# Character Creation Challenge 2024: Day 25 - Hollowpoint :: John Lathrop, Section 31 Agent tags: #thoughts/CharacterCreationChallenge/2024 #game/rpg/hollowpoint > [!quote] [[Character Creation Challenge 2024]] > > ![[Character Creation Challenge Image.png]] You may have received the impression that when it comes to entertainment, I particularly like stories about really competent people doing things that they are competent at which are very likely morally dubious at best and absolutely black to the core at the *very* best. **John Wick**? That's an awesome story for me. **Event Horizon**? Competent people doing competent things and making competent decisions – mostly. **Leverage**? I question their goody-goody morality, but otherwise – aces! **Heat**? Oh yes. Every day of the week.  I've touched on a few games of that nature as I've gone through the month but I'm down enough in the strata to find the games that I loved at the time and haven't thought about for several years, providing me the glory and joy of getting them out of the box and playing with them again. I bring you **[[Hollowpoint]]**. ![[Hollowpoint (cover).jpg]] 110 pages. Very little art. Some imaginative layout. Not GMless, so no solo play here – though there probably is a way to do it given some thinking. Mechanically, this is a game that tries to do a lot of things with as few die rolls as possible. You'll notice that I did not say as few *dice* as possible; you will be throwing *fistfuls* of dice in this game if you are the referee. You will probably be throwing somewhere between three and six dice on a regular basis as a player. Here's the thing, a single roll represents multiple actions. You make sets of matching die rolls which represent impact moments for the skill you've chosen to activate. Then everyone takes action from longest set to shortest set and within those groups highest die to lowest die. Successful hits target someone's dice pool and remove a die from the shortest, highest set on the target with the fewest sets. If they don't have a die, they get an effect determined by the skill the attacker is using. Get two effects from the same skill – and you are officially *fucked*. You're out of the conflict. You might not be dead, but that's entirely up to you. Yes, you can deliberately choose to move on when you take that second effect, or you can wait until the end of the scene, or you can decide to hang in there. Of course, if you die – you get to bring a new character in of a higher rank (we'll get to that) in the next scene and dump five dice in the shared teamwork pool, besides. Plus your new character will get to tell the poor bastards that survived all the things they did wrong and have a chance to change one of the objectives for the mission. Don't get too attached to your characters, is what I'm saying. The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long. All in service to the story, man. Mechanically, **Hollowpoint** is built out of the multi-action skill rolls and the escalating opposition mechanics for the referee. I won't be touching too much on the latter but know that there is some really solid guidance both narratively and mechanically for the ref to bring the pressure to the players. Oh yes, and there is a *win condition* for this game. You don't see that very much. Having a character move on as a result of a complication is *winning*. That's how you increase the rank of your next character. Increase the rank past Handler – and you've won the game. Everybody goes to the bar, gets drunk, has a good time. Or whatever your personal equivalent is. End state motivations. How innovative! Fair enough, get in. We got business to do. > **Hollowpoint** is a role-playing game about hyper-competent, unpleasant, violent people doing what they do best. They work in a team, even if that isn’t their natural inclination. The game at once tries to capture the essence of modern-day competence mythology and bind these super-individuals into a functioning unit. This is the essential strain: these are people who like to be the best, and working together is stressful. Cooperation makes them less effective as individuals. Each knows his or her plan is the right one. > > *Disclaimer: This is a game that deals with torture, execution, terrorism, and other illegal and immoral activities. It is a form of make believe that some people will find offensive or unpleasant. But it’s just a game: it’s safe and no one gets hurt as long as everything stays at the table. Do not do these things in real life, please. Play games instead.*[^disc] [^disc]: I really appreciate games before the obsession with "safety mechanisms" set in with a vengeance. Games which appreciate the fact that I'm an adult. That demand the fact that I'm an adult. They're not obsessed with trying to keep me from any kind of unpleasantness. I only add this here because – it needed to be said. ## Chargen This is not a heavy mechanics kind of game. In fact, it does its best to stay out of the way and let how cool you are be the game. Or how brutal. Or simply how competent. Creation starts with the Agency. ### The Agency This is a *table decision*. This is not something the referee comes up with on his own. Everyone comes together and puts in their ideas during the creation of the Agency. I'll be doing that for us because *you* never seem to talk while I'm working on these things. We have a few steps. 1. What kind of agency is providing the missions? What does it protect? This choice is **the Charge**. 2. What does the agency destroy? This choice is **the Enemy**. 3. When is the game set? Is it our real world or some close variation or are we going further afield? This choice is **the Era**. Notice how we could be set in any period of time as long as we have a bit of an underground, elite, direct separation from normal society. I'm actually feeling a little bit inspired lately by media which will never be properly used but which I think deserves this kind of treatment. How about *[Section 31](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Section_31)* from **Star Trek**? I've always thought that the secret police of the Federation ought to be sheer terror, with access to all of the alien technology found on the fringes by ships like the Enterprise and stocked with ruthless experts, the best on a thousand worlds. Okay, my version of the Federation may be a little more *intense* than yours. So what's **the Charge**? There's only one possibility: *Protect the Federation from all enemies, foreign and domestic.* How about **the Enemy**? Any interstellar organization or nation-state who would seek to destabilize or reduce the influence of the Federation on the galactic stage. I suppose **the Era** is not obvious. Technically, it could be happening at any one of the historical junctures in the **Star Trek** universe – but just for sheer contrast power let's stage it during [the TNG era](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/TNG_Season_1?so=search), when Captain Picard is carrying the water for the "kinder, gentler, more peaceful" face of the Federation. Freeing *Section 31* to be ruthlessly clandestine in operation. There is the fun possibility of being sent in after Picard has played nice with some aliens in order to demonstrate the steel fist inside the velvet glove. Or cleaning up the mess he left. Or going ahead and preparing the ground before he gets there so they will be a little more receptive to a diplomatic solution. I'm liking this. ### Characters This will go quick, I promise. In part because at least one thing probably shouldn't be completed until the mission is on the table. We'll get there. #### Rank As mentioned before, there are ranks in this game. Your first character is going to be a Agent. Your second is going to be a Operative. Your third is going to be a Handler. Each of these ranks has a certain thing that they are capable of doing that no other rank can. > - **Agent** — an agent can take one for the team. Any time the referee announces a hit on a character (whether knocking out a die or causing an effect), any agent may volunteer to take the hit instead on her dice (if she has sets to knock out) or on her character. > - **Operative** — the operative is here to teach. When anyone calls for help and is denied (even if denied by the operative), the operative can take two dice from the teamwork pool. > - **Handler** — the handler is in charge. When an operative or agent is getting squeamish about helping others, the Handler forces the issue. If you're really curious, these things are described in much more detail in the mechanics of the text and if you're intrigued, you should definitely pick up a copy and spend some time ruminating on it, because I think you'll enjoy it quite a lot. But for now we're just starting out. We are an Agent. #### Skills All characters have at least six *skills*, assigning a value from 0 (which is exactly what an average person can do or be expected to do) up to 5 (peak human capability if that peak human is a Zen master and spent their entire life focusing purely on achieving that level of skill; John Wick has a 5 in KILL). Here's the thing: there's not really a fixed skill list. There's a core skill list, but depending on the setting, the story, and even the mission, that list of skills might change. Additionally, they represent things that you can do to other people. Your PhD in chemistry or being a concert pianist? Not going to be represented by a skill. I'm going to drop the six core skills in here. > - KILL — killing people by shooting them, stabbing them, or driving them over with a tank. > - TAKE — stealing things that do not belong to you. > - TERROR — causing terror and making people afraid of you by acting very badly indeed. > - CON — tricking people into giving you what you want. > - DIG — finding out things that others do not want you to know, or otherwise investigating or getting information. > - COOL — being just that awesome. This is what you roll to lead a team, to smile in the face of danger, or disarm a bomb on pure instinct and grit. Being cool allows player descriptions to shine, and provides an objective measure of awesomeness if ever one is needed. I could have modified one of the existing skills but I rather like all of them. I did briefly consider replacing COOL with COMMAND because the Federation does tend to be obsessive about playing by the book – but then it occurred to me that I wanted this to stand in contrast to the usual Federation operation so, no. Section 31 characters get to be cool if they want to be. #### Name It's not your real name, anyway. Let's put something together here. **John Lathrop**, Agent | Skill | Rank | Description | | ---- | ---: | ---- | | KILL | 2 | John's phaser is very rarely set to stun. He likes it that way. | | TAKE | 0 | Stealing things is for amateurs. | | TERROR | 5 | If you can make the other guy afraid, the other guy will do just about anything you want. You can scratch "just about." | | CON | 1 | John doesn't lie to you. You may not believe him, but he never lies. | | DIG | 3 | There's probably not a system in the Federation John can't penetrate. Given time. | | COOL | 4 | The flip side of knowing your enemy enough to terrify them is knowing everyone enough for them to respect you. | We'll probably put together some kind of character description once we get closer to the end, but I like how this is evolving. Not your usual superspy agent and certainly not your usual agent of the Federation. #### Traits These are relatively free-form things that can be called on once per session to add a couple of dice to your pool – and then that's it. They're gone. Maybe it was consumed, maybe it was broken, maybe it just was something you had to let go. There are three different ways of generating traits. You can literally choose not to define any traits at the beginning of the game but define them on the fly as you need to be able to burn them for dice; that's a perfectly valid methodology but not particularly useful for our purposes. I'd really like to have something to be able to show you. There are Company Traits which are split into gimmicks, gadgets, and sidekicks. Gimmicks are actually traits that come back after the mission because they represent a skill inherent to who you are in your training. Gadgets and sidekicks are exactly what they sound like. This is actually a great set up if you are putting together a whole team who are intended to be a team from the beginning – but not the feel I'm going for, here. The last method is Traits by Q&A, which basically posits five questions and answers become your traits. I like this method. It's interesting. > 1. You wear a black suit over a clean white shirt and a skinny black tie. No hat and well groomed. Nothing to make you stand out, except “this”. > 2. You don’t have a lot of scruples, but you would “never do this”. > 3. That one time in Utah you took a souvenir; it was “this”. > 4. This is a hard job, but you love it because “you get to do this”. > 5. You’re a pro and you know you’re a pro because you always “do this”. We'll just make a couple of changes: No black suit over a clean white shirt and skinny black tie in TNG – sadly. Instead we get a nice double-breasted uniform except instead of the usual department colors ours is black-on-black, with the upper black sections having a sort of shiny dragon scale pattern. You see that, you don't want to fuck with that. Also while we may have been to Utah, that's not where we pick something up from. Instead – Romulus. Right! Now let's put together some answers. 1. a subtle cybernetic eye implant that glows when used 2. never shoot a man while he's looking 3. a long-distance Romulan girlfriend who thinks I work in import/export 4. I get to pretend to still have human feelings 5. leave a scar I feel quite happy about this. Each of these things could be called on during a session to get a couple extra dice – and then it's burned for the rest of the mission. When your traits get replenished, they're usually completely different – but nothing says that they absolutely have to be. The likelihood of your survival makes being concerned about replenishment just a little funny. #### Complications This is something you usually *can't* throw down until the referee has given you the mission because it is inherent to the objectives of the mission in play. It complicates matters. It's incredibly personal. It usually represents a conflict of interest. But above all – *it's bad*, really bad. Is the mission to destabilize the government on a border planet by assassinating the tribal leaders? Maybe you've been banging one of them for the last year and a half when you come through the area and you might be hesitant to kill her. Is the mission to go "liberate" a new cloaking core from the Romulan high command? Your long distance Romulan girlfriend is the lead scientist on that project. Need to "convince" a Maquis colony to abandon the border world that they inhabit? Last month you were out there selling them quantum torpedoes that "fell off the back of a starship." Like I said – *it's bad*. When you come up with one, the only other person at the table that knows what it is is the referee. You show it to them and they veto it or accept it. It might even change the entire course of their planned mission. Theoretically you could even keep it secret from them and reveal it written down on a card at a dramatically appropriate time – if you guys trust each other that much. You don't *have* to have a complication but it's *fun*. Also it's the only way to win the game. If your character moves on with a complication that's relevant to the context of the conflict, you win. Your next character will be the next rank up – or if you are already a Handler, you win the game. This is a *lot* of fun. That's it. That's all a character creation and the stuff you need to keep in mind. Everything else is directions to the referee for creating interesting missions with multiple objectives and how those play out. Where's my sheets? Oh, there isn't a prebuilt one. That's fine. ## Character Sheet ![[John Lathrop, Section 31 Agent.jpg]] **John Lathrop**, Agent | Skill | Rank | Description | | ---- | ---: | ---- | | KILL | 2 | John's phaser is very rarely set to stun. He likes it that way. | | TAKE | 0 | Stealing things is for amateurs. | | TERROR | 5 | If you can make the other guy afraid, the other guy will do just about anything you want. You can scratch "just about." | | CON | 1 | John doesn't lie to you. You may not believe him, but he never lies. | | DIG | 3 | There's probably not a system in the Federation John can't penetrate. Given time. | | COOL | 4 | The flip side of knowing your enemy enough to terrify them is knowing everyone enough for them to respect you. | **Traits** - a cybernetic eye implant that glows when used - never shoot a man while he's looking - a long-distance Romulan girlfriend who thinks I work in import/export - I get to pretend to still have human feelings - leave a scar *An easy 6 feet tall and broad in the shoulder, John Lathrop (not his real name) was born on earth in what used to be Rio de Janeiro but is now just part of the massive industrial/urban sprawl that covers a good chunk of Brazil. Most of the time he looks unnaturally cheerful, proud of his black-on-black uniform and the discomfiture it brings. He often tells the story of how he got his cybernetic eye – and the story is different every time. His nails are always scrupulously clean.* ## Exunt There we go, that's **Hollowpoint**. A game that got entirely too little attention when it was released and never managed to pick some up along the way. All of which is a terrible sadness because what it does, it does with directness, aplomb, and aggression. It knows what it is, it knows what it wants to do, and it will do that. The flexibility when it comes to era is a godsend. You want to do the **Black Company**? We can do that. You want to do the Farm from **Firestarter**? We can do that. You want to do **Blade Runner**? We can do that. You want to do **John Wick**? As long as you want to play the guys *sent after* John Wick, we can do that. The multiple actions per roll, the dynamic action ordering that can change even while skills are paying off, the ability to sacrifice things in order to get more dice… All these things come together to make a game which has some beautiful trade-offs in terms of tactical and strategic decision-making, plus gives enough constraint to the referee that the game simply can't descend into a railroaded paint-by-the-numbers. The mechanics literally don't allow it. Providing a material benefit for your character dying? That's bold. I honestly can't recommend this game enough and I am pleased to have had the opportunity to pull it back out and show it to all of you. Hold on, I think I heard a knock at the door. Out!