A game about horses?
The Game: Terra Incognita: The Nags Society
The Publisher: Grey Ghost Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
No horses. No, characters in this game are member of the NAGS Society (National Archaeological, Geographic, and Submarine Society). If that name sounds boring, that's deliberate. Characters here are kind of Men-in-Black-ish, inasmuch as they're doing important work that no one will ever know about, and that they get basically erased from society before they join.
I actually quite like the premise; it combines pulp and exploration adventure stories with the secret society vibe. The writing is...less good, just in a "way too many adverbs and also 'comprise' and 'compose' aren't synonyms, guys" kind of way. It works on the Fudge system, so I rather suspect that if I were ever to run this game I'd just upgrade it to Fate and call it a day.
But lo! Let us make a character! The book tells us that we can make characters "subjective," "objective", or "Five Point Fudge." Since that last is what the book recommends, I shall do that.
Step One invites me to consult with my game master, but as this is an endless project that I continue doing in order to give some small vent to my creative impulses and to keep me learning new game systems because that's a well-worn dopamine pathway in my brain, I have no game master, so I skip this step.
Well, not entirely, since the GM would normally let me know what our starting game year is, and that's useful information. As such, let's assume my hypothetical GM is going to use the sample adventure, which is set in the mid-1920s. I dig it.
Step Two asks me to create a background story for my Nag. Side note: "Nag" has to be one of the least appealing terms for a PC I've ever seen in a game. It's just not a pleasant word. NAG NAG NAG. Anyway.
Prohibition was of course in full swing during this time, and I think it'd be interesting to tie that in to my character's background in some way. So let's say that my character, Clyde Barton, was a pretty zealous teetotaler until the Volstead Act actually past. It didn't take long for crime to surge, and Clyde came to the realization that all smart people did - Prohibition was a terrible idea and made things much, much worse than legal booze ever did.
So Clyde, living in his home town of Omaha, Nebraska (Omaha had some pretty awful shit going on during the first part of the 20th century, including its very own crime boss, Tom Dennison), in 1923, Clyde, a store clerk and amateur historian, discovered...something related to Terra Incognita. I'll figure out the particulars later. Anyway, he wound up getting approached by the Society, and feeling largely disillusioned with the life he'd built, he joined up and faked his own death.
Moving on! Step Three asks me to choose an Area of Specialty. I think Clyde is pretty obviously a Bookworm. I can, if I'd like, use the Bookworm Template to build character numbery stuff. Eh, it's not actually all that helpful.
Step Four has me spend points to buy Skills and...lord, this is bananas. OK, I get 5 points, but it's not like "points" means anything useful here. Points get spent into skill groups, which then give you ranks in Skills within that group. So if I put one point into a Skill group and I take a Broad Focus, I get 3 Skills at Fair and 1 at Mediocre. FUCK ME. Is there an example of chargen? There is. Oh, good.
OK, I see. The Skills aren't broad/narrow, you can focus broadly or narrowly within a Skill group, which gives you more or fewer Skills are different ranks. So one point into a group focused narrowly would give you 1 at Good and 1 at Mediocre. There has got to be an easier way to do this.
Anyway, let's give Clyde some Skillz.
First, we'll put a point into General Skills, which lets me grab a few different ones from different groups. I like this, actually - it lets me, say, take Firearm (Pistol), Drive (Automobile), and Running at Fair and say that he was in the Army during WWI.
I'll put two points into Knowledge Skills and focus narrowly, giving me one Skill at Great, one at Good, and one at Fair. I'll put my Great into History (American), my Good into Area Knowledge (USA - my GM would tell me whether that's too broad, which it might well be; if I had to narrow it I'd probably say Midwest), and my Fair into Research.
Two more points. If I'm a clerk, I ought to put one into Social Skills. I'll focus it Broad, I guess, so I get 3 Fair and 1 Mediocre. I'll take Etiquette, Persuade, and Oratory at Fair and Flirt at Mediocre.
And finally, I'll put that last point into Outré Skills, narrowly, and take Cryptohistory at Good and Toxicology at Mediocre. That gives me:
Firearm (Pistol) - Fair
Driving (automobile) - Fair
Running - Fair
History (American) - Great
Area Knowledge (USA) - Good
Research - Fair
Etiquette - Fair
Persuade - Fair
Oratory - Fair
Flort - Mediocre
Cryptohistory - Good
Toxicology - Mediocre
Right, now Attributes. There are six, they all start at Fair, and I can bump two by one level or one by two levels. I believe I shall bump Reasoning and Perception to Good.
And then I get two Gifts and two Faults. Lesse now. They're all kinda boring. I'll take Common Sense and Acute Memory. For Faults, I'll take Combat Paralysis (he might or might not have seen combat during the Great War, but in either case it's not something he's got the temperament for) and...y'know, I'll take Reputation and say that he was kind of a local face of the teetotaler movement before 1920, and there are still people in some places that might know that.
The last step is trading traits, but I'm not actually interested in doing that, I think Clyde is pretty decent as-is. So!
Clyde Barton is now 35. He's average height and build, brown hair (what's left of it; it started thinning a couple of years ago) and favors grey suits; grey brings out his eyes. He's still a strict teetotaler, but he's gotten much less preachy about other people drinking, though he might click his tongue if his comrades start drinking to excess.
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