Likes: Testing his limits. Training. Cello. Rare steak. Surprising the opposition. The feel of a pretty face. Studying the unknown. Making the best of a bad situation. The smell of an evil man’s blood. The sound of wind and the smell of air before a storm.

Dislikes: Pretentiousness. Bullies. Rotting city smells. Racists. Intimidating people he doesn’t mean to. His own mistakes. The feeling of loss. Dischordant music.

Karma: 750

Positive Qualities: (70)

Adept(10)
Martial Arts(Muay Thay/Savate) Lv. 2(20)-+2 DV Unarmed Combat
Martial Arts(Kung-Fu/Chángquán) Lv. 1(10)-+1 DV Unarmed Combat
Martial Arts(Carromeleg) Lv. 1(10)-+1 die Surprise Attacks
SURGE Lv. 2(20)-20 BP + Surge Qualities, 10 BP Negative Surge qualities

Negative Qualities: (70)

Reduced Sense-Sight(10)- -3 all tests that have to do with sight
SINner(10)
Sensitive System(30)
Combat Monster or Signature(20)

Positive SURGE Qualities:

Metagenic Improvement(Strength)

Negative Surge Qualities:

Extravagant Eyes(amber/gray pupils)
Striking Skin Pigmentation(stark white)

Attributes(384 Karma)

Body: 5
Agility: 6
Reaction: 5(6)
Strength: 7
Charisma: 4
Intuition: 5
Logic: 3
Willpower: 4
Edge: 3
Initiative: 10/1[11/2]
Magic: 6
Essence: 6

Physical Damage Track: 11
Stun Damage Track: 10
Overflow: 5

Movement Rate: 10/25

Defense Pools(Melee):

Regular: 16
Full: 19

Defense Pools(Ranged):

Regular: 8
Full: 11

Active Skills(239 Karma)

Unarmed Combat(Martial Arts): 6(+2) [8(+2)]        DP: 14/16(17 Kick Attack)
Blades(Swords): 4(+2)                                                  DP: 10/12(+ Reach)
Thrown Weapons(Knives): 4(+2)                                DP: 10/12
Pistols(Semi-Automatics): 1(+2)                                 DP: 7/9

Athletics Skill Group: 3                                                 DP: 9/10
Etiquette: 3                                                                     DP: 7
Intimidation(Mental): 3(+2)                                        DP: 7/9
Con: 1                                                                               DP: 5
Perception(Aural): 4(+2)                                              DP: 9/11(+3 Audio for 14)
Artisan(Cello): 2(+2)                                                     DP: 7/9

Infiltration(Urban): 4(+2)                                            DP: 10/12
Shadowing(Tailing): 3(+2)                                           DP: 8/10

Knowledge/Language Skills(53 Karma)

AK-Denver: 3
Safehouse Locations: 3
Fighting Theory: 3
Musical Theory: 3
Magic Background: 3
Occult(Demonology): 3(+2)

English: N
Sperethiel: 3
Japanese: 2

Adept Powers(6 Power Points):

Critical Strike Lv. 2 (.5)
Combat Sense Lv. 2 (1)
Killing Hands(.5)
Improved Unarmed Combat Lv. 2(1)
Improved Scent(.25)
Low-Frequency Hearing(.25)
Motion Sense(.5)
Improved Reflexes Lv. 1(Geased, 1.5) Geas=[Still figuring out the geas at the moment.]
Blind-Fighting(.5)

Martial Arts Maneuvers(32 Karma):

Kick Attack
Riposte
Finishing Blow
Watchful Guard
Blind-Fighting
Evasion
Sweep
Disarm

Contacts(20 Karma):

Fixer: C3 L3
Talismonger: C2 L2

Gear(45,000 Nuyen, 18 Karma)

Weapons(4200):

Hardliner Gloves/Boots: 200
Sword(Custom Grip,): 450
No-Dachi(Custom Grip): 2600
Throwing Knivesx15: 300
Ares Predator IV/2 clips regular ammo/Concealable Holster: 575
Flash-Bang grenadesx5: 150
Thermal Smoke grenadesx5: 175
Flash-Pak: 200

Armor(6350):

Armor Jacket: 900[8/6], w/ Insulation, Chemical resistance, Fire resistance and Nonconductivity lv. 2: 1400
Form-Fitting Body Armor Lv. 2: 900[4/1]
Forearm/Shinguards: 350[0/2]
Lined Coat: 700[6/1]
Mortimer of London Bertwick Line suit(Pants, Shirt, Dinner Jacket): 3100[4/3]

Total Armor(w/ Jacket): 12/9

Other(16330):

Earbuds w/ Audio Enhancement 3, Select Sound Filter 3, and Spatial Recognizer: 1010
Sony Emperor Commlink/Redcap Nix OS/Skinlink/Subvocal Mic: 1200
Fake ID Level 5: 5000
Fake ID Level 4: 4000
Fake License Lv. 6: 600
Medkit Lv. 6/4 refills: 800
Cello(Nice): 1300
Survival Knife: 50
Antidote Patches, 2x Lv. 6: 600
Stim Patches, 2x Lv. 6: 300
Chemsuit Lv. 6: 600
Climbing Gear/Rapelling Gloves: 270
Certified Credsticks x4: 100
Sim Recordings: 500
Survival Kit: 100
Respirator Lv. 6: 150
Gecko Tape Gloves: 250
Emotitoy, Non-Moblile, Lv. 3(300)

Lifestyle(8000/Month, 2 months prepaid):

Necessities: 4
Security: 4
Comforts: 4
Entertainment: 3
Neighborhood: 3

Damage:

Unarmed Combat: 10P, kicks +1 reach
Sword: 7P, +1 reach (+1 die from Custom Grip)
No-Dachi: 8P, +2 Reach, -2 AP (+1 die from Custom Grip)
Throwing Knife: 5P, Ranges: 0-7, 8-14, 15-21, 22-35
Flash-Bang: 6S, 10m Radius, Ranges: 0-14, 15-28, 29-42, 43-70
Thermal Smoke: Ranges: 0-14, 15-28, 29-42, 43-70
Ares Predator IV: 5P, -1AP, 15c, SA, Ranges: 0-5, 6-20, 21-40, 41-60

Starting Nuyen: 8,800[rolled 4d6×400, since his lifestyle was almost High, but not quite, and High is 4d6×500.]

Remaining Nuyen: 2120.

–

Appearance and Personality:

Wraith, as he’s came to be known from his friends, does have a rather odd appearance(which lead to his nickname) that can be somewhat blamed by the Surge incident. He’s a tall elf, standing at around 205 centimeters, and is built much like a fighter, very toned; his workouts, weightlifting(for strength rather than size), natural makeup, and the mana surge that increased his strength make him far heavier than his slightly slender build might look. His hair is a deep, reddish-black, and worn long, usually down; he’ll occasionally tie it back if needed, the front usually hangs a bit past his chin. His eyes are amber, the pupils a light gray-and these are natural, though most think they are bionetically-treated. His skin is a rather striking part of him-it’s stark white; somewhat where his nickname was derived. Like many elves, he has little body hair, and keeps himself clean-shaven. He has a rather ethereal, slightly effeminite look to his face, which most females don’t seem to mind.

Dress-wise, he favors loose cargos for ease of movement while fighting and pockets to hold odds and ends, a loose tank top or sleeveless shirt, and his customized gloves and combat-style boots; the gloves with some metal bands supporting them for extra damage; the boots with steel on the toes and heels; reinforced heavier for kicking things-or people. A gray armor jacket is worn usually, though he can switch up to his nicer armored longcoat and outfit if he needs to. Form-fitting body armor and extra forearm/shin protection is worn if needed. Some throwing knives are hidden around on his person here and there, a couple sometimes in the sleeves of his coat if he needs them; on bigger jobs, a supply of flash-bang and thermal smoke grenades are kept within easy reach. He owns a gun, but rarely uses it. HIs favorite colors-which he can still see in his head(or with the help of neuro-stimuli and technology) are deep blues, reds, and violets. He counts himself lucky he likes the color gray, as he’ll sometimes joke about.

Wraith is legally blind; seeing the world in blurry shades of black, white, and gray, shadows instead of details, bad light taking even that away from him. He’s actually a rather calm individual these days; his training which was mental as well as physical, and his musical talent in which he uses to clear his mind(the cello) help him with this(it’s pretty apparent that his musical skills are strongly leaning toward becoming a Centering technique). He’s very sharp-minded and clever; sometimes humorous in his responses. He suffers fools rather poorly, having a far more tempered mind than the average street brawler, and loves to unlock the unknown, especially when it comes to magic and the occult. He tries not to kill in combat, particularly people like sec-guards who are only doing their job, but if he feels threatened enough-as in, if he doesn’t neutralize the problem now, it could come back to haunt him-he will take a life, and he has been known to take wetwork; certain other situations can likewise turn him deadly vindictive. He’s not terribly picky on his jobs, though he does have to have some belief there in them, and won’t take something he’s strongly against, and may even try to convince the team otherwise, as well. He can be a bit of a difficult nut to crack, but once someone does and he decides to open up, he can be surprisingly good company.

Relaxing for him is music-his favorites being classical and combos thereof(he particularly likes classical-metal and classical-techno for a more modern feel), either listening to, or playing. His basic lack of sight makes trid-watching troublesome; it takes trodes, high-tech machines and the like to get the pictures wired into his brain, and he feels that he loses something from it. He will, however, read that way; one of his other pasttimes, and something he is unduly grateful for that they have technology for. He enjoys old scotch, strong espresso, and about any kind of food-with a penchant for Chinese-prefering real to soy, but will eat about anything, including trash from Mchugh’s or stuffers. He can be a rather physical being in relationships, due to his handicap, he gets by with scent, touch, and hearing. He’s had a few girlfriends-they have no trouble with his looks at all-he has a taste for rather normal, human, and intelligent girls who are well-read with a side that likes discovery. He can form tight bonds with people; since he seems to feel things with more of his being, something he developed more over the years, his heightened senses almost forming a kind of empathy. He can be protective of those he forms bonds with, to the death. He also has a large tie to nature, thanks to his teachings from his old master, and enjoys relaxing on his balcony before a storm, when he can listen to the thunder and smell the rain long before anyone else can. (He’s more into the hermetic sides of magics, oddly enough, despite his more natural ties.) His favorite season is autumn, though he’s not too picky.

His flat is actually very nice-he pays a bit to get himself extra comforts. It’s in a large, well-maintained apartment; it’s quite secure and roomy. It has two ’stories’, the top one reached via a set of spiral stairs; up stairs his his sleeping area/where he keeps his more valuable things; downstairs is the kitchen/more entertainment oriented areas. His balcony is large, and it’s got several large windows; he likes the extra light they let in(granting him slightly more vision.) He’s quite happy either in the sprawl or in more natural environments, like nearby forests and hiking areas, which he sometimes likes to visit as well when the mood strikes him.

He has not gotten eye replacements due to his body tending to be affected strongly by cyberware-and he does not wish to damage his natural, magical ability; his training from his teacher as a child, and his tie to the natural world, shuns artificial implants. He thinks that one day if they make a completely non-invasive surgery which has no chance of harming his magical ability, he would pay for that.

*[Insert Geas Description]

Role:

Despite being legally blind, he is extremely adept in close-combat; far better than many people-even masters-with full use of their sight. His adept powers have sharpened his senses far more than a human should be, even moreso than a mundane person with the loss of a sense(who typicall develop more acute senses in other ways.) He strikes fast, hard, and can easily knock out-or kill if necessary-in a single blow. He’s studied several types of martial arts, including Carromeleg, Chángquán, and Savate, which he can utilize in many different ways, from offense to defense, to sneaking and intercepting. He’s also very stealthy; allowing him to sneak about and gain the drop on an enemy. His training is a mix of natural-maneuvers and studies, with the magical. He also has, as part of his Chángquán training, knowledge of several different types of blades that he can utilize as well; he plans on perhaps getting a weapon focus someday, even though his bare hands are often more powerful than a blade, and can fight entities that are more…hard to hurt by traditional means. He believes in variety. He’s also scarily accurate with all manner of thrown weapons; he keeps flash-bangs and thermal smoke grenades on his person; if his team is not object to it, he will use these to put the enemy at a far worse disadvantage than he would be at. He can fire a gun, and owns one, but he usually just uses it to train his ”eye” for aiming sometimes, and they aren’t really his thing-the noise and smell that result from him firing one disrupts his senses sometimes(though other people firing them-he can use to his advantage.) He more or less had the training from his past. He also helps with pure heavy lifting; his strength has come in handy more than once on a team when something was stuck, needed to be moved, carried, or the like.

While many of his skills are utilized in combat, stealth, and also tailing-he is extremely good, thanks to his natural skills and improved scent and hearing-at tracking people, he’s also a fairly learned social man, who can fit in several types of situations if he has to, though he’d rather leave that to the experts. Sadly, his eyesight prevents him from fully appreciating the physical technical world; fixing things can be difficult.

He’s a Warrior’s Way adept and adopts many of the attitudes therein-bettering himself, the thrill of the fight, and the will to come out on top of anything.

Quotes:

”Seems like my weakness was your downfall.”
”The first breath of yours that I hear shall be your last.”
”The more you taunt me, the faster you dig your own grave.”
”I argue with the notion that the violin is the queen of instruments. I think that title belongs to the cello; no one deserves to sit the throne as much as she.”
”There’s a storm coming…do you hear it?”

History:

One of Auriel Sullivan’s defining moments was when he Awakened; the stress the sudden surge of mana had on his body, still caused by things he doesn’t know about, cost him the majority of his sight; he was young at the time, perhaps ten. Going from being able to see perfectly to a color-blind person, who not only could just see in black and white, but could only see everything as if it were through heavily frosted glass; people became gray shadows; shapes became dark shadows, and when the sun went down, his world basically went dark. Details were all but impossible unless the person was extrordinarily close to his face and the light perfect(even then, they were fuzzy at the very best); reading the traditional way was impossible at that point. A whole world was basically taken from him, and nightmares were easy for a young boy who only saw things as nightmarish shadows. His family, however, were well-off and respected corporate people; his mother a lab technician, his father a computer expert. They were rather impersonal, as their work was heavy, but they did love him and managed to grant him ways to get around, even though he was legally blind. They discovered his sensitivity to implants, and thus decided the surgery was not a good idea-to let him decide for himself when he got older. They did put a lot of their fairly ample resources into caring for his new condition, however.

His sudden magical surge, besides leaving the boy mostly blind, with budding adept powers(which he had no idea about), and a general mental mess, also granted him a physical strength quite a head greater than anyone should have at that age, making him rather dangerous if he had mood swings. He was pulled out of school after a fight where he severely hurt another boy; but his parents, having patience and some high hopes for him in the corporate world, hired a young elven man by the name of Derek-a pale, tall elf with raven-black hair to his shoulders, who appeared to be lightly built, but was incredibly powerful as well-an adept, much like him. He had been in employment of the corp as a trainer, despite his young age(among other, less savory things), and he was the one who set the young Wraith on his path; teaching him discipline(Wraith learned to control himself after some bruises, bumps, and the like), as well as using his senses for the best of it-Derek, while he had his sight, had trained extensively in the dark, deaf, and with his sense of smell hindered to make himself able to fight in any situation. What started as a ticking-time bomb turned into a very learned, disciplined young man(Derek had also taught him other things besides fighting-some literature, magic, and other odds and ends which Wraith continued to take an interest in. He also supported his love of music).

Eventually, Wraith found himself in employ at the same corp of his parents, by the time he was almost twenty. For several years he worked with them; obeying them-working as a troubleshooter-usually used to take out people the higher-ups thought were getting in the way. They figured someone without sight wouldn’t form tight bonds with people, but they were very, very wrong. He did have a good friend and a partner-which, one day, had found out information that made him want to leave as well as made him targeted. With a bit of trail-muddying, convincing, and a lot of conning and double-talk, they tricked Wraith into killing him-and he did not realize this until after. At this point, he vowed to develop his other senses even better, so he would never make that mistake. Derek had already left; he didn’t know why, he had heard he was transferred-but he soon found out this was not the place he wanted to work. He’s still alive, out there, somewhere, to his knowledge. Wraith, with some convincing, nuyen, and contacts, managed to sneak out of his life, and getting himself set up in the shadows, where he could find some work he could cope with.

Contacts:

Reginald ‘Spanky’ Mcgee, Fixer. A medium-sized Fomori in his late 20s who owns a pub in the southern part of Denver, Spanky is a fairly well-connected fixer and confidant. He met Spanky through the help of Joseph, a talismonger. He’s helped out around Spanky’s pub a few times cleaning up some ‘rabble’ who were causing trouble, as Spanky isn’t a fighting-man himself. He’s a huge fan of football(soccer to the UCAS folks), wearing his favorite team’s jerseys often, and his rather expensive trid is usually showing the games. He prides himself on his pub’s real beer, and has a microbrewery there as well. Spanky’s special brew is said to be able to put chest hair on a dryad. He also serves an array of strong coffee and bar-food, and has a back room for ”personal business.” Spanky doesn’t deal with things like organlegging and other very unsavory things, but he can and will load and unload about any manner of firearms, weapons, or electronics, things of that nature, and does deal a bit with magical goodies as well. Very high-end mil-spec stuff is a bit out of his league(usually…), but he’ll give it a go(hey, things happen.) Spanky stands around seven and a half feet tall, with a red goatee, no mustache, and some sideburns; his orange hair is shaggy and wavy, his skin undoubtedly showing his Irish ancestry, light and slightly freckled. His horns are smaller and curved back. His usual style of dress is workboots, jeans, and football jerseys or t-shirts. He keeps a shotgun and a hickory billy-club behind his bar, though he much prefers talking things out than fighting, and isn’t terribly trained in hurting people.

Joseph ”Grimm” Rivera, Houngan(Santeria practicioner.) An eccentric Hispanic guy in his mid-30s, with short, messy black hair and a black goatee, Grimm was an undertaker until he was caught ’snatching’ certain things from the bodies. Dressing rather odd, in slacks, workboots, a shirt with a collar, and sometimes a tophat, he follows Ghede, and has a sense of humor to match his patron. He’s actually not a bad guy-just a bit strange, and has a taste for Captain Morgan which is hard to quench. He owns a talismonger shop in a lower-key part of Denver, and it looks somewhat like some heavy artillery hit it(not literally, but it’s a mess.) He knows what’s there, though. He first gave Wraith a taste of the astral with the use of some Deepweed; what Wraith saw gave him nightmares for awhile and led him AWAY from learning to percieve himself. Grimm is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to the unknown and the occult, however, making him a rather interesting man for Wraith to talk to. The two met by chance, as Wraith found his shop had an odd smell to it which attracted him there, and they found they had a few interests in common, at least.

Goals(Technical):

-Initiate(learning powers like Cloak, Edetic Sense Memory, Smashing Blow, Power Throw, High-Frequency Hearing, a couple others). Also Centering as a metamagic(and possibly Masking.)
-Increase skills.
-Eventually find a fully Essence-friendly method of sight regaining; while keeping all of his greatly improved senses.

–

Auriel still has a couple of things I need to flesh out with him, but I figured I’d toss up another SR character since it’s been awhile.

At the time, none of us(our South Jersey RP crew-hats off to JR, Nick, Damian, Jean Paul and our newer players, Jay, Joy, Jessie and James) really knew the rules really well. We were learning as we played. We converted a couple old characters for a trial run, and when we had the basic framework down, we decided to make new guys. I made Stian, JR made his ganger-ork combat mage, and Jean-Paul his summoner. Nick was the GM. (Damian was in Japan at the time, and I was in the US for a few months. Jessie/James/Joy/Jay hadn’t joined our crew yet.) We learned by trial and error. We knew the game-we had played SR2 and SR3, but SR4 was quite the different beast.

It was not only successful, but rather hilarious. Leeroy and all of that good stuff.

Well, fast forward a little over 3 years later, and now, I know SR4 much, much, MUCH better. Hell, I think we all do. There is also a lot MORE stuff(SR4 only had one book at the time. We had converted a few Edges and Flaws over, but that was about it) to play with. I also know a lot more about optimizing.

Now, roleplaying isn’t all about optimizing your character-but it IS nice to play someone who isn’t shooting themselves in the foot. Hell, one of my favorite made characters is a man named Leon Sparta-he’s big, pretty, and hits things really hard. I wouldn’t call him an optimal character. There are probably samurai who are more effective than him in other areas(though they wouldn’t hit as hard. ;)) Well, our fellows weren’t quite optimized, simply because we didn’t know a lot about the system-but neither did anyone, so they really didn’t NEED to be.

Now, though, after we know so much more about the game…I broke out Stian’s sheet and asked ”how did this guy survive?!!” I made so many ”mistakes” with his design. I mean, they weren’t necessarily mistakes…but perhaps. It’s hard to explain.

I say ignorance might be bliss, because when we don’t know a whole lot about a system, we don’t care about really optimizing. We just pick what we really, really want for the characters and call it a day. Now, the perfect game would be designed like that, but Shadowrun can be kind of a brutal system. You DO want to pay some attention to things. There is optimizing, and then there is ”wait, a character that does X should really, really, REALLY have Y.” For example:

-The original Stian had only one Initiative pass. Short answer, this is how many combat turns you get. However, we learned that any character that even sees combat half of the time(like a combat decker type), should have more than one pass, and he not only was a more combat-oriented character, but he’s a melee character-and they almost need it doubly so, due to the limitations of melee. Now, I look back at his sheet and realize ”wow, this guy could be toast vs. anyone who has more than one pass.” I kind of liked it better when we were all ignorant to this fact, so I wouldn’t have to retool. (Again, this isn’t even going full-board minmaxing; this is forgetting something fairly important to survival.) I realized now that we know the game better, I am going to have to adjust this. It’s POSSIBLE to have a combat character with only one pass, but in melee, they will be at a significant disadvantage.

A note: In SR3 this was less of a concern. The combats were different; in melee, everyone got a counterattack, with ties going to the defender. If someone was attacked, both characters rolled their relavant melee skill; the one who won would attack; this meant a defender could counter them. A very skilled defender could get away with fewer initative passes, since they had the chance of counterattacking. This doesn’t work in SR4 without certain abilities, and even then, it’s not as cut and dry as in SR3.

-Sub-par Agility for a combat character. It was a 4. While this is above-average for a human, compared to the 6-8s that a sam usually runs(oh, this can and often does go higher; but 6-8 is usually considered a reasonable, but still strong, stat) this isn’t so hot. Agility links all combat skills. Now, while numbers are not the most important thing-because your Target Number is always 5(you need to roll a 5 or a 6 on a 1d6 for a success-or a hit), you should be trying to throw a fair amount of dice for your specialty. This doesn’t need to be astronomical(there are builds where stupid amounts of dice or thrown, like 30+, which is really not needed), but for a normal, middlepowered game, a speciality tends to run somewhere between 12-14 before modifiers(14-16 after.) Because of his sub-par Agility, he only threw 11 dice for his speciality. Since most grunt guards threw around 7-8 in unarmed, he really wasn’t much better than them. While again, a character need not be superpowered, someone who is a specialist in combat should usually be able to stand up to the redshirts without *too* much problem(of course, redshirts that split off, use tactics, etc, are totally different-I’m talking a stand-up fight, however.) So this needed to be addressed. Again, since we really didn’t realize that hitting a 5 or 6 on a six-sided was that difficult, I just shoved some numbers in that looked good.

Thinking about it more, a bouncer should be able to stand up to most of the riffraff that tries to get in. While the average clubgoer is probably only rolling about 4 dice in a fistfight, he’d be able to take them no sweat-but this is Shadowrun, and some of the folks trying to get in are typically a lot more dangerous than that. Now that I know more, I could see I MAY want him to be better in this area.

-Forgetting Negotation. A bouncer should have this skill. What I did was buy a couple of skills I didn’t really need that I needed more in SR3. This was more of an oversight. Likewise, I think all of us forgot to purchase Perception at the start, since it used to be linked to the Intelligence attribute in SR3(as in, you rolled your Intelligence for Perception tests.) Again, more of a ”nub oversight” here.

-Sub-par Charisma for what I wanted to do. He needed Charisma to do his job fairly well, and I sort of skimped on this, not realizing.

-We didn’t have any Stealth skills, but that ended up being a thing of humor rather than hurting us. We sort of became known for this, and decided to take ”louder” jobs.

-No Dodge skill, no knowledge of Gymnastics Dodge(he did have Athletics Group 1, but we didn’t know we could use it for Dodging as well), and a 4 reaction, which was a bit above average. With only 1 Initiative pass, this guy was just asking for it. Oops. We did not understand just how important that first Dodge roll is, and a melee character really needs a little kick here, since they have to close the difference. Even with a troll’s high Body and a good set of armor, soaking every hit can be a challenge, especially when you get to things like SMG bursts. (A combative type of character should throw at least a base 6 or so for regular defense-5 if they have quite a high Body and good armor-full defense has the skill added, if you have one.)

Now, my original concept for Stian was said kinda gothic-blackmetal kinda guy, very skilled up close and personal, not bad with a shotgun, and also very, very perceptive; a good bouncer notices when things go wrong, after all. I wanted him to be able to notice about anything. Also, there was intimidation; a good bouncer has that presence. I kind of nailed these, but I ended up missing the mark by a fair bit. So I’m in the process of rebuilding him with my new knowledge.

However, I mention the whole ”ignorance is bliss” thing, because I notice when a game first comes out, none of us really CARE about stuff like this-while later on, we DO. Even if we try not to care, the knowledge is already there, and many of us end up acting on it.

I recall making my first character in Shadowrun, period, back in SR2. A Street Samurai named Gemini. Just a human vigilantish type dude. I think I was 16 or 17 at the time. Oh, he was quite non-optimial; well, not bad-we all got help from the GM-but compared to my later characters to tended to work a bit more well-oiled, he did have a lot of questionable picks.

There was somewhat of an odd…charm to these new characters though, made before our brains were ‘’spoiled” with rules and knowledge. We just sort of made whatever the hell we wanted, whatever be damned. We shoved big numbers in stuff that looked good, medium numbers in stuff we liked but not as much, and low numbers in stuff we wanted to dabble in, and no numbers in skills we didn’t care about. There was almost a kind of…innocence to the characters. But it COULD be there, since the whole table was sorta new at things. I don’t think that every character needs to be super-optimized. I’m known for going other routes. For example, in SR4, Strength as an attribute is probably the one that can be the most dumped-it barely affects any skills, it doesn’t add a lot to recoil, and you halve it to figure out your melee damage. However, for many of my close-in bruisers, I favor the score; which isn’t the most optimal thing I can do. I often like it for flavor, though.

But, some character ”builds”, if you will, sometimes do have certain things they should have at a decent level(if you want to play a magical Astral Specialist, and take a low Astral Combat and Assensing skill, for example, you’re in trouble. Likewise, a Hacker with a low Cracking Group is not too desired.) Core skills and attributes, if you will.

But I admit, there’s something always special about the first characters you make for a system/edition, when you still don’t know a lot. I can’t quite put my finger on it.

Well, I’ll update Stian, in any case. But I will always keep his original sheet around for fun.

I was thinking about games(as usual), and I kind of wonder if there is any room for these type of games anymore. Oh, you know the type; very little characterization or story, but just pretty much all about the gameplay.

The thing is, I’m sorta spoiled by story myself these days. I know a lot of folks are. Some people think without a very good story and/or endearing characters, a game just isn’t worth playing. I know I got spoiled by Castlevania’s. After they started making actual story and timeline after SotN was out, I really can’t go back. Oh, I can totally play the old games again, but if they make a new one that doesn’t pay attention to the timeline or have characters I’m used to or work it in well, I sorta get turned off by it. Zelda used to be about an elfy looking dood with a sword saving the princess from an evil pig-guy. Nowadays it’s a lot more complex.

But I was also thinking about great, fun games like Ikari Warriors-Ralf and Clark get sent off to kick bad guy ass because it’s their job. That’s it. They have some personality(especially after King of Fighters), but it’s not extensive. Just enough to make them cool. I could totally play a new Ikari game where they’re sent off to kick bad guy ass. Maybe a little dialogue here and there but nothing extensive.

Looking at Devil may Cry, the fact that DMC2 completely destroyed Dante’s character was one of the(many, many) things wrong with that game. But what if it were a game that had the hero with not too much stuff to begin with anyway? I mean, if it starts out without a lot of characterization…can it still hang? If something starts WITH a strong character, that character can be destroyed. But if it’s just more basic…not much else you can do.

I’m going to take apart a couple of things here, about some of the strong-and not so strong-points of a game in the classic ”little story” situation.

+: No risk of a crappy character or story. Hey, you know how some people tabletop game with a crappy group, because they just want to game that bad? And others think that ”no gaming is better than bad gaming?” Well, I sort of am in this latter group. When you have characters and story, you can have bad characters and story. However, minimal character background(basic), and just an ol’ fashioned story(get that president, ninjas!), runs very little risk of being very…bad overall, unless you are in that group of people that a ”good” character and story has to be something Shakespearean.

+: All of the time can be taken to pour things into gameplay and gameplay features. I mean, I suppose that writing up two pages of background and personality for a character doesn’t take THAT long, nor for the world the character is in. But actual in-game things can have minimal cutscenes taking people away from the action. The more baggage piled on, the more time away from the action that might happen, in order to EXPLAIN all of this stuff…or else, what was the point of it in the first place?

+: Plot Tangling, especially in a case of a game starting out one way. In a long series(this kinda happened iwth Castlevania until Iga cleaned up the plot, and Zelda’s pretty tangled up these days as well), the plot can become mighty raveled up if you’re not careful-and this pisses people off, because generally they don’t like tangled up, confusing shit. On the downside, if you clean it up in the form of retcons(needed if things get too bad), you risk pissing off other people who happened to LIKE that aspect. So due to the FanDumb of the general populace, you can’t really win here, so might as well just make it basic to begin with.

Now, there are some drawbacks to this, as well.

-: To those people who just NEED characterization and a story, they will be turned off. These people do exist. There is nothing wrong with this attitude; it’s simply opinion.

-: The gameplay better well be damned near flawless and tons and tons of fun.

-: While some folks don’t need an epic story to get into it, they might need some kind of deeper characterization/story to get motivated. By seeing Villain do really really nasty things and be a nasty person to lots of beloved people, they are more motivated to play through the game to beat his ass. On the other hand, making the gameplay just fun enough might well be motivation enough.

Now, keep in mind. I LOVE my RPGs. I love story. I love awesome characters. I dislike stupid characters. I dislike bad stories. There are some games that just make me facepalm due to the lameness of them, or what I think is lame. I think if a game had awesome everything, it would be…well, great. But I think one thing I’m trying to say is that if you have a game with an amazing story and perfect characters….but lousy gameplay, then you lose, in the end. You won’t be able to really enjoy the game to SEE these awesome characters or the story. But a game with just a little characterization and story but awesome, jaw-dropping gameplay COULD work, and has many times before in the past.

Funny enough, some folks were sometimes turned OFF when games ended up with plot and characterization. I have some friends who enjoyed games like Castlevania and Zelda more before they started with the deeper plots. They liked ”Dude With Whip Kicks Drac’s Ass.”

I’m not saying you need to make ”Cardboard Joe” as a character, fighting crime in ”NoTown.” But a very basic character and plot could work. I’ll toss out an idea-totally textbook in many ways.

-Character is Action Dood. He’s some prettyboy longhaired albino manga guy with the swords, the fists, the kicks, the guns, the axes, the acrobatics, the moves. He’s an Anti-Hero. He does his thing. He might even have some weird inhuman abilities. Why not. It’s stereotypical.

-The point of the game is he’s hired to kill Some Guy. Some Guy’s a real bad motherfucker and he’s doing bad shit. Action Dood usually doesn’t give a rat’s ass, but since he’s a mercenary, he’ll take the job. Why the hell not. It’s cash. There’s a bunch of Some Guy’s lackies in the way, from humans to more monsterous things.

-You have the entire city as your playground. Let’s say Action Dood has some iota of a personality. He talks, he might joke with a person or two, he’s not completely two-dimensional and made of cardboard, but he’s not really THAT deep. You don’t hear about some angsty past or whatnot-in fact, they might not even explain all of his powers. He might just…have them. Becuase we all know when you start explaining inhuman abilities that things can go very, very stupid. Or they can be cool. But why take the chance? He has the powers and he uses them. Case closed. What’s wrong with a little mystery, anyway? Sometimes letting people use their imaginations is a good thing, rather than spelling out everything.

*I might point out that sometimes personality can be shown in more ways than one. Super Mario RPG was a great little RPG. Mario didn’t say one word in that game, but they gave that fat italian plumber, through use of body language and animation, more personality than some other more ‘’serious” RPGs that I’ve played. His background? He’s Mario. He goes into Happy Trippy Mushroom Land and saves the princess. :p The RPG had plot, but it was rather simple and fun.*

-There are tons of different kinds of weapons and fighting styles to actually power up. There are different weapons to find, and even make(some sort of forging system.) Just…lots and lots of stuff. You can even choose to power up a weaponless fighting style. You can skill up different acrobatics. You can purchase things. You can be hired to do other ‘’subquests” in the game for cash or pieces or experience or whatever. Hell, maybe you can even level Action Dood up. (Of course, some people don’t like RPG getting in their Action Games, but let’s run with this for now-because I want to show Options, basically). In other words, you can just do tons of stuff. Lots of moves, combos, and brutal, visceral finishing moves await Action Dood as well. He might have cybernetics inside of him that he can get upgraded, making him even more powerful, as well.

So what we have here is the skeleton of a basic Hard Action game.

I dunno, but I think this could be a successful game overall. Sure, it’s pretty stereotypical in some ways, and a little thin on the plot and the character-but I dunno, sometimes there’s just nothing wrong with the president being kidnapped by ninjas-and it’s your job to save him.

Unless the President, of course, drives a giant mecha and kicks ass himself.

Healers keep everyone alive-especially tanks. If the tank dies, the party dies.

DPS does the damage.

Speccing means specializing in certain things. My Paladin in WoW can go Holy(for healing and some PvP stuff), Protection(for tanking), or Retribution(DPS.)  In Warhammer, there are Mastery paths. My current hybrid character, a Disciple of Khaine, is a melee-healer type. He needs to be in the front doing damage for him to be able to heal effectively. He can go Dark Rites path(for better healing), Sacrifice(for doing things called debuffs to screw up the enemies), or Torture(DPS.)

I’m not into the hardcore scene, really, and I’m not into all the little theorycrafting bits. But I can tell you-people like the damage classes.

Thing is, I’m not excluded from this. I had some time as a tank on my Paladin in WoW.  It was fun, but upon maxing his level, I switched to Retribution so I could have him beat things in the head with a big hammer. My Disciple in WAR is going Torture, maximizing the pain he can put out. My other class in WAR is a Swordmaster-who can go one path(Vaul) for tanking, another (Hoeth), for strange magical effects, or Khaine(Khaine is a god in the Warhammer world worshiped by high elves as the god of war, and dark elves as the god of death, so there is a tie in), which is the DPS path.

Yes, I am going DPS for him too. My other character is a mage in WoW-an undead. Mages are DPS classes, period.

So I’ll say it again-why the attraction to seeing lots of big numbers?

In WoW, Retribution Paladins were woefully underpowered for a long time. They finally got a boost not too long ago and are respectable now, and in the new expansion, they are looking to be rather awesome. And a lot of paladins are talking about respeccing. Problem is, Paladins make up a good force of tanks and healers. Which means they will be short again.  I liked to joke that Paladin players really just wanted to play a Holy Arms Warrior(a spec of warrior relying on big, two handed weapons), and were only going Holy or Protection just because Retribution was underpowered.

Tanking and healing, IMO, are jobs that some people love-and others do them out of necessity, because you *need* them. Well, you *need* DPS too, though. You need all of them. But without a tank or a healer, unless the group is VERY well geared and overleveled, you will have a lot of problems. In a WoW raid, having tanks and healers is non-negotiable.

I had fun tanking when I did, and I never had a problem getting groups. If you tank or heal, you can usually end up in a random group for something rather easily. DPS-not so much. In WoW, there are 5 man dungeons. After a tank and a healer, you have 3 spots left. And some DPS classes are liked more than others. Retribution paladins have trouble finding groups because of their past underpoweredness. Luckily, I’m in a guild that likes having a retadin around.

But again…what is the lure to doing lots of damage? They still need to gear for raids. A raid can’t walk into a dungeon with a bunch of well-geared tanks and healers and crappily geared DPS. Everyone needs to be well-geared and know how to play. Granted, DPS has a little less ‘’stress” usually.  Oh, they need to make sure they don’t steal threat from the tank(in other words, the tank has abilities to make the enemy ‘hate’ them more and attack them. But other classes can overdo this if they aren’t careful, and the enemy will attack them instead. In the case of huge bosses, this usually means one or two hits and you die if this happens), and make sure they are doing their job, but if one dies, chances are the raid can still go on. (too many die, and the group or raid is in trouble, though. You DO need to be doing damage to the thing.) However, lose your healer, and you’re screwed unless you have a backup healer(ONE thing Retribution paladins have that helps them get groups. While a Ret-specced paladin is not a good healer, he CAN be a pinch-hitter in an emergency.) Lose your tank, and again, trouble(again, my Retadin can take enough hits to at least get some smaller stuff off the cloth-wearing squishy classes. But with no shield, it’s tough.)

But as many folks tell you, tanks and healers can suffer from burnout rather quickly, unless they really love what they do.

It could be one reason why people like DPS classes. Less burnout, maybe. Now, this isn’t everyone. I have a friend who preferred the healing spec of a class she played. If you really like it, then that’s great. The more you like it, the more likely you’ll be better at it, IMO.

But yeah…it’s just, DPS classes are more popular. Perhaps it’s less stress. Perhaps it’s just liking to see big numbers pop up a lot. I mean, there are *more* DPS classes, technically. And there usually isn’t a class that is *only* a tank or healer. This could be another reason; in WoW, for example, Warriors, Paladins, and Druids CAN all tank, but they don’t have to. Paladins, Druids, Shamans and Priests can all heal, but they don’t have to. In WAR, all the tank classes have a DPS spec, as do the Healer classes. Though in WAR, if you pick a Runepriest or a Zealot, for example-you are probably not doing it for DPS. They are more specialized. Likewise, the tanking classes *can* do some hefty damage-but more than likely, you’ll be taking a more tanking role.

DPS IS easier to solo with. Tanks and healers tend to take a bit longer to kill mobs(if they are geared and specialized, since their point is more defensive, not offensive.) DPS kills them faster, so while leveling, DPS specs of even the tank/healing classes is expected. But what about the high levels? I haven’t seen a good ol’ Prot warrior in ages. I’m healed more by Restoration specced druids or shamans than Holy priests(though holy paladins have a showing, too.)

I wonder what’s going to happen in Wrath of the Lich King.  Hmm…I dunno why I wrote this, really. I was just musing about DPS and it’s popularity.

The following is a list of some SR houserules that are in effect at our table. I’ll post a reasoning behind each one afterward.

1. No Availability limit at character generation.

Yes, you get whatever you want with the money you want…our only request is that it fit the character. Our number one houserule SHOULD read ”don’t be a douchebag.” Nowadays, they have positive qualities(Restricted Gear just game out), which allow one to break the limit on one piece of gear(you can buy it several times). But, we never saw a need for this. From the very first time we played Shadowrun, our first GM did not make us follow it, and it stuck. We just don’t see the point and we want to give our players as many options as possible. If we are starting a more low-level game, we’ll tell the players, and we’ll just ask that they be reasonable with purchases. Works great for us.

2. Yes, you can go above limits on Attributes. There is no hard cap. But…

Yeah, there’s always a but. Hard caps suck, IMO. I mean, with the advent of cyberware and bioware, and ALL of this crazy shit, why the fuck can’t my human who got both of his legs replaced with super-cyber implants get them higher than a custom 6 or an augmented 9? Why the hell did he get pimped limbs in the first place but to go beyond the human norm? Screw this. You pay the money and the essence, you go above.  Also,you can go as damn high as you want on a natural attribute…with a few limits. One, not at character generation, UNLESS you get the Exceptional Attribute quality and/or genetherapy.  Two, if in game, you are playing a human, who, say, wants to raise X attribute beyond a natural 6…it costs the normal Karma cost(new rating x 3 karma)…x 2. So yeah, to get that natural 7, it’s going to cost you 21×2 or 42 Karma. It ain’t cheap…but the option is there. (Now, if you got Exceptional Attribute and/or Genetic Optimization…your new maximum is now higher.) Basically, if you go above your maximum naturally, that’s when the double cost kicks in.

3. If you have a really awesome idea for something, ask!

A good GM, IMO, is willing to look over someone’s idea before totally disregarding it. If we are playing with traditional 400 BP, and you have an awesome idea for a character who has excellent natural potential(mostly 5s and 4s in attributes), but not that many skills(1-2s and a couple 3s perhaps) , I’d be totally willing to let someone run with that, even though the rules only limit you to half you starting BP on Attributes.

4. We use all the Edges and Flaws from both editions.

There are some that don’t exist in this one, that did in the last one, and we liked them. Now, granted, most of them HAVE been remade now that Runner’s Companion had came out-but there are a still a few that aren’t around that we find cool. So yeah, they’re all up for grabs, just check if you’re uncertain.

5. If something is forbidden, I let the players know before they even start.

Naturally. I’m incredibly lean as a GM, and we tend to play more laid back games ourselves, but once in awhile we cut a few things off for whatever reason. We’ll let you know.  Naturally, we’ll let you know ahead of time which character generation system we use.

Yeah, that’s about it. I more or less just wanted to say a few houserules we used. These, naturally, won’t work for everyone, but they work great in our Shadowrun games.

The following will be a bunch of PSP love and some small reviews of the games I have for it so far. Nothing really in-depth, as I haven’t finished them all yet.

It’s got insane graphical quality; the CG cutscenes in Crisis Core look better than a lot of PS2 outings. It’s slim, not too heavy, and fully charged you get a good 5 or so hours of battery time on the thing, making it ideal for those long trips. Awesome sounds with headphones and get yourself a case, a few beers and load in a couple of games, and you’re set for the park in the summer. It can connect with the PS3, as well!

Well, I won’t go into system specs, but it’s awesome, just trust me on that one. The screen is really big…I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to play it, since my eyes are kind of bad(i remember back trying to play the non backlit GBA and had nightmares), but I don’t even need the TV adapter(though one exists if you want to play the games full screen.) Controls are wonderful…in fact, the control pad(and it comes with an analog stick), controls better than most PS controllers; in the fighting games I have NO trouble getting moves off that were sometimes a pain in the ass on the consoles.

Alright, now for some games. We picked up a bunch in the States due to the cheapass dollar(we got a PSP, case, memory stick, 12 games and a couple of screen protectors for under 500 US dollars…that’s about 320 euros.) So far, favorites:

Crisis Core: What FFVII should have been, IMO. A prequel dealing with Zack Fair(you see him in FFVII in the flashbacks), how he met Cloud, how Cloud got to be so fucked up in VII, Sephiroth back when he was a hero and basically a good man, before he went batshit; and it SHOWS when and how the guy went batshit. (As well as some other SOLDIERS. You’d think due to the amount of crazy, meglomaniacal SOLDIERS that came out of their experiments…they’d put a lid on the testing. Nothing ever turns out right for those poor guys.) Sephiroth shown in a new light doesn’t turn him into a misunderstood villain; but he is definately shown as a quintessential ”tragic villain”, especially with some of the dialogue in the game(this is after he changes. For a good portion of the game, before Nibelheim…yes, you play through that, he’s the hero he was before.) Really powerful stuff story-wise. And, well…if you played FFVII(like everyone and their brother has by now I think), and you remember Zack…you kind of know how this one ends, and it doesn’t make it any easier. (Advent Children does, though…when you see Zack and Aerith together again, like they should be. ) In fact, this game actually makes Aerith’s death in VII(if you don’t know by now, shame on you :P) easily acceptable now, because you know that she’s with Zack. (Trust me. When you play this game, you really, really hate Shinra afterward, and Hojo, more than any villain they can throw at you later). Again, it’s EASILY the best outing in the FFVII series, IMO…great action-adventure gameplay, great voice acting, cutscenes, TONS of missions to go on(Ive went on missions for about 6 hours of gametime and I’m only 10 hours in…and 17% done all the missions…they are optional, but one of the most fun parts of the game!)

If you SKIP the missions…the storyline seems to move pretty fast…I’m already up to the 4th or 5th chapter of the game, though I’m not sure how many there are. They don’t seem too long, though, if you don’t do the missions…I think the game is designed that you CAN run through it, but why would you want to?

Zack Fair is one badass; he’s also a refreshing videogame personality. He’s not a wangsty ball of tears like so many of them, he’s a kickass dude who is optimistic and wants to be known as a hero. He’s around 18 or 19 I think when the game starts(it takes place 7 years before FFVII), and I think the game spans 3-4 years. He fights with a sword, Materia, and you also see in some of his Limits he’s got mad Kung Fu skills as well. No wonder why Cloud looked up to him, he all around just won at life. Until the end, anyway, but again…you kind of saw that in VII.

Now, the DMW…it’s this slot system that gets you summons if you match 3 Summon heads, Limit Breaks if you match 3 different heads(the heads are of your friends…like Angeal, a character from the story, Sephiroth, Aerith…), and it’s pretty cool; it spins on it’s own the whole time, you don’t control it. It also has certain number matchups that give you positive effects during battle. During Limits, you sometimes see little scenes with Zack and the people, and you hear their voices as they speak to him(Sephiroth telling him to concentrate during Octoslash, a massive slash combo, Angeal telling him to show his honor before his rushing punch/kick barrage…which does a shit-ton of damage, so seeing Angeal is always a nice thing, him asking Aerith for help and he gets healed, etc.)

Now, it’s downside. You also use it to level up your Materia(there are slots you equip it in, 1-6. If 2 numbers come up the same, out of 1-7, the materia in that slot levels up), but ALSO to level up Zack(777 on the reels). I’m not too keen on me and my Materia randomly leveling, I admit. They aren’t too stingy with the actual leveling(Im around level 27 at 10 hours in, you start at…6 was it?), and your Limit Bar can go from low to normal to high to heavenly, getting a better chance of matching stuff. The materia is a pain, though…sometimes it just keeps landing on a slot that’s mastered, and you want to keep your HP+ there. I understand it can add to some strategy…I don’t mind the DMW for summons or limits or those nice little battle bonuses(the wheels keep spinning with SP, or Soldier Points, which you get from battle and from transfering Materia if you run low. I have over 100,000 now so I’m wondering HOW you run low.) The game DOES have Normal and Hard mode though. I’m playing Normal now, maybe Hard mode is a LOT more intense. (Normal has been fairly easy so far.) The Missions range from Very Easy to Very Hard(they seem to change with level), I find Normal and Hard the most fun, since Normal is easy enough without sneezing through it, and Hard has just enough challenge.

Anyway, it’s one of the must buys. I got it from the US for 30 bucks…which is like 20 euros. (From what we discuss, the VAT REALLY slams the EU when it comes to game prices. Even if the dollar and euro were even, systems are pretty similar in price-but games have a horrid VAT(20% was it)? that makes Crisis Core run 50-60 euros here. Ouch. But buy it anyway.

Ok, another favorite:

Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles

Ahh, this is a wonderful thing. On the old Turbografx 16 system in Japan came a game called Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, I touched on it in my reviews. We never got this game, instead getting a rather crappy SNES remake(they dropped the ball here. Konami doesn’t do this often, but they did it this time). Years pass, like a decade, and then more…then they re-release the game on the PSP, with all new 2.5D graphics(its a sidescroller with amazing visuals), redone music, and still the same gameplay, with even more added! You play as a 19 year old Richter, 5 years before Symphony of the Night, and it’s old-school Castlevania. Richter has a remade Belmont Pimp Walk(nicknamed for the old 8 and 16 bit walk they had), you can control him perfectly well in midair, he has his Item Crushes from Sotn(this was the game they appeared in), and while he only whips to the side, he has a nice backflip attack. You can still unlock little 12 year old Maria with her magical attacks, too.

Richter gets his classic sub-weapons…it’s basically a remake of the game. One fantastic thing is how while it’s a classic sidescroller, there is more to it. Extra stages for one. You can play through the game, stages 1-9, but you won’t get the best ending…there are three girls you have to rescue..then you can rescue the fourth, and this will give you the best ending. There are 4 other sub-stages though, with different bosses, that you reach by doing things on stages like whipping odd walls(sometimes opening new paths instead of dumping out Pot Roast), or even falling down pits! yeah, you might die in some, but other times you open up things. You can save the game and restart, so no worries here, really. You rescue Maria and unlock her, you rescue two other girls(sometimes they are in locked chambers and you need the Key subweapon to open it), to gain the ability to open up paths by being able to destroy certain walls afterward.

You can also unlock Sound bites, which let you switch around the music on stages…which is a rather neat little thing. Also, you, on certain stages, pick up these emblems which unlock 2 other games! One is the original Turbografx version of Rondo, in full 16 bit glory as it was, if you want a taste of the old-school. The other? A fully-ported version of Symphony of the Night. That’s right, you can now take SotN with you anywhere you go!! It’s fucking beautiful. You can also play all these games with English dub or Japanese voices; so more more crappy SotN English dubs! (Hell, even the English dub was redone as to not be a total cheeseball excercise!!)

Anyway, a big sidescroller with extra unlockable stages, Boss Rush mode, unlockable goodies and 2 whole other games, one of which is a forever Playstation classic, makes this EASILY worth the money as well. Another must-buy!!

Final Fantasy Tactics-War of the Lions:

FF Tactics is one hell of a strategy game, and this just adds more. Trying to keep this one shorter, they added animated cutscenes(in the nicely done Tactics art style), new dialogue(spoken more Old English style, and it fits), 2 new job classes and more hidden characters(like Balthier!) and others were revamped, too. More stuff, same uber addicting FF Tactics gameplay, this is also a must-buy for fans!

Metal Slug Anthology:

7 games, one disc. All the Metal Slug games, SNK’s answer to Contra. It’s a shoot em up sidescroller that’s loads of fun! Part 6 even has Ralf and Clark, the original Ikari Warriors unlockable. Not much to say here but the games are pretty hard, and anyone who is a fan of shoot em ups would do well to get it.

The FF 1 and 2 remakes are likewise really good, for those who might have been too young to play them…though these have been remade for the PS1 already. But if you haven’t gotten them, these are a worthy buy as well. If you DO have the PS1 remakes, these are more for if you REALLY need them portable, or are THAT huge of a fan. I got them, because I no longer have them on the console, and I do love the games.

Well, enough for now. Im going to play.

Tip #22: In the inevitable ”Turncoat” scene of the Best Friend, you have to play this off a bit. Disc 2 ”bad dreams” are always good. Somehow people will still end up surprised. The end of Disc 2 naturally has to end in some sort of disaster(possibly the one that destroys the Random Town mentioned in Tip 16), and he’ll get seperated from the group. Disc 3 begins with the Group of Hearty Adventurers traveling about, figuring out what caused what, etc, and probably come across a scene of wholesale bloody slaughter being preformed by none other than the Best Friend.(Bonus points if he does it himself rather than have mooks do it. It’ll add to the Angst when he comes back to the group. Trust me. Depending on the rating of the game, this could be either implied violence or the scene can resemble a slaughterhouse where a bomb went off. Even better-mix it. Don’t show the slaughter, but the aftermath of the Best Friend with limbs soaked in blood and staring at the party through his glowing yellow eyes with a smile on his face. If he licks one of his gauntlets, you’ve just multiplied the cool factor; same if when he walks toward the group he trails blood behind him.) Of course the party thinks it’s an imposter, It’s A Trap, etc…but no, it’s him under the demonic/whatever and he’ll battle the party to 1 HP. This will happen roughly every 3-4 hours for the next 12+ hours, until he returns for the final quarter of Disc 3 and the rest of the game. He will somehow have moves that the party has never seen him use before and probably won’t have when you get him back, either(except for some sort of unlocked demonic strength or some such thing as said back in Tip 2.) How does he break out? Well, there might just be some sort of orb or whatnot influencing him that you have to beat. The final fight might have him invulnerable but the orb behind him able to be attacked. Or you have to beat some random demon in a battle that’s been influencing him and chose him over everyone else due to the darkness that has lurked in his heart for all of his long 23 years of life.

Tip #23: For the Kidnapping Scene of the Healer, it could be done by the Villain, or the Guy You Think is the Villain. Or, for another choice, have her kidnapped by the Quirky Miniboss Squad. It might be ”That Second To The Last Time You Fight Them” scene. You know, the one time they actually DO manage to pull something off. Well, the group no doubt defeats them(You could toss this into Disc 3 as well, but after all the other crap you’re dumping on them like taking away the fanservice and forcing a Guest guy into the group, this might just make them quit. Disc 2, or even Disc 4, might be a better choice. If you want the Squad to live to Disc 4, that is.) Anyway, the group is forced to rely on all of those healing potions that players hoard anyway, so it’s not like the fight will be a challenge.

Tip #24: Naturally, the REAL Last Time you want them fight the Quirky Miniboss Squad, they will be in their Super Forms which they gained somehow. Why they didn’t use it at the start you don’t have to explain, but they are actually dangerous at this point in time. To let the people know, make their theme music go to something more dramatic than the bouncy, comedic stuff with cowbells, kazoos and cats meowing in the background that had usually been accompanying their battles. Make sure you put a bunch of one of a kind items on them that must be stolen, or else you lose the ability to get them, no doubt pissing off completionists if they accidently save their game afterward and are forced to replay from the Disc 3 Slaughter Scene with the Best Friend they’ve been saving on their mem card for the purpose of showing it to people or planning their Youtube video when they set the scene to whatever dark, angsty metalcore song is popular at the moment.

Tip #25: Might as well figure it out now: The Final Dungeon. First off, you want to figure out the Steps. Going from Floating Cave to Castle to Underground to Mountain Peak to an alternate fucked up dimension with alot of colored swirly shit is always good. This cave should be located either A. In or near the first town, B. in the middle of the ocean(opposite side from the Ominous Stone Ring), or C. Floating in the air.(Bonus Points if the team has to somehow modify the airship/Flying Vehicle they get to be able to enter the thing.) Or it can be a mix-you can start it from the first town and have them end up floating in the air(don’t worry, the Magitech city already crashed so it won’t crash into it.) As long as it ends up in an alternate-looking dimension with alot of confusing, fucked up looking swirly shit around, you’ll be good. This might be a time to start deciding how many forms your final boss will have. A good rule of thumb is between 3(three) and 4(four). The first one will usually be the villain with some other weird crap coming off of him. The second will be him transforming to a gigantic demonic undead bear-wolf-dragon beast thingy; the third, form will look, naturally, like a cross between a devil and an angel, also rather large. One angel wing and one devil wing works perfectly here; color him white and red with some black tattoos running around him, toss on some claws but a nice white glow and you’re good to go. The final form is just the villain in his normal form(usually with half of the clothing that he wore before) and it’s up to you whether this or form 3 is the most powerful. It can go either way there. In any case the final form is fought floating in space. (The second and third forms are fought in the middle of the confusing fucked up swirly shit, and the first form is fought in a basic cave or something.)

Tip #26: Make sure there’s a crazy cat lady in town somewhere whose crapload of cats are blocking a door that you can’t get to until halfway through Disc 4. It just so happens she had the Thief’s ultimate set of daggers in there. These cats actually start on Disc 1 and move bit by bit throughout the game; make sure to keep coming back to grab stuff from minor health items to pieces of armor.

Tip #27: Figure out what to call the item that lets players avoid random encounters. Don’t give it until most of the way til Disc 3.

Tip #28: Plan the Bridge Quest. It need not be a bridge; but make sure there is a quest early on in the game that requires the people to save a child from a burning building, help an old man cook rice, pitch a bunch of tents for the upcoming bazaar, preform a minigame that makes them mash on the buttons really fast and finally going to beat the thing that’s causing earthquakes under the town. Only then will the bridge be fixed/the gate be unlocked/the cave enterance be cleared for them to continue.

Tip #29: Speaking of Music-we need Character Themes! So, here’s what they should sound like:
Hero: Make it easy on yourself and give him a few variant’s of the game’s main theme-sped up or made sensitive depending on the situation.
Best Friend: While on the team’s side, some kind of cool, slow playing industrial metal works for him; when Evil, speed it up to techno with guitars.
Magical Girl: She gets the theme that everyone falls in love with and remixes in a hundred different ways.
Action Gun Girl: Techno works well here for her, as well. You can always get some guy to say some crap in the background of her songs.
Healer Girl: Something ‘Pleasant’ and ‘Fresh’ sounding should fit her.
Plucky Thief Kid: Just pick something bouncy and run with it.
Big But Kind of Dumb Cute Guy: Some sort of heavy metal that’s upbeat and puts you in a good mood. Like an Action Hero theme or something.
Ninja: Naturally, lots of Oriental sounding flutes and instruments here. Make sure you mix it with some other type of music for a more ”Modern” feel.
Cool Old Guy: A good little mysterious piece should follow the Cool Old Guy/Battle Butler around.

Tip #30: Figure out an ending for your epic! Now, there are a few ways to go about this. A. You could do a regular old ending with closure for all of the characters, lots of fancy CG, bits with all of them showing there they ended up, etc. Then hire some woman to sing a song while the credits roll; just get whoever won the last American Idol.
B. You could wrap things up-but leave room for a sequel. You know; just tie off enough ends-but not all of them! Make sure there is room for your plucky band of miscreants, do-gooders, heroic sociopaths and the like to come back. Or, finally:
C. Just ‘Gainax’ that shit. You know, at the end of it all, everyone’s sitting around talking, and then it turns out the plot the party got involved with is part of a BIGGER plot that was masterminded by a Mystery Panel of 13 Ancient Space Precursors and the current Empire’s leader. This then leads to the questioning of whether or not the world was even real, or if people even have free will or not, or are they all being controlled by the Precursors? And the Precursors, naturally, are working for someone, an entity that was buried in the world’s core-but they were planted there by another panel of 10 people roughly 200 years before the game started, and now their siblings are running the show, actually controlling the Precursors where the Precursors think that they are being controlled by the Ancient Unknown Space Entity. These humans had built 3 microchips which hold the secret to human life, evolution, and what really happened during the Big Bang Theory, and that Humans first DE-evolved from something much higher up until they became cavemen and the re-evolved into the humans of today. The villain was actually the unknown 14th member of this panel and he decided to take matters into his own hands, saying that his will is not controlled by the Ancient Unknown Space Entity. SO maybe he really wasn’t that bad a guy after all? And is he really dead? The party? Well, it turns out THEY were pawns in the entire thing, and they are actually the decendants of the people 200 years ago who made these microchips which they hid around and they don’t know it-and they THOUGHT that everything they did was because they wanted to…but maybe not? Just keep tacking shit onto this for the next 20 minutes and then wrap up the ending with a picture of one of those cute raccoon/badger/sloth thingies running through a field.

Tip #12: Make a lame bad guy. He’ll be killed by the villian by the end of Disc 1. Try to hint that he’s a bad guy, but he’ll be so lame that anyone with half a brain will realize that the White Haired Prettyboy with unlimited martial arts and sword abilities standing next to him is the REAL bad guy.

Tip #13: Plan how the kidnapping scene for one of the girls will pan out early. Make sure it’s the healer so the party is forced to run through the dungeon and defeat one boss without her.

Tip #14: Make sure one character is clumsy enough to Accidently turn on some doomsday device so you can have the Quintessential Timed Dungeon Escape. The Plucky Thief Kid or the Big but Kind of Dumb Cute Guy work perfectly here.

Tip #15: Make up a word. Any word. This is your currency.

Tip #16: Make sure you have: A slum town, a Ninja town, a floating city of something or other(technology, magic, or even better-magitech), a backwood hick town, a sci-fi utopia/dystopia, some sort of Native American based village, a forest town in the trees, an underground city, a steampunk town, an old-fashioned castle and village type of city, a snow town, a mountain town, and a Really Big Gambling city with a bunch of games of chance that are impossible to win at. Stick them all over the world in random areas. You can add to these as you see fit; but make sure these make their appearance. Make sure you make one extra town of any type for the sole purpose of being destroyed halfway through the game. Also, see #17.

Tip #17: Plan out the inevitable Disc 4 Disaster early. This often involved the Floating Magitech City crashing to the ground in a spectacular CG sequence. It may or may not still be visitable.

Tip #18: In some part of your world, there will be an Evil Empire trying to rule with an iron fist. You need to think of a name of the Ragtag Resistance.

Tip #19: Start planning the Bonus Boss. To do this, play some King of Fighters games. See what the bosses do. Multiply this by roughly six hundred thousand, blend them all together, toss on some tentacles, laser beams, and an attack that strips all time away from the universe until it reverts back to before the Big Bang and seal it away for 999.9 years in a Ring of Stones in the middle of the ocean somewhere that doesn’t show up on the Map in the lower corner. It awakens at 1000 years, which just happens to be the start of Disc 4. It drops items that are either A. Super powerful but you no longer need them, B. Lots of money and XP or C. A note that says ”Congartulation!”

Tip #20: Also, consider what each character’s Ultimate Weapon will look like. If it’s an ultimate weapon, it better damn well look Ultimate.

Hero: A BFS that is so B it would break the arms of the current Mr. Universe if he even tried to lift it, let alone swing it. Make sure the blade looks all super cool-blue is a good choice for the Hero. His Ultimate Technique should hit no less than 15 times; try for 20 to 25 and make sure it can kill the final boss in like 3 of these. Name it something catchy, like ”Apocalypse Flurry” or ”Armageddon Slash”. Make sure he mixes some Kung Fu attacks in this flurry; it’s just cooler if he like, launch-kicks the enemy and continues slashing the shit out of them.
Best Friend: A pair of gauntlets and boots that literally power up with the blood of his enemies. The more he kills, they start to glow red, and he can unleash his ultimate attack, the 4444 Shattered Skull BloodMoon Kick. Depending on your game rating, this could be more or less a massacre.
Magical Girl: A staff that looks so impossibly ornate one wonders how it could even be used as a weapon without breaking. However, it unlocks her ‘Speed of Light’ attack which, in a 10 minute cutscene, focuses every single beam of light in the universe onto the enemy for a massive, massive blast of non-elemental damage.
Action Gun Girl: a BFG that is hooked up to a system allowing it to fire all the elements seperately, combined, or together for a non-elemental attack; and no doubt her Ultimate will involve firing lots, and lots, and LOTS of said elemental blasts coating the whole field in white-hot non elemental napalm.
Big but Kind Of Dumb Cute Guy: A hammer the size of Mount Rushmore, possibly with a really cool looking head with all kinds of crap coming off of it. Bonus points if it’s a dual-headed hammer-axe. His Ultimate Move will probably involve him jumping into space and batting Mars(or any other random planet-Gas Giants work too, don’t worry) at the enemies.
The Ninja: Naturally, two Masamunes, you can color them black and red(or black and blue, or black and silver, just make sure one is black) for bonus points. His Ultimate Tech is the combo he uses all the way back when you first meet him that he loses until he beats his Rival, the Rival Ninja.
Cool Old Guy: Depending. If he’s the Oddball Weapon User, he’ll probably end up with either a Toyota, a rubber mallet, an aquarium, an exploding cigar, a bottle of ketchup or a tennis ball on a stick. His Ultimate might as well be designed by writing down a bunch of words with numbers next to them and randomly rolling dice until you get a working viable Ultimate Tech. Or you could just give him a Slot Reel.
The Plucky Thief Kid- Probably gets two Kris-looking daggers, or something curved, because curved is cool. Their Ultimate Tech will involve them being able to steal Really Uber Rare Crap from enemies while mugging them with several hits at the same time. They’ll have to use this attack to get some of the Really Rare Crap that is likely not needed at that point because the party will be so powerful, or just for completionist’s sake.

Ok, so you want to create your game! It’s a massive lottery shot to get it published-but it’s satisfying to make nonetheless. Hell, i’ve been working on a game concept now for 7 years. I still write a word of it every couple of months-the words being ‘a’ ‘and’ or ‘the’.

I feel though, there are certain things you should remember, should your masterpiece in the making ever get published. For this description, I’ll be describing a rather ‘garden variety’, one of those ‘no particular time period’ type of console RPGs we all know. It’s a bit easier than going too far out there. So you know, some dude as the main character, and then his love interest, and all that good stuff.

These tips are to bring to your attention a few things of Console RPGs. There will be three installments-tips 1-10, 11-20, and 21-30, with possibly more to follow.

Tip #1. See that guy’s name you have at the top of the paper? The one with ‘Main Character’ written next to it? Yeah, that guy. He’ll have fans, most definately. Especially if you fanservice him enough(manly enough for the guys, bishounen enough for the ladies, and kickass enough for all.). However, somehow, no matter what, no matter how badass he is with his Big Fucking Sword and Kung Fu moves on top of it(BFS and Kung Fu? Instant win!) his badass Blue Hair and Cool Outfit, and no matter how Bishounen you made him, no matter even how Anti Hero you make him, he’ll never end up as popular as the second guy on your list. He’ll end up with one of the female characters to be sure by the end of the game, though. Usually it’s the Magical Girl, and sometimes the Healer Girl. Once in awhile, it’s the Action Gun Girl. You can roll a die, and it won’t matter. See Tip #3.

Also, you must pick a Hero Type for your Main Character. First, we’ll call them Type 1: The Really Really Good Knight in Shining Armor guy. This is the noble warrior who rights wrongs kind of thing and is really honorable and stuff. These guys aren’t used often, as they can come off as stuffy and…yeah. Type 2 are basically really good guys with strong senses of justice; however they may be a bit smartass, a bit perverted, and/or not afraid to get their hands a little dirty if need be, as long as it works out in the end. These guys are pretty common and better liked. Type 3 is the ‘Anti Hero’. Darker than type 2; they do mean well in the end but sometimes they’ll go a little out there…the ends justify the means sometimes. But not all the time. These guys are like, SUPER popular. People like Anti Heroes. Anti Heroes can sometimes like doing what they do a a lot, or just not be afraid to take drastic measures-as well as having a hefty dose of angry in there. Type 4 is i guess you can say the Dark Anti-Hero. Still technically a hero, but really doesn’t mind going overboard to get results. Whatever works, kind of thing. They might even enjoy it a little bit too much…moreso than the Anti-Hero. Type 5 has the nickname of ‘Heroic Sociopath’ or perhaps even ‘Anti Villian.’ This guy is somehow STILL working for the side of the PCs. But he’s pretty damn dark. They do exist in games, but it seems that Type 2 to Type 4 are the most popular; with Type 3 possibly pushing out there.

Your best bet is to aim for a good, solid Type 3 for this guy, as his fanbase will grow a bit-however Type 2’s are definately popular; people like the good-hearted, justice oriented, but still not afraid to whoop that ass in a serious hardcore way kinda character.

However, after all the hard work you put into this guy-he’s probably not going to be the most popular. This role belongs to a guy known as…

Tip #2: The Hero’s Best Friend. Somehow, this guy’s going to end up with a bigger fanbase than Your Hero. Why? Who knows. Somehow they’ll think he’s even MORE Bishounen(he could even be the Hero’s TWIN BROTHER and they’ll think this) and more Badass(really, when you designed him, did you HAVE to give him the long, violet-streaked black hair, yellow eyes, white skin, sleeveless longcoat with no shirt and those metal-covered bladed gloves and boots as his weapons that he can never get ALL of the blood off of due to the amount of people he crushes? And yeah, you know you designed him as more Bishounen. Just admit it.) He’ll probably be a Rival, he’ll probably leave the party at one point for one reason or another(mind control, temptation, demonic possession, all three) forcing your party to fight him(and probably soundly pulverizing them to 1 HP in the process). Of course, he’ll usually have a change of heart(he better-lest legions and legions of fanboys and fangirls threaten your life and that of your small furry pets), and while staying bonfide Really Anti Hero that he is, come back to the party for the 4th disc with abilities further cementing him into godmode. (He’ll usually dissapear at the end of Disc 2 and you have to face him in Disc 3. Disc 3 subsequently is the disc where the general gaming populace says ”The Game Went Downhill A Bit.”) He actually comes BACK to the group in Disc 3, but it’s in the last 1/4 or so of the disc.

As for ‘Hero Type’, as a rule of thumb, this guy won’t be above Type 3 ”Anti-Hero”, and will more than likely be one step DOWN the hero tree from whatever your main hero is. So if your main guy is a Type 1 or type 2, this guy will still be around the Type 3. If your main guy is a Type 3, this guy’s going to be a type 4, and so on. Or you can save yourself the time and just give your future fans what they want and make him a Type 5 Heroic Sociopath.

This guy will usually have the fanbase crying for a spinoff, in fact, where you get to play him. As for the voice, save yourself the trouble and book Crispin Freeman(if English) or Hikaru Midorikawa(If Japanese with subtitles) now.

It’s in this author’s opinion that this happens because after designing your first guy, you suddenly just explode in creativity and create this guy. Note there are subversions; one’s name is Yuri Hyuga. He’s an extremely well loved main hero…but just look at him. Lesson: If you have a guy you want to be popular, just make him an uber badass. Don’t cut corners.

Tip #3: Also be prepared for the fanfic population to grow exponentially with slash fics about said characters. No, them being twins does not save them from this treatment.  If you want an example, first prepare a bucket with hot water and bleach, and get a brush that’s big enough to fit into your nose and long enough to reach your brain. Then, go to Google and type in ”DantexVergil Fanfiction.” Read anything on the first page. You’ll understand why I had you prepare the bucket of brain bleach. (For the record, this author has no problem with well-written, believable, hot man on man action, as I’ve said. I’ve read some great ones. But PLZ, leave siblings and family out of it! And yes, I’m a woman, naturally. :D)

Tip #4: For the lady characters, you want a variety. Yes, there are big fans of the Magical Chick, so just make one of them. Make one the Action Gun Girl, give her dual pistols, a rocket launcher strapped to her back, grenades on her belt and a variety of throwing knives that inject horrible poison into the enemies. And yes, the Healer Girl. (Hey, Mom blew on my cuts and slapped a band-aid on them. Healer Girls are cool). As for outfits, Action Gun Girl needs lots of belts. Just toss some random belts on her, and make sure they are black leather, studs are optional. Make sure she’s got a black tank top on and whatever pants you want to give her. Adding a few more belts to these helps as well. Magical Girl can really dress however she likes; more than likely she’ll have been in a sheltered life and cut off her buttlength hair at some point during the game and change her clothes to that of a more ‘Adventurer’. Healer Girl will probably look the most traditional, toss on a robe or a cloak and you’re good to go. Make sure Action Gun Girl has some comments about her choice of dress; Action Gun Girl tends to be a bit standoffish until one of the characters softens her heart a bit; usually the Hero’s Best Friend in a rather introspective scene taking place outside of an Inn at night, or by a lake the team happens to be camping at; this happens usually after the Best Friend comes back from his demonic temptation. She also helps the Best Friend to overcome some of his angst in the process. Make sure you play up lots of UST with these two(Unresolved Sexual Tension), and bonus points if, when the Best Friend is in Evil Mode, he makes some suggestive comments or motions to her while he has her against a wall.(They might just embrace in a more normal method during the Nightime Sequence, naturally after but 10 minutes of discussion.) Magical Girl and the Hero will be no doubt teased by the Plucky Thief Kid(depending on the rating, Plucky Thief Kid can be outright perverted here); and Magical Girl will undoubtedly get some advice from the Cool Old Guy concerning her feelings(See Tip 9.). Hero and Magical Girl won’t really have UST; but make sure you play up the fact they are totally clueless to one another until halfway through Disc 4 when he finally announces that he will do absolutely anything for her, completely out of left field is best here. Magical Girl should be pretty independent in personality; but with an underlying sensitivity and insecurity that she overcomes. Healer Girl may or may not have a boyfriend hanging around somewhere else in the game; you could always try to pair her with the Ninja or the Big, Kinda Dumb Cute Guy if you feel like it. Bonus points if it’s the latter; the Big but Kind of Dumb Cute Guy is going to have a fair fanbase and they might want to see him with someone. Make sure you write at least 1(one) scene that involves a Girls Night Out. This should happen on Disc 4 to relieve any tensions that might be mounting due to the Villain in his Flying Island thing bombing the crap out of the countryside with something.

Whatever you do, don’t kill any of them off, or you will be getting backlash for the rest of your natural life. These ladies will indeed have a strong fanbase; with guys and girls, though who likes who is up in the air. There will probably be some f/f yuri fics floating around with them also, usually with the Action Gun Girl and the Healer Girl. There will also be limitless amounts of fanfiction written pairing off one of these with either A. The Main Villian, or B. The Hero’s Best Friend; and usually B is the girl that the Hero ends up paired with in the game. Everyone will think that naturally she would have been better with the Best Friend Guy, though if you play up enough possible romance between Action Gun Girl and the Best Friend this can be alleviated a bit.

Tip #5: At least 1(one) character has to be the Last Remaining Something or Other. Get used to it. Figure out if you want them to have a Pendant, a Birthmark, a Tattoo, or Odd Colored Eyes now.

Tip #6: Be prepared for your villian to have a bigger fanbase than any of the characters combined-yes, even the Hero’s Best Friend. No matter how despicable you make him, he will end up with a massive fanbase. If you make him a White Haired Prettyboy, he could singlehandedly stomp on every puppy on the planet while spitting on children and he’ll still be forgiven. Fans will froth that you ”had to kill the poor, misunderstood guy” and demand a spinoff.

Tip #7: Think of the cutest critter you can. Now, think of another one of the cutest critters you can. Possibly a third. Like, a baby badger, a baby sloth, and a baby raccoon. Pretend they’ve been genetically bonded. This will be the Stock Cute Animal populating your world. Make sure the players have to rescue one or more at some point, and can revisit this scene as a minigame later.

Tip #8: Get your shop class buddy to design no more than 5(five) and no less than 3(three) vehicles. One of these must fly. Another one of those things you should get out of the way of now. And tell them not to bother with things like functionality, you just need them to look really really cool. One(if three), or two(if five) of these vehicles will end up destroyed at some point.

Tip #9: Well, we have the Hero, the Hero’s Best Friend, and the Three Girls-we need a few more characters! Let’s say…4(four) more. Let’s stick the Little Plucky Thief Kid in there(be careful of making this one two annoying. Don’t let them turn into the Scrappy or something. It’s easy to do here, so tread lightly. Make sure they have a bandanna of some kind.), the Ninja from the Last City of Ninjas(just make ‘em dual wield Space Katanas and give them a blue scarf, they’ll get fans) and , The Big But Slightly Dumb, Cute Guy with a Heart of Gold(who somehow manages to do about as much damage as the Hero and his Best Friend in battle. However, if you want to boost his Fanservice Rating a bit, ditch his shirt, give him sorta wild shoulder-length hair of an odd color-white’s always good-and a few tattoos that glow when he powers up. Big armored shoulderpads shouldn’t be ignored, either.), and The Stock Cool Old Guy(Bonus points if he’s a Battle Butler! If he’s a Battle Butler he’ll get fans, don’t worry.). It really won’t matter about these last four, because they won’t have as many fans as the Hero’s Best Friend. You’ll find the odd website here and there devoted to them. They’ll be liked if you make them well; but you know how it is. The Cool Old Guy should be the party’s moral compass; the fount of wisdom and advice when things go awry. He’ll be the one who ends up ”getting them back on their feet” after the Best Friend goes to the Dark Side for awhile, and it’s even better if he’s got some sort of tragic past he has to tie up; a dead son or daughter always works here, or possibly wife. He won’t be too angsty, though; there are other characters for that. Plucky Thief Kid should be used as the Comic Relief; it could be a guy or girl, depending on what you want here. Make them the youngest member of the party with a pissed off parent/set of parents, grandparent, or siblings that they have to iron out. More than likely the Best Friend will creep them out due to his bloodthirsty ways, but they’ll eventually get on well with them.

When introducing the Ninja; make sure he’s standing on some sort of really skinny thing shadowed with the moon behind him; he’ll jump down, flip out, and cause mass destruction before losing said abilities when the party gets him and not getting them back until Disc 4. He’ll be ”The Stoic” of the group; occationaly dropping some advice or wisdom, and you better damn well give him a rival that he has to beat down at some point in the game; this rival could have killed his best friend/girlfriend/brother/sister. Rival is naturally a ninja gone bad and after defeating him, you can always make him give the Ninja’s Ultimate Weapon AND Ultimate Tech(the one he used when he is first recruited on Disc 1 or early Disc 2) and make the scene a Disc 4 Sidequest. (Actually, all of these guy’s ”Story Wrapups” should be Disc 3 or Disc 4 sidequests.) Finally, the Big Kinda Dumb Cute Guy doesn’t have too much tragedy in his past; there’s enough of that in the party. You might want to make him just really protective and come along to help-you could even write him up as a hired bodyguard. He should take a good interest in the Healer; they’d just be so damn cute together. He somehow manages to give some nice advice, despite him not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. His simplistic ways of solving problems might get the team out of trouble once or twice, even(despite it possibly getting them INTO trouble as well a couple of times.) He should find his Ultimate Weapon and Technique inside a mountain somewhere after breaking said mountain in some impressive CG cutscene.

Tip #10: Weapons: The Weapon Setup should run something like this:

Hero: BFS. He gets a few Kung Fu moves, though. Special Moves: Sword and Kung Fu Based. Lots of combos. Lots and lots of hits. His Final Move will probably be able to kill the last boss in like three.
Hero’s Best Friend: He’s the martial artist. Gauntlets/Boots for this guy. (You COULD do the Katana here…but the Ninja needs something. Yes, they use Katanas in RPGs.) Special Moves: Think of the most horrible things someone can do with their bare hands and slap ‘em on him. It adds to his Type 4-5 Anti Hero Factor and boosts his fanservice factor in the process.
Magic Girl: A staff. Special Moves: Magic based. Some of these will take several minutes to complete. You might consider being able to skip animations.
Action Gun Girl: Guns, duh. Special Moves: Lots and lots and lots of bullets, or rockets, or grenades, or…Naturally the higher level ones will involve napalm or something of that nature, possibly up to and including nuclear attacks.
Healer Girl: A bow. Special Moves: Also magic based. But more healy, so these won’t be as long.
Plucky Thief Kid: Daggers, or see below. Special Moves: Steal. Steal and hit the enemy. Steal Better Items.
Big Cute Dumb Guy: A gigantic hammer or axe. The bigger the better. Special Moves: Lots of hitting, and make sure his high-level one splits the world in two at one point.
Ninja: Dual swords. Katanas, naturally. Special Moves: Throwing ninja stars, Ninja Magic and Flipping Out.
Cool Old Guy: This can vary. And see below. Special Moves: Depending on weapon. This guy can actually range quite a bit. He’ll probably have a minimum of 1(one) Recovery technique of some sort.

1(one) character must use some kind of strange, improbable weapon. The Battle Butler can be good to fill this niche, but the Thief can also pull this off. Paper fans, dice, wires, coffee mugs, clarinets, light bulbs, umbrellas, sporks, remote-controlled cars, hand lotion, balloons or ciggarettes are all good choices here.