FOR THE EIGHTH GAME OF XMAS, TWENTY-TWENTY-THREE,
EIGHT MAIDS A-SHIELDIN'
SEVEN VIXENS VIXIN'
SIX MICE A-SQUEAKIN'
FIVE GOLDEN HAINTS,
FOUR UPLIFTED BIRDS,
THREE GODSENDS,
TWO DUSTY BOWLS,
AND CHUUBO'S MARVELOUS WISH-GRANTING ENGINE!
Yes, I know it's after Xmas, who cares.
The Game: Shield Maidens
The Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the Training Guide (there's another book for GMs, but you don't need that for chargen)
Shield Maidens is a sci-fi Norse-inspired RPG. Basically Midgard is in the middle (?) of Fimbulwinter, the Fenrir Corporation has taken over everything and infected most people with a disease/magical curse that makes them unable to see or experience the gods, but Freya has put together an elite resistance force of the titular Shield Maidens!
I admit I have not read the whole way through the book; I was planning on finishing it today and then I have a bunch of other shit to do (including doing prep for a session of Atlantis tonight), but I still want to make a character today. I will say, I feel like I have the vibe of the game, and I'm guardedly optimistic - it looks like a nice mesh of Norse mythology and a cyberpunk-ish kind of world. Also, one of the things that PCs do is construct their own high-tech Shield, and I enjoy the "forge your own weapon" feel of it all. So let's make a Shield Maiden!
Shield Maidens are, in fact, female, or at least not male (nothing says you can't be NB), so I shall name my Maiden Yrsa (she'll get an honorific later). We start off by making the Maiden, and then making the Shield, so I have 10 points to divide amongst Yrsa's Branch Skills (the sheet is arranged like a tree, y'see).
Hmm. There are six Branch Skills, so clearly I can leave some at 0 (it doesn't say I get a freebie or anything). So I guess I do need to conceptualize a little. Let's say that my Maiden grew up in District 16 (there are 30 districts in Midgard). Most of the people who live in 16, or the "Dust Towers," are military personnel on the admin side of things, so let's assume that was Yrsa's family (and I use the term somewhat loosely, since Fenrir monitors everything, including breeding) never got above the lower-rungs of data processing and form-stamping.
So why did Yrsa rebel? Let's say she started dreaming of a woman with magnificent red hair - the goddess Sif. Sif didn't push or coerce her, she simply told Yrsa that there were other options, but gaining something always meant losing something. Yrsa thought it over for a long time, and then one day she brought the attention of the Resistance. It took the powers that be a long time to put the fires out. Yrsa the Flame, the Shield Maidens call her.
OK, so obviously we're destructive, but not reckless about it. So let's put Observation, Understanding, Speed, and Expression as my higher traits. We'll go 3, 3, 2, 2, respectively.
Now, next we would do sub-Skills, but I can't tell from the way chargen is phrased in the book whether sub-Skills have ratings or they're just binary. Do I get 3 Understanding sub-Skills or three points in said sub-Skills? (And there's an example of chargen - two, really - but it doesn't help because it just says "the player knows what she wants so she does that". Gee, thanks).
Well, I think I'll leave it for right now and come back to it later, since that's called out as an option. Anyway, I start with 20 Vitality (20 + [Resilience x2]).
So next we do the Shield! First thing we decide is which "hub" to put the Shield in. I...sure? What's a "hub" in this context? Also, choosing a hub counts as "one Rune of that type," but I don't know what that means, either. Erghble. Also, if I don't have points in a Branch Skill can I still take associated Sub-Skills? I assume so; it'd be really hard to arrange things otherwise. OH WAIT! The examples of chargen continue into Shields, and there it tells us which sub-Skills they took. And...oh, come on.
OK, I figured it out, I think. Sub-Skills do have ratings, and you can't take more sub-Skills than you have points in a particular Branch Skill, but any Sub-Skill you do take can go up to 5. Shield hubs tell you to put points into sub-Skills, but if you can't do that, the point goes into the Branch Skill instead. Fuck me.
Well, I'm leaning toward either Mjollnirite or Surtian, but they rely on Might and Resilience, which I didn't take because I am a doofus. Let's drop Understanding and Observation to 2 so I can have Might 2, and then I'll take Mjollnirite as my hub.
OK, so I'll put two points into Athletics, and one point into Endurance. I don't have any points in Resilience, so instead of a sub-Skill I just get a point there, which also bumps my Vitality to 22. And now I can put points into other sub-Skills. I guess I take 1 point each? Argh. Let's assume that. I'll put a point into Lore and Research, Fighting and Endurance, Sleight of Hand and Acrobatics, Misguide and Creativity, and Perceptiveness (UGH HOW ABOUT JUST "PERCEPTION") and Ranged Weaponry.
And now we pick a Galdr, basically a power-up placed in the Shield. I only get one to start with. Is there a fire Galdr? UGH. There is, but Galdrs require Runes of a particular type, and I have no idea if there's a limit. Like, can I take Burning Barrage? The examples of chargen don't include choosing a Galdr.
Man, any interest I had in this game is just draining away. If you don't care enough to explain how to make a character, why should I assume you cared enough to make the rest of the game make sense?
OK, some of the Galdr don't have requirements, so apparently I have to take one of those. Let's take Tall as a Jötunn, which lets me make a platform of hard light to lift up my fellow Maidens (useful if, say, a tall building is on fire).
And then I get 300 Lum to buy shit, but I hate shopping and I've gotta go pick up Terri from the groomer, so I think we'll call it done. I gotta say, this game is disappointing me - there's a lot I like about it, but I think it's one of those games that parsing it all would be more work than just porting the setting into Fate or something (especially since Iron Edda is right there).
