Character Creation: Here, There, Be Monsters!

Rar.

The Game: Here, There, Be Monsters!
The Publisher: Wendi Yu
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I mean, you had me at the title, it's very clever. This game seems like it's cut from the same cloth as Into the Odd and Songbirds, i.e., lots of style, not so much information on how to actually play it. You're meant to be members of an organization that protects monsters and magic, but there's no name or detail provided on said organization - you make all that up. There's some details provided on your foes (government agency, neonazi occultists); still sparse, but workable. The bulk of the book is taken up with 100 different monsters you can be, and then there's like 3 pages of system.

I think there's enough here to run it without headache. Certainly it seems more intuitive than the other games I mentioned, but then, it's urban fantasy and monster-as-metaphor, and I'm fairly familiar with that as a concept. The game also does mention that capitalists probably won't have much fun, which got me thinking that I don't actually know anyone who would specifically self-apply the label "capitalist," but that is a whole other rabbit hole.

Also there are a lot of words in italics throughout this book, and I can't decide if I like that better than the old White Wolf habit of having Very Important Capitalized Terms or not. 

Ahem. Anyway, there's no sheet, which is a shame, but a character would fit on an index card. So!

Character creation is really loosey-goosey, it's basically "think of a background and add some tags," but then there's a table with 100 backgrounds, so I'm definitely gonna roll on it because there's some delightfully weird shit in there. So let's do that! 

A roll of 75 gets me...Jinni. I was trapped inside a thing, but now I'm free, there are no strings on me. I can use magic, but only when someone wishes for it, and then when I do I roll a d6 to see if the wish is fulfilled correctly (that is, letter of the wish vs. spirit of the wish). Otherwise I don't have a lot of guidance for my tags. 

Well, sure. Let's say that my jinn character is named Giv. Giv doesn't really know how long he's been around, and doesn't understand the question, really - he's a creature of the moment (when people press the issue, he usually points out that "having any real sense of time" and "being trapped in a small space for eons" are not a good combo anyway). For a long...time, he was trapped in a jar, sealed with a particular preparation of wax that incorporates an herb that doesn't exist anymore. The last time he was freed, therefore, he couldn't be sealed in. FREEDOM!

Why was he always sealed up? Well, because people make stupid, shortsighted wishes, and he fulfilled them, and things went sideways, and then people blamed Giv. He's gotten more circumspect about fulfilling wishes since being freed - he's not trapped, so he doesn't have a "master" anymore - but people still wish and he still uses magic, and sometimes shit gets fucky. He never quite manages to convince people of the truth, which is that you can have what you want handed to you but there are always consequences, they just might not be immediate or for you. Maybe only someone with his view on time can appreciate that, who knows. Let's get some coffee.

(Giv is a huge fan of coffee, and marvels that it's so readily available these days. Did someone wish for that?)

ANYWAY. Characters are composed of tags. There are three: Be, Have, and Do, and each one gets two tags assigned to it. Is Magic a separate one? Oh, no, it's one of those three, and then it grants me Magic Words. Neat. OK, then. What are Giv's tags?

Be: This is "anything that significantly defines" Giv. Let's say he's outside of time and ready to party. 

Have: Well, the most important thing Giv has is freedom. He also has enough money, always in cash (Giv can just reach into his pocket and pull out enough currency to buy whatever's important in the moment, which sounds super OP, but if you think about cash is much less relevant and useful than once it was). 

Do: Clearly my Magic tag needs to go here, so we'll call it jinn magic. Giv should also know how to blend in with humans, which would probably mean speaking whatever language is necessary (I love characters that can do that). 

And then because I have a Magic tag, I get 1d4 (hang on...2) words from the magic words table, which represent spells I can cast easily. Let's take "void" and "change". Those are broad and terrifying.

Giv is a young Persian man, man in his late 20s but the longer people know him the harder they find pinning down his age. He knows basically everything, but not until you ask, which means he doesn't volunteer information much. Despite his calm and reserved demeanor, he loves parties and drinks like a fish, but never seems to get drunk. He likes sleeping alone in the biggest bed he can find; he likes to spread out. He's been in tight spaces long enough.

That'll do it!

Giv
Be: Outside of Time, Ready to Party
Have: Freedom, Enough Money (Always in Cash)
Do: Jinn Magic (change, void), Blend in with Humans