From: Jim Ogle (Ks. Jim) <jogle@aoc.nrao.edu>
Subject: REVIEW: Character Collection (long!)
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
X-Gated-From: torg mailing list
Organization: University of North Texas
X-Gatemail-Version: 1.0b
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:13:31 GMT

"The Character Collection" is a 128-page supplement containing
writeups of 60 characters and rules for creating experienced
characters.  It sells for $18 and should be available anywhere as it
came out almost a month ago.

Quick, spoilerless review: if you want some colorful NPCs for your
game, or maybe some experienced characters to run through a module
your players won't take their regular characters through, its a pretty
good source.  There are some interesting villain NPCs but you can
probably live without them.  The experienced character creation rules
are minimal (2 pages) and pretty simple; either read them over in the
store or beg for someone here on the list to post a summary if that is
all you want out of the book.

Some of the material I cover below may be considered spoilers so
players are warned to proceed further at their own risk.

WARNING: its a really, really long post!



The setup for this supplement is that the Storm Guild, led by the
mysterious Guildmaster, has compiled this dossier on notable Storm
Knights (and others) that the Guild should contact regarding
membership.  Supposedly, the Guildmaster herself has persused this
collection of characters and chosen five that will be sent on a
mission to be detailed in the upcoming module called "Revenge", which
involves a trip to Illmound Keep in an attempt to destroy the Gaunt
Man's maelstrom bridge.  (This information is not in the Character
Collection but has come from other sources.)

That sets up what I see as the biggest problem in the Character
Collection; the five that have been chosen for this mission are the
winners of the character contest that led to this supplement.  They
are not, however, the best five characters to send on this mission.
I'm not saying that the winners don't deserve that honor - they are
all interesting characters with well developed backgrounds and such,
but I could find much better characters for this mission than some of
the choices.

For example, the first winner we come across in the book is Vito
Tattaglia, an Ayslish giant mafioso Godfather.  Granted, he's a good
character; the accomplishments and background information are great
and I plan on using him should my game ever venture back into Aysle,
but is he that great of a choice for the mission?  He's hardly got any
experience (he doesn't even qualify for the lowest level of
Experienced in the experience rules of this supplement) and its not
part of his idiom anyway; a Godfather doesn't go on missions, that is
what he has a mob for!

The second prizewinner, Kevin Middleton, is another character I don't
argue against being a prizewinner; he's got a nice background and
his being handicapped (wheelchair bound) came as the result of an
adventure, not a character concept - the player is to be commended for
continuing to play a character many players may abandon as "no longer
useful".  However, I question sending him to Orrorsh on this mission;
the wheelchair will be a hinderance during the physical parts of the
adventure (travel, combat) and Kevin's non-physical skills are minimal 
at best.

The third winner, Andre' Duchard, is a good choice for a winner and
for the mission.  He's highly skilled, his skills are spread across
the board, and he would be a good choice for about any kind of
mission. 

The fourth winner, Ti-Dara Jarnel, is another 'iffy' choice.  The only
thing about the character that is interesting is her use of the Kra
religion introduced in "The Possibility Chalice" module.  (Which, by
the way, is what my character, Tom Stark, actually has Faith in, not
Buddhism as this supplement says.)  

Finally, Captain Verdigris, the edeinos Rocket Ranger.  He's not real
experienced but at the very least he should be able to hold off the
Horrors long enough for everyone else to run away.  What I want to
know is how he was able to build a Rocket Ranger powersuit by himself
with a Weird Science skill of 14 (and why RR armor doesn't have an
adventure cost - do you know how many boosters that gizmo has to have
in it?!?)

Ok, so much for the winning characters.  Some general comments before
I start dissecting everyone else...

Each character gets two pages of information; one page is a listing of
the character's more notable accomplishments during the wars, an
evaluation from a Storm Guild recruiter, some artwork of the
character, and a character sheet containing the usual game information
(though in some cases not all the required information).

The accomplishments section for the characters runs into a minor
problem; you sometimes end up with characters who have apparently
never met working on the same mission.  For example, nine of the
characters in this book (including my entry) took part in the Destiny
Map/Possibility Chalice/Forever City trilogy of adventures, but I
don't remember any of them except for Tom being there in my game....
In most cases you can ignore these references if you don't want to try
and shoehorn them into your campaign history somewhere ("Hi, remember
me?  We met while climbing Mt. Maken-La!"), but with a couple of
characters (Ti-Dara for example) these events were major influences on
the character so allocations will have to be made somewhere if you
plan on using those characters and don't like loose ends.

As I indicated above, the character writeups themselves are incomplete
in some cases.  Most are probably due to the entries that were sent in
being incomplete (for example, Hieronymus, an Aysle native, has no
magical skills at all, not even birth magic) or due to space reasons
(none of the magic users have spell lists or even arcane knowledges
listed) but in the case of the villain NPCs (all from WEG, not
players) there's no excuse for being incomplete.  The most glaring
examples are the complete lack of Corruption values for the evil
Orrorshan NPCs.

Some of the characters are obviously part of a group; the most notable
examples are the characters who appeared together in the "Mysterious
Cairo" book; Kayla, EM Girl, Marcel Berge, and Daremo (plus some
characters who didn't make it into this supplement).  It would have
been nice if there's been some way of indicating (other than wading
through the accomplishments and background material) Storm Knights who
have worked together in the past (something as simple as a line on the
character sheet called "Has Worked With: ".)  Something else that
seems strange is that the characters who are parts of a team have
different "Last Known Locations".  I can accept that groups break up
or split up, but why is Colonel Cairo is the Nile while his sidekick
Ensign Egypt is in Tokyo?

Finally, a word on the WEG-created characters; they break the curve of
the experience system.  Almost all of them qualify as being above the
Adept level in a Glorious campaign setting!  While I don't mind this
so much for the villians (villains usually have to deal with groups of
heroes so they need to be more experienced) it is a bit extreme for
the good guys and looks more like a GM saying "I'll give him what he
needs in skills" instead of a player saying "This is what I've built
him up to" (unless the WEG in-house games are really overpowered or
something.)  

I should explain what I mean by "WEG-created characters": I am
speaking of the characters that are credited to Greg Farshtey; there
are other names familiar from the WEG stable (Ed Stark for example)
but Greg has a lot of characters credited to him (mostly villains but
some heroes).  One or two of them I could accept as characters that
were actually PCs but most of them strike me as GM characters who were
designed without regard to experience necessary.  For example, D/I
Cohl (the first character in the book) comes out to around 120
character points in the experience system; 90 is the maximum number of
points listed for Adepts (characters who have been adventuring since
before the Possibility Wars started).  One of the villains (Cynthia
Cornwallis) comes out near 180 character points!

Quick comment on the experience system: looks like it works pretty
good in comparison to most of the characters in this supplement.  Most
of them (WEG 'ringers' not counted) fall into the Experienced or
Veteran levels, clustered around 40-50 character points (though there
is an unusual number clustered around 80, the middle of the Adept
range.)  I ran most of my PCs through the system for a comparison and
most of them also fall around the 40 point range (except for the new
ones, obviously).  And in case you are curious, Dr. Mobius comes out
around 590 character points (not counting equipment, magic, or
Darkness Devices) and the Gaunt Man is pushing 1500....

Onto the nitty-gritty part; the characters themselves.  I'll try to
keep it short; name, approximate experience level (Beginner - less
than 20 character points, Experienced, Veteran, Adept, Stud - more
than 100 character points), and a few comments.

Aysle
-----
D/I Cohl : Stud (~120)
	WEG 'ringer'.  D/I stands for Detective-Inspector.  He's a
magical detective, but no spells or arcane knowledges are given.

Fauchal : Experienced
	Fanatically opposed to the Cyberpapacy.

Hieronymus: Veteran
	Court jester kind of guy, perceptive but not too bright or
able to comprehend things.  Perfect pain-in-the-ass NPC to have tag
along with a party.

Montgomery Hall: Beginner 
	I knew there'd be at least one 'gamer transformed to his
favorite reality' character.

Kayla: Experienced - Veteran
	Ringmail armor has never looked so good!  8-)  Would appear to
be a good spellcaster (based on art and skills) but no AKs or spells
given.  

Jonas Keating: Veteran
	Storytelling bard.  Good to see a character that focuses on an
aspect of the war that most people seem to forget or ignore.

Patty McDermott: Studette (~100)
	Not a WEG 'ringer', just someone with a heck of a lot of skill
adds.  Basically a female Robin Hood.

Sean MacWirth: Experienced - Veteran
	Rather stereotypical corsair, but that's okay.

Vito Tattaglia: Beginner
	Contest winner, see above for comments.

Tatters: Adept
	An Ayslish mage interested in technology; ever seen a nerd
magician?  Good character though.

Core Earth
----------
Major Sean N. Astral: Veteran
	An astronaut.

EM Girl: Adept
	It would have been nice if somewhere they had mentioned that
her pulp powers are a contradiction.

Fred the Galactic Guardsman: Experienced - Veteran
	They let Fred keep his silly name but force my character to
adopt a last name?  There's no justice in the world.  8-)  

Robert Martinez: Beginner 
	A Spartan.  

Kevin Middleton: Experienced
	Contest winner; see above for comments.

Stella Nova: Experienced
	This girl's primary method of dealing with the invaders is the
invoked reality storm.  Don't stand too close.

Skippy the edeinos: Experienced - Veteran
	Known from numerous Infiniverse Herald messages, Skippy
finally appears in all his glory.  Is it coincidence that Skippy and
his best pal Fred the GG are the characters of two WEG staffers?
Maybe we can get Skippy and Elvis the edeinos to team up....

Tom Stark: Veteran
	This one is my contribution.  Its actually one of the original
PCs from my campaign so the player (Dennis Reda) should get the
credit, but when he thought he was moving away he told me to do
whatever I wanted with his old character so I sent him in.  The
character sheet is basically what I sent in, though the quote is
different.  The accomplishments have been changed slightly and the
Mexican government one is wholly the creation of WEG.

Jake Stillwell: Veteran - Adept
	Grunt with a gun.  Nice touches in the background material
though. 

Ed Webber: Experienced
	Realm Runner (original version) in the Living Land.

Cyberpapacy
-----------
Marcel Berge: Experienced
	The only thing that makes Marcel an Experienced character
instead of a Beginner is that he's got 45 Possibilities!

Padre Diego Calderon: Adept
	Not a nice fellow, but certainly a good example of a fanatical
Cyberpapal character.

D'Artagnan: Experienced
	I was expecting this too; 'fictional character come to life'.
Are the Three Musketeers public domain?  Of course, he's really just a
looney cyberpunk who thinks he's D'Artagnan.

Chantal Delacroix: Experienced
	Reporter.

Dr. Marie Duchant: Beginner - Experienced (~20)
	Surgeon-cybertech.  Greedy too.  Quick (a PC from my game)
would love her.  8-)  (That's a joke - Quick was against materialism
which is what this woman lives for.)

Andre' Duchard: Veteran - Adept
	Contest winner; see comments above.

Yves Homard: Adept
	Don't mess with this cop.

Ti-Dara Jarnel: Experienced
	Contest winner; see comments above.

Anne-marie LePage: Veteran
	A cyberdecker with no Cyberdeck skill?

Lucien Mavareau: Experienced
	A French Spartan; has no qualms about 'sanctioning' a fellow
Storm Knight if it gets the job done.

Land Below
----------
Delra-Kel: Stud (~100)
	Another WEG 'ringer'.  He's an Ohibi warrior who's also
experienced with the Akashan realm (judging from his background info.)

Space Gods
----------
Barthak: Adept
	Another WEG character, an insane Draygakk (Frenzy +12 adds!).

Stekter: Adept - Stud (~95)
	Lorbaat playing both sides of the Possibility Wars, to his own
best advantage of course.

Nile Empire
-----------
Cafferty: Experienced
	If he's so hot with a whip, why doesn't he have any Melee
Weapons skill to use the damn thing?

Colonel Cairo: Experienced - Veteran
	He's big, he's direct, he's so clean he squeaks!  Another Ed
Stark (WEG) creation.

Ensign Egypt: Adept
	Colonel Cairo's latest sidekick; he's also Evil!  You'd think
his unshaven appearance would tip off the Colonel....  Oh yeah, he's
also a Keefee Haroo (brought to us by the creator of Skippy the
edeinos BTW).

H. Mack McGraw: Experienced
	Love some of the names out of his background material!

Shael: Experienced
	Amazon.

Brett Starr/Jason Savage: Beginner
	Jason is a shallow Core Earth actor; Brett is a dramatic Nile
hero.  Aren't split personalities wonderful?

Biff Tyler: Adept
	Give him a rocket pack and you've got the Rocketeer.  Until
then, he'll just have to fly his plane.

Professor Unseen: Experienced
	At first I thought the good prof. was a transformed Core
Earther; the t-shirt and long hair were a dead giveaway.  But he's a
Mystery Man from Terra.  Sorry, just doesn't work for me.  The
character himself if fine, but the artwork seems wrong to me.

Captain Verdigris: Experienced
	Contest winner; see comments above.  (Another strange holiday
coincidence: I kept coming across the name Verdigris during my
vacation; Verdigris River, the town of Verdigirs....)

Dr. Zap: Experienced
	I think Dr. Zap would be perfect to send to Illmound Keep;
after all, he managed to find Mobius' Omegatron pretty easily. 8-)

Nippon Tech
-----------
Margaret Allen: Studette (~115)
	Another WEG 'ringer'.  Corporate exec leading a double life
(don't blow her cover.)

Daremo: Eperienced
	Ninja.  Won't believe in magic.  (With a Magic axiom of 2,
would you?)

Madema Kiriko: Adept
	Female ronin from Marketplace, has sworn vengenance on 3327
for the death of her father.

Kenjii Nado: Adept - Stud (~100)
	Where can I get a business suit that is really Kyoto Police
RKD armor (Tech 24, Tou+7)?  Sheesh.

Jade Osotogari: Experienced
	Charismatic corporate CEO from Marketplace.

Tuttle: Stud 
	Yet another WEG 'ringer'.  Tuttle is a corrupt Ayslish dwarf
transformed to Nippon Tech reality.  Certainly is a mean little runt
too.  

Hirata Yukio: Experienced
	Teenage hacker and skateboarder.

Orrorsh
-------
Lucian Bain: Stud (or two Veteran - Adept characters)
	Lucian is a werewolf; his two forms seperately rate as Vet -
Adept level characters each so combined he becomes a stud character.
This is I think the only character that also lists what Group Powers
from Eternity Shards he has bought into.

Sherringford Bascombe: Stud (~150)
	Evil WEG character.  Cross Sherlock Holmes with a Horror.
However, no Corruption value is given, nor any Horror information
(Perseverance value, power rating, etc).

Victor Cavanas: Adept
	Pretty typical gypsy, but a good one.

Cynthia Cornwallis: Studette (~180)
	Leader of the ravagon cult in Orrorsh (obviously an evil WEG
character).  The perfect character to mess with Victorian mens minds.

Major Colin McDowell: Stud (~120)
	Another WEG 'ringer'.  Stalwart, upright Victorian soldier.

Dr. Arthur Perry: Stud (~140)
	Evil WEG character.  Don't visit any hospitals in New London.

Slash: Experienced
	A Victorian transformed into a cat by the occult.  Was
featured in the story "Strange Affair of the Spirit Cats" in one of
the Nile anthologies.

Rev. Joshua Sym: Stud (~160)
	Another WEG 'ringer'.  Lacking True Sight though....

Hans Van de Keller: Experienced - Veteran
	Mercenary monster hunter.

Lesley White: Adept
	Another WEG character, but actually not outside the experience
system rules.  A 'sister of mercy' from Gaea.

[I get the impression that there weren't many entries from Orrorsh,
hence the numerous WEG characters.]

Ugh - finished!  Finally.  Sorry it turned out so long.


Kansas Jim (jogle@aoc.nrao.edu)
Newsgroups: alt.games.torg