Character Creation: Tetrarch

Can't all be A material, as my friend Dr. Karafa used to say.

The Game: Tetrarch
The Publisher: Inglorious Rabble Games
Degree of Familiarity: None. Even less now I've read the book.
Books Required: Mercifully, just the one

I'm trying to alternate games I have in hard copy with games I have in PDF so I wind up doing more of the PDF games, since I have so many more of them (consequence of bundles, y'see). As such, the other day I asked Michelle for a letter. She gave me "T", so I looked at some of the stuff I had on PDF in that letter: Tribe: Humanity's Last Hope, Toonpunk, TROIKA!, and then I saw Tetrarch, which indicated that it uses a Tarot deck rather that dice. Well, cool, I thought. I love Tarot-based games, let's give this one a look. I have since come to regret that decision.

Red Flag #1: The book is 364 pages. Now, I'm not saying that a good RPG can't be quite long - Red Markets is huge, and that's a really tight game with no wasted space, f'rex. But a Tarot-based game being that long, I dunno, just kinda worried me. 

Red Flag #2: The editing is shit, and that's evident right off the bat with the "Forward" of the book (it should be "Foreword", and yes I've made that mistake, too, and yes, I was rightly called on it). Sentence fragments, passive voice, and just plain gibberish follow. And then we get to...

Red Flag #3:

See what I mean about the editing? Also, this game was published in 2020. Anyone making a game in 2020 should know that not only are their multiple games that use cards rather than dice, there are multiple ways to "roll dice" without actually rolling dice. I can't really think of a "slew" of challenges that come with using dice, anyway. 

And finally, this game doesn't use a Tarot deck. It uses a custom deck, and each player requires "a set of fate decks." Fortunately, you can use a standard playing card deck rather than their goofy-ass pseudo-Tarot. 

Anyway, let's get this over with. 

The first chapter is called "Character Creation," but it begins, with no explanation or preamble, with an example of play that explains exactly none of the terminology and is just as badly edited as the rest of the book. Congrats, Tetrarch, you actually made the example of play, typically one of my favorite parts of an RPG, useless and impossible to read.

OK, skipping that, we get a discussion of what the titular "tetrarch" means, and what aspects are (the four elements, kinda; plasma, aether, cosmos, entropy). Each of the aspects is written up like a splat might be in a WoD game, inasmuch as it explains how each of them relate to "Warriors of Ra" and "Magi" and so on, but since we have no idea what any of that means, it's hard to follow. Moving on.

Now we get an explanation of their original Tarot deck from a divination or symbolic perspective. This is not helpful for character creation, at least not yet.

And then "Casting: The Core Mechanic" followed by several sub-headings that have nothing at all to do with the core mechanic, but instead extol the virtues of RPGs in general and explain (badly) why they have rules at all. 

OK, it looks like the core mechanic involves drawing a number of cards equal to the sum of some traits, separating them by aspect, adding the numbers up, and comparing that number to something, but I would not bet my life on that. Still nothing about chargen.

Here's the conversion chart between their "Tarot" and a standard deck of cards. I think it's adorable they think anyone playing this would buy multiple copies of their weird-ass deck rather than just use standard cards.

Ooh, we've started talking about the character sheet and the Talents (core attributes, seems like). Perilously close to something useful for chargen. 

HOLY SHIT SOME CHARGEN INSTRUCTIONS. I'm to check with my Weaver (the GM) as to which of three methods we'll be using to choose traits. Fucking hell, is one of them random? Yes indeed, thank goodness. I draw cards and compare them to a table to get my scores. I can either assign as I go or draw and then assign the scores as I wish. I'll do the latter, I suppose. My draws: AH, QH, 4H, 8S, 7S. Shit hand in poker. 

OK, let's figure this out. Hearts means Plasma, Spades means Entropy. According to the table, Plasma is 1 and Entropy is 4. Well, that's some shit. Whatever. I'll put 1s in Agility, Acuity, and Focus and 4s in Vigor and Mettle. Haven't made a bruiser in a while. 

Now what? Aspect. I pick Entropy. That boosts my Mettle by one, making it 5. Fine. What's next?

Well, what's next seems to be race or species, but there's no header and no instructions. Back before aspect there's a little paragraph saying that if I wish to, I can draw randomly for aspect, species, class, and origin. These terms are not defined, nor am I told that I can choose one, but the inference is that I can. Fine. For species, I'll take Anubi, they've got sharp teeth and are built for the hunt. Fun fact: "Species" isn't on the front character sheet. It's on the extended one, but...why?

All right, so class, I guess? Except it's called "profession" now? (Jesus.) Standard of War, for the Warriors of Ra. (Why Egyptian suddenly? WHY NOT). They're hunters and warriors, why break precedent now. 

Now, the next thing should be origin, right? WRONG. It's "core stats," which are derived traits. Are the writers ESL, perhaps? Anyway, Ankh is 1, Body is 12 (all talents added together), Initiative is 3, Movement is...Agility + Base Movement. What the fuck is "Base Movement?" No idea. Probably species-dependent, but it's not mentioned in this chapter. Defensive Threshold is 10 (Vigor + Agility + Mettle), Spirit is 12 (again, all talents summed). 

OK, now origin. Well, let's look ahead to the next chapter and see if the species write-ups give me more data. They sure do! I get +1 Vigor for being Anubi, my Base Movement is 6 (so my Movement is 7), and my Size and Damage are assigned here, too, but I don't care. 

Anubi live in the city of Anu, and arrange themselves into extended families (Packs). The Dijar Pack is the biggest and nastiest, so I figure my guy is part of that pack. He gets +1FS on a Martial skill, whatever the hell that means. 

Oh, and then the Profession chapter also tells me a few things, such as my Skill allotment. It is fantastic to me that this game was put up for sale on DriveThru and apparently no one ever proofread it for flow, clarity, or like, the difference between "where" and "were." 

Right, moving on. Still need an Origin. OMG. I can roll for an origin. Did you get that? In this game that doesn't want to use dice because they might roll off the table, we've got a percentile chart to pick origin. I can't even. I'll say Military origin. I start with a weapon of my choice. 

Languages, I get my national language (Anapa) and one other, I'll choose Thebian because it's the "official" one.

Fuck me, it's an alignment system! I can choose one of four or make my own. I'ma make my own. My guy's morality is "Soldier." That is, when you're following orders, that's the highest good, and going against them is immoral. When not acting in official capacity, you work to protect your people (where "your people" might be a wider or narrower group depending on the situation). That's already more nuance that this deserves. 

Personality traits and gods don't appear on this character sheet (again, they're on page two, which I'm not going to print), so let's say my guy is a loyal soldier because he's not really bright enough to be much else. He worships Ra, obviously. 

Skills, and then pleasegodsaywe'redone. OK, I think I get these skills at Novice rank, though it does not say so. Whatever. I get 1 Knowledge Skill (of course they're not in alphabetical order), so I'll take Craft (General). 1 Physical Skill (that's dumb, I'm a warrior), I'll take Strength Training (it says that the prereq is +1FS common Vigor, but I have no idea what the hell that means). 1 Mental Skill, I'll take Intimidation, obvs. And then Martial! Woo! 4 of these puppies. I'll take Blunt, Great, Edge, and 6 Sticks (which is an anubi-specific martial art). Incidentally, there are guns and computers here, too. I got the impression this was a sword-and-sandal game, but now I remember it's modern sword and sandal. Whatever. My guy's a close-up fighter. 

Oh, wait, fuck, I have one more skill, which I guess I could take from anywhere. I'll take Assault Rifle, why not.

And I think that's it! Or if it's not, I'm done anyway! My Anubi is called Silak. He's big for an Anubi (close to 9 feet tall), and wider than they usually are. He grew up as "the big guy" in his litter, and everyone assumed that made him a brute, but also the one that would protect his littermates and fight for the Pack. Now he's a soldier for said Pack, and if this were a better game, his arc would probably involve being ordered to do some awful shit and coming to terms with what that all means, but in this game, he's basically King Shark in the trailer for The Suicide Squad pointing at his hand and going "HAND."

Fucking done.