![\"Hard](\"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/chicken.jpg\" "\\"Hard-Boiled")
The hard-boiled detective archetype is very much a product of the first half of the 20th<\/span> Century, but that’s just because nobody thought of it until then. If Raymond Chandler was around in the 12th<\/span> Century, the Arthurian legends would have included a chain-smoking guy in a fedora snapping photos of Lancelot and the Queen. This archetype works in just about any setting. As long as there are mysteries to be solved, dames to fall for, and bad guys to beat up, a hard-boiled P.I. will feel right at home. Because of their tendency to punch first and ask questions later, hard-boiled investigators are not recommended for stories that require the characters to act with patience and diplomacy.<\/p>\n Hard-boiled detectives have strong, forceful names. Most detectives have simple, common first names, with monosyllabic names (Mike, Joe, Sam) being particularly popular. Surnames are either used to make the character sound like even more of a bad-ass (Hammer, Danger, Magnum) or to suggest the character’s ethnic heritage (Tudeski, McClane, Hallenbeck).<\/p>\n A hard-boiled detective is tough, stubborn, and at least a little intimidating. Therefore, Nerve is the most important Word for this archetype. Whether the player chooses to focus his remaining Yum Yums on Body or Brain depends on whether the character relies more on investigative techniques or just beating information out of people.<\/p>\n Crime Scene Investigator, Criminologist, Detective, Diagnostician, FBI Agent, Gumshoe, Inspector, Investigative Reporter, Police Detective, Private Detective\/Dick\/Eye\/Investigator, Profiler, Security Consultant, Shamus, Sleuth, Vigilante<\/p>\n Bad Mother Shut Yo’ Mouth, Car Fu, Clue Magnet, Contacts, Escape Artist, Gun Fu, Hard-Boiled, Hard to Kill, Hide In Plain Sight, High Pain Threshold, Intuition, Ladies’ Man, Lateral Thinking, Lucky, Notices Everything, Photographic Memory, Prepared, Reputation, Sheer Determination, Square-Jawed Man of Action, Tough, Unbelievable Timing<\/p>\n Anger Management Issues, Bad Reputation, Can’t Get A Break, Chain Smoker, Dames, Drug Addiction, Enemies, Getting Too Old For This Shit, Gambling Addiction, Glass Jaw, Impulsive, Lecherous, Luddite, Owes Favors, Punching Bag, Red Tape, Strange Vehicle Magnet, Victim of the Past, Unlucky, War Wound<\/p>\n Ballistics, Bourbon Appreciation, Brawling, Breaking & Entering, Chess, Criminal Psychology, Disguise, Distractions, Drinking, Eavesdropping, Fast-Talking, Firearms, Forensics, Frank Sinatra Trivia, Gambling, Good Instincts, History,\u00a0 Intimidation, Joke Telling, Local Knowledge, Magic Tricks, Nazi Fighting, Petty Theft, Research, Sports Fan, Stealth, Stunt Driving, Surveillance, Tailing, Trivia, Undercover Investigation, Vehicular Assault<\/p>\n Humphry Bogart, Jeff Bridges, Andrew \u201cDice\u201d Clay, Robbie Coltrane, Robert Downey Jr., Fred Dryer, Peter Falk, Dennis Franz, Andy Garcia, Pam Grier, Ed Harris, Dennis Hopper, Samuel L. Jackson, Stacy Keach, Harvey Keitel, Val Kilmer, Hugh Laurie, Ray Liotta, Viggo Mortensen, Joe Pesci, Ed O’Neil, Ving Rhames, Tim Roth, Richard Roundtree, Kathleen Turner, Tom Waits, Bruce Willis<\/p>\n \u201cAll private detectives are scumbags.\u201d –Joe Hallenbeck, The Last Boy Scout<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Hard-boiled detectives are not required to wear a trench coat and fedora, but most do. In addition to the clothes on their back, most detectives will also carry a gun. Some carry other useful tools like flashlights, Swiss army knives, and notebooks. While some detectives may use computers and other high tech gear for research, surveillance, and tracking, most hard-boiled dicks are technophobic, computer illiterate, or just too set in their ways to learn new tricks. Cameras and simple bugs are about as high-tech as they get. When it comes to cars, hard-boiled detectives prefer large American sedans and nondescript vans. Smokes, lighters or matches, and flasks full of hard liquor are also popular with hard-boiled detectives.<\/p>\n The City. Specifically, the seedier parts of the city. Most hard-boiled detectives have offices in run-down buildings on the bad side of town and live somewhere even worse. No matter what city a hard-boiled detective calls home, he’ll probably act like a life-long New Yorker.<\/p>\n The hard-boiled detective’s friends and relatives are mostly normal, everyday blue collar types, with a few criminal informants, police contacts, and colorful oddballs thrown into the mix. Vengeful ex-wives and under-appreciated secretaries are also popular support characters.<\/p>\n Body: <\/b>13<\/p>\n Brain: <\/b>11<\/p>\n Nerve: <\/b>14<\/p>\n Job: <\/b>Scumbag Private Detective (14)<\/p>\n Gimmick: <\/b>Unbelievable Timing (12)<\/p>\n Weakness: <\/b>Confrontation Magnet (12)<\/p>\n Skills: <\/b>Bodyguard +3; Gambling +2; Joke-Telling +1<\/p>\n WWPHITM?: <\/b>Bruce Willis<\/p>\n Dumb Fact: <\/b>Took a bullet for President Carter.<\/p>\n Tag Line: <\/b>\u201cNobody likes you. Everybody hates you. You\u2019re gonna lose. Smile you fuck.\u201d<\/p>\n HP: <\/b>13<\/p>\n YY: <\/b>3<\/p>\n Raymond Chandler<\/p>\n Max Allen Collins<\/p>\n Dashiell Hammett<\/p>\n Mickey Spillane<\/p>\n Batman<\/em><\/p>\n Mickey Spillane’s Mike Danger<\/em> by Max Allen Collins<\/p>\n Blade Runner<\/em><\/p>\n Kiss Kiss Bang Bang<\/em><\/p>\n The Last Boy Scout<\/em><\/p>\n The Maltese Falcon<\/em><\/p>\n Sin City<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cTheme from Shaft,\u201d Isaac Hayes<\/p>\n Angel<\/em><\/p>\n Columbo<\/em><\/p>\n Cracker<\/em><\/p>\n Kojak<\/em><\/p>\n Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hello, and welcome to the first installment of our new weekly feature, Archetype of the Week. Every week, we’ll post a new Archetype that you can use as a starting point when creating a new QAGS character. For those of you already familiar with the Hex product line, we’re not using the Jungian definition of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1998],"tags":[2098,2701,2700,2699,2698,2697,2696,2695,2694,2693,2692,2335,36,1852,1046,399,249,43,42,41,40,38,37],"class_list":["post-3","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archetype-of-the-week","tag-private-detectives","tag-kojack","tag-columbo","tag-angel","tag-isaac-hayes","tag-kiss-kiss-bang-bang","tag-blade-runner","tag-mike-danger","tag-max-allen-collins","tag-the-last-boy-scout","tag-arthurian","tag-the-maltese-falcon","tag-raymond-chandler","tag-spooky","tag-colin-thomas-presents-rasslin","tag-sin-city","tag-cracker","tag-qags","tag-shaft","tag-batman","tag-dashiell-hammet","tag-mickey-spillane","tag-mike-hammer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1157,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3\/revisions\/1157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deathcookie.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Name Game <\/b><\/h1>\n
Numbers & Words<\/b><\/h1>\n
Jobs<\/b><\/h2>\n
Gimmicks<\/h2>\n
Weaknesses<\/b><\/h2>\n
Skills<\/b><\/h2>\n
WWPHITM? <\/b><\/h2>\n
Tag Line<\/b><\/h2>\n
\n
Tools of the Trade<\/b><\/h1>\n
Where You’ll Find Him<\/b><\/h1>\n
Social Circle<\/b><\/h1>\n
Sample Character <\/b><\/h1>\n
Joe Hallenbeck<\/b><\/h2>\n
Inspirational Material<\/b><\/h1>\n
Authors<\/b><\/h2>\n
Comics<\/b><\/h2>\n
Movies<\/b><\/h2>\n
Music<\/b><\/h2>\n
TV <\/b><\/h2>\n