Roseville Beach Character Creation

I'm home from a long holiday road trip and ready to do anything but drive, so here's a little walk-through of Roseville Beach (or use DriveThru) character creation.

In Roseville Beach, you and your housemates (the other PCs) are spending your summer on Rose Island working in the town of Roseville Beach. There are five steps in character creation, three are individual while the other two involve the whole group.

For this walk-through, I'll develop two characters: one named Trent (he/they) and another named Vic (she/her).

Step 1: Origin Story

The quickstart and demo kit included everything you needed to know for four of the origin stories, but the full game adds even more:

• The fresh face: a newcomer to Rose Island, Roseville Beach, and queer communities.
• The scandalous: having survived a career-destroying scandal before your career could really take off, you've come to Rose Island to lick your wounds and keep your head down.
• The shifter: What it says on the tin. You can change (and sometimes have to change) between your human form and your animal form.
• The witch: Also what it says on the tin. You know the secrets of spellcraft.
• The familiar: You're an animal. That's not a metaphor. You have limited ability to communicate with your housemates, but you can also pass as a mostly inconspicuous animal.
• The stranger: You're from another planet, dimension, plane, or reality. How you ended up in a queer little Rose Island town living with this collection of strangers is up to you, but here is where you are.

You can't mess up the balance of Roseville Beach, so pick the origin story that speaks to you.

Once you pick your origin story, it will tell you how to determine your broad backgrounds and your specialized skills. You can roll for them or choose, depending on what appeals most to you.

Vic is a fresh faced 18 year old (17+1d3). She grew up as a pastor mom and a farmer dad somewhere in the Midwest, so she has "Clergy Kid" and "Back on the Farm" as backgrounds. Her origin story skills are Driving, Oratory, and Tracking.

Trent (Vic's housemate) is a 26-year old (4d6 + 16) crow shifter who grew up in Metropolitan City (the nearest large city to Rose Island). His backgrounds are Crow and Metropolitan City. They were probably getting in a few scraps there since his skills are ambushing, running, and brawling.

Step 2: Jobs

Now that you're here on Rose Island, you're having to pay your way. Your job gives you an extra background and specialized skill. I added it in partially to ensure that no player ever feels like their PC has no useful skills and partially because the game is about spending the summer working on Rose Island. They include: bartender, backup dancer, opening act, clinic assistant, piano player, and gardener.

In Roseville Beach, Trent works as a clinic assistant at Roseville Care Center, the town clinic. He adds the background Roseville Care Center and the skill Driving (from having to cart injured people around on the clinic's golf carts).

Vic, on the other hand, is a bartender at Rosie's, the big bar on the harbor side of Roseville Beach (it's 1979, so there were such people as 18-year-old bartenders). She adds the background bartender and the skill intimidating.

Step 3: Strange Events

This is the first step that involves other characters, and since we have just two right now, they'll work together on this.

Every character has had at least one thing happen that revealed to them that the island was filled with strange, supernatural mysteries, some of which were hostile. They always happen when the PC was with one of their housemates, so they have someone to verify what happened and what they saw.

For Vic, she was walking with Trent on the Roseville Beach boardwalks when they saw a strange monolith that was always right behind them (even though they never saw it move). Both of them kept it together during the event and each takes the skill stubborn.

For Trent, they and Vic were together on a different night and were approached by a shadowy figure who hissed their names and ran away. Vic gains the skill intimidating, having tried to scare the hissing figure off, while Trent starts the game with a Trouble: he's looking out for someone who the fleeing figure injured.

Step 4: Troubles, Allies, and Comforts

Speaking of Troubles (Trent already has one), each character starts the game with a few connections in Roseville Beach, for good or for ill. Each origin story gives the character a Trouble, and they also choose an ally and comforts.

Trent's trouble is a federal agent who's looking for them because the agent knows Trent is a shifter. For now, we'll call the agent Clifton Robey. His ally (selected by him) is his boss at the clinic. There's not a designated town doctor in the game text, but we'll call her Dr. Grace Shelton. Normally, each character gets three comforts: for Trent, that's an item (a feather he has from their missing sister), a place (the highest branch of an old cedar tree near the bungalow), and a person (a piano player named Troy who he's got a crush on).

Vic's trouble is her older sister Ellen, who's dating a guy who lives in a town near Rosevile Beach, which means she comes to Roseville Beach for shows and events. Her ally is her boss Judy, a fellow butch who has taken Vic under her wing. Her comforts are two items (a picture of her late dad and a charm that Ellen gave her a few birthdays ago) and a person (Chuck, a local gardener, and her best friend on the island).

Step 5: The Bungalow

The last step is the bungalow (and its supply rating). Each group of housemates has a bungalow they live in. The simpler the bungalow, the less privacy and amenities they have (and the less likely they are to have a phone) but the easier it is for them to find equipment like camping gear or beach supplies.

Vic and Trent decide to go with the simplest bungalow. It gives them very little privacy (good luck having a nice, quiet date with Troy), and no phone (it's the 70s, so no cell phones either), but means they have a good chance of turning up flashlights, lockpicks, or other useful equipment.