Character Creation: Parselings

I can (and probably will) take a somewhat more relaxed attitude toward chargen this year, because I want to end 2025 at exactly 1000 characters and I'm at 912 right now. But I was a little lax in February so I'd like to get 10 done in March, so here we go.

The Game: Parselings
The Publisher: Smunchy Games
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one and a bit of patience

Parselings is up there with Necrobiotic, Sleepaway, and Into the Odd in that I'm very much bought in to the setting or the elevator pitch but I kinda get fuzzy on the "how does this work at the table" part. Parselings purports to be about words and identity, cool, sounds great, love those. Characters are people with little alien parasites infecting them that give them tattoos that...other people can't see? Book's not clear. Anyway, those people (the titular Parselings) can team up and form "Parses," altering their reality, based on Words that they each have. 

It sounds like it's drawing on wordplay in a manner similar to Necronautilus or Spell the RPG in a way, but the problem is that (sing it with me now!) there's no example of play, there's not even an example of how Parse works at the table. There are examples of the basic use of the system and of chargen (though I don't think it goes all the way through chargen), so that's good, but there's a whole chapter on Parses so that seems an important part of the game. The systems are explained and it looks like it's pretty thorough, but I would love to see an example, in-context, so I could figure out what the fictional structure and ludonarrative idea is here.

In fact, not to rant, but looking back on games that I read (and wrote) when I was a younger man, I cannot imagine how you write an RPG and you don't include examples or illustrations (that is, depictions in context of how game systems work, not literally illustrations). It just seems so fundamental to the process of creating an RPG to me, and a lot of newer school games don't bother. 

Well, anyway, this is one of those games that if I were gonna run it I'd try and scare up an AP, but frankly after reading it I'm not inspired. There's a lot of interstitial fiction but comparatively little detail on what characters would do, and if that's the kind of thing the players make up at the table it's doubly important to show us that process in action. In my opinion, which of course no one asked for or cares about. On we go. Let's make a Parseling.

(It occurs to me that it's probably meant to be pronounced /pɑɾslɪŋz/ rather than /pɑɾsɛlɪŋz/, but whatever.)

The tone of the interstitial fiction and the few bits of setting info early in the book, along with the sample campaign (which 100% should have been in the core book, but I'm one to talk, I ran out of room for scenarios in the Chill core book) talk about Nominal City, which is huge and overbuilt and chaotic and so on. The strange disease that results in people becoming Parselings is a major plot point, and the campaign is designed so that groups discover their condition and what it means together, which is cool. 

Hmm. I'm a little adrift, here, I think I'd better find a theme song. Just a moment. 

That's "Goodnight and Go" by Imogen Heap. I enjoy that song; it's about an unrequited crush and imagining a scenario in which it could be, um, requited. I think I shall draw inspiration from a kind of weird source; there's a Poppy Z. Brite short story in which a guy goes to a sex worker and discover that said worker is a guy (or has a penis, anyway, it's been a long time since I read it and I don't remember if the sex worker ever self-identifies as one gender or another, but I do remember that the name they gave our protagonist was "Jesus"), and he kind of takes that in stride, thinking, "well, hell, I've never been with anyone, how do I know what I like?" (He also winds up accidentally shooting said sex worker, but that's not relevant for my purposes.)

Anyway, Anthony Brace (for 'tis his name) gets on the train every day going to a job where he crunches numbers. For whatever reason his particular job hasn't been converted to AI yet, so he gets on the train. I get the feeling that Anthony is socially awkward, shy, maybe a little spectrum-y, and about four months ago he saw Scarf. 

He mentally refers to them as "Scarf" because they always seem to be wearing one, it's always hand-knitted (though I don't know if Anthony would know that), and Anthony has no idea what Scarf's real name is. Actually he's not sure if Scarf is a girl or guy or what - Scarf is very much androgynous, wears mostly black but the scarf is usually colorful, and has fun wristbands and buttons on their jacket and stuff. And Anthony comes up with scenarios about who Scarf is and where they're going (Scarf gets off at a later stop than Anthony, so he doesn't know where they go). He's exchanged nods with Scarf, but Anthony is terrified that he'll come off creepy if he says anything, so he keeps it to nods and smiles. 

(Where would this go in-game? In-game I think Anthony might pluck up the nerve to talk to Scarf, or misses his train or something, and the story goes from there, but it'd probably work best if Scarf is either integral to the plot or is another PC. But I digress.)

Right, so, that mostly covers Step One (it asks me to think about principles, but there's no slot for it on the sheet so it can't be that important. Oh, no wait, it's on the back).

Step Two is Words (really, they're all words). Words are divided into Aspects (nouns, which represent the core parts of the character) and Augments (nouns/adjectives/verbs/adverbs, which are just things that describe the character). 

Now, the process for determining Words is actually pretty involved, but as written it includes other people. Also, it's not entirely clear how many you're supposed to wind up with at chargen - looks like you have a set of four (1 Aspects, 3 Augments) but a list of a bunch more? It would be really helpful if the example characters they made showed both halves of the character sheet. Maybe it's later in the book? Nope, doesn't seem to be. ARaregh.

OK, I see how this is supposed to work. We wind up with the four Words like I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but they're meant to be provided (using one method or another) by other players and then which ones you start with are chosen at random. Do I feel like coming up with 32 Words? I dunno. I do have other shit to do today. I think I'll just come up with four and pretend I rolled them.

So for Aspect, I'll give Anthony "Introvert." For his Augents, I'll say "Subway," "Scarf," and "Connection." 

Step Three is Image, but really it's the core stats. There are four sub-categories of Image which contain two stats each, and I need to prioritize them. Well, clearly Conduct is gonna be dead last, that being the social one. I think I'll put Push first, since that's about potential and I think Anthony would need a session to really come into his own. I'll put Intent (mental stuff) next and then Feats (physical stuff). 

That means I get 4 points to split between Potential and Perseverance, 3 to split between Intelligence and Insight, and one to put into Charm or Cunning and Force or Finesse (I start with a freebie in each one, though). Well, Potential is gonna be my highest one, I'll put three of my four points there and the other one into Perseverance. I'll put two into Insight and one into Intelligence, and I'll put my odd points into Cunning and Force.

Step Four: Aptitudes. Intent, Feats, and Conduct each have six skills underneath them. I get one point in each, and then 15 more to throw around (but based on prioritization, so it's really 7/5/3 - hey, it's an old school WoD spread, kinda!). I think my prioritization goes Intent/Feats/Conduct.

For Intent, I'll put three into Memory, two into Research, and two into Perception. For Feats, I'll put one each into Athletics, Larceny, and Melee and the last two into Stealth. And for Conduct, I'll put one each into Empathy, Etiquette, and Animals.

Step Five is Derived Traits; guess I can't raise them after this. Health is Perseverance + Force (4 for me). Potential (as a resource) starts equal to the stat, which is 4. Defense (with a "c" or an "s") is half the sum of Perseverance, Insight, Finesse, and Cunning, which is (hang on) 4. Initiative is the sum of Potential, Insight, and Finesse (8). Speed is Force + Finesse (3). Carry is double the sum of Potential and Force, and then plus Perseverance (14). And Deck Size is equal to total Image, which is 15. 

Next is Step Six: Parse Traits. Articulation starts at 1, Coherence starts at 7, Syllable starts at Insight + Cunning + Articulation (6). 

And now we finish! (That's Step Seven.) I have seven points to spend on Tricks, and I can add a Joker (a flaw, basically) and add two more if I want. Do I wish to do so? I dunno, let's look at them. 

Well, I like Ace: Untapped Potential, that seems in keeping with how I've built Anthony. I think Perfect Recall is also appropriate. That's four points spent, I've got three left. Oh, Oddball is perfect; it lets me resist certain things because I'm weird. And it's only 1 point! Still got 2. I'll take Riffle; I don't know if the game effect is awesome, but it's described as going over scenarios in your head and having nervous energy, and I think that makes sense. 

And that about does it, because I don't feel like taking a flaw. Anthony is of medium height, broad shoulders, perhaps a bit of a paunch, black hair, blue eyes. He wears glasses that always need cleaning. 

That'll do it. I wish I found this game more intuitive, I want to like it.