A SNEAK PEEK: The HiBRiD Player's Spielbook, Chapter 2: Step Three of Eight (Character History)

Step Three: Provide the Character History 

The third step of the character creation process is to create a brief account of your character’s life experiences starting from birth to the time prior to the beginning of the game, referred to as your character’s history. You are free to make your character’s history any length you wish. Whether a multi-page narrative, a simple list, or any size in between, to be considered complete for purposes of the game, your character’s history must contain three elements. 

· The first element, a significant person, must be at least one person that has affected your character’s life in a deeply emotional way, either positively or negatively. If your character has a family, a clan, or some other group of people that means a lot to him, you can list significant members individually or, alternatively, name the whole group. Further, you are not limited in scope to just to people. If your character has an emotional bond with an animal, a spirit, or a creature, you may list one or more of these as well. Examples of such people might include friends, enemies, family members, allies, mentors, lovers, rivals, adversaries, and teachers. 

· The second element, a significant event, must be at least one thing that happened in the past that led your character to learn the skills he has learned, forged his personality, or somehow shaped the way he now lives his life. Was there an event that recently changed your character’s life or changed if forever in the past? Was your character’s village razed? Did a window of opportunity open the first time your character discovered he was “different’ from everyone else? Was there an alien invasion that drove your character to learn survival skills? Did the loss of a significant person in your character’s life drive your character to seek out the skills and tools to investigate the loss...or avenge it? 

· The third element, a motivation, must be something for which your character would be willing to die and that motivates your character to take the great life or death risks required by a hero. Was it the result of significant event you just listed? Is it just for money or the Spirit of Adventure? Denial of mortality or aging? Raw power? What values or causes are important to your character? What or whom does your character love or hate? If your character has no motivations or has faced no adversity, what makes him a hero? 

The character history serves two purposes. The first is to make your character someone you and the other players can relate to, rather than just a set of numbers and abilities. The second is to enable the Director to give your character a purpose for joining in the adventure and working with the other characters to accomplish heroic deeds.

Completing Step Three

To complete this step, you will need to list at least one example of each of the three required elements, followed by a brief descriptive phrase to clarify to the Director how the element fits in with your character’s concept and relates to your character. For example, if you list a specific person, you will need to describe the emotional connection your character shares with that person.

Step Three Example: Johnny Parkour 

Ogun now needs to complete his character’s history. Because he is in a hurry to get playing, he chooses to focus on just defining the bare minimum requirements so he can jump right into the action. He looks to his character’s concept and asks a few questions to help him complete this step. 

Looking at the descriptor, acrobatic, he wonders where his character would learn acrobatic skills. He decides that his character’s parents were circus performers who recognized his talents early and trained him in the arts of the high-wire and trapeze. He next looks at the role of “provoker” and wonders, “Why would anyone go out of their way to consistently provoke people into taking action?” He decides that living with his tightly-knit circus “family” gave him the support and confidence to embrace the joy of discovery that came from just trying things and making things happen, and that his character wants to share this feeling with those around him. This gives Ogun a good idea of where he wants to go with his character’s history, so he now turns his attention to listing the three history elements. 

Ogun notices right away that meeting the first requirement, a significant person, will be very easy, and he can also describe where his character learned his acrobatic skills. He lists the following on his character sheet: 

His trapeze-artist mother and high-wire walking father, and the entire circus family that loves him and raised him from when he was a baby.

Moving onto the next element, Ogun sees that his character’s skills and outlook clearly result from his background of living in the circus, however, this background doesn’t really suggest a single life-defining event. Asking himself, “If the circus life was so great, why would my character leave it to take on a dangerous adventure?”, Ogun decides that maybe someone from his circus “family” has disappeared and that will be the significant event that drove his character into the unlikely role of a hero. Rather than making his character’s history tragic and brooding, however, he chooses to make it mysterious and interesting, so he decides that it should be the kindly fortune teller who would entertain him for hours with exciting stories of mystic unexplained places and creatures of questionable existence around the world. He writes down the following as his significant event: 

The mysterious disappearance of the fortune teller from his circus family 

Considering both the significant people and the significant event, Ogun quickly realizes that a motivation is already built into the event he has listed and writes the following down on his character sheet: 

Searching for the missing fortune teller to make his family complete again. 

He writes these down on his character sheet and asks his Director what she thinks. She looks at the event and, realizing she can tie the missing fortune teller in with the story outline she has already prepared for the adventure, decides that it fits in perfectly with the game she has planned. She approves of the completed history, and Ogun moves on to the next step.

A SNEAK PEEK: The HiBRiD Player's Spielbook, Chapter 2: Step Two of Eight (Character Concept)

Step Two: Determine a Character Concept

The second step in the character creation process is to determine a concept for your character. A concept is a statement designed to guide you in selecting your character’s abilities as you proceed through the rest of the character creation process  that takes the following form:

A

DESCRIPTOR

ROLE

who

MOTIVATION

As you can see, there are three elements within the concept.

The first element, the descriptor, will be a single word that describes your character in some general way. When choosing the descriptor for your character, try to use a word that will describe your character’s appearance, a unique ability, or a personality trait. Examples of words include attractive, telekinetic, lazy, ripped, neurotic, cursed, boisterous, obnoxious, happy, or tragic.

The second element, the role, should reflect your character’s profession or else the main activity your character spends most of his time doing. Examples of roles include a swordsman, a drifter, a regular guy, a student, a soldier, a skateboarder, a slacker, a cop, a pipefitter, or a United Nations Ranger.

The third element, the motivation, is a string of words that reflects the primary motivation that gives your character’s life meaning and direction. It specifies a cause, desire, or ability that drives your character to take the great life or death risks required by a hero. Examples include:

• Wants to put the wrong things right.
• Seeks to get richer than Midas.
• Refuses to stop fighting until either he or his enemy falls.
• Is cursed by a past that haunts him to this day.
• Uses his special abilities to make the world a better place.

Once complete, your character’s concept will tie your character in with the game world, give you and the other players a general idea of what abilities and attitudes to expect from your character, and act as a guide to help you make decisions you as you proceed through the remaining steps of the character creation process.

Completing Step Two

To complete this step, you need to create your character’s concept by writing a statement that contains a descriptor, a role, and a motivation in the aforementioned format.

Hujraad’s Hacks: Figuring Out Your Character Concept

The first few times you try to make a character, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the seemingly endless possibilities. To help overcome this feeling of “Where do I even begin?”, here are a few ideas to get you started:

• You could base your character on a word, an extraordinarily good or bad trait or a combination of such traits, such as a blind man with phenomenal marksmanship.
• You could model your character on one from a book, play, movie, opera, mythology, fable, story, computer game, work of art, or epic poem. This is often a great place to start for beginners.
• You could base your character on fictional or real characters, or even yourself as you are, as you used to be, as you would like to be, or as you would hate to be. You could also base the character on other people in your life, either ridiculing them or exalting them by bringing forth what you perceive to be their outstanding traits.

Step Two Example: Johnny Parkour

Ogun now moves on to creating his character’s concept. Turning his attention to the first element, the descriptor, Ogun decides that he would like to recreate a character he liked in a book he recently read. He decides that the thing that he liked most about the character was that the character was constantly diving into every action scene with a complete lack of regard for danger, depending on his fancy acrobatics skill to get out of sticky situations. Considering both the words “reckless” and “acrobatic”, he settles on the word “acrobatic” and writes it down in the appropriate space on his character sheet.

Moving on to the next element, defining a role for his character, Ogun remembers how the character he wishes to recreate was constantly provoking others into inadvertently performing heroic actions. He likes this idea and decides to define his character’s role as a “provoker”, writing it down in the appropriate space on his character sheet

Realizing that being an “provoker” could quickly get on the other player’s nerves and cause disruption of the game, Ogun decides to use his character’s motivation element to explain how his character’s role will be helpful to the other players rather than cause problems. After thinking a bit, he finally puts puts down the following phrase as his character’s motivation:

“Finds inspiration in acting selflessly so that he and those he cares about can accomplish their goals”.

Taken together, the three elements of descriptor, role, and a motivation come together to form the following concept:

“An acrobatic provoker who finds inspiration in acting selflessly so that he and those he cares about can accomplish their goals”

Ogun shows his character’s concept to his Director Sarah, who smiles and approves it. Ogun is now free to move on to the next step of the process.

A SNEAK PEEK: The HiBRiD Player's Spielbook, Chapter 2: Step One of Eight (Genre Description)

Step One: Obtain and Read the Genre Description

The HiBRiD^TM game rules may be used in almost any game setting. As a result, before you can create a character, you first need to know something about the setting in which the game  will take place.

To make this easier, the game takes a page from the movie industry and classifies each setting as being of a specific genre.  The genre is used to identify a collection of specific elements that people can expect to encounter when they watch a movie or play a game that falls within that genre. A movie or game that falls within a classic science-fiction genre, for example, would be expected to feature advanced technologies, time travel, space travel, or alien. Similarly,  a movie or game setting that falls within the classic fantasy genre will often feature magic, fantastic beasts and humanoid races such as elves, orcs, and dwarves.

To enable you to create a character that fits within the genre of the game your Director will be running, you will be provided with a document known as a genre description that will summarize many of the common elements you can expect to encounter in the game world. The genre description wilI be composed of two parts. The first part, entitled “World” will describe the environment and common themes and conflicts. The second part, entitled “Heroes”, will hold all the information you will need so that you can create a character that it fits in with the genre of the game.

The World Section

The World section will contain a number of sections describing the game world. Within this section, you will find descriptions of the environment, the native wildlife, technology, supernatural phenomenon, and politics.

The Heroes Section

The Heroes section will provide following the information that you need to create your character.

The Character Sheet

As you go through the process of creating your character, you will need to write down all of the details regarding your character’s background, abilities, possessions, and condition so that you can easily reference them while you are playing. The Heroes section of the genre description will contain a preformatted form referred to as a character sheet to help you collect and organize this information.

Heroic Stats

In addition to a character sheet, the Heroes section of the genre description will also contain two numbers known as your character’s heroic stats.

The first of these heroic stats will be a number ranging in value from 0 to 10 referred to as the heroic factor of the genre. The heroic factor is used to reflect the level of heroism you can expect to encounter while playing the game. A genre with a heroic factor of 0 reflects a realistic game where characters have no supernatural abilities and the possibility of character death is very real. A genre with a heroic factor of 10, on the other hand,  reflects a highly epic genre where characters sport world-changing supernatural abilities and regularly laugh at death.

The second heroic stat, referred to as the aspect point pool, will  be a number ranging in value from 0 to 100. This number is used to reflect the level of supernatural and cinematic abilities you can expect your character to possess. A genre granting characters an aspect point pool of 10 points reflects a one in which characters will possess but one or two abilities of moderate to low power while a genre granting characters an aspect point pool of 100 will reflect one in which characters will possess more than a few abilities or a few abilities with considerable power.

In-Genre Abilities

Your character’s natural and learned abilities are closely tied to the genre of the game; some may be very unique to a genre and absolutely necessary while others may be unavailable. In a classic western genre, for example, no characters will possess computer hacking skills, but many characters will have skill in riding on horseback. Similarly, if you will be playing a character in a supernatural thriller genre, there may be abilities that enable your character to perform supernatural such as telekinesis or telepathy.

Abilities that fit in with the genre of the game are referred to as in-genre abilities, while those that do not fit in with the genre of the game are referred to as out-of-genre abilities. To ensure you select abilities that are in-genre, the genre description will list and describe the abilities you may select for your character.

Genre Description: The Default Genre

By default, if no genre description is used, the game assumes a modern real-world genre and is referred to as The Default Genre for the game. Conflicts associated with this genre are rooted in real world problems or in situations that could reasonably be expected to occur in our own world..

If the Director wishes to run a  game in which there are any significant differences from our own world (for example, the existence of supernatural phenomenon, the game takes place on another planet, etcetera), the Director will provide you with a separate genre description document.

World

In the Default  Genre, the environment is the same as our own planet Earth, there are no supernatural phenomenon, and technology is equivalent to the current day level at the time of play.

Heroes

The character sheet for the Default Genre is provided in Appendix One of this book.

There are no specific heroic stats used for the Default Genre. Instead, the Director will designate the heroic factor and the number of points in the aspect point pool, so that you can move forward with creating your character.

In-genre abilities within the Default Genre are anything that might exist in our own world. Out-of-genre abilities include any based on futuristic science or supernatural phenomenon. 

Completing Step One

To complete this step, you will need to obtain a copy of the genre description for the game you will be playing, read it through completely, and clarify any questions you might have with the Director.

Next, you will need to grab a pencil and a copy of the character sheet provided in the genre description, and record the heroic factor and the aspect point pool in the appropriate spaces provided.

Step One Example: Johnny Parkour

Ogun, a player new to the game system, has decided he wants to recreate an acrobatic character from a book he recently read. His Director, Sarah, hands him a photocopy of the character sheet in Appendix One and informs him that she will be setting the game in the Default Genre for the game system.

She next, in accordance with the Default Genre, lets him know that the heroic factor for the genre will be 5 and that all characters will have 50 points in their aspect point pool.

Ogun pulls out his favorite 0.9 mm mechanical pencil, and proceeds to write down the heroic factor of 5 and aspect point pool of 50 in the appropriate spaces on the character sheet.

Because he is already familiar with the modern day world, no other details are needed, so he moves on to the next step of creating his character.

A SNEAK PEEK: The HiBRiD Player's Spielbook, Chapter 2: Foreword

Over the next few weeks, I shall be putting the second chapter of the Player Spielbook (pronounced SHPEEL' book) section by section when I get a chance. Once complete, anyone will be able to create characters for any action-based genre in a modern setting using these default HiBRID rules.

Our current home game, And At Twilight, The Aspens Come, of course, will also use a number of Genre Specific rules, but for those wanting to create their own vanilla games, have fun playtesting with these.

I will start it off today, with the Foreword.

Enjoy!

HiBRiD Status Update: Pronouns

So I am doing the final prose review and thought I would share this snippet regarding pronouns from the Foreword.

Pronouns

It goes without saying that the players and Directors of any roleplaying game may be male or female, as may characters in heroic stories. Traditionally, however, the male pronouns (“he”, ”his”, and “him”) have been used to refer to any person regardless of sex. While both culture and the English language have changed, they have done so at different rates, creating a significant debate with this traditional use of the male pronoun in  writing.

Since this book is written in the second person (talking directly to you, the player), the matter of which pronoun to use when referring to the player presents no real issue. When referencing the Director and player characters, however, choosing a pronoun presents a unique challenge.

In the spirit of innovation, I have chosen to use the different pronoun sets based on the role that the person being referred to plays in the game rather than the traditional use. Male pronouns (“he” , his”, “him”) are used to refer to player characters while female pronouns (“she”, hers”, “her”) are used to refer to the Director. Examples will feature a female Director named Sarah and male player characters to maintain clarity with this approach, however the players will occasionally alternate between males and females as a nod to various players who have inspired me over the years.

HiBRiD Status Update: First Readthrough complete

All:

As you may or may not know, the second rough draft of the character creation rules is complete and is now going through a series of readability edits. Involved in the process will be a 10-, 12-, and 14 year old, and my good friend, Flippy, creator of the Tiny Horsies RPG, whom I had the pleasure of meeting after I had reviewed his fantastic game on this blog several years ago.

The HiBRiD character creation prose are complete and have finished their first read through at the 10-year old reading level. In general, the reader found the rules easy to follow, found a few places where clarity needed to be added, and requested a few more examples to understand the step where the player chooses a character Origin.

In the process of fixing the manuscript, I was able to eliminate another 2 pages of cruft from the rules and streamline the prose a bit.

I have finished my revisions and moved on to the next reading level: 12 years old. If anyone else is interested in doing a readability audit, please let me know!

Until then, keep playing games and spending Ite'!  

Steal The Nerd: A Foam Flinging Game

Steal the Nerd

A Foam Flinging Game Created by the Johaansen Clan

Needed to Play 

Steal the Nerd is a game in which players armed with foam-blasters fight it out in an attempt to possess The Nerd. To play Steal The Nerd, you will need:

•  a stuffed animal or other non-fragile object between the size of a regulation basketball and a beach ball. This will be The Nerd.
• At least 3 players with one foam-flinging contraption for each player. A referee must be chosen of the three players if there is not one available.
• A house and a yard and be allowed to go between the two. It is best to play this game on a day where you will not track mud in the house.
• A timer of some sort that can be set for 15 minutes or a timekeeper on each team with a watch that can track 15 minutes of time may also be used. An alternative is to have the referee carry a whistle and a watch to keep track of time.

Object of the Game

There are two sides: The Nerd Keepers (or Keepers) and the Nerd Stealers (or Stealers). 

· The goal of the Keepers is to keep The Nerd from getting to the Home Base of the Stealers

· The goal of the Stealers is to get The Nerd to their Home Base.

Setup of the Game

To play the game, players divide into two teams; The Nerd Keepers and the Nerd Stealers. To start, it is best to divide into two even teams. If there are an odd number of players, the additional player goes on the Stealer team. If sides seem unequal, players may divide up in whatever way seems most fair.

The Stealers must designate one Spawn Point for each entry into the house at least 10 meters away from the entry point. They also must designate one of these Spawn Points as their Home Base and let the Keepers know which one it is. All the players on the Stealers team collect at the Home Base.

The Keepers meet at the entry point closest to the Home Base just inside the door with The Nerd and the timer in their hands, within voice range and eye contact of the Stealers. Once set, they set the timer for 15 minutes.

Play of the Game

To begin play, one of the players on the Stealer Team will raise their arm and count out to 15-Mississippi aloud. This is the amount of time the Keepers have to hide The Nerd somewhere and may not touch it again until a member of the Stealer Team has found it and begun carrying it to their Home Base. When the count reaches 15-Mississippi, the 15-minute timer is started and play begins.

The Stealers now have 15 minutes to breach the house, find The Nerd, have one of their team members get The Nerd back to their Home Base and touch the Home Base with The Nerd in their control/possession. If they do, the Stealers win; if not, The Keepers win.

Rules - Getting Hit

1. Before and while breaching an entrance before the Nerd has been found, if hit by a dart or high-impact round, Stealers must go back to the nearest Spawn point and “reset” their blasters by touching the Spawn point before they can attempt to either breach again or fling foam at a Keeper. In order to consider having breached, the Stealer must completely cross the inner plane of the door. Keepers are always frozen for 10 seconds when hit if outside the house or in the entrance way. 

2. Inside the house before The Nerd has been found, if hit by a dart/round, a player is frozen in place for 10 seconds. The struck player must place their blaster facing up in the air, state “I’m Hit”, and count to 10-Mississippi aloud. While counting, the frozen player is immune to darts/rounds while frozen, may not fire on other players or state where other players are, and may pivot on one foot similar to a basketball player to avoid or collect darts/rounds. Once the count reaches 10, the frozen character may once again be struck by or shoot others.

3. Once The Nerd has been found, if hit by a dart/round, in addition to the rules for being hit based on location above, the player must drop The Nerd and it must be picked up by a different player from either team. The player who finds The Nerd must inform everyone aloud that they have found The Nerd.

Rules - Moving The Nerd

Once The Nerd has been found, a Stealer may attempt to get The Nerd back to their Home Base by any means necessary. Again, if shot while carrying The Nerd, a Stealer must drop it.

A Keeper may not touch The Nerd once it is hidden until it has been found. Once found, a Keeper may pick up The Nerd and attempt to re-hide it. Again, if shot while carrying The Nerd, a Stealer must drop it.

Optional Rule: Shooting The Nerd

Once dropped by a Stealer and free on the ground, a Keeper may shoot The Nerd one time before another Stealer gets it. If hit 3 times in-between Stealer Possessions, The Nerd is considered to have been permanently frozen, and all of its knowledge is lost to both teams forever, and by default, the Keepers win. It would be wise for Stealers to not attempt to get The Nerd back to Home Base alone without the help of their teammates.

Optional Rule: 2 Minute Warning

If the house has more than one level, at two minutes, the Keepers must announce what floor or level (attic, basement) The Nerd has been hidden on. It would be wise for the Keepers to watch the time and be in a strategic position before this announcement.