Design Notes
Next we turn our attention to Gunther and his chosen Style of Aikido. I do want to note that the Street Fighter game version of Aikido diverges from the real world art in several ways as a number of the Styles do in the system. I see Gunther moving towards the Focus and Chi based maneuvers, but it will take a while to get there so we need to start out with a good breadth of abilities. At the same time, I want to use one of the Special backgrounds from the Street Fighter Companion but instead of Cybernetics or Animal Hybrid, I want to make Gunther an Elemental for Water! If you are familiar with the Avatar: The Last Airbender series, this background basically allows a character to purchase bending maneuvers. This character is based on an idea from twenty years ago when I made a Street Fighter 2025 setting …. That doesn’t seem so far away anymore.
With his eventual move towards Focus, we need to pay particular attention to the Mental Attributes because Wits replaces Dexterity and Intelligence replaces Strength in determining their speed and damage respectively. Gunther will start with his Mental Attributes as primary, his Physical Attributes Secondary, and his Social Attributes as Tertiary. This leads to a starting attribute scores of Strength 2; Dexterity 3; Stamina 3; Charisma 3; Manipulation 1; Appearance 2; Perception 3; Intelligence 3; and Wits 4. This will also reflect his backstory below as an older character who has gotten back into street fighting past his physical peak.
For his Abilities, we will go with Talents primary, Knowledges secondary, and Skills tertiary. When initially assigning abilities, you cannot start with more than 3, so I will choose Alertness 1; Insight 2, Streetwise 2, Searching 2; and Instruction 2. For Skills, it’s Bling Fighting 1; Leadership 1; and Stealth 2. His knowledges are Arena 1; Investigation 1; Mysteries 1; Style Lore 1; and a freshly created Philosophy 2. His free rank of Linguistics for the campaign is for English with his German.
We will skip to backgrounds next, because we need to prioritize the Elemental Background before we look at maneuvers. I want to start with 4 Ranks in the Elemental Background. If you want to min-max your character, getting to five ranks of any of the special background – Elemental, Animal Hybrid, and Cyborg -is an easy way to do it but I will show some restraint here. His final rank for backgrounds seems well suited to Allies. I think I will use that to make some connections to the team and the rest of the world while making Gunther a bit of an older character.
For his Techniques, it is fairly easy to start with a Two in Kick, Athletics, and Focus, leaving his punches out of the initial mix. This is rounded out with a one each in Block and Grab. That means the starting Techniques will be Punch 0; Kick 2; Block 1; Grab 1; Athletics 2; and Focus 2.
For maneuvers, an akidoka really needs to have Throw (1) and Breakfall (1) to start even in this cinematic universe. From there, we add a Sliding Kick(2) and Back Roll Throw (1) from his training and Pool(2) that uses his Elemental background! Pool lets him dissolve into a pool of water and avoid attacks as well as move around if his Athletics is high enough.
You would think that a character like Gunther would start pure Honor, but you’ll see from his background that his 2 Honor and 1 Glory make sense for him.
With his Freebie points, we will round out some of Gunther’s abilities and past coming back to him. He certain has more contacts so we will add a few points of background there as well as several more points of Chi and a point of Willpower as he will end up using a lot of that with his powers. He used to be a punk, so Gunther’s Punch Technique should start at least at a one and then we pick up Power Uppercut from his days roaming the streets.
Advancement Notes
For fun, though, we are advancing the entire Team a bit to show how to develop the characters with Experience. 50 Experience gives us plenty to work with. Looking over Gunther, he needs to reclaim his old ways of throwing punches, so we will get his Punch Technique to a 2 (3XP) and then have him deepen his connection to the waters by adding a few elemental maneuvers like Drench(3) and Drain(2) for 20XP. Drain allows Gunther to dehydrate an opponent without any soak rolls while Drench is a big fist of water that will do the punching for him. For his regular maneuvers, Kippup (4XP) will let him pop back to his feet effortlessly.
Techniques to improve start with a block to 2 (3XP) and his old habits of punching going even further back to a Technique of 3 (6XP). We will also add a new combo of Block to Back Roll Throw to Drench. This lets Gunther use the higher Speed Back Roll Throw boosted by the Block and Combo bonuses to get some distance so he can follow up with his ranged attack. A two step combo is another 8XP.
Finally, his constant searching for his daughter and the travels of Palladion will give us a reason to add a second dot of Investigation (2XP) and Style Lore (2XP), and a first dot of Interrogation(2XP) though Gunther still is not very good at being anything other than honest. Moving forward, besides keeping his physical attributes and techniques able to compete on the circuit, Gunther will probably move towards learning the Chi Kung Healing Focus Technique so that he can then learn Dim Mak to continue to play up the water elemental or flow of energy feeling for his build.
Gunther’s fun is more in playing the “Team Dad” but also getting to be the older wiser character who happens to have been an even worse punk that these kids. With that out of the way, looking at his advancement, he will certainly focus on increasing his grabs and elemental powers as he searches for Fumiko. His potential signature moves will likely be in the form of Elemental powers but he needs to make sure not to neglect his ability to engage in a regular street fight if he wants to stick around on the circuit and keep Fumiko from making a bigger mistake.
Character Notes
Gunter seems to be out of place in the street fighting circuit. With his calm and patient manner, this older fighter serves as “Team Dad” in many ways. Little do many people realize that his role as “Team Dad” comes naturally to this father trying to find his wayward daughter. To get to the present, though, we must first go through the past.
Twenty years ago, Gunther was full of fire and youthful rebellion fueled oddly enough by his connection to the water all around him. His parents had taken him from their home in Germany and relocated to Metro City. The best part of Metro City was that even after Mayor Haggar’s clean streets program, there were plenty of thugs and leftover gangers for Gunther to “happen across.” Gunther nearly wore his parents out as a rebellious teen until he left the house on his 18th birthday and struck out on his own.
Over the course of two years, Gunther made friends and enemies; fought in the alleys and on the docks; fell in love. Gunter, Dumpling, and Papadopolus, or Talos as he was known back then, went their separate ways, but Eagle’s Claw – Barbara – stayed with Gunter. They were only twenty years old, but parents and madly in love. Like the movies, being a father was a wake up call to Gunther and he applied himself both in the United States and back in Germany providing for his family. Taming his inner demons was helped though studying Aikido and taking the time to devote himself to living what can best be called a “normal life”. His more focused life helped his natural Elemental powers express themselves as he no longer was at constant war with his own nature.
18 years later, history repeated a painful cycle. Fumiko, Gunther’s daughter, struck out on her own. Unlike his rebellion, Fumiko didn’t end up fighting gangs on the docks but fell in with a gang on the docks – a Shadaloo backed gang. Gunther’s worst nightmare had come true. Not only had his own rash past been visited upon his family again, his daughter had unwittingly stepped into the clutches on one of the great evils of our time.
Gunther could no longer sit idly by as Shadloo’s influence spread.
When he reached Pops in New York, Pops told him about this kid, Emmanuel, he had sent to Dumpling to get into the circuit. Emmanuel had also been burned by Shadaloo and intended to set things right while testing himself. Barbara worked through more conventional channels to find their daughter and Gunther delved back into the circuit. A quick introduction and a good word from Pop, and Gunther was part of Palladion while trying to find a way to reach and protect his daughter from her own mistakes with Fumiko never far to lend an extra hand, or claw.
In the ring, Gunther wears a traditional aikidogi, with the uwagi in a sea blue color, evocative of the water, and white shitabaki. His blond hair is often kept cut close and carries a pleasant and disarming smile with him even in combat.
Gunther Sheet Here
Palladion Overview Here
Fillable Character Sheet from SFRPG.com
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