This month’s RPG Blog Carnival topic, courtesy of Nevermet Press, is Bad Ass Gaming (specifically what makes a game bad ass). Appropriately enough, last month saw the release of the free BadAss RPG from Stargazer Games.

So for the carnival, I’m going to take the BadAss chargen system for a spin and try to make something truly BadAss.

The chargen system has a nice summary to start it off.

1. Give your Badass a name (Some people like to do this last)
2. Come up with a Badass Defining Moment.
3. Pick what Type of Badass your character is.
4. Pick 2 Flavas for your Badass.
5. Every Badass starts with 5 Badass Points, write that down.
6. Badasses also begin with no points in Awesomeness. Don’t worry, it won’t stay at zero for long.
7. Give your Badass some Gear.
8. Ask your GM to check out your Badass. If you impress him enough, he might give you extra Badass Points.

I’m not going to get a name until I have a basic idea of what I’m running with here… My first thought for a bad-ass character would be… a Cyborg Vampire Ninja from Hell (with extra cheese!). Let’s see how close to that I can get with this game – maybe I’ll have to trim the bad assedness of this character a bit at first to make it fit the game, but in time if this game is truly badass, I should be able to turn this character into a true blood-sucking, death-dealing demon of sneakiness that flips out and kills people.

Step 1: Name – The Random Ninja Name Generator spits out “Yuuko Zero” as my Ninja Name, so we’ll run with that..

Step 2: Badass Defining Moment – Being a ninja wasn’t bad-ass enough. Neither was the cyber-implants that made Yuuko into a true terror of the ninja scene. Yuuko became a true badass when he died and fought his way back out of hell to seek revenge on both his clan who sacrificed him, those who hired him, and those who killed him. Basically on the whole damn world. Badass!

Step 3: Type of BadAss – There are three types of BadAsses in this game – Kickass, SmartAss and WiseAss. We’re going for a physical character here, so Kickass it is!

Step 4: Two Flavas – Here’s the limiting factor. I get two flavas of BadAssery to work with. Not enough to be a Vampire Cyborg Ninja from Hell (that would be four flavas). Ninja we can’t lose (which is a “Professional Flava” and grants +3 to being sneaky). I want Martial Artist, Robot (which covers the Cyborg part), and to make two new flavas (for Vampire & … from Hell!). Instead I’ll grab the MetaGame Flava of “Little Did You Know, I am Actually A ROBOT!” which allows me to cash in 30 Awesomeness at any time to add a new Flava in mid-game instead of waiting to do it between games. So suddenly he’ll be able to show off his awesome cyborgness, or call on the powers of Hell.

Step 5: 5 BadAss Points. Check. I can get 1d6 per game session by narrating a training montage, a moment of personal affirmation, or an awesome flashback to my betrayal, death and clawing my way out of hell! I’m all about the flashbacks. I can also get 1d3 points per combat by slipping into a slo-motion sequence, or using witty repartee, or ripping open my ninja suit. Whenever I spend a BadAss point (to get +1d6 on a roll – which is a 50% boost because the game uses 2d6 for all rolls), I gain a Awesomeness Point.

Step 6: 0 Awesomeness Points. Check. Gonna have to kick some awesome ass and flip out and kill people to crank this up, pronto!

Step 7: Badass Gear. A ninja needs a black get-up, and some shuriken. Everything else is provided by pure BadAss.

Yuuko Zero
BadAss Ninja Cyborg from Hell
KickAss (+2 on physical rolls)
Awesomeness: 0
BadAss Points: 5

Flavas:

• Ninja (+3 sneak)
• Little Did You Know, I am Actually A ROBOT! (buy new Flavas on the fly for 30 Awesome)

Gear