Character Creation: Ecopunk 2044

At last, a -punk game with some actual punk in it.

The Game: Ecopunk 2044
The Publisher: Dice Kapital
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

So, at the heart of it, it's a post-apocalyptic mission-based game in which the characters ("Punks") are fighting against some enemy or other - your crew might be mercs, ecoterrorists, or just "meddling kids". Honestly, though, the game it reminds me of most is Red Markets, both for the relentless political/economical focus reflected in both setting and system, and for the lavish detail and thoroughness of the lore and setting of the game (that still somehow manages to be accessible). 

The system is impressive because it manages to not be cobbled together from like three other systems that I can identify; sure it uses dice pools (kind of), but it treats the dice pool as a finite resource that renews every scene. Plus, it considers the "temperature" of a scene, which is mostly a way to measure time and focus - in a "cold" scene, things happen over days or weeks, in a "warm" scene, they might happen over hours. I really wish we'd thought of that for Chill, because it's a really good tool for an investigative game. Maybe in the next edition we'll OH THAT'S RIGHT. 

(It's the anniversary of my cancellation, so I'm a little on edge. Plus I have COVID. Don't mind me.)

Right, anyway, let's make a Punk. Grr, PDF isn't bookmarked, that's annoying.

Create a character concept. Hmm. I did have the glimmer of an idea whilst I was reading the book. Food and its production are very important to the setting; there's a multi-page section talking about what people do now that they basically can't get meat protein anymore (short answer: they eat bugs, some of them farm dogs/cats/rats, or they whine about it a lot). But there are farms, it's just that they're focused on growing the most productive crops to feed the most people, which involves changing what you grow based on what's in season. Anyway, mostly the farm work is done by robots, but there are people who act as security and militia. 

So I think my character used to work security for a farm, which would imply a military background (WWIII just ended in 2038, so assuming my character was 20 when the war started, that would put him born in 2011, making him three years younger than my son Cael, and now I'm sad). Anywho, that would make him 33 now, just a young'un. 

That's as much of a concept as I really need to get going, so let's continue on to Drivers! Drivers are...I don't know, personality facets? But not all of them, actually. I guess "things that drive the character" makes the most sense as a definition. Anyway, I can roll them randomly, but I don't know that I want to roll all three of them, so let's roll the first one and see where that takes us.

Well, the first one I roll is Doomed (a "noir" Driver), and basically it means that we're pretty fatalistic. I can get behind that, I think. 

Let's roll another one (though it can't be another noir): Delicate. Interesting combo with Doomed, does it work? I think it does, it just means that he's precise and maybe doesn't like getting his hands dirty (anymore). Last one: Intense. Yeah, that'll work. As a side note, when you take damage in this game (which is a whole other system that I think is really well thought through) you can wind up swapping Drivers, and I think Delicate would be the first to go. 

Languages! Let's assume I have a cyberbrain, and take English as one of my language (long story short, if you speak English, Mandarin, or Arabic and you have a cyberbrain you can converse with anyone who also speaks one of those languages through a global AI kind of thing). So where is my guy from? If he's American, he probably wasn't in WWIII much because the Americans withdrew their military early in the war because there was this civil war happening in the good ol' USA, so let's assume he's from another English-speaking country. Well, Africa (and Nigeria in particular) emerged as a major player during and after the war, so let's say he's Nigerian and speaks Yoruba in addition to English. 

Skills & Talent! I get 9 Skill levels, which I buy one-for-one, and then a Talent based on one skill (based an area of specialization). Hmm. I feel like making this guy a jack-of-all-trades, so let's put one point into Athletics, Ecology, Engineer, Industry, Politics, Science, and Warfare, and then put an extra point into Athletics and Industry. For the Talent, hmm. Let's put it in Ecology and say it's in Farming; he paid attention to what the robots and botanists were doing.

And now we choose Body. Basically the question is "am I cybered or not." If I am, it costs me some of my expcoin in the next stage. I think I'll just stick with Precariat, which means I increase one Aspect (basic stats) by one and lower another by one. Let's raise Clarity and lower Speed. I'm also meant to define a community I'm part of. Let's say that my guy lives in "Black Dust," a portion of the City that's prone to getting dust from a faulty filtration system belched up on it. You get used to it, and there's a knocking sound before the dust comes, so you just cover your drink. 

Finally, spend 16 expcoin (in-setting it's a cryptocurrency kind of thing, but for my purposes it's freebie points). There's a bunch of options, though, so I need to look through these. Oh, and I want a cyberbrain. But first, I get a minor tool (mostly flavor - I'll take a nail file because my guy hates when his nails get ragged) and a skill tool based on my highest Skill (a pair of good trainers, probably obtained during the War and meticulously kept up). 

Oh, and then I get two random knickknacks (misspelled as "nicknacks" - what, did the "k"s cost extra?). I get a fresh-air canister (Perri-air, if you will) and some multivitamins. 

OK, now let's buy some stuff. A cyberbrain costs 1, so that's easy. I'll blow 2 on a Pain Inhibitor so I can just ignore a Crisis brought on by physical damage (at least temporarily). I think I'll take Internal Clock - I dunno, seems to vibe with his precise nature. 

I definitely want a couple of Combat Traits to reflect my time in the War, so let's take Breacher (2), Duck for Cover (2), Gunslinger I (4), and...3 more, hang on. I'll burn the last three on a machine gun and a flashbang. 

All I need now is a name, I think. Let's say his name is Olufemi Durotoye (goes by "Femi"). Femi is, as mentioned, 33, dark skin, brown eyes, has some scars from his days in the war but his hands are pristine. I think he keeps the real doom n' gloom stuff under wraps, but it's never really far from the surface and if you're on a job with him you can kinda tell he doesn't really intend to come back from ("it's always a nice surprise when I do live, then," he'd say).