Character Generation in Year Zero Engine RPGs

Having created characters for Free League’s Coriolis and Vaesen, I thought I’d try creating characters for Free League’s other published Year Zero Engine games¹:

• ALIEN, based on the science fiction horror movies.
• Forbidden Lands, a fantasy sandbox set in a cursed land only recently opened to explorers
• Mutant Year Zero, a post-apocalyptic game of mutants scavenging the wastelands²,
• Tales From The Loop a “rules light” game of kids finding dark secrets in their seemingly normal company town.³

Rather than walk through the steps as I did for Coriolis and Vaesen, I’ll simply note how character generation differs from Coriolis, Vaesen, or the YZE SRD.

I’ll then review other features that distinguish the six rule sets, and conclude with some commentary.

Characters

Below I’ve highlighted Key Attributes and Skills in italics, or underlined if there’s more than one Archetype. I’ve also included one Coriolis and the Vaesen character from previous posts but re-ordered some elements to make comparison slightly easier.

ALIEN: The Colonial Marshal

Pre-written scenarios provid characters for Cinematic Play (i.e. one-shots). For Campaign Play, though, players have to create a character much like this:

Relationships to PCs:

• Buddy: (The Medic)
• Rival: (The Company Agent)

Corolis: The Correspondent

Here’s one character from the Coriolis post, reprinted for comparison.

Relationships to PCs:

• Sabah (The Scout) doesn’t even see me. Some day he will.
• Ithar (The Pilot) is an ace pilot and otherwise a waste of time.
• Batou (The Engineer) has a keen eye for what’s important and what’s really going on. He bears watching.
• Captain Nada (The Diplomat) inspires people and commands respect … like I will some day, Icons willing.

Forbidden Lands: The Half-Elf Druid

As I write this I’m still reading Forbidden Lands. So I won’t say this is a good character, but she is interesting: a weak and inexperienced fighter whose skills, magic, and talents are geared to keeping the rest of the party alive.

Relationships to PCs:

• (The Human Fighter) doesn’t understand her role in the world. You shall guide, but not teach.
• (The Elf Hunter) is a slender oak that could grow into something great, given the right care.

Forbidden Lands System and Setting Notes

• Rather than one “Archetype”, characters in Forbidden Lands have two, Kin and Profession. Each has a Key Attribute; if they’re the same, the character may raise it to 6.
• Unlike other YZE games, most Talents in FL are ranked.
• Sorcerer and Druid talents allow them to cast spells, according to their rank in the Talent.
• “Clay” is the Druids’ creator deity.

Mutant Year Zero: The Stalker

As an RPG about mutants in a relatively safe Ark exploring the Zone beyond, no character is more iconic than the “stalker”, the expert in navigating a polluted and dangerous landscape.

Relationships to PCs:

• (The Gearhead) walked with you in the Zone and lived.
• (The Boss) is a pompous idiot. If he gets in my way, he’s going down.
• (The Chronicler) is a danger to everyone. Keep your distance.

Relationships to NPCs:

• Hates: The Enforcer Jonats, who killed my only friend.
• Needs to protect: No one. If they can’t protect themselves they deserve to die.

Mutant Year Zero System and Setting Notes

• Roles (Archetypes) don’t have Key Skills; rather, each Role has a unique skill.
• Mutations are generated randomly, and sometimes have multiple uses.
• “Rot” is a generalization of radiation, biohazard, “gray goo”, etc.
• A Chronicler is a storyteller, quasi-historian, sometimes propagandist.
• Bullets are used as currency.

Tales From The Loop: The Popular Kid

Here’s a perfectly normal stereotypical 1980s kid living next to a mysterious subterranean mad science research facility.

Relationships to PCs:

• I know (The Jock) loves me.
• (The Rocker) is freaky but I like it.
• (The Computer Geek) is useful.

Relationships to NPCs:

• The new teen Lisa and her friends from the Wildlife club are scary. I wonder what they’re up to?
• The school janitor Jeffrey seems to hate me, but I know he’s hiding something.

Tales From The Loop System Notes

• Total Attribute points available is equal to the Kid’s Age.
• There are no “Key Attributes”, just a maximum of 5 and a minimum of 1.
• Players can spend a Luck Point for a free re-roll, although they can’t spend more than one Luck Point on a single test.
• As Kids age they gain Attribute points and lose Luck points. At 15 they cease to be Player Characters.
• A Kid’s Pride gives him/her/them an automatic Success once per session, if the player can explain how it applies to the situation.

Vaesen: The Occultist

Here’s the character from the Vaesen post, reprinted for comparison.

Relationships to PCs:

• Franz (the Soldier) brings me peace.
• Henrik (Detective) is hiding something from the rest of us.
• Torun (the Hunter) will save us all one day.

System Comparisons

Each of these systems obviously differ in names for Archetypes⁴, attribute and skill names, what skills default to which attributes, the number and type of talents available especially at character creation, purely roleplaying elements like Relationships and Dark Secrets, and so forth. This sort of “descent through modification” allows the same basic system to adapt to different genres.

But if we stopped to classify all similarities and differences above, this post might be twice as long. Here I wanted to compare and contrast mechanics at the table, systems for supporting genre and theme, and support for goals beyond surviving a single adventure. These factors explain what sets these games apart from each other and from other games that delve into similar genres.

Rolling The Dice

In all current YZE games, to see whether a particular action succeeds, a player (or GM) adds together their ranks in the relevant Skill (if any), the base Attribute for that Skill, any bonuses for gear, and any bonuses or penalties based on circumstances, then rolls that many six-sided dice. If at least one 6⁵ is showing, the character succeeds. Extra sixes indicate higher levels of success, sometimes “spent” for special effects, e.g. higher damage or a Critical Injury in a Combat roll.

The nature of the dice rolled differs between games, and falls into one of three categories.

1. Mutant Year Zero⁶ and Forbidden lands require color-coded dice, since 1s⁷ on dice from Attributes and Gear are called “banes” and may have special effects.

2. Even custom dice for Coriolis, Tales From The Loop, and Vaesen have no color-coding because 1s have no effect.

3. ALIEN uses black “Base Dice” for dice from Attributes, Skills, Gear, and other circumstances, and yellow “Stress Dice” for added dice from Stress Points. I’ve already discussed the mechanics in detail here and here, so I won’t dive into them again.

If the roll fails, however, the player has the option to Push the roll or reroll the failed dice. This comes at a penalty, however:

1. As described more fully in the Year Zero Engine SRD, “banes” on the Base Dice rolled initially or during the reroll inflict damage on the Attribute being used but generate Mutation Points (in MYZ) or Willpower Points (in FL). Banes on a Gear Dice denote damage to the Gear, eventually rendering it useless unless repaired.

2. In Tales From The Loop and Vaesen, the PC takes a “Condition” when they push the roll. Conditions also result from external physical and mental trauma, and characters can take only a few before they are “Broken” and unable to function.

3. In Coriolis, every time a player Pushes a roll – or Prays To The Icons as the rules rephrase it – the GM gains a Darkness Point. The GM later spends Darkness Points to visit ill fortune on the PCs, in specific ways alluded to here.

The particular “price” paid for pushing rolls suits the genre in question:

1. While Mutant Year Zero is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth and Forbidden Lands in a formerly hidden dark fantasy land, both are games of survival and pushing limits in a hostile wilderness. Gear wears out and people wear out.

2. TFTL and Vaesen are about solving weird mysteries, whether the PCs are 1980s kids in a retro-techno-dystopia or 19th century adults hunting legendary creatures. Explorers of the unkown who push themselves too hard suffer mental and physical breakdowns.

3. Coriolis gives players their second chance with no immediate consequence … but a karmic debt they will pay eventually, as befits a game about fate and faith.

4. ALIEN’s Stress mechanics, as said before, mechanically represent the effects of fear; at first adrenaline makes people sharper, but as the tension mounts they begin fumbling, then freaking out, then (if they survive) losing their minds completely.

Combat and Damage

The combat systems of each of these variants uses broadly similar and recurring mechanics, for different ends. Forbidden Lands probably has the most detailed and varied pre-modern weapons, combat options, Talents, and rules. Coriolis and ALIEN cover modern and futuristic weapons and tactics like auto-fire and overwatch, while simplifying close combat. Mutant Year Zero has somewhat simpler rules for both, both because it’s older and because post-apocalyptic weapons are made from junk. Vaesen adapts some rules from previous YZE games, simplified. TFTL effectively has no combat rules because Kids can’t fight very well; NPCs are treated as challenges (“Trouble”), and have no Attributes or Skills.

The choice of genre also affects how each game represents physical and mental trauma.

• ALIEN subtracts physical damage points from Health Points, based solely on Strength. Too much damage disables the character and/or causes Critical Injury. Mental trauma adds Stress Points, which do very bad things as they build up.

• Coriolis has Health Points based on the sum of Strength and Agility, and Mind Points based on the sum of Wits and Empathy. Characters in Coriolis are more robust than in ALIEN, but Coriolis is space adventure while ALIEN is space horror.

• In Mutant Year Zero and Forbidden Lands, pushing any roll can cause damage to an Attribute, but physical wounds also reduce Strength. When any Attribute hits 0 the character is Broken, i.e. incapacitated; battle damage also causes physical Critical Injuries. In Forbidden Lands Broken Wits causes “Horror” Critical Injuries.

• In TFTL characters suffer Conditions when hurt (physically or mentally), but eventually recover with no permanent effects.

• In Vaesen physical trauma imposes specificlly physical Conditions, and mental trauma mental Conditions; both tracks end with “Broken”. Broken characters also suffer physical and mental Critical Injuries, but near-death experiences also grant Insights.

In most of these games, combat is not only expected but inevitable, so they provide enough detail and tactical tradeoffs to make it interesting. In Tales From The Loop the player characters are children, so the rules provides only a bare-bones mechanic to temporarily hinder them. In Vaesen combat is a possibility, albeit a distraction or misstep, so the rules provides an abbreviated system between the extremes.

Powers

In Coriolis characters can have “mystical powers”, roughly equivalent to psychic powers in other space opera settings. Each counts as a Talent, requires a skill check to activate, provides some ambiguous information or minor help, and generates at least one Darkness Point per use. Mystics are, unsurprisingly, rare and generally persecuted for being “cursed”.

In Forbidden Lands Druids and Sorcerers may learn Talents that allow them to cast all spells associated with that level in the Talent. Once the caster spends time and Willpower Points to cast a spell it takes effect, although the target of some spells may resist. Beyond the cost in Willpower Points – gained through pushing limits – casting a spell, especially one the user tries to “overclock”, can cause Magic Mishaps to the caster and those around them.

In MYZ every Mutant has at least one Mutation. Mutations sometimes have multiple uses. All “mutant powers” require Mutation Points to activate; once activated they “just work”, unless the target uses a Skill to resist. However, each Mutation Point spent increases the chance of a Misfire, which sometimes means an added Mutation at the cost of an Attribute point.

In ALIEN, TFTL, and Vaesen characters have no paranormal powers. As all these games concern people encountering the unknown and terrifying, powers would lessen the mystery, tension, and terror in each scenario. The point is for players to use their wits to solve the problem, not meet an incomprehensible force with even greater force.

In each of these cases – mystical powers, magic spells, mutant powers, or nothing at all – whatever supernatural force the players can command provides an extra tool in their toolbox, but (ideally) does not short-cut the adventure. Using powers also poses some risk to the user and those around them. Even in the case of Forbidden Lands, magic-users aren’t glass cannons that sweep away opposition but a counterbalance to the unknown evil magic lurking in the eponymous Forbidden Lands.

Spaceships

ALIEN’s spaceship generation and combat systems appear to be simplified and streamlined version of Coriolis’s. I prviously described ALIEN’s, and Coriolis’s elsewhere.

To summarize, in Coriolis the PCs’ ship is their home and their fortress. Its starship creation rules give characters numerous options to design a ship that matches their needs exactly, along with pre-built examples that are close enough for typical groups. Likewise, the combat rules assign all players a role in combat, albeit by requiring five battle stations on typical PC ships. Going from star to star requires complex calculations which take skill or money, and the blessing of the Icons to avoid misjumps.

In contrast, in the ALIEN franchise spaceships merely act as transport from planet to planet, mostly off camera, or as a way to trap characters with a hungry Xenomorph. The ALIEN RPG’s options to create starships are more prosaic, and I suspect the pre-built spaceships will suffice for most campaigns. Combat rules are simpler, and roles are streamlined or eliminated.⁸ Travel between stars is mostly handwaved; making enough money to keep up with maintenance is the more pressing concern.

Exploration

In Mutant Year Zero PCs are mutants who dwell in “The Ark”. They must explore the wastelands around them to find extra food, technology, and knowledge to enhance not just their personal stash but conditions in the entire Ark, as described below.

In some ways Forbidden Lands is a reskinned and expanded Mutant Year Zero. Adventurers forge paths through unmapped and hazardous territory, creating roads, base camps, and eventually more permanent settlements. To this end the Forbidden Lands boxed set provides a detailed map, stickers that update the map as the result of the player’s forays, and an entire book of GM-only information to keep the denizens of the Forbidden Lands a complete surprise.

Naturally the other games play with themes of exploration: Coriolis crews discovering colonies and cultures near less explored stars, investigators in Vaesen encountering Mysteries in rural Scandinavia⁹, Kids in Tales from the Loop exploring a seemingly quiet company town, and characters in the ALIEN RPG poking into the cosmos’s dark corners and hoping not to get eaten. No other YZE games, however, take hex-crawling and tomb raiding so seriously.

Home Base

Nearly all YZE games provide tools and mechanics for building and augmenting one’s home base.

Forbidden Lands allows one or more PCs to stake a claim on a chunk of the Forbidden Lands and build one or more Strongholds. They can enhance it as they like with ‘functions" such as a Forge or a Privy, or “hirelings” like a Miller or a Jailer. Each improvement provides a benefit to all PCs at the Stronghold, and presumably some NPCs as well. Some PCs will establish a single Stronghold and enhance it between expeditions, others will leave a chain of bare-bones Strongholds to mark where they’ve been.

In Mutant Year Zero the players just have one Ark. The players, doubling as the Ark’s vox populi, commit labor to Projects that range from farming and marketplaces to an armory and/or an electrical generator to democracy and its rivals. Once completed a Project will raise the Ark’s numerical Development Levels¹⁰ (which unlock potential future Projects), augment the Ark’s facilities and defenses, and/or provide personal benefits to PCs and NPCs alike. One of a MYZ campaign’s long term goals is to transform the Ark from a simple shelter to a civilized community.

Vaesen starts PCs with a Headquarters. Every Mystery solved gives PCs Improvement Points with which they can acquire (or “discover”) useful spaces and personnel in their HQ. The aim, however, is not to create a whole new minigame but to support the solving of further Mysteries by improving the investigators’ circumstances.

PCs in Coriolis and ALIEN can upgrade their spaceships, although it might put them in even deeper debt. Naturally the Kids of Tales from the Loop can’t outfit their clubhouse with anything useful; they’re kids and adults rule their lives.

Final Comments

For what it’s worth, if I were to pitch Year Zero Engine games to a group, I’d be most enthused for Coriolis and Vaesen, and least enthused for ALIEN and Tales from the Loop. This should surprise no one who’s read my other posts.

Coriolis provides a rich if slightly daunting setting. Vaesen offers the sort of investigative horror I liked in Call of Cthulhu, only with Norse folklore instead of tentacle monsters. Coriolis also has several published adventures, and a book of adventures was part of the Vaesen Kickstarter.

Mutant Year Zero would probably be next as the progenitor of the rest. Post-apocalyptic settings with “mutants” have become a little cliché, but MYZ has solid mechanics and a larger game of rebuilding civilization. Scenarios are fairly straightforward – go out into the Zone and find something, or defend the Ark against something else – and there’s even a random scenario seed table in the core book. (There’s also a metaplot, but in my mind that’s actually a point against it; luckily, I can just ignore that bit.)

At the moment Forbidden Lands seems slightly less appealing than MYZ. Not only because I haven’t finished reading it yet but because dark psedo-medieval fantasy is slightly more cliché. Also, what I have read seems a little too elaborate and complex. For some people that’s a plus, but I’ve found a profusion of options leads to minmaxing, rules-lawyering, and power gaming. Maybe Free League escaped that trap. I hope so.

Conversely, despite the streamlined mechanics of ALIEN and the extreme brevity of TFTL’s rules the settings just don’t excite me. Maybe if I took the time to re-skin ALIEN for another dark SF setting without unstoppable H. R. Giger monsters, or maybe if I reused TFTL’s minimal “players roll all dice” rules for … something else. But I’ve gotten into trouble trying to create too much at once, and the next time I GM – assuming I have to GM at all – I’ll lean on something that’s published and (presumably) playtested.

Coriolis and Vaesen certainly fit those criteria, and if I had to I’d at least take a stab at Mutant Year Zero or (if and when I crack the secret Game Masters’ book) Forbidden Lands. Even a one shot with ALIEN or TFTL would be fine; the settings may not thrill me, but Free League did a great job with them.