[Dark Days] Character Creation Playtest

[northerain]

Hello there
This is a character creation playtest for my game, Dark Days. What's Dark Days? I'm glad you asked!

You died. For a few seconds, your heart stopped, your lungs stopped drawing breath. Your body shut down. You thought dying would be grander, more impressive somehow. But dying isn't like in the movies. Death is bloody, dirty, without dignity or pride.
Getting shot, stabbed, hit by a car, thrown from a window, cutting your wrists, taking a bottle of pills, plastic bag around your head are all viable means of death. It happens to everyone, anywhere and for no reason at all other than chance and a bit of bad luck.
So you died. But you came back. You came back unlike all the others that get a casket and a shovelful of earth and maybe a few flowers, if they were loved or rich enough.
Your close brush with death probably affected you deeply. You felt like a zombie, a dead man walking. Maybe it has something to do with the nightmares you see every night, the horrible dreams that visit you, that won't let you rest. The times when you shut your eyes and saw a different world, bleak, fleeting. Maybe it's you have this nagging feeling that something isn't right, like a shadow you can only see with the corner of your eye. Turn around and it's gone. The dreams are getting worse and you think there's something else too.
Maybe they're not dreams. Maybe they're a memory. Where did you go when you died?

So Dark Days is about these guys(and ladies!) called Wayward. They're part of the occult underworld of New Baltimore, investigating weird cases and phenomena. There are different types of characters, called Cabals. These are: Avengers, Hellblazers, Redeemers, Doppelgangers, Wraiths and Haunters.
The relevant mechanics here are the Chapters of character creation. Taken from Fate, there are 5 chapters, each giving 1 aspect. These are: Life, Darkness, Death, Glimpse, and Crucible.
Life deals with your life before it got fucked up. Darkness details how the Darkness touched your life and what effect it had. Death is how you died and Glimpse is the nightmare you had, the revelation that brought you back from the dead. The Crucible one deals with how your group met.
Aspects work more or less like in Spirit of the Century and Fate in general.
The characters for my playtest were:

1. Hellblazer
Concept: Burned out artist
An artist that went insane when he was betrayed as a teenager by a girl. He uses scalpels like an artist uses brushes. Using a brush he can see into the Dusk. He sketches or draws other people's darkest secrets.

Aspects:
Creepy
Institutionalized
Drug Addict
On the Edge
Horror movie buff

2. Avenger
Concept: Ex-cop
An ex-cop whose wife was murdered by a criminal he decided to give a second chance to. His glimpse showed him that a person forced the criminal's hand.

Aspects:
Protector
Never Forgive
Payback's a Bitch
Enemies
''I know people''

3. Doppelganger
Concept: Company Executive
A company executive that was murdered by the father of a kid that commited suicide. Although he wasn't responsible, he didn't do anything to stop it.

Aspects:
Quiet Guy
Athletic
Honorable
Think Twice

4. Redeemer
A farm boy that discovered a satanic cult that sacrificed his sister. He went to jail as an accomplice, where he got stabbed by an inmate for refusing to deal drugs. He has an aversion to cults of all kinds and wants to help people that have become involved in one.

Aspects:
Hates Cults
Clean Cut
Church Goer
Schizophrenic
''I know them''


The sessions started with character creation. First, I described the general concept of the game and the setting, focusing on the different cabals and the Wayward in general. The cabal descriptions, boons and curses seemed to go over very well and generate excitement. Right of the bat most players had a couple possible cabal choices that they thought were really interesting. Most popular choices were Haunters, Redeemers, Wraiths and Avengers. All the cabals had fans though, which I thought was nice. One of my goals was to create cabals that were all interesting in some way.

The first player created an Avenger. I explained the concept of Aspects as a game trait and how character creation used the 5 chapters to describe the character's story up to this point.
Most chapters were pretty straightforward and I didn't encounter any hiccups. I noticed there was some overlap, where for example the chapter Death or Darkness also described some parts that would probably belong in the Life chapter. All in all though this was to be expected, since no life is linear.

Coming up with aspects wasn't particularly hard once the players grasped the general concept. I gave examples from the example character created in the text and some of my own that I came up with on the spot.
Players mostly accepted my proposals of aspects, though the creation was essentially a joint effort. I noticed it was important for the ST or the person with most experience to ''guide'' the players by asking questions about their character and offering aspects.
Some of the aspects chosen didn't come from the key events described in the chapter, and I'm still not sure if this is a bad thing yet. It certainly made things easier. (the aspect ''Athletic'' is one such example. It stemmed from the fact that the Doppelganger character used to play football in college).
Using quotes or phrases as aspects made things a lot easier so I think I should consider using aspects in that way. A phrase usually describes better what the concept is about.
Like ''Payback's a bitch'' in the case of the Avenger is probably a phrase the character would use, to show that he believes in the concept of payback and coupled with his chapter details, it's easy to remember that the characters is vengeful. Plus, the quote is much cooler than writing down ''Vengeful''.

We went through character creation. One of the players hadn't decided what cabal he wanted yet, so I offered to go through character creation first and then judge what kind of cabal would fit.
This proved a bit hard to do, since we reached the Glimpse chapter and nothing jumped out at us, although a couple of cabals could be removed from the possible choices. Seeing as the Glimpse is narrated by the ST, the cabal would be essentially my choice, even if it wasn't on purpose. If I described a glimpse where future events were shown, he would be a Wraith, and if I showed how someone had him murdered, he would be an Avenger.
Maybe this could work if the players take it upon him to narrate the Glimpse chapter. In our case we discussed cabals a bit until he chose the Doppelgangers.
The rest of the characters creation went smooth for the most part.

When the characters reached the Crucible chapter, they had to wait until the others were also done. I hadn't figured out how this chapter works yet, so initially I decided to let the players talk about it collectively. A player had an idea where each player would narrate a part and then another would continue, linking them together and thus bringing the characters together. This proved a bit too hard so I winged it by making this chapter into an introductory scenario instead. I will post this too, a bit later though.

In general, I was happy with how things went. Aspects were a bit tough at first, but people ''got'' them pretty fast after the first character was done. There isn't much collaboration in the first 4 chapters, but there was still interest and suggestions by other players while we created someone's character.

I don't really know what kind of feedback I'm looking for, since I didn't encounter many problems in this part. I think the aspects we came up with may be a bit bland and I'd love to find a way to make chargen more like actual play, so any suggestions on that, plus general feedback would be appreciated.

[tadk]

Sounds pretty interesting

Could you roll Life and Darkness into one Chapter, giving 2 Aspects from it, since in the way the setting is laid out they seem the most integrated.

So A Dark Life Chapter, then a Death Chapter and then Glimpse (So need more info on these Cabals and how it interrelates) then Crucible.

That is my next request to get a better feel.


So is the setting pretty detailed or more free form? How trad is the setting.

[northerain]

I don't think Life and Dakness fit together. Death and Darkness might fit together though and I might do that if I decide that your Death is a direct result of being infected by the Darkness. In that case I'll add another chapter I had an idea for a while ago.

I'd say the setting consists solely of the 6 Cabals, monsters and legends, the different powers and the city of New Baltimore. Mostly a general chapter about the city and interesting locations. Everything in it exists to be used in the game, so no 50 pages of material about the ''history'' of New Baltimore.

[tadk]

Ok so a very self contained world/setting/game of just system and not a lot else

All good

I dont see Darkness and Death together, I see Glimpse and Crucible more interrelated but just how I see it.

So more on these Cabals would help me