The line-up!

27. January 2010 by admin.

Rules are still being crunched, verbalized and streamlined for the upcoming Fourth Draft. On the downside, there is so much that it sometimes seems impossible to ever get done. On the upside, a lot has been done in a short time, and things are looking so good there are whispers Sixth Draft might be the last draft before a true First Edition rolls about! Nothing for certain, but things look better and sturdier than expected, so hopes are high…

What is looking pretty sure now is a line-up of what the first roll-out of GEARS settings will be, and they are looking juicy, very juicy…

Alice 2.0 remains the default ‘core setting’. Using it will be optional, but it binds all other settings together very nicely. As is already in Third Draft, Alice arrived to our world in 2007 in an explosion of the coast of Morocco, and promptly swam, ran and commandeered transportation to get her into the Saharan desert, where she founded Babylon. Now, Babylon is a mysterious city, full of secrets, madness and intrigue, the center of worldwide conspiracies and espionage, and very secretly home to super-scientific Resurrection Machines and portals to other worlds. Nobody knows who this Alice is, what she wants, or how she does what she does and knows what she knows, but the world is watching her, and the Iron Ring barricade the UN tries to keep from imploding at the edge of Babylon. And wouldn’t you know it: The player characters are smack in the middle of it all! Lunacy ensues!

Broken Pattern is a post-apocalyptic world set after technological marvels became humanity’s fall. Society did not explode; it imploded, tearing itself apart when we could no longer govern ourselves. The cities are still there, and our technological remnants are fought over greatly, especially by those who gain their power from applying what can be salvaged. In the desolate and destroyed New World, technology like battered exosuits and fickle AI is not a forgotten artifact, but the key to True Power! Broken Pattern is gritty and harsh, but at the same time shows what kind of hope can be built from knowing your past…

Hybrid Elite, set in a far future, has powerful aliens holding Earth in a military/diplomatic deathgrip as humanity accepts their new overlords, getting in return powers beyond belief. Galactic superhumans maintain the seemingly benevolent alien rule, while rebellious powers try to find their way in to deal a much needed blow against the new ruling class. Combining dark, ultra-powerful superheroic adventure with breathtaking transhumanistic ideas, Hybrid Elite is a setting of tremendous powers, to those willing to fight for their species’ survival in the name of another race entirely.

Stone Sky Kingdoms is GEARS’ contribution to the fantasy genre. But it is not fantasy as you may know it; it’s both darker and grander, as powerful sorcerers try to make the stars fall to the ground and build mighty cities around them, draining the power of these fallen pieces of the ’stone sky’. A power so great that few dare go too close, and the lands around the fallen stars warps with magic only tapped by the most insane. Stone Sky Kingdoms explores fantasy as a large and bewildering tapestry of magics, faith, arcane torment, chaos, and immense beauty and heroic values that may be the last defense against those who want the sky to truly fall!

Ectopia, “the outer place”, is a cyberpunk world of the near future. But something is wrong. There is something lurking in the artificial realms our technologies have created. ‘Ghosts’ seen only through bionic eyes and in data archives, entities wanting to reach out to us, for reason we cannot, perhaps dare not, understand. And as material greed and carnage claw at society, in a world that has not come to terms with the power it has attained over such a brief age of progress, something new is being born in its blind angles…

These five will all get a treatment in GEARS Fourth Draft, and presumably in the final First Edition. The following two, however, are slated as the first settings to get separate treatment as supplement:

Intransigent Design, where our world is rocked to its very core in a not so distant future. As humanity looks on, God returns, bringing with Him the armies of Heaven, a civilization of unimaginable power, loyal to a Plan so far beyond the understanding of humanity that we have, inadvertedly, strayed from it. The loyal and devout will submit, the rebellious will fall. But God has adversaries, both human and other, and as the realms of Heaven and Hell and the intricacies of the human soul becomes the stage of the greatest battle faced by either of those fighting, the world is changed forever.

Reich X is picked as perhaps the truest of Evils, a world in which Hitler claimed victory and subdued the world… by magic, alien saucer technology, mythical creatures and advanced inventions. Inside Neuropa, brains in jars plan the war of a Third Reich armed with sorcerers and cyborgs, ravaging unconquered lands with vampires and werewolves, and hunting Qabbalist rebels with saucers before the spirits of the slain Hebrew people can give the Underground a foothold in the glorious Nazi empire.

Posted in Intransigent Design, First Edition, Hybrid Elite, Broken Pattern, Ectopia, Stone Sky Kingdoms, Sixth Draft, Game worlds, Reich X, Magic, Superpowers, Fourth Draft, Races, Aliens, Alice | 1 Comment »

Are you EXTREME??

14. January 2010 by admin.

Roleplaying characters come in many variations, but one challenge is common throughout any game that does not either A) use solely the real world as the game world or B) provide absolutely everything in the game world premade (in the original book or supplements). That problem is truly weird characters. Alien races, ghosts, demons, magical entities,computer intelligences, etc., are all strange enough to push the boundaries of a rules set.

Things like extra arms, non-physical bodies, transformations, and even stranger ideas should theoretically be possible in any system meant to be truly flexible. But what does such an ‘extreme’ character mean in terms of character creations? GEARS is being tuned up to handle things stranger than just odd people, and questions like this are beginning to crop up. The current method is to use the existing character components creatively, or a few added and fairly streamlined creation rules to simulate the weirdness wanted. The challeng, of course, is that people can imagine some of the strangest things, and catching up to that is hard for anyone trying to design rules.

What I want from GEARS is a toolbox that allows others to put together the basics to allow further expansion. With non-physical characters as an example, the exact nature of being intangible can be defined by someone willing to truly contemplate the topic. From that, a basic use of base components can be put together to recreate what that intangible aspect might mean in rules terms. Others can then take that basic design and create variants and expansions on it to simulate different kinds of intangible, like energy beings, ghosts, astral projections, etc., etc. GEARS provides tools, users (possibly in GEARS supplements!) put them to strange new uses, and from there, well, the sky is the limit.

So for now, the challenge is to make the basics of the game flexible enough, and at the same time plant the seeds of creative use and expansion. Not easy, but the way GEARS is turning out, it is becoming easier and easier to produce the little additions that make streamlined, flexible use possible. And that is a promissing thing!

Posted in Design kits, Fifth Draft, Abilities, Races, Aliens, Character creation, Fourth Draft, Superpowers | 1 Comment »

Proper organization

11. December 2009 by admin.

… needed on several accounts, it seems!

The site was down Dec. 10 due to a miscommunication with our new provider. It’s up and running again, though, nothing lost. We do not expect it to happen again.

The other kind of organization is Organizations, large structured groups that characters in a game may be involved with somehow. They may be allies, enemies, bystanders, victims, interests, power factions, or anything else one might imagine them for. And I want creation tools for them, just like we have for characters, equipment and exotic powers! Why? Because with such a system in place, it becomes possible to distribute fully designed Organizations for game worlds and adventures, or modular ones that can be assembled for any campaign. Like a collection of monsters or a set of premade characters for use in adventures (as people encountered by player characters, presumably), such Organization collections would allow immensely detailed game worlds to be set up in minutes.

But also, because proper structure allows quicker and more versatile use in adventures! If an Organization is described well, and there are meaningful rules and guidelines in place, the Narrator can quickly assess what it means when the characters blow up a secret lab, recruits a key expert, affects a vital operation, etc. It makes the Organization a vibrant, dynamic part of the adventure, instead of some nebulous background explanation for where the ninjas come from!

Sadly, the Organiation rules that were ready were made for the Relations rules that were voted out as ‘bland’ during playtest. The new Relation rules are much, much better, thanks to extensive player feedback, but they do not fit into the old Organization rules. So they need rewriting! When they are done, players can deliberately assess how to cripple giant Organizations by cutting out vital operations, they can build and recruit their own, they can join up, infiltrate, sabotage, have dramatic stand-offs with and generally have fun with Organizations, from the local mercenary outfit to the intergalactic alien religion or the secret conspiracy of the Elves! I have an old character, made for a different game, in which house rules were used to design an agent who could call in orbital strikes, if and when he could explain why the act would be absolutely vital to his Organization. Of course, they more or less owned him in return, but tense situations are where adventures are born! I want characters like that to be modelled with the basic rules in GEARS; the advanced rules will take it much, much further…

Posted in Aliens, Relations, Design kits, Game worlds, Dammit!, Monsters, Equipment/Gear, Narrator, Superpowers, Character creation, Playtests | No Comments »

Creating the Creators

4. December 2009 by admin.

Writing is now dealing with Technologies, for designing a game world in such detail that the advancement of individual categories of items can be felt. Maybe laser rifles are a new invention, still clunky and imprecise. Or maybe they are refined, not just horrifically precise and terribly lethal, but light enough to be snapped into pocketsized concealment modules. But none of that will happen unless non-lethal, scientific lasers (and the kind for light shows) are first invented! Pick your Technologies, pick their individual Progress, and the system does the rest.

This is just another piece in the puzzle that is the, still fairly new,  “creation kit” philosophy of GEARS! I have noted on the concept before, but I feel it is essential enough to repeat: In so far as it is at all possible, the GEARS core rulebook will contain the materials needed to construct anything. Most games have core books that deal in detail with character creation, some of them even only characters of a certain, low level. The GEARS character creation rules have proven far more compact and streamlined than originally expected, so now other aspects of the game are following. Equipment is just one example, another being the creatures mentioned in earlier entries (based on the character creation system used slightly differently), vehicles as an extension of equipment, super powers as an addition to standard Abilities, and so on. And game worlds are now getting the first kick into action. Fourth Draft might actually end up having not just a better structure, but also some design kits for campaigns and adventures!

One design kit that is still a bit up in the air (other than Relations, which, as mentioned yesterday, have run into a few problems) is races. The character creation system, supported by the still-to-be-pinned-down Human Template, will allow some strange creations, but the feel of an entire and at least somewhat unique race is still a bit murky. The exact elements of fantasy and alien races will need some examining and testing before something truly worthwhile can be included. It might end up in Fourth Draft. But it will be made.

Posted in Relations, Races, Human Template, Design kits, Game worlds, Aliens, Fourth Draft, Equipment/Gear, Superpowers, Character creation, Third Draft, Vehicles | 1 Comment »

Support the Brains in Jars!

30. November 2009 by admin.

Just a note….

Posted in Mind control, Superpowers, Wealth, Teams, Magic, Machines | No Comments »

Making the better hammer…

27. November 2009 by admin.

Suddenly just writing, with no playtesters constantly responding to you and nobody to tell you you’re doing things weird, wrong, great, or too slow (common response, and positive; it means people want more!), it just seems strange. But things are moving along at a fairly impressive pace, and a lot of material on custom Abilities has been put together in record time. True, the main reason is that playtesters and -readers have bombarded me with good ideas, but I am still a bit surprised that things have not crashed around me yet (that one computer crash excepted).

I am pretty satisfied with the rules on constructing Special Powers (superpowers, magic, etc.). With a pretty streamlined system, it is now possible to design pretty much anything. The text includes three examples: A Fireball spell (two variants, and suggested insane expansions), flight, and a superpower that lets a character absorb other people for later release (yes, into his or her own body. Ick-factor not included). A Core Book Companion has already been suggested, which would include examples of this and more (both realistic and exotic Disabilities, like weird phobias or outright insanity, can already be constructed with the written Third Draft rules). Social Relations for characters has had a bit of a rough ride, and needs some consideration (it was deemed too loose, too unfocused by playtests). Gear and pets are still in very early stages, but some things from playtest show hints of a core philosophy. Monster creation is also a bit improvised, but it exists, it just needs to be more concrete and yet flexible.

What is really pushing to take the stage is the heavy-duty detail stuff. The carpet has been rolled out for it, everything is ready to do combat systems, magic, technology (I still love the Stardrive Ability example…) and more. Sketches for the systems are even done, and just waiting for detail to be filled in. Preliminary tests, it’s all there. I can’t wait to get everything in order so the full goals of immersive yet streamlined detail can be pursued full speed!

Also, the first actual considerations for reaching out beyond the immediate testers and contributors are being made. This is a big step; a friend in computer games design once told me that “there is no such thing as a real beta version, because even the test of a game has to be perfect, or people will shun it”. That scares me. Those who are testing now accept that it is an incomplete system, and even enjoy that aspect of it. To throw it to a crowd of skeptics and demanding consumers is like handing in the thesis you worked on for years to someone who looks at you and wrinkles their nose. Why did they wrinkle that nose? That is no doubt a question that will tear at me at some point in the increasingly near future…

Oh, and three settings have been established, beyond the core Alice setting: One twisted fantasy, one post-apocalyptic, one high-power deep space sci-fi. The actual details are still in the wind, but background stories and unique game world traits are looking good on the ‘drawing board’. Things to come, things to come….

Posted in Superpowers, Character creation, Third Draft, Narrator, Magic, Combat, Alice, Playtests | No Comments »

Trouble a-brewin’?

24. November 2009 by admin.

Had some interesting feedback today. It seems there are some matters in GEARS that need attention. Most pressing is a problem surrounding the Automatic Growth rule; it simply causes low-power characters to grow too fast, because low Abilities grow much, much faster than high-level ones. It’s a math thing, in that the reduced range of rolls makes it far more likely to get even the exact success needed to grow without significant investment in the appropriate Learning Ability (for those who have not read the rule, this is probably complete gibberish). Anyway, it looks like ‘low-level’ Abilities will not mean as numerically low as intended, and the Difficulty guides will need some reshuffling. Hopefully that’s all, because I have come to like the rule in its few weeks of testing.

As for the whole “guides for creating things” ordeal, some progress has been made. The structure for creating Special Powers (creating effects like magic, superpowers, or anything else that is a bit beyond normal Abilities) is progressing, and the general structure for creating gadgets and larger machines (including vehicles) is looking good. The one flaw at the moment is that especially the Powers system is just not rigid enough; it relies a lot on subjective interpretation of a superpower or the like, and is prone to heavy manipulation by devious players. There are no really devious players in the playtest pool, which might be a bad thing now…

Anyway, Third Draft is growing nicely. It’s about 50% added material, and that is written in very short form, meaning more defined rules will be needed. There are Boosters, Disabilities, and a lot of other things in the works. Also, the Talent Abilities list has been set up, all that is needed is the writing of each Talent Ability. This is a big step ahead, since it means the Talents have now been picked.Soon, the rules written can refer directly to the, and oh how many of them need that!

I will stop it here. I have noted, while transfering entries from the old blog, that I write far too long blog entries. I need focus, and I need restraint (Restraint being one of the new Talents, btw!). Otherwise, I babble. I do it for love of the game, and the work, though. So… I’ll just be quiet now.

See ya!

Posted in Boosters, Disabilities, Third Draft, Superpowers, Old blog, Machines, Magic, Playtests | 1 Comment »

Looking ahead

23. November 2009 by admin.

Second Draft and the website seem stable, and the first work is already being done on Third Draft. For the moment, the writing part is centered around the Ability List, and the ‘Medical’ category is progressing quite nicely. Talents are still hampered by three different versions of the list existing, with a few variations of even those. There are some aligning choices, but there will have to be a bit more testing to pinpoint the exact list desired for the game. Hopefully, most key Talents will be chosen soon.

The real debate, however, is on two matters that are arguably a bit farther ahead: Non-standard items, and powers. The items refered to are those that are not bought, not even through black markets or special contacts. Experimental gadgets, alien devices, ancient enchantments and the like seem to break the current system, and there are multiple rules versions on the drawing board for them now. The question is acquisition; how does one handle the acquisition of such items during character creation? GEARS is not currently built for, nor fully meant for, a system that uses character points to define items. Systems like GURPS and HERO are famous for their in-depth methods of assigning special abilities (or Abilities; sometimes, they put actual skills and powers into items, in game terms) to gadgets, weapons and the like. Their systems are impressively versatile, but certain concerns have already been aired in Entry 19 (of the old blog) about transfering the same philosophy to GEARS. These items seem caught between character and equipment, and there are early signs that other items may have similar problems: Powerful exosuits (which supply strength, senses and other things thought to be character territory), cybernetics (ditto), enchantments on the body (which can improve anything in the character, theoretically), and so forth. They are all in a strange area between item and character Abilities.

But even more important, they are essential to many genres and styles, and they influence game balance immensely. What worth is a fancy Ability if gadgets outmatch character experience? At some point, items become close to substitutes for actual characters. In worlds that exist on powerful technologies, that makes sense; even today, having a good gun beats years of bodybuilding and martial arts training. But when some such powerful gear is not openly available, character creation becomes the explanation for how a character can have something like it, especially from the start. This gap between the character creation rules and the still forming equipment creation rules needs to be closed before GEARS can be considered fully functional in respect to unique or complex gadgets.

The question about powers is a bit more diffuse. Testing of GEARS with high-power settings has been limited so far, mostly enough to ensure that the dice mechanism scales well (which it fortunately seems to do, in nearly all regards). What is still causing some problems is the definition, in game terms, of highly complex powers and relations between powers. Concepts like physical, mental or other drains with power usage, side-effects, limiting circumstances, etc. are still only roughly defined in (unpublished) GEARS notes. Simple powers can be made, and a surprisingly simple system for constructing them is being drawn up at this very minute, but the highly complex powers of quality comics and well-written high-power fiction are still causing problems with game balance and character point accounting (powers are here assumed to be built into characters during character creation). For example, if a system of magic has powerful spells, the spells can be easily created with the methods being drawn up (in fact, playtesters are creating some rather interesting things on-the-fly). But if using those spells drain a character, is that just a fact in the game world, or is it something to build into the magic system? Or perhaps into each individual spell? The game world will have a lot to do with it, in that some worlds will just accept that spells or the like cause some drain, while others handle each power uniquely. But whatever the in-world circumstances, GEARS needs a system for handling it, one that provides game balance without neglecting the uniqueness of such powers. Ironically, the problem is not that such systems are hard to make; the problem is there are too many already in use! Playtesters have modified the original (now horribly obsolete) concepts heavily, and recombining the results in a way that allows easy power design while maintaining game balance os proving hard. If that game balance is to become game world dependent (i.e. different game worlds provide different game balances, to support genres and styles better), that is merely another mighty hurdle.

Essentially, none of this is anything new in terms of design problems. GEARS is a system, and what has been described are components. Making components work together in a larger system, especially one designed to provide this amount of flexibility, always results in problems connecting Component A to Component B. It is a headache, but it is a good headache, because the problem is too many options, rather than no way forward. It comes down to choice. And with the design philosophy of GEARS, some of that choice will turn into options for campaign versatility, turning the current problem into a future advantage. Right now, it’s simply about getting there from here.

Posted in Wealth, Superpowers, Character creation, Equipment/Gear, Old blog, Second Draft, Magic, Playtests | 1 Comment »

Entry 15: Genre Review

30. October 2009 by admin.

.::: Entry 15, 2009/10/30 :::.With the fairly general topics I have been chewing on these last two weeks, it might be time to take a look at something a little more concrete. While I am still not anywhere near being able to put together functional rules for everything, I am able to consider actual game content examples in light of what I have already thought over in the first 14 entries.Incidentally, the following considerations will probably look a lot like what one might find in genre books for other games. This is, of course, no surprise, since such books ask similar questions. What is important here is to explore similar ideas within the framework of what I have already written in previous entries, and what my further thoughts for the game are. Looking at genres at this early stage allows me to check for obvious holes in my concepts.

:: Styles ::

Style has already been handled in general in Entry 4, with ideas on what rules can do in keeping track of important or dramatic concepts, and the idea of rewards for adhering to the style of the game. But beyond that, style is a matter of what is available in the game world; action and violence is signified by a game world full of weapons and a lot of detail on conflicts like combat, chases and the like. Details on explosions are also a good idea. A style emphasizing conspiracies and intrigue will be heavy on organizations in both number and detail.

But how will a game system reflect that?

The easy answer is ‘detailed rules’, but that is not really enough at this point. I want to put the answer in the perspective of what has already been described as my early thoughts on the game. So ‘detailed conflicts/combat’ would mean multiple ‘extended hit points’ (Entry 11) and Specifics for weapons abilities (Entry 3). Explosions would probably be related to gear (Entry 8 & 9), with descriptions of what explodes and when, and with some of those extended hit points to see the effects on characters. Something on how big explosions affect places (Entry 13) would also be good, to see if other things blow up from them (boom goes the armory, or gas station, or…). Style points of some sort may be involved, or some other Style concept to emulate the wild things that happen in action movie explosions. As for organizations, Entry 12 is all about them, and resources, structures and the like would be in great demand, especially as relates directly to the characters.

But even those are just minor examples. The concept can be expanded, like something based on psionic battles requiring something like what was just described for regular combat, only molded for psionics. As for genres, well…

:: Fantasy ::

The grand old daddy of roleplaying, based loosely on Tolkiensian fantasy fiction. It is impossible to do fantasy without looking closely at magic, of course, and that brings in both abilities (for spells of all sorts) and gear (for enchanted items). The difficult trick concerning magic is that there are no hard and fast rules for how it works, and thus it leaves everything up to the designer (me) to determine. On the positive side, that means I can utilize available rules as I see fit.

What I am aiming for is to reproduce the idea that magic is a complex and demanding craft. Small spell components, as in learning very simple spells before going on to anything more dramatic, is my basic idea, as is the thought of having certain abilities improve on spells rather than be entirely new and separate spells. And as things are now, that is pretty well covered in the abilities entry (Entry 3). The existing ideas surrounding talents can be brought in to simulate deeper knowledge of magic, and ‘alternate hit points’ open up a range of ways mages can fuel their powers if they need to. I do envision magic as not one canonical system, but as a framework of spells and effects (and the aforementioned improving abilities) that can be reassembled, with a few complete systems of spells pre-made for use.

Magical artifacts can basically be handled as any advanced gear. The bonds between character and gear, even if highly magical in nature, is probably part of character creation more than item, though the actual magic used may require explanation as spells or the like. Brands and compatibility is largely the same as for other gear; some creations are made to work together, some are not, and it might depend on who made them. What interests me most amongst the subjects in Entry 8 and 9 and magical items is really the modding. Gadgets have all kinds of modification gear available, but magical items may have some strange things. This is especially true when they have to interact with other fantasy elements, like dragons and ghosts. Maybe your ruby sphere will strike down water elementals, but how can it be made to react with a rain demon?? Such mods may be about additional items, like gadgets so often are, or it might be about new spells enchanted into the item (a little like updating your gadget’s software, I guess).

There are no doubt many other elements of magic worth a look, but I now feel confident that the basics can be covered with ideas already on the table, or ideas that can be made from what exists. Another topic is races. Elves, dwarves, orcs and the like are integral to the fantasy experience, at least the traditional one. How does the game allow races to be considered unique beings?

The easy answer is abilities and disabilities given to a race from start. Arguably, other characters can copy those things and make a member that is very like that particular race. Very unusual, perhaps even unique, abilities and especially disabilities may void that, giving elves access to some unusual phobias or forest abilities, for example. Organizations are even more useful in depicting a gulf between races, as it would take some serious explaining to get a human inside an old Elven circle of enchanters! Gear and animals, especially magical or exotic ones, can also have a special affinity for one race over the other. I would like to find a fairly straight forward way of making races special already at abilities and disabilities, though.

:: Deep Space ::

Arguably a bit of a leap from fantasy, this is the genre of traveling to other planets, of space stations and gigantic starships, whether it is near-hard science fiction or space opera. The funny thing is that many elements of it are conceptually similar to fantasy: Alien races, amazing gadgets (sometimes of ancient, poorly understood origins), even the occasional monster. Robots add to the mix (possibly substituting magically created creatures), as do disembodied artificial intelligences (spirits?).

Life in space is the big difference, and to make it stand out, many ideas of locations can be used. The way gear functions differently in such places, and what gear and actions are even tolerable, can make things very interesting! Also, the line between locations and gear become blurry if life support or technical systems suddenly become important to an adventure, like when a vessel is dead in space and the characters need a way to survive until they can get rescued!

But many stranger things exist in deep space fiction, worth considering. Nanotechnology, force fields, plasma ’swords’, many vehicles (in space and on a planet), and so forth. The thoughts on gear provide some material for these, but some will need special treatment (nanotech might resemble magic more than gadgets!). That treatment seems, from my current point of view, to be in the extent of details, not the type. What has been discussed should cover it, in terms of game mechanics.

:: Cyberpunk ::

The genre of high-tech dystopian futures has quite a few things that deserve special attention. The two most influential ones are cybernetics and hacking. Cybernetics will probably draw some on gear, but they are still part of the character’s body, and a subsystem of simple rules should be available to mimic that. Brands are a hot topic in the genre, and different makes will definitely exist, with different effects! Consequences for the body and mind are also interesting to examine, especially if genetic manipulation is added to the mix.

Hacking, especially in cyberpunk, is a whole field for itself. At its core, it would be another type of conflict, a cyberspace version of combat, complete with moves and weapons based on software. It would probably be different in its various incarnations, the two most typical ones being the hacker sitting with a keyboard or other computer interface, and the full virtual reality version popular with movies. But more than a ‘computer combat conflict system’, hacking in both/all its forms would probably be a world within the world, with things to be encountered and computer systems to be scoped out before approach. Meeting places, public and private information systems and much more would make it more than just the hack itself, and the creation of software to assist the hacker would parallel the creation and modding of gear. Hacking, if taken serious in the game, would be a wide field onto itself. The tools to recreate it, in vivid detail, seem to be already thought of, though.

Needless to say (but I will, anyway), the archetypical corporations of cyberpunk are prime subjects for the organization treatment, complete with internal conflicts and hidden agendas.

:: Mecha ::

A relatively new genre gaining popularity, mecha is the world of insanely powerful gear in the form of robots and exosuits and the like. It is all (usually) still powered by humans or other sentient pilots, but personal abilities are outshone by abilities to use these mecha. Most mecha games are at least partially military, but mecha police or even comical mecha high school dramas are also popular.

The key to the genre is the mecha itself, and it falls squarely in the category of gear. Some of it might be advanced enough to seem like magic (some mecha stories have really strange technologies, or a big psionic component), but it is still gear at its core, technological marvels for people to use against other people. As such, the rules needed to bring mecha to life in a game would be the things in gears, from the functions and problems of various mecha, to the abilities involved in handling them. Both these subjects, and various lesser ones, need extensive detail. With the appearance of prototypes and themes like ‘old tech vs. new tech’ featuring prominently in mecha stories, bonds may also come in.

Anyone wanting to take the mecha genre into more advanced territory (something gaining cyclic interest amongst the fans of the stories) can add social issues to the brew. Organizations will be the ones with the resources and the challenges needed to warrant mecha production and purchases, and anyone wanting to go beyond the field clashes and personal troubles of mecha pilots and their friends will need to look at organizations. Mercenary or rebel units are strong examples of this, but someone just wanting to play the center stage to acquire new and better mecha or influence the spread of technology or the kind of things the machines are used for, would be facing powerful industrial, political, corporate, military and perhaps even popular or religious organizations, all depending on how the world around the mecha concept is put together.

:: Apocalyptic ::

Whether played in The End Days (call it what you will; the disaster, the apocalypse, the plagues, the final war. It is when the world finally burns) or some time after, this genre deals with the world as we know it, or some other world we can imagine, being destroyed. The theme becomes survival and, in the more optimistic cases, rebuilding.

One thing becomes instantly important in this genre: Repairing gear. The world is in pieces, so putting junk together into working gear becomes a prime ability. It would need extensive rules on not just gear but gear components to simulate that properly, as well as the abilities involved in using it. This is a sub-concept of gear that has only been touched upon slightly in Entry 9, about gear condition, maintenance and repair. Significant extension on it would be needed, and perhaps even a few added rules building blocks. In a way, this could be an addition worth using beyond the genre, too, as cyberpunk techheads patch together their own gear from scrounged parts, or experimental enchantments. It could be considered an extreme variant of modding, just to give it something to lean on until it has a full concept of its own!

Another apocalyptic darling is mutation, typically from radiation or disease. While mutations are a very real thing, the genre has a tendency to view them rather unrealistically, making them a twist on superpowers. The typical mutant is deformed but has strange abilities as a kind of compensation. The balance between deformity and power often sets the tone of mutations in the game, from severe skin conditions compensated by near-godly powers, to painful illnesses closely tied to heightened senses or enhanced digestion (the latter being very handy in a world with no supermarkets).

Mutations are going to be a combination of abilities and disabilities, most likely. Disabilities may have to be extended with some examples to handle certain mutation effects, such as unintentionally scaring people, but painful sensitivity to different things and mental problems can already be handled. The abilities aspect will rely on abilities being designed that are not just trained skills but something more genetic. Such abilities already need attention in other genres, to create different races. The big problem is tying these things together, to create mutations where there is a powerful relation between the disabilities and abilities! This has not really been considered yet, and it could easily be of use outside the genre, as well (malfunctioning cybernetics, psychotic characters, complex curses, etc.)

The part about rebuilding, as well as whatever fights are going on for the destroyed world, would fall into organizations if needing great detail.

:: Horror ::

The genre of horror has diversified over the years, and today there seem to be three major veins: Kingsian/Cravenesque, Lovecraftian, and Gothic.

Kingsian/Cranesque horror, named from novel and movie writers Stephen King and Wes Craven, are typically about some monster or monster-like phenomenon that threatens the main characters. They may have gone looking for trouble (perhaps even professionally), or be hapless victims drawn into it. But they end up trying to understand the monster, in order to destroy or deter it. Sometimes, there is a moral tale involved (don’t build on Indian graveyards, for example), but that is more common in fiction than in games.

Lovecraftian horror, named for the writer H.P. Lovecraft, is far less rigidly structured, and an essential part of it is that the main characters will rarely ever get the fullpicture. Monsters exist, but they are vast and incomprehensible, and the maddening effects of their mere existence is typically the story, rather than the monsters themselves. Ancient mysteries and insane cults dominate the immediate scene, and the story is told through their actions.

Gothic horror is fairly new as a sub-genre. It takes the main characters and involve them, often very emotionally, in the life of the ‘monsters’. Quite often, they actually play the monsters, seeing the world from that side! The feeling of isolation and shunning by society at large and the torments that are inherent in the life of their particular kind of monster, typically compounded by harsh societies of their own, make it an exploration of ‘the dark side’ of an already dark genre.

Since horror is where the Sanity mechanic that has inspired several of the advanced rules here came from, it is no surprise that this method will be a big part of making horror come to life. Other than going insane, risks involve pain, general fear, slow injuries and bleeding, and even less concrete topics like dark powers and magical or psionic energies slowly affecting the characters. All of this can build on the idea of ‘alternate hit points’, which drain slowly and painfully.

A second angle is the monsters themselves. In Kingsian/Cravenesque horror, they can be considered advanced (or not even advanced) animals a great deal of the time. Actual characters as monsters are possible, but the immediate confrontations will typically be with the animal-type monsters. The exception is usually slasher-horror, in which one or a few powerful monsters, fully sentient but horribly warped (mentally and/or physically) stalk and torment the characters, to kill them or someone they protect. The entries on animals and, to a lesser extend, abilities are useful, but I still need something on alien mindsets. Mental disabilities are a start, but more is needed to make a full impact.

The monsters in Gothic horror need very special attention, since the whole point of the genre is to experience their torments. Abilities are important for the immediate game, but organizations need some detail to put the monsters into a greater context of monsters. The mindsets described above will need even greater detail, because players will now need to know how to act upon them. Using various ‘alternate hit points’ to indicate what is tormenting them and how badly gives a running guideline for it, but the focus has to be on continual effects, not just what happens when the points run out. Other things are as important as in other genres, perhaps with some emphasis on the mythology (anicent artifacts, secret tomes, etc.) of the monsters.

:: Supers ::

Nothing really prevents the basic elements of the game as they are now to be used to create powerful abilities. Abilities to affect those abilities can be an interesting addition, which has not been considered much yet (for example, being able to fire blazing discs, and then use another ability to make them bounce off walls or fly around corners). Disabilities already exist to emulate the powerful Achilles Heels that are commonplace in comicbooks, and some elements exist on gear that can be used for super-gear, most notably ‘perfect fit’.

What is still lacking is a way to make the actual conflicts in the genre as earthshattering as they are usually supposed to be. Collateral damage, endangered bystanders, and other classics of the genre are still left to the imagination, when perfectly usable guidelines could be made. ‘Mega-damage’, as experienced between gigantic monsters, doomsday tanks and the like would probably be an extension of combat conflict, but the effects of conflicts beyond those involved is still an empty page.

More complicated samples of the genre also put a lot of unusual detail into the backstory of the super abilities, and by extension that often affects the complexity of (some of) the characters that have them. This can easily become a complex combination of either the concepts considered in fantasy for magic and the needs for creating original new races, or a combination of very complex gear and those same races. Because such cases are typically about how origins, abilities, gear and social situation (and perhaps even more!) are intrinsically linked and co-dependent, it operates at a level of complexity that cannot be predicted with the material currently available. When more concrete detail exists, that field of work will have to be revisited.

:: The Missing Pieces ::

There are plenty more genres, from the realistic war drama or detective story to the fantastic steampunk adventure, but the major hitters are the ones above. While this entry has in no way provided a roadmap to recreating them, and definitely not in the detail intended, this way of reviewing what has been considered already is good to see where pieces are missing and work needs to be done (or rather, thoughts need to be thought).

Races are the big, glaring hole. Character creation has all that is needed to make interesting characters, but there is little to make a race stand out, aside from some abilities that can be racially unique. Special options include organizations and gear that is tied specifically to that race. This will handle races that resemble humans, but I have to admit that I am a bit more ambitious than that. That includes not just physiologies, but also the alien mindset.

I will need something to make the process of creating a race a bigger deal than making just a new kind of character.

Furthermore, the genre check has brought my thoughts to something I have left out of the gear entries: Faulty gear! Apart from compatibility issues and general condition, I have not addressed the idea of gear having problems, be it from damage, age and poor maintenance, or just factory flaws. Luckily, it is something I have dealt with already in TAYDS, to some degree, and I should be able to port over the basics.

Posted in Style, Genre, Aliens, Mecha, Races, Superpowers, Hacking, Vehicles, Magic, Old blog, Robots, Machines | 1 Comment »

Entry 14: Pets, Beasts & Monsters

28. October 2009 by admin.

.::: Entry 14, 2009/10/28 :::.
Back when I was writing about gear, my thought was that animals were basically gear. They serve a purpose, helping a character get somewhere or, in more advanced cases, fight by the character’s side or helps do things the character would not be able to or want to do. They were tools to be used by the character.When I started writing about social issues, my thoughts jumped to animals again, every now and then, remembering the close bonds between many notable animals and their masters in stories I know, from the lovable sidekick to the faithful steed. Animals were companions to characters, not tools. They were able to act on their own and in the master’s interests.

And then as locations became the topic, I started to see animals as part of places, as the beasts living in the wild, the guardians of places, the monsters in the dungeon. These were a different type of beasts altogether, the kind that were obstacles and dangers to the characters, not the ones trusted by their sides.

The only conclusion I can draw is that, deep down, I view animals as all of that, and yet neither.

:: The Mind of the Beast ::

What puts animals in such an odd place, adventure- and story-wise, is probably the way they are living beings but not persons in the sense that a character is. At times, the distinction between primitive characters and smart beasts gets blurred for that very reason, and in many fairytales, creatures that we would today interpret as primitive or unintelligent people were actually seen as little more than beasts. Trolls, gremlins, goblins, orcs, all of them seem to be only ‘people’ based on their ability to walk on two legs and handle tools.

The best distinction I can offer up for what is an animal and what is not has to be that: Behavior built around using tools. True, a clever animal can learn to push some clumsy buttons or open doors, but they are not built for it, and it is not their typical way. They do not understand tools as ‘real people’ do. They also do not speak, at least not in a complex language that allows anyone to explain the tools to them. Some will accept basic commands, but conversations are going to be rather one-sided!

And that is where the tool comparison comes into play, the fact that animals cannot be communed with on a peron-to-person level. But they are still independent, and can decide for themselves what they do. That is what is companions in them, the ability to act on their own and, to some extend, understand their surroundings and even place in them. The tie to places comes when they are not tied to a master, but pick a place to dwell. The traditional dungeon inhabitant is a bit far fetched for my taste, but creatures living in caves or alleys are nothing out of the plausible, and supernatural beasts may live in the oddest of places.

For a game that takes animals serious on any level (humor can still take them more seriously than old school dungeon adventures do!), the instincts that guide them must be a fundamental piece in their roles. And if it is so important, I feel it is what should be explored, more than how long their claws or how thick their hides are!

In the most basic sense, animals are survival machines: They do whatever they do as a way to ensure the survival of themselves and, sometimes, their offspring. Animals doing someone’s bidding do it from being used to rewards or punishments, or some combination thereof. The old advice that animals in the wild attack only to defend themselves (most animals attack only smaller prey for food) is not entirely untrue, the problem is only what they see as threats! A single person might not seem threatening, while a group would. Someone walking around an area far from the animal’s den might seem harmless, while some poor fool walking to the wrong cave would be an instant enemy.

But in a RPG, it can be taken even further! A deathhound might not pay much attention to the group of people walking through its woods, until they use magic. Then, it will kill anyone displaying signs of magic, the idea being that its nature is to fear magic! In a similar manner, feral dogs in a ruin city might only growl at strangers, until they try to pick up a dead body (presumably for examination, plunder, or something in that vein). Seeing the intruders as rivals for their food, the dogs attack!

On the other hand, animals do not know the world as intelligent people do, or see it in the same way. A loud noise can scare a dangerous beast away, after all. Different animals have different reactions like that, some running away from rumbling engines or puffing hydraulics, others possessed by a strange interest. Pack rats and certain birds are attracted to shiny things, and cats will sleep on anything warm (like computers. Or engine hoods). Animals may seek out the strangest things, to the annoyance or benefit of those who actually know what it is.

The basics of using animals thus becomes an idea of what they fear, defend, seek and in other instinctive ways react to. That alone can make an animal immensely interesting, a pain, a running gag, or a useful observation. And it goes for monsters and wildlife as much as it goes for companions! The mighty wolf that a character has at his side might be a feared creature, and nobody would approach the character without the animal’s consent. But a place with certain smells, perhaps not even notable to humans, would keep it away, even if its master enters. Meanwhile, the demon bunny that can smell ghosts has a bad habit of darting off whenever it gets a scent of spicy cooking. Not that it fears it. It loves it! Which causes great problems at Cajun cook-offs the characters visit…

:: What Nature Gave Them ::

One result of being without the ability to use tools is that animals are greatly defined by their natural abilities. Most games fixate heavily on fighting abilities, which in their own right can be both impressive and exotic, from spikes and spitting darts or venoms to sending out horrific smells or whipping up small dust clouds. And that’s just what real animals can do!

But animals are so much more. Bloodhounds are a common idea in the real world, and having animals track other things (pigs finding troffels, for example, or insects actually being trained to find and eat drug-producing plants!) can give some interesting results, especially in more esoteric game worlds.

Combining this with animal behavior can make them part of an arms race, either side trying to make the animals of the other useless, no matter what the central conflict is; drug-sniffing dogs are one example of a fearful arms race! But when things are less controlled, it also makes for some interesting adventure opportunities, when animals run off to do what they are basically trained to do, at the most inopportune moment. A fierce steed and companion might suddenly tear through a small town to hunt down some other beast that it is used to protect its master against, or happily scare everybody just because it has caught the scent of something it likes! This lets animals take an interesting part in adventures, becoming the somewhat unpredictable assets that have useful abilities, but are impossible to get a clear fox on the mind of. They can be seen as highly capable characters with (possibly unique) abilities but no ability to simply inform people of what the hell they are doing!

But just as much, animal abilities can creep out, surprise, amuse or confuse people. Certain real-world birds, for example, survive by mimicking the sounds of things in their environment. This lets them attract food or scare predators. It also lets them confuse tourists, when a bird suddenly and perfectly mimics a cell phone or the sounds it caught by a lumber camp! This minor incident might be good for only a short laugh, but if the animal starts following the characters, and suddenly gives off sounds that are of a more sinister nature, it turns into a living and very hard-to-handle clue, or even an omen! Other animals may attract attention by how they react to the characters themselves, to their gear, or any animals traveling with them. Of course, the most disturbing case is when players begin to suspect that what seems like a dumb beast is capable of some level of plotting, and is not playing their game. Some animals survive by luring the inattentive into an ambush, or worse…

:: Proper Usage ::

No, I am not insinuating that animals have one specific way they should be used in games. But animals do require an understanding by the characters, or they will be more trouble than good. Even a horse takes some knowledge to handle properly, or it will kick you and run off. More complex animals may require more complex handling, and being the kind of character capable of handling them can be a great boon!

This might be one of the few places where rules specifically needed for animals come into play. The abilities animals have need not be any different from character abilities, whether they be for fighting, tracking, avoiding or otherwise handling things. But for a character to make use of an animal, or be able to solve whatever problems the animal might cause, that character will need abilities. And animal handling can quickly become complex; a beast that is by your side might need attention, or its loyalty will fade. It could even end up turning against you! In a sense, a beast’s loyalty, calm, restraint or any other factor in its behavior could be measured as closely as its hit points, and when a factor drops low enough, the beast becomes a burden or a danger. Riders know this just as much as lion tamers. The proper skills and resources can keep that from happening, be it feeding, petting, or keeping things around the animal from getting outside its comfort zone. Add to that the idea of training an animal, teaching it to not act on its instincts (not chase smaller animals or run from loud noises, for example) becomes another factor. Animals that are hard to train can become continued projects for characters who want them for the good they can do anyway. And knowing how to trick animals (and how not to!) is always practical.

Having the idea of animal complexity enter a game will not only make it interesting to have a lot of variation in the abilities that characters use to handle the animals, it will also make it more important for players themselves to understand how animals work. A player expecting any animal to either flee or fight a character would be very confused when small animals start trying to eat through the character’s backpack, spit smelly fluids in his face, or bring him strange fruits to eat that make him sick. Knowing how to act around such beings will be a little like handling a strange culture, and the characters may end up trying to actually trade things with playful monkeys or convince wildlife to lead them places. The animals are not intelligent in the way people are, but knowing how to interact with them can give just as interesting results.

:: Bonds ::

The idea that an animal is a living being can be a powerful element, even in a completely fictional game. Again, animals fall somewhere between tools and characters, in that they can feel both practical and friendly at the same time. The big, dumb beast that nonetheless protected you from bandits can become a trusted ally.

This opens the possibility of string ties between animals and their masters, companions or whatever the characters can be seen as. This means a character can be designed to care about the animal, protecting it in return, having an almost personal relationship to it, as much as to any other traveling companion. An animal like that which gets hurt can become a priority for the character, important enough to abandon other tasks or even threaten people for. And someone who threatens the animal, even when it is unhurt, can become a mortal enemy. Perhaps in part because they are not fully sentient and self-aware people, animals can become powerful extensions of a character, a friend that is loyal to the character without needing to have a full life and social circles of its own. A ’simple friend’, so to speak, and perhaps that much more pure for it.

Having animal companions become vulnerable parts of a character is an important thought to consider hen they become greater elements of a game. This is not to mean that animals become the way that a strong character can be humbled, but rather a way in which the character can be tied to the world. If the animal has certain feelings about people and places, the character (and thus, the player) suddenly has to take them serious. This could mean avoiding or sticking to places, doing or not doing certain things, even interacting more or less with certain other people in the world. And animals with a past that the character doe snot know can be mysteries walking right by their side, the signs of which can be many. It might even culminate at some point, as whoever tormented or loved the animal appears, or some event in its past becomes clear.

:: The Other Beasts ::

In all of the above, the idea of an ‘animal’ has been a typical, flesh-and-bone creature, not unlike the animals we know from our own world. But the idea of animals can be extended beyond that, to things we would not typically think of as animals, but which can act and mean just about the same. A simple example is robots, which at some point in the future may become advanced enough to behave almost like a separate breed of animals. In the right setting, a character might rely on intelligent drones with simplistic minds and odd operational protocols of their own. they are not animals, but when they start doing things they are not asked to and both care for their owner and cause trouble, the distinction can become blurred. Artificial intelligences living inside computers and computerized equipment could become the parrot on the pirate’s shoulder or the dog at the wanderer’s side. Faulty intelligences, in particular, could develop some funny mentalities, and some of those may actually be marketed as regular gear!

Some of them might even speak, the limited intelligence making conversations as disturbing as they are practical, or perhaps even more so…

And there are plenty of other possibilities, such as intangible spirits following a character around, dealing with magical events and things in their surroundings, or lesser divinities that are primitive enough to act like animals might. Ghosts may deteriorate, becoming more animalistic over time, or humans may take that path after disastrous diseases are unleashed on the world. Alien or very futuristic gear might actually be organic, with the animal mentality being simply an inescapable or somehow even practical part of the design. Some important elements of society can be naturally animalistic; the first natural portals between the stars (’jumpgates’) may seem oddly alive, and be best handled as if animals. If such effects can function on a personal level, important people may be followed around by little jumpgates or the like with minds of their own! Depending on what is found around the cosmos, how things develop, or how a completely different world is designed, the idea of ‘animal’ could permeate everything that characters deal with, from the smallest gadget to the greatest city.

Posted in Pets, Monsters, Superpowers, Old blog, Combat | 1 Comment »