Character Creation: Fearful Ends

I do love a good horror game. Not sure this qualifies. 

The Game: Fearful Ends
The Publisher: Watch Factory Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

The elevator pitch for Fearful Ends hooked me - it's a horror game that assumes that by the end of the game, all the protagonists are dead or mad. There are, of course, any number of horror movies that follow that formula, and the game mentions a few in its inspirational films section, but then it also mentions a few that I found interesting, though not quite a tonal fit (like 12 Monkeys, which qualifies inasmuch as Bruce Willis' character dies but it's hardly an ensemble cast, or The Prestige, which is not a horror movie). That's fine, you find inspiration where you find it. 

But the game is only 58 pages, and it's just a brief introduction explaining the intent behind the game in very broad strokes, several chapters of mechanics, and a scenario that's really not a tonal fit at all (it's a horror scenario built around a Princess Bride reference). 

With that said, the mental stress system is interesting - it uses a deck of cards with six different...I dunno, neuroses? Foibles? Hang on.

So, at certain points during the game, you put down cards that indicate how the stress of the situation is going to affect you, and then you play other cards face down under them (which have 1s on them) that indicate that you're starting to lose it. So I could put down this Anger card, and then play cards under it that would bump my character further into the Angry-dome, I guess. Like I said, it's an interesting approach. I don't see enough difference between 4 and 5, but whatever.

The dice system reminds me a lot of Savage Worlds (roll two dice and take the better one, target number is usually 4). Damage also uses cards, but I didn't read that as carefully because I was getting sleepy and I wanted to focus on the chapter on how the game actually plays at the table, except there isn't one. 

Well, let's make a character. There's a sample scenario, as I mentioned, so I'll use that as my jumping-off point. Ignoring what's actually happening in the scenario (which of course I wouldn't know if I were playing it), the backstory is that we're a bunch of teens in 2020 who have been in lockdown for months and we're kinda going stir crazy, and our friend Billy Everyteen has invited us all out to the old abandoned mill for a party!

BILLY EVERYTEEN

(His name's not really Billy Everyteen, I just realized I hadn't made a Futurama reference in a while.)

Anyway, there's my setup, what kind of doomed teenager would I like to make?

OK, I got it. My guy's name is Carey Rush. Carey was kind of a class nerd, but not in the "constantly bullied" or "won all the spelling bees" kind of way. He was just sort of...there, and largely invisible. And then everything went online in 2020, and folks started communicating on the classroom software message boards and suchlike, and folks discovered that Carey is actually really smart and charming and funny in text. He just gets tongue-tied IRL. So of course Billy invited him to this little shindig because he just cracks Billy up, and Carey is really looking forward to seeing folks and maybe talking a little more, now that people know a bit more what to expect? This could be fun!

(Carey is 100% going to fall into the mill pond and get eaten by the shrieking eels.)

We start with Attributes. They start at a d4, I get 6 points to bump up die types. You know, like SWADE. I think Carey can go d6 across the board and the extra one into Intellect, how about. 

Skills work about the same way; I get 12 points to buy them, can't go over d12, but I don't start with a d4 in everything. What's Carey good at?

Well, there's not a "be funny" skill, or indeed even a straight-up expression skill, so I guess we'll put three dice into Perform. I'll put two into Tinker, three into Knowledge, one into Athletics, one into Stealth. Where's that leave me? Two more points! Sure, I'll put them into Influence. 

Perks! These aren't chosen from a list, they're just things my character is good at. So we'll say Carey's perks are "funny on the internet," "knows a lot of worthless trivia" (I always find that easy to play, for some reason), and "used to be on the swim team" (you know, before all athletics were suspended). 

And that's it; there's a section for gear but character creation ends right after Perks, so I assume Gear isn't that important. I think Carey has a kind of soft, Edward Norton in Death to Smoochy but a teenager vibe to him. Not so much the wide-eyed optimism, but more the "looks harmless but is actually in pretty good shape" sort of thing. Carey definitely wears glasses, and I think he finally talked his parents into letting him dye his hair blue or something. Bon appetit, eels!