Character Creation: The Veil

I know, two PbtA games that begin with "V" in a row. Blame Gus.

The Game: The Veil
The Publisher: Samjoko Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game, but it felt familiar as I was reading it
Books Required: Just the one 

The Veil isn't the only PbtA cyberpunk game I've seen. We've also got Headspace and The Sprawl, and I'm sure there are others I don't know about (or that I own and just haven't read yet). The Veil looks pretty interesting. Well, strike that. It looks like a good, solid example of the genre in this system, and that's cool. I have a couple of concerns, one of which is that it looks like there are a lot of different things that hinge off of "Giri" (kind of filling the role of a reputation or strings stat), and there do seem to be quite a lot of moves, though nothing on the order of, say, Dead Scare. Also the PDF isn't bookmarked properly, but that's just annoying. Oh, wait, it's just the hi-res copy that's not bookmarked! The lo-res works just fine. Sweet!

Anyway: It's a cyberpunk world complete with corporations and "The Veil," which is the game's lingo for the cyber-space. The particulars of that, and of the world in general, are left for the table to define, and I think it'd all work pretty well, though of course I'd have to play it to know. So let's do this!

First thing we do is pick a playbook. There are a bunch in this game, and I haven't read them all carefully, so let's see here... 

I think I want to pick The Architect. I was just watching Cael play Animal Crossing and I got to thinking about how much I like games like Subnautica and The Forest that have not only base-building aspects but stories, and I wonder if you could have the Architect playbook build "places" in the Veil. 

Yeah, looks like it! Neat. We start with "the Subconscious." I must first pick three things that bleed over from the physical world to "my" Veil.

So I'm gonna say that when my character creates a Veil-space, there's also catacombs of his deepest memories. I've been really intrigued by the trailer for Backrooms of late, and I like the idea of spaces between spaces where things get stuck. So when my guy makes a place in the Veil, there's always an entrance to the back hallways. Sometimes it's a door, sometimes it's a hole hidden behind a couch, whatever.

Likewise, I'll say a family member gets brought over. We'll say it's my character's sister, Tyara. We've kind of grown apart, but my guy still sees her as she was when she was 18, when they had a place together in the city and were best of friends.

And, finally, I want a manifestation of fear. There are always rats in the walls in my Veil-space. My guy is terrified of rats, especially when he can't see them, only hear them (I have squirrels in my walls presently and it's fucking unnerving when they start scrabbling around). 

Right, what next? Cyberbrain! Bunch of options here that have some implications about the setting. I think we've established a couple of things about my Architect so far, so what fits with that? 

Hrm. I would take "for another purpose" and pick a move from a different playbook, but they don't really generalize well. You know, I think I'll take "has a dedicated remote server" because I like the idea that this server is tucked in a backroom somewhere.

I get the reconfigure move and then I pick one more, and the only one that makes sense is construct, because my cyberbrain makes it more effective.

(I'm finding that there's not really a "here's how to make a character" section, which is annoying because yes, I can follow the playbook, but there's no centralized place with the instructions that I can find so it's all scattershot. Bleah.) 

Giri questions I can skip, because they would require other players. Look? Sure, let's do that. Let's say I'm fluid, I've got working class gear, a sweet face, clear eyes, a wiry body, and I'm Black. 

My "Jam" is how I earn a living. Let's play to my strength and say that my Architect designs digital lobbies. Like, when you visit a "Veil site" (like a website), you wind up in a waiting room or a lobby that has basic info on the company or the person. But someone has to design these and make them user-friendly, and my character is good at that. 

Stats! Or rather, states, since these are all named after emotions. These can change as I use them, so whatever I put my +2 in is likely to be what taps out first. My character strikes me as an anxious person, so I'll put +2 in Scared. I'll put my +1s in Joyful and Peaceful, my 0s in Powerful and Sad, and my -1 in Mad.

Cybernetics! I can be as cyber'd as I want, though I might owe Cred or Giri for them. I think my Architect has a cyber'd eye. I get three tags for my eye, so I'll take recording (I can record video), HUD, and integrated (to my cyberbrain, so I can include whatever I've seen into my digital places). Do I wish for more cyber? I do not think I do. I do have to take a negative tag for my eye, so let's take bleed. People and things that I see tend to wind up in my Veil-space whether I want them to or not.

Now, where'd I get it? I think I struck a deal and I owe Cred for it. I don't see my character are real violent and a cybereye isn't something you steal. 

Beliefs! I get three of these. The book advises me to make them things I'd want to be challenged and explored right now. I'm seeing my character as sort of like Lenny Nero from Strange Days inasmuch as letting go of the past is hard, so the first belief will be "Nothing ever has to fade away." I think he sees what he does in the Veil as art, and he definitely strikes me as the sort of artist who would put little details in his art that only he and his closest friends are going to catch. Let's make the second Belief "Art belongs to the artist." I don't see him as a hacker per se, but I do think he might take a very hacker-ish approach to rules, like "If a rule can be broken, it wasn't strong enough." (There's one that's gonna get thrown back in his face.)

I get fashion appropriate to my lifestyle and I get a weapon from the list on the sheet. Definitely taking a neural disruptor; my guy isn't the sort to use a gun. 

And I think that's it! Let's name this guy Andray Sim ("Sim" is not his real surname, but it's the one he uses). Andray uses he/him pronouns and generally presents as male, but actually doesn't see gender as terribly important and in the Veil tends to be more femme (or less masc, depending how you look at it). His sister, Tyara, is married and living somewhere in a different city, and Andray finds her a little insufferable now that she's grown up and career-oriented and so on. He misses the Tyara who was young and cool and fiery...so that's the one he interacts with.