For Those About to Rock and/or Die

While I understand that DCC RPG's official name for their character creation process is, "The Funnel", I have to say that I don't think that the word captures the essence, the horror, of a formative experience more akin to a meat grinder than a funnel.. 

Having just completed my first foray into this terrifying process, I would like to petition Goodman Games, in future editions of DCC RPG, refer to this process as the Meat Funnel.  

Whether they do or not, I will henceforth refer to it as such.

In any event, of the four characters I started out with last week in Adam and Edgar's Metal Gods of Ur-Hadad campaign, only one remained last night, standing triumphant.  Crag Beerbeard, heroic Dwarven Blacksmith, managed not to outperform, so much as just outlast his compatriots.  He has discovered a bit of an affinity for the Longbow, ironic considering his racial handicaps, but nonetheless he seems to have taken the roll of the Deadeye Crackshot of the party, plugging several ghouls full of holes in last night's session.  

Surely the Hall of Heroes will fill with many songs of praise in his honor in the future, but I'd like to spend just a moment remembering the fallen, without whom Crag would not have had his chance to shine.

Miff Sapsipper - Alas, poor Miff, we hardly knew ye.  An Elven Navigator, I had the highest hopes for you.  The Tank of my group of intrepid adventurer's you had 5 hit points.  You were also lucky, born under the loom, which would have given you a +1 bonus to all skill checks, including thief skills.  I had visions of you with your spyglass and short bow as an elite archer assassin sniper type, but unfortunately, you were a bit cocky, feeling invincible with your five hit points, and were taken down in a single strike by a lizard man in the caves.  Someday, Crag will return your spyglass to your family, and tell them of your death.

Michelangelo Aggrosong - Despite your grand name, you were... well, pretty average.  A human cooper with but a single hit point, no-one knows what drove you to pick up your barrel and crowbar and descend into the depths.  A quiet type, you nonetheless showed some promise on the battlefield, releasing your rage as you beat at the lizard men.  Unfortunately, your fearlessness could only carry you so far, and it wasn't long until you fell beneath the might of your enemies.  Crag still carries your crowbar, Michelangelo, as a reminder not to get ahead of himself.

Lardo Cutpurssian - To be honest, no-one was terribly sorry to see Lardo go.  A fat, sweaty merchant, he had heard that there was treasure to be had, and a large group of people to hide behind as he collected it.  Quite smart, and reasonably strong, he was hamstrung by his hefty bulk, horrible asthma and a personality not even his mother could stand.  Even so, he might have made it, but something he saw in those depths caused him to snap.  Seeing his friends mowed down and he himself surviving, he came to believe he was blessed and became reckless, charging ahead of the party, and engaging in one-on-one melee battles.  Poor Lardo, didn't you know you only had but a single Hit Point?  Alas, even padded armor and a long sword couldn't save him, as he was brought down by a ghoul.  The symbol of your devotion to the Merchant God hangs close to Crag's heart.

And so, his companions but memories, grains of sand on the Beach of Time, Crag Beerbeard goes forth, purpose in his stride, a spark in his eye and fire in his belly, determined to learn from his experiences in... The Meat Funnel.

Stars Without Number - Dr. Ramesh Ramapudi

I've been participating in Ark's Redshirts campaign, where we play... you guessed it!  Expendable, low level characters hopelessly out of their league sent out to do the jobs nobody else wants to do.

Continuing my ongoing efforts to create characters as ill prepared for combat as possible, no matter the game, I created Scientist/Lieutenant "Professor" Ramesh Ramapudi.  Lieutenant Ramapudi carries a Laser Pistol, but barely knows which way to point it.  He is far more proficient with his Dataslab, Compad, Metatool and Survey Scanner.  He started off rather bland, somewhere between the guy that manned the science station when Spock was on a mission, and Microsoft Tech Support.  He was quiet, supportive and hung around mostly with his assistant, Petty Officer Owlicious.  He used his survey scanner to communicate with an intelligent AI, and communicated effectively with a clan of flying mosquitos.

All was going well until this mission.  This mission, the party hijacked an ancient ships warp thingamabob, discovered and awoke a shibboleth, which picked poor Ramesh up and would have eaten him, had Ramesh not been able to convincingly describe a process that would send it home (scientifically!).  The shibboleth didn't buy it, instead shaking him violently and screaming, "HOOOOWWWWWWWWWW" at him, but hey!  It didn't eat him!  The group only barely escaped the beast after a security officer sacrificed himself to take it down, detonating all of his rockets.  Escape they did, however, hacking down tree-limb sized crab legs as they went for food, finally getting back into their own ship just in time to escape being warped to god-knows-where. 

Over the course of the session, Dr. Rampaudi's calm exterior began to crack, and his fundamental, primal personality began to crystallize - calm and collected until he is placed under stress, and then the SCIENTIST SUPREME is revealed!.  The SCIENTIST SUPREME is not to be questioned or denied, as evidenced by the constant berating of his team mates for examining med packs instead of teleporting the monster into the vaccuum, for burning a round using their tactics skill to determine the best angle from which to shoot the giant frikkin monster, for wanting to shoot firearms in the room that had the warp thingamabob in it, etc etc etc.   Whenever the word "Why" was used in the form of a question, the answer was, inevitably, "SCIENCE!", and he may have, at one point, ordered a security officer to gun down a possessed team member, suggesting that he could be lazarus patched back to life later.  That last was unconfirmed, and did not make it onto his evaluation report for the session.

So it turns out that he would not have made for a good Customer Service Agent after all.  Or at least, not if he had to perform Customer Service in a war zone. 

In fact, he is sounding more and more like Dr. Nemesis, from recent X-Men comics!  Here are some of Dr. Nemesis' more choice moments, some of which actually align fairly well to situations that occurred last night....

Character Study: Peter No-Parents

Found in a gutter by a pair of humans, Peter was almost 3 years old before it was discovered that he was actually a halfling, at which point he was cast out onto the streets once more.  Over the next few years, he developed the skills that he would hone over a lifetime - hiding, stealing and lying.  Few can see Peter when he doesn't want to be found, and even less can catch his hand in their pocket.  When they do, though, almost none can resist the sad eyes and ridiculous stories he uses to explain the attempted theft away.  He's never really developed the ability to pick locks, or disarm traps, or any of the things most thieves can do, and is pretty worthless in a fight.  But if you need someone to get in and out of somewhere and not get caught he's your boy.

Literally.

This little bastard came out of a Pathfinder campaign, run by a friend of mine.  Min/Maxed to the point of absurdity, he is virtually impossible for the other characters in the party to detect when he's in Stealth mode.  A series of feats and a sweet kit allow him to move while Stealthed virtually without penalty, and gets to see a mark's Perception roll before he decides whether or not to rob him.  If he doesn't like the odds, he can make a Bluff check to explain why his hand is in that pocket.  Oh, and once a day gets a massive bonus to his Bluff checks. 

We actually played about four sessions before the party actually knew Peter existed.  He was spotted once, but mistaken for a small child and told to "run home to mommy".  He proceeded to rob that character blind.  Running around in the background, he caused all kinds of mischief, setting bars on fire touching off riots with well timed Bluffs.  After another character was killed, the player designed a new character - a female bard who would pose as Peter's mother, allowing Peter to soar to new heights of crime excellence. 

The challenge here was to design a character with absolutely no combat value whatsoever, and I think I was successful - he does 1d4-2 points of damage, if he hits, which is doubtful at best.  Originally he was going to be a pacifist priest, with only healing, protection and buffing spells, but I was flipping through the channels as I was building the character, and Oliver Twist was on.  Challenge accepted.

RPGs tend to be combat-centric, so creating a non-combat focused character, and finding ways to still make them useful, can be a fun alternative to the latest iteration of tank/mage/battlepriest.  Give it a try sometime!