Char-Gen Orgy '10 - All Flesh Must Be Eaten

The Game: All Flesh Must Be Eaten
The Publisher: Eden Studios
Degree of Familiarity: Read the core and numerous sourcebooks, but sadly have never had the chance to play or run it.
Books Used: All Flesh Must Be Eaten Core Rules, Fistful o' Zombies

Confession time, chiiiildren: the Bard, he loves him some zombies. Ever since being mortally traumatized in the brainpan as a child by being let see some zombie flick or another (the details beyond 'zombies!' elude me, as this was, at the least, twenty years ago), I've been a great lover of all things zombie. I'm an avid Romero fan (and slightly less but still notably a Russo fan), I own and love Shaun of the Dead, and I play the hell out of Last Night on Earth whenever I can manage to scrape together players willing to give it a go. Hells, good friend (and amusingly, zombie-phobe!) DeadlyGlories even gave me a video clip recording of a birthday greeting from Eugene "Big Daddy" Clark for my birthday some years back after a visit to the Erie Horrorfest (gotta love her, she knows what a guy likes).

So, this preamble firmly in place, ever since I learned of its existence and managed to lay hands on a copy, I've been quite taken with AFMBE, even if due to lack of available player interest or gaming table opportunities in general I've never gotten a chance to play it. So, this said.. let's make a character!

For a rare change of pace.. I actually am coming into this with a character concept in mind (even if it will end up horribly twisted, I'm sure); I'll be basing this hardened survivor on my main character-avatar in the web-game Urban Dead, a hardened, salt-of-the earth preacher, Father John Grimme (and yes, that's a Deadlands reference)

So.. to work! First order of business is to pick a Deadworld... and I want to do something a little non-standard.. see, I grew up in a part of the country (remember from above, Appalachia in the early 1980's) that was not the most culturally-exposed.. Hells, didn't have cable television until I was thirteen, and in those days, the few networks we did have showed a hell of a lot of westerns. I love westerns almost as much as I love zombies. So even though I'll (of course!) be hitting up Deadlands in some future week (and Hells, Deadlands: Reload too), I think we're going to use a Deadworld from the Shane Hensley-penned Fistful o' Zombies sourcebook.

Oh, but Bard, which one? True Grit, for that more realistic touch? Maybe touch base with my ancestry through roleplaying and go with Dances With Zombies?

Nah. We're doing a horror game here, and there's a setting in that lovely supplement, a Deadworld even more terrible, twisted, and depraved than all the others combined... it's the Deadworld that plays host to something far worse than mere zombies...

Singing Cowboys!

Yes, shudder if you must! But now, we're on to bring Father John... well, that surname certainly won't work! It's too... grim! Not setting-appropriate at all, now is it? Well then.. we'll dub the Padre.... Reverend John Parson. Staggeringly original, I know!

So, by the book, the first step is to choose our Character Type. There's none of that bible-thumping to bring down the thunder in the Singing Cowboys Deadworld (or at least their ought not be), and having every damned actually-devout preacher in a setting that supports it able to cast miraculous 'divine spells' is just.. overdone. So our Padre is a Survivor: we have 20 points for Attributes, 15 points for Qualities (and the option to take up to 10 points of Drawbacks), and 35 points for Skills. Okay, moving on....

Attributes first, then: in AFMBE's Unisystem, most traits will range between 1 and 6, with 2 being the 'human average'. Well, Reverend John isn't rightly average! He worked building railroad track before the corrupt rail barons (always a corrupt rail baron.. always!) put him out of work and set him onto the path of finding his faith and walking the Earth travel to do the Lord's good work. So he's a big, stout, hardy fellow... of our 20 points, we'll drop in 4 into Strength, 3 into Dexterity, and a whopping 5 into Constitution -- in short, the man's an ox, but surprisingly graceful for it. With eight points left for Attributes, we'll put Intelligence and Perception squarely in the middle of the road at 2 points each, and thus put the last 4 into Willpower -- the Reverend is nearly as unyielding mentall and spiritually as his great physical vitality renders him corporeally. So, our Attributes assigned, we have the following:

Strength 4
Dexterity 3:
Constitution 5
Intelligence 2
Perception 2
Willpower 4

With Attributes done we move to Qualities and Drawbacks, and our Deadworld has a few required ones: namely, we need to take Hard to Kill at 3 or better and the Deadworld-specific Balladeer quality for 1 point -- Singing Cowboys do sing, after all, and in this case, sometimes that singing can have almost supernatural effects! In addition, we also have to take the Deadworld-specific Law of the West Drawback for 5 points and the Honorable Drawback at the 3 point level,which takes care of 8 of our possible Drawback points right off the bat; the Law of the West Drawback also prevents us from taking any points in the Addiction, Covetous, Cowardly, Cruel or Lazy Drawbacks. To round things out we'll go ahead and take the last 2 points of our permitted Drawbacks now; scanning the AFMBE core rules' section on the same.. we'll say that that aforementioned Rail Baron's goons have an odd tendency to show up and cause the Reverend trouble now and again (plot hooks! Yay!), thus qualifying as a 2-point Adversary Drawback. With Drawbacks settled and totals added to our default pool of 15 Points leaves us with a total of 21 Points left to spend on our Qualities. We'll go ahead and cap off Hard to Kill, putting 2 more points into it to bring it to 5; we'll keep this "tireless, tough ornery cuss" image up with 5 points into Resistance (Fatigue) 5 and another 5 into Resistance (Pain) 5 -- the Padre is a machine. 3 Points of the 9 Points left in our Qualities Bank are sunk handily into the Nerves of Steel Quality to keep the Sand in the Reverend's boots even if he finds himself staring Ol' Scratch himself down at High Noon. 6 Points left.... we'll spend half of that on a level of Good Luck to represent that occasional bit of Divine Providence, and sink the remaining 3 Points into Charisma: the Reverend's not strictly a handsome fella, but he's certainly a likable one. Qualities and Drawbacks done, and as follows:

QUALITIES
Balladeer
Charisma +3
Hard to Kill 5
Good Luck 1
Nerves of Steel
Resistance (Fatigue) 5
Resistance (Pain) 5

DRAWBACKS
Adversary (Rail Baron's goons) 2
Honorable 3
Law of the West

With that done, we move onto Skills, and as above, the rules of our particular Deadworld require a few be drawn out of 35 Point-pool right off the bat, namely Singing 1+, Guns 3+, and Riding 3+; that leaves us with b29 Points to play around with. Right off the bat we'll put 2 of our Skills into Brawling: the Reverend can throw a punch like most heroes of his genre. To represent his background mentioned above, 2 more Points go into Craft (Blacksmithing) and a single level into Demolitions. Fortune favors those who can get the out of the way when it counts, so we'll drop 4 Points into Dodge for the times we need to get the Hel -err, the- Heck out of it. 2 Points into First Aid helps when the Flock must be tended, and 5 Points into Hand Weapons (Staff) aids when the Wolves must be driven off with the aid of a stout length of hickory. We cannot be an effective preacher without some knowledge of the Good Book, so we'll dump 3 points into Humanities (Theology). Mechanic fits the Father's background, so 2 Points there, and it does a Singing Cowboy for shame if he can't Play his Instrument too, so 3 points go into just that, focused on Guitar. With 5 Points left to us, we'll add 3 more to Singing, and we'll round out the Reverend's learning with a Point each in Streetwise and Survival (Desert). Ah, and our Guns skill needs narrowed down... since the Reverend seems the calm, steady, focused sort, he seems more a rifleman than a blazing-fast ipistolero, so we'll put our Guns skill in 'Rifles.' That's got Skills done, and as they stand:

SKILLS
Brawling 2
Craft (Blacksmithing) 2
Demolitions 1
Dodge 4
First Aid 2
Guns (Rifle) 3
Hand Weapons (Staff) 5
Humanities (Theology) 3
Mechanic 2
Play Instrument (Guitar) 3
Singing 4
Streetwise 1
Survival (Desert) 1

Since there are no Metaphysics involved for the Reverend and all the factors that might change them are settled, we'll go back and figure out our Secondary Attributes: Life Points are equal to the sum of Strength + Consitution, multiplied by four and then with +10 added to that sum, or ([STR+CON x 4]+10), so the Revrend's base Life Points are (5 + 4 = 9 x 4 = 36 + 10 = 46, but our 5 Points of Hard to Kill aff an additional +15 to our total, so the Reverend's final Life Points total is a very impressive and respectable 61. Endurance Points come next, representing resistance to any physical duress inot caused by direct injury; the total is equal to the sum of Strength, Consitution, and Willpower, multiplied by three, and adding +5 to the final tally. Gods, Unisystem loves its bloody formulae, doesn't it? Regardless, 4 + 5 + 4 = 13 x 3 = 39 + 5 = 44, so that's our final Endurance Pool. Speed is Constitution + Dexterity x 2 in Miles Per Hour, so 16 MPH in our case. Lastly, Essence is equal to the sum of all our Primary Attributes, so that makes it a total of 20. So, that done:

Life Points: 61/61
Endurance Points: 44/44
Speed: 16 MPH
Essence Pool: 20/20

And, all that's left now is Equipment; by the rules laid down in Fistful o' Zombies, we have $50 to spend. A staff, by standards of the core rules, costs imore than this allowance, at a whopping $75.. but that's for modern standards of money... and, even less than unhelpful, unless I doth overlook it, there's not even a damned starting funds allotment in the core rules?! Delightful. Anyway, we'll just say its five damned dollars and go from there. $5 more for a Bible, $15 for a Sharps Big .50 (big man, big gun!), and a further $5 for 100 rounds of ammunition for that monster leaves us with $20 unspent; we'll (again, since the book can't be fucking bothered) say $10 for a proper guitar, and leave $10 in our pockets; never know when one may need to give alms, brother!

GEAR
Hickory Walking Stick (Quarterstaff)
Sharps Big .50 Rifle
Rifle Ammunition x100
Bible
Guitar

And with ithat done, all that's left is the Finishing Touches; we already have a name, and a rough idea of looks, but we'll elaborate: The Reverend's in his early forties, with a mane of greying red hair that's gotten a little untamedly long, and sports a thick but mostly well-trimmed beard of the same shade, complete with the same touches of grey; he thumps along cheerfully, a bear of a man with a booming, deep mighty voice, dressing humbly, his only affectation his minister's collar. He's a man who tries to turn the other cheek when he might, but when something threatens his Flock (with 'Flock' being 'Whatever needy townsfolk he finds in ithis week's dusty frontier town) may well end up on the recieving end of the business end of his hickory stick -- especially Gosh-Durned zombies who don't stay in thir graves like is right and proper!

* * * * * * *

NAME: Reverend John Parson
CHARACTER TYPE: Survivor
DEADWORLD: Singing Cowboys

ATTRIBUTES
Strength 4
Dexterity 3:
Constitution 5
Intelligence 2
Perception 2
Willpower 4

Life Points: 61/61
Endurance Points: 44/44
Speed: 16 MPH
Essence Pool: 20/20

QUALITIES
Balladeer
Charisma +3
Hard to Kill 5
Good Luck 1
Nerves of Steel
Resistance (Fatigue) 5
Resistance (Pain) 5

DRAWBACKS
Adversary (Rail Baron's Goons) 2
Honorable 3
Law of the West

SKILLS
Brawling 2
Craft (Blacksmithing) 2
Demolitions 1
Dodge 4
First Aid 2
Guns (Rifle) 3
Hand Weapons (Staff) 5
Humanities (Theology) 3
Mechanic 2
Play Instrument (Guitar) 3
Singing 4
Streetwise 1
Survival (Desert) 1

GEAR
Hickory Walking Stick (Quarterstaff)
Sharps Big .50 Rifle
Rifle Ammunition x100
Bible
Guitar

* * * * * * *

...and that's Week 3. Personally, in the extremely unlikely circumstance I could ever find a group running this particular brand of AFMBE (though honestly, it's a piece of comic genius, especially the truth about this particular Deadworld..) I would imagine the Reverend would be a great deal of entertainment to see in use at the table, and the image of a big, burly preacher singing 'Amazing Grace' at the top of his powerful lungs while crushing the hearts of zombies in their chests with his stout length of hickory is just priceless.

Alas, one never knows!

Char-Gen Orgy '10 - Changeling: the Dreaming

The Game: Changeling: the Dreaming
The Publisher: White Wolf Game Studios
Degree of Familiarity: A great degree, though a bit rusty. Played in numerous games, ran a handful of short chronicles; of all the old World of Darkness games, Dreaming was the one I know and love best.
Books Used: Changeling the Dreaming 2nd Edition Core Rules, Blood-Dimmed Tides, Kithbook: Satyrs

Okay, it's been several years since I created a character under the old Storyteller rules, and poor, oft-derided Dreaming never got so much as a Revised edition. Sure, the game had it's problems, and sure, folks didn't understand it at times -- the art didn't help there , in places (and that hurt it, just like it hurt Hunter: the Reckoning), and I'll even grant that the game was somewhat all over the place and trying to do too much at once with a lack of a coherent focus; in short, it's younger, grittier brother Changeling: the Lost is an improvement on it in almost every way.

But then, in fairness, you could say that Dreaming and Lost are both the same story, the story of a world that left you behind, a tale that your part has been erased from without having the good graces to erase your sad existence too, and the story of raging against the darkness and overcoming it to find your happy ending -- even if you know, in your heart, that it can't last.

Even for immortals.

Okay, okay, enough waxing poetic!

So, concepts! Well, I don't feel like playing the young teen rabble-rouser, and child characters are great -- in games that focus entirely on children. Anything else.. no. So, despite the delightful threads of ageism through Kithain society.. lets go for a Grump. That starts us with Glamour 3, Willpower at 5, and unfortunately, a Banality of 5 as well (as a sidenote.. Banality? No, I do not miss it at all. Even if it was core to the themes of Dreaming... good riddance).

So, an aging burnout still trying to hold onto the glory days of youth? Sounds like a good description for an angry old rocker or metalhead, so... heeey. Sex, drugs.. rock and roll... prodigious stamina?

Yep, I think we've got ourselves a concept... and by extension, we got ourselves a Satyr; these Greek party animals (toga toga tooooga, to make a Zeus: Master of Olympus reference) gain the Gift of Pan to allow them to turn the power of ROCK against the evils of Banality, propriety, and temperance, and on top of that, they gain the blessing of Physical Prowess: +1 Stamina, the ability to barrel along at great speeds when Straights aren't about or when calling on the Wyrd, and the blessing of being unable to botch an Athletics roll if they tried. Of course, the downside is that Passion's Curse bites a poor Goat hard, and are prone to both wild mood swings and a total loss of self-control, and so all Willpower rolls to resist temptation are at a +2 difficulty.

Next on the list.. is our rocka-billy goat (...that pun made it all worthwhile. It did.) of the Seelie or Unseelie Court, and what are his Legacies in both? Yeah, courtly love, honor, beauty, duty? Those aren't metal! So, we're Unseelie then, baby... and for our Unseelie Legacy, I think we'll go with Knave: This old goat is not about to hide the grim realities of life from the kiddies, or tone down his music to appease the media watchdogs, and few things bring him as much fulfilment as showing the unenlightened the joys of sex, drugs, and rock and roll; keeping with the Satyr aspect and dovetailing off our Unseelie Legacy nicely, we'll go with Sage as our Seelie

Okay then, the backdrop is set, so we'll get into the real hard crunch now. Attributes need prioritized, and Social is an obvious Primary; we'll make Physical our Secondary, and after a rough education and too much medicinal marijuana, we'll leave Mental in last place.

So, how do we envision our man Buck (and that shall be his name, Buck)? Well, obviously He's got to have stage presence, so we'll toss in three of our seven points into Charisma, and three more into Appearance, leaving one dot to go into Manipulation; Buck's not a subtle chap, but he'll bludgeon you with his sheer presence. That gives us Charisma 4, Manipulation 2, and Appearance 4. Next, we'll hit Physicals... We have five dots to distribute here. Buck's not a burly sort, strictly average really -- after all, carrying heavy equipment is what the roadies are for, isn't it? However, Buck's fairly agile for all his lankiness, so two dots go into his Dexterity, and we'll put the last two into Stamina, which with out Kith bonus from being a Satyr, is as good as adding three; that leaves Buck's Physicals at Strength 2, Dexterity 3, and Stamina 4. Lastly, we'll hit his less-than-sterling Mentals -- flatly, Buck's about as oblivious as you could expect, so Perception goes untouched, and he's strictly average at raw intellect, so one dot in Intelligence; his only saving grace is that once his brain finally sees through the purple haze, he's got a good set of wits about his horned head, so we'll add two dots there, finishing him out at Perception 1, Intelligence 2, and Wits 3

So now, that finished, our current spread of Attributes reads as:

.

PHYSICAL
Strength 2
Dexterity 3
Stamina 4
SOCIAL
Charisma 4
Manipulation 2
Appearance 4

MENTAL
Perception 1
Intelligence 2
Wits 3

Attributes finished, it is now time to move on to Abilities.. gods, I don't miss the old layouts from these days; Mental/Physical/Social is a far, far cleaner approach, but we'll work with what we've got. Reviewing the old lists to repair the dodgy memory banks on what is where, it becomes obvious that while a couple skills we'll want good ratings in fall under Skills, the majority of what will be our heavy duty investments fall under Talents, so priority goes there, with Talents as Secondary and.. yeah, Knowledges as Tertiary. We're making up for that braniac from last week, aren't we? Anyway, we have a generous spread of 13/9/5, and a cap of 3 in any one Ability just now -- any higher will take us some bonus points. So, lets get to work...

We've got 13 dots for Talents, and we want a good, all-around capability here, so we'll put two dots each in Athletics, Brawl, and Dodge to give us some raw physical talent, leaving us at 7 dots; though he's a little addled, Buck reads people quite well, so two dots into Empathy, two into Persuasion to back up those rockstar looks with a few honeyed words, and with 3 left we'll put a dot in Streetwise, the better to find the local pot-peddlers, for those sticky situations ("Honestly, Officer.. that television unbolted itself from the wall and flew out the window all on its own!") we'll add the last two dots to Subterfuge. Moving onto Skills next, we plainly are going to put as many as we're allowed into Performance right off the bat, so 3 of our 9 dots are spent already; since you should always have someone who knows how to fix the van should it break down, a dot in Drive and another in Crafts leaves us at 4 dots left here. Two dots of Leadership will keep the Band together, and for those times when you just gotta be Breakin' the Law, a dot each in Security and Stealth. With our paltry five dots of Knowledge, we'll say that running crisis control for a few ODs and backstage mishaps will give Buck a dot of Medicine, and breaking it as often as he has will teach one a dot of Law; we'll add a dot of Politics to represent Buck's grass-roots attempts at social awareness, and put the last two into Science.. or as he would put it.. "recreational chemistry". Well, that has Attributes done....

TALENTS
Athletics 2
Brawl 2
Dodge 2
Empathy 2
Persuasion 2
Streetwise 1
Subterfuge 2

SKILLS
Crafts 1
Drive 1
Leadership 2
Performance 3
Security 1
Stealth 1

KNOWLEDGES
Law 1
Medicine 1
Politics 1
Science 2

With our attentions now turned to Advantages, we'll start with something I truly miss under the new Storytelling System rules, even though Merits really do cover the same ground to a degree: Backgrounds Right off the bat, we'll give our man Buck a dot of Contacts -- his Major Contact is his long-suffering Agent and PR man, who doesn't tend to come along for Buck's misadventures, but can be relied on to sometimes talk Buck down from his worst ideas. Sometimes. Since Buck refused to sell out, he's never hit the big leagues despite the talent for it, and so his Resources stay at a humble one dot. The last three dots will sink into Retinue -- Buck's got a small entourage who can also double as roadies. And thus..

BACKGROUNDS
Contacts 1
Resources 1
Retinue 3

With Backgrounds done (for now), we must now face the darkest dread of any Dreaming

Yes, you did just see a shudder. Anyone who's had to deal with this mess before would shudder too, I'm sure. Anyhow...

Honestly, none of the corebook Arts really suit where we want to go with Buck, so we'll need to delve a little deeper... thankfully, our Sourcebook-Fu is strong, and thus we home in on the World of Darkness-wide supplement Blood-Dimmed Tides... it was a bit odd in places, sure, but it had some great Arts.. including... no, not Aphrodisia, but Skycraft! Thunderclaps, gusting winds, hazing fogs? Hot damn, this baby's its own heavy metal effects shop! Regrettably, since we'll mostly want to shock and awe audiences, we have to use the putrescent Actor Realm, which takes a solid four of our five dots to just use our magic on a stranger, and the last dot will go into Fae. We may need to revisit this with Bonus Points (Scene would be nice), but for now I feel vaguely dirty, and we have the following:

ARTS
Skycraft 3

REALMS
Actor 4
Fae 1

Well, normally we would do our Tempers next, but we recorded those up above, so that leaves us with what I truly miss most in the new Storytelling System, compared to the older Storyteller: Bonus Points. Sure, starting XP can compensate, sort of, but.. it just doesn't feel the same.

So, with fifteen to spend, we'll first look into the thing I miss second-most: Flaws. Again, they still exist, and from a rules-balance standpoint I can see why they got the axe.

But I still miss 'em, and so.. will I indulge, why, yes I will. A two point Addiction to Marijuana is stereotypically par for the course, and just to make it worse, we'll take a second, milder one for Alcohol; Buck's a party animal, and he occasionally pays the price for it.That's three of our allowed four dots of Flaws; for amusement, years of substance abuse and one night stands have left Buck just about as competent at life as the heavy metal god-kings of Dethklok: He's downright Absent-Minded, and as the final point, the picture of a shaggy, hirsute rock god is only fitting, so cracking Kithbook: Satyr, we'll pick up our final allowed Flaw dot as Swarthy.

So, with that said, we've gained a total of seven Freebie Points to play around with, and gained...

FLAWS
Absent-Minded 3
Addiction (Alcohol) 1
Addiction (Marijuana) 2
Swarthy 1

With the book already open to that section, we'll go ahead and buy a few Merits now; Entertainment Ties for three points is an obvious choice, and to ground ourselves in the setting and give the ST some hooks to play with, we'll say that by now Buck has settled into trying to play 'legitimate businessman' and after much protest of his agent, sank his savings into a small, hard rock/metal Nightclub, for another two points. We'll spend a point each on Animal Magnetism and Poison Resistance to round it all out; Buck's got it and knows how to work his mojo baby, and after so many nights partying and being wasted out of his mind, casual toxins, recreational or malevolent, just aren't going to take hold in his system easily. We may buy a few more later, but lets tend mundane needs, first... thus, at current:

MERITS
Animal Magnetism 1
Entertainment Ties 3
Nightclub 2
Poison Resistance 1

So, with our standard fifteen Bonus Points left, we'll spend four of them to make Buck the Rock God he should be by boosting his Performance to five dots, and three more into a dot of the Scene Realm; three more besides will boost our Glamour back up a dot, as though Buck may be getting older, he's still rocking hard and living the dream. Five dots left; we'll add an additional dot of Retainers (Entourage is important!) and we'll pick up one more Merit -- Inspiration for four points, from the Satyr Kithbook; when Buck plays his music, the audience feels something, man -- and what that something is depends entirely on what Buck decides to play.

Well, freebies are done, so that only leaves Specialties in Appearance, Charisma, Stamina, and Performance; Appearance gets "Sex Appeal" -- Buck is a Horned God, baby -- and we'll add "Confidant" to Charisma -- people just feel at ease opening up to our man Buck for some reason. Stamina is our last Attribute in need of a speciality and that goes into "Party Animal" -- Buck can rock and roll all night, and party every day; to that end, our Performance speciality becomes "Guitar Solo" -- Buck will make you wish you never dared to lay a hand on that Axe.

And so, that said, we're done save the little details.. like a last name.. perhaps more as an in-joke to the last time I made myself a hard-rocking OWoD character (though he was, in that case, a Toreador), we'll say Buck's surname is "Valentine."

And so.....

-------

NAME: Buck Valentine
CONCEPT: Rockabilly Goat

COURT: Unseelie
LEGACIES: Knave/Sage
HOUSE: -

SEEMING: Grump
KITH: Satyr
MOTLEY: -

-ATTRIBUTES-

PHYSICAL
Strength 2
Dexterity 3
Stamina 4 (Party Animal)

SOCIAL
Charisma 4 (Confidant)
Manipulation 2
Appearance 4 (Sex Appeal)

MENTAL
Perception 1
Intelligence 2
Wits 3

-ABILITIES-

TALENTS
Athletics 2
Brawl 2
Dodge 2
Empathy 2
Persuasion 2
Streetwise 1
Subterfuge 2

SKILLS
Crafts 1
Drive 1
Leadership 2
Performance 5 (Guitar Solo)
Security 1
Stealth 1

KNOWLEDGES
Law 1
Medicine 1
Politics 1
Science 2

-ADVANTAGES-

BACKGROUNDS
Contacts 1
Resources 1
Retinue 4

ARTS
Skycraft 3

REALMS
Actor 4
Fae 1
Scene 1

-OTHER TRAITS-

TEMPERS
Glamour 4
Willpower 4
Banality 5

MERITS
Animal Magnetism 1
Entertainment Ties 3
Inspiration 4
Nightclub 2
Poison Resistance 1

FLAWS
Absent-Minded 3
Addiction (Alcohol) 1
Addiction (Marijuana) 2
Swarthy 1

--------

Buck has the potential to be a lot of fun, if only for the sort of comedy his very nature could bring to the table. Maybe one of these days, if another Dreaming game comes along, he might get to rock the Kithain like a heavy metal hurricane!

Char-Gen Orgy '10 - Deadlands: Hell on Earth

Well, let's get this started!

The Game: Deadlands: Hell on Earth
The Publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment
Degree of Familiarity: Moderate; played a game or two, ran the setting once or twice.
Books Used: Just the Hell on Earth Core Rules


Ahh, HoE. Quite possibly one of the contenders for my favorite published setting ever. Now, in fairness, the rules are a bit heavy for my tastes, but not to the point of putting me off my feed -- it manages to, to me, just narrowly miss a fair compromise of realism and playability, and the wonderful, insane, mish-mash setting with its morbid black humor and quirky, gimmicky, and beloved-by-the-bard mechanics of cards and chips tend to make up the difference.

Anyway, like all Classic rules Deadlands characters, we start with the Cards... or in this case, random.org's card shuffler. And.... our 12 card hand:

Deuce of Diamonds (BALLS!), 4 of Diamonds, 5 of Spades, Queen of Hearts, 7 of Hearts, 8 of Hearts, 8 of Clubs, 7 of Diamonds, Deuce of Spades (OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!) , Red Joker - draw for Coordination and.. Clubs?! (..not the plan, this is not the plan...), Queen of Diamonds, and the 4 of Clubs

So, we're not off to a particularly auspicious start here. Let's see what our Mysterious Past gets us.. normally the Marshal would do this. .but around these parts brainer, I am the law dog. This addressed.. the Seven of Clubs. Blackouts: this Waster has a few gaps in the old personal history and can't remember certain episodes of the past. Normally during play, the character would get the occasional glimpse of what the past.. confounding, confusing glimpses until at last the past caught up -- with a vengeance.

But lacking a campaign, we're just going to use that for all the plot-hookery we can manage, hmm?

So, after all of this is sorted, we're left to chuck two of our choice, and they can't be the Deuces (DAMN IT!) or the Joker (..wimpy little fuck, but it may represent a lot of training to compensate for a natural weakness? There's a hook...) So, this in mind, we'll toss the weakest cards left, the 4 of Clubs and its bigger brother the 8, leaving us with the following scores:

2d4, 2d6, 4d6, 3d10, 3d6, 3d6, 2d6, 4d4, 1d12, 2d10

So, we're dealing with a fairly average individual here, above average in a few places but rather below the curve in a couple others. Still, I'm getting an idea here, more an inspiration...

Playing with this, we're going to put that 1d12 into Knowledge, and get the suck out of the way by putting the 2d4 into Strength; to go with the concept dancing around in the old noggin, we'll put the 4d4 into Vigor -- our Waster is not, not, a very hardy sort. We'll explain that soon. For the meantime, we'll put that 3d10 into Deftness and the 2d10 into Cognition; we'll round out the Physical scores with a 2d6 in both Nimbleness and Quickness, and wrap this puppy up with the remaining two scores of 3d6 going into Mien and Smarts and the 4d6 into Spirit.

And thus...

Deftness 3d10
Quickness 2d6
Nimbleness 2d6
Strength 2d4
Vigor 4d4

Cognition 2d10
Knowledge 1d12
Mien 3d6
Smarts 3d6
Spirit 4d6

That done (finally), we can move on to Secondary Stats: Grit starts at 0, Our Nimbleness die type and thus our Pace is 6, Size is 6, Strain is inapplicable, and our waster's Wind is the sum of Spirit and Vigor, and thus a 10. This brainer had best stay out of fights where possible.

Now then, that stated, let's move onto Aptitudes, the skills, Edges, and Hindrances that are going to build upon the foundation set forth by our Traits above. We get Aptitude Points equal to the sum of our Knowledge, Smarts, and Cognition dice, and thus our pool to spend here is a total of 28 Points. Let's get cracking!

But wait, good Bard, you said you had a concept forming? What is it?

Well, here's the plan, waster: our wanderer was not in the best of shape, but apparently was someone important -- or so waking up in a suddenly de-powered cryogenic sleep tube would suggest, and at this point, she's identified herself as female (the characters tend to do that, with me.. sex and gender coming along as I go to work). So our lass wakes up in the bowels of some wasted ruin, the long sleep having atrophied both muscle and immune system (particularly in the downright hostile environment that the Wasted West has become), and huge swaths of the past missing from her noggin, her brainpan screaming with indecipherable tidbits of knowledge she knows could be of use -- if she could just piece together the clues! And... did she always know how to use a gun this well? Or how to put the best field medics of the Last War to shame?

Yeah, it's cliche, but if any setting is a setting for indulging in cliche and the tropes of the post-apocalyptic genre, it's the Wasted West!

So, with this in mind...

We'll start with the starting points all characters get: Climb 1, Search 1, Sneak 1, Language (English in our case) 2, and Area Knowledge (Local Area) 2. We'll put 2 each into Scrutinize and Search under Cognition-- our gal's no fool. That leaves 24 Points, so moving onto Deftness we'll put 1 into Lockpickin' and3 into Shootin', giving the latter a 'Rifles' concentration. 20 points left, moving on! Knowledge is next, and here we drop 2 into Demolitions, 3 into Medicine, and 2 into Science (Chemistry, here), leaving us at 13 Points. Our girl gets by on raw talent when she has to deal with people in a fashion that doesn't involve patching the holes in them, so we'll skip over Mien and dip into Nimbleness for 2 points of Dodge and an additional point of Sneak, leaving us at an even 10 points. If we get into a showdown we've done something wrong, so we'll pass on Quickness and move onto Smarts, putting 3 points each in Scroungin' and Tinkerin', leaving us at 4 -- Our Lady of the Deep Freeze is not all just theoretical knowledge. Lastly, we'll drop in 2 points of Guts -- if you need to know why, you've never played a Deadlands game before, have yeh brainer? Regardless, that leaves us at 2 Points unspent before Hindrances. BEfore we get there, we'll pause to apply Trait dice to our Aptitudes:

Area Knowledge (Campaign Region) 2d12
Climb 1d6
Demolitions 2d12
Dodge 2d6
Guts 2d6
Language (English) 2d12
Lockpickin' 1d10
Medicine 3d12
Science (Chemistry) 2d12
Scroungin' 3d6
Scrutinize 2d10
Search 3d10
Shootin' (Rifless) 2d10
Sneak 2d6
Tinkerin' 3d6

Whew, there's the hard part out of the way! Now, like the man who inspired me to this madness, I like to play a flawed character, so now -- onto the Hindrances! We can take up to 10 Points here, and we'll start with a Point of Ailin' -- here health's bad as we've established, and exposure to the Wasted West is not going to make it any better, which plays nicely with the Hindrance's tendency to only get worse. We'll also take 3 Points into Cautious: let's be honest here, without a plan, little miss Waster is going to be some abomination's lunch, and she's going to act accordingly! Onward we go, and we'll take another 3 Points from Doubting Thomas; given our origins, the lass has no reason to believe any of the hocus-pocus superstition that all these poor survivors seem to be obsessed with -- the Four Horsemen of the fucking Apocalypse ran roughshod over the world? Right.. - - and as far as she is concerned, there's bound to be a perfectly logical explanation for all of this -- hey, on that note, we'll slap on Tinhorn for 2 Points as well, since no one likes a know-it-all with delusions and a condescending tone, no matter how useful their high-falutin' book-knowledge may be from time to time. So, with Hindrances selected, that gives us a total of 11 points to play around with for Edges. Given our established characterization, we'll snap up Mechanically Inclined for 1 and Keen for 3, take 2 Points of Belongin's to represent the cache the Know-it-All woke up surrounded by, and 2 more Points into Dinero -- no matter where you go in the Wasted West, the services of someone who can fix both people and machinery, so a small amount of regular profit can be expected. We'll take 2 of our 3 remaining Points and put them toward Fleet-Footed to raise our Pace to 8 -- you don't have to be faster than the Abomination, just faster than the rest of your 'posse' -- and with the final Point, we'll boost Dodge a rank.

So, that done, we're left with Equipment; $2,000 from Belongin's and $400 more from Dinero -- let's go loot smart and loot S-Mart....

Survival means not taking a hit, so let's buy ourselves a Wasteland Chic ensemble of an Armored Duster ($500), Boiled Leather Pants and a Shirt to match ($200 total), a Kevlar Vest ($750) and an Infantry Battle Helmet ($500) -- for a total of $1950; we'll round out our Belongin's with 50 rounds of .30-06 ammunition, and dip into our starting funds to buy the Hunting Rifle to go with them for $150. $250 left to us, so we'll continue our previous philosophy with a good pair of pre-War running shoes for +1 pace at $100, and a pair of binoculars for the same; we'll finish with a a Water Purification Kit ($10), some Small Batteries to power it (10 charges for $20), and twenty ounces of Jerky, lest we starve rather ingloriously out in the Wastes.


And.. all we need is a name and we're ready to go... we'll have fun with out plot hooks above and say she doesn;'t rightly know it herself, and since 'Jane Doe' is a bit too plain, we'll let the Wasters name her... she's a doctor and a lunger, and since no one ever accused wasteland survivors of ingenuity...

-------

Jane Holliday

TRAITS
Deftness 3d10
Quickness 2d6
Nimbleness 2d6
Strength 2d4
Vigor 4d4

Cognition 2d10
Knowledge 1d12
Mien 3d6
Smarts 3d6
Spirit 4d6

DERIVED TRAITS
Grit: 0
Pace: 9
Wind: 10

APTITUDES

Area Knowledge (Campaign Region) 2d12

Climb 1d6
Demolitions 2d12
Dodge 3d6
Guts 2d6
Language (English) 2d12
Lockpickin' 1d10
Medicine 3d12
Science (Chemistry) 2d12
Scroungin' 3d6
Scrutinize 2d10
Search 3d10
Shootin' (Rifles) 2d10
Sneak 2d6
Tinkerin' 3d6


EDGES
Belongin's 2
Dinero 2
Fleet-Footed 2
Keen 3
Mechanically Inclined 1

HINDRANCES
Ailin' 1
Cautious 3
Doubting Thomas 3
Tinhorn 2

GEAR
Hunting Rifle with 50 rounds of ammunition (.30-06)
Kevlar Vest
Armored Duster
Boiled Leather Shirt
Boiled Leather Pants
Running Shoes
Binoculars
Water-Purification Kit
Small Batteries (10 charges)

Jerky (20 oz.)

-------

..and there's Week One. Whee.....

...what have I got myself into?

Character Generation Orgy 2010

..there's a title, for you...

But inspired by "Black Hat" Matt MacFarland of White Wolf Publishing's World of Darkness game line (old and new) and other games, and others following his example, the Bard, out of boredom, is going to join in, and endeavour to post a new character each week.

I prepared a rough list of games, though that's forthcoming once I get it in order to my tastes. For the time, it is currently fifty five games long, so.. yeeeah. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment, and if I keep this up I'll be doing this into 2011.

So, in the immortal words of Da Boyz... 'ere we go 'ere we go 'ere we go!

The List

WEEK 001 - Jane Holliday [Deadlands: Hell on Earth]
WEEK 002 - Buck Valentine [Changeling: the Dreaming]
WEEK 003 - Reverend John Parson [All Flesh Must Be Eaten]
WEEK 004 - Mr. Big [Shadowrun]
WEEK 005 - Elisabeth Coventry [Orpheus]
WEEK 006 - Morntor [Star Wars (Saga Edition)]
WEEK 007 - Towering Oak [Exalted]
WEEK 008 - Captain Jack Vandal [Big Eyes, Small Mouth]
WEEK 009 - "Black Mary" Corbin [Savage Worlds]
WEEK 010 - (forthcoming) [Little Fears]

You Were Warned

..I told you I'm a flaky bastard at this, right back there in the first post.

Ah well. I'm back now, maybe I won't forget again...

..yeah, likely....

Regards, and be excellent to each other.

Real Men Use Whips (Or, "Whatever Happened to the Old School?")

"Belmonts live by two rules: Run Right, and Kill Everything"

After the somber, possibly even overly-sentimental, heavy material of my last entry, I thought I might touch on something a bit lighter, but still dear to my heart.

But let me preface by saying...

Modern gamers are just spoiled, babied pussies.

Why does the Bard say this? Well, that's a complicated answer, but in short, let's start with some background information:

The Bard is a diehard fan of Castlevania as a franchise. He has been since the very early nineties, when on his old Ninetendo Entertainment System (one of the damned finest pieces of technology ever wrought by human hands!) he picked up (in a trend that would travel with him all his gaming life to date), Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse -- the trend being a noted habit of playing sequels before originals.

Now, this will not be a long retrospective on a franchise nearly old as I am, you can find a good number of those elsewhere on the web, and nor will this be covering in-depth the series known in its native Japan as Demon Castle Dracula (well, once the real name, Akumajo Dracula, is translated into English, at least), as there are equally plentiful sources for the good reader to learn of the series if they do not know of it.


No, this is mainly concerning some things I've heard scattered around various web sounding boards on the newest release in this venerable franchise, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.

It seems that the game is too hard and thus, to some pansy-assed minds, sucks.

Now hey, as I said previously, I'm a big fan of peoples' rights to their opinions, and their rights to express them in a public forum such as cyberspace.

But by the same ticket, I have the right to call them whiny fucking pussies for their opinions.

See, I recently purchased a Nintendo DS -- a holiday gift to myself, and I am loving the quirky little system -- my opinions of Nintendo's place in the current generation of the Console Wars may not be very generous, but I will never deny they have always ruled like fat little kings over the portable handheld market -- and with the little system with its quaint two screens and its touch-screen stylus, I bought a copy of Ecclesia.

"What a terrible night to have a curse."

Curse, indeed.. especially if that curse is being too much of a student of the modern age to not appreciate good, old-fashioned, old school gaming. Especially if they are quote-unquote "experts" on the series.

If they were experts like they claim, they'd know that Ecclesia is a shout-out to we old guards of gaming the likes I've not seen since Magic: the Gathering's "Time Spiral" block.

Those of us not too young to remember (and too lazy to look into the hobby's history or a franchise's past) will know the ways of Old School well. We didn't have the flashy, newfangled high-polygon count models or digital FMV -- fuck, I can remember when FMV was a mark of almost-assured craptitude! -- to sell games. They had to sell themselves on merits of gameplay (something I wish more games would actually do, these days) or in the very least a hot license to sucker in the mass-market on what was generally a sub-par cash-in (something alive and well today that I wish would take a long walk off a short cliff). The magic balance was key -- the game could not roll over and die -- but nor could it make you put your blocky little non-ergonomic controller into your huge, bulky television's screen.

....well it could, but that did tend to hurt sales all-around since good televisions cost a pretty penny even then.

Modern gamers expect to have anything not involving a puzzle roll over and die for them if they mash a few buttons. They expect games to yield to them so as not to bruise their pretty little egos. So when a game comes along that has that magic balance, and actually expects you to kick ass old-school and not just blindly swing at something until its dead, maybe interspacing the odd block or dodge for flavoring to break button-mashing monotony... it must suck!

No my friend.. the game does not suck... you just suck.

But as I said, if you need to be able to effortlessly rape a game ten ways to next Thursday to be able to feel big about your "leet skillz".. that's your business.

Just don't belittle one of the best games I've played in ages because it beat your pussy ass and hurt your widdle feewings, and don't try to pass yourself off as an 'expert' if you can't say three sentences without sending up poseur flags to all of us real veterans.

Just go play God of War on Mortal mode again. Kratos will hide his scorn for you.

But the Bard will not!

"Hear me, Dracula! I am the morning sun, come to vanquish this horrible night!"

See? Less serious!

Regards, and be excellent to each other.

Milestones

"Remember, remember, the Fifth of November,
The gunpowder, treason and plot.

I can think of no reason
Why the gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."

Lest we forget....

Tomorrow, January 20th, 2009 will be a milestone.

The first African-American President of the United States of America Will take office, and the first Democratic Chief of State we've had here in the U.S. of A. in eight long, ugly years.

Thank fucking gods for that.

It's a historic milestone, for certain, and as I find myself growing older, I find myself realizing I truly am suffering the old Chinese curse:

"May you live in interesting times."

Most people say that every generation has their own milestone. The day they'll never forget. December 7th, 1941. July 16th, 1969. November 9th, 1989. September 11th, 2001.

I was alive for those last two, though the first of the final pair is a little fuzzy to me due to relative youth and cultural isolation (Appalachia in the Eighties, remember).

Is there a point to this?

Actually yes, but again, I tend to be long-winded and circular in my discourses. And if any of those dates are not familiar... and you're an American.... just.. Wiki it. My sentiments on the sad sack state of public education is a Howling Mad for another day.

(What's a Howling Mad? Well, the context should make it obvious, but if obviousness isn't your strong suit good reader -- you'll find out in due time when I post one.)

ahem

What this is all about -- aside to wish our new President health, prosperity, and above all success -- I voted for you, Sir, and I have faith in you and in the fact this country might yet be salvaged and even put back where it belongs in the global stage -- is to comment on something I muse about often in Meatspace.

My generation, those of us born in the early 1980s, are going to be the last generation who can clearly remember many things.

- Video arcades (they're getting ever-rarer with each year)

- How the world was before Personal Computers became popular.

- In my case, life before cable television.

- What life was like before we had the INTERNET (ye gods, that's probably the biggie right there!)

And I could probably go on. Technologically, the human race has progressed more in the past two decades than we had previously in the past two millenia combined. It's a scary thing to think about at times, but also.. quietly exhilarating. Last year, someone managed a working jet-pack. There is powered armor/mecha in the works, to a functional (if not anime-sized) degree in multiple laboratories. Cloning and stem-cell research promises to make Jurassic Park exactly what its creators called it in 1993: Not science fiction but a science eventuality.

And so much more.

But yes, so many milestones. So many things that will be forgotten if they're not remembered, not recorded, somewhere.

To those not familiar, in essence, that's what a bard is (despite the fact the true purpose only gets a tiny shred of recognition in the Dungeons and Dragons Third Edition character class); a bard is a lorekeeper, a tale-teller. A living memory of his or her peoples' oral traditions.

This bard's gone digital.

But yes.. President Obama.. best of luck, and I look forward to putting in another vote of good confidence in four years.

The rest of you? Never forget what you alone may still remember. No matter how trivial that pizza place that closed may seem, or how inconsequential that little moment of happiness with your college buddies might appear....

"Little things used to mean so much to Shelley. I used to thing they were so trivial. But believe me... nothing's trivial."

Regards, and be excellent to each other