Character Creation: Street Fighter

FOR THE NINTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FOUR,
NINE STREETS FIGHTING,
EIGHT HITLERS BLEEDING,
SEVEN FAIRIES TRAILING,
SIX GOBLINS GOBBLIN',
UGGGH, FINE, GAME OF THRONES!
FOUR NESTING BIRDS,
THREE VELVET GENS,
TWO SONGBIRDS,
AND BARD THE RPG!

The Game: Street Fighter: The Storytelling Game
The Publisher: White Wolf Game Studio
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I don't think I ever ran this, but I know I played it when it came out and the underlying system is basically 1st Ed Storyteller
Books Required: Just the one

Licensed RPGs are so weird. Who gets to do what game seems mostly down to who asks. Why did we need a Dallas RPG? Was Guardians of Order the best choice for Ghost Dog? (Was anyone?) And why did a company that produced games with notoriously crap mechanics get the license for a fighting game? 

But here we are: White Wolf's Street Fighter game. And like...it's not terrible. Oh, sure, I liked it a lot more in 1994 when I was really enamored of the underlying mechanics and I was playing with people who really went hard into the aesthetic and story of a game rather than sweating said mechanics, and we could play for eight hours at a time (which made "tournaments" easier), but I can't deny that I had fun with this game 30 goddamn years ago. Was it? Yeah, it's 2024 - 1994 = 30. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck me. 

Well, anyway, we're gonna make us a fighter. I actually have a concept and a theme song, because Michelle and I were in the car the other day listening to a mix she made me (that's love, folks) and this song came up:

That's "Cool Water" as performed by Sons of the Pioneers. I like this song; I first heard it in The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and I remarked to Michelle that there was something vaguely sinister about the song. She said yeah, because they're gonna die, they're out here seeing mirages and wasting away from dehydration. She said she'd like to see me use it to make a character, I thought about what I had coming up in the 12 Days of Xmas, and here we are.

So: My character is Vernon "Bud" McCarthy. Bud was a cowboy - no, really! They still exist! He worked a ranch in Colorado, and he was pretty handy with a rope and with his fists but not what you'd call a "fighter." 

Well, beef has gotten awful dear of late due to some outbreaks of cattle-borne diseases, and those no-good sidewinders in Shadowloo decided to get into the rustling business. Hey, it's not as glamorous or exciting as the crime they usually do, but money's money. Trouble is, nobody bothered to tell ol' Bud that the plan was to just roll over and let them take the cattle, and he fought back. He flattened a few low-grade Shadowloo goons, but then the lieutenant that they sent along stepped up. 

That gal...whew. Bud thinks maybe she had black hair and maybe she was wearing red and black but damn if she didn't move like a mongoose on Cookie's morning coffee! She whupped Bud pretty good and if that weren't enough, tossed him off a cliff! Bud fell into the river below, washed downstream, and wound up at the campsite of a feller name Soap. (No, really, that was his name. John Soap. And damn if the guy didn't make a bunch of dad jokes about it.)

Soap, in addition to being one of them bearded "hipster" types that sometimes came to the ranch to protest or try to play at being cowboys, was a master of Kickboxing. He listened to Bud's story, set his broken arm, and taught him to fight with his legs whilst his arm was healing up. Bud traveled with Soap and learned all he could, and then he set back out into the world, thirsty...for revenge!

There ya go, there's concept and style. Next up, Attributes!

They give us the usual OWoD split (7/5/3), but what I don't understand is why. Obviously Physical is going to be priority in a Street Fighter game, so why arrange points this way? Whatever, Physical/Social/Mental. 

Well, three points each into Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina and then the last one into Strength, I think (Dex would be the better choice mechanically, but I see Bud as stronger than he is fast, though I might change that with freebies later). Five points into Social, so I'll one each to Charisma, Manipulation, and (ugh) Appearance, and then the other two into Charisma. Bud ain't much for words, but he's a likeable enough guy. And then one across the board in Perception, Intelligence, and Wits.

Moving along to Abilities! This is a truncated list, which makes sense, once you strip out the combat abilities...oh, hang on, what's "Blind Fighting" doing there? Anyway, 9/7/4. And they're not listed on this sheet, what on earth? 

Well, Knowledges is clearly going to be tertiary. I'll put one in Medicine and three into Mysteries - Bud knows a lot of old stories and lore, but he's very new to the world of street fighting and he never really did much schooling. It's a toss-up between Talents and Skills, but I think Skills should be primary, so I'll put seven into Talents and nine into Skills.

Over under Talents, I want two Alertness, three Insight (Bud's good at sizing people up), two in Intimidation, one in Streetwise, and one in Subterfuge. And then in Skills, we'll take two each in Blind Fighting, Security, and Stealth, and three in Survival. 

Now we get into the fun stuff! Five dots in Backgrounds, first up. As much fun as it'd be to take a horse named "Dan" as an Animal Companion, it doesn't fit with the backstory. So instead, let's take Contacts (Joey Frinner, a rodeo organizer who's a shady character but he can get things done) at one dot, three dots in Sensei (Soap is still out there wandering the southwest, or maybe he's gone home to Seattle, but either way he's available when Bud needs him), and...hell, I dunno. Let's take Backing and say that Joey pays some of the bills, but expects Bud to come do demonstrations and suchlike at the rodeo sometimes.

Now I get 8 Technique points. I need to be careful about these, because they fulfill prerequisites for Maneuvers, though that may just mean I shuffle some things around. I also only can spend three points into any one Technique without spending freebies. 

Well, obviously I want three into Kick, since I'm a kickboxer. I want three into Punch because Bud's always been good with the ol' knuckledusters, and I'll put the last two into Block. I suspect I'm gonna need to spend some freebies here because I want at least some Athletics.

And now I get 7 dots in Maneuvers. Let's start with the basics.

Well, figure that Bud has learned from his mistakes, so I'll take Kick Defense and Punch Defense. I'd like to take Deflecting Punch, but my Block is too low, so I'll skip it for now. In any case that's only 1 point each. I'll dump a point into Spinning Back Fist, and I'll put two into Triple Strike. That leaves me two points and I feel like I ought to take at least one kick Maneuver. I'll take Wounded Knee, which allows me to kick an opponent in the knee and fuck up their Move and Speed. Bud's got plans for that mysterious Shadowloo lady next time they meet!

Western Kickboxing gives me 2 Chi and 5 Willpower. I get three dots between Honor and Glory, and I think I'll take two of the former and one of the latter (Bud's not well-known at all yet). And then I get 15 freebies! Woo! 

Oof, Techniques are pricey. I can't buy Maneuvers with them, either. That's a bummer. Well, let's bump Dexterity up to 4 (5 points), buy a dot of Athletics (5 more, 10 total), bump Survival up to 4 (12 spent), and spend the last 3 on two Chi and one Willpower.

And that's it, kids. Bud dresses like a cowboy - jeans, chaps, flannel shirt, cowboy hat, bandana around the neck, even wears a lasso sometimes (more for the rodeo than anything). He's got brown hair and flinty grey eyes, but a warm smile. When he wins a fight, his signature is to play a lick on his harmonica and tip his hat.

Yee-haw!