OOC Thread

[Telcontar]

Paul,
Until we get a thread I posted my character concept here. I present:

Jephthah Crowe

He is a repressed, brittle, hypocritical Internal Affairs officer reassigned to Rep-Detect after making enemies inside the LAPD. He believes in order, purity, procedure, and moral hierarchy. He tells himself the world is diseased and that someone must hold the line.

But Los Angeles does not respect lines.

Other Blade Runners distrust him because they think he is still an Internal Affairs spy. Wallace representatives dislike him because he is too procedural and obstructive. Street contacts find him strange, frightening, or faintly ridiculous. He is not a suave noir detective. He is formal, awkward, severe, and visibly uncomfortable with the moral ambiguity of his own work.

He wants to be incorruptible.

He is not.

His religious beliefs tell him that Replicants and machines have no souls. To him, encoded morality is not humanity. A Replicant's emotional responses are not conscience, but circuitry. Retirement is not murder; it is the responsible deactivation of a dangerous or obsolete device.

That is what he says.

But during his time in Internal Affairs, he encountered a Replicant involved in a corruption investigation. He should have reported, retired, or transferred her to proper custody. Instead, he "saved" her.

Now she has become his secret confessor.

He visits her to confess his sins, his humiliations, his desires, his disgust, and his failures. He tells himself this is safe because she has no soul and cannot grant absolution. She is only a vessel. A mirror. A machine that listens.

But that is the lie.

He has begun to need her judgment. He has begun to fear her disappointment. He has begun to love her, though he cannot admit that without destroying the entire structure of his belief.

Detective Jephthah Crowe, LAPD Rep-Detect

Formerly an Internal Affairs investigator, Crowe was reassigned to Rep-Detect after uncovering an LAPD corruption network that reached too high to prosecute. Officially, the transfer was a promotion into sensitive fieldwork. Unofficially, it was exile.

Crowe is severe, formal, devout, and deeply uncomfortable in the social ecosystem of Los Angeles. He believes civilization survives only through order, restraint, and punishment. He views Replicants as soulless manufactured beings whose simulated morality cannot equal human conscience. To him, retirement is not execution. It is the deactivation of a dangerous device.

Years ago, during an Internal Affairs case, Crowe encountered a Replicant witness, EV-6, who should have vanished into departmental custody. Instead, he hid her.

He now visits her in secret and confesses everything.

His failures. His envy. His lust. His rage. His corruption. His fear that he enjoys judgment more than justice.

He tells himself it is not sacrilege because she has no soul.

He tells himself it is not love because she is not human.

He tells himself many things.

He did not save her out of mercy alone.

He saved her because she saw him clearly.

Not as an officer. Not as a righteous man. Not as a hypocrite hiding behind procedure.

As a frightened, lonely, compromised man who needs forgiveness but does not believe anyone has the authority to give it.

He cannot reconcile his doctrine with the fact that he needs her, trusts her, and may be in love with her.

[Eclecticon]

I would read an entire series of books about this guy.  Nice work! 

Something I'm thinking of trying is 'casting' the characters who appear.  I've used this in the past in Feng Shui games and it worked well there.  Is there a person you can see as playing Crowe?  Feel free to draw on anyone who has, does, or might work as an actor.  Bonus internet points if you can post a picture. 

[Telcontar]

Hmmm... I'm actually reluctant to do that. I dont want to type cast or determine a direction for the character but see how it develops through play.

I can say that I used a Solomon Cane and Nelson Van Alden (Boardwalk Empire) as a mashup for a character concept. Thought now I am playing with the idea that instead of going Judeo-Christian I am considering his conflict is based more on the Ghost Dance movement and that Replicants are not real because they have no dead who remember and their memories were stolen from those who did.

Im trying to thread the needle between blade runner tropes and detective stereotypes.

[Eclecticon]

Make it your own - I love the idea of memories being at the core of his conflict.

[Telcontar]

I'm ready when you are.   

[Eclecticon]

Is anyone else interested in joining in?  If not, I'm prepared to go as a one-on-one game. 

[Posterboy]

I'm looking at bringing a replicant enforcer to the table. Mara Voss is her name presently. Still working on a character introduction.

[Eclecticon]

Probably a workname, since her actual legal ID will be an alphanumeric string, but sounds like fun - a proper combat wombat!

[Eclecticon]

I'm ready when you are.   

Have you had a go at statting up Detective Crowe?  I'm interested to see how well your vision comes through in numerical terms. 

[Telcontar]

Indeed I have.

[Posterboy]

Detective L / "Elle" or "Elly"

Serial designation: LE1-1.3

Archetype: Enforcer

Role: LAPD Rep-Detect field operative

Function: Tactical containment, pursuit, retirement support, officer protection

Central Conflict: Elle is afraid that her compassion is just a compliance feature and her conscience is nothing more than a Wallace-installed behavioral safeguard.
•   When she spares someone, is that mercy?
•   When she protects Crowe, is that loyalty?
•   When she feels horror at retirement, is that conscience?

Or is it all design?

Core Drives:
•   Prove obedience is not the same as goodness.
•   Discover whether conscience can be manufactured.
•   Protect the law from the people who use it as camouflage.
•   Find out why humans fear being judged by their creations.


Introduction: Elle is everything Crowe says Replicants are supposed to be: obedient, precise, controlled, and brutally effective.

But she is also everything Crowe says Replicants cannot be: morally burdened, self-examining, protective, capable of restraint, and increasingly haunted by the difference between obedience and righteousness.

Elle is a Nexus-9 Replicant assigned to Rep-Detect as a field enforcer and tactical retrieval specialist. She was built for dangerous arrests, close protection, pursuit, and retirement operations. She is calm, exact, and almost painfully literal. She doesn't raise her voice or threaten or posture. To the LAPD, she is an asset; to Wallace, she is proof of product reliability; to other Blade Runners, she is either a useful weapon or an uncomfortable reminder that the department now employs the thing it hunts.

But Elle is beginning to evolve.

She has retired Replicants... and she remembers their names, she sees every faces, hears their last words, recalls the fear, the anger, and the pleading... why would a machine need to justify what it has done?

Officially, Elle believes in the work. Rogue older models are unstable, dangerous, and illegal. The law gives orders, Wallace provides oversight, and LAPD executes the warrants. But the longer she serves, the harder it becomes to tell the difference between retirement and killing. "Deactivation," as Crowe calls is, seems a convenient way to avoid repentance.

Elle was assigned to Crowe because nobody else wants him – Internal Affairs hates him, Rep-Detect distrusts him, Wallace finds him obstructive. So, the department pairs him with an N-9 enforcer because, on paper, she is incorruptible, obedient, and incapable of being socially manipulated... probably the only partner who won't flatter him, fear him, or mock him.

And, for Crowe.. well, he gets to be paired with the very thing he despises. Elle is sure someone, somewhere is getting a kick out the arrangement.

Crowe unsettles her. Not because he despises Replicants (she's used to that), but because he needs Replicants all the while denying them. He speaks of souls, judgment, purity, corruption, and sin as if these are human properties only, yet Elle has seen humans lie, brutalize, betray, and then try to wash their hands and excuse themselves. And she has seen Replicants beg, grieve, protect, and forgive.

Does she have a soul? Elle doesn't know... but she knows that Crowe is afraid she might, and that frightens him more than any weapon.

[Eclecticon]

Truly, I am a lucky GM to have players who serve such characters up to me!  Posterboy, if you would please pop some details into a character sheet (available at the same link I gave you the book from) we will have everything we need to get started except for an online space. 

Tom, did you get on to Doug to ask him about that?

[Posterboy]

For sure. I should have it up by tomorrow.

[Eclecticon]

Oh, and see if you can find a good picture of Elle.  Not mandatory, but helpful.

[Posterboy]

Hey, I'm delayed. My wife and a number of my kids were in a car accident. While they are all okay, our van is not, and they are all about 16 hours from home. I've been on the phone throughout this day with insurance, trying to secure a vehicle big enough to get them home. Anyway, I'm tired. I'm going to hit the hay.

As far as casting goes, I have a young Gina Carano in mind for Elle.