goddamn small that I couldn't read it for very long in hard copy, which is my preferred method of reading RPGs.

Anyway, let's make a killer!

I'm thus far not enthused by this setup. There's a "Creating Your Assassin" bit at the end of the first chapter, but it's all meaningless because the terms we need to know aren't defined yet. This is the eternal conundrum of RPG arrangement, I guess. I get 2 dice to spend into Mind, Body, and Sense, but I don't know what I start with. I get 20 training points, which I have to use to buy everything else, it looks like. Oy.

OK, let's say I want to conceptualize a little. I want to make an assassin focused on stealth and up-close techniques, rather than a sniper or bomber. I guess I will put one of my dice into Sense and one into Body?

Right, then, the next thing on the "list" is focus, which costs training points. Let's see if there's one that appeals. Yep, Burglar. That costs 4 training points.

Options, I think, are next. These are badly named; they really should be called "approaches" or "actions," but whatever. I get Active and Ready standard, and then I get Shadow because I'm a Burglar. I'd like Deadly, which allows me to use Shadow to make unseen melee attacks, but all this fucking terminology is confusing me. It says I need to have +3d12 in Burglar before I can take it.

OK, I downloaded the free quickstart thing, which has some pregens that are apparently starting characters, and it looks like I don't get any starting dice in my stats, meaning I have 1d12 in Body and Sense. I also don't think I can buy Deadly, which kinda sucks. Any other options I like? I'll spend 3 and pick up Parry, that seems useful. I think that's it for options; I've spent 7 points.

Skills, then (there's Reactions, too, but they don't seem geared to starting characters). I was thinking this would be straightforward. HA. We've got master skills, which are particular to a type of weapon or vehicle or whatever, and general skills, which are more like what you'd think, but they talk about trained dice and training and OMG THERE'S SO MUCH TERMINOLOGY. (Screenplay had this problem, too, IIRC.) And, since there's no example of chargen, I can't see any of this in context. The pregens don't help, either, because:

There are five skills there, not four. Can I, perhaps, reverse engineer the costs from the character? Hang on. OK, think I've got it. Man, it's not actually all that complicated, but fuck me is it badly explained.

With all of that in mind, I've spent only 7 points meaning I've got 13 kicking around, which is cool. I want my guy to be deadly with a blade, so I'll take Knife as a mastered skill. That's 2 points per 1d6, so I'll spend 4 and net myself 2d6 there. And then I want Agility, Brawling, Firearms, Memory, and Thievery. I can't just blow 10 and have 2 dice in each (and is that the way it works, or do I have to buy dice in particular skills? WHO KNOWS), so I'll spend 5, buy one in each, and then buy a second in all but Firearms.

The only thing left is gear, but I'm skipping it. There are three (!) different boxes for equipment type stuff, and it's all just so needlessly fiddling and complex, for a game that looks, at the guts of it, pretty simple.

Anyway, need some description-type stuff. Yves Pfeffier was born in Quebec, but his parents emigrated to Benin when he was 8. His father disappeared when he was 10, and he and his mother spent much of his young life moving from place to place in Africa, eventually settling in Morocco.

Yves killed his first man for money at age 16. He was running with a street gang and a local man had taken it upon himself to report gang activity, not just to the authorities, but to parents. Yves broke into his house and stabbed him in the throat.

He's honed his technique since. Yves prefers to work in the dark, but a quick jab to the throat is still his preferred method of killing. Guns are loud and unpredictable, bombs cause collateral damage, but knives are quiet and sleek. Yves is trying to move up in the world of assassination, but he knows he needs partners, because there's way too much he doesn't know how to do.

Yves' mother is black, his father was white (maybe is, we don't know he's dead). Yves himself looks more like his father, but has his mother's deep brown eyes and long fingers. Yves is slender and wiry, and his fingers have a lattice of scars and cuts from sharpening and training with knives.

That'll do it! This game is a bit of a disappointment. I really wanted to like it.