Affutez vos lames, camarades. Today’s game is another mostly historical one, 2010’s All For One: Régime Diabolique. I say mostly historical because although the PCs are all musketeers in the service of Louis XIII, there are worse threats than just Richelieu out there, including witches, devil worshippers, werewolves, demons, vampires, & maybe the Beast of Gévaudan for all they know.

Step one in character creation is to select an Archetype. This doesn’t have any mechanical effects. It’s just a way to quickly note where in the organization a character fits. One of the Archetypes is Doctor, though the description notes that the profession of arms is so dangerous that the Musketeers have to accept any medical personnel they can get, regardless of how well trained they are – or whether they’re properly licensed! What could have driven a “doctor” to join up? Possibly the same turn of events that put air quotes around doctor … anyway, that’s the Archetype we’ll go with.

Step two is to select a Motivation. This is more than a description of why the character has become a Musketeer. It also defines one of the ways the PC can recover expended Style Points. (Those are the All For One version of a bennie; personally I think it’s a lost opportunity that they didn’t call them Panache.) I’ve got a rough concept in mind for this guy already, & the closest Motivation I can find is Escape. This Musketeer is on the run from something; he regains Style when he escapes danger or helps someone else escape their past.

Step three is to distribute 15 points among six primary attributes. A typical person’s score is 2, so even a 3 marks the character as unusual.

Body 2, Charisma 2, Dexterity 3, Intelligence 3, Strength 2, Willpower 3

Step four, derive the secondary attributes. Size for all regular size people is 0; it’s a modifier to the attack roll in combat, so it’s a negative value for smaller creatures & a positive one for larger. Stun is a measure of how much damage you can eat in one go without being knocked out. As you can see, this is no World of Synnibarr here; the numbers are all on a much lower scale.

Initiative = Dex + Int = 6, Perception = Int + Wil = 6, Move = Str + Dex = 5, Size 0, Defense = Body + Dex – Size = 5, Stun = Body = 2, Health = Body + Wil + Size = 5

Step five is to distribute 15 points among skills. All For One distinguishes between not having a skill & having it at level 0. If you don’t have a skill at all you get a penalty when you try to use it; at level 0 you just roll against a bare attribute. All Musketeers start with level 0 in Fencing, Firearms, Ride, & one other skill of their choice. Improving a skill from level 0 to 1 costs half a point, otherwise it’s 1:1. All skills can have specializations, denoted by a subject in parentheses; some must.

Academics (Law) 1, Brawl 1, Fencing (Anatomie) 2, Firearms 2, Gunnery 1, Intimidation 2, Investigation 1, Medicine 3, Natural History (Biology) 2, Ride 2

What does the Anatomie after Fencing mean, you ask? That’s one of my favorite parts of the game, & where a lot of its hat-waving swashbucklery flavor comes from. Every PC has to choose what school of fencing they’re trained in. Each school has its own strengths & weaknesses, some favoring defense over offense, or the thrust over the slash. More importantly though it opens the door for exchanges like “So, monsieur! I see you’ve a passing familiarity with Dardi. Et bien, let’s see how well you deal with my Position de Fer!”

As befits a doctor, l’École d’Anatomie teaches how to use knowledge of physiology to efficiently maim your opponent.

In step six we pick one Talent or one Resource. The list of Talents is much longer than the list of Skills & describes not just learned abilities but innate ones. After some study it looks like there’s a Talent that fits the concept. We pick that & stick with the base Resources that every Musketeer gets, Followers level 0 (a personal lackey) & Rank level 0 (what little just being a Musketeer counts for in society).

Talent: Florentine (fighting with a rapier in one hand & a poignard or sword-catcher in the other)

Step seven is optional. The PC may choose to take a Flaw. That’s good for one extra Style Point at chargen, plus another every time the Flaw hinders or hurts the character. There are heaps of those to choose from too, but one jumps out.

Flaw: Inscrutable (penalty on Social rolls to forge interpersonal connections; gain Style when misunderstood or “when the mystery surrounding your motivations causes trouble”)

In step eight, the PC gets 15 experience points to spend on boosting primary attributes (very expensive), increasing skills, or buying new skill specializations, or another Talent or Resource (either of which cost all 15 points, so forget that. We spend our points on raising Fencing & Brawl, plus learning a specialization for Firearms. That costs 13 experience points; we hold onto the last two for later.

Academics (Law) 1, Brawl 2, Fencing (Anatomie) 3, Firearms (Musket) 2, Gunnery 1, Intimidation 2, Investigation 1, Medicine 3, Natural History (Biology) 2, Ride 2

Step nine is to finish off the character’s details – name, birthplace, back story – & step ten is to calculate beginning Style. That’s a base of one plus one for the flaw, plus one more for a back story. Three points will serve our hero well as he begins his career in the service of Sa Majesté.

Name: Valentin Clémencet
Archetype: Doctor
Motivation: Escape

Body 2, Charisma 2, Dexterity 3, Intelligence 3, Strength 2, Willpower 3

Initiative 6, Perception 6, Move 5, Size 0, Defense 5, Stun 2, Health 5

Resources: Followers 0, Rank 0

Talent: Florentine

Flaw: Inscrutable

Skills: Academics (Law) 1, Brawl 2, Fencing (Anatomie) 3, Firearms (Musket) 2, Gunnery 1, Intimidation 2, Investigation 1, Medicine 3, Natural History (Biology) 2, Ride 2

Style: 3

Valentin Clémencet – or at least that’s the name he enrolled in the Musketeers under – has always been a study in contradiction. That would have been a good thing to know beforehand for the men he has put in their graves. Standing to inherit as close to nothing as made no difference, he learned medicine & law at the Collège Royal Bourbon in Aix-en-Provence. His intellect suited him for study of the professions; his temperament most definitely did not suit him for their practice. Taciturn & unfriendly in the extreme, Clémencet struggled to attract clientele. Enemies he collected with the greatest ease, as if he were born to both give & take offense at affronts to honor. That wouldn’t have been so dangerous to all involved if it weren’t that he’s not just unsympathetic, he’s cruel. Clémencet’s knowledge of the healing arts was easy enough to apply to causing injury, & those who challenged him & lived were lucky to end up merely mutilated & in agony.

One or two affairs of honor might have been swept under the rug, but in this day & age Clémencet’s bloody history would be enough to send him to the gallows a half dozen times over. He couldn’t hope to escape the country, but he could perhaps find refuge in the last place anyone would look: among the King’s Musketeers.