# Character Creation Challenge 2024: Day 22 - Lasers and Feelings :: Lexington Flash, Snarky Engineer tags: #thoughts/CharacterCreationChallenge/2024 #game/rpg/lasers-and-feelings > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2024]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] Today we are going *ultra minimalist*. And when I say "ultra minimalist," I really mean it. So minimalist that I am about to put the entire text of the RPG in front of you and allow you to draw your own conclusions before I make the character. The whole text. Are you ready? Today we're hitting up **[[Lasers and Feelings|Lasers & Feelings]]**! ![[Lasers and Feelings (full).jpg]] That's it. That's the whole game. Feel free and go get your own copy of the PDF and play it to your heart's content. It's good. You'll enjoy it. I get the feeling that some of you are looking askance at me right now. Bear with me. There's a point. ## Chargen > You are the crew of the interstellar scout ship RAPTOR. Your mission is to explore uncharted regions of space, deal with aliens both friendly and deadly, and defend the consortium worlds against space dangers. CAPTAIN DARCY has been overcome by the strange psychic entity known as *Something Else*, leaving you to fend for yourselves while he recovers in a medical pod. And thus is all the setup you need to jump in, kick ass, take names, and overcome feelings. *That's it..* You can get by with less but not much less. Every once in a while there is a return to this idea of the *"one page RPG,"* and as much as I love my complex mechanics and intertwined narrative constructs – I look at these as the haiku of the RPG world. Much less than this and you're not really getting a game.^[I'm looking at you, [Business Card RPGs](https://itch.io/physical-games/tag-business-card). I remain unimpressed.] On a single 8.5" x 11" page you've got room for set up, mechanics, and a few pieces of evocative art. **Lasers & Feelings** is a good example because it is clearly, by observation, an example of the **[[Blades in the Dark]]** lineage – which, I suppose, should be obvious given that it's written by John Harper. The cunning thing is that it all fits on one page. In fact, you can argue that the core of the mechanics fit into that second column all by its lonesome. That's good succinct design. Let's get a character! ### Character I enjoy how straightforward this is. In a world full of complicated, multistage, interwoven character design systems… This is a breath of fresh air. It's one of the reasons that I truly am happier in looking at current game design than I have been in quite a while. #### Style How do we do things? What kind of species are we? Can you sum it up in one word or hyphenated phrase? Awesome! We are absolutely good to go. In our case, we're going to play to our strengths. *Snarky*. #### Role What do we even do on this ship, anyway? What's our purpose in life? Is it, truly, only to serve butter? No. We are… *Engineer*. #### Number Here we step up to the truly innovative part of this game because anybody can have a couple of adjective-noun descriptors and shuffle on their merry way. No, we do something a little different. Our character is described by *a single number*.[^free] [^free]: Obligatory "I am not a number, I am a free man!"  Not unusual. You've seen me do things with the [[Two-Hour Wargames|Two Hour Wargames]] mechanics where *Reputation* is the only trait that matters. Why is this any different? Because it *doesn't* represent a single trait – it represents a *place on a spectrum* between two things, which is a very different way to describe game mechanics. In this case, the spectrum runs between *Lasers* on one end and *Feelings* at the other.^[Title drop.] Characters which tend more toward Lasers are better at technology, science, shooting things in the face with precise shots, that sort of thing. Characters which lean toward Feelings are better at dealing with other people, diplomacy, seduction, over-the-top action, sometimes swinging from chandeliers. The range of this value is from 2 to 5, leading the savvy to understand that the D6 is going to be the primary resolution tool in the game. It also follows that no one is entirely Lasers and no one is entirely Feelings because to do so you would have to include 1 and 6, which is a cool implication. No one can be a perfect balance between Lasers and Feelings because that would require them to have the number 3.5, which is another cool implication.^[I might argue this would be a good game to base around a D8, giving a range of 6 for more shades of difference between 3 best and 3 worst. None of the resolution mechanics would change in the least. The D8, like the D12, is too often overlooked.] We, however, are a *Snarky Engineer*, which suggests we should probably lean more toward Lasers. I'm going to settle on 3 as our number as an homage to the hot-blooded engineers who have gone before us. #### Cool Space Adventure Name Look, that's what they tell us to do. It's true, everyone needs a cool space adventure name. *Lexington Flash*. Yeeeeeeeeeah. #### Gear We've got a Consortium uniform which allows us to walk in space, the equivalent of a future cell phone, and a phaser. While it's suggested that it's usually set to stun, I'm going to point out that Lexington's phaser is almost always set to kill. Why delay a problem when you can stop it? #### Goal Here's another one of those mechanics I love, some way to state openly and mechanize what your character wants. It's amazing how many people create characters who don't want anything interesting. Lexington is, at heart, a simple man. What he likes is trouble. It doesn't matter to him where that trouble falls, on his head or someone else's, but as long as there's trouble, there's problems to solve, and as long as there's problems to solve – he will be there. So, will go with… *Start Some, End Some* ### Starship We do get some say into the nature of the ship itself, which is nice. We know it's an interstellar scout ship named the Raptor. Let's see what else we know. #### Strengths This is a signal to the GM of what kind of conflicts you'd like to get into with the ship. What kind of stories do you want to see on the screen? Mechanisms which allow signaling about what you want are generally good in my opinion. We're going with *Superior Sensors* and *Cloaking Device*. Narratively, this is just me saying to the GM (which could be myself – we'll get to that) that when it comes to conflicts, I want to be able to see 'em coming so that I can engage in some sort of preparedness or emoting about how terrible they are rather than just having them dropped on me, and that I would like scenes of narrative tension which involve sneaking around or being clever more than applying gun to forehead. Yes, I know that's at odds with what I've said about *my personal character* – but that's okay! Narrative tension is good. My character might not like sneaking around unless he's setting up something horrible to go off later but *as a player* watching my character grit his teeth as we are forced to cloak in the shadow of an asteroid is a good time. #### Problem Here's another good mechanism for signaling, picking a problem that the ship has. Let's go fully classic and hit *Horrible Circuit Breakers*, so panels go exploding all over the place when the system is stressed. I want to see people thrown around, jumping over dividers, spinning around in their seats… Mass hysteria! And that's it. At least for character generation. But since the game is so succinct, let's go one step further. ### Adventure Harper was good enough to put in a way to generate an entire random space adventure and by God if I'm not going to push the buttons and pull the levers on that. Let's find out what we're doing out here in the black! **A threat …** *Alien Brain Worms* **… wants to …** *Destroy / Corrupt* **… the …** *Alien Artifact* **… which will …** *Reverse Time* **!** Well, damn. That escalated quickly! Clearly, the Raptor is carrying an *alien time dilation device* which they discovered in the last mission. They don't know how to use it (it's alien), but upon it being unearthed, it sends a signal to summon its creators – *parasitical alien brain worms* who resent their current evolutionary state and want to *reverse time*, traveling back to an earlier stage so they can intervene in their own evolution and become independent entities of their own! You know, I think I just put together a better **Doctor Who** plot than we've seen in almost a decade. Good job, random table. To the sheets! ## Character Sheet **Name:** Lexington Flash, Snarky Engineer ![[Lexington Flash, Snarky Engineer.jpg]] | LASERS | \-\-OO | FEELINGS | | ---- | :--: | ---- | | | 3 | | **Goal:** Start Some, End Some **Raptor Strengths:** Superior Sensors, Cloaking Device **Raptor Problem:** Horrible Circuit Breakers ## Exunt And that's it! Character created, number down, even the first space adventure laid out with a plot. But what we don't have is *a GM*, because it's just me (and you by extension, but you never call, you never write, you never drop by). There was a time that would be a huge problem for people who wanted to play a tabletop role-playing game. That's not the case anymore. And it's interesting that's not the case anymore. Some people would say that the pressure to create GMless, even solo RPGs came from the Covid-19 terror, but the increasing appearance of games like that started long before then. My suspicion is that the greater prevalence is more because of an aging marketplace for this kind of gaming. As you get older it's harder to get people together to spend time with because life gets in the way. When you do, you *all* want to play rather than one person feel full responsibility for everyone else having fun. Games which lean into those facts are likely to find more traction. What does this have to do with **Lasers & Feelings**? The structure is very much like **[[Blades in the Dark|BitD]]**, meaning that players are the *only* drivers of action. The GM does not initiate actions, only players do. The GM serves to introduce new elements and provide sensible response to the actions chosen by the players; the negative fallout of their actions is generated by complications to those actions rather than actions initiated by the GM. It's set up to become *a solo game*. All you need are some appropriate oracles or random generators that are sufficiently aware of the setting you would like to play. Picking up a copy of **[[Ironsworn - Starforged|Ironsworn: Starforged]]** would be perfectly appropriate at this point. The oracles are great for coming up with this kind of content; it's exactly intended for that. Not feeling quite up to that level? There was a game released in 2003 called **[[Mythic - Adventure Generator Role Playing System|Mythic: Adventure Generator Role Playing System]]** which very well may be the great ancestor of the current solo game movement, even though it isn't specifically intended just for solo play, but focused on being GMless. 20 years later, people are still going on at huge length about the **[[Mythic - Adventure Generator Role Playing System|Mythic GM Emulator]]**, which is a subset of those original rules. If you're looking to automate the GM out of whatever game you like to play, it's certainly not a bad place to start. Finally, if you're just a fan of John Harper, you can always check out **[Alone in the Dark](https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/282013/Alone-in-the-Dark-Solo-Rules-for-Blades-in-the-Dark)** which is a little book about running **[[Blades in the Dark]]** solo – but the mechanical suggestions are equally as applicable to *this* game because the mechanics are very, very similar. We live in a very neat era of RPG design. Make use of it. Just play the game, however you can get to play it. There's a garbage scow outside with a rogue captain and I think I might have to do something about it. Out!