CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE
© Jerry Harris 2013
(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)
YOUR CREW
While the Shadows isn’t a good place to make friends,
eventually groups of people there do gravitate together for at least economic
considerations. People form Crews
for all sort of reasons: family, war veterans, schoolmates, former employees,
etc. They may just be work associates,
who have some complementary skills and goals and developed some trust in one
another.
It’s up to the players decide how their character group got
together. Likewise, they should have
overall goal in mind for their Crew at some point. From a game standpoint, this is nearly a
levelless game, so playing to max out isn’t going to work. From the character’s point of view, living in
the Shadows sucks, and they want out.
Perhaps they want to go out with a bang and drag some powerful entity
down with them. Maybe they want a big
score to buy a new identity, a wealthy one.
Maybe they want to clean up some old messes they made in their past life
or get some revenge on the people who put them in the Shadows. Maybe they want to figure out how to
disappear from the Real and Virtual Worlds altogether. These goals can be determined during play, or
the players may want to create whole backstories for their characters. Just something to keep in mind.
Your characters are all experienced, but it hasn’t been
until now that they’ve achieved some small amount of notoriety in the
Shadows. By and large, people needing a
group offering “specialized services,” will be seeking out your Crew and making
them an offer. Perhaps a bit like a
private detective’s business, but a lot less legal and probably more violent.
There’s competition for work, but enough opportunities to
keep anyone in the Shadows with some skills working. Your Crew’s reputation in getting a job done
is what allows them the possibility of getting more lucrative deals. Competition between Crews is neither friendly
nor professional. However, people in the
Shadows abide by The Code. Don’t
turn on any other Zeroes. Don’t rat
anyone out to the authorities. Don’t
take contracts out on other Zeroes, either stealing or assassinating. You can kill another Zero in a formal honor
duel or if you’re both working opposite ends of a job. That’s just personal or business. Breaking the Code will piss off the Shadow
community. At worse, they’ll come after
your Crew to preserve themselves against a perceived group of traitors. At best, you’ll be shunned, which might worse
in a different way. At that point,
you’ll literally be socially alone in the world.
RETIREMENT
If a
character somehow max’s out on their stats, it’s time to invoke the Murtaugh
Rule. (“I’m getting’ too old for this
sh*t.”) Such a character should be
looking to big one last big score to retire on, or die trying. Alternately, they can be looking for a blaze
of glory to fling themselves upon pursuing vengeance on their enemies. Whatever.
Your character has not been created for the purposes of ruling a feudal
castle or ascending to deity-status to fight elder gods on their native
planes. Your character exists on the
bleeding edge, hoping to live long enough to retire comfortably and never live
like this again.
No comments:
Post a Comment