Character Creation: Swords of the Serpentine

Sss, says the serpenty sword.

The Game: Swords of the Serpentine
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game; I know Gumshoe pretty well but this is different in a lot of ways
Books Required: Just the one, but it's a doozy

Swords of the Serpentine is an interesting one. It's a Gumshoe game, meaning it uses a system designed for investigative stories, but it's very much meant to play sword-and-sorcery adventures, which wouldn't be especially compatible in my mind. But it's done really well, the setting is compelling, and it definitely deserves the hype I've heard about it.

The game is set in the city of Eversink (though I think there's enough attention paid to the surrounding areas that if you wanted to go into the wilds for a story you could), and there are some echoes of Blades in the Dark inasmuch as there are various factions competing for power. Likewise, sorcery is a thing and it's pretty badass, but when you use it you increase Corruption and you have either let it eat you or eat reality around you. It's a nice implementation of the "magic has a cost" idea. As I think about it, a lot of games that try to pick up on that theme don't make magic commensurately powerful to compensate for the "cost" (there are other examples, but the first thing that comes to mind is the first edition of Mage: The Awakening where Paradox was a complete paper tiger). 

Anywayhow, let's get into it. As with many games with intricate settings, it would help to have some idea of the campaign theme, but since it's just me we'll say that my character is seeking his fortune in the city of Eversink. I've made a few magicky characters lately ("lately" is always relative), so how about we avoid sorcery. 

The first thing I'm invited to do is pick a profession, out of four (thief, sorcerer, sentinel, and warrior). I think I'll go with warrior and say that my character is trying to become famous - he wants to be the flashy, dazzling, duelist that he grew up hearing stories about (this implies he's from Eversink...oh, or maybe from the outskirts, close enough that his family went into town on market days but not actually in the city). That could eventually put him into a situation like...what's that one episode of The Twilight Zone? "Mr. Denton on Doomsday!" But that's down the road a ways. 

(Ooh, it'd be fun to run this game and have the characters be older, experienced and utterly badass characters retelling stories of their youth. Put that in my pocket.)

So next we pick some adjectives (the best RPGs involve parts of speech). I think my guy is naive, fame-hungry (I almost said "ambitious" but that's not quite the vibe I'm looking for), young, naturally skilled, and quick-tempered. Kinda like Chris O'Donnell's character in The Three Musketeers, as I think about it.

Next, Drives. We get these by pretending we're in Conan The Barbarian and answering "what is best in life?" For my character, I think it's to be spoken of in song and story, to stand aside for no one, and for all to know your name and face. 

Neat! On to Investigate Abilities! As with many Gumshoe games, you get a pool of points to spend on these dependent on how many players in the group. Well, let's pretend I was playing this in the group currently playing Blades in the Dark (it could happen). That would mean four Heroes, so I'd get 11 points.

Investigative Abilities have a slightly different game function than in other Gumshoe games; they do the normal think of giving you whatever core clues are available that they would apply to, but spending them to affect other parts of the game is also a much bigger deal. As such, if I were to pump 5 points into a give ability, it wouldn't be completely dumb. I don't know that I'll do that, but I could. 

Let's see. Going on the assumption that my would-be famous duelist is from a family outside the city - let's say that fishes the river? - it would make sense to give him Servility. I think he needs Charm, too. Probably Taunt, I could see him engaging in game of the Dozens. Maybe a point of Trustworthy? Sure. 

And then there are Professional Abilities (still Investigative) under the four professions. I can take any of them, but if I only take points from one category I get an extra point to spend. I dunno, there are some Thief ones I kinda like...

Well, let's have a look. I know I want Wilderness Survival, which fortunately is under Warrior. Spot Frailty is good, but what's interesting is that if I just take one point that applies to Armor (physical damage) or Grit (social damage; you can damage Morale in this game just as easily as Health), but if I have more than 1 point it applies to both. I think Know Monstrosities might be a little outside his experience, although if he's an avid student of local legendry maybe one point. Tactics of Death might be something he'd get later, but again, maybe a point. Let's have a look at how this is shaping up.

Charm 2
Servility 2
Taunt 2
Trustworthy 1
Know Monstrosities 1
Spot Frailty 1
Tactics of Death 1
Wilderness Survival 2

That's 12, and that works because I've only bought Professional Abilities from Warrior. Neat! We'll say Spot Frailty applies to Grit, not Armor.

And then I also get three Build Points for Allegiances. I have two points in factions as Allies, and one as Enemies, so who am I cool with and who'd I piss off? I think Commoners might get a point of Allies, but at the same time, I kinda like his people not actually knowing who he is. Maybe instead I'll put my Allies points into Outlanders and City Watch (I picture his friend in the city watch having a very Roman Dey/Peter Quill relationship - the Watchman thinks I'm kind of a tool but knows I'm not 100% a dick). For Enemies, I'll put that point into Mercenaries - there was this misunderstanding where I offered to do a job for free that the Mercs had been negotiating. They wound up doing it, but I drove down the price. Sorry, guys.

And now, General Abilities! I have 30 points to spend, and then 18 to split between Health and Morale (I really like that system; it's not actually more points than other Gumshoe games, but you don't feel like you have to rob yourself to buy your hit points). My highest ability can't be more than twice my next-highest, meaning if I want something at 10 I have to take something else at 5. Having 1-3 makes me a dabbler, 4-7 makes me trained, 8 or more is expert. 

Obviously I want Warfare (which is the catch-all "kill shit" ability). I want Sway, too, which is used to do Morale damage. Maybe a point or two of Stealth (he's a fisherman, not a hunter, you don't sneak up on a fish), but I can see Athletics being a little higher. I feel like I should take some Preparedness, though I don't think it's his forte. 

Athletics 8
Preparedness 3
Stealth 5
Sway 7
Warefare 7

That's 30, nice! For the Health/Morale split, I'll go 9 and 9, why complicate things.

And finally (well, almost finally, still need a name) I get at least five pieces of iconic gear. This isn't magical items or badass equipment, this is just the stuff that makes me, me (and it doesn't have to be physical, it can be personality traits). 

So my guy has a special red scarf that he wears around his neck (his mother found a length of dyed red fabric that fell off a wagon and made him a scarf). That implies a special relationship with his mother, actually, so I'll say the memory of his mother is part of his iconic gear. He's got a fishhook in his boot (not, like, literally in his boot, but through the leather near the top), and a dazzling smile. One more (at least, though I can take more if I think of them). Heh, I got one. He's got a piece of cloth with charcoal drawings of his symbol. He wants to have an emblem that he wears or draws to indicate it's him, a kind of "Mark of Zorro" thing, but he hasn't decided on the design yet so he's got this piece of fabric with ideas. 

And I think that's it! I picture this guy as young (late teens, probably), lean and athletic, naturally good at running/jumping/climbing and pretty good at fighting, but in a fight scene it would seem like a lot of luck. His witty repartee is going to be somewhat unpolished at first; I think with some character advancement he'd learn to read and maybe pick up some Thief and Sentinel abilities. 

Anyway, sandy brown hair, blue eyes, the aforementioned dazzling smile, always dirty but never filthy. His name is Armano. 

Character Creation: Between the Devil & The Deep

First character of April! I'm a little behind on my 10 per month goal, but I'm pretty sure I can do 12 in April and make up the difference.

The Game: Between the Devil & The Deep
The Publisher: Sons of the Singularity
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this, but it's Gumshoe and I know that system
Books Required: Just the one

Between the Devil & The Deep is...well, it's right there on the cover.

Piracy and weird horror. Sounds good. And the truth is, ever since I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: The Second Movie, I've thought that the weird quasi-occult magic-of-the-sea setting would make for a good RPG. There's a bunch that could probably do it, but this one is one of the few I know about that makes that specific attempt (though there are quite a few pirate RPGs). 

I don't know how well it would work - Gumshoe focuses on one particular kind of game, after all - but the book has lots of adventure support so I certainly can't claim there's not a map to running it. Let's make a piratical kind of person. 

I want to make a magical type of character, but one that's kind of grabbed some random assortment of tricks in his travels and doesn't have too firm of an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings (as such, someone who is going to summon something ugly with tentacles one of these days). That kind of blundering idiocy says "white guy" to me, so let's say he's an Englishman named Toddy Red. Toddy doesn't have red hair, but he goes very red if he's out in the sun too long (that is, ten minutes), so he's just kind of gotten used to having a permanently ruddy complexion. 

First thing we do is choose an occupation. Toddy Red was pressed into service, I think, so "Pressed Sailor" is fine. That means for any of the listed skills, I get 2 points for every one point I put into them.

Next we pick a Drive. Toddy Red is simple - his Drive is Greed. He just wants to be comfortable, well-fed, and idle. (Shit, I'm kind of making Wat from A Knight's Tale in a different genre.)

And now, points! Unlike most Gumshoe games, this one gives you a flat 16 points in Investigative skills, rather than basing it on the number of players in the group. And then the standard 60 General. I also get Health 5 and Stability 1 free to start, and there's a cap on both of those at 12. 

Cool, on we go! Investigative first. (I have to say, I kind of like the approach Mutant City Blues 2nd Ed takes where Investigative skills are now binary rather than having a rating.) I'll put one point each into Salt of the Sea, Shipbuilding, Performance, and Languages so I wind up with 2 in each one. That leaves me 12. I'll put 1 into Belles-Lettres, Culture, History (Toddy Red was, perhaps, better educated than he lets on). Natural Philosophy, Occult, Poetry, and Voodoo can each get one, too. That means I've spent 11, 5 more. 

I think Forgery makes some sense, given what we've established. Flattery and High Society can get one each. Hmm. Last two I'll put into Negotiation and Sense Lies. 

And then over to General points! I'll put 5 into Health and take that up to 10, and I'll put 9 into Stability (magic tends to lower it). Let's put 6 into Athletics (17 spent, 43 remaining). I'll put 5 into Business Affairs, and 5 into Filch. I'll dump 4 into Gambling, which actually gives me 8, which gives me the Cherry for that skill. 29 to go. Navigation should get some, so I'll give it 5. Politics seems like something Toddy would have at least a little understanding of; let's put another 6 in there. I get the Occupation bonus for Scuffling, so I'll put 3 points in and get a rating of 6. Likewise, Seamanship, same drill (3 points in). 12 to go. 

I'll put 8 into Spell-Casting because I want the Cherry, and the other 4 into Sense Trouble. And that's all those points!

If I were playing Toddy, I'd get a Lore Sheet; this is a relationship with an existing NPC of the setting. I think I'm gonna skip it, largely because there's no easy way to attach it to the sheet. 

Otherwise, though, that's it for Toddy Red! 

Character Creation: Mutant City Blues 2nd Ed

On the other hand, here's a game I've been really jazzed to read and chargen for.

The Game: Mutant City Blues 2nd Edition
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: Haven't played this edition, but I ran 1st ed for a while and I'm pretty conversant with Gumshoe
Books Required: Just the one

In Mutant City Blues, you're playing a superpowered cop. It's not, however, a four-color setting where you're a cop. Instead, the superpowers are more grounded in reality (I said "more"; you can still throw trucks sometimes). 10 years ago, a lot of people got very ill, and then some time later a small percentage of the people who got "ghost flu" also got superpowers. 

(Incidentally, MCB is one of the many creative properties that takes on a new light after living through a pandemic, but I digress.)

A lot of people with powers just kind of go about their lives. Some people use them for monetary gain in athletics or entertainment or whatever, and some people use them in crime, but not in a Doc Ock kind of way. And some folks who are cops got powers, and some powered folks became cops, and the ones who stand out sometimes get promoted to HCIU (Heightened Crimes Investigative Unit), a show pony program with wide latitude to investigate crimes that involve super-powered people. 

All in all it's a good setup. I like the narrow focus of super-powers. Sure, it's more restrictive than a lot of supers games, but this is more an investigation game with a public framework for powers than, strictly speaking, a supers RPG. And the changes that have made in this edition look promising, too. Oh, and also, there's some attention paid to playing as private investigators instead of actual cops, 'cause y'know, ACAB.

SO ANYWAY let's do this. I don't mind making a cop character, so I'm gonna follow standard chargen. 

First thing I do is pick a template, reflecting what sort of cop I was before gaining powers and/or joining HCIU. I think I'm gonna go for Cold Case; the idea of applying new science (including super-power science) to cases that weren't able to get closed previous is appealing. I'll say his name is Otto Sherman. Otto has a background in archiving and digital reconstruction (I dunno, sounds like a thing). He became a cop after being talked into it by his best friend (who also works for the department; if I were playing Otto I'd probably try and make that a PC), and while he feels like he's a little smarter and better educated than a lot of his coworkers, throwing super-powers into the mix has everyone off their pins, and that's actually kind of refreshing. New territory!

So anyway, that means I get Data Retrieval, Evidence Collection, Forensic Accounting, Forensic Anthropology, History, Law, Research, and Photography as investigative skills (this edition does away with having ratings in these; you either have 'em or you don't). 

And then over under General Abilities, I get Composure 5, Driving 2, Health 3, Infiltration 2, Mechanics 4, Medic 2, Preparedness 4, Sense Trouble 2, Shooting 2, Surveillance 2. 

And then I get more points to throw around. I get 30 more General points, but Investigative are based on how many players in the group. Let's assume 5 regular players, so I get 2 more abilities. I'll take...Community Relations (part of cold case is redoing interviews, after all) and Document Analysis (archivist!)

And then General points. I'll put 3 into Athletics (always good to have some). I'll bump Composure to 8 and Health to 5 (that's 38 spent out of 60). I'll put 5 into Filch, why not. I'll put Infiltration up to 5, Preparedness up to 7, and I'll take Scuffling at 3. Where am I at...52 out of 60 is 8 more. OK, I'll bump up Surveillance to 10 and make that the General Ability my dude is really good at. 

And now the really fun stuff: Powers! I start with 30 points. If I'm buying a power, it costs 4 and then however many points I want to put into it. I have to stick to the Quade Diagram, meaning, if I want more powers I have to buy them in a sequence or pay points to skip one. Also there are GRFs (Genetic Risk Factors) that crop up around certain powers, and they function differently depending on whether we're playing Safe or Gritty. I prefer Gritty, so I'll use those rules.

When I did my 1st Ed character I rolled randomly for my starting power, but eh, I think I'll pick. I want Otto to...ooh, let's start with Phase. That allows him to walk through things, and to turn intangible and avoid getting hit or stabbed or shot (useful!). That costs 4 points, plus I want enough points to use it a couple of times, so I'll bump my score to 9. I've spent 12 points. 

Phase connects to Touch and Disintegration; I think I'll go for the former. Touch is an Investigative power on a solid line, so I don't have to pay to get there. I just pay 1 for the power, since it's Investigative. 13 spent, 17 to go. 

Touch leads to Reduce Temperature (cold case, get it?). Had to do a little math because the system is that you make a check with a difficulty of 1 for every -5 degrees Celsius you're causing (and I have no intuitive sense of that), but actually that makes reducing local temp below freezing very much possible. I'll pay 4 points for the power and put another 9 points in, for a total of 26 spent, 4 to go. 

Hmm. I think I need to reduce something, actually, because either way I go on the tree I need more points than I have. I'll drop Reduce Temp to 8 and drop Phase to 6 (ugh), but that lets me pay 4 for Ice Blast and have still have 5 points to pump in, for a score of 6. I have a decent Ice Blast or two in me. 

And that's all the numbers-related stuff. Just need to flesh out Otto a little more.

So Otto got moved to cold cases as soon as he could. He's OK with people in a kind of theoretical sense and he likes people just fine, but he doesn't have the same interrogation chops as other cops. He does, however, fit better into academic and upper-middle class scenarios than a lot of them do, so that makes him useful. 

Otto is of German-American extraction and has light brown hair (starting to thin, but it's not critical yet!) and blue eyes. He's in shape, perhaps a little doughy but he tries to stay healthy. He carries a gun but his marksmanship is pretty weak; he's much more likely to throw ice pellets than shoot somebody. 

Subplot-wise, I think there's a lawyer for the state AG that is taking a real hard line at any R18 powers used by HCIU officers, and Otto has Phase. Said AG, Victor Wilkins, has a hair up his butt about R18 for some reason and Otto managed to rub him the wrong way.

Also, Otto just went through an unpleasant divorce. The emotional aspects of it are bad, but the financials are worse - Otto has a lot of student debt and his ex has a lot of credit card debt. 

Finally, there's a cold case that Otto had to let go when he moved to HCIU. The case involved a young man who went missing 30 years ago; the only evidence that was found was a smear of blood and a pinky, both of which have been identified as belonging to the victim. The kid's mother, Angie Cress, calls Otto sometimes when she's very drunk and Otto listens. He's tried to explain that it's not his case anymore (no powered individuals = no Otto), but she doesn't want to hear that and honestly Otto hasn't really let it go. 

That'll do it!

Character Creation: Shanty Hunters

In celebration of finishing Our Flag Means Death last night, and because the other game I've been reading this week (Mettle) doesn't really have a setting and that's more work than I'm willing to do today. Also, this game is so delightfully weird and holy shit, I need both "delightful" and "weird" today as our nation slides further and further into Christo-facism. 

The Game: Shanty Hunters
The Publisher: Molten Sulfur Press
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, but it's Gumshoe and I know how that works
Books Required: Just the one

So, in Shanty Hunters, you're playing sailors who are literally hunting sea shanties and writing them down as the age of sail comes to an end. But the shanties come to life and "recapitulate," altering the world around them, and you need to figure out what's happening and...fix things (I'm unclear on exactly how that part works because I haven't read the whole book thoroughly yet, but for chargen purposes it's not a problem). Like I said, delightfully weird, and plays into my love of magical realism and meta-fiction. And singing. 

Making a character is a lot faster than many Gumshoe games; not nearly as many skills. We start off by picking a Profession, something that allows my character to go to sea for long periods of time. (Gentleman pirate, perhaps?)

Actually, one of the Professions listed is "Client Scholar." That is, someone is paying my way to go on these adventures, and I like the idea that my character is an eager and skilled scholar in service to a shadowy billionaire (or, given the setting, a shadowy several-thousand-aire, I guess). 

Next step is Drive, or, why my character does this. And "money" is obvious, but ooh, I like "Musicality." My character was down on the docks one morning, maybe stumbling home, maybe delivering something, and heard sailors getting ready to ship out and singing a shanty. The song rattled around in his head for months, and then one night he was whistling it while making a delivery (guy transports goods, I think?) to the aforementioned shadowy rich guy. Said rich guy heard it and offered him this very weird job. And my character knew this was weird on the level of "might never come home again", but the song just won't leave him alone. 

Skills! There are eight Skills and I get 5 points to distribute, which seems like nothin', but like I said, it's a pretty stripped-down version of the system. Let's see. I think I want Athletics 1, Class 1, Seamanship 1, Stealth 1. One more. I think I'll put it in Kind (the Skill one would use to flatter or persuade). My character is easy-going and approachable; it's part of what got him this job.

Details! My character's name is Charles Charles. He was born in San Fransisco, and grew up in a working class family. His father and brothers worked hard (and made the right friends) and eventually wound up being able to buy a sturdy wagon, which they used to make pickups and deliveries at all hours. Charles, the youngest boy (you can tell because they ran out of names), had been at the family business for a couple of years when all of the shanty weirdness happened, and while his family was initially against him going to sea, the money paid to them by Charles' mysterious employer changed their minds.

Charles isn't exactly thick, but he's not terribly smart, either. He's able to follow his training and his instincts are good, but he's not the kind of person who's going to invent something clever or come up with a terribly original solution to a problem. But he remember songs and shanties, and he's got an impeccable sense of rhythm (which would be the most challenging thing for me to roleplay). Charles has stringy brown hair, his mother's bright green eyes, his father's rather listless expression, and a sailor's calluses. 

And that's pretty much it! Yarr! 

Character Creation: Harlem Unbound

I'd love to say that I picked this game to do in February because it's Black History Month, but the truth of the matter is that I asked my friends to choose a game off my list and my gf chose this one. With that said, since it is Black History Month, maybe I'll do games from Black creators in February. (My goal this year is six characters a month.)

The Game: Harlem Unbound
The Publisher: Darker Hue Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Well, that's kind of a special case
Books Required: Just the one, for my purposes

Harlem Unbound is a Mythos game, and it's really a supplement for both Trail of Cthulhu (kind of, it's got all the relevant rules in it so it's really a standalone GUMSHOE game, I guess) and Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition. I do not own the latter, so I'm gonna make a character for the GUMSHOE variant. 

Harlem Unbound is basically a Mythos investigation game set during the Harlem Renaissance, and if you're a white American like me, you might not know much about the period. The book therefore gives you a lot of history and context for the period it's describing the kinds of stories it's meant to evoke, and if anything I think it could have gone a little harder with the Mythos stuff, but honestly it's easier to find info on how to run a Lovecraft-inspired RPG than to run one dealing with racial tension and the Black American experience. Harlem Unbound was nominated for (and won) a bunch of Ennies back in 2018, and deservedly so. 

Anyway, let's make a character! The book asks me to consider what my life was like before being shattered by some Cthulhoid horror. Having just played a very long game of Arkham Horror the other day, I think I shall take a bit of inspiration and make a photographer. I think my character was inspired by the work of James Van Der Zee (where's his fuckin' biopic, his life sounds really interesting) to start clicking pictures. He procured a camera at a young age (gift from a relative, maybe?) and kinda learned as he went, and tried to make some money selling snaps to newspapers and so on - those that would buy from him. He wound up taking gigs as he could, and one day he showed up to an apartment that was decidedly seedy, figuring he was going to take some candid shots of someone's wife or girlfriend or boyfriend or whatever. Turned out that a weedy fellow named Horace wanted him to take some pictures of some weird-looking shit floating in jars, things that looked like fish or crabs or...fish-crabs. My guy took the pictures and was figuring this was all carnival mermaid kind of shit, and one of the things in the jar moved. 

Horace paid him in advance, which was good because when he went to deliver the prints the apartment was empty and no one would even admit that Horace had ever lived there. He still has those prints.

Good start! A little more personal data. His name is Reynold Baker (but call him "Ray"). He was born in Memphis in 1905, but his mother moved to New York when he was still a toddler, so for all intents and purposes he's a New Yorker. He's skinny and wears pants that are too big with black suspenders, an overcoat that he found on a park bench, and a hat that blew off somebody's head and bounced down the street. He really did try to find who lost it, but no luck. 

Investigative abilities! Figuring, as usual, that any game I played in would have at least 5 players, I get 12 points. Let's put 2 in Photography right off the bat. One in Art History, one in Library Use, one each in Assess Honesty, Bargain, Inspiration, and Renaissance. Four left. Art, Chemistry, Craft, and...hmm. I'll put one in Cop Talk. Figure that Ray has wound up taking pictures at crime scenes (hey, they sell), so he's learned a little about how cops work. 

General abilities! I get 60 points, as is the custom. Let's see, which ones do I want ratings in at all? Athletics, Conceal, Disguise, Fleeing, Preparedness, Scuffling, Sense Trouble, Shadowing, and Stealth are all good choices. That's 9 different abilities without considering Sanity, Health, or Stability. I only get 3 Sanity and 2 Health and Stability to start, which ain't much. Let's put 1 into Health (again, skinny, and hasn't got much in him if things get violent) and 2 each into Sanity and Stability. 55 more points. 

Well, 6 into Athletics and Fleeing. 5 into Conceal, 5 into Scuffling, 8 into Shadowing, 5 into Stealth. 5 into Preparedness and Sense Trouble. 10 more. I'll put 4 into Disguise (he knows how, but not especially well), and I'll split the last 6 up evenly between Conceal, Scuffling, and Sense Trouble. 

That's pretty much it, I think. Oh, wait, I could give him a Drive (though there's no place on the sheet for it, grr). Actually, I think his "Drive" would be kinda bad luck - he finds himself in these situations and his brain says "take pictures" rather than "run screaming." When he thinks back on things later, sometimes he realizes that running and screaming would have been smarter, but here we are. 

And that'll do it!

Character Creation: Bubblegumshoe

Alas, the lonely life, just me and some dogs for the week.

(Michelle's out of town for the week.)

The Game: Bubblegumshoe
The Publisher: Evil Hat Productions
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game, though I'm well familiar with Gumshoe and I'm pretty familiar with the teen detective genre
Books Required: Just the one.

 

I'll say this about Bubblegumshoe - it is readable as hell. A lot of RPGs aren't. "Readable" doesn't always equal "fun at the table," but a lot of times it does, just because the more accessible a game is the more I can visualize how it would play, which is kinda the first step toward putting it on my "I should run this" list.

(All of this to say, I could totally run Bubblegumshoe.)

Anyway, making a character here isn't entirely unlike making a character for We Used to Be Friends, though of course the systems are very different and WUTBF, in general, leans a little more adult in tone. We start off by figuring out some sort of concept. I wanna play a lifeguard. His name is Dean Cullen (no vampire jokes, thanks), and during the summer you find him with sunscreen on his bod and shades on his eyes, making sure no one drowns at the municipal water park and rec center. During the school year, he's on the swim team at JFK High. I picture Dean as being lean (swimmer's build), tanned all year round, black hair, green eyes, freckles all around his nose. That's a good enough start, let's do some Investigative abilities!

Well, if I were playing this, I'm sure there would be at least 5 players, so I get 5 Academic points, 8 Interpersonal, and 12 Relationship. For Academic, I go 1 each in Fashion, Notice, Pop Culture, and Town Lore, and Outdoors (Dean is not the fellow you call when it's time to do historical research). For Interpersonal, I'll take one each in BS Detector, Flirting, Gossip, Grownup Face, Reassurance, and Taunt, and the other two in Intimidation ("NO RUNNING, GUYS!").

General Abilities are actually before Relationships. I get 40 points, and 4 free in Cool (which doubles as Health in this game, because hurting teens isn't the point in this genre). I want Dean to be cool as hell, so I'll dump 6 points and boost his Cool to 10 (athlete, hot bod, lifeguard, and freckles? c'mon). I have 34 left. I'll put 8 into Athletics, 6 into First Aid, 4 into Driving, 4 into Repair, 4 into Sneaking, and 6 into Throwdown (social combat). Two left, I'll put 'em into Athletics, making my rating 10.

Relationships are next; I get 12 points. If I were going to play this, I'd leave some points free because you can use Relationship points to create relationships on the fly. I may do that (I note with some displeasure, however, that there's no slot for unspent points on the sheet).

Well, I think that the rec center would be an important place in the town, so I'll take Mr. Vaughn as a Like. Vaughn is the groundskeeper and general handyman at the rec center, and Dean shovels his walk during the winter. I choose an Ability that Vaughn can lend Dean; I'll choose Repair. I'll put 4 points into that. Oh, wait, it's supposed to be an Ability not on the list. Hmm. Let's say Mechanics (sub-specialty of Repair).

Dean needs a girlfriend or two, I think. I'll take Myra Hopkins as a Love - she and Dean have been on-again, off-again sweethearts for the last couple of years. I'll make her Location her house, and her Ability is Russian (her mother is Russian, and she grew up speaking both languages). I'll put 2 points there.

That leaves 5 points remaining. Do I want any more relationships? I don't think I do, but I'll add one if I think of a good one.

Now I do Class, Club, and Clique. I'll say that Dean is Upper Class (yeah, he works, but he doesn't need to). Clique and Club need to be different; I shouldn't say his Clique is "Jocks" and his Club is "Swim Team."

Hmm. Is his Clique the Jocks? I think maybe it is. Dean mostly hangs out with other swimmers. But then what for his Club? I'll say Dean sings baritone in the Church Choir. He's not necessarily devout (he's very clear on where he falls on the subject of, say, the sins of the flesh), but he's been going to church since he was a boy and he likes the choir. It's fun to do something that's not physically exhausting. And hell, while I'm at it I'll add the Reverend as a Relationship (Rev. Loy, Like (cool uncle figure), 3 points, his Location is the church and his Ability is History).

And then I need a Drive; this is what compels Dean to get involved in mysteries. I'm gonna say that Dean is Protective - he probably wouldn't admit it, but it's why he's a lifeguard and why he always keeps his CPR training fresh. He wants people to be safe.

Finally, I need a Story Arc. This is jut a goal for Dean that doesn't involve the mystery at hand, whatever that might. I'll say that Dean wants to figure things out with Myra. If that means they're just friends, fine, if it means they're a couple, fine, but this on-again, off-again is bugging him.

And that'll do it!

Character Creation: Fear Itself 2nd Ed

Haven't done a Gumshoe game yet this year, and this is in fact the last one I own that I haven't done a character for (unless I have something on PDF that I've forgotten about).

The Game: Fear Itself 2nd Ed
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: None with this particular game...oh, wait, that's not true, I played it at some con or other. Anyway, I'm very familiar with Gumshoe.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Now, I made a character for the first edition of this game a while back. This version doesn't look all that different (the examples of campaign premise are actually the same). There's a sample campaign at the back of the book that involves all of the characters being in a drug trial for a medication that decreases anxiety and helps with focus (murdery hijinks ensue!), and that sounds fine.

Fear Itself sets itself apart from other "people encounter horror shit" games, like Esoterrorists and, to some extent, Chill, because the characters are explicitly normal folks without a great deal of expertise. That is, you're just folks thrown into the deep end. I like that, of course, provided that characters don't fail at every roll (and Gumshoe is pretty good at avoiding that).

So I need a concept, first of all. All I know about my character is that they would be willing to participate in this drug trial. I think this means my character doesn't have insurance, which doesn't narrow it down a heck of a lot. I'm thinking I don't want to play someone with any particular knowledge about meds or drugs, but that's easy to arrange in this version of Gumshoe. One of the example concepts is "fast talking dog trainer." I don't want my guy to be a dog trainer necessarily, but how about a dog walker?

We'll say my character is 23, college dropout, smart but just can't stay focused. He does a lot of odd jobs in the same vein as walking dogs - house sits, yardwork, temp office worker, and so on. He agreed to the drug trial because he knows he has focus issues and he did better on meds, but then his parents divorced and his insurance changed and he dropped out of school and gaah.

Risk Factor: Now, this is interesting. Whereas in the first edition, everyone had a risk factor and it was mostly your motivation for doing appropriately horror-movie stuff (like going into the dark basement), in this edition, the complexity of the Risk Factor is based on the style of game you're playing. To wit, if you're playing a one-shot, it's recommended that characters are very stock and stereotypical, while if you're playing a campaign, you need to get into the inner motivation a bit more.

Well, for my character, I think his Risk Factor is Lack of Danger Sense. For whatever reason, he doesn't really recognize risk well, and that leads him to follow other people into dark basements.

Right, abilities, then. If I were playing this game, I'm sure there would be at least 4 players, so I get 10 points in Investigative abilities. I'll put points into History, Humanities, Research, Social Sciences, and Trivia (he's had some college, after all). And then I'll put points into Computer Use, Bullshit Detector, Bureaucracy, Reassurance, and...hmm. Outdoor Survival, how about.

60 points into Generals, then. Oh, this is cute. Hiding and Fleeing are half price if Infiltration and Athletics (respectively) are lower. That's to reward folks who act like, well, normal people in the face of horrors.

Well, anyway, I get 1 free in Health and Stability. I'll put Health up to 6 and Stability up to 8, so I've spent 12. I'll put 5 into Driving, 5 into Mechanics, and 5 into Filch (spent 27). I'll put 10 into Hiding (but it only costs me 5 because I'm not going to buy Infiltration), and 8 into Athletics (which means I've spent 40). 20 left. Kinda running out of places to put them. Hmm. Well, how about we put 6 into Fleeing (costing me 3), 9 into Sense Trouble, and then I'll put three more into Driving. That leave me 3. I'll put them into Filch; it's not something he's great at, but he's got one good roll in him.

Next up is Sources of Stability. I have 8 Stability, so I just get 2. I'll take Mrs. Robinson. Mrs. R owns two Dobermans; they're mostly layabouts, but they do need walkies, and Mrs. R's hips aren't up to it anymore. He walks her dogs and chats with her about life, and doesn't mind that she tells the same stories over again because he tends not to remember them anyway.

For my other one, I'll take running. He has a habit of just running and then getting lost in it, so he kinda "comes to" across town. Even so, it keeps him in shape and it helps him find his zen.

I think that's pretty much it, other than a name and some description. Doing the latter first, this guy is lean, built like a runner, brown hair, blue eyes, wears jeans and t-shirts he bought second-hand. He has good-quality running shoes, though (his usual Xmas present from his folks). His name is Tyler Prell.

Character Creation: The Esoterrorists 2nd Edition

Well, I was supposed to running Night's Black Agents today, but that got cancelled due to illness, so I shall instead make a character. It's appropriate, perhaps, that the character is for a Gumshoe game, but that wasn't intentional, I determined the game randomly. So here we go!

The Game: The Esoterrorists 2nd Edition
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: None with this games specifically, but I'm pretty familiar with the underlying mechanics and with "members of a secret society protect the world from supernatural evils"
Books Required: Just the one.

 
So, I think that Esoterrorists was the first Gumshoe game, based on the intro to the book written by Simon Rogers. I've talked before about how I think that the premise of the Gumshoe system is sound, even if the reasoning behind it seems a little extreme (to wit, the premise is that if you treat finding clues in an investigative game like any other action - roll to see if you fail and fail means "no" - that the action grinds to a halt). I think that that problem is very much rooted in some deeper issues with what "failure" means in the context of an RPG, but I honestly can't fault the result; it's one of my favorite systems and it absolutely informed Chill 3rd Ed.

This particular game has the players assuming the roles of members of the Ordo Veritatis (which sounds like better Latin than SAVE uses, but that's how the cookie crumbles), a secret organization that operates in unconnected cells to battle the titular Esoterrorists. Magic and the supernatural need a foothold in the belief of the world before they become fixtures, so it's not just about fighting them, it's about keeping them out of the public eye and mind. Sounds good.

So, what kind of investigator would I like to make today? You get recruited into the OV by invitation or just stumbling across the world of the supernatural (but then vetted and psych tested, which is probably good), so I'm not necessarily an occultist by design. Let's see. I think I want to play a criminal of sorts. Reggie Blankenship was running pool hall scams in high school. He got expelled his senior year, got a GED, did a couple of years in college and then got expelled for selling exams and essays. He's done a bunch of minor cons, and was branching into identity theft when he got asked to create a legal identity for some old guy named Ezra. Reggie did some digging and found that Ezra had been creeping around for more than a century, and was all set to make the ID and then bug the fuck out when the OV showed up. Reggie helped lure Ezra into a trap, and then saw the benefit of having a secret organization having his back (legal fees!), so he joined up.

Next step is Investigative Abilities. As usual, I get a number based on how many players in the group, and I'm sure if I were actually playing Reggie there would be at least 5 players, so we'll say I get 20 points.

Well, starting with Academic Abilities, I'll take a point in Law (gotta know it to break it). I get a free point in Occult Studies, so that doesn't count against my 20. I'll take a point in Research, too (Reggie does his homework).

Down under Interpersonal, I'll take Bullshit Detector (duh), Bureaucracy, Cop Talk, Flattery, Flirting, two points in Impersonate, and then one each in Negotiation, Reassurance, and Streetwise. That puts me up to 12 spent, 8 left. Anything down under Technical?

Well, sure. Cryptography, Data Retrieval, Document Analysis, two in Electronic Surveillance, Fingerprinting, and Photography. One left. I'll put it in Languages, that's always useful.

And then 60 points in General Abilities. Yowza. Well, right off the bat, I want a decent rating in Infiltration, so I'll put 10 there (that means I have to put at least 5 in the next-highest). I'll put 8 in Athletics (it pays to be able to run in Reggie's line of work), 8 in Driving (ditto), 4 in Shooting (he knows how guns work), 8 in Surveillance, 9 in Health (plus one for free), 5 in Stability (plus one I get for free), 8 in Filch (duh) and 4 in Preparedness.

And that's pretty much it, actually. I think Reggie is a nicely nondescript fellow - white, average height and build, brown hair, brown eyes. He carries a wedding ring and wears it when it'll help with a con, and while he's not educated in any formal capacity he can fake knowledge of a number of different topics (plus he improvises well).

Interesting to me that this game doesn't use Drive, because it seems like it'd benefit. I think that for Reggie, the full scope of the problem isn't really apparent yet and he's looking to use the OV for whatever benefits he can get before taking off. At some point on his first real mission, shit is going to get very real for him.

Character Creation: Timewatch

Two chargen posts in a row? Well, sure. I haven't run anything since Blades, I've been at a con all weekend so I haven't watched any movies or played any board games. I don't have anything in particular to say about the industry at the moment (rather, I have opinions, but no interest in sharing them), and my Kickstarter ends tomorrow...

WAIT, WHAT?

Yeah, I'm running a mini-Kickstarter for Jack's Trick, my card-based spooky micro-RPG. It's well-funded, it's only $5 to get the PDF (which is really the only reward I'm offering), so give it a look/share/pledge if you would?

Cover art by Miguel Santos.

Anyway, all of that in mind:

The Game: Timewatch
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: Quite a bit with the underlying system, and Michelle just started running a game of it
Books Required: Just the one.

 
I actually considered doing a "liveblog" version of this when we all made characters for Michelle's game, but I didn't want to fuss with that at the time. So I'm gonna make a character for it now, how about that.

In Timewatch, you play members of the titular organization, smoothing out paradoxes and other temporal issues. There are other ways to play the game, too, but let's assume that's what we're doing. So, Step One: Concept.

I need to pick where/when I'm from. Timewatch agents can be basically from anywhen, but as always we're limited by somewhat narrow knowledge of history. You know, for once I want to get out of the 20th century. How far back would I like to go? Well, I find the Reign of Terror in France interesting. I think I shall play a character who was a minor noble - or maybe just a supporter - who wound up being sentenced to death. Before the sentence was carried out, Timewatch plucked him from his fate (the official rolls have him being guillotined, though). Good start. I need a French name, though. I'll call him Henri Cloutier.

I could pick up a Profession package at this point, but eh. I think I'll be OK. Henri made nails (family business) and did carpentry, and was often employed by nobility. He made the mistake of opining that maybe the nobles were mostly OK and wound up being imprisoned and nearly beheaded for his trouble.

Step Two: Investigative Abilities. If I were playing this (and I am!) I'm sure we'd have at least 5 players, so I'll say I get 16 points. I get one free one in Timecraft.

So, I figure that after Henri was taken in by Timewatch, he studied up on history to see how this whole "cut off everyone's fucking head" idea went (spoiler: not great), so I'll take a point in History (Ancient) and History (Contemporary). I'll take Military Tactics and Research as well.

Down under Interpersonal, I'll pick up Bureaucracy, Charm, High Society, and Streetwise.

And then under Technical, for my last 8 points, I'll take Forgery, Medical Expertise, Notice (2 points), Outdoor Survival, Paradox Prevention (2 points) and Spying.

Step Three: General Abilities. I get 50 points to throw around here, and there are fewer of them than in a lot of Gumshoe goes.

Well, right off I'll put 4 points into Health and Chronal Stability, boosting them to 10. That puts me down to 42. I'll put 6 into Athletics (36), 5 into Burglary (31), 6 into Disguise (25), 4 into Medic (21), 8 into Preparedness (13), 5 into Scuffling (8) and the last 8 into Tinkering.

Step Four: Background, Appearance, Drive, etc. Let's do Drive first. Much like in Chill, Drive is basically "why you do this." In Henri's case, it kind falls under Duty, in a way, and is expressed as "I Know What People Are Capable Of."

Henri disappeared when he was 18, and it's been a couple of "years". He's slim, he's got shiny white teeth (because they were awful so Timewatch fixed them), black hair, and cautious blue eyes. He's got a generally pleasant but fidgety demeanor, and he's finding that he's comfortable in eras that have a more monarchy-style thing going on; democracy makes him nervous as hell.

And I think that's it!

Character Creation: Ashen Stars

Needed to take a break from redlining Changeling, and I've been reading this game as my before-bed book, so here we are.

The Game: Ashen Stars
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I played it at Origins (I think) some years back. Might've been GenCon. Anyway, I remember very little about that game, which doesn't speak well of the experience. I seem to remember it was passable, but pretty lackluster. Hungover GM, maybe?
Books Required: Just the one.

 
Ashen Stars is a space opera game in the Gumshoe system, which isn't an immediate intuitive leap for me, but it makes sense. Characters are "lasers" - Licensed Autonomous Zone Effectuators - basically space cops or space Marshals. There's the usual chapter of history, but it goes by nicely (we don't get a play-by-play of the major battles of the war), and like a lot of Robin Laws games it doesn't define what it doesn't need to define.

Put another way, some aspects of the alien races' cultures are provided, but the players are invited to do a lot of that work in play, which is how I like to approach both sci-fi and fantasy. I like a bit of collaboration in my tea.

Anydangway, character creation. We start off by choosing a race. The game details "Seven Peoples," which is humans plus six alien races (though, really, everyone's an alien in space...or no one is. Deep). I think when I played this at the con I played a kch-thk, which are like big warrior mantises that eat everything (only they've agreed not to eat humanoid races anymore). So I don't want to make one of those or a human, I think. Hmm.

Well, I kinda like the balla. They're beautiful and ethereal and they feel emotions so strongly that if they don't control them (there's even a device they use to do it) they might slip into an extreme emotional state. By default, other species want to worship the balla, but the species' ethos teaches them that all species are equal and so they need to repress that "power." Yeah, this sounds fun.

Their names are two syllables and begin and end with vowels, so my laser will be named Ezha (long e, "zh" like the middle sound in "treasure," unstressed vowel like a schwa). I get boosts in three of: Botany, Geology, History (Balla) and Zoology. I think I'll wait to decide which three until it becomes relevant. I also get a bunch of cyberware and viroware that's better or worse for me, but again, that's a later step in the process.

Step Two is "assign crew packages." Everyone has a job they do dockside (while on a planet) and warpside (in space). I like that; it's nice for people to have jobs to do because it cuts down on redundancy and encourages niche protection. Anyway! What does Ezha do?

Warpside, I like Communications Officer (or "Hailer"). I'm basically responsible for receiving and routing communications with other ships, but that also lets me get into some psychological warfare with other ships and do PR. Now, you say, this might be an odd choice for a species that has to keep itself so in check, but that's exactly why Ezha likes it - in space, his species powers aren't an issue. This package gives me: Linguistics 1, Flattery 1, Reassurance 1, Decryption 1, Data Retrieval 1, Communications Intercept 6, Sense Trouble 4.

Then dockside. I think I'll play to my strengths and be the Survey Officer (or "Mapper"). Basically my job is to, well, survey, and be an explorer, cartography, species collector, and so forth. I like the idea of my character in a lab, running comms from there with a series of touchscreens, rather than in a cockpit. I need: Botany 1, Geology 1, Zoology 1, Astronomy 1, Bio Signatures 1, Chemistry 1, Energy Signatures 1, and Sense Trouble 4.

Now, all of these points come out of my totals later, so it's not like Night's Black Agents where I pay for the packages up front. That means I have to take Sense Trouble 4 and it covers both of these packages; I don't have to take 8 points.

In any case! Now I choose the rest of my Investigative Abilities. I get points based on how many players my "group" has, and since I'm sure there would be at least 5, I get a total of 21. I've already "spent" 12, which leaves me 9 left. This'll be easy.

OK, this game has a bunch of new ones, so I need to look those over. I'll take a point in Archaeology and Anthropology; seems appropriate to me as Mapper and as Hailer (predicting how people will respond). I think I should take one in History (Balla). I'll take Imaging; you figure he might set up cameras and sensors while planetside. That's 4; I have 5 left. I should take one in Negotiation. Ooh, I like this new "Respect" ability, too, and it seems very appropriate. I'll take a point each in Virology and Xenoculture, too. That leaves me 1 left; I'll put it Forensic Anthropology so I can do autopsies. I'll put my boosts in Geology, Zoology, and Botany. I don't see this guy as especially keyed in to his species' history.

Now I pick the rest of my general abilities. I get 75 points, but I've spent 10 (6 in Communications Intercept and 4 in Sense Trouble), so I have 65 left. Here we go!

Well, you're stupid if you don't take Athletics, so I'll put 4 there. Looks like I'd better take Emotion Suppression. I'll put 6 there. That takes me 55. I think I'd better know how to handle Ground Craft (5 points). Ooh, Health. I'll put 5 there. 45 points.

Preparedness! Oh, definitely. 6 points. Public Relations seems smart, given my job, so I'll 6 more there. That's 33 remaining. I'll bump Sense Trouble up to 8 (4 more points). I need something combatty, so I'll put 7 into Shooting (22 left). I'll put 5 into Shuttle Craft, 5 into Surveillance, and 7 into Viro Manipulation, but that still gives me 5 left. I'll put 3 more into Communications Intercept for a total of 9, and the remaining 2 into Emotion Suppression (8 total). Sounds good.

Now I choose my Drive, my motivation for going into adventure and being a laser. Every species has a unique one, but the balla one (Self-Exclusion) doesn't do it for me. Hmm. There are a couple that I like; Scientific Inquiry makes sense. But given Ezha's position as Hailer in addition to Mapper, I'm going with Chronicler. He's not just in it for the discovery, but he's making a travelogue of the planets he visits in addition to the people he meets. He channels emotion that way, by describing what he sees, he allows other people to feel in his place.

Step six would be to choose the ship, but that would be a group exercise. I think I'd want a ship with some range, kind of investigating shit on the "outer rim," as it were, but that's just off the top of my head. Otherwise I think I'll skip this.

Step seven is "choose tech and enhancements." In our hypothetical 5-player group, we'd get 108 credits to share. That doesn't divide evenly, which is sort of weird, but let's assume I'd have 20.

Well, I want a Dataloader, and it's a compatibility for balla, meaning it only costs 2 instead of 3. Likewise for a Headdisk, which lets me record anything I see or hear. That only costs me 1. I'll take a Headlight (useful for caves; 2 points), Nightvision (1 point), and hell yes a Pherotracker (I shoot someone and I can track them for the rest of the episode). That's 8 points of my 20.

Then I should look at viroware. It's basically special viruses that alter your DNA and let you do cool things. I'll take Thirdeye, which refigures the hairs on the back of my neck to let them transmit visual information to my brain; basically I get a bonus to Sense Trouble. I like that.

Well, that's as much money as I want to spend. Now I finish up by doing a personal arc. These are basically story hooks that affect my character and get woven into larger stories. I also give the GM open subplots, which I really like (though I have players who would struggle, I suspect).

My first one is become a famous explorer. Ezha wants to be known for his forays into the wild. My open subplot is "someone has a dangerous mission for me," basically giving me a chance to get cred while doing her dirty work.

Next up: find a place I can let go. Ezha understands the need for his people to remain in control, and he's good at it. But one of the reasons he likes the wild so much is that maybe, somewhere out there, there's a place he can succumb to the beauty of it all and be safe. My open subplot here is "smugglers spotted on remote world," which is pretty basic for this game anyway, but I think could play into this arc nicely.

Finally: reconnect with Amli. Amli was another balla, also a Hailer on a different ship. We never actually met in person but had a delightful chat while our ships were in proximity. Ezha really wants to talk with her again, but there was some unpleasantness that cut off our conversation and he's never managed to reconnect. Open subplot: "a garbled, fragmented transmission from her ship."

And that's it!

All the Game Prep Ever

I'm running five games right now, plus occasional one-shots. If that seems nuts, well, it is. Let's take a moment to ruminate on that.

I've always dedicated a lot of time to running games (start the clock on "always" when I was about 18 or so; I ran games occasionally in high school, but my freshman year in college was when I started to meet a lot of other roleplayers and it wasn't uncommon for me to run games four nights a week). For a while it was mostly Chill, but I'd routinely buy other games and we'd try them out. So I'd run or play Shattered Dreams, Nightlife, Paranoia, Toon, Earthdawn, and lots of others I can't even think of right now. Sometimes we'd just play a game once and then gravitate back to stuff we liked more, and once 1994 rolled around and Wraith: The Oblivion came out, then it was down the rabbit-hole that was the World of Darkness.

World of Darkness, in both incarnations ("classic" and what's now called Chronicles of Darkness), was great for the GM who likes to run multiple games because they could all take place in the same universe. That was harder with OWoD, since the cosmologies weren't really designed to mesh, but it didn't get too crazy until Demon: The Fallen by which point I had pretty much stopped running connected games. It was nice, though, if I had a random group of people one night and folks wanted to play but we didn't have a group of characters for those particular players to be able to say "OK, make Mage characters and let's pick a city." And bam, new chronicle, another entry in the binder.

Now I don't run as much WoD, though. I'm not running any CofD games at all (for now, though we'll get back around to Promethean at some point), and I'm just running Changeling: The Dreaming as a playtest for the 20th anniversary edition. Since my priorities have shifted from "be an expert in WoD" to "play lots of different games to broaden my horizons as a designer," I'm running, at present, a Fate Core game (Atomic Robo), a PbtA game (Epyllion, or rather, the Epyllion ashcan, since the main game isn't out yet), a Gumshoe game (Night's Black Agents), and a lighter, beer-n-pretzels game (Feng Shui), in addition to Changeling.

Epyllion is nice because it's zero-prep. I wing it every session, and that's the way PbtA games work. But the rest of the games require varying degrees of prep. Feng Shui is simple enough in play, but it's got a lot of backstory and since it relies on combat, I have to have opponents statted. Night's Black Agents is Gumshoe, which is a heavy-prep game (though this particular game has been going long enough that I can wing it a little) because you have to know what clues are around for the PCs to find. Changeling, sadly, is more prep than I'd like. It used to be that I knew WoD so well that I could whip up stats off the top of my head, but even if we weren't doing a playtest with some revised rules, it's been so long since I ran an OWoD game (that last one was Demon, which wrapped in...jesus, late 2004, by the look of it?) and I largely (and deliberately) put the system out of my head when I started developing/writing for NWoD that it's weird to be running it. Doesn't help that the players, by and large, aren't familiar with it and, I think, would rather be playing it in NWoD/CofD. Atomic Robo is Fate, which means that I know the system, but it has several cool little subsystems I need to get familiar with.

And all of this is on top of the fact that the groups are very different. Atomic Robo is perfectly able to improvise and buy in with no trouble. Feng Shui has a bit more trouble with that. Night's Black Agents is finding their feet in the game, but it's taken three years and some switches in players and characters. And so on.

Time was that I had no trouble keeping up with game prep, but then again, time was that I a) had more energy and b) had more time, somehow. My day job used to afford me occasional opportunities to work on not-work, but it's gotten more intense this year, and it's sapping my energy. I'm getting older, too, which doesn't help, and then there's the freelance work.

What I am saying? I think what I need to do is set aside a day a month, to do some extensive game prep for what I'm running. One day may actually not be enough, but I have a day today (yesterday, really, but I was sick yesterday which totally pissed me off, and led to me taking today off work). In the interest of not making this post any longer, and in making it easier for players of the respective games to avoid the posts in question, I'm gonna make separate posts for each of the games (less Epyllion, because again, no prep).

First up, since I'm running it today: Changeling.

#RPGaDay2015

22nd: Perfect Gaming Environment: My house, at my magnificent gaming table, with a full pot of coffee and dinner and/or snacks available. And perhaps dogs sleeping beneath.

23rd: Perfect Game for You: Weird question, this; I'm not entirely sure how to answer it. I guess the way to approach this is "perfect game for me to play", or perhaps run. Hmm. I hate to reuse answers, but Misspent Youth is pretty perfect for me - it rewards action but not meticulous planning, plays nicely with improvisation, and hits themes that are near and dear to my heart. Gumshoe also does well with my style as a GM, provided I have enough time to prep.

24th: Favorite House Rule: Interestingly, a lot of my house rules don't tend to stay house rules for long, for WoD anyway, because I tend to write them into books. :) I think one of my favorites, which I've modified and included in other systems, was one that a DM I played with in Atlanta used for his Dungeons & Dragons game: Players can give each other beads for good ideas, cool bits of IC dialog, good jokes, whatever. At the end of the game, you get (# of beads) x your level in XP. D&D doesn't do much to reward roleplaying, and I thought that was a nice way to do it.

End of Op 2: Night's Black Agents

Saturday was a rousing game of Night's Black Agents, in which we rather unexpectedly ended the second op. Half of running a good game is knowing when the credits roll, man.

So! Lockwood flew into Paris and joined the other characters, who were talking over what to do about their newly acquired information about Vasily Avilov and the human traffic ring. They decided they'd try and find Olive Parent, the woman whose picture showed up on Mikhael Gulubov's camera and who had, at one point, been arrested for solicitation. They had Smith check into a hotel (using Human Terrain and Streetwise to find one within Avilov's circle of influence, where the bellhop would offer tourist men a bit of a good time).

Indeed, the bellhop mentioned to Smith that if he was alone for the night, he could hook him up. Smith agreed, and a bit later, a black car pulled up with a woman in back, seated next to a man. The man gave her a pat on the leg (kind of a "go get 'em!"), and she went upstairs.

It wasn't Olive, though, so Smith feigned illness and sent her away. She went down to the hotel bar and struck up a conversation with David, who was there watching. She offered her services to him, and he offered to take her for a walk, and then got her alone and asked her about Olive. She revealed that Olive was on a call at a different hotel; fortunately she knew which one. David gave the girl some money and put her on a train south, while the others staked out the other hotel.

They didn't have to wait long. Olive came out of the lobby and got into a car - just one guy, the driver, and not someone the characters had seen. They followed them, Rousseau driving expertly behind, to the banks of the Seine...whereupon the man got Olive out of the car, stood behind her, and pulled a gun.

Hanover, however, shot him dead before he could harm the girl (using his MOS). They took his wallet, cell phone, and weapon, and threw him in the river, and took Olive out of the city to Euro Disney (I am not making this up) to debrief her.

From Olive, with some judicious use of Reassurance, they learned Avilov's habits and MO. He lived in a building in Little Moscow, a building with families and kids (the characters had been planning on just blowing it up, but thought better of that). The windows on his floor were blocked up, so they couldn't snipe him easily. They could assassinate him, though - they're pros, after all, but Smith brought up a point. If they kill him, doesn't someone just fill the void? And will that alert the vampires to their presence? Also, Avilov has a Paris cop on the take (DuClerc), so something would have to be done about him, too.

Rousseau came up with a brilliant plan, though. They staged a video in which DuClerc scuffles with Olive, shoots her dead, and then cleans up after. They arranged it so Olive set up her phone to record (so the video and audio sucked, which worked in their favor, since they just had to make Smith pass for DuClerc under those conditions), drew some of Olive's blood to plant to make it look real, and did all this at the hotel where Smith had check in originally, so the bellhop would see "Duclerc" leaving.

Avilov and his boys came to the hotel, and left in a hurry, and headed to DuClerc's apartment (where the characters were watching from the next building over, ready to make sure everyone that needed to get shot did). Rousseau called in a contact at the Police Nationale, so sirens were inbound - and they called Duclerc right before Avilov kicked in the door. Shots were exchanged, both DuClerc and Avilov fell dead, and the last guy got arrested on his way out.

The characters stuck around Paris to make sure everything worked out - the police dug into DuClerc and realized he'd been on the take, so rolled in to Avilov's building and arrested/shot the criminals there, returning a lot of the women there against their will to their home countries or at least putting them in the system (look, it's not perfect, but it's better than being food).

Smith called up a buddy of his, also an ex-spook, in Sarajevo, and asked him to look into Ivana Zisek, the information broker that apparently sold out Rousseau. He said he would, but had heard nothing of interest.

The characters kept an eye on the warehouse they'd noticed before, but nothing changed. Hanover, however, also made sure to watch Simon Thibault, and lo and behold, he took a meeting with a woman named Renate Bauer. Bauer, as it happens, is BSI - the Federal Office for Security in Information Technology, the same unit that Hanover worked for. And, according to Rousseau's PN contact, she also went to look at Avilov's body.

The characters figured that they should leave Paris for a while anyway, and besides, their best lead was in Germany. So for our third op, we're headed to Bonn.

NBA Notes

No, nothing to do with basketball.

Night's Black Agent, 2nd Op: Paris (by way of Zurich)

So! Last night we played Night's Black Agents. Started by spending some XP, and then moving on to the downtime that the characters spent in Zurich looking into the research facility that's been sending blood samples to Macan in Croatia, Tasse Medical Supply, and the human trafficking ring that "recruits" in Paris.

Hanover wasn't able to find much on the latter, but he was trying to do research remotely, and there just wasn't much online. The research facility, though, is just for animal testing - it's not owned by Tasse, and they're one of several companies that farms their work there. Luc Lemarque is a 20something with a degree in biology, trying to get into med school, and seems to have no unusual online or financial activity.

Tasse was purely medical supply until three years ago, when after getting a lot of money from an unknown source (probably Russian mafia), they started bankrolling research. Their research is all on blood and blood preservation, which seems to make sense. Also of interest is the CEO, Simon Thibault. The characters look into his life and find that he has an ex-wife who lives in Zurich and a son in law school in Berlin...but he divorced his wife, swiftly and seemingly out of the blue, three years ago.

The characters dig a little more and find that Thibault paid his wife a lot of money, seemingly to get the divorce done as quickly as possible. There's nothing in the papers that helps, either. Thibault has always done the "rich-guy philanthropist" thing, but he's not heavily into anything in particular. He's visible, but not prominent. His ex, Marie, living in Zurich, does similar things. He's not pictured with dates - in fact, he still wears his wedding ring, and the marriage was never annulled through the Church.

The characters figure something is up, here, and since they're in Switzerland anyway, they decide to meet her. Hanover calls on Liesel Weiss, a friend of his in high society, and scores a couple of invites to a charity ball. He takes Delia with him (using her Cover as Meredith O'Bannon) and meets Marie. Using their Interpersonal Skills, they steer the conversation toward her divorce, and learn that Simon vanished one weekend, then showed up Monday morning completely different. He was distant and cold, and initiated divorce proceedings.

In talking with her, they learn that Marie is still confused and hurt over the whole thing. Gossip says she got to Zurich and immediately checked into a clinic with a "nervous breakdown," which everyone assumed was a drug/booze issue, but to the characters it looks more like she was just really depressed. They also hear that Francois, Marie and Simon's son, flew into Paris when he heard about the divorce but flew out the next day, reportedly after a confrontation with his father.

The characters tap Marie's phone, and sure enough, she calls Francois after the ball and says that she's just lonely and missing Simon. Francois, interning for a law firm in Berlin, offers to come down for the weekend. The characters keep tabs on him, and see him working at a cafe. Rousseau, using one of her Covers, meets him and gets to chatting (mostly about the law, as her Interpersonal skills are lacking). She mostly confirms what the characters already know - something about Simon and about Tasse in general changed three years ago.

But the motivation? The group (Smith in particular) suspects that this might be Simon trying to protect his family from whatever happened to him by driving them away. It was clumsily done, yes, but that's what it looks like. They need more information, and so now, they're heading to Paris.

Night's Black Agents: Preppity Prep

Tonight is NBA. Which means I need to get back into this game's mindset. Got an NSA agent here, maybe I should start illegally listening in to people's phone conversations and reading their emails?

(Note to the NSA: I shouldn't, no. And neither should you.)

Anyway, below the page break is super-secret GMing stuff.

It's that time again - game prep!

Holy cats. Lots of gaming this week. I'm running Night's Black Agents tonight, Promethean: The Created on Monday, Demon: The Diatribe on Wednesday, and Interface Zero on Saturday.

Now, I don't need to do prep for Demon, 'cause it's already done (beyond rereading what's already happened). I do need to prep Interface Zero, but mostly that means I need to read the pdf, and that's not happening today. That leaves the other two, yeah? Let's gooooo!

Night's Black Agents - Bullets Everywhere!

Saturday was Night's Black Agents. Let's watch, shall we?

The characters took a week in scenic Budapest in order to let some Heat bleed off. They were also waiting on Hanover's contact, Janos, to put together a couple of armored Mercedes so they could drive them to Zurich. That took some time.

Rousseau made contact with her handler in the Police Nacionale, Celeste Sarobcade. She requested money at a drop in Zurich, and made her aware of what was happening, including people throwing sinks around.

Smith received a message from Milrod, the arms dealer that he got his guns from way back at the beginning of this story. Milrod had information about the paymaster in Zagreb (whoever it was that was supposed to send money, but that Anton intercepted) and wanted to meet. The agents chose a nice restaurant, and Smith and Lockwood went along to talk with Milrod. Hanover watched from a table, David from the bar, and Rousseau did overwatch outside.

Milrod was obviously injured. He carried himself like he was in pain, and he acting scared and traumatized. He said that the paymaster's name was Klobucar, and that he was in Zagreb; they ran in the same circles. The characters got the feeling that Milrod wasn't saying everything he knew, so they pressed a little. He admitted he'd been tortured into setting up this meeting - someone was after the characters, someone absolutely brutal. The characters left, and regrouped at a cafe some distance away.

They decided that Milrod was their best asset, here. They discussed grabbing him and interrogating him, and decided that their best bet might to follow him, since they knew where he was. Lockwood (with Preparedness) revealed she'd put a tracker on him, so they followed it back to a hotel. Smith and Rousseau waited in the van, while David, Hanover and Lockwood went up to the room to collect him.

David (more Preparedness) pumped gas in under the door to put Milrod to sleep, and then picked the lock. Inside the cramped room, they found Milrod sitting at the desk...dead, with two holes in his neck. And then David heard the slide on a gun, and told everyone to get down.

Outside, Rousseau noticed a man walking behind their van with a knife. She pointed that out to Smith, and Smith, not wanting to screw around, shot him in the neck. He dropped, and Rousseau backed the car up (to conceal the body/finish the job), but didn't hit anything. Instead, a tire went flat.

Inside the hotel room, someone shot through the door at David. Lockwood opened the main door to the room to give them an out, but another man, standing across the hall, shot at her. She returned fire, and Hanover leaned over her shoulder, shooting and dropping the guy across the hall.

But the guy in the bathroom left, moving fast enough that David didn't see him do it (and assumed a third shooter). He fired at Hanover and Lockwood on full auto, wounding them both, but David shot him down.

Outside, Rousseau smashed the van into the dude, but he reached back and punched through the windshield. Smith shot him, and Rousseau hit the brakes, sending him tumbling out of the car. And then Rousseau ran his ass over again.

Upstairs, David did some quick first aid on Lockwood (who was pretty injured) and then looked at the bodies. The two shooters weren't bleeding - the blood was just kind of pooling. Milrod, too, had obviously died of blood loss, but there was no blood around. Hanover mentioned the word "nosferatu", and the others agreed that this somehow, impossibly, looked vampiric. But now there were sirens on the way.

Smith checked the body of their assailant, and found a business card for an escort service called Hi-Klass. He also grabbed the guy's knife, because why not. Rousseau stole a car, and pulled up in front of the hotel, just as the cops arrived. David tried to pass himself off as a doctor, and Lockwood as a woman he was getting to the hospital, but the cops didn't buy it (Rousseau's player blew the Heat roll), and so they took off.

We used the Thriller Chase rules, and it was pretty exciting. Rousseau took a strong lead (Smith, with Preparedness, had place a small explosive charge in the discarded van, just enough to distract), but she blew through her Driving spends pretty quickly, and then it was just dice. The others helped (Traffic Analysis, Urban Survival), but in the end, it took Digital Intrusion to control traffic lights and Conceal to hide the car. But they got away.

They laid low until morning, and picked up the Mercedes from Janos. David, with one more Preparedness use, had moved their stuff out of the hotel (which was good, because the duplicated laptop was there), and so they headed out of town. They decided that running to Zurich would put them too far away from the problem...and they wanted to figure this out. They decided to go back to Osijek, since the medical school there was obviously involved.

Once there, they rented a house (courtesy of Hanover), and looked into Hi-Klass a little more. It was basically a prostitution ring, headquartered in Gyor, Hungary, and (digging deeper) probably a front for human trafficking out of Paris. This made Rousseau perk up, because that's her turf, but the characters wanted to figure out why the med school is involved.

So next time - next week! - they'll go looking for Dr. Radovan Macan.