Character Creation: SPLINTER

Sometimes it's "really excited about this game," sometimes it's "ugh, well, at least it'll get the green dot off the book." Guess which today is!

The Game: SPLINTER
The Publisher: End Transmission Games, now defunct
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Mercifully, just the one

Reading this book, the phrase "dog's breakfast" leapt to mind, and I had to google it to find out if I was correctly interpreting the meaning of the phrase. Turns out the dictionary defines it as "a confused mess or mixture," so I was spot-on. 

Actually, as long as we're talking slang phrases, here's another one that's relevant: "Kill your darlings." This is advice often given to creative types (or at least to writers; I don't know if it's given to other creatives but I'm sure the principle applies), and it basically means "don't get so hung up on the one particular thing you're excited about that you keep it in even if it doesn't make sense anymore." And man, I've had to kill my share of darlings in my life, and it often hurts. But I've also stubbornly clung to darlings and they've gone into print, with the result that the end product is much weaker than it would have been otherwise.

SPLINTER (I have no idea why it's in all caps; the spine of the book has periods between the letters but as far as I can tell it's not an acronym) is dog's breakfast of darlings that should have been killed. The up-front, visible pitch of the game is that you're controlling a Player who is, in turn, controlling an Avatar in the Game (unnecessary capitalization Abounds). Said Game is a huge virtual reality kind of thing, except that if you die in Canada the Game you die for real, and the Game is used as a combination prison system/debtor's jail/entertainment of the bread and circus variety in this corporation-controlled, dystopian future. And if that was actually the game, that would have been fine. That's a perfectly cromulent game premise. There's a lot of meat there. Meat, however, is just one part of the dog's breakfast. 

See, the "game" isn't a game, it's actually a pocket dimension and the other beings in the game (the NPCs) are sentient beings, so you don't so much "jack in" as "portal in." There's magic (sorry, "magick"), there's a bunch of races to choose from for your Avatar, there's a different dice system depending on whether you're in or out of the Game. All of the races have three forms to shift between that given them different capabilities. SPLINTER wants to be Dark City, in some ways (using magick in some contexts is even called "Tuning"), but Edge of Midnight did this so much better, probably because it stayed focused. 

Anyway, this is an out of print game from an out of business company, so who cares, really. It was just a little tedious to read. Let's make a Player. (Oh, and the game is just way too pleased with itself for having you, the player, make a Player, not a character.)

First thing to do is choose whether I'm a Professional (genetically engineered and raised to be a Player) or an Amateur (someone who, through political dissidence, bad luck, or being a criminal, has wound up in the Game). I think I'd rather be an Amateur, because the people from District One are assholes, generally.

Fucking hell. The sheet has "player name," "avatar name," and just... "name." Anyone who has ever played an RPG is going to write their name under "player name." And, just as a little extra wankery, the game tells the reader that if this is your first RPG, go play another one first. I suspect that's meant to imply that this is some kinda next-level game, but next-level games do interesting things with narrative control or game mechanics, and this kinda doesn't. 

Anyway. As an Amateur, I get 14 points to split between the four Player Attributes, min 1, max 6. Strength, Speed, Wits, Will. Hmm. There's a bit in the book that mentions that people will sometimes deliberately get arrested for petty crime so that they can get into the Game and, perchance, escape their crummy life. That leads to them dying, because the Game is rigged, but people do it anyway (and see, that is a compelling aspect of the game). So I'll say my guy was down on his luck, wanted to see the bright lights of the city or whatever, and had a bunch of dubious theories about how the deaths in the Game aren't real and they can just shuffle you into a new Avatar, but he didn't have the upbringing or connections to be a Pro, so he started sticking up liquor stores until he got busted, and now here he is! 

So obviously Wits isn't his strong point, so let's put that at 1. Will can be a little higher (it's a ballsy plan, it's just stupid), so let's say 5. Seven points left, so 3 in Strength and 4 in Speed, how 'bout. 

Fill in the bonuses, based on the chart, sure 'nuff. Derived Attributes! Health is Strength x 6, or 18 in my case. Defense is the average of Speed and (uh-oh) Wits. Fortunately we round up, so it's 3. Initiative is equal to Speed + 1d6. 

Skills! Reportedly I get more Skills for being an Amateur, the idea being that they've had more exposure to life and aren't quite so specialized. And...lol. I get Wits x 5 points for Skills. This'll be quick. 

Skills...ugh. I really wish I had the PDF of this game so I could screenshot this paragraph. "Music isn't a skill. Guitar is." It goes on like that for a full paragraph. All right, fine, so Skills are specialized. I feel like my guy knows how to use a gun on a very limited basis, so I'll take "Pistol-sized Weapons" (oh, that's the other thing, there's no list of Skills that you have to adhere to except for combat skills, which you do have to choose off the list for some reason, but they're in a paragraph with a bunch of other examples). I'll take it at Trained, which only costs one of my precious 5 points. What else?

"Driving (land vehicle)." OK, so I can drive a car and a tractor? Fuck me. How about just "Driving (car)." I feel like some kind of "knows the mean streets" Skill would be appropriate here. "Streetwise" is probably too general, but you know what? I don't care. Actually, no, I'll take Unarmed Combat, Stealth, and Intimidate and call it a day.

As an Amateur, I start with nothing but a prison jumpsuit, so that's cool, I don't have to shop. Hey, that's all Walton Goggins had in Predators and he lasted most of the way through the movie. 

My guy's name is Ramon Vidal. He's in his 20s, lean and fit, sleeve tats of varying quality, all know-it-all swagger. Moving on to Avatar!

So, first thing is to choose a bloodline. Hmm. My favorite are the Vryx (goat-demon people), so I'll go with that. Next step is to choose a sect, I'm told that Avatars don't really know about sects when they first port into the game, so I'll skip that. 

Avatar stats! These are rolled, 2d6 each. Just a moment. 7, 5, 4, 11, 10, 7. 

Oh, and, I have negative modifiers to a couple of stats from my bloodline, meaning I have to put something high enough in those categories that I don't go negative. Fucking hell. OK, I take a -3 Vitality in my "Beast" form (a scuttly goat-demon). I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

Stats are: Vitality, Might, Celerity (there's a word I haven't seen in a while), Omniscience, Brilliance, and Conviction. As a Vryx, I get bonuses to Celerity and Omniscience, but penalties to Conviction and Vitality. 

OK, well, how about I put 10 into Vitality, keeping me at a respectable 7 even in Beast form. I'll put my 4 into Omniscience (keeping with my "Ramon is not terribly bright") motif, meaning he's got a 5 across the board. Will is his best stat as a human, so I'll put my 11 into Conviction, leaving me 10 in all forms. Brilliance gets a 5, and that leaves the 7s in Might and Celerity. Fill in the bonuses...well, it's number of dice, here, but whatever. 

Derived traits! Life Point is (Vitality x Strength), or 27/24/21. Evasion Factor is Celerity/3, or 2. That's too low (I say that because there's a whole sidebar devoted to explaining why EF is so important, and I'd say it's bad game design to have a stat that can be determined randomly be so critical in play, but the funny thing is that based on the sidebar, they knew that!). 

Avatar Reaction is the number of dice you'd roll for Omniscience (5, for Ramon) plus Speed. 

Starting Harmonics. These are magic(k) things, and I get 3 levels (Wits + Brilliance/2, rounded down). I have to look at the chapter on these, so I'll finish the other derived stuff first. 

Gnosis (hey, another White Wolf term I haven't seen in a while!) is equal to Will, so 5. I have Tuning Points equal to (Gnosis x Conviction), so that's cool, I can Tune like a motherfucker. Bonus damage is half Might, rounded down, so 2 in all forms. 

Fuck me, more Skills. OK. Oh, man, the formula for getting starting Avatar Skill points (inexplicably called "talent points") is bananas. (Brilliance (in man-shape) x 2) + Wits + (50 - the sum of all six man-shape Avatar Attributes). Oh, look, a feeble attempt at balance. 

Anyway, for me that's 10 + 1 + (50 - 43), or 18. Here, there's a set list. (Actually, this kinda makes sense if we're becoming part of a big game program - you can only do stuff that the game is programmed for. Unless of course it's a pocket dimension in which case wtf.) Avatar skills have direct scores, rather than buying levels of training, because consistency? LOL. THIS IS A DOG'S BREAKFAST. 

Moving on. Let's Skill thusly:

Athletics 5
Deceit 1
Intimidate 2
Melee Combat 3
Ranged Combat 2
Stealth 2
Unarmed Combat 3

And lo! I have found Harmonics! I have three levels to spend. I can take levels in Camouflage, Lock-Lash, Hoarder's Luck, and Cut-Throat. 

Well, I'll take the first level in Camouflage; lets me put my back to a wall and blend in. Seems useful. And then I'll take the first level in Lock-Lash (I can pick locks with my nasty-ass tongue) and Hoarder's Luck (I have a better chance of finding treasure). Oh, and hey, I get a +1 to Evasion Factor in two of my forms! Not the right place to put that info!

I guess my Avatar needs a name, though there's no step in chargen telling me to come up with one (I only say that because there's a lot of attention paid to how much you remember going from Avatar to Player and back, which in a more focused game would call identity into question). I'll say his Avatar is called Buer, after one of the demons of The Lesser Key of Solomon. (I picked him because he has goat legs.) 

That'll do it! Off, off, green dot!