Tuesday 31 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 Roundup

Character Creation Challenge 2023

So after a month of creating Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters, what have I learned? Or at least been reminded of?


If I were bringing them to the table I would give lots of these characters Teenager and give almost everybody more Hard To Kill, but they kind of go without saying. Two Drawback points for being a normal early Buffy character seems odd too. And with I Think I’m Okay (spend a Drama Point to halve the amount of damage you’ve taken so far) and the like I never really worry about Life Points. But then again, Adversary and Secret go without saying too and I handed those out like water bottles at a fun run. Partially because I could make some jokes beside them.

Artist is a bargain, two Attributes and a skill for two Quality points and a flaw of being a bit emotional? So I gave that to lots of people. I have very little shame.

I didn’t give anybody the Jock Quality because the -1 to non-sports Intelligence rolls is a big flaw in-game as well as being kind of judgy. The closest I came was for the barely-literate time traveller, who got Initiative Commando instead.

I didn’t give anybody the Minority Drawback because I don’t feel like featuring that in lighthearted games.

Nobody got Humourless because getting one point for not being able to participate in a major feature of the game seems terrible, and hardly gave anybody Clown, because one point for actively participating in a major feature of the game seems kinda cheeky too.

I didn’t give anybody Rank as it’s kind of vague, The closest I came was the Initiative supersoldier for obvious reasons, and Santa for possible helpers.

I DIYed about as many Qualities and Drawbacks as I took from sourcebooks, because they’re easy to eyeball.

(And I could have used the Occult Investigator Quality from the Slayer’s Handbook for the Amateur Occult Investigator, but Nerd fit them so well anyway.)

I made almost as many Heroes as White Hats because I had some weird character ideas and the extra points make for more fun chargen anyway.

It turns out I missed a rule in Monster Smackdown where fully in control werewolves get the Quality’s Attribute bonuses all the time, so I apologised to the player who didn’t get that for five and a half years in The Watch House as a result. He was okay with this, and the writer was nice about it too. :)

The first dozen as classic types and riffs on the Buffy main cast were pretty easy, apart from coming up with a couple of reasons for playable vampires.

For visual references here I almost entirely borrowed from young adult and/or urban fantasy shows and films. Luke Treadaway as the Watcher is a joke about how many people from Attack The Block have gone on to star in big genre parts, and Bella Shepard as the Neo-Slayer is a blatant Wolf Pack joke. What else can you spot?

I could totally run a Friday The 13th: The Series game. Though with more punching and kicking at the end of most episodes.

And I always have more ideas. Characters who didn’t make the cut include a Hopper type to go with the Eleven type as a heroic parent could be interesting but might step on the Watcher’s toes, an amnesiac hero as a fellow challenger (and player in Sounds Like Hell) made an amnesiac vampire among others, a couple more dedicated experts like a thief, and the mentioned in passing idea of a fictional character brought to life because I couldn’t decide what kind of fictional character to go with - I considered a Jane Austen style heroine for maximum contrast with slayer types, as well as a comic book superhero for the contrast with the PCs having to keep their world-saving secret.

And above all, I want to play a bunch of these characters.

Thanks to our host, commenters, and everybody who posted.

See you next time!

Character Creation Challenge 2023 Collection

Character Creation Challenge 2023


Generate a starting character for an RPG every day for a month.

For Buffy The Vampire Slayer (revised edition)

The Chosen Thirty-One

2: Lane the Scooby
3: Kelsey the Slayerette
4: Davis the Watcher
5: Grace the Scenester
6: Blake the Vampire with a Soul
7: Walden the Teen Wolf
8: Dan the Supersoldier
10: Carter the Occultist
11: Jodie the Kid
12: Grace the Witch
14: Minda the Ghost
15: “Shelley” the Teenage Frankenstein
17: Rachel the Wild Talent
20: Seth the Teenage Antichrist
21: The Spear Of The Dawn the Angel, But Really
22: Abigail the Heir
23: Ken the Expert
26: Sir Adem the Knight of Byzantium
27: Moira the hero Out of Time
29: Andrea the Fortune Teller
30: Casey the Neo-Slayer
31: Nega Ashley the Nega Slayer

How do I feel?
Buffy at the end of Bad Eggs
A slight exaggeration


Character Creation Challenge 2023 31: Nega Slayer

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

31: Nega Slayer

And to conclude...

Attempts to create an evil magic or superscience clone of a hero probably go back further than Bizarro in Superman but go with me here. An attempt to create an evil fake Buffy was the first ongoing arc in the Dark Horse Buffy comics, years before the superscience Buffybot in the show itself. See also Vampire Willow, and Xander getting split into his capable and bumbling sides.

Obviously this is normally short-term. The longest I’ve seen a split character hang around was Crichton in Farscape, where each of him went on a different ship when the crew parted for most of a season.

The character title comes from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, where Nega Scott is a threat in the comics but a throwaway joke in the film where they get on fine.

How would you deal with someone butting in on your entire existence? It could be a magical metaphorical exaggeration of how other people see you. Like having your social media copied. But with more stabbing.

Nega Ashley
Type: Hero

Nega Olivia Holt

Description: that hair colour works for her
Example quote: “Babe, I’m your evil twin, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get on, right?”

Created from a lock of Ashley’s hair, earth from her grandmother’s grave and a stolen stake, to assume Ashley’s identity and ruin her life, Nega Ashley is mostly human and annoyingly confident. After the gang defeated her creator they were expecting her to dissolve or evaporate or something. But she’s still here. She reckons she’ll exist for a lunar month at least. Or possibly seven years. Or until Ashley dies. In the meantime she needs someplace to crash, and can she borrow this bag?

Monday 30 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 30: Neo-Slayer

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

30: Neo-Slayer

This came up as a plot point in a game I was running a few years back. The ability to empower slayers has been lost for millennia and is now out in the world again.

It presumably still only works on Potentials, but somebody could still use the magical aftereffects to try and make knockoffs.

It’s something that people have probably been trying for millennia too.

(And other empowered people can certainly exist, using the Slayer Quality as a template. The Slayer’s Handbook introduced Totem Warriors as an example.)

So how would you deal with someone you know suddenly, and possibly temporarily and/or dangerously, getting a near Slayer level upgrade?

I know from personal experience that the combo of White Hat Drama Points and Slayer powers is kind of borked, but in a game with multiple Slayer-ish types it’s not so noticeable.

The Slayer’s Handbook also had an optional rule for some Slayer powers being modular to affect the price of the Quality, as Buffy famously “didn’t hone” to use that vamp radar they’re supposed to get. So a nearly-Slayer might be missing such boosts too.

Casey Ryan
Type: White Hat

Bella Shepard

Description: didn’t used to prowl like a tiger
Example quote: “Maybe I’m not the name brand, but nine out of ten vampires don’t live to tell the difference.”

Casey was ritually empowered with a transfusion of a slayer’s blood and a day and night holding a weapon that was used in the Battle of Sunnydale High. The witch responsible believes the power will last for a year and a day, and might kill her when it runs out. But she’ll take the chance.

Sunday 29 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 29: The Fortune Teller

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

29: The Fortune Teller

A player character who can see the future can be difficult to GM. So, naturally, here we go.

Best to discuss uses and limits with the player, and look at examples where foresight doesn’t solve mysteries immediately.

The Buffyverse has a lot of breakable and otherwise unreliable prophecies, slayers sometimes have prophetic dreams, Doyle and Cordelia in Angel get not-entirely-helpful visions to introduce weekly plots, and Buffy season seven introduced someone who could reliably see a little bit of the future, including when she was going to die, and a little bit past that.

A more controllable version gives advantages in fights, lets the Director hand the PCs ominous warnings of future events. Perhaps it could be bigged up to the point of borrowing another game’s flashback mechanics to rewind a disastrous series of events as a vision of a future that must be prevented. That would be a good use of a couple Drama Points for a Plot Twist.

And how else would it affect you as a person, sometimes knowing what’s going to happen? Would it make you bold or cautious, as you see one path and know you can change it but the results then become unpredictable?

Andrea Dell’Amico
Type: White Hat

Zoey Luna

Description: unsurprised
Example quote: “Saw that one comin’.”

Andi has been able to see the future since she turned thirteen. Sometimes in sudden flashes, sometimes on purpose. And when she saw the world possibly ending and a bunch of kids she kind of knew from school charging in to stop it, she figured she should tell them.

Saturday 28 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 28: Your Demon Pal

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

28: Your Demon Pal

Demons in the Buffyverse started out as, well, demons, monstrous things from Hell inimical to humanity and life in general. Then we started seeing not-so-bad ones and the term started to be used for people-type beings from other dimensions. Don’t look at the cosmology too closely. When creating a series, make a decision and allow for a few edge cases so it doesn’t get morally weird to have the Scoobies slaying demons on a weekly basis.

Along the way we got characters like Lorne in Angel, who has green skin and blood red horns and eyes but is a total sweetie. We also got some grumpily helpful snitches, human and otherwise. I had one in The Watch House, and after I found this company making suitably bumpy prosthetics and showing them off in photo shoots when looking for visual references I’ve had this guy turn up a few times in Buffy games since. In motion. He could be fun to play as an outside perspective.

Red
Type: White Hat

Adam for The Scream Team


Description: red, horned, also schlubby
Example quote: “No, the Devil’s my cousin. Guy gets a title, thinks he’s a big deal.”

Red is the Devil’s cousin. “Devil” is a title, usually kept within a few families, and not all family members are in the running, so some of them have to make a living selling black market mystical artefacts and trading information with the forces of good and evil equally. He can usually be found in a back booth in a dive bar in town, but sometimes has to make himself scarce.

Friday 27 January 2023

Wizards Of The Coast statement

Wizards of the Coast will preserve the OGL 1.0a and is putting the entirety of the Systems Reference Document for D&D 5.1 into the Creative Commons.

The Vietnam War

The Vietnam War ceasefire came fifty years ago today, January 27th 1973. I was born after it ended, but remember how much US culture in the 1980s was about it.

The first of The Last Of Us

Sky put the first episode of The Last Of Us on YouTube. Which is nice of them, and makes a change from US-only premiere sharing.

The fungal evolution take on a zombie apocalypse makes me wonder if there are climate conditions that allow safety, and seasonal variations.

Horrible theory:

The child at the start of the 2023 sequence, there to demonstrate how callous FEDRA is, registered as infected but seemed normal. Which might be to show that the infection isn’t instant, as referenced in Quarantine Zone warning posters. But...

Character Creation Challenge 2023 27: Out Of Time

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

27: Out Of Time

Taking how retro the Knights of Byzantium are a step further, the genre has a number of characters who actually are from other times. See Ichabod Crane in the very Angel-ish Sleepy Hollow TV series, and on the other side Holtz in Angel. They often return to the world in the present for a specific purpose, perhaps tied to a particular enemy coming back, or in “the time of greatest need” like King Arthur and lots of other national heroes. Expect fish out of water humour and commentary about how much has changed - and how much hasn’t.

Modern characters being sent back to the past might happen to the PCs for an episode or two. Coming from or going to the future is more sci-fi than fantasy, although I stole Days Of Future Past for The Watch House years before Supernatural did it too.

The Buffyverse can also fit people from fantasy-style dimensions like the Groosalugg in Angel, serial immortals, people possessed by ghosts, and to borrow an idea from Steve D again fictional characters brought into the real world.

Moira Sinclair
Type: Hero

Grace Hogg-Robinson

Description: what even is that accent
Example quote: “Come oan, ye scunners! I’ll do ye one!”

Moira was the daughter of a clan chief trapped in a cursed hand mirror when she tried to kill a warlock attacking the clan in 1630s Scotland. The Scoobies found the mirror due to a poorly worded prophecy about it containing the way to defeat the warlock. Which is accurate as far as it goes, but they were thinking breaking it might break his power or something, not unleash a warrior with a four hundred year grudge.

Thursday 26 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 26: A Knight Of Byzantium

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

26: A Knight Of Byzantium

The Knights of Byzantium showed up in Buffy season five and they were a charmingly absurd element in a pretty heavy year. I remember thinking “There are knights now? This show is insane! I love that!”

Using the Initiative Commando Quality for a different kind of unusual monster hunter. I could imagine one joining the gang, perhaps with the awkwardness of Angel’s Groosalugg or Marvel’s Thor.

And after a not-really-fighty Hero, going with a fighty White Hat because aside from having some clerics around they’re just well-trained guys who really bought into doing things the old-fashioned way.

Sir Adem
Type: White Hat

Shervin Alenabi

Description: uncomfortable when not in a tabard
Example quote: “You will come no further, demon!”

Sir Adem is pledged to protect something, destroy something, anyway, do something that means his goals align with the local “champions” for now.

Wednesday 25 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 25: Santa Claus

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

25: Santa Claus

It’s the 25th. So...

Mythological figures can and do show up in the Buffyverse from time to time, can help or hinder, and could conceivably make fun guest stars.

Santa Claus is real and also evil in the Buffyverse, at least according to Anya. But there are plenty of evil Santas, Krampus variants and the like out there in horror and urban fantasy, so let’s follow superhero universes and have a nice one.

Obviously best suited to an occasional guest star.

I’ve run some Christmas episodes of The Watch House and other Buffy games but I’ve never done this one. The PCs in a Ghostbusters game I ran did get to team up with him though...

Some other mythological festive figure like the Christmas Ghosts, the Lord of Misrule, Grandfather Frost or a mysterious midwinter elf might not be quite so weird as a full-on red-suited teleport-down-the-chimney Santa, but might as well go all-out to start with and scale it back if we bring him to the table.

And rather than going full Badass Santa, let’s make him mostly magical. Enchanter rather than Sorcerer seems to fit.

With officially too many Drawbacks needed he would, like the angel and multiverse Buffy, probably be a good use for the even bigger Experienced Hero points spread, which is not generally to be used with the regular two. (Steve D once statted him up at full power.)

Santa Claus
Type: Hero

Tyler Labine

Description: Santa. Claus.
Example quote: “I like to keep busy for the rest of the year.”

The Bad Batch 2.05

Star Wars: The Bad Batch
2.05: Entombed
“The Batch searches for an ancient treasure that stirs up a shocking surprise.”

26 1/2 minutes plus credits.

 Happy Burns Night!

Tuesday 24 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 24: The Amateur Occult Investigator

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

24: The Amateur Occult Investigator

They say never meet your heroes. They should also tell heroes to never meet their fans.

In the real world we have plenty of people looking for proof of the supernatural. In a setting where the supernatural is definitely a thing, these people are going to get in trouble.

The closest we got to these in Buffy was the Trio, who used their amateur occult investigation for evil, while in Angel we met a couple guys in a comic store who mention that monster hunters have chatrooms dedicated to them.

The protagonists of various found footage horror movies would certainly qualify, apart from how those usually end. The Blair Witch Project producers Haxan also tried it on TV with a series called FreakyLinks, which was basically Kolchak: The Night Stalker but featuring something called “the internet”.

Laura in the Carmilla web series is definitely this, and the Ghostfacers in Supernatural are also good examples as they get in the protagonists’ way repeatedly.

And I could imagine one finding a suitably empowered item and having to become a full-time monster fighter too.

Mackenzie “Mack” Scott
Type: White Hat

Brigette Lundy-Paine

Description: SO STOKED
Example quote: “You’re the slayer? Can I get a selfie?”

Nobody much talks about what happens in this town in person. But online lots of people talk about its history of unsolved disappearances, alleged hauntings and more. So Mack and a couple of their friends have come for the weekend to investigate reports of “gangs on PCP” and someone fighting them. And now they have pretty good video footage of a girl stabbing a monstrous-looking guy in the chest and making him explode into dust, and they’re not 100% sure what to do with it. People wouldn’t believe them anyway, right?

Monday 23 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 23: The Expert

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

23: The Expert

Characters who are experts in some field other than violence or mysticism. Fred and Lorne in Angel are the most prominent examples, though arguments could be made for Oz and Anya too. Their niche doesn’t come up all that often but will get them some feature episodes, and they can also pull double duty as love interests. (When we joked about a spinoff to The Watch House about Natalie becoming a lawyer in London, her on-off NPC boyfriend Thomas would have gone with her and been promoted to main cast, helping with high society.)

Ken Park
Type: White Hat

Ki Hong Lee

Description: usually looking at his phone
Example quote: “It’s big. I can use the Twinkie analogy from Ghostbusters if that helps.”

Ken was school science club president last year, when the gang asked for his help when someone built a dimensional portal in the swimming pool. He’d like it if sometimes they’d call him when it wasn’t about killer robots or the universe being pulled inside out. Although he doesn’t really want to be on the front line either. Life was simpler before he knew all of this...

Sunday 22 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 22: The Heir

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

22: The Heir

Someone burdened with a family responsibility and expectations. See a lot of Watchers, the Winchester brothers, inheriting a cursed antique store in Friday The 13th: The Series, the Gatekeeper Trilogy of Buffy novels...

This one arose from Actual Play. The town the PCs live in has a secret, and its founding families are - or were - in on it. It’s about where traditions come from, and what can happen when we forget why they used to matter.

She’s also a grumpy emo kid, which struck me as funny for the scion of a mystical inheritance. Someone totally used to the supernatural and very much over it.

I made her as a Hero in 2021, but White Hat is probably more her niche, unless we’re playing something like Wednesday.

Abigail Marsden
Type: White Hat

Ashley Puzemis

Description: eye roll emoji
Example quote: “Whaaaaaat?

Abigail is the fifth generation to carry her family’s mystical responsibility to help keep an ancient evil buried under the town. And while the other families involved have pretty much forgotten it, her family is still all about the curses and rituals. So she’s grown up just a tad surly.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year! The Guardian talks to people planning to celebrate across Asia.

Saturday 21 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 21: Angel, but really

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

21: Angel, but really

And after an Antichrist... The closest the Buffyverse has come to an actual angel was in season four of, er, Angel, and she was a whole lot of trouble. But we’ve had a few supernatural forces for good in the setting, and there are plenty of angelic types in urban fantasy, so...

Since this is the kind of character you can go way over the top with, I made a ridiculously powerful version a while back, but here’s a starting Hero level. She can’t fly, for one thing. Like Granite, she can use Acrobatics for “falling with style”.

I gave her Initiative Commando because some kind of badass training and obligation seemed appropriate.

I pushed up her uncertainty about why she’s here, inspired by Relics.

The Spear Of The Dawn
Type: Hero

Skyler Samuels

Description: Eyes like a sunrise, hair like a shampoo commercial
Example quote: “I do not know why I am here. That gives me something in common with humanity, I suppose.”

“Spear” is, or was, a warrior of the Powers The Be. She isn’t sure why she’s earthbound, maybe it’s something she did but she’s pretty sure she would remember being cast out and falling. But anyway, this world is choking with demons. And some of the kids trying to stop them seem nice. Especially... okay, she never used to think about mortals like that.

Friday 20 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 20: Teenage Antichrist

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

20: Teenage Antichrist

Now, this won’t be 100% literal because the Buffyverse has multiple Hells, the Devil as a title, and despite having been in one Heaven Buffy says there’s “nothing solid” on the existence of God.

But there’s plenty of room for a not-so-good kind of Chosen One in the setting, like Connor in Angel. Never mind all the other urban fantasy series about this kind of thing.

“Oh I am an Anti-Christ, and I am an anarchist”
Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the U.K.

The Antichrist had just starred in The Omen a few months before that song came out. It went on to feature in the soundtrack of another Antichrist movie, Fear No Evil in 1981, which made the Antichrist a sympathetic character, a bullied high school outsider.

And these days we might have more rebellious heroic Antichrists than ones doing the job. The Omen was a big enough hit that lots of things are still reacting against its defining take on the character.

See Hellboy, Son Of Satan, The Chilling Adventures Of Sabrina and Calla Cthulhu in comics, Good Omens in books and on TV, Reaper, Marti Noxon’s Point Pleasant, at least one of the Winchester brothers at some point in Supernatural, and currently Little Demon.

But avoiding the Antichrist brand name, being marked for supernatural badness can come in many forms. And here’s one who could end up as the main character in a Buffyverse spinoff.

Seth Kelly
Type: Hero

Matt Lintz

Description: Seems like a nice boy
Example quote: “So, um. I might destroy the world. I’ll understand if that means you don’t want to go steady.”

Seth’s grandfather claims to be the last man to escape from Hell, and that his lineage will “open the way”. Seth’s mom doesn’t really talk to her parents all that much. But now he’s turned seventeen, people - and beings that may or may not qualify as people - are taking an interest in him. Oh, and he can see disguised demons for what they really are.

Sullivan J. Robot

Coming soon:
“Sully’s just trying to help!”
Beloved small green plastic robot and star of a mixed-media animated series.

Sometimes I have strange dreams.

Thursday 19 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 19: Parallel Universe Hero

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

19: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
But...
19: Parallel Universe Hero


We’ve had parallel universes crossing over with the regular Buffyverse more than once, and the current comic series is a reboot in an Earth-2 kind of world where everybody starts largely as they were but decades later. Turns out it’s the world without shrimp.

This was a big deal in The Watch House, bringing Milli back from the dead through unwise use of a dimensional portal to a reality that branched when she died.

So even though there’s normally only one slayer... there could be more than one of that slayer.

Buffy Winters
Type: Hero

Sarah Michelle Gellar
but in I Know What You Did Last Summer

Description: A lot like Sarah Michelle Gellar
Example quote: “I’m Buffy. The Vampire Slayer! No, not that one.”

Buffy isn’t 100% sure how she ended up in this universe where (a) there’s already a Buffy the Vampire Slayer and (b) she’s kind of famous.

But until she can get back to her nice normal universe with the friendly giant bat and none of this “shrimp” stuff she’ll just keep fighting monsters who are after her head because it looks like somebody else’s.

Wednesday 18 January 2023

Conpulsion 2023

Conpulsion 2023 - 14th-16th April.

You heard it here first!

Unless you were at GEAS tonight.

And yes, there may be a quiz.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 18: Gargoyle

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

18: Gargoyle


I always wanted to do this. Blame the animated series. A gargoyle is one of my more visually out there character ideas, I acknowledge that he couldn’t really hang out in school or a nightclub. (Unless he’s a were-gargoyle. Which I had something like in my most recent Buffy game actually, using the Angel demon rules.) But the idea of being a chunk of stone amuses me anyway.

So it’s time for another non-robot use of the Robot Quality. Using Angel I probably could have added the gliding and the sleeping as stone during the day, but this’ll do - his high Acrobatics is for “falling with style”.

Granite
Type: Hero

Michael Wilson AKA Knightmage cosplaying as Goliath

Description: He’ll make a really cool action figure
Example quote: “It is my duty to protect this realm, and so I shall.”

Granite is a great and noble warrior of gargoyle kind. Awakened after centuries by wild magics, sworn to protect the city, based in the college museum where he woke.

The Bad Batch 2.04

Star Wars: The Bad Batch
2.04: Faster
“The team enters the colorful and dangerous world of racing.”

22 1/2 minutes plus credits.

With voices of reason Hunter and Echo away, Cid brings Wrecker, Tech and Omega to a Riot Racing meet (basically pod racing but you can also shoot at each other) to look out for her new racer.

Featuring Ben Schwartz as a funny droid and Ernie Hudson as a scary team boss.

Animation showoff bit: the main race, complete with techno music to make it feel even more like a hi-def Wipeout game.

Tuesday 17 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 17: Wild Talent

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

17: Wild Talent

Superpowers, particularly psychic powers, that manifest with adolescence tend to get a bit out of control for adolescence metaphor reasons.

Carrie is one real friend away from being a Buffyish superhero origin.

See also multiple X-Men, Firestarter, Eleven in Stranger Things, I Am Not Okay With This and more.

So here’s one who joins the gang and that helps keep some control over things.

Rachel Hayes
Type: White Hat

Kaylee Bryant

Description: Rarely makes eye contact, but when she does you’ll know about it
Example quote: “Just to check, am I levitating?”

Rachel isn’t sure why she can move things by looking at them, but she does know she can control it... usually. Having some friends to watch her back at school helps. And when it gets too much she needs help getting people away from her.

She never knew her father and her mother doesn’t like to talk about him, so that’s a dead end for research into what this is about. And whether it will get stronger or fade out, and what else she might find out she can do...

The Mandalorian season three trailer

The Baby Yoda Adventures is back!

Beowulf Bundle Of Holding

Beowulf by Handiwork at Bundle Of Holding until February 6th.

Monday 16 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 16: Wielder Of A Magic Weapon

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

16: Wielder Of A Magic Weapon

We’re at the halfway point of the challenge!

We now enter a section I call “Hey, this is an urban fantasy show with slightly superhero-y characters, I could run this with Buffy|!”

And even more remarkably, I’ve actually played this one!

As well as Buffy getting the Scythe late in season seven, assorted magical weapons turn up throughout Buffy and Angel, and people have used them in superhero comics and urban fantasy adventures before them, as well as some obviously post-Buffy examples like the TV version of Wynonna Earp.

Someone finds, inherits or otherwise gets stuck with an enchanted sword, blessed Colt .45 or something of the sort, and is expected to fight evil with it. Expect struggling with the weight of expectations.

The Night Watch had Excalibur as its example (as does The Kid Who Would Be King) and I took the never-named sword in the stone for mine...

Jim Clark
Type: Hero

Fred Hechinger

Description: Deceptively average
Example quote: “I’m stuck with this, so that means I gotta do it.”

Jim acquired the Nameless Sword kind of by accident, pulling it out of a stone when under attack at a building site at the back of his school. At least it looks like an accident to him. People keep talking about fate.

Sunday 15 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 15: Teenage Frankenstein

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

15: Teenage Frankenstein

As Dracula was followed by Frankenstein in the Universal horror cycle, Buffy Vs. Dracula was followed by Milli Vs. Frankenstein when we did that episode of The Watch House. Buffy had a couple of stitched together superscience revivals, and Angel had a subplot about technomagical transplants and an evil hand.

Assorted comics, The Monster Squad and Van Helsing have the original creature doing face turns, and I, Frankenstein takes the “handsome guy with slight scarring” approach to an extreme. And besides The Munsters I’m old enough to remember a sitcom about the monster called Struck By Lightning.

Anyway, the Robot Quality’s good enough for government work. (Though also really cheap!) I had one of these guys in a Buffy game for a while, who could pass as a regular guy as long as he kept his shirt on.

“Shelley”
Type: Hero

Miguel Bernardeau

Description: Large and glowery
Example quote: “I don’t know the name that comes with my face, or with of my hands, but I do know that life is precious. And also that I like chimichangas. That last part might not be so relevant but I just found that out today so I thought I’d mention it.”

The creation of some unwise experiments who escaped into the world, “Shelley” helped the gang against his creators. His face is unfamiliar and his fingerprints don’t seem to be on record, so he’s not sure who - or how many - his donors were. Built from more-or-less compatible parts, and capable of things like eating and sleeping, he’s one of the more successful attempts in the Buffyverse.

Saturday 14 January 2023

14 Vampire plot hooks from Witch of the Vale

Hunter on RPGnet liked the Episodes Based On Song Titles idea as recently showcased here and started a thread for more. So I felt I should contribute.

Fortunately, the most recent album I bought and the game I’m currently running fit together, being rather Goth.

Vampire: The Masquerade
with
Commemorate by Witch of the Vale

Something Lost
One of a vampire’s few human connections is moving away, ready to make a new and better life for herself. Can he really let go?

Fever
“Please, someone stake me, bury me, put me in the ground”
A vampire is infected with a blood borne disease. Can the coterie find a way to cleanse him before the Camarilla puts him down?

Trust the Pain
“Now you know we’re not good people”
A vampire finds herself unable to feel pain. Is this a sign of growing power, or of fading humanity?

Undressed
In a most intimate moment, a vampire’s lover sees what he really is/ Can they ever recover?

Death Dream
A vampire wakes from a shockingly vivid dream of someone dying - and realises that her hated sire has returned and plans to Embrace another victim. What can she do?

Crash
A car crash. The driver can’t possibly survive. So much blood. Would it really be wrong to take some?

The Sky and the Sea
A ship comes in with everyone on board dead. What came to port with it?

Your Voice
A vampire soprano finds someone recorded her last performance in life. What would she do to hear her living voice again, and how would it make her feel?

Commemorate
The Prince is dead, and his childe wishes a wake in his honour. Who would speak kindly of him? And who would dare speak true?

Suffocation
A vampire wakes to find herself in a coffin, buried in the city cemetery. How can she get out? And who put her there?

The Way This Will End
A vampire realises that her lover is going to leave her. Will she let him?

Gods & Monsters
A vampire cult worshipping a cruel ancient god comes to the city. What are they looking for here, and what happens if they find it?

The Ghosts Won’t Know
A seer of the Giovanni family approaches the coterie with a warning of a ghost stalking them. What have they done to bring this on themselves?

Live Again
A scholar of Golconda finds a way to be human again. What would the Kindred do for this, or to stop it?

The best counterfeiter ever

Rose Bailey tells the true story of the man who solved the basic problem of counterfeiting and thus totally fucked Portugal’s economy.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 14: I Was A Teenage Ghost

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

14: I Was A Teenage Ghost

One of my earliest Buffy character ideas. 

Neither Buffy nor Angel had a ghost in the regular cast, although Willow spent Halloween as one, Cordelia had Phantom Dennis as a roommate, and Spike’s soul was incorporeal for a chunk of Angel season five.

As such, the setting rules for ghosts are a bit handwavy. And the game rules likewise, there’s no official Ghost Quality. I’ve DIYed this kind of thing since my first Buffy PBP.

Borrowing from Being Human and the RPG MonsterHearts, a ghost who’s visible most of the time and can make herself substantial so she can pass for still alive, but reverts to normal ghostiness sometimes, and can be harmed by mortal means. And since she can pick things up with her ghostly hands like Spike learns to I haven’t given her telekinesis.

Minda Baker
Type: White Hat

Bailee Madison

Description: Usually visible but unobtrusive
Example quote: “Boo, I guess?”

Minda died recently in a botched cult sacrifice, and due to it going a bit wrong she’s still in the world. She can see and hear, touch and feel, and move things like normal. But sometimes when she’s startled or scared she dissipates, and when it gets too much she becomes invisible. And it gets too much more and more around this one member of the slayer’s gang... 

Friday 13 January 2023

Lockwood & Co.

Lockwood & Co. from Joe Cornish on Netflix. Trailer and discussion at Empire. Teens go into business shunting ghosts in a world where hunting ghosts is a major concern. From the creator of Attack The Block and The Kid Who Would Be King, this shows some similarities with kids sword fighting monsters and the threat being too big to hide from the world.

The Open RPG Creative Licence

ORC for short. Not to be confused with Edinburgh’s Open Roleplaying Community. Morgue was way ahead there.

In related news, WOTC is backing off in some ways, it seems.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 13: A Talking Cat

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

13: A Talking Cat

So that’s variably similar analogues to everybody who featured in the series credits. And now for something completely different. Starting with some other classic supernatural creature types...

It’s also Friday the 13th! So... no, not a guy with a machete.

Instead, inspired by Steve D statting up a throwaway gag from the rulebook about Slayo the Slayer-dog, something I’ve sometimes threatened but never done in a Buffy game: an adorable talking animal episode. It’s no weirder than The Puppet Show, after all.

And while an adorable talking animal has some obvious limitations as a full cast member, it could be pretty fun as a recurring guest star.

Mittens
Type: Hero

Thackery Binx in Hocus Pocus

Description: Black cat with a hint of a smirk
Example quote: “My mistress will be avenged! Also are you going to finish that sandwich?”

Mittens is a witch’s cat, but his mistress is missing presumed dead or lost in a spirit realm, and now he seeks the aid of supernatural warriors in saving or avenging her. What, are they busy or something?

Universal Horror Nights Every Night

Universal are bringing a horror park to Las Vegas, all year round.

I WANNA!

Thursday 12 January 2023

Paramore, C'est Comme Ça

Paramore, C’est Comme Ça lyric video

I still need a certain degree of disorder

Character Creation Challenge 2023 12: The Witch

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

12: The Witch

Magic is a powerful and unpredictable thing. And a powerful and unpredictable thing can make for interesting plots.

Willow gets into magic in a big way, but there are lower-key magic types around from the first regular episode of Buffy onwards, and this includes Tara, the last character added to the opening credits and therefore the last of this subset of the challenge that I’ll be making a playable sorta-kinda riff on.

Having at least ritual magic available is handy for the series from the get-go, with opportunities for countering hexes, discovering things that are hard to learn normally, and making Funny Magic Episodes happen.

And there are also players who love spellcaster options. But at this point I should make a note about balance. Buffy as a system is sorta-kinda balanced, but Sorcery isn’t. It being both very powerful and really cheap perfectly models Willow going from first spell to extinction level event in four years flat, but other magical characters note that her power is extraordinary.

(TWH digression: I gave the group a friendly witch type NPC as nobody started with magic, as a way to have magic-related plots as well as latterly adding romantic tensions. Then Ziggy’s player took some Sorcery and he got scary good scary fast, and was written out when his player moved away. Then Matthew’s player took some Sorcery and he also got scary good scary fast, and his player decided we should nerf him. Twice. Making him totally unable to affect or suffer from magic the second time. Hence warnings like the above, house rules, and more.)

So anyway, a starting witch type can have plenty to do without much Sorcery.

Lana Donovan
Type: White Hat

Grace Fulton

Description: Notably funky earrings
Example quote: “Make it work, make it work, make it work, make it work...”

Lana discovered there was a Vampire Slayer in town when she was researching the town cemeteries and their tendency to have more open graves at night than during the day. It seemed only polite to introduce herself, and help with rogue sorcerers, ancient curses rising, and that thing with the pirates.

Wednesday 11 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 11: The Kid

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

11: The Kid

With the Scoobies out of high school for a year already, Dawn brought a mid-teens character back to the main cast of a teen show. Of course introducing a kid is tricky, and Dawn being a frequent hostage and written to be extremely annoying to our hero didn’t help win fans over.

But a trouble magnet can be fun to play, and a seemingly unremarkable friend or relative of an established central character could be a good choice for a player who prefers a supporting role.

Dawn is also special and important to the wider world, all the trouble of being a Chosen One with none of the empowerment. See also the kids in various Star Wars series, but note that Ezra, Baby Yoda Grogu and Omega are all introduced in their series’ first episodes so they’re part of the setup, so check before bringing something like that into an existing game.

(Inevitable The Watch House reminiscences: The online pilot of The Night Watch had the trainee Watchers find a “possessed” little girl was actually a Slayer reliving previous Chosen memories. And a guest player came in to TWH as someone marked for death by a cult through no fault of his own, so he got to be the “escort mission” target for his stay.)

Angel also has this with Connor - as a baby in particular, though the audition for the teen version is a scene where he argues with Angel who’s his sworn protector but not his father. They also established it can happen to others, with the blind seer children in season one and the marked-for-fate baby at the start of season two. Who should be out of college by now. Hmm...

Jodie Adams
Type: White Hat

Emily Alyn Lind

Description: Young enough to make our teen heroes feel old
Example quote: “Ew. Ew. I repeat: Ew.”

Jodie is Lane’s cousin, and about to start high school so he was told to look out for her. Unfortunately this resulted in her tagging along in an impromptu ritual-disrupting outing and getting caught in the blowback, so now her blood calls to every vampire that can smell it, who could use it to complete the ritual and become True Demons unaffected by stake or sunlight. Lane’s pretty sure that this isn’t what Aunt Kath meant.

The Bad Batch 2.03

Star Wars: The Bad Batch
2.03: The Solitary Clone
“Clones battle against a Separatist hold out.”

27 minutes plus credits.

A Crosshair episode. Also featuring another returning clone.

Tuesday 10 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 10: The Occultist

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

10: The Occultist

The show replaced Cordelia’s uncomfortably honest outside perspective with Spike and Anya, both also deactivated monsterish types who could bring the occult knowledge as well. So, an occult expert, which risks overlapping with the Watcher and those Scoobies who have invested in research skills but it’s not bad to have help there. Maybe with some shady connections most people wouldn’t want to deal with.

A Sorcery-heavy PC got de-magicked in The Watch House as the power level stopped being fun for the player. This is a riff on that.

Carter Brandon
Type: White Hat

Thomas Doherty

Description: Doesn’t actually have a little raincloud hanging over his head. Wishes he could.
Example quote: “I really miss being able to make doors hit people on the way out of the room.”

Brandon used to be a capable self-serving sorcerer, until a dangerous spell backfired and burned out his powers. But for how long?

He’s not bitter.

Sorry, let me read that again and try to keep a straight face.

Monday 9 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 9: The Vampire With Another Playability Option

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

9: The Vampire With Another Playability Option

Having discussed playable options for vampires when I gave one a soul, here we are again after Spike gets into the credits. This one isn’t so nice, for those wanting to play a Big Bad stuck with the forces of good.

Magpie
Type: (Anti-)Hero

Description: Grumpy, with a certain wicked glee
Example quote: “When this is done... well, that’ll be an interesting day.”

Phoebe Tonkin

A vampire who’s tangled with the slayer and her gang a couple of times went to a mystic to see what she was doing wrong... and the mystic placed a curse on her so that she had to protect the portal in town until an alignment that could open or shut it.

And since now there’s a question about how that’s going to go for good or ill, if the gang stake her that could destroy the world.

Darn.

OGL 1.1

The business changes in the OGL 1.1 news, with a leaked draft covered here, do not concern me directly but may concern friends in the industry.

The OGL has been in place since 2000, encouraging third party games and settings and adventures based around the d20 system in its last three and a half editions. A lot of lines depend on it.

Sunday 8 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 8: The Supersoldier

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

8: The Supersoldier

Riley was always going to split the fandom, but from an RPG perspective a new fighter in the group who brings some plot hooks and doesn’t step on any other PCs’ shticks is much more welcome.

Well-supported, well-trained and well-equipped monster hunters show up now and then, to contrast with the thrown-into-this Scoobies without taking over the show. So take one, put them on the outs with the big group, have some conflict on methods and see how that goes...

Dan Clayburn
Type: Hero

Description: Clearly he works out.
Example quote: “Stand down. I’m asking once to be nice.”

Enver Gjokaj

A decorated soldier before his move to special ops, “Clay” has seen a bit too much. And now he’s on secondment to the ROTC program in a little college town where he’s also supposed to be keeping an eye on monsters. And, apparently, a Vampire Slayer.

Saturday 7 January 2023

Buffy Unmatched painted

Thank you to Chris for painting my Buffy Unmatched miniatures!



Photos by Chris as well.

Polyhedral Magazine

Polyhedral Magazine, spearheaded by Tabletop Scotland lead organiser Dave Wright, hoping for quarterly physical releases with issue 1 coming to Kickstarter in February and a sample issue 0 available now.

Character Creation Challenge 2023 7: Teen Wolf

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

7: Teen Wolf

Werewolves get a mention in Welcome To The Hellmouth, and they’re the classic monster exemplar for adolescence, a double life and impulse control issues. So when one shows up in the form of Oz he’s already an established sympathetic character, so the show takes that The Wolf Man approach, naturally by way of the variously Buffyish I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Werewolf By Night, An American Werewolf In London, Teen Wolf, Turning Red and Ginger Snaps. The Teen Wolf TV series sticks closer to Buffy and Angel in tone than the original films.

But overall Oz being a werewolf is only a big deal in four episodes. Bruce Banner has more trouble with his monstrous alter ego in The Avengers. For one thing, it doesn’t seem particularly infectious. And while we get werewolves who are cooler with lycanthropy, we never get a fully monstrous example who chose it on purpose.

The Buffy rulebook has Werewolf as a Quality if you’re in control and a Drawback if not, and is the basis for rules for part-time monster PCs, expanded on in Monster Smackdown. The Angel rulebook uses a fully modular approach with more options, but going with Buffy I can still tweak by houseruling.

The Watch House followed its inspiration The Night Watch in having a hereditary werebeing with the group for safety, and in control of the curse (the big Quality version) so they could be handy in a fight. Among his featured episodes was one like The Replacement where he got split in two, regular human and hyper-werewolf, both played by this player.

And I’ve had a Drawback-type werewolf in a play-by-post, and one episode involved her accidentally trading her lycanthropy to a witch who then sold it to someone who wanted the power so she had to take it back.

So anyway, some werewolf system notes and plot hooks from my experience of Buffy games.

To be different from Oz, let’s start with the gang meeting the werewolf because of the werewolf-ness.

Melissa Walden
Type: White Hat

Description: Oddly confident
Example quote “Don’t make me angry. It would be awesome.”

Vanessa Morgan

Walden comes from a cursed lineage. Which she didn’t know was actually a thing until the recent Blood Moon. So now she has some wolf in her, a little bonus when in human form making her sure of herself, quick to defend herself and others, and also the kind of person who attracts the attention of monster hunters.

Ken Hite is recovering at home after being shot in the leg in a robbery attempt. All the best to him and his loved ones.

Friday 6 January 2023

Character Creation Challenge 2023 6: The Vampire With A Soul

Character Creation Challenge 2023

31 Buffy The Vampire Slayer characters

6: The Vampire With A Soul

Okay, so, a good vampire is an ironic addition and a perfect romantic foil in a show about a vampire hunter, but you have to work to avoid moral questions about possible rehabilitation of the monsters our heroes keep on killing.

The series does this by making the magic to curse Angel rare and highly dangerous (the first Angel series comic written by Joss Whedon establishes that the group responsible tried again, failed, and were killed by their target) and latterly giving Spike a soul due to his personal oddness. But wanting to play a vampire in a setting where it’s possible but not the default (as in most RPGs with Vampire in the title) can be appealing, so options like souls, chips, curses, being haunted by your own ghost and so on have been raised.

In The Watch House I had a recurring Big Bad vampire cursed with a soul for somewhat convoluted reasons, after a PC became a vampire and the player kept playing him. So I’m open to the idea, but I need a good reason.

So anyway, to include one here...

Blake
Type: Hero

Aubrey Joseph

Description: Looks great in a big coat suitable for swooping
Example quote: “You should be careful who you invite into your life.”

All Blake knew for the last twenty years was pain. It felt like the sun was burning him from the inside. He remembers someone placing their hand on his chest and feeling the fire ignite inside. It was while he was trying to kill a band of hunters. After that... nothing but pain for almost a year.

Other vampires - those he had known for decades, in some cases centuries - shun and fear and attack him. He still burns in the sun, at the touch of the cross. Whatever this is, it’s not redemption. It’s a torment on an undeserving soul.

All he can be sure of is that someone did this to him, forced his soul back into this cursed body. And that it’s slowly coming apart. It can’t last.

He has a purpose, a duty he has to perform, and then perhaps his soul will be released and maybe he can finally rest. If he fails, he knows it spells doom for him and maybe for the world.

And then fate added a further twist, bringing him in contact with a slayer...