WIR: The Everlasting (3)

[stepnix]

Chapter two: Protagonist Creation!

Intro material has some advice before the rules themselves show up: Don't powergame, don't make a character that's too annoying (i'm under attack), be okay with bad things happening to them eventually, and also you can ignore the character creation rules completely if you really want. I expect I'm going to get pretty tired of "you can ignore this if you really want" by the end of the book.

Time for the rules. We get a step by step character creation process that's summarized in the sidebars and described more fully in the main body.

1) Genos (plural, gentes) is e what kind of monster you want to be. This chapter describes three: Ghuls (corpse-eating undead), revenants (ghosts who have repossessed physical bodies), and vampires (you know what a vampire is). I'm going to do things out of order, and spend the next post talking about how your genos changes character creation for you. That feels easier.

2) Concept. There's twenty biographical questions to answer here, apparently to give you a strong character concept before you touch mechanics at all.

3) Ethos, the first of several optional steps. These are pseudo-Jungian archetypes that notionally represent variations on the Hero's Journey. Mechanically, they're a potential source for Destiny points at the GM's discretion, if you spend the session pursuing your archetype's goals. Too many ethoi to list, moving on

(That bit of GM discretion is the first of several slips into much more traditional GM/player stances than the introductory material suggested. This is not surprising, but it is disappointing)

4) Persona, another optional step. Persona qualities are brief descriptions of your character's interests and motivations with a numerical rating, sorted into the categories of Beliefs, Outlooks, Passions, and Relations. These can be used as stat rating for card draws or dice rolls, but this is supposed to be a rare occurrence. The GM can mandate one of these draws if they believe you're acting out of character, which you can refuse in exchange for the GM permanently changing your Persona scores. The book also suggests that reaching a certain score in a persona value may be a prerequisite for completing a character's Hero's Journey (this does not appear to be a mechanically defined endpoint). Alternatively, you can buy Dementia qualities, which "relate to insanity" and "can include anything abnormal." fascinating microcosm of discourse-of-sanity there.

Persona qualities are the first step that require assigning ratings to stats. All rating-based steps have three possible methods for determining available points: Direct point allocation (get a point budget, decide how many points go into each stat rating), random draw (Draw cards, do math to them, assign the final results to stats of your choice), or random rolling (roll dice, do math to them, assign the final results to stats of your choice). Point buy vs randomized is a classic character creation variation, there's just more possible randomizers here.

5) Aspects, your main stats. Your mental Aspects are Instincts, Intellect, and Perception; your physical Aspects are Dexterity, Resilience, and Strength; and your spiritual Aspects are Inspiration, Presence, and Spirit.

6) Abilities. alright it's a stats+skills thing I guess, I can work with that. Abilities themselves are split into Skills and Aptitudes (larger action set containing several Skills). Raising the the Aptitude's score raises the "floor" value for all the Skills associated with it. The various point allocation methods give you some to spend on Aptitudes specifically and some to spend on Skills specifically. There's too many of both so i'm not naming them all here

7) Distinctions. yes we have another set of points to distribute. This one is like... merits? merits and flaws, at the same time? Nine categories: Biography, Eldritch Ties, Physique, Psyche, Resources, Servitors, Spirituality, Supernature, and Temporal Ties. The other stats have a minimum of zero, these can go into negatives, to note that the Distinction is actively causing problems for you rather than making life easier. This kind of makes the points vs random generation methods for this one extra similar but that's fine i guess. Usually these are just fictional descriptions not used in draws or rolls, but you can also buy Benefits and Drawbacks that modify the score and have more specific mechanical expressions.

wow "Psyche" is a bad stat i don't like that one

8) Supernatural Powers! You can spend points on either splat-specific powers called Preternaturae, or on various kinds of Magick, which everyone can learn. Each splat gets a small number of powers for free. This sections mentions two(!) future rulebooks to give even more options for Preternaturae and Magick.

9) Last Details: Congratulations, you now have a character! Mark their level (3) and derive a few stats: Speed (actions per combat round), Life (if it hits zero, you're incapacitated or dead), and Anima (magic points, if it hits 0 your life starts draining). Anima drains naturally over time and must be restored via splat-specific Sustenance.

...okay the chapter is still going so either the "Last Details" weren't really last or there's just a lot of details.

You have a Torment score, representing some splat-specific inner turmoil. If it maxes out, you become an NPC. Appropriate actions can raise your Torment score BUT also give you benefits like extra cards on a draw or getting Destiny points (almost there). And sometimes a Torment draw to change a character's behavior is triggered "on their own" which I assume means it's a GM call. Your Torment score can increase or decrease depending on how that goes.

A couple stats affect your starting equipment, mostly Resources. moving on.

There's two form of metacurrency, Destiny Points and Backlash Points. Destiny Points are earned by pursuing your Ethoi, increasing your Torment score, killing other immortals, or "doing things that improve the experience or story" in or out of character. it mentions buying pizza. Destiny Points can be spent in increments of 1-7 for effects like adding successes to draws/rolls, modifying the setting, or narrating new events.

Backlash Points are gained by using supernatural powers against the innocent, breaking splat-specific restrictions, or... at the GM's discretion, to punish out of character behavior. Your backlash points can be spent by anyone else to cause various problems for you. (Apparently dragons start with 30 of these??)

...the relationship between Torment, Destiny, and Backlash is odd to me. You have a "bribe players to cause interesting problems" metacurrency and a "punish players for causing uninteresting problems" metacurrency, i guess.

Experience Points! As mentioned, the above process creates a character at level 3. Each session, gain 1-4 XP, with 2-7 bonus XP per story. Points received is based on activity and effort. The book makes a point that it shouldn't be an evaluation of their RP skill but i think it just replaces it with a similarly awkward evaluation. giving my friend 1 XP because i thought they were lazy this session.

Big ol' table of how the XP translates to improving the various character sheet attributes. like many White Wolf games, this table means it's much cheaper to get high stats in character creation than it is to grow into them. If this was meant to encourage highly specialized characters, it would make some sense, but the passive-aggressive rant about powergamers in the XP section would suggest otherwise. The book suggests some in-character action to correspond to the increase in a skill, but doesn't give strict requirements for that.

okay home stretch

Example of character creation, we meet a vampire. Some gentes will require extra details described in their big book chapters. Players are encouraged to keep in-character journals for their characters, partially as a thing to do while the session is focused on other characters. You can explain where your stats come from or what they look like.

The final piece of advice: unless you're rotating characters, you're encouraged to keep your character sheet secret from other players. real swing to the other extreme, huh.

Very few differences in the text between versions, although the "eugenics" skill gets changed to "genetics." I might prefer the black and white art to the color art, the color art is kind of... muddy.