Mission X: Roleplaying Before Math

These next few posts will start delving into the character generation chapters. The last few were basically the introduction to the character toolkit book, which explains a bit of the “let’s explore the mission statement” tone of the posts.

From here, we’ll be talking about making paper people, and trying to hit up the right balance of interesting characters with capabilities appropriate to the game being played. That means before you spend a single point in Mission X, the book tells you to stop and imagine your character as a real person. Where are you from? What drives you? What’s your role on the team? This needn’t be “imagine yourself as a tree…” or method acting. Just try and help your avatar be more than a cardboard cutout.

That being said, the game has also taken pains to get you to the table more quickly. We re-built “Lance,” the 150-point knight from Warlock Knight, a Dungeon Fantasy RPG adventure, just to see what that would look like.

Lance [150-point DFRPG Knight]

Attributes: [125] ST 15 [25] DX 13 [60] IQ 10 [0] HT 12 [20]
Robustness +1 [25]

Disadvantages: [-50]
•Code of Honor (Chivalry) [-15 ] this one can stay the same
•Code of Honor (Soldier’s) [-10] this one too
•Miserliness (12) [-10] – not defined in the book, but that’s OK. It’s a general Odious Personal Habit, I suppose
•Obsession (Reclaim Lost Title) [-10] fine as-is
•Sense of Duty (Fighting Companions) [-5 points] fine as-is

Advantages: [50]
•Combat Veteran [10]
•Dual-Weapon Fighter (Shield and 1H Weapon) [3]
•Fast-Draw (Hatchet/Small Mace) [3]
•High Pain Threshold 4 [8]
•Noble Lineage [1]

Skills (MX) [50]
•1H Melee Weapon +1 [15]
•Athletics -2 [5]
•Close Combat +0 [10]
•Command +0 [10]
•Thrown Weapons +0 [10]

I’ll explain more of what this is later…but for now, Lance comes in more broadly capable but slightly lower peak skills. Even so, no specialization has been done here to Lance’s 1H Melee Weapon skills (currently at +1, giving Skill-14 for such weapons, including shields). He loses a point on his spear and shield and mace, but also becomes equally capable with every other one-handed hand weapon. Fair trade, I think.

Thanks to this post, I took a hard look at Thrown Weapons, which seemed underwhelming at 10 points and was notable relative to other skills for lack of breadth. One does need to be able to yeet weapons as missiles…so I’ve rewritten it to cover knives, hatchets, spears/javelins, and other “common” throwing weapons for the game and campaign. Then “special opt-in” perks will add oddball weapons like lasso and bolas or longswords (!!) to the list…or round shields that don’t always seem to obey the laws of physics. At all.

This isn’t just flavor text. It’s the Mission X philosophy: concept and niche come before crunch. Just like Dungeon Fantasy RPG makes you pick your delver archetype first, so the party actually works together, Mission X wants every player to ask: “When the shooting starts, am I useful? When we need intel or diplomacy, can I contribute?” The squad should cover kinetic, social, and informational bases so no one is stuck on their phone for half the session.

The GM lays out the genre, tone, power level, what’s in and what’s out. Everyone agrees on the fun before anyone touches a character sheet. It’s the same smart approach you see in the best setting books with a deep player-agency focus.

The result? Characters that feel like they belong in Stargate SG-1, Aliens, or XCOM from the very first scene. No more “I built the perfect lone-wolf sniper and now I’m bored during the planning scenes.” This is Powered by GURPS evolved for modern action: still modular, still deep, but now deliberately structured so your operator feels like an operator right out of the gate.

Over the next weeks I’ll be making posts talking about the different chapters, the game development, what MX is … and what it’s not. Please stay tuned! If you want to follow on Kickstarter so that you will be on board immediately when it launches, please click here to jump over to the promo page!