Prohibition Index Character Generation

Process

• Select archetype.
• Select history.
• Assign attributes.
• Assign and upgrade talents.
• Optional: Select traits.
• Complete any additional effects mandated by talents.

Archetype

A character's archetype is a loosely defined combination of traits that represent what forces present in the era motivate them. The Archetypes are divided by ideology and social strata more than occupation, which is what the history section represents more clearly.

Hedonist

The era after the Great War is one of the richest known to mankind. Across the cities of Great Powers and their colonial holdings, the streets beat to the tunes of excess, luxury and the sound of jazz music. Hedonists have no universal standards, but are best demonstrated by the Speakeasy culture that arose first in the Americas, with its rum runners, backroom jazz musicians and the flapper girl. With the Prohibition in the Americas on liquor, drugs and cybernetics enacted to 'protect the soul of men', a vast underground culture has flourished and spread. The scene is simultaneously composed of the incredibly rich and influential as well as the poor and downtrodden, though the rampant criminality that Prohibition has made profitable has allowed anyone with sufficient ambition to close the gaps between them.

Hedonist characters receive the Moxie and Contact Talents for free at one point, though the first Contact given will always be someone with whom they trade with for their vice. In addition, Hedonists may choose one or more vices their character pursues (including alcohol, psionic stimulation, cybernetics, cosmetic alteration), which restore a point of Moxie per scene they indulge. However, resisting temptation and concealing their obsessions is stressful, preventing them from using Moxie in scenes where they are forced to act against their vices.

Concepts: Flapper girl, rum runner, black-market cyberneticist, high-class pimp, psi addict.

Revolutionary

The world is changing. Men are no longer required to bleed and die for distant kings, on foreign soil. Revolutionaries lead the charge in a changing world, freeing men from the shackles of tyrants, robber barons and God. Bolshevism has picked up momentum in Russia, though the age is uncertain even after the victories of the Red October, and other forces seek freedom. Pleasure is a fleeting thing when the mind and soul of man is at stake, and technology must be kept out of the hands of the oppressors before it allows them to make irrelevant the wishes of the masses. In Europe and the Americas, universal suffrage is a concern as women and ethnic minorities seek to get an equal vote in allegedly democratic states. Regardless of the rhetoric, the revolutionary is motivated by his or her ideology and its furthering. Such people are unlikely to ever slow down, moving from cause to cause as the world changes a little more each time.

Revolutionaries receive the Academics and Contacts Talents at a rating of one, and are considered to roll a number of automatic successes equal to their talent rating on any Academics and Contact rolls involving their chosen ideology. Active revolutionaries and politicos are well-connected and aware of the other players in their movements to stay competitive in an ever-changing world.

Concepts: Suffragette, ethnic community leader, Marxist author, Bolshevik agent-provocateur, liberal politician.

Innovator

The Martian invasion changed everything about humanity, and the Great War has brought the role of overtechnology to the fore. Groups like the Tesla Institute and International Society of Futurists are just vehicles for innovation, giving the brilliant minds of the era the political and economic power necessary to begin truly innovating. Prohibition in the Americas has done nothing to stymie the efforts of innovators in the fields of cybernetics, and the overtechnological arms trade is at its historical strongest despite the efforts to curtail proliferation. Besides the merchant-magnates and rum runners, the wealthiest men in the world are innovators of society, the industrialists, scientists and engineers who actively build a better tomorrow instead of talking about one like the Revolutionaries. Technology doesn't just given humans better tools- it actually makes them better, as evidenced by the improved abilities of cyborgs and the incredible powers of psi talents.

Innovators have two points which may be split between Cybernetics or a Psi Talent. In addition, they negate their total social penalty from all sources, including alienation from Psi, disfigurement from Cybernetics and being the member of a minority, as long as they present themselves as an innovator of society in a relevant situation. Among fellow innovators or other especially relevant situations, the penalties might be reversed.

Concepts: Tesla Institute psychic, captain of industry, arms dealer, reclusive savant, Wellscraft pilot.

Freelancer

Freedom is everything to some people. The self-employed, globe-trotting lifestyle glamorized by pulp serials might not exactly be the reality many mercenaries, couriers and private agents face, but many would not choose the alternatives if they were available. Some freelancers have no choice in the matter due to unsavory pasts or criminal backgrounds, while others work abroad to escape repression at home. Fame and fortune awaits the most successful, while most scrape by on meager successes and narrow escapes from death. It's a living.

Freelancers get two points in the Moxie talent. At generation, Freelancers also choose a reputation they've earned such as 'skilled marksman', 'deft negotiator' or 'incorrigible libertine charmer', which they may expand with another descriptor every time they buy another point of Moxie. Once per scene, any action which confirms that reputation without using rerolls or automatic successes returns Moxie.

Concepts: Adventurer-archeologist, private detective, globetrotting assassin, reputable courier, master thief.

Attributes

Starting characters have 50 points to build their attributes, which represent their basic mental and physical characteristics. Attributes are rated from 1 to 10, with the human average being 2-3.

Level 1 - 1 XP
Level 2 - 3 XP
Level 3 - 6 XP
Level 4 - 10 XP
Level 5 - 15 XP
Level 6 - 21 XP
Level 7 - 28 XP
Level 8 - 36 XP
Level 9 - 45 XP
Level 10 - 55 XP

Up to 10 points can be banked for later use as unspent exp. The system is accumulative – that is, if your stat is at 3, you need only to spend the 4 additional points to push the invested XP from 6 to 10. Bonuses from character History are applied before XP costs, though all characters are functionally equal as the XP bonus is equal to 3 in all cases.

Base Attributes

Physical

Fitness, strength and overall toughness. Characters roll physical to brawl, perform feats of strength and ignore wounds.

Precision

Personal agility and bodily coordination. Precision is used for the use of firearms, throwing small objects, chasing across rooftops and through crowds, and driving most vehicles.

Wits

Mental acuity, creativity and perceptiveness. Characters roll Wits to think of short-term plans, create works of art (or forgeries) and manage military craft such as seagoing ships, walkers and wellscraft.

Intelligence

Raw intellect and the capacity for critical thinking, allowing characters to conceive long-term strategies, analyze information and make use of advanced technology. Education does not really factor into this ability, though it helps.

Integrity

Strength of character and personality, honesty and courage. Integrity allows characters characters to express themselves honestly, lead by example and use psi talents.

Charisma

Force of personality, animal magnetism and charm (deceptive or otherwise). Charisma allows characters to lie, argue and intimidate others effectively, as well as seduce them. Charisma does not equate physical attractiveness.

Derived Attributes

Health
Physical +Integrity, Physical/2

Health determines how much punishment a person can take. The extraordinarily strong body and willed can endure tremendous punishment, though wounds and exhaustion do eventually take their toll. The last four health levels a person has impose dice penalties of 1-4, before a person falls unconscious. Unconscious characters have half their Physical rating in additional levels before wounds prove fatal.

Resolve
Wits +Integrity

Resolve represents personal mettle and the ability to resist worldly temptation. Seducing, intimidating or otherwise overwhelming someone with raw emotion requires cumulative successes over their Resolve rating. In addition, every attempt to do so after the first causes an opposed Resolve roll, increasing by one die every try after. Successes (and difficulty) persist for several scenes, dropping by one every scene after the social attack.

Intuition
Wits +Intelligence

Attempts at deceiving a character of a fundamental untruth (or concealing lies by omission) must overcome his Intuition, building cumulative successes over the value. Different approaches must be taken to cover every base and fabricate a lie that is sufficient, when trying to fool particularly smart and clever characters. Repeating the same line ad nauseum increases difficulty and allows the target to counter with Intuition rolls, escalating in the same fashion as Resolve works with raw emotion.

Melee Defense
(Physical +Precision)/2

Negates enemy successes in close combat. Repeatedly performing the same attack increases the target's Melee Defense by one each around, though it also increases the difficulty of being counterattacked by the same as long as you continue to succeed. Changing maneuvers or disengaging resets both, while failure to hit only resets the counterattack penalties.

Ranged Defense
(Wits +Precision)/2

Negates enemy successes in ranged combat. Repeatedly performing the same attack increases the target's Ranged Defense, though it also increases penalties to shoot back. Being forced to reload or letting the target out of your field of view resets both.

Talents

Combat Talents

General

Equipment [1 to 10]

Ranks of Equipment determine how many weapons a character can carry. Most people only bother to carry a single gun at a time, though the truly determined (and well-armed) may actually resort to robotic gun caddies to carry their huge personal arsenals around. Each rank allows a 'main' weapon such as a rifle or heavy revolver to be comfortably lugged around, though 0 merely means the character feels 'uncomfortable' with a rifle (or two) on their back or in their hands at all times, though sidearms and concealed weapons are usually fine.

Gun Caddy [1 to 2] (req Equipment 5+)

Gun Caddy gives the character a robotic gun carrier to haul his oversized arsenal around. A repurchase makes the Gun Caddy able to act as a spotter, giving +1 to precision shooting.

Quick Draw [x2]

Purchasing Quick Draw allows a character to change weapons reflexively as long as they perform an attack action with the newly selected weapon that round.

Melee

Brawl [1 to 5]

Every rank of Brawl increases dice to hit in melee with fists or weapons, though maximum damage is still capped to [Strength + Weapon Damage].

Boxer [1 to 5] (req Brawl)

Every rank of Boxer increases melee defense, as well as rolls to feint and disengage to refresh penalties.

Dirty Fighting [2x, 1 to 3] (req Brawl)

Characters with Dirty Fighting also apply their brawl attacks against the target's Intuition as a social attack (following normal rules), allowing them to disarm, intimidate or deal maximum possible brawl damage every time their successes add up over the target's rating. Each rank also decreases the target's Intuition threshold by 1, to a minimum of 1.

Crowd Control [2x, 1 to 3] (req Boxer)

Each rank in Crowd Control stacks a difficulty penalty equal to level against characters ganging up on the character, and allows him to attack [Rating -1] additional targets in a crowd with a single roll. Boxers skilled in crowd control can effectively fend off very large numbers of normal thugs. Targets with Moxie or Precognition are immune to Crowd Control.

Ranged

Firearms [1 to 5]

Each rank of Firearms increases attack dice with ranged weapons by one.

Marksmanship [2x, 1 to 5] (req Firearms)

Each rank of Marksmanship allows the character to negate one point of to-hit penalties from repeated fire on the same target, allowing for accurate follow-up shots.

Overwatch [2x 1 to 3]

Characters with overwatch are able to more effectively suppress tight bunches of enemies in combat. Each rank allows the character to designate one additional target, who receives the standard attack penalties and defensive benefits from being the target of a ranged attack. Making multiple attacks with Overwatch, a character can lock down entire avenues of approach and keep groups from advancing to his position.

Sniper [3x, 1 to 2]

Sniper allows a character to bank successes from Firearms rolls taken to aim on a single target, though damage caps are the same. Each rank adds to the number of rolls that can be banked together for the attack.

Rapid Reload [3x, 1 to 2]

Rapid reload halves the reload time of standard firearms (and rayguns) to a movement action. The repurchase makes it reflexive as long as the character performs a shooting action that round.

Survival

Conditioning [1 to 10]

Every rank of Conditioning gives the character another Health point, first adding two -0 tracks, and then adding two boxes to every track with a wound penalty.

Diehard [1 to 5] (req Conditioning)

Every rank of Diehard gives the character an unconscious Health point.

Berserker [3x, 1 to 2] (req Diehard)

Berserkers reverse wound penalties for melee attacks only, fighting through crippling injuries until they or opposition are reduced to a bloody mess. The repurchase of this talent treats unconsciousness as a -5 wound penalty, and allows the character to literally fight to the death.

Mobility

Athletics [1 to 5]

Every rank of Athletics increases the pool to outrun people on foot and perform defensive actions like dodging. Though a character can't actually hurt someone by dodging around, scoring more net dodge successes than the attacker's attack roll can cause a critical mishap.

Stealth [1 to 5]

Stealth allows characters to sneak around unnoticed. It is opposed with Investigation, and characters with an Intuition rating lower than the character's Precision + Stealth cannot notice them.

Parkour [2x, 1 to 2] (req Athletics)

Characters with Parkour can split their standard movement actions into up to [Parkour +1] separate, smaller motions. Exercising such precise control allows them to make more dodges in combat and cross treacherous terrain more effectively.

Execution [2x, 1 to 2] (req Stealth)

A character with Execution converts half (round down) of his damage dice into successes against a character who is not aware of him. The repurchase converts this to every dice.