[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

[bryant]

Spirit of the Century (which is cool, buy it if you like pulp gaming) has an interesting character generation system that reminds me a tad of Lexicon. Hm, Wikipedia has failed yet again; there's no page for Lexicon. That one, I might actually fix. Anyway.

Spirit's character generation is a group activity that ensures pre-play connections between characters. I think it can be played out in blog entries. Let's try it.

Comment here with:

A concept. Pulpy concept. It's the 30s.

A name. Pulpy name. You know.

Then write up your character's youth, from birth to age 14. (You were born in 1900, by the by.) Talk about your character's family's circumstances, the size of your character's family, how well he or she gets along with his or her family. Where is your character from? What region? How was he or she educated? What were your character's friends like?

Also, write down two Aspects which are tied into the events of the character's childhood or the character's upbringing. What's an Aspect? It's a tag that helps explain who a character is; it's stuff you wanna see in the game. "Aspects can be relationships, beliefs, catchphrases, descriptors, items, or pretty much anything else that paints a picture of the character." Quick Witted, "You'll Never Catch Me Alive," Raised by Wolves, Champion of the Golden Temple, etc., etc., etc.

Comments

[michele-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh, also putting down a placeholder for when I can get back to this later today:

Maggie "Red" McConnell, Fastest Race Car Driver in the West!

[michele-blue.livejournal.com]

Maggie McConnell wasn’t exactly a happy arrival in her parents’ Wichita home. Machine worker Brian McConnell and his wife Ann had four other mouths to feed already, and Ann was well past the age where she’d have an easy birth. Maggie came screaming into the world on the first day of spring in the new century, and it was as if she’d been listening to all her parents’ worries and made up her mind to fulfill them.

The minute the baby could roll over, she was trying to crawl. When she could crawl, all she wanted to do was walk. Walking meant she was just this close to running. By ten, she was a miniature hellion in her brother’s cast-off clothes, with a tangle of red hair matted around her sharp little face. Ann despaired of the girl ever going to church, school, or into marriage. Maggie, being Maggie, was oblivious.

Riding horses on her cousin’s farm outside town was okay, but the animals were too slow. Wagons ambled. She watched the first airplanes fly over Wichita with her jaw hanging open and a look of awe on her face, but that wasn’t quite right either. What did inspire her were Wichita’s wealthier citizens zipping around in their new automobiles.

They were perfect. Well, not perfect. That’s where her father came in. Brian was widely known as a man who could get any machine running, and probably improve it in the process. Maggie suddenly found herself more fascinated by her father’s workshop than by baseball, exploring places she shouldn’t be, and making her mother worry. After a few weeks of handing her father tools and looking over his shoulder, he turned and looked at his youngest, wildest child.

“I’ll teach you, if you do three things,” he said. Maggie was nodding before the words even came out of her father’s mouth. “Get your schooling, go to Mass, and stop making your mother cry.”

“Done,” she said, sticking out her tiny hand to seal the deal. Three years later, she still keeps to the bargain, and so does he, with one exception. On her fifteenth birthday, he promises to begin teaching her to drive.

Aspects:
Faster is always better.
If it’s broken, it can be fixed.