I'm trying to get to 10 before the end of the month, which requires a character/day for the rest of the week. I think that's doable, though we're also in the midst of cleaning out the game closet, which is a mammoth task.
The Game: John Silence
The Publisher: Ginger Goat (though it's not available for sale)
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one
Another sad tale of a Kicktarter gone kerflooie. The game is finished, the PDF exists (obviously, or else I wouldn't be talking about it), but the print edition doesn't because...the guy making it ran out of money and (I guess?) refuses to sell it, because some of the contributors left the project for "creative differences?" I don't understand why that means he can't sell the PDF or put it up for POD and give those of us who backed a coupon to buy an at-cost, which to me is a much more stand-up thing to do than give whiny "apologies," but then my relationship with apologies is a little rocky at best. (To say nothing of my ability to understand creatives who get some life shit thrown at them and immediately fold up their tents and run; see also Wicked Ones, Reach of Titan, and most perplexing of all, Dust Wardens.)
But regardless of the circumstances, let's talk about John Silence! The game has you playing psychic detectives of color, and is explicitly designed with the intention that you play a POC in the game (the author has his reasons for this, but the long and the short of it is "how about we have a game where the heroes are explicitly not 'white', whatever that means?") and that violence is not the means of solving problems. There's a short story that conveys the tone of the game perfectly, right down to having a big party with painting on butcher paper on the floor to build up enough joy to send monsters home. So this feels very urban fantasy - shades of Changeling: The Dreaming and other such things. Reading the GM section at the end of the book, the game is assumed to take place on the plane of Hjem, there are other planes of existence that are only defined as much as they need to be, and my god does this game get preachy about how you play it (when you as the game creator start telling me, the reader, what I can and can't say at the table, that's a big swing, my friend. But then again, anyone who would have backed this Kickstarter is probably down with the intent there).
SO ANYWAY let's follow the steps! There's no sheet (boo), so hopefully chargen is well explained.
Well, not off to a great start. Chargen starts with Nature, but then each Nature talks about stats and so on, and since there's no fucking character sheet I don't know what all the stats are. Blargle. With that said, the Natures are passing the Chupp test for me and I already have a concept, so that's cool.
One of the Natures is changeling, but unlike the traditional definition (human child swapped out for a faerie child), it just means you're one Nature but raised by another. So my character is human, but was raised by Monsters. ("Monster" here being a catch-all for cryptids and other creatures that don't fit into the other categories.)
So: My character's name is Leon Moody. He was raised, at first, by his aunts and uncles; his birth parents just weren't around much, though he knows he's met both of them on occasion. Leon spent a lot of time talking to imaginary friends, and gradually he kind of lost track of his human family and hung around with the monsters in the neighborhood. And then one day his aunt sent him down the block to stay with his other aunt, and he went to the monsters' lair instead, and just never went back.
He's grown, now, and much of his childhood has a weird, dreamlike vibe to it, but every so often Leon will remember something relevant and helpful and then have to put it in context, and the conclusion he keeps inescapably coming to is that the human beings in his life really let him down. But he wants to be wrong about that.
OK, good (if sad) start. As a changeling, I pick two other Natures. The first is the one I was raised in, so that's Monster. Second determines attributes n' shit, so that's Human.
So I determine Attributes as if I were human, which means I roll 3d6 for each one. And they are:
Strength 14
Dexterity 6 (oof)
Constitution 14
Intelligence 12
Wisdom 10
Charisma 11
Oh, right, this game is supposedly an OSR game, so of course it uses D&D stats. Yawn.
And then there are some racial features I get, including that I get one "avocation" at 1st level. Oh, wait, as a changeling it's a faith or a philosophy. Fuck me, why does this game have levels? Is there a big overlap between gamers who are into 1st ed D&D and gamers who want to be told in extreme detail what they can and can't consent to at the table? I mean, the game never actually got published, so guess not.
Right, now we choose a class. What would Leon be good at? Also, if there's no combat, why are we using the same stats as D&D, a game about combat? Sorry, seem to have wandered a bit.
Anyway, thinking about Leon's weird upbringing, Detective or Writer seem to make the most sense, but actually since this is just a D&D clone with some set dressing changes, I do wonder which class plays nice with Strength and Con (I mean, is there a psychic nice-nice barbarian? Goddammit, this game would have made so much more sense in PbtA).
OK, now wait just a goddamm minute:
IS THIS GAME NON-VIOLENT OR ISN'T IT. There are no rules for combat in the conflict section, and that section also tells us that if we're trying to get someone to do something they don't want to do, we're a jerk and should seek counseling.
OK, anyway. I'm gonna say Leon is a Writer, how about that. I start with 8 Heart Points, and I get to pick two Skills from a list (Audit, Correspond, Document, Hide, Lie, Perform, Question, Search). None of those seem to play to my strengths, but maybe some of them are Intelligence, at least. Yep. I'll take Document and then I'll actually take Search, because I think it's something Leon would have gotten good at when he was small (also Hide, but I only get two and my Hide rolls would suck even with a bonus).
I get some other shit for being a Writer that I don't get to choose, but I do get one 0-level Devotion, so let's look at those.
Oh, cool. They all have (word) in parentheses, but nowhere is that word contextualized. Anyway, Lesser Revelation is very much in-concept for Leon; let's me have a vision from my past about a relevant thing.
And, welp, character creation just kinda peters off with no example or checklist or explanation, just a kind of "you've played D&D, go to it, but don't be a jerk, jerk" vibe, so I guess I'm done.
I see Leon as played by Sterling K. Brown. He's thoughtful and energetic, but maybe a little weird and sometimes he'll encounter something in human society that his monster "family" never taught him, and he has to relearn things.
I'm am so very disappointed in this game. Ah, well.
Name: Leon Moody
Nature: Changeling (human, raised by monsters)
Class: Writer
Attributes: Strength 14, Dexterity 6, Constitution 14, Intelligence 12, Wisdom 10, Charisma 11
Skills: Document, Search
Devotion Techniques: Lesser Revelation
