San Brujera Confidentails #1 - On orcs and guys in fedoras

 Now it may look like, I only play my games that include 20-sided die. 

It's... partially true.

It's just so that d&d covers most of what I'm looking in my solo games, but it doesn't mean that I don't try to experiment...

The other day I was rolling a character that could be usable with 3.5 and to give myself a breather from 5e detective set (yeah, yeah, this again... bear with me, will ya'?). Decided to use the standard roll-for-stats method and I got a whooping stats array of two 17, two 15 and one 12.

That made me thinking… that with stats like this I should probably play as something unique, hence I decided to play as an full-blood orc, who is both charismatic, intelligent and wise and still enough to hit like a truck…

I imagined him to be a bodyguard or a bouncer who mostly uses unarmed methods of fighting, while being of a fighter class.

The character creation was a breeze, but I hit a roadblock since I had no idea where to put such a character. A sophisticated orc is not something would fit in generic fantasy. I was thinking about Arcanum like setting where cleaned-up nicely orc wouldn’t be that of a big surprise. But I already have an Arcanum-like game using 5e, don’t need another one, but with different system.

During this stage I realised that I don't actually want anything generic, it didn't help that I imagined my orc wearing a shirt, and pants with suspenders. A classic get-up that usually synonymous to 20’s and 30’s.That's when I remembered that I have just a setting for this...

Lon ago I did want to play a game of classic noir, the moment I got my hands on Bloodshadows d6, a supplement for WEG d6 system that is inspired by the small cult classic gem ‘Cast a Deadly Spell’. As for me, back when I got the book I didn’t know about the movie but I was a fan of Glen Cook’s books about Garrett P.I. Sure thoses are not exactly noir books, since the setting is pure fantasy with hard-boiled narrative, but it had the atmosphere of noir. Even with no guns and trenchcoats.

And I did try to GM an adventure for a group that was noir fantasy setting for 5e. A city of San Brujera.

I was trying to launch a solo game in this setting using d6 or dnd, but here’s a problem… those systems are not the systems I would use for a proper noir detective. A high stake action adventure that would involve gang wars or heist? Definitely. But not a procedural, even the one with fisticuffs and possible gunfights.

Sure, I did a detective gameplay using 5e and Scarlet Heroes, but I had quite a zany setting for that to work... 

Okay, okay, not zanny, I'll admit, just plain anime. But I digress...

Luckily I had quite a deal a few years back, when I bought the original Bloodshadows book for Masterbook and the Masterbook itself. And I don’t know why, but the system, being that of a thing from 90’s really clicked with me.

And since I try to use one solo system per game I’ll use Mythic since it also uses d10 for rolls. And besides, writing down threads fill like writing down notes in detective notebook.

TL:DR; Okay, starting my noir solo investigation game using Masterbook and Bloodshadows. Wish me luck.