Heroes In Their Own Minds: Random Mutant Generator

[tuftears]

A bit silly maybe but why not. -_- I foresee that I'm going to have a need for this.

Gender: (2d6)
2. Ambiguous
3. Female (butch)
4. Female (ladylike)
5. Female (professional)
6. Female (flirty)
7. Male (macho)
8. Male (professional)
9. Male (gentleman)
10. Male (scruffian)
11. Male (bishonen)
12. It's Complicated

Skin Color:
1. "Crisps In The Sun" White
2. 'Healthy Pink'
3. Asian/Indian
4. Burnished bronze
5. Black
6. Other (1: Red, 2: Orange, 3: Green, 4: Blue, 5: Purple, 6: Roll Twice)

Body Build: (2d6)
2. Short and squat, midget-like
3. Significantly obese, average height
4. Slightly obese, average height
5. Tall and lean, like a beanpole
6-7. Muscled, movie star-like build
8-9. Slim and gracile, dancer-like build
10. Heavy-set, muscled build
11. Charles Atlas bundle of muscles
12. Brute-like physique, hulking, hunched over

Appearance:
1. Practically human except for glowing eyes when using powers
2. Normally human, transforms when using powers i.e. 'Flame On!'.
3-4. Near-human appearance, could pass in heavy clothes or simple disguises
5. Demi-human, would require poor lighting and heavy disguising
6. Very inhuman looking, nigh impossible to disguise

Primary Archetype: (2d6)
2. Controller
3. Summoner
4-5. Scrapper
6-8. Blaster
9-10. Guardian
11. Defender
12. Healer

Element: (2d6)
2. Roll again: 1-3=Light, 4-6=Darkness
3. Roll again: 1-3=Nature (plants), 4-6=Wildlife (beasts)
4. Ice
5. Water
6-7. Fire
8. Earth
9. Rock
10. Roll again: 1-4=Air/weather, 5-6=Lightning
11. Roll again: 1-2=Metal, 3-4=Machinery, 5-6=Cybernetics
12. Roll again: 1-2=Gravity, 3-4=Space, 5-6=Time Control

Personality: (roll 1d20)
1. The Soldier (ISTJ) - very responsible and practical, sticks to the rules 'n regs
2. The Minion (ISFJ) - loyal and ready to sacrifice for their team
3. The Caregiver (INFJ) - contemplative and caring, mother- or father-figure
4. The Critic (INTJ) - independent and skeptical, some call her a complainer but she wouldn't complain if she didn't care
5. Top Gun (ISTP) - pragmatic and hands-on, would rather commit to a plan of action and tweak it as she goes than talk about it all day
6. The Artist (ISFP) - shy and withdrawn but observant, may have surprising insight
7. The Idealist (INFP) - seeks inner order and harmony, peace, follows a strict system of values
8. The Thinker (INTP) - loves problem-solving; often guilty of assuming practice will follow theory
9. Wild Card (ESTP) - spontaneous, prefers unconventional and fun approach, rarely considers tomorrow
10. Party Hardy (ESFP) - generous and outgoing, loves surprises and hates red tape
11. The Thrill Seeker (ENFP) - optimistic and people-oriented, enjoys extreme sports and activities
12. The Troublemaker (ENTP) - inventive, will argue the opposite side of a position to better understand it, tests limits
13. The Sarge (ESTJ) - leads from the front-line, results-driven
14. The Diplomat (ESFJ) - harmonizing, eager to please, thoughtful of others
15. The Charmer (ENFJ) - smooth-talking, tends to ignore unpleasant aspects of deals
16. The Visionary (ENTJ) - commanding and take-charge, likes planning grand strategy
17. The Alpha - the biggest and best at whatever it is she does, will test herself against others to prove it. Tells the dragon to back down before someone gets hurt. (RPG "Killer")
18. The Role Player - the thespian of the bunch, wants to draw others into her story, usually with herself in a leading role. (RPG "Socializer")
19. The Achiever - plays to win, where winning is defined as gaining some degree of unquestionable fame or status in the game. (RPG "Achiever")
20. The Explorer - plays to see everything that there is in the game. Frequently footloose and unlikely to tie herself to any one team or place for long, unless they're going her way. (RPG "Explorer")

(1-16 based on this chart)

Character Flaws: (pick one, two if you're feeling ambitious)
(see this list, roll 1d100 and count, roll again if you fall off the end)

Equipment: (roll 3x, duplicates may level up the base item)
1. Weapon
2. Armor/Shield Generator
3. Support (web thrower, smoke grenades, night vision goggles, etc.)
4. Utility (rope, climbing gear, lockpick/hacking tool, backpack or carry-all, medikit, etc.)
5. Vehicle (usually small and personal like scooters, glider wings)
6. Artifact (confers some small power enhancement when worn/equipped)

Note: all mutants will have some version of an integrated computer/communicator which includes a basic camera and simple analysis programs. Missions will usually provide any additional required gear, or point the mutants to where they can obtain them. These reflect items the mutant prefers to keep handy at all times.

Let's give this a try. *rolls*

Female (over the top), red skin, lithe dancer-like build, demi-human, Scrapper archetype, Earth element, ENFJ Charmer. Flaw: Lewd (oh my). Equipment: support, utility, artifact.

Building on that, let's see... Perhaps she's built like a morphic dragon. Her powers might be Claws (sharp melee attack), Devour (consume rock to regain health), Rock Armor (passive defense, always on but erodes under fire and regenerates slowly), Wings (gives short-range flight), and Tail Spikes (launches a relatively short-range projectile attack). If I were designing an NPC, I might pick only three powers, or four for lieutenants, but players should have around five at the end of their introductory experience.

She might carry a stock of entangling grenades to pin enemies down, a carry-all to tuck away treasure she uncovers, and an artifact that increases her movement speed whenever she's standing on earth or rock. She has an earthy (well, it figures) attitude, leading to her being seen as rude by some, and spends too much time flirting at handsome mutants, to the dismay of her team, but she can generally talk anyone around, given time.

I should comment that 'Female (over the top)' doesn't mean that she's Very Well Developed; rather it means her mannerisms and voice emphasize her feminity to an almost embarrasing point. She might effect the manners of a Southern belle, whether or not she actually came from the South.

Seems like a plausible mutant to find running around in Mu Factor, IMO.

Comments

[rowyn]

I guess the Female (macho) and Male (feminine) can fall into It's Complicated. n_n Randomizers are always fun to play with!

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Exactly. ^_^ I mainly wanted 'standard female/male' to make up most of the mutants encounterable but have a few outliers doing weird things. Adding 'neutral' and 'more so' gives me a clue in character generation as to how they're likely to behave-- think Agent Scully as a professional, hard-working female, versus a Southern belle or a princess being feminine.

I'm thinking about making a Rowyn-like viewpoint character playing a Nightcrawler-like character. :) I figure this story will need two viewpoint characters, one 'old-timer' and one 'never played this game before'. Have any preferences you'd like to espouse at this point?

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Hmm. With that 1d6 table up top weighted as it is, fully a third of all characters generated this way are going to fall out of a simple designation of "male" or "female," eh? I guess that Mu factor does quite a number! (I am assuming that here you are using "gender" in the physical sense.)

(P.S., sorry if it seems like I'm always responding to your posts several days late. I have to wade through quite a bit of text to find your posts on my "Friends" page. It makes me wish LJ gave me some option to just show the headline and first line of text, or something like that, with a click-to-expand -- sort of like what I try to do when I "lj-cut" most everything I post -- rather than plastering EVERYTHING -- even entire book chapters -- into the Friends page feed.)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Hmm, maybe I should use a 2d6 table for gender instead. Sort of a bell curve. (more of a triangle than a curve) I'll fix it. :)

No worry, there's no great rush on this project! So what kind of mutant would you pick for the other viewpoint character? Any favorite superheroes I could use as a base? I know you tend to favor healer or support types when actually playing but this is about reading/writing for entertainment, not 'avoiding overshadowing the other players'.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

I'm actually interested in "support" characters story-wise as well ... but I could probably write a long-winded LJ post about that in greater detail to explain what I mean. ;) I cannot think of a case where I've succeeded in PLAYING the sort of character I was interested in, though. I think I just don't have enough focus or clarity of purpose to stick to a consistent role. (Or maybe I spend too much time spoiling myself as a GM who can switch roles any time he pleases, and explore whatever strikes his whim, versus being "stuck" in a single character role, such that I find it so difficult on the rare occasion I get to be a player for a change.)

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

That's fine. :) Do you have any favorite support superheroes/characters you can name?

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

I find the friends filter really helpful for that kind of stuff. People who don't lj-cut their long posts, for instance, get bumped off my "read" filter. If I feel inclined I can go read their posts, and I don't unfriend them, but their long posts no longer clutter up my feed. I have a bunch of different filters for different uses.

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

Ah yes. Filters would be useful for that, if only I could break myself of my habit of typing in the URL to take me directly to the friends page that I've ingrained in myself for ... huh ... well over a decade now? (Since 2002, it seems!)

I use a similar method to "hide" posts on Facebook for Friends whose feeds are overly full of political stuff. (This INCLUDES even some people who would fall on the same side of the political spectrum as myself. I do not see any value in sharing memes that basically say something to the effect of "Our side ROX! Other side is EEEEVIL NASTY WICKED PLEASE DIEDIEDIE KTHX!" and quite possibly not even as well-worded as that.)

But then it also helps that, unless you have your privacy settings set otherwise, you can make it so that people can't just browse through your "friends feed" on Facebook. Here, if someone goes to "jordangreywolf.livejournal.com/friends," whether signed on or not, he or she will get a feed of whoever is on my Friends list (filtered or not!) and with a certain amount of validation of whatever is in there (even if I've used some sort of filter magic to be blissfully oblivious to it).

(Google+ is even better in that one respect, IMHO, since you just add "circles" of whatever it is you want to follow, you don't get notices if someone drops you, and nobody is under any sort of obligation to share both ways. But Google seems bound and determined to make it less-than-convenient for me to check on my Google+ feed; no more URL-then-click to get there -- now I have to pull a drop-down to select Google+ from the Google main page, versus Facebook or LJ where I can just go straight to the relevant URL I've got well-memorized by now.)

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

What, no "Loonies" or "Munchkins"? };>

Realistically, for PCs you'll also get griefers. It might be interesting to have NPCs act that way, which would give players excellent motivation to beat the hell out of them. This is doubly true if the AI is configured to learn tactics by watching the players.

ObTeasingFluffyshy: Meyers-Briggs Ponies =^.^=

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

Another take on that chart, with less-wordy summaries of the archetypes (and different assignments): Meyers-Briggs Ponies redux

I think that these names for the categories are the ones normally used with MBTI typing.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I thought about it but since I'm mainly planning to use this to generate NPC personalities, it doesn't make sense to have NPCs deliberately acting crazy or exploiting the game at a meta level.

*gnaws*