Character Creation: BESM

Since we watched Spirited Away last night, this feels kinda appropriate. 

The Game: Big Eyes, Small Mouth
The Publisher: Guardians of Order, now long-defunct
Degree of Familiarity: I'm actually more familiar with Tri-Stat than I am with anime
Books Required: Just the one

Big Eyes, Small Mouth, hereafter referred to as BESM, is just the Tri-Stat implementation of anime, just as Silver Age Sentinels is for four-color superheroes and Ex Machina is for cyberpunk. And as with those games, the BESM book gives a good description and history of anime along with a breakdown of a lot of the sub-genres, along with a lot of examples. If you wanted to play an anime-inspired RPG, you could do worse.

Now, does BESM actually capture the spirit of anime at the table? I suspect that it does not, and I say that not because I have any deep insight into anime (I don't, and I don't care for most of it particularly) but because the other two games I mentioned don't capture the feel and spirit of their respective genres or styles, either. Tri-Stat is a perfectly functional trad point-buy RPG system, but it doesn't have much in the way of identity beyond that. The RPGs it powers tend to be well-written inasmuch as they identify the key points of their genres well, but at the end of the day it's a "roll to pick the lock" sort of game. Nothing wrong with that, particularly, just means that at the table, making a game of BESM feel like what you want it to feel would require the players and GM take on the bulk of the work. 

WITH THAT SAID, in order to make a character, I need a more detailed jumping-off point than "anime." Fortunately there are a bunch of story starters, and this one looks fun:

Now, the genre is magical girls, but I'd prefer to play a boy, so let's assume a little wiggle room there. My character's name is Bumble (yes, like Bumblebee). He's big and cuddly and lovable, highly motivated by tasty food and sweets in particular, not so much by feminine (or masculine, for that matter) wiles. I think if I were playing this game, Bumble might be the big brother of one of the magical girls, which would explain why he was with them when they discovered the Book of the Honey Kingdom. 

As far as magic goes, I think Bumble isn't going to be one for twinkly magic spells; he's likely to be more of a powerhouse. So I might keep his "magic" to super-strength, maybe a growth power (in the Honey Kingdom, he could maybe become the size of a rat! GASP).

No mechanical info given here, so just in the interest of keeping this manageable let's assume this is a normal-powered game and the characters get built on 35 points. 

Starting out, we do stats (Body, Mind, Soul). These are one-for-one with Character Points, and 4 is human average (well, "adult" average, but I think in context we should look at it in terms of what the dice are likely to mean, so we'll call 4 average). Obviously Body is going to be high for Bumble, so I'll put it at 8. I'll put Soul at 6 (he's a good guy), and I'll put Mind at 3 (but not the brightest bee in the hive). That's 17 of my 35 points spent.

And now we do Attributes, Normal and Special. Let's see what Normal Attributes are appropriate for ol' Bumble. Damn Healthy seems appropriate, so I'll buy 3 levels. I have learned over time that Divine Relationship is a must, particularly for those of us who do not have good dice luck, so I'll put 2 levels there. I'll take two levels of Massive Damage (Bumble hits hard), which costs me 4 (9 so far, 26 total). 

That's pretty much all the Normal Attributes I want, how about Special ones? 

Well, it's not stated in the blurb, but I think it'd be cool if all of the "magical girls" grew bug wings when they shrink down, so maybe Bumble can have Flight. I think it should be very slow, though. That's fine, I'll spent 4 points and buy it at Level 1. 

And then what about Size Change? Ooh, this is easy. If I wanted to be able to shrink and grow, it'd be two points per level, but I only want growth. Level 4 means I can increase my size 200%, which if Bumble is the size of a bumblebee (about .6 inches), he grows to a massive 1.2 inches! (I mean, it's big for a bee.) That means he gets a +8 bonus to combat damage (from muscles) and 2 levels of Awkward Size, when he's fully grown. That costs me 4 points, so I'm at 34 of my 35 points. Noice. 

Wait, let's look at Super-Strength. Yeah, sounds good. I'll just take one level of Super-Strength, which costs me 3 points and puts me to 37. That puts me two over, but I can two take points of the Not So Fast Defect (which gives me a penalty to being agile or quick), and that puts me back at 35. There aren't really any other Defects I love (there are a few that I could see applying, but eh), so that puts me over to...

Skills! I get 20 points, since I didn't take Highly Skilled. Let's assume we're using the Teenage Romance set of Skill costs. I shall therefore take: 

Unarmed Attack 1
Unarmed Defense 1
Sports 2

Yes, that doesn't put Bumble as being especially well-rounded, but I think his role in the series is to lift heavy objects, drool over honey and other foodstuffs, and punch Wasp Riders when they menace his sister ("I can take care of myself, Bumble!"). 

Derived Traits: Attack Combat Value is the average of my three Stats, or 5. Defense Combat Value is that value - 2, or 3. Health is (Body + Soul) x 5, or 70, plus 30 from Damn Healthy is 100. Energy is (Mind + Soul) x 5, or 45. Shock is Health/5, or 20.

And that's it, kids. Bumble is big n' wide. He's got a thick brown and a broad smile. When he shrinks down, he grows tiny buzzy wings that by rights should not hold him up, and his hair gets black and yellow streaks. Bzz.

Character Creation: Authority

What the heck, I've got some time today. Might as well do something time-consuming with an annoying small font.

The Game: The Authority
The Publisher: Guardians of Order, now famously defunct
Degree of Familiarity: Some, but not a lot. I've run and played some Tri-Stat games, including Silver Age Sentinels, upon which this game is based, and I've read a few of the Authority comics
Books Required: Just the one.

 
The Authority dips heavily into the moral questions of Iron Age comics, but also dials the power level way the fuck up. The characters in the comic are outright referred to as a "pantheon," and their stance is basically "We're in charge, and we're telling you to be better" (not unlike curse the darkness, come to think of it) with an implied "or else."

I can get behind that. I love superhero games, and I love them even more when they take a stand and stake out some thematic ground, because there are approximately a squillion of them and I need a reason to play something besides Marvel Heroic if I want to get my superhero on.

I'm a little confused as to why the standard ranges of character points for chargen is included; seems to me that if you're playing The Authority, you should get Authority-level points and just be happy about that. That said, 200-300 points is apparently the standard for those characters, so I'll split the difference and say I have 250 points.

Step One: GM Discussion. I have no GM, of course, but I do appreciate the advice given in this step. Make sure everyone's on the same page about what game you're playing, how many points characters have and what that means, whether there are any rule modifications, etc. That's cool. For my part, I think I'll assume that my character is someone who is about to recruited into the Authority, but hasn't been yet - someone who is powerful enough to hold his own alongside Jack Hawksmoor and Apollo and so on, and morally of the right temperament. But that's really something I should do in Step Two...

Step Two: Character Outline. Ah-ha. This gives me four questions to create a character outline. Groovy.

• Is the character human? There's an implied "and to what degree?" here, since a lot of the Authority were at least somewhat human at one point. I think I want my character to be human, and to be a pretty normal fellow - grew up in a medium-sized USA city, has seen all the craziness of alien invasions, but it never quite got as far as him, and then one day, superpowers. 
• What are the character's strengths? I want scary mental powers. Basically my character has an extreme form of biokinesis, and is able to activate neurons in other living things' bodies. That means he can shut off pain in other people or force their bodies to heal quickly, sure, but it also means he can have their bodies do things like stroke out or respond with uncontrollable fear, to say nothing of just tickling the pain center of the brain and sending them to the ground. 
• What are the character's weaknesses? I think that for all my character's power, he's mortal. Sure, he can affect his own brain (it's made of meat just like anyone else's), meaning he can boost his body, but he's not immune from the injury that might cause. Likewise, he can't affect non-living things, so robots are out, and aliens aren't impossible but they're more difficult because they have different biology.
• What helps define the character? My character has a relationship with life that's hard to nail down. What's "life?" What makes a thing "alive?" As far as his powers are concerned, it's about what a given thing is made of and in what configuration. To him, living things are machines that respond in certain ways if you flip certain switches. Now, add to that his pretty Rockwellian, middle-class upbringing. He's not a bad guy, but he's not terribly cultured, either, meaning he's pretty sheltered and kind of naive. Point him at a "bad guy," he can paralyze the dude with a thought, but he hasn't really thought through the lofty moral implications of what he can do. More specifically, he's in his 20s, recent college grad (communications degree, considering grad school but he didn't know for what), and then woke up one morning with these amazing powers. 

Step Three: Assign Stats. As the name implies, Tri-Stat uses 3 stats, Body, Mind, Soul. They're two points each. Body can be fairly average (though I'll probably take a power that can boost it), so I'll leave it at 4 (8 points). Mind and Soul both need to be high. I think we'll go 11 for Mind and 14 for Soul. That's 48 points spent.

Step Four: Character Attributes. And here's where it gets screwy.

This system lets you customize the powers all to hell, which is awesome if you're patient and somewhat mathy. I'm generally neither, but I have an idea of what I want to do and I'm not totally ignorant of how this system works, so let's start by noting the ones I think I'd like:

Animal Control (they're alive!)
Contamination (I need to check this, but maybe)
Divine Relationship (you're dumb if you don't!)
Dynamic Powers (ergh. I don't really want to do this, but it might be the simplest way)
Enhanced Stat (to boost Body)
Healing
Heightened Awareness
Heightened Senses
Highly Skilled (almost certainly)
Illusion (if I can make you see shit, that makes sense)
Mind Control
Nullify
Plant Control (they're alive, after all)
Regeneration
Sensory Block
Special Attack

Fuuuuck, that's a lot. I have a bunch of points, though. Sigh. Let me look at Dynamic Powers. Yep, that's gonna be the smartest way to do this. OK, so power over Life is obviously a primal or universal concept (it's even listed there), meaning it's 20 points per level. I need to buy PMVs, too, which define things like range and area.

OK, so starting there, I want Area 5 (1km), Duration 5 (1 hour), Range 5 (100km), and Targets 5 (100 people). That's 20 right there, meaning I'm down to 182 points. I've still got plenty. I'll take 8 levels of Dynamic Powers, costing me 160 points. Aha, but how do limitations work? Oh, those are Defects, that comes later.

So, that means I have 8 levels of Attributes that I can mess with when it comes time to use my powers, so I can flux them into any of those powers above. Cool. I'll take Divine Relationship separately at 5, and Highly Skilled at 10. Those cost me 15 points. I've spent all but 7 points. I'll hold onto them and move on to the next step.

Step Five: Select Skills. I have 130 Skill Points to throw around, plus more if I decide I need them. I figure that my guy is good with physical skills, since he can create the neural pathways in his own brain instantly. To wit:

Acrobatics 3 (18 points)
Biological Sciences 2 (8 points)
Climbing 4 (8 points)
Controlled Breathing 5 (5 points)
Driving 3 (12 points)
Medical 3 (9 points)
Power Usage 2 (16 points)
Powerlifting 4 (4 points)
Sleight of Hand 3 (9 points)
Sports 5 (5 points)
Stealth 3 (9 points)
Swimming 5 (5 points)
Archery 3 (21 points)
Gun Combat 3 (24 points)
Melee Attack 3 (21 points)
Melee Defense 3 (21 points)
Ranged Defense 3 (36 points)
Thrown Weapons 4 (32 points)
Unarmed Attack 4 (32 points)
Unarmed Defense 4 (32 points)

Holy shit. Let's tally that up! 327. LOL. Little more than I had budgeted. Well, fuck it, I haven't taken Defects yet. I'd need 30 points of Highly Skilled to make this work (which gives me 330 Skill Points, less the 30 I get for free; that actually gives me 3 more because it needs to be an even number so I'll take another level of Stealth, I guess). I had 7 points in reserved, so that gives me 17 Highly Skilled, so I need 13 more, so I need 13 points of Defects. No problem.

Step Six: Character Defects. Yup. OK, first off, I know my Dynamic Powers has limits, so let's try and figure that out.

Well, shit. Because of what Dynamic Powers is (control over a specific aspect of the world), the restriction I was thinking of doesn't really apply. That said, if I can come up with even a 1-point Reduction, I save myself 8 points. Eh, looking at it, Reduction doesn't really work for me.

So let's start with Backlash. I'll take 3 points; if I blow a Dynamic Powers roll even by 1, I take Backlash - my neurons go haywire, and I'd leave that craziness to the GM. I'll also take Concentration 3. My character is Skilled enough to be useful even when not using his power, but when he is using it, he has to focus on it completely. Considering that "using this power" can mind control 100 people at once, that's fine.

I need 7 more points. Hmm. I'll take Not So Tough, reducing my Health by 30 (reflecting that perhaps my powers take a toll on the character's body). 4 more. I'll drop Divine Relationship to 4, so I just need three. Oh, hang on, I wanted to take something that reflected that aliens are harder to affect. Hmm. OK, I'll call that a Restriction - he takes a penalty to affect any non-human life form, penalty increasing based on how unfamiliar he is with it. Give him a day or two to study a thing, that penalty can go away, but in the midst of a fight he'll be less effective at first.

Awesome, that's me at 250 points, then.

Step 7: Derived Values. At the end, where they belong. Attack Combat Value is 9, defense Combat Value is 7, Health is 60 (because of my Defect), Shock is 12, Energy we'll skip.

Step 8: Background Points. This is basically just "finish everything up," so OK, let's do.

Ken Cook has just graduated from college with a degree in communications when he realized he could control the neurons of any living thing around him. Terrified at first, he rather clumsily tried to use the power to fight crime and wound up getting his ass beat a lot before realizing that he had to train himself up first. Fortunately that didn't take long, as performing a physical feat for him is more a matter of figuring out how and then blazing the neural pathways than actually training.

Ken hasn't really made a splash yet, but I think his first appearance in the comic would be quelling a riot or doing something else really grandiose and getting recruited by the Authority. Ken has barely scratched the surface of what his powers can do, and he's already starting to lose touch with how living things differ from machines (he and the Engineer would make an interesting pair together).

He hasn't settled on a superhero alias yet, but so far he likes the sound of Synapse. Likewise, no uniform yet - street clothes, hiking boots, doesn't bother with a mask because he can prevent people from recognizing his face anyway.

That'll do it!

Awesome Games, and Also Character Creation and Game Prep

Hey, people who like games! Do you like games? You know you do.

So, in addition to my own Kickstarter for Undead, the third supplement to Chill 3rd Edition, which sports one hell of a writing team and is made of candy, there are a whole bunch of other awesome game products being funded on Kickstarter right now. It's like a bunch of us just independently decided "hey, October sounds good" and launched the Kick-starts!

(That is, in fact, exactly what happened.)

With that said, I know there's enough money in the world for us all to get funded. So I'm gonna use this character creation project to pimp some of them, including my own. First up is Heavy Metal Thunder Mouse, which I'm going to pimp by making a character for Big Eyes, Small Mouse because HMTM isn't actually available yet, since it's still Kickstartering.

Anyway, HMTM is a Fate-based RPG in which you play mice in motorcycle clubs. I have no idea what more you'd need to convince you, but here's the Kickstarter. It's presently sitting at about $600 below goal, so it's pretty darned close. Back it, and then go back Undead in gratitude for showing you these wonderful things.

The Game: Big Eyes, Small Mouse
The Publisher: Guardians of Order
Degree of Familiarity: None with this game in particular, but I've played and run the underlying system some.
Books Required: I need Big Eyes, Small Mouth, but I have it handy.

 

 

So! Looking through this book, in the spirit of most Tri-Stat games (such as Silver Age Sentinels and Dreaming Cities), Big Eyes, Small Mouse presents a genre and some basics for setting up the game, but really the idea is that you develop your own talking-animal setting. There's a city called Mousetropolis that's pretty fleshed out, there, so I'm gonna assume my character is a citizen thereof, and that the game is going to be some kind of rollicking adventure that involves a rag-tag group of folks who have to come together to do great things.

That in mind, I think I want to play a mouse who's down on his luck and feeling like the world owes him something. I don't have much more in the way of concept yet; it'll come to me as I go. Figure on his Archetype as Mimic (that is, a mirror of human custom), Background is Urban (he lives in a city), and his Motivation as Hero (superficially he's out for number one, but he's really a good-hearted mouse).

Next step is to determine species, but I know I'm a mouse already. I start with Body, Mind, and Soul all at 3, the Diminutive (3BP) and Easily Distracted - Cheese (1BP) Defects, and Stealth and Urban Survival at 1. I have spent 5 Character Points and 7 Skill Points (figure I start with 30 and 20, respectively).

Now I assign stats, which means I can raise them if I wish. I think I do; I'm below average across the board. In keeping with my idea of making my mouse with a lot of potential, I'll set his stats high and worry about Skills later or not at all. According to the BESM book, 8 is "highly capable," and if I wanted 8s across the board that'd cost me 15 points of my remaining 25. Screw it, let's see what happens.

And now, character attributes. I don't have any of these from my template, so.

I want Divine Relationship, because a) it's in concept and b) you're dumb if you don't. I'll put 5 into it. I'll take Attractive at 3 (I'm a real cute mousie), and I'll take Aura of Command at 3 (I can stand up and lead other mice, I just don't know it yet). I'll take Heightened Awareness at 1, too, which takes me to 12 points spent, which puts me 2 over, which is fine, 'cause I like Defects.

I just need two, so I'll take Marked at one (I'm mostly grey, but I have a black birthmark on my tummy; makes me look mysterious) and Phobia (birds. An owl got my mom. I don't want to talk about it).

Skills, then! I have to be thrifty; I've only got 13 points left and I don't feel like taking more Defects. Assuming the "modern military" Skill costs, I'll take Burglary at 2 (6 points), Urban Tracking at 1 (3 points), and Unarmed Attack at 1 (4 points). That's my 13.

Finally, Derived Traits. Now, this is weird. This version of the game uses Pep and Scratch instead of Health and Damage, to account for the scale, but then there are sections that talk about figuring out Pep taking into account the Diminutive Defect. So far, so good. Except as a mouse, I have Diminutive 3, as does the example character, but he's figured Pep under the Diminutive 1 header. WTF?

Well, I'll just do the same thing. That's Body + Soul (16) x 5 (80). My Energy Points, though I don't necessarily use them, are also 80. Shock is 16, Attack Value is 8, Defense Value is 6.

That just leaves a number and a background. My mouse's name is Montgomery. He lost his mother to an owl when he was young, and grew up in Mousetropolis Orphanage. Turned out when he became an adult, he does odd jobs for a living, but has never really managed to catch a break. Of late, he's turned to light burglary, but the outfit he's with (run by a spider named Desmond "Daddy" Longlegs) is getting more greedy and volatile by the day. Montgomery isn't in this to hurt anyone, and he's just decided that the last job was his last one. Daddy isn't after him, at least not now, but if Montgomery tries to go to the Swiss Cheese Guard singing any songs, well, he'll have an Itsy Bitsy Spider all up on him.

Character Creation: Ghost Dog: The RPG

Felt like making a character today, so I took to Facebook to ask for songs to inspire me. A couple of interesting songs resulted, but the one that's sticking with me is this one:

I had to think for a moment about what game would be appropriate, though. The song is about remembering where you're from, paying attention, and a generally positive philosophy. I peruse the list to find a game, and lo and behold, I have one that I think will be fun. 

The Game: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
The Publisher: Guardians of Order, now dead
Degree of Familiarity: Some with the underlying system, none with this particular game.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Ghost Dog has got to be one of the weirdest movie-based RPG choices I've ever seen, at least at face value. If you don't know, Ghost Dog is a Jim Jarmusch movie starring Forrest Whitaker (actually you can read my little mini-review here), and the opening of the book talks about how the dynamic of RPGs is changing, people who were teens when they started playing are getting older, and there needs to be more of a focus on single-player RPGs (this book was published in 2000, for reference). Now, I'm not really a fan of single-player RPGs; they kind of feel creepy and weirdly intimate to me when I've played them, and especially as shared narrative is more of a thing now, they feel unnecessary. But since I'm not going to play this game anyway, no problem.

Ghost Dog is a Tri-Stat game, so it's very much a trad, skill-list sort of game, though the movie lends itself more to an indie, micro-game sort of thing, or Fate at the very least. But, it is what it is.

Step One: GM Discussion. Here, me and my hypothetical GM would discuss what kind of game we're playing, what the violence level is, whether I'm playing Ghost Dog or someone else from that universe, and so on. Let's assume, since I don't have a GM, that I'm playing in the same world as Ghost Dog, but after the events of the movie. Louise Vargo has assumed control of the Vargo crime family, but let's also assume there's some pushback from other folks who, like Ghost Dog, operate by their own code (the RZA cameos as "Samurai in Camouflage," so clearly there's not just one samurai around).

Let's assume, too, that I have an average-level character to work with, giving me 30 points.

Step 2: Character Outline. I want to play a citizen, rather than a criminal or a cop. I want my guy to be a panhandler, a man who sleeps outside or in shelters, but who looks after Pearline and people like her. He has a past - he just doesn't remember much of it. He remembers gunfire, blood, pain, and death, and sometimes he'll perform tasks methodically and by rote, suggesting he has some military training, but he doesn't (or refuses to) remember it. Actually, I think it's a better character arc if he's well aware that he used to be something he's not, and he's actively turning his back on that part of himself. He wants to be someone kind, honest, and forthright, implying that he wasn't (or thinks he wasn't). (I feel dirty admitting this, but I'm taking some inspiration from Jim Cavezial's character in Angel Eyes, too.)

Step 3: Assign Stats. Tri-Stat, as the name would imply, has three stats: Mind, Body, and Soul. 4 is "adult human average," and they're 1 for 1. I have 30 points, so average across the board would cost me 12, less than half. Meh. I want to be better than average. I think I'll put Body at 5, Mind at 4, and Soul at 8. That's 17 points.

Step 4: Character Attributes. These are Merit-like things. I think it's interesting they're here, before Defects and Skills, but whateves. Looking at the list, I like:

Art of Distraction (allows me to distract people at a critical moment): 3 points
Combat Mastery (training, y'see): 3 (6 points)
Divine Relationship (I've worked with Tri-Stat enough to know you're silly if you don't take this): 3
Gun Master (each level gets you an ability, and there's one I want: Weapons Encyclopedia): 1
Highly Skilled (again, silly if you don't, but I don't know how much I'll need yet)

That's all I want, actually.

Step 5: Defects. It would actually make more sense to do these last, after I know how many I need. How many do I need? Well, tallying up what I've done so far, I'm at...exactly 30, not counting anything I'd need from Highly Skilled. Oy. OK, well, I'll take what Defects I think are appropriate and then add the points in somewhere.

Attack Restriction (he won't attack anyone who's not actively threatening him or someone he cares about who can't defend himself) 2BP
Recurring Nightmares (PTSD, yo) 1BP
Skeleton in the Closet (military service, probably, but I'd leave it to the GM) 2BP

I'm now up by 5 points.

Step 6: Skills. Skills cost different amounts depending on how useful they are. I have 20 points, plus I could take as many as 50 more if I wanted to dump all 5 of my remaining BP into Highly Skilled. I want:

Burglary 2 (6 BP)
Demolitions 1 (3 BP)
Gun Combat 3 (18 BP)
Interrogation 2 (6 BP)
Military Science 1 (2 BP)
Intimidation 2 (8 BP)
Stealth 3 (12 BP)
Unarmed Attack 3 (12 BP)
Urban Tracking 2 (8 BP)

That's 75 points...which means I'd need all of my extra BP plus another one. BALLS. Well, I think I'll drop Unarmed Attack down to 2 (71 points) and Interrogation down to 1 (68 points). I'd need to lose another 8, though. OK, fine, we'll drop Gun Combat to 2 (62 points) and Military Science entirely (60 points). That means I need to spend four of my points on Highly Skilled, leaving me with one lonely little BP. I'll put it into Gun Mastery and take Lightning Draw.

Step 7: Derived Values. Where they belong. At the end of chargen.

Attack Combat Value is the average of my stats, which is 17/3 round down...round down? Crap. Here, you know what, let's bump up Recurring Nightmares to 2, and then take another point in Body, which makes that total 18, which makes my ACV 6, plus the three from Combat Mastery is 9. My Defense Combat Value is therefore 7. My Health is (Body + Soul) x 5 or 50. My Energy (which I can use to bump up Stats when necessary) is (Mind + Soul) x 5, or 60. My Shock Value, which is the amount of damage it takes in one attack to stun me, is Health/10, or 5.

Step 8: Background Points. This is basically me writing up my character's history and getting a biscuit from the GM, but I've pretty much explained this guy. I haven't named him, though. He's forgotten his real name, but he goes by Jay (he wears a Blue Jays cap year-round). He's dirty, sleeps where he can, but he takes hobo showers to try and avoid being too scary to people. He panhandles and does odd jobs, but mostly he watches out for the younger folks around the park and chats with Raymond (not that he speaks French, but he listens well).

Character Creation: Ex Machina

IF I AM BECOME A MACHINE THEN HAIL THE GOD OF MACHINES

The Game: Ex Machina
The publisher: Guardians of Order, now sadly defunct.
Degree of familiarity: Like I said, ran it once or twice, and I'm fairly familiar with Tri-Stat.
Books required: Just the core. 

 

So, the setting I'm using is Daedalus. In this setting, everybody has a chip implanted, usually at childhood. These chips feed you media, help you grow, even "help" you find your soulmate and fall in love. There's a lot of attention in this setting to personal relationships, but it's quite clear that the relationship are on their terms. Everything is, really.

Who's "they?" The government. This world suffered some serious terrorist attacks a few years back (decades, probably, though years aren't specified) and that's what got everybody thinking that ID chips were a great idea (sound familiar to anyone?). Over time, the technology developed. Children could be flawlessly tracked. Oh, and now we can regulate your brain chemistry, so if you aren't producing enough dopamine, bam, we'll tell your brain to make more! No more Parkinson's! No more Alzheimer's! We can stream media directly to your mind. The settings of your lights, AC, heat, even your chair respond to your chip's broadcast. And we can teach you languages and other skills through bio-memes. Holy cats. Sounds awesome, right?

You can see where this is going. The government controls you. You are your brain, and the feds own that. This setting is a little bit Gattaca, a little bit Equilibrium, a lot of 1984, and I see some Minority Report in there, too. One of the interesting things is that since the chips regulate emotion, when you meet someone, they might start acting weird, and you've got to figure out if that's really them...or the chip?

OK, so I want to do something a little different for my character. This guy was a social scientist, working for what's now the Ministry of Citizen Welfare (MCW). His name is Gavin Croy. He remembers the world before chips, if vaguely (he was about 15 when chips started getting implanted), and has been through many different incarnations of the chips in his lifetime (we'll assume he's in his 60s now). At the time, he was all for it. He lost friends in some of the early terrorist attacks, and he had these absurd notions about they might be able to read your brain, but they'd never own your mind (as though there's a difference). So he championed the chip to his fellow students in college, and he went into government work to try and help people come to love the technology of the chip. And he was very, very successful. He married, had kids, chipped them, watched them grow up and marry and have their own kids, and was even thinking about retirement...

And then one day, he got a weird case. A file crossed his desk, a man named Herbert Thespen. Thespen was a resistant, someone for whom the chip just wasn't taking. Gavin has some medical training, and reading this guy's file, something rang a bell. It was a condition he'd heard of, some long-cured neurological thing that a friend of his in college had suffered from (in the days when chips were just for tracking, before they could stimulate neurochemicals). Gavin searched the archives for information on the condition, but it wasn't mentioned anywhere. He started looking into his old books and files from college, and he found more than he wanted.

Yeah, he found info on the condition. He also found copies of books like 1984. Fahrenheit 451. Snow Crash. Anthem. The Handmaid's Tale. These books aren't available anymore. Print books haven't really been easy to find in a while, anyway (everything's digital; that's not explicitly mentioned in the book, but it sure seems to be the way we're going), and he wasn't a pleasure reader. But now he started reading again...and he finally got it. The brain is the physical organ, and it controls the mind. It is the mind. And now they have the keys that labyrinth.

Gavin is an older man, and so he wasn't equipped to go scampering off into the night. But he also had a long lifetime of experience backing him up. He left his home to protect his family, and he went to the Outside, to the people who he knows aren't chipped. He got them to remove his chip, and he coped (barely) with the withdrawal of not having the world respond to him anymore. He's now selling drugs, medical equipment, and government information, making a living as a low-rent shadow doc (since most of his medical knowledge is theoretical; he's never actually practiced medicine). But what he wants more than anything is a way to free his family from the chips, and to cope with the crushing guilt he feels. He helped build this world.

OK, enough of that. Now, numbers! I'm building Gavin on a 75 point base. I've already done Steps One (kinda) and Two, so now:

Step Three: Assign Stats. Each stat point costs 2 points from my 75 total. Gavin's an old guy, so his Body is fairly low. Let's put it at 3, below human adult average. That's 6 points. His Mind and Soul are going to be higher, though. Let's put mind at 6 and Soul at 5, for a total of 28 on Stats.

Step Four: Template. There's a medic template, but it doesn't work for what I want to do with Gavin, so I'll just wing this.

Step Five: Attributes. Really, there aren't many of these that I'm going to want. Definitely Highly Skilled, though. I'll just devote 10 points to that right now, and maybe more later. That takes me to 38 spent.

Gavin isn't chipped anymore, so he doesn't get Item of Power for that. Organizational Ties, though? I'll blow 4 points to take level 2 for La Liberte. They want what Gavin knows, and he's happy to give it to them, it's just a matter of sifting out the useful information. I'll take Divine Relationship at 8; Gavin's a lucky dude (and the lack of other powers and abilities means he'll need those re-rolls). How about Heightened Awareness? Since Gavin's lost his chip, he's gotten paranoid and he's always been a fairly perceptive guy. I'll throw five in there, too.

That takes me to 55 spent, meaning I've got 23 left. Let's do something nutty, here. Gavin, to be most effective, needs a presence Inside. La Liberte, recognizing this, gave him a sleeper agent, someone with a half-chip that can get around in the city. This allows Gavin to make use of his old files and some of his status, as long as he's careful about it. I take one level of Agents, for 5 points. My Agent's name is Stephanie Peck, and while Gavin doesn't know it, she was a childhood friend of Gavin's daughter, Brianna.

That's 60 points spent. I'll proceed to...

Step Six: Skills. I presently have 130 points to spread out among Skills, and I might well take more. All Skills get a specialty, and they have variable point costs. This might take a few minutes.

Area Knowledge (Patrol Hotspots) 3 (12 points)
Biological Sciences (Genetics) 2 (8 points)
Computers (Databases) 3 (12 points)
Cultural Arts (History, Literature) 2 (6 points)
Domestic Arts (Cooking) 1 (2 points)
Driving (Car) 1 (4 points)
Electronics (Sensors) 2 (12 points)
Etiquette (Chipped People) 3 (9 points)
Foreign Culture (Allied Nations) 3 (9 points)
Languages (Various) 3 (6 points)
Law (Criminal) 2 (4 points)
Management/Administration (Government, MCW) 4 (9 points)
Medical (Pharmacology) 2 (6 points)
Physical Sciences (Biochemistry) 2 (8 points)
Social Sciences (Psychology, Politics, Social Work) 4 (10 points)
Stealth (Unobtrusive) 3 (9 points)
Street Sense (La Liberte) 1 (4 points)

Step Seven: Defects. There's gonna be a few of these. I'll take Recurring Nightmares (1 point); Gavin dreams about his family. I'll take Physical Impairment. He's old and his leg and back give him problems (also 1 point). I'll take a 2-point Skeleton in the Closet (the extent of Gavin's involvement in pushing the chips back in the day). And, definitely Wanted. Just 1 point, but the government would love to have Gavin back. That gives me 5 points back.

Well, heck. That means I have 55 points spent, for a whopping 20 points left. I could throw them all into Highly Skilled and get 200 more Skill points, I suppose. Hmm. I suppose I'll follow up on the "La Liberte wants me safe" theme and take a Servant. I'll put 12 points into it, giving me a level-2 Servant that I can swap out between adventures. Basically, La Liberte always has a staff member free they can assign me to help me out. Sometimes it might be a duke to protect me, others it might be a winger to drive me. That still leaves me 8 points, though.

Let's make me more important. I'll jack Organizational Ties up to level 3, which costs the rest of my points.

Step Eight: Derived Values. My Attack Combat Value is the average of my Stats, or 4. My Defense Combat Value is that minus 2, or 2. Ugh.

I have 40 Health points, and so my Shock is 8.

And that's it, really. I could earn Background Points if I had a GM, but I don't, so that's that.

Character Creation: Dreaming Cities

I stayed up too late last night, and now I'm feeling pretty wiped out. I suspect I shall do this character, and then hit the proverbial sack.

The Game: Dreaming Cities
The publisher: Guardians of Order, now sadly defunct.
Degree of familiarity: None. I know the Tri-STat system well enough, but I have no direct experience with this particular game. Which isn't a big hurdle. See below.
Books required: Just the core. 

 
Dreaming Cities, like Silver Age Sentinels and Ex Machina, isn't so much a game in and of itself as a genre attached to the Tri-Stat system, along with a few chapters of possible settings. It's urban fantasy, and it spends some time talking about the genre, how to run it, examples in literature, etc. I don't think it did the job as eloquently as either of the other two games I mentioned, but it could just be that I do so much with "urban fantasy" by way of White Wolf that I've got expectations.

Anyway, there are three settings in the back of the books. One is very much like the World of Darkness, so I'm skipping that. The other is pretty cool - it invites you to make characters based on faery tale archetypes (including Red, the little girl who's out to kill Hans Woolver). But the one I'm interested in is The Small Folk, in which you're asked to create house-fae like characters, each about 7-10 cm high, who live in family groups and have to deal with being tiny people in a big person's world. Some of that involves dodging cats and other animals, dealing with the politics of the Small Folk (there are courts and suchlike), and defending their homes, founding new communities, all from the "ground level", as it were. Small Folk are arranged into kiths cliques, which look a lot like White Wolf-style splats, down to the sidebars with "here's what we think of the others" stereotypes.

My character is going to be a riff on Captain Quint in Jaws, only he hunts cats, not sharks. Cats are nasty critters where Small Folks are concerned, and it takes people like Noond, Cat-Hunter, to keep them away from the young'uns. The trick is, of course, that you can't kill the beasties, because the humans that own them tend to get scared and then they fumigate. No, you have to train them to stay away. Ayup.

Step 1: GM Discussion. N/A.

Step 2: Character Outline. I did that up there, mostly, but to expand: Noond grew up living in the walls of a crazy ol' cat-lady's house, and he knows that cats are deadly, vicious, sadistic and sneaky. He remembers the night that a storm made the ceiling collapse in one room, and most of his colony was attacked by the cats. It was horrific. This all happened in Indianapolis (see what I did there?).

Noond tries to pretend he's all business, but in truth, he hates cats and he wishes he could kill them. He likes dogs precisely because they chase cats (or should) and he's not above using dogs to help him when he can. Mostly, though, he likes luring cats to climb onto things and then breaking their footholds somehow. Noond is greedy, too, and his services can always be bought. He likes shiny coins, wire and big pieces of wood. Never you mind why.

Step 3: Assign Stats. Tri-Stat system using d6, 75 points to build characters, 20 Skill Points to start. Each of the cliques have a template that costs some points, and looking them over, the one that works best for Noond is the goblin (only I wouldn't play him as talking like a white guy trying pathetically to impersonate a gangsta. Seriously, there is some poorly-written and borderline offensive dialogue in this section). I have three Stats, Body, Mind and Soul, and I want to be above average across the board (I see Noond as having Skills rather than Magic). Making all three Stats have scores of 6 would cost 36, over half my points. Oy. Let's bump Body down to 4, because I know the template will raise it up again. That's 32 points, a little better.

Consider Template and Assign Attributes. OK, my template costs 30 points, and nets me the following:

+1 Body
+2 Highly Skilled
+1 Speed
+5 Curse of Breaking (Special Attack: 40 damage, Penetrating: Armor x2, Targeted: Non-living matter, Undetectable, Slow x2, Static)
+5 Telekinesis (Activation Time - 1 round, Concentration, Diminutive)

This all means I've spent 62 of my 75 points. I'll also buy Combat Technique: Accuracy, Judge Opponent, Lightning Reflexes, Portable Armory, and Steady Hand. 5 points

I'll take Heightened Awareness at 3. 3 points

I'll take Sensory Block. Noond has mastered making a really annoying noise that deafens anyone in the immediate area. He has to concentrate on it, but it's good for disorienting cats. Level 1, Area PMV 3, Concentration drawback = 3 points

Divine Relationship. Always a handy power. 2 points.

That's 75 exactly, and unless I feel the need to tweak things or take more than the 40 skill points, I don't need to do much else. Let's check.

Er...hang on.

OK, the points on this template are either way off or I'm missing something. The totals actually seem to give my 34 points, not 30, and the Skills are totally whack-a-ding-hoy. I'll be changing some stuff around.

Back to Attributes, the Telekinesis power that goblins wield is supposedly controlled by breakdancing, for fuck's sake. Nah. I'll dump it entirely. Let me reconfigure my totals.

34 points on Stats (Body 5, Soul 6, Mind 6)
Highly Skilled 2 (2 points)
Special Attack: Curse of Breaking. Level 5, (40 damage, Penetrating: Armor x2, Targeted: Non-living matter, Undetectable, Slow x2, Static) (20 points)
Combat Technique: Accuracy, Judge Opponent, Lightning Reflexes, Portable Armory, Steady Hand (5 points)
Heightened Awareness 3 (3 points)
Sensory Block: Hearing (Area PMV 3, Concentration Defect -1) (3 points)
Divine Relationship 2 (2 points)
Diminutive (-4 points)
Blind Fury (-1 point)

Total: 64. I've got 11 left. I'll throw 6 into Attack Combat Mastery 2, and 4 into Defense Combat Mastery 2. With that last point, I'll buy up Highly Skilled to 3.

Step 5: Select Skills. I get 20 points, plus 30 more for Highly Skilled. The skill totals on the template are wildly fucked, so I'll do my own.

Acrobatics (Tumbling) 2
Animal Training (Cats) 3
Burglary (Desks) 2
Climbing (Furniture) 2
Intimidation (Dogs) 2
Melee Attack (Whip) 2
Unarmed Defense (Cats) 1

Hmm. 3 points over. Better take another Defect. I'll take Less Capable: Charisma (Noond is kind of a dick, pushy, greedy, etc.). That gives me a -3 on Soul checks that involve being charismatic. Also gives me 7 more skill points (since buying a fourth point of Highly Skilled gives me another 10, and I only needed three). I'll buy a second point of Unarmed Defense (6 points), and a point of Heavy Weapons (Slingshots). That's a pretty cool image, actually.

Step 6: Select Defects. Already done.

Step 7: Calculate Derived Values. My Attack Combat Value is 7 (the average of my Stats plus my Attack Combat Mastery). My Defense Combat Value is 5 (my ACV minus 2, plus 2 for my Defense Combat Mastery). My Health is 55 (Body + Soul, times 5).

Step 8: Earn Background Points. That is, describe your character and get some love from the GM. Well, Noond is about 8 cm high and 10 grams. He's grizzled-looking and has a nasty scar on his face from a kitten attack. He has a tattoo on his shoulder of a cat's face, fangs dripping with blood, and "1887: Never Forget" underneath (that was the address where he lived during the massacre). He wears a pair of cat-skin pants (very comfy!) and matching boots, and a coat he snagged from an old Paddington Bear doll (and the hat). He carries a dizzying variety of gadgets and widgets, and can whip up a goblin-sized slingshot at a moment's notice. He carries a whip he made from a cat's toy coiled around his hip.

And I think that'll do!

Character Creation: Silver Age Sentinels

The Game: Silver Age Sentinels
The publisher: Guardians of Order, now sadly defunct.
Degree of familiarity: More than you'd think. I ran a monthly chronicle that just never went where I wanted it to go, but had some interesting characters. I wrote a story for their fiction anthology, and I was actually going to write a large chunk of the second ed core book, before the company folded.
Books required: Just the core. 

OK, I mentioned earlier that I had an idea for a mystical superhero, but I didn't want to do it with Heroes Unlimited because the system is annoyingly random. The hero I made happened to have a mystic origin, but that's not what I'm talking about. So the decision now is: Do I do some magic-y here, or do I save it for Mutants and Masterminds or Marvel Superheroes? Hmm. Just a sec.

Well, first, a little background. SAS is a Tri-Stat game, meaning that it's a point-buy character creation system and a kind of wonky game engine; I remember making some adjustments to combat, in particular, so that you could actually hit something. But the game book itself is fantastic. It's honestly the best treatment of superhero games I've read from a GM/player perspective (and that's no diss to M&M or Marvel, but damn, this is good stuff). Plus it's gorgeous. And very much a four-color kind of deal.

You can build any character you can think of, even the big blue Boy Scout, if you start with enough points. I think I shall make a 150-point character, same base as the game I ran. Now I just need a concept, and I'm a little dry right now. I don't want something horror-related, angsty, or jumpy/flippy, since I've done a bunch of those. This is going to be tough.

OK. My character is an altered human in the classical, silver-age sense of it. He was given powers by a freak accident, and since radiation is out of vogue, I'll go with biochemistry. Greg West was a research assistant at Empire University, working on biomedical experiments. The idea was prosthesis that could feel, and could be wired into the nervous system. Greg's mentor had a fixation on increasing the voltage, forcing the body to adapt, grab the signal and control it, but there was a problem with tissue damage. Greg helped come up with this nifty serum that basically made the human body resistant to powerful electrical jolts on a cellular level - it still conducted and manipulated electricity (since you kind of have to if you want to send signals along the nervous system), but didn't suffer any damage from it.

Greg, in the classic superhero blunder-that-turns-out-to-be-awesome, tried that shit on himself. It worked perfectly. He could withstand jolts of electricity that would fry any normal human. Problem was, Greg didn't have any limbs he needed replaced, so they hooked up a false hand into his nervous system through the nerves in his arm and tried to trick his body into accepting it. That worked, too. Success! Everyone go home.

Except... (always complications, yeah?). Even once the wires were detached, Greg could still control the hand. And the computer near it. And the electronic locks. And the doors. And the iPod in his pocket. Greg's nervous system was so sensitive to electronics that he can manipulate them without touching them, as long as they can see enough of the device to know where to focus. The more sophisticated the device, the more trouble he has with it (which is why villains in battle armor are still going to be problematic). Greg wanted to keep these powers to himself, but the data from the experiment was too obvious. So Greg made his identity public when he started fighting crime. (Hey, that's what you do with superpowers, right?)

Personality-wise, Greg's...a little off. He's a cheerful, happy guy, but he's fiercely loyal to his friends, and he runs a little hot. He's got a weird sense of humor and he's uncomfortable with tense situations, so he tries to act the clown to keep things light. It doesn't always work. But all of this plays perfectly into his hyperkinetic alter-ego, the Gremlin!

Right. Now, numbers.

Stats. Only three: Body, Mind, Soul. They go from 1 to 20, where 1 is infant and 20 is, like, Galactus or something. I want decent stats across the board, but Mind is definitely Gremlin's strong point.

Body: 8
Mind: 15
Soul: 12

Yike, that's 70 of my points right there.

Attributes. Otherwise known as powers. Let's see what we got.

Armour: I want Gremlin to be functionally immune to electricity. That's Optimized Armour, which provides double the bonus. It's 3 points/level. I'll take level 4, which sets me back 12 points, but also means I ignore 80 points of electrical damage.

Computer Scanning: Duh. Gremlin can read the data in computers with a glance. It's 2 points/level, and with level 4 Gremlin can scan any computer within 100 meters. Sounds good.

Divine Relationship: You're silly if you don't take this. Anyway, Gremlin's just one of those annoyingly lucky guys. I'll buy 4 levels, allowing me 4 re-rolls per session.

Heightened Senses: Gremlin can detect electrical currents. That's just 1 point.

Organizational Ties: Empire University has my back. I figure the University exerts Moderate power in the setting, if the game's set in Empire City, so that'll set me back 8 points for level 4.

Sensory Block: Gremlin can knock out most communication and other electrical detection. It's 1 point per sense I block, so let's list 'em: electric current detection, homing weapons, magnetic field detection, radar, sonar, ultrasonic hearing. That's six. I'll also dump 5 points into an Area Power Modifier Value, allowing me to shut down these senses within a 1 km radius.

Special Attack: I figure Gremlin's usual mode of attack it to make the machines around a person go crazy, but he can also release the stored-up electricity in his body for a good zap. Special Attack is 4/level, and you put levels into damage and into special wonky things. And then there are restrictions. Oi. OK, let's do this. The attack is touch-only; Gremlin has to touch (but not strike) his foe to make it work. It does some damage, but mostly it fries your brain, making you unable to walk or think straight. And I think there's always the danger that it's going to go haywire and electrocute people around him. So: We'll buy level 3 for damage (60 points, respectable), Drain Body and Drain Mind (both are reduced by 3 when you're hit), Penetrating (huh-huh) for 3, so it goes through 60 points of Armour, Stun (it can't kill). But, for the downside, we'll take Backblast (affects everyone around me, but at lesser damage), Limited Shots x3 (I can only use it once, and then it takes several minutes to recharge), Melee, Slow (I need a turn to charge up). In total: 12 points.

Special Movement: Wall-crawling. Gremlin can stick to walls using static electricity. Costs me 2, and is well worth it.

Telekinesis: OK, there's no "control machines" power per se. I could use Dynamic Powers, but that's such a pain in the arse in play. I think, instead, I shall modify the hell out of Telekinesis to represent Gremlin's control of machines. TK works by weight, and this definitely falls under the "more limited" form, so it's 2 points/level. At level 6, I can manipulate 100,000 kg of material, or about 110 tons in real measurements. 110 tons is probably quite enough to control any electronics in my immediate area. Sets me back 12 points. But I ain't done here.

I need Range and Area as PMVs. That allows me to control all the machines in a given area, and to do it in an area not centered on my own body. So. Gremlin can affect any machine within 100 meters (PMV 2), and in an area of 1 km (PMV 5).

And, I'll take a Restriction on my TK. It only works on machinery, and I can't force the machines to do something they aren't physically capable of doing. Put another way, I can't make a truck fly. I reckon that drops my cost to 1/level. In total, then, I pay 13 for this power.

Skills: Let's do Skills first. Skills cost different amounts based on how useful they are, and I've got 30 points right now. And, I get a free Specialty in all of them.

Biological Sciences 2 (8 points) - Physiology
City Knowledge 2 (6 points) - EU
Computers 4 (16 points) - Hacking
Electronics 4 (16 points) - Sensors
Mechanics 2 (8 points) - Automotive
Medical 2 (6 points) - Neurology
Physical Sciences 4 (20 points) - Physics
Unarmed Attack 3 (21 points) - Strikes
Unarmed Defense 3 (21 points) - Strikes

Total for Skills: 122. A little higher than 30. But all is not lost! I'll take 10 levels of the Highly Skilled Attributes, which nets me 100 more Skill points. And since I'm 8 over, I'll take Power Usage 1 (Telekinesis).

Drawbacks. OK, I'm presently at 151 points, which is a whopping 1 point over. I always do this, but I like weaknesses, so odds are I'll take a few and wind up having to adjust my points.

Well, I'll take Detectable (Telekinesis). When he commands machines, Gremlin's eyes glow and spark and you can hear the static crackling in the air around him. That's 1 point back. I'll also take Backlash. If I blow my Special Attack roll by 3 or more, I suffer the effects myself (the damage, the stun, the Stat Drain, etc.).

That gives me 2 more points to play with. I'll buy up Body by one more point, giving me 9.

OK. Now Derived Traits. My Attack Combat Value is the average of my stats, or 12. My Defense Combat Value is two less than that (10). My Health is my Body + Soul x 5, or 105. Not bad.

And, some background notes. Mostly I did this above. I picture Gremlin's costume as green with black trim, and an open mask that lets him show off his crazy smile, but with lenses over his eyes that project static, so he's got eyes like a dead TV. He laughs, capers and giggles during fights, tells bad jokes, and runs villains over with cars while they're busy monologing.

As far as his comic history, he first appeared in Slipstream #102. At first, he was a nuisance to that speedster hero (who shows up in the core, BTW), but when the Iron Duke sent his machines against the city, Gremlin, laughing like a lunatic all the while, met them with a small army of cars, trucks and other gadgets he "borrowed." Slipstream managed to crack open one of the Duke's robots, and Gremlin gleefully took control of it, using its command codes to shut down the others. Gremlin asked to join the Guard, but the amount of property damage he caused made them leery. Slipstream, however, likes the weirdo, and so Gremlin at least got to accept the city's thanks alongside the big guys.