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Sunday, August 12, 2012

Rifts Character Roleplay Design: WG-GLE-5

Recently I started hanging out with a group of friends who got me into playing a game called Rifts. It is similar to the D&D board game format. It blends Sci Fi elements with Fantasy which I think is really cool. There aren't many games that merge magic, which is seen as having unlimited power versus technology with a perceived power limit.

The game is not just about combat mechanics; it is also about the interaction between the characters. In many cases, players become attached to the characters they play similar to the way how an audience sympathizes with the protagonist and antagonist of movies or video games. The Rifts session has been extremely helpful in getting me into the psychology of how each character would act in different situations.

Today I am uploading my first character from the game called WG-GLE-5 a full conversion cyborg affectionately called "Mr. Wiggles". In the game, he wakes up from a deep slumber after having been deactivated for some time. He joins a group of intrepid adventurers to pass the time and make a living, all the while he tries to figure out who he is and what happened to him before his awakening.

The Wiggles has tremendous physical strength and speed, but has average intelligence. He fumbles around a bit because he is not used to his cybernetic body after having been deactivated for such a long time. In one session, he had to save a team member who fell off a tall building. Not knowing his strength, he flies toward his companion and catches him, but his full speed and strength ended up hurting the man. What makes this character interesting is the fact that he seems like a child, but looks like a ten feet tall walking death machine. In a way the fact that he tries to help but usually ends up messing things up and having to clean  up afterwards makes this character endearing to other members.

Apparently Mr Wiggles had a tragic past where he lost a loved one during an attack by the Coalition States, a human centric organization bent on ridding the Rifts world of dimensional beings who they deemed below the human race. The protagonist was also hurt during the attack and left for dead with fatal wounds until a third party organization turned him into a cyborg. It turned out that he was created to fight against the coalition. For some reason, he has been deactivated for a while, it was presumed his old team were wiped out by CS forces, and has been put into safe storage to avoid the CS from completely destroying all the combat cyborgs made to take down their regime.

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