KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE.
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| We dance when e'er we're able. |
The Game: Corporia
The Publisher: Brabblemark Press
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
Despite the rather uninformative title, Corporia is kind of a cool concept. You're playing folks protecting the inhabitants of The City from evil. No, not The Tick and his friends, it's just called The City because the exact geography isn't important. But it's not too far off a supers game, I guess, because you're playing members of the Knightswatch, a group of monster-hunters protecting their fellow man. You don't have to play a reincarnated member of the Knights of the Round Table, but like, why in the world wouldn't you?
I am, therefore, going to do exactly that, and the knight I would like to reincarnate is one of the lesser known ones: Melion. In brief, Melion swore never to marry a woman who had loved another man first, married a princess of Ireland, she turned him into a wolf so he could hunt down a delicious stag, and she fucked off with his squire, leaving him stuck as a wolf until Arthur and his other kaniggits rocked up and got things sorted out.
Other than "reincarnated Melion," I don't know what I want to do with this character, so let's just start the process and see what shakes loose.
This character sheet has very small type and if I were actually going to run this I'd have Michelle make a fillable version. Anyway. First thing is I can choose an archetype. I can't pick two "special" ones, and I know I want Knight-Errant as a special, so I have to combine with a "standard" archetype. Hmm. Runner or Suit? Different aspects of "wolf" in either. I guess I'll lean into my inner James Spader (in Wolf) and go for Suit.
Reading a bit more, it doesn't look like archetypes do much except give a jumping-off point, which is fine. Let's consider background and so on.
Before awakening, Melion was a corporate fixer, a negotiator, and the fellow who smoothed things over and talked people out of lawyering up. He joked that he was a "pre-lawyer," so he majored in Pre-Law. Once he awakened, I think he actually wound up pretty confused. He has memories of Melion as a wolf, but also as a knight. He remembers the betrayal of his wife, but through modern eyes, his desire for a woman who had never loved another man was kind of ridiculous anyway. Pre-awakening, his name was Julius Bowman. Nowadays, he prefers to go by Melion, but just with other Knightswatch folks.
OK, not a bad start. I now get to pick personality traits, three public and one private. Public traits are facets of the character that are obvious from interacting with him, while private traits are traits he keeps to himself. Oh, and I can take an extra private trait for a +1 to general assets during chargen, so I may do that.
Well, what's obvious about Melion? I think that he's Unfailingly Polite, both by pre-awakening training and knightly inclination. He's Resourceful and Creative, so those can be the other two publics. As for private, I want him to be torn between the two halves of his nature (knight and wolf). I'll take Always Hungry as a private trait, and also Loves Selfishly.
Cool, now what? I choose "core competency." This is basically a measure of how supernatural I want to be (more supernatural siphons points away from normal stuff). I'll be Gifted, in the middle, as seems to be thematic for Melion. That gives me 12 in Core Values, 18 in Skills, 10 in General Assets (+1 for my second private trait, actually, so 11) and 5 in Supernatural Assets.
Starting with Core Values, I get 12 points to spread around, nothing lower than 1 or higher than 4, and there are 6 of them. What I don't seem to have is any kind of scale; if I spread them evenly, what does that mean? Am I average or do I suck?
Well, let's reverse engineer from the base system. When you do a thing, you roll 2d6 and add the higher of the two to a Core Value + Skill total. Average target number is 7, meaning if I had 2s in my Core Value and Skill, I'd need to roll a 3 or more on one die to higher that target, which gives me better than 50/50 odds. OK, so even a 1 isn't necessarily crap, it just means I'm not likely to hit higher diffs.
Oh, wait, looking ahead, there aren't any magical assets that I want or can actually take, because knights don't do magic. Which is fucking stupid, because the Arthurian legends are full of weird-ass magic (though you could argue that Melion didn't actually use magic, since he turned into a wolf with a magic ring). Anyway, I think that means I won't be Gifted, I'll be Touched, which changes my totals to 14 Core Values, 20 Skills, 10 (11, really) general assets and a big fat nada in supernatural assets.
Geez. OK, then, moving on. Six Core Values, 14 points, I'll put 2 into everything but Magic, which I'll leave at 1 (11 points spent). The other three I'll put into Strength, Deftness, and Wits, I suppose.
Skills! I have 20 points, and no Skills can be more than 1 point higher than its controlling CV. So I want Fisticuffs and Getting Medieval (side note: I am really tired of that joke). I need Business, Crime, Influence, and Instinct. Do I need any Knowledge of Science Skills? I don't think I do. Let's arrange points thusly:
Fisticuffs 4
Getting Medieval 4
Business 3
Crime 3
Influence 4
Instinct 4
That's 20. Glorious.
Assets! I get 11 points. Ooh, and I get Fortitude for free. Master of Red Tape is only 1 for me, so I'll do that. I'll spend 3 on Street Fighter (extra damage because I fight dirty), Prudent (wolf's ears and eyes), and Lady Luck (because a re-roll is never a bad thing).
I get Flux Points equal to the sum of Knowledge, Wit, and Magic, which is 6. I get REPP (social capital, basically) equal to Wit x 6, which is 18. And then I get stuff. What stuff would I like? I get a pistol (which Melion isn't terribly comfortable with), an "additional weapon," armor, an eyephone, and an augment.
Well, for my additional weapon, I want a com/bat (an extendable baton). Slicing people up with a bladed weapon just seems gauche to Melion. For armor, I'll take suit weave (minimal armor, but I look good). For my augment, I'll take silkskin (subdermal armor that gives me additional protection from bullets).
And I do believe that's it! Sad that I wasn't able to do something more overtly werewolf-y, but I like that Melion is a corporate hunter and Knight Errant. There's an element of menace to him sometimes, but he's usually on guard and seemingly very friendly. I think I can see Paul Dano playing him.
