Ok, so I'm going to post my design ideas here having discussed this in my other thread (this way lies madness). They are going to be cut and paste from my google docs file, consequently they might not read very well at this stage. Furthermore what's being presented first are the rules. I haven't written the setting yet, but it's going to be action-oriented, comic book style romp - as opposed to realistic. The most important things to point out about the setting are the character types:
Norm - human characters that make up the majority of the wasteland population. They aren't mutated and don't have psychic powers. Instead they get special talents fuelled by something called Experience.
Mutants - 'homo mutatis' is a race born of the apocalypse. They are small in number and are a mistrusted yet powerful underclass. Mutants generate internal power known as Rads (ie radiation). They have no control over this, but they can focus it to fuel mutant Powers. If they don't they reach 'critical mass'. This means they explode - but here's the twist: they reform (like Dr Manhattan). However anyone caught in the blast probably won't.
Mindwalkers - in the latter days of the War the Union (and the Red Republic that invaded it) played host to the next step in human evolution. They now exist as humans in almost every way except for their psychic talents and total lack of body hair (all mindwalkers are totally bald). Though smaller in number than the mutant community, they are less feared. Mindwalkers are organised as a spiritual community: the Church of the Mind with it's ruling Psynod. Psychics have Powers too, but these are fuelled directly by taking physical damage. Psychics can only acess a few powers at a time, but, if they enter any Church of the Mind, they can swap out their powers for new ones - all Mindwalkers have the potential to access the greater psychic unconscious.
Robot - the machines of war still litter the Wasteland, largely the legacy of the Combine, the great military industrial conglomerate that supplied the war effort (possibly on both sides, noone really knows anymore). Dismebodied brains that lurk within the depths of their Wasteland-wide complexes, the Combine were succesful in creating both cyborgs and sentient robots (the rules don't distinguish), as such players can be Robots. Such characters have Programs as special abilities. Robots can use their programs by gaining points toward their character's Memory limit. Once this is reached the Robot is in danger of randomly triggering one of two states: temprorary shutdown, whiel the unit cools, and Overload, where the robot goes out of control as its primary self preservation software kicks in. Neither are desirable.
The second most important aspect of the game is Ammo: this is a catch all term representing the limited resources of the Wasteland. It serves as the actual currency that characters will trade in as well as a fuel for several functions in the game: field medicine (healing), field repairs (mending machinery), damage (ammo multiplies damage for certain weapons and is thus needed to use them). It can also reduce the difficulty for actions where spent. Ammo is acquired in many ways: trading, salvaging wreckage, finding supplies, looting the dead, etc.
Tradertowns are an important concept in that they are serve defined functions, usually to do with characters. Trading, healing and repairs can all be done in tradertowns much simpler than their field variants. Certain attributes and stats can be changed and characters can trade.
That's a basic overview.
Players roll stat in order to resolve actions.
To make a stat roll, players roll (stat)d6, comparing the total to the ambient difficulty (which, for opposed rolls is increased by the opposing stat). If their result is no lower their attempt succeeds. .
If the action is a group effort, each participant beyond the active participant (whose player is making the roll) adds a single die to the pool. Group efforts may sometimes be contested by a higher than normal difficulty to reflect the need for a group acting together.
If the action is opposed by a group effort then likewise, each other participant in the process of of opposition adds +1 to the opposing stat.
The difference between the difficulty and the result is known as the margin of success. Not every action makes use of this value.
Stats (attributes, characteristics, skills, all rolled into one statistic) define every character. All characters have a rating from 1-5 in every statistic so as to allow everyone to at elast try and participate, thus no player has to feel left out at least.
Reflexes is used when a character needs to test his dexterity and reactions. In particular it is used as a component in calculating Initiative during combat where opponents have already been established.
Awareness is used when a character is consciously or unconsciously trying to perceive details in the environment. Such details might include awareness of ambient danger or perhaps the presence of waiting enemies.
Technician is used when a character is trying to interact with the workings of a device, machine or other item of technology - regardless of its origin. This stat helps with jerry-rigged contraptions and the process of retroengineering technology. Repair per se is covered by Ammo - so long as Ammo, where required, can be spent, the device is in working order.
Operator is used when a character is trying to drive or otherwise pilot any kind of vehicle. The stat doesn't differentiate between vehcile types. As with Technician, this stat doesn't cover repair functions. That is what Ammo is for.
Mind is used when a character uses his academic skills or intellect. Anytime a character seeks to apply academic discipline or understanding this stat is used. Mind doesn't cover operation of technology, that is a separate stat, though the character might understand the principles involved, the Operator stat is needed for practical use.
Lore is used when a character is interacting with the wasteland. Lore is used when a character seeks to navigate when lost, understand local customs (within and without towns).
Guns is used when a character is attacking with any ranged weapon. In combat a character uses this stat to fire ranged weapons of any kind.
Fighting is used when a character is attacking either unarmed or using a non-ranged weapon. Conversely Fighting covers any attack made without ranged ordnance.
Guts is used when a character needs to test his strength either through force of will or force of body. The two are abstracted into a single stat.
Command is used to determine soical dominance and interaction. Whenever a character seeks to deal with another socially this stat is used to see who gets the upper hand, either through subterfuge or outright intimidation. The mode of interaction is up to the player.
Medic - this is used specifically and solely for field medical effects, which is to say removing damage and healing injury out in the wasteland.
Great to see you posting stuff about the game. Hopefully, you'll get some really useful feedback from this.
I should start of by saying that any comments I make should be read charitably, and are merely observations, rather than trying to say "But you should do it this way!". Right, caveats done.
Looking at your last post, that seems to be an awful lot of stats you've got there. Some of them seem to overlap a fair bit and I would worry that might lead to people trying to shoehorn a 'good' stat into a situation in place of something they are deficient in. Maybe you could drop the number of stats down a little, by combining things and then allowing the players to define why they are good at certain things. Like:
Reflexes + Awareness become Awareness
Technician + Science become Technical (or Scientific, or something)
Guns + Fighting become Fighting
But, you could get the players to add a descriptor to the stat and have anything outwith that descriptor act at, say, one die less. For example:
Fighting 3 - I'm a crack shot!
So, anything to do with shooting, the character gets 3, but if it's to with combat and not about shooting, they get 2.
Or:
Technical 4 - I can jury rig just about anything
So, when it comes to making repairs or fixing up some A-Team style device, you get 4. Any other technical or scientific things get 3.
With group actions, I'd be interested in hearing why each additional participant gets to add only one die to the pool? That seems like it could be pretty disadvantageous in situations where banding together is the only valid and workable option. Maybe when acting as a team, you have one character be the 'leader' and and everyone else gets to use their stat minus one (or, some kind of situational modifier). So, if there are four of you facing down a hideous radioactive monster, it gives you a much better chance of taking it down.
Hope this helps in some way.
Cheers
Malcolm
Thanks for the feedback, but I don't agree with the issue of too many/redundant stats. In many games characters have stats and skills (the total of which is much greater than the 10 listed here); these stats are both together.
Reflexes and Awareness may seem similar, but they serve different purposes. Both are used separately for Initiative (as will be explained) and both are rolled for different things. Awareness is noticing what's in the environment and reflexes is jumping out of a moving car. Both serve different puirposes and given that I can't legislate for people's game experiences (nor would I want to) I think that definition is important.
Technician and Operator and Science are again different in purpose. Technician is about repairing and engineering machinery and is used to repair things. Operator is used for driving/piloting and Science covers academia and scholarly knowledge. The choice of the word Science may seem confusing in this context, but it's the most appropriate moniker.
So for example, Technician would be used to get a computer working (even if it just means finding the on switch - if the device is not commonly used in the way modern pc's are), while Science is how to search on Google to find stuff like a chemical formula.
Fighting and Guns could have been merged, but I thought it important to differentiate between the two types of combat (melee and ranged) so that characters could specialise in one or the other (or perhaps both). This isn't really an issue of complexity, but of strategy. While it should be as simple as possible combat gets a little too vanilla if this distinction isn't made.
So it's possible to have someone good at Driving, but clueless about Repair - as opposed to his techie sidekick (in true action movie style) who is the reverse. That is a level of detail I don't feel good about compromising.
I think most gamers can handle 10 stats if they can handle games with 50 or so skills, like CoC, Atomic Highway has a lot of stats as well.
EDIT: one stat, Medic, was missing.
Error! The following stat is missing:
Medic - used to heal people in the wasteland (otherwise known as field medicine). It's the flesh and blood equivalent of the Technician stat in that regard.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;395477I think that definition is important.
Technician and Operator and Science are again different in purpose. Technician is about repairing and engineering machinery and is used to repair things. Operator is used for driving/piloting and Science covers academia and scholarly knowledge. The choice of the word Science may seem confusing in this context, but it's the most appropriate moniker.
As long as they are given some clear lines of demarcation, I think it can work. I mean stats work better when they have a clear radius of effectiveness, if not if there is too much overlap then you run into problems. Despite saying this I think it depends on the tone and genre of the game though as well--High Valor's traits tend to be pretty broad, so to CAH S2 (yet its good to have backups in the latter.) Hearts & Souls has very broad usefulness for some effects, via traits. (You can fight with several active traits for example.) Yet it makes more sense for a superhero game.
Well there may be an argument for collapsing reflexes and awareness into one stat. It's not a huge issue though.
The specifics of how group actions work is really only going to be found through actual playtesting. I don't intend group action rules to be used if the players are in combat, say fighting a single monster.
Barbarian - know then o prince...the wasteland is yours to shape into whatever morality you desire that you may know the pleasures of this life with little care for the next. Blood and sandald, the roar of the crowd, the feel of the Bolter trigger.
Outlaw - the only law in the Wasteland is there is no law save the law of the jungle. Rob from the rich to give to whomever...then maybe rob the poor as well. Oh well.
Believer - there is more to this life than the Wasteland. This is the proving ground of the faithful who will all be forged anew in the fires of these end times. You are their shepherd they, whether they like it or not, are your flock.
Warden - compassion may be in short supply in these strange and testing times, but there will never be a shortage of heroes raised in the classic tradition, whether raised on comic book morality or the beliefs of the ancients.
Pagan - strange is the cycle of life and yet again mother nature teaches a harsh lesson to a sickly and dependent mankind. Now is the time to throw off the shackles of technology and embrace a better way.
Each character will have a Role. It's purpose is to modify behaviour when meeting others, particularly in towns. Other factors modify this also (usually the character's origin), so that a Norm Outlaw may find that he's not particularly welcome in a town run by Wardens. Or perhaps a Mutant Warden may have a tougher time than his Norm counterpart when dealing with a town run by Norm Outlaws.
Roles have numerical ratings, but these are only used as a guide to determing relations with others. They are not rolled against per se and can change throughout play. The higher the number, the stronger the character's conviction within this sphere.
(NB: Mutant, Norm, Robot and Mindwalker are known as Origins).
Given that your "attributes" are also going to cover your skills, I think your list is mostly appropriate. I agree with keeping Awareness and Reflexes separate. The only beef I have is with some of the labels you chose:
Both Science and Lore are sort of misleading given the descriptions you gave for them. Also, because you threw first aid and survival skills into Lore and yet have a Medic attribute, the waters are pretty muddy. I might reconsider using a scheme like this:
Knowledge: Scientific and cultural information. Area lore.
Survival: Navigation, food safety, hunting, basic first-aid, plant identification
Medicine: Treating serious injury, radiation, surgery
Also, unrelated, I'm not sure Command is the most appropriate label for that attribute. It seems awfully narrow considering your description tells us every social interaction will use it (maybe Guts will be involved when resisting). I think Persuasion, Personality, or (forgive me) even Charisma are more appropriate.
Hope something there is helpful. Looking forward to reading more from you.
That must have been an earlier draft I didn't repair. Lore shouldn't include healing at all. it's basically survival, orienteering, navigation and streetwise. it covers stuff in and out of towns, knowing hte local lingo and the customs of people and places as well as how to navigate a radioactive maze or something. I have amended the above entry.
The word Science could well be substituted with Knowledge, but I prefer the vibe of that word.
Command may sound aggresive, but it works. it's a more evocative word than simply 'charisma' and it covers whatever methods of interpersonal communication the player desires at the time: leadership, subterfuge, interrogation, seduction, haggling...
Setting seems solid with lots of interesting factions.
Nice take on the mutant powers!
# of att. seems good as they subsume skills.
What part will "role" (Warden etc.) play in determining att. (mods/availability), if at all? Ditto for background.
Keeping Ref./Awr. seperate is a good call IMO. Someone can be very aware but without good reflexes. Awr. preceeds Ref. in most cases.
I am assuming Ref. would be used in suprise situations that rely on a motor response? (perhaps mod. by Awr., see the last few questions below)
A few questions reg. att.;
In the description for Tech. it states that this will cover using equip. regardless of origin. Medic states that this will cover healing in the wastelands etc. So what att. is used if the healing involves med. equip.?
How do the att. interact or do you make more rolls based on another relavent att.?
Could the success of one att. check mod. the next in a related chain?
Science seems to be a purely thought process att. (I use the term "extrapolation" for this sort of thing) is this correct?( there is no "motor" skill associated, purely cerebral?). How would this mod. a roll based on the insight gained? like using Sci. to figure out new equip. then using Tech. to make function.
Resolution mech. seems straightforward...playtesting will tell...
Origin is Norm, Mutant, Robot or Mindwalker.
Role is Warden, Barbarian, Outlaw, Believer, and Pagan. These are sort of like the character's nature. Their purpose is to guide relations with other people/factions in the world as well as define the character's general outlook. They are fairly broad: a Pagan can be fairly nihilistic or as samaritanesque as a Warden. Conversely, a Barbarian needn't be a bloodthirsty killing machine. It's what the player wants to make of it. Just that, if a Warden goes to a place run by Outlaws, for example, they will react more adversely to him than perhaps others. The strength of that adversity is commensurate with the value assigned currently to his Role. That value I envision changing (ie increasing) the more the player acts in direct accordance with their character's nature.
It's important not to overthink it. This is a broad set of definitions that shouldn't be so tight.
The material resources used for healing and repairs (which are the primary functions of the medic and technician stats respetively) are represented by Ammo. This will be explained later. Both function similary and uniquely for field medicine and field repairs. There is no crossover in the stats and so the score of a character's Technician won't impinge (or improve) the performance of their healing efforts. This is the same as saying a high Science stat doesn't improve the use of Technician. Stats are exclusive and intended to be that way for simplicity if nothing else.
When characters get hurt they take Hurt points; these points accumulate to a limit set by the character's Guts+40 at which point the character dies. Most damage is taken as points in this fashion, but some damage is non-fatal. Consequently the first (20+Guts) Hurt points that a character can take are known as Stun damage. This first threshold only applies when Stun level Hurt is taken: if the character takes enough of that kind of hurt so as to exceed his Stun threshold the excess is lost. Instead of taking that extra damage, the character is knocked out for a number of hours equal to that excess (6 is the maximum). KO'd characters are extremely vulnerable (all stats default to 0 for opposed rolls), but will recover, if not aided otherwise, in the predetermiend number of hours. Knocked out characters still count their Armour/Cover as appropriate.
(I fear that isn't explained well in writing).
Initiative:
At the start of each round of combat, participants make individual Initiative checks to determine the order in which combatants act, action by action. This order is determined by rolling Awareness as a dice pool and using the total, from highest to lowest (compare Awreness as a stat or roll a single die to break ties). Once all combatants have taken their main, and possibly only, action bonus actions then resolve likewise until no one has any further actions, or until all combatants pass on their action consecutively (ie noone chooses to act that round). At which point the round ends.
Combatants receive 1 bonus action if they roll a doubles on their Initiative roll, 2 bonus actions if they roll a triple, and so on up to a limit set by their Reflexes stat.
When taking an action, the player may, on his turn, delay his action until a later time in the round. He must define a trigger point or an individual he is hoping to interrupt at which point he must either act or forfeit the action. If he acts he interrupts the flow of actions at that point and goes before the character that would otherwise act at this point.
While driving, a character rolling for Initiative substitutes his Operator for his Reflexes stat in all above situations.
Combat:
Attack rolls are opposed stat rolls using either the Fighting or Guns stat for melee or ranged combat, respectively. The stat is opposed by the target's Fighting or Reflexes stat, again respectively. The base difficulty is dependent on the circumstances particular to the attacker, such as visibility and knowing where the target is (if behind cover).
Full Defence:
Regardless of a character's Initiative, the player can choose to commit his character to act fully defensively for the round. A character on Full Defence, is harder to hit; but he cannot attack at all during the round and can only move. Such characters oppose attacks against them by adding their Reflexes to the total difficulty to hit them (which means Reflexes is used twice for the purposes of ranged attacks).
Hurt:
If the attack required Ammo expenditure (for gun or bomb type weapons), then Ammo must be spent to deal damage, however additional Ammo can be spent in the same way as for field medicine/repairs: total Hurt taken x Ammo spent, but each point beyond the first reduces by 1, each time, the margin of success added (this is due to the increased stress on the weapon causing it to fire less accurately).
If the attack deson't require Ammo expenditure (melee type weapon, including unarmed), the damage is equal to the margin of success plus the greater of the attacker's Fighting or Guts stat. The attacker can choose to pull his punches, on such an attack, by declaring thus prior to making the roll, in which case Hurt casued is only applied as Stun.
Range:
Weapons firing over ranged can fire at several increments, from Point Blank (20metres), Near (50m), Far (100m), and Extreme (175m). The actual measurements should be a used as a guideline at best. Only shotguns and pistols can fire at point blank, but cannot reach Far or Extreme ranges. Weapons can, with the aid of a scope, fire beyond their listed range, except for Shotguns. However doing so is done at +2 Difficulty. Not all weapons can accomadate a scope.
Pistols fire at ranges up to Extreme.
Rifles fire from Near to Extreme.
Machine Guns fire Near to Far.
Shotguns fire from Point Blank to Near.
Rules for other types of ranged weapons (such as mortars or guided ordnance) are handled in their own rules.
(NB: the rules regarding how much Hurt a character can take are likley to change).
Some errata (already? this game's a failure!):
1. Mindwalkers:
Mindwalkers start with a set number of extrasensory psychic powers, like all characters. This number is fixed and they cannot learn more, however with access to a Church of the New Mind (the greater Mindwalker cult governed by the enigmatic Psynod), found in some towns, they can swap out powers for others. These Churches contain the totality of psyker consciousness and thus allow the Mindwalker access to the ur-knowledge of their powers.
Psychics fuel their powers by spending their Mind stat (no other character can do this and the player must record the character's starting, and thus maximum, score). Each point allows the character to use any of his powers for 1 hour. They regain these points, over time providing no Mind roll is made or used in the meantime; it takes x hours to regain 1 point, where x = the current, remaining, Mind score.
2: Gun damage:
(Gun, as a game term, refers to all ranged weapons that require Ammo expenditure to fire).
Pay 1 Ammo to fire a Gun (ie a Gun-type weapon) and deal damage according to base damage +margin of success. If the weapon has the Auto ability then the player can spend, at the time of rolling up to the listed Auto score, extra Ammo. Each additional point grants an extra die to roll, but adds 1 to the Difficulty.
3. Mind:
Science is now known as Mind. This should probably be explained prior to the Mindwalker entry above.
Norm characters have access to Talents which are, essentially, more effective versions of basic stats and stat-functions, such as combat, or specifically shooting guns, for instance. To power these Talents (which are chosen during character creation), the player must spend Experience points. In order to gain Experience, the character must fulfil certain conditions. These conditions are actions/behaviours that represent things that he is good at - for instance a Talent that helps healing might use an Experience of helping others. Experiences need not be succesful results and they are defined by the player in consent with the GM, not from a preset list (as opposed to the Talents themselves). Characters start with a couple of Experiences and can actually spend Experience points to add more, or to change existing Experiences (both with GM consent) when in town.
A few questions...
Only Norm (origin) characters have access to Talents? Why?
Why is "Mindwalker" a seperate "Origin" from "Mutant"?
In the initial post "Norms" have no psi. and in a later post (#15) you state that all characters start with psychic powers.Can you clarify?
The other "Origins" seem to encompass a spacific type of being whereas Mindwalker seems more like something another "Origin" could have.
For example:
Norm Outlaw (Mindwalker)
Mutant Barbarian (Mindwalker)
Robot Warden (Mindwalker)
More like being a member of a cult or what have you...though I see you state that "Mindwalkers" do have some phsysical abnormalities that distinguish them...isn't that a "Mutant"?
Mulling over the other info...seems good on paper. Any live play or chargen yet?
If you provide a succinct chargen approach I am happy to go through to give some basic feedback.
cheers!
Interesting stuff GW!
Quote from: skofflox;396399A few questions...
Only Norm (origin) characters have access to Talents? Why?
Why is "Mindwalker" a seperate "Origin" from "Mutant"?
In the initial post "Norms" have no psi. and in a later post (#15) you state that all characters start with psychic powers.Can you clarify?
The other "Origins" seem to encompass a spacific type of being whereas Mindwalker seems more like something another "Origin" could have.
For example:
Norm Outlaw (Mindwalker)
Mutant Barbarian (Mindwalker)
Robot Warden (Mindwalker)
More like being a member of a cult or what have you...though I see you state that "Mindwalkers" do have some phsysical abnormalities that distinguish them...isn't that a "Mutant"?
Mulling over the other info...seems good on paper. Any live play or chargen yet?
If you provide a succinct chargen approach I am happy to go through to give some basic feedback.
cheers!
Interesting stuff GW!
Norms have Talents, Mutants and Mindwalkers have Powers (though each has completely different power sets), and Robots have Programs. They are basically the special abilties that the characters have access to. That's just the way it works. Each origin has its own resource fuelling abilities unique to themselves.
Mindwalker is different in that psychic power evolved naturally and around the time of the War, whereas Mutants are an evolutionary offshoot caused by radiation. Ultimately it's a design choice. Pyschics are still human, even though they all look like the Observers from Fringe. Mutants...are mutants. That's not to say that Mindwalkers are well trusted either, but they are more enigmatic than deliberately malign (though that's as entirely possible as it is for a Mutant to be benign and friendly to Norms).
There will always be some degree of overlap and perhaps confusion; that's just how these things work. Role is not Origin though and both are quite different. Mindwalker can't be a Role since it's intrinsically an Origin, psychic powers are unique to Mindwalkers that's why the origin exists. YOu can't be a Mutant psychic even though you might have Mutant powers that are as bizarre and strange to any individual as anythign a Mindwalker can do. The difference is that Mutant powers always have an inbuilt setback because of the way Rads work, they are powerful but cost the player something to use because they are a pressure valve (literally!).
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;395928Combatants receive 1 bonus action if they roll a doubles on their Initiative roll, 2 bonus actions if they roll a triple, and so on up to a limit set by their Reflexes stat.
This is a neat approach. Can these be combined for "special effect" such as spacific target area,add to damage or carry over to another opp.? (riffing from MRQ2 here)
Quote from: skofflox;396598This is a neat approach. Can these be combined for "special effect" such as spacific target area,add to damage or carry over to another opp.? (riffing from MRQ2 here)
I haven't really thought about it, actually. It's not a bad idea! Though it does mean that people wanting to do called shots and such are going to rely purely on getting matches on the Initiative roll. I'm not sure that rings true.
I have gone back and forth regarding initiative for the simple reason that rolling Awareness as a dice pool can produce a potentially too-wide range of results.
I am also thinking of adding a rule that says, after calculating Initiative, players can sacrifice x actions to change x of the Awareness dice results to be equal to his Reflexes score.
So a person that rolls Awareness 3 and gets 3 1's can spend any of their 3 (lets say 1) actions to improve their Initiative result. Let's say they have Reflexes of 4, so they now have 2 actions and an initiative result of 6, not 3 (which may or may not be worth the effort).
Some fluff:
the word 'junk' is the wasteland version of the pg-friendly BSG expletive 'frak' :D
So up yours, motherjunker, if you don't like it!
I'm thinking the chief language of the Wasteland (the remnant of the former Northern Union continent, including eastern territory annexed by the Red Republic), is 'Grish': a mix of Union and Sinonese - the language of one of the pre-war economic giants in the world. Then you have Swamp Creole: a mixture of Orleanese and Union with a dash of dialects south of the border where the influence of Hindustani meets the San Santina latin to produce Dhal Latin. The chief language of the mutant capital of Morgoth City is Promethean which is said to have more than 26 letters and is at best incomprehensible to even many mutants. Robots of course can communicate in Binary. Mindwalkers...think.
If I might offer a suggestion that might enable you to get more feedback on your game. There are various bits of the system being presented here, pieces of background, and various other stuff. That makes for a somewhat cluttered thread and makes it difficult to give feedback that concentrates on particular areas. Perhaps you could have different threads for different things, like one for character creation, one for the main system elements, one for background, and so on.
But, this is just an observation on my part.
Cheers
Malcolm
Well if people think that's easier then that's fine. I figured it would be more efficient for the forum to have less threads in general. It's really down to whether people are itnerested and what works for them.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;396657I haven't really thought about it, actually. It's not a bad idea! Though it does mean that people wanting to do called shots and such are going to rely purely on getting matches on the Initiative roll. I'm not sure that rings true.
I have gone back and forth regarding initiative for the simple reason that rolling Awareness as a dice pool can produce a potentially too-wide range of results.
I am also thinking of adding a rule that says, after calculating Initiative, players can sacrifice x actions to change x of the Awareness dice results to be equal to his Reflexes score.
So a person that rolls Awareness 3 and gets 3 1's can spend any of their 3 (lets say 1) actions to improve their Initiative result. Let's say they have Reflexes of 4, so they now have 2 actions and an initiative result of 6, not 3 (which may or may not be worth the effort).
Bold mine...
Called shots do not have to depend fully on matches though matches could Mod. said called shot.
As far as changing Intiative by trading actions, this could be a cool mechanic...like the characters are going to the limit,pushing the envelope to get an edge.
Adding details like this give lots of nice options but have a potential to slow the search and handling times so these could all be suggested additions to tweak the game and not part of the "main" rules.
Nice detail on the languages!
As Malcom suggested perhaps splitting the thread would intice more people to reply...lonely here...
How about some Chargen details!
:)
Perhaps something like:
Initiative:
Characters act once per round in order of Initiative, from highest to lowest. Initiative is calculated by rolling Awareness d6 and totalling the result. If the result produces matching numbers the player may use a special effect that turn:
Any instance of a double allows the character to add 1d6 to any one attack roll this round.
Any instance of a triple allows the character to add 1d6 to any one attack, or to the difficulty of any single attack against him this round.
Any instance of a quadruple allows the character to do both the above.
Characters with equal Initiative compare matches to break ties, failing that they compare Reflexes stats. Failing that, let the gods of chance decide.
This eliminates any imbalance through giving certain characters potentially too many actions per round as everyone acts once (withpossible modifications for certain types of action, such as moving AND shooting). But it also gives people who have lots of Awareness the chance to get a benefit for doing so and thus the player a tactical choice from a few simple options.
Quote from: Ghost Whistler;396785Perhaps something like:
Initiative:
Characters act once per round in order of Initiative, from highest to lowest. Initiative is calculated by rolling Awareness d6 and totalling the result. If the result produces matching numbers the player may use a special effect that turn:
Any instance of a double allows the character to add 1d6 to any one attack roll this round.
Any instance of a triple allows the character to add 1d6 to any one attack, or to the difficulty of any single attack against him this round.
Any instance of a quadruple allows the character to do both the above.
Characters with equal Initiative compare matches to break ties, failing that they compare Reflexes stats. Failing that, let the gods of chance decide.
This eliminates any imbalance through giving certain characters potentially too many actions per round as everyone acts once (withpossible modifications for certain types of action, such as moving AND shooting). But it also gives people who have lots of Awareness the chance to get a benefit for doing so and thus the player a tactical choice from a few simple options.
Very nice idea here...a few potentialy powerful options.
Elegant approach GW..
How about some chargen details so's I can run through...?
:)
Thanks.
The details of that initiative system will have to be ironed out.
Character generation will have to wait until i've designed the 'kewl powerz'. That's the next part, aside from a couple of bits and pieces (tightening up the driving rules).
Edited out bad ideas that don't work. Thanks for reading.
While I work on the combat system (refining damage and coming up with a shorthand methodology for GM's in respect of multiple NPC's), I want to invite comment on a simple change of jargon.
Currently Mutants fuel their mutant powers by expenditure (burning off is a more accurate description) with Rads - radiation, basically.
I am thinking of changing that word to Atoms and using the term Rads in place of difficulty (ie the difficulty of a task would be its rads - the more rads a task has, the higher the difficulty).
I am unsure as to whether this is just confusing. Atoms isn't the best word and I can't think of anything better, but Rads in place of Difficulty is kinda cool, I think it could work.
Hmmm,"Rads" may work,"Atom" not so catchy...any specialized jargon is likely to cause confusion to some degree...I think your original use of "Rads" as fuel for the mutant powers is better.
yeah i'll leave it i think, tthanks.
Big entry (as the actress was heard to remark to the bishop)...
This is cut and pasted from my file. As such the mechanics probably won't make much sense. If it isn't explicitly stated, the point at which mutants reach Critical Mass is 10 Rads and they generate 1 per day anyway, regardless. These powers work by forcing the mutant to incur Rads per use. This at times might not always seem realistic (eg when dealing with physiology). These instances are cases where ideas defer to rules consistency and, hopefully, balance. Mutants here are not meant to be cute gamma world weird but clean hybrids; they are ostensibly humanoid (homo mutatis), just blessed with disgusting abilities. The rules explanations should make sense in the context of what's already posted. Here we go...
Rad Powers:
Gamma Rays - the character can emit strange rays from his eyes and mouth. Used as a ranged attack (incur rads to determine the dice pool for the action) the character can blast a man's 'soul'. The effect either: switches off a Norm's Experience and renders it unusable for x rounds, adds x to the character's Rad total, does xd6 damage to a Mindwalker (psychics fuel their powers with Hurt points), or decreases a Robots Memory limit by x (pushing them closer to Overload/Cooldown). The effect depends on the target.
Atomic Tonic - with an action (spent in some form of meditative pose) the mutant can gain Hurt points; healing himself for Rads. Each Rad taken (up to 6 per action) allows the mutant to heal 1d6 Hurt. All characters near the mutant take 1 point of damage per 6 points healed.
Invisible Isotope - the mutant incurs up to 5 Rads and takes an action to 'blend', disappearing from regular sight. They now cannot be perceived by characters with less Awareness than Rads incurred, unless they take an action to try. Other characters may attempt to locate them, as part of any action. In each case an Awareness roll is made opposed by a value equal to the Rads incurred. The effect remains until either the mutant cancels it (which can be done anytime without an action), gets hit, or combat (or the current scene) ends. Once a character has passed the above Awareness roll he needn't make it again, instead he receives +1 to all difficulties to target him though he can still track the mutant. Finally, while so invisible, the mutant's features shift; their appearance alters - and not for the best (at least in terms a Norm consider attractive). The GM has final say on the specifics of the change.
Curie's Curse - this is a suite of powers, from which the mutant can choose specific effects, that reflect aspects of an altered phsiology such as weird limb properties. Every mutant has a strange and twisted physique or appearance, but without a Power those changes are merely cosmetic. Consequently this power can be taken mutliple times (unlike the rest) with a different effect for each instance.
Quick Draw McClaw: the mutant may incur the difference between the higher and the lower stat to choose the higher when using the aforementioned combat rule. This effect can only be chosen if the mutant has different scores for the two stats.
Scuttlebutt: the mutant can incur Rads, on a 1 for 1 basis, to bolster his Reflexes/Guts when calculating movement for a round (or scene, if outside combat). The mutant may also employ unusual methods of moving, such as climbing walls just as easily. One such mode must be picked.
Biowhip: the mutant can transform a mutant limbs into a tentacle which can be used to attack, restrain and pull targets close with an action (resolved as normal). Each instance of this effect allows the mutant can transform one limb into a 1m long tentacle. It attacks at whatever range the mutant extends it to (paying each time the process is used) but lasts only for the action, resolving the transformation as part of that resolution.
Hands Free: the mutant can make use of an extra limb/tail or similar, perhaps to fire an extra gun or tool. Consequently the mutant can add half (round up) his acting stat again in exchange for incurring 2 Rads. This lasts for the action concerned. When using this effect in an action that makes use of Ammo, the total Ammo cost is also likewise; that total must be paid for or the effect cannot be used.
The mutant can make use of his unique physiology in ways analogous to these effects without having to incur Rads if the GM deems such use to be mundane or not otherwise giving the mutant a significant advantage.
Mentus Mutatis - with an action the mutant can attempt to take control over local Rad Entities. This requires a Command roll (difficulty determined by the size and nature of the local irradiated fauna in question) with the mos limiting the number of Rads the mutant can incur. In exchange for incurring up to that many Rads, the mutant can give 1 single individual command to that many entities. Once a command is resolved the entity returns to its normal behaviour uninfluenced (though maybe instinctually pissed off). While any such entity carries out its action the mutant cannot act (he remains entranced in some, weird, fashion, able to see and hear through the senses of any/all the entities he controls). Line of sight to all charges is required for this effect to work. While under the mutant's control, entities insert themselves into the Initiative order at that point acting at their own point. If their Initiative is higher than the current point they immediately act in an order set by the mutant, however where there is conflict with another character the entities defer. Mutants using this power start to resemble such entities themselves, often acquiring insect-like features.
Chernobyl Carapace - the mutant can activate armour, during Initiative and requiring an action, by incurring Rads. Each point adds 1 point of Armour but reduces Reflexes (and accordingly all move rates) by 1 simultaneously. The effect lasts for the round, cancelling it requires an action however.
Toxic Touch - with a succesful unarmed attack, the character can incur Rads to increase the damage. Incurring 2 points adds 1d6 damage. The mutant must be unarmed and make skin to skin physical contact for this to occur. If the mutant restrains a target he can use an action, while he has the target under restraint, to incur 2 Rads and automatically inflict 1d6 damage, again skin contact must be made. This character cannot wear Armour without corroding it (except Armour created by his own mutation. Each Rad incurred reduces, permanently, the value of any Armour the mutant happens to be wearing currently (for the sake of convenience, he doesn't need to go entirely naked - he wears Phlux weave).
Gamma Gills - the character can incur Rads to manifest gills, webbed feet and hands, and be fully aquatic for an hour per point. Any mutant with this power also enjoys +1 Reflexes while immersed in a heavy storm outdoors.
Junk Feeder - the mutant can eat junk and as a result gain Rads to exercise some sense of Postcognition. By consuming points of Ammo the mutant can somehow perceive the recent history of a specific and small locality (a room, or inside a vehicle, for example).
Atomic Bile - the character can 'exude' a pool of internal liquid, toxic/acidic (ie hazardous to the touch), in nature beside him. The pool extends 1m and also does d6 damage, per Rad, to anything that comes in contact. It even erodes armour, reducing the Armour value (except Biohazard Armour) by the same d6 amount, permanently. when applied to structures it does Rust damage in the same way which the GM may deem enough to create an entrance of commensurate (1m radius/rad spent) size. To have this manifest as an attack the mutant must take Toxic Touch.
Half-Life Blind - the mutant has access to abnormal modes of perception. By tuning out his normal sight and incurring Rads, the mutant is then able to see in total darkness, or see in infrared, or any other exceptional vision mode. Each Rad allows the mutant to operate in this way for 1 round.
Cancer Kinetic - the mutant's touch can excite inanimate objects on a molecular level. This allow them to operate according to their normal function just by touch. Each use of the ability incurs Rads commensurate with the GM's judgement of the complexity of the process involved: for example, switching on a computer that isn't plugged in isn't too difficult, but doing so while getting passed password requirements and into the main OS is much harder - unless the mutant has that information already (his power manifests that knowledge instinctively). However the GM shouldn't tell the mutant the required cost leaving him to continue incruring Rads until the GM says otherwise. This way, if the character overspends significantly, the GM is free to rule that the device overloads - perhaps spectacularly. However once a cost has been determined this cost should remain consistent throughout the mutant's experience.
Cthonic Inclination - By exuding a disgusting coating (over all clothing as well) over themselves, the mutant is able to burrow into the earth and transit across distance at twice normal speed. This requires an action to exit and enter and cannot be done while wearing any armour (except provided by another power). The mutant cannot be completely clothed (ie wearing a full body suit+mask). The coating can be employed without having to burrow; this too requires an action and allows the mutant to double the opposing stat on any attempt to restrain him. Coating oneself incurs the mutant 1 Rad per instance of resisting restraing (incurred when this would resolve, not at the point of coating). Travel using this power includes the act of coating as part of the burrowing action, and incurs 1 Rad per round while submerged. While underground the mutant cannot be attacked and may remain burrowed without actually moving. Needless to say the mutant must be on the ground to perform this, even if that doesn't mean on earth itself (the effect can penetrate pretty much anything while on the ground).
Using Rad Powers adds to the Mutant's daily Rad total (each Mutant naturally generates 1 rad per day). The only way mutants have to ease the pressure (and avoid Critical Mass) is to release the Rads in a way that is deleterious to either nearby characters or to the enviroment (causing lingering effects that can allow the mutant to be tracked as well, potentially attracting Rad Entities and sentient mutants. These creatures are always bolstered by the current Scientific Advancement Guage score). The closer the mutant is to Critical Mass (10 rad points) the more spectacular the effects (including Rad Storms); use the chart as a guide to creating the effects of a mutant burning off his Rads. This level determines the effect: ie the current level, not the number of points burned off in the process, determines the effect that process generates.
Each mutant has a uniquely non-human appearance. This is merely a cosmetic aspect that the player should decide upon and in relation to the powers they possess. There is no mechanical advantage to the choice of appearance. Also each Power can be fashioned into whatever the player chooses - the rules are a framework for how the player wishes to interpret that ability so long as the GM agrees. For instance Toxic Touch could easily represent a mutant vampire feeding on blood as a way to transfer Rads to damage to the target. As long as the Power works as listed anything is is just pure colour.