So, earlier this week I became even older than I have been before, and was given some cash to celebrate. Of course I did the responsible thing with my money and blew most of it on TTRPG books.
New additions to my collection are Danger Gal Dossier for Cyberpunk Red, Building Better Worlds for the Alien RPG, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide for 4th Edition D&D.
From a quick look through each; Danger Gal Dossier looks to be a useful collection of NPCs, not just stat blocks, but personalities and organisations. I look forward to giving the NPC creation guidelines. bash in my proper look through. Building Better Worlds is for anyone who wants to play Newt’s family. As I got the PDF before the hardcopy arrived I have been messing about with the planet and colony creation tables and they’re a fun mini game, more on that in the longer write up. And the 4e DMG seems to be laid out pretty well and have some decent advice for running the game.
Getting the 4e DMG also means I have one from each edition now. 1st, 2nd (revised), 3.0, 4th, and 5th.
I also grabbed a few Magic the Gathering D&D art cards. i don’t play MTG, but these make great bookmarks and are just the right price to hit the free postage threshold on one site I order from.
Last Wednesday of the month, so it’s time for the last Ailen character of the challenge. Presenting Pvt. Pike, an AWS program Automatic Rifleman.
As with previous entries for this game, here’s a quote from the man hmself.
Yes, I am an AWS soldier, does that change your opinion? I was created to do a job and I do it well. I do it very well, and I want you to let me know if anyone says otherwise.
Henn? I get on with her. One would almost think she was a result of the program with her personality. I trust her with my life, which is not something I say of many.
Derrick on the other hand. I will never be able to understand these nat-borns who just slob around in a dead end job like that and are happy with it.
Pike here is a very cold genetically engineered killer. As evidenced by the very low Empathy stat. He may have a rank in the command skill, but anyone would be wary about following his orders.
Again an easy character to build, the usual drop points here, some there, pick a thing from this list. Then a couple of tweaks for the Artificial Womb Soldier program and you’re done. I will definitely be checking out more Free League games after this.
And the name? Yeah this is my worst one. When reading AWS troops are named after weapons I couldn’t resist naming him after Private Pike from Dad’s Army.
Wow, nineteen days into this. So today, being a Wednesday, is for Alien. Today we have Pvt. Henn, a USCMC Rifleman.
And to hear from Henn Herself.
Volunteer? With these rations? Ha. Nah, it was either this or prison, half thinking some of those prison planets would have been nicer than some of the shitholes we’ve been deployed to.
Fuck it, at least they give me a gun and point me at people they don’t mind me killing.
Pike’s a good guy, cold, but I appreciate that he doesn’t judge me on the shit I’ve done. I don’t much care where he’s from.
Now, Eriksson, that asshole thinks he can tell us… tell me what to do? He ain’t even marine corps. We could, y’know, lose him while we’re out there…if you catch my meaning.
Another really straightforward build. This time using added material from the Colonial Marine Operations Manual. This added a bunch of gear, new talents and character options, including the Prison or Marines background rolled here. All of which add up to a character that really suits a more combat focussed campaign.
And yeah, Henn is named for Carrie Henn who played Newt in Aliens.
Wednesday again, this challenge is starting to rush past. Alien again for today’s game, for this we have Derrick, a Roughneck.
And the character stuff.
I work the refinery, yeah. Well, I did until they found whatever it was the other week. Nah, I didn’t ask, you know how that always goes. Still the checks keep coming in and it gives me more time to knock back a few Aspens and work in that land yacht me and a few of the guys are building from spare parts.
Eriksson’s a pretty decent guy, I wasn’t expecting him to be as pleasant being a corp and all, but he definitely seems like he’s on our side.
Henn? Don’t trust her. Yeah, shitty background I know, same as a lot of people, same as me, not an excuse. I’ve met a lot like that, I wouldn’t trust any of them with a knife let alone give them a rifle and send them off to trouble spots.
For this one I decided to go with the typical working class labourer similar to the crew in Alien. And yeah the name’s a play on him being a refinery worker.
Day five, and it’s a Wednesday which means it’s Free League’s Aliens RPG today. Also there’s going to be a change to the original daily plan from today, just to Wednesdays and Thursdays which I’ll detail below. But before anything else here’s today’s character; Eriksson, a Company Agent.
Whilst the character sheet is great for the numbers side of the game, there’s not much room for anything personality related beyond the key words/phrases/names so I’ll add a bit of that below.:
“I’m who the company sends in when they want someone to get the job done. No emotional attachments, that’s the instruction every time, and they know that’s what they’ll get from me. You don’t want someone taking months to get here on a ship and then taking the employees’ side.
The others? Derrick’s a good solid worker, does what he’s contracted to do. Having someone like him close is a good way to gauge the mood in the general workforce, to see which way the wind’s blowing. Then if I need to change something, well, he’s a good avenue of influence.
Pike on the other hand… lets just say I find those vat grown bios difficult to read and understand, and they tend to be unpredictable. I have half a sneaking suspicion they were intended to replace us. Still, it’s not like the company thinks much of them either, After all we’re still being produced and they’re not.”
Well, this was a pleasant surprise. The sheet’s clear and fairly minimal yet still covers everything you need. The system for character creation is great, put 10 points here (plus a few more if synthetic), stick point 14 here, pick a couple of things over there, give ’em a name.. done. And there you have a character that feels like they fit in the Alien universe.
Eriksson was a product of a quick flick through the book and the thought of how could I make someone like Burke worse, and the answer was to combine him with Ash. The ultimate company man.
The others mentioned in the passage above and on the buddy/rival part of the sheet are characters for later in the month where I’ll be returning to this game. I’ve already got them planned out and they’re relationships with each other.
Oh and his name? Well the films’ androids were Ash, Bishop, Call, David… (Until Covenant fucked the pattern with Walter) so I went with an E name. And Sony Ericsson made Android phones.
As for the change to the planned days that I mentioned. Originally I was going to split Wednesdays between Alien and Blades in the Dark. However both of those systems having things that link the characters (buddy/rival in Alien, Crew in BitD) I thought they needed more than two characters each to explore this. So Wednesdays will be Alien, Thursdays will be BitD, and Friday’s will be a mix of the throwback stuff I’d planned for Thursdays originally and the free games I’d always planned for that day.
Three Kobolds With A Trench Gun 