Character Creation: Longshot City

Can never have too many supers RPGs.

The Game: Longshot City
The Publisher: Melsonian Arts Council
Degree of Familiarity: None yet, but I'ma give it a whirl soon
Books Required: Just the one (it's based on Troika! but doesn't require it)

I've said before, many times, that supers RPGs really need some kind of gimmick or sub-genre to help them stand out, be it a unique system (With Great Power...) or a focus on a particular type of comic (Cold Steel Wardens) or some other parameter that gives players a stronghold handhold than "supers" (Masks). Longshot City's gimmick, if you want to call it that, is a recognition that supers stories are by definition genre-hopping madness and leans into it. 

As with other Troika! derivatives I've read, this one has a great big list of archetypes that one chooses by rolling a d66. The system looks a pretty simple 2d6 + whatever sort of affair, except that you want to roll low in some instances and high in others, which I don't love, but I think my players will be able to handle it for a one-shot. Let's make a hero! After lunch.

OK, it's after lunch now.

Step One, Roll Stats. 1d6+3 for Skill (8), 2d6+12 for Stamina (21), 1d6+6 for Luck (12, rolling great today). 

Step Two: Determine Archetype. Roll a d66 and check the table, but I can interpret the dice in either order. A 2 and a 1, so either 12 (Elastinmorph) or 21 (Elemental). Well, having already done a stretchy hero (The Malleable Man, for Prowlers & Paragons), I shall go with the latter. This gives me Non-Mundane as my Origin (which just indicates which table I roll on), and Advanced Skills Energy Blast, Elemental Form, Command Element, and Fly. When I use my Blast in Elemental Form, it only costs 1 Stamina instead of 3. Neat! I must now roll for my Elemental Form: 1, Weather. My Elemental Blast does electrical damage (a la Storm). Neat! 

Step Three: Origin! Same drill, roll d66, only this time I don't think I can reverse the dice (but I'll look).

Oh, OK, so the Archetype doesn't necessarily determine which table my Origin can come from; some of them say "Any." In my case, it just means it has to come from not the Mundane table, which isn't a problem unless I roll a 2. Rolling...6 and 1, no sweat. That's either Trained by Monks or Time Capsule. Well, Time Capsule doesn't really ring true for a weather controller, so I guess I was trained by monks! That gives me the Skill: +2 Secret Signs - Enlightenment, and Wealth 0 (which is actually the better of the two options). 

Step Four: Personalize! Well, the obvious choice is to do a Kamar Taj/Kun Lun kind of thing and have my guy trained in some exotic location, but eh, I don't like being obvious. Instead, let's say that my character was trained by a monastic order originating in Venezuela, near Lake Maracaibo (look it up, it's pretty dope). One student in a generation develops the "heart of lightning"; the order resisted the conversion to Christianity that the rest of the Barí people underwent in the 60s, but wound up getting largely ostracized for it. My character came to Longshot City because the winds took him there (also part of the "heart of lightning" thing; the practice is to let the storms lead you where you need to go).

His real name is Elio Enriquez*, but to evildoers everywhere, he is called - the Heart of Lightning! Elio is a 20 something Barí man, dark skinned, black hair, brown eyes. When he calls on his elemental form, I think it's less that he changes into lighting and more than he gathers the storm around him - rain, clouds, lightning, and electricity coruscates over him, making notions like "clothes" mostly irrelevant. 

*He really should have a name in Barí, but the language is endangered and I couldn't find a list of names, so we'll assume that he has a name in his native language but goes by a Spanish name in the rest of the world. 

Character Creation: Bones Deep

Sounds dirty, dunnit? It's not, though.

The Game: Bones Deep
The Publisher: Technical Grimoire
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: I think just the one, though I have a pdf of Troika! handy

 

In Bones Deep, you play a skeleton exploring the ocean. The idea is that once you die, your skeleton "hatches" and goes exploring, and the ocean's a great place for it because it's not like a skeleton needs air or food. The game is really goddamn weird, but perhaps less so than Troika! itself (which it's based on). 

I love deep sea stuff, and so this game was pretty enchanting to me right off. First thing we need to do is pick which kind of skeleton I want to be. Not species, more in terms of goals and dreams. Told you, it's weird. I think I will be a Keeper. That means I have sea creatures living in and around me, and I can command them if I can give them treats. 

OK, having picked that, I roll 1d3+3 for my starting Skill (again, not a skill, but a trait called Skill). Ugh, rolled a 1, so my Skill is only 4. 

2d6+12 for starting Stamina gives me 19. 1d6+6 for starting Luck gives me 10. 

And then I pick a Drive. There's one on the sheet (whenever you successfully command a creature you heal), but I dunno. I think I want to train and communicate more than command. So let's say whenever I figure out what a creature likes, I (and the creature) recover 1d6 Stamina and I get 1d6 Luck. 

My list of possessions says that two random creatures follow me as henchman, and wouldn't you know it, there are a bunch of creatures in this book, as well as a handy d66 table to roll on. So I roll...25 or 52 (I can read these either way) and 41 or 14. Let's see what that translates to.

25 is "dusky damselfish." 52 is "ripsaw catfish." 14 is "barreleye". 41 is "humboldt squid." 

Well, shit, I know I want the squid. His name is Ablert (yes, that's spelled right). Ablert wants to be friends with everything in the ocean. 

For the other fish frand, I'll take the dusky damselfish. Their name is Lyle. Lyle has a Scrappy-Doo type of personality (but less annoying), quite willing to pick a fight with something several times their size. I imagine Ablert has had to yank Lyle out of the jaws of a much bigger fish more than once. 

My skeleton's name is Chovy. Chovy has kelp growing from his arms and it's not uncommon for smaller fish to swim into his eyes if scared. Ablert often spends time wrapped around and through Chovy's ribs, but Lyle swims out ahead to make sure the way is clear. 

And that'll do it! Into the ocean!

Character Creation: Troika!

Not a game you should read while tired. Or absolutely the right game to read while tired, I dunno.

The Game: Troika!
The Publisher: The Melsonian Arts Council
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

I'd heard this game mentioned here and there but never heard anything about it and the title doesn't exactly convey much information, so I gave it a miss. And then the Numinous Edition turned up in a bundle, and I backed a game called Bones Deep on Kickstarter. Said game is about being a skeleton that hatches and goes for adventures on the bottom of the ocean, which is not only delightfully weird but scratches a particular itch for me (to wit, sea exploration games, thanks very much Subnautica). 

Anyway, Bones Deep is a Troika! offshoot, and my friend Gus thought they might run it, so I figured I should take a look at the source game. And it's fuckin' weird, and I mean that in a good way. There's a sample scenario that involves riding an elevator in a hotel. It reminds me of Toon on mescaline. The game doesn't have a setting as such, or rather it does, but it's all revealed by the spell and other lists rather than in an actual setting chapter. In practice, I suspect that would mean a lot of group improvisation, which is fine if you've got a group that's down for this particular brand of surreal. 

It's not the most accessible game in the world, I guess? But it reminds me of Nobilis in some ways, in that you kinda just have to trust it and go with it, and I'm game for that. I think, though, that Bones Deep sounds more appealing to me than the base game, but then, oceans.

So let's make a character for this bunch of bananas. Much of this is random. First we roll 1d3+3 to determine Skill (not Skills, but a trait called Skill, which is both a great idea and a little brain-fucky to anyone who's played RPGs for a long time). Anyway, I rolled a 6, which gives me 9.

2d6+12 to determine Stamina: 20.

1d6+6 to determine Luck: 10

Baseline possessions: 10 silver pence, a knife, a lantern and flask of oil, a rucksack, 6 provisions.

And now we roll background! This is a d66. 32 gives me...

Believe it not that's actually one of the tamer backgrounds. Amusingly, I've been finishing off Deathloop recently, which is also about bizarre assassins. 

That's basically it, though. We'll say my Journeyman's name is Wild Bym. Wild Bym, so called because his assassination method has been "get next to target and flail wildly with one or more bladed objects," was recently given a license even though his examiners hate the chaos he brings to the profession (but like, his targets are dead, so it's not like his methods don't work). Bym dresses in the black clothes required of the apprentice, but all different shades of black (yes it does, shut up). He carries poison but he's not really interested in using it, unless it's the sort of thing you can mush into someone's face. Bym has a beard that's not quite as long and wooly as he'd like (yet!), one blue eye and one green one, and a prominent lump on his forehead where he got hit with a sword and the tip lodged. 

I...think that'll do it.