Well, we don't have to do everything right now.

As for Animal Training, I'd like that to be one of her Decent skills since that's pretty specialized, and I'd like you to choose the type of animal, like Dogs or Horses.  What I'd like to avoid is something generic like Animal Friend or something like that, since animals mostly regard human beings as dangerous or two-legged Happy Meals.  The natural world is quite a bit more hostile than it used to be.  If you decide that she has an animal companion, I'm thinking it would be about as capable as Mad Max's dog, ie useful but not stealing the show.  Let's steer clear of trained ferrets stealing everything.

As for daily life skills, I'm sure you'll have some ideas later on.

So, I think that having her speak both English and Spanish would be completely reasonable, and Apache too if you like.

So far no one else has applied, and I notice that the dates of other GM Wanted threads aren't updating either.  If no other folks apply in a couple of days, I'll put up a Players Wanted ad in the hopes they'll see it, or even gain some new interest.

Identity:

Name: Yollie Guevara
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Handedness: Right Dominant
Height: Short
Weight: Lithe
Age: 20

Description: Yollie stands about 5'5" tall and is thin enough to suit her small frame. She is not what would be considered "unhealthy" although her mother sure seems to think so. She has deep green eyes and well-tanned, smooth skin. Her hair, however, through no explanation or family trait is a platinum-blonde. She keeps her bangs cut tight in a straight line across her forehead, allowing the longer length in the back to be put up in a wild fashion with metal pins.

She dresses practically, favoring mobility and speed over anything bulky or made to impress. She often wears fatigue pants that had been hand-me-downs, many times stiched over and repaired as well as a wool-cloak with a hood when she is out and about.

Distinctive Features: Yollie has small and sharp features. She has a vitality and wit about her that exudes a sense of power that belies her small stature. She has a solid stripe of red tattooed across her cheeks that crosses over the bridge of her nose, giving her a somewhat "wild" look that most would not expect.

Profession: Hunter (I think this is the most fitting).

Copying this over to the right thread:

Thanks. I have not looked at the rules yet. I'm sure that will shake some ideas lose for characters. It seems most interesting if we played road warriors of some kind. One thought I had was a guy with a rolling brothel - a big bus with 6 or so berths for ... Activities. There's also a driver and a couple of guards.

Being lawmen of some kind might also be interesting.

Another concept I've done in a gamma world game is a dude who finds an old Starbucks and starts up a rolling coffee cart. This could be a straight up merchant concept or to go a little out there make him a religious missionary who worships the Mermaid. The coffee becomes a religious ceremony and the philosophy is based on the customer service precepts laid out in the employee handbook.

Everyone, I've decided to move character creation much closer to the Quickstart rules, supplemented by GM freebie skill points to make sure that your character concepts are filled out.  I know this is a sudden change, but I'm doing it for the sake of consistency before we get too deep into character creation.  Go by the rules in the quickstart guide and then address any deficiencies with me in PMs.

Bear in mind that only characters 35 and older will have anything resembling a modern education, or intuitive familiarity with technology!  Many young people in the setting have never learned to read or do much math, and they live in a world where there isn't much electricity.  They won't be familiar with operating electronic devices.

Ok, house rule:  There is now a skill called Technology Use, blatantly cribbed from the Aftermath! RPG.  This describes your character's familiarity with technology, like knowing what play and pause symbols mean, how to put batteries in, things like that.

@ Pearl: you've already developed your character pretty thoroughly, so we'll work on it so you don't get gimped.

So would creating a youngish mechanic be out of the question? Or could he have picked up the skill from folk who still remember how those things work?

A youngish mechanic is a perfectly valid idea.  Just make sure the how and why of his background is compatible with the setting.  For example, learning from an experienced older mechanic since he was 10 years old would give him a high level of competence but only on vehicles and devices similar to what he has had the opportunity to work with.  This is acceptable.  An unacceptable example would be a character from a high tech enclave which has the equivalent of a prewar trade school with training on diagnostic machines and other uncommon gear because no enclave exists like that in my setting.

I know that you would have no way to know that, and working out things like this is the purpose of our character creation discussions.

If I give away too much about the setting then there's nothing to discover.  I realize that I'm putting restrictions on all of your characters without making them clear on advance which is something no one appreciates, but please bear with me, ask questions and let's refine our ideas until things all work together while staying true to your central concepts.

Something I'm preventing by doing it this way is getting mutually incompatible characters that I have to struggle to integrate into a setting not designed for them.  The setting is like my character that I also want to stay true to.  If someone makes a techno ninja and I allow it in the game, that means that kind of training and technology is a part of the setting along with the infrastructure to support it, and something like that can distort the setting pretty badly.

Back to your mechanic idea, post your short concept along with your desired good at skills decent at skills and meh skills and then we can discuss setting resources that can support it.  This will connect your character to factions and locations in the setting, or even collaborate on new ones like pearls town of East Highland Hills

Alright so we have a hunter girl and a young mechanic. Might be interesting to go with an older guy. Maybe he's a former cop or something. Maybe he avoided doing the right thing and people died so now he's atoning by driving up and down I-5 in his police cruiser (or motorcycle) doing good.

How long ago was the war?

The end of the war was twenty years ago.

Ucat, I can go ahead and keep all of my rolls then? You said strength 7 was fitting, and I tend to agree to a point, so I won't ask for a re-roll of the lowest skill unless you are willing to give it.

I will look over everything with a thoroughness and to not cluster-fuck this wall, I will send a tentative PC sheet to you in private messages.


If it is OK with everyone else, I would mostly like to make PC sheets private - or at least keep them between us and the GM - in this sense no one knows what the others are capable of and we can find all of that out through narrative dialogue IC. Does that sound like something you would be interested in?

I'm ok with sheets being private, but I think we should make sure our concepts work together. In fact, I'm not a fan of the "meet cute" in RPGs. It is always highly awkward. I find it is better to work out how we know each other in advance. We don't have to be best friends or soul mates, but we should at least know each other.

Your idea is for the mechanic, right?

East Highland Hills (where Yollie is from) is out in the foothills of west-central California. It is based on the actual location called "Lost Hills." The place would have need of a good mechanic as it is littered with oil wells and rigs. There is a solid chance that they know one another - perhaps may not like one another or understand one another - but have run into one another if you want your mechanic to be from the area.

Circumstance can then put them on the same "team" for whatever Ucat has in store for us.

Edit: Sorry, I got you confused with our other PC idea. The older cop idea is awesome too. East Highland Hills has been the subject of many raids due to its economic/political significance. Your cop could be seeking to atone for his past by protecting the mostly good, hardworking people of the settlement.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:31, Thu 21 May 2015.

Yes, everyone keep your sheets private, and any background info the other characters wouldn't know.  I think everyone is mature enough to keep this collaboration discussion separate from Ic knowledge. We have a couple more interested players and once they get on board I'll close recruiting.

Regarding Power Points - I know we don't have any powers or fantastical abilities (that we know of) in your setting. I was wondering if you would still allow power points to be used as an exertion of will type thing, perhaps adding another 10% to a roll when we really want to succeed. Or auto successes/re-rolls. Something like how fate points are used in Warhammer 40k games..

Or does it really not matter all that much as the game won't be too dice heavy? Am I overthinking this?

Can you open up character sheets for us?

Tentative PC sheet sent to your inbox, boss. Still need to sort out skills and equipment, but I think Yollie is good to go after that.

At what point do aging effects kick in? I'm thinking my character will a grizzled old cop from before the war. That'd place him between 40 and 50 if the war was 20 years ago. I was leaning more towards 50. The aging rules are not in the quick start rules though.

How's this:

Higgins is a grizzled old cop from before the war. He drives his beat up police cruiser up and down I-5 looking to protect those who can't protect themselves. He doesn't ask for anything in return, though he's often given food, lodging, repairs, and bullets. He doesn't say much and has a look in his eye that he's on some mission of atonement for some past wrong doings. He doesn't have a death wish, but he operates without fear of self injury or reprisal. If the end should come, well, Higgins figures he's already dead. No one knows for sure if Higgins is his first name or his last name. That's just the name he gives when asked.

Awesome. How does he know Yollie?

Did he find aid and shelter there once and now treats it as something of a necessary stop to make sure all is well? If so, Yollie could have possibly treated an injured of his in the past - low on medical supples, she very well could have cooked something up from the a mixture of wild herbs and what she grows personally to tend to Higgins. Thus starting their relationship.

Being much younger and somewhat Naive, maybe he sees her as a daughter type figure? Someone to protect in a world he is fully aware of that she doesn't really understand.

I definitely think he would see Yollie as a special person to protect. I'm thinking whatever happened to Higgins that caused him to seek atonement had to do with kids, so he has a particular soft spot for protecting kids. Possibly, he ran away when some bad guys were doing something nasty to a girl.

I think he would have kept his distance from Yollie, trying to protect her from afar because he was ashamed. But if he got hurt and was unconscious, and Yollie healed him up, I could see him making that connection.

Perfect. That sounds like an awesome shared backstory to me. At least the start of one.

Can you describe Higgins?

Edit: Yollie looks something like this, minus the elf ears and a much darker skin shade - very tanned like a native American but with close to the same features as this picture. And imagine a face tattoo.

http://i.imgur.com/dAdMjmM.jpg?1
This message was last edited by the player at 02:04, Fri 22 May 2015.

In reply to pearldrum1 (msg # 25):

I'm working on the description. He's average height and lanky. Leathery skin all creased. Buzzed hair with stubble. All salt and pepper. Not sure on clothes. Thinking black swat fatigue pants and combat boots. Dingy tshirt. Dusty leather jacket? Mirror shades for sure.

Maybe something like this except more scraggly and dusty:

This message was last edited by the player at 02:15, Fri 22 May 2015.

Wow! You two have some awesome stuff going. I promise to won't be too long till I get more out there for my character. Tonight I'm cramming for an accounting final, but after that I'm free and clear.

Hell yeah. In it to win it, baby.

Excited to see what you come up with.

I am working on an ex biker turned wandering kung fu master. He is an older mentor type.

But looks like someone else is doing an older character, I don't really want to do two grumpy old men. So may look at something different.

Then there is always the, "how did a biker learn kung fu after the end of the world... and even then, how did he become a master?"

That seems like a character for teh Feng Shui game... and now I want to play Feng Shui 2.

If he was fifty he learned before the world ended, mastery comes through practice, but was not really about the skill level more about the mind set. The character is based on a real person I am friends with in real life not from your feng shui game. he spent a lot of time in prison and martial arts was what helped him survive mentally and spiritually.

But I came up with he concept yesterday when there were no old characters and it seemed like a balance, now it seems redundant.

Will probably drop it.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:43, Fri 22 May 2015.