cyarakutaa-no-souzouThe Characters VM  

 

CHAPTER 2: THE CHARACTERS

The characters are regular high school students. Their lives revolve around classwork, homework, VM construction and combat, the opposite sex, and - in general - growing up.



CHARACTER CREATION

Characters physical and mental stats are limited to no more than 7. Any stat that goes above this, the point cost is doubled (an 8 costs 10 points, a 9 costs 12 and a 10 costs 14). In addition to the regular stats, two more have been added: Money and Family (M&F) and Relationship With Parents (RWP). RWP will (in very general terms) define how your parents view how your life is going and their opinions on what needs to be fixed. This stat will fluctuate wildly as you do (or fail to do) things in the game. This stat will be tied into your family objectives (see below). M&F will do the same thing it did in Mekton II. It establishes both your starting money/ allowance and sets your family status (e.g. middle class, rich, poor). Note that RWP and M&F are not bound by the physical/mental limit costs.


For a starting character skills there are only a few limits, beyond this there are no boundries. The limitations are:

  • Combat skills are limited to no higher than 3 for starting characters. These are kids, not professional Mercs. Some might have learned how to use a gun for hunting, or martial arts for discipline, but they are not of a professional caliber. Be reasonable with these skills, and REQUIRE a player to have a VERY good reason for having a level 3 in a dangerous skill.
  • Professional skills are not allowed. Professional skills are defined as any skill, that in real life, that would require several years of specialized education to aquire. Examples include: Medicine (for doctors), Law, Law enforcement,teaching, and so on in this way. These characters have yet to escape high-school. Note that "semi-professional" skills, such as Go Without Sleep, Ignore Deadline, are allowed, however.

  • All other skills have no limits, but - once again, remember that these are students, and have yet to finish learning and growing.

Please keep in mind that all of this (the stats and skills) are in relation to adults. If you are running a straight high-schooler game or running an adult based game then creation rules are normal, with the exception of the VM skills. Those remain limited to starting levels of 1 (one).



Chiisai groaned with pain as he kneeled to retake his fallen shoulder bag. It made a horrible sound of broken glass. Fearing the worst, he opened it.

His beloved VR goggles were broken in half, with no possible repair. It could be months before he could manage to join enough money to buy another set. The pocket computer he used to make last-moment changes to his VM's code had its case shathered; he was almost certain it wasn't damaged, but now his father would know for certain that he was "borrowing" it from his desk. And worst of all, the code disk with the original code of CORA, his sweet Cora (not the tunned-down version he used usually, but the VM of his dreams, of which he had no copy), was shattered. He felt a pain inside him greather than the ones caused by his many bruises.

And added to that, now he was going to be late to class. Again. Chiisai could not help but ask himself if this stupid kid's struggle had been worth the trouble it had caused.

"Thank you very much for protecting me from those two bullies, Kojiro" said Isami to him, her face gleaming.

Chiisai had his answer.


 


PRIORITIES

There is an upside to all of these limits: A PCs stats and skills can improve. Your PC can improve his stats by allocating time to go do sports, or reading lots of books or whatever is relevant to improving what you want improved. To do this you have to set PRIORITIES.

Thanks to the competeting time demands in a teenagers life, they have to allocate their time carefully. To do otherwise would cause even further havoc...and get them grounded until after graduation. There are 6 priority categories that PCs will have to balance. These categories are:

  1. Family
    This covers chores, "quality time" and family activities
  2. School
    This covers your grades, how much time you spend on homework and so on
  3. Social
    This covers your social status in the school, are you a nerd,jock or prom queen?
  4. VM Training
    How much time do you practice to keep your edge?
  5. VM Design
    How fast can you fix up a new VM to meet a challenge, or an arenas preconditions
  6. Job
    Do you work, if so how much? Trying to get promoted?

To balance out these demands, players will assign each category a priority code on a characters weekly basis (for each GAME week). The priority codes are A through F, A being the highest, F being whenever you get around to it.

After the priority codes are set, the player will have to tell the GM what objective he wants to accomplish for each. There MUST be at least one objective per category (except Job - if you don't have one -looking for a Job counts as an objective). The objective can be as simple or as complex as the characters needs are. Failing to meet an objective can result in your character landing in hot water. Meeting, or exceeding the objectives in some spectacular way can provide some unexpected benefits.


Here are some examples of meeting objectives:

  • For Family: for meeting your objective, you could be given a bit more on your allowance, or you could get out of chores for a couple of days (resulting in more free time!). Failing to meet your objective here could result in grounding - with the computer locked up, or result in your parents demanding you spend more "quality time" with the family and less time playing those @#$%! video games.

  • For School: Doing well here can net you FREE skill points (education is a good thing). Failing (literally) can result in study halls and detention. Depending on how much you mess this up, it could impact on your Family.

  • For Social: Friends are useful. Being social can get others to help you do things. They can help you find a Job, help you code that spiffy auto-plasma cannon in about 1/4 the time you could do it. Being Anti-social can result in you making Enemies, getting picked on at School (taking down your grades) and really ruin your chances of getting a date for the Prom (EEEWWWW!!! Go out with THAT geek - I Think Not!). Flubbing here can also do a real bad number on your REP (more on that later).

  • For VM Training: The more you practice, the better you get. If you don't practice you can lose your touch. Realistically, failing to practice will give you increased chances at Fumbles and/or catastrophic Fumbles. If you don't practice you will fumble an a 2 or less on a d10, and you will get a catastrophic fumble on a roll of 1 on a d10. You will also be at -1 on initiative. This may seem a bit harsh, but you will be going up against those who do practice - and they will know what to do when Something Goes Wrong. If you practice, you lose nothing and can work out the thebugs in your or your teams tactics.

  • For VM Design: learn by doing. If you don't try to design a VM, you can never create your own. You will be stuck buying off-the-shelf componants....and those only go so far. Failure doesn't cause problems here, success could mean victory.

  • For Job: do well here and you can get a promotion (more MONEY!!) or at least keep your job when you blow something. Failure here means you can be fired. Being fired means you have no money. No money means you can't pay the arcade to use and show-off your Godlike VM. Note: Success here could mean you find a job (if you didn't have one in the first place) or find a better job.


CATCHING SOME "Z's"

If you haven't noticed there is one thing missing from the above list: SLEEP! If your PC doesn't get at least 8 hours of sleep, they will be at a -1 for every third skill check. (you are kinda tired), for having 6 or less hours, the will be at a -1 for every other check (you are feeling very sleepy), and for 5 or fewer hours of sleep you are at a -1 for all checks (you're bushed!)

Depending on how much sleep you miss may reaquire a Go Without Sleep roll vs diff 10 (for 7 hours of sleep). The difficulty goes up by 5 for every 2 hours of sleep you miss (miss 4 hours roll vs diff 20). If Successful you move up one category (6 hours sleep + roll means you are at a -1 for every third check). Imbibing prodigious amounts of caffinated beverages will give bennies to the roll...but only the GM knows when the caffine crash will happen.


 
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