Essential Builds &#8211; Know Direction

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Quartermaster Guide To Gear

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – Crossovers Wolverine

Ryan Costello — Fri, 23 Aug 2024 09:00:28 +0000

He’s the best there is at what he does, and what he does is combine the ruggedness of a jeep with the deployable blades of a knife block.

Welcome to Essential Builds, bub, the blog that turns popular culture icons into Essence20 Player Characters.

Today, I’m building Wolverine as a rally truck.

This one takes some explaining.

Who Is Crossovers Wolverine?

In 2008, Hasbro’s line of licensed Star Wars Transformers mutated into Transformers Crossovers, a line that now included both Star Wars and Marvel (oddly, before Disney owned either property). Over the next couple of years, they release three versions of a Wolverine Transformer that converted into a rally truck: one in a brown and yellow deco that doesn’t really match the earthtones of his brown costume but is clearly meant to be that one, one in black and silver with red highlights to represent his time as the leader of the X-Force strike team, and one in his classic blue and yellow costume.

This is the Wolverine I’m building.

Why?

I mentioned a few times in my Deadpool build that I was saving some options for a Wolverine build. I didn’t intend to get to Wolverine so soon (I like diversifying the source material of the subjects I cover), but with so many ideas fresh in my mind, and Deadpool & Wolverine joining the Billion Dollar Club, it felt like the right time to get to the X-Men’s most mysterious member.

So that explains why Wolverine, but why the Transformers version?

One, even though there were a lot of options that I considered for Deadpool that work better for Wolverine, there are also a lot of options I used that work equally for both. I don’t want this build to cover the same ground as my last build.

Two, a lot of Transformers options are, for obvious reasons, tied to the idea of a robot that can change into things. That makes them unusable unless our subject meets that exact criteria. Well, Crossovers Wolverine fits that bill*, and since he won’t show up in a Renegade product**, this felt like a fun way to build Wolverine in an all new, all different direction.

*Technically the Transformers Crossovers are mechs ridden by the character they’re based off, but the Transformers Crossovers lore is tenuous and unexplored, and the Marvel ones didn’t even come with pilots, unlike the Star Wars Transformers.

**Barring some licensing gymnastics that would impress even Simone Biles.

Building Crossovers Wolverine

My three priorities are:

Integrated melee weapon master;
Healing/Repairing Factor;
Mysterious.

I have a half-dozen Influences in mind, so it’s going to take a lot of slashing to narrow them down. Speaking of slashing!

Role

Warrior (Transformers Core Rulebook)

As the designer of the Warrior Role, I hope you believe me when I say I did not have Wolverine in mind when I wrote it. I bring this up because the Role Perk covers so much of this build’s needs, even I’m questioning my intent.

Hardcore lets us ignore damage that would Defeat us, but it costs us a limb. There’s our healing factor (and one of my motivations to make Crossovers Wolverine instead of vanilla Wolverine—as a Cybertronian Perk, we would not gain this benefit if we swapped settings). Push Through The Pain is another good representation of Wolverine’s healing factor, Tough It Out is even better, and Soldier On caps it off nicely.

Manifest Melee Weapon means we can deploy our claws. It’s not a huge advantage, mechanically, over drawing a weapon or using an Internal Hardpoint for an Integrated Melee Weapon, but narratively it’s perfect. It also improves as we level up. Technically we can get chainsaw claws (chainclaws) at 16th level, which isn’t representative of Wolverine but it’s a cool visual for a Wolverine-looking transformer.

Wisdom Through Experience both has Wolverine tapping into his foggy memory and doubles as him using his animalistic traits when examining a location. Leatherhead on the Renegade Discord Server suggested that Wisdom Through Experience would have been a good way to represent Deadpool’s 4th wall breaking. I like that a lot, but it also works for Wolverine’s flashbacks.

Focus

Shredder (Decepticon Directive)

I did not design this Focus, so I can’t speak to whether Bryan had Wolverine in mind when he designed it, but I would not be surprised. He probably had Shredder in mind, come to think of it…

One issue with the Warrior Role for this build is that Manifest Melee Weapon only ever lets us manifest one melee weapon. I think we can count three claws as one close combat blade, but not two hands of claws. Luckily, Shredder lets us deal Sharp damage with our unarmed attacks. It even gives us a Multiple Targets alternate effect! This does mean our unarmed attacks are better than any Standard melee weapon, so until we get Expanded Arsenal at 7th level, there’s little reason to Manifest Melee Weapon. Unless we consider claws out Wolverine’s natural state, and we manifest a close combat bludgeon as an adamantium fist.

As we level up, we get better with our sharp unarmed attacks, able to Grapple targets and deal additional damage to them.

Melee builds can struggle in Essence20, but Warrior (Shredder) is as dangerous as it is resilient.

Origin

Outrider (Transformers Core Rulebook)

Before we begin, now’s a good time to mention that Transformers Crossovers Wolverine was not my only option for a Wolverine with an alt mode. Years earlier, Toy Biz released a series of toys called Shape Shifters, including a Wolverine that could convert into a wolf. If I really wanted to avoid building a Transformer release, I could have gone that direction and given him the Monstrosity Origin from Decepticon Directive. But since Wolverine turning from a feral human with claws into a wolf is not a huge leap (and why not a wolverine?), Crossovers Wolverine just felt like a more interesting build.

I went with the off-road vehicle chassis, the Outrider from the Transformers CRB. Now, being about as far from a car guy as they come, I’m not really sure what a rally truck. I assume it’s a truck that races in the mud, but maybe it’s some kind of sports car support vehicle that doesn’t go anywhere near dirt roads. Even if that’s the case, Outrider’s Origin Benefit, which not only lets it ignore Rough Terrain but counts as being in Cover when in Rough Terrain, harkens back to Wolverine’s many forest fight scenes in comics, cartoon, and cinema.

Also, as I’ve apologized for before, yes, it’s my fault that there’s an Outrider Origin and Focus in the TF CRB.

Influences

1st Tragedy (Cobra Codex)

2nd Brutish (Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

3rd Nemesis (Decepticon Directive)

Wolverine has suffered more than most comic characters, and not just because he’s as old as every love interest he’s ever had combined. Tragedy made a lot of sense for the build, giving him a bonus to a Defense. I went with Willpower, because of his resolve. Had this been an Influence with a Hang-Up, I would have dinged Cleverness, because Wolverine has a history of being manipulated.

For the next Influence, I debated between Brutish and Checkered Past. Both give a situational Edge at the cost of a situational Snag on Social Skill Tests. The difference is the theme. While Checkered Past invokes Wolverine’s military history and tendency to clash with Cyclops, I went with Brutish because a lot of my builds have Checkered Past. Brutish gets to the same place while reflecting Wolverine’s animalistic side.

Finally, I took a fun Influence from Decepticon Directive: Nemesis. This story-driven Influence lets us cast a figure from our past as an NPC of importance. While Wolverine has a lot of enemies, no one gets under his skin like Sabertooth. My favourite example of their utter intolerance for one another is in What If… the Marvel Super-Heroes Had Lost Atlantis Attacks? In one of the comics that gave What If..? it’s reputation for bodycounts, only a handful of super powered beings remain to save humanity from Set the serpent god. This includes both Wolverine and Sabertooth. Even though they are humanity and mutantkinds’ last hope, one prickly comment from Sabertooth has Wolverine ready to throwdown with his adversary.

The question is, what would a Cybertronian Sabertooth turn into?

Essence Scores and Skills

Strength 5

I’m always happy when I build a Strength-based combat character. Wolverine could have been Finesse-based, but he’s such a brutal fighter that Might felt like the way to go. I gave him +d6 with a Specialization in Melee weapons. I also gave him a Rank in Athletics.

Smarts 5

Wolverine is the X-Men’s tracker, so +d6 Survival and Alertness +d4 covered that skill set, and gave him a decent Smarts without giving Wolverine much in the way of intellectual Skills.

Speed 4

I stayed conservative with Crossover Wolverine’s speed, only giving him +d4 Infiltration, and +d2 Driving and Initiative. In retrospect, maybe I should have given him Driving instead of Athletics, since Athletics is more of a fleshy Wolverine choice. However, since he ignores Rough Terrain thanks to his Origin, we might be able to get away with a Transformer PC with a low Driving Skill.

Social 2

Finally, I gave Wolverine +d4 Streetwise. I thought about giving him Animal Handling, but most interactions I can think of between Wolverine and animals do not end well for the animals.

General Perks and Other Options

We’ll want to get Acute Sense (Smell) ASAP. I regret that I didn’t give it to Wolverine at 1st level.

Otherwise, this being a combat character, the usual suite of combat-focused General Perks apply, but I want to give a shout to Martial Weapon Master from Intercontinental Adventures. It gives us an Upshift on Martial Arts weapon attacks, which will help us mitigate the ↓1/↓2 of a six claw attack.

There was some debate on the Renegade Discord about how the Empty Hands General Perk from the same book applies if you have Integrated weapons. If your GM allows you to allow you to take this General Perk despite and Hardpoint Weapons you install, it pairs perfectly with the Shredder Focus.

Speaking of Hardpoints, that’s one area I struggled with for this build. We have our Integrated melee weapons covered multiple times over, and the toy doesn’t have any ranged weapons build into it. It does, however, have a winch for a chin, spare tires, and a bumper. Basically, we can load Wolverine up with support equipment to diversify his functions and bring to life the toy’s details.

If you decide Wolverine’s military training justifies mounting an assault rifle, you’ll need to invest in Targeting, a Skill I skipped specifically because I didn’t have any ranged weapons in mind.

Conclusion

Shoot. I didn’t give Wolverine any My Little Pony options…

Well, that aside, I think we have a near perfect Wolverine build, which is surprising since Hugh Jackman never turned into a truck.

Most of this build still applies to a traditional Wolverine build, of course. Just swap out Outrider with Test Subject from Cobra Codex, and Shredder with Silent Weapons Expert from Intercontinental Adventures.

Resources

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2

Essential Builds – Deadpool

Ryan Costello — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 10:00:09 +0000

Deadpool is everywhere these days. He’s destroying box office records like they’re fourth walls, is on one of the most aggressive, bizarre, and creative promotional tours ever, and on his typical boatload of merch. You can’t even order a Coke without getting Deadpool in your face.

Now Deadpool is taking over Essential Builds, the blog that wades into popular culture for Essence20 Player Characters. I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

Since I’m a big enough Deadpool fan to post a video about baking the saddest looking Deadpool cookies (not as in pathetic, as in on the verge of tears), I’m inspired to put maximum effort into this build. And as a former writer of Looking For Group, I am all the way on board with Deadpool & Wolverine using #LFG, even if their version of its meaning is far too rude for this all ages blog.

Who Is Deadpool?

Known as The Merc With The Mouth, Wade Wilson, the vigilante called Deadpool, is great at killing and even better at banter. Introduced in New Mutants as an assassin hired to eliminate Cable, the character reached unheard of levels of popularity and exposure three decades later.

Like the Joker, comic book Deadpool has a flexible backstory up to interpretation. Few key players in his formative years hold any significant role in the modern Marvel timeline, leaving only Deadpool, a self-professed unreliable narrator, to tell his tale.

However, his movie origin is the generally accepted Deadpool backstory. From Regina, Saskatchewan, Wade joined a Special Forces unit. After developing an aggressive cancer, Wade looked beyond Canada’s impressive healthcare system and to military experimentation for the cure. He signed up for a Department K experiment to infuse him with Wolverine’s genetics in the hope that they would unlock a similar healing factor and cure him.

The procedure was a success, but did not net the results he expected. Because cancer is a mutation rather than a wound, Deadpool found his body at war with itself on a cellular level. This took its toll on his physical appearance and mental health, but it did mean he could recover from otherwise fatal wounds.

Work opportunities being limited for a regenerating degenerate, Deadpool became a gun (and sword) for hire, before settling into the less lucrative but ethically more empowering life of an anti-hero.

Building Essence20 Deadpool

Comic book YouTube channel Comic Tropes recently polled subscribers about what defined Deadpool for an episode on which writer had the biggest impact on the modern perception of Deadpool. The majority felt that, more than his powers, his look, and his origin story, Deadpool was defined by his personality.

That will present an interesting challenge, but it will also add a lot of opportunities. If this was just a Deathstroke build, it would mostly be about his fighting skills. Deadpool’s personality being such an important element of the character means I need to look beyond combat effectiveness.

Another challenge is Deadpool’s healing factor. Since there’s no Death condition, every character in Essence20 is unkillable. However, for balance reasons, we can’t make them unDefeatable. Luckily, how Essence20 abstracts damage means that high Health can feel similar to shrugging off injuries. But I’ll be exploring other options that feel truer to the concept.

One last note: There are a lot of Deadpool-appropriate options in G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2, a book that technically won’t be out until October. However, because a selection of advanced copies sold at Gen Con last week, I feel comfortable drawing on a few foundational options for this build. Just don’t expect much more detail than you’ll find in the Table Of Contents that was shared by fan Jaredd Wilson from the copy he picked up in Indianapolis.

Role

Yellow Ranger (Power Rangers Core Rulebook)

Initially G.I. JOE’s Commando seemed like the obvious Role for this build, but as I read it over, it felt too grounded for Deadpool. Also, none of the Focus options gave the perfect combination of swords and guns combat that I would have liked. I thought about combining the G.I. JOE Infantry Role with the Transformers Warrior Role’s Shredder Focus from Transformers Roleplaying Game Decepticon Directive, but Shredder is such a perfect Focus for a Wolverine build, I decided to save it.

So I expanded my search and remembered that the Yellow Ranger was one of the best melee Roles in Essence20. Triple Strike Attacks right out of the gate captures Deadpool’s frenzied twin-katana assaults (especially as represented in Ultimate Alliance, where he had one of my favourite attacks in that game, a spinning sword attack called Blade Cyclone), made even more real when we unlock Whirlwind Strike at 9th level. Nimble Fighter at 2nd level and Lightning Fast at 9th work for Deadpool’s acrobatic attack style, or, if you’re a Joe Casey era purist, his teleporter.

As a reminder, when you change a Power Ranger Role’s Setting and Faction, it still gains Power Points. That’s another reason Yellow Ranger felt like a better fit than Commando. As a mutate (a human enhanced with mutant DNA in Marvel parlance), Deadpool can pull off super human feats. Even if they’re intended to be dramatized versions of peak human performances, Power Points help bolster what Deadpool can do. They represent the differences between Deadpool’s fighting style and Snake Eyes’.

Setting, Focus, and Faction

Setting: G.I. JOE (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Given Deadpool’s military training, G.I. JOE felt like the most thematic choice. Choosing the G.I. JOE setting also opened up the perfect Deadpool faction.

Focus: Armiger (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

Returning to Essential Builds after showing up with Mega Man, the Infantry Role’s Armiger Focus is great for both weapon specialists and mercs who pack a bag of weapons before every mission. Deadpool is somewhere in the middle, but with his sword skills covered by his Role, Armiger allows us to compliment them with a single firearm, like an SMG, or all of the accessories you’ve ever seen a Deadpool toy packed with.

I would have loved to use the Transformers Gunner Role’s Triggerbot Focus from Transformers Roleplaying Game Decepticon Directive, but for setting swapping reasons, I needed to pick a G.I. JOE Focus.

Faction: Mercenary (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2 )

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2 introduces four new generic Factions, including Mercenaries. Each generic faction replaces the space normally dedicated to lore with sections on how to define the Faction, followed by the typical rules matter. Mercenaries are one of the easier generic Factions to define, but you do get to decide if you’re part of a group or an independent contractor.

Origin

Marine (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt. Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack)

Dare I confess something?

I’m not sure what the Special Forces are.

This is embarrassing as someone so heavily involved in the design of the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game. I’m pretty sure they’re real. Like, it’s not just a catch-all term Hollywood created for better than average soldiers. But other than getting the gist of it, I can’t define it.

All that to say, hopefully I’m not getting on any military buff’s bad side by choosing the Marine Origin to represent Deadpool’s military training.

Truth be told, I thought about bringing Test Subject in for its third Essential Builds appearance. And unlike Leonardo and NFL Super Pro, who were accidents, Deadpool was actually the subject of tests!

The reason I chose Marine over Test Subject was the Origin Benefit. Hard Corps lets you ignore the effects of one enemy attack once per combat. This is one of the choices I made to represent Wade’s healing factor. Specifically, the often comedic moments in battle where Deadpool suffers a horrific injury. More than just having high Health represent his ability to recover, Hard Corps lets the GM describe how Deadpool’s body was brutally mangled and for the player to explain how they’ve picked up their pieces and are carrying on.

Influences

1st Intense (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Chatty (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Violent (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

Once again, I need to remind readers that the order of Influences is not a reflection of how much the theme applies to the character but how much the Hang-Up applies.

Is Deadpool chatty? Cable told him as much in their first encounter (contrary to the urban legend that Deadpool wasn’t as much of a talker at first). Is Deadpool violent? Just ask -oop, I had a long list of people you could ask but they all met grizzly ends.

Why neither is Deadpool’s first influence is that Chatty’s Hang-Up (suffering a Snag on Infiltration Skill Tests that involve being quiet) and Violent’s Hang-Up (suffering a Downshift on Skill Tests in combat that don’t deal damage) are spot on.

I could have taken or left Intense, which gives Deadpool a bonus to Willpower to resist being told what he can and can’t do, but I needed an Influence without a Hang-Up and it worked.

Essence Scores and Skills

Speed 7

I often lament Speed-focused builds, because it’s too easy during character creation to load up on Initiative and Targeting and before you know it you already have Speed 5. But Deadpool is definitely a Speed-based fighter. I gave him three Ranks each in Finesse and Targeting, and a pity point in Acrobatics. Even though I could use a Rank in Initiative, and our Role Perks already cover Deadpool’s cartwheeling combat style, it felt weird not giving him any Acrobatics.

Social 4

Deadpool may get on people’s nerves, but that’s all part of his charm. He’s also worldly in his understanding, but unfocused in how he got there. I gave him two Ranks each in Deception and Streetwise. You may want to pour it all into Streetwise, though, and let his weapons do the talking.

Strength 3

Deadpool communicates through jokes that are usually veiled threats, so I gave him two Ranks in Intimidation. I would have gone three, but I gave him a point of Conditioning, just in case.

Smarts 2

Not a dummy by any means, I couldn’t think of any Smarts Skill that suited Deadpool, other than Alertness, which got two Ranks.

General Perks and Other Options

In the Origin section, I talked about considering Test Subject from G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex. The thing is, unlike the Marine’s Origin Benefit, I can still get the benefits of Test Subject (an Alternation) without taking the Origin.

The Alteration in question is Skin Tempering. This gives us the benefits of a Battledress Upgrade, even when unarmored. As an Origin Benefit, we could have taken Limited Skin Tempering from 1st level. As a General Perk, we can take Standard Skin Tempering at 4th level, or Limited Skin Tempering at 8th level. Then, we’ll switch over to G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Quartermaster Guide To Gear for one of the Battledress Upgrades that gives the benefits of Body Armor.

Instead of increasing a Defense, Body Armor acts more like damage reduction. Your Body Armor has a certain amount of Health, and when you’re successfully affected by the damage or weapon it’s built to resist, you remove its Health instead of your own. Deadpool’s body acting as body armor is perfect. I honestly didn’t think I’d find a healing factor stand-in mechanic that I was this happy with.

I debated whether to take Ballistic Armor or Kinetic Armor upgrade. Ballistic applies against all ballistic weapons, but Kinetic only resists either Blunt or Sharp melee damage. I went for Ballistic because Deadpool gets shot more than he gets stabbed.

We’ll skip the rest of the General Perks, since they’d mostly be combat oriented and would largely be from a book I can’t go into details about.

Conclusion

Generally I have less fun with straight combat builds because there isn’t as much challenge and discovery. However, Deadpool had just enough elements off the beaten path that forced me to reexamine what was possible with Essence20. This build made me realize there are viable options to represent a healing factor. There are even some more extreme options I didn’t go into here. I need to save those for another Canadian with a healing factor absolutely tearing up the box office right now.

Resources

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt. Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Quartermaster Guide To Gear

Essential Builds – My Lennium Falcorn

Ryan Costello — Fri, 17 May 2024 09:01:58 +0000

You’ve never heard of My Lennium Falcorn? It’s the friendship that made the Magic Run in less than twelve sparkles.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that punches popular culture icons into the hyperspace that is Essence20.

About a year ago, someone (I tried to find out who but the best I could find was “a LEGO Store employee”) used a LEGO 3-in-1 Creator set that advertised unicorn, seahorse, and peacock builds to make a seal, a robot, a narwhal, and, most famously, The Millennium Falcon. So today we’re bringing a unicorn that’s also Star Wars’ most famous ship to Essence20 . And yes, I can already hear your judgemental thoughts.

“You’re going to build that thing? You’re stranger than I thought.”

Who Is My Lennium Falcorn?

An original character. Sort of. And no, I’m not going to make a habit of this. That was one time. One and a half if you count this build.

The original idea I had for My Lennium Falcorn was a Cybertronian with a unicorn Bot Mode and a Corellian YT-1300 light freighter Alt Mode. The personality would be built around the extensive characterization Han Solo’s ship received in its myriad appearances across Star Wars media.

I should point out that there is a Star Wars/Transformers crossover figure of the Millennium Falcon, one which splits in two, with each half converting into one of the ship’s famous pilots. This doesn’t break my rule against building established characters from the Essence20 licenses because (A) this is a different character with the same Alt Mode, and (B) unless Renegade signs the Star Wars license, there’s no way this character ever shows up in an Essence20 product.

Building Essence20 My Lennium Falcorn

I originally planned on building this back in January. However, as I explained in the Maverick build that replaced it, “I misremembered the mechanics of an option that the build depended on.” I had it in my head that the Drone Origin from Decepticon Directive gave the character an Origin Benefit from a different Origin. I was so wrong about this it’s not even accurate to say I misremembered it. I invented a completely different mechanic. Not being able to gain any Unicorn Origin qualities made the unicorn Bot Mode a purely aesthetic choice, and therefore pointless in my eyes. So I put it aside. Until…

Last Friday, Renegade stealthily published a character creation guide I wrote for the latest multi-table mega event, Worlds Collide: The Pony Puzzle. As the name suggests, unlike last year, this crossover adventure brings My Little Pony into the mix. However, the Field Guide to Action & Adventure doesn’t include advanced crossover character creation rules for My Little Pony characters. Instead of limiting players to single-setting pony PCs in this crossover event, I put together a primer on the advanced crossover character creation rules, including instructions for applying them to My Little Pony Origins and Roles, and even threw in a few new options. Two of those options—the new Cybertronian Equestrian Influence and the Quadrupedal optional rule—make this build possible.

And no, writing a rule to make this build possible isn’t an abuse of power. It’s proof of concept. This is exactly the kind of character we empower players to bring to Worlds Collide events.

Origin

Drone (Transformers Roleplaying Game Decepticon Directive)

Funny enough, even though I discovered that the Drone Origin didn’t do what I needed it to, I ended up picking it anyway. It gives us all the benefits of the Seeker Origin’s Alt Mode, but with room for more personality thanks to the General Perk from the Drone Origin Benefit, and a hang-up called the imperfection to make up for the Origin’s flexibility. I went with the Fiercely Independent imperfection, based on how L3-37, Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character in Solo: A Star Wars Story, was a droid freedom fighter before having her consciousness uploaded into The Millennium Falcon’s computers.

The other reason I went with Drone over Seeker was for flavor. Canonical, there are a million ships in the Star Wars universe just like The Millennium Falcon. It’s mass produced. However, between decades of repairs tweaking how it operates as well as upgrades overhauling its functions, there’s only one Corellian YT-1300 light freighter like it. This also lines up with the unicorn Bot Mode. Unicorns are just like horses in most ways, and the exceptions make them special.

Finally, let’s talk about the Quadrupedal optional rule I mentioned earlier. When building a crossover character, you now have the option to define its physiology a bit. You choose whether the creature is Bipedal or Quadrupedal. Bipedal characters get 6-hands of equipment, Quadrupedal characters only get 4-hands of equipment but don’t suffer ↓1 to deal Blunt damage with unarmed attacks. My hope was that this little change opened up the ability to ponify a character without having to commit to an MLP Origin. So, for example, if you wanted to build a ponified version of Footloose called Hoofloose, you could choose the Soldier Origin from the G.I. JOE CRB and still represent him in a pony shape. In My Lennium Falcorn’s case, we’re fully committed to a Transformers Origin, but get to mechanically represent converting into a pony-shaped Bot Mode.

Influences

1st Cybertronian Equestrian (Gen Con Worlds Collide: The Pony Puzzle Event – Character Preparations blog post)

2nd Cybertronian With Attitude (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

3rd Stargazer (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

I’m not sure if people have picked up on this, but the order I go into Influences, Origin, and Role changes based on how important each option is to the build. Influences basically always come in third. In this case, the Influences are as important as the Origin. Probably not surprising since I talked about how one of the new Influences in the Pony Puzzle character creation blog post made this build possible.

Cybertronian Equestrian lets me choose an MLP Origin as the shape of my Bot Mode, granting a benefit based on the Origin I choose. Unicorn gives me Telekinesis, letting me move objects up to 50ft away with an Alertness Skill Test. Unlike the Unicorn Origin, it doesn’t give us the Magical General Perk. However, we’ll use our Drone Origin Benefit to grab that.

Cybertronian With Attitude wasn’t part of my plan for this build at first. I wanted a third Influence and realized that I’d yet to use options from the Power Rangers spacefaring book, Across The Stars. I was surprised by how few Influences were in that book, only finding one I considered. Well, two, because giving a spaceship the Ship’s Crew Influence amused me, but I got a headache working out how the mechanics applied to flying oneself. The Influence I actually considered was Augmented, to represent all of the upgrades the ship’s undertaken. But the Drone Origin covers that, thematically, and none of the Influence Perk options felt groundbreaking to the build.

While I had Across The Stars open, I noticed the Traveler Origin. Its Origin Benefit, Life Of A Thousand Roads, captured how much this ship has seen. A life of crime. A rebellion. A resistance. My Lennium Falcorn was a veteran of multiple Star Wars. Not so much that I would take the Traveler Origin over a Transformers Origin, but luckily the Cybertronian With Attitude Influence let me take a Power Rangers Origin Benefit as an Influence Perk.

Because Cybertronian With Attitude is formatted like a Transformer Influence, I needed to choose a Hang-Up. I once again invoked L3-37 and went with Vainglorious. In the first round of combat, I need to spend a Standard action delivering a speech to my enemies. Considering how that character went out, it fits.

For my final choice I went with Stargazer. This wasn’t based on established lore, but I liked how the Hang-Up (suffering a Snag on Smarts-based Skill Tests when you can’t see the stars) fit a starship. It gives a feeling of claustrophobia to a character used to the vastness of space.

Role

Scout (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I have never struggled to choose a Role this much. It makes sense, though. I’m basing this build on a piece of equipment rather than a character. The Millennium Falcon’s role in Star Wars is transport. I considered going with the Spirit of Magic, taking the opportunity to show off the rules for swapping a My Little Pony Role’s Faction. But then I found a Role Perk that was straight out of Empire Strikes Back: Hidden In Plain Sight. This Scout Role Perk allows me to hide without cover, like the Millennium Falcon docking on the side of a Star Destroyer to get away from him.

Scout is a great Role for the embodiment of the fastest ship in the fleet. As the Role’s designer, I’m particularly proud of how Ally Awareness lets a Scout do the Role’s job—going ahead of everyone—while remaining connected to the rest of the group.

Most of the other Role Perks are either about being fast, observant, or bold. Those boldness Perks add a little Han Solo to our build. That scoundrel took credit for all of My Lennium Falcorn’s best ideas and smoothest moves.

Sub Rules

Outrider Focus, Autobot Faction, Transformers Setting

The Scout may be fast, but it could be faster. The Outrider Focus ups the speed and maneuverability of the build. And yes, it’s my fault that there’s an Outrider Origin and an Outrider Focus in the same book. In hindsight, I think the Origin should be called Offroader.

Essence Scores and Skills

Speed 7

I focused on Driving and Infiltration for this build, giving them three Ranks each. There’s an Air Specialization in the near future, for sure. My last Skill Point went into Initiative. Originally I was thinking of taking Targeting as well, but I decided on a different form of ranged attacks.

Smarts 5

I like the idea that this is a pretty smart character. Normally how much to invest in Alertness is a struggle when I don’t know what Skills the rest of my party invested in, but Alertness is an important aspect of the Scout Role. So much so, I only needed two Ranks for now, since the Role gives me Acute Sense and Stargazer lets me give myself an Edge on a Smarts-based Skill Test.

I also invested in two Survival Ranks. It’s one of the Skills that Traveler pings off, and isn’t a Skill others tend to invest in without reason. It also feels like learning through doing, whereas Science is learning through research. This is a character that’s seen and done things, and has the Survival Ranks to show for it.

Where’s the fifth Skill Point go? Spellcasting. I split two Ranks in Spellcasting between Smarts and Social. This will fuel an Energy Beam and Summon Shield. Only having +d4 in Spellcasting will mean choosing between offense or defense and having to find other options while my systems recharge, all of which feels very Millennium Falcon.

Strength 2

Predictably, I put my Strength Skill Points into Might. Sometimes you gotta throw hoofs.

Social 2

Even though I took a few options to represent L3-37’s onboard gumption, none of it was tied to any Social Skill. I only invested in one Rank of Deception, for when My Lennium Falcorn needs to fly casual-like. As long as I bump that up by 9th level to make better use of Mimicry Vocoder, this should hopefully be enough. Scout’s Social goes up pretty quickly, so I can alternate between improving Deception and Spellcasting.

Conclusion

I think this is a fun experiment in stretching the rules to fit a weird concept. I do feel that not having a stronger grasp on what I wanted from this build beyond Millennium Falcon/Unicorn Transformer made some choices tougher and a bit bland in a few areas. I referenced L3-37 multiple times, a part of The Millennium Falcon’s canon I didn’t expect to invoke at all, because I needed to find some personality for the character.

Still, it’s nice to check this build off the idea list. And even if I’m not as excited about it as I have been other characters, I still think it’s an effective build and I am happy that Cybertronian Equestrian works as advertised.

Resources

Gen Con Worlds Collide: The Pony Puzzle Event – Character Preparations blog post

Essential Builds – Scaffold (Original PC)

Ryan Costello — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 09:00:37 +0000

Normally Essential Builds turns popular culture icons into Essence20 Player Characters. We’re doing something different this time. This is my first PC for a fully casual Essence20 campaign. I’m not playtesting or promoting or even GMing. I’m building a PC that I think will be fun to play. But who am I?

For those who don’t know, I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

You’d think I’d be in an Essence20 game by now, but I’ve been too busy writing on it, podcasting about it, and blogging builds for it to play the game. But since everything is content, I figured I’d turn character creation—which already follows the Essential Builds format—into my latest build.

Who Is Scaffold?

Oh wow, instead of providing context and referencing pop culture, this time this section is just “let me tell you about my character”.

Options are limited when aircraft sustain structural damage. Pilots are trained to deal with the situation by minimizing casualties on emergency landing. Aeronautic engineers, on the other hand, strap on a VTOL pack and fix the problem at the source. Not content to be brushed off as a youth when asking how planes stay in the air, Scaffold took up aeronautics as a hobby. He built a drone that was basically a flying toolbox, and then he used that drone to help him build and field test a propulsion back. He worked as a lighting technician at the Seattle stadium until his handcrafted flying devices caught the attention of the city’s biggest aerospace companies.

Out of the few engineers with the technical skills to repair bullet holes in an airborne aircraft engine, most of them couldn’t handle the pressure or the noise outside in the stratosphere. Those are Scaffold’s favorite parts! He wears kinetic body armor as pajamas and uses an old 747 engine as a white noise machine. Hanging off the side of a crashing plane is relaxing to him.

Building Essence20 Scaffold

For the record, this campaign takes place in The Energon Universe, and the GM has given us permission to use any Essence20 options, including magic. Hopefully I’m not squandering that freedom by only tapping into a few sourcebooks, all G.I. JOE.

When I build a PC, I tend to blend steps 1-5 (as described in the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook) into three amorphous steps:

Step 1. All the ideas and options that come to me at once.

Step 2. A few other ideas that are either logically connected or obviously compatible.

Step 3. The rest.

In this case, I came up with the concept, Role, and Focus right away. I’ve talked about liking jetpacks and visors before, so the idea of playing a tech specialist with a jetpack came to me as soon as I asked myself what character do I want to play. But why would a tech specialist have a jetpack? To answer that, I took inspiration from my cousin’s husband Jack, an aquatic engineer who does underwater maintenance on rigs. My PC repairs damaged airplanes while they’re still airborne. Exciting, unique, and justifies a jetpack. It’s perfect.

When I floated the idea past my group, one of the other players suggested my character be from Seattle, home of most major aerospace companies. Works for me. Thanks to my many trips to PaizoCon, I know the Seattle area enough to fake being from there.

I wasn’t exactly sure about the other elements of my build, but with Quartermaster’s Guide To Gear now available, I knew where I would get the rest of my options.

Role

Technician (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Unlike the last time I used the Rocketeer Focus, I’m not using the Field Guide to Action & Adventure to swap out my Role. I’m embracing my Technician roots, fully, gaining a utility drone named BTHIANNI TNIANHI, because it’s Better To Have It And Not Need It Than Need It And Not Have It.

Focus

Rocketeer (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

Not sure what else there is to say about the Rocketeer Focus than what I already said in my Rocketeer build. Has jetpack, will jetpack. To jetpack or not to jetpack is not the question because to not jetpack is not an option.

Bonus, our campaign starts at 3rd level, so I get Aerial Attack from char gen. That’s the Focus Perk that lets me attack with Acrobatics or Driving whenever I use my jet pack to move. And, as established, I’ll be jet packing as often as possible.

Origin

Engineer (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Well how about that, this is my first use of the Engineer Origin.

I have mixed feelings about Engineer. Thematically, it’s great, and definitely deserves to be in the CRB. And most of the mechanics work. My issue is the Origin Benefit, MacGyver. It reads like it was written early in the design process, and accidentally skipped during development, because its language does not reflect Essence20 mechanics. Normally I don’t quote rules verbatim, but in this case I think it’s a teaching opportunity.

“You aren’t hampered by not having tools – you’ve fixed delicate machines with duct tape, chewing gum, paper clips, and even less. In addition, as an action, you can fix or hamper a machine for one scene, after which it will need an in-depth repair. For vehicles and equipment with the capacity for taking damage, you may heal it for 1 Health.”

The “In addition” implies that everything before is rules text, not flavour as I originally assumed. “…as an action” is probably a Standard action, but it’s weird that it doesn’t say so. “…you can fix or hamper a machine for one scene, after which it will need an in-depth repair.” is my biggest issue. Does “fix” mean repair? What does “hamper” mean? What are the mechanical effects of hampering equipment?

I give a modified version of MacGyver to pregens I build with the Engineer Origin, which I’ve added to the internal errata as a suggestion for future printings:

MacGyver: You aren’t hampered by not having tools. Ignore Kit requirements for Skill Tests. Additionally, once per scene, as a Standard action, you can repair 1 damage on a vehicle or robot.

You can see how it takes the ideas of the published version and modifies the language to fit the rules. I dropped the “hamper” element completely because the above feels like enough, and dropped the idea that fixing the machine only lasts for the scene to make the use straightforward.

Influences

1st Rocket Scientist (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Quartermaster Guide To Gear)

2nd Skyward (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Quartermaster Guide To Gear)

Two Influences from the latest release for the G.I. JOE RPG!

Rocket Scientist is literal. You work on rockets, scientifically. It lets us gain an Edge on a Science or Technology Skill Test outside of combat. We’re going with Technology (Engineering), naturally.

Skyward is for characters who hate when their feet are any closer than a kilometer to the ground. It gives us Air vehicle Qualification (in case we didn’t already have it) and lets us identify the Speed Essence and Movement Ratings of an aircraft just by looking at it. As a Hang-Up, we suffer ↓1 on Driving Skill Tests to operate land and sea vehicles.

Essence Scores and Skills

I’m building a 3rd level character, so my Essence Scores will total 18 this time, not the usual 1st level 16.

Smarts 6

As expected, my highest Skill is Technology, with an Engineering Specialization. I invested 5 Skill Points to get a +d8* Rank. This allows me to fulfill my primary function, and also gives my drone 5 Essence Score increases and a bunch of Upgrades.

I also threw a Skill Point into Alertness. Our GM requested we not go over the details of our builds, so I want to make sure we’re not collectively blind, even if my +d2 won’t get us very far.

Speed 5

Also predictable, my second highest Skill is Driving with +d6 Rank and Air Specialization. I didn’t give myself any targeting, so I’m relying on moving and shooting to take advantage of Aerial Acrobatics.

I gave myself +d2 Rank in Initiative. I often skip Initiative on this blog because it’s not a flavourful Skill, but given that I didn’t skip it for a PC I will be playing, maybe I should treat +d2 Initiative as a baseline for all combat characters.

Strength 4

Speaking of baseline, I gave myself a few Strength Skills mostly because they come in handy: Athletics +d4, for any physical situation that a jet pack doesn’t help with; +d2 Brawn, because that helps meet weapon prereqs, and +d2 Might, because I figure if I can’t fly in combat, it’s more likely that I’m in a fist fight than a fire fight.

Social 3

+d6 Persuasion might make me the face of the group. We’ll see. I didn’t have a clear idea for my Social Skills, but I figure someone who jumps out of planes needs to be convincing.

Drone

Rounding out our build is BTHIANNI TNIANHI, the Limited Drone pet we get from the Primary Tech Technician Perk. First we set its Mobility (30ft Aerial, so it can keep up with us), then its size (I went with Small, just cause), and function.

Here’s where I hit a crossroads. My plan was for BTHIANNI TNIANHI to be Scaffold’s toolbox. But MacGyver lets us ignore Kit requirements for Skill Tests. So instead my options are to make BTHIANNI TNIANHI some other kind of utility drone, or make it an attack drone. If the team didn’t have a medic, I would consider making it a Science (Medicine) drone. I guess we’re going attack drone. It can serve as Scaffold’s bodyguard, fulfilling its BTHIANNI TNIANHI name in a different way.

As the Limited Drone of a character with 5 Skill Points invested into Technology, that gives me 11 Skill Points (1 per Essence Score, 2 free, and 1 per Skill Point my PC invested into Technology). I put 4 ranks into Alertness and 4 into Targeting, two areas Scaffold character could use support. Then 1 rank into Conditioning, for survivability, 1 into Initiative to qualify for the Independence Protocol upgrade, and finally 1 in Deception, because you can’t trust A.I.!

Speaking of upgrades, I went pretty classic and complimentary to his purpose. Basic Defenses increases Defenses, Enhanced Sensors gives the Acute Senses General Perk, and Independence Protocol lets it roll its own initiative. I splurged on a Limited upgrade and grabbed Shield Drone, which gives Scaffold a bonus to Evasion.

Conclusion

It’s not lost on me that my PC is more straightforward and practical than most of my builds. I don’t intentionally make my other builds impractical. In fact, I’m often surprised by how effective some of them turn out to be. I guess when my starting point is a character with history and media appearances that I want to emulate, it’s easier to see how some unusual options end up defining what the build can do.

That said, I look forward to seeing this build in action.

Resources

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Quartermaster’s Guide To Gear

Essential Builds – Pidge

Ryan Costello — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 09:00:19 +0000

From days of long ago, from uncharted regions of the universe, comes a legend. The legend of Pidge, Voltron’s only pilot with the fashion sense to coordinate his uniform with his lion.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that takes five (or more) Essence20 options and combines them to form a popular culture Player Character.

Voltron was my first introduction to anime. American studio World Events Productions imported Beast King GoLion from Toei Animation, translating and editing the existing footage into new but similar stories about a superforce of space explorers specially trained and sent by the Galaxy Alliance to bring back, Voltron: Defender of the Universe.

Who Is Pidge?

For the record, we’ll be building Defender of the Universe (aka 80s Voltron) Pidge, not Third Dimension (aka 90s Voltron), Voltron Force (aka 00s Voltron), or Legendary Defender (aka 10s Voltron). This might get confusing since Voltron Force is also the name of the team in Defender of the Universe, and I’ll be referring to them as such.

The youngest and most tech savvy member of Voltron Force, Pidge wasn’t your average kid character in an 80s cartoon. He was as combat capable and brave as his young adult allies. Even though the team sometimes talked down to him and used condescending terms of endearment like “little buddy”, Pidge isn’t a sidekick. He’s every bit the space explored as the rest of Voltron Force. When the team does have to rescue him, like in A Ghost And Four Keys, it’s because he chose to face a threat head on, not because he snuck onto a mission like Scott Trakker.

Building Essence20 Pidge

Like I mentioned when I built Sailor Mercury, I look for opportunities to use Power Rangers options because they tend to be more setting-specific than G.I. JOE, Transformers, and even My Little Pony. And since my earliest experience with a meme was a “You Know You Were An 80s Kid” chain letter sent by e-mail that had the line “You remember when Power Rangers was called Voltron,” I’ve had a Voltron character earmarked for an Essential Build for a while.

Unfortunately, I’ve already used my top two Pidge Role picks for other builds: Blue Ranger and Technician. Do I repeat a Role? Do I look at the Scientist from Transformers? Obviously building a different Voltron pilot is out of the question! It’s Pidge’s birthday week, and this is my gift to him.

In addition to his brain, Pidge is incredibly agile, performing impressive feats of acrobatics to accomplish mundane tasks. He also seems to be able to communicate with the super intelligent mice in Princess Allura’s castle. I’ll make sure to represent these traits in the build.

Role

Technician (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

There are a few reasons I opted to reuse Technician over building Pidge as a Scientist:

Thematically, Technician fits Pidge’s brand of Smarts better;
The Scientist theme will definitely come in handy in the future;
Technician’s second best Essence Score progression is Speed (on-brand for Pidge) whereas for Scientist it’s Strength (not on brand for Pidge).

Even though this is Technician’s second appearance in the blog, it’s a flexible enough Role that I foresee Pidge playing completely different from Super Dinosaur. Unlike the first time it showed up, where our Primary Tech was Armor, this time we’re going with Gear. If we were building Legendary Defender Pidge, we’d probably go with Drone.

Gear may seem like the most bland Primary Tech option, but it’s also the most versatile. Technicians can use their Primary Tech to make Technology Skill Tests at the range of the tech. In the case of Gear, that’s the range of the HTB Access Pad, which allows for communication across kilometers of distance. Pidge needs to be in contact with someone to use that range, but it means he can help his fellow pilots with any technological problem they’re having.

Setting and Faction

Power Rangers – It’s Morphin Time (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

The last time I used the Power Rangers setting for a build, in order to give my Sailor Scout a transformation sequence, she was stuck with a mech. Now, in order to get Pidge his mech, we’re stuck with a transformation sequence. Which, honestly, mostly works.

The pilots on Voltron did have a transformation sequence. It just involved ziplines and subterranean jet rides. And this just got them in uniform and to their lions, it didn’t power them up like Sailor Scouts and Power Rangers.

That said, the benefits of It’s Morphin Time still work for Pidge. We don’t know the defensive properties of the Voltron Force uniforms, but given their metallic sheen and slick texture (especially when compared to what the pilots wear in their downtime), it’s safe to say they’re comparable to a Morphin shell.

Where this build really benefits from It’s Morphin Time is here: “All of your Jump distance maximums are tripled.” In case you haven’t seen Voltron: Defender of the Universe in a while, Pidge jumps. He jumps high, he jumps far, and he jumps often.

In fact, I could find way more examples of Pidge jumping than I could Pidge being tech savvy. Like, I remember him being the smartest and most technical pilot, and every sequel series emphasizes this as his function on the team. However, based only on what we see Pidge do on the series, I was tempted to build him as a Finesse martial artist.

Origin

Stargazer (Power Rangers Roleplaying Across The Stars)

What better Origin is there for a member of a superforce of space explorers? I could have just as easily used Brainy from the Power Rangers CRB, but I don’t often get to use Across The Stars options. It’s a thematic book, and that theme fits this build.

I like the Origin Benefit as well. ↑1 when attempting to discover something. It’s nice and broad and fits Pidge without locking us into a specific Skill or Specialization.

Influences

1st Morale Booster (Transformers Roleplaying Game The Enigma of Combination)

2nd Greenshirt (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Nimble (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Picking Pidge’s Influences was tougher than usual. I went through Spy’s master list of player options several times before settling on these three. As I mentioned, we know Pidge as the brains of the group without actually seeing it in action that much, making anything about Smarts beyond the Technician Role overkill. Likewise, investing our Origin into Pidge’s history as a space explorer covered that enough. So we needed options that covered everything else Pidge was known for.

Although Pidge is just as likely to complain or throw a sarcastic comment his teammate’s way, I liked how Morale Booster reflected how he handled the panicked crowds in Surrender. He may have let his own emotions get the better of him while trying to calm a child separated from her mother, but in the end his plan hinged on rebuilding that girl’s confidence enough to stand in for him so he could sneak off and operate the Green Lion.

Greenshirt got shortlisted when I was having trouble finding Influences, and it was entirely because Pidge wears green. However, even after I found other suitable Influences, I liked how Greenshirt granting both an Edge and an Upshift when Lending Assistance reflected Pidge’s helpful nature, and how the Hang-Up preventing others from Lending Assistance to Pidge represented his Napoleon complex.

Finally, after looking through the Power Rangers, G.I. JOE, and Transformers Influences, I remembered my own advice that My Little Pony is a great Influence resource. Sure enough, Nimble lets Pidge roll an Acrobatics Skill Test once per day to negate an attack. This perfectly captures Pidge’s best action sequence, in which he dodges a squad of Drule robots’ firepower to take them down one at a time. The Hang-Up, which I wrote, prevents him from Lending Assistance on Speed-Based Skill Tests. This was inspired by my experience with the Yoga enthusiasts in my life who tend to forget that most people are far less flexible.

Essence Scores and Skills

Speed 7

Normally I try to avoid a skyrocketing Speed score, but, again, Pidge won’t stop flipping. I gave him 3 Ranks in Acrobatics and 2 each in Driving and Targeting, and I could have given him more!

Smarts 5

If I found more examples of Pidge living up to his reputation as the smart one, this would probably have been higher. As it is, I gave him 3 Ranks in Technology and 2 Ranks in Science.

Social 3

Pidge has a knack with animals, not just the space mice, so I gave him 2 Ranks in Animal Handling. I threw in 1 Rank in Persuasion because Pidge has some great moments of diplomacy, but mostly gets temperamental when asked to speak to others.

Strength 1

Strength was destined to be Pidge’s dump stat. I gave him 1 Rank in Might, because he does throw the odd punch. Most of his fighting style would sooner fall under Finesse, but I can’t spread his Speed Skills any thinner.

Conclusion

I think this is a fine build. Power Rangers getting Pidge a Zord does most of the build’s heavy lifting. I would have gone into greater detail if I knew the custom Zord rules better. I will say I’d use the Sabretooth Tiger Dinozord as the basis for a Green Lion.

Beyond that, as an acrobatic technician with a way with animals, I think Pidge is an unusual blend of Skills that come together surprisingly easily.

Resources

Transformers Roleplaying Game The Enigma of Combination

Essential Builds – Leonardo of Grayskull

Ryan Costello — Fri, 22 Mar 2024 09:00:51 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that mashes up popular culture characters with Essence20 rules. Sometimes, those popular culture characters have already been mashed up, leaving us with some kind of science-fantasy mutant.

No pithy opener this time, I need all my energy to inform anyone who doesn’t know that there’s a line of Masters of the Universe/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mash-up action figures, and it’s way better than it has any right to be. Instead of going with the obvious (and not bad) idea of just mashing up characters from the two franchises like the TMNT/Power Rangers line, Mattel crafted a story in which Krang travels to Eternia and teams up with Skeletor. The android belly-riding alien brain uses Dimension X technology to upgrade Skeletor’s underlings, and TCRI mutagen to turn Eternia’s greatest heroes into Skeletor’s newest minions. Meanwhile, when Man-At-Arms meets the dimension hoping Ninja Turtles, he gives them an Eternian tech upgrade.

This story is set up in a pack-in comic, and otherwise only told by extrapolating what’s happening from the toys. That’s exactly what I’ll be doing today as I turn the heroic Turtles of Grayskull leader into an Essence20 player character.

Who Is Turtles of Grayskull Leonardo?

Leonardo (the blue one with katanas, to anyone who didn’t grow up on one of the many TMNT comic series, shows, or movies of the last four decades) was appointed the leadership of his ninja brothers by their master and adopted father, Splinter. Together with Donatello (purple, bo staff, does machines), Michelangelo (orange, nunchucks, party dude) and Raphael (red, sais, either cool but rude or an absolute psychopath), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fight crime in New York City, and continue their father’s ancient feud with Oroku Saki, aka The Shredder, and the Foot Clan. Shredder works with scientist Baxter Stockman and alien genius Krang, both of whom supply the Foot with a variety of monsters and advanced technology.

In Turtles of Grayskull, the Ninja Turtles travel to Eternia, a fantasy land of ancient magic and advanced technology of its own, in which He-Man and his allies feud with Skeletor and his minions over control of the Power Sword and Castle Grayskull.

Here’s where I’m making an assumption for the sake of a fun build. We know He-Man has been mutated by Skeletor and Krang. We know Man-At-Arms equipped Donatello with his spare gear, and Raphael with Ram Man’s gear since Ram Man was also captured and mutated. Leonardo has He-Man’s gear. But unlike Man-At-Arms and maybe Ram Man, He-Man doesn’t get his power from technology. He gets it from magic. So, does that mean fabulous secret powers were revealed to Leo the day he held aloft his magic katana and said, “By the power of Grayskull! I have turtle power!”

For the sake of this build, we’re assuming yes.

Building Turtles of Grayskull Leonardo

Quick shout out to TheZMage on the Renegade Game Studios Discord server. He suggested I build a Ninja Turtle. Which one, he left up to me. Now, at the time, I knew the best options for a Ninja Turtle build were on their way in the now-announced Intercontinental Adventures: Factions in Action Vol. 2. So, I was saving this suggestion for that book’s release in August. However, it occurred to me that I could make a totally different build based on the Turtles of Grayskull turtles now, and save a more traditional ninja build for later. And since there are eight canonical turtles to pick from (counting Slash, the evil turtle, Tokka, the other evil turtle, Venus de Milo, the teal turtle from the live action Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, and Jennika the yellow turtle from IDW’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic), I am spoiled for choices and free to take this one in a different direction.

That direction includes taking a Power Rangers Role. I believe this is only the third Power Rangers Role to show up in Essential Builds (four if you count the Upshift pilot in which I built Snake Eyes as a Green Ranger). That’s because the Power Rangers Roles tie more heavily into the setting than G.I. JOE and Transformers Roles. Even when we use the Field Guide to Action & Adventure rules to remove the Power Rangers Setting from a Role, it’s still built heavily around It’s Time, the setting neutral version of It’s Morphin Time. As a result, Power Rangers Roles are best suited for characters that have basic/upgraded versions. Such as He-Man. Or Leonardo, with He-Man’s powers.

Role

Red Ranger (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

We could have gone blue, but other than color coordination, the Blue Ranger Role suits Donatello much more than Leo. Instead, we’re going back to Leonardo’s roots and making him red.

After I decided that It’s Time was the best way to represent giving this build The Power of Grayskull, the rest fell into place. The Red Ranger is the Power Ranger leader Role. Follow Me might be my favourite mechanic in the Power Rangers CRB, letting allies choose to go 1d4 places later than us in Initiative order instead of rolling their own. Not only does that mean the leader can lend assistance to an ally who goes soon after them, but it also means the other PCs don’t need to invest in Initiative, freeing them up to be their best selves. On top of that, we get +1 to our Initiative result for every ally that follows us, meaning we don’t need an amazing Initiative, just a good one. I don’t usually go into this much detail explaining a rule, but I love how these mechanics fit their theme so tightly, without being complicated.

It’s also a great melee Role. With Power Strike boosting our melee damage at 1st level, Weapon Mastery increasing our accuracy at 2nd level, Extra Attack giving us an extra attack at 5th level, and Resilience improving our defenses at 7th level, Leo grows more combat capable at a steady pace.

Finally, there’s Team Focus at 9th level, which combines the Role’s two niches. We get a bonus for attacking the same target as an ally. Some of the best Ninja Turtle fight scenes have the turtles using their surprising nimbleness to trade enemies and gain the upper hand.

There is one Perk that doesn’t fit a typical Leo build. Let’s Bring’Em Together has the party combine weapons for a super attack. While this might line up with my Mary Sue fan fiction TMNT character, Scramble, who used ALL THE OTHER TURTLES WEAPONS BECAUSE HES THE BEST (!!!), it’s not something we’ve seen in typical Ninja Turtle fiction. But this isn’t typical Ninja Turtle Leo. This is Turtles of Grayskull Leonardo. Who says Eternian martial arts weapons can’t be combined? Heck, the toy’s swords combine together for added power, maybe the more weapons we add, the more powerful the attack.

Focus

Citystriker (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

This Vanguard Focus gives us a shield as personal gear. While that’s a bit unusual for Leonardo, again, Turtles of Grayskull is unusual! All of the Turtles of Grayskull have removable shells that can be wielded as shields. Now, that doesn’t make much sense, anatomically, but we don’t need it to. The turtles use their shells as shields all the time, without removing them. As long as we respect that the shield takes up one of our hands, we can flavor using our shield as turning around to deflect blows off our natural armor. That does mean Leo can’t dual wield katana, of course. Or does it?

At 3rd level, Shield Fighter lets us treat our shield as a close combat blade and a close combat bludgeon. So we can make multi-weapon attacks that deal sharp damage. We can even knock some noggins with the butt of our sword, or, again, our shell. The path to get there might be off, but the destination is the same. Besides, according to friend of the Network Jacob Backmon’s review, “Separated, the swords are kind of floppy in Leo’s hands. When combined, the power sword fits perfectly with no floppiness.”

Most of the Focus’ other Perks involve getting better with shields. However, a couple put the “city” in “Citystriker”. Urban Jungle at 3rd level and Urban Adaptation at 10th level give us Ranger benefits when in urban environments. Most of the Turtles’ adventures take place in New York City, the most urban an environment can get. Turtles of Grayskull may take them out of their home base, but Eternia has its share of cities. And Urban Adaptation shows that you can take the Turtle out of New York City, but you can’t take the New York City out of the Turtle.

Citystriker does leave us with a corner case that the Field Guide to Action & Adventure doesn’t directly address: We can spend uses of our Personal Shield to give our shield an Element trait.

Uses of Personal Shield are tied to the Vanguard Role, and not transfered over when we add a Focus to another Role. In cases like this, the best rule of thumb is to give us access as though we were half our level (round down, minimum 1), and only for this Perk. So at 3rd level, when this ability unlocks, we have a number of uses of Personal Shield equal to a 1st level Vanguard (2), with none of the usual benefits of the Personal Shield Role Perk.

Faction

Mega Monsters (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

Even though Leonardo has a designated mech, we need to swap away from the setting that gives him a Zord to the G.I. JOE setting in the name of the Citystriker Focus. And honestly, once Intercontinental Adventures releases, there are better Faction options to emphasize Leo being part of a ninja team. Instead, I went with a faction to highlight the M in TMNT. It’s just a shame Leo wasn’t part of the Mighty Mutanimals.

Mega Monsters requires two genetic Alterations to get in and gets us a Limited Alteration, which we’ll get to. Unfortunately, that means we need to wait until we gain a General Perk at 4th level to qualify. In the meantime, we can settle for Cobra, with the Martial Arts division. This feels like a lot of work for a faction I’m only taking for the theme, but I’d take a few of these alterations anyway, because mutant.

Origin

Test Subject (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

OK, technically the Ninja Turtles were an accident, not an experiment. When you’re transformed from the norm by nuclear goop, you get to split hairs.

We’ve used Test Subject before, for NFL Super Pro. Luckily, this Origin (and the Alteration rules) are flexible enough that we can also use it for a mutant. We’ll get into how later, when we discuss Alterations.

Influences

1st: Not From Around Here (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Martial Artist (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Precise (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I love it when I can’t decide which Influences get the Hang-Ups because they all fit.

The alienation theme of Not From Around Here might fit any Ninja Turtle build, but when they’re in an alien land, it applies even more. It got the honours of primary Influence only because its Hang-Up is most disruptive.

The last time I picked Martial Artist, I was shocked that I hadn’t picked it before. This time I was all set to say I wouldn’t need to use it so often anymore once Intercontinental Adventures adds more options that fit this theme, only to realize this is just the second time it’s shown up. What?

Finally, Precise. Always enjoy bringing MLP options into action/adventure builds. The flavour of Precise implies it’s for delicate crafts like sewing, but ninja are notoriously surgically precise.

Less precise, unfortunately, is the wording of the Perk. It was completely changed in the last edit pass, and that means the new version didn’t get any editing or development. The big question is whether it allows us to make a Finesse-based attack as a Move action. Because it’s limited to three times per day, and those uses can be spent to undo an aggressive Hang-Up that applies a Snag whenever we take damage (common in TMNT, but rare in MLP), I think it’s balanced. It definitely fits the advanced and versatile fighter reputation of a ninja, and I think the Snag specifically works as Leo being hard on himself when he messes up.

Essence Scores and Skills

Social 6

I tend to give my leaders high Persuasion, even though there’s nothing to suggest that it’s the leadership Skill. Well, other than Leadership being a suggested Specialization. I guess that absolutely suggests that Persuasion is the leadership Skill…

I split Leo’s Social Skills down the middle: +d6 Persuasion, +d6 Streetwise. Because Citystriker eventually lets us use Streetwise in place of Survival in an urban setting, Leo’s NYC roots let him read the land, which I like a lot.

Speed 6

I wrote all of the following before I realized I made a mistake: So, there’s some jumping through hoops here. I like Leo as a Finesse fighter. Often I default to Might as a build’s melee Skill, I like when I can break away from that. The problem is the Red Ranger gets two Ranks in Might by default. One of my Alterations deals with one of those Ranks at 1st level, but I’m stuck with the other for a while, possibly forever. Because of this, I only managed +d4 Finesse. Oh well, by 2nd level I can reroll 1s and 2s on my attacks (not just with power weapons, since we changed settings), which averages out to half my attacks until I increase my Finesse. Hits will still depend more on the d20 than my d4, but at least my d4 is on firm ground.

Wait! No, I forgot: Because Power Rangers Roles don’t grant a Focus, they provide 3 Skill Increases instead of 2! I trade one of them in for my Focus Essence Increase, so I only have one Rank in Might, which one of my Alterations turns into Finesse. So I do have d6 Finesse!

I also have d4 Initiative, because if I’m asking people to follow me, I need to be worthy of their trust. Finally, I gave us d2 Targeting, in case I need to toss a shuriken.

Strength 2, Smarts 2

I’m combining these since I have one Skill in each: d4 Athletics and d4 Culture. I like the idea that Leo doesn’t have Ranks in Alertness, because he prioritizes the world as Splinter describes it over the world right in front of him. Besides, when there’s something to see, he relies on Donnie.

General Perks and Other Options

We’re finally talking about Alterations!

We get a Standard Alteration at 1st level from our Origin. While I wanted to use it for Standard Skin Tempering to further emphasize Leo’s turtleness, I needed it for Elastification, which increases Speed by 1 but reduces my Strength by an equal amount. That solves the above Might/Finesse issue.

At 4th level, we use our General Perk on a Limited Alteration, and that means we can take Softshell as a Limited Skin Tempering Alteration. Increasing our Toughness delivers on my original idea for an Alteration that much better. It also means we can join the Mega Monsters if we want, gaining another Limited Alteration. Crawler gives us a Climb speed, which will help us strike hard and fade away into the night.

Our options are wide open for 8th level and beyond. We can get more mutations, improve our fighting prowess, or shore up our shortcomings. And if we want to tap into the turtle power of Grayskull, we can even take Grid Powers.

Conclusion

I’m fascinated by the Turtles of Grayskull. TMNT and MotU both place in the top 10 of brands that reflect my tastes, and yet neither cracks the top 5. Not only does crossing them over allow two settings I feel strongly about to interact, but the direction Mattel took this mash-up combines beautifully.

This build is about 50% how I would build standard Leonardo, and about 10% of how I would build He-Man. That last 40% is uniquely Turtles of Grayskull Leonardo. Not only did this take a mash-up in its own direction, I think it’s an effective battlefield leader build.

Resources

Essence20 Field Guide to Action & Adventure

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1

Essential Builds – Indiana Jones

Ryan Costello — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 21:23:02 +0000

Cue John Williams’ The Raiders March!

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that puts popular culture characters into an Essence20 Player Character museum. I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

Audiences met archeologist-adventurer/archeology professor Indiana Jones at the height of the practical-effects action movie era. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas created a blend of family friendly violence so commercially successful, the Motion Picture Association of America had to create the PG-13 rating to warn/allow parents to take their kids to these movies. As the only 80s franchise to claim three spots in the top 10 highest grossing films of that decade, the Indiana Jones trilogy cemented its protagonist as a hero for the ages.

Who Is Indiana Jones?

Like his father before him, Dr Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr turned treasure hunting and historic preservation into a thrilling career. He went on deadly expeditions into ancient temples to retrieve lost artifacts. Honestly, Indiana Jones did a lot of the grave robbing and cultural theft that The British Museum is accused of. But Indiana Jones fought Nazis going for these same artifacts, so points for that.

Building Indiana Jones

I’ve mentioned before how Renegade Discord member Spy collects all Essence20 options into numbered lists. Well other Discord members like to pair these lists with random number generators to create random Essence20 PCs. No Essential Build subject has felt more like one of those randos than this one.

Academic by day, adventurer by night, master of the whip. It’s not that Indiana Jones’ character traits don’t compliment each other, it’s just that they feel like a writers room yes-anding their way to the ultimate pulp action hero homage. That actually makes this build pretty straight forward, because all of his trademark elements are tropes of the genre.

Role

Raider (Transformers Roleplaying Game Decepticon Directive)

Dipping back into a sourcebook that makes a surprising number of appearances on this blog, I chose Decepticon Directive’s new Role, the Raider for our Raider of the Lost Ark. Honestly, this build started after I read the Role and wondered what kind of character I could make with it. The Raider mixes the ability to gather loot with having an eye for an item’s value. While the Role is written with a sinister bend, it perfectly fits Indiana Jones choosing wisely when he’s on the hunt for ancient artifacts.

Eye For Appraisal is the Perk that sets this Role apart from other adventurer types. Gained right at level 1, it allows the Raider to make an Alertness Skill Test to learn about the most valuable item in the area, or the most strategic position to stand in to attack a target. It’s unfortunate that the second benefit only applies to ranged attacks, since Indy famously favours the whip, but he doesn’t shy away from shooting enemies. I’d love to be the GM who gets to tell a player that they’re in the perfect position to shoot the massive sword fighter standing 20 feet away from them.

The Role Perks do have an issue that forces me to break my rule against reskinning for my builds. Unlike most Transformers Roles, some of the Role Perks directly reference having a Bot Mode. However, they’re mostly built on the idea of having storage compartments in the PC’s frame. We’ve seen Indiana Jones stash small items in pockets and his satchel enough that its easy to see how these Perks apply to a non-Cybertronian PC.

Some of the later Perks also capture moments from the Indiana Jones movies. Best Laid Plans almost reads as sarcastic when you think about how often Indy’s plans go wrong, but making an Alertness or Culture Skill Test to allow us and our allies to reroll d20s is a great way to portray a smart adventurer. I especially like the inclusion of allies, because Indy rarely adventures alone, and he usually barks orders that frustrate but ultimately help his companions. Finally, Fear My Name at 14th level reflects how often Indy and his enemies have history.

Focus and Faction

Peacekeeper (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

The Ranger’s Peacekeeper Focus fits Indy in a combination of ways. First of all, he’s often seen interacting with locals in a civil and respectful way. This is especially true in Temple Of Doom. Second of all, it lets him use Culture in place of Deception and Persuasion. Not only does this synergize with a couple of Raider Role Perks, it also reflects how he uses facts and his knowledge of history to convince people more than lies and candied words. Finally, it gives the Raider Role a positive spin. That may be purely flavourful, but half of any Essential Build is about capturing the feel of the character we’re building.

Tiger Force (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

Indy’s outfits may not agree with this, but the Tiger Force Faction works extremely well for an Indiana Jones build. He’s constantly hijacking vehicles, which fits one of the themes of the Faction. He also often walks out of one adventure right into another, so the Creature Of Habit Faction Perk, which lets him reuse his previously requisitioned equipment, works too.

One glaring item missing from this build is Indy’s whip. Tiger Force doesn’t help there, but it does give us Qualification with a Limited melee weapon. That at least gets us a machete, which Indy uses so much in Temple of Doom that he’s depicted with it in one hand and his whip in the other on the movie’s poster.

Origin

Soldier (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

This is a stretch, I know, and there are a lot more characterful options I could choose for Indy’s Origin, like Driven from Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time, or Traveller from Power Rangers Roleplaying Across The Stars. The thing is, even though the mechanics of those Origins applies, the flavour is already covered by our Role, Focus, and Influences. What Soldier gets us is Indy’s whip. Soldiers are trained in all weapons, which includes the grappler, the Restricted weapon that represents the whip. On top of that, Soldier explains how a university professor is so physically capable and good at killing people. And it’s not without justification. According to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (yeah, I know), Indy’s a Colonel in the US Army. Too obscure? He also joins the Belgian Army in Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. So while he doesn’t throw his rank and military experience around, Indy is a veteran.

Influences

1st: Bookworm (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd: Adventurer (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd: Mentor (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I almost went with Earned Your Stripes to gets us the Tiger Force faction without having to worry about the other Faction Access requirements, but I didn’t feel right dedicating two options with very specific flavour that does not apply to Indiana Jones. So, instead, I went back to Bookworm. Indy loves a library, but not so much as he gets lost in a good book, so I took it as his first Influence.

Next I took Adventurer. This Influence could apply to just about every Essential Build, but it especially applies to Indiana Jones. Normally if I take Adventurer, I take it as my first Influence because I find the Hang-Up disruptive to adventures. However, I think wanderlust applies to Indy, who is always more than willing to abandon his duties as a professor in the name of another globe trotting mission.

That said, Indy is still a teacher. To represent his day job, I took Mentor. As I mentioned earlier, Indy’s plans often go awry, so having an Influence that both can Lend Assistance for a whole scene and accidentally cause a Downshift is too good not to take.

Essence Scores and Skills

Smarts 5

Culture needs to be one of Indy’s highest Skills, but this brainy fighter (or fighty brain) needs a lot of Skill investment, so the best we can do there is 3 ranks. That leaves us with 2 Ranks for Alertness, another Skill we need for our Role Perks.

Speed 5

Grappler is a rare melee weapon that can only be used with Finesse, so we need to put 3 Ranks there. It does mean Indy’s brutal punches are Finesse based, which isn’t great but it’s not the worst compromise. We still have a lot of Skills to cover, so as much as I’d like a Rank in Initiative, we need 2 Ranks in Targeting more.

Strength 3

Tiger Force access requires 2 Ranks in Brawn, which isn’t the worst fit for our build, but it’s a lot when we’re already short on Skill Points. Indy will also grab 1 Rank in Athletics, to cover all of the physical feats Indy accomplishes.

Social 3

Again, Tiger Force demands Ranks! In this case, we need 2 Ranks in Persuasion. A shame that the extra rank won’t do us any good since Peacekeeper lets us use Culture instead. Peacekeeper also lets us use Culture instead of Deception, as long as we have 1 Rank there, so we do.

Conclusion

I was happy with this build up until the Essence Score. Even though Indiana Jones teams up with fellow adventurers in every movie, he is definitely his film’s protagonist. As a result, we see him do much more than a member of an ensemble. Unfortunately, that stretches character creation resources thin. Especially with Brawn and Persuasion each taking one more Skill Point than I would normally allocate to them just to make it onto Tiger Force. I think if I were bringing this build to the table, I’d forgo the Adventurer Influence for the less source-accurate Earned Your Stripes Influence, and then use those Skill Points for ranks in Athletics, Driving, Initiative, or Survival.

Resources

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – NFL SuperPro

Ryan Costello — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 10:00:21 +0000

With the Superbowl this Sunday*, it’s time to carry on the tradition of The Fridge, Capt Grid-Iron, Centiback, and Laceface by bringing a football player to the world of Hasbro’s action and adventure brands.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that throws popular culture icons into Essence20’s endzone. I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

Are you ready for some football… themed superheroics?

Long before NFL.com used Marvel-based helmets and logos to get clicks, the NFL and Marvel came together in the 90s to create SuperPro, a superhero that lived in the overlap of their fandoms.

It was not a big overlap.

Who Is NFL SuperPro?

Let’s get one thing out of the way: I think NFL SuperPro was just the title of the comic, and the name of the character was SuperPro. Yes, capitalized like that. His Marvel Database entry lists him as SuperPro, and other characters refer to him as SuperPro. However, he introduces himself a couple of times as NFL SuperPro, somehow using the NFL logo in his dialog bubble. I’m going to call him NFL SuperPro because it’s funnier and better for SEO.

After getting injured saving children, Phil Grayfield retired from football and became a reporter for Sports Inside. While interviewing a reclusive football fan and inventor about the indestructible football uniform he designed, thieves broke in, tied Phil up in film stock of classic NFL plays, and set the building on fire. The fire and the chemicals in the film gave him enhanced athletic abilities, the old radioactive football merch giving Phil the proportionate strength of an NFL player. Using his new powers while wearing the indestructible football uniform, he fought crime with the National Football League logo on his chest and helmet as NFL SuperPro.

Yes, NFL SuperPro is Captain America meets Iron Man almost 30 years before the introduction of The Iron Patriot.

I may get tongue in cheek about this misguided corporate creation, but I fondly remember NFL SuperPro. When the comic came out in 1991, my older brother was a big football fan, and kinda into comics. I was a big comic fan and kinda into football. Not long after we’d both drop our kinda interests, but for a few months we had the perfect super hero to bond over. So even though I question the size of the audience for an officially licensed NFL super hero in the early 90s, my brother and I were firmly in that target.

Also, I don’t care what Stiltman says, I love SuperPro’s uniform.

Building NFL SuperPro

One of the challenges of this build is the vagueness of NFL SuperPro’s powers. We know he has enhanced athletic abilities and an indestructible football uniform. He’s definitely not on Superman’s level, but is he on Captain America’s? Or is he closer to Batman? Because the average comic depicts even powerless superheroes as athletically gifted, it’s hard to gauge the power levels of what we see NFL SuperPro do. It doesn’t help that he rarely interacts with established Marvel characters in fight scenes.

His powers aren’t all that’s vague. I don’t know what position Phil Grayfield played before his injury. That impacts the flavour of athletic options to consider. For anyone not familiar with the sport, football player skillsets vary wildly depending on the position. The stereotypical football player is huge, but the most famous position, the quarterback, is one of the smaller players on the field. And most plays are based around the quarterback getting the ball to another, often even smaller player better able to get the ball to the endzone. If Grayfield was a quarterback, I would choose options based around throwing and strategizing. If he was a receiver, I’d build him for speed. A punter or placekicker, the only positions allowed to kick the football, would open up fun martial arts options.

There aren’t many details about Phil’s football career. It’s not even clear if he played at a professional level, since at least once it talks about his football aspirations. All we have to go on is the blurb on the cover of issue 1, which says “he went from sacking quarterbacks to tackling crime”. This is backed up by a line a few issues later about facing the San Francisco offense. Again, for the uninformed, sacking is tackling the quarterback behind the line of scrimmage. If that tagline is to be believed, Grayfield played defense, probably a lineman or a linebacker. Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave me much to draw on because most defensive positions involve running a certain distance, pushing, and tackling. If you, like me as a preteen, wonder how that’s defense, the offense/defense names refer to the endzone, not the quarterback.

Despite the lack of details, if an option relates to genetic alteration, powered armor, or sports, it’s in the realm of possibilities for an NFL SuperPro build.

Role

Renegade (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

NFL SuperPro charges into combat, throwing shoulders and tackling the opposition. Even though I already used the Renegade Role for The Grinch, and the Technician and Vanguard both have options related to wearing power armor, the Renegade Role delivers on NFL SuperPro’s fighting style. Reckless Abandon gives bonus Health and Strength Upshifts, both of which work for how NFL SuperPro rushes through defenses to get in his enemies’ faces. Roll with the Punches explains how, in issue 1, he backflipped out of harm’s way when shot point blank, and Fearsome Presence recreates the sniper’s reaction to seeing the NFL logo in his sights.

Sub Rules

Tank Focus (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I obviously considered Blitzer, the Renegade’s football-flavoured Focus, but that Focus supports a short range firearm fighting style. It also didn’t get NFL SuperPro an indestructible football uniform. The Tank Focus, conversely, gives us Medium Armor training. Honestly, I would have preferred Medium Armor qualification so we didn’t have to worry about requisition. Even the General Perks related to battledress only grant training. I could have gone the Technician (Think Tank) or Vanguard (Juggernaut) routes instead, but Technician implies an intelligence that NFL SuperPro never displays, and while Vanguard skews closer to our concept, it gives us more technology that NFL SuperPro’s uniform provides. The inventor intended for it to be used in football games, so integrated lasers and a force field would be unsporting to include. Finally, Juggernaut’s Second Skin Perk says “You may use Technology or Science instead of Athletics or Acrobatics for armor requisitions during the Equipment Assignment and Requisition phase.” That’s antithetical to our build. Compare that to Tank’s Interpose Perk, which says “you may intercept the attack and take the hit yourself”. Now that’s football language.

Origin

Test Subject (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

After considering this Origin for both Inspector Gadget and Super Dinosaur, it finally gets its time to shine!

Mechanically, Test Subject is a baseline Origin. Increase any Essence Score, 2 Starting Health, Ground Movement 30ft. It’s the flavour and Origin Benefit that clinched it for us. Augmented gives us the Enhanced Part or Evolving Mutation General Perk without needing to meet the prerequisites. That gives us a Limited Alteration. Now, I wrote this Origin, so if anyone wonders why I didn’t just give a Limited Alteration as the Origin Benefit instead of the extra step of giving a General Perk that gives a Limited Alteration, the answer is that Enhanced Part and Evolving Mutation are prerequisites for the Optimized Part and Outright Mutation General Perks, respectively. So not only do you get a Limited Alteration, you also unlock the ability to gain a Restricted Alteration the next time you gain a General Perk.

We’ll take Limited Weaponization as our Limited Alteration, which gives us an integrated Limited melee weapon. The close combat heavy bludgeon lets us deal either 1 Blunt damage and 1 Stun, or 2 Blunt damage. A hefty melee attack through an Alteration perfectly translates NFL SuperPro knocking out goons left and right thanks to the chemicals (and football merch) he was exposed to.

I did consider the Accidental Origin from A Jump Through Time since NFL SuperPro got his powers by accident rather than an experiment. Well, even though Accidental’s name and mechanics works perfectly for the classic super hero trope of gaining powers through an accident, the description of the Origin straight up says “You exist in a world where time travel is possible, and unfortunately, you got swept up in it.” I might ignore that line in the future, but one of the goals of this blog is to build characters with minimal reskinning of options. I’m still contemplating if this counts as minimal.

Influences

1st: Athlete (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Experiment (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Powerhouse (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

My main goal with our Influences was to play up Phil Grayfield’s celebrity. First, I looked up the Celebrity Influence. Ends up, there is none! Putting that fact in my back pocket. Once I decided to focus on Influences that exist, I shortlisted the following options: Athlete from G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Buck Baller from My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Cube Player from Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, and Local Legend from Power Rangers A Jump Through Time. Buck Baller and Cube Player reference specific sports, and while that’s easy enough to ignore, I had other options. Athlete and Local Legend provide similar benefits: a bonus on certain Skills in social situations involving what we’re known for. While I like Local Legend as a way to represent the tribalism of sports fans, I don’t know what team Phil Grayfield played for. In fact, I suspect the NFL and Marvel chose not to establish that specifically to avoid tribalism alienating a fanbase. So I went with the most straightforward of the options I considered.

What’s funny about the remaining Influence choices is that they feel like lesser versions of earlier options. Experiment is like Test Subject, thematically. Even though I didn’t need to cover that element of NFL SuperPro’s background, one of the optional Perks that can be gained from Experiment is an Upshift when shoving and escaping grapples. It’s so on point for our mutated football player, I couldn’t avoid it.

This is my second Influence, which means I need a Hang-Up. As a reminder, Transformers Hang-Ups are disconnected from their Influences, although the Influences list suggested Hang-Ups. I’m glad they’re just suggestions, because the Hang-Up I want isn’t on the list. Vainglorious. We must spend our first Standard action giving a speech. NFL SuperPro, notoriously, spouts the weakest football puns as superhero banter. I love the idea that he’s just wasting everyone’s time as he rambles on.

Powerhouse covers a lot of the same ground as Renegade (Tank), but the Perk, Muscle Over Panache, gives us something special. We can use Brawn in place of a Speed-based Skill on a Skill Test. As we’re about to discuss, NFL SuperPro might have the lowest Speed seen yet in Essential Builds. Not only does this pull us out of the gutter a few times a day, but it incentivizes us to invest in Brawn, a Skill NFL SuperPro should have but one that doesn’t get a lot of love.

Essence Scores and Skills

Strength 8

Far too often, Strength gets dumped on this blog. I usually invest in one or two Strength-based Skills. This time, I’m spreading it out across almost all of them. +d6 Might is our primary fighting Skill. +d4 Athletics and Brawn are utility Skills. +d2 Intimidation is our socializing Skill. All of these Skills are effectively 2 Ranks higher in combat, thanks to the Reckless Abandon Role Perk. And since Strength is our diamond Essence Score, these numbers will continue to increase as we level up.

Speed 3

Speed is such a useful Skill, I consider a low Speed build a minor victory. We don’t want less than 3, of course, since we need at least one Free action to activate Reckless Abandon. I gave him +d4 Infiltration, since we do see NFL SuperPro sneaking around sometimes, and +d2 Initiative because it’s handy. If the rest of the Speed-based Skills come up, we can swap to our Brawn safety net a few times a day.

Smarts 3

I didn’t expect Smarts to be tied for NFL SuperPro’s second highest Essence Score, but he is a journalist by day, so a certain amount of Alertness and Culture is important. Not too much, though, since he got the job for his football experience, not any journalism degrees.

Social 2

I did expect Social to be NFL SuperPro’s lowest Essence Score. Between his cringe banter and lack of any notable display of wit, it was hard justifying even 2 Social. I gave him +d4 Deception, because keeping a secret identity takes lying.

Conclusion

This was fun. I didn’t need to do as much research as I did, like reading NFL SuperPro’s Wikipedia, or watching ComicTrope’s review of the first issue. But the deeper I dug, the more I appreciated the legacy of NFL SuperPro. The comic was called “Quite possibly the most embarrassing NFL product ever”. Though I acknowledge its faults and even enjoy how others have dissected its flaws, I still have positive feelings overall about NFL SuperPro. A framed copy of his official NFL Card hangs on my wall of Marvel collectibles, and I would buy NFL SuperPro merch if it ever became available. I know we’ll never see an NFL SuperPro Marvel Legends action figure, but at least now I know I can play a solid version of him in an Essence20 game if the opportunity arises.

*and the recent passing of NFL SuperPro (and Transformers) artist Jose Delbo. Here as a footnote because I didn’t want to start a light post on a sad note.

Resources

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – Maverick

Ryan Costello — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 21:15:19 +0000

It’s time to buzz the tower.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that takes popular culture icons and inverts them into Essence20 Player Characters.

I feel the need. The need for ease. In the preview of this week’s network content, I said that I’d be building My Lillium Falcon. I even teased that you’d have to wait until Friday to find out what that means. Unfortunately, I misremembered the mechanics of an option that the build depended on. I needed a replacement fast. As it happens, I watched Top Gun: Maverick this weekend. With Capt. Pete “Maverick” Mitchell fresh in my mind, and mechanics that build themself, I revved up my engine and listened to their howlin’ roar, because we gotta take a ride into the Danger Zone.

Who Is Maverick?

We’re talking Top Gun: Maverick Maverick here, since it’s fresher in my mind.

As his call sign suggests, Pete Mitchell plays by his own rules, banking right when his gut tells him that his orders to go left are wrong. He doesn’t just do this for the good of the mission, though. Maverick taunts authority. He breaks rules because he can. He turns every mission into a game. Can he just not help himself? Or is he only insubordinate enough to balance out his successes and avoid both punishments and promotions?

Maverick also shares actor Tom Cruise’s defiance of age. I bring this up because it’s a plot point in Top Gun: Maverick, the only movie I can think of that writes a Tom Cruise character like he’s supposed to be in his 60s. This makes the scenes talking about how old Maverick is unintentionally funny, and it makes this another build that could benefit from an Essence20 Vampire Origin.

Building Essence20 Maverick

Obviously, we’re going with the Pilot Origin from the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, right?

That’s what I thought. However, we already used Pilot for The Rocketeer a few months ago. It made me wonder if I could effectively build popular culture’s most famous pilot without the Pilot Origin. It also made me wonder why I would do that to myself, since this was supposed to be a quick and easy build, but here we are.

Going with a different Origin does let us focus on Maverick’s defining character traits, though, while still giving us room for vehicle operator proficiency from other options.

Origin

Rebellious (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

You see where I’m going with this?

Top Gun is considered a classic, and Top Gun: Maverick was a worthy follow-up. But even though the action scenes, with practical jet fighter piloting effects, set these movies apart from other action fare, it’s Maverick’s cockiness that holds the movie together. That and playing volleyball with the boys.

Although Rebellious is very specific in its flavour, it’s actually quite general in its mechanics. Two Health is baseline, a bump to Strength or Speed is always useful, as are the Origin Skills you can invest your Skill Rank into. Most flexible of all is the Origin Benefit, which lets us pick a General Perk. Really, the only area in which the Origin slacks off is the Language selection. That’s a shame, as I believe Maverick is shown to have some fluency beyond his native language.

Role

Infantry (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I knew I wanted the Infantry Role’s Mechanized Infantry Focus, but at first I explored the possibility of Setting swapping the Analyst or Field Commander Role from Transformers. They both capture Maverick’s quick thinking, and the mentor position he holds in the sequel. The thing is, I’ve used both of those Roles for past builds. If that was enough to disqualify using Pilot for a Maverick build, it’s hard to justify making an exception here.

That said, there are a few Infantry options I usually gloss over that work very well for a fighter pilot. Fighting Style lets us pick from a variety of options to hone how we approach combat. One I don’t think I’ve ever taken is Trigger Happy, which lets us ignore the Snag for using the long range of a weapon. What a brutal advantage that gives in a dog fight. I also appreciate how Gallantry at 2nd level reflects Maverick’s willingness to live dangerously (almost like he lives in a zone of danger) (that’s what I call “risky business”). Then there’s Overwatch, which lets us set additional Contingency actions, and Adrenaline Surge, which gives us a whole extra turn once per combat. Reexamining these options with a fighter jet in mind lines up with the quick decisions and precision timing that win Maverick the day in the movies.

Focus

Mechanized Infantry (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

This Focus makes the build. Normally I see ↑2 on Driving Skill Tests as a way to avoid having to put all of our Skill Points into Driving Ranks. In this case, I’m like Maverick trying to reach Mach 10. Max Driving ASAP plus ↑2 means getting to roll 3D6 reliably, and hitting autosuccess in favourable circumstances. Sure, it limits what we can do outside of vehicular combat, but points at Top Gun movies.

Narratively speaking, I guess Maverick was level 6 during the first movie. I say this since at level 7, Roll Cage means our passengers take no damage from a crash. RIP Goose.

Influences

1st: Racer (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Disenfranchised (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

3rd Party Maestro (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Continuing the trend of going all in on the Driving Skill, Racer gives us an Edge on Driving Skill Tests when a Specialization comes into play. My palms are sweating just thinking about how many dice we’ll roll on a Driving Skill Test. I apologize to anyone who borrows my damp dice after that…

As is often the case, I took my second and third Influence choices as much for the Hang-Ups as the Perks.

Disenfranchised pairs nicely with the Rebellious Origin to encapsulate Maverick’s personality. He seems aloof, like a joker, but if you come at him with rules, he comes back at you with his track record despite them. We’ll use the Edge it gives us on “[Skill Tests] that directly harms something from how you used to see the world” mostly to get the upper hand on superior officers.

The last aspect of Mav’s personality I wanted to capture is the way musical numbers and montages happen spontaneously when he’s around. Party Maestro fits the bill better than I could have imagined. So whether he’s telling his crush that she’s lost that loving feeling, or he’s encouraging team bonding with a game of dogfight football, Maverick can get a party started wherever he goes. Once. If he tries it again, he annoys everyone.

Essence Scores and Skills

Speed 8

I didn’t say I had a need for Strength, Smarts, or Social.

So here we are. A maxed out Skill, with Specialization, at 1st level. Maverick has +d12 (Air), and that’s before the ↑2 from his Focus. This means he’s extremely limited outside of a vehicle, but inside an aircraft, he’s unstoppable.

I should note that I didn’t give him a Rank in Finesse or Targeting. That’s OK, as long as his vehicle has a targeting system, like G.I. Joe’s F-14 Tomcat stand-in, the Skystriker. That lets him use Driving for ranged attacks.

So if he doesn’t have any Ranks in combat Skills, where’s the eighth Skill Point go? +d2 Initiative. It’s superfluous, and I could have probably used it better elsewhere, but I just couldn’t accept Maverick rolling Initiative with a Snag.

Smarts 3

Maverick’s a pretty smart guy, but only when it comes to facts about flying. I gave him +d4 Alertness, and then debated where to slip in an extra +d2. I considered Culture and Technology, but I settled on Science. This Skill covers both the math that’s involved in plotting a course and calculating an attack run, as well as anatomy. Maverick may not have been able to save a life, but he knows a human’s limits. Mostly his own.

Social 3

In an argument, Maverick always has an angle. To represent that, I chose to give him +d4 Deception. This will also help him fake out his opponents in a dog fight. Like with Smarts, I wanted a little diversity in my Skills, so I went with a Rank in Streetwise. He often draws on practical experience when he’s out of his depths.

Strength 2

Finally, I gave him a Rank in Athletics, for the broader physical abilities his flight training unlocks, and a Rank in Conditioning, because he refuses to die. I dumped Strength because it’s Infantry’s Diamond Essence Score, so we’ll be able to invest in it later.

General Perks and Other Options

Dog Fighter from Power Rangers: Across the Stars and Peerless Pilot from the G.I. JOE CRB may seem like obvious choices, but they’re redundant with the Mechanized Infantry Focus. Instead, we’ll take Daredevil from Across the Stars, which boosts our Initiative and saves us from taking damage from a Fumble (a potential lifesaver before we reach 7th level and get Roll Cage), and we ignore Snags on Skill Tests when we’re at 1 Health. That’s such a cinematic ability, and reflects how Maverick keeps lucking out when he’s near defeat.

Similarly, Adolescent Attitude from the MLP CRB lets us roll untrained Skills (which we have a lot of) as if we had a d2, and reroll failed Social Skill Tests. Not only does the flavour reflect the many ways Maverick’s told he needs to grow up, but the mechanics show how he gets his way most often when he’s being an immature pain in the butt. There’s at least one moment in Top Gun: Maverick where his senior officer, played by Jon Hamm, clearly wants to reprimand him, but something stops him. It’s how I now picture rerolling failed Skill Tests.

Finally, when we get to 12th level, we’ll take Battle Hardened, which gives us a 1-in-4 chance of regaining spent Story Points. The last half hour of Top Gun: Maverick plays out like a player with a hot d4 throwing Story Points at the GM and somehow still having more.

Conclusion

I did this to myself. “You need something quick and easy,” I said. “No one expects anything but a basic pilot build,” I continued. But no. I made a pilot without the Pilot Origin or the Dog Fighter or Peerless Pilot General Perks.

As usual, I do not recommend committing seven Skill Points to a single Skill at 1st level. Maverick might be the least playable build the blog has seen as a result. And yet, not totally unplayable. If you are planning a character that is all in on a single Skill, many of the other options I went with show how Essence20 can be flexible and forgiving. Surprisingly, I may have been more successful grabbing broad and flexible options for Maverick than I was when I made that the design goal of my Barbie build.

Resources

Essential Builds – Odo

Ryan Costello — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 10:52:51 +0000

PCs change depending on who’s building them, but justice is justice.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that shifts the shape of popular culture characters with a bucketful of Essence20 options.

Recently, Jason and I talked about the Star Trek renaissance with shows like Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks. It seems that after the drastic departure from the formula that was Star Trek: Discovery, series that embrace the Star Trek feel and fandom set the slate clean again. But Discovery wasn’t Star Trek’s first black sheep. From 1993 to 1999, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine threw Trek expectations into chaos. And there was one man on that space station trying to maintain order.

Who Is Odo?

Odo was the shapeshifting head of security on Deep Space Nine. Unlike most main characters on a Star Trek series, Odo didn’t work for the United Federation of Planets. Instead, he worked with them as a representative of Bajor, the planet that Deep Space Nine orbited. And before that, he worked for the Cardassians, an alien species occupying Bajor. Deep Space Nine was a military base and mining station called Terok Nor, where Bajorans were forced to work against their will.

The fact that the head of security of an occupying force retained his position after a rebellion chased them out and a relief effort moved in is one of the most interesting things about Odo. He’s rigidly neutral, but unabashedly fair. He won the trust of the Bajorans even as he enforced the rule over them. He was in an unenviable position, and all sides acknowledged that Odo’s involvement kept things peaceful, for better or worse.

Odo earned the position because he was raised by a Cardasian scientist, who treated him like a science experiment. It was later revealed that Odo was part of a shapeshifting species called changelings, who sent 100 larval specimens through a stable wormhole that connected the Alpha and Gamma quadrants of the Milky Way Galaxy. They seeded infiltrators in preparation for an invasion a century later. Odo wasn’t aware of any of this, spending his life feeling alone and trying to fit in.

Building Odo

The season he spent as a solid notwithstanding, there is no Odo build without shape changing powers. This build needed Dark Skies Over Equestria, the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Adventure Series Book which introduces, appropriately enough, the Changeling Origin. There are other shape-shifting options from Dark Skies Over Equestria that I’ll also be taking, to flesh him out. Er, goop him out?

With his signature power covered, next I need to get across that Odo might be the best law enforcer in the galaxy. Never has the line that separates Origin from Role been clearer.

Then, where possible, I’ll try to convey the ennui that is this shape changer who doesn’t know who he is.

I’m looking forward to this build. As a borderline magical alien in a pseudo-military, every Essence20 setting and sourcebook is a viable option. Time to see how Odo takes shape.

Origin

Changeling (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Dark Skies Over Equestria)

This one’s obvious. Not only do Odo’s people share a powerset with My Little Pony’s shape-shifters, the species share a name. And yes, the mythical changelings of lore were the offspring of hags and witches swapped with the children of villagers, with no ability to take on other forms. Well popular culture, like Star Trek and My Little Pony, co-opted the term and used it in a more satisfactory manner.

The Changeling Origin grants a swath of Origin Perks. We gain ↑1 to impersonate a specific creature type, a suite of benefits to pick from (we’ll take the +1 Health, to bolster the Changeling’s meager 1 Health, and a 15ft Aerial movement, since at least once Odo turned into a bird. 15ft of Aerial movement indicates he can fly, but most flying creatures are better at it than him), and, most importantly, Shape-Shift.

I guess it’s a good time to point out that I designed the MLP Changeling Origin. With Shape-Shift, my goal was to go broad and flexible. This is foundational shape-shifting, saving meatier mechanics for higher level options. It gives us the flexibility to deliver on one of Odo’s core concepts without overpowering other level 1 characters who likely won’t have such spectacular powers yet.

Role

Silver Ranger (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Across The Stars)

Let me start by saying I know nothing about Silver Rangers. And before you say “yes, we get it, you don’t know Power Rangers,” I have some exposure to Power Rangers. I can name a dozen or so characters, ballpark what series another dozen or so come from, and have even watched some seasons with my daughter recently. But I have zero exposure to Silver Rangers.

That said, while I have no evidence to support this, I get an enforcer vibe from reading over this Role in Across The Stars. Moreover, some of the Role Perks, like Power Heal (which lets us heal ourself) and Grid Surge (which lets us conjure tools, reshape our weapons, and increase our Toughness) line up with abilities the changelings demonstrate on DS9. Add in Power Points, Grid Powers, and the It’s Time setting-neutral version of It’s Morphin Time, and the always useful Extra Attack, and we have a Role that works well for a shape changing security officer.

One caveat. Silver Ranger is an Advanced Spectrum. In order to access it, we need to either take the Spectrum Shift General Perk, or get express GM permission. For the sake of this build, we’ll assume our Game Master allowed it, but retraining another Role at level 4 when we can take Spectrum Shift doesn’t impact the build much. Well, OK, a little.

Focus and Faction

Alien Ambassador (Field Guide to Action & Adventure), Earth Defense Command (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

What separates a soldier from a security officer of equal skill? Their willingness to attack. If I wanted the most combat effective version of Odo I could manage, I’d choose an Infantry or Warrior Focus. But a security officer needs to balance combat capability with diplomacy. That’s why I’m taking the Envoy’s Alien Ambassador Focus from the Field Guide to Action and Adventure. That, and because I’m rarely going to have other opportunities to even consider this for a build. But that’s a lesser factor.

Honestly, Alien Ambassador is practically the Starfleet Officer Focus. The first Focus Perk is even called First Contact, and the 17th level Focus Perk is Universal Translator. In between, we get Understand Intent, which makes us better at picking up on a creature’s intentions, and Able To Adapt, which lets us grant ↑1 for a turn as a Free action. I love how this Silver Ranger/Alien Ambassador Role/Focus combo works together. We can flavour a lot of both options’ abilities to apply to either Starfleet resources or shape-shifting.

For our Faction, we’re going to slightly rework Earth Defense Command, also from the Field Guide to Action and Adventure. Depending on the setting, this could be the Bajoran Militia, or really any alien species military. The only rule we’d need to tweak is the “non-human creatures” mentioned in the Earth Defenders Perk. Otherwise, it provides some Starfleet appropriate benefits. Heck, it even makes us better at operating space ships, something we see Odo do like it’s nothing, and yet I didn’t intentionally factor into our build.

Influences

1st: Security (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Not From Around Here – Mercurian (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Across The Stars)

3rd Outsider (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Dark Skies Over Equestria)

As established, Odo is in charge of security on Deep Space Nine. The Security Influence lets us ignore some of the penalties of being surprised. On theme, easy to implement, not covered by the rest of the build. I’ll take it.

Now we need to stop and appreciate Mercurian. This variant of Not From Around Here lets us play an alien made of silver goo. Like, what? I had no idea this option existed! It’s exactly how changelings work in Star Trek. Moreover, it gives us an Edge on Athletics and Acrobatics Skill Tests related to squeezing into places. So this is another 1000% on point option that is somehow 000% redundant to our build. Odo definitely goos through the Jefferies Tubes when he needs to get around, and we don’t have that covered anywhere. And then there’s the equally perfect Hang-Up! When you are Defeated, you fall into a liquid state. Liquid is Odo’s natural state. He literally sleeps in a bucket. And while that’s a hefty penalty, remember that as a Silver Ranger, our Odo can heal himself.

Finally, there’s Outsider from Dark Skies. It’s designed with Thorax in mind, the first changeling that showed the creatures to be nuanced, and uncomfortable with their reputation.

From the first episode of DS9, Odo established that he knew nothing about his past, and later episodes explored how hard he works to fit in with solids. The benefit, where the insight he gained studying humanity nets him Smarts and Social Upshifts, embodies some of Odo’s speeches explaining how he outsmarts station criminals (mostly Quark). And the Hang-Up, giving him a Snag when dealing with fellow changelings, is a major plot point from season 3 until the finale.

Before I move on, shout out to Spy on the Renegade Game Studios Discord server. They compile lists of Essence20 character creation options, and I used their All Character Options list repeatedly to save a tonne of time on this build. Being able to search “Security” on a single PDF and finding the Transformers Influence saved me having to sift through every sourcebook that had Influence options in it. If you ever want to make elaborate Essence20 builds like these, you need to grab Spy’s lists.

Essence Scores and Skills

This build’s Essence Scores progress strangely, but not inappropriately.

Our two highest Essence Scores at 1st level are Smarts and Speed. Smarts is our slowest progressing Skill, followed by Speed. Maybe I put too much weight behind needing my Culture Skill to be at least as high as my Social-based Skills, but I made Culture our highest Skill. The build actually allows a lot of Upshifts to physical and Social-based Skill Tests, so fulfilling our Culture needs felt justified. Also, dumping Social out of the gate only for it to increase steadily over time mirrors Odo’s arc on the series.

Smarts 5

I gave us Culture +d8, and Alertness +d2. Yeah, that Alertness isn’t great, and maybe +d6/+d4 is the better split at level 1. Either way we end up +d8/+d4 by 4th level. And between the two Skills, it’s safer to assume someone else on the team will have a decent Alertness. Also, by then we’ll be able to use Deception, Intimidation, or Persuasion to determine a target’s intent, thanks to Alien Ambassador, so Alertness isn’t super important for us.

Speed 5

These are mostly standard Speed investments. +d4 Targeting, +d2 Initiative. I went +d4 Infiltration, because more than anything, Odo uses his shape-shifting to sneak around.

Strength 4

I gave Odo +d4 Athletics, but that’s an experiment. If we don’t end up using our Mercurian powers much, we don’t need to go any higher than this. The other two Ranks went into Might, for melee effectiveness. As we level up, I suspect we’ll want to invest in Conditioning.

Social 2

I went super cheap with Social Skill investments. Just +d2 Deception and +d2 Persuasion. As I said, we have multiple ways to bump these Skills up on the fly, and we’ll be getting plenty of Social Skill boosts from our Role.

General Perks and Other Options

I often skip this section unless the options carry a lot of weight, and let me tell you, this Odo build needs the General Perks and Other Options section.

First of all, we may need Spectrum Shift, depending on how agreeable our GM is to letting us use the Silver Ranger Role. If they agree and we can skip it, we get Object-Shift as our 4th level General Perk. It lets us Shape-Shift into an inanimate object. Other than going from goo to solid and back, the only other shape-shifting we see Odo do involves changing into objects.

Later we can take Camouflage Hide to gain an Edge on Infiltration Skill Tests. Both of these General Perks come from Dark Skies Over Equestria.

For Grid Powers, I liked Rapid Morph from Power Rangers Roleplaying Game A Jump Through Time. Odo changes shape when he needs to, so getting to do so as a Free action fits. It also pairs nicely with the Security Influence.

Conclusion

I can’t believe how perfectly this worked out. Any time I build a character of a creature type other than one explicitly covered in an Essence20 rulebook, I need to justify and interpret a lot of options. Here, we get multiple different shape-shifting abilities at 1st level, including literally turning into a liquid form. There are G.I. JOE characters I couldn’t recreate as faithfully as I managed to get this Odo build. Considering I didn’t have any kind of plan beyond “I should make a shape-shifter” when I sat down to write this, I’m awestruck.

I do need to reflavour the surprising amount of silver options I chose. Obviously, I need to make them copper. Odo is a constable, after all.

Resources

My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Dark Skies Over Equestria Adventure Series Book

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – Barbie

Ryan Costello — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 10:42:59 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds. It’s a builder blog, in an essential world. Adapting plastic, with statistics.

To cap off 2023, we look at a Person of the Year 2023 candidate (despite not being, y’know, a real person), fashion icon and film star Barbie Roberts.

Who Is Barbie?

She’s everything!

Barbie started as a fashion doll in the 1950s, with an undefined backstory and open-ended purpose. What set her apart at the time was that kids could play pretend through the doll, as opposed to the traditional baby dolls which served as accessories for games in which the child takes on the role of parent.

As the decades went on, Barbie’s look, messaging, and purpose evolved. Mattel began releasing Barbies themed around careers, some glamorous, some practical. More recently, Barbie expanded to other genres, including sci-fi, super hero, and spy. Barbie’s slogan, “You Can Be Anything”, applies as much to the brand as its audience, as the billion dollars the movie made indicate.

Building Essence20 Barbie

While there’s no wrong way to build a character who can be anything, I’m going to focus on Margot Robbie’s character from the recent movie, Stereotypical Barbie.

If you haven’t seen the movie, that’s not me passing judgment. She’s addressed as Stereotypical Barbie in the movie, and even refers to herself as such. Because even if Barbie can be anything, if you close your eyes and picture a Barbie, it probably looks and acts a lot like Margot Robbie’s character in the movie. Before her existential crisis sinks in.

As a result, I aim to work in options built around flexibility. After all, Barbie changes jobs as often as she changes clothes. The more ground we can make our build cover, the better.

Role

Spirit of Kindness (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I don’t know Barbie very well, so before dedicating a blog to bringing her to Essence20, I needed to come up with a build that I felt worked. The quickness that Spirit of Kindness came to me as her Role confirmed that she was a good choice.

As I’ve discussed before, the My Little Pony Roles have some mechanical and thematic overlap. This makes Role Perks slightly less important to an MLP character than to other Essence20 settings, with the flexibility of the Essence Score Progressions playing a larger, um, role, in differentiating characters. That said, this blog made me realize how potent these Roles are when brought over into other games.

Take the Spirit of Kindness. It’s built around Empathy, both the concept and the Role Perk. You designate one of three Skills as your Empathy Skill, and then use that Skill to aid allies and penalize enemies. We’re choosing Persuasion as our Empathy Skill, turning Barbie into one of the most effective diplomats possible in Essence20. She won’t be throwing many punches, but she’ll drop her huge heart onto any battlefield and force her enemies to reconsider their actions. Outside of combat, Persuasion is one of the most useful Skills, so she will regularly get more opportunities to shine.

When it comes to using My Little Pony Roles to adapt pop culture characters, normally the 20th level Perk causes issues. Princess Of X (where X= the Role’s theme) turns the character into a magical winged unicorn. That doesn’t fit most builds outside of the MLP setting, but it suits Barbie just fine. Barbie has totally gained wings and magic! When they say Barbie can be anything, that includes a fairy princess.

Regrettably, MLP Roles do not have (currently defined) rules for changing settings. I’d love to grab the Commando (Spy) Focus since it is the most versatile Focus in Essence20 (and it works thematically since Barbie was a spy more than once). We’ll just have to find other ways to express Barbie’s versatility.

Origin

Popular (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Let me start by saying that if you take the Power Rangers CRB Origins (which represent the teenage identities and attitudes of Power Ranger PCs) and the My Little Pony Roles, you end up with a pretty perfect combo for a Barbie fantasy RPG.

I narrowed my Origin options down to Kind and Popular. Both work thematically (and yes, Barbie is kind enough that kindness could be both her Origin and her Role). Both have comparable Essence Score Increases and Origin Skill selections. It came down to the Origin Perk.

The Kind Origin gives I Know A Guy, which lets her call on a friend for help. That disqualified the Origin for this build. I was there for the 2014 backlash against Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer, a book in which, contrary to the title in multiple ways, Barbie says “I’ll need Steven and Brian’s help to turn [my ideas] into a real game!” Barbie doesn’t need to Know A Guy! Barbie can be anything!

Popular, on the other hand, lives up to that tagline. Depending on the situation, Barbie can gain temporary Specializations in Deception, Persuasion, and Streetwise. Naturally we’ll want that to be Persuasion as often as possible, but if the situation calls for it, Barbie is prepared to cheat a cheater.

Influences

1st: Chronicler (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time)

2nd Stylish (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Teacher (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I did not expect Influences to be the hardest part of my build.

In retrospect, it makes sense. I kept looking for broad themes, but Influences relate to specific parts of a character’s personality or history. So when I looked at Influences like Artisan, Athlete, and Professional, my stumbling point was when those Influences asked me to narrow down my choice to a specific art style, sport, and profession. If only I could choose Professional three times! Instead I took three Influences that represent any interpretation of Barbie. Well, OK, two out of three.

In many of her animated series, Barbie serves as the narrator by way of her vlog. The Chronicler Influence from A Jump Through Time specifically calls out vlogger as a type of Chronicler. It gives Barbie an Edge on Culture (History) Skill Tests to recall a fact about the information the PC chronicles. I will note that when an option calls out a Specialization, there can be some confusion about whether that means it only applies when that Skill and Specialization come into play, or if it’s suggesting a Specialization that could apply. I believe Chronicle only applies when the Specialization does. Which is a shame, since Barbie doesn’t vlog about history and I’d have liked a little more flexibility to the mechanics. Still, thematically, it works.

Though listed second, Stylish was the first Influence I picked. Even though Barbie has evolved from being more than just a fashion doll, that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with having an interest in fashion. Rarity taught me that there’s a difference between being passionate about fashion and being superficial. Barbie may not be as enthusiastic about it as Rarity, but she puts an effort into her appearance. The Hang-Up’s penalty to Stealth Tests in social situations probably won’t come up often, but I like the flavour.

Finally, I chose Teacher because Barbie is often seen as the wisest of her friends, and a mentor to her younger sisters. In fact, some series don’t even feature her parents, with Barbie being the only adult looking after Skipper, Stacie, and Chelsea. I was particularly drawn to Teacher’s Hang-Up, which forces the Teacher to perform the task if they’re better at it. It reads like the plot of a typical episode of one of Barbie’s series, where Barbie needs to learn to trust others as much as she believes in herself.

Essence Scores and Skills

Social 8

Social is obviously Barbie’s Diamond Essence Score.

Based on her Role, Barbie needs high Persuasion. I rarely give a 1st level character more than 4 Ranks in one Skill, even their main Skill, and we’re being consistent here. The question is whether to go +d8 or +d6 and a Specialization. I’ll stick with the +d8 for now, since our Origin lets us pop in situational Specializations, and we get plenty of Social increases to invest in a permanent Persuasion Specialization later.

She’s also going to need a couple of Ranks in Performance, since she’s never too far from her next musical number. And I’d like to give her Animal Handling since she has pets and moonlights as a vet and a zookeeper. Then there’s her Popular Origin, which can grant temporary Specialization in Deception and Streetwise. Putting even one Rank in every other Social Skill would mean half our starting Skill Points are invested in this one Essence. That’s understandable for this build, but then Deception and Streetwise don’t net any benefit from Popular. Instead, we’ll give her 1 Rank each in Performance and Animal Handling, and 2 Ranks in Deception.

Smarts 4

If we were building a D&D or Pathfinder version of Barbie, based on how she’s portrayed in her many animated series and movies, Int would be her second highest stat, and Wis her lowest. She’s smart, but her naivety gets her in trouble. We’ll recreate that feeling by not giving her any Ranks in Alertness or Survival.

For Skills we are investing in, we’ll start with Culture since it’s important to the Chronicler Influence. Our Social Skill ate a lot of our budget (isn’t that always the case?) so we have to invest modestly here. Two Ranks.

That leaves us with Science and Technology. Barbie definitely needs a bit of both, assuming she hasn’t forged her qualifications for her many careers (it’s possible, with her Popularity and two Ranks in Deception!) I’d love to give her two Ranks each, but we can only really afford 1.

Speed 3

One of Barbie’s most iconic accessories is her pink convertible. Being a responsible driver, she invests the appropriate Ranks (2) into that Skill to qualify her to drive.

With only two Skill Points left, one of which has to go into Strength, that leaves us with 1 to invest in Finesse. Barbie won’t need Targeting since her Kindness Role’s more diplomatic Perks allow her to affect target’s at range. When words don’t work, Barbie can defend herself. Slightly.

As we level up, future Speed Ranks will go into Finesse and Initiative, to harden her fighting ability and show how her experiences made her quicker on her feet.

Strength 1

Barbie’s not a fighter, but she is an athlete. We’ll set Strength as her Bronze Essence Score and give her +d2 in Athletics. Her Role gives her regular Health increases, so all three of her Strength increases will go into this Skill. There isn’t much need to start any higher than the minimum. Now she can rollerblade along Venice Beach in style.

Playing Barbie

I hope you like flipping coins, because this is the most D2s I’ve ever given a build. A trapping of most RPGs is that generalist characters are hard to make. But Barbie’s not 100% generalist, since we when hard into Persuasion. If you think she could use a bump in any of her Skills, knocking her Persuasion down by 1 will help with that. However, bear in mind the utility d8 Persuasion brings to our build. It’s useful in and out of combat, thanks to our Kindness and Empathy.

I also like what the multitude of d2s means for our character. She’s dabbled in a lot, which helps her relate to a variety of people. It also shows that she’s still discovering herself. That’s why Barbie can be anything.

Resources

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – The Grinch

Ryan Costello — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 16:27:36 +0000

“It’s December 15th,” I thought with some fear.
“I need a build idea for Christmas. It’s practically here!”

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that steals popular culture icons to give the gift of Essence20 Player Characters all year round. I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

I’ve built The Grinch this Christmas season.
Please don’t ask why, it’s for a terribly foolish reason.

Honestly, I recently saw a post warning artists not to post unlicensed Grinch art as the Dr Seuss estate gets litigious this time of year. And my first thought was “I wonder if I could build The Grinch in Essence20?”

Who Is The Grinch?

He’s a mean one, that Mr Grinch. He really is a heel. He’s as cuddly as a cactus, and as charming as an eel. Mr. Grinch.

Diss track aside, The Grinch is the star of the 1957 book How The Grinch Stole Christmas, written and illustrated by Dr Seuss. It was adapted into an animated special in 1966, becoming a network television holiday tradition for decades from then on.

But that’s the media that introduced and popularized the character. Who is The Grinch? Well, remember that song we just put aside? Put it front and center again, because it sums up The Grinch perfectly. He’s sour and unpleasant and aims to make that everyone else’s problem. He hates Christmas most of all. But by the end, he has a change of heart (metaphorically and apparently physically) and he saves the very Christmas he just stole.

Building Essence20 The Grinch

This build wasn’t hard, even though the variety of options and sources will make it read like Essence20 fruitcake. We’ll mostly be drawing from the book and original animated special, but if one of the two Grinch films provides polish, it might influence our build.

Origin

Citizen of Cobra-La (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

Finally, an explanation as to why no one else in Who-ville or its surrounding areas looks like The Grinch. He’s a citizen of Cobra-La!

Despite tying directly into a very specific portion of G.I.JOE media, Cobra-La works well for The Grinch’s Origin. First of all, the broad strokes of the flavour work for an anomalous creature. He even lives in snow covered mountains, like Golobulus’ Himalayan sanctuary. Furthermore, like Cobra-La’s resentment toward humanity, The Grinch wants to take away the frivolities Whomanity cherishes.

Mechanically, Citizen of Cobra-La works as well. The bump to Animal Handling explains The Grinch’s bond with his otherwise innocent dog, Max. And the Avoid The Inevitable Perk, which lets him gain temporary Health when he would otherwise be Defeated, reflects The Grinch’s tenacity.

Role

Renegade (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

This Grinch build ended up with a surprising number of Sgt Slaughter adjacent options, starting with the Role inspired by Sarge’s protogés in the G.I. JOE animated movie. Honestly, I chose Renegade because of one Perk. Reckless Abandon gives The Grinch bonus Health and ↑2 on Strength-based Skill Tests. The only way it could more perfectly represent when The Grinch’s heart grows three sizes and gives him the strength of 10 Grinches plus two would be if he got ↑3 instead of ↑2.

Other Role Perks reflect this as well. The Grinch gains a bonus to Brawn, additional Health, and a variety of other options that boost his survivability. He also gets better at combat. Lucky for The Whos, The Grinch chose stealth over a direct assault. Although Cindy Loo Who had a close call.

Sub Rules

Troublemaker Focus (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

Slaughter’s Marauders Faction (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack)

Even though Troublemaker sounds like the perfect Grinch Focus option, I actually chose it through process of elimination. Renegade Foci accentuate the Role’s fighting style more than anything, and The Grinch isn’t a fighter. The Commando’s Infiltrator Focus suits The Grinch best, but unfortunately the rest of that Role does not. So don’t be surprised if we see a stealthy Renegade Focus in the future. It’s The Grinch’s gift to you this holiday season.

The trick with Troublemaker is that it’s built around a signature weapon. Although I feverishly remember Jim Carrey using a flamethrower in the live action How the Grinch Stole Christmas from 2000, and apparently there’s a Grinch-themed slasher in which the killer uses blades, of the Troublemaker’s signature weapon options, I’m going with the Close Combat Heavy Bludgeon to represent the crop he uses to guide his sleigh. It’s a stretch, I admit.

Speaking of a stretch, I’m cheating a bit when it comes to The Grinch’s faction. To gain access to Slaughter’s Marauders, you either need the Once a Marauder Influence, or you need to complete the Marauder’s Marathon in game. For the sake of the blog, I wanted to go with more flavourful Influences, so I guess we all just have to accept that The Grinch spent time at the Slaughterhouse and completed the G.I. JOE drill instructor’s beastly obstacle course.

We may need to justify how The Grinch gained access to the faction, but Slaughter’s Marauders’ benefits make total sense. An Edge on Infiltration Skill Tests from camouflage is exactly why The Grinch dressed as Santy Claus. It also gives him a General Perk. I was tempted to go with Green for obvious reasons, but instead went with Animal Pet. Honestly, getting Mutt his Junkyard at 1st level was one of the major motivators behind giving Marauders a General Perk, so it feels right to use the Faction granted General Perk to get The Grinch his Max.

Influences

1st: Villainous (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

2nd: Mountebank (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd: Tricky (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Villainous is the Influence for cartoonishly evil characters, and is there anything more cartoonishly evil than stealing Christmas? Honestly, the Villainous Background Bonds could have just been lines from You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.

The downside is that Villainous gives a bonus to Intimidation, but The Grinch only really intimidates Max. And while I could research what hoops I need to jump through to use Intimidation in place of Animal Handling, that sounds like a lot of work and pushes Grinch’s villainy from funny to monstrous. So I added Villainous to the list for thematic reasons, but a better mechanical choice is Once A Marauder. And, come to think of it, he did only loot one town and only one time, so maybe Once A Marauder is a better fit than I realized.

Because the mechanics of The Grinch’s Role and Origin cover his survivability and combat prowess, I’m doubling down on Influences that bring out his slippery side. Mountebank gives an Edge on a Deception Skill Test the first time we use the Skill on a specific target, and Tricky lets us use a Story Point to gain an Edge on Infiltration and Deception. Basically, if Little Cindy Loo Who didn’t fall for The Grinch’s lies, he could have used the old “Look, a reindeer!” and snuck off in the other direction.

Essence Scores and Skills

Smarts 6

The Grinch is all about ideas. Awful ideas. Wonderful, awful ideas.

Throughout the story, The Grinch demonstrates acute understanding of Suessian physics. In fact, a lot of his plan depends on shoving whole trees up chimneys, ziplining from house to house on mistletoe wreaths, and packing an entire village’s gifts into one sleigh and riding it uphill. We’ll represent this with three Ranks in Science.

The Grinch’s aptitude in another Smarts Skill is also his undoing. Alertness. Every complaint The Grinch has about how the Whos celebrate Christmas stems from how it upsets his senses. He can’t stand the warm lighted windows below in Who-ville, or the noise, oh the noise, of the Who children’s toys. He also hated hearing the Whos sing, it being what finally motivated him to try to stop this Christmas thing. Even his pallet was sensitive, what with rare Who-roast-beast being something The Grinch can’t stand in the least. It makes me wish Acute Senses was an Influence instead of a General Perk so it could have a sensory overload Hang-Up. Speaking of overdoing it, I hope I didn’t oversell The Grinch’s Alertness, because I’m only giving him two Ranks in it.

Finally, to represent the dinner table etiquette The Grinch demonstrates at the end of the story, and the sewing Skills that got him his Santa suit, I’ll give The Grinch a Rank in Culture.

Social 5

Speaking of The Grinch’s Santa suit, not to brag, but it didn’t fool me for a second. No beard? No pants? I saw right through that disguise. No, it was his performance that fooled me. The Grinch makes a mean fake Santy Claus (in more ways than one). He gets four Ranks in Deception, netting him +d6 and a Specialization in Disguise.

But Deception isn’t his only Social Skill. He also gets Animal Handling. Again, I wish I had written an option in Cobra Codex or Ferocious Fighters that let a villain use Intimidation in place of Animal Handling, but since I didn’t, I’ll represent The Grinch’s meanness toward Max by only giving him one Rank.

Speed 3

Pairing with The Grinch’s ability to circumvent social situations through lies is his talent for circumventing locks through Infiltration. We’ll go with two Ranks.

Since about a quarter of the special is dedicated to The Grinch driving the sleigh, I’ll also give him a Rank in Driving.

That’s it for Speed Skills for now. Renegade’s Speed increases fairly quickly, so if The Grinch needs more Driving or Infiltration, or Ranks in Initiative or Targeting, that can come later.

Strength 2

I didn’t expect this build to dump Strength, but it makes sense. We only see one feat of Grinch strength, and it’s when he taps into his reserves. That’s what Reckless Abandon gets us. One Rank each in Brawn and Melee increase to d6s when using Reckless Abandon.

I’m also OK with low Strength because it’s the Renegade’s Diamond Essence Score. Our Grinch will get stronger, whether we want him to or not.

Conclusion

This certainly is a build. I confess that I went for a lot of options because the name or theme worked for The Grinch, but I’m not sure how cohesively they work together. I had fun with this build, even if it feels like it’s missing something. Like a Santa costume without pants.

Resources

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack

Essential Builds – CM Punk

Ryan Costello — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 15:52:23 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that never says never when it comes to turning pop culture champions into Essence20 Player Characters.

Last week, one of the most controversial wrestlers of the past 20 years returned to the WWE after an inauspicious exit 10 years ago. Now seems like the perfect time to add CM Punk to the storied history of wrestlers joining the fight between G.I. Joe and Cobra.

Who Is CM Punk?

CM Punk earned the nickname “The Voice of the Voiceless” by saying things that WWE fans often complained about but WWE decision makers didn’t otherwise acknowledge. In a post-kayfabe world, CM Punk is one of the only wrestlers left who can make viewers question what is planned.

Punk walked out on the WWE in 2014 right before Wrestlemania, citing creative differences. This eventually got him fired (on his wedding day, by coincidence the WWE insists). He returned to wrestling in 2021 when he signed with rival wrestling promotion AEW. That ended after multiple backstage fights with fellow wrestlers. Like, real ones. I’m almost positive they were real.

I had CM Punk on my list of Essential Builds for months, but when he left AEW, I assumed he’d never wrestle again. Certainly he burned the bridge back to the WWE. I even joked about the possibility of him rejoining WWE on the Renegade Discord.

That just goes to show that you never know what CM Punk’s going to do next.

He hasn’t wrestled his first return match yet, but during his last stint with the WWE, CM Punk had memorable storylines with John Cena, The Undertaker, The Rock, Triple H, Rey Mysterio, and just about every big name in wrestling these days. One wrestler CM Punk never faced? Sgt Slaughter. This despite them both being in the WWE at the same time. Although semi-retired, the G.I. JOE crossover celebrity still worked a couple of matches a year for the WWE while Punk was on the roster.

Why does this matter?

Unlike the majority of Essential Builds, I don’t have to justify CM Punk’s faction. He wears it on his sleeve. And yes, out of all wrestlers ever, CM Punk is the one to make it onto my list of Essential Builds candidates because he has G.I. JOE tattoos.

Building Essence20 CM Punk

The idea behind this build is “what if Hasbro gave CM Punk the same G.I. JOE crossover celebrity treatment they gave Sgt. Slaughter and Rowdy Roddy Piper?” Sarge’s connection to G.I. JOE was his military gimmick. Piper joined the Iron Grenadiers because he and Destro are both Scottish. Punk’s in is his tattoos. Not only does he have the Cobra logo on his shoulder, he has the Arashikage family’s logo, the 63rd I-Ching hexagram, in the same spot on his forearm as Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow.

So that’s the story of our build. Punk is an unorthodox Arashikage graduate whose fighting skills and iconoclastic attitude got him into Cobra. Even though his actual UFC record is 0-1, this build aims to make a martial arts master, bordering on super human, with a chip on his shoulder. Right next to his Cobra sigil.

Role

Yellow Spectrum (Power Rangers Core Rulebook)

I would have loved to use the Pink Spectrum so I could make a CM Pink reference. Sadly, Pink just doesn’t work as well for melee combat as Yellow, and the blog’s need for the best builds outranks my love of wordplay.

The Yellow Spectrum is the best melee combat Role in Essence20, rivaled only by the Warrior in Transformers. Between the two, the Yellow Spectrum works better for an unarmed mixed martial artist. Triple Strike Attacks at 1st level mimics Punk’s in-ring offense, which includes a mix of punches, kicks, and knee strikes. The Follow-Up attack mechanic is a fun way to manage the damage output of a combat-focused character while still showing how quickly they can string attacks together.

A lot of the rest of the Yellow Spectrum Role Perks add combat versatility but cost Personal Power and require being morphed. As outlined in the Field Guide to Action & Adventure, when removing the Power Rangers Faction and Setting from a Role, the Role still gains Power Points and gains a Perk that lets it gain access to When Morphed abilities, albeit temporarily. A few mechanical details mean a Power Ranger tapping into the Power Grid will still look supernatural compared to our more grounded build, but our CM Punk will look impressive for having pushed his physical limits to the point of comparing to a Morphed Ranger.

Faction, Setting, and Focus

Since we want to give Punk the Cobra Faction and don’t need to summon Zords, we’ll be removing the Power Rangers Setting and replacing it with G.I. JOE.

The Cobra Faction gives our build +1 to Evasion (which will likely be our highest Defense already, making for a dodgy scoundrel), and, in addition to some equipment Training and vehicle Qualification, it lets us pick a Cobra Division. The Martial Arts Division is the closest we have to Arashikage training at the moment, and it fits our build thematically and mechanically. Even though we’re going for an unarmed martial artist, being Qualified in all Martial Arts weapons means CM Punk can grab a bow or shuriken or throwing staff for use as a ranged weapon instead of relying on a gun.

Because we changed settings, we get to choose a G.I. JOE Focus in place of our Role’s Power Rangers setting perks, like Power Weapon and Zord. I debated grabbing a Focus that reflects CM Punk’s ring psychology. Analyst (Manipulator) from Transformers had a couple of nice Perks, but also suggested that CM Punk had a hologram projector, which I don’t believe he does. I considered Officer (Battlefield Psychologist) and Officer (Taskmaster) as well, but half of Battlefield Psychologist’s Focus Perks help allies, and most of Taskmaster’s Focus Perks boss allies around. Sure, Punk’s lead a few stables, but I wanted more abilities that could be used independent of allies.

So I went with the more obvious choice for a build based on a pro wrestler: Renegade (Slammer) from the Sgt Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack. Slammer improves the effectiveness of unarmed attacks, adds additional options, and lets us chain unarmed strikes with maneuvers. Try Me, which challenges a target to a one-on-one slugfest, is a bit of that psychology I was looking for. It’s named after a Sgt Slaughter quote from the cartoon, of course. If this was written as a CM Punk Focus, it would be called It’s Clobberin’ Time.

One of Slammer’s Focus Perks, Roll with the Punches, interacts oddly with the Field Guide to Action & Adventure’s rules for changing a Role’s settings. Normally when a Focus Perk modifies a parent Role’s Role Perks, you get the basic version instead. In this case, you get the regular Perk, but a few levels earlier, and then a second use of the Perk at the level you would normally get the Perk. I recommend that you get regular Roll with the Punches at 3rd level, but don’t get a second use at 6th level.

Origin

Iconoclast (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

I didn’t have a firm idea of what Origin to give CM Punk until I described him as iconoclastic earlier in the blog. Iconoclast just happens to be an Origin in Cobra Codex.

From having a look that goes against the Vince McMahon mould, to his notorious Pipe Bomb promo, to the particular way people listen when he speaks, CM Punk does things his own way and succeeds against the odds.

The Perk, which grants an Edge on Initiative Skill Tests against higher level Threats, reflects how Punk overachieved in the WWE, both by defeating larger opponents and catching on despite having an unconventional look and personality.

Influences

1st: Montebank (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd: Angry (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

3rd: Martial Artist (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Here’s an Essence20 Influences hack for you: If you are looking for an option that ties into a specific Skill, check the My Little Pony Influences. They were intentionally written so that each Skill has at least one Influence tied to it. For example, I wanted to bring the Deception Skill to the forefront of our build, since most of our options up till now covered combat. Montebank gives CM Punk an Edge on Deception Skill Tests the first time he targets a character. Nice and simple, and exactly the kind of option I was looking for. And, as always, it’s fun to use My Little Pony options for builds you wouldn’t expect. Like My Little Punky here.

Despite being a trickster, Punk’s also a hothead. Enter Anger. Whether chemical, societal, or experiential, CM Punk has a temper. If he focuses that rage, he can gain an Edge on a Strength-based Skill Test. This is how he’s able to hit his finisher, the Go To Sleep on larger opponents (side note: I think the Go To Sleep is wrestling’s dumbest finisher) . The Hang-Up works well too, giving GMs an open-ended opportunity for karma to tell him to calm down.

Finally, there’s Martial Artist. Whoa. This is my first build with the Martial Artist Influence? Well, now’s my chance to say that normally I wish the Martial Artist Influence Perk was more like the Martial Arts Division Perk. I do like the Martial Artist Influence Perk, and it is thematic, but it doesn’t make a character better at martial arts. Fortunately, that does mean the Martial Arts Division and Martial Artist Influence compliment each other, and work for our build. And unlike with my Batman build, where I rejected the Martial Artist Influence because of the Hang-Up (being easier to goad into a fight), it reflects Punk’s time in AEW and his notorious backstage issues. Yes, that means my fictional Cobra version of CM Punk based on a character in a theatrical sport show includes elements inspired by the performer rather than the performance. This is the enigma that is CM Punk.

Essence Scores and Skills

Speed 6

The Yellow Spectrum’s melee Perks queue off Finesse, so that’s our primary attack Skill. Four Ranks, giving us +d6 (Martial Arts). Speed can get high quickly, and it’s our Role’s fastest advancing Essence Score, so I’m going to deliberately take it easy with secondary Speed Skills. One Rank each in Initiative and Targeting and that’s it.

Social 4

Our other most important Skill is Deception. His theme song is Cult Of Personality for a reason.

I don’t know why, but I tend to avoid Deception unless it’s integral to the build. Maybe it’s because I’m a bad liar in real life. Well CM Punk certainly isn’t. We’ll go with three Ranks for a healthy +d6. And we’ll round out our Social Skills with a Rank in Streetwise.

Smarts 4

We need one Rank in Alertness, so let’s get that out of the way first. I’ve also invested two Ranks into Culture, because Punk strikes me as someone who knows his history. I don’t usually give a character both Culture and Streetwise, but they don’t overlap as much as Acrobatics and Athletics, so I’ll stick to that choice.

Strength 3

Speaking of Athletics, that’s our main Strength Skill. We’re running low on Skill Points, and I want at least one Rank in Brawn, so that means we only get +d4 Athletics. Not great, but it gives us room to grow.

General Perks and Other Options

As soon as possible, I want to grab Cruel from Decepticon Direction. Gaining an Edge on attacks against targets with Conditions will come up a lot with this build when you remember that Grappled is a Condition. CM Punk would absolutely get in a few cheap shots when he’s got an opponent locked in. He’d argue that it’s not cruel, it’s smart!

After that, I’d like a few more options built around Deception. And to my surprise, there aren’t that many. Mental note: Make a list of General Perks by Skill prerequisite and fill in any blanks.

There may not be many, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. Devious Alliance from Ferocious Fighters lets Punk use Deception to gain Contacts regardless of the Skills normally required. It’s a fun play on the trope of wrestlers turning on one another.

Finally, Create Chaos from Cobra Codex is a cerebral, narrative General Perk that, as the name implies, lets the character zig when the GM calls for a zag. By passing a Skill Test with a Skill other than the one being called on, the rest of the group gains an Edge on their Skill Test. I know I said I didn’t want options built on helping others, but I think this one is a worthy exception.

One General Perk I considered but passed on was Wrestler from the Power Rangers CRB. Our Focus already covers that aspect of the character, thematically and mechanically, and the General Perk depends on Might, which our build doesn’t have.

Conclusion

This build went places! The G.I. JOE-based options were a given, especially those drawn from Cobra Codex, but a Power Rangers Role? A My Little Pony Influence? Who saw those working for a CM Punk build?

Something else that I appreciate about writing this blog is getting to think about builds from a different angle than I normally approach characters. I would not have thought to build a martial artist with an emphasis on Deception, especially not as a PC, but given that hook, I found a lot of options that worked together. Once again, I’d love to get this build to the table to see how it plays.

Resources

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Sgt Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack

Essential Builds – Super Dinosaur

Ryan Costello — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 18:06:35 +0000

Who wants to play a super smart dinosaur in power armour? I can hear the roar of a thousand “Me”s like a a T-Rex roaring into a megaphone.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that genetically alters popular culture icons and arms them with Essence20 options. I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebooks. As of this writing, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

As fans of Hasbro’s properties kick back to enjoy their new copies of G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero #301 and Transformers #2 from Skybound, we look back to the last time this publisher tackled a toyetic title.

Who Is Super Dinosaur?

Through genetic alteration, a Tyrannosaurus Rex left over from the prehistoric age gained enhanced intelligence, combat mastery, and a baller attitude. Using exosuits with cybernetic gorilla arms and integrated weapon systems, Super Dinosaur fights on behalf of Team Dynamo and Earth Corps against evil and the Dino-Men forces of Max Maximus, his creator!

Speaking of creator, the Super Dinosaur comic isn’t just published by Robert Kirkman’s Skybound imprint. The Walking Dead and Invincible writer also co-created Super Dinosaur. He and artist Jason Howard say they wanted to have something with their names on it that was appropriate to share with their children. The fact that it had action figure, video game, and animation potential probably also factored into their decision to make Super Dinosaur.

Now it’s our turn to make Super Dinosaur!

Building Essence20 Super Dinosaur

Anyone who asks me what licenses I hope Renegade grabs in the future knows that I’d love to work on a Super Dinosaur Essence20 sourcebook. Since that’ll likely never happen, I’ll settle on a Super Dinosaur build.

Super Dinosaur is a T-Rex in a mech suit (a Tyrannosaurus Mechs, if you will). Because Essence20 Origins currently assume either a humanoid, Equestrian, or Cybertronian shape and physiology, that presents our biggest challenge. We can’t build Super Dinosaur unless we can build a dinosaur. That makes the Origin our top priority.

As a reminder, I try to reskin (change the flavour or intent of the mechanics) options as little as possible on this blog. However, the reality is that Essence20 options are designed for specific settings. Since building characters from existing Essence20 settings also goes against one of this blog’s design goals, I would have to rule out a lot of options, including the majority of Cybertronian Origins. Instead, I give myself some wiggle room to genericize elements for the sake of my build.

Origin

Monstrosity (Transformers Roleplaying Game Decepticon Directive)

Of the Origins I considered (I’ll get into the other candidates after), Monstrosity from Decepticon Directive checked the most boxes.

First of all, Monstrosity is big. It’s one of I believe only two Huge Origins in the whole system. That goes a lot of the way toward selling this build. Super Dinosaur is so big, the animated series was letterboxed specifically so Super Dinosaur could burst out of the frame for dramatic effect.

Now you might notice that the Tyrannosaurus Rex Threat in Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1 is Gigantic. Huge is not big enough, you might think. Funny enough, canonically, Max Maximus made Super Dinosaur smaller than the average T-Rex to make him easier to control. So being smaller than our T-Rex Threat is on brand for Super Dinosaur.

Second of all, Monstrosity is tough. Four Starting Health and a built-in enhanced melee attack with the option to choose between Blunt or Sharp damage. Super Dinosaur doesn’t bite his way out of his problems, so we’ll choose Blunt damage to represent Super Dinosaur’s exosuit arms. Yes, that does mean we’re using the Origin to cover both Super Dinosaur’s species and elements of his cybernetic armor. Although he takes breaks from his exosuit around headquarters, he does suit up even between missions.

Which brings us to, third of all, Monstrosity looks like one part machine and one part monster. Although technically the Origin is intended to be a robot that can look somewhat organic, it also works for a cybernetic dinosaur. The downshift from Bestial Articulation works for any “I have a big head and little arms” situations. The Alt Mode will represent Super Dinosaur stowing his guns for better mobility. Since we get to choose our Alt Mode’s Movement Type, we’ll grab the Aerial Mode. Technically Super Dinosaur has different suits for different forms of movement, but we’ll just combine the flying mode of Super Dinosaur’s rocket suit with the limited flight capacity of his main suit.

And with that, we have a dinosaur in a tech suit (a dinosuit, if you will). Honestly, I thought I’d need to justify Monstrous a bit more, but other than intending to be robotic (but technically isn’t due to the loophole that we put the Robot trait in the Transformers Factions instead of the Origins), the only issue I have is that it gains languages based on Social. Smarts would have matched Super Dinosaur’s fast learning powers better. That is such a minor hitch, I only bring it up to show how perfectly this Origin fits this build.

The two other Origins I considered for this build were Dragon from the My Little Pony web material, and Test Subject from Cobra Codex. Dragon really only worked aesthetically, so I moved on quickly. Test Subject had potential. It let me take the Animalize Limited Alteration, which in turn let me take the Big Animal Perk. But that’s a lot of steps to end up with a Super Dinosaur build slightly less accurate than just taking Monstrous.

Role

Technician (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I’ve been writing Essential Builds since July, and this is the first time I’ve used my favourite Role in the game, Technician from the G.I. JOE Core Rulebook. One of the reasons I considered non-robotic Origins for Super Dinosaur is because I knew the Technician covered the suit side of this build. The combination of Technician and Monstrosity covers it even better.

Technician technically only gets one Role Perk at 1st level, but it’s a doozy: Primary Tech. Practically a second Focus choice crammed into a Role Perk, we get to choose between wearing an advanced suit of armor, gaining a drone companion, mastering mundane gear, or carrying a big gun. Obviously we’re going with Armor at 1st level, but what about 11th level when we get Secondary Tech? Armor again. You might be tempted to choose Weapon as our Secondary Tech since cannons and rocket launchers hang off Super Dinosaur in all his artwork, but our Focus will cover that.

Choosing Armor as Super Dinosaur’s Secondary Tech does mean he gains two suits of armor as personal gear, despite only being able to wear one at a time. That too lines up with the source material. In addition to his standard white and red armor, Super Dinosaur also has a rocket suit, a space suit, a ski suit, a dive suit, and a stealth suit. Buy them all!

The rest of the Technician’s Role Perks either show the intelligence of the character, the versatility of his gear, or his access to additional equipment. A lot of the visuals attached to the Perks (like sharing the benefits of upgrades with allies, and using his armor instead of a tool) tie directly into comic panels and scenes from the animated series.

Focus: Think Tank (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

The spectrum of technicians in fiction ranges from Q to Tony Stark in terms of Does The Adventures, and from MacGyver to Lex Luthor in terms of Builds Their Own Equipment. Super Dinosaur is in the Tony-Lex quadrant. He helps with the development of the equipment he uses, and then goes on adventures so Doctor Dynamo and the Earth Corps engineers don’t have to.

While the Technician Role covers G.I. Joe’s tech support like Mainframe and Dial-Tone, the Think Tank Focus covers characters who use advanced tech in combat, like Sci-Fi and Fast Draw. The thinking tank, if you will. Yes, it’s wordplay. I like wordplay.

At 1st level, the Think Tank gets to substitute a designated combat Skill (Athletics, Might, Finesse, or Targeting) with Technology. Although I said the enhanced melee attack gained from our Origin represents Super Dinosaur’s cybernetic arms, he also uses tail slaps and headbutts in melee. Conversely, all of his ranged attacks are made through his controls, like when he plays video games. As such, Super Dinosaur will use Technology instead of Targeting for Skill Tests.

Integrated Offense gives us a bunch of Microtech Weapon and Microtech Armor upgrades. We’ll use these to shrink a couple of ranged weapons down to Integrated size. We’ll start with an element jet or directed element rifle at 6th level (using all three of our Microtech Weapon upgrades at the time to shrink the Long weapon down to Integrated). At 8th level, we can switch to a shrunken rocket launcher. By 14th level, we can have both! In between, we can use Microtech on sidearms and medium weapons, like pistols and shotguns, to supplement our big guns.

The rest of Think Tank’s Focus Perks make up for the Technician’s slow Strength progression, letting us ignore the Strength-based skill requirements of equipment, and boosting our Health and defenses. By high level, we can even go nova with a round of attacking as a Free action.

Faction: Dino-Hunters (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

A new Faction enters the blog!

Factions technically debuted in the Power Rangers CRB, but the concept wasn’t fleshed out into a customizable mechanic until the Field Guide to Action & Adventure. That’s when we needed to make good on the promise that you can play a Cybertronian Power Ranger or a Real American Heroic Teen With Attitude. Since expanding on the idea, it’s been further explored in mainly G.I. JOE sourcebooks, including the most recent Factions In Action, which is entirely dedicated to the idea of changing teams and subteams. The fact that it’s listed as Volume 1 tells you everything you need to know about whether to expect more Factions in the future.

As I mentioned when discussing Origins, it can be hard to adhere to a no-reskinning rule since we’re writing the game for specific settings. That’s especially true of Factions, which to date have represented very specific ideas drawn from the source material. It just so happens that Super Dinosaur mainly fights against fellow dinosaur soldiers!

Now, truthfully, Dino-Hunters isn’t mechanically amazing for our build. We’re already trained in the best battledress, we probably won’t be operating too many vehicles given our size and mobility, and we will rarely attack larger targets. And I’m willing to accept all of that based purely on the fact that Super Dinosaur is thematically the most perfect candidate for the Dino-Hunters faction this side of Jack Tenrec.

Influences

1st: Beastly (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1)

2nd Heavy Hitter (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Time Displaced (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time)

Of Essence20’s character creation options, Influences are traditionally the least combat focused. However, two out of my three Influence choices here enhance our melee attack. That’s because the Technician has a slow Strength progression. These Influence choices offset that by bumping up the most noticeable aspect of Super Dinosaur’s silhouette, his big beefy arms. So I took Beastly, which lets us ignore the downshift on Unarmed Combat alternate effects. Add to that, once per scene Heavy Hitter deals additional damage on a successful Unarmed Attack, and we have a highly effective melee combatant.

This is a good time to reiterate that the different Essence20 settings have different needs, and Heavy Hitter is an Influence that makes sense in My Little Pony (with fewer weapons and options that improve attacks) but overpowered in more combat-oriented settings. It’s an Influence that’s good for every melee build, which is usually a sign that an option is too good. I’m taking it here because if anyone is a heavy hitter, it’s Super Dinosaur. But the GM part of my brain is raising an eyebrow at the player part of my brain.

Finally, a fun option that only works if your character’s theme revolves around it: Time Displaced. Super Dinosaur may not have traveled through time, but he’s from a era millions of years bygone. The world just isn’t built for his kind, and so the mandatory Hang-Up—suffering ↓2 when being time displaced would negatively impact a Skill Test—applies to a dinosaur trying to interact with the human world. Such as…

…trying to reach something with your tiny T-Rex hands but your giant T-Rex head is in the way.

Essence Scores and Skills

As I’ve alluded to, this is one area where the options we’ve picked and the build we’re going for are at odds. The Technician Role assumes backrow characters, using Smarts-based Skills primarily, and ranged weapons to contribute in combat. Even the Think Tank assumes ranged combat. And while Super Dinosaur can mix it up at range, he’s a switch hitter, highly affective in your face.

Strength

We need to invest enough into Might to last us until 4th level, the first time the Role increases Strength. Four Ranks gets us either +d8 or +d6 with a Specialization. Monstrosity’s natural attack comes with an Upshift, and Beastly lets us ignore downshifts, combining into an ideal time for a Specialization.

Smarts

Our other combat Skill is Technology. We’ll go with four Ranks there as well, but no Specialization. The Technician Role improves Smarts so regularly, we have plenty of opportunities to invest in a Specialization later. Since we plan on switching around the types of ranged weapons we use, we might stick with no Spec for most of the build. We’ll also grab a few Ranks in Alertness, because it’s always useful.

Speed

We’re in a funny position with Speed. We get a lot of it, but it’s not an important part of our build. The obvious Skill to invest in would be Targeting, but we use Technology for Targeting. Instead, we’ll invest two Ranks in Infiltration, to cover Super Dinosaur’s stealth suit, and two Ranks in Initiative, because it’s always useful.

Social

The Technician’s slowest progressing Essence Score, and Super Dinosaur’s least used skillset. Earth Corps doesn’t send Super Dinosaur into diplomatic situations. We’ll go with three Ranks in Streetwise, a flexible Social Skill to represent Super Dinosaur’s fast learning ability, and one Rank into Animal Handling, because he picked up a penguin one time.

Conclusion

I had an inkling that my last few Essential Build subjects (Luis, Inspector Gadget, and The Rocketeer) were too niche, so I set out to choose a more mainstream subject. Then I remembered that G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #301 from Robert Kirkman’s Skybound imprint released this week, and I had earmarked this week’s Essential Builds for my favourite Skybound character.

Every time I revisit Super Dinosaur, I’m shocked it wallows in obscurity. And not for lack of trying! The concept sells itself, the visuals are perfect, the comic and animated series are fun, and the toys and mobile app capture all of the above. Combined with the name value and business savvy of one of the creators, this feels like it should have been the next Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Instead, it came and went and no one seemed to notice except me. As much as I’d love Renegade to grab the license to create official Super Dinosaur Essence20 material, even with the Skybound connection, I doubt it would happen. At least this build shows that the main character is already viable with the options that are available.

Resources

G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1

My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Free Bonus Material

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – The Rocketeer

Ryan Costello — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 13:13:54 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that straps a rocket to popular culture characters and flies them into the Essence20 Roleplaying System.

In the latest Upshift, our Essence20 podcast, while discussing the Rocketeer Focus for the Technician Role in Cobra Codex, I talked myself into statting up The Rocketeer for Essential Builds. With the idea fresh on my mind, let’s get to The Rocke-who?

Who Is The Rocketeer?

Wearing a 1930s leather bomber jacket and an aerodynamic helmet that both protects his face and hides his secret identity, stunt pilot Cliff Secord takes to the skies above the Hollywoodland sign via a jet pack designed by Howard Hughes and sought after by Nazis and gangsters.

That’s basically all you need to know, really. Cool look, jet pack, fights Nazis.

Building Essence20 The Rocketeer

I love jet packs, so naturally The Rocketeer was one of my favourite movies growing up. Or do I love jet packs because The Rocketeer was one of my favourite movies growing up? Well, whether it’s the chicken or the egg wearing the rocket, 1991 live action adventure film The Rocketeer left an impression.

That said, there are a few movies from my youth whose cultural impact I overestimated. The Rocketeer is one of them. As a kid, I assumed it was beloved by all, as good as any Indiana Jones film. Naturally it was a big hit, everyone I knew saw it. Sure, it didn’t have any sequels, but that didn’t reflect the success of a film at the time. And yes, star Billy Campbell didn’t have much of a career after, but what did Mark Hamill do after Star Wars at that time?

Ends up The Rocketeer was a mild success with a cult following at best. There’s been talk of a new movie or series for the last decade, but other than an animated sequel series on Disney Jr about The Rocketeer’s daughter inheriting the title and jet pack (in which Billy Campbell reprised his role!), and some spin-off comics, this 90s franchise flew off into the sunset.

Oh, speaking of comics. Yes, The Rocketeer is based on an early 80s comic. However, I haven’t read it. My exposure to the character is through the movie and the mediocre NES side scroller of the time, so that’s the source material I’ll be drawing from for my build.

Role

Green Ranger (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

I could easily have kept the Technician Role for this build and it would have been fully functional. However, The Rocketeer doesn’t build or repair his equipment. Alan Arkin’s character, Peevy, is The Rocketeer’s engineer and confidant. The Rocketeer is more of a fighter. So a Technician (Rocketeer) Rocketeer build would be more tech savvy than the movie presents him as. Instead, I’m dipping back into The Field Guide to Action & Adventure’s Advanced Crossover Character Creation rules to create a Green Ranger (Rocketeer) Rocketeer.

I went with Green Ranger for a few reasons:

Solo Strike works thematically, since The Rocketeer did all the fighting himself.
Solo Strike works mechanically, too. The Rocketeer can leap to the back ranks and fight leaders and utility enemies while the majority of the party fights on the front lines.
Survival Boon’s Move Like A Song and the Sidestep Perk both add to the feel of defense through maneuverability, and increase the build’s survivability.
I don’t use Ranger Roles that often, so I take any opportunity to apply one to a build when it fits.

That said, this isn’t a perfect fit. Unique Weapon grants a weapon tailored to the character, but The Rocketeer mostly used a Mauser M712, a standard semi-automatic pistol. I think he grabbed it off a Nazi he defeated late in the movie, mostly relying on hand-to-hand combat the majority of the time. Using the Unique Weapon Table 4-4 options, we’ll go triple 1s (a three eyed snake, if you will) and give The Rocketeer a ranged weapon that stores up to 3 Personal Power but loses 1d4 Personal Power on a fumble. Predictably, we’ll flavor any Personal Power usage as jet pack maneuvers.

Focus and Faction

Rocketeer (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

The most obvious option to ever appear in an Essential Build. It’s rare that a pop culture character shares a name with the perfect Essence20 mechanic for that build.

In my defense, as alluded to on the podcast, G.I. JOE has a long history with jet packs. The JUMP debuted in 1983, shortly after The Rocketeer comic debut and long before the movie. It’s still a part of the line today. Oh! In case anyone’s curious, Starduster was the mail away JUMP trooper whose name I was trying to remember in the episode.

Cobra also used a variety of jet packs, and the Iron Grenadiers introduced a dedicated jet pack trooper. Even G.I. Joe commander Hawk has been a jet pack general once or twice (or thrice). And rocketeer is in the dictionary. So there, person I’m having an imaginary argument with!

Obviously, the Focus’ most important Perk is getting a jet pack (I didn’t mention this on the podcast, but the name of the Perk that gets Rocketeers a jet pack is Skybound, a nod to the comic publisher than even then was rumoured to be taking over the G.I. JOE license). The rest of the Perks either open up uses for the Acrobatics and Driving Skills, unlock jet pack based attacks, or improve the jet pack and the Rocketeer’s relationship to it.

While I’m throwing out trivia, the Human Bullet Focus Perk is a reference to Bulletman, a super heroic addition to the original 12” G.I. Joe team toward the end of that line’s run.

As usual, none of the Faction options work thematically, since they’re tied to their setting. As much as I wanted to go with something different, like Tiger Force or Slaughter’s Marauders, I’m once again sticking with G.I. Joe for this build.

Origin

Pilot (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

This build keeps building itself!

So, confession: I’m not a huge fan of the Pilot’s Fly in the Future benefit. It’s built entirely around operating air vehicles, which, while thematic, means Pilot PCs get nothing special out of their Origin for the majority of most adventures. That, and the Perk’s second benefit—halving an air vehicle’s Movement to force attacks to target its Evasion—is redundant with the Evasive Maneuvers power that a majority of air vehicles have.

One air vehicle in the minority? The Cobra Jet Pack. By gaining a Cobra Jet Pack as a personal vehicle, Rocketeer Pilots get more out of their Fly in the Future benefits than anyone else who takes this Origin.

Influences

1st: Adventurer (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

2nd Racer (Transformers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

3rd Thrillseeker (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

It just occurred to me that Adventurer and Thrillseeker fit together like two pieces of a two-piece puzzle. Adventurer grants an Edge on a Smarts or Social Skill Test when you bring up a past adventure that applies. Thrillseeker grants an Edge on a Strength or Speed Skill Test when acting recklessly. Basically, your first hand Thrillseeker experience leads to your reflection upon past lessons as an Adventurer. Even better, Adventurer is the first Influence in the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook, and Thrillseeker is the last. They bookend the section like they bookend a life of thrillseeking adventure!

I chose Adventurer as the Influence without a Hang-Up mostly because I find the Hang-Up burdensome on a group. It gives Snags for being in the same place for too long. As a player, you have minimal control over how long an adventure keeps you in one area. As a GM with a Adventurer PC in your group, you have to decide how much impact this Influence should have on the settings and pace of your adventure. I also chose Adventurer as the Influence without a Hang-Up because The Rocketeer isn’t in any hurry to leave Los Angeles. He works there, he seems ready to settle down with his girlfriend there, and his roots run deep.

Squeezed in between (because I list second and third Influence choices alphabetically) is another obvious choice for Cliff Secord, stunt pilot and plane racer: Racer from Transformers. It grants an Edge whenever a chosen Driving specialization comes into play. You know just what Driving specialization our jet pack enthusiast will choose.

Essence Scores and Skills

It’s Driving (Air)!

I think of d6 as the best jumping on point for Specializations, so we’re putting four ranks into Driving to give us Driving (Air) +d6*. It’s our highest starting rank, and always useful for a character with a vehicle as personal gear. Not to mention that we can attack with it as of 3rd level (I’d rule without specialization for ranged attacks, but with for rocket punches).

Speaking of attacks, even though the Rocketeer Focus lets us use Driving for attacks at 3rd level, that’s two levels away, and it’s only when we’ve moved with our jet pack that turn. This is a combat build, so I’m giving Might and Targeting +d4 each. That will get us by for two levels, and give us something to fall back on when we can’t use our jet pack on a turn.

Jumping to Smarts and Social, Cliff might not be a dummy, but he isn’t shown excelling in any particular area. We’ll start him off with +d6 in Alertness, and see if we need to diversify Smarts Skills when we get our bumps at 4th, 8th, and 12th level.

An area Cliff does excel is Deception. He lies a lot in that film, including using trickery to defeat the villains in the end. Again, we’ll give him +d6. As he levels up, we might even throw in a Specialization. Also, weird fact. I looked up if there was a dog in The Rocketeer to see if he should get any Animal Handling and discovered a dog car harness called The Rocketeer that can’t be comfortable, can it?

With four Skill Points left, we go back to our Strength and Speed needs. As I mentioned, the main gun he uses is an automatic pistol. Per the Advanced Crossover Character Creation rules, taking a Technician Focus also gave us the Technician’s weapon and battledress Training and Qualifications, which means we are trained with the SMG. Even though our Rocketeer gains a Unique Weapon automatically, we’ll be requisitioning an SMG every mission, so we’ll give him the required +d2 Brawn.

We’ll grab a Rank in Initiative, because it’s always handy, and a Rank in Infiltration, something we see him do a few times in the movie, especially when he hasn’t got his jet pack on. I could and maybe should put two Ranks in Infiltration, but instead I’m using the last Rank for Athletics. It’s a good catch-all Skill for physical activity, and a Skill we can invest in when we gain Strength Increases.

General Perks and Other Options

Peevy is to The Rocketeer as Alfred is to Batman, solving as many of his issues as humanly possible between missions, and even helping from time to time on a mission. Trusted Contact from the Field Guide to Action & Adventure captures that relationship perfectly. Unlike Human Companion which abstracts having an ally by his side, or Animal Pet and Robot Pet, which gives a bonus character, Trusted Contact grants a free Contact of your design. I’m not going to build the Peevy contact entirely here, but he would definitely have a Perk for repairing vehicles, another for sagely advice, and maybe one to help with lies.

By 8th level, we’ll be mostly attacking with our Driving Skill, and our Driving will be quite high. That means we can afford All Out Attack, which lets us trade downshifts on attacks for bonus damage. It’s a great General Perk, but can be hard to use to its fullest unless you’re completely dedicated to your attack Skill. We may not always get to attack with Driving, but getting to combine our jet propelled attacks with extra damage at the expense of accuracy matches half the fight scenes in the movie.

Then there’s Peerless Pilot. I almost feel bad taking this, because of the second of the three benefits it grants. I want it so our Rocketeer can automatically pass the Skill Test to emergency disembark, and I appreciate gaining an Edge on Initiative Skill Tests when piloting a vehicle in which we’re specialized. I feel guilty about gaining ↑2 on Driving Skill Tests while piloting a vehicle we are Specialized in. Combined with getting to use Driving to attack, that’s a hefty bonus. If I were playing this build, I might suggest to my GM that this bonus applies to piloting a vehicle we are Specialized in, not when piloting a vehicle we are Specialized in.

Finally, Weapon Training will be handy to get the build’s signature weapon without having to requisition it. It’s not a flashy addition to the build, it’s what you call a quality of life choice.

Honourable mention goes to Sonic Rainboom from the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook, which would have been a fun addition if the Cobra Jet Pack flew just a little bit faster.

Conclusion

This build combines mobility with offense in a way that is both fun to play and true to the source. It also solves what I call The Pilot Problem, where investing in Driving or building around a vehicle driver theme only pays off in certain scenes, and those scenes often include hand-holding rules in case no one invested in Driving. This build excels in vehicle scenes, dominates vehicle scenes in an air vehicle, and always has access to an air vehicle even when the scene or mission doesn’t provide one.

Also, if you’ve never seen it, or haven’t watched it in a while, check out The Rocketeer!

Resources

Essential Builds – Inspector Gadget

Ryan Costello — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 09:25:59 +0000

Doo do do do doo
Essential Builds
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Hoo hoooo

Doo do do do doo
Pop Culture Characters
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For you!

Welcome to Essential Builds. I’m Ryan Costello, one of the designers of the Essence20 system and an author on the G.I. JOE, Transformers, and My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebooks. As of this article, I’ve written over 300 000 words for Essence20, contributing to over a dozen products and counting.

In the last installment of Essential Builds, I mentioned that “I’ve had Inspector Gadget as a potential subject since before I wrote my first Essential Build, but … I already built Batman with the Role I’d most likely give to Gadget”. I gave my Batman build the Analyst Role from the Transformers Roleplaying Game core rulebook. It’s the most detective Role in the game. But as Renegade Game Studios Discord user maplesamurai pointed out, “I always figured he’d be the first choice for a modemaster build. If anything, I’d argue Penny would be the analyst of that party.”

So true! Every Inspector Gadget episode reinforces that Gadget couldn’t inspector his way out of a paper bag. If it wasn’t for his niece Penny solving the cases and her dog Brain keeping Gadget out of trouble, Inspector Gadget would probably have a body count and Mad would get away with every scheme.

Speaking of body counts…

Building Essence20 Inspector Gadget

Inspektor Gadget by *ninjaink

Even though Inspector Gadget slipped to the edge of popular culture relevance in the last twenty years or so, I thought of him around the same time as I was planning an Essence20 blog. However, it wasn’t as a subject for Essential Builds at first. It was actually for a much stranger reason.

“Inspector Gadget should be a DLC fighter in a Mortal Kombat game,” I don’t know why I thought. I do think it’s a funny visual. Imagine Inspector Gadget facing off against Scorpion, who tells him “I am the elder gods’ champion,” and Gadget replies “Wowsers!”

The more I thought about it, the more I realized Inspector Gadget could hold his own in a tournament of death. His Gadget Springs make him Mortal Kombat’s answer to Dhalsim. He could grab an opponent and slap them around with his Gadget Hands, or clobber them with his Gadget Mallet. Naturally his Fatality would involve dicing his opponent up with the blades of his Gadget Copter.

But I digress.

Who Is Inspector Gadget?

If you are unfamiliar with Inspector Gadget, I would love to know what reading up to now felt like.

Inspector Gadget is the titular star of a syndicated animated series that ran for two seasons in the 1980s but stayed on TV well into the 90s. He wears a grey trenchcoat and fedora, and, as his name suggests, he’s loaded to the gills with gadgets. For clarity, I’ll refer to Gadget’s gadgets as cybernetic powers.

Enhanced in every part of his body, Inspector Gadget deploys cybernetic powers from the tip of his finger (doubling as a flashlight, phone, screwdriver, and laser) to the top of his head (which houses a propeller, pneumatic arms, and an umbrella as long as his torso). Don’t think too much about the physics of Inspector Gadget’s powers. Actually, you probably shouldn’t question much about Inspector Gadget. The show didn’t.

Although a live action movie adaptation gives him a G-Rated version of Robocop’s backstory, the cartoon never attempts to explain how Inspector Gadget came to be. He was just a cyborg detective who went by Gadget. Likewise, it never explained any of his relationships. He takes care of his niece, Penny, whose parents are never mentioned, their living arrangement never explained, and who calls him Uncle Gadget, suggesting that is his actual name. Penny and her super intelligent dog Brain are the only other characters on the show who use technology on par with Inspector Gadget’s powers. Again, never explained or even pointed out as an oddity. Penny has a tablet 30 years before they were a thing. Did Penny build it? Did she build Inspector Gadget? Anything is possible!

I’m not suggesting the cartoon should have explored every or any aspect of Inspector Gadget’s backstories. It’s just that I ask a lot of questions about the characters I build to best represent them, and it’s kind of hilarious how little the show justifies this weird premise or its formulaic stories.

Role

Modemaster (Transformers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

I’m so glad maplesamurai suggested Modemaster in their comment, because it’s not a Role I ever saw myself using for this blog. Whereas most Transformers Roles line up with the G.I. JOE’s Roles, themed around how the character contributes to missions and in combat, Modemaster is the Role for Transformers who are really into being Transformers. And since I’m not building Transformers characters, when would this niche ever come up?

Right now!

At 1st level, modemasters gain Mass Shift, which gives temporary Health, Defense bonuses, extended reach, or ↑1 to a Skill, on command. This one Perk covers the majority of Gadget’s simpler powers. The same goes for Hybridization at 2nd level, which lets us customize the Role with a suite of options to pick from every few levels. This includes Helping Hands, which lets us ignore the Limited Articulation hang-up in Alt Mode, and Steady Hand, which lets us roll untrained Skill Tests without a Snag. Quite appropriate for a character literally helped by the cybernetic hands that pop out of his head.

Honestly, we get so many Inspector Gadget appropriate Perks from the Modemaster Role, we could get away with an Origin without an Alt Mode. I’ll get into the non-Transformers Alt Modes I considered in a minute. First, to round out Inspector Gadget’s Role, we need a Focus.

Variant Infantry Focus (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

Using the advanced crossover character creation rules from The Field Guide to Action & Adventure, we can swap out the Modemaster’s setting, giving us additional Focus options. This is a G.I. JOE modemaster! The G.I. Joe Faction is a lot closer to the Metro City Police Department than the Autobots Faction, which is good, because my ideal Inspector Gadget Focus is from a G.I. JOE sourcebook.

The Variant Focus from Cobra Codex for the Infantry Role grants Alterations as Focus Perks. Alternations are either cybernetic or genetic enhancements introduced in the same book. We’re choosing cybernetic Alternations, obviously, including Utility Adjustment, for his Gadget Magnifying Glass, and Skin Tempering, to gain Battledress Upgrades. It also gives him regular Health increases. Considering he handcuffs himself to a bomb and survives the explosion relatively unscathed, you know Inspector Gadget can take a hit.

I was going to say that the G.I. JOE Faction’s Land, Sea, and Air vehicle qualification help drive the Gadgetmobile, but I double checked and the Gadgetmobile only has two modes, both land vehicles. I guess when you can fly, you don’t need a jet, but that still feels like fewer modes than it could have.

Origin

Lookout (Transformers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

I considered a lot of options for Inspector Gadget’s Origin. First, I looked at Android from the Field Guide to Action & Adventure. Despite the name, Android PCs gain either the Robot or Cyborg Trait. But other than getting the Cyborg Trait at 1st level instead of slowly working toward it via Alterations and General Perks, its Perks and benefits don’t do much to capture Inspector Gadget.

Next I considered the Test Subject Origin from Cobra Codex. It’s the only way to gain a Limited Augmentation at 1st level. Sadly, the Augmentation I most wanted, Flight Grafts to represent his Gadget Copter, is Restricted. I was starting to worry that we’d have to wait until 12th level to get Inspector Gadget airborne.

Then I remembered Transformers’ Lookout Origin. Although this is intended to represent smaller or leaner infiltration robots like Bumblebee and Mirage, and robots that turn into spycraft equipment, like Laserbeak, Perceptor, and Reflector, it fits Inspector Gadget perfectly. It’s a rare Common-sized Transformers Origin. The Common size class ranges from 4’ to 8’. Even though Inspector Gadget stands taller than most humans on the show, he’s still in the big human range, not small Cybertronian.

Lookout grants an Aerial Movement option in Alt Mode at 1st level. Flying in Alt Mode but not Bot Mode works, because Inspector Gadget needs to deploy his Gadget Copter to take to the sky. Even though Gadget Copter is more of an add-on than a full transformation, it still works as an Alt Mode. After all, Inspector Gadget usually passes for human, even when employing a lot of his other powers, but there’s no denying that he’s cybernetic when his head turns into a helicopter. Also, Inspector Gadget uses both hands to operate Gadget Copter, making it mechanically consistent with the Limited Articulation Hang-Up (until we get Helping Hands).

But even better, the Look Out! Perk gives +2 Evasion and allows for the use of Evasion even when unaware. Inspector Gadget bumbles through most episodes unknowingly avoiding Mad’s many attempts on his life. I did not expect to find any way to represent that mechanically, so that Perk sold me on Lookout over any non-Transformers alternative.

Giving him a Transformers Origin also means he gets Hardpoints Weapons. Go go Gadget Laser! Actually, Modemaster’s only Trained in Standard weapons, and the Directed Element Rifle is a Limited weapon. We’ll solve that when we get to General Perks.

Influences

1st: Spring Into Action (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

2nd Caretaker (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

3rd Community Helper (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

Did I take Spring Into Action because Inspector Gadget has springs for legs? Yes I did. I also really wanted Gearhead for this build, because of the gears in Inspector Gadget’s head. Unlike Gearhead, however, Spring Into Action extends beyond wordplay about his Gadget Legs. It lets him roll Initiative as if Specialized. As Inspector Gadget likes to tell Chief Quimby when an assignment interrupts his family time, he’s always on duty.

Speaking of family, I picked Caretaker because Inspector Gadget really is a fine uncle. He includes Penny, treats her as an equal, looks out for her social, emotional, and physical well being, and provides for her. Unfortunately, this Influence is a stretch because it grants an Edge on Science (Medicine) Skill Tests, which Inspector Gadget is not known for. However, the Hang-Up, which forces him to take responsibility for those in his charge before any other consideration, is spot on.

Finally, the return of Community Helper, last seen in my Mega Man build. Inspector Gadget gains an Edge on Skill Tests related to law enforcement. Furthermore, the Hang-Up means he must heal innocents and may not, through inaction, allow an innocent to come to harm. Yes, it’s an Asimov way of describing that Hang-Up. I’m still not convinced Inspector Gadget isn’t fully robotic.

Honourable mention goes to Experiment from the Transformers Roleplaying Game core rulebook: Before I settled on Lookout as Inspector Gadget’s Origin, I thought about taking Experiment and using the non-weapon Hardpoint for the Rotor Blades Support Equipment. Not only does it grant an Aerial Movement, it doubles as a Close Combat Blade. That fulfills the Mortal Kombat fighter idea that led to this build, but to my knowledge Inspector Gadget never used his Gadget Copter offensively. That said, the Experiment Influence fits thematically and is another build option to get Inspector Gadget an Aerial Movement at 1st level if you don’t like the Lookout Origin.

Essence Scores and Skills

This part of the build is tricky. Despite appearances, Inspector Gadget isn’t actually good at much. Episodes start with him getting a top secret mission (which Penny always overhears, possibly intentionally on Chief Quimby’s part). He sets about solving it, almost immediately going off in the wrong direction. While off track, he constantly falsely accuses Brain in disguise, and spends the episode chasing his own dog. And he never catches Brain, so can we even say he’s good at chasing?

That said, here are a few Skills we see him succeed at:

Driving: Between the Gadgetmobile and his Gadget Copter, Inspector Gadget tends to operate vehicles without issue. We’ll go with +d6.

Might and Targeting: This one comes with an asterisk. Inspector Gadget is good at taking out goons with his cybernetic powers… by accident. I don’t think any RPG has rules for accidentally attacking Threats you aren’t aware of, so we’ll just give him Might and Targeting to represent his ability to hit targets, and it’s up to the player to describe how he’s looking left but striking right. He uses his mallet more than his laser, and he won’t get his laser for a few levels, so we’ll start with +d6 Might, +d2 Targeting.

Persuasion: Inspector Gadget gets along well with most characters he interacts with. +d4

Animal Handling: As the world’s smartest dog, Brain may not need much from his owners, but Inspector Gadget still has a good relationship with him. +d4.

Athletics: When he’s running after Brain, he may not catch up with him, but he never gets tired. +d2.

Infiltration: Even if he’s not sneaking into the right buildings, he does get into them. +d2.

Technology: By the rules, Inspector Gadget can’t have 0 in an Essence Score, not even Smarts. So we’ll give him +d2 Technology. Yes, his cybernetic powers often malfunction, but not always, and often in his favour. This also means he qualifies for a Directed Energy Rifle, the closest thing he has to a ranged weapon in the show.

We’ll round out the built with +d4 Initiative, the minimum we need to take advantage of the Spring Into Action Influence.

General Perks and Other Options

Getting that Gadget Laser has to be a priority of the build, even though it’s for less than ideal reasons. Inspector Gadget doesn’t use his Gadget Laser that often. He’s more likely to trim his hedges with it than use it against a villain. But Modemaster broadly covers the majority of his other cybernetic powers, not having a ranged weapon hampers this build, and giving Inspector Gadget a pistol or shotgun feels real weird. So, at 4th level, we take Weapon Training from the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook. Sadly, this isn’t a Hardpoint Weapon, meaning it’s a two-handed weapon Inspector Gadget has to draw instead of just popping off his fingertip. Still, it mostly gets us where we want to be.

Weapon Training actually unlocks Training with three Limited Weapons, not one. This opens up some useful options, though off-theme. We can probably flavour an Element Grenade to fit Inspector Gadget’s tone, maybe even the Artillery Lobber. We can also choose to run a more serious interpretation of Inspector Gadget, but I recommend treading that line carefully. Tone is basically what separates Penny’s cyborg uncle from Robocop.

Speaking of Penny, she can be a Perk! We can represent her with Human Companion from the Transformers Roleplaying Game core rulebook. I confess, I don’t like the design of this General Perk. Instead of being based on the Pet or Contact rules (in the defense of the Perk’s designer, Contact rules didn’t exist yet), it gives Skills your character has access to without feeling like a character in the scene. But it does give a companion who is human, and that describes Penny. As far as we know…

Completing the trio, we can take Animal Pet from the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game to represent Brain. He’ll be a Utility Pet with Alertness as his favourite command. Not only is looking after Inspector Gadget Brain’s main function in the show (although I’m tempted to go with Deception instead because of his many disguises), it makes up for the build’s lack of Alertness.

Conclusion

The biggest challenge with this build was figuring out what bumbling detective Inspector Gadget is actually good at. The most fun part of this build was expressing Inspector Gadget’s cybernetic powers. I’m impressed by just how many of them we unlock at level 1. Even if we didn’t pick any Transformers options, G.I. JOE and the Field Guide to Action & Adventure both offer plenty of ways to create a cyborg PC.

Although my main goal with Essential Builds is to capture the character with Essence20 options, I’ve once again created a build I would happily play in an Essence20 game.

Resources

Essential Builds – Luis

Ryan Costello — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 09:00:01 +0000

OK, so, welcome to Essential Builds, right? The blog that totally takes pop culture characters and says “you know what, this would make a mad stupid Essence20 Player Character”.

Today, I’m building Luis. No, I’m not returning the favour and turning Luis Loza into Luis-i-tron 4001. I’m talking about the MCU original character Luis, who I was shocked to realize has only been in two movies. Two! His van was in three!

Building Essence20 Luis

Now, I’m a big fan of the MCU. Despite losing a lot of pop culture currency since 2020, I think of the lead up to Endgame as a triumph of filmmaking, artistic logistics, and commerce. Part of what made the phase 1-3 finale successful was a string of movies leading into it that thread the needle of fitting the MCU mould and standing on their own merits. The heist movie tropes and fun with size shifting played into making the first two Ant-Man movies work, but so did the humour and unique characters. One of the characters that made them stand out was Luis. Michael Peña took a character unlike anyone else in the MCU, one without source material to draw on, and crafted one of the series’ most memorable sidekicks

That said, unusual for Essential Builds, I didn’t start this build with a pop culture character in mind. Today, I started with an option and asked myself what character outside of the Hasbro IP source material could this be used to build. And not just a character that this is a satisfactory fit. I wanted the character who is undeniably the best match for this option.

But first…

Who Is Luis?

When Scott Lang gets released from prison, his former cellmate Luis picks him up and gives him a place to stay. Although Scott’s trying to live clean, he struggles to find a job and has to turn to Luis for work that uses his thieving skills. Unbeknownst to both, they’re being set up by Hank Pym, who is grooming Scott to be his replacement as Ant Man. Even when Scott gets a super suit and a secret identity, he still teams up with Luis, whose logistic mind and unwavering loyalty make him both a dependable sidekick and, eventually, the owner of a security business.

Technically, Luis has no super powers, but he is a super narrator. In both of his Ant-Man movie appearances, Luis steals the show with his unfocused, overly-detailed storytelling montages.

It’s that quality that inspired this build.

Role

Spirit of Honesty (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

I try to mix up the options I use for my builds, with Role being the option I want to avoid repeating the most. Like, I’ve had Inspector Gadget as a potential subject since before I wrote my first Essential Build, but because I already built Batman with the Role I’d most likely give to Gadget, the inspector dropped to the bottom of my list of candidates.

The other day I looked over the Roles I haven’t used yet, specifically trying to find the ones I didn’t even have an idea for. The Spirit of Honesty stood out as the Role I was least likely to use for an Essential Build. I took that as a challenge.

This isn’t my first build with an MLP Role, but I have more room in my word count on this build to share a little insight into how the Spirit of Roles came to be.

I played a fairly important part in setting the dividing lines between what we internally referred to as Essence20’s fashion plates of character creation (Roles, Origins, and Influences). We had ideas for the scope of each option, and comparables from other systems, but there were undefined details for how to apply them to each setting. I put together a document outlining how each of the four settings fit into the three broad categories we were working with (as well as a few additional setting examples to show how Essense20 could expand). So, one of the first ideas established about how My Little Pony would run on Essence20 was that the Roles would each tie into one of the Elements of Harmony.

Thematically, I liked this fit. But then I had to design them. As the name suggests, the Elements of Harmony didn’t lend themselves to adventure, especially combat. They starkly contrast how Roles work in the other settings, which all have a punchy Role, a shooty Role, a leader Role, a smart Role, and a few crossovers of the above.

Finding the mechanical core of a Spirit of Role was easier for some than others. I built Magic like a wizard, and Laughter like a bard with some meta elements. Those were the easy ones. The final four were harder. Generosity and Loyalty have a lot of overlap, and both became Roles that Lend Assistance and provide bonuses, just in different ways. Kindness ended up being one of my favourite MLP Roles, thanks to how the Empathy Skill sets it apart. Conversely, Honesty was the Role I was still tinkering with until pencils down was called. In the end, I think it’s a functional Role, maybe even one of the stronger MLP Roles mechanically, but it ties to its theme the most loosely.

That said, it’s an excellent Role for Luis. At 1st level, the Role lets you designate an Essence Score other than Social to tie into Persuasion for the purposes of Skill Rank investment. So Luis may not be very strong, but he doesn’t need to be when he can talk his way out of things. At 3rd level, he heals Stress through reassuring platitudes, which we definitely see him do in both of his movie appearances. And at 5th level, he gains an Edge on Alertness Skill Tests to see if someone’s lying. Handy, considering the types of people he hangs out with.

The majority of the balance of Honesty’s Role Perks give benefits to Persuasion. As a non-combatant team leader, that suits Luis well. Admittedly, turning into an alicorn at 20th level is an issue, but we haven’t seen where Luis’ canonical journey ends.

Origin

Oddball (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

Honest Oddball. That sums him up. Like, I don’t even feel I have to write any more to justify this decision.

But I will.

What’s funny about the Oddball origin is that thematically it’s for someone who is just different, and yet, mechanically, it rides the baseline. It needs to apply to a wide range of options to cover every deviation from the norm, making it entirely open-ended. That means Luis gets an extra General Perk, and we can increase any Essence Score we want. Since he was arrested for stealing two Smoothie machines before meeting Scott, increasing his Speed and investing in Infiltration feels like a nice way of tying his Origin into his backstory.

Influences

1st: Checkered Past (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

2nd Chatty (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

3rd Wheel Obsession (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook)

I’m struggling more than usual to justify my choices here, not because they’re odd, but because they feel self-explanatory. Yeah, Luis has a Checkered Past. Oh yeah, he’s Chatty. And Wheel Obsession makes sense since Scott often uses him as a wheelman.

Digging deeper, Checkered Past specifically gives an Edge on looking for weaknesses, flaws in security, and hidden items. That works for Luis, who seems to be the brains of his organization. But more specifically, it reflects his character arc. By Ant Man And The Wasp, Luis founded X-Con Security Consultants, specifically employing his ability to see exploitation points and using them to build better security systems. Because he works with authority figures in this capacity, we’re going to skip the Hang-Up that would make that more difficult for him.

Chatty is as perfect an option for Luis as Honest and Oddball. If I could only pick one Influence, this would be it. And it’s not just thematically appropriate. It lets him substitute Smarts Skills with Persuasion, his primary Skill, because some detail reminds him of a story that eventually gets him to the answer he’s looking for. Conversely, the Hang-Up does hurt the build, giving him a Snag on Infiltration Skill Tests that involve stealth. I know I already invested in Infiltration, which is important to a Luis build, and a blanket penalty like this will hurt him. Still, it makes more sense for Luis than the Checkered Past Hang-Up. And don’t forget that playing into Hang-Ups can net you Story/Friendship Points.

Finally, Wheel Obsession. It’s not as essential to the build, but it does make Luis generally good at managing a vehicle. And, again, his van shows up in more movies than he does. The Hang-Up works too, where he suffers a Snag when he’s in a vehicle but isn’t the driver. I’d have to double check, but I think there’s even a scene in Ant-Man And The Wasp where Wasp is driving and it’s making Luis (wait for it…) antsy.

Essence Scores and Skills

Let’s start with Social Skills. Luis needs Persuasion. All the Persuasion. He needs high Persuasion more than Mega Man needed high Targeting. Since we can invest both Social Essence Score increases and Strength Essence Score increases into Persuasion, we can give him +d8 while still giving him a decent Toughness. I’ll also give Luis +d4 Streetwise. As tempting as it is to go all in and give him +d12 Persuasion at level 1, it’s healthy to have a little Skill selection diversity, and Streetwise is both a versatile Skill and reflective of Luis’ backstory.

Next, for Smarts, Luis needs a decent Alertness. It’s kind of an essential Skill for all builds, but it’s especially good for a leader type character. Not only does it give them a go-to Skill when Persuasion isn’t an option, but it means the rest of the group can go a little lighter on their Alertness investment and put their Skill Ranks elsewhere. We’ll say +d6. Of the other Smarts Skills, Culture feels important since he really gets people, and we see him use enough Technology to call it one of the character’s traits. However, I’ve already spent more than half of the 16 Skill Points on Ranks in three Skills, so I’ll go conservative and only give him +d2 in each.

That leaves us with our physical Essence Scores. Luis needs Driving and Infiltration, let’s say +d4 each. After that, a little combat ability would be a bonus. I don’t think we ever see him use a gun, so I’ll save investing in Targeting for a higher level, even if it would be helpful in game terms. He does knock out a guard at one point, so I’ll invest the rest of my Skill Points into Might. And, doing a little math, the rest of my Skill Points is 1. +d2 Might. Not great, but also not what Luis does.

General Perks and Other Options

Speaking of Luis knocking out a guard, what happened next is one of my favourite moments in any MCU media. It’s a simple scene, one that could have easily been cut. For those who don’t remember, while helping Scott and Hank infiltrate Pym Industries, Luis knocks out a guard. Then, when it’s time to evacuate because the building is about to explode, Luis starts to leave, stops, and goes back for the guard he knocked out.

To reflect this, I chose Compassionate from the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook. Thanks to the Oddball Origin, I get my first General Perk at 1st level. If being compassionate makes one an oddball, I don’t want to be normal!

Mechanically, Compassionate works extremely well with our build. It grants an Edge on Persuasion Skill Tests when presenting non-aggression arguments, and it allows for healing through Persuasion Skill Tests. This opens up more purpose for this non-combatant. I will say that, being a My Little Pony General Perk, Compassion got away with lighter limitations for a healing option. In a setting more akin to the MCU, this would need a 1/scene restriction.

At 4th level, I like Photographic Memory from the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game core rulebook. It is always useful, and is another way to represent Luis’ attention to detail.

The last General Perk I have my eye on is Quick Thinker from the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game core rulebook. It grants Free actions based on Smarts instead of Speed. By 13th level, when this build gains the ability to Lend Assistance as a Free action, that will be helpful. It’s an option we can wait until 12th level for.

Conclusion

I like that my first Marvel character is also my least combat focused build to date. If Luis absolutely needs to hurt someone, he has +d2 in a melee Skill and that’s it. Well, that and he can run them over with his car. But with a Persuasion Skill that can elevate quickly, and new uses for Persuasion unlocking as he levels, maybe he won’t need to hurt anyone.

Honestly, this is not the kind of character I normally play. I think I gave him enough options that he’ll be fun at the table, but I’m not really the best judge for that. Eschewing the more traditional leadership Roles in favour of the Spirit of Honesty means Luis doesn’t get to play with action-granting options. However, he can dominate the social scenes. And as someone who has played in groups without a diplomancer, I can say a master of Persuasion in the party is very much appreciated. There’s a reason Scott kept calling on those three wombats when he needed help.

Resources

I tapped the fewest resources for this build. Unless I missed some, I believe Luis can be built entirely using only the G.I. JOE, My Little Pony, and Power Ranger core rulebooks. You don’t even need the Field Guide to Action & Adventure for this one. Luis is about 75% pony.

Essential Builds – Mega Man

Ryan Costello — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 11:40:39 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that rebuilds popular culture icons into combat capable Essence20 Player Characters.

For the first time, a fan suggested the subject of today’s Essential Builds. Brian on the Renegade Game Studios Discord Server said “I’ll suggest Mega Man or Mega Man X, and leave it in the universe”. On behalf of the universe, I pick the classic Mega Man.

Building Essence20 Mega Man

I’m known for being a big fan of the brands I talk about at length, but there are other brands that I love quietly and in smaller doses. Micro obsessions, if you will. And I’m micro obsessed with Mega Man.

I’ve played every classic Mega Man side scroller up to 2010’s Mega Man 10 (not to be mistaken for 1993’s Mega Man X). In fact, Mega Man 2 is my favourite NES game. I loved the original Mega Man games so much that I refused to play Mega Man X. I saw it as a betrayal on Capcom’s part, replacing our timeless hero with an edgier alternative. I was 13 at the time, and I previously established that my teens were the dumbest period of my life.

Beyond a greater loyalty to a Capcom character than to Capcom itself, I was excited by Brian’s suggestion because I immediately put together the build’s principle options. We’ll get to that. But first…

Who Is Mega Man?

In the year 200X (either a date so far in the future that they started measuring time alphanumerically, or it’s some time between 2000-2009), roboticist partners Dr. Light and Dr. Wily build assistants designed for specific tasks. Cut Man chops down trees with giant scissors. Guts Man moves heavy objects with his massive frame. Bomb Man blows up stuff that needs to be blown up.

But wait, oh no! Dr Wily betrays his partner! He reprogramed these robot assistants to use their tools as weapons and help him take over the world. To combat Wily and his robot masters, Dr Light upgraded his one remaining robot assistant, Mega Man, into a combatant.

Mega Man wasn’t specialized like the other robots, but he was versatile. He could install weapons into his system, swapping between them one at a time. Each weapon required its own power source, except his main weapon, the Mega Blaster.

Origin

Android (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

Outside of the novelization of Mega Man 2, where Mega Man mysteriously turns human (yes, I’ve read the novelization of Mega Man 2. See: Mega Man micro obsession, earlier), Mega Man is consistently portrayed as an android. As t happens, the Field Guide to Action & Adventure introdces an Android Origin in the New Crossover Options chapter. It’s main draw is the Programmable Perk, letting Mega Man give himself Upshifts as Free actions. This is one way this build represents Mega Man’s ability to hot swap functions based on the weapons he collects. Granted, there’s no need to Defeat anyone to unlock which Skills our Mega Man can improve, but the rest of the flavour applies.

Unlike the Pretender Origin I used for my Operation: Monster Force Dracula build,which heavily indicates that it should have the robot trait but doesn’t, the Android lets us pick either the cyborg or robot trait. However, one stat the Android doesn’t have is a Size. Chapter 2 suggests it as an option for a Cybertronian themed character that fits in alongside Common sized characters like Power Rangers and Joes, but the Origin itself doesn’t indicate what size to use. Hopefully we address this at some point in errata. For now, let’s assume the Size is up to us.

I’m not building a Captain N: The Game Master version of Mega Man, where he’s only knee high to the average human. I’ll set his size as Common, since he looks eye to eye with his games’ humans.

Role

Gunner (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I said in the introduction that I knew the principle options as soon as Brian suggested a Mega Man build, but that’s only partially true here. I knew what Focus I wanted for Mega Man (Armiger from Cobra Codex), but wasn’t as set on the Role.

Since Armiger is an Infantry Focus, that was the default Role option. It would have worked fine. All of the Perks work for Mega Man, and none of them work against the concept. However, to use the Armiger, I would need to use the G.I. JOE setting. Which is fine, for the most part, except it robs us of the most Mega Man of options: hardpoints.

Ignoring the weird habit Mega Man game box artists had of giving him a pistol, Mega Man’s standby weapon, his Mega Buster, is built into his arm. Integrated weapons are part of the Transformers setting, which we’re not using. However, we don’t lose access to them entirely if we choose a Role that grants an integrated hardpoint as a Perk.

Hello, Gunner. At 1st level, Armament (so perfectly named for our purposes) gives Mega Man an integrated weapon hardpoint. I can integrate any weapon my build is Trained or Qualified to use, but because I only have one, I need to choose a one-handed weapon. That means either the Standard pistol, or the elusive Restricted Submachine Gun. SMG feels like overkill, but I’m not going to settle on the most basic firearm in the game. The SMG’s Reload trait works perfectly here, too, since Mega Man can only fire three times with his basic weapon before needing to stop.

Other perfect Mega Man Perks from the Gunner are Bang Bang and Bang Bang Bang. In later games, Mega Man can charge up his Mega Buster, going from his default small blast to a medium and then large blast. Instead of having to hold down on the attack button, this build charges up over multiple levels. Worth A Shot lets him use a Ballistic weapon as a Standard Kit, which is pretty consistent with Mega Man solving every problem by shooting it. Finally, and this is very meta, a lot of Gunner Perks make shooting through cover easier. Because of side scrolling game logic, Mega Man’s shots travel through the terrain, hitting targets Mega Man can’t see, let alone shoot.

Focus

Armiger (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

Using the Field Guide to Action & Adventure’s rules for swapping settings, we can choose a G.I. JOE Focus option instead of defaulting to the Gunner’s Transformers setting Focus options. Armiger specializes in swapping between multiple weapons, called Adept Armaments. Not only does Mega Man get better with these weapons as he levels up, he gets more of them. Need to shoot a breakable wall with Crash Bomber but then switch back to the unlimited ammo Mega Buster? Quick Draw basically lets you pause the game, scroll through your weapon options, and return to the action with a new weapon (and new outfit, cause why not?) like no time passed.

Having confessed to being a little obsessed with Mega Man in my youth, I need you to trust me when I say that I did not deliberately create a Mega Man Focus for the G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game. Consciously.

Influences

1st: War Veteran (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

2nd Augmented (Power Rangers Roleplaying Across The Stars)

3rd Community Helper (Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Once again I had trouble deciding which Influence to take without a Hang-Up. I like Community Helper for both its advantage and drawback. Before Mega Man was a fighter, he was a helper. Granted, he doesn’t do a lot of non-combat tasks in the games, but even the most combat-focused Essence20 campaign isn’t the string of fight scenes and death traps of a Mega Man level.

I liked Augmented for its theme and Perk. I didn’t love the Hang-Up, but it was mandatory. Augmented not only grants additional Health, but it thematically ties into Dr Light turning his assistant into a combatant. The Mandatory Hang-Up is harsh (halving Defenses against a certain Damage type), made harsher by choosing Sharp. Why would I choose to be weak against the most common damage type in the game? Because I’ve hit enough instant kill spikes to know Mega Man’s weakness. OK, if I actually played this in a game, I’d probably rethink being vulnerable to Sharp damage. Lava also kills Mega Man outright. And, come to think of it, the whole game is based on finding the rock attack to the robot master’s scissor defenses (really missed an opportunity to make Cut Man vulnerable to Guts Man’s weapon, Capcom), so his Hang-Up is perfect for a Mega Man build.

After taking the two Influences I wanted or had to take with a Hang-Up, I needed a third Influence for my first Influence. I’m not explicitly making Mega Man from a specific game, but since I’m incorporating elements from more than just the original, Mega Man technically counts as a War Veteran. He’s downright venerable by Mega Man 10. And an Edge to Alertness again reflects the fact that Mega Man’s player knows about parts of the screen that Mega Man can’t see. This wasn’t an aspect of playing Mega Man I set out to emulate, but I’m not against it.

Essence Scores and Skills

Starting with the obvious, Mega Man needs Targeting. Luckily, the Gunner and the Armiger help to increase Targeting at character creation. I honestly feel justified in raising his Targeting as high as +d12 at 1st level, but Mega Man is no one trick pony. Also, since the Android’s Programmable Perk doesn’t allow me to give myself Upshifts beyond +d12, I can instead stop at +d6 with a Specialization, confident that I can increase that when I need to. I also want to give Mega Man OK Acrobatics, let’s say +d4, to represent his slide ability. Add in at least one Rank in Initiative, and I’m good for Speed.

I don’t think that Mega Man has a melee attack in any game outside of Smash Bros. Any enemy that touches Mega Man in his classic games just hurts or kills him. Regardless, like when Nintendo adapted Mega Man to Smash Bros, I’m giving him melee Skill for game-needs purposes, +d6 Might. I’ll also give him a Rank in Brawn to meet the requirements for his SMG Mega Blaster and as a throwback to Captain N when he was the team’s muscle. I’d love to go higher, but I’m running out of Skill Points.

For Smarts, the only Skill I’m going to invest in is Alertness. It’s already tied to a few Perks, and I don’t really know what else to give him. Mega Man’s a combat character and lore about his time as Dr Light’s assistant is underdeveloped.

That leaves Social Skills. +d4 Animal Handling. Why? I’ll get to that in the next section.

General Perks and Other Options

Any combat oriented Perk works for this build, mechanically, but a couple really drive home Mega Man’s expanding Swiss army arsenal as he levels up.

The best way to represent Mega Man getting extra robot powers is Extra Grid Power. It unlocks Grid Powers like Power Blast and Power Strike from the Power Rangers Core Rulebook, and Blazing Strikes from Power Rangers Across The Stars, all of which feel like weapons Mega Man could have gained from defeating robot masters. However, I hesitate to take Extra Grid Power because the name suggests this can only be taken by characters with Grid Powers. The General Perk does not include any prerequisites, but since it’s from the Power Rangers core rulebook, it was a given that characters would have other Grid Powers that this would add to. If my GM allowed me to take a Grid Power, I’d also grab Personal Power Supply from the Field Guide to Action & Adventure to add to the number of times I could use whichever power I went with. It’s basically the weapon’s power bar.

I wouldn’t take those General Perks back to back. In between, I would take Robotic Animal Pet, also from the Field Guide to Action & Adventure. To help Mega Man on his mission to stop Dr Wily, Dr Light created Rush, a robot dog companion. Rush could turn into a jet glider for Mega Man to ride, a spring to launch Mega Man extra high, or a submarine for seafaring. Robotic Animal Pets can take both Animal Perks and Drone Upgrades, and the new Altered Pet Animal Perk in G.I. JOE Cobra Codex lets them gain Alterations. Going into all of the ways we could build Rush would take an Essential Builds of its own, but the ultimate goal would be to get the Vehicular Drone Upgrade and the Flight Grafts and Finback Alterations. These are all Restricted, though, so a perfect Rush would cost us a lot of resources.

Finally, although I’ve been asked not to use rules from books that aren’t out to the general public yet, a Mega Man build is not complete without Bot-Hunter from the upcoming A Jump Through Time (PDF now available to those who pre-ordered through Renegade). It gives a bonus to Skill Tests and Defenses against robotic Threats, but requires you to have previously defeated a robotic enemy of a Threat Level greater than your Role Level at the time. And I thought Armiger was on the nose for a Mega Man build.

Conclusion

My Mega Man may draw from a lot of resources (no MLP this time, though), but it feels like a straightforward build. You’ll need someone smart and someone social to join you on your adventures, though, because this Mega Man is all about combat. His Alertness makes him an excellent scout, though, and while Mega Man doesn’t spend a lot of time interacting with animals, Animal Handling can come in handy and humanizes this killing machine. Just not in the way the Mega Man 2 novelization humanized him. I swear, the unnamed author probably wrote the story thinking Mega Man was human and then added a scene explaining it instead of fixing the error in what was already written.

Resources

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – Monster Force Dracula

Ryan Costello — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 09:00:25 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that turns pop culture icons into Essence20 Player Characters that want to suck your blood.

All of September is Halloween eve, so we’ll mark the kickoff of spooky times with literature’s most famous vampire.

Building Essence20 Dracula

Now, I said from the beginning that Essential Builds would only feature characters I would never need to build for an official Essence20 release. That’s only mostly true of today’s subject.

Dracula exists in G.I. JOE. Sort of. The book is referenced in the original animated series, as is Vlad Tepes, aka Vald The Impaler, the actual count said to have inspired Bram Stoker. Not only does Vald The Impaler exist, he’s an ingredient in the genetic recipe that made Serpentor.

Dracula also exists in Transformers. Sort of. Hasbro released a Transformers/Universal Monsters Collaboration called Draculus, a Decepticon vampire who turns into a bat. They also just announced the upcoming Frankentron (with Hasbro boldly suggesting the creature is Frankenstein, a debate as hot as FIRRIB vs FIBRIR), not to be mistake for Autobot X, who is a Frankenstein creation of parts, but not a creation of Frankenstein or a creation named Frankenstein.

Dracula even exists in Power Rangers. Sort of. At least he appeared in one of the Super Sentai series that Power Rangers was based on. Not being even a novice Power Rangers fan and my only experience in this regard being that wiki page, I don’t believe he ever appeared in the Western show.

Regardless, even if any or all of those Draculas appear in official Essence20 products, they will at most share some options with the following Dracula build. That’s because I’m adapting Dracula from BigBadWorkshop and Fresh Monkey Fiction’s Operation: Monster Force.

Who Is Operation: Monster Force Dracula?

In Operation: Monster Force, an ancient Egyptian sorcerer called The Forgotten King returned to life to reinitiate a reign “so brutal, so sacrilegious, that his name was forever stricken from history.” For all his magical powers, the most concerning is his ability to turn living creatures into loyal zombies. Every soldier sent against him becomes one more member of his Apophis Legion. Every living soldier, that is.

For whatever reason, The Forgotten King’s powers do not work against those with vampire blood in their veins. Agent Declan Van Helsing, 13th generation vampire hunter, suggested injecting a task force with vampire blood, and unlocking the tomb containing Dracula to lead them. He reasoned that “It takes a monster to fight a monster.”

Dracula is committed to the fight against The Forgotten King, probably because a world without humanity is a world unfit for vampires. But he openly threatens Van Helsing, reminding him that they are not allies, and recommending against sleeping before sunrise.

What’s fun about this Dracula is that it is the traditional 19th century vampire, but in the modern day. His aristocratic tutelage doesn’t carry the same capital as in his time. He’s like if Captain America was a vampire (unlike the real Captain America, who was a werewolf).

Origin

Pretender (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

Originally when I decided to adapt an Operation: Monster Force character, I thought about building Declan Van Helsing. But that’s super boring, right? A line about a supernatural fighting force and I make the token human? So I asked myself which of the monstrous characters was Essence20 equipped to handle?

That’s when it occurred to me: Dracula has an Alt Mode. Arguably, he has three. Dracula can change into animal form, usually a bat but sometimes also a wolf. He also has peaceful mode and attack mode. Even when the difference isn’t as stark as it is on Buffy, most depictions of Dracula in media show physical differences between when he’s acting all aristocratic and when his fangs come out.

The Pretender Origin from the Field Guide to Action & Adventure works extremely well here. I should point out that the Origin’s concept is somewhat removed from the Transformers Pretenders line. Where those Pretenders are organic-passing shells that hide Cybertronians within (and some of the worst offenders of mass shifting), Essence20 Pretenders replicate the concept of a robotic being trying to pass for an organic one. The Origin started with that concept and took the Pretender name because it fit thematically, although in retrospect it causes confusion that leads to paragraphs like this one explaining the difference.

In either case, the Pretender Origin gives us a good way to handle Dracula between when he’s pretending to be human and when he reveals his monstrous side. For a more grounded Dracula build, I would go with Bot Mode being his mild-mannered mode, and his Alt Mode would be when he vamps up. However, in Operation: Monster Force, Dracula isn’t trying to pass as human. If he was, he wouldn’t dress like a 19th century gothic count in a modern day military unit. So we’ll use the Alt Mode’s Size and Movement options to turn from Common sized with a 30ft Ground Movement to Small sized with a 20ft Aerial Movement. Instant bat.

There’s one obvious issue with using the Pretender Origin. Dracula is not a robot. Now, technically because we made Robot a Faction feature instead of an Origin feature, the Pretender rules don’t give him the Robot trait. It’s somewhere between exploiting a loophole and reskinning, but RAW, this is legal. We’ll just say he has a Count Mode and a Bat Mode instead of an Alt Mode and Bot Mode.

Role

Field Commander (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

I’ve all but said that the Field Commander is my favourite Essence20 Role (except for maybe the Technician). But I’m not just using one of my favourite Roles for this build. In Operation: Monster Force, Dracula is the Delta Red field commander.

However, as a leader, Dracula is more Megatron than Optimus Prime. Fortunately, Renegade previewed a couple of pages from the Field Commander section of the upcoming Decepticon Directive, including Replacement Perks to do away with do-gooder abilities like Irrefutable Order and Let Cool Heads Prevail. Now we have a capable tactician with a dark side, leading Monster Force while manipulating enemies.

Faction and Focus

Cobra (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Coba Codex)

Spy (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

In addition to new Origins and other options, the Field Guide to Action & Adventure has rules for adapting Roles from one setting into another. Now, I was tempted to make Dracula a Decepticon and treat Energon and the powers it grants as blood (Transformers even regain Energon from defeated foes, it’s perfect!) but I worried that pushed the limits of my No Reskinning Stuff rule too far. Plus, this is Dracula, not Draculus.

Instead, I’m adapting the Field Commander to G.I. Joe and giving him the Cobra faction to represent Monster Force. I might have given him the Mega Monsters faction instead, but Ferocious Fighters: Factions in Action Vol. 1 isn’t out yet.

One of the features of the Cobra faction is Division, which lets me further customize my build. Divisions are the different departments within Cobra. I debated the Martial Arts Division based on the Dracula figure’s sword accessory, but Field Commanders are already Trained with melee weapons. Instead, I’ll go with the Experiment Division. This gives me another suite of options, including gaining a Standard Alteration at the start of every mission. One such Alteration is Advanced Photoreceptors, which gives better vision in darkness at the cost of some usefulness in light. In other words, vampire eyes, and one of the few rules that represents a vampire’s sensitivity to light.

Changing settings also opens up new Focus options. Again, if I stayed in the Transformers setting, I’d have used the new Mastermind Focus seen in the Decepticon Directive preview. Instead, I chose the similarly manipulative Spy Focus from the Commando Role. It shores up Dracula’s reliability with Social Skills, and reflects Dracula’s supernatural powers of persuasion. Because I’ll Take That builds on the Takedown Commando Role Perk, Dracula gets the base version, which will serve him well as a primary form of attack once that unlocks. I especially like the idea of Dracula initiating the Takedown in bat mode before converting to his more combat capable form.

Funny enough, the last time I changed a Role’s setting, I also took a Commando Focus. Like Dracula, it was for a bat/man build.

Influences

1st: Conniving (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

2nd Checkered Past (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

3rd Nobility (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

Listing out Influences like this reinforces how they tell a story about your character more than any other option. A conniving noble with a checkered past? That sums up everything about Dracula after “creature of the night”.

Conniving is fun even if part of its benefits are situational. If an ally offers to Lend Assistance, they can instead attempt the Skill Test while you lend them assistance, with them suffering any consequences for failing. What I love about this Perk is the clout it gives the player of the Conniving character at the table. “You know what, you do it” they say both in character and out.

Checkered Past and Nobility make their second Essential Builds appearance, both being Influences I chose for Richard. Going back to my point about storytelling through Influence choices, Dracula is a conniving noble with a checkered past, whereas Richard is a violent noble with a checkered past. Even sharing two thirds of those adjectives, the polar contrast of those remaining adjectives distinguish the two characters completely.

Admitedly, I could have chosen other Influences to avoid repetition, I think these both work very well here, mechanically and thematically. Checkered Past gives a benefit for thinking outside the box, but has Dracula butting heads with authority. In what limited Operation: Monster Force media there is (one issue of a tie-in comic), it’s repeatedly reinforced that Dracula is on the team because the agency saw no other option.

As for Nobility, it practically assigns two hang-ups. Its benefit to Social Skill Tests only applies to “those who recognize your nobility or royal authority.” Every time a player tries to use that part of the Perk is an opportunity for the GM to remind them that no one recognizes the royal authority of a Transilvanian Count. Luckily, Nobility has other privileges. The ability to automatically pass the occasional Wealth Test is nice. More importantly, it grants a butler. I don’t know if Operation: Monster Hunter has a Renfield, but ours certainly does.

Essence Scores and Skills

The Field Commander is generous with its Social Essence Score Increases, but the only Role Perk of the Decepticon version tied to a Social Skill is 18th level’s Stand Together, which requires Persuasion. Do As I Say ties into Intimidation. The Field Commander’s Strength doesn’t progress that quickly, and I see Dracula as a Might-based fighter, so I will grab the Mentor General Perk (representing Dracula’s sire) at 4th level to make Intimidation a Social Skill. (EDIT: Renegade Discord user Juggernaut pointed out that the Spy Focus already lets me treat Intimidation as a Social Skill! I’ll change the General Perks section to reflect this.)

I’ll use some of the 12 floating Essence score increases at 1st level to gain +d6 Might and +d6 Intimidation, then a combination of the rest and the Field Commander, Spy, and Pretender Skill Points to get Persuasion and Deception to that same rank as well, if not +d8.

I’ll invest whatever Skill Points I have left for Infiltration, Initiative, Alertness, and Culture. That feels like a decent combination of Dracula themed Skills and a fairly well-rounded leader character. If the campaign imports the Spellcasting Skill from My Little Pony (more on that in a second), it makes sense that Dracula and Van Helsing would be the only ones in Delta Red with Ranks in it. Everyone else in the task force injected vampire blood on faith that at least one of these two supernatural experts have their best interests at heart.

General Perks and Other Options

One of the advantages of adapting a character based on a classic literary figure is that there’s a lot I can safely assume even if there’s minimal media for this particular version of the character. One of the disadvantages is the baggage that comes with the character that isn’t addressed in the minimal media for this particular version of the character. For example, in the above illustration, Dracula has hellacool glowing hands. Does that mean he’s a spellcaster? To what extent?

Regardless, since Dracula’s magical powers seem minor (they didn’t even warrant a cool spellcasting effect accessory, unlike The Forgotten King), I’ll wait until 8th level to take Magical, and I’ll take Fast at 4th level. A 30ft walking, 20ft flying Dracula could use a boost. We’ll just say it took him a few levels to shake off the cobwebs of a thousand year sleep. The rest of my General Perks can be used on Alterations from Cobra Codex to add more vampiric powers.

If I were playing this character, hopefully by the time a second issue of Operation: Monster Force came out we’d have seen more of this Dracula’s fighting style to better inform General Perk choices.

Conclusion

I know I say this a lot, but I’d play this build. I especially like that it’s loaded with villain-coded options from Cobra Codex and Decepticon Directive, and yet Dracula is one of the heroes in Operation: Monster Force.

The main thing missing from this build is something to represent feeding off the life forces of others. But that’s a bigger issue for other Dracula builds. I’m not sure how Operation: Monster Force deals with it, but I don’t believe Dracula can drink the blood of The Forgotten King’s undead army, and I assume Van Helsing isn’t letting Dracula and Delta Red go around murdering people. They’re probably consuming blood rations. That would make it a moot point in an Operation: Monster Force campaign.

If I absolutely needed a Life Force subsystem, Energon Points can be converted easily.

Resources

Essential Builds – Sailor Mercury

Ryan Costello — Fri, 25 Aug 2023 09:00:02 +0000

Manipulating water is her power,

Misting foes, and rain showers.

With a micro-miniature super computer,

She is the one named Sailor Mercury.

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that turns popular culture icons into Essence20 Player Characters through a sparkling transformation sequence.

I should say up front, I’m not the biggest fan of Sailor Moon. That’s because when it came out I was young and stupid. Which isn’t to say I didn’t watch it. In fact, I watched as much as I could. In the mid-90s, I’d get home from school before my brothers, just in time to watch the first 20 minutes of an episode of Sailor Moon. Then, when my two younger brothers got home, I changed the channel, right around the transformation sequences. I did not want anyone to know that I was totally into this show.

Around the introduction of Rini, that station stopped airing new episodes. And, again, feeling self-conscious about my love for the series, I made no effort to track the rest of it down. Which is especially a shame because one of the big draws for me was the serialized storytelling. I was left with dangling threads!

As is standard for an ensemble cast, fans become especially loyal to their favourite character. My favourite Sailor Scout (and yes, I’ll be using the Western dub interpretation and vocabulary) was Sailor Mercury.

Building Essence20 Sailor Mercury

When I plotted out the first volley of characters I wanted to build for this blog, I noticed Power Rangers Roles didn’t get a lot of love. Their Role Perks apply to a lot of characters, but the Setting Perks—It’s Morphin Time and Zords—don’t have a lot of flexibility.

I needed a show with Super Sentai tropes that wasn’t associated with Power Rangers or any of the shows it imported. Sailor Moon fit that description. Though very different tonally, both Power Rangers and Sailor Moon feature teenagers (with attitude, by certain definitions of the word) gaining super powers from an otherworldly force to fight monsters. Now, the Power Rangers fight their biggest foes with mecha, something not present in Sailor Moon. After conferring with noted Sailor Moon fan Cathy, I thought I had a fun solution for that. We’ll get there.

But first…

Who Is Sailor Mercury?

She’s the Sailor Scout with a visor.

If you want me to like your character, giving them a visor gets me 90% on board by default. But she packs a lot into that last 10%.

By day(light), Sailor Mercury is Amy, Crossroads Middle School honor student. Not just book smart, she’s the brains of the team, leading computer research sessions between adventures and using her micro-miniature super computer to analyze threats and look up information on the fly.

Her connection to Mercury gives her water and ice powers. She uses gusts of conjured water to push foes around, chilling winds to capture them, and mist and bubbles to obscure her movements.

Physically, Sailor Mercury is the smallest Sailor Scout. She has blue hair, with the Sailor Suit to match. How appropriate…

Role

Blue Spectrum (Power Rangers Core Rulebook)

In both Power Rangers and Sailor Moon, the blue one is the smart one. Maybe I’m just used to Ninja Turtles and G.I. Joe, where purple is the smartest colour, but I see this as a happy coincidence. Evidently, I’m not the first person to make this connection.

At 1st level, she gains two Perks from her Role: “It’s Morphin Time”, which turns Amy into Sailor Mercury; and Eureka!, which gives her a pool of Idea Points that she can spend to gain an Edge on Smarts-based Skill Tests. Great start fulfilling her concept as the brains of the team.

At 2nd level, Helping Hands lets her heal allies as a Free action. Not specifically a power we’ve seen Sailor Mercury use, but healers tend to be absent from most media even though they’re dominant in roleplaying games. Between her helpful nature and the health benefits of water, giving Sailor Mercury a healing power makes sense in game terms.

Also at 2nd level is her first of many Grid Tech Perks. This is the most Sailor Mercury Perk her Role gives, with a lot of options that give us flexibility in how we interpret her. Aptitude Augmenter lets her reroll 1s and 2s when using a chosen Skill. Applying this to either Science or Technology cements her as the Sailor Scout who can find the answers when faced with something weird. Of the three other Grid Tech options available at this level, Gridspeak Receivers, which lets her and her team understand and read any language used by creatures on the Morphin Grid, matches what we’ve seen her do the most. I avoid reskinning as much as possible on this blog, but given that the Grid is exclusively tied to Power Rangers, we’d need to change this to a Sailor Moon enemy power source, like the Dead Moon Kingdom.

Two of the three remaining non-Grid Tech, non-Zord, and non-Grid Power Perks from the Role expand on the idea that Sailor Mercury supports her teammates. Power Infusion lets allies reroll 1s, and Power Burst grants teammates extra Power Points. Both useful, both on-theme.

Zord

That brings us to our Zord. Cathy had a few suggestions here. She said that the weapons from SuperS all had some level of sentience. I didn’t think that hit the mechanical mark of what the Zords Perks give to a character. Plus, Cathy second guessed whether that applied to all Sailor Scouts or just Sailor Moon. Next she brought up that the live action adaptation had magical tambourines that turned into weapons. Both of these suggestions fit the Power Weapon (which I’ll get back to) motif more than Zords. As it was, I was only half paying attention to her by that point, because her first suggestion was instantly my favourite.

“The western toy line came out with some sort of moon cycle, but that was based on absolutely nothing in canon”

Indeed it did!

That was perfect.

Well, near perfect. It was clearly a Sailor Moon motorcycle, but it’s not hard to imagine that if the Moon gifted Serena with a Moon Cycle, Amy must have a Mercury Cycle to zip around with. And I know some Power Rangers teams have vehicle Zords instead of beast Zords. I just needed to use one of those.

And that’s when I found out that the two cycles in the rules so far, the Strata Cycle and Vector Cycle from Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time, were non-Zord vehicles.

Sadly, that means I have to leave this section of the character sheet blank. As the only Core Rulebook I had no part in writing, the Power Rangers rules are my biggest weakness as an Essence20 designer, and it would take me too much time to find a suitable alternative for this admittedly already weak connection to the source material. So, for the sake of this build, Sailor Mercury rides a giant robot triceratops into battle.

Grid Powers

This was another area I thought would be easier than it turned out to be. Surely there were Grid Powers that let Rangers unleash a torrent of bubbles! Then I realized, those kinds of power were the domain of Power Ranger villains. The heroes used martial arts and weapons, not much in the way of elements.

That said, I did find one Grid Power that gave a Cold attack. Cryogenic Touch from Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time. Unfortunately, it only applies to melee attacks. For the rest of her water-based offense, I can give her Power Weapon the Power Weapon Element Damage Assignment Weapon Upgrade. Just ignore that Sailor Mercury charges into battle with a Blade Blaster.

The other Grid Powers on my radar are Future Vision, another Power from Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time, and Mnemonic Recall from the Power Rangers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook. One gives her insight into the future, the other the past.

Origin

Brainy (Power Rangers Core Rulebook)

After struggling more than anticipated to make a Power Rangers Role fit the theme, you might wonder why I’m going back to the Power Rangers well here. It’s because Power Rangers has the perfect Sailor Mercury Origin.

Power Ranger Origins work really well for characters with secret identities, because they highlight who the character is all day, everyday. They’re all about the personality that shines through even when they assume their alter ego. Amy is brainy. Everything about the Brainy Origin applies, especially the Origin Benefit, “I Remember Reading About…” which gives her temporary Specialization in a Smarts Skill. I wouldn’t be surprised if she actually starts a line like that in the Anime.

Influences

1st: Bookworm (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Precise (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Student (Power Rangers Core Rulebook)

I thought about only choosing Power Rangers options for this build, but there are too many good Influences in My Little Pony to ignore.

What’s funny is that I found myself drawn to the Influences for the Hang-Ups more than the Perks this time. For example, while Student’s Perk works for Sailor Mercury, that area of her character is already covered pretty well with the Brainy Origin and the Future Vision and Mnemonic Recall Grid Powers. What none of those options capture is Amy’s mousy nature and tendency to internalize her self-doubt. However, suffering a Snag when performing a task related to her area of study not related to the actual subject at hand does. Similarly, Precise has a Hang-Up that gives her a Snag when she suffers damage, which shows that Sailor Mercury is the least combat capable of the Sailor Scouts. And, bonus, Precise’s Detail Oriented Perk ties in nicely with her Cryogenic Touch Grid Power.

Essence Scores and Skills

A lot of this build’s options apply to Smarts Skills, without any of them applying to a specific Smarts Skill. That means we can spend our Smarts Skill Points broadly. We’ll raise Science and Technology as high as we can afford, followed by Culture, and then a couple of Ranks in Alertness. When the group needs Amy to know stuff, she’ll be able to reliably beat most Culture, Science, and Technology Skill Test DIFs. We can go easy on Alertness since it’s the Smarts Skill the rest of the group probably has Ranks in, and we’ll skip Survival entirely. It’s just not a Skill Sailor Mercury used in source material.

Next we look at Speed. Since Cryogenic Touch affects Finesse, we’ll make that Sailor Mercury’s melee Skill. And she needs Targeting to aim her bubble blasts. I think this is a build that can survive not having any Ranks in Initiative, although one could be useful.

Here’s where the build gets odd. Sailor Mercury’s characterization as meek and mild makes both Strength and Social Skill investment a low priority. Do I go with the most generic options, Athleticism and Persuasion? Or maybe Deception because every time she says she’s fine, it’s a lie? She doesn’t get many Essence Score Increases in either, but the fewer Skills we spread those Ranks across, the more it seems like she’s focused in those areas. Like, how could I justify giving Sailor Mercury +d10 in Brawn? Or the highest Health in the group?

So, I imported the Spellcasting Skill from My Little Pony. Spells like Barreling Beam and Don’t Notice Me Field line up with ways she’s used her water powers, while Bestow Expertise and Take Record line up with what she can do with her micro-miniature super computer. She’ll need to wait until she gets a General Perk at 4th level to cast the spells, but that’s OK. She can use Spellcasting as a knowledge Skill while she waits for the Magical General Perk to unlock her spellcasting abilities. She has some water-based powers from her weapon and Role in the meantime. And hey, slowly unlocking more powers is definitely a Sailor Moon trope.

General Perks and Other Options

Sailor Mercury gets so many other options that realize her powers and personality, General Perks just aren’t a big part of this build. I already mentioned needing Magical, and we’ll take that at 4th level. Compassionate from My Little Pony adds versatility to what she can do in social scenes, and the spellcaster General Perks continue to elevate her prowess with magic. Then there’s Team Player from G.I. Joe and Transformers, which generates Story Points for using Lend Assistance. The nice thing is, there’s enough flexibility in theme and mechanical direction that it’s easy to justify most General Perks.

Conclusion

I thought building a Sailor Moon character on a Power Rangers chassis would be easy. I didn’t anticipate so many tropes of the one that do not fit the other. Luckily, I was able to create a fully functional and source accurate Sailor Mercury build, just with some extra features. Extra giant sentient war machine features. I guess instead of creating a Sailor Moon accurate Sailor Mercury, I created a Sailor Scoutin Power Rangers mashup.

Resources

Power Rangers Roleplaying Game: A Jump Through Time

Essential Builds – Richard The Warlock

Ryan Costello — Fri, 11 Aug 2023 09:00:11 +0000

Welcome to Essential Builds, the blog that adapts pop culture icons into Essence20 Player Characters.

But that’s not all! Since August 8th, 2022, I’ve been writing the classic fantasy online comic Looking For Group. And with LFG unfortunately coming to an end in a few weeks, the window of opportunity to cross promote my writing projects is closing. So, I bring you: Richard!

Who Is Richard?

LFG’s breakout character for the past 17 years, Richard, Chief Warlock of the Brothers of Darkness, Lord of the Thirteen Hells, Master of the Bones, Emperor of the Black, Lord of the Undead, Lord of the Dance, and Mayor of a little village up the coast.

Richard is basically what would happen if Deadpool became Sorcerer Supreme.

Wait… That sounds awesome. Someone get me Marvel Comics, I have a killer idea for a mini-series, and my comic-writing schedule just opened up…

Like Deadpool, Richard’s all about the lols, and he doesn’t care if he has to break all four walls to get them. And like Dr Strange, Richard mastered the mystic arts, casting spells that destroy lives and property, and occasionally help. Unlike Deadpool and Dr Strange, but more unlike Strange, Richard is undead. Since Essence20 hasn’t picked up the Operation: Monster Force license yet (but how amazing would that be?), finding an Origin that fits will be this build’s biggest hurdle.

Building Essence20 Richard

Below are some suggestions for creating Richard as a level 1 Essence20 Player Character.

Origin

Enigma (Power Rangers Across The Stars)

Like Batman last time, I’m dipping into Power Rangers for my build’s Origin. I suspect this will be a recurring theme. There are two advantages to Power Rangers Origins when it comes to adapting pop culture characters to Essence20.

First of all, the themes are broader. Because Power Rangers are canonically picked for their attitude, the Power Rangers RPG Origin options tend to be about who the person is more than what they are, unlike MLP, where Origin represents creature type, or Transformers, where Origin represents chassis. Really, unless a build specifically calls for being a mythical creature or a shape changing robot, I don’t expect a lot of Essential Builds to use MLP or TF Origins (a real shame in this case, since Stan “The Touch” Bush himself performed the LFG theme song). Some Power Rangers Origins reflect the character’s experience, similar to G.I. JOE, although the G.I. JOE Core Rulebook Origins specifically relate to military or applicable training. Cobra Codex goes a little broader, but all Power Rangers Origins are that broad.

Second of all, mechanically, a lot more Power Rangers Origins grant a General Perk at 1st level. Some character concepts depend on General Perks to fulfill their purpose, especially when we’re trying to cram as much of an established character as we can into a 1st level build. Richard is one such example.

Richard needs spellcasting at launch. Right now, there are only two ways to gain the Magical Perk at 1st level: Be a Unicorn (Richard is not, despite being the mayor of Pretty, Pretty Unicorn) or take an Origin that grants a General Perk at 1st level.

Not only does Enigma grant a General Perk, its mysterious theme works as a substitute for Richard’s undead ancestry. Coincidentally, we find out that later that what made Richard undead also made him a warlock (there was a ritual sacrifice, family betrayal, a body swap, a magical doll, it was a whole ordeal), so gaining the Magical General Perk from his Origin fits his story.

I considered taking the Young Dragon Origin from the My Little Pony bonus material. It doesn’t give spellcasting at level 1, but it does give a scalable fire power that doesn’t cost Spellcasting downshifts, as well as fire resistance, and cheaper than normal access to the Magical General Perk at 4th level. Here’s the problem: Richard’s definitely not a dragon. The laws of reskinning forbid me from taking this, despite it working mechanically! Oh, and Richard’s not Small. Normally…

Role

Spirit of Laughter (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

If I wasn’t going to take a My Little Pony Origin, I was definitely taking a My Little Pony Role!

Now, if Essence20 had a fantasy RPG setting, Richard would absolutely be a warlock, or, failing that, a sorcerer, witch, or wizard. Some kind of arcane caster. And lo, My Little Pony has a Spirit of Magic. Yet I went with the Spirit of Laughter. Why?

Well, although Richard is a warlock and he uses a lot of magical attacks, his true versatility is his ability to make anything a joke. The Spirit of Laughter is based largely on its most iconic example, Pinkie Pie, the Deadpool of MLP. It’s even been suggested that her antics are magical in nature.

The Role gains a pool of Cheer Points, and a selection of Laugh Tactics. These let Richard do things like use Performance in place of Persuasion, Deception, or Infiltration Skill Tests involving disguises, deal damage with a Perform check, and even use Intimidation in place of Performance. That last one, called So Funny, It’s Scary, is key. It costs no Cheer and turns the Role’s theme into Dark Comedy. He’s a spooky Spirit of Laughter.

Other Role Perks include gaining Cheer Points when you make your GM laugh, drawing items from Hammer Space, and distracting targets with your antics, costing them actions on their turns. If you’ve ever wondered why Richard’s victims wait after the setup no matter how obvious it is that the punchline is their death, it’s because he used Laughtracting.

One challenge of using MLP Roles is that the setting isn’t included in the Field Guide to Action & Adventure, and it doesn’t follow the format of the other settings’ Roles to easily reverse engineer adapting the Role to other settings. Luckily, in this case, the Perks that tie into the setting still work for Richard. Friendship Circle specifically ties into different moments from the comic in which Richard shared his power with Cale. The only Perk that doesn’t work is Princess of Laughter, in which Richard turns into an Alicorn. But, hey, there’s still two weeks left of LFG. You never know!

Influences

Nobility (Field Guide to Action & Adventure)

Checkered Past (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Violent (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Cobra Codex)

I wonder how many other Spirit of Laughter characters take the Violent Influence?

Going down the line, these Influences are as thematic as they are mechanically useful. In addition to the long list of titles Richard’s given himself (see Building Essence20 Richard), Richard was a noble human before becoming undead. Mechanically, it works best to designate the citizens of Pretty, Pretty Unicorn those who recognize his nobility. As the name suggests, it’s full of the animated remains of the citizens who lived and died under Richard’s noble family. The servant granted by the Influence could be Maikos, who watched after Pretty, Pretty Unicorn in Richard’s absence, or any of the minions Richard keeps in his purse. From the Purse Dragon and Scooter the Kraken to Cha-Cha and Murder Dog.

Checkered Past covers Richard’s transition from noble human to undead warlock. Gaining an Edge on Smarts Skill Tests to look for weaknesses because he’s an outside the box thinker gives Richard something to do during scenes that don’t involve killing (ew), and the Snag on Social Skill Tests when dealing with authorities is something a Richard player should be roleplaying anyway.

Finally, Violent. Not only does it give Richard greater lethality with his unarmed attacks (which is a nice way of translating his clawed fingers, even though they’ll do Blunt damage per the mechanics), but the Hang-Up also applies. Richard suffers ↓1 on Skill Tests when taking actions in combat that don’t deal damage. It’s perfect!

Essence Scores and Skills

Strength 5

Intimidation +d6, Might +d4

Speed 3

Initiative +d2, Targeting +d4

Smarts 3

Alertness +d4, Culture +d2

Social 5

Animal Handling +d4

Other

Spellcasting +d6

Determining Richard’s Essence scores takes two more steps than usual. First, we need to rank his Essence Score progression. Unlike in Power Rangers, G.I. JOE, and Transformers, My Little Pony Roles don’t set your Essence Score progression. Instead, you decide the speed at which they advance. In Richard’s case, I prioritized Social, but not for the reasons you might think. Because I plan on taking So Funny, It’s Scary at 2nd level, Richard doesn’t need the traditional Social Skills, not even Performance, which would normally be key to Spirits of Laughter. I want him to have a high Cleverness. So, other than a few ranks in Animal Handling to coax innocent creatures into his open arms, I’ll mainly be using Social increases to improve his Spellcasting. Which brings us to the second additional step.

Per the My Little Pony Spellcasting Rules, the Spellcasting Skill isn’t tied to an Essence Score. Characters can invest a rank into Spellcasting whenever they increase any Essence Score. Richard needs Strength and Speed for combat Skills, so he can use some Smarts and most Social increases to improve his Spellcasting. That is, until he gets the Fearsome General Perk.

General Perks and Other Options

Fearsome from the My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook treats Intimidation as both a Strength and Social Skill, and gives ↑1 on Intimidation Skill Tests. That means whenever Richard increases Social or Strength, his two fastest Essence Score progressions, he can increase Intimidation or Spellcasting, his two main Skills. After that, he can choose General Perks that improve his Spellcasting, like Extra-Effective Spell and Experienced Spellcaster.

Speaking of Spells, Richard will focus on mastering Beam Spells, the damage dealing Spell School. Richard’s a blaster warlock, and a bunch of Beam Spells gives him a lot of blasting options. Because he has Spellcasting d6 at 1st level, he can choose Elementary and Superior Spells. Hello Energy Beam and Explosive Beam.

Conclusion

So, anyone running an all-in Essence20 game? Because I really want to try out this build. Honestly, in addition to a little cross promotion, I chose to build Richard to see if I could build Richard. I had no idea how easy it would be. This is a straightforward, effective build that looks like a tonne of fun to play.

Also, even though I obviously needed to do this to gain access to spellcasting, I love how many options I drew from My Little Pony. For Pony!

Resources

Essential Builds – I’m (Building) Batman

Ryan Costello — Fri, 28 Jul 2023 09:00:34 +0000

Welcome to the inaugural Essential Builds, the blog that turns PCCs (pop culture characters) into EPCs (Essence20 Player Characters).

In fact, all of that writing is one of the reasons this blog took so long to launch.

A Delayed Debut

You may recall I announced a lot of Essence20 content would be coming to The Know Direction Network when I started working on the G.I. Joe RPG. You may have also noticed that the only Essence20 content on the network so far has been Upshift. Here’s what happened.

I’ve been writing a lot more for Renegade than I expected. Like, a lot more. Almost constant back-to-back and sometimes overlapping contracts since they brought me on for the G.I. JOE CRB. What’s more, not only do Essence20 assignments take up the majority of my writing time, but Sgt Slaughter made me change my original concept for this blog.

To elaborate, neither Sgt Slaughter, the real person/WWE persona, nor Sgt Slaughter the G.I. Joe character wrestled me to the ground and demanded I pick a different blog topic (maggot!). You see, my original plan was to offer three different suggestions for building canonical G.I. Joe characters (in the case of characters with a lot going on, like Snake Eyes) or concepts (in the case of a specialty shared by multiple characters, like Medic). Then, in outlining the Sgt Slaughter Limited Edition Accessory Pack, I realized that concept could be content for Essence20 sourcebooks. That meant, 1. I could get paid for it, which is nice, and 2. I could get in trouble with Renegade for giving it away, which is not nice.

Once showing players how to build Joes as PCs became content that could appear in official products, it became off limits for a blog. I couldn’t even stick to deep cuts. We have the Dinosaur Hunters in an upcoming product! No corner of G.I. Joe is too obscure for an Essence20 sourcebook.

The New Concept

Instead of using the roleplaying system that runs the G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Power Rangers, and Transformers Roleplaying Games to make G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Power Rangers, and Transformers characters, I’ll show how Essence20 can be used to create characters from other settings. I will not write any original options for my builds, and as often as possible, I will avoid reskinning mechanics to fit the subject. These will be options from Essence20 products, as presented in their source material. I want to show off the versatility of the system, especially when you start drawing from more sourcebooks.

What subject shall we start with? Is there a better place to start than seeing if Essence20 passes The Batman Test?

Who Is Batman?

Orphaned in Crime Alley in his youth, billionaire Bruce Wayne dedicated his life to avenging his parents’ death, honing his investigative instincts and martial arts skills to become the world’s greatest detective. Although this superhero doesn’t have any superpowers, his wealth provides him the freedom to workout his body and mind to the peak of human possibility, and affords him an arsenal of weapons (other than guns) and vehicles with which to investigate crimes and fight criminals.

Published by DC for close to 100 years (give or take a decade), Batman’s seen more adaptations than any other superhero. But how well does Essence20 adapt The Dark Knight detective?

Building Essence20 Batman

Now you can live out your wildest fantasies, like having Batman fight Snake Eyes!

Oh, huh. Already happened in a Fortnite comic. Neat!

Below are some suggestions for creating Batman as a level 1 Essence20 Player Character.

Role

Analyst (Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

The Analyst role from the Transformers Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook fits Batman’s intelligence-based approach to adventures. It doesn’t have an analogue in any of the other Essence20 Core Rulebooks, where the sneaky Roles and the smart Roles don’t overlap.

The 1st level Role Perks Analyze Target and Informed Accuracy improve your fighting efficiency based on your Alertness, which means Batman’s detective skills contribute in and out of combat. The other 1st level Perk, Unsurprising, covers how he anticipates every possibility.

At later levels, most of the Role’s Perks relate to using information, none more so than Determine Probability at 5th level. Similar to the Pathfinder 2e investigator’s Devise a Stratagem class feature, Determine Probability allows an Analyst to theoretically play out a course of action before committing to it. It’s basically the Zach Galifianakis Math meme, without the thousand yard stare.

Focus

Infiltrator (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

The Analyst offers two Focus options: Manipulator and Spec Ops. Although an argument could be made for either, we don’t have to settle for just these two. Thanks to the Crossover Character Creation rules in The Field Guide to Action & Adventure, we can choose Focus options from other settings instead. We’ll be using those rules to change Batman’s faction (since Batman is not, in fact, a shape-changing robot) and setting. While we have that chapter open, we’ll use it to grab the Infiltrator Focus from the G.I. Joe Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook.

The Infiltrator takes something its parent Role (The Commando) is already good at and doubles down on it. Because a lot of its Focus Perks are based on Commando Role Perks, our Batman build actually gets the Role Perks instead. He gains Friend of Darkness instead of Night Eyes at 3rd level, and Takedown instead of Takedown Expert at 6th level.

Circling back to changing the Analyst’s Faction and setting, this is one area in which I have to break my rule against reskinning. Most Essence20 options are tied thematically to their setting, but broad enough to apply to other settings. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t apply to the setting rules. So although Batman is not a member of G.I. Joe and does not exist in that world, that is the closest Essence20 has to a Batman Family Faction and DCU setting.

Origin

Tragic (Power Rangers Core Rulebook)

There are currently 52 Essence20 Origins in print. Knowing that Tragic was one of them, I didn’t even need to look up the rest. Batman wouldn’t be Batman if he hadn’t led his parents down the alley that got them killed in his youth.

On top of a perfect theme, the Tragic Origin’s mechanics suit Batman as snugly as a pointy-eared cowl. The reroll granted by the Origin’s benefit reflects Batman always having a contingency plan. Beyond that, it grants a respectable 2 Health and we can put the Essence score boost into any Essence.

Influences

Spoiled (Cobra Codex)

Specialist (G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Vigilant (My Little Pony Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook)

Our Batman build covers most of his powers and backstory already, so our Influences can round out anything missing. First of all, his money.

Over the years, Bruce Wayne went from a millionaire to a billionaire in the fiction, adjusting his wealth for inflation to always have more money than he could ever need. Since being so rich rarely hurts Batman, we’re taking it as the Influence without a Hang-Up.

I had a lot of options for the next two Influences (including stopping at one). I could replicate the theme of his Origin and take the Tragedy Influence. But, really, hasn’t young Bruce been through enough? I also could emphasize his combat training by taking the Martial Artist Influence. However, I don’t like how the Hang-Up (being easier to goad) fits with Batman, and the Perk is redundant with the Analyst Role.

So, I took one of the broader Influences, Specialist, and applied it to Alertness (Investigation). The benefit definitely applies, and I’ve seen Batman tied up upside down enough to believe the automatic failure Hang-Up applies as well. Finally, I am giddy to say I took an option from My Little Pony for a Batman build. Vigilant lets Batman roll Alertness when he rolls Initiative, giving him one last chance to avoid being Surprised. The Hang-Up is that he’s Surprised for two rounds if he fails. And frankly, if anyone gets the jump on Batman, he needs extra time to process how that happened. Luckily, his Unsurprising Role Perk means a Surprised Batman is still more effective than a Surprised most other people.

Essence Scores and Skills

Strength 5

Athletics +d2, Intimidation +d4, Might +d4

Speed 5

Infiltration +d4, Initiative +d2, Targeting +d4

Smarts 4

Alertness (Investigation) +d4*, Science +d2

Social 2

Streetwise +d4

I like to start a build with one specialization. It gives me both a mechanical direction to emphasize and a thematic choice that defines the character. For Batman, I went with the comic version that has him use his brains more than his brawn. Most of the Justice League can outpunch Batman, but few can out think him. That said, on the streets of Gotham, he still does a fair amount of punching.

Batman will be fighting with his fists and Batarangs equally, so I gave him equal ranks in Might and Targeting. The more rounds spent using Analyze Target, the more efficiently Batman attacks that target. It allows the build to spread its Skill wings a bit broader. That said, I’d have liked to bump those up to d6s, but a Batman build requires investment in a lot of Skills. As it is, the lack of ranks in Driving means he can’t parallel park his Batmobile, let alone get the Batcopter airborne.

What’s important to keep in mind is that this is level 1 Batman. He didn’t start his adventures with a car. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, putting that cardio to work. Earmark that 4th level Speed boost from his Role for a rank in Driving.

Final note on Batman’s Essence scores, I’m amused that I gave him Intimidation and Streetwise. That means he uses a Strength-based Skill in social situations, and a Social-based Skill in Smarts situations. Truly, Batman is someone who does things his own way.

General Perks and Other Options

Batman doesn’t get a General Perk until 4th level. By then, this build would have moved toward a specialized purpose. That purpose dictates the General Perk he should take.

If Batman becomes the brains of the operation, like his role in the Justice League, Inspired from the Power Rangers and My Little Pony Core Rulebooks means Batman can come through in a clutch and overcome any obstacle. Photographic Memory from the G.I. JOE and Transformers Core Rulebooks lets Batman skip Skill Tests and recall important information.

If he is the street level fighting machine often seen in his solo movies, Evasive Fighting from the G.I. JOE and Transformers Core Rulebooks reflects Batman taking his time to defend himself while he lines up the perfect shot. Whereas Iron Hands from the Power Rangers Core Rulebook (not sure how this one didn’t make the Transformers CRB) increases the damage Batman does with his martial arts.

Finally, if he’s become the team leader, like his position in the Bat Family, Team Player from the G.I. JOE and Transformers Core Rulebooks lets him help his allies on a micro (Lending Assistance) and macro (gaining a Story Point for it) level. Because Batman works best on multiple levels.

Conclusion

The biggest challenge creating Batman was accounting for his reputation of being able to handle any situation with sufficient time to prepare. The Analyst Role does the heavy lifting on fulfilling that fantasy. The other big challenge is making one Batman build to meet all expectations. Especially at level 1, that’s basically impossible. However, this gives a good idea of the options that cover a broad interpretation of who Batman is. Like a Gotham City gargoyle, it’s a good jumping off point for your own Batman build.

Resources