If we’re going comedic, I’d like to know in advance… Aw heck, I’d like to know as much about the campaign world as I can in advance. As beforementioned; I tend to make better characters when I have some idea as to what’s going on in the game.
Ooh, I like that. Since he’s going to be good at escape (and since some of the fun of Fate is routinely falling into absurdly dangerous situations in order to gain Fate points), I think you could find some really fun ways to implement that. Stuff like, I dunno, a Career Criminal aspect, which lets him be extremely confident when hiding, slipping past a police barricade, or the like, but on the flip side often results in his reverting to heavy prison slang, perp-walking everywhere, trying to yell down the tough-looking biker as a matter of principal, and the like.
Anyway, you see where I’m going: Aspect is a simple, but fantastically effective way of articulating what your character is like, and I think a cat burglar would have a ton of options available.
Oh, that gives me an idea. I am thinking of doing sort of a Sprit meets the Shadow kind of pulp hero. Part detective part two fisted brawler with just a little bit of something “extra”. If he was a movie character originally that gives me all sorts of other things I can play with and I can give him a crazy background.
I’m thinking about doing the Wild Gunslinger, with a penchant for self destruction then - the sort of guy that shows up by crashing his car into a building, and walks away from it unscathed.
As the martial artist was a good one in my mind, but I think the Destructive GunSlinger is more comedic
I like that idea for a set-up. I’m cool with comedic role-playing as well.
The character I came up with when I was reading the SoC rules is a gambler-type. Prefers to outwit his opponents instead of outgunning them. Very suave, self-important, ladies’ man type. I think I could work that into a comedic role.
Ok, the site says that character creation is supposed to be collaborative so I am going to start throwing out ideas as they come to me. I want to start with the idea that my guy is coming from the tradition of The Shadow or Batman or Green Hornet. He is wealthy with an alter ego. His real persona is his “man of mystery” persona and his “normal” name is the act.
His real name will be Byron Johanson. He started off as just a rich guy who wanted to fight crime because it’s what all his rich friends were doing. So he traveled back east and studied with some yogi’s in india and some monks in Tibet and learned the secrets of how to perfectly control his own body and bend men’s minds. (What exactly this means I haven’t decided yet, the Shadow could turn himself invisible, but I don’t want to rip that off to blatently)
He then came back home and set up shop as a P.I. of the Nick Charles variety. (From the Thin Man books by Dashel Hammet) He gets good at investigative work, but when his wife and his sidekick (swifty a newspaper boy?) are kill and he is left for dead, he uses his family money to reinvent himself as a new person. Byron Johanson died that night, and a new person was born. A vigilante out to take down the evil elements of the underworld and make the upperworld safe once again. He calls himself (I don’t know yet, I haven’t decided).
Charles Montgomery will be his new name to the world. He dies his hair jet black and wears glasses so no one from his old life will recognize him. He poses as a millionare playboy who has enough money he doesn’t need to work. He is charming and surrounded by women. He also has a bad drinking problem.
Ok, those are my initial thoughts. I will be back with more later, but feel free to throw out suggestions to help this character take shape (a good name for his vigilante side would be nice.)
That sounds good… you should totally takes this as an optional suggestion, but considering your back story, Byron sounds like the perfect sort to take some of the Contacting and Deceit skills.
Are we going to go with establishing characters the same way as it says to do in the SoC Rules, or just generally make up the backstory and such? It seems like it’'d be a bit tricky to do it the SoC way (pulp novels/guest starring/etc.) with the origin story we’re working with.
Anyway, I’ll throw my character idea out there as well and flesh it out a bit more. I’m thinking of basing my character off of The Doctor from Doctor Who in terms of general characteristics.
He’s going to be an exceptionally intelligent guy, who has been trained to outwit his opponents and think his way out of tricky situations instead of using brute force. He’s not quite a pacifist: he’ll fight if he has to but only as a last resort. He finds it much more challenging and fun to beat his enemies by running mental circles around them. This is of course good and bad, because while he can get himself out of tough situations, he’ll also sometimes give away advantages he has to get the chance to play mental games with a worthy adversary.
His penchant for liking to outwit people has led to something that’s both a boon and a curse: his gambling problem. He’s become fairly wealthy through mostly card games but also other gambling sports. He can’t help himself to make wagers on things he’s confident he’ll excel at. Most of the time it works for him, but sometimes it’s not as fruitful.
That’s all I’ve got so far. I have a few aspects I’m already sure I’m going to use for the character, but I need some idea on expanding out his backstory.
You’re right, sticking religiously to the SOTC format for this kind of game would be awkward, so you should stick with making up the kind of story you want. 
Let me know if I am out of line, but based on what you said the first thing that came to my mind was that he was a rogue spy. He used to work for an agency, but now lives in hiding because he found out the system was corrupt… or something along those line.
Kind of James Bond meets the prisoner meets Bourne meets Dr. Who. So convoluted it could only happen in hollywood! 
(BTW that is what I am using as the basis for my character. The idea that he was originally created by a hollywood hack. I am trying to jam pack him full of cliches which is why I keep mentioning inspirational works.)
I am having the hardest time coming up with a name for my guy. I want something like The Shadow, or The Spirit, or The Phantom etc. I am not liking any of the stuff I am coming up with.
It’s al stuff like The Dark Avenger, which frankly doesn’t pack enough punch.
The Phantasm?
For my dude, I was thinking he’s got the Quintessential “tough guy” sort of attitude when it comes to Life and Death.
I’m thinking he’s a hypocritical fellow, the sort who hates being “pinned” into a stereotype. So when people assume he’s going to go Right all the time, he’ll veer the car and spin off to the left.
When I picture him, I think of a mix of Stuntman Mike from *Deathproof * and Doc Holiday from Tombstone.
So basically: The leather clad bad-boy that thinks he’s invincible. He’s brash, gruff, can’t really brawl in close combat, but he loves to live his life on the edge. Any crash that he can walk away from he’s happy to do so would fit the S.Mike Persona.
And for the Doc Holiday portion- he’s a gunslinger- a man who loves his dual pistols, and feels “naked” if they’re not on him in some way. He’s a smart guy- but he just likes living dangerously better, so he’s not the most likely to use his head to solve a problem. It’s must easier just to acquire a car -smash it through the front door, and then go in guns blazing to solve any problems. And that means ANY problems in life.
I was thinking, he could have been a Stuntman before the incident, and that’s what caused his brash attitude and living life on the edge sorta skills, but then during the accident- he was working the special effects/roles in a Cowboy film, and that’s why he’s got the pistols and his gunslinging skills.
Of course, the fact that he’s got a penchant for fast cars, booze, and Ammo requires him to have a benefactor of some sort. So your two characters (**Naf **and Oil) could easily tie into mine if you found a reason to support my character’s “Explosive” lifestyle.
He could easily be a foil to your “smarter” more cerebral characters- as he’s less apt to try to use his head to solve any tasks, and would MUCH rather be flashy, showy and explody about ALL his methods.
The Truth?
As you “You can’t handle The Truth!”
I fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, dammit!
Okay, so I’m going to start posting my character in phases. Feel free to comment on various things. Since he comes out of a pulp version of modern day, he’s not going to have WWI phases.
Real Name: Alan J. Reyes
Pulp Name: The Mountain Goat
Occupation: Grand Larcenist
Phase 1: Early Childhood
Alan grew up as a short weakling kid and the only child of an (apparently) run-of-the-mill upper middle class family living in some nondescript suburb of L.A. His father was a private practice lawyer, and his mother was a child psychologist. A regular target of bullies, rather than ineffectually using physical strength to fight back, he learned to rely on his quick wits and speed to get him out of dangerous situations.
Aspect 1: He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
Aspect 2: Could make a decent living selling ice to Eskimos.
Phase 2: Middle School/High School
Although never being that physically strong, Alan still became one of the most athletic in his class due to his agility and dexterity. He became captain of the basketball team his junior year of high school and was considered the best point guard in his conference. He also set the state in record in the 400 and 800 meter sprints his sophomore year, and proceeded to break his own records for the next two years. At the age of 14, his parents died in a car accident, leaving him a sizable amount of money in a trust fund to pay for college. His uncle on his father’s side, Phineas was appointed legal guardian of Alan until such time as he turned 18. Now his uncle had developed a reputation as a two-bit petty criminal. The reason for this was, well, because his uncle pretty much was a two-bit petty criminal. However, his uncle had powerful connections, which kept him out of jail. His uncle also always resented his father, due to the fact that his father was more successful and became that way through legal means. Though his uncle was never abusive and provided for all of Alan’s basic needs, it wasn’t particularly fun for him, so he spent as little time with his uncle as possible. However, one thing he did have to do for his uncle was assist in his uncle’s “business ventures”. In the beginning he was loath to do this, but since he was smart enough to realize his uncle had connections, and if his uncle wanted to screw him over, could no doubt do so, he went along. Besides, he got to learn stuff he never got to experience in school. And eventually, he came to realize that he was a far superior criminal to his uncle, both in brains and natural talent, though, he was far from ready or willing to embrace the criminal life fully.
Aspect 1: Graceful as a mountain goat.
Aspect 2: Jack Dawkins eat your heart out. (AKA Petty Larcenist)
Phase 3: The pulp novel.
Title: Alan J. Reyes in Enter the Mountain Goat
Blurb: A few weeks after his 18th birthday, Alan J. Reyes accompanies his uncle Phineas on one final burglary. His uncle, a petty criminal, has been his legal guardian since the age of 14 when his parents died in a car accident. They never got along real well, mainly due to the jealously his uncle always harbored for his father. But now that he was 18, Alan would finally be free of his uncle’s control and criminality. He planned to go to college on the money his parents left him in a trust. However, he had just a few months ago, agreed to assist his uncle on this final job. After all, better to have even a twit like his uncle as an ally then an enemy, especially with his uncle’s connections to dangerous people. Little did he know, honor among thieves didn’t apply to his uncle. His uncle set him up in exchange for getting out of some bad “business deals”. Alan was caught red-handed in the job. However, in the underworld, one good double-cross deserves another. Little did his uncle know the job was never meant to be successful. Alan had been watched for a while by one of his uncle’s associates. This man, who Alan would only know by the moniker Mr. Z saw promise in Alan far beyond the limited vision of his uncle. All Alan needed was some real professional burglary training, and Mr. Z had the connections to get it done. Yes, with his protege fully schooled in the art of larceny, Mr. Z could finally get his hands on that which had eluded him for years: The Despair Diamond!
Aspect 1: Why do all my mentors leave in some fashion? (AKA abandonment issues)
Aspect 2: Charles Peace eat your heart out! (AKA Grand Larcenist)
And I see that we aren’t necessarily sticking strictly to the SRD for creation. Well, my pulp fiction blurb still pretty much stands as his storyline.
How are we handling the last two phases of creation?
So I have this later. This is my first pass at my skills. I am very open to suggestions though.
skills:
1 Superb skill: Investigation (He is primarily a detective after all)
2 Great skills: Guns and Fists (he is also a two fisted fighter)
3 Good skills: All three Contacting skills
4 Fair Skills: Athletics: Jumping, Sprinting, Dodging, and either climbing or falling
5 Average Skills: All three deceit skills, drive, and either climbing or falling
I may want to suffle where I have some of these on the ladder. I might need to have disguise up with the good skills, and might be able to get rid of a contact skill or a deceit skill. I am not sure yet.
Like I said, I am open to suggestions.
I would love to help, but after my wife and kid sidekick were killed all those years ago, I just don’t get close to anyone. I am a loner, and it’s better for everyone that way.
[oog] though clearly that will change soon[/oog]
Hmm, I really love the novel idea, so I’ll “shuffle” with random.org, and post the results momentarily…
Ladies and gentlemen, the results are in:
RoOsh’s guest stars are… ** NAF1138, Hoopy Frood**
**
NAF1138**'s guest stars are… Pollux Oil, ArrMatey!
Hoopy Frood’s guest stars are… ArrMatey!, Pollux Oil
Pollux Oil’s guest stars are… Hoopy Frood, RoOsh
ArrMatey!'s guest stars are… RoOsh, NAF1138
How do we do the Guest Stars thing? Do I get to guest star in those 2 players novels- do I make aspects or a storyline?