Mutants In The Now Part 3

Mutants In Time

(Or: Barely-Legal Geneswapped Ronin Kaiju)

Different Article, Same Image!

Lo! There shall come… and ending!

At least, I hope so. I have to start on the sequel to Kleptogenesis.

When last we left our mutant bovine, Hal Stein (I am far too proud of that name), we had just figured out (with the help of Excel) his skill percentiles. Before we go on, I wish to comment on a mechanic I see popping up throughout the rules, that of reading percentiles in interesting ways, such treating the 10s digit as one value and the 1s as another, or reversing the value (so 62 becomes 26) for some circumstances, etc. “Getting maximum information out of minimal rolls” is a design pattern I’ve been experimenting with myself, originally inspired by Advanced Squad Leader, which had many sub-systems and sub-sub-systems and actually-reaching-the-Challenger-Deep-sub-systems that all drew from a single 2d6 roll.

Back to the mutants!

Loot!

Our next step is starting equipment. 50′ of rope, 12 iron spikes, 10 foot pole… what? That’s the standard loud-out! Ah, well. My Background provides me with a Package. (“I’ll say it does! Whuf!”) Being raised by Hippies lets me choose either a Basic or Survivor Package. The Basic Package allows me to pick the Mechanic… sub-package?… which fits my character concept nicely. I end up with:

• Clothes (Choice of Concealing, Classy or Formal)
• Cellphone
• Pack
• Non-Burst Weapon or Gimmick
• Toolkit
• A Weapon
• A Basic Gimmick (thus, potentially two)
• -10% Wealth

Not sure yet what a “Gimmick” is, in this context.

While the idea of a mutant Holstein cow in a tuxedo is visually appealing, I chose ‘Concealing’ clothes to fit the concept better. Hal doesn’t get invited to Embassy Dinners very often. To be fair, though, I’m not sure an 8 foot humanoid cow who is almost twice as heavy as the average 8 foot humanoid cow is going to be ‘concealed’ by anything.

Huh. To learn what a ‘Gimmick’ is, I have to…. look to the right of the paragraph I was just reading. It’s a sidebar on the same page! Look, folks, when I say this is ‘extemporaneous’, I mean it. I skim some words, write down my reaction, skim some more. “Casual Companion” (pet) seems nice. but I want to read on.

“License” and “Legal Citizen” don’t fit my character concept. “Stylish Clothing”, well, see above. The mechanics of the clothing (removes Disadvantage on my first reaction roll with a human if I’m otherwise kempt) would still apply, if I took the gimmick — that how gimmicks (as a generic mechanic in many games, call them ‘Perks’ or ‘Advantages’ or whatever, they’re a solid design pattern) work; however, it’s not how I see Hal, at least not now.

I decide on Vehicle, which I will define as a beat-up pickup truck I got to keep after working on it for months to make it functional, and Lucky Item (provides +1 WILL if I hold it when making a Dramatic Test on which I have Disadvantage, then doesn’t recharge until I have a Critical Failure), which I will define as a fossil bone threaded on a woven thong. (Dunno why I picked that, I just kind of let my mind drift and that’s what came up first.)

Time to roll on the Wealth chart, at a -10%. (I had assumed that number meant “Roll wealth, take away 10%”, but, no, it’s a chart modifier.) I roll 59, modified down to 49, which is “Decent Cash”, 1d10X100 dollars (or equivalent value in easily sold items). I rolled a 10, so, a grand! The chart goes as low as -50%, and includes some interesting variants, such as ‘Shady Money’, which will give you potentially a lot of cash… that someone else wants back, or 1d6*1000 in passive income every month from a legal source (which you must define). Overall, much more interesting than “3d6*10 dollars” for everyone.

Comes With These Exciting Accessories!

Weapons and armor, the bread and butter of RPGs! I guess armor is the bread, and you spread butter on the floor to trip your enemies. Or something. I will be Proficient in whatever weapon I start with, and I also chose Shotgun proficiency in lieu of a hobby skill, you may recall. I pick another weapon due to my “Mechanic” equipment pack, and it is not specified as having to be a “Basic” weapon. Hm. It should be a melee weapon, as I have shotgun for ranged. While both “cattle prod” and “bullwhip” have some rather obvious felicitousness , I feel myself drawn to “chain, flexible”. Dunno why, it just feels right. Perhaps Hal got used to using heavy chains when he was hauling up engine blocks in the commune’s barn/garage/workshop.

Armor, I will have to buy, it seems. None of my background or other choices provide it.

That’s The Wrap-Up!

Or the roundup? Because cow?

Anyway, it’s time to calculate all those secondary stats!

Name: Already settled, Hal Stein.

Values: I must choose three ‘Values’, There’s a decently long, but explicitly not exhaustive, list. After pondering a bit, I pick Patience, Determination, and Recycling – the last not meaning so much ‘sort your plastics’, but ‘find ways to re-use and re-purpose things, rather than discarding them’. At this point, I’m not sure if Values provide a mechanical edge. If they do, I’m 99% sure it will be ‘grants Advantage on appropriate rolls’.

Contacts: I didn’t roll any vision issues, so I don’t need those. No, wait. These are people I know. I flip back to Background, as I dimly remember something there. My “Back To The Lander” background gives me +1 CTCT, and, oh, also the Value of ‘Community’. The rules aren’t clear here, but I suspect this counts as one of my three, so I’ll drop Patience – it kind of overlaps Determination, anyway.

Oh, “+1 CTCT” doesn’t mean I get an extra Contact, it means, I got +1 when I roll on the table! No, wait, it’s not a roll. I use “+AFF”… which is “your Affinity bonus”, not “Advantage FF”, which is how I was reading it (as Advantage is often written “+A”) and thus feeling a bit confuzzled. Oh, kitten farts. My Affinity ain’t that hot, is it? Going all the way back to the start, I find out my Affinity of 13 gives me a +1 bonus, so with my +1 CTCT from my background, that’s a +2. This ends up meaning, when all is said and done, I have 1 Contact who has 2 skills.

(Wait, I still have one Takeback, which I can trade in for +1 HP and +1 SHT.)

I will now roll on the Random Contact Tables. First, for Gender, I roll Male. (Non-Binary is a possibility, so I’m sure the Usual Suspects are pitching fits, somewhere.) A few more rolls gets me Michael Martin, which sounds like a Silver Age superhero secret identity. Some more rolls determine he shares my primary background (Rural) and his job is Rancher. Well, that’s surprisingly fitting! Their Hobby is being a Mountain Guide. This gives them Livestock and Climbing as skills. Michael assists me because of Interest in the Wild.

OK, back to filling out the rest of the blanks.

Initiative: Based on +PER and +SPD (that’s shorthand for ‘the attribute bonus, not its value), for a total of +4.

Defense: 10+PRO+SPD, or 15.

Morale: 10+DET+PER+Resolve, if I had any, which I don’t. Also 15.

Superficial Harm Threshold [SHT]: So-called because when you start taking damage, you say, “Oh, SHT!” Look, they can’t all be bangers, folks! Anyway, this is my Size SHT plus my Endurance and Determination. Note I did not write ‘END’ or ‘DET’. That’s because I add the numeric value, not the bonus! My size rating gives me 29, my attributes add 32, and I have 5 from Tough Hide, so, uh, let’s just fire up Excel again….66!

Hit Points: Endurance x 2, +1 for my unused Takeback, so 35.

WILL: This is based on my DET, which gives me a +2. I could have sworn I had a permanent WILL bonus hiding somewhere, but it looks like they’re all conditional.

CTCT: This is equal to my AFF, with the modifier from background, so +3.

LIFT: Do You Even? Strength x 10=200, x2 for my Size =400. Pretty good! (If I’d kept my original size, it would be 1000lbs, but I’d also be about as smart as a sackful of wet mice.)

MOVE: (Size x 3)=24, plus (Speed x 3)=39, for a total of 63.

And We’re Done!

Whoa, I actually finished this relatively soon after I started it! 3 entries in about a week! Since I skipped 2 months or so, that’s still averaging one a month, but plenty of blogs don’t even make that standard!

Overall, this is a very cool system with detailed chargen that mixes choice and chance. I don’t know how it plays, but it had a long playtest and development cycle, so I will guess ‘pretty well’.

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