Precisely that. Which detective do you find the most intriguing/interesting? Which one are you going to want to scoop in for your first game?

I think that Floyd 2X3A7C has the potential to be the most interesting, but I also think they could easily mess up with him (by "mess up", I just mean do things very differently from what I would have wanted ). If I had to pick one for my first game without looking at any of the plot decks, I would pick him.

However, I'd be happy with any of them. They all look superb, with the possible exception of Rachel Beckmann.

I think I'll keep a tally of the votes here in the topic post.

Louis Blane: 1

Raymond Flint: 3

Caprice Nisei: 2

Floyd 2X3A7C: 3

Rachel Beckmann: 0

Undecided: 1

Please give a choice, even if you aren't decided yet (who is?). I will change votes upon request.

At this point, having never played, but read the rules and the dective sheets posted here, I like Caprice. Being a cute female character doesn't hurt, plus I dig the slide into madness stuff. Also, the fact that the lives a dozen clone sisters are depending on her success is awesome.

I say, Ray is my man. He's a Private Eye, has trenchcoat and hat, smokes and drinks, served in the war, lost his best friend, searches for his former XO and has the mysterious lady in red chasing after him. This is a distilate of all PI cliches in existance, migrated into a Noir setting. Definitely my man.

Same in here... Ray is the man. Crossbreed of Phil Marlow and Luke Skywalker (or Harrison Ford in Blade Runner). He´s got a great deal of inner deamons to fight, on top of that his former Serge to save.

I'd vote for Ray also. Louis looks interesting but we have seen a lot of him so the other 4 remain mysterious to me.

BTW, you will have trouble editing the post. You may only want to count and post a new tally every few days.

For now, having only the info there is in this site, I'd say Caprice. Hope to get a hold of this game soon!

Floyd for me, closely followed by Caprice. The crooked cop also looks like he could be cool. The other two don't really interest me at all.

Looking at the characters, Raymond, Caprice, and Rachel jump out at me. We all agree Raymond is the Rick Deckard of the game, and proud of it. I'm intrigued by Rachel because of the cybernetic enhancement aspect - she's the "half-elf" of the group, which means her life is filled with ambiguity and identity issues; she is looked at strangely by both humans and full androids.

Caprice...well...tell me, Kevin, were you a Firefly fan? Because I see River Tam.

I have to vote for Floyd as well. I really like the crooked cop story... but Floyd is the only "true" android amongst the five detectives... and that has to count for something. That said, I'm definitely interested in giving all the characters a try... even the bounty hunter. With her cyberware enhancements she definitely reminds me of something from my ol' Shadowrun days.

Judd

Warbringer25 said:

I'm curious mechanics-wise at what Rachel the Street Samurai's benefits are to spending money. From the descriptions, her money allows her some special actions when she spends it - after all, she earns VP for whatever she has left at the end...

ColtsFan76 said:

Yep. I can't edit the OP unless I post. As I don't want to clutter things up, I'll only update about every 10 replys, or 7 days, or so.

Once the game has been out for a week or two, I think there'd be interest in proposing fan-made expansion investigators (of course they'd need a lot more custom stuff than an AH character might need, but it's fun to dream).

You'd need:

Warrant tokens

Light deck

Dark deck

Placard (actually a couple of them)

...

I would be interested in discussing what cyberpunk/neo-noir protagonists might be fun to add to Android (with the appropriate changes, to fit the existing story).

No, I am not at all biased by watching the second season of Ghost In The Shell. Not at all.

Big Head Zach said:

Don't forget plot cards!

And probably a couple special cards.

For my group (which is usually just me and two others) 5 detectives is probably just exactly enough. It should be enough to let us pick who we want to play with enough room that no one is disappointed.

Plus I'm hoping, and expecting, that all of them will be cool in their own ways.

Big Head Zach said:

Case and Molly from Neuromancer .

Big Head Zach said:

Rachel also has a series of cards called bounties that let you gain money (and rather significant amounts of it, from the two that I saw).

Big Head Zach said:

Well, I think that the core game as it's set up covers most of the cyberpunk and noir bases pretty well. You have a bounty hunter, a corrupt cop, a P.I. (with trenchcoat and fedora, no less), and two "what is human, anyway?" characters.

The only two potential ideas that come to mind are:

1). Some sort of federal agent (using whatever this world's equivalent of the FBI is) sent to investigate the murder. In contrast with Louis Blaine, I would make this character young, idealistic, and untarnished (so far), but struggling to deal with corrupt superiors who have a vested interest in resolving the case their way...or not at all. He's also an outsider, stepping on a lot of toes as he goes about his investigation, which is sure to cause him trouble.

2). An independant investigative journalist out to solve the crime and bag the scoop all in one go. Unlike the other characters, this one has a little less actual authority to solve the case, which makes it harder for him to deal with things like evidence and restricted areas, but when it comes to cracking the conspiracy this is the guy for the job. My temptation would be to design this character as a played-for-serious version of Spider Jerusalem, the last of a dying breed of indie journalists wrestling with substance abuse, ex-wives, death threats, and watching journalistic integrety worsen every day. He wants to go out with one last big story, and this murder is just the thing.

Now, something that your list of necessary elements leaves out is that each character has a "thing" to call their own. Louis has his shifting moods, Caprise has her sanity, Rachel has her money, Floyd has his directives, and Raymond has his memories. Every character needs one unique thing that affects either their victory conditions or the things they can do (or both).

For the fed, I would make his "thing" his integrity. While Louis has already had his fall from grace, this character begins the game relatively unscathed. Throughout the course of the game, through interactions of light and dark cards and choices made, this character's integrity can shift up and down. Sticking to the straight-and-narrow path isn't easy, and allows other players the ability to use certain dark cards on you more easily, but it can confer powerful benefits such as recovering from trauma, help resolving your plots in a positive fashion, and extra favor, not to mention bonus victory points at the end. Sliding down into corruption, interestingly enough, offers its own powerful set of advantages, and it can be very tempting to cross that line...but you gain no victory points from doing so, and recovering from your descent can take more time and resources than it took you to get down there.

For the reporter, his thing is exposure. The other characters have every reason to keep their findings secret. Not this guy. His goal is less to solve the murder and more to drag the conspiracy, kicking and screaming, into the light...and if he happens to become famous as a result, well, it's no less than he deserves, really. As this character puzzles together more and more of the conspiracy, he gains exposure. This is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, more exposure opens up more doors for this character. It can make it easier for him to act and make certain things happen with a bit of fame backing him up (although it might make some things even harder). On the other hand, though, whoever is behind the conspiracy most certainly doesn't want the public to know, and the closer to fame the journalist gets the more desperate they'll be to shut him up permanently. Exposure can also be lost,, through the use of dark cards or perhaps even by being spent to fuel certain light card abilities or plot-related events.

I'm really surprised there's no Rachel love here so far - after reading that preview I thought she sounded ace. Her plots were interesting, and the ability to upgrade herself with cybernetics is great.

Whether she would be my favourite character to play or not, I'm not sure I can say, but she certainly doesn't sound bad.

Sausageman said:

Well the article about her does make her sound a lot more interesting. At first I was just like "Bad-ass chick bounty hunter. Meh." I do always like seeing a strong female character (like Molly, Rachel sounds like she could seriously mess someone up), but she wasn't the one that made me go "Oooh! I want to play HER the first time I play this game!" But yeah, the cybernetics are cool, and her plots sound interesting as well.

Yep. The new article shows Rachel as a really interesting character. Can hardly wait for the rest of the series!

I'm actually more interested in Rachel after reading the article as well. I'm a sucker for the "almost human type", which is why I went for Floyd first, then Caprice second. Rachel may very well be in third place for me now (considering her cybernetics), followed by the corrupt cop and the PI now a distant last.

Now that I've actually got the game and spent the necessary time popping out the bits and putting them into baggies (yeah, what of it?), I'll definitely have to dedicate a topic to each of the investigators, that will hopefully become discussions on their stories, and tips/tricks as to how to play them effectively.

Probably Friday.

I did get a chance to skim through all of their Plots and Twilight cards, and I'm really torn.

I'm in Floyds camp. I purchased my copy yesterday and have been going through the decks. The first story card in all of his plots allow him to chose whether or not to disobey one of his directives (and baggage will carry over to the next branch), which means that he can control his fundamental changes in his 'backstory' while at the same time fundamentally changing his mechanics in game. I'm hoping to be able to get a game together within the week to see how it works out.

Since I love melodrama I must go with Blaine.

The negative ending of the Sara plotline is simply too tragic to ignore.