EXT. LAS VEGAS RAIDERS SHARED HOUSE – DAY

Establishing shot and title card.

ANNOUNCER BETH MOWINS: That’s My Less Wasted Faders [sic] is filmed in front of a livestream do-over [sic] audience.

CUT TO – INT. LIVING ROOM – DAY

The music of He Is Legend blares throughout the house. HUNTER RENFROW, KOLTON MILLER, and JONATHAN ABRAM are seated around the kitchen table.  HUNTER RENFROW has a pad of graph paper in front of him.  KOLTON MILLER is munching from a big bag of cheese puffs.  The brand is of these cheese puffs is conspicuously not shown because a certain cheapskate cheese puff manufacturing corporation didn’t have any interest in paying the product placement fee. 

HUNTER RENFROW: …okay, so now that you’ve got characters, we’re going to determine your characters’ attributes.  This means it’s time to start rolling dice!

KOLTON MILLER: Cool!

HUNTER RENFROW reaches into his backpack, which is on the floor, and pulls out a black velvet bag filled with dice. 

HUNTER: So there are five character attributes.  The first one is strength, which is pretty self-evident…

JONATHAN ABRAM flexes his bicep and points to it.

HUNTER: …that’s right, Jonathan.  The next attribute is “Constitution”.  It’s a combination of a few different things – how healthy your character is, how persistently they will stand their ground and not getting moved off their spot, and how tenacious they are. 

JONATHAN ABRAM: Why not call it “Tenacity” then?

HUNTER: [irritated] Because it’s called “Constitution”, all right? Next up is “Range”, which basically dictates how far your character can move in a given turn. 

KOLTON: So it’s basically speed.

HUNTER: More or less, yeah.  But “speed” as a concept doesn’t really make that much sense with the gameplay, so it’s called “Range”.  Next is “Agility,” which again is pretty self-evident.  And then last is “Perception”, which is your level of awareness.  It dictates how well you can react to misdirection and trickery, that sort of stuff.  Plus, a lot of the magic spells in the game are illusion-based so it’s a factor of how susceptible you are to those.

KOLTON: Illusions?

HUNTER: Like, Kolton, remember how when you were trying to block Joey Bosa and he created that illusion that he was going for an outside rush but went to the inside instead and knocked the stuffing out of Derek?

KOLTON: [nods, looks chastened]

HUNTER: [smiles gently, nodding along] Yeah? Yeah.  So, stuff like that.  Now in order to figure out your S.C.R.A.P. scores, we’re going to roll dice.  

HUNTER RENFROW hands three six-sided dice to KOLTON MILLER.

HUNTER: Each score can range from one to twenty.  But since your characters aren’t average people – if they were they’d just be vassals – their attributes are determined a bit differently.  First off we’ll start with a base value of eight, and then roll three dice and take the highest two values. 

KOLTON MILLER stares at the dice, confused.

HUNTER: Just roll the dice, Kolton.

KOLTON MILLER rolls the dice and they all fall off the edge of the table.

JONATHAN: Can we put him down as having an agility of zero?

HUNTER: [snickers] I know, right?  Okay, Kolton, try again.

KOLTON MILLER rolls the dice and the result is 5, 3, and 1. 

HUNTER: Nice!  Now you take the top two of those, and add them to eight, and you’ve got a score of 16. [writes it down]  Next, roll three dice four times, and we’re going to add those results to a base score of two…

KOLTON MILLER rolls three more times, turning up [3,5,1], [6,6,5], [2,2,1], and [5,2,1].

HUNTER: Perfect!  Okay, so that leaves you with scores of 16, 11, 19, 7, and 10.  That’s a pretty typical set of scores.  And now, you can arrange those any way that you like for your S.C.R.A.P.  attributes.  Since your character is a Guardian, your highest priority is going to be your Constitution, and your second-highest priority is going to be Strength.

KOLTON: So I’ll use the 16 on Strength, and the 19 on Constitution? 

HUNTER: That’s what I’d do, yeah.  Plus, your name is Kolton the Brave, if he’s as steadfast as he claims to be…it’s gotta be Constitution.

KOLTON: Okay.  And then I’ll use the 11 on Agility, and the 10 on Range, and…can I roll again for that 7?

HUNTER: No.

KOLTON: But I want a better score.

HUNTER: Well, you can’t have one.  I know it’s the holidays and all but I’m not some Santa Claus game master that just hands out attribute scores and artifacts and stuff. You’re stuck with a 7 for perception.  Jonathan, it’s your turn.  Let’s see what Kraken the Ravenous is made of.

HUNTER RENFROW takes the dice and hands them to JONATHAN ABRAM, who proceeds to roll a [6,4,3], [4,3,3], [2,4,6], [3,1,1], and [3,5,6], resulting in scores of 18, 12, 14, 7, and 16. 

JONATHAN: As a motherfucking brain eating Gladiator, what’s my most important stat? 

HUNTER: For Gladiators it’s usually agility followed by strength.  It doesn’t have to be, though.

JONATHAN: Check this shit out.  I’ll use the 18 on Agility, the 14 on Strength, and the 12 on Range.

HUNTER: Gonna drop that 7 in Perception too?  Cool, so…

JONATHAN: What? No, fuck that.  I’m dropping that 7 on Tenacity.  And I’ll take that 16 on Perception.  I’m going to percept the fuck out of Derek’s brain.  Do like psychic attacks on him and shit.  Make him think he’s seeing grass lights. 

HUNTER: You mean gas lights? As in “gaslighting”? 

JONATHAN: Yeah.  Mind games.  You know?

HUNTER: I do, actually.  This is going to get really interesting.  Okay, so next we need to talk about…

Suddenly, a hand with nails covered in black nailpolish reaches over the table and sets down a figurine.

DEREK CARR: His name is Ephesus the Unrepentant, Breaker of Oaths.

— [to be continued…] —

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In case it wasn’t clear, the process for determining character attributes is to determine an “exceptional” stat by starting with 8, rolling three d6, and adding the two highest values (the final value will range between 10 and 20).  The other four attributes are determined by staring with 2 and rolling three d6 and adding that total value (the final values will range from 5 to 20).  These five scores can then be assigned to character attributes entirely at the player’s discretion.  Guardian characters will generally benefit from high Constitution scores, Gladiator characters from high Agility scores, Hunter characters from high Range scores, and Captain characters from high Perception scores.