Fantasycraft character

[breakinglight11]

Jared and I were discussing character generation last night, as he is trying to come up with a character for lightgamer's forthcoming four color superhero GURPS game. That lead me to give more thought to the character I'm building for captainecchi's Fantasycraft game.

I'm not great at figuring out what sort of build I want to play in tabletop games, mostly because in general rules systems are not interesting to me and most of that stuff is mechanically decided. So I just kind of grabbed a pre-gen off the table at random, a whatever-the-Fantastycraft-version-of-halfling-is "social assassin." While I can make excellent characters within a game I have completely designed, I have a hard time coming up with interesting personas in other people's scenarios because I have no idea what would fit in with the story and the world. (Thus my preference for pre-gens, not just built but characterized.)

So it took me a long time to figure out who I was going to be. For the first fifteen minutes or so, I just kind of responded generically to any in-game stimulus, kind of embarrassed that I didn't really have a character yet. Then suddenly it hit me-- I would have no filter. I liked the idea of a stealthy-social character that said whatever popped into her head, believing steadfastly in the idea that the best lies are the ones that have as much truth as possible in them. I named her Ophelia, partially because after playing so much Brutal Legend recently it was the only name I could think of, but I actually think the irony of it works. As it happened, Ophelia actually turned out to be really fun and funny to play. When it was clear that she was getting on the nerves of other party members, I dropped out of character for a moment and checked to make sure she wasn't annoying the players-- an indelicate, somewhat difficult personality like that can make it harder on other party members to get things done, and I wanted to make sure nobody felt like I was mucking up what they were trying to do. Fortunately, they seemed to be amused rather than annoyed.

So I think some version of this Ophelia is what I'm going to go with. I'm not sure what I want to do with her build, but some variant on the stealthy assassin character interests me. I like the idea of a blabbermouth assassin. :-) Of course, with her tendency to say whatever she's thinking at the moment, the "social" aspect of the character may not work as well as perhaps designed.

Comments

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

I'm entirely interested in hearing your thoughts on Brutal Legend. Have you finished it yet? If not, how far along are you?

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Got all the way through. I really enjoyed it-- the aesthetic, the admittedly-easy-but-up-my-alley gameplay, the story, the humor. :-) I'm not evil a metal fan, but I thought it was a blast. What did you think?

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

Oh, I had a blast watching John play it. The soundtrack is pretty amazing for metal fans, and the voice cast is <3. Ozzie as the Guardian of Metal? Entirely appropriate. Kyle Gass voicing the mortar cannon dude with the incongruous but fairly real-to-life head? The Kill Master was voiced by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead. (I see what you did there!) Lead singer of Judas Priest voicing a glam metal villain? Oh, the irony.

There is just so much.... metal about this game, that it deserves its little nonfunctional umlaut. John found the gameplay a little repetitive, and was not expecting the RTS elements, and thought they were simplistic yet somewhat... the only word I can think of is "annoying."

Also, O drowning herself in a river? Made me go "noooooo" at the time, until I, y'know, got it.

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

I loved the metal concepts turned into game concepts-- like, the Face Melter solo that actually melts your enemies' faces, and getting to Power Slide as an attack. And oh, the Judas Priest guy's character was awesome-- flying with his HAIR? GENIUS! I also loved Ozzie, and was amazed at how intelligible he was. Though every time he came on screen I just wanted to yell "Sharoooon!"

Bernie and I use the phrase "covered in hot metal god love" all the time now.

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite solo is Bring it On Home. Huge zeppelin crashing atop your enemies, and a Led Zeppelin reference to boot? Too epic!

But I do get some seriously visceral glee from the Face Melter >:)