Character 14 - Brave New World

 Brave New World is a really fun supers game from 1999 and it kinda shows. Published by initially by Pinnacle Entertainment Group (PEG) and later Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) for most of the supplements and reprints, BNW derives mechanically from PEG's earlier Deadlands game and thematically from dark comic book settings like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.

Set in an alternate world (yanno, with superheroes...) in which the Kennedy Assassination was unsuccessful (mostly, RIP Jackie and the governor of Texas), the attempt on his life lead JFK to declare Martial Law in the US and this lead, slowly but surely, to a fascist dictatorship in which JFK is basically president for life. He keeps himself in power by utilizing the superheroes - called Deltas in the setting - who've been around since at least WWI as a kind of national police force lead by even bigger and badder supers known as Alphas. You play the resistance group, the Defiants, fighting the good fight against a fascist police state, public opinion (propaganda is a bitch), and the jingoistic Deltas of Delta Prime. Sounds like fun! Let's jump in and make a character, shall we?

Character Creation

Character creation in BNW is a simple six step process:

1. Assign Traits
2. Pick Skills
3. Pick Quirks
4. Pick a Power Package
5. Pick Tricks
6. Select Gear

Step 1 - Assign Traits

So you begin at the top level by assigning 12 points amongst the game's 4 Traits. No trait can be lower than 1 or higher than 5, there are also a couple of diceless traits that we'll figure out here too. So the way the game works is every point you assign to the 4 traits gives you 1d6 to roll when attempting an action covered by that trait. In addition to this you add however many points you have (if any) assigned to that skill to your roll. so if you're attempting to drive and you have 4d6 in Speed and 2 points in the Drive skill, you'll roll 4d6+2. Easy peasy, right? Ok cool, let's go over the Traits

• Smarts - how brainy your hero is
• Speed - how fast your hero is
• Spirit - how together your hero is
• Strength - how physically powerful your hero is

So we have 12 points to distribute here and we can make a perfectly average Delta with 3s across the board. But that's kinda boring, we'll make a guy who's a little below the average in Smarts and Strength and a little above in Speed and Spirit. So that's 

Smarts 2d6

Speed 4d6

Spirit 4d6 

Strength 2d6

This gives us a character who isn't super useful in straight up fist fights but is a good team lead (Spirit is also the social trait) and quick on the draw.

Step 2 - Pick Skills

For every point in a Trait you get 3 points of associated skills. In addition, everybody gets a few free skills as things that "everybody knows" having lived their life. So let's go over the skills!

Smarts Skills

Academia (lots of subskills here based on area of study)

Artillery 

Area Knowledge (subskills here based on what area you know)

Bureaucratics

Computing

Criminology

Demolition

Disguise

Etiquette

Forgery

Gambling

Language

Medicine

Navigation

Profession (subskills based on your job)

Science (subskills based on area of study)

Security

Survival (subskills based on area you can survive in)

Tactics

Tinkering

Weaponsmith

Speed Skills

Acrobatics

Archery

Boating (surprising number of subskills based on type of boat)

Dodging

Driving (subskills of Personal and Professional vehicles)

Escaping

Flying

Lockpicking

Martial Arts (subskills based on type of fighting)

Piloting

Quick Draw

Riding

Sleight of Hand

Shooting

Speed-load

Stealth

Trade (subskills based on your job)

Spirit Skills

Arts (subskills based on medium)

Bravery

Faith 

Leadership

Mimic

Perception

Performing (subskills based on type of performance)

Persuasion (subskills based on means of persuasion)

Scrounging

Scrutinize

Search

Shadowing

Streetwise

Tracking

Strength Skills

Climbing

Fighting (subskills based on manner of fighting)

Running

Sport (subskills based on sport)

Swimming

Throwing

Right so that's a LOT of individual skills. Everyone gets Area Knowledge: Hometown 2, Climbing 1, Language: Native 2, Scrutinize 1 and Search 1 for free so let's go ahead and knock those out. On top of those, I'll get 6 points of Smarts skills, 12 each of Speed and Spirit skills and another 6 of Strength skills. Oh and no skill can start higher than 5 at character creation. So let's go over a couple things before we allocate these points.

First and foremost: the game has both Fighting and Martial Arts. What's the difference? Well, one is for Speed character and one is for Strength characters. That's it. That's the difference. If you have a higher Strength you take Fighting and vice versa. 

Next up: Profession vs. Trade. Professions are white collar jobs, trades are blue collar jobs. It's a dumb distinction, but there it is. Either way, it's basically a point dump. Very few games are going to have you roll Trade: Plumber on anything like a regular basis.

Lastly: Art vs. Performance. Arts are mostly physical, Performances are mostly active. Though Arts has Music and Performance has Singing so I dunno what that's all about. They're both under Spirit so it really doesn't matter since each subskill is its own point expenditure. 

Anyway, gotta spend my 36 points, right? Ok let's do it like so:

I'll put 3 points each in Demolition and Tactics under Smarts. 2 each in Running, Throwing and Climbing (for a total of 3, I get that free point, remember?) under Strength. I'll put 4 points into Shooting, 2 points into Martial Arts: Barehanded, 2 into Acrobatics, 2 into Dodging, 1 into Escaping and 1 into Stealth. Finally 3 into Bravery, 3 into Leadership, 2 into Scrutinize, 2 into Search and 2 into Performing: Public Speaking.

This gives us a tough, shooty character who can lead a group and sway a crowd. 

Step 3 - Pick Quirks

Oh yeah, this game has a ridiculous merits and flaws system. You can take up to -10 points of negative quirks to get up to 10 points of positive quirks or more skills. Several of them are worth 0 points because they're things that everyone has to take as part of the game setting. So why bother including them? I dunno, you'd need to ask Matt Forbeck, he designed the game. I'm just designing a character.

Looking over the (long, verbose) list of Quirks I'll settle on:

Delta +0 (yes, you have to choose between Delta or Reg in a game that doesn't give the latter as a playable option)

Public Identity +0 (you can try to have a secret identity, I guess, but it's not like you're helping grannies cross the street, you're a revolutionary!)

Unregistered +0 (there's a delta registration act here, if you're public identity and unregistered you automatically get the Wanted quirk)

Wanted -5 (see above, just existing is a crime for my guy)

Ambidextrous +5 (it's good to have in a shooty type character)

Honestly, I'm good with that. There's a lot more stuff here, but I don't want bonus points for being Lusty or Bloodthirsty and I don't need my character to have Keen Eyes or be Good Looking. Seems superfluous to me, honestly.

Step 4 - Pick a Power Package

This, more than anything else, is what separates BNW from other supers RPGs of the time. Rather than throw every power and the kitchen sink into a big pick and choose and point buy and build up list, BNW had discrete power packages. You got to pick one and then you could customize it in the next step. So yeah, you get the following packages in the corebook and you pick exactly one and that defines your super powers:

• Bargainers can summon demons and bind them into Totems to use their powers. This was super weird for a superhero game in the late 90s and in the corebook they're really kinda chumpy (they can do anything other heroes do...but worse!) and suffer from needing an expansion to be really good.
• Blasters can shoot energy out of their hands. 
• Bouncers are fast and tough and bounce all over the place.
• Flyers can uh... they can fly. It says so right there on the tin. They also get a little armor while flying.
• Gadgeteers can make superscience gizmos. Power armor, giant tanks, super weapons, uh... probably also non-destructive stuff I guess if you wanted.
• Goliaths are just big huge strong dudes. Very large, very tough, very strong.
• Gunners are like Hawkeye level good with guns and arrows and paper airplanes and stuff.
• Healers can uh... remember how flyers can fly? Well Healers can heal. I know. Crazy stuff here.
• Scrappers are strong and have a healing factor. They may or may not call you "bub".
• Speedsters are super duper fast. Like the average pace of a character is 5 and they start with +100 to pace. They're faster than most cars. 

I've been subtly making a Blaster this entire time and never told you. Because I was going in order by the book rather than in order of what makes sense to me. So yeah, I'm making a blaster so I get Armor 5/- and an Energy Blast attack that I can shoot out of one or both hands (see, that's why I took Ambidextrous).

Step 5 - Pick Tricks

Tricks are how you customize your power set. It would be boring if every single last Blaster just had the one "I shoot him with my left hand" power with nothing else going on, so you get to pick 3 tricks. Every power set has its own 2 and there's a list of generic Tricks that anyone can take. I'll pick up the Blast Punch trick from my power package, it does exactly what it says and lets me add extra blast damage to my close combat attacks, the Knockdown trick that lets me use extra successes on an attack roll to knock an opponent flat and the Make An Impression trick that lets me take a bonus going forward to anyone I use Persuasion on in a friendly manner.

And that's mostly it. Yeah, there's a step 6 "select gear" but I'm not gonna do that. It's a modern game. My guy, Michael Turner, no alias, has a crummy apartment under an assumed name, a cheap car, street clothes and not much else. The end! Again, this is an older game so no form fillable character sheets are available, you'll just have to use the power of your imagination! Tomorrow's game has one though, so come back then to see!