NatY... A glean with a mission. Character creation and party composition in Burn Bryte.
Burn Bryte has a space opera type setting. A galaxy facing demise, not by inter galactic war but by the ever encroaching 'Burn'. An energy of unknown origin or purpose that is slowly (but obviously not as slowly as the inhabitants of the galaxy would actually prefer, in fact sometimes not slowly at all, it is an unpredictable phenomenon) engulfing the galaxy, destroying planets and systems as it squeezes the myriad of races who exist in the Olaxis galaxy into the middle or, as the they are known, the HeartWorlds.
An ever present and often visible reminder that time is not in fact infinite for the galaxy has, obviously, had a number of consequences. Sometimes altruism and true hope shows its colours, more often than not however greed and protectionism are the driving forces. Some members of species cower, some members set out to try and discover what the Burn is and how it can be reversed, some members are just out for the adventure that this new phenomenon presents. Whichever path your character and 'crew' end up taking, whichever philosophical, religious or corporate road they meander down one thing is for sure... It's going to be a heap of fun to play!
Being solely designed to play on Roll20 the character creation is all done through the magic that is the 'charactermancer' within the game window. It gently takes you through the steps you need to do and is easy with the GM talking you through it or with a little bit of background reading through the digital compendium. Basically it is choose and click or click and drag to populate the page and at the end, just like magic you are presented with your character sheet. There are a few 'must take' pieces of equipment but basically you can customise the smeg out of your character. There are a lot of things that experienced RPGers have to leave behind when playing Burn Bryte and one of them is the idea of 'levels' and to an extent 'classes'. Your characters don't 'level up' with experience points in BB, they get better as they go along by fulfilling their 'story paths'. There are a LOT to choose from, something for everyone, and 5 steps to complete on their path. Once one path is done, you get to choose another - I like to think of these as 'life goals' or in the case of my character a 'bucket list'. Characters get a reward when they can justify to the GM that they have completed their story path step. Now, and this is the bit that screws with the minds of someone used to, 'well I killed x number of things, got x amount of treasure and therefore got xx experience points so I need another 200 to get to level 3.' Throw that out the window... Sometimes your justification to the GM will come from in session/game actual action, but often it will be something incidental that happened within the session story arc not actually what happened on the screen/tabletop. Believe me this is a lot easier in practice than it is to explain. Oh, and do not expect to play the middle of the road, good at everything human in Burn Bryte - they do not exist. You do however get to choose from around 7 very cool species - who could resist being an entity made up of millions of bugs or maybe a cat like 'person' or, if you have to imagination, a giant slug who inhabits corpses ('whom shall I wear tonight' is now not a spelling error).
Because of the above incidental equipment is a lot more important in Burn Bryte - if your story path is to produce a brilliant piece of art, you are not going to get anywhere trying to persuade the GM that the 'thing' you saw is your inspiration unless you have a sketch slab/book or camera to hand to 'catch' that inspiration with. As alluded to in a previous post the way the skill system works means that 'archetypes' are not really a big thing. Most characters can do most things by using some skill or other. A character doesn't need a d12 in melee to fight close in if they can persuade the GM their d10 Medicine skill lets them strike their opponents nerve points most of the time. A bad computer die type and therefore bad hacking skills is less of a worry if you can use your suavity skill to talk to the MI of the network and get them to divulge info. Again a lot easier to see in actual game play than it is to try and explain in writing. The object of the above waffle is basically to say you do not need to make sure your crew (party) has a tank of a fighter, a magic user, a healer and a thief to be able to get on in the campaign. This, to me anyway, is an absolute breeze of fresh sweet, salty sea air, it liberates character creation and party/crew make up!
This is my character I made for a game run by Celeste Conowich for some of my group I normally have to GM for. As an aside if you are ever on the fence on commissioning Celeste (or certain other people) for a one shot then jump over that fence quickly - the GM you see in the Roll20 official Burn Bryte stream is who you get in your game! Do it now!
Their character sheet comes out like so:
As one would suspect the skills are so easy to use, the GM tells you what complexity the task is going to be, you click on the skill die, click on the complexity level (if you have any conditions that alter the number of dice you will be rolling it is all automatic) and in the chat you see if you pass or fail, easy as that!
Because of the story path you have chosen it is fairly easy to give your character a background as you can weave your story path into the bio. NatY my character has the 'discovery' path. Here is what I came up with:
NatY had grown up on a planet in the Valdi system called Kaui. Largely a water planet, close to the systems sun. The planet is largely urban and relies on tourism from the wealthier beings in the system. NatY’s family own a number of luxurious resorts and specialise in exotic water holidays, both under and on the seas of the planet.
It was in his early years of privilege that NatY had picked up the surf bug. Much to the chagrin of his family NatY sought a spot on the GSL (Galactic Surf League) Championship Tour. He became one of the youngest ‘Galactic Champions’ and destined to remain at the top of the GSL for many years to come.
But three months ago his life had changed. NatY met Roscovitz an Ino ‘soul surfer’. Rosco does not enter events with all its crass baggage, he is sponsored to travel the Olaxis galaxy searching out the perfect wave at the perfect break. And he has nearly succeeded, following a tip off from some pirates he was about to visit a planet in the ghost belt where a mystic surfer called L’ance lives. An aging Kith’uk, L'ance is one of the very few who knows the location of ‘Shippies’ the mysterious ultimate wave of legend.
But before Rosco could get there the planet had succumbed to the Burn, rumours are that most inhabitants escaped in one of the numerous small craft that had run a rescue mission. Trouble was the craft flew off in all sorts of directions depending on their ‘job’ at the time of the catastrophe. L'ance could have ended up anywhere!
But the seed was sown and Natti has left the GSL tour to find L’ance and then to surf ‘Shippies’.
So, you can see how things are going to go. I love playing NatY although it does warrant channeling my 'surf broh'. Hopefully, this short insight might inspire you to give Burn Bryte a try out. Even if you have never played a RPG you will be up and adventuring in no time. In fact as I am learning the players who are new to gaming in general are getting to grips with the system just as quickly (no baggage to confuse them) as veteran players!
Join the discord server as there is normally someone running a 'beginners' one shot for you to join in with. As for NatY, well their adventures in their search for 'Shippies' will be documented here, so stay tuned!
An ever present and often visible reminder that time is not in fact infinite for the galaxy has, obviously, had a number of consequences. Sometimes altruism and true hope shows its colours, more often than not however greed and protectionism are the driving forces. Some members of species cower, some members set out to try and discover what the Burn is and how it can be reversed, some members are just out for the adventure that this new phenomenon presents. Whichever path your character and 'crew' end up taking, whichever philosophical, religious or corporate road they meander down one thing is for sure... It's going to be a heap of fun to play!
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| Olaxis and the Burn |
Being solely designed to play on Roll20 the character creation is all done through the magic that is the 'charactermancer' within the game window. It gently takes you through the steps you need to do and is easy with the GM talking you through it or with a little bit of background reading through the digital compendium. Basically it is choose and click or click and drag to populate the page and at the end, just like magic you are presented with your character sheet. There are a few 'must take' pieces of equipment but basically you can customise the smeg out of your character. There are a lot of things that experienced RPGers have to leave behind when playing Burn Bryte and one of them is the idea of 'levels' and to an extent 'classes'. Your characters don't 'level up' with experience points in BB, they get better as they go along by fulfilling their 'story paths'. There are a LOT to choose from, something for everyone, and 5 steps to complete on their path. Once one path is done, you get to choose another - I like to think of these as 'life goals' or in the case of my character a 'bucket list'. Characters get a reward when they can justify to the GM that they have completed their story path step. Now, and this is the bit that screws with the minds of someone used to, 'well I killed x number of things, got x amount of treasure and therefore got xx experience points so I need another 200 to get to level 3.' Throw that out the window... Sometimes your justification to the GM will come from in session/game actual action, but often it will be something incidental that happened within the session story arc not actually what happened on the screen/tabletop. Believe me this is a lot easier in practice than it is to explain. Oh, and do not expect to play the middle of the road, good at everything human in Burn Bryte - they do not exist. You do however get to choose from around 7 very cool species - who could resist being an entity made up of millions of bugs or maybe a cat like 'person' or, if you have to imagination, a giant slug who inhabits corpses ('whom shall I wear tonight' is now not a spelling error).
Because of the above incidental equipment is a lot more important in Burn Bryte - if your story path is to produce a brilliant piece of art, you are not going to get anywhere trying to persuade the GM that the 'thing' you saw is your inspiration unless you have a sketch slab/book or camera to hand to 'catch' that inspiration with. As alluded to in a previous post the way the skill system works means that 'archetypes' are not really a big thing. Most characters can do most things by using some skill or other. A character doesn't need a d12 in melee to fight close in if they can persuade the GM their d10 Medicine skill lets them strike their opponents nerve points most of the time. A bad computer die type and therefore bad hacking skills is less of a worry if you can use your suavity skill to talk to the MI of the network and get them to divulge info. Again a lot easier to see in actual game play than it is to try and explain in writing. The object of the above waffle is basically to say you do not need to make sure your crew (party) has a tank of a fighter, a magic user, a healer and a thief to be able to get on in the campaign. This, to me anyway, is an absolute breeze of fresh sweet, salty sea air, it liberates character creation and party/crew make up!
This is my character I made for a game run by Celeste Conowich for some of my group I normally have to GM for. As an aside if you are ever on the fence on commissioning Celeste (or certain other people) for a one shot then jump over that fence quickly - the GM you see in the Roll20 official Burn Bryte stream is who you get in your game! Do it now!
Their character sheet comes out like so:
As one would suspect the skills are so easy to use, the GM tells you what complexity the task is going to be, you click on the skill die, click on the complexity level (if you have any conditions that alter the number of dice you will be rolling it is all automatic) and in the chat you see if you pass or fail, easy as that!
Because of the story path you have chosen it is fairly easy to give your character a background as you can weave your story path into the bio. NatY my character has the 'discovery' path. Here is what I came up with:
NatY had grown up on a planet in the Valdi system called Kaui. Largely a water planet, close to the systems sun. The planet is largely urban and relies on tourism from the wealthier beings in the system. NatY’s family own a number of luxurious resorts and specialise in exotic water holidays, both under and on the seas of the planet.
It was in his early years of privilege that NatY had picked up the surf bug. Much to the chagrin of his family NatY sought a spot on the GSL (Galactic Surf League) Championship Tour. He became one of the youngest ‘Galactic Champions’ and destined to remain at the top of the GSL for many years to come.
But three months ago his life had changed. NatY met Roscovitz an Ino ‘soul surfer’. Rosco does not enter events with all its crass baggage, he is sponsored to travel the Olaxis galaxy searching out the perfect wave at the perfect break. And he has nearly succeeded, following a tip off from some pirates he was about to visit a planet in the ghost belt where a mystic surfer called L’ance lives. An aging Kith’uk, L'ance is one of the very few who knows the location of ‘Shippies’ the mysterious ultimate wave of legend.
But before Rosco could get there the planet had succumbed to the Burn, rumours are that most inhabitants escaped in one of the numerous small craft that had run a rescue mission. Trouble was the craft flew off in all sorts of directions depending on their ‘job’ at the time of the catastrophe. L'ance could have ended up anywhere!
But the seed was sown and Natti has left the GSL tour to find L’ance and then to surf ‘Shippies’.
So, you can see how things are going to go. I love playing NatY although it does warrant channeling my 'surf broh'. Hopefully, this short insight might inspire you to give Burn Bryte a try out. Even if you have never played a RPG you will be up and adventuring in no time. In fact as I am learning the players who are new to gaming in general are getting to grips with the system just as quickly (no baggage to confuse them) as veteran players!
Join the discord server as there is normally someone running a 'beginners' one shot for you to join in with. As for NatY, well their adventures in their search for 'Shippies' will be documented here, so stay tuned!
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