Character Creation: World of Indiana Jones

Cue the inspiration music! 

The Game: The World of Indiana Jones
The Publisher: West End Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game, seen the movies
Books Required: Masterbook and Indiana Jones

Honestly, it's not a terrible game. I mean, I probably wouldn't run it because I have games like Temples & Tombs and Troubleshooters and Spirit of the Century, but it holds together pretty well. The book has a pretty extensive timeline of Indiana Jones adventures, including the novels and the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (but not Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, since the game came out before that particular train wreck).

What's interesting, though, is that the game doesn't want us to play Indy and his friends. And that actually makes a lot of sense. For one thing, Indy is kind of the exemplar in the setting, and as the book rather clumsily points out, the fun part would be developing that kind of character. For another, while Indy has sidekicks and chums along the way, a lot of them die or betray him, and he very rarely has more than one or two; not exactly conducive to an RPG group. So the focus is on building a character that can have Indy-style adventures, and that's cool with me!

I want to make a treasure hunter, but I don't necessarily want to have Indy's motivation ("It belongs in a museum!"). Instead, I think my treasure hunter is more interested in finding the treasures and learning the legends, and recording those. If you take a treasure from its resting place, you risk cave-ins, curses, angry natives, and so on. If you just find it and snap a few pictures, well, you're actually still risking much of that, but you don't have to carry as much back. 

So, treasure hunter/photographer? Or maybe artist, since cameras at this point in history are big and clunky? I know I want the guy to have some money, so maybe the disillusioned son of a wealthy family. We'll call him Chauncey Horton, but he goes by "Chance", because, like, obviously. 

That's concept pretty well locked down, so next up, Attributes! I get 68 points to spend on the 8 of them, and I need to check Masterbook to see if it's one-for-one. Yes indeed! Average is about 8, max is 13. Let's see. I could put 8 in all of them and have 4 left over. Do I wish to do that? I think I do, I don't see Chance as being especially weak anywhere. Let's put two extra points each into Agility and Mind.

Skills! (Well, Dervied Attributes, but I'm always squirrelly about doing those until the end of chargen.) I get 20 Skill points, and I have to deal with "skill adds" and so on. Let's see. 

OK, this isn't all that hard. It's one-for-one unless you're buying specializations, can't take more than three adds in a given skill, not more than a total of 5 with a specialization. No problem. Now, there are entirely too many Skills, but that's a different problem. 

Well, in general, I want Chance to be good at climbing, wriggling through tight passages, solving puzzles, taking pictures, and getting people to tell him stories. Probably also he'll need some skill in linguistics, since I seem to remember this game not having a terribly forgiving languages mechanic. So given all that:

Climbing 2
Dodge 1
Escape Artist 1
Long Jumping 1
Running 1
Swimming 1
Unarmed Combat 2
Lock Picking 1
Fire Combat 1
Resist Fatigue 1
Linguistics 2
Perception 1
Trick 1
Charm 2
Etiquette 1
Persuasion 1

That's 20! Now I get Advantages and Compensations. I can take three Column I, two Column II, and one Column III Advantages, but I have to balance them out with Compensations. Let's see then!

Well, I know I want Wealth, at least Wealth II. Maybe III? Dunno yet. Yeah, let's just do Wealth II. There are some Special Abilities in the Indiana Jones book I like, so I'll take one of those for my III - let's make it Sense of Direction. 

I want a photographer that travels with me, a kind of Marcus Brody to my Indy. I'll take Contacts I and say that Elle Fox is a former socialite whose family lost everything in the Crash (the Hortons kept their money, somehow...maybe I'll take a Compensation related to that). Elle is a skilled shutterbug, but she'd much rather be taking artistic photographs in New York than following Chance across a desert or whatever. Chance always pays well, though. 

Let's see, I've two Is and a II left. I'll take Fame I (rich family, and I'm sure Chance winds up in the papers sometimes) and Additional Skill Adds I and put it into Perception. For my II, I'll take Equipment II. Money can buy most things, but Chance knows how to find illegal or exotic things as well.

Now, Compensations. Well, right off, I want Advantage Flaw I to represent that Elle is largely unsuited to the rigors of Chance's work (which leads to hilarious hijinks when they try to, say, climb a mountain). I'll take Price I and tie it to Wealth; if he wants to spend his money, he has to go and visit his family in Connecticut and explain why he needs the cash. And I'll take Prejudice I - in the States, he's a rich kid but he's a black sheep among the actual elite, and elsewhere he's a rich white guy. 

Probably I should figure out my CIII Compensation, since that'll be the biggie. I'll take Achilles' Heel, and say that Chance freezes up if someone points a gun at him. He's willing to use a gun to shoot strategically (break a window, snap a rope), but never at another person, and he's afraid of being shot. 

For my two CIIs, I'll take Debt and Sense of Duty. The Debt is how the Horton family kept their money; the family as a whole owes ongoing support and fealty to a prominent New York crime family, and sometimes they have Chance help them out with a little surveillance or B&E (no violence, though; they know Chance isn't good for it). The Sense of Duty is Chance's belief that looting the treasures of the past is wrong and dangerous - "Leave only footprints, take only stories" is his motto. (In practice it tends to be "leave only collapsed tunnels and take only stories and maybe whatever Elle managed to pocket," but y'know.) 

OK, now let's do Derived Attributes. 9 Toughness, 5 Life Points, movement rates, done and done!

Chauncey "Chance" Horton is 21, tall, blond, blue eyes, and looks like a "Chauncey" as much as he hates the name. When he's at home with his family he dresses in suits and ties and nice sweaters and so forth, but when he's out in the field he favors shirts with pockets, an old Army coat (it was his father's), and an under-arm holster for his revolver. Chance has a dazzling smile and an affable, vaguely clueless air about him, but mostly that's to make people feel at ease talking in front of him. 

That'll do it! 

Character Creation: World of Tales from the Crypt

Guess what, boils and ghouls! It's time once again to delve into the frightful process of scareacter creation! With a few strokes of a pen (or a sword, an an ax - whatever works!) we can create a pitiful protagonist to fold, spindle, and mutilate! And I'm not just talking about the character sheet!

OK, I'm not going to try and do this whole thing as the Cryptkeeper.

The Game: The World of Tales From the Crypt
The Publisher: West End Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game, watched the show and the movies
Books Required: Tales from the Crypt and the Masterbook core

Much like The World of Species, this game is a Masterbook setting. I admit that I wasn't hopeful about it when I started reading. I don't know why (probably because of when the game was made?), but I was expecting a fairly generic horror game. Instead, though, the game really embraces the episodic format of the show, and provides a framework for jumping from setting to setting. Basically the PCs all got the Cryptkeeper's attention and he's got them trapped in his manor, putting them in "shells" to amuse himself and have them run mysterious errands. Death might or might not be permanent, and you might even be able to escape, someday.

Also, characters are assumed to have some kind of flaw, which is entirely appropriate to the source material. Protagonists in Tales from the Crypt (and the EC horror comics that inspired it) weren't usually good people, and even the ones who were tended to be profoundly unlucky. I think this game could actually be a lot of fun. 

With all of that in mind, let's do a character! I had a kind of half-formed concept. I want to make a character who killed someone in a roundabout way, maybe by sabotaging a car or something, but who has no stomach for violence or blood. Actually, yeah, I got it. 

My character's name is Walt Creighton. He works as a mechanic in a mom n' pop garage (perhaps in the town of Gainesford, which is the included setting in the book). His boss is - rather, was - a highly unpleasant bully named Chris "Beef" Wellington. Beef's dad hired Walt, but then died and left the place to his son, and Beef couldn't fire Walt - he's too good of a mechanic and he likes tormenting him too much. Walt, for his part, is a bit of a milquetoast, shies away from conflict, and gets sick or faints at the sight of blood. What he is good at, however, is his job, and one day after Beef ripped off a bandage on Walt's hand just to gross him out, Walt decided he'd had enough. He sabotaged Beef's car the next day, said car crashed into a telephone pole, and now Beef's widow, whom Walt has always had a stammering crush on, owns the shop. Everything's coming up Walt.

(Except, of course, that Walt's going to find himself a pawn of the Cryptkeeper, so, y'know, them's the brakes! Hehehehehehe!) Ahem.

That's good for concept, on we go to Attributes. I get 68 points to split between the 8 attributes, which are Agility, Dexterity, Endurance, Strength, Intellect, Mind, Confidence, and Charisma. (Note that if I were playing Walt in a Tales From the Crypt campaign, his physical attributes would change as he jumps from shell to shell.)

Well, I know that Dexterity, Intellect, and Mind should be Walt's strengths, while Strength and Confidence should be lower than average. Everything else can be pretty much on par, I guess (I think it's interesting that the system splits Confidence and Charisma; likeability is the latter, but strength of personality is the former, making it quite possible for Walt to be trustworthy and "nice" while still being kinda spineless). 

Agility 7
Dexterity 11
Endurance 7
Strength 6
Intellect 11
Mind 12
Confidence 6
Charisma 7

This means my Toughness is 8, and I've got 5 Life Points. I get 23 skill points, which I use to buy skill adds. So let's allocate skills thusly:

Stealth 3
Dodge 3
Lock Picking 1
Vehicle Piloting (Car/Truck) 3
Vehicle Piloting (Motorcycle) 3
Deduction 2
Perception 3
Navigation 1
Vehicle Mechanic (Car/Truck) 3
Specialization: Sabotage 2

And now, Advantages and Compensations. These are arranged in tiers, and I get 3 Column I, 2 Column II, and one Column III, and a matching set of Compensations (flaws, y'know). I already have my Column III Compensation, though; in this game everyone has Enemy (The Cryptkeeper). Let's do Compensations first, since I know more or less what I want. I'll take a Quirk (CII): "Faints/vomits at the sight of blood," and another Quirk (CII) "Hatred of bullies." For the CIs, I'll take Prejudice (Walt is an obvious easy target and he attracts dickheads), Employed (this is kind of cheap since we're not likely to be in-setting where Walt works, but whatever, a bunch of the sample characters have it), and Handicap (Asthma, affects Endurance). 

And now the useful stuff! For my CIs, I'll take Skill Bonus (Vehicle Piloting and Vehicle Mechanic), Equipment (Walt always seems able to find tools), and Skill Adds (I'll take Science/Mechanical). 

For the CIIs, I'll take Additional Skills (and bump Science up to 3), and Trademark Specialization (Sabotage is now +3). 

For my CIII, I'll take Additional Attribute Point and bump up Dexterity. 

And that's everything! Description time! Walt is short and skinny. Like most mechanics, he's constantly greasy, but he's cleaner than most because he wears eye protection coveralls and generally tries to keep from getting too grimy (which Beef used to make fun of, before his unfortunate jaunt around Dead Man's Curve!). He has thinning brown hair and dull gray eyes, and he flosses diligently. 

Character Creation: The World of Species

I'm sure there's a fascinating story behind how West End Games wound up with all of these movie tie-in game licenses, but I don't know it, so here we are.

The Game: The World of Species
The Publisher: West End Games
Degree of Familiarity: None with the game, but I know the movie pretty well
Books Required: Species and the MasterBook core

 

It's not the weirdest movie tie-in RPG I've ever seen, actually. I've mentioned in other places that I think Species is a pretty good Chill movie, as it revolves around a team of people investigating and then hunting down a monster (sure, it's sci-fi horror rather than supernatural horror, but eh).

The Species game posits that Sil escaped the final confrontation in the sewers of LA and fled to North Carolina, where she had a few kids, who have then gone on to sire or birth progeny of their own. Meanwhile, the government agency that hunted her down in the first place is now under more capable leadership, so they've...injected alien DNA into soldiers, which grants them either enhanced physical prowess or limited shapeshifting skills (OK, so maybe they didn't really learn anything). The book assumes you're playing agents hunting aliens, but does mention that if you want, you can play aliens being hunted by agents. You know, if you have the kah-razy idea that you want to play monsters. If you're some kinda weirdo.

Anydangway, I do not wish to make an alien character, though I may wish to make one of the shape-shifty people. Character creation works with packages (lol); they're arranged into tiers and different worlds allow different spreads. In the case of Species, it depends on what I want to do. Alien hybrids, psychics, and normal humans all get different spreads (though I have to say, I'm not having any trouble finding the info I need so far, and the different Backgrounds are all offset in little sidebars, so that's nice).

Well, I guess I better start with some kinda concept. I really liked Forest Whitaker in Species (the cast in general is really good, much better than the material). I like how his empathy powers happen whether or not he wants them to, but you can see the difference when he gets a feeling without trying and when he tries to force it (which doesn't always work). I think I'd like to play a psychic who gets recruited by Project Proteus.

My character is Hector Maloney. Hector is a student at Duke University, currently taking a medical leave of absence arranged by Project Proteus. He's in pre-med, and he still wants to be a doctor someday, following in his father's footsteps. His mother is career Army Intelligence, and she knows a little more about Project Proteus than she should, which I think the brass might well hold over Hector's head if he just wants to go back to school (he's not even allowed to drink legally yet, for crying out loud).

So, building a psychic is just like building a normal human, but I have to select "Special Effect" as my Column III Advantage. No problem. First thing, though, I have to do my Attributes. I get 68 points to divvy up among the 8 of them, 5 is minimum, 13 is max, 8-9 is average. Hokay.

Well, I don't think Hector is necessarily physically adept, but I don't want him to be too much of a wimp, either. If I divided the points up evenly (as I like to do, at least at first), I get 8 into each with 4 left over. Hmm.

Well, I think I actually want to put Agility, Endurance, and Strength a little lower than average (7s), which means I've spent 21. I'll put Dexterity at 10 (he wants to be a surgeon), Intellect at 10, Mind at 10 (they're too similar for my taste, but whatever), that puts me to 51 spent. 17 more to go to split into Charisma and Confidence. I'll put 8 in Charisma and 9 in Confidence. Hector is pretty average in generally, but better than most in the smarts department.

I get 5 life points, whatever that means. My Strength and Endurance give me 9 toughness points (there's a chart). My movement rates are all 21 divided by something (they're based on Agility and Strength), so that's easy.

Skills, then! This system works on "skill adds," which are basically just "you add these points to the controlling Attribute when using the skill". I get one in a given psychic ability because I'm gonna take the appropriate advantage, and I can add more if I want to, though the book notes that in Species, psychics aren't terribly powerful and it's rare to have more than one power. I think I actually do want to choose my psychic power first.

Well, I don't want empath because I don't want to be just like Dan in Species. I don't want medium because I don't think ghosts really fit the genre. I'm kinda thinking astral projection - it's not combat-related, but it makes Hector a great spy, and that's a good reason for Proteus to want him.

OK, so, what other skills do I want? (The Species book adds a bunch, but then it gives us a chart that includes all of the ones from the core and the new ones thank you thank you thank you).

Well, I want Stealth and Unarmed Combat (Hector's had a little training). I want Resist Shock, assuming it's what I think it is. Data Analysis makes a lot of sense. I need First Aid and Medicine, obviously, though probably not much. Research and Computer Ops round me out.

Oh, wait, how many skill points do I have? I get 20 (it's based on my Intellect and Mind and just happens to work out to their sum). I've only spent 8 so far, so I have 12 left to throw around. I'll add one more to Astral Projection, two more to Stealth, one more to Unarmed Combat, Resist Shock, Data Analysis, First Aid. I'll keep Medicine where it is, and that leaves me five more for Computer Ops and Research, so I'll throw three into the latter and two into the former.

I could have bought specialization, but eh. I'm feeling pretty good about this spread. I need to do my Advantages. I get three from Column I, two from Column II, and one from Column III. I have to take a like number of Compensations (basically disadvantages). I already know my CIII; Special Effect, which lets me be psychic.

For my CI Advantages, I take Wealth (dad's a surgeon), Skill Bonus (I get a +1 to Medicine, First Aid, and Resist Shock - I'm a natural at this "doctor" stuff), and Contacts (my parents). For my CII, I take Luck...actually, hang on, these are the maximums I can take. I don't have to take all these. OK, so what I'm gonna do is bump Contacts up to II (since my parents are pretty influential), and I wind up with two CI, two CII, and one CIII. I now need to take corresponding Compensations.

I'll take Age at CI; I'm not a minor, but I'm also limited in what I can do and no one takes me seriously (I'm sure they call me "Doogie" sometimes). I have to take a Quirk because I'm psychic, so I'll say that Hector's Quirk is that - wait, hang on. I can take a Psychic Surge that means sometimes I just go astral if I'm under stress. I'm good with that.

OK, so now I need two CII Compensations. I'll take Employed (Project Proteus; they have a lot of influence over me between one thing and another) and Advantage Flaw: Contacts (asking his parents for info or help involves a lot of jumping through hoops).

For my CIII Compensations, ehhh. I don't really like any of them. I'll take Enemy, that's always fun. Hector's enemy is a gamma alien hybrid that went rogue from the project. That hybrid, James Adair, nearly mated with a coed. Hector found him in astral form and led a team to him, and he barely escaped. He took it personally.

That's it for the numbers. Hector is 20 years old, tall, slim, and has his dad's black hair and his mom's blue eyes. He is completely unaware how deep he's in with Proteus, and is still laboring under the delusion that he could quit if he wanted to. Like it or not, he's in for the long haul, unless he decides to go rogue, which probably wouldn't be good for him or his family.

And that's it!

Character Creation: Men in Black

Man, I was doing so well, too. I had like four in a row, and then I got busy with Demon stuff and it just slipped off the damn radar.

Well, anyway, I'm gonna try and do one more character before GenCon, and then do a few after I get back in between finishing development of Promethean, and then maybe try and do one a week after school starts.

Anyway, today's selection is:

The Game: Men in Black: The Roleplaying Game
The Publisher: West End Games
Degree of Familiarity: None. I've read it.
Books Required: I thought you needed the Masterbook core, but apparently not, so just the one.

I asked for song suggestions a while back over on Facebook and got a bunch of good ones, but holy shit listen to this.

That's a mashup of "Peter Gunn" and "Every Breath You Take," and it's freaking slick. I like it, and it seems appropriate to a Man in Black, someone who's left behind his life but, like K in the movie, hasn't quite given it up.

Well, this game is meant to be light and funny, so I won't get too deep into character backstory, but that's a decent starting point. I get 24D (dice) to build the character, starting with Attributes. Each die can be broken up into "pips," totally 0, 1, or two. I've got eight Attributes, and they're basically the standard spread: Reflexes, Coordination, Endurance, Strength, Knowledge, Perception, Confidence, and Charisma (seems weird to split those last two, but whatever).

Oh, wait, I get 24D to do Attributes, but then I get more for Skills. So I could split these up evenly and wind up with 3D - about human average - in everything. I like that, but I'm not gonna do it.

I do need a basic concept, here. Let's take witness protection and really freaking run with it. My character was an average guy living in Chinatown, second generation American, making a living doing deliveries for his uncle's store while he worked his way through college. He had a girlfriend, and things were going pretty well. And then he witnessed a triple murder (Triad related) and his girlfriend (who isn't Chinese) pressured him into testifying. He was put into protective custody, and his WitSec handler, as it happened, is from Neptune (well, one of the moons). Recognizing the guy's untapped potential, he pulled some strings and got him the black suit. Now he's just Y, but he wants to go back to his old life. It's just not safe.

OK, that's not bad. I can split things up pretty close to evenly, since Y is a fairly normal guy. I'll put 3D+2 into Reflexes, 3D into Coordination, 3D+1 into Endurance, 2D into Strength, 3D+0 into Knowledge, 3D into Perception, 2D into Confidence, and 4D into Charm (Y is personable and a good talker, plus he can play the "I don't really speak English" card to great effect; he's actually fluent in several languages, some of them extraterrestrial).

Now I get 7D to split up among Skills. I can break these up into pips, too, and given that there are a lot of Skills I guess that's what I'm meant to do.

This is interesting. "Linguistics," which lets you figure someone's general intent in communicating with you, is Knowledge Skill, while actually knowing Languages (which you have to buy individually ugh) is a Perception Skill. I think I'd have reversed those.

Anyway, I have to have 2D in a language to speak it fluently, which is fucking stupid, but OK, fine. I'll take 2D in English (since Y's native language is Cantonese), and since that's basically a third of my points, I'll put 2D into Linguistics so I can at least fake it. Better put something into Marksmanship; I'll break up a die and put +2 there. I'll put my +0 into Dodge (another stupid Skill), and my +1 into Streetwise. I've got 2D left. Ugh. I'll put 1D into Disguise and then split the last one; +2 into Charm, +1 into Scholar, and +0 into Running (worked for J).

I start with 5 Character Points and 1 Fate Point, so that's easy. Because this game is pre-1999, I roll to get my hit points (Body Points), so hang on, need entropy. I roll my Endurance and add 20. I roll 10, add my +1, and that gives me 31 Body Points. My Speed is 30.

I can have two Useless Skills at the whim of the Director, but since I don't have one let's assume I can take those, because they're fun. I'll say that Y can fold paper cranes expertly, and can make good dumplings.

And that's pretty much it, because I've already done the backstory stuff.