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Aug. 27th, 2008 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
electricpaladinA brief Mark update before the character.
Life has been looking up lately. I made a little money doing an odd job at a local bookstore and made a connection that might result in another afternoon of work from time to time. It's no job, but it's nice not to be broke. I have a few interviews and assorted worthwhile conversations lined up for later this week and next week, and I just found out that the Landmark Education administrative assistant position open, after all, and I think I stand a chance of getting it.
. . .
The Game: Hunter: the Vigil
The Publisher: White Wolf
Familiarity: Low. I haven’t even quite finished reading the thing yet.
Hunter: the Reckoning was one of those games I never liked, except for when I did. It had some fun ideas – being one of those people who really sees the World of Darkness for what it is, and fighting back – but it was hindered and diluted by the abundance of supernatural powers that made the Hunters little different from the monsters and an over reliance on the functional groups structure.
Hunter: the Vigil is everything Hunter: the Reckoning should have been, and more. On one level, it’s just a guide for playing ever so slightly extraordinary humans lighting a torch for the good and crossing swords against evil. On further levels, it can be about how like-minded heroes band together against the darkness, or even get tangled up in conspiracies, secrets, and the machinations of monsters, both human and supernatural.
Man, I like this game already.
Step One: Character Concept
Who is this guy?
First off, I want to play around with someone who has something to do with changelings. Changeling: the Lost is my second favorite World of Darkness game, and I’m happy with how much love it’s gotten. I also want to play someone with a complicated relationship with the monsters.
I’ll name him Max. When Max was ten years old, he and some friends were very nearly stolen by faeries. They wandered into an abandoned house in the woods and were almost taken, but they had the good fortune to run into a recently escaped changeling, Jon, who helped lead them back to the real world.
A little while later Max’s new friend Jon told him that Leslie, a girl at their school, wasn’t a real girl. She was one of the fakes the faeries left behind. Five years later, when the real Leslie came back, the fake was the first monster Max killed. He helped Leslie and Jon lure the fake Leslie into the woods, where they hit her until she stopped moving. She fell apart into torn-up books and old library cards and spools of thread. Max threw up.
Helping the ones who come back from beyond the Hedge has cost Max a lot over the years. He’s lost friends, lovers, jobs, and a little piece of his soul. He knows they’re fakes, but these “fetches” beg for mercy just like real people. The fact that they fall apart into pieces of things is all that lets Max convince himself that they aren’t really people and he’s doing a good thing.
Of course, Max’s real ambition is to take out one of the “Others,” the things that take people away in the first place and torture them in faerie. If he could just see one of the real monsters face to face, he would know that he is right. It would justify everything. He knows it.
In Max’s real life, he’s a veterinarian. He’s always liked animals and the wilderness and he has a calm, gentle soul. Nobody knows about his secret life or his secret contacts with the twisted escapees.
Incidentally, I think Max hasn’t done well, romantically. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has developed a bit of a kink. Specifically, he’s only really into girls who have escaped from the Others. Maybe it’s something about them being kind of like the monsters he really wants to kill. Maybe it’s that their helplessness, their dependence brings out the white knight in him and makes him feel like a hero. Either way, this bent tends to scuttle his efforts at developing relationships with “normal” women.
Step Two: Attributes
Attributes yay! First I prioritize them. Physical is primary, since Max is an outdoorsy type who likes camping and hunting (and beating up monsters). Mental can be secondary, since veterinarians, like doctors, need to know their stuff. Finally, Social can be tertiary. Max isn’t great with people. Not bad, but also not great.
For my Physical Attributes, I’ll take Strength 3, Dexterity 3, and Stamina 2. He’s strong and athletic, but he tends to do his camping and outdoor exploring “by the book,” which means not pushing himself too far, so he’s never developed a tremendous stamina.
For Mental Attributes, Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2. Max is smart, but not enormously so. Mostly, he’s fast on his feet. His answers aren’t always the best, but he comes up with them quickly.
For Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 1. Max has presence, and he’s ok at working people, but he’s not good at shutting up and tends to go on about things that interest him. Really, this is the flip side of his high Wits.
Step Three: Skills
Skills are prioritized, just like Attributes, but I get 11, 7, and 4 points to spend on my Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Skills categories.
Mental is definitely primary. I’ll take Academics 1 (college and grad school), Crafts 2 (a woodsy, do-it-yourself guy), Investigation 2, Medicine 3 (veterinarian), Occult 1 (regular contact with changelings since he was 10), and Science 2 (veterinarian).
After that, Physical is secondary. I’ll take Athletics 1, Brawl 2, Stealth 1, Survival 2, and Weaponry 1. All of that seems pretty self-explanatory.
Finally, Social is tertiary. Animal Ken 2, Empathy 1, and Socialize 1. All part of his job.
Step Four: Skill Specialties
My usual method for skill specialties is to pick skills I wish I had a higher rating in and pick the specialties I’m most likely to use. This time, however, I’m going to try![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
innocent_man’s method and list three things about Max. Max is: woodsy, good with animals, and good with his hands. So I’ll take Survival (Woods), Crafts (Carpenter), and Animal Ken (Pets)
Step Five: Add Hunter Template
Here’s where the fun starts.
First, I pick a Profession. Max is a Veterinarian, which I will treat as functionally identical to a Doctor for game purposes. This means I get to note my two Asset Skills and pick a new Specialization in one of them. My Asset Skills are Empathy and Medicine. I think Max is particularly Soothing. He’s good at helping people calm down while their beloved animals are sick or in surgery, and he’s the guy who can make it more ok when the animals die.
Max is definitely a First Tier hunter, which means that he isn’t a part of any Compact or Conspiracy. There aren’t any that specialize in what he does (and a number that he would find awful and disgusting), and I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who would pursue that sort of membership. Furthermore, a lot of hunters wouldn’t like Max very much. Ignorant hunters might see him helping to kill “ordinary” people alongside the funny-looking weridos with the magic powers.
Step Six: Choose Merits
I have seven points to spend in Merits. Yipee!
I want to give Max a Favored Weapon. I think he has hand-forged iron hatchet that his friend Jon gave him when he first told Max that the Others are weak against iron. It’s a bit rough, with a pitted iron surface everywhere it isn’t sharpened and a rude leather-wrapped handle. Max clutches it when he feels like his life is getting out of control, and its gives him strength.
Max has been taking Kung Fu since he was a kid, so I’ll give him a dot.
Max also has a dot of Professional Training, to represent all the work he’s put into being a good vet. And while we’re on vet stuff, Max has a dot in Retainers: a big, scary-looking (but sweet at heart) dog. One dot should do it; he’s big and sharp-toothed and unswervingly loyal, sure, but he’s also a dog. His name is Speedy.
Max should have a Safehouse. I think he has a studio apartment where he keeps his hunting gear. You know, some place where the bloodstains on the floor from when the fetch with a knife nearly took his finger off won’t raise any eyebrows. It isn’t really a secret, and Max doesn’t have any traps, but it’s not like the things he kills leave bodies, anyway. Most of the time, they don’t even disappear afterwards, so it doesn’t matter of someone sees the fight. So, one dot, applied to size, should do the trick.
Finally, a dot of Status (Licensed Veterinarian) is in order, because it will explain why Max can easily carry such things as tranquilizers, painkillers, and surgical supplies in the trunk of his car without getting into trouble.
Step Seven: Determine Advantages
This section is a bunch of math. Move along. Nothing to see here.
No, wait! I’m going to reduce Max’s Morality by 2, to 5, for 10 experience points. Unlike a lot of other Hunters, Max kills things that look human, that beg for mercy. That can’t be good for him. Also, up till now he’s been without a Cell, which can only make it harder.
With those 10 xp, I will…
Buy a dot of Allies to represent Jon.
Buy a second dot of Kung Fu.
Buy a dot of Drive (can’t believe I missed that).
And that should do it.
Step Eight: Spark of Life
Wow. Max grew up pretty dark, didn’t he? Well, you know. World of Darkness. Hunter.
I think I covered all the important bases in the Concept area. Max is a big guy, tall and broad, with blond hair and hazel eyes. He was cute as a kid, but the Vigil has hardened him up since then. He might be handsome again if he remembered how to smile.
Next up, Mage: the Awakening!
Life has been looking up lately. I made a little money doing an odd job at a local bookstore and made a connection that might result in another afternoon of work from time to time. It's no job, but it's nice not to be broke. I have a few interviews and assorted worthwhile conversations lined up for later this week and next week, and I just found out that the Landmark Education administrative assistant position open, after all, and I think I stand a chance of getting it.
. . .
The Game: Hunter: the Vigil
The Publisher: White Wolf
Familiarity: Low. I haven’t even quite finished reading the thing yet.
Hunter: the Reckoning was one of those games I never liked, except for when I did. It had some fun ideas – being one of those people who really sees the World of Darkness for what it is, and fighting back – but it was hindered and diluted by the abundance of supernatural powers that made the Hunters little different from the monsters and an over reliance on the functional groups structure.
Hunter: the Vigil is everything Hunter: the Reckoning should have been, and more. On one level, it’s just a guide for playing ever so slightly extraordinary humans lighting a torch for the good and crossing swords against evil. On further levels, it can be about how like-minded heroes band together against the darkness, or even get tangled up in conspiracies, secrets, and the machinations of monsters, both human and supernatural.
Man, I like this game already.
Step One: Character Concept
Who is this guy?
First off, I want to play around with someone who has something to do with changelings. Changeling: the Lost is my second favorite World of Darkness game, and I’m happy with how much love it’s gotten. I also want to play someone with a complicated relationship with the monsters.
I’ll name him Max. When Max was ten years old, he and some friends were very nearly stolen by faeries. They wandered into an abandoned house in the woods and were almost taken, but they had the good fortune to run into a recently escaped changeling, Jon, who helped lead them back to the real world.
A little while later Max’s new friend Jon told him that Leslie, a girl at their school, wasn’t a real girl. She was one of the fakes the faeries left behind. Five years later, when the real Leslie came back, the fake was the first monster Max killed. He helped Leslie and Jon lure the fake Leslie into the woods, where they hit her until she stopped moving. She fell apart into torn-up books and old library cards and spools of thread. Max threw up.
Helping the ones who come back from beyond the Hedge has cost Max a lot over the years. He’s lost friends, lovers, jobs, and a little piece of his soul. He knows they’re fakes, but these “fetches” beg for mercy just like real people. The fact that they fall apart into pieces of things is all that lets Max convince himself that they aren’t really people and he’s doing a good thing.
Of course, Max’s real ambition is to take out one of the “Others,” the things that take people away in the first place and torture them in faerie. If he could just see one of the real monsters face to face, he would know that he is right. It would justify everything. He knows it.
In Max’s real life, he’s a veterinarian. He’s always liked animals and the wilderness and he has a calm, gentle soul. Nobody knows about his secret life or his secret contacts with the twisted escapees.
Incidentally, I think Max hasn’t done well, romantically. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has developed a bit of a kink. Specifically, he’s only really into girls who have escaped from the Others. Maybe it’s something about them being kind of like the monsters he really wants to kill. Maybe it’s that their helplessness, their dependence brings out the white knight in him and makes him feel like a hero. Either way, this bent tends to scuttle his efforts at developing relationships with “normal” women.
Step Two: Attributes
Attributes yay! First I prioritize them. Physical is primary, since Max is an outdoorsy type who likes camping and hunting (and beating up monsters). Mental can be secondary, since veterinarians, like doctors, need to know their stuff. Finally, Social can be tertiary. Max isn’t great with people. Not bad, but also not great.
For my Physical Attributes, I’ll take Strength 3, Dexterity 3, and Stamina 2. He’s strong and athletic, but he tends to do his camping and outdoor exploring “by the book,” which means not pushing himself too far, so he’s never developed a tremendous stamina.
For Mental Attributes, Intelligence 2, Wits 3, Resolve 2. Max is smart, but not enormously so. Mostly, he’s fast on his feet. His answers aren’t always the best, but he comes up with them quickly.
For Social Attributes: Presence 3, Manipulation 2, Composure 1. Max has presence, and he’s ok at working people, but he’s not good at shutting up and tends to go on about things that interest him. Really, this is the flip side of his high Wits.
Step Three: Skills
Skills are prioritized, just like Attributes, but I get 11, 7, and 4 points to spend on my Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Skills categories.
Mental is definitely primary. I’ll take Academics 1 (college and grad school), Crafts 2 (a woodsy, do-it-yourself guy), Investigation 2, Medicine 3 (veterinarian), Occult 1 (regular contact with changelings since he was 10), and Science 2 (veterinarian).
After that, Physical is secondary. I’ll take Athletics 1, Brawl 2, Stealth 1, Survival 2, and Weaponry 1. All of that seems pretty self-explanatory.
Finally, Social is tertiary. Animal Ken 2, Empathy 1, and Socialize 1. All part of his job.
Step Four: Skill Specialties
My usual method for skill specialties is to pick skills I wish I had a higher rating in and pick the specialties I’m most likely to use. This time, however, I’m going to try
innocent_man’s method and list three things about Max. Max is: woodsy, good with animals, and good with his hands. So I’ll take Survival (Woods), Crafts (Carpenter), and Animal Ken (Pets)Step Five: Add Hunter Template
Here’s where the fun starts.
First, I pick a Profession. Max is a Veterinarian, which I will treat as functionally identical to a Doctor for game purposes. This means I get to note my two Asset Skills and pick a new Specialization in one of them. My Asset Skills are Empathy and Medicine. I think Max is particularly Soothing. He’s good at helping people calm down while their beloved animals are sick or in surgery, and he’s the guy who can make it more ok when the animals die.
Max is definitely a First Tier hunter, which means that he isn’t a part of any Compact or Conspiracy. There aren’t any that specialize in what he does (and a number that he would find awful and disgusting), and I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who would pursue that sort of membership. Furthermore, a lot of hunters wouldn’t like Max very much. Ignorant hunters might see him helping to kill “ordinary” people alongside the funny-looking weridos with the magic powers.
Step Six: Choose Merits
I have seven points to spend in Merits. Yipee!
I want to give Max a Favored Weapon. I think he has hand-forged iron hatchet that his friend Jon gave him when he first told Max that the Others are weak against iron. It’s a bit rough, with a pitted iron surface everywhere it isn’t sharpened and a rude leather-wrapped handle. Max clutches it when he feels like his life is getting out of control, and its gives him strength.
Max has been taking Kung Fu since he was a kid, so I’ll give him a dot.
Max also has a dot of Professional Training, to represent all the work he’s put into being a good vet. And while we’re on vet stuff, Max has a dot in Retainers: a big, scary-looking (but sweet at heart) dog. One dot should do it; he’s big and sharp-toothed and unswervingly loyal, sure, but he’s also a dog. His name is Speedy.
Max should have a Safehouse. I think he has a studio apartment where he keeps his hunting gear. You know, some place where the bloodstains on the floor from when the fetch with a knife nearly took his finger off won’t raise any eyebrows. It isn’t really a secret, and Max doesn’t have any traps, but it’s not like the things he kills leave bodies, anyway. Most of the time, they don’t even disappear afterwards, so it doesn’t matter of someone sees the fight. So, one dot, applied to size, should do the trick.
Finally, a dot of Status (Licensed Veterinarian) is in order, because it will explain why Max can easily carry such things as tranquilizers, painkillers, and surgical supplies in the trunk of his car without getting into trouble.
Step Seven: Determine Advantages
This section is a bunch of math. Move along. Nothing to see here.
No, wait! I’m going to reduce Max’s Morality by 2, to 5, for 10 experience points. Unlike a lot of other Hunters, Max kills things that look human, that beg for mercy. That can’t be good for him. Also, up till now he’s been without a Cell, which can only make it harder.
With those 10 xp, I will…
Buy a dot of Allies to represent Jon.
Buy a second dot of Kung Fu.
Buy a dot of Drive (can’t believe I missed that).
And that should do it.
Step Eight: Spark of Life
Wow. Max grew up pretty dark, didn’t he? Well, you know. World of Darkness. Hunter.
I think I covered all the important bases in the Concept area. Max is a big guy, tall and broad, with blond hair and hazel eyes. He was cute as a kid, but the Vigil has hardened him up since then. He might be handsome again if he remembered how to smile.
Next up, Mage: the Awakening!
