Night's Black Agents is another Gumshoe game, and this is the first game I am talking about here that I have GMed before. Quite a lot, actually. It is an excellent game, in which players are freelancers in the world of espionage that run afoul of a vampire conspiracy, and have to fight it. The game offers a lot of tools to play different types of espionage flavour, and for creating lots of different types of vampires as opposition. It is maybe the most crunchy Gumshoe game on the market, but that does not make it difficult. The rules excel at making the PCs competent, and allowing them to play risky, and still come out ahead. In case you haven't noticed, I like the game a lot. For this one, I am using TheBlackBook, Pelgrane Press' own character editor/campaign management webpage.
I will create a guy called Christophe Laurent, who I envision as a former member of ETA, around 2005. I assume he slid into the terrorism game as a youth but left after a short while when his ideals met the reality of civilian casualties. His dad was a car mechanic specialising in customization and tuning, and young Christophe hasn't met a vehicle he can't master. With ETA he worked as a clandestine courier; since he left, he has worked in the shady world of the freelance espionage game and organized crime, offering his skills as a wheel artist to the highest bidder that he is willing to work with. Theft is ok, even violence, but no civilians!
These days he is driven by a simple issue - he is seen as a traitor by many former friends and is still on record as a terrorist, so he has no other way to make a living that he can see. His Drive is 'Nowhere Else To Go'. The Drive comes into play in certain play modes (NBA's way to adjust the espionage side), and if it does it adds another way to tie roleplaying to mechanics. His Background will be Wheel Artist; this essentially just tells me which skills would be good for someone with that Background to have. For MOS I choose Sense Trouble - once a session Christophe automatically succeeds at a Sense Trouble roll, no questions asked. He is really good at running before the shit hits the fan, so to speak.
NBA has a lot more Investigative Abilities than SotS had, and I get to distribute 22 points. There are no specific professions or allegiances. As an NBA character, Christophe gets a free point in Tradecraft (essentially basic espionage training) and Streetwise. Two points in an investigative ability mean he is on the level of a regular professional. Wheel Artists suggests two points in Cop Talk and Urban Survival each - he knows how to connect with cops and get out of things, and he knows his ways around cityscapes, along the lines of finding optimal routes, that kind of thing. As a Wheel Artist he also should have two points in Streetwise.
I add single points in History, Human Terrain (understanding how people organize, essentially), Law, Research, Bureaucracy, Negotiation, Reassurance, Forgery, Outdoor Survival, Photography, and Traffic Analysis (analysis of flows of data or logistics). Two points each go into Languages (meaning he speaks up to five foreign languages, which can be decided at game time), Bullshit Detector, and Notice. Most of these skills I find fitting for his place in life, and the way he earns a livelihood. Photography and History are more hobbies, and maybe an interest in his country's past.
Now to General Abilities. NBA comes with a few points here already, 10 in Cover (used in-game to make up Cover identity documents on the spot, as something the PC already had from their life before) and 15 in Network (similar, but spent to create useful contacts). He also comes with 4 points each in Health and Stability (not Sanity, this is more about developing PTSD and the like). As a Wheel Artist, he should have Driving at 10, Mechanics and Piloting at 4. I take those, but raise Mechanics to 8. General Abilities unlock special effects, so-called Cherries, at 8. Beyond that he gets Athletics at 8, Conceal at 8, Disguise 4, Health raised to 8, Preparedness 8 (this skill allows the player to pull things out of thin air since the character planned well), Sense Trouble 8, Stability raised to 8, and Shooting 4. Yep, 70 points to distribute, NBA characters start out really capable.
The different special effects he gets mean that he can gain some Athletics points by giving cool descriptions, and he can help people out if they have issues with such actions ('here, grab the rope!'). He can hide small objects like a small knife well enough to pass a standard body search (not Xray or strip search) without a roll. He can hotwire normal cars without having to roll and gain Driving points with cool descriptions. His Mechanics and Preparedness work together - he can spend Mechanics points for Preparedness, as long as he provides a cool flashback of how he jury-rigged something (think Mission Impossible montage). His Preparedness not only allows him to have prepared some kit in advance but at this level also timed effects like a previously rigged disturbance to shake off pursuers in a chase, that kind of thing. Finally, even though he is not a great combatant, his innate Sense Trouble allows him to act early in combat (presumably to duck or evade). He is also marginally harder to hit, as the athletic guy he is.
Finally, I decide that he carries around a locket he inherited from his grandmother, with an image of the family ancestral farm in it, as a symbol of what he lost and hopes to come back to. He also has a close friend named Mathilda Berrington, a drifter who is working as a roadie in Europe, and who is the one person he feels close to enough to talk to about private thoughts. Finally, he owns a small private close to Banyuls-sur-Mer in France, where he feels safe. All of these can play a role in the right play-mode to keep him from a mental break, and of course as story hooks for the GM.
Done.
No comments:
Post a Comment