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Alex is a Diplomat archetype.
It's getting really hard to come up with Paths and backgrounds for all these characters. I have a set of 14 now, but haven't posted them all because of that.
Slaintè,
Q
Another fresh Character. I felt like making a Saboteur.
Slaintè,
Q
Here's ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
blimix's character, James. I had considerable trouble back-adapting him, what with all of his Nuances, Familiarities, and such. I had to drop a Path (which I can pick up when I redo him for Pace 3) and I added the Pack Rat Nuance, dropping Ambidextrous.
Slaintè,
Q
Here is my attempt to reverse engineer Mark's Character, Drake. The current play group began at Pace 3, so it was a little difficult to guess what Mark might have chosen to do for Pace 1. I think I've kept the flavor of Drake by taking all of his original Nuances, rather than dropping some to conserve BP, and keeping the higher PL Abilities as the higher PL Abilities.
Slaintè,
Q
Gemini grew out of a need to show a character with a Core "Ability" of Knowledge and what could be done with it. I'm still not sure how useful Knowledges are going to be. So far, I think they have served us pretty well in the game. There have been several times when Mark (a physicist) has suggested approaches that his Character Drake (a pugilist) would have no clue about, but that blimix's Character James, with Knowledge of physics, would have some inkling of. That has saved the team time that would have been spent researching Mark's suggestion, even assuming they would have thought of it. Also, assuming Knowledge associated with Abilities seems to flow pretty naturally, too.
In building Gemini, I noticed that I had priced the Knowledges a bit too cheaply, in an effort to balance their perceived uselessness. I have thence increased the costs slightly in the manual (in case you are trying to recreate these Characters for some reason).
Slaintè,
Q
If it seems like I'm churning these out quickly, I'm not really. I've had a few lined up, in concept at least, for a while now. Gabrielle "G-Spot" Hudson was one I dreamed up last year when I thought I'd be running at Genericon XXI. I wanted a Hotshot character, and she turned out to have several similarities to kattw's Sebastian.
Slaintè,
Q
I have a best friend. And who doesn't, really, best being relative. But my best friend Scott has been my best friend since I was fourteen or fifteen. We met when I was thirteen, I think, through our mutual friend Jeremy (from whom Scott eventually usurped best friend status. But that's okay, because Jeremy had usurped best friend status from Daryl not too long before. So it goes.). There was some friction at first, as is often the case when one person brings together two friends from different circles. But we rather quickly formed a tight trio. There was much to learn on both sides of the triangle. Jeremy and I had our pet pastimes; so did he and Scott. It was fun and exciting and sometimes a little boring exploring each other's worlds, seeing what we all liked to do together. Your typical adolescent role play was a hit, as were movies, comics, music, video games, and food. Playing with Star Wars figures, not so much. I just never got into that.
I was always fascinated by Scott's imagination. He was often the driving force behind our roleplaying. He had the ideas for the plots. He had the ideas for the settings. He always had to be Luke when we three played Star Wars, though. And Jeremy had to be Han, so that left me with Chewie, or Lando, or even Biggs. Never Obi Wan or Leia, though. Kids. But in rural south Louisiana, a white boy pretending to be Lando was a pretty big cultural stretch.
Eventually, around age fifteen, we developed enough trust that he let me in on his big secret: he was creating a TV show. And what a world he had invented. We sat for hours one night while he unfolded the grand setting he had been working on since he was eleven or so. The Tales of the Teppups (now known only as the Usari) would have it all: science fiction, girls, action, sex, adventure, sex with girls. We were fifteen for pete's sake. But the setting captivated me the most, along with the intricately plotted backstory, taking a small team of humans across the galaxy to topple an empire. Story arcs fit for three or four years of twenty episode seasons, all linked together coherently. And this was well before Babylon 5, mind you. At some point he or Jeremy must have suggested we try playing in that world, and "doing Us" was born. That's what we called it, or little code. "C'mon, let's go do Us." Us, because, as you might guess, we weren't playing Star Wars characters, or Indiana Jones, or James Bond. We were just us, on a grand adventure to rescue the girls and defeat Relnek once again.
We eventually stopped this freeform LARPing, more for lack of time than anything else. There was work, then college in another state, then internships, graduate school, and careers in yet more states. Scott never made his Tales into a TV show, but the dream has always been there, on the back burner. His Ibsenian life lie. But through it all, we've kept close, seeing each other only every three years or so on the winter vacation rotation. Of all my old friends, he is the only one who I still have things in common with, who I can carry on an hour long conversation about nothing with. We still have congruent tastes, we still manage to introduce each other to new things, to surprise each other and comfort each other.
So, what is the imminent excitement to which I alluded in the subject line? For the last several years Scott has become increasingly disgruntled with life in the South. He chafes at the conservative attitudes of his peers, the small minded injustices that persist to this day. He has made noises often about moving here, but has never followed through, even coming to the point of making plans for packing and transport once and backing out, succumbing to the fear of change that can easily overcome the financially insolvent. My (secret) attitude has been, "I'll believe him when he walks through my door."
But, that may all soon change. I just talked to him a few days ago and he has officially not renewed his apartment lease, which ends March 28, and apprised his boss of his plans. The current plan is for him to stay two or three months with his parents after that, to save some dough and get rid of items he can't really travel with, then head up here in the summer, cramming his life into his car. I'm getting excited, but at the same time, I'm waiting for the hammer to fall. I can hear the excitement in his voice, though, coupled with apprehension. After all, this isn't exactly the best time to pull up roots, even as tenuous as his, and move to a new location without the clear prospect of a job waiting for you. He'll stay here with us while he job hunts and looks for an apartment. Of the whole venture, that aspect is the one we most fear going sour. I have no illusions; I love Scott, but I have always known I could never live with him for long. While our tastes are congruent, our day-to-day lives are not very. I worry most about the stress on Heather. She's a very solitary person, and when she's stressed she wants nothing more than to retreat to her cave and not deal with people. Just having visitors for christmas was enough to give her a fit, after coming out of several killer weeks at work. And Scott will be moving up here right about the time she switches over to the new job at GE's new fabrication plant in RPI's tech park. There's enough stress with that, without extended company. But hey, it was her idea in the first place that he move up here. 'Course, that was like five years ago.
Anyway, that's my excitement that I'm trying to quell. I just don't want to be disappointed again. My faux-bro is coming to town and I can't wait to show him around.
Q
Here’s another sample character. This one was Bill Katt’s baby.
Slaintè,
Q
Here is another sample character, Daishon Philips.
I'm not perfectly happy with his Habits and Tenets, but maybe Dan can suggest some improvements. Dai was his baby.
Slaintè,
Q
Two Cops Walk Into a Bar…
A Gameplay Demo in Narrative Form
Three gibbous moons, purple-white, deep green, and coal black, hung above the Solidumai skyline. The night air was blowing cold, whistling around the corners of the tightly-packed buildings of the southern sector of the city. Warehouses, shops, and small businesses all nestled in with restaurants and bars to service the daily influx of labor. A few of the high rise buildings had apartments on the top floors, but mostly this was a place people came to work, not live. PPC Officers Martha Zinkowski and Jefferson Leeds had walked all over town that morning, following lead after dead-end lead for several numbing hours. Finally, after a brief lunch, they stumbled across someone who might be able to put them in contact with someone else who may be able to give them a line on the notorious Redrumio’s current whereabouts. Maybe.
Their contact, a Trillid named Rak, had finally gotten back to them only a few hours ago, telling them to meet another Trillid named Barq at the Crimson Plowshare in Southside at eight o’clock. They were, of course, to come alone. They conceded to this typical demand. At least, they told each other, they would arrive alone. Rak’s timeliness had given them enough time to get a few plainclothes backups in place at the bar. Specifically, non-human backups. Everyone who could recognize a human on sight knew they all worked for the PPC, even if they didn’t know why. That made it hard to get work done sometimes, but the clever ones used it to their advantage. Most of the underworld believed the humans ran in packs.
As they rounded the corner that would take them onto Klipp street where the Ploughshare was located, an especially stiff gust of wind ploughed into them. “Shit, they got some cold wind on this planet, Mat,” said Jefferson. He zipped up the jacket of his plainclothes working outfit — trousers and jacket over one of his favorite T-shirts. The trousers and jacket looked like denim jeans and a leather bomber, but a practiced eye could see they hung and moved slightly more stiffly than usual. Under-layered with a special thermal-superconducting fabric, the ensemble could protect him from a few hits of blaster fire, as long as he didn’t take any in the face. They could even absorb a small bit of physical damage from more mundane weapons.Mat wore a similar ensemble, though the jeans were slightly less hip and frayed and the black blazer she wore covered a thin lavender sweater. “I keep telling you to dress warmer at night, Jeff. You’ll learn. Now, tac up,” she said, tapping her glasses, “And check your weapons.” Mat removed her tactical set — a pair of stylish and surprisingly clear sunglasses — and wiped the lenses. She keyed her WristComm active and entered the command to darken the glasses. Instantly they went completely black — useful for blocking the light of a flash grenade. She then put the glasses back on, subvocalizing the command to make them gradually lighten back to clear. “Voice pickup seems good in the wind.”
“’Course it is,” she heard Jeff reply over the link. “Bone conduction, remember?” Speakers and microphones built into the arms of the glasses transmitted and detected sound directly to and from the skull above the ear. “Right,” she drawled. Smartass, she thought. The boy was good with technology, though his casual dress, sloppy posture and a permanent look of belligerence in his eyes belied his intelligence. She looked over at Jeff, who was checking his Stunner. It disappeared into its shoulder holster, a holonet model designed with active camouflage that blended it easily into the background of his black T-shirt. And the bomber jacket hid the tell-tale bulge that the holonet could not. A similar sheath on his right thigh housed a Stun Baton. She thought he was taking a risk with that. Without the added concealment of the jacket, even the slim line of the baton might be noticed by a careful observer.
Mat’s tac-set overlaid a HUD on her vision. Jeff’s name and vitals displayed over his shoulder. Weather conditions and air quality readings showed in the upper corners of her vision. The tac-set was linked to her WristComm, which was in turn linked to her Healer unit. With the WristComm as a central hub, information was relayed from its own multiphasic sensors to both the healer and tac-set, and from both of those to the others. She keyed up a small window displaying the view from Jeff’s glasses, then shut it down. It was too distracting. “Your feed is coming through strong,” she said. Mat checked her own Stunner — standard issue sidearm for the PPC — and the hold out Wasp at her ankle. Both were active and functioning. “Alright, let’s get moving. We want to be late, but not that late.”
“Right,” said Jeff. “I’m good.” They walked the last hundred yards in silence, quietly scanning the street and alleys for signs of hidden danger. Their WristComm scanners easily showed them any living creatures or people behind the walls they passed, even giving them best guesses on species. They could see a rough layout of any rooms, and any furnishings larger than about a foot long. But no one suspicious seemed to be following them.They entered the Ploughshare at 8:02, just late enough not to seem eager, and perambulated toward the bar. Even having visited over a dozen bars in his short time as an active Journeyman, Jeff was still amazed at not being carded. It wasn’t that the bar’s owners knew all humans were cops here, though that might be true. It was that, in the eyes of the Galactic Union, he was past the age of majority, even at seventeen. He still felt a thrill as they passed through an area of small tables peopled with an even cross-section of the Union’s citizens. Not that he hadn’t been in any bars back on Earth. Quite the opposite. But the sounds and smells here, though similar, were still slightly alien. The music playing softly over the speaker system was eerie, using a strange scale system that sounded like it might have more than eight notes in an “octave”. And the mingled body odors of seven different species left an acrid taste in the back of his throat. But alcohol smelled like alcohol, no matter what you distilled it from.
As they got closer to the bar Jeff noticed most of the patrons stared at them as they walked by, some with malice, most with curiosity. Humans were still quite the novel species here. At the bar they ordered drinks and turned around to survey the room. Their scanners picked put the three well-spaced backup Officers from their neural tracer signals — a Kalen named Chzrli, and two Trillids named Korn and Peez. Jeff supposed they must get teased a lot for that, then remembered barely anyone spoke English. He didn’t recognize their names, but they were experienced enough to know not to stare at their targets.
Even having been off Earth for several months now, Jeff still couldn’t quite get his mind behind the Kalens and Trillids. Mostly it was a pronoun thing; he had trouble categorizing them. Kalens were asexual, but he couldn’t think of them as “it”s anymore than he could think of a cat or dog that way. When someone had a definite personality, whether they were sapient or not, he thought of them as either “he” or “she”. With the Kalens he had met, it took a while to notice, but there was always a definite gender bias; eventually they solidified as male or female to him. But in the mean time, he never knew how to refer to them. Sure they had their own asexual pronouns in their own language — “li” for singular, “lish” for plural — but he hadn’t gotten used to those yet, though he supposed he would. Mostly, he just referred to them as “yo”, something he had picked up in his time on the streets of Baltimore. It could be used for many things — too many things maybe to make it into mainstream usage, but one of the more useful was as a genderless pronoun.
The Trillids were just as bad, if not worse. They had three sexes. He wasn’t sure he wanted to find out just how that worked. In formal classification, they were referred to as alpha- (a-), beta- (b-), and gamma- (g-) Trillids, but using those as pronouns seemed just as forced to him, as was trying to remember all the pronouns of their native language (they had one for each sex, singular and plural, as well as one for each possible plural combination of sexes). So, it was back to “yo” again.
Mat leaned against the bar and seemed half asleep, but when the drinks arrived, she took Jeff’s. “On duty, kid. It’s fizzy fruit juice for you.” She slid her own drink over to him. The Union might have pretty liberal ideas about the age of responsibility, but no seventeen year old kid was going to drink alcohol in her presence. She’d made that mistake once too often on her first tour nearly ten years ago and wasn’t about to let someone else nearly ruin his career. “I think I see our contact in the far corner. Come on.”
“How can you tell?” asked Jeff, frowning at his drink. He hated these alien juices and Mat knew it. Damned mother hen.“After a while you’ll pick up on the different details that mark individuals of any species.” Mat began to thread her way between the tables to the back corner of the bar. Why always the back corner? “Besides, she’s pretty much the only person staring at us now, and definitely the only Trillid.” She. Call it sexist, but Mat couldn’t help referring to the lithe g-Trillids as females. They were like supermodels, svelte and flat-chested and just a bit too haughty. Of course they were “she”s. Besides, it was better than Jeff’s ridiculous “yo”. “Are you Barq?” she asked in Usarian as they reached their quarry. She had never bothered to learn any of the galaxy’s other languages; Usarian was tough enough.
“Yes, I am Barq.” The gamma blinked; her too-human eyes were incongruous. Her face looked like Dr. Moreau had crossed a frog and a dog. She wore a loose garment — part robe, part overalls — covered in loose flaps of fabric mimicking autumn leaves. “And you are officers Martha Zinkowski and Jefferson Leeds, correct.” She didn’t pause for an answer, but gestured at the empty seats across from her. “I have information you want. Please remove your tactical sets.”
That request startled Mat. Not the politeness of it, but the directness. These tac-sets were still pretty new. This Trillid was connected. Jeff glanced at Mat before sitting down, raising his eyebrows as he removed his tac-set, folded it and hung it on his breast pocket by one of the arms. She had to give the kid his props; he could be clever. Now his tac-set’s camera was in a great position to record the whole conversation. She wondered if Barq realized that. Mat put her own set away in a pocket and sat down. “Okay Barq. What have you got for us?” she asked, putting her unsipped drink down on the table.“I have a message for you from Master Redrumio,” Barq replied. “He would like you to desist in your investigation.” Four a-Trillids, who had been sitting at the table behind Barq stood up and surrounded the three of them. They were short but broad and strong, and wore the utilitarian grey overalls of day laborers. Two flanked Barq and two flanked Mat and Jeff. So we weren’t the only ones to bring backup, thought Mat. Stupid, thought Jeff.
Mat leaned back in her chair and played with her drink, allowing her blazer to pucker open over her Stunner. “Is that so, Barq. And here I though we were going to be friends.”
“Your sarcasm is misplaced Officer Zinkowski. I have only your safety in mind. Master Redrumio is a most formidable opponent. You could be hurt.” Barq looked pointedly at Jeff then retook Mat’s gaze. “You could be killed.”
Jeff lurched forward in his seat toward Barq, slamming the table and yelling in English, “Look yo! Don’t threaten…”
The four goons shifted from their at-ease stances to ones of at-the-brink-of-murder. Barq sat motionless, unamused. Mat grabbed Jeff’s shoulder and eased him back into his chair. Why is he always so hot-headed? “Easy, Jeff,” she said, maintaining Usarian. “Let’s hear what our new friend has to say.”
Jeff relaxed and readjusted his jacket. “Alright,” he snapped. “Say your piece Barq.” In English he said, “Yo stoney!” making it sound like a curse while throwing up his hands as though frustrated. Let yo think he was rattled.Barq gestured to her entourage and they relaxed again. “Peace, officer Leeds. I have a proposition for you. As I said, Master Redrumio would like you to remove yourselves from this investigation. It is my task to persuade you.”
“And just how do you propose to do that?” said Jeff.
“I would first try reason,” said Barq. “You have very little evidence linking Master Redrumio to your list of crimes — all of it quite circumstantial. You are driven more by a mass PPC vendetta than by any sense of justice.”
“Oh right. Like you would understand justice,” interrupted Jeff. “How can letting Redrumio walk away from countless murders serve justice?”Barq paused for a moment then spoke directly to Mat. “Officer Zinkowski, perhaps the wisdom of your experience will prevail here. Surely you see the futility of your search, scrabbling for tiny, inconsequential clues and links, like mice after crumbs of cheese. There are doubtless more pressing concerns awaiting your attention; ones that could be wrapped up more quickly and satisfyingly.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m pretty good at multitasking,” replied Mat. She shifted her weight forward a little onto her legs and rested her hand on the table. “Even now I’m investigating someone for obstruction of justice.” Barq bristled at the unspoken accusation. As much as a hairless overgrown frog can bristle. “I see,” she said. “Master Redrumio said you would be somewhat recalcitrant. I had no idea you would also be so foolish.” She gestured to her goons. “You will accompany us now to a more private location.”As the goons moved to grab them, Mat threw her left shoulder into the nearest of her pair, knocking him back a few steps as she came out of her chair. She then pivoted slightly, putting all of her weight into a massive uppercut as she stood up into the second goon’s path.
Jeff was a little slower off the mark. As he was reaching into his jacket for his Stunner, the nearest of the goons on his side of the table grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out of his chair. The second goon pulled Jeff’s hand from his jacket, squeezing his wrist so he dropped his Stunner. He spilled onto the floor, escaping their grasps but wrenching his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Barq stood and backed away from the table, drawing a blaster. She hesitated for a moment, though, waiting for a clear shot at Mat.
Not wasting time to draw her Stunner, Mat spun around to face her first goon and stepped into a forward kick that threw him back several feet to crash into and over the table behind. A blur of motion in the corner of her eye alerted Mat to a bull rush from the goon behind her. She threw herself forward, rolling away from the attack.
Having dropped his Stunner, and not being as much of a fighter as Mat, Jeff was in a tight spot. He chose discretion. Still stumbling from being wrenched out of his chair, Jeff turned his forward motion into a roll, bringing himself up against a nearby table as he drew his Stun Baton from its sheath.
As Mat dived away from her attackers, Barq saw her opening and fired at Mat, scoring a blistering hit on the seat of her pants. Though embarrassing, Mat’s protective trousers easily absorbed the blast, and she finished her dodge safely, drawing her blaster as she stood. Her buttocks were already tingling and she knew they’d be numb for a few seconds from the stunning effects of the Blaster shot.By now the three backup PPC Officers had gotten up and moved into position. Coordinating themselves through their WristComm links, they each fired at Barq. Three brilliant red-purple plumes of plasma shot toward the Trillid, expanding quickly as they left the guns’ muzzles to the diameter of a large pizza. The shots struck home. The first enveloped Barq’s left leg, causing a stutter in her step. The second two splashed across her chest. She spasmed briefly. Realizing she was outflanked, Barq dived under her table, overturning it.
Meanwhile, Jeff had recovered his balance and composure. He leaped to engage his nearest attacker with a hard baton attack, but the goon simply laughed as he swatted the baton away. Jeff’s second goon attacked him from behind, attempting to get him in a bear hug and forcing Jeff to dodge away again. Jeff dropped to the floor and rolled under the table, only to collide with the incoming Barq.
Mat managed to land a shot on one of her goons before they both closed on her. The glowing plasma cast eerie shadows across his face as it poured around his chest, slowing him for a moment as his chest muscles stuttered. The second goon bore down on her, but she stepped aside, guiding his incoming fist past her and pushing his face into the table behind. As the one she shot finally closed on her, she spun around the back of the other and danced back out of harm’s way.Now that Jeff was out of the way, Chzrli saw her opening and tossed an Adhesive grenade behind his attackers, fixing them in place, along with a few of the establishments less fearful and more voyeuristic customers. Some of the sticky goo shot between the goons and onto Jeff and Barq, struggling under the table. Since Mat was still a little too close to her attackers, Korn and Peez fired their Stunners at them instead of risking a grenade of any kind.
Under the table Jeff wrestled with Barq for her blaster. The thin spray of adhesive from the grenade behind them blew across Jeff’s back harmlessly, but caught Barq on the left side of her face, startling her. Her weapon discharged between them, impacting only on the underside of the table, but the blowback from the blast engulfed their heads mildly burning them both. But the blast caused Barq to flinch enough for Jeff to remove the weapon from her grasp.
Sensing that the battle was not going their way, the two goons who had been attacking Mat glanced at each other, nodded once, and ran. Heading away from each other in a rough V, and at a sort of half-Sprint because of the many obstacles, they headed toward the front door, dodging tables and cringing customers, hoping to get out of range of the PPC’s Stunners. They overturned tables and kicked people out of their paths, but while their antics made them more difficult to hit, Korn and Chzrli managed to score on the leftmost goon.The two stuck goons, having taken the grenade blast from behind, still had the use of their hands. They drew blasters from inside their jumpers and fired at Jeff, who took the blasts in his lower back and thigh. Jeff disentangled himself and tossed Barq’s blaster far out of reach, while Mat spun and fired at the rightmost of her erstwhile attackers, hitting him in the legs. Barq, taking advantage of the blaster fire on Jeff, jumped up and made a dash for the back door, behind the bar.
The two fleeing goons managed to crash through the exterior doors, but not before taking three more hits from the backup Officers. Jeff’s two goons, still stuck in the adhesive film tried to give the fleeing Trillids cover fire, but the backup Officers just ignored the shots, letting their armored clothing soak up the damage.
Jeff screamed, “Barq’s away!” and dashed after her. Hearing Jeff’s scream, Mat whirled and fired her Stunner at Barq, but missed.
Jeff was just a bit faster than Barq, and was slowly closing on her, but he knew she would get out the door before he reached her. Pulling a Slime grenade from the mini bandolier at the bottom of his shoulder holster, he tossed it in front of Barq. It exploded on impact, covering a six yard swath right in her path. Mat was running now, too, firing her Stunner as she went, but the shot went wide as Barq hit the slime and lost her footing. Crashing into the bar at full speed, she took the brunt of the crash on her temple.Peez and Korn set off after the fleeing goons, while Chzrli turned her attention to the ones stuck to the floor. They had tossed down their Blasters and placed their hands on their heads. Chzrli moved over to their position, careful to avoid contact with the nearly invisible film, and removed a small canister of releasing agent from her belt.
Jeff ran up to the edge of the slime field, as transparent as the adhesive one, getting as close to Barq as possible. “I think yo out,” he reported as he began to apply the coagulating agent that would counteract the slipperiness in a matter of seconds. “Looks like yo still breathing, though,” he said to Mat as she joined him. Barq was crumpled against the bar, arms and legs splayed at odd angles and a bit of drool escaping her partly opened lips.
Mat surveyed the bar scene. The customers who had ducked and covered were starting to poke their heads out now. A few were even applauding. Chzrli was restraining the two stuck goons before removing the adhesive around their feet. Two minor annoyances had probably gotten away from Korn and Peez, but they had managed to capture an apparently important mouthpiece of Redrumio. With any luck they would be able to get some useful information from her. At the very least, they would have a recording of most of their encounter. “A good night’s work, kid,” she said, patting Jeff on the back. “Let’s wrap ‘em up and get some rest.”Okay, now in the News:
Genericon XXII
I'll be attending Genericon at RPI again this year, and I'll even, god help me, be running an SftS game. Chindi (the title of the session) is in Slot 6 (Saturday night), unfortunately alongside one of Tau's SA games and's D&D game, either of which I would have loved to attend. But, that leaves me free to attend 's Sidearm game in Slot 5 and his SA game in Sunday's last slot, plus tau's Sunday SA game in the morning slot. I've been hoping to see Tau's take on SA for a couple of years now. Woo hoo! Back to back Sufficiently Advanced. My head may explode.
I will be discontinuing posting at the SftS development community. There just hasn't been enough activity lately to warrant it, so I'll just deal with that stuff here. One stop shopping at its best. I won't kill the community, so we don't lose the information (FYI, Livejournal does not support the ability to export comments to journal entries, only the entries themselves. Their clever workaround? Print them out. Yay.).
Also, I'm closing in on the end of a narrative gameplay demo. I had Heather begin reading the manuscript and, being not an RPGer, she found a few flaws in the early bits. Mainly, she got confused and bewildered by the plethora of Abilities descriptions and was left mainly with the question of "Why the hell do I care?" So, she requested a demo that highlighted some of the main mechanics so she could see why having a +1 Situational Modifier would be a good thing. Genius, I thought. I will post the text of that demo separately. We also decided to place the copious descriptions of the Abilities in a latter chapter, making it easier for the reader to flow through The Measure of Man into Character Genesis. I'll probably move them to Deep in the Life after the Aliens Revisited section.
