Ex Stasis Games

Oops – I accidentally credited this challenge to Fiona K.T. Howat, but it’s actually from the brain of Tardis Captain! Follow it on Bluesky with the hashtag #CharacterCreationChallenge, and/or read my first post, for Heart: The City Beneath, here.

Next up, for day two: Deathmatch Island! This game combines things I love (Battle Royale- and Hunger Games-style murder games) with things I hate (PvP) – which is a major reason I haven’t got around to playing it yet.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a real good time making characters for it, and very carefully select a group I want to play it with.

As an aside: if you’ve read Deathmatch Island, you know it’s got a cooperative mode, where competitors work together to break the game. The thing is, I really like deathmatch stories where competitors are playing to win. And I get disappointed when the system is dismantled and the games are over. So if I’m going to play this, I’m going to play it to win (which is, incidentally, the name of the other game mode in the book).

Let’s Do This

Deathmatch Island has another thing I like: disposable characters. They’re quick to make, and relatively easy to lose. That’s how I play most of my characters anyway – I only get attached to them after they’ve been through some shit – so this should be a good fit.

Holding the book to that promise, I’m going to jump right into character creation with only the barest skim of the preceding material.

Step 1: Occupation

This is randomly rolled, and I love that. Quick, disposable characters. Let’s go. 1d4 followed by 2d8 gets me… a music teacher. Oh no. One of the options is MMA Fighter. It’s fine. Viewers love an underdog, right? And at least I’ve got good Social Game.

Competitors’ memories have been taken from them, so I don’t have to wrangle with why she’s here, right now. That’ll come out in flashbacks, I believe.

(I grabbed an unofficial form-fillable character sheet that makes this a breeze. Without it, there would be quite a lot to fill in. Thanks, RPG-net user who made this sheet!)

Step 2: Name and Pronouns

The hierarchy here is interesting. It’s very clear that what matters in this game is not who you are, but what you can do. Anyway, I’m calling her Leda. She’s she/they. Possibly they/them outside, but squeezed into an uncomfortable gender category for the competition.

We do some personal details here, too. I’m going with late twenties, Caucasian (I am not ready to use this game as a vector to explore other ethnicities).

Leda is competitor #094.

Step 3: Distinguishing Features

Oh good, I can roll these randomly too. It’ll tell me some more about Leda, and maybe push me out of my comfort zone. Random rolls are great.

• Glittering eyes
• Rugged build
• Messy hair
• Notable scar

Ooh, fun. Leda may be a music teacher, but she’s not a stereotypical one. I’m getting some ideas for things that could come out in flashbacks – scrappy ex-musician, or just a woman with – gasp – hobbies!

Step 4: Trust

This technically requires other players, but I’m going to give it a damn good go. I’ll loop back to it.

Step 5: Initial Motivation

Oh, cool! I’m glad this is part of character creation. I’m even more glad that all these character creation steps come in a handy-dandy set of reference sheets packaged with the character sheet. Well-designed, this game.

Leda’s here for Fame. She wants to come out of this with the most followers. That’s nice: it’s not something I would have chosen, but I can make something of this rugged, scarred, music teacher who just wants to be famous. Oh no, I’m starting to like this throwaway character.

Step 4: Trust, Again

While I was looking for the trust exercises, I found uniform. Leda’s doing this whole thing in a plum-coloured t-shirt and sweatpants. It could be a lot worse: could have been a polo shirt.

On further inspection, it looks like there are no specific ice-breaker exercises to build trust, it’s – gasp – just roleplaying. Neat, that means I don’t have to fudge this.

Side Note: Graphic Design

There are some really great choices in this book. The memoranda from Production are juicy – intriguing, never so specific they lock anything in, and providing useful sparks as well as flavour. And the inclusion of pages, or partial pages, in other languages, is very clever. Lovely way to put you in the headspace of a competitor who knows there’s a lot they don’t know.

Character sheet complete – EXCEPT! Three quarters of it is not filled in, because that stuff all comes in play. Is there anything juicier and more exciting than the promise of cool stuff coming down the pipeline? (No. There is not.)

And we’re done! That was quick and painless, unlike Leda’s time on Deathmatch Island is likely to be. I’m… quite fired up to play this now, actually.