Character A Day, Day Fourteen(ish)

Serenity

I Am A Leaf On The Wind

Too Soon? Yeah.

I wasn’t planning on this; was looking at a few generic fantasy games I’ve had piling up. But I stumbled on this book on the shelf in the Secondary Library, and flipping through it, I confirmed it was different enough, mechanically, from Firefly that it was worth doing. Also, somewhat slimmer — probably half as thick, which makes a kind of sense, as it is based just on the movie, and could only use the characters and concepts therein. Skimming it, it’s clearly a more traditional system — still rules-lite by my standards, but not as abstracted, with weapons doing damage by their type and money being money.

Not So Big Damn Heroes

You pick a Heroic Level for the campaign, such as Greenhorn, Veteran, or Big Damn Hero. I’m going with Greenhorn. This gives me 42 Attribute Points.

But, before we spend points on Attributes, we get Traits. These are classic Advantage/Disadvantage type items. I must choose one Asset (a benefit) and one Complication (a drawback). As the Firefly game was published by the same people, albeit much later (Serenity came out in 2005!), you can see some of the roots of the later system, at least in the names of mechanics. Ooo, I can also trade off Attribute points to buy Traits, and, I presume, take extra complications for more. Given this requires a strong concept, and given that I’m lazy as hell, I will just go with the same character, conceptually, I did for Firefly: A burned-out Bounty Hunter. Psychic Baby… might be included. Hmmmmmm. Let’s look at them thar Complications, savvy?

Heavy Tolerance (Minor). That costs -2 AP. It means I handle my liquor pretty good, but also resist poison, knockout gas, and so on.
Intimidatin’ Manner (Minor) Another -2 AP, it’s pretty self descriptive. A 2-step (from a d6 to a d10, say) improvement when bullying, threatening, coercing, and so on.
Tough As Nails (Major): For -4 AP, I gain 4 Life Points.

So, now I need some counterbalancin’ complications.

Credo, Minor: For +2 points, “This Is the Way”.
Loyal: For another +2 points, I will not leave a comrade behind.
Memorable: And lastly, for +2 points, I am not easily forgotten. (And easily identified if someone is looking for me.) I mean, I could just take off the helmet, but… That Is Not The Way.

This leaves me 2 down, but I like the load-out so far. so I have 40 points for Attributes. Attributes have a cost equal to their die size: 4 for a D4, 12 for a D12.

Agility: d8
Strength: d8
Vitality: d8
Alertness: d6
Intelligence: d4
Willpower:  d6

No, do not like that. Let’s drop Tough as Nails down to Minor, so I get back 2, and then go for Dead Broke (minor), for another 2, giving me 4 more points.

Agility: d10
Strength: d8
Vitality: d8
Alertness: d6
Intelligence: d6
Willpower:  d6

Assets: Heavy Tolerance (Minor), Tough as Nails (Minor),  Intimidatin’ Manner (Minor)
Complications: Credo (Minor), Loyal (Minor), Dead Broke (Minor), Memorable (Minor)

Derived Attributes:
Life Points: 16 (includes +2 from Tough As Nails)
Initiative: 16

Now for skills, I get 20 points, plus the bonus for my Heroic Level, which is naturally not in the part where the Heroic Levels are listed, but hidden in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door reading “Beware of Jayne”. I add in 42 points, for a total of 62 skill points. Base skills are capped at d6, but specialties within each skill can do as high as D12+d4.

• Athletics D6
  • Dodge D8
• Covert D6
• Discipline D6
• Guns D6
  • Pistols D8
• Influence D6
• Melee Weapon Combat D6
• Pilot D4
• Unarmed Combat D6

OK, man, that was painful. My first pass where I got all the skills I wanted was almost 100 points. Pruning down to this meant really focusing on the essentials, namely, someone who is good with a gun, but can manage without one. His D6 influence and his Intimidatin’ Manner will do for “social” skills for right now.

So, Marcus O’Sullivan, Serenity Version, is now complete!