Role Playing yourself

[MEG Hal]

Before you start I am not asking you to stat out yourself as I have seen before, but with us working on Fall of Man* it is very feasable to RP your personal skills and traits in a game soon, so I am asking what skills (not how many ranks) do you have and would you want to play a heroic version of yourself?

My skills:

Hand to Hand-brown belt in Escrima/Kali/Arnis (was a wee bit ago)

Martial weapons--clubs, knives, swords (martial arts, side training, own some hand made blades as well)

Firearms-use one for work

Driving-duh

Boating-owned a sailboat for a few years

Bluff-see dimplomacy

Diplomacy- I am a charmer

Knowledge:
Law Enforcement
Law
Computers
Parenting
Firearms
Sailing
Publishing
Art
First Responder

I am sure there are more but this is what I have for now, what are yours?


I think it would be fun to play a heroic (thinner) version of me BTW



*More info on Fall of Man can be received by ckicking the Fall of Man in my sig

 

[diaglo]

Knowledge (obscure)

Chopsticks 101


Languages: (computer) several ; and (obscene) many.

 

[Mordane76]

I could be heroic... possibly anti-heroic, though...

Skills:

Experience with throwing daggers/darts (been a bit, so I'm a bit rusty)
Experience with bow (been a bit, so I'm a bit rusty)
Experience with light pistols (been a bit, so I'm a bit rusty)
Experience with rifles (been a bit, so I'm a bit rusty)

A fair amount of natural aim


Knowledge: Biology (I'm a few credits from my BS)
Knowledge: Chemistry (required for Biology)
Knowledge: Psychology (I'm a few credits from my BS)
Knowledge: Military (military brat, four years of ROTC)
Knowledge: History (military as a focus, but good general as well)

Craft: 'Chemistry' (I have a good deal of lab work under my belt)

Computers (no programming, but I know my way around most things PC, and I can fix hardware and software issues that don't require programming, also no LINUX or Mac)

Diplomacy -- I'm a personnel and front office manager at a hotel

Swimming (I competed in junior high, but I can still swim pretty well)

 

[alsih2o]

Craft- please! please make craft and art checks different! they should stack, the more ranks you get, the more things you can do. 1 rank craft equals decent at something. 3 ranks is decent at something real good at first thing. 6 ranks is decent, real good, awesome. 10 ranks is decent, real good awesome, masterwork. yada-yada. please! this is nearer reality and so doable. a man who is a master potter knows a bit about glass and metal and wood. same all around.

Firearms- if it is near common i can handle it.

Drive- add some heavy equipment in here for farm life and refinery work

Handle animal- domestics and some exotic herp and birds. these should be seperate too. some folks train dogs and seals, some handle cobras and alligators and pull yak teeth.

Emergency Response- rank 1 HazWOpeR, first aid, cpr. Red Cross training.

Green thumb- veggies to bonsai.

Collector- flea market fiend, i consequently know some of this trivia and have some odd doo-dads that are very situation specific. (thus i justify it's difference from Appraise)

(Dis)Able device- a lot of this stems from Craft above, but i can work any normal tool and some odd ones.

 

[DanMcS]

Before you start I am not asking you to stat out yourself as I have seen before, but with us working on Fall of Man* it is very feasable to RP your personal skills and traits in a game soon, so I am asking what skills (not how many ranks) do you have and would you want to play a heroic version of yourself?

Hasn't everyone done one of those games, where you get the players to stat themselves out as PCs and then send some chainsaw-wielding zombies to kill them gruesomely in-game? It's very cathartic.

No?

Just me then. Er, I mean, no, I never did that either. Look, it's Elvis.


Philisophically speaking, I have to disagree with the theory that people would have to be heroicized to be playably fun. I've always enjoyed the exploits of the everyman in heroic stories. Xander from Buffy has no superpowers, but he still kicks butt. Achilles wasn't really all that brave in the Iliad, he was all but invulnerable, for crying out loud.

If I was going to play myself fighting evil/crime/whatever, I'd want it to be a reasonable facsimile of me.


Skills-wise, well, I can drive a car, got the old high-school math and science and language skills, a decade of martial arts, been shooting guns since I was little, did my undergrad in engineering, I program computers for a living, and I have a breadth of useless but entertaining knowledge about trivia. Fear me, zombies!

Bluff? Ah, no, not so much, when I lie I tend to crack up, I only fool really gullible people. But that's ok, zombies don't parley anyway.

I haven't actually read the link about the game yet, but I'm assuming it has zombies, and even if it doesn't, it will after I get my hands on it.

 

[BlackMoria]

Hmmm. For me, let's see. Skills that I have which would translate into some D20 mechanic.

For my 12 years in the Military:
- Firearms (Service Rifle, SMG, LMG, Pistol, Shotgun)
- Heavy Weapons (30cal MMG, 50cal HMG, Carl Gustav AT Launcher, LAW rocket, Eyrx ATGM)
- Artillery Systems (81mm Mortar, 105mm Howitzer, 155mm SP Howitzer)
- Leadership
- Demolitions
- Military Intelligence
- Tactican
- Military History
- Driver (Iltis Jeep, APC, Lt Truck, M109 SP Howitzer)
- Navigation/Map Using

Now for other than military:

- Civilian Parachutist
- Computer Programming/Database
- Computer Repair
- Network Tech
- Basic Electronics
- Basic Law
- Basic and Advance First Aid
- Marital Arts (Black Belt Jiu-Jitsu, Black Belt Tae Kwon Do, Black Sash Tiger-Crane Gung-fu)
- Sleight of Hand (amateur magician)
- Civilian Search and Rescue
- Stage Production/Management
- Level 1 Scuba Diver
- Swimming
- Basic Glider Pilot

I tried to outline skills that I would have some rank in. Given the nature of real life, if one would outline all the things one knew, one can fill volumes.

It is a interesting exercise - I didn't realize how much 'specialized' knowledge/skills I had until I started the list. It would be difficult to protray myself as a 1st level character in D20 modern due to the number of skill points I would require (I have enough 'rank' in a number of skills above that I could teach the subject matter to a classroom of people).

Edit: Some more skills I thought of

 

[der_kluge]

I don't think Hal is looking at making heroes out of us, he's just looking for a broad set of skills.

Here would be mine:

Music - I can play Clarinet, oboe, and fife. I am an amateur composer, and have a decent amount of knowledge on Classical music.

Computers - I built my last PC from scratch (even put the gel in between the CPU and the heatsink), I can program in a number of different languages, and I have a ton of database experience.

Corporate - Working for a Fortune 500 company, this just kind of comes with the territory. Probably provides a synergy bonus when using diplomacy against corporate suits.

Internet - I've got L33T google skillz.

Current Events - I really keep on top of current events, and generally know what is going on in the world.

Writing - I'm a professional writer. I even won a writing contest at work last year, and won $250.

Father - still learning. 1 rank.

Good ol' boy - I grew up in Arkansas, thus I can hunt and fish, shoot a gun, and carry on a conversation to rednecks without insulting them. Like Corporate, provides a synergy bonus to diplomacy checks when dealing with people whose family tree does not branch.

Bunches of other little things, but I probably am just using them untrained.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Include subcultures as languages rather than skills.

If two gamers get together they'll be able to make references to gaming that a listener might not pick up on. This "rank" of language will also allow the character to make knowledge checks related to their subculture on the rare times they are applicable.

That will let you allow for the wide swath of trivia that modern folks seem to know while not making them blow ten skill ranks just so they can say that they are, for example, a sports mavin.

Just my two cents.

 

[shadow]

The problem with playing myself is that I realize how pitiful I am compared to most RPG characters. I don't have any combat related skills, I don't have any hacking skills, most of my skills are fairly mundane. However, if I had to make a d20 version of myself it would look something like:

Speak Language: Japanese

Speak Language: Spanish

Knowledge: Linguistics

Computer Operations

In addition I would have the following feats:
Dead Man Walking (From the Ravenloft Campaign Setting)

Jaded (Also from the Ravenloft Campaign Setting)

 

[Lord Judas]

Mike Barker, Corrupt Programmer

Skills:
Programming 6
Bluff 7
Diplomacy 4
Knowledge(Computers) 4
Knowledge(Automotive) 4
Auto-Repair 5 (I can rebuild engines, install transmission etc, artifact from a previous job)
Knowledge(History) 3
Knowledge(Gaming Arcana) 3
Computer Games 4 (a lifetime of playing)
General Repair 3 (required for Dads)

Feats:
Skill Focus(Programming)
Falisfy Status Report
Look Busy
Molehills into Mountains (the art of making 20 lines of code sound like 2000)

Background: After a few years of trying to be a great programmer, Mike learned the true meaning of "work smarter, not harder"