Character Creation: Must Be Tuesday

But it's Monday! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHchaos

The Game: World's in Trouble? Must Be Tuesday
The Publisher: Newstand Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one, and "book" is generous (it's only about 30 pages)

I've only ever watched most of the first season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, so the fact that this game title is a BtVS reference flew straight over my head. The influences are obvious reading the book, though. The game isn't really about hunting monsters, though, because all of the PCs are monsters in some way, and the "health" is a slider that goes from "mundane" to "supernatural". If you fail a roll, you slide towards the end that's conceptually opposite what you were doing, whereas if you succeed, you move one space in either direction (your choice). Mechanically it's a pretty simple "roll a bunch of d6s and look for 4s" kind of thing.

So I really don't have a lot of criticism here. It looks like it would do pretty much what it wants to do. It covers some of the same ground as games like Buffy and Bubblegumshoe (and also We Used to be Friends, as I think about it), but the game that's probably closest conceptually is Monsterhearts (although Must be Tuesday is much less horny). The writing is fun but flows nicely and it's clean, so like, well done everyone involved. Let's make a character!

No screenshots today 'cause I don't have a PDF (where'd I buy this? GenCon?). Chargen, though, is mostly just filling in the blanks on the character sheet, and the most important one conceptually is probably "monster" (as in "what type of monster are you"). There are 20 choices so GUESS WHAT I'M GONNA ROLL (but I'll reroll if I get something I don't like). The roll is 19, which gives me...Immortal, a la Highlander. Sure, why not?

The game also lists questions for each of the monster types, allowing you to consider the mythology in play here. The questions for Immortal include the obvious ("why are you still coming to high school?", "how old are you really?"). 

So let's say that my character's name is Augusto Sandoval, though nowadays he goes by "August Sand." Augusto was born in 1920 in northern Spain, so he was a teenager right as the Spanish Civil War started up. (I wanted him to be old enough to have seen some history but not like multiple hundreds of years old.) Augusto "died" in the bombing of Guernica in 1937, so he's basically stuck at 17. He has a sword made in Toledo (Spain, not Ohio), and he was trained by an older immortal name MacDougal who spoke with a thick Spanish accent (see what I did there). 

Anyway, MacDougal didn't survive WWII, but Augusto did, and hitched a ride to Mexico and then to Wherever This Game Is Set. He enrolled in high school because, well, he'd never been. He had a little grammar school when he was small, and he's learned to read OK (better in Spanish) over the years, but he's never had formal education and he figures it's probably about time. Also, while he's technically over 100, he feels like a teenager, and he wonders if that's ever supposed to stop? 

There, good background, I think (Augusto has trouble watching Del Toro movies, clearly). As an Immortal, my Instinct is "Duel," my Weakness is "Holy Ground," and I have Blade Master, One-on-One, and Hard to Kill as Skills. Oh, wait, no, those are Traits, I just wrote them in the wrong column. Dammit.

My Desire is my overriding motivation and goal. For Augusto, I think it's "To Grow Up." Trouble is whatever social or societal or physical maladjustment that makes life difficult. I think Augusto is "Way Behind the Times." 

I get three Skills. I think Augusto should have History, of course. He's had a hard life, so he's used to Scrounging. And then I can take personality traits here, so let's say he Stands Up for Others (I mean, easy for him to say, he can't die). 

I get one Iconic Item, which is pretty obviously his sword. I start with 1 in either Mundane or Supernatural; I'll go with Mundane.

Augusto has light brown skin, black hair, deep brown eyes, and habitually wears a long coat that mysteriously hides a fucking sword. He's ready to see what sort of shwordshman you've become, pen-day-ho.