CHAPTER THREE: ENHANCING YOUR FIGHTING FEMALE

CHAPTER 3:  ENHANCING YOUR CHARACTER

Now that we have your character’s name and look established, it’s time to get her ready to begin her fighting career.

For the time being, every game character is going to begin the same way, as an 18-year-old rookie fighter in the Outer City.  For now, there are 2 venues she can fight in: The Mat Room and Daisy Duke’s.  As time progresses new venues will become available, such as The Bloody Mattress, The Padded Room, The Hole and The Kennel.   These last four are dangerous venues and death matches take place there regularly, so it would be a good idea to build your character up some before entering her into any fights in those venues.  Eventually she will be able to make her way through The Wall and into the fabled Inner City, where fame and fortune await her.  But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.  The character of Hannah was created specifically for this game, so I will use her as an example.  

First of all each character is going to have two separate Profiles (in the D&D world these are called Character Sheets)   The first one is called her Game Profile and will be visible to anyone playing the game.  Here's what it looks like:

  

I’m not going to explain this right now because everything that is on the Game Profile is also on your Character Profile, which is pictured below.  The Character Profile is your main tool for playing the game.  Only you and the Game Master (me) can see this.   The idea is that your girl’s opponent doesn’t necessarily know what all her best fighting moves are (though she may find out in the course of the battle.) 

Don’t worry if any of this is confusing right now.  I’m going to begin breaking down everything on the Character Profile one item at a time. 

We’ll start with the Stats box and work our way down. 

BIRTHDAY:  This would seem to be pretty obvious, except that if you want your girl to be able to appear in the timeline, she must turn 18 during the times available, which for now are from 2475-2480.  So select a birth date for her that will allow her to be at least 18 years of age during that time period.

CURRENT AGE:  This will be updated as your character moves through the timeline. 

EXP TOTAL:  Now we get into the important stuff.  This is the Grand Total of all experience points your character has accumulated in her fighting career.   Experience Points are gained mostly for taking part in combat, though some will be awarded for other things, such as gym memberships and taking training courses.  (This will be explained in more detail later.)  You will also be given an amount of EXP once you have created a character which you will be able to use in order to enhance a few of her characteristics before even taking part in her first fight. All players can see her total EXP but will have no idea how she has used it.  (Or even if she has used it.  You are under no obligation to ever use your character’s EXP if, for instance, your goal is to create a jobber who gets beat up over and over again.)

EXP VALUE:  This is the EXP total divided by 10 and represents the base amount of EXP another will earn for fighting her.  (The final amount awarded will be affected by many factors, but we will get into that later.)

PRESTIGE LEVEL:  This is a representative value given to illustrate the amount of respect your character commands.  Everyone starts at 10 and it will go up or down depending on a number of factors.  This number is the main modifier in regard to how much EXP she will be awarded for combat.  It’s probably the one element of the game I struggled with most to get right, and I have no intention of trying to explain all the details as they are quite complex.  What you need to know is the number will range from 1-110 and the higher the number the more EXP she will receive for combat.  Any gear she wears that give a tactical advantage will help her in combat but reduce her prestige level.  Winning fights raises her prestige level.  Losing fights will lower it.  Humiliating an opponent (making her beg for mercy, piss or shit herself, trying to escape, etc.) raises her prestige level.  If she herself gets humiliated, it lowers it.  The manner in which  I have quantified it is quite complicated, but I assure you it is all very logical.  Only a girl who fights in just her panties (and wins a lot) will ever reach the Prestige Value of 110.  I came up with the extra 10 points as a bonus for girls who fight in just their panties as an alternative to penalizing girls who wear clothing or accessories that are merely decorative, such as socks, thigh highs, fish nets, etc. 

Now let’s move on to the next section: Character Health.

VITALITY:  Think of this as your character’s Hit Points.  At 0 your character is unconscious, and this typically will be the end of the fight.   This number is further broken down into different conditions, explained in the following chart.  The percentages always remain the same, though their values increase as your character’s vitality points rise.   For a moment I am going to skip ahead to show you the Vitality breakdown chart, which is going to be part of your character's information package.  

DISCLAIMER: If the information on the following chart is confusing that is ok.  You don’t necessarily have to understand every aspect of the mechanics of the game to be able to play it.  Basically, it reflects the concept that when a character is fighting, the more hurt or weakened she is the less effective her own attacks and defensive maneuvers will be.   It’s all based on logic and common sense.

So back to where we were before.

IN COMBAT RECOVERY:  If your character can avoid taking a hit for a round, by evasive tactics or defensive maneuvers such as locking up with her opponent in a bearhug, she can recover some of her vitality points through a die roll.  (This is something that can be increased by spending EXP between bouts.)

INTERIM RECOVERY:  This dictates how quickly your character will recover between fights.   Going to the hospital or staying at home will allow your character to recover faster. 

SPEED LEVEL:  This determines how quickly your character can move about the fighting area.  It range from 1-3 an will go up automatically as her EXP goes up.  It won’t have much of an impact on the game unless your character is trying to escape from a faster character.  Most of the time the characters will be moving around inside a ring or on a fighting mat or mattress, so movement isn't really a huge part of this game, and the complications involved will mostly be handled by myself. 

The next section represents your character’s physical conditioning.  You will be able to enhance the numbers as you accumulate EXP.  

TOUGHNESS:  The left side of the column represents how well your character can take attacks on various portions of her body.  Every defensive maneuver is associated with a certain part of the body and the higher your number is the better your character handles attacks to that area.  You will be able to increase these by spending EXP.  (Chart will be supplied in a later section) 

STRENGTH:  This side of the column represents your character’s physical strength.  Every fighting move is assigned to one or more of these 4 body parts and a greater strength will increase the accuracy and amount of damage those attacks will do.  These numbers will all start at 1, but before your character fights you will be given a certain amount of EXP to spend in whatever way you want.  I chose to put some of mine into Hannah’s arm strength.  How much EXP this costs is all charted out and will appear on the blog shortly.  

The next section deals with equipment such as boots, knee pads, elbow pads, gloves.  Pretty much anything you can think of to adorn your fighting girl will be allowed but again, anything that provides a tactical advantage also comes at a cost to your EXP collection. 

In this case Hannah isn't a great example because the socks she wears don't offer any tactical advantage in fighting and therefore have no modifiers.  The only drawback to wearing anything besides just panties is that her prestige value can never get to the maximum of 110 points.  I came up with this as a way of rewarding girls who wear the bare minimum as opposed to penalizing purely decorative accessories. (Which, after all, make things more interesting.) 

The bottom section is for you to write up a little history of your character.  It will have to make sense in the world of Green Tower City, but I can help with this on an individual basis.  Eventually I will probably make some posts to help with this but for now I just want to get the game started.  I can always come back and tweak things later. 

The final section of your character package is her Fighting Repertoire, and is basically just a list of every fighting move that is available to her.  Every character will start with a basic collection of simple fighting moves, and over time you can add to them and strengthen the ones she already has.