I've been keeping Creeks & Crawdads behind glass in case of a schedule crunch, and it looks like tonight's the night we grab the hammer. Billed as "the first Realistic Post-Holocaust Beer and Pretzels RPG," Creeks & Crawdads puts players in the shells of post-apocalyptic crayfish who have mutated to a rudimentary level of sapience, with emphasis on "rudimentary."
The first step in creating a mutant intelligent crayfish is to choose a Profession. These crawdads are highly specialized, and your choice will determine nearly everything else about your character. There are four professions, but only three are considered player-character appropriate: Thinkers, Tool Users, and Fighters.* To (closely) paraphrase the game designer, thinkers analyze their environment, tool users manipulate it, and fighters hit it. A thinker with an idea for a tool needs a tool user to make and test it, and both of them will need a fighter to fend off any competition for acquiring the raw materials.
This character will be a Tool User.
Your choice of Profession determines the ranges for your characteristics. There are nine altogether, and different Professions roll different combinations of dice to get scores. The characteristics (Tool User ranges in parentheses) are Strength (2-12), Dexterity (3-18), Awareness (2-12), Constitution (3-18), Fighting Ability (2-12), Intelligence (2-12), Tool Use (9-14 for player characters, 3-18 in general), Speed (2-6), and Armor Protection (1-3).
My scores are as follows:
ST: 7 DX: 7 AW: 2 CN: 9 FA: 6 IQ: 6 TU: 10 SP: 4 AP: 2
This is a thoroughly mediocre set of abilities, notable mostly for the terrible Awareness score. But we soldier on, or I suppose mechanic on. Doing things within my job description as a Tool User involves rolling one or more d6 against the appropriate characteristic score (depending on the task's difficulty and the natural range for my profession in that ability), and succeeding if the total is less than or equal to my score. So making a sharp stick (a known tool) takes a 3d6 roll, but finding a stick to sharpen only takes a 2d6 roll unless conditions make it particularly easy or difficult. (Of course, with my Awareness score of 2 I'm going to have trouble finding sticks in a box of kindling). Doing things outside of my job description, such as trying to have an idea, takes a 3d6 roll against the appropriate ability (which I'm not likely to be very good at), and relevant penalties apply but bonuses don't (so trying to think will mean a minimum of 3d6 versus my IQ score of 6. Long odds, those.)
Note also that your Constitution score serves as your hit point total, and will drop as you take damage.
You don't start with any equipment and there aren't any secondary or derived characteristics, so all we need to do is come up with a name. I'll call this crawdad Splitter for the technique it uses to make sharp sticks from blunt sticks. And now our statblock, such as it is:
Splitter, Tool User
ST: 7 DX: 7 AW: 2 CN: 9 FA: 6 IQ: 6 TU: 10 SP: 4 AP: 2
*The fourth profession is "Prole," which is for crawdads with no abilities of note.
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