Character-Delivered Setting

If you've looked at Electric Bastionland at all you'll know that I think a good character creation process can give your game a jump-start that helps all the other pieces fall into place. If you do it well you might not even need to explain the setting to your players beyond what they've already picked up from rolling a character.

Mothership does an excellent job of this, as I've written about before. The classes are clearly designed to come with interesting relationships baked-in. We can all imagine how the Scientist and Marine might interact in that sort of sci-fi-horror universe. Likewise the Teamster and the Android. 

I wanted to tap into this and expand it for the characters in Voidheist.

The plan was to take Mothership's four highly evocative, archetypal characters, and blow them up to a two-axis grid based on Origin and Occupation.

The Android is clearly an Origin. They exist outside of the assumed humanity of the other three classes, so it got me thinking about what other Origins would exist. These would be applied onto the occupations, so in Mothership terms you might have four androids that all have different functions, or four scientists that all come from different backgrounds.

I wanted these Origins to key into the major elements of the implied setting and give the GM inspiration for creating scenarios, but also wanted them archetypal enough that you almost don't need any explanation beyond their name. 

Corporations represent the full embrace of Capitalism with some cyberpunk splashes. A lot of the equipment they get is tied to their Personal Devices, or uses portable printers that let you keep your own resources separate to the group. It's an individualist society, and when your Instinct kicks in (when your Stress Gauge is full) you'll default to shunning even your closest allies.

Colonials are a clear opposite to the Corporates. Their Instinct is almost an exact mirror of the Corporate instinct, and some of their equipment links to the idea of self sacrifice for the greater good. It's far too easy to paint these as the "Good Guys" of the setting, but I don't want things to be that clean, so they get some pretty nasty pieces of get that might be seen as necessary for a community's survival in harsh conditions. 

Naval characters are the most outright militaristic. Even the non-soldiers generally get some sort of weapon, and when your Instinct kicks in you'll be inclined to use it. 

Is the logo too on-the-nose? These guys get the most high-tech gadgets, compared to the Corporate characters that have gear that looks fancy but is actually sort of trivial in practise. They're the reason that the Corporations, Colonies, and Navies aren't just tearing each other to shreds and represent a sort of soft, somewhat toothless centrism compared to more overt stances of the other factions.

Android is easy. We all know what that represents at its core, even if we might differ on the specifics. They're highly specialised for each Occupation and their Instinct is especially cruel depending on the GM's choice of question. I might put more guidance in here for later versions.

Continuing in the fine Red Dwarf tradition I decided to keep things human-centric but have Genetically Engineered Organisms (GENOs) to account for a splash of humanoid-weirdness in there. This was by far the most difficult Origin to distil down to an easily-understandable archetype, but I think there's enough here to suggest "you're a modified human, but keep that quiet" flavour. 

So Origin combined with your Occupation (Soldier, Researcher, Engineer etc) gives you a unique set of starting gear and you're on your way. As previously mentioned your Instinct is going to remain on your character sheet as a constant reminder of your Origin. But there are other ways both Origin and Occupation remain in play.

The key section above is "Panic". If you all share a common reference point (all Engineers, all Union) then you'll just work better with each other during times of high stress. Maybe when you're splitting into sub-teams you find yourself always teaming up with the other Corporate guy but it's just easier that way, right? Send the two soldiers off together, keep them out of trouble. 

Want an interesting location for the next heist? Just pick two Origins and put them in conflict with each other.

Character growth is also tied to your Origin, Occupation is irrelevant here, so your Naval Researcher is going to pick up more military-focused abilities, regardless of how much they might think of themselves as a scientist. 

Want to renounce your Naval background? That can be arranged! Each of the Origins has a way to unlock their upgrades, which you can then take as if you had that Origin yourself. Great! Let me at those sweet high-tech Union Upgrades.

Erm... no?

I guess changing your nature is harder than expected.