Today, I disclose yet another dark secret of my gaming past. I've already disclosed my unhealthy love for dice baseball, and if I'm running low on material for these, I'll drop some phat stats down on one of the teams I run that will make it sound like I should be on Baseball Tonight.
My friend Phil, who does Adventurous Endeavors is also doing this 12 Blogs of Christmas thing, and I dared him to stat himself out in some crunchy system he possessed. It took some arm turning, but he did pull off a very nice half-orc bard/cavalier/something else for Pathfinder that keeps to the spirit of Phil, and in the spirit of Pathfinder, is decently playable (I think).
Now it's my turn, and I had no difficulty; I just pulled myself right out of the drawer. Secret #1; I've had a GURPS character of myself since 1991, and I've kept in updated semi-regularly.
Sometime in '90-91, I wanted to run a GURPS: Red Dawn. Ah, Red Dawn, where the Soviets invade the US mainland, and the only competent resistance is a bunch of kids with hunting rifles. To make things more ridiculous, I had each player make up a 100-point characters of themselves. Now for those you not in the know, 25 pts is a normal person, 50-75 is above average, and 100 pts is heroic. Where we got the idea that a bunch of nerds who barely held driving permits in the real life could be 100pt heroes, I don't know, but we did it. To make things more absurd, the groups camp site was right behind the Palmer Park Mall, which was being used as a internment camp to boot. I guess it was a case of the 'No one will suspect anything right under their noses!"
I made up a GURPS version of myself to act as a trusted go-between for the rest. I don't know who I was going between for, but I do remember ordering them to assassinate a classmate who was acting as a journalist for the Soviet occupiers. How I allowed a 16-year old boy to get his hands on a Barrett Model 82 Sniper Rifle, I have no clue. Charles with a big gun is a scary thing indeed. He had a +23 bonus to hit his skill check at 13 on 3d6. There was a very messy phone booth in Tatamy after that encounter.
Soon, the appeal of running that genre ran out and we changed to what we now refer to as a the Napalm Death multi-genre-all-in-Easton game. Aliens at the old Pfizer plant, Mad Max-style Thunderdome games in the Easton parking garage. I don't believe we had a strong plot line, but I imagine my in-game version of myself sold the group to othe people as fodder, and when they succeeded with flair, other groups that were patrons of ours with would fill in the vacuum for power.
I do believe we wrapped up that game well before the end of high school, but I could always use the character as an information contact, rather than the spy I secretly aspired to be.
Secret #2: For years I kept a list of weird dreams I had on my old word processor. No, get your minds out of the gutter, the truly weird sci-fi channel stuff: Walking through a nuclear wasteland, or driving around town with my friend Wooly's dad, until we encounter a black man playing a trumpet, leading a horde of undead down the street (and this was years before I read/played Dead Man Stomp.) When I decided to stop typing them up, I updated that old GURPS sheet to adjust the skill points from the weird experiences. I've done this on-and-off for years, and having caught a bout of I can sleep 6 hours straight since the two kids can now, I started jotting this info down again.
GURPS is a tough enough on skills that it made sense. If I did something that had some effect on the dream, 1/2 point. Something solid to the dream and done competently? 1pt. Something extraodinary? 2+ pts.
Without futher ado, Mr. Eric Jacobson, Regional Man of Mystery
ST: 10 DX: 11 IQ: 13 HT: 12
Advantages: Charisma +2 (I am a helluva guy), Common Sense (I'm constantly warning people in dreams not to do stupid things), Luck (if I survived the Red Dawn game, I have it in spades), Voice, Light Hangover.
Disadvantages: Bloodlust (you don't want me angry, I will finish things with a tire iron to your face), Nearsighted (corrected, as in I have glasses), Gluttony (it is one tasty vice), Stubborness,
Sense of Duty (Friends)
Skills: for skill checks, one rolls 3d6 and roll your skill level or less. These are the skills I've put points into, which means most simple actions are automatic. If I wanted to do something that's not on the list, like speak French or pick a lock, my default skill level is usually IQ or DX -5... or worse. A skill level of 10 is average, 12 rather skilled, 14 well-trained, 16+ expert.
Administration 13 (lots of red tape dreams)
Archaeology 10
Bard 18 (let me...entertain you!)
Boxing 10
Brawling 13
Camoflague 13
Carousing 12
Conspiracy Theory 11
Dancing 10
Diplomacy 13
Driving: Auto 14
Driving: Diesel Locomotive 11 (yep, I operated one down the streets of Palmer.. and survived!)
Economics 10
Engineering 12 (I was desinged some structure that didn't collapse)
English 14 (I am well-spoken, and could be well-read)
Geology 10 (I must have been dreaming Volcano III: Livin' La Lava Loca)
Guns: Pistol 14
Guns: Rifle 14
Guns: SMG 13
Hiking 10
History 13
Hobby: Models 12 (The plastic kind, not the International Super- version)
Intell Analysis 11
Law 10
Occultism 13
Punning 11 (yes, there is a Punning skill, God help us all)
Running 12 (I am healthier in my dreams than in real life)
Savoir Faire 16 (I'm classy helluva guy)
Saxophone 12 (I played one in a dream, can't do it in real life... 1/2 pt)
Scrounging 13
Sex Appeal 14 (I'm kinda a helluva guy... around the ladies, that is)
Sport: Basketball 9 (For some reason I was playing hoops and didn't get killed... 1/2 pt)
Stealth 11
Swimming 10
Survival: Mountains 12
Survival: NBC 13 (Some nuclear holocaust dreams, no one died, so I must know something)Sport: Golf 10 (Tiger Woods y'all... )
Tactics 11
Wrestling 10
and my favorite ones
Area Knowledge: Lehigh Valley 12 (I've only had one dream where I needed to know stuff about the area)
Area Knowledge: South Africa 13 (yet I was intimately involved with some intrigue)
Area Knowledge: Iceland 13 (yes, freakin' Iceland, ladies...)
So, for 146.5 pts in GURPS, you can have the 'dream version' of me, a social animal who occasionally can get around procedure and might survive in a gun fight in Iceland. I'm not the international super-spy, I'm the contact the super-spy meets to obtain the information, and I'm careful enough not to get blown up, killed by a sniper, etc.
Good God, I'm a more competent version of Tom Arnold in True Lies!
I changed my mind, somebody please shoot me with a sniper rifle. Charles?
(edit: It's been so long since I calculated the skill totals, that I completely forgot that Voice gives a +2 to Bard, Savoir Faire, Diplomacy, and Sex Appeal, which have since been adjusted. Oh yeah, you know you gonna dig this!)
My friend Phil, who does Adventurous Endeavors is also doing this 12 Blogs of Christmas thing, and I dared him to stat himself out in some crunchy system he possessed. It took some arm turning, but he did pull off a very nice half-orc bard/cavalier/something else for Pathfinder that keeps to the spirit of Phil, and in the spirit of Pathfinder, is decently playable (I think).
Now it's my turn, and I had no difficulty; I just pulled myself right out of the drawer. Secret #1; I've had a GURPS character of myself since 1991, and I've kept in updated semi-regularly.
Sometime in '90-91, I wanted to run a GURPS: Red Dawn. Ah, Red Dawn, where the Soviets invade the US mainland, and the only competent resistance is a bunch of kids with hunting rifles. To make things more ridiculous, I had each player make up a 100-point characters of themselves. Now for those you not in the know, 25 pts is a normal person, 50-75 is above average, and 100 pts is heroic. Where we got the idea that a bunch of nerds who barely held driving permits in the real life could be 100pt heroes, I don't know, but we did it. To make things more absurd, the groups camp site was right behind the Palmer Park Mall, which was being used as a internment camp to boot. I guess it was a case of the 'No one will suspect anything right under their noses!"
I made up a GURPS version of myself to act as a trusted go-between for the rest. I don't know who I was going between for, but I do remember ordering them to assassinate a classmate who was acting as a journalist for the Soviet occupiers. How I allowed a 16-year old boy to get his hands on a Barrett Model 82 Sniper Rifle, I have no clue. Charles with a big gun is a scary thing indeed. He had a +23 bonus to hit his skill check at 13 on 3d6. There was a very messy phone booth in Tatamy after that encounter.
Soon, the appeal of running that genre ran out and we changed to what we now refer to as a the Napalm Death multi-genre-all-in-Easton game. Aliens at the old Pfizer plant, Mad Max-style Thunderdome games in the Easton parking garage. I don't believe we had a strong plot line, but I imagine my in-game version of myself sold the group to othe people as fodder, and when they succeeded with flair, other groups that were patrons of ours with would fill in the vacuum for power.
I do believe we wrapped up that game well before the end of high school, but I could always use the character as an information contact, rather than the spy I secretly aspired to be.
Secret #2: For years I kept a list of weird dreams I had on my old word processor. No, get your minds out of the gutter, the truly weird sci-fi channel stuff: Walking through a nuclear wasteland, or driving around town with my friend Wooly's dad, until we encounter a black man playing a trumpet, leading a horde of undead down the street (and this was years before I read/played Dead Man Stomp.) When I decided to stop typing them up, I updated that old GURPS sheet to adjust the skill points from the weird experiences. I've done this on-and-off for years, and having caught a bout of I can sleep 6 hours straight since the two kids can now, I started jotting this info down again.
GURPS is a tough enough on skills that it made sense. If I did something that had some effect on the dream, 1/2 point. Something solid to the dream and done competently? 1pt. Something extraodinary? 2+ pts.
Without futher ado, Mr. Eric Jacobson, Regional Man of Mystery
ST: 10 DX: 11 IQ: 13 HT: 12
Advantages: Charisma +2 (I am a helluva guy), Common Sense (I'm constantly warning people in dreams not to do stupid things), Luck (if I survived the Red Dawn game, I have it in spades), Voice, Light Hangover.
Disadvantages: Bloodlust (you don't want me angry, I will finish things with a tire iron to your face), Nearsighted (corrected, as in I have glasses), Gluttony (it is one tasty vice), Stubborness,
Sense of Duty (Friends)
Skills: for skill checks, one rolls 3d6 and roll your skill level or less. These are the skills I've put points into, which means most simple actions are automatic. If I wanted to do something that's not on the list, like speak French or pick a lock, my default skill level is usually IQ or DX -5... or worse. A skill level of 10 is average, 12 rather skilled, 14 well-trained, 16+ expert.
Administration 13 (lots of red tape dreams)
Archaeology 10
Bard 18 (let me...entertain you!)
Boxing 10
Brawling 13
Camoflague 13
Carousing 12
Conspiracy Theory 11
Dancing 10
Diplomacy 13
Driving: Auto 14
Driving: Diesel Locomotive 11 (yep, I operated one down the streets of Palmer.. and survived!)
Economics 10
Engineering 12 (I was desinged some structure that didn't collapse)
English 14 (I am well-spoken, and could be well-read)
Geology 10 (I must have been dreaming Volcano III: Livin' La Lava Loca)
Guns: Pistol 14
Guns: Rifle 14
Guns: SMG 13
Hiking 10
History 13
Hobby: Models 12 (The plastic kind, not the International Super- version)
Intell Analysis 11
Law 10
Occultism 13
Punning 11 (yes, there is a Punning skill, God help us all)
Running 12 (I am healthier in my dreams than in real life)
Savoir Faire 16 (I'm classy helluva guy)
Saxophone 12 (I played one in a dream, can't do it in real life... 1/2 pt)
Scrounging 13
Sex Appeal 14 (I'm kinda a helluva guy... around the ladies, that is)
Sport: Basketball 9 (For some reason I was playing hoops and didn't get killed... 1/2 pt)
Stealth 11
Swimming 10
Survival: Mountains 12
Survival: NBC 13 (Some nuclear holocaust dreams, no one died, so I must know something)Sport: Golf 10 (Tiger Woods y'all... )
Tactics 11
Wrestling 10
and my favorite ones
Area Knowledge: Lehigh Valley 12 (I've only had one dream where I needed to know stuff about the area)
Area Knowledge: South Africa 13 (yet I was intimately involved with some intrigue)
Area Knowledge: Iceland 13 (yes, freakin' Iceland, ladies...)
So, for 146.5 pts in GURPS, you can have the 'dream version' of me, a social animal who occasionally can get around procedure and might survive in a gun fight in Iceland. I'm not the international super-spy, I'm the contact the super-spy meets to obtain the information, and I'm careful enough not to get blown up, killed by a sniper, etc.
Good God, I'm a more competent version of Tom Arnold in True Lies!
I changed my mind, somebody please shoot me with a sniper rifle. Charles?
(edit: It's been so long since I calculated the skill totals, that I completely forgot that Voice gives a +2 to Bard, Savoir Faire, Diplomacy, and Sex Appeal, which have since been adjusted. Oh yeah, you know you gonna dig this!)
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