Campaign History, Character Creation and RPG Philosophy

It’s been over two years now since I lost my best friend, JJ and I wanted to talk about him just a little.  When met we were in the Navy and hit it off for god knows what reason.  He was hyper, a drinker, a smoker and more than a little nuts.  I am calm, a non-smoker, a non-drinker and more than a little nuts.  For a lot of years we just hung out together with only one thing really in common, reading.  Both of us could plow though a new book in a few hours and both of us read sci-fi.  Hell of a basis for a 30 year friendship.

I guess gaming came into the picture slowly, starting with chess.  I’d been a pretty good player since high school and JJ would let me beat the crap out of him without complaint.  Sadly, he was never a good player but he tried.  When I got tired of beating him we started playing the Navy’s favorite card game, Spades.  Now this was something he WAS good at and we added up teaming together for a few years.  We were VERY good but we drifted away from it to pinball but after a marathon 14 hours playing one machine down in Jax Beach and getting asked never to come back by the owner, we pretty much stopped that. *Those were the days when you got three games for a quarter and could win more games.  We spent exactly fifty cents on that game, a quarter from each of us.

I’d been wargaming since my Junior year in high school so I introduced JJ to Jutland and prompt stomped him.  Then I tried Panzerblitz and promptly stomped him.  Next I tried the REALLY big game, War in Europe and stomped him for months.  Sigh.  Then in 1979 I found two things, Starfleet Battles and AD&D.  Starfleet JJ loved because it was Star Trek, AD&D I loved because he didn’t have to lose all the time.  AD&D morphed into Champions and JJ became a ‘buddy player‘.  *By definition a ‘buddy player’ is someone that just plays because his friend does, a perfect description of JJ.

When we began Champions, JJ decided to combine Starfleet and Champions and so War Eagle was born.  Based on his preferred Starfleet race, Romulan, JJ envisioned a character with a cloaking device and plasma weapon.  It was my first real introduction into character construction from scratch.  We, the guys at the hobby shop, debated long and hard about this character and after many week-ends of work came up with exactly what JJ wanted.  He became War Eagle to everyone.

So let me give you a little insight into a game with War Eagle.

GM: “Your go, WE.”

WE: “I’ll shoot him.”

GM: “War Eagle trains his plasma pistol on the hapless thug and pulls the trigger.  A ball of energy is ejected from the muzzle, instantly locking on to the target and streaking towards it.  The thug’s attention is drawn by the ruddy red glow of impending doom and he has a brief moment for his life to flash across his mind’s eye before the searing condensed matter vaporizes 80% of his skin.  He falls to the ground unable to comprehend the pain before his life is extinguished.  What will you do now, WE?”

WE: “I’ll shoot the next one.”

My favorite saying is a quote from Einstein: “Imagination is more important than intelligence.”

JJ never figured that one out bless him . . . but he tried.

Following seas, buddy.

RPG

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