Saturday, January 06, 2024

Character Challenge 6 of 31: Planet Mercenary

I backed this RPG on Kickstarter way, way back and have yet to actually even read much of the book. I've read off and on over the years the Sgt. Schlock web comic and generally enjoyed it. When they decided to create an RPG on the comic, I felt it could be a lot of fun and it looked to have some interesting mechanics. However, those mechanics and having a funny RPG also made it a more daunting game. As I am never intentionally funny. If I try it always comes out wrong. I blame my foot-in-mouth disease. 

Regardless, I really should at least try & go through the character generation and perhaps become inspired to try & run a game. After all, I do have the deck of mayhem cards that could help it to be funny in a non-funny game master's game!

What is different is that your character is actually in charge of grunts: you have a squad of ablative meat shields. Which you may use as that, but if they survive, they get stronger and when your character dies, you can now use one of your now upgraded grunts. Almost like DCC in some ways I suppose, admitting that I've never played DCC or gone through a funnel. But I do read a lot...It is also a much more group oriented experience. You are all part of a mercenary unit at the beginning, in charge and running it, not as the ablative meat shields grunts.

The other big difference is also similar to later editions of Traveller: it needs to be a team effort as there are several primary roles that need to be taken and there should only be one of each. The players are creating a mercenary company. Which also bypasses the meeting in a tavern session 0 issue.

  • Captain: "If you play as the Captain, then your in-game job is to make command decisions and issue orders to the other officers. You’re a little like the Adjutant to the GC, and in that role, you rely on people skills to keep the game moving. "
  • Chaplain. "The Chaplain provides both moral support and a moral compass. Morale and morality! Sometimes it falls to the Chaplain to point out what horrible people the other officers could become if they follow a given path. Other times the Chaplain must bring his carbine to his shoulder and clear a path with righteous indignation!"
  • Doctor, "The tools of 31st-century medicine are extremely powerful, but the single most useful surgical instrument is always information — specifically, information about which bits are supposed to be reconnected to which other bits, and whether a particular organ would be missed, since there’s rarely time to grow a new one."
  • Engineer, "An Engineer is like a walking toolbox of two-twists-and-hit-it-with-a-hammer solutions to problems the company may encounter. (If the Engineer is a machine-intelligence with the right attachments, then remove the word “like” from the previous sentence.) Typically, the Engineer is tasked with fixing (or building!) things in the “materiel” category, though they may also be adept at hacking the various non-sentient “thinking” machines commonly called “computers."
  • Ops Commander. "When the client looks to your officer corps, their eyes fall on the Captain. They may not even notice the Ops Commander, who has already identified the exits, possible entry points for attackers, and half a dozen ways to kill everyone in the room — all without attracting any attention."
  • Legal Counsel. "Sometimes it’s best for everyone to holster their weapons while the company’s Legal Counsel steps in to negotiate. This noble war barrister operates as more than just a lawyer. They are the fastest talker in a word-fight, the craftiest contractor ever to get paid twice for the same job, and the only one who can tie the hands of an entire government with little known precedent and a single well-timed signature. Lacking the right signatures, the Legal Counsel may be required to unholster and go hot, serving up bullets instead of subpoenas. Either way, the job gets done and the contract gets honored."
  • Quartermaster: "Properly selected weapons and other materiel can turn a lone soldier into a perambulatory dispensary of enemy dismay. It’s the Quartermaster’s job to keep the “properly” there with the “maintained,” and to perform repairs on gear that’s been dragged into one too many ambushes."

Step 1: Pick a command package

We'll start with a captain, as if I do decide to run a game, we will probably need a rival mercenary group. So yes - I will, over this challenge, attempt to create a complete mercenary group.

As captain, Sidwell Blitterhorn gets +2 Economics, +2 Contracts, History (Military), +2 to any 1 combat skill. And - he is in charge! 

Step 2: Pick a background package

There are 10 background packages, so rolling a d10 his background is pilot: he speaks starship. This gives +2 Influence, +2 Space Vehicles (could have been air vehicles), and +2 stationed weapons. 

Step 3: Pick a sophont

There are 5 common sophont types so we'll make that completely random as well. Though I'll roll a d6, and 6 = one of the uncommon types. Rolling a 4 Captain Blitterhron is a Rilla, a Gorilla sapiens. An uplifted great ape. This gives +1 Athletics, +1 Endurance, +1 Perception and I gain the Perception (Smell) at no cost. And I like to be naked as clothes make me itch. I also suffer a -2 penalty with negotiate skill checks after all other modifiers. And I have bite attack. Should we get into hand-to-mouth combat I suppose. 

Step 4: Select Skills and Specialties

All new characters start with 5 Dodge ranks. But after that, you spend skill points to pick the skills you want. Note that no character may start with more than 9 ranks in any skill. As a new character, I have 40 points to spend. Ranks cost 1, and specialties cost 2 skill points. I can only buy a specialty for a skill I already have a rank in. Interestingly, levelling up specialties cost 3 skill points. 

"Skills are the engine of the Planet Mercenary RPG". I do see a lot of parallels with Traveller here. But hey, I am admittedly biased as Traveller is my favorite game! One note is that we need to make sure at least one character has a good ranking in contracts, as that is what drives the game as each job starts with a contract.

We'll start with some social skills: as captain, he needs to be in charge. Ans a Rilla, thinking Intimidate is a natural, so we'll take that at Rank 4, with a specialty of Coercion (6 points). We'll let our future lawyer specialize in negotiating. 

Moving to physical skills, we'll put 6 points into Endurance (12 points), then we'll buff up Captain Blitterhorn to have rank 4 in space vehicles, with a specialty in both evasive action and stunts (20 points). And add in Athletics Rank 2 with a specialty in climbing and strength (28 points). For mental skills, we'll give him a rank 2 in insight (30 points). 

And finally, we have 10 points to spread out in combat skills. Being a big, uplifted Rilla, going to put 6 of those into heavy weapons, with a specialty in projectile, and the last 2 skill points into melee. 

And I have no idea if that is a good mix or not. Unless we actually play, I've no idea how those mechanics actually play out. 

Step 5: Derived statistics

Our health starts out as 8 + Endurance. Huh - did we ever roll base stats? Rechecking the check list, and no, we have not done that. And it says now we get to roll dice. But fails to mention what kind and how many. Or do we - it looks like we actually use skill points based on the character generation example. I've updated my steps above to increase the captain's endurance. He did have contracts, but we'll let the future lawyer handle that. Still not sure why they say we are rolling dice when as far as I can tell, we are not.

And voila, a character sheet filled out. Maybe even correctly. One of these days, if we play, I'll see how badly I filled this out. And now to do some research to see if this game is played a lot or not. While I think with the correct game master, aka Game Chief, it would play well I hope. And after re-reading before publishing, several adjustments were made. Now to see what a scattergun even is...



Eventually I'll have the entire mercenary group, including their ship. Future postings for Planet Mercenary should be shorter as I don't have to include a lot of the basic info I added at the top of this post.
I went to Pinterest looking for uplifted gorilla images, and oddly I am pretty sure a lot of them were AI generated. So I decided to generate my own. The one above seems to work for me, but I am including the set below that was initially generated.

Finally, just who is Sidwell Blitterhorn? As an uplifted gorilla, a Rilla, he is a 160 kg (353 pound) 1.8 m (5.9') individual. He spent years as a pilot in another mercenary group, the Hell's Bells, before getting enough credits to start his own group. Which is yet to be named. Capitalizing on his size and intimidating demeanor, while Sidwell often loses his temper (and has broken far too many pieces of furniture as a result), he has managed to get a small contract or two on his own. While he would rather be flying than just about anything, he also wants to be his own boss. And being in charge of a mercenary group was his ticket for that.

Planet Mercenary Character Generation

Perhaps it is because this this the 1st time I've tried to generate a character for this game, but it seemed more complicated in some ways. It is a point-based system, with the specialties so no dice rolling. Which for a lot of people is a good thing, but I do like semi-random character generation. I am hoping it gets simpler with the next character I create, which will be the legal counsel so we have someone with good contract skills. Sidwell, when things don't go his way, tends to throw the luggage briefcases around! American Tourist commercial

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