eurydicebound | Entries tagged with characters

I love this show. Watching it makes me happy. I've addicted Matt to it as well, so now we slowly make our way through the seasons. :) At GenCon we picked up the Leverage RPG after having our eye on it for a year or so. Today, therefore, we'll be making characters. Sometimes the bad guys make the best good guys, you know. Matt and I are making characters together, and his hacker is over here.

Game: Leverage RPG
Publisher: Margaret Weis Publishing
Books Required: Just the core. There will be supplements out later, but not right now.
Level of Familiarity: Lots with the show, not much with the game. Matt intends to run it once the summer winds down, but I haven't even had a chance to read it yet. Wheee!

Step 1: Get a Blank Rap Sheet
I'm going to be a Mastermind. I debated Hitter or Thief, but I couldn't get away from it, really. Eeeee. :) I therefore have a printed "Mastermind" rap sheet.

Step 2: Consider Your Background
My character grew up on the South Side of Chicago. She was the daughter of a cop, the granddaughter of a cop, and the sister of a cop... so when she ended up in Internal Affairs, it was a shock to everyone. She stayed with it until she couldn't stand the internal corruption any longer, much to the relief of her family. When her brother was made the fall guy for an internal scandal, though, she came out of retirement -- along with some connections she had. Det. Alexandra Roarke is her name.

Step 3: Primary Role:
She's a Mastermind, duh.

Step 4: Secondary Role:
I was torn between Hitter and Hacker, but since Matt's making the Hacker, I went with Hitter instead. Grifter is especially inviting, but honestly I'm trying not to make Nate here -- and there's no reason for her to be a Grifter, much less Thief.

Step 5: Assigning Attributes:
There are two options here -- Focused (2d8, 2d10, and 2d6) or Versatile, which is 1d10, 4d8, and 1d6. I went with Focused, and have d10s in Intelligence and Strength, d8s in Alertness and Willpower, and d6s in Agility and Vitality.

Step 6: Distinctions
So, apparently you normally come up with one distinction, and then play through the first job and the other players give you two more. I'd enjoy that. Not feasible here, though, so instead I'm choosing them. You get three total, all of them things about your character (past, personality, etc.) Mine are Ex-IAD, Quick Tempered, and Strict Vegetarian.

Step 7: Talents and Specialties
So, there are talents for your role and there are talents that aren't assigned and there are talents you can make up. For her, I chose Sea of Calm, which lets her help her team in tough scrapes, and Threat Assessment, which lets her size up an opponent accurately. The first comes from Mastermind, the second from Hitter. Then there's specialties... these are a little odd -- you assign them to a role, which gives them context. Alexandra has "Soccer" under Hitter and "Drinking (strategic)" under Mastermind. This means, for example, that she can fake a drunk well, she can hold her liquor, and she knows what to drink for what kind of Mark. Soccer in the context of Hitter means she's got sort of a full-body, no-holds-barred, dirty street approach to fighting. She fights like an aggressive forward playing soccer, and gets a lot of her moves from that background.

And that's Leverage! She'd be fun to play... I may hang onto her. :)

Matt wanted to do another of his character creation things tonight, and with OWoD rising from the dead and buried in a number of respects, it seems timely to do Hunter. :)

I admit, I loved the heck out of the Hunter Xbox games. And I enjoyed my work on the franchise, though I never got to play it in tabletop form. It was weird and had this "not fully jelled" feeling to it. I think I would have liked it as a game, but it was sort of "instrument of deus ex machina" in a way I wasn't fully comfortable with. Now, that said, I always felt like they hung a lantern on that part of the setting, and I appreciated that. It doesn't really make it more playable, though -- and I think in the end, that feeling that at the base of everything, somebody was just making shit up and not really even apologizing for not making up more cohesive shit is what made the game eventually develop a conceptual limp as it went along. Well, and that it wasn't Hunters Hunted, which a lot of people had been very much hoping for at the time. Certainly I had as well, and instead we get mysterious powers and voices and.... you can just SEE them, man! I'm down with that and the resulting crazy, but it was a bit out of left field.

Game: Hunter the Reckoning.
Publisher: White Wolf
Books Needed: Well, there was a whole line, but let's say the core and the Player's Guide. I'm not doing splats.
Level of Familiarity: Edited bits of, read, messed around with in video game form.

( Read more... )

So I'm done with school and Matt pointed out that there has not been character creation in some time, so here we are. Today's entry is Hellcats and Hockeysticks, a fun little indy game in which you are a schoolgirl at St Erisian's School for Girls, which is a take on St. Trinian's, a school for "young ladies" featured in comics, books, and film since the 1940s in Britain.

Game: Hellcats and Hockeysticks
Publisher: Corone Design
Books Needed: Just the core book
Level of Familiarity: I was supposed to play it a couple of weeks ago, but didn't get to. Whee!!!

( Read more... )

It's been a long time since my last chargen episode. This has to do first with graduating, then with moving, then with grad school, and then with combining RPG collections, so that I no longer have any idea, really, whether I'm making characters off my list or his list or both or what. Today, however,

innocent_man is home on a snow day, and so we're making Cybergeneration 2nd edition characters together.

I've played Cybergeneration before, but it's been... a long time, and it was only a one-shot even then. Like, "years before my children were born" long time ago, so what I remember is a bit sketchy. The book tells me we're playing the kids of Shadowru--, er, sorry, Edgerunners, who are part of a "yogang." Theirs is a dark future, left by their parents, who rebelled and got squished by the man. They're post-cyberpunk, which should mean postmodern but instead means "oh god this is so 80s." Seriously. "Kids in America" is playing in my head as we speak.

Character! Onward!( Read more... )

Hey there, and welcome to another edition of Character Creation, with me, your host, Michelle.

innocent_man and I are doing another joint character creation, this time for a game called MSG. MSG was written by Wood Ingham and Becky Lowe, with additional writing by Ben Baugh.

MSG is a corporate satire, wherein you make characters who work for the Company. Everyone takes turns and plays The Company first, while the rest who work for the company make Reps, who work for the Brand but the Brand doesn't actually employ them, which means you're contingent staff, I think, which is giving me flashbacks to my time at MGS (Microsoft Game Studios), frankly. Dear Lord.

I may have misunderstood this somehow. I haven't fully read through the book yet. I can say there's not really a clear explanation of the game's purpose or overall through-line up front, which I find makes me a bit sad. It looks cool, and I'd like to feel I'm understanding it a bit better up front so I have clear expectations. I think that's not to be, though. Matt chose this to do tonight, however, and thus we shall move forward.

The Game: MSG (tm).
The Publisher: John Heron Project
Degree of Familiarity: No idea, though perhaps too much from real life carries over.
Books Required: Just the one.

Step One: The Intro
Character creation for MSG is ideally done in a group. At this point you're supposed to introduce yourself to your group.
"Hi, my name is _______."
"Hi, _______."
You then provide a brief, superficial overview.

With that in mind... my character's name is Kelly Black.
"Hi, Kelly."
She's in her late twenties with a degree in business from State U, which isn't a bad school. She's caucasian, has brown hair, is reasonably diplomatic, has an earnest desire to move up in the company, and likes to wear slacks, simple blouses, and silk scarves (her collection is vast). There is always candy at her desk.

Step Two: Freelancer or Asset
You now have to choose whether you're a freelancer or an asset. Freelancers have a lot more freedom -- they work for Marketing -- and are effectively deniable assets. Assets get all the perks and benefits and gear, but they're nearly half owned. Kelly would aspire to be an asset, so that's where she is. She likes her cushy, deceptively stable job and hopes to be there until she keels over for good, her stock options vest fully, or she requires major medical disability, whichever comes first.

Step Three: Expertises
In this step you pick two other things you're good at. Well, Kelly should be a project manager, but that isn't a category on this game. That said, the two that come closest are Business Stabilisation Strategies and Executive Management. BSS is a bit more... well, actively bloodthirsty than your average project manager, but the strategies are much the same, only with somewhat more torture. Executive management is oddly about the same as real life.

Step Four: Relationships
Now you pick relationships, because no man is an island, especially when you work overtime with these people. You get an "iLove," "iHate," and "My Secret Tragedy." These do have to be people. You get one love, two hates, and a bad thing from your past.

Hmm. Kelly loves Roger Burns, an old flame who ended up marrying her boss's boss, Rhonda Walker (she kept her name). Roger and Kelly were in the same Delta Sigma Pi chapter in college and were both on the newsletter committee. They had a brief relationship, but ended up breaking it off because she wasn't Jewish and he was afraid of his mother.

Kelly hates Rhonda Walker, who is aware of that Kelly is an ex of her husband and never lets an opportunity pass by to subtly kneecap Kelly's projects in any meeting where their two worlds intersect -- which since Rhonda is the boss of Kelly's boss, Harold, means that it comes up with depressing regularity.

Kelly also hates Ryan Peterson, the latest marketing golden boy. He's not even remotely asset material, but somehow he ends up working on her projects as often as not, and always with an eye to what's going to make him look good in the next six months. She would love to kneecap Ryan figuratively or literally, but she doesn't have the juice yet to make that happen. His time will come.

My Secret Tragedy. This is something that is sort of a secret, except that everyone there knows it. Kelly went on "sabbatical" two years ago for six months, which she spent in a lovely rehab facility on the coast drying out and getting clean, courtesy of the Company, as her drug of choice was not only interfering with her HeadSpace but caused her to completely lose her shit at Rhonda in a meeting the day before her unexpected Leave of Absence.

Step Five: Unique Selling Point. This is the thing that makes your character a special, unique snowflake of a person. It can be professional, personal, or just wacky. Kelly's USP is Mastery of MSG(tm) Project(tm), the mandatory project management software made by the Company that few understand, much less make useful. Her ungodly gift with this program is the key to her job security, frankly, because no one else the Company has found has been able to come close.

Step Six: Resources, such as they are. Divide 11 points between Compassion and Self, with neither side being less than 4. Compassion is your ability to relate to others and your conscience (such as it is). Self is your confidence and your ability to stand up for yourself. I'm going to rate this as Compassion 6, Self 5. Over the course of the game you spend these and hopefully win more, with the Rep who has the most Resources at the end of the game winning. He Who Dies With The Most Toys, evidently. Boo Yah.

And we're done! Poor Kelly. I need some candy now. *wanders off*

So here I sit in a courtyard at TusCon, in the shade of an orange tree, at what may possibly be the most laid-back con I've ever attended.Next to me is

innocent_man, simultaneously blogging with me, and the two of us are setting forth to create characters in Icons, which should be a hoot.

( Lookie! )

So,

innocent_man is here and, as part of our time together, it seems we're going to make use of it to engage in simultaneous character creation! After long perusal of my game collection, we came to the conclusion that the only game we have in common that he hasn't already done is Eclipse Phase. As I'd put off doing Eclipse Phase in order to wait for when I felt like tackling the skill list, this seemed like a good plan. But first, pictures!

Here is Matt, all ready for character making. Isn't he handsome? I think so.

And next, here's Rosie! She's not making characters (although Eclipse Phase would be as good for that as any and better than most). Mostly she's wondering why I haven't petted her (again) yet. See those eyes? I defy anyone to withstand those eyes. It's all about the scritches, man. Sigh.

Okay, scritches delivered. ( Read more... )

I should really be doing my readings for my group project today, but no! Procrastination sits on my right shoulder, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, so instead of reading of the horrors of slavery, I'm making a character. So be it.

I have here in front of me Green Ronin's Blue Rose game. I own it, though I've never really done much with it. I greatly appreciate its existence, frankly. I like a lot of the literary inspiration for the game, especially the Robin McKinley books The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown (which is how they go chronologically, but were published in reverse order). Those are two of my favorite books of all time, frankly, and a system that would let me run them happily is a system I would hug and love and make mine forever.

The problem I have with the setting of Blue Rose, however, is that it's not really much like those books at all. It's far closer to Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar -- which has its good points, but isn't the inspiration I wanted. It's all a little too... gah. Good, I guess. I like a bit more dark mixed in, a touch more of a central point on the alignment charts. That said, there's nothing actually wrong with it, and as I read through the setting information and grudgingly let go of what I really wanted it to already be, I found that I was all right with what it was. ( Azure petals beckon... (and lord, isn't that pretentious of me) )

I really like Changeling. I liked it when it was The Dreaming, and I like it now that it's The Lost -- quite a bit more than the original, actually. It's got better legs, if that makes any sense. Anyway, I only relatively recently got a core book for Changeling, so I'm making a character for it somewhat belatedly. It'd be nice to get to play in a campaign of it someday. We'll see. :)

The Game: Changeling the Lost
Publisher: White Wolf
Degree of Familiarity: Somewhat. I've played in a few one-shots. None of them really close enough together that I don't have to be reminded about how it all works each time, but such is the way of things. It's nWoD, though, so I have a general sense of it in my brain.
Books Required: Well, it would terribly nice to have supplemental books, but I don't, so life goes on. I also have the core WoD book if necessary.

( Mind the thorns... )

I've picked up a new game, Secrets and Lies, but I'm still absorbing that game. Character creation is also absurdly simple ("rules light" doesn't begin to cover it,) and I want to make sure I'm not misunderstanding it before I post a character for it. That'll likely be the next one I do. For now, though, there's another game that's been greatly on my mind--Conspiracy X 1st edition.

Yes, the system is wonky. Yes, it's like an episode of X-Files got loose and escaped into the wild. Yes, it actually uses Zener cards as a mechanic. I don't care. I love its fuzzy little heart for all these reasons. For better or worse, IMO the system facilitates the genre and feel the game is trying for. The Unisystem version is undoubtedly smoother and provides a more... well, uniform play experience. It just doesn't have the same personality, though. I've never been a proponent of "one system fits all." Yes, you can use a generic system for a whole bunch of things, but in the end it's just a system. It doesn't bring anything to the game you want to play. At best it just doesn't get in the way. That's not the way I want to play. Systems can be so much cooler than that.

So. Here we go.

The Game: Conspiracy X, 1st Edition. Third Printing.
The Publisher: Eden Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Played it once. Ran it once, a game which reached a quick demise due to an incompatible group of players. Very sad, really.
Books: Just the core. I used to have more, but not any longer. If I actually get to pick this up I'll be searching out some of the old books to go along with it. But certainly not for this character, no.

I have no idea what I'm going to make, so let's just throw this together and see what happens. This is one of those games where I think it really works best to have an entire group create characters at the same time, but obviously that doesn't work for this, so we'll just pretend. :) Oh, and have I mentioned I've been watching a lot of Leverage lately? *grin* Um... yeah.

Name: Amy Kasperzek

1) Concept: The book gives some general concept types for characters that tend to work well in ConX games. You're not restricted to these (and they have no real game effect) but it helps give you a bit of focus. Looking over the list, I think that Amy's concept is going to be an Explorer. It's never the mountain, it's the climb, to paraphrase a song my kids are listing to all the damn time right now. Curiosity is her weakness, her primary motivation -- and we know what happens to those people, don't we?

Character Points: 100. Every starting character has 100 pts by default, though GMs can naturally raise that if they want. 100 is a pretty good default, though. You can improve your character after chargen, though it's not a question of XP but rather taking downtime and devoting it to training (or fixing up the secret base, or therapy, or whatever the pressing need is). It's at its core a skill-based system, so improvement happens by drips and drops and while it does matter, the intent of the game is that you basically start out with the character you intend to have.

2) Physical and Mental Attributes. Default is 3, costing or returning points to move the needle up or down. I think I want her to be a computer security genius, so INT will be the most important. If I remember chargen correctly, it's a waste of points to spend too much in your attributes. Some is expected and useful, but it's an expensive point sink. I'm therefore going to raise her INT to a 4 and leave the rest at 3. I debated a 5, but that's an extra 20 pts, and I'm not sure it'd be worth it. That leaves me at 80 pts.

3) Luck. Good Luck is 2 and Bad luck is 12 by default. Again, this is pricey. I may come back to this later if I need to fudge points around. For now, though, I'll raise her Good Luck by 2 (20 pts) putting it at a 4. Bad Luck can stay right where it is, thank you.

4) Influence. This reflects how established you are in your government institution and how easily you can get things from it. Don't underestimate the importance of this. Lvl 1 is the default. I'm raising it to a 2. That's another 15, putting me at 45 points left.

5) Credential. Amy is, naturally for a computer science grad, a member of the NSA. Recruited straight out of college, she's proven herself on the team. Of the two possible jobs, she's a Computer Specialiist.

6) Traits. Her Profession has overall trainings available of Communication and Awareness. I'll take Communications (which includes using specialzed tech and equipment correctly) for 10 CP. Then again, as part of her Psych profile, she'll take Cautious which gives her back 10 -- she always doublechecks everything and she hates being rushed. She also takes a Military Contact (Lt. Col. Ben Robertson, USAF) for 10 CP. That puts me at 35 total left to spend on skills. That boils down as follows:

Brawling 1 (free)
Drive 1 (free)
Computer Programming 3 (14 pts)
Computer Use 3 (14 pts)
Cryptology 2 (6 pts)

Trainings: Swim, Communications

One point left that doesn't get spent anywhere. Too bad.

7) Background. So, Amy's really too smart for her own good. She blew through the computer engineering program at Penn State, always trying to prove herself, always looking for a challege. She was methodical, thorough, and always did her homework--plus the extra credit. People might have disliked her just a little, and she was a pain and a half to be on a group project with -- she'd end up not only doing her work but redoing yours--yes, she was that person. She graduated with honors in her degree and was recruited straight out of college by the NSA, based in no small part on the connections she had through her professor, who had contacts there. She's of a somewhat conservative bent (though apolitical at the best of times) and moved directly to sign on with the goverment. She's been there ever since, slowly working her way up. The agency will lend her to other groups sometimes -- they're not worried she'll decide not to come back. Her most recent assignment had her working with the Air Force on their remote intelligence software (read spy drone transmissions), which is how she met Lt. Col. Robertson. There's a bit of chemistry there, but nothing's come of it yet. She's only been back at her job for a couple of months, but she's just been contacted and told to report to the office on Monday for a new "on loan" assignment.

Welcome to Aegis, Amy. Enjoy your stay. :)

Current Music: Not an Addict-K's Choice

Today we're taking a gun little game called Eldritch Ass Kicking. Written by Nathan Hill (a really good guy, btw), EAK is set on a pretty bog-standard fantasy world -- until every magic user went stark raving mad and started blowing up everything in sight. Rocks fell, everyone died... well, not everyone. But those who were left were greatly inconvenienced, by all accounts. The world of Anhelm now lies in ruins, it's pristine beauty reduced to smoking ruins and various crispy bits. Wizards these days, of course, are a bit smarter. They're still running the rough edge of crazy, though. The current age of crazy has led to the Shaping War, in which all wizards duel like crazy during the day to gain enough power to defeat all other wizards and remake Anhelm in their own image, retiring at night to the pub, dungeon, and tower to drink, delve, and decide what grand scheme the next day will hold.

This really is a fun little game. It's not going to result in any epic campaigns, but its "zany fun" and "blow-shit-up" meters ping really high. Plus it has a "chart of hubris." Seriously.

The Game: Eldritch Ass Kicking (a game of arcane action and old men with sticks)
The Publisher: Key 20 Publications
Degree of familiarity: I playtested it a bit and edited the book, if I recall correctly.
Books required: Just the main book.

( Let the ass-kicking commence. )

Current Music: Feel Good Drag-Anberlin-New Surrender

Why yes, I'm cribbing

innocent_man's format hardcore, why do you ask? :)

Today's initial stab at character creation starts with WoD: Innocents. I was fortunate enough to be asked to work on this book. I enjoyed it immensely, even if I did end up totally wussing out and flaking on part of the assignment (though it was able to be reassigned without pushing everything back too badly). I had reasons. I've been largely forgiven by the people who mattered. Life goes on. I'm really pleased with how the book turned out, though. I can take very little credit for it, but the crew put together to work on this thing really made it sing. I don't think it gets nearly as much love as it should, frankly; I guess the idea of playing kids is pretty foreign to a lot of people. It really works, though.

The Game: World of Darkness: Innocents.
The Publisher: White Wolf
Degree of Familiarity: Wrote parts of it.
Books Required: The Innocents book actually covers everything I needed for character creation. You might use the core WoD book for reference if you go very far afield during actual play, but this is really a complete game in and of itself.

( Cut for the sake of my friends list. )

Current Music: I Found Away (feat. Douglas P)-Alkaline Trio-Agony & Irony (Deluxe Version)

innocent_man recently asked me if I'd be willing to go through the games I have and create characters for them, much as he does on his LJ. He likes reading about other people's characters, I guess. :) Given that the content of this blog is roughly... oh, 1% gaming and 99% everything else, it might be time to shift that ratio a bit. And I do have a lot of games on my shelves, though not as many as I once did. And I'm not doing anything with any of them right now, much to my regret. Then again, I am going to a couple of game conventions this year. Maybe I can pick up something new.

In the spirit of being the change I want to see, I've decided to accomodate him in his wishes. Who knows, it could be fun. :) I'm going to follow his lead first, however, and make a list of the games I have so I can keep track of what I have and what I've done. ( That will be behind this cut. )