Spirit of the Century - Character Generation Session
Topic: RPGs
Last night was our character generation session for my upcoming SPIRIT OF THE CENTURY role playing game. Six of us - five players and the GM (me) - got together via SKYPE to complete the characters. As mentioned earlier this week, SOTC has a wonderfully interactive character generation system in which not just the player and GM are involved in the process, but all the other players as well. This method supports an inter-woven backstory leading to even deeper character play.
Prior to Friday's session, the players created the basics of each of their characters detailing their early years and - since the game will be set in 1925 - what it is they did during the years of the Great War.
I started off last night's discussion by having the players introduce their characters:
- Rose Quartz, a tough under pressure two-fisted pilot, is endowed with a strange luck.
- Occultist Magnus Hunter is a student of knowledge both dark and light.
- With a knack for making trouble, Secret Agent Max Black is always in the middle of the action.
- Endowed with an insatiable curiousity, scientist Faye Seeker's research into the paranormal leads her to dangerous knowledge.
- Heinrich "Hank" Hitler (the cousin and more ethno-friendly of the infamous dictator) an engineer of profound talent with a hero's heart inherits a haunted tank.
The next phases of character generation involved each player drafting the title of the first pulp novel featuring their character with a brief blurb as to what the book is about. Then, the players write themselves in to each other's books. It was a lot of fun, and I was pleased with how the novel writing worked.
Here's what they wrote...
Rose Quartz and the Cursed Cargo!
Rose flies a mysterious jade statue from the Tuamoto Islands, and finds herself embroiled in a nightmarish ordeal over the South Pacific.
Taking the statue to her acquaintance, accomplished mystical researcher Faye Seeker, Rose learns the secret that has imperiled her life.
Magnus Hunter, studying native tribes in the South Pacific, unearths a power more frightening and more seductive than any that he's studied thus far. In a struggle with the dark forces, he risks destroying the knowledge he has sought so long to obtain, as well as the two unwitting adventurers who happen to stumble onto his attempt to master the unknown.
Max Black And The Unbreakable Code
Shortly after the end of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Red Scare took hold in the United States. With the nation gripped in fear, Max must infiltrate a radical communist organization and prevent more anarchist bombings.
Rose learns that the party crowd she's been following around all week is actually a recruitment group for a radical communist party. Overhearing their plans to bomb Grand Central Station, she teams up with undercover agent Max Black to thwart their evil scheme!
Plagued by her sense of isolation, Faye Seeker considers joining a youth group passing out pamphlets on campus. Fortunately, she is warned away from the secret communistic group by her associate Rose Quartz and a mysterious man named Max Black. Joining forces, she helps them expose the diabolical plot.
Faye Seeker and the Mystery Horse of Ghost Canyon
While completing her post-graduate degree at Stanford University, Faye hears a rumor about a mysterious ghost horse in Arizona that causes other horses to disappear. Faye will end up risking life and limb as she investigates the mysterious disappearances within Ghost Canyon.
After reading an old indian text about a spirit horse in the Arizona desert, Magnus Hunter travels in search of this spirit mount and the power it possesses. While on the hunt, he matches wits with a young scholar obsessed with the search to understand the unknown powers that he struggles to master.
Meanwhile, hired for money he can't pass up, Hank Hitler travels deep into the American west to recover dangerous cargo.
Magnus Hunter and the Spectre of the Sands
After leaving the British Forces in eastern Africa, Magnus travels across the desert sands only to find himself confronted by a mysterious figure in the tomb of a long bygone civilization. It will take all his strength of will to overcome the challenges ahead. Will he lose a part of his soul in order to save himself?
Chased by a mysterious hunter, Hank Hitler must use desperate measures to escape the fearsome figure stalking his Battletank. Plagued by doubt and exhaustion, the young adventurer reaches for reserves of strength from deep inside to continue. Will he endure?
Meanwhile, the one man who knows their true identities can prevent them from potentially killing one another. In a race against time, secret agent Max Black must reach Hank and Magnus, before it's too late!
Hank Hitler and His Amazing BattleTank: Battle in the Valley of Kings
Hank, on a mission to deliver quinine to malaria stricken Cairo, must travel from the port of Alexandria through the desert waste. After an exhausting trip, he is imperiled by a sandstorm and must seek refuge in the Valley of Kings from an eldrich storm.
In a last ditch effort, Hank enlists the aid of his old friend, the mysterious agent Max Black, who uses his influence with underworld contacts and secret organizations to help complete the vital mission.
Grounded by a massive sandstorm in Cairo, Rose seeks shelter with Hank and Max in the Valley of Kings - but soon realizes that she's stumbled onto more than she'd bargained for!
We did have some Skype problems last night. Hard to say if it was net congestion or bad connection or gremlins. It was my first negative experience with Skype. Folks complained about a sixty cycle hum from my end. I'll try a different headset, see if that does the trick.
I remain pleased with SOTC's system for character generation. Listening to the players talk about their characters with each other has fostered a number of ideas for games. Moreover, the aspects truly do focus as 'tells' to the gm. I know just the sort of game these folks are looking for.
I can't wait to run it.
Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net
Posted by Aron Head
at 2:51 PM CST
Well, crap!
As I mentioned 
