Greetings,

 After more than a year I am actually going to GM a new group.

Here is the gist of the opening situation I gave them to create or design their characters:
 It iis contempo0rary or modern-day setting - specifically June of 2016.

You are on a Greyhound Bus that is traveling from St. Louis to San Diego. Come up with a reason you (your character) is riding the bus instead of driving their own vehicle.

We're using GURPS, and the point level is 150 points. (...give or take 5 points 145-155 within reason)

 No 'Magic' or Psionics skills. Those things might show up late in the 1st game session or manfest somehow in the 2nd one - but your characters aren't likely to start out with them.

Decide what luggage you are taveling with. What is with you as carry on luggage inside the bus, in the overhead storage area and what is in storage in the cargo area of the Bus.

Thats what they know when making up their characters...

If YOU were given those parameters - what kind of character would you make?


- Ed C.

Me?  I'd dust off a character I'd really like to play for more than a single session before the campaign imploded; it's happened twice now.
 
ST: 11     IQ: 13    DX: 13     HT: 12    Move: 5  
 
Advantages: Charisma/1; Contacts (4 points' worth); Less Sleep/2, License Perk (has an FID); Night Vision/2; Reputation+3, as master knife-maker, Ren Faire types, 12-.

Disadvantages: Addiction / Pot smoker; Chronic Pain / Mild, 2h, 9-; Code of Honor (Counterculture); Disciplines of Faith; Reduced Speed/.25; Slow Riser; Sense of Duty: underclass; Social Stigma: Second-class citizen; Struggling.

Languages: Speaks and reads Cherokee at Broken level.

Quirks: Cats are people; Don't mess with Betsey!; Dresses in stereotypical hippie attire; Loves his daughter Brooke; Pyrophile.

Skills: Armoury-17; Carousing-13; First Aid-13; Gardening-13; Knife-15; Mechanic (auto)-12; Meditation-11; Merchant (knives)-12; Musical Instrument (guitar)-12; Naturalist-12; Observation-12; Occultism-13; Public Speaking-12; Religious Ritual-12; Savoir-Faire (counterculture)-13; Singing-13; Survival-14; Thrown Weapon: Knife-14.

Jake Nelp is an aging hippie.  He grew up on a commune, and holds firmly to 60s counterculture values, morals and practices.  The fellow lives out of his colorfully painted '65 Westphalia WV microbus -- that'd be Betsey -- traveling between various Ren Faires, counterculture festivals and bashes like Burning Man, to hang out with like-minded individuals and sell knives.  He forges and grinds his own, and has a wide reputation amongst festival regulars as a superlative knife maker, and as a friendly fellow who plays at campfires and always has a story to tell..  It's enough to get by.

He's also a practicing shaman, with a wide range of occult lore, and is a devotee of Carlos Castaneda (though he greatly prefers pot to mushrooms) and various Cherokee shamen.  He's come up with his own rituals, which for some reason he does in jackleg Cherokee.  Should magic come up in the campaign, he will take it entirely in stride.

A few notes:

* Jake is used to living rough, and can manage out of a tent just fine.  However -- and this is where the Chronic Pain and Slow Riser comes in -- he's over 60 now, and living off of Faire food and on a futon in back of his microbus has just taken a heavy toll; he's achy.  A lot.

* He is only a pacifist by philosophy.  He's well aware that him and people like him get hassled a lot by the Man (thus the Social Stigma, and having an FID in case he gets bothered about the honking big knives he carries around), and that some folks aren't willing to live and let live.  He is very fast for his age, knows how to use his knives, and won't shy away from doing so if he figures he must.

* The Contacts represent probably four types of people: a fellow knife-maker, a fellow Faire merchant, a fellow shaman, and that lady who bakes the awesome flatbreads at his old commune.

* What's he doing on the bus?  He was traveling cross-country both for a major SoCal counterculture festival that he promised he'd be at, and to see his daughter, who's a pediatric surgeon at the UCSD Medical Center.  Unfortunately, Betsey's fifty year old engine blew bad and hard in St. Louis and needs a complete rebuild, something beyond his own skills at keeping the poor old girl on the road.  So he's taking the bus, with his battered guitar case beside him, a duffle bag with his tent and bedroll in overhead, three milk crates full of grinding wheels and knife-making equipment stored in cargo ... and a backpack with a couple dozen custom made knives wrapped up in towels in his lap.

He's pissed off at leaving Betsey behind, no matter how much he trusts the mechanic, morosely aware that Greyhound regulations prohibit carrying those knives on board, and is half expecting to be hassled about it.