Tuesday, January 26, 2021

Character Creation Challenge: C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

C.J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG
We are in the last week of this Character Creation Challenge.  I wanted to spend this last week on modern games. That is games that take place in modern times. Yesterday was Chill, today I am going to go with what might the game I love more than D&D. C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG.

The Game: C. J. Carella's WitchCraft RPG

Mere words can't express my love for this game. Though I have tried many, many times. This is the game I come back to. This is the game that hold up as my Gold Standard of Games.  Not that it isn't without it's own issues of course, but nothing I can't work around or even with.  I have often said I wrote Ghosts of Albion as nothing but a giant love letter to the WitchCraft RPG.

WitchCraft was the game that pulled me back into RPGs. I was ready to give up until I found this game. I have never looked back. 

Not only is it a great game with some great supplements, but it is also supremely flexible. There is really nothing I can't do with this game.  Add on some of the other "Classic" Unisystem games like All Flesh Must Be Eaten (Zombie survival horror), Armageddon the End Times (Post-apocalypse reckoning), and Conspiracy X 2.0 (Aliens and Government conspiracies) you have an entire world of options.  But honestly, the game is perfect as it is.

If you don't believe me, grab the PDF for free from Eden Studios on DriveThruRPG

The Character: Fiona

Fiona is, or is based on, the character from the opening fiction and she is the "Cover girl" of core rule book.  "Head Zombie" George Vasilakos, the CEO of Eden painted that. It is seriously one of the best pieces of art for any gamebook ever.  

Fiona is a young witch and maybe, just maybe she is a bit of a stereotype, and she maybe is based a little on Fiona Apple circa 1999. 

Fiona from WitchCraft
Fiona
Gifted Wicce Wierd One

Attributes
Strength 2
Dexterity 2
Constitution 3
Intelligence 3
Willpower 3
Perception 2

Life Points 36
Endurance Points 29
Speed 10
Essence Pool 20

Channeling Level 1

Qualities / Drawbacks
Gifted (5)
Attractive 2
Hard to Kill 2
Humorless -1
Obsession -2
Photographic Memory 2
Recurring Nightmares -1

Essence Channeling 1 (2)
Increased Essence Pool 1

Skills
Computer 2, Craft (Herbal) 3, Dodge 3, Fine Arts (Painting) 2, Humanities (History) 2, Language (French 2), Magic Theory 3, Occult Knowledge 3, Research 2, Rituals (Wicce) 2, Streetwise 1 

Metaphysics
Farsight 2, Insight 2, Lesser Healing 2, Soulfire 2, Shielding 2

I have likely seen hundreds of Unisystem characters over the years. Fiona here is pretty much everyone's starting character.  Gifted, Wicce. Weird One is a fun concept and one most gamers can relate to. Marginally better mental stats than physical.  Hard to Kill is most often taken.  So is Situational Awareness, but I ran out of points in favor of Photographic Memory.  Skills are predictable with some point variances here and there.  Metaphysics include a couple of utilities, healing, an attack, and a defense. She has French as a language instead of the more "Occulty" Latin, Hebrew or Greek because she is a Wicce, not a Rosicrucian.  She seems more like the "spooky goth" witch and not the "crunchy earth child" witch.

Still, she would be fun to play.  Let the Chronicler play on those Nightmares. Maybe it is her Farsight while she is sleeping. 

9 comments:

Unknown said...

This is the game I would most love to see show up on Kickstarter one day. I'd be all in on a new edition without a second thought.

minitrue said...

This is my go to game when I want to have a supernatural explanation for zombies in my AFMBE game.

mwalsh said...

It is tremendous!

Graymantle said...

The most underrated game I've ever bought. I was fascinated with the first edition totally enthroned with the second book series. would love to see a revised and cleaned-up formatted edition.

Graymantle said...

The most underrated game I've ever bought. I was fascinated with the first edition totally enthroned with the second book series. would love to see a revised and cleaned-up formatted edition.

Unknown said...

Ok, this has been driving me absolutely batshit. I really wanna get into this game, but every single example of character creation I've seen (including the archetype templates in the 2nd printing of the 2nd edition book) is missing points, including this character! Is there something I'm not seeing in the book, or does everyone just like... not care enough to double check?

Timothy S. Brannan said...

What missing points? You are going to need to show your math here.

Unknown said...

Well, turns out my main problem was that I was missing that Special skills are more expensive, so it was throwing my math off. That said, it does seem like your Fiona here is missing 7 points of Metaphysics/Qualities (depending on how you split that up)

Timothy S. Brannan said...

I'll have to recheck her to be sure.
Thanks for the heads up!