Urrly started out as an experiment with the FFG Star Wars system. But after a long break from playing last year, how can we distill this character down into his essentials?
Could a conversion to Blackbird help? Defining Blackbird Traits helped me create
Major Hare.
Taking a blunt approach, Urrly's headline Traits could be converted directly from FFGSW to Star Wars.
- Gigoran (Species)
- Gunner (Specialisation)
- Mechanic (Specialisation)
Blackbird characters shoud have four Traits, mind you, and each Trait needs a gamut of related Tags.
John Harper's original
Lady Blackbird is the obvious source for developing Tags, but a set of more formal rules can be found in Jamie Fristrom's
Blackbird Pie (and we used these for Crisis Point).
Lady Blackbird has two characters with Traits similar to Urrly's.
KALE ARKHAM
Mechanic
Repair, Engines, Efficiency, Spare Parts, Sabotage, [Enhancements], [Ship Weapons]
SNARGLE
Goblin (Not a Gigorran but still a distinct species)
Warp shape, Glide, Nightvision, Agile, Quick, Tumbler, Teeth & Claws, [Mimic Shape], [Reckless], [Connections]
We can see that these are adventure-orientated Tags. They aren't just thesaurus entries/alternate terms for the same thing. The Tags suggest different, exciting things that a Trait might be used for. They're trying to spice up the story not just the character.
So Gigoran Gunner Mechanic could work. What about a fourth Trait?
May the fourth be with you?
Is John Harper doing something subtle with his four Traits? Why four?
If we look at FFG's End of the World system, it categorises all attributes as either Physical, Mental and Social, used offensively/proactively or defensively/reactively.
Hard to argue with that, so I went through every Lady Blackbird character and categorised each Tag as Physical, Mental or Social. A fourth category immediately emerged that I'll call "Super". Taking Snargle as an example, the Tag
Nightvision could be used for Physical, Mental or even Social challenges. It's a super power.
The Traits all have a mix of Physical, Mental, Social and Super Tags. But if you consider the Tags under each Trait as a complete set, they do tend to be either offensive/proactive or defensive/reactive.
So the Traits might be polemic. Four Traits, two offensive/proactive, two defensive/reactive.
Also, for each character the four Traits could be categorised as Background, Profession, Skill, Talent.
Harper seems to use four Traits to give each character the same level of depth and two poles of action.
Re-reading the FFGSW character, I did write a short background and it reveals one important Trait I'm missing. Urrly is a freedom fighter, an insurgent, a partisan.
Since Urrly's motive is anti-slavery, "Freedom Fighter" seems the most appropriate. The pictures of Gigorans with rotary blaster cannons and missile launchers also reminds me that Urrly isn't just a gunner, he's a support gunner. That gives me my four Traits:
- Gigoran
- Support Gunner
- Mechanic
- Freedom Fighter
It's a good start!