Discuss your characters

I was thinking about playing a Marine. Depnding on your setting... if there's a base in the area it's easy. If there's a base but he needs to be more free, we could always make him a reservist. If there's no base near the town, he can be home on leave.

@Monstersaurus90, sorry about deleting your post, I forgot to lock that thread. Oh my gosh! I didn't even realize that they lacked anything resembling an Educator. Thankfully, the rules swear it's easy to create custom Occupations, so I'll just create an Educator Occupation.

Merivel, I'd go just a tad lighter on your background, no Murder, but that otherwise sounds fine to me! Heck if it was one death that he agonized over that would be okay.

Think about what ties him to Motivation, family? Friends? Also, say he lost the ship to debt collectors, and his old crew found other jobs; no reason to say they can't live there. Just keep in mind that these are level one characters. They might have accomplished a few things, but nothing too major.

MaJunior, I remember that such details were glossed over in those TV shows; until it becomes important, we'll say he lives on Motivation and commutes via ferry. Maybe he lives with an aunt, grandparent, old family friend? Maybe he's married and his wife and kids live there?

One quibble. This is two years post 9/11. To my knowledge, Marines didn't usually stay stateside. However, I know shit about fuck about the military, so if you know of a reason he'd be Stateside, I'd love to hear it (I know that saying is normally antagonistic, but I'm serious, it'd be great to have a reason)

No major Life Accomplishments, he's basically a working dude. It's just that his line of work is on the not-entirely-legal side. As for the murder, I was kinda envisioning something like the occasional shoot-out between rival crews, or a deal gone sour, not exactly something he would agonise over. Imagine him as a low-tier mobster, but on the water.

I'm fine with him having lost the ship. I don't actually want him to have had deep ties to Motivation to start with, more like building them now? He's looking for a nice, quiet place to start over, maybe buy a new boat, he's struck a few friendships already, maybe even with some of the other PCs.

The vast majority of Marines (well, our military in general) are always stateside.

Merivel: You know what? As long as you can stick the landing, and make a character that would fit smoothly into a TV show like Charmed or even Everwood, and have bonds that tie him to Motivation, I don't care how we get there.

Also, I do like the idea of him living on a house boat, or just in a boat, Like Miami Vice. Let me see how much that might cost and if he could afford it, unless you hate the idea.

MaJunior: Well, shows what I know. Cool!

House boat, I love it! I'm imagining it a bit like a banged up trailer, but floating.

And don't worry, I'm not gonna go lone wolf on you.

A small question, do our characters start already knowing each other? Sorry if I missed it somewhere!

FlyingSucculent, only if you want to. The first scenario will basically force you all together.

@EugeneGM What would you recommend for Alfie's occupation? Is it possible to not have one? None of the listed occupations seem particularly appropriate for a high school student hahah :P

Oopsylon: Ah, while one might try to argue for any of them, here are my list of suggestions, with my personal favorites in bold.

Blogger: Listen, I don't know how Bloggers actually make their money, but I know more than a few LiveJournal writers who did just that in their teens.
Cult Member: Doesn't sound like a match for your character honestly, but, hey, anyone can become a member of a cult
Laborer Unskilled Laborer. Fry chef, waiter, sales clerk, shelf stocker, barista, you name it. The go to for teen employment.
Model: Maybe your character models? They could be generically attractive, modeling shirts and pants for Sears or some such thing.
Photographer: Peter Parker did it? Jimmy Olsen as well.
Institutionalized: Okay, stick with me. Despite what you might think, this one isn't an always institutionalized, just a sometimes thing. Maybe the luck thing has really taken its toll. There ARE mental institutions you kind of spend the weekend at, especially at a Summer Colony. Maybe you're in and out of rehab. Maybe you get arrested a ton for little things that aren't your fault. Anyways, this might work.
Vigilante: How is this a job? I don't know, ask the game designers, but Kick-ass was a teen, as was Spider-Man and Superboy. So, unlucky teen by day, LUCKMAN by night. Or just, ASKING DRUNK PEOPLE IF THEY NEED TO TAKE IT OUTSIDE MAN. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

A question about the backgrounds - I'm using the game info page as a reference for the character creation, and it says there that backgrounds give 4 points to be assigned to skills related to that backgrounds. However the Backgrounds forum thread says 6+ INT modifier. Which one is it?

Thanks for the suggestions! Laborer seems the most obvious choice (no idea how I missed it hahah), but I like your take on Institutionalised. Alfie’s life has been very unstable and pretty traumatic thanks to his ‘powers’, so it makes sense that he’d be expected to spend quite a lot of time in therapy… I suppose it could also be argued that high school itself is an ‘institution’ of sorts :P

When in doubt, use the rules listed here. 6+INT MOD

How do you want us to assign stats? Roll or what?

This game uses the standard d20 ability scores, and you get 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 at character gen. All characters at the start of the game are humans; as such, you increase one score by +2, and two others by +1 each. These cannot be the same score. You may also select a score to receive a -2 to increase two other scores by +2. As before, none of these may be the same scores, meaning you will potentially have three scores with +2, two scores with +1, and one score with a -2.

I've been working on the sheet, and now I have a skill question! Or rather, multiple skill questions.

- How interchangeable are skills? For example, Composure and Resolve - can I use one in place of the other during the game? Or is Composure just for social things, while Resolve is more for supernatural? Similarly, if I'm writing a speech (in a language character knows), can I use Writing instead of Linguistics? Same for Endurance/Resistance and Leadership/Presence, can they interchange?

- I don't understand Wits. The description of "acting on emotions" - isn't it basically Taunting/Persuasion? In what situation would one use Wits over something else? I always thought of Wits as what is Cleverness here, hence the confusion. XD

- Maneuvering. What kind of maneuvering? There are already Tactics for command and Vehicle Op for vehicles, and dodging is covered by Reflexes. An example would be nice!

- Also, is Streetwise supposed to be Charisma-based? No objection here, I just usually usually see it in other games as Intelligence or Wisdom.