Our beginning characters in SeaFarers are going to be inhabitants of the fishing port of Theeport which lies on the West coast of a large country. The Narrator has decreed that we should all know each other to start, come from Theeport and know a little about boats or the sea.
I use the term Narrator to describe Paul as we’re using a “story game” approach to making characters and resolving conflict.
Here’s the first sample character, a girl called Turi and a brief description of the system we’re using.
Traits : “Turi is a shell diver like all of her family. She is tall, thin and wiry and like most in the region is dark, with coppery-brown hair. She lives with her three brothers and her father – an arrangement which has made her tomboyish and she’s a capable wrestler as a result. She carries a steel knife and a diving shell which allowed her to stay underwater for nearly 10 minutes. She has collected a small fortune in pearls and semi-precious stones from her diving exploits. She never knew her but her father claims her mother was a woman of influence from one of the big inland cities. Her family are somewhat devout to the Old One and still have a small shrine to her in their basement.
Drive : She is Driven by her desire to gain wealth and travel to see if she still has family in the cities.
Flaw : Due to an overdive when she was younger which caused her eardrums to burst, Turi is 40% deaf
In addition to the details above, each character has three scores: Hand, Wounds and Story Points. We’re using a playing card resolution model.
Hand: the number of cards the player can hold.
Wounds: The character can take up to three wounds
Story Points: representing opportunities for the player to take control of the outcomes of scenes.
Conflict is resolved for the most part by the player choosing a card from his hand and playing that against a blind draw from the deck. There’s a randomising element (the Deck) and a small amount of control the player can exert on the outcome because of the cards she may hold in her hand. She might play a high value card to win a conflict or might choose to play a low value card in a low stakes conflict as an opportunity to get a better card on the next re-draw. Underlined traits allow the player to play a second card (adding to the value of the first) if they choose.
We’ll continue to add more to the system and background as time goes on and transpose highlights to the WIKI. We are also still recruiting for a couple more players from the Greater Belfast area?