2024-01-31

Day 31: Pigeon’s Eleven - Adler, The Greaseman

Adler the sparrow grew up in a Bix Box Store. From an early age all birds knew that he was a bit different - where they learned to hide and blend in, only coming out to quickly peck up a few crumbs here and there, Adler soared. Flying brazenly through the warehouse, and sometimes even the shop, he showed an elegance and a thirst for danger that was completely alien to his family. And after some time even he realized that he might be better off elsewhere. Somewhere where his antics are more appreciated. 

Adler is The Greaseman, who specializes in stunts etc. He has the Edges Sparrow, Big Box Store, and Disturbing the Peace. 

And he has a sheet.

And with that, I declare the challenge won, the third time in a row! This year was a bit painful, for various reasons I was running out of steam around halfway. Still, fun was had, and I am happy I managed to finish on time.


Day 30: Pigeon’s Eleven - The Beak, The Muscle

The Beak was held in a Country Club west of the city, a playtoy for rich people called ‘Fluffins’. Fluffins! Needless to say, their days weren’t easy. And then one day they broke, and viciously mauled their trainer, taking off to escape. There are the remains of a leather strap still wrapped around their left claw, and quite a few birds who asked dumb questions about it learned why that is a bad idea. The Beak is the second Muscle, and they are fond of Arson & Destruction. And no one knows that they were once called Fluffins.

They are The Muscle (D8) and have the Edges Hawk, Country Club, and Arson & Destruction.

And there is a sheet, of course.


Day 29: Pigeon’s Eleven - Goose Springsteen, The Highroller

Goose Springsteen - I stole that excellent name from the rulebook - grew up on The Strip, where she was the lucky companion of an older gambler called Lydia who taught Goose everything she knew about games of chance, and how to manipulate both people and games. When Lydia’s luck finally ran out fully, at a time when she had just crossed some people so bad that they would ignore that she was an old lady, Goose found herself alone in the world. Now she has one goal - to take the casino of the people who took Lydia from her for all the bread they have.

She is The Highroller (D10) and has the edges Chicken, The Strip, and Fraud / Forgery.

She also has a sheet.


Day 28: Pigeon’s Eleven - Hyacinth, The Muscle

Next up is Hyacinth, the Muscle. Hyacinth is a young swan who grew up on The Farm but has since left for the big city and a life of crime. Life in the close-knit community of The Farm has given them a strong sense of community, and he is good at reading people. That said, he has a special interest in Grand Theft Auto since cars have always magically attracted them. 

His Role is Muscle (D8), and his Edges are Swan, The Farm, and Grand Theft Auto.

And here the sheet.


Day 27: Pigeon’s Eleven - Quigley, The Pro

My original plan was to land this challenge on a five-PC party for Kult: Divinity Lost. But I have run a bit out of steam, and so want to instead highlight another fun game for which character generation is a bit easier. As a plus, it is a game I haven’t worked with before - Pigeon’s Eleven, the bird heist RPG. From the introduction to the game:

“Getting robbed by a bunch of birds is never high on somebody’s to-do list, but if you hang around long enough in this town, it becomes an inevitability. Oh, they’ll trick ya. They got mummer’s trunks full of little costumes. No warmth in the eyes. Just blank, unassuming stares….”

Yes, this is a game in which you play a crime gang made up of birds, committing crimes for food. Luckily, very few humans are aware that this can be a thing, which helps. 

As usual, let’s get some basics of the system on the table so the numbers mean something. Each character has a Role and Edges. The Role defines the type of dice the player rolls. Yes, each character is fixed to a specific die by their Role. To do something, they need to make a Move; success happens if the die rolls within the range of values for that move. Note: These are not PbtA Moves, but are more akin to abilities or skills. Sometimes you also need an Effect, i.e. how well something works, and that is just a die roll. However, for this one dice explode when rolling the highest possible number on them. Similar to DnD 5e there are Advantages and Disadvantages, meaning you roll two dice and choose the best or worst outcome - this is how Edges work, which if applicable gives you Advantage on your roll.

Let’s start with the leader of the group, Quigley. A weathered crow who was caught and sold to a magician when young, they played the prop/assistant for a year. Once they had learned all the tricks Quigley escaped. They are now The Pro, who specializes in getting into things and bypassing security measures. As The Pro, they get a D4. 

Quigley has the Edges Crow, Magician’s Assistant, Breaking & Entering.

And that is Quigley.



2024-01-26

Day 26: Neon City Overdrive Tangier 2064 - Cézar “C” Freire

Born in the Lisbon Metroplex, Cézar Freire worked there as a fixer until the one job that went south really, really hard. As the person who always had something to trade and some way out, he was suddenly in a spot without either. Escaping with his life cost him everything, his reputation, contacts, and the cozy lifestyle he had built for himself. He did manage to get out, but only in return for the Trujillo Inc. corporation who deal in Data and Media getting a lease on his life. Now he is trying to rebuild in Tangier, hampered by having to regularly sell out clients and mercenaries to Trujillo. He is a man in his late 30s, wearing light western-style summer clothing - polo shirts and slacks never quite went out of style. He tends to be businesslike and charming.

Trademarks: Background: Metroplexer (Just a face in the crowd, Take notice, Haggle, Flaw: Don’t trust anyone), Role: Fixer(Charming smile, Read motives, Keep them talking, Flaw: Greedy), Advantage: The Old Bar (Dark & dingy, Safe, Crowds, Noisy, Flaw: Deep in debt). 

His Edges are Connections in Europe and Believable (Fixer), Vanishes into Crowds (Metroplexer), and Local Contacts (The Old Bar). His flaws are Reputation for Double Crosses and Pawn of Trujillo Inc.

His Drive is to Be a Big Player in Tangier.

Gear-wise he has a limousine and a small black book with contacts. His special equipment is a submachine gun (concealed), and a drone (quiet, portable, fast). And due to bad luck that’ll be it.

And here is the sheet of C.


Day 25: Neon City Overdrive Tangier 2064 - Devina "Katar" Radhakrishnan

Katar came up in the streets of Bangladesh and worked her way up to a comfortable place as a special operative in the Achgan security company. When their current charge came to Tangier, where their main competitor Pantheon Ltd. had a major presence and crucial contracts in city security, problems happened. In the end, Katar was left to die while their charge escaped. Broken and nearly dead, she became filled with deep anger for both Achgan and Pantheon and still wants to take revenge on both. Broadschouldered and buff, Katar hides her many scars under flowing traditional Berber clothing. Her face has been replaced with a cybernetic faceplate for a while now, showing a perpetual slight sardonic smile. Within the group, she is the one ending threats, often as decisively as noisily. 

Trademarks: Gunfighter (Guns akimbo, Targeter, Steeleyed stare, Flaw: Wanted), Skin: Mil-Spec Grunt (Combat reflexes, Dermal plates, Flaw: Bloodthirsty), Cyberwear: Cosmetic Replacement (Threatening, Unreadable, Flaw: Unable to connect)

Edges: Tactical thinking (Gunfighter), Musclegrafts and Precision Shooter (Mil-Spec Grunt), and Threat tracking (Cosmetic Replacement). Her flaws are Rude and Secretly Lonely. Her Drive is to Kill the Local Branch Head of Pantheon.

For normal gear, she has a motorcycle, a weapons stash, and a medkit. Her specialized gear is Heavy Pistols (Quickdraw, Explosive Rounds, Intimidating, Dual), Combat Armor (Bulletproof, Stun resistance, HUD), Grenades (stun), and a Sniper Rifle (Precise, Armor-piercing). Good rolls for her!

And we will go with Katar for her callsign.

Have a sheet.


Day 24: Neon City Overdrive Tangier 2064 - Siriman “Circuit” Idrissa

The next member of the NCU party will be Siriman Idrissa. He combines deep spirituality with a hacker's intellect - a child of refugees from Mali coming to Tangier around 20 years ago he knows the El Menbar slums all too well. Originally he embarked on a journey to become a digital imam, giving spiritual guidance to his community, using modern technology to even reach those who otherwise would not be able to participate. Still, living is costly, as is helping his community. For a few months now Youssef has added an understanding of cyberspace to support and protect the data streams and spiritual integrity of his community. He wears a smart caftan interwoven with nano-fibers and circuitry, his beard neatly trimmed, and eyes that gleam with knowledge and cybernetic display echoes. Within the group, he will be the hacker but also provide spiritual guidance, also to the ones who are not believers.

His Trademarks will be Background: Digital Imam (Distributed Community, Spiritual, Flaw: Generous), Grid: Dreamcatcher (Signal Hacking, Distract, Flaw: Slow), and Optimist (Confident, Inspiring, Flaw: Overlooks people's flaws). 

His Edges are Connected for Digital Imam, Evasive and Deep Grid Understanding for Dreamcatcher, and Likeable for Optimist. His first Flaw is “Facultative Pacifist” - he will defend himself but not attack, and does not expect others to hold to his standards. He knows the world. The second is Philanthropist, which should be obvious.

He is Driven by his wish to protect his community and help them build up their lives. For basic gear, he has a car. For special gear, he has a Taser (Stun, Concealed), a Cyberdeck (Observer protection unit, Neural defense matrix), a Data Infiltration attack program (track, analyze, infiltrate), and a Parachute defense program (escape, fast eject). As Gehan, he lost a roll on the Taser.


 

Day 23: Neon City Overdrive Tangier 2064 - Gehan "Sahara Ghost" Hajji

For the next party, I will use Neon City Overdrive, in the words of the developer a  “fast-playing RPG of cyberpunk action. With a focus on story and action, character creation is fast and the rules are intuitive.” Let’s see what that is all about. As a setting, I will use Tangier in 2064, which I made a few months back to try out the setting generation tables of Cities Without Number. The rules turned out to be great, though I did not like the system itself too much in play. Maybe NCO will be a better fit.

For orientation, the basic way to roll in NCU is to grab a bunch of Action Dice and Danger Dice, both D6 and roll. Each time a Danger Die matches an Action Die, the Action Die is eliminated. The highest remaining die is the result. A 6 means success, 4 & 5 partial success, 3 or less failure, and if all Action Dice are gone or show 1s, the roll is a botch. Each roll starts with 1 Action Die, and then dice are added based on dis-/advantages the PC might have, or for abilities, etc. they have. Simple enough. The game is also fully player-facing, so no rolling for the GM.

A few more thoughts on the party within the setting, then let’s go make characters. Tangier 2064 was based on predictions about climate change; Morocco will be far less affected than many other areas in Africa, leading to a large accumulation of refugees in Tangier. This is further pushed by the EU giving in to xenophobia in combination with demographic problems, locking their borders down with the Frontiers program, making it far more difficult for people to flee there. Tangier becomes interesting for international corporations to pick up cheap labor, even as a testing ground for various products, all the while dangling the possibility of escape to other areas of the world in front of people. General problems elsewhere have also led to the destabilization of other areas of the world, with China and India on the rise as new important powers that still suffer from a variety of their own issues. This has led to Tangier also becoming an important area for reasons of diplomacy/espionage. The city itself has increased in size, swallowing surrounding villages/cities, with a giant slum in the south-east. Several districts in the city are separated by walls, depicting a direct stratification of society in the geography. Still, the city is a massive melting pot of people from around the world, with police/military mostly interested in keeping the ‘peace’, and corporations wielding enough influence to keep the whole city corrupt and willful. In short, fertile grounds for shady criminal/freelance work.

Now on to our party. Made up of a mix of people of various backgrounds, they are lower-level operators working together as a patchwork group. More during generation. And with that let’s look at Gehan "Sahara Ghost" Hajji. Gehan is silent and resilient, with a presence that's both commanding and elusive. She has a sleek, athletic build, her skin adorned with digital tattoos that shimmer with holographic patterns reminiscent of traditional Moroccan designs. She was born in the city, growing up in the lower middle class in the Hadiqa Gueznaida district, which is named after the small town it is built around. It is an area where lower-wage workers toil in industrial mass production. Gehan wanted a different future and joined the military. Now, kicked out for reasons she won’t talk about, she is a street mercenary. Her specialty is scouting and physical infiltration, utilizing advanced tech in combination with specialized training. She is motivated by the will to be independent; she sees the cost, and the suffering caused by corporation rule, and wants none of that. Her path is that of burning bright, in the hope of being able to get out and retire early. Let’s stat her up.

First, each character gets three Trademarks, which define things like the character's past, occupation, unique talents, or special equipment. These are the core features of the character. Trademarks come with triggers, which include flaws and are used to fine-tune what they are. 

Let’s go with Background Soldier (Military contacts, Controlled, Dishonourable discharge), Role: Infiltrator (Stealthy, Awareness, Trusts no one), Cyberwear: Scout package (Notice, Hack Security, Jittery). Mechanically, these can (and two of them are) freeform, and triggers can be changed and adapted in the game in agreement with the GM. The last trigger listed in each case is a flaw.

Next, each character receives four Edges, which are based on the Trademarks and represent further specialization and abilities. For Gehan, I will go with Silent Killer for Soldier, Ghost-like and Silenced Needle-gun for Infiltrator and Camouflage for Scout Package. Similarly, each character has two Flaws, which are the inverse - essentially especially bad flaws. I am going with PTSD and Unreliable Cyberware for Gehan.

Her Drive will be ‘Retire in old Tangier’, which is where the upper-class people live. Not the actual movers and shakers, but the people with comfortable lives in higher management positions and the like. This will be a track in the game that is used to manage her progress towards that goal.

Next up is gear - there is basic gear, which gives permission to do things but no additional advantage, like a gun allowing you to shoot people. Gehan gets an assault rifle, a motorcycle, leather clothing, and mirror shades. Each character can also have up to four items of specialized gear, which get tags that provide mechanical benefits. However, they need to acquire this gear using a roll. They roll up to four times and need to exceed the number of tags on a D6. If they do, they get the item. Otherwise, the roll is lost. She has Infiltration gear (Concealed, Quiet), an Armoured jacket (bulletproof, stealth, light weight), and Wired Reflexes (Agile, Fast). She lost one roll on Wired Reflexes, so that will be it.

Finally, she needs an operator callsign. Let’s look at a name generator, and we end up with "Sahara Ghost".

And that is Gehan.



2024-01-21

Day 22: F.I.S.T. Ultra - POINTER, cyborg without a perspective

As a Wretch, POINTER is suffering from some horrible misfortune. Given that his traits are Cyborg and Listen that misfortune pretty much writes itself. He has Forceful 0, Tactical 0, Creative 0, Reflexive 3, 6 Max HP, and 5 War Dice. He has a Cyborg Exoskeleton and a Blindfold.

POINTER grew up in a lab, a government experiment from day 0 of his life. Things were bad. The goal was apparently to create some kind of superspy, and while they were slowly changed to receive more and more implants, special attention was paid to their senses. Things looked up a bit when a new kid was brought into the lab, the one who would later use the callsign LUCKY. The two hit it off and became good friends. By then the constant training and brainwashing had made POINTER fairly docile, but LUCKY managed to reignite some of their will to resist. And then F.I.S.T. appeared and got them out. LUCKY and POINTER were fostered by the same family, and that allowed POINTER to heal a bit. Still, he has no real history and has a hard time fitting in, and the unfinished work on his sensory system means that he is often overwhelmed. The exoskeleton means he has to mostly stay hidden. Still, he never begrudged LUCKY the ability to go out. But there was never a way forward for POINTER except to become a member of F.I.S.T., no option for a simple, quiet life.

And with that the party is complete. What remains to say is - play F.I.S.T.!



Day 21: F.I.S.T. Ultra - NARWHAL, extreme movie director

NARWHAL is a Muddler, which is a fun role. She advances if within a session she “describes a piece of simple, common knowledge which is in fact wrong, and attempts to describe the infinitely more complex correct answer.” To advance that has to make things for the team more majorly complicated, or maybe cause catastrophe by obfuscating something. Hope the other players like complications coming their way!

Traitwise she has a Pet, which can give one of three boni. Let’s go with adding +1 to Creative if fed a treat. Let’s say it is a sugar glider that helps with social interaction due to its cuteness. The other trait is Director, which means once per mission she can say ‘Cut!’, roll back the current scene while giving directions to the NPCs and other players, and redo the scene as if on a movie set. Fun! The two traits mean that she has Forceful 0, Tactical 0, Creative 1, and Reflexive -1, a stupid hat, and three uses of pet treats. She opted for adding some HP but rolled a 1 for a maximum of 7 HP.

In the past NARWHAL was a small indie movie director. Typical CV for that profession, really - dreams of becoming the new Felini at a young age, doing their time as a student, making a few gorey horror and art movies, and then a small production company financed their first movie. Given that they hadn’t managed yet to leave their home country of Australia, not exactly known for internationally renowned movie work at the time, they were thrilled that this happened. The movie would be a combination of two very disjunct genres - film noir and alien invasion disaster movie. Only something went wrong with a prop, and when the smoke cleared all members of the small crew were dead or missing, and NARWHAL found themselves on a grassy hill in Dallas, waking up as a small animal licked their nose. Waking up their mind was racing with possibilities and realities, and they didn’t realize anymore that the two weren’t always the same. Shortly after F.I.S.T. recruited them.

The party keeper.