Content Warnings: MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES, DEATH
Similar to other PbtA games (yes, I know it is debatable if KULT is PbtA or not) the typical character generation in KULT assumes that the party will sit together and create both the PCs and the basics of the story at the same time. Other approaches are of course possible, but I will go with this one. And this year we will make a party of four. Since the creation is rather interwoven, I will split it all across four posts. If tempted enough I might add some GM thoughts at the end.
First to consider a time and location. I am watching The Rig as I do this, and the idea of some remote location appeals to me. But not an oil rig. How about a boarding school, maybe in the US? Maybe somewhere in the Adirondacks, remote, a small town close by. A private school, for rich college kids, founded maybe two decades ago, with ambitions to become an elite institution. Uniforms, school spirit, all that. At least officially. Semi-officially the kids are mostly "problem cases". The ones who did not fit in, maybe are violent, and whose parents have enough money and clout to make the issue go away. But not enough to do so while keeping their kid in a more prestigious school. Time-wise I like the late 1960s, and maybe mid-January. How about late January 1966, putting it right before one of the worst winter storms that the region has seen up to today? The storm isn’t in sight yet, the kids have returned from Christmas and settled in again, and everything is covered in snow. The closest town is Keene, east of Adirondack Park, and twenty minutes by car away from the school. Twenty minutes then the weather is ideal, that is. Who had the brilliant idea to put a boarding school here? Well, I would say that is one of the small things the GM might decide later. And that is already more precise than needed for the moment as regards the school, I’d say.
Next, players choose their archetypes, essentially playbooks here. In my experience this is intimately tied into the following step, the Dark Secrets. All PCs have one, and there needs to be a discussion if any are connected. By the time players ironed these out they usually have a good idea of their characters, and which playbook to take.
Mmhhh…. I'd like to have one Broken there. If only to show a different way to do the playbook than last year's Irene. Something really, really bad has happened to them and left a deep mark. She will be the cook, recently broken, and keeping whatever her problems are barely under control. Then I’d say an Academic is a given, teacher of literature and biology. As a bit of a twist a Veteran, who I picture as someone who had been in Korea, came back badly wounded, and now is the resident coach. Also responsible for teaching geography and history. Finally, a Careerist.
As for the Dark Secrets, I think I will decide that the players for the most part want to be independent, leaving it to the GM to pick up the shards. For simplicities sake, this means I can keep most of the character generation separate. For today, let us look at our Broken.
I would say Laura Keane had a rather bad year in 1965. You see, she died during the first day of summer break, the time students head home (Dark Secret: Returned from the Other Side). She doesn’t remember when and how. She only remembers that it happened. That she saw … images… of the afterlife. Of hell. And that when she came back, she woke up in her room at the school and it was several days later. She felt incredibly cold. Slowly, warmth returned to her body, as if she could feel her soul seep back into it. The experience left her shaken, as did the realization that no one had missed her (Disadvantage: Broken [obligatory]). Afraid that no one would believe her she attempted to cope by herself, and in the end got addicted to something easy to come by - alcohol (Disadvantage: Drug Addict). Sometimes she can perceive the other side, in fleeting and often terrifying moments that she hopes are just her mind acting up (Advantage: Enhanced Awareness). Worse, as much as she tries covering her condition up with booze sometimes it seeps through. She has learned to let people see, partially also in the hope someone might pick up on it and help. But people only become uncomfortable when they talk to her for too long, and she is even more lonely than she was before; sometimes they ... snap .... for a short while (Advantage: Contagious Insanity). On the plus side, she has become unusually aware of people and situations and is rarely surprised by normal events anymore (Advantage: Sixth Sense).
Similar to other PbtA games (yes, I know it is debatable if KULT is PbtA or not) the typical character generation in KULT assumes that the party will sit together and create both the PCs and the basics of the story at the same time. Other approaches are of course possible, but I will go with this one. And this year we will make a party of four. Since the creation is rather interwoven, I will split it all across four posts. If tempted enough I might add some GM thoughts at the end.
First to consider a time and location. I am watching The Rig as I do this, and the idea of some remote location appeals to me. But not an oil rig. How about a boarding school, maybe in the US? Maybe somewhere in the Adirondacks, remote, a small town close by. A private school, for rich college kids, founded maybe two decades ago, with ambitions to become an elite institution. Uniforms, school spirit, all that. At least officially. Semi-officially the kids are mostly "problem cases". The ones who did not fit in, maybe are violent, and whose parents have enough money and clout to make the issue go away. But not enough to do so while keeping their kid in a more prestigious school. Time-wise I like the late 1960s, and maybe mid-January. How about late January 1966, putting it right before one of the worst winter storms that the region has seen up to today? The storm isn’t in sight yet, the kids have returned from Christmas and settled in again, and everything is covered in snow. The closest town is Keene, east of Adirondack Park, and twenty minutes by car away from the school. Twenty minutes then the weather is ideal, that is. Who had the brilliant idea to put a boarding school here? Well, I would say that is one of the small things the GM might decide later. And that is already more precise than needed for the moment as regards the school, I’d say.
Next, players choose their archetypes, essentially playbooks here. In my experience this is intimately tied into the following step, the Dark Secrets. All PCs have one, and there needs to be a discussion if any are connected. By the time players ironed these out they usually have a good idea of their characters, and which playbook to take.
Mmhhh…. I'd like to have one Broken there. If only to show a different way to do the playbook than last year's Irene. Something really, really bad has happened to them and left a deep mark. She will be the cook, recently broken, and keeping whatever her problems are barely under control. Then I’d say an Academic is a given, teacher of literature and biology. As a bit of a twist a Veteran, who I picture as someone who had been in Korea, came back badly wounded, and now is the resident coach. Also responsible for teaching geography and history. Finally, a Careerist.
As for the Dark Secrets, I think I will decide that the players for the most part want to be independent, leaving it to the GM to pick up the shards. For simplicities sake, this means I can keep most of the character generation separate. For today, let us look at our Broken.
I would say Laura Keane had a rather bad year in 1965. You see, she died during the first day of summer break, the time students head home (Dark Secret: Returned from the Other Side). She doesn’t remember when and how. She only remembers that it happened. That she saw … images… of the afterlife. Of hell. And that when she came back, she woke up in her room at the school and it was several days later. She felt incredibly cold. Slowly, warmth returned to her body, as if she could feel her soul seep back into it. The experience left her shaken, as did the realization that no one had missed her (Disadvantage: Broken [obligatory]). Afraid that no one would believe her she attempted to cope by herself, and in the end got addicted to something easy to come by - alcohol (Disadvantage: Drug Addict). Sometimes she can perceive the other side, in fleeting and often terrifying moments that she hopes are just her mind acting up (Advantage: Enhanced Awareness). Worse, as much as she tries covering her condition up with booze sometimes it seeps through. She has learned to let people see, partially also in the hope someone might pick up on it and help. But people only become uncomfortable when they talk to her for too long, and she is even more lonely than she was before; sometimes they ... snap .... for a short while (Advantage: Contagious Insanity). On the plus side, she has become unusually aware of people and situations and is rarely surprised by normal events anymore (Advantage: Sixth Sense).
For Attributes, she has Willpower 0, Reflexes 1, and Fortitude 2, as well as Reason -1, Intuition 1, Perception 0, Coolness 2, Violence 1, Charisma -2, and Soul 3. She is 1.70m tall, with broad shoulders, longish brown hair, and a plain face with haunted eyes. Usually, she wears a cook's uniform at work. In her private time, she dresses in simple grey dresses or white blouses with dark skirts and grey cardigans. Instinctually she wears colors of twilight, of hiding.
The final step would be to determine her relationships with both other players and some NPCs. While it might be clever to wait, I will do those now. Think of it as pushing in certain directions for the yet-to-come PCs. The relationships to PCs are chosen via a list of connection types. Let’s see…
I think the Veteran has noticed that she has become rather dark in her demeanor, and is trying to get her back to her feet again (+1 Relation). She is angry at the Careerist; she doesn’t remember specifics, but she is sure the Careerist was involved in her death. Somehow. (+1 Relation) The Academic was the first person she saw when she came out of her room after her ordeal. He found her, wandering the halls in her nightgown, shivering, delusional. He helped her that evening and never told anyone. She isn’t sure what she’d have done if he hadn’t spent a lot of time that day to make her feel safe. (...was with you when you were broken, +1 Relation)
Finally, for the three NPCs:
Tony the delivery driver is sweet on her, though she isn’t interested (neutral, +0 Relation)
Martha, the assistant cook, is a constant pain in the ass. Lazy and stubborn, the two will fight from time to time. It has become an old habit over years of shared work (meaningful, +1 Relation).
Finally, we have Larry, her cat, found on the street a week after her ordeal (vital, +2 Relation).
And that is Laura Keane.
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