The Black Campbell

The loss of something or someone, or the threat, is a powerful motivator for a character. The loss of a loved one, be it a friend or a family member has been a central theme for stories going back to the earliest days, complaints about “fridging” not withstanding. Hell, a puppy is worth 74 Russian gangsters’ lives according to John Wick — the audience never said “That might be a touch much…”

I’ve always liked to have a set of regular NPCs for the players to interact with when I’ve run games, but that took a sharp set up after I did a five year run of Battlestar Galactica. I loved the Moore version of the show, and thought it captured the desperation and the lack of time to heal that led to some bad decisions by some of the characters, but there was always something missing that I though would have elevated the show (and padded it out better than the “gangsters on this ship” episode of Season 3.) What is it they lost?

Yeah, your civilization is gone and billions died…but what did you lose? When I started the campaign, I realized that would be a central way to motivate and help the players define their characters. First was the idea that everyone would have a military character, and a civilian one. Our first “season” took place before the Cylon attacks. Normal life for the civilians — who were their families and friends? Where did they live? Where did they go to eat out? Normal duties for the military — boring shipping lane patrols, training exercises, law enforcement interdictions. And then, right in the middle of one of the adventures, when they were focused on that particular storyline — tracking some escaped fugitives that put them outside the blast radius of an attack; a missing ship leads to a Cylon fleet stealthing in toward the shipyards at Scorpion; the middle of a breakup with your wife at your favorite cafe — the Cylons strike.

It surprised the players as much as their characters. Suddenly places, things, people that were in their lives are gone, imperiled, or rescued. As the campaign upfolded, we had periodic “flashback episodes” to link to something happening in the rag-tag fleet that might inform a character’s decision-making while still trying to recover from the shock, loss, fear, boredom. Having them run out coffee, cigarettes, alcohol; clothing that was getting frayed and work to the point that uniforms might have a knee blown out on the pants. Not matter how much they made headway to finding Earth, they were losing bits and pieces of their old worlds. 

It was, easily, the best campaign I ever ran. Normally, I like to rotate through games on a semi-regular basis. Once we got into Galactica, it displaced all other games for nearly four years. When finally we wrapped it, I found myself missing the characters and the storyline. It’s been about ten years since that game; it’s still one I frequently think about, and the idea of creating real backstories and NPCs to fill them so that people have things to lose has informed many of the campaigns since. Characters in our Star Trek and Dune games have large NPCs networks of family, friends, contacts.

Creating well fleshed out NPCs for them to interact with also creates a sense of loss when they are either imperiled, die, get reassigned. After three seasons, the loss of a well-liked NPC, our bubbly “I’m French, not Vulcan” science officer (raised on Earth as her father was part of the Vulcan diplomatic mission there) actually did influence the characters and players. They missed her, especially after the relatively gruesome way she was lost. The opportunity to possibly save her two seasons later, felt like a real win, but things were never really the same afterward.

Loss — it’s a good frame for character motivation and development.

Back to the ol’ American Heritage Dictionary for tact /tăkt/, a noun describing the 1. Acute sensitivity to what is proper and appropriate in dealing with others, including the ability to speak or act without offending; 2. The sense of touch; feeling (as in tactile); 3. The stroke in beating time. (I did not know this one… BC)

Or a better definition by the great Winston Churchill: “Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward to the trip.”

There are a few ways that tact turns up in roleplaying games — usually as some form of skill like etiquette, control, diplomacy (or even poise, our day 3 prompt.) and while it can have ties to charisma, this is really about the ability to choose your words to get an outcome in a social encounter that create the least friction with the person you are attempting to convince regarding something. It’s a very useful skill in an RPG, particularly ones where social conflict is a major theme, rather than just hack & slash.

A good example of the utility of tact is in the game Dune: Adventures in the Imperium by Mödiphiüs. The world of Frank Herbert’s Dune really finds its strength in the period before the events of the novel. While the focus is on Arakkis and the machinations between the Emperor, the Harkonnen, and the Atreides (with some side players here and there), the book sets up a fascinating 16-17th Century looking social structure dominated by competing royal houses. The effect is a late medieval/renaissance period political structure with the imperial house bolted on top. Trade groups like the Spacing Guild and the imperium-wide trade consortium CHOAM make sure that all houses have some kind of skin in the game regarding the economic health of the Imperium. Absolutists monarchies with fancy titles (weirdly divorced of their hierarchical status) rule the various worlds and court etiquette and a dueling culture brought about by shielding technology that limits the use of their directed energy weapons, gives the world the same war of words, wit, and steel that one might expect playing in a game revolving around the Three Musketeers.

Etiquette, here, is just as important as diplomacy — and both overlap, and in many cases, it’s tact — the ability to ingratiate yourself into a group or with a person central to your goal that greases the wheels for diplomacy. Any game set in the Renaissance into Victorian period is prime territory for the courtier — the person that brings the fun to the party, but knows how to mind their place while mining their betters for position and wealth. Do you know how to dance, how to dress well, how to eat at the table properly, how to address people with titles? “Hey, Duke…” doesn’t cut it, but “Good evening, Your Grace” will get your farther.

Tact isn’t just a way of speaking; it is understanding the rules of the group you are in. 1920s New York? You might want to know the ins-and-outs of the speakeasy, how to properly approach a member of the “machine” running city hall, how to talk to your Italian or Irish mob boss in a way that they take counsel and not offense. There are rules — whether you’re a schmuck looking to get into illicit services in the 1980s, the hanger-on to a 1990s rap star, or a foreigner at an Meiji-period Japanese court. Tact is the skill that makes that happen.

To create a good example of this sort of character, I present John McCray — built for Outgunned Adventure.

McCray is from California and started off as a petty con man, before realizing that being a “proper gentleman” could get you much further than a two-bit huckster — you’ve got to be able to get where the money is, to get the money. And in the Roaring ‘20s, he’s the perfect gentleman scoundrel. He dresses well, can pick up accents with a few days exposure, and is particularly good at reading the unwritten rules in a particular group. He reads heavily, eavesdrops quietly, and learnsbefore putting himself into the circle where his mark is. He’s not always looking for a quick score, often he wan’t to create a rapport that can be exploited to both his and the mark’s unwitting advantage.

The skill set above speaks for itself — his style, mode of speech, and bearing get him by in any environment from the slummiest street to the sparkling-est court. Under the feats, I see “Disguise” as less the dress-up kind, and more the immediate character creation we saw from Axel Foley in Beverley Hills Cop — dropping into a character that is either wholly appropriate (or the opposite, in the case of “Ramon — the man he met at the club…”) He inhabits a role quickly and completely. 

Whether its to get financial gain, or a fancy seat on a hunting expedition in Africa, or a good table at that swanky Chicago speakeasy, or a meet with the Shanghai gang leader — it’s all the same to McCray.

One of the fun things when creating a character is holding a little something back from table for a bit. Especially if you’ve hinted at something, then with the cooperation of the GM, bring it into play as an element of a storyline. This works especially well in noir or espionage tales, but even in a Victorian setting (Victoriana, Space: 1889, etc…) your American of indeterminate but expansive means that is living London or on Mars, or what have you turns out to have made their fortune in a spectacular heist that they double crossed their compadres on — enter the aggrieved gunslinger, looking for payback.

In our Blade Runner campaign, the old man of the group — Jerzy Novak — has to hunt down a former cop that has been shielding replicants, and along the way “finds out” (allows himself to remember) that he is a Nexus 8. During the Blackout, he had been on route to the spaceport in a Spinner van when the EMP hits. The van crashes, and in the process smacks into a police car. He and a few that survive the crash. While the others flee, he checks on the dying cop and notes a strong resemblance between the two of them. In a panic, he swaps places with the cop — being Novak. With the chaos of the Blackout and records destroyed, he starts his new life first as a beat cop, then a member of Robbery-Homicide, before become a blade runner. He’s, so far, avoided suspicion, but a recent case has introduced him to one of the other survivors, the very attractive owner of a casino/brothel that might have ties to the underground.

In our Star Trek campaign, a constant sub-plot in the background has been the captain’s very slow career progression (until the war.) The first “season” saw her take command of Fearless, an aging Walker-class, from the famed Garth of Izar; but the brass won’t promote her to captain, despite similarly experienced people going through the ranks from attrition. She gets the center seat, but remains a commander for the first two seasons before the political clout of her ship’s doctor and operations officer (featured in Day 8) sees her start to gain more respect from Starfleet Command. The main antagonist to this seems to be Admiral Stenn — a Vulcan that is just being “Vulcan”. Hints of something else have surfaced from time to time, and finally one of the character’s investigation into the newly revealed Romulan connection to Vulcans led them to uncover the truth about Stenn…not that he is a Romulan, but worse, that his bigotry toward other, “lesser” races has led him to sexually harass and intimidate alien females (humans, especially). Their captain, as a cadet, had rebuffed the admiral and he had quietly been pulling strings to sideline her until Garth took her on as his tactical officer. Because of the Vulcan tendency to avoid uncomfortable data about themselves, Stenn was protected by some higher ups in the brass at her expense. His quick and quiet retirement and exile back to Vulcan wasn’t as satisfying an ending as they wished…but it did sort the situation. 

In the same campaign, the helmsman — built on the classic love ‘em and leave ‘em Kirk trope — managed to get himself addicted to, then married, an Orion woman working for Starfleet Intelligence. He’s been a bit more careful about his extracurricular activities, but his value Addicted to Love has frequently causes him heart-burn, including getting into an affair with his best friend’s sister. He’s hoping to navigate the complexities of the situation with a hopeful “what happens in space, stays in space” kind of attitude. That is coming to bite him on the ass, pretty soon.

Secrets don’t always have to move a storyline, and they don’t always have to lead to some grandiose betrayal. Sometimes, they can be as simple as finding our your friend had suffered abuse, and has been quietly living with it for over a decade.

Taking a break from the character and campaign-based commentary this month, let’s talk about something else. I started gaming with the early boxed set Dungeons & Dragons with the execrable dragon on a horde of gold artwork in what must have been 1979, based off of the lack of dice in the box. (It came with two cutout cardstock chits — hence the specific year.) So, doing the math, I’ve been gaming for 46-47 years! (F***, I’m getting old!)

I credit roleplaying games with a lot of the positives in my life. It taught me interpersonal skills when I desperately needed them. It taught me how to tell a story well — something used in several careers, not the least being a professor and historian. It taught me how to appreciate good storytelling, and how to build a character — something that was useful in government service. (Don’t ask.) But mostly, it brought a lot of good people into my life — including my wife.

It was a privilege to be able to play most of my life. To sit down with friends, have fun telling a story together on a regular basis. Like the religiously held-to poker night of the past, Nerd Night has rarely been preempted; it is a thing to be protected and cherished because it brings folks together and allows escape from the world in a way the movies and sports don’t. There are characters, storylines, group dynamics that are long gone, but still live in our memories.

Of those people — from my high school gaming friends, the Jims and Eric, whom I still miss decades later from time to time; to the two long-lived groups that have kept Thursday’s Nerd Night alive from the early 1990s to 2010, when people scattered and divorces happened; through the rapid changes of players to the most recent and stable iteration from 2016 to today, I’ve had the privilege of knowing and playing with some truly fine people — every race, men and women, gay and straight, what have you. (The 400 lb “ninja” was not one of them, but that’s a different story…) The current group are all professionals: historian, engineers (three!), an acupuncturist (and former fellow history grad student); but in the past there have been movie crew, writers and mathematicians, wannabe actors, scientists, military of every stripe, cops…and lovable losers. Most came and went in that two-four year window that most game groups that survive the first few months seem to exist for. To have had not one, but two, groups that hung together in some form for 10 and 18 years, respectively, is a near miracle — especially with having to move about for work.

When you consider that for a 100,000 years, most people were born, worked their asses off just to subsist, and died young, to be able to get through most than a half century with the luxury of play, to have the comfort of work that doesn’t kill you (although some of my careers that was a risk) and a place to meet up — that’s truly miraculous. i don’t think we realize how unbelievably lucky we all are to live at this time, and for me in the Western world, where sitting down for an evening a week (or more when I was younger) is something you can get away with. Hell, you can spend a 1930s fortune to go play games with strangers for a weekend at a convention!

It’s something I truly love sharing with people. Once my daughter was old enough to be interested, she would join us at the table and roll dice for me. She was the harbinger of doom; her ability to roll well for the bad guys led to many a near TPK. Eventually, I ran games for her Avatar, ‘30s pulp Broken Compass, most recently Dune. She now has an online Saturday game group playing Pathfinder — dad is no longer the cool GM, but the love of the game has been passed on. I miss being her GM.

I introduced students to RPGs at the high schools I taught at not just to have fun, but to help them deal with issues in their real life in a fantasy world where they could have agency. (Something one of my former group does as a counselor in Texas. He’s a truly fantastic guy that I miss.)

This hobby is a wonderful. Spread the wealth.

Mirriam-Wester Dictionary defines resolve /rĭ-zŏlv′/ in a multitude of ways — as an intransitive verb that means 1. to deal with successfully, 2. to reach a firm decision, 3. to declare or decide, 4. to reduce by analysis, separate into components (or in the past to melt), 5. to make progress from dissonance to consonance, or 6. to work out the resolution of something.

Often, people see this as “grit” or “determination”, but I’m going to go with a combo of all of these definitions. In this example, crew of USS Fearless has been trying to find the culprit in a series of attacks on Federation shipping that have been attributed to Starfleet vessels. Central to figuring out the mystery is a player character, Ooloofar (or “Olaf”) the former operations officer, now promoted executive officer. A long time staple of the ship’s crew and one of the first two Saurian officers in the fleet, he had come aboard a year or so before the Federation-Klingon War, and was under the mentorship of the former XO (killed in combat) and the current captain, Fiona Kerr (from RPGaDay, Day 1). 

Having managed to identify warp signatures and the voice of the ship’s captain from some of the aggrieved vessels, Fearless is able to finally locate their prey — a Starfleet surplus ship that had been lost in the war and is being used by the Orion Syndicate, and captained by a disgraced but talented Starfleet officer. During the ensuing fight between their Walker-class ship — an older and less powerful design, vs. the newer but somewhat cobbled together Constitution-class vessel, Ooloofar gets his first real taste of command. His skills and persistence have frequently helped with scientific or engineering challenges, and during other ship-to-ship battles he was often instrumental in keeping the vessel in the fight…now, as XO, he finds himself in the position of having to assist the captain in the tactical side of the fight. 

Their opponent is good, and Fearless is somewhat outmatched by her opposition. As the fight went on, Fearless takes a couple of heavy strikes and is running low on shields and has suffered several “breaches” — damage that lowers the effectiveness of the ship in combat under STA rules. They are in a hell of a place, and it looks like they might just lose. It is at this moment, his technical skills and intellect tell him to cut and run. In the middle of the fight, he advises Captain Kerr to disengage until they can conduct repairs, then try to reacquire the vessel.

All of this plays into Olaf’s value “Fearless is My Home” and his tendency to try and use engineering and science to fix problems. However, this runs afoul of Kerr’s “spite is a Powerful Motivator” and her “A Fair Fight is the Fight You Lose”. 

Instead of breaking and running, she tries a wildly risky gambit, feigning worse damage than they have to lure the Syndicate vessel in, then executing a tight pass with weapons fire targeting the engineering section. Kicking determination to the tactical officer, Kerr directed (allows the helmsman an immediate action with her adding a d20 on her Control+Command) to do a tight pass of the enemy vessel. The direct allowed her to combine her move with the helmsman, without having to pass to the enemy after her action. The helmsman rolled very well, creating the trait Fire en Passant which lowered the difficulty to hit for the tactical officer. Using her Decisive Leadership, they cut out the enemy and the tactical officer got to go immediately with no cost in momentum. Instead, Olaf’s player suggested a repeat of her move — directing the tactical officer which allowed under his Advisor trait, a free reroll. The captain’s determination spend allowed one die to be set to a double success, and with a success from Olaf, and a reroll that increased the total to 5 successes, they were able to immobilize the enemy ship and force their surrender.

After the fight was over and the adventure mostly resolved, Kerr and Olaf discussed the fight. His instinct to withdraw and repair was a good one, but Kerr assumed that with the upper hand, the Syndicate ship would have given chase and prevented them from escaping, lest their ruse — a Starfleet vessel rendering assistance or performing health & safety checks on merchant vessels — be exposed. His resolution of the situation might well have worked, and was certainly more in line with the more defensive position that Starfleet suggests, but Kerr’s spiteful aggression, borne out of a hardscrabble life and harsh war time experience led her to believe that to deal with the threat successfully, they needed to end it quickly and with “violence of action” — a swift and brutal attack.

During their conversation, she admitted his idea was a good one, and had she thought the Syndicate vessel would have fled after the engagement was over, she would have followed his advice. His instinct to save the ship, get help, limit the potential loss of life was perhaps even the right call; her instinct was to end the threat as decisively as possible, thus saving ship and preventing further los of life. She won — but that didn’t necessarily mean she was right.

In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas defines mercy as one of the most important of virtues: “the compassion in our hearts for another person’s misery, a compassion which drives us to do what we can to help him.” For the less theologically inclined, the American Heritage Dictionary defines mercy /mûr′sē/ as a noun meaning: 1. Compassionate treatment, especially of those under one’s power; clemency. 2. A disposition to be kind and forgiving, “a heart full of mercy.” 3. Something for which to be thankful; a blessing. “It was a mercy that no one was hurt.”

It’s not a passive thing, mercy; it is the active attempt to render aid to a person in pain — physically, mentally, or spiritually.

So how can this play into character creation and play in a roleplaying game, especially in a game universe that is less than virtuous? One of the obvious choices in a fantasy game is to play the cleric. In many ways, Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy environments treat the cleric as a magic-wielding medic, instead of what the name itself implies: a member of a religious order. Often, gods is fantasy games are an afterthought, a simple explanation for where a cleric’s powers come from. Even when gamemasters and players give lip service to the need to propitiate a god, or follow certain precepts of faith, it’s still more of a transactional nature: do this and your get to use your powers; don’t and you might not be able to cast that spell.

Partly, this is due to the nature of deities created for a game universe, or taken from religions — Greek, Norse, etc. — that have disappeared, and whose manners of worship have been lost or intentionally destroyed or subsumed into more successful belief systems. We know some of how you might sacrifice to Poseidon for a successful passage on the ocean; we know some of the practices of Celtic druids — but a lot of this is “recovered” knowledge, cobbled together from unreliable historical or prehistoric (prior to documentary sources) means.

When my most recent Nerd Night™ group came together, we started with a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that was tooled to appeal to the Late Antiquity interests of one of the players. Set at the end of the Roman Empire, the characters started off in Gaul. Monsters like goblins and other creatures of myth were around, rare, as was magic. One of the characters was a monk/cleric, and while he had the requisite D&D combat skills, the player leaned into the Christian elements of being a monk. (He had, in the past, been fairly religious.)

When facing “demons” — be they goblin raiders or a cambion (the offspring of human and demon), he might resort to violence, but as often, he would try to convince them of the error of their ways and try to redeem them. Instead of the combat monster he initially built, his character became the confidant, coach, and redeemer for several of the villains of the campaign. While it wasn’t always an option, the idea of not increasing suffering or evil through vengeance and violence came to define the character. Knowledge of post-Nicean Christianity made his portrayal of the character pop.

The most amusing moment in the campaign was the group’s encounter with a troll that had been terrorizing a village. The characters were losing the fight — badly. During the conflict, the monk noted that the troll was raving about having been stolen from by the villagers, and he was able with a few fortuitous rolls to get the troll to pause in his razing of the place, by agreeing that theft was wrong — sinful, in fact — and that God had rules for this. Having calmed the creature, the others were able to evacuate the survivors of the rampage while the monk preached to the troll. In the end, it meandered off into the hills to consider what he had been told.

In the follow-up campaign that focused on Arthurian Britain, the new characters encountered a town of people that were being ruled over by the deacon — the local priest. The town’s church was built next to the bridge spanning the river the town was alongside, and when they investigated, they encountered the same troll, almost a century later, preaching a highly simplified and somewhat warped version of Christianity to the townspeople. So, while their former nemesis had attempted to reform himself (and was certain of his godliness), he had simply transposed religion onto his nature. Instead of terrorizing people into paying coin for himself, the troll was browbeating the locals into tithing for God. This time, talking was not effective, and led to a beat-down the characters eventually won, restoring the townspeople’s freedom and livelihoods — and in classic Arthurian style, winning over evil through force of arms. (For a good example of this force of arms being noble and virtuous in the service of God, see Edmund Spencer’s The Fairie Queen.)

The wargaming origins of roleplaying games do tend to favor “action solutions” over “talking solutions”, but mercy turns up plenty in genres like noir — where the characters are often faced with the choice of moral decay or fighting against it. Often, this might take the form of two-fisted action, but in the end, saving the innocent over the corrupted is a main theme. Two-fisted diplomacy was a regular feature of Star Trek: how often did Kirk punch someone out, only to then convince their opponents to take the peaceful option? Over diplomacy over conflict would be highlighted in The Next Generation, and the notion of peaceful resolution of differences — of mercy in the modern sense — is baked into the reputation rules of the second edition of Star Trek Adventures, where violent conflict tends to act as a negative against the player character.

Merciful characters are often difficult to play in many RPGs where combat is highlighted over negotiation.

…or why do your characters matter?

The American Heritage Dictionary defines reach /rēch/ as an intransitive verb meaning 1. To stretch out or put forth (a body part); extend, “reached out an arm.” 2. To touch or grasp by stretching out or extending, “can’t reach the shelf.” 3. To arrive at; attain “reached their destination; reached a conclusion.”

This is a difficult one. I had thought about breaking with how characters can embody these terms and talk about the reach of games themselves, but that gave me the hook I needed for this piece. How much influence on the world do characters actually have? What is their reach? What is their impact? What should it be?

In many fantasy or science fiction stories, the hero(es) wind up having an outsize impact on the world. From pastoral hobbits drawn into possibly world-ending war, or Paul Atreides’ prescience, whose actions permanently change the path of history; to the legacy of James T. Kirk or actions of the Avatar in the series, whose exploits become unforgettable historical touchstones — larger than life characters reshape their worlds for a time, or permanently. Now compare that to that private detective who tried to stop the moral decay around him in that particular case that gets under his skin…but who might die unremarked, or whose efforts, ultimately, are forgotten because “Forget, Jake; it’s Chinatown…” — characters who win a small battle, but which is ultimately lost in the currents of time.

What should be the reach of the characters be? That depends on how epic you want your campaign to be, I suppose. For the epic fantasy world, the characters could rise to godlike levels — be the Alexander the Great of your world, whose influence continues for millennia. Or, it could be a simple pastoral adventurer who goes on little adventures to save his village or local area, becoming a local legend that maybe is a footnote in the history of your world.

This is exactly the question for my Legend in the Mist campaign that has just rolled out. Set in 800 AD Norway and later Britain, it follows a group of Vikings that get their start with a spectacularly lucky win over a troll, and who are now tasked by the local giantess (gygr in old Norse) to combat the sweep of the “interloping god” in Brtiain. They’re about a half century ahead of Harald Fairhair (the first-ish king of Norway) and many of the Scandinavians that will wind up ruling Ireland, and portions of England and Scotland. So…do they wind up footnotes in history? Do their conquests get things rolling for those who come after? Are they, perhaps, forgotten by better PR for Harald? Or do we have our own alternate history where the Harald Thorsson and Trogdor Trollmorder lead the Vikings to triumph over the Britons and Franks? When it’s your own world, it’s up to you and how epic you want your heroes to be.

In spy game or a noir detective game like Blacksad, the hero is often supposed to be unsung in their efforts. Even James Bond, “that British spy — from England” was only “[in]famous” to others in his world. John Wick brings down multiple dark overlords in the movie series, but outside of the (wildly extensive) world of assassins…was he known, at all? In fact, in the ‘80s James Bond: 007 RPG, fame was a negative that could work against you in the field. Part of being a secret agent is the “secret” part. For detectives outside of Hercule Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, you might be known in your industry or particular town but that was about it. You might have moments of fame, like that cop at the Nakatomi Tower, but people have a short memory.

The question of what reach characters should have becomes more tricky in licensed universes like Star Trek or Babylon 5, Lord of the Rings or Alien, for example. In these universes, certain things happen in an order. The hero characters do certain things that are important not just to the plot, but to world around them. For instance, in Lord of the Rings RPG, much of the action happens in the interstices of Tolkein’s history of Middle Earth. You could play a character in the events of The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, but unless you are committed to an alternate universe, you will never save Minas Tirith, destroy the One Ring, etc… Playing Babylon 5 (either the Mongoose version or the odd Chameleon Eclectic version), the events of the show would most likely be playing out in the background. You could play in the corners — maybe fighting the clark regime and linking up with the main characters from the show, you could play a little know human colony fighting on the edges of the Shadow War; you could be a soldier in the actions of the show itself — but you aren’t going to end the war or create the Interstellar Alliance (again, if you aren’t just going for an alternate universe). 

But how far was Ripley’s reach in the Alien francise? She was the last survivor of a doomed ship that almost no one listened to. She saved a few people at LV-426, but if you keep in the universe, all that is summarily undone by Alien 3 and for the most part, she’s had minor influence outside the events of Alien: Resurrection. The world around trundles on. you might be another influential crew in Star Trek, but — again, unless you’re doing an alternate universe — they’ll always be overshadowed by Enterprise or Voyager. That could actually play into how the characters view their game — “Damn it! We saved a race from a computer that was keeping everyone young and healthy, but we got slagged by Starfleet for not providing support after we blew up their computer god.”

So, the notion of reach, or the scale of your game, is a good thing to keep in mind as you design a campaign, be it your own Dungeons & Dragons setting, or your next Ghost in the Shell game (now doing a Backerkit campaign — the system looks intriguing!)

“With great responsibility comes great amounts of complaining.” — Me

Today’s is an interesting prompt. The concept of a character having some kind of burden to carry is typical in most fiction, going waaaaay back. There are a couple of movies dealing with this concepts front and center in the theaters: Spider Man: Brand New Day and the Odyssey. In the first, there’s the weight of being separated from friends to protect them from the enemies that come with doing the superhero thing; the second is the weight of guilt from a decade of war, the burden of having incurred the wrath of the gods, and the burden of command — trying to get your men home. All good beats for drama and character development.

But even every day burdens can be a good foil to a character. What about the responsibilities of family weighed against those of your job? A good example of this is Jerzy Novak — a player character from our Blade Runner campaign. He’s been on the force since before the Blackout, and now 15 years in, he’s on the Rep-Detect Squad. He’s got a wife, a nurse at a city hospital; and a 10 year old son that they are trying to get into an exciting Off-World Development Corporation education program that all but assures a good job and a life Off World. Novak has to balance his work with the LAPD, where — when he’s not retiring “defect product”, he’s subbing in with the Robbery Homicide Division. There’s always a crime, there’s always a court date, there’s always lead or stakeout or or or…

His marriage has been rocky for a while and during play, Novak discovers his son might not be his (biologically) — he and his wife were having issues around that time. He accepts the child as his responsibility, anyway. He tries to rebuild the marriage with his wife, all while juggling a high profile case that has gotten steadily more dangerous. He’s got to miss meetings at work occasionally; he’s got to miss family time, occasionally. It’s not the mythic levels of burden we see in the two previous examples, but it’s the kind of burden that wears just as much, just quietly.

A burden could be a promise made — to a loved one, a dear friend, a patron. The last is a classic for a fantasy character: a king, a patron, a god demands a labor…the penalty for not following this could be the loss of reputation, banishment, imprisonment, the loss of your soul. A more pedestrian one could be breaking the promise to a friend or spouse, parent or child losing you that NPCs support — it’s not earth-shaking, but for those that have lost a loved one over a stupid argument or a series of failures to follow through, it can have a heavy effect on a person. It might not lead to a fight with a big bad; but it could lead to a great emotional through-line for the character.

Picking up a burden that isn’t really yours is a good character beat, as well. One of the best examples of this is Ripley’s taking on Newt in Aliens as a surrogate daughter (made better by a two minute cut scene dealing with Ripley discovering her daughter had recently died, while Ripley was undiscovered in cryo.) She doesn’t have to take on the girl, but she does — and that emotional connection changes her motivation from one pure survival to one of protector. Taking on that apprentice or other responsibility doesn’t just give the GM a pawn to be targeted, if can create the kind of tasks that can interfere with the main story line just in the day-to-day upkeep of that relationship.

Becoming a leader is another example. In Ted Lasso, Roy Kent — the aging football star, is a grouchy, prickly piece of work that wants nothing to do with sorting out his teammates and helping to build them up. Coach Lasso’s use of a Wrinkle in Time to nudge Kent into taking on the responsibilities of team captain lead to a hysterical scene where Kent is reading to his beloved niece and he gets to a passage something like “It has to be me…” Kent tosses down the book with a “faaaaaaaaaaaack” and storms off to set things right (in this case the bullying of the kitman by some of the players) — but not before stopping to his his niece good night and growl when she tells him he said a bad word. Moments like this can really make for a good night at the gaming table.

Being the mentor to another character can also make for good roleplaying. Two of the players’ characters in our Star Trek campaign were fresh out of the academy, and the older characters not only have the responsibility of training them to be the best they can be, but they are legally responsible for the well being. Starfleet is dangerous, and putting these newbies out there to learn their jobs with some level of safety, while letting them make the mistakes they need to learn from, made for an interesting interaction.

The notion of burden for a character is a central character building point — be it the need to avenge your fallen whatever, to follow orders and do your duty, to taking on responsibilities because your the only one that can do it. It doesn’t have to be heavy, but it will always help develop the characters.

Charm is the not-secret weapon of many a character, both hero and villain. The ability to manipulate a person is perhaps the most powerful weapon a person can have in their arsenal. So for this day’s prompt, I decided to roll with a character built as a red herring in an investigation in our Blade Runner campaign. Set in the year 2037, Wallace Corporation has just dropped the first of the Nexus 9s onto the streets of Los Angeles, and one of the characters is a newly minted N-9 that is working in forensics and gets assigned to aid the others in a murder investigation that takes them from the “feelie” studios of Hollywood, to Beverly Hills parties, to the “kipple” outside of town.

To really squick them out, I wanted to have a replicant that was not the average attractive doxie, but something the likes of Hollywood would want to buy: hence Arabella. A Nexus 9, she’s just been bought as a prop/companion/conversation piece for the famed actor Bradley Faire — a man renowned for his ability to pull emotion out of a scene, and for causing scandal off. At a party tracking down a lead, the characters encounter Arabella (N-9/AB6-3.12), a female replicant in the form of a young teenage girl with a gothy aesthetic and clothed in a fetishy-goth style. While this made her profoundly discomfiting, it was the very adult charm mixed with the image of youthful innocence that really got under two of the players’ skins. Where the plight of the replicants was still just part of the plot for them, this really drove home the awfulness of their situation. Even worse was realizing their fellow police officer was probably no older than she was, despite appearances to the contrary.

ARABELLA (N-9/AB6-3.12) while she was written up originally as a “doxie”, I converted her to “siren” under the Replicant Rebellion rules set that dropped this year. For the skills, assume level D (d6) if not listed.

STRENGTH: B (d10) Skills: Hand-to-Hand Combat C (d8); AGILITY: A (d12) Skills: Mobility A; INTELLIGENCE: C Skills all D; EMPATHY: A Skills: Manipulation: A

Health: 7, Resolve: 3

She wound up being somebody they wanted to protect…but she’s not a person; she’s product. During the session, a kill squad attacks the party, and Arabella is obviously terrified and once backed into a corner, murders the crap out of one of the hitmen about to kill one of the PCs in spectacular fashion. However, she is able to convince one of the characters to cover for her. Later, the player admitted he found the character a highly disturbing. Which was the goal.

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Day three on the matrix supposedly deals with “intellect” and the “birthday poem” of Fair of Face. The word: poise /poiz, pwäz/ defined as 1. A centimeter-gram-second unit of dynamic viscosity equal to one dyne-second per square centimeter; 2. Confident composure; self-possession “answered the reporters’ questions with poise.”; 3. Bearing of the body, especially when graceful “a ballerina’s poise.”

I don’t think we need to worry about the viscosity of a character… so composure (day 16) or self-possession (discipline, day 1); or physical grace. Let’s go with the latter.

On this one, I chose a character from an abortive campaign for Legend in the Mist that was to be set in Scotland during the time of the Viking invasions. That campaign has since been supplanted by a Viking campaign set in 800 AD, so this character might well turn up, but as a challenge for the players…who knows?

One of the nice things about the LitM system is the simplicity of character creation. Instead of stats, you have descriptors (or “tags”) that are part of four “themes”. These all contribute a +1 to a roll unless you “scratch” the tag for +3. (Once scratched, it cannot be used until recovered.) So here we have Aisling, one of the seelie — the “fair folk”. She is a creature of sublime beauty and grace who can manipulate people with illusion and charm, but is bored with such a long life, so she’s curious and reckless about her dealings with humans. She is also a target of the unseelie — the corrupted of her kind. The leaf in each theme card is an “origin” level theme, the crossed sword/arrow, “adventurer” level which would give a +3 to tags used vs. an origin-level character. So that would make this a fairly powerful character in the starting, rustic style of Legend in the Mist.

The original plan was for her to be a kind of mentor on the weird things in the world, but a novice to the violence and politics of the human world.