Character Creation: Honour

Dogs are snoozing and I think I'm done playing Man of Medan for the day, so what the heck.

The Game: Honour
The Publisher: Nine Dragons RPG Ltd
Degree of Familiarity: None. I wrote a little bit for the 2nd edition of the game, but I kinda doubt the stuff I wrote will get used, given the state of things
Books Required: Just the one

Honour is an urban fantasy type game, I think with some wuxia/kung fu type aspects. It's set on the world of Pangu, a kind of sister-world to Earth (the game loves multiple realities and talks about them a lot), wherein we get continents like Afryka and countries like the United States of Amerrika. Oddly, Canada is still just Canada. 

I read the opening couple of chapters, which talks about Pangu and how it was created (there was a Giant, and some Demons), but honestly it kinda slid out of my brain. Part of that is because holy god, this book needs an editing pass and someone needs to explain the concept of "active voice" to them, but the backstory also just isn't all that interesting. Now, mind, it's perfectly possible that it's not interesting to me, and between one thing and another I've read a lot of urban fantasy RPGs over the years, so they do kind of run together unless the writing is grabby and the themes are interesting. But anyway, let's jump to chargen. 

OK, first thing is that the GM would set the "Meta-Reality Level," which determines how over-the-top and wahoo the game's going to be. I have no GM, of course, so I'll pick one. I definitely don't want Gritty Reality, because reality is plenty gritty enough right now, thanks anyway. The other two are Cinematic Escapism and Myths & Legends. I think I'll go with the former; I'm fine with a kind of minimal-but-still-there approach to superpowers and magic. 

I have no idea what any of that means, of course. Moving along!

OK, so we've got three sets of stats (Physical, Mental, Emotional), broken up into three aspects (Strength, Grace, Resilience). I kinda like just having "Physical Grace" and "Mental Grace" rather than "Dexterity" and "Wits." Seems easier to keep straight without a damn thesaurus. 

Ah, I see. A "dH" is a d12, but you read 11 as "Yin" and 12 as "Yang." "Select two results" means "keep two dice," and it looks like higher is better, so why wouldn't you just keep the higher dice? Ah, well, looks like I need some d12s. Do I even have three? Ha, I do. Ok, then. I need 9 3dH rolls: 

• 2, 9, 11
• 5, 6, 7
• 7, 9, 10
• 10, 9, 12 (!)
• 1, 3, 10
• 3, 5, 12
• 8, 9, 10
• 5, 5, 8
• 6, 8, 11

OK, so two Yins and two Yangs, and my totals are: 20, 13, 19, 19, 13, 8, 19, 13, 14, plus two Flaws and two Fortes. I can assign these anywhere I want, so I suppose I should think about concept a little bit. 

Well, like I said, I've been replaying Man of Medan of late. I kinda want to play someone like Fliss, a boat captain who's trying to pay off said boat without going under (figuratively speaking). I could also grab inspiration from Jason Statham's character in The Meg, which is a movie I love with no shame whatsoever. So: My dude is burned out, broke, probably drunk at least some of the time, operates as a guide and sometime smuggler on his small-but-functional boat in the waters around Heung Gong island. 

Oh, wait, this game has a lifepath kind of thing going on! Well, shit! How about I just start doing that and assign my stats once I have a better handle on what my dude has done with his life? (Same with Fortes and Flaws.)

OK, Pathways start at age 17, and progress in "terms," at the end of each of which there's a "what happened during this term" roll. Um...oh, thank the maker, there's an example. Hang on. 

All right, this is easier than it looks. Basically every term is 3 years, and you get an increasingly number of Skills for every term you advance in a given profession, which makes sense. There are legal and illegal career options, but I'm sorry to see that "Smuggler" is not among the criminal options, so I'll have to improvise. I don't want to start with an illegal one, though. I'll start by taking Business Owner. Rank One is "Tenant Shopkeeper." I'll put my skills...oh, wait, one of the professional skills here is "Drive Specialized Vehicle." Perfect! 

I'll say that my character started out running the guide/transport service and broke bad later. So, skills:

Drive Specialized Vehicle (boat) 1
Quick Buck 1
Knowledge (Local Lore) 1

Cool. That puts me up to age 20, and (although the example character skips this bit), I need to roll on the "end of term" table. A steady term, three decent years, add a skill level. Cool, I shall add it to Drive. Oh, and, I need Physical Resistance and Emotional Grace of 13 or better, but only one of my stats is lower than 13, so that's fine. 

Next term! I think we'll say that my boaty guy got drawn into a bad crowd at 20, and take Confidence Trickster (requiring Mental Strength 16, Mental Grace 14, and Emotional Grace 16, for the record - still no problem). And now there's the question. Since this is the first time I've taken this career pathway, does that mean I start at term 1 (three skills, three points) or does it advance to term two? Based on the character creation summary, it seems like I'd reset to term one, making terms career-specific. That is not very well explained (see, this is what I mean about needing an editor). 

Anyway, Confidence Trickster gives me three more skills and three more points, so I shall take Draw Others In and Knowledge (Crime) at 1, and bump Quick buck up to 2, since it appears on this list as well. As such, my skills are now:  

Drive Specialized Vehicle (boat) 2
Quick Buck 2
Knowledge (Local Lore) 1
Knowledge (Crime) 1
Draw Others In 1 

Another roll on the ol' "end of term" table gets me another skill point, which I shall put into Knowledge (Crime), methinks. For my next term, I'll continue on up the Confidence Trickster ladder, meaning I add three more skills and get to throw six points around, but only on the Confidence Trickster skills. As such, my skills are now: 

Drive Specialized Vehicle (boat) 2
Quick Buck 2
Knowledge (Local Lore) 1
Knowledge (Crime) 3
Draw Others In 2
Fast Talk 2
Persuade 0
Collect Gossip 1

My end of term roll nets me...ooh, two skill levels! One in Persuade, one in Collect Gossip, thanks. Next term, I'll keep on where I am (at the end of this term, I'm 29). That's the third term in Confidence Trickster, fourth overall, and it means I add three more skills and nine points (but, again, only for the Con Trickster skills). 

Drive Specialized Vehicle (boat) 2
Quick Buck 2
Knowledge (Local Lore) 1
Knowledge (Crime) 3
Draw Others In 4
Fast Talk 5
Persuade 1
Collect Gossip 3
Disguise 0
Knowledge (Local History) 2
Duck Questions 1

"Duck Questions" is a general skill, but at third term I can pick two professional skills and one general. Also, the general skills make no goddamn sense. "Brew Tea" and "Cook Chili" are general skills, but "Argue" isn't? Oh, are we being funny with our game design? Hoody-hoo. 

Anyway. Next term. I shall take a second term of...oh, hang on, forgot to roll. Two more skill levels! I'll add them two Persuade and Duck Questions (quack!). Next term, I think my guy went legit for a few years (police were breathing down his next after a pretty successful little score), so I'll go back to Business Owner and take that at term 2, and then I get six points. Skills, then: 

Drive Specialized Vehicle (boat) 5
Quick Buck 2
Knowledge (Local Lore) 2
Iron Will 1
Leverage Existing Resources 0
Vision 1
Knowledge (Crime) 3
Draw Others In 4
Fast Talk 5
Persuade 1
Collect Gossip 3
Disguise 0
Knowledge (Local History) 2
Duck Questions 1

This makes me 32. Rolling for end of term, I get...12! Nice! All my Aspects go up by two points! That's pretty baller! 

You know, I think I'll quit while I'm ahead. Not as crusty as I'd imagined him, but he's on a high note right now, and that's fun. Gotta add up these skills n' shit, though. Goddamnit, "Pilot Boat" is a general skill. You know what, these skills are so goddamn stupid (seriously, "Notice Local Change?" "Play Poker?" What do we gain from this level of granularity?), I'm gonna leave this as-is. 

I have to figure out modifiers for my aspects, yet, but everything else is just description and background, so I think I'm in the home stretch (these skills, my fucking lord. I thought Chill 2nd was bad). But first, I have to roll on another table, because there's "That One Thing." It's meant to be something that sets the character apart, and it's based upon whether you have Charmed or Demon blood (your choice!), but in practice unless you roll 11 or 12, it's just a stat boost. Let's see! 4, which gets me +1 Emotional Resilience, because I'm pretty sure this guy's got demon blood. 

Oh, right, gotta assign my aspects. Hang on. I think Mental needs to be good since most of my skills are there. I also get to add 2 to all of them, so I'll assign them thusly:

Physical Strength 10
Physical Grace 15
Physical Resilience 16
Mental Strength 21
Mental Grace 22
Mental Resilience 21
Emotional Strength 21
Emotional Grace 15
Emotional Resilience 16

Name, description, fortes and flaws. OK, here we go. 

Folks in the city and by the docks just called him Chuanzhang ("Skipper"); he doesn't use his real name if he can help it. He's only 32, but he looks older (lots of time on the water plus lots of missed meals and booze). He's skinny, no two ways about it, but he's an easy talker and sharp as a tack. Don't play go with him, or chess, or poker, or any other game of skill unless you don't mind losing, and for the love of god don't play him for money. 

Skipper always smells like fish and salt, and he doesn't bathe often. He stays out of polite society (he knows what he is), and although he's friendly and chatty, he's highly guarded. Folks know he inherited the boat from his father when he was still a teen, they know he's been running tours and cargo for years, and they know that a few years back, something happened that set him up pretty good. Money's running out, though, meaning Skipper is going to be looking for a job soon...

Fortes: Incisive, Charismatic. Flaws: Opportunistic, Devious.

That'll do it! Thank goodness I never had to run this, my players would have killed me.