Hoppy Bertday!

Happy birthday to dunkelza

Deadlands

This week we'll go with Deadlands. The original version I think. Anyway it doesn't say Reloaded anywhere and this doesn't look like d20 or Savage Worlds. Right. So first off I've got to find a deck of cards...

*shuffle*

Ok, now deal 12 cards:
6-diamond
2-heart
8-diamond
Q-heart
10-spade
8-heart
K-spade
J-club
2-diamond
8-club
JOKER
9-club

I can discard two of those, except for deuces and Jokers. Stuck with those. But I also need another card to determine suit for the Joker. 3-club. So clubs give 1 die, diamonds 2, hearts 3 and spades 4. So the lowest cards I can discard would be the 6 of diamonds and 8 of clubs. So that leaves 10 to assign to the traits of Deftness, Nimbleness, Quickness, Strength, Vigor, Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts and Spirit. The Joker means I get some kind of mystery in my past that the Marshall (GM) can use to screw with the character. Its also equal to an Ace for die type. So I'm thinking I'll create Molly McKenzie a Mad Girl from Chicago...

Deftness: 8-h: 3d6
Nimbleness: 9-c: 1d8
Quickness: 8-d: 2d6
Strength: 2-d: 2d4
Vigor: 2-h: 3d4

Cognition: J-c: 1d8
Knowledge: K-s: 4d10
Mien: 10-s: 4d8
Smarts: Q-h: 3d10
Spirit: Joker-c: 1d12

Next is aptitudes which reflects skills, talents, etc. I get a number of aptitude points equal to the total die types for Knowledge, Smarts and Cognition. For Molly thats 8+10+10 for 28. For free I start with a 1 in Climb, Search and Sneak and a 2 in Native Language and Area Knowledge: Home County. For a Mad Girl I'm going to need some Sciences and Tinkerin'. So I'll give Molly 4 levels in Chemistry and Engineering and 3 in Physics for 11 points. And 5 in Tinkerin'. So 12 points left. We'll raise Search and Sneak to 2 each. Then take 2 levels in the Academia skills of History and Occult. And then we'll go with a level in Swimmin', Dodge, Scroungin' and Guts...

Next up, hindrances. Up to 10 points worth. For Molly, we'll take Curious (3), Enemy - a wealthy industrialist from Chicago (2), Stubborn (2), Loyal (3). Those 10 points are then used to buy some Edges. So Brave (2), Belongings - 3 pts for some Device, Mechanically Inclined (2) and Luck O' the Irish (3)...

So we have Molly McKenzie a 19-year old inventor just starting to make a name for herself in the chauvinistic world of "genius" engineers and scientists of Chicago. Until an attempt to get her friend Tommy out of debt resulted in the destruction of a factory belonging to wealthy industrialist Lyle Olivant. And maybe she was at least slightly responsible for Olivant's leg getting broken. But the decision by Olivant's daughter to run off to Canada to join an theater troupe with Tommy was ENTIRELY their idea. Its honestly unfair that he still holds a grudge bad enough to occasionally send his goons out to disrupt her life...

The Bank Job

Based on a 1971 bank robbery this is a perfectly serviceable caper movie. There is nothing bad about it. But there also isn't anything truly extraordinary about it either. Except that it doesn't rely on stedi-cam, freeze frame, slo-mo or the camera tricks that seem to infest every other britcrime movie of the last decade...

But beyond that there isn't anything that makes the movie truly memorable. Its a good picture. An enjoyable enough way to spend some time. But nothing that will drive me to add it to my collection or think much about it...