Character Creation: Small Things

Figure I may as well polish off Seven Wonders, while I'm at it.

The Game: Small Things
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press, in Seven Wonders
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Small Things is a game very much in the vein of Thimble or the setup I used waaaay back here for Dreaming Cities. You're playing little beings living in a house, taking care of the Big Things (people) that live there. The default setting is Britain between 1930 and 1950, and one of the listed inspirations is Wallace & Gromit, so that's fun.

In order to make my Small Thing (yes, the song is now in my head, well done) I would normally come up with the House and the Big Things. I'm gonna say that my Small Thing lives in an old country house, and that the family that lives there is an elderly couple taking care of their grandson (the implication here might be the parents are dead, gone, off to war, whatever, it's not really important from the Small Things' perspective).

(If I were actually playing this game there would be more time devoted to fleshing these things out, but for my purposes that's good enough.)

The first thing I need to do is figure out my Small Thing's core concept, what I'm best at and what my function is in the house. Since I live with someone who consistently misplaces her eyeglasses, my Small Thing is going to be the guardian of lost necessities. When the Big Things lose their glasses, medicine, keys, and other needful things, my Small Thing finds them and puts them back on the table or nightstand or whatever. He can't be arsed to chase after toys for the young Big Thing, though, as those things don't seem needful.

Now I make up two special abilities. One that's listed as an example is Hotter/Colder, which lets me know how close I am to a lost object, which seems pretty appropriate. And then I think I want something related to putting things back where they belong. Maybe I can throw inanimate objects many times my weight? Sure, I'll call it Caber Toss.

Next we'd ask each other questions about our respective Small Things from a list. I'll answer two, how about.

Is your Small Thing more attached to the House or the Family? Why? I think he's more attached to the Family. The House is nice and all, but it doesn't need anything.

What is your Small Thing afraid of? Starvation. He remembers winters when the food nearly ran out, how the elderly couple (not so elderly at the time) got thin and wasted away. They needed food, and he couldn't get it because they hadn't lost it, it just wasn't there.

And now we do appearance. Small Things don't necessarily look human (indeed, I don't think any of the described ones do). I think my Small Thing looks like an old pair of reading glasses. His moniker is Focal. I picture him as being gruff and businesslike, but encouraging - he's perfectly willing to help other Small Things do what they need to do, though he's more likely to grumble about it if it seems unnecessary.

And that's it, I think.

Character Creation: Before the Storm

The title of this game puts this song in my head.

The Game: Before the Storm
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press, in the collection Seven Wonders 
Degree of Familiarity: None, but I've played games like it
Books Required: Just the one, and a deck of cards

Before the Storm is a lot like Fall of Magic, in that there's a specific setting and situation to the game, and the players create characters that fill a particular role and then roleplay out the specifics. To wit, we're on the eve of the invasion by the Stormsworn, and only the Sword, a prophesied weapon, has a chance of saving the remaining kingom. The PCs are the heroes that recovered the Sword. For the most part, that's the givens, and everything else happens in play (though some of it chosen from menus).

I like this kind of game, and weirdly I think it's got some replay value. Ganakagok is another example - the game is focused enough on telling a particular kind of story that it's easy to slip into the groove once you've played it once.

Anyway, there is a chargen system, so I'm gonna do a character, though some of the juicier parts rely on other players so I'm either gonna make some shit up or skip those.

So first up, I deal myself 8 cards, for which I shall use the card dealer over at random.org. I get this:

Now I use those cards and "buy" answers to four traits: rank, what people know me as, what I'm passionate about, and what I value. Although actually, face cards can be used to make up something or as wild cards, so I can basically pick anything I want from the lists. Neat.

OK, I'm gonna say I rank among the common soldiers (discarding the king of hearts, though I could just as easily use my 8). Next is many know me as, for which I shall use my jack of hearts and make something up: "the only survivor of a lost regiment." I am passionate about...hmm. I think Faith. I think that a lot of other things - honor, patriotism, hope - got burned away when my guy was out in the hinterlands watching his comrades die, and all he could hold on to was his faith. I think that the god in question for him is probably a god of soldiers, not war - it'd be interesting if there were two gods, one for generals and one for the actual soldiers. (I'm using my queen of spades here, not that it matters much.)

Finally, I value Sacrifice (I'll use my last jack to add that one, since it's not on the list). He feels that he was spared in that battle to die in this one, and that this willingness to die in service to his country and faith is what gives him meaning. What's interesting is that in play, another player would know a secret that puts lie to that in some way.

So now I have five questions to answer (they're not actually all questions, but whatevs):

My name is Jovren.

My kingdom is... So, this is either Andor (the place that's already been wiped out by the Stormsworn), Iriya (where we are now), or somewhere else. I'll say that Jovren is from Andor.

My history is: I was a common infantry soldier of Andor on a scouting mission that ended in disaster and death. I fled into the night when my comrades were attacked and killed, and it became obvious we couldn't win.

I must strive for victory tomorrow because my god and my fallen comrades demand it.

I believe strongly that the god of soldiers will not abandon us in our hour of need.

Now, at this point I would normally disagree with another character's deeply held belief, and I would specify that I know a secret about another character's value, but again, this is all stuff that would require a group. So I think I shall leave those out, because I feel like Jovren is pretty well-defined.

Jovren is an old soldier, but that means he's still pretty young. His face is scarred and he's always sweating from wearing his armor too long, but he doesn't want to risk getting caught out without it. His hair might once have been red, but it's gone gray at the temples and there's a big bald patch down the middle where someone hit him with a sword once.

That'll do it! I like the sad games.

Character Creation: Nemesis 382

I am, still, behind on my chargen posts. Been having problems working up the inspiration and the focus to do it, as I rather feel like I'm teetering on the edge of "fuck it" a lot more than is comfortable. Unlike the past year, though, "fuck it" feels less like "find a high structure and jump off" and more like "cut off all contact with anyone that I don't physically see on a regular basis, because the internet is dark and full of horrors."

(This is no one's fault, but it doesn't help that since G+ is going away, the traffic on my blog is dropping. It's not like there were ever a lot of comments anyway, but it does feel like I'm talking to myself. Which is fine, I'm not doing this for money or love, just for the hell of it, but still, it does contribute to the feelings of isolation.)

WOW TOO REAL. Anyway.

The Game: Nemesis 382: The Point of No Return
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press, as part of Seven Wonders
Degree of Familiarity: None, reading it now.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Nemesis 382 is a game about exploring a black hole, but apart from that, it's meant to be hard sci-fi. First step is to set the tone, which for my purposes isn't really important, but the default is tension/horror and I'm fine with that.

Next step is to set the scene, but that would consist of the GM reading out a brief passage. The gist of it is: It's 2237, we've got FTL travel but for the average person, life isn't much different because space travel is hella expensive. We're on the cusp of a new frontier - traveling into a black hole to see what (if anything) is in there. The hole in question is Nemesis 372, a supermassive black hole. The ship is the Albert Einstein III.

So, my first actual step for character creation is my role on the ship. I don't think I want to be the captain. I like Corporate Sponsor, for some reason, and I also like the idea of playing a mechanic or maintenance tech (which are kinda opposite ends of the spectrum, as I think about it). I think I'll go the latter and play the ship's Mechanic.

Next question: Where is my character from? My character grew up in Germany, but his family is from Belarus. Figure that there has been plenty of conflict in that part of the world in the ensuing decades, and he and his family got forced out (and it's not like the US was accepting refugees).

Name and description. His name is Mikalaj Rusiecki, but folks on the AEIII call him Nico. He's in his late 40s, heavyset, bald, wears a short beard (once black, now grey). He likes to sing; most of the songs he knows are in German, but he knows a few in Belarusian. (He does speak Russian, but prefers not to.)

Why did you join the mission? Nico is a good mechanic and he knew the right people. He and his wife divorced a couple of years ago and he's estranged from his daughters, so he doesn't have a lot keeping him on Earth. He took the job because it's a job - it pays well and it'll be interesting, and his dad taught him that you don't turn down work.

What did you leave behind? Nico's left behind his family in a literal sense, and his country and culture in a more abstract one. He hasn't fully internalized that, in all probability, he's not coming back from this.

The only other thing left that I could do on my own is decide whether Nico really wants to go into the Black Hole or not. And I'm gonna say no, when it all comes down to it, he'd rather live on Earth and try and to fix things with his family, but that may not be in the cards.

The other part of chargen is deciding relationships with other characters, but since it's just me, that's me done.

Character Creation: When the Dark is Gone

I picked up Seven Wonders at...GenCon, I think? 2016, I think. It's an anthology of story games, and it was nominated for an Indie Groundbreak Award last year, and I think it won, but the winners aren't posted on the IGDN site (whoops) and, embarrassingly, I don't remember who won. I'm like 90% sure Cat Tobin gave an acceptance speech, though, and she edited and published it.

Anyway, I felt like doing a storygame for my chargen project today, because I'm having trouble focusing on my own work and I tend to find them inspirational. Also they're often easier than D&D clones and other trad games, in the sense that I don't need to do math.

Not "easier" in the sense of "requiring less brain-power", of course, because holy cats. Right out of the gate.

The Game: When the Dark Is Gone
The Publisher: Pelgrane Press
Degree of Familiarity: None. I'm reading it; it's short.
Books Required: Just Seven Wonders

So, this is a game about therapy, not therapy as a game (as the text points out). The idea is that you're playing people who, as children, went to a magical other-world, returned to Earth, and now can't go back. Taking inspiration from C.S. Lewis and The Neverending Story and any number of other books wherein kids save the world by traveling to other dimensions, and asking the same questions as XKCD does here.

And aside: Not all of the games in this anthology present "character creation" in a way that works for this project, but a few of them do and have character sheets. Plus, I have the PDF, because Pelgrane is cool like that. So why does my list say that there's no sheet for any of these games? What the hell, past-Matt?

Anyway. The first thing we'd do if I were actually playing this is to list out banned topics, which I think is a good practice no matter what you're playing. Since it's just me, though, I'm not gonna bother with that.

Next thing: Name, Occupation, Age, and Description. OK, then. We assume this to be modern-day, which means I'm making an adult who went to a magical world as a child. His name is Raymond Ruth. He's (now) 40.

Occupation...hmm. I want to make him something that I could play. I don't think I want him to be a teacher or someone who works with kids; I think he'd find that a little too painful. I'll say he works in banking - he makes good money, no one asks him about his job except other people in the industry.

Description: Ray is skinny (he eats like a bird and he's not prone to putting on weight). He used to be bright blond, now his hair is thinning and grey. He has a light beard that he keeps neatly trimmed. He wears gold-rimmed glasses (bifocals, now). He always wears long-sleeved shirts and usually wears a carpal tunnel glove/brace on his left hand, sometimes both.

OK, the next bit is perhaps the hard part: The psychological disorder. These folks are in therapy for a reason, and the game makes it pretty clear that they're hurting people (self or others) with their behavior. I think for Ray I'm going to say he self-harms. And I'm gonna get personal for a minute, so feel free to skip the next paragraph if you just want to watch me make a character.

I cut myself when I was in high school. My usual method of self-harm is to punch myself in the face, and that persists (though I've got it under control), but there was a time there when I would take a kitchen knife to the back of my hand. I still have the scars, I can see them plain as life and I know exactly what they're from. If anyone in my house noticed, they never said anything, but I was pretty good at keeping it under wraps (as it were). It was a method of...punishment, I guess? Of feeling something sharp and quick and intense rather than the slow rot that my brain gave me? Anyway, that's why I'm going with this for Ray.

OK, back to Ray. Ray cuts himself, usually on the left hand, usually with something slim and sharp. I think the idea is that he remembers how things were in the other-world - they were intense and bright and colorful and sensation was amazing, and here in the real world it's just...not like that. I don't know if that's too much planning for the "why," though.

Anyway, the next sections in the book talk about relationships with the other PCs and why we're in therapy. If we were playing, I'd have specific relationship with two other characters. Since it's just me, I suppose I'll make a couple up. These are folks I knew as kids, but we have more adult relationships now.

First relationship: Joe Bathic. We roomed together in college and we're friends and drinking buddies now. I enable his drinking, because when he's drunk he gets angry and violent and sometimes I can goad him into hitting me. I figure if he hits me he doesn't hit anyone else. Secret: One night he was close to a moment of clarity and asked me to drive him home. I said he was fine and let him drive. We made it home without hurting anyone, but there was some damage to his car; he had no memory of any of it in the morning.

Second relationship: Carly Weiss. Carly came into my bank quite by accident and we remembered each other; she was working on refinancing her house. We wound up going out for drinks; not a date per se (I'm getting the feeling that Ray is largely asexual, though perhaps not aromantic), but just catching up and supporting each other. And Ray panicked and ghosted her and passed her case on to another banker, citing "conflict of interest" because they were friends, and the other guy just fucked it all up. Secret: Ray looked through her phone one night while they were out together, looking for any sign that she remembered what happened to them. He saw text messages talking about how "pathetic" a guy that Carly was seeing was, and he assumes that meant him.

Finally, Ray has a redeeming quality, something that people can recognize as good in him. I'll say that Ray is patient. He doesn't lose his temper, he doesn't fly off the handle, and he doesn't jump to conclusions. That also makes him a good listener, though of course he's abused that trait in the past.

The last thing would be that everyone contributes one memory of the magical world. In Ray's case, I've kinda already said it: Everything was vivid. Colors were brighter, sounds were more harmonious, sensations more intense, flavors more delicious. Everything was more vibrant. To Ray, it's left the real world feeling a little grey.

And that's it, actually. Intense little game, this. I like it.