Character Creation: Be Like a Cat

MOW. 

The Game: Be Like a Cat
The Publisher: Critical Kit Ltd
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one 

This is a solo or duet game, which means I'm unlikely to try it out myself, but it's got chargen so here we go!

The game has you playing a cat (doy) who's expanding their territory; the phrases "Moggie Mafia" is used. I think a Blades in the Dark style game where you're animals of some kind claiming territory might be interesting, but cats don't exactly run in packs, so I think a solo game is probably the best expression of this.  

Step One: Choose your background. Feral, stray, or domestic. Let's be a stray. This means I start in a back garden (which is apparently UK for "backyard"), an alley, or bins behind a restaurant. Hm. There's a territory tracker sheet, which I'm not going to print, but I do wonder if the "starting location" blank on the character sheet is meant to refer to a grid coordinate from that tracker or just a description of the locale.

Well, in any case, I like the idea of a yard cat, so we'll say this old man's backyard is in serious need of care, there are mice and other critters around, and that means huntin' for me. 

I get to choose two Travel skills that I can "make with Courage." Guess I should figure out what the means. WOULD HELP IF THIS GODDAMN PDF WAS BOOKMARKED THO. Ah, OK. If I'm rolling "with courage" that means I can reroll anything that doesn't come up "1", once. OK, well, I'll say my kitty is good at Jump and Land (I love that there's a discreet Skill for landing). 

Ah, but I am scruffy-lookin', and I'm accustomed to help from humans, since I was once a housecat. I pick one Survival and one Social skill that I always make with timidity, which must be some kind of disadvantage. Let's say my kitty is not great at Mark (because he was taught not to do that) and Signal (better at communicating with people than animals). 

Step Two: Developing Skills. OK, so there are 16 Skills (four in four categories). They all start at 1, can go as high as 6, and the way this works is that I mark some for development and then roll to see if they increase. I could randomly determine if any given skill is marked for development, but I think I'd rather choose that. I get two in each category to mark. So let's see.

Survival: Let's mark Hunt and Prowl.

Social: Cute and Play. 

Travel: Jump and Balance.

Combat: Pounce and Bite. 

And now I roll a d6 for each of those. If I get anything higher than 1, I get to increase the Skill by some amount. If I do, I have to explain what experience my kitty had that helped him raise it. Well, let's start from the top! Actually, let's name the kitty first. We'll say he's called Nip (for his love of catnip, or his habit or nipping humans' ankles? The answer is "yes"). 

• Prowl: 2, so it goes up to 2. Nip's house included a small dog, and Nip learned to hide from it. 
• Hunt: 2 (score goes to 2). Nip had to hunt for food after getting turned out onto the street.
• Cute: 6, so my score goes to 4! Daaaaaamn! Nip had to compete with that damn dog for attention and love. 
• Play: 3, so score goes to 2. Playing with the dog, obviously. 
• Jump: Another 6! Nip practiced and practiced to jump from the back of the couch to the windowsill, and one night he actually made it...but the window was open. Oops. 
• Balance: 1. No change. Makes sense, because he didn't stick the landing on that sill. 
• Pounce: 5, so we go up to 3. As with Hunt, Nip had to feed himself. Mice are faster than he is, so the pounce is necessary. 
• Bite: 2, putting me up to 2. One good bite can kill a mouse, but Nip can't do it reliably yet.

The book says I now advance to young adult stage, but I think that all this skill increasing is actually part of that advancement. My max Health is 5, that's easy.

Nip is mostly white, except his front right and back left paws are black. Actually he's more dingy grey at this point because he needs a bath (noooo), and his fur is scruffy, especially on the back where he has trouble reaching. He winds up with burrs in his furs because he lives in a yard, and the mice here are getting wise to him. Might be time to move on. MOW.