Finally, improved Relations!

7. December 2009 by admin.

Though it is still in very early testing, there seems to be a solution to the problem sorrounding Relations. If it works, characters will be able to have friends and enemies, connections and rivals, pets and stalkers, and all sorts of people, creatures and more exotic beings surrounding them, as part of who the character is at the very first character creation! The goal is not just to make a quick rule for attaching others to the character, but to make a core concept, sleak, streamlined and versatile, that can make characters a part of a vibrant world instead of forcing them into the role of ‘lone stranger’ again and again.

It has not yet been expanded into a platform for the Organizations rules, which are meant to provide complex organizations (duh) in the game world, created as richky as characters and acting as actual, integrated parts of a campaign, should the Narrator want it. Once the new Relations rules grow to that point, players can create corporate representatives with access to their employer’s trillions worth of resources (on company jobs, that is!), or infiltrator agents able to call down orbital strikes on picked targets in the fight for freedom or oppression. They can even take down monolithic enemies facility by facility, and their encounters with that enemy will bear the mark ofevery little victory… or failure!

It should be clear by now that I am very excited about this. The toss of the old Relations rules was probably the best thing to come from playtesting, because the new ones make better sense, offer more options and customization, and are generally just cool. You can have powerful allies who will trust you with advanced technology and sniper support, but who will abandon you the minute they see significant consequences of their involvement. Or you can have die-hard friends, who will fight to the death for you, even if all they have is a gun and a prayer. You can base a Relation on fear, or you can hire your muscle for cash alone. And those nasty people looking for you, well, it’s called Determination, and for a simple game stat, it will mean the world for you when your ancient nemesis stands on the other side of certain destruction and has to decide if you’re worth the risk…

I’m getting all giddy

Posted in Character creation, Pets, Relations, Game worlds, Narrator, Wealth, Weapons, Vehicles, Teams, Cash, 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 »

Getting through Customs

30. November 2009 by admin.

The writing of the Equipment section is fully underways now, helped immensely by conversations with playtesters. As old posts show, having equipment be more a way to tailor something precisely for an idea, rather than just a shopping list, is one goal of GEARS. The first steps are now being taken, with tweaks and revamps of a (horribly convoluted) previous system being streamlined into something more snazzy. The part on customizing existing equipemnt, either as a unique (or at least unusual) buy or as an alteration to existing gear, is fairly written now, albeit with room for many more aspects to customize (there is a quick list, which can be used in the fairly simple customization rules). It is even tying into the Ability system quite nicely, to the point where the range of items in a game world can actually be explained by the customization rules. They are not meant to do so, and the shopping lists that will eventually be added will not make any kind of show out of it, but it takes only a slightly observant mind (and the brief remark inserted in the chapter) to notice that everything is suddenly explained quite neatly. That was a bonus we did not plan on

Then there is the whole personalization issue, with items built according to the needs of a particular character. Yes, you can have an item that will work much better for you than its brethren, while being nothing but a bother to everyone who does not have your size of hands, overall build, personal aura, or the like! It’s still a somewhat shaky system, though, and will need some sandbox testing to check its viability.

And it goes beyond that. I just finished writing a section that uses steampunk blade guns as an example of Item Combos that become their own piece of equipment, with quite some interesting options for unique Abilities tied in. It’s better than expected, though a lot of clean-up and testing is still needed to get it juuuuuust right.

What is becoming painfully obvious is that the next round of playtests will have to be very different in order to incorporate the many different options that exist; they may be packed into tight, streamlined rules, but there are so many things that can be done with them that I cannot personally see a way for a few adventures to do the deeper testing. Options are still considered, including reaching out for external playtesters (we have not announced any need for that at all, so far). Time will tell…

Posted in Cash, Character creation, Equipment/Gear, Guns, Machines, Vehicles, Weapons | No Comments »

Calm before the storm…

21. November 2009 by admin.

Things are still slowly falling into place. Five different variants of the core rules remain in playtest, but they are constantly being adjusted in ways that make them more and more similar, so it looks like it won’t be long before the core is fully assembled. The Second Draft looks to be about 40 pages long, including various sections that make up the most important rules. Game philosophy is not included in the draft, and whether this one will have sample characters is not yet sure; the final selection of Talent Abilities is not yet in, and without them, sample characters may become too confusing (because they will change wildly between the second and third draft). Phrasing also needs attentiononce the Second Draft is finished. Currently, the text reads like an academic text trying to speak normal English, i.e. dry and with some odd expressions. It is not really reader friendly yet, nor will it be before Second Draft launches.

Beyond the core that is being carved into Second Draft, there are some interesting things floating about in test. A very advanced expansion on the combat (and by extension, conflict) system is showing good results in playability, even if it is still horribly unbalanced. It allows very unusual choices in combat, from shifting weapons and targets to outwitting opponents by observation or constant feints. It even lends itself to magical and other esoteric combat in a way not originally imagined. Yes, that means magical combat moves! The details are still rough, as magic systems are in mid-test, but there seems to be some power in the system. Adding even more yum is the fact that the advanced weapons and armor rules are turning out rather nicely. They are only barely in early playtest, but the system holds and seems fairly light, despite incredible detail. What kind of detail? Well, let’s just say that if you want cheap armor against sharp blades, metal rivets in leather provide an option. Go for the round ones, though, unless you need very light and cheap armor; the crossed rivets break easy. And remember that jagged-edge swords of the right composition can outmaneuver rivets, as can anything thrusted and pointy. And you do not wantthose jagged blades thrusted into you, either! Full design system for composition armor and custom melee weapons is in the pipeline, too.

And then there is Alice. The center setting is being outlined for a shorter-than-full version, and it is nearly done. The full setting already has a lot of material to it, but the shorter version will be packed with Second Draft, to show off some ideas. Later drafts will have textboxes with addition setting seeds, and ways to connect them to Alice, but that’s a whole different ball game right now.

Things look good. On the more distant horizon, settings are forming, and a core design book for machines(vehicles, heavy tools, doomsday devices, etc.) is on the drawing board. The first pieces of an advanced gun design system are being drawn up. And an old favorite of mine, “Reich X”, is being looked at as a very dark, insane, and possibly silly setting. Also, ideas for merchandise keep popping up, but those are still mostly for fun.

Oh yeah, and Second Draft will have an actual cover illustration. Simple, but a cover illustration nonetheless!

See ya!

Posted in Magic, Vehicles, Guns, Swords, Reich X, Armor, Machines, Alice, Combat, Weapons, Conflict, Sample characters, Second Draft, Playtests | 1 Comment »

Entry 20: Team Spirit!

19. November 2009 by admin.

.::: Entry 20, 2009/11/19 :::.
Roleplaying is a team sport. Yes, there are options for one-player-one-GM adventures out there, and there are even experiments with solitary games (in the spirit of the old Fighting Fantasy books, often). But the intent with the game being created here is fun for the whole group.Oddly enough, while this idea of characters working as teams (typically called a ‘party’) is fairly old, the focus is still very much on individual characters. Most parties quickly become plug’n'play, in that new party members are simply snapped into the group and function with no greater change over time. This always felt odd to me, and I have been paying close attention whenever articles or game mechanics have dealt with the idea of the characters as a coherent group. I want that to be a part of my game, and have experimented a lot with it.

:: The Party Sheet ::

An idea that has popped up its head over and over through the decades I have known this hobby is the idea of having a Party Sheet, which serves the same function for the party as a Character Sheet does for each individual character. Various games have tried various angles on it, but the ones that succeed best are (sadly, in my opinion) the ones that are almost entirely focused on combat; it is simply a powerful and game-compelling gimmick to provide tag-team tactics in combat, allowing special weapons bonuses or unique attacks or defenses when acting as a group. Moreover, it’s logical, because history has shown an unbridled creativity in military units for applying the advantages of numbers in a fight.

The combat angle is thus a no-brainer. Advanced combat will have special tricks and maneuvers, and having some of those require multiple participants is only sensible. That will be included. But I want the team aspects to reach far beyond combat, since combat is not central to the game.

What becomes the next question is what a group has going for it that is not immediately derived from individual members. The combat maneuver concept can theoretically be expanded very broadly, from courtroom assistance (why else would someone have a legal team instead of just a good lawyer?) and research teams to the classic ‘wing man’ approach to everything from dating to elaborate cons. The notion of two or more characters being able to rely on each other to such a degree that they are each stronger in the group is very fundamental, and should be taken advantage of.

But even beyond this idea of two heads being better than one, there are several collective advantages a group might have, which does not require everyone to be doing the same thing. Good leaders and planners only require the group to pay attention to gain from them, certain kinds of gear depends on multiple users to be truly efficient (”yeah, the mainframe is ridiculously big for a computer, but when you have two dozen users on, it’s a fraction of the cost and ten times more powerful than the best computers on the market!”), and complex lay-ups between different positions can make for impressive results (one car knocking the target into the scope of the sniper who can slow it down for the second car to powder it, for example).

A party sheet could hold the maneuvers the characters use as a team, putting the complex interactions together in one place rather than on every single character sheet. The base abilities and such used by each character would still be on that character sheet, but the greater whole is hard to see without a central description.

:: Unified Image ::

Other than what is going on in the party itself, the surrounding world might also have something to say on the matter. Many teams are known as teams, not as individual characters. This goes from legendary law enforcement units to rock bands to acrobats. Meeting one member is interesting, but for the full effect to work, all or most members must be present. A company might not hire individual members, wanting the entire team. Or a gang of criminals might not even be recognized one by one in the streets!

To further cement this, there are plenty of official teams that are required to be collectively present to be accepted. Many military, legal or similar teams cannot be admitted to resources or be given orders or even assistance without proper presence. In some cases, it is a matter of individual team members being formal representation for the team; one member is responsible for strategic communications, one is the equipment acquisitions officer, and so on. A full team has all the access they need, an incomplete team does not. If there are special skills involved, this is even more profound; nobody in their right mind issues heavy explosives to anyone but the demolitions expert, for example.

There are a lot of interesting options beyond that. A team might be known in a certain way by some people, in another by others. This need not be a matter of secret identities (rock band by day, crimefighters by night, for example), but being seen as one team in one place and another elsewhere is possible. Inside city limits, a military unit might have the role of search and rescue, and the functions of team members can be turned around greatly. A team of technical experts may likewise changed greatly in roles when negotiating with potential clients. In this fashion, one team can be many different teams, and not all members need to be on every version of the team; the new member might be part of the adventuring team, but he has no actual role in the guild enforcement team that the others have been with for a long time. People in general will recognize him as part of the legendary adventuring team, but the guild will not accept him, not yet at least.

:: Team Resources ::

For whatever reason, a team might only have access to certain resources as a team. Joint accounts, split passwords, and other methods can make it impossible for one member to grab gear without the others. When the gear is out of this restriction, it might work like any other, or passwords etc. may be continually required.

One type of team resource is the kind that actually requires multiple operators. The traditional example is a giant robot or advanced spaceship. The usual idea is that the skills required are fairly unique, and collective timing is of the essence. In other words, this exact team is needed to operate it.

More exotic versions include magical rituals that take multiple participants, psionic mass-mind gestalts, robots joining up, or even complicated weapons (or other gadgets!) capable of being merged. The idea is that multiple team members are needed to tap into these things; with only one or even just too few members, the act is either not living up to its full potential, or it simply won’t work at all.

There are plenty of ways to simulate all these things in a game, depending on what exactly is simulated (someone giving a team access, things being used as a group, etc.). What is important is that the abilities or other things involved explain this, making it not just a ‘random requirement’, but letting players build this team cohesion into their characters from the start or along the road. The point is to make the team possibilities a part of the characters, not just something that happens to show up along the adventure.

:: Teamwork Abilities ::

There are already several game mechanics in the second draft that can be used to build team concepts into characters, perhaps even create the foundation of a ‘party sheet’ (or several, depending on how the concept is used; different situations may mean they form a different team, as already mentioned). The most immediate option is to make other team members a Specific, perhaps so that it depends on which team members; too many is a problem, as are the wrong! Some method of defining the advantageous team structures will be needed, to make it work well.

Also, there is plenty of opportunity to make Abilities team-dependent. Some will be only part of a major job, like the character who is an ace at making the spaceship engines work at maximum capacity, or the one who acts as the energy conduit of a large ritual. These abilities may well function only or mainly (or just most dramatically) when the character is handling a certain position in the team. For advanced topics, position-specific abilities (and disabilities, gear, etc.!) can be commonplace, opening whole new frontiers in that field. Some combat only works in groups, as do certain social situations, business negotiations, technical work, and so on.

:: No I In Team ::

Of course, one of the chief tasks of teamwork is still to make the players work together. Even if the game is built on dramatic scheming and infighting, roleplaying is a team sport, and methods of making the group want to play together are very valuable. Having a ‘team personality’ set from the start can make the game much more enjoyable and preempt some problems. The players may be friends, but how are the characters as a group? How do their mentalities match up? Having this in writing gives a way to play the game and stick together through drama and challenges.

This is what I want. The mechanics may be little more than a few guidelines on that angle, but making sure playing together increases the fun makes the game a better collective experience. Players wanting to play together makes everything better for everybody, after all!

Posted in Robots, Teams, Reputations, 'Party Sheet', Old blog, Magic, Combat, Conflict, Vehicles, Weapons | 1 Comment »

Entry 19: Wealth & Possessions

9. November 2009 by admin.

.::: Entry 19, 2009/11/9 :::.
The topic of equipment has already been dealt with in earlier entries, to a certain extent. But what has not really been talked about is how such gear is actually acquired. Both in character creation and in later games, there are more ways of, and more views on, acquiring gear than most assume. I want my game to include a better explanation for characters having their gear than just “they buy stuff” or, even worse, “that kind of character just has that stuff”. I do not want purchased gear to be marginalized; buying your things is a logical and meaningful way to get them! But I do not want it to be the universal default, nor do I want to enforce ‘the universal shopping list’ that many games seem to go by. Even if it is a small part of the character, I want the acquisition of gear to make sense for the character, and reflect the kind of world the character lives in, not to mention his or her place in it.It might seem like a lot, but this is not just some insane demand for more detail. While the matter of where a knife was acquired can be painfully uninteresting, a lot of gear can spark up questions, especially when its effects are taken into account. A cybernetic eye enhances eyesight, for example. So does the player pay for it with points during character creation, or with cash? And what if it is surgically installed later on, what then? And what about that ‘priceless’ magical sword, if it is so priceless, how was it acquired?

Even beyond such questions, a thoroughly created game world can toss some frustrating questions into the process. If a character is from a certain region, will gear be acquired at the local prices? What if the character was briefly in a city with cheap gear, did he or she go on a shopping spree and get everything the character now has at low, low prices? And just how much can a character afford?

:: Cash, Card, Credit! ::

One of the most basic questions when creating a character in almost any game is “how much money does my character have?”. Cash allows the characters to get gear either immediately or later on, and it pays for a lot of other things during an adventure, too. I have stuck with a method of character cash for years now, and it works: Buy cash like it is an ability, then multiply the final level with an amount of cash set for the given game world. So if the cash-point value of a game world is 20 doubloons, buying Cash[14] will start a character out at 280 (20 times 14) doubloons. Needless to say, there is no learning or experience for this ability.

But while cash-in-hand will start the average adventurer character off nicely, some like more advanced options, if nothing else then to simulate real-life options. Two come to mind: Borrowing and earning. Whereas the cash option is just what a character has, these two are more about what that character can get later on. The idea of character income has already been thoroughly tested, and can be molded like cash: Buy an ‘ability’, and the character gets a weekly income equal to 1/10 of the aforementioned cash-point value. If the value is 20 doubloons, for example, the character gets 2 doubloons per week times the acquired ability. Easy, efficient. ‘Credit’ has undergone multiple tests, however, and none have shown satisfactory results. Essentially, it would be ‘the skill of borrowing money’, getting bigger sums at lower costs and for longer terms. The details are still out.

:: The Tool Ability ::

Money solves the gear-purchasing problem for shopping-list items. But too many genre conventions involve gear that is not purchased outright, from the magical sword to genius gadgets or inherited books of power and mystery. Without a pricetag, an item cannot be solved by throwing money at it.

Several existing game systems try to solve this by making the items a part of the character, rather than independent gear. A battlesuit thus becomes a set of abilities acquired for the character, just like that character might acquire the ability to read a language or fly a plane. An item might have unique abilities, or problems of its own, things that would make no sense for a person. Or ‘normal’ abilities would be somewhat different for an item. But a lot of fascinating and unusual items can be created by viewing an item as a set of abilities ‘in a box’, especially if ‘ability’ and ‘bonus’ are made fairly interchangeable.

I do have some disagreement with this method, though. There are the strictly practical problems that turn up when a character has his or her abilities ‘in a box’, which can basically be handed to someone else to use, or even stolen. This set of problems can bog a system down in rules to prevent abuse, all on its own! But beyond even that, I dislike the idea for the simple reason that gear suddenly does not feel like gear any longer. In a superhero game, the idea that a hero (or villain, or whatever) can fire bolts of lightning from the hands can definitely be an ability. If this person needs to wear a funny suit for it to work, I can still see it as an ability, with the suit being like what a sword is to a swordsman: Something that allows an ability to be used. But if it is the suit that fires the lightning, the ability that the character has is merely to use the suit! How the suit has this power is a different thing. And if the suit is not uniquely available to that character only, if the suit can actually be taken by others who will try to activate it, the idea that the bolts are the character’s ability goes right out the window for me. I don’t even want to get into what would happen if such ability-gear is acquired long after character creation…

In the grey zone between what is character ability and what is purely a gadget, there are interesting possibilities for whole fields of gear. Abilities can exist to tap into the gear, gear can exist to allow a character to tap into abilities, and so forth, creating amazing bonds between character and gadget (and we haven’t even looked at potions or strange energies yet!). But I would like that fascinating complexity to remain uniquely its own, rather than translate items entirely into character traits. This way, the abilities involved also have the chance of being an expanded part of the game world, something to be understood and handled in different ways. Maybe the suit is not the only way to focus an ability. Or maybe the abilities locked in the suit itself can be dismantled, examined, altered… or simply broken!

:: Point Acquisitions ::

One method that has been tried and tested thoroughly with a fair degree of success since my work with TAYDS is to have a general rating for items in overall power (which includes things like versatility, ease-of-use, durability and so on). A proper rating system for items allows them to be bought like abilities, setting a ‘point cost’ pricetag on the item. It works with basic items that do not fit shopping lists, but mainly because those items have a fairly linear progression of power. Once items become complex, typically through multiple uses, complex requirements and so forth, this ‘point cost’ method begins to break down.

The question is whether a better system can be built to charge points for items that are acquired at character creation (acquisition later would be handled by whatever in the adventures made it happen). Arguably, the basic notions of the aforementioned ‘tool is abilities’ may suddenly apply again, but somehow it seems the system would need to be adjusted, or balance goes right out the window; if a tool doing something costs the same as the ability, the idea of losing it will make the natural ability a better choice, and if it cannot be lost, the realism and idea of it being actual tools is ruined. Other flaws in the ‘tool is abilities’ method follow the same logic, and there remains also the problem of making tools feel less like gear and more like some detached piece of a character.

Of course, just because items are acquired via points does not mean it has to function this exact way. The idea in the above is to have an item wear a pricetag for what it can do, i.e. pay for power more or less directly. Another option is to pay for having access to certain kinds of gear, and then acquire some of that as a (perhaps) permanent possession. For example, having experimental super-toys might require having access to the labs that make them, something acquired as a presumably social part of the character (friends in the right places, so to speak). Inherited things may require an appropriate family history. This deflects some of the problems with point-acquired gear by making it part of something bigger. How a value-of-purchase figures in is still a harder issue; will it now be worth the investment to get the items, at all?

A lot of gear can be handled by making it actually equipment, stuff to be bought. The types that are not shop available will need to be defined by their origins, and how the gear is acquired will probably end up building on that. The consequence of this is that there will not be any fixed way of equipping characters: If it’s store bought, the cash rules provided will deal with it nicely. If it is special-made, it takes the connections and will be ‘priced’ according to how the world handles those things, probably handled by social backgrounds. Family heirlooms, strange acquisitions, alien gifts etc. will need their own reasons for being in the possession of the characters.

Posted in Wealth, Shopping, Cash, Equipment/Gear, Vehicles, Old blog, Weapons | 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 »