Character Creation: Midnight of the Century

Cheer up. The world's about to end in ten minutes anyway.

The Game: Midnight of the Century
The Publisher: By Odin's Beard RPG
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Midnight of the Century is a game I wanted to like more than I do. I do like it, mind - it's an investigative horror game that actually does do something different than Chill. It's designed to emulate the dark investigation stories of the 90s, stuff like Millennium, Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, and so on. You're playing Investigators who are tracking down serial killers, but there is also a "you're part of a shadowy conspiracy" and a "by the way, the world is ending" component to the game. Setting-wise, there's almost nothing about it I dislike. 

System...eh. I mean, I think it's probably fine. It's OSR-inspired, but not actually OSR, so it's not like...what the hell was that weird game that the author gave up on? John Silence. Anyway, the stats aren't the standard D&D ones, so the creators obviously put more thought into it than "iunno, rulings not rules". I think I would like it better if it were something like Gumshoe or Forged in the Dark, but that's a personal preference thing. 

The thing that I get hung up on is that the book says it works best with one or two players plus a GM. I...never have only two players. If I do, I cancel the game and do something else. Four is my sweet spot, three is OK with the right game (I ran a whole Slipstream campaign with three players, but it definitely changed the calculus of designing encounters), two or one feels weird to me. And I like this setup of this game so much, I'm sure I could probably figure out making it work with more players.

For now, however, let's make an Investigator, which is like an alligator, only investi. 

I actually do have something of a concept, here; it's a character I've had in my brain for a while but never had the right game for it (and frankly probably isn't a character I'd actually play unless everyone at the table was super cool with it). My idea is someone who was a serial killer, but then had a brain tumor removed from his head and became "cured." It sounds like something that would have happened on Criminal Minds, and in a setting where demons exist, I can also see doing a kind of Malignant thing with it and having the tumor actually be a demon or something. My character doesn't need to know anything about demons, of course, just that he used to have these urges, he acted on them a couple of times, got caught, did time in prison, was diagnosed with brain cancer, and had a lot of sciencey people (from the Ouroboro corporation, in setting) poking at him and theorizing that the tumor fucking up his ability to feel...much of anything, but certainly empathy was responsible. And then he had brain surgery, and wound up being able to remember what he did but to appreciate it like a non-psychopath. 

So after his second suicide attempt, he wound up reading in the papers about an active killer in the Pacific Northwest (where this game is set by default) and contacting someone he'd met from Ouroboro with some insight. Ouroboro pulled some strings and got him released to their custody, but he's basically on permanent house arrest. He's enthusiastic about the work (tracking down killers), partially because he's got skin in the game in a way a lot of other investigators don't, but also because he expects - wants - for one of these bastards to kill him someday. 

There, that's appropriately bleak. There's a table with random names in this book, so let's use it! Rolling a d100 twice, I get...42 and 42. Huh, what are the odds. (1 in a 100, Matt.) Anyway, that gives me "Gregory Howard" as a name, which is fine by me.

My age is 30+4d6...a roll of 15 means I'm 45. Let's say he was in prison for the last 10 years, so he was killing in his early 30s. 

Traits! These are game stats (that's next), these are physical and personality traits. I'll roll them randomly, but I reserve the right countermand anything stupid. 

Physique: Lean. That's fine.

Face: Bony. Aside from rolling two 1s in a row, that's fine too.

Skin: Scarred. Obviously I didn't make it out of prison unscathed, which makes sense.

Eyes: Shining. I...huh? I don't think that tracks. I choose to pretend I roll a 7 instead, giving me "searching" eyes.

Hair: Matted. Sure, that's fine. 

Speech: Blunt. Yeah, that's good. Greg isn't interested in playing around. He knows what other people think of him, they're right, he is a monster, so what if he doesn't have the urge to do monstrous things anymore. 

Virtue/Vice: Cautious/Aggressive. First of all, those don't work for Greg, and second, they're almost antonyms. Let's try again. Ambitious/Cold. I'm OK with "cold," but "ambitious" doesn't work for me. Let's take "upbeat," just because it's such a juxtaposition. Greg is jovial and dry, but that's part defense mechanism for himself and partly for others. If he's never serious, if his humor is kinda gallows, then other people can hate him and that's just easier. 

Clothing/style: We've got an 80% chance of being "corporate" here, and...look at that, I roll within that margin. Eh, Ouroboro probably dresses me anyway. 

Stats! Body, Mind, Will, roll 3d6 in order and then swap any two. This gives me: Body 14, Mind 10, Will 15. Well, I'm gonna swap Body and Mind.

Specialism! Class, more or less. I want Greg to be a Profiler, his insight is valuable because he can think like a killer. That gives me +2 Mind.

Psych profile! More random tables, but I'm probably gonna pick these. But let's see. 

How did you become a profiler? Yeah, "cancer-induced serial killer" isn't on the random table. Why did you leave the agency? Oh, right, this assumes profilers are LEOs. OK, I'm going to skip these questions because they don't apply. 

Bonds! I get three, again rolled randomly, and this time I think it's fine to do so. My Connection Bond is...a lover. Oh, hell. Yeah, I'm OK with that. Her name is Kelly Martel (another random name). Kelly is one of those serial killer groupies who wound up tracking Greg down after his "release" and making contact, and she is literally the one person Greg ever lets his guard down to. My Haven is...a tattoo shop! Yeah, Greg has some prison tats (some of them given against his will) and he's gone into Gone Baby Gone Tattoo (owner's a big Violent Femmes fan) a bunch to get them covered up. And, finally, Vehicle...hatchback. Yeah, that's fine.

Equipment is just common sense plus the stuff my specialism gets me, which is...a picture of Kelly, some painkillers, and some latex gloves. And then I get a pager, a notebook and a pen, and a flashlight. I think I'm also required to check in with Ouroboro every day. 

And that's it! Greg is a white guy in his mid-40s, a bunch of tats on his arms and scars on his face. He's lean because he doesn't eat much, his hair is matted because there's a bunch of scar tissue on his scalp and his hair grows in weird. 

I think, again, that provided the other players are cool with it, Greg would be an interesting character study in silly things like "forgiving yourself" and whether it's possible to atone for doing something terrible.