Which system do I feel like using today? I know – Crescendo of Violence! The game came out last year, published by Osprey and designed by Alan Bahr of Tiny D6 fame. Crescendo of Violence is not cyberpunk! No, seriously, it quite correctly points out that while it shares some tropes, it does not fit the genre. Crescendo of Violence is neo-noir, crossed with heroic bloodshed. The world it presents is a tad more optimistic than the typical Cyberpunk world, mostly due to some Deus Ex Machinae making it more bearable than for example Night City. By the way, the Deus Ex Machina is in one case quite literal, an advanced AI that did not quite take over the world, but does make sure megacorporations are not running the show and that clones etc. have human rights. Imagine a world with flying cars, rain, 1920s-like couture, synth-Jazz, organized crime, and so on and so forth. And violence, and bloodshed. The system itself is interesting, and I haven’t been able to bring it to the table yet. It makes use of meta-currencies, lots of character-specific abilities, and a simple dice mechanic that already by itself suggests a high likelihood of success in most cases.
I will make a four PC party.
All PCs in Crescendo of Violence are “exceptional individuals, capable of making an impact on the world around them”. Creation starts with a bunch of questions to form a concept. Mmhhh… Selena Martina Dwight is a young private eye. She had joined the police force of Neo York straight out of College, but less than a year after training ended she was already fed up with the corruption and decided to make it on her own. A very tall, slender woman born and bred in the city she prefers to wear current couture. She can’t afford to, but at least that is the idea. Instead, she opts to keep her long red hair under a neon-green plait trilby, with a matching dark green coat. These are often combined with white or light grey blouses, and pants of changing colors. Sometimes quite literally. Her eyes are obviously cybernetic, and present a solid dark blue to the world, with no discernible features. She mostly earns her money with divorce cases, and the odd case to prove that some manager has secrets that allow their company to fire them. It’s not fun, but it is a living. She thinks. So far it was mostly small stuff, and she hopes to build a reputation for solid work. Then bigger cases will come, right? She is worried that the trajectory seems to go the other way, though.
Due to her job, she has left a string of people behind who have reason to not like her all that much. Both cheating spouses, and unemployed people who quite recently had cushy jobs, those are the main ones. Then there is Jackson Grindford, a genetically modified member of the upper crust – Selena has been involved in a case that sent his wife Elena to jail, on possession and manslaughter charges. Jackson is not known as especially irascible, but he has taken the time at one of the court dates to impress on Selena that payback will come. Still, Elena was guilty, the pay was good, and Selena would do it again in a heartbeat. You see, while she isn’t too fuzzed about the small stuff, she does feel that crime itself is a big pox on society. She feels bad for small-time thieves, drug dealers, and the like – even in modern society some people have no real options. If she is honest there have been some episodes recently she isn't too proud of, and she can't really judge people for these things anymore. But manslaughter? Wholesale drug distribution? Political corruption? That’ll be a hard pass. Especially the rich getting their way in politics due to their ability to grease the right palms, and in ways not easily seen is in her mind the biggest issue Neo York society faces.
That answers all the questions. Nice approach, I like it! Next, I choose her Origin, which mostly means choosing if she is a baseline human, or has some of a variety of modifications. I think I like that she is a Clone, a human grown for a specific purpose. In her case policing. She was a bit of an industrial accident, not obedient enough.
Clone means her eight Paths, which are the traits used for rolling, are all set at 2 to start with. In short, when rolling the number indicates the amount of D10 to take. Highest die counts and has to match or exceed the target number. As a Clone, she gets to increase two paths to 4 and one to 3, which shows what her model was supposed to be good at. She gets Clever and Resolute at 4, and Violent at 3. Clones also get to choose one path to mark as special; any dice rolling a “1” when rolling this path is rolled again, and no matter the circumstances the minimum dice rolled for this path are two. I will postpone the choice for now.
Now for her Profession, and here Investigator is the clear choice. First I need to answer the question of why she is an outsider, i.e. not with the police anymore, from three general concepts. I think I like the idea that the Grindford case happened when she was on the force – she was a low-level copper who saw the wrong thing. And then refused to forget it. Her supervisor Geena Fisher had her back, but shortly after the court case vanished. Selena took the hint.
Then she gets to increase either the Empathetic or Resolute path by 1, and I go with Empathetic. Her Credit Rating is 1. This is rolled to purchase stuff, and, well, she is poor. Now I choose two out of a list of Profession-specific Talents. I go with Hard to Kill (+1 Resolute when resisting damage) and Maverick (if someone suggests that she does something risky, foolish, or dramatic, she has to spend a point of the Reserve currency to not do it, but she gets 6 Reserve instead of 5 at the start of a session). As an Investigator, she also has a Special Ability that allows her to spend Reserve to get additional dice on any roll to gather information, etc. This should work well.
There are three more questions that would tie her to other PCs. I assume there will be a hacker, a musician, and a suit. The hacker is her drinking buddy, the two hang out after work sometimes. Especially when things were rougher than normal. The suit helped her out when she was fired from the force. How I will determine later. That means she ran into the musician in the course of a case. I think she was following the spouse of a client; the spouse and the musician had an affair. Selena and the musician still get along - the affair wasn't too serious, and the two PCs bonded over a common love for romantic comedy holo movies.
Now I get to choose a third Talent for her, from the full list. I did mention that Selena is tiny, so taking Small seems appropriate – when she rolls any test where being small would be good, she adds +1 die to the roll, but also rolls -1d10 on all Resolute tests - avoiding harm gets a bit harder. Ouch. This reminds me that I haven’t decided on her special path for being a clone, and, well, Resolute seems like a great choice all of a sudden.
Finally, she gets some gear. There is a basic set (an in-ear phone, AR glasses, a small wrist interface to interface with computers when the need arises, and the basic gear needed in her job. She will have a suitable place to live ‘in line with her credit rating’ (har har). Beyond that, her starting gear depends on what the GM will allow. She has EYEnet implants, base-models without any modifications. Essentially cybereyes as described above, with no cool features (yet). To make things worse hers are low quality, meaning they can cause problems under strain. She does not need the AR glasses anymore, though. Beyond that, she has a Light Pistol, a Knife, and a Shotgun, but will leave the latter at home, usually. At the moment she does not wear armor, which did go to the pawn shop recently. She has not been gene modded.
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