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| source: DriveThruRPG.com |
As long as I'm messing around with zine games, here's Lostronauts, a GM-less RPG in which the characters are lost in space (not unlike the crew of the Jupiter II, or Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect) and trying to find their way home (or achieve some other unattainable goal).
The basic task resolution mechanic will be familiar to anyone who has played a game Powered by the Apocalypse; roll 2d6, add 1 for each relevant character trait that might help, subtract 1 for each relevant trait that might hinder, and if your archetype, job, or species (see below) is particularly applicable, you get to roll a third d6 and take the two highest. A result of 10+ is unequivocal success, 7-9 brings success with a cost, and 6 or less is a humiliating failure. (This is a comedy game, permanent harm is rare but embarrassment lurks around every corner.)
Character creation is simpler than in most PbtA games; characters don't have Moves but instead have an Archetype (which is more or less a story role), a Job (your career before you started gallivanting around space) and a Species (pretty much what you expect that to be). Each of these features has some sort of Trait or Traits associated with it.
The rules suggest that you fill out the character sheet in order, starting with your character's Name. You may recall from earlier installments that this is a step I usually save for last, but I'll go along with the designer and come up with something genre-appropriate. Bibi Bee-B sounds silly enough, let's go with that.
Next I am supposed to choose my Archetype, which is kind of like selecting a commedia dell'arte role; it rests on a personality type and provides a framework for how you react to the encounters of each adventure. The game provides seven of these: the Gold-Hearted (ingenue), the Stoic (strong but silent hero), the Major (team leader and troubleshooter), the Overworked (load-bearing technical/administrative expert), the Homebody (accidental traveler), the Wayward (experienced traveller), and the bonus Scoundrel (selfish schemer). I'm going to make Bibi Overworked, with a specialty in administrative duties. They're that secretary or admin assistant who knows all the forms and all the phone numbers and without whom nobody's schedule would ever be straight.
Each Archetype comes with a Special Ability; for the Overworked it's Safety Conscious, which permits Bibi to cure the Impaired condition once per session. (Impaired happens whe you suffer some type of physical or psychological damage and mechanically it requires you to take the lowest two dice out of 3d6 when you have to make a roll.)
In addition, each Archetype comes with a Positive Trait and a Negative Trait. The latter are not always personality flaws, but rather ongoing conditions (internally or externally rooted) that may hinder the character's attempts to solve problems. For a Positive Trait I select Bureacratically Inclined to represent Bibi's administrative ability, balanced with Chronically Busy off the Negative Trait chart to show just how load-bearing they are.
Next we've got to get Bibi a Job. No charts here, just make something appropriate up. I'm just going to go with Administrative Secretary, since that's the direction we're headed. Schedule-keeping, correspondence, reception, office supply procurement, that kind of thing.
Only now do we determine Bibi's Species. The rules offer Human, Robot, and Define-Your-Own as options, and there's a good argument for making Bibi a robot, but I'd rather make them some sort of nonhuman organic species. I'm going to give them radial symmetry to they've got multiple grasping limbs, a head that rotates 360°, and a trunk with three short legs. Let's call them Tendrilli. Their mode of dress is a complicated arrangement of straps, from some of which hang various tools. The Tendrilli's multiple limbs will be Bibi's salient Species Trait.
I've already messed up here, because you're supposed to determine Archetype, Job and Species befire you work out any of the character's Traits, but as it makes more sens form a presentation perspective I'm going to stick with it. Anyhow, next on the list are Bibi's motivations. Each character needs an Unattainable Goal, some overarching, quest-level desire such as "find my way home" or "slay the Nebula Empress" that is structurally virtually impossible to achieve under the game's conditions. As if Bibi wasn't busy enough, i'm going to make their Unnatainable Goal win the Intergalactic Sweepstakes, so in between tasks they'll be managing their many. many entries and studying strategy guides.
In addition, each character has an Attainable Goal, a more mundane need or want that can be met with a reasonable amount of luck and effort, and which earns them a credit each time they do. (Credits are in-game currency, exchangeable for various goods and services. One also earns them for beating challenges in adventures and for finishing adventures.) These are still character-driven and should be at least nominally adventure-related, such as "protect an innocent from danger" or "defeat an alien menace." I'd like to reward Bibi for some sort of successful use of their job skills, but not something too specific. Overcome a bureaucratic obstacle is the sort of thing that might contribute to beating a challenge but not constitute the entire challenge, so let's put that down on the sheet.
The character sheet also has spaces for "credits," failure points," and "inventory," but those are all accumulated over the course of play,* so I think it's time to put down a statblock.
Archetype: Overworked (Special Ability: Safety Conscious; Positive Trait: Bureaucratically Inclined; Negative Trait: Constantly Busy)
Job: Administrative Secretary
Species: Tendrilli (Species Trait: Multiple Limbs)
Unattainable Goal: Win the Intergalactic Sweepstakes
Attainable Goal: Overcome a Bureaucratic Obstacle
Credits: 0 Failure Points: 0 Inventory: Nothing yet
*Failure Points are accumulated as you fail task rolls with a 6 or less; when you rack up three of these, the party gets a consolation prize rolled from the Deus Ex Machina table. If by some miracle you achieve your Unattainable Goal, you receive an extra Failure Point per adventure, which I think means you get to roll on the Deus Ex table one failure earlier, but might mean one failure later, than the other players
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