Character Creation: The Red Star

Waiting on the short ribs to braise, which of course takes a while, so here we are.

The Game: The Red Star Campaign Setting
The Publisher: Green Ronin
Degree of Familiarity: None.
Books Required: The Red Star and d20 Modern, which I have on PDF somewhere

 

I have this book because Michelle edited it, which is why I have a lot of the d20 books I have. I'm sure that the setting is really cool and compelling (it's based on a comic series, and it's been turned into a video game and there were, some years back, rumblings about a movie directed by Josh Trank), but the RPG doesn't really hook me because it starts in with all of the d20 crap and doesn't really get to the meat of the setting until the very end. But needs must.

First thing I need to do is figure out how to make a d20 Modern character, because the Red Star book tells me what's different. I need to start off making ability scores, but I think it might be wise to choose a class first so I have some idea what the hell I'm doing.

Well, the hailer class is pretty cool. It involves telekinesis and machine guns, which is fun. They seem like beefy warrior types, but I don't make those often, so sure, let's do a hailer.

Hailers are typically big dudes, so I'll lean into that and say my guy is over 6'6" and swole. I can probably plunk my ability scores in, then. Hmm. Do I wish to do the standard array thing or chance the rolls? Ah, fuck it, ain't like I'm ever gonna play him. I'll roll it.

I come up with: 7, 12, 13, 18(!), 10, 7. Well, gonna need some dump stats. I want my 18 in STR because I'm just that beefy. I'll put the 13 in DEX, the 12 in CON, the 10 in WIS, and that leaves 7s in INT and CHR. I'm a walking stereotype. My character's name is Ivan, obviously.

I fill in my ability modifiers, and now I get to try and navigate this awful character sheet (it's so busy, and there's not a step-by-step in either book that takes everything on it into account). I get 12 hit points plus my weak-ass CON bonus, so that's 13. I get 6 Action Points. I can fill in my class skills, but of course I still have to put ranks into them (won't take long, I don't get many). I get a bunch of Feats, so I'll write those in (and then I'll get to pick two more). Fill in Saving Throws, fill in Rep Bonus, blabbity-blah. Here we go, Skills.

I can put 4 ranks into class skills, and I only get 20 (because I'm dumb as a bag of hammers), so basically I can put 4 ranks into 5 skills and call it a day. Well, TK, obviously. Intimidate, I guess, although my CHA bonus is for shit. Knowledge (pop culture) just for giggles. Climb because I'll be really good at it, and Spot because it's always a good idea to have some kind of perception-y check you can make.

Now I need two Feats (not feet). I'll take Gunnery (I can fire vehicular weapons without penalty), and Heroic Surge (once a day I can take an extra move or attack action).

And that's really it; I could figure out Wealth and buy shit, but eh, you know how I feel about that. Instead I'll think a little more about Ivan.

Ivan is used to being big, dumb, and dangerous. He grew up on the family farm and he got so big and strong, everyone said he should be a solider. He joined the Red Fleet and had to bust his ass to master telekinesis, but he did it, and became a Hailer.

Ivan isn't much of a reader; he might well have some form of learning disability (which may or may not be a thing that this setting recognizes). He's not exactly stupid, though, but he doesn't learn or retain new information easily. If it's something he's interested in or passionate about - telekinesis, for example, or the rising stars of his favorite music forms - he'll put in the effort. Meanwhile, he's ready for his next assignment. Ivan is someone everyone underestimates. His comrades call him "Ivan the Wall."

And I think that'll do it!

Character Creation: Chi-Chian

I've got some obscure RPGs in my collection, but this one's pretty weird.

The Game: Chi-Chian: The Roleplaying Game
The Publisher: Aetherco, but you pretty much have to get a copy from Amazon or eBay
Degree of Familiarity: None.
Books Required: Just the one.

 

Chi-Chian is an RPG based on the comics and webseries of the same name, all created by a dude called Voltaire. He created the character first and everything pretty much spiraled out from there, and that's fine. The setting of the game is bananas - it's very goth and very Japanese (maybe; at least it's written by a guy who's got a thing for Japan). The title character wears a suit made of tiny wriggly worms that can reform themselves into different shapes, the left breast is a telescope while the right is a receiver, and so forth. The Manhattan setting of the game is now a Japanese prefecture after it seceded from the American Union and then there was a war between New York and New Jersey. There are giant bugs, and the different layers of Manhattan (vertical layers) require you to think increasingly nice thoughts in order to ascend, but you can buy a K-buffer that fools that barriers.

It's a lot more nuts than I'm describing, but all I want to do is make a character. You want to experience the bananas, go watch the webseries, it's all on Voltaire's site.

Character creation has 5 easy steps. Step One is, predictably, concept. Oy.

Well, I like the wormtrains. These are literally giant worms that serve as railroads; their interior is a massive cavity that allows for comfortable seating (like I said, bananas). I think I want my character to work with the wormtrains in some way. They don't need conductors as such, because they rely on instinct, so I'll have my character be a wrangler - if a wormtrain jumps its track, my guy, Ozzie, goes out and finds it and tries to lure it back. Ozzie (full name: Ozymandias Welker) is in his early 40s, tall, heavyset, steady and patient. He moved to Manhattan after his wife left him (which might mean he snuck across the border from New Jersey), and put his background in bio-mechanics and growing mealworms for food to use. He never liked eating mealworms, anyway.

I need to describe five emotional moments or memories, so let's do that:

• Marrying his wife, Felicia. It was a small ceremony; neither of them has much in the way of family. The best part was watching her struggle with the veil - not that she was struggling, but just that she looked very human in that moment.
• The day Felicia left him. She'd been distant for some time, and it wasn't exactly a surprise, but they had always worked through the rough patches before. Ozzie sat in his shower for nearly a full hour after he read the note, staring at his feet and the water going down the drain.
• Arriving in Manhattan. Ozzie's an illegal immigrant, but he wanted to disappear and not leave any traces behind in Jersey. He bribed some folks to make it across and wound up in the Delta plane, and eventually got his job.
• The first time he coaxed a wormtrain back onto its track. The wormtrains are strange and mighty creatures, and they nearly destroyed the city once. Ozzie feels a sense of reverence and respect for them, but also some pity, as their lives are wholly the product of human tampering.
• The first time he ascended to Alpha plane, and then went to leave, he was warned that he might not be able to return (that is, his thoughts might not be pure enough). The nature of the world is that everything feeds on something, and humans add social predation on top of that. It's hardly fair to hold people to such a standard. 

So far, so good. Step Two is to spend Chi Points. I get 120 of them. I start out buying up stats; there are 8 of them and they start at 0, but they have to be bought to 1 (so it would have been smarter to start them at one and start players with 112 points, but whatever).

Supposedly 3 is average, and I can't start higher than 5 in a given stat. I think Ozzie needs to have decent Mettle, Health, Virtue, and Charm. Supposing I put all four of those at 4? That would cost me 40 points. If I then wanted to put Willpower and Tech at 3, that'd cost me 12 more (52 spent), and that leaves Brains and Guile. I think 3 Brains, 2 Guile (9 more, for a total of 61 spent). That leaves me 59 points. I don't know if that's good or not, so on we go.

Status is next. Status is pretty complex; there are 7 factors to consider: Sex (I'm not female, so that costs me 0); Race (I'm not Japanese, but I'm not a mixture of races, which is a fucking stupid way to phrase this, but whatever, it costs me 3); K-Seg Plane of Residence (Gamma, I think, which costs 0); Career (I think "important job", so that costs 2); Family (Outcasts; he's an illegal, so that's -2); Reputation (Good, I guess? 3 Chi); and Appearance (Homely, -1 Chi). That's 5 Chi altogether, and gives me an overall Status of -2.

And now, Capabilities. These are skills and powers that I can buy (with my remaining 54 points). Let's see. OK, there are a few I like (they're mostly Skill-related because I don't see Ozzie as having any weird powers), but a lot of the ones I like key off Guile, so I'm gonna spend 3 points to bump that to 3 first. I have 51 points.

I want Scrounge (lets me find stuff in the ruins). That's 3 per level, I'll take 2, that means I've spent 6 (45 remaining). Stealth, always useful, 2 levels costs 6, down to 36. Streetwise, one level costs 5, down to 31. Tongues lets me communicate with other organisms, and I kinda want to be a wormtrain whisperer, so that's 10 points (down to 21).

I need to think about gear and money, too, dammit. I'll spend 5 on a x100 modifier, meaning every point I put in to actual money nets me 100 monies. That takes me to 16. I'll put 10 into money, but I need to spend 500 on an exxo (basically a hazmat suit) right away, so that's down to 500. 6 Chi remaining; I think I'll just dump those into my Chi pool.

Last thing is Tragic Flaws. I have to have at least 2, and my low Status counts (my low Guile would have, too, if I hadn't raised it). So I need one more. "From New Jersey" is actually listed as a social Flaw, so that's pretty much perfect.

And that's it! Ozzie is ready to go worm wranglin'.

Board Game: Pathogenesis

Also, the other night I told Cael to pick a board game to play, and, after being told it had to be something he hadn't played (i.e., not Munchkin), he picked this one:

The Game: Pathogenesis 
The Publisher: WIBAI Games
Players: Me, Al, Michelle, Cael
Time: This game took us nearly three hours, but we were learning it. I think a game in which we weren't constantly re-reading the rules would be closer to an hour

Game Play: Pathogenesis is a deck-builder in which you're all diseases trying to kill the host body. Said body has three tracts (respiratory, tissue, and gastrointestinal), and after you break through a tract's barriers, you can attack it directly. Attacking it requires pathogens, which you can buff with various enzymes and proteins and so on.

A very chipper sort of illness.

The body fights back, however; the immune system throws all kinds of shit at you. The immune system has a deck, and once it runs through, it gets reshuffled, but with more powerful cards in the mix (like t-cells, which will typically annihilate whatever pathogen they attack). When the deck runs out again, game over, the host body fights off the infection.

But, if you manage to remove all the damage tokens from one of the tracts, you win! (That's in a four-player competitive game; you can also play 2-v-2 competitive or some kind of cooperative, but we only played once.)

A growing pathogen

Opinions: It's a deck-builder, so if you don't like those, you won't like this. I personally think the game has a lot of potential, but there is a wrong way to approach it, and that's kinda what we did (to wit, the immune system doesn't kick in until all of the barrier cards are gone from one tract, but we did that too soon rather than taking the time to build up our decks, so we didn't have enough buffs to fight through the immune system once it happened).

The artwork is really cool looking, although most of the cards have medically accurate titles, which means they're hard to say at first. Fortunately there are symbols on the cards that tell you what they do at a glance.

The rulebook could have been clearer on a couple of points; I suspect it's easier to watch the how-to-play videos for the game. I'd like to try it again with a better sense of how the hell it works.

Keep? Yep.

Chill: Escape from the Caves

Yesterday was Chill. In what has become something of a theme for this HQ, the envoys escaped with their lives, but so did the creature they were fighting.

Recall that last time, the envoys were in the Kuna Caves, fighting for their lives against a sasquatch. The beast had already badly wounded Jennifer (she was unconscious, which was handy since her player couldn't make it this time) and BB (who was hanging on through judicious use of the Restorative Art). Beth Anne had blinded all of the envoys with a mis-used flare gun...

Cut to a couple of hours ago. Dylan had gone to his office to grade papers, a move that the other envoys regarded as strange and perhaps a bit dickish. Dylan has in fact spent all day in his office, grading and then working on other things, before finally realizing where he was and checking his phone (which he'd put on silent; also uncharacteristically). Dylan sees that he's got multiple messages from the team, inquiring with various degrees of politeness when he'll be back, and finally telling him they're going into the Kuna Caves to look for the missing family.

Feeling like maybe this is going to get bad, Dylan goes back to his apartment and grabs some hiking gear and his pistol, and then heads out to the caves. He sees that the entrance is closed off, and drives up the road a bit. He finds a deputy in an orange vest, and tells him that he's looking for his friends. The deputy tells him that if they joined the search party, they'll have signed in at the HQ, up the road a few miles.

Dylan starts to head up there, but then remembers that his brother's disappearance felt very much like this, and the road to the check-in takes him in the opposite direction from the caves. He turns around and heads back, and finds the same entrance that the others did. He enters the caves, and sees their markings and glowsticks, and then hears a fwoosh sort of noise and sees a bright red light.

The light, of course, is the flare. The sasquatch bites Jeanie on the shoulder, and she cracks it in the head with her staff, driving it back. Dylan, arriving at the top of the slope, yells to get their attention, and BB hears and, using Feat of Strength, throws Jennifer up to him. Dylan catches her awkwardly, but neither are hurt further.

Meanwhile, the creature paws at Jeanie's staff and it shatters. BB hits it with his bola, tying it up momentarily. Jeanie backs up, and Emily, her vision returning, punches it, also using Feat of Strength. The creature, of course, snaps the cable. Not wanting to fight this thing hand-to-hand, Emily backs off and shoots it.

BB, not having a gun, picks up a rock, runs over, and brains it. He feels something crack, and the sasquatch retreats a bit, as Emily and Beth Anne both unload rock salt at it. It lets out a terrifying screech, and the envoys feel the will to fight leaving them. Emily falls back into protective mode, laying down covering fire for her squad. Beth Anne goes up the rope, followed by Jeanie and BB. Emily is last up, and the sasquatch is nowhere to be seen.

The envoys leave the caves, and load BB and Jennifer into Dylan's car. He drives them to the check-in and gets them medical attention, and tells the authorities there that there was a bear attack. Everyone is taken away to the hospital, and the state troopers go into the caves. The find the bodies of the unfortunate McCarthy family (and many others), and ultimately conclude that one or more bears had gone rogue and were eating people. Said bears, however, are never found.

In a couple of days, after the worst of the injuries have healed, Dylan sits everyone down for a little rap session (Crisis Counselor, you see). Beth Anne notes that she felt really useless - she's good with ghost-related things, but this was purely physical. Emily states that she was right to be concerned about going in unarmed, and she's never doing that again. BB argues the point - the reason they went in under-armed was because something was screwing with their perceptions, and if they can't trust what they see they shouldn't be getting trigger happy. Jeanie tells the story of when she first saw the sasquatch, before she joined SAVE. She doesn't know if it was the same one, but it looked like it.

The envoys talk about their situation, and decide that they aren't going after the sasquatch right now - it's too big an area, there are already cops around, and besides, they have no good base of operations with the ranch compromised. They get Chet and Darnell out, and stay in Boise (some of them have residences there and can put up couch space). They need to figure out what this "xaxog" is and how to kill it, and take the damn ranch back.

That's the next case, however.

Board Game: Ticket to Ride - Heart of Africa

Didn't wind up playing Blades on Monday, so we did board game instead.

The Game: Ticket to Ride: Heart of Africa
The Publisher: Days of Wonder
Time: 30 minutes or so
Players: Me, Michelle, Amanda, Toasty

Game Play: I've blogged Ticket to Ride and Ticket to Ride: Europe already, but Heart of Africa has some different rules, so I think it's worth another post (I mean, inasmuch as anything is; what is life, really?). Heart of Africa has the same premise - you're building trains across southern Africa. You get dealt random destination tickets, and if you complete those, you get points.

Ah-ha, but, in this version you also have Terrain cards (which sounds too much like "trains" when you say it, I find). There are three types of Terrain cards, each of which corresponds to three colors of tracks on the board and fall into loose categories (mountains/cliffs, jungle, and desert). Terrain cards are played in front of you, and when you play trains, you can play Terrain cards as well and double your score.

Those are Terrain cards in front of Michelle.

This adds a different level of strategy, since if you have more of a give type of Terrain than the other players, they can't use that type to double their score. Quite by accident, I wound up with four jungle Terrain cards, which effectively shut out anyone using those to double their scores for blue, purple, or green tracks until I used a few of mine.

Opinions: I like the fact that these different maps add some variant rules, too; makes it a different thing than Munchkin, which is basically the same game with some different art. I like this particular variant, but I'm not sure that I like it more than Europe's variants. It is, however, a larger map with few cities, so it's a little easier to see, which is maybe a little easier to visually navigate.

Keep? Sure.

Character Creation: Murders & Acquisitions

SO ANYWAY here's a character.

The Game: Murders & Acquisitions
The Publisher: Nerdburger Games
Degree of Familiarity: None, just read it.
Books Required: Just the one.

So, in all honesty, this is a game that I've thought about picking up a bunch of times, but I have so many games and the central conceit (climb up the corporate ladder plus there's murder) never quite clicked. And after reading the book, it still really doesn't; in my opinion there could have been a little more flavor and the book comes off a little dry. But with all that said, I haven't been able to get this video out of my head:

And it's such perfect inspiration that it made me read the book, and here we are.

So, in watching the video, I kinda want to play the guy that just fucking launches himself over the table at 1:48. Like, he's not a principal in this whole "negotiation" between Older Fella and Balding Fella, but he is ready to go. I like that kind of dedication. I mean, look at this guy:

NOBODY SPEAK, NOBODY GET CHOKED.

OK, so that's my basic concept: An executive assistant who is ready to throw down for his boss. I need to write up a Professional Summary for him, with three adjectives that kinda define him. So I'll say:

"I never lose my grip on my goals because I'm TENACIOUS. I'm READY to jump in and give it my all, and I'm LOYAL to a fault."

Now I do stats n' stuff. I get Wellness (basically health) and Wits (basically mental health) at 3, and they can go to a max of 5. I also get a d4 in all of the available Skills, which are listed on the sheet THANK YOU CRAIG. I get 20 points to boost them; Wits and Wellness cost 2 and Skill die types cost 1 (shades of Savage Worlds here). There's also a simple breakdown I could use:

And I'm fine with that. Although I think I'll drop Wits to 3 and boost Wellness to 5; seems like my guy isn't held together all that well.

SKILLS THEN! For my d10s, I'll take Force Application (look at that jump) and Expectations Management (he's good with other people, up to a point). For my d8s, I'll take Public Speaking (honesty is the best policy!), Bodily Grace (LOOK AT THAT JUMP), and Manual Finesse. For my d6s, I'll take Information Technology, Loss Mitigation, Resource Identification, and Physical Adaptation. That leaves a d4 in Social Equivocation, Systems Management, and Mental Adaptation. Cool.

A few static traits; Speed is 30, Body and Mind are 7 and I start with 3 Synergy.

I get 3 Areas of Expertise; they allow rerolls once per session. I'll take Athletics, Brute Force, and Negotiation.

Finally, I need a name, description, and Employee Objective. Description is done (right up there in the photo). My Objective is: "I want to be indispensable to my boss." As for name, I'll call him Tony Check. He uses "Check" as "affirmative," and that's not an accident, baby.

OK, if I ever run this game, I'm officially making everyone watch that video and pick someone to be their character.

Movie #510: Pale Rider

Pale Rider is a western directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, and also starring Michael Moriarty, Carrie Snodgress, Chris Penn, Richard Dysart, Sydney Penny, Richard Kiel, and John Russell.

Hull (Moriarty) is the unofficial leader of a small community of gold panners in California, on the verge of getting run out by a ruthless gold magnate Coy LaHood (Dysart). One afternoon a mysterious stranger (Eastwood) stops a bunch of Coy's thugs from beating him up, and the stranger, called "Preacher" since he's wearing a priest's collar, joins the community and stands up to LaHood.

This all comes to a head when LaHood hires the services of a corrupt marshal named Stockburn (Russell) and his six evil deputies (one of whom is Billy Drago, the guy who plays Frank Nitti in Untouchables, but we'll get to the Us eventually). Preacher goes into town, opens a safe deposit box, swaps his priest collar for his guns, and kills them all.

Now, there's a lot more to it: Hull is involved with Sarah (Snodgress), a woman whose husband left her and her teenage daughter (Penny), and Hull's been trying to get her to agree to marry him. Megan, the daughter, is immediately taken with Preacher and tries to pursue him, but then, Sarah is, too, and actually beds Preacher (it's implied, but not shown), who then realizes what a good thing she has in the decent, dependable Hull. Actually, the main arc of the movie belongs to Hull and Sarah, not Preacher - Preacher just kind of comes out of nowhere, does a bunch of cool violence, and then sods off into the mountains on his own. It's implied (but again, never stated) that Preacher is the ghost of a man that Stockburn killed - Stockburn clearly knows him and is terrified to see him, and Preacher has a circle of bullet wounds on his back that matches the wounds he winds up giving Stockburn.

There are a few Eastwood westerns that leave a lot of things unexplained, and I'm fine with that. If Preacher is supposed to be a ghost, I could have done with some hint of the supernatural in the movie ('cause like, he behaves in all ways like a living man, but Eastwood has evidently said in interviews that he's a ghost), but really the movie is fine as a self-contained story about a community getting bullied by some rich asshole.

My Grade: A-
Rewatch Value: Medium

Next up: Pan's Labyrinth