Part 1: Character Making

"[I]n order to give a positive meaning to the idea of a 'presentiment' of what does not yet exist, it is necessary to demonstrate that what does not yet exist is already in action, in a different form than that of its existence." -Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus

This article is going to talk about is the process of creating an RPG character. In this case I'm going to be using Shinobigami as the game in question, for a couple of reasons:
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Part 2: Character Playing

(This is the second part of a three-part entry; read Part One Here)

Ambush Machine Go Brrr

So, how does our character actually function in play? Of course, our first concern is the long-game play of setting up Jealous Wolf. Our early moves are going to be similar to most characters in a typical game of Shinobigami: tentative relationship-building and feeling out the positions of the other characters. Forming bonds is important because of information exchange (when someone with whom you have a bond learns a piece of information, you also learn that piece of information); getting the most out of Jealous Wolf means knowing which of the other characters we're most likely to find ourselves at odds with, and characters' secrets and alliances are important to making that determination. Being able to swap around a skill mid-game also makes for a powerful defensive option, as attacks are defended against using the same skill that the attacker uses: if we know whom our primary target is going to be, we can tweak our skill list to make their attacks easier to dodge (this is in addition to the open-ended tactical question of being able to gain an entirely new ninpo as well).
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Part 3: Conclusions

(This is the third part of a three-part entry; read Part One here and Part Two here)

A Spirited Defense of Metagaming

An astute reader may have noticed that this entire post is flirting with one of the gravest and most unforgivable sins in roleplaying: thinking about the game from a mechanics-first perspective, or what is sometimes known by the pejorative of "metagaming." And yet here, it not only works (in my most humbled of opinions), but the game arguably functions better when players are thinking about the game mechanics and how best to use them as tools to achieve the goals of play.
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