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Monday, June 10, 2013

Origins For Your 4C Space Games


4C Space Origins
Origins in 4C tell you how the character became someone extraordinary. It is a combination of their background and how they became a hero. The Origin also gives you, as the player, some hooks into how to play the character. These Origins have come from science fiction comics, novels and movies. Each character has one Origin, which can be determined randomly or, depending on the style of the campaign being played, picked for a character. This post isn’t intended to be comprehensive, just to give you the ideas with which to start your own 4C Space games. And if you haven't checked them out yet, be sure to check out the 4C System rules page.
If you’ve never played in a game inspired by comic book super-heroes, one thing that is important is to not get too attached to the backstory of your character. Everything, even history, is mutable in a super-hero universe and there are powers out there that can change things quickly. The best approach for characters in a super-hero game is to use the “emerging character,” where you start with a set of rough details and let the history of your character unravel as you use them, coming up with elements of the past to suit what is happening now in the campaign. This style of play isn’t for everyone, but in years of playing and running super-hero games, it is an approach that works well and does a good job of emulating the source material of the comics.

For those who've played the game that the 4C System is based upon, or used the 4C toolkit, you'll notice that this approach to Origins is slightly different. That is intentional.

Spacer: The character is an experienced and grizzled space traveler, having been bitten by the space bug while on an exploratory or military ship. At some point they managed to get their own ship and continue their journeys. A spacer tries to remain neutral in intergalactic politics, but sometimes the only way to do that is to go outside of the law. Human spacers are rare, and their background may have some explaining . It isn’t unusual for the past of the spacer to bite them on the ass in the present.
  • +10 to Awareness and Willpower
  • 2 extra contacts
  • +1 starting Skill
Soldier: War is common out in the expanses of space as it is planetside. War can change a person, and war is space is even more likely to do that. In space a soldier is likely to see worlds explode and cultures destroyed. That weighs upon a person. It takes a tough, and lucky, individual to survive war in space. Soldiers do not often change and become farmers (even when they want to), there are always new wars and the battles often come to the soldiers. Those who do not want to leave the life often become mercenaries.
  • +10 to Melee and Coordination, +20 to Brawn
  • +5 to Fortune
  • +2 starting Skills
Weapon of the Gods: There are many cosmic powers throughout the universe, from the great space cultures to the Anthropomorphism of eternal principals to ancient gods walking the spaceways. All of these powers want tools, weapons, instruments of their great plans. This often means taking some insignificant person (to the cosmic powers) and turning them into something that can make their plans come into fruition. Of course, too often these weapons rebel and turn against the great powers to find their own destiny among the stars. Sometimes, though, escape from fate is not as easy as they would think. Once human, these weapons are now very powerful on their own, often able to battle with space fleets or the gathered defense forces of entire planets. Independent or working for their creators, the appearance of beings as powerful as these weapons rarely means that good things are going to happen, as they are drawn to important happenings.
  • +10 to Fortitude and Melee, +20 to Awareness
  • Character receives 2 extra powers
  • Character can fly, unprotected, through space and navigate by ways of natural wormholes and space/time manifestations.
Law-Enforcement: There are as many law-enforcement organizations in space as there are cultures, maybe more. The organizations often jockey for jurisdiction and enforcement powers (some even charge for their services), and on rare occasions there will be conflict between rival organizations. Regardless, the character is a representative of the law out there in space. While other characters look for adventure, money or excitement; the law-enforcer is out there fulfilling a duty. A lot of responsibility can come with with being the law, and often because of that the character may not fit in with every group.
  • +10 to Fortitude and Willpower
  • Character has power to arrest and keep prisoners within their jurisdiction
Innocent Abroad: The, often human, hapless outsider who is brought into space (perhaps by accident), who has to learn fast about life in space. The character has never been on a space craft, does not know about the existence of the space cultures and does not speak any of the space languages. They are dependent on the other characters, or technology, to survive while in space. Learning fast is important.
  • +10 to Intellect
  • +10 to Fortune
  • Whatever process brought them to space gave them an extra power (the process likely triggered their becoming super-human)
Scientist: The character took to space in the cause of science, to learn and experience everything that they possibly could about the universe…and maybe experiment on it as well. The character is well versed in their native sciences and uses this as a springboard for learning about the sciences of the great space cultures. Science is the most important goal of the character.
  • +20 to Intellect
  • +10 to Fortune
  • +3 starting Skills
The Sidekick: Much like the Innocent Abroad, sometimes people are pulled into space purely by accident, but they don’t all become the heroes of the story. Sometimes people are pulled along and have to survive by pluck, luck and skill. Some get to be heroic without getting great power in the mix.
  • +10 to Coordination and Fortitude
  • +10 to Fortune
  • Character has no powers but 1 extra Skill