Obviously not going to get all these done before Xmas, but I don't think that was ever in the cards.
FOR THE SEVENTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-FIVE,
SEVEN SCOFFLAWS SCOFFIN'
SIX GEESE A-HONKIN',
GIRL BY MOONLIGHT,
FOUR ELDER GODS,
THREE TITTED HENS,
TWO CORVID COURTS,
AND CAIRN FROM THE O-S-R!
The Game: Scofflaws (ORC Edition)
The Publisher: Vajra Enterprises
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
I had this game misfiled under "supers", probably because some of the promotional stuff mention "superpowers" or "superhuman abilities." Having now read it, it really shares more DNA with cyberpunk sort of games.
So, in very brief: Due to a couple of wacky happenstances, new technologies, and at least one SCOTUS ruling, there are a lot of people in this particular dystopian future with brain implants that detect when they commit a crime and make them slower, weaker, and dumber. A small percentage of these folks (who are all parolees, that's important), however, have gotten their implants hacked so that they get better the simultaneous laws they break. "Are you breaking a law" comes down to an AI farm in China interpreting video evidence in real time (everything the people do is recorded and streamed), so it's pretty easy to game the system. And everything is gig work, mostly spread through nine different apps, including Al1b1, which is what you use if you need someone to vouch for you to your spouse/boss/mom/whatever, and Dt$, which is kind of a dating app, but you can pay for "dates" with people with more stars on the app than you.
It's all very well-conceived, clearly explained, and, in places, funny, which is hard to manage. It also 100% rings true, looking around at our current hellscape in which people are looking to jumped-up predictive text generators and thinking "well, that's the future, so better just get used to it" instead of saying "um, no, these are awful and we shouldn't be dumping billions of dollars and jacking our energy prices up over them". Ahem.
Much like First Contact Team, this game is a very interesting premise marred by a system I don't love, although I have to say that Scofflaws does a better job of explaining it than the other games using the Organic Rule Component (ORC) systems I've read, because I felt like I actually got it after reading the rules chapter. That might be because this is the "Lite" version of the rules, I dunno.
Anyway, Step One: Concept. Ooh, I got one, with a theme song, even.
That's Noah Kahan (featuring Post Malone, who can actually sing, who knew); "Drunk Dial." I really love this song. It's basically someone who has A Problem saying to the person with whom he's in love (or just can't get over, who knows) that he knows the drinking is a problem, but it isn't going to change and neither is how he feels.
Not to get too personal or maudlin or anything, but there is definitely an alternate universe in which I started self-medicating my depression with booze instead of sex very early on. Maybe in that one I got help sooner, I don't know, maybe in that version I got myself killed. But anyway, that's the direction I'm going with this guy; let's call him Tommy Braun. Tommy started drinking pretty young, continued drinking as he got older, and eventually plowed into a guardrail and killed his passenger (his friend Bonnie). He got convicted, sent to prison, paroled with a chip in his head, tried to do gig work, but really discovered that it's hard to get the work done, especially on a suspended license.
But then a friend of a friend of a friend hooked him up with some shady folks who inverted his chip, and now he can get shit done! And hey, driving on a suspended license is a crime, so he's got that bonus in his back pocket pretty much all the time.
Cool, good start. The game asks me to consider things like appearance and sexual orientation (it's actually kinda relevant), so let's say that Tommy is 28. He's slimmed down since he stopped drinking. Brown hair and kind of nondescript features, but he's got a good body. I think Tommy's straight but not narrow; like, he'll take gigs from guys on Dt$, though probably not sexual ones. Not yet, anyway. Maybe if the money's good enough, who knows.
Step Two: Attributes. I get 20 points to split amongst the 8 Attributes, although truthfully I have 12 because you have to put at least 1 in each. Hokay. So, I don't think Intelligence is necessarily where Tommy's strongest; maybe I'll leave that at 1 for now. I think I want Endurance and Strength to be better. Hmm.
Well, one point in everything except Intelligence would take me down to five points, right? Then I'll put a third point into Endurance, Strength, Speed, and Charm. One point left. Let's say...Charm. Sure, we'll make Tommy a personable little fucker. Probably how he got paroled. That puts me at:
Awareness 2
Speed 3
Agility 2
Strength 3
Charm 4
Willpower 2
Endurance 3
Intelligence 1
Step Three: Skills. Skills are really broad and purchased in levels, but not one-for-one. I get 10 points, and if I have a score of 1 or 2 in a Skill I get a specialty. More than 2 I get a second specialty. Nifty.
Well, I think I want a point in College, Social, Blue Collar, and Athletics, and that eats 8 of my points. Just have to take a second level in one of those. Let's make it...Blue Collar, I think.
For specialties, let's say in Athletics it's Bikes & Skates (figure Tommy would have learned how to use non-car transport). For Blue Collar, definitely Driving. For College, let's say Math & Science (Tommy was a STEM major, very briefly). And then for Social, I think it's gotta be Drugs, though all of them tempt me.
Step Four: Equipment. Bleah. Actually I don't hate this system. (Aw, shit, just remembered I need to finish my Shadowrun character for Michelle's game this week.) Anyway, 10 Equipment Points to buy things. I want a car, and that eats 6 right there. He carries a small bottle of vodka (watered down, but it still costs 1 EP), and I think I'll leave the last 3 unspent. Maybe once I figure which of the apps he's most often on.
Step Five: Dt$ Profile. Here we have 9 ratings that the Dt$ app uses, basically broken down by what kind of dates you get. More dots in Clean Cut, you might get hired by someone who wants you to meet their parents and make a good impression. More dots in Hot, well, use your imagination.
I get 22 points, but really, as before, I have to put a dot in each so it's actually 13. Let's see now.
Well, right off the bat, I think we'll leave Sophisticated at 1. Not why you'd hire Tommy. Adventurous, though, that can be a little higher, let's put three dots there. Clean Cut can stay at 1. Badass should get at least one more dot. Funny and Good Listener can get one more. Hell, I'll put one in Hot, too. Let's put one in Intense. What's that put me up to? 17 spent, 5 more to go. Oh, wait, I want points in Nice. Let's put two points there. Three left, I'll put one each into Funny, Good Listener, and Hot.
Step Six: Ads & Disads. Standard drill, disads give you points, ads take them, or you can spend them on other bits of chargen. I think I want Addiction: Alcohol, which means Tommy is really riding a ragged edge, but it's not impossible to abstain, it's just a WIL roll. I don't want any of the advantages, though, so where would I like to spend my points? They're worth 3 Skill points each, so I could throw them there. Actually let's spend one to buy a dot of WIL, which I know is robbing Peter to pay Paul but I wanted to put WIL up a little anyway, and then buy two more dots of Social (which gives me another Specialty) and a second dot of Athletics. I shall take Fashion & Seduction for my other Social Specialty.
Step Seven: Stars. There are 9 apps that basically rule the world, and I have a star rating in all of them. More specifically, 14 stars to split (but, again, really it's 1 in each and then 5 more).
OK, well, right away I feel like Sittr (which has you looking after kids, elderly folks, pets) isn't Tommy's bag, so I'll leave that at 1 star. Likewise, I Tommy doesn't have any particular fighting ability and he's not very perceptive, so SecuriT can stay at 1. Al1b1, though, which is an app I can't believe doesn't actually exist (you can hire people to vouch for you as job references, cover for your adultery, that kind of thing), seems more up Tommy's alley, so I'll put a star there. Tommy's too charming not to put a star into Dt$. Three more. I'll put one into Go4 (odd jobs and deliveries), one into Schillr (brand ambassadorship, often in really stupid ways), and the last one into Subscontractr (where giggers can hire other giggers for big jobs, AKA how the PCs work together).
Step Eight is character advancement, but I'm not sure how that's part of chargen? It's not, really, unless the GM wanted to start you off having done some gigs, I guess.
That in mind, that's it! Tommy is ready to start committing crimes and getting paid for it! Kind of. Indirectly.
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