One of the first things I presented from Battle Century G was the basic combat formula, because the rest of the rules would be written around it. Today I go a little bit deeper into that, and because things are a lot more solid now, I can begin to show actual mechanics.
Let's have a look at that formula again:
(Might + 1d10 + Tension + Abilities) - (Guard + 5 + Abilities) = Damage.
With Attributes averaged at 5 and an average roll of 5, the attacking character deals exactly the current Tension in Damage.
Like I said before the benefit of this thing is transparent math and ease of play. You are no longer halving accuracy then adding penetration on top, then checking for special abilities from active defenses or weapons. You just make a roll then add special abilities, being well aware of how much each of them is going to affect the result.
It sounds simple, perhaps too simple, but a simple foundation works well
for adding optional complexity on top. And I think by now it is pretty
clear that I like having lots of options to interact with combat math.
If you remember from last week's chat about Intermissions, I brought up that I want specialist characters to be able to get up to three Advantages to Tests by spending between half and a whole Power Level's worth of XP. For the giant robot combat I would like to have similar math at work, with the caveat that since robots exist primarily to fight, the straightforward combat options will be a little more expensive to compensate for the fact that they are the better ones all around. This means the best kind of specialization, the one whose Advantages almost always apply, will cost somewhere between a full Power Level and two Power Levels.
At Power Levels 0, 1 and 2 most PC Units will usually have two Advantages to their Might Tests, unless they are heavy offensive specialists, then they get to have three or four. Sometimes even more. That's the theory, anyway. What are the things that will influence this math? Let's start with the most obvious: Weapons.
Weapons of Choice
When I first brought up BCG as a spiritual successor to GGG, I mentioned I would have to rewrite the Weapon types into things more easily adaptable to characters that aren't giant robots. So let's address that issue right now: To start off with, there will be two Weapon Types: Melee and Shooting.
Melee Weapons gain an Advantage when used during a Duel or against a target that is in one, and Shooting Weapons gain an additional Advantage from the Aim Action (while Melee Weapons only get one Advantage out of Aiming). If you can close in on your target, Melee is almost always stronger than Shooting, but Shooting lets you attack from afar and works better defensively. Weapons are no longer about flat combat modifiers, instead they now grant Advantages to Might Tests during special circumstances or have other special abilities. Let's have two examples:
Name: Stun Rod
Type: Melee
Cost: 5
Effect: This Weapon inflicts an additional Disadvantage when using the Suppress Action.
Description: Employed by Hiryu Gears to subdue Outsiders, rather than to kill them. Multiple units equipped with Stun Rods can render the fearsome giant monsters largely ineffectual.
Name: Anti-Air Missiles
Type: Shooting
Cost: 5
Effect: This Weapon gains an Advantage when used against targets with Flyer or using Anti-Gravity.
Description: Air dominance is still very much a thing even in this new era of Gears. Everyone in Earth understands this, and provides their troops with necessary countermeasures against their enemies. The RUF has to be careful of those pesky Majesty types, Hiryu has to worry about flying Outsiders taking advantage of how complicated it is to fight giant monsters in the middle of the ocean, and the GAF wants the Wagner destroyed by yesterday.
These are some of the simplest and most straightforward of the bunch. Notice that while Anti-Air Missiles help you reach that threshold of 3 Advantages against specific targets, Stun Rod instead takes away an Advantage from the opposition when used in a certain way. That's the focus on more transparent math at work, which easily lets you know which Weapon is better at doing a certain job.
Because they are basically the equivalent to narrow specialized Skills, they only cost 5 points, making it easy to have a varied loadout. Speaking of cheap things, everyone now has two free Default Weapons:
Name: CQC
Type: Melee
Cost: 0
Effect: This Weapon suffers an innate Disadvantage to its use, but cannot be disabled through Maiming.
Description: Mecha often carry small weapons like daggers as a last-ditch measure. Others mount small blades and drills into the frame to give your unit something to use when all other options are out. Even Mecha that cannot punch or kick can still ram themselves into the enemy as a last resort.
Name: Fire
Type: Shooting
Cost: 0
Effect: This Weapon suffers an innate Disadvantage to its use, but cannot be disabled through Maiming.
Description: Most giant robots these days come with a variety of ranged weapons integrated into the frame. Even those who don’t can improvise by picking up vehicles or even buildings to toss. Necessity is the mother of invention, after all.
These do suffer a Disadvantage to compensate for being free, but at least they don't do silly things like hurting you when you use them. They're perfectly viable backups now, and free backups at that. While we remain on the subject of cheap things, I have good and bad news about Custom Weapons. The bad news is that BCG has no Custom Weapons whatsoever. The good news is that it does not need them.
They had a pretty important role in GGG, but they no longer do. Here is why.
They gave Mecha something to do with any extra Upgrade Points between 1 and 4:
Since everything that is not an Attribute enhancement now costs 5, 10 or 20 this is no longer necessary. It would also be really hard to make something balanced at these costs too since an Advantage (a +2) in BCG is worth between 5 and 10 depending on how widely applicable it is.
They let the Mecha choose whether to focus on speed or power:
This divide no longer exists as GGG knew it, because you have Might and Guard now. This is not applicable any longer.
They gave you cheap backup Weapons that were weaker than the norm:
The Default Weapons fit this role, and they do it for free while being impossible to disable.
They gave you a way to have simple, reliable Weapons that don't have any drawbacks:
About a third of the listed Weapons are exactly this, like the example of Anti-Air Missiles. The ones that have drawbacks are the ones that are obviously stronger than the norm, primarily finishers and area of effect Weapons. Some are basically the standard Melee or Shooting template with just an increase to their maximum Range on top, too. There's plenty of simple weapons alongside the more complex ones.
Because a lot of the things that GGG was going for with Custom Weapons are things Battle Century G does by default (pun not intended) there is no longer a need for them. I did mention it was going to be quite a different game, after all.
Heating Things Up
But that's enough about the everyday standard Weapons, let's talk about some of the flashier ones. Like Beam Weapons. Beams are now a Subtype that goes on top of either Melee or Shooting now! They all have an innate Advantage to their use, as a tradeoff for double the cost of other Weapons (10) plus consuming at least a point of Energy. If you can afford them, then they are almost always the better choice for raw offensive power.
A short aside about Subtypes: Giant Robots are most likely going to only have Beam, but other types of heroes can have more variety there. Think of all the possible elemental subtypes that magic usually has in games and you have a good idea of what I'm talking about. You could have flame swords next to freezing rays, and they would have different effects. Anyway, back to Beams, here are two examples:
Name: Beam Saber
Type: Melee
Cost: 10
Effect: Beam (1 Energy).
Description: A favorite for its low energy consumption, solid armor-piercing power, compact size and overall practicality. Mass produced and made standard issue for most factions.
Name: Beam Rifle
Type: Shooting
Cost: 10
Effect: Beam (1 Energy).
Description: Cheap to produce and easy to use, it makes a great all-purpose Weapon if you can get around its craving for energy.
Beam Weapons are the easiest way to get those three Advantages I spoke of, because they have two (or three, in the case of Shooting) of those in-built. What about the third Advantage? That's the hardest one to get, because most Weapons only grant two. Some Weapon special abilities can give more than one Advantage, some Upgrades also give you Advantages when attacking, and of course Genre Powers like Try Again can do it too. But that talk is better reserved for later, because now is time to talk about Active Defenses.
Shield, don't Yield
So just from Weapons alone, characters get to add +4 to their Might Tests. That's a lot! Specially when you consider that, assuming average stats for everyone, they are already dealing base Damage equal to Tension. If nothing else is in play and they roll average, they are hitting their targets for 5 Damage during Round 1, and it only goes higher from there.
Fortunately, we have Active Defenses to mitigate that somewhat. Evasive Systems and Defensive Barriers were rolled into one single series of Upgrades, since Guard covers for both Evasion and Armor. How do they match up against the fearsome base damage of offensive powerhouses? Well, there is a lot of variety in Active Defenses, but the most universally efficient types are these two:
Name: Custom Barrier (Specialist)
Type: External
Cost: 5
Effect: Choose one of Melee, Shooting, Beam or non-Beam when you take this Upgrade. In response to the results of an Enemy Might Test against you using a Weapon of the chosen type, you may spend 1 Energy to increase your Guard by 3 against it, or 2 Energy to increase your Guard by 5 against it instead.
Description: You can equip a variety of defensive mechanisms. Examples include attaching small forcefields to your arms as shields, nanomachine bubbles that stop or slow down high velocity physical weapons, and a variety of chaff dispensers or jamming devices. You just need to know what it is you want to be protected from.
Name:Absolute Barrier
Type: External
Cost: 10
Effect: At the beginning of your Turn you may spend any amount of Energy to create a shield that blocks an amount of Damage equal to twice the amount of Energy spent and lasts one Round. An active Absolute Barrier means you may not use other Active Defenses.
Description: An extremely powerful barrier that repels nearly everything you can throw at it through a constant series of violent explosions. The Gravagne Field is one of Hiryu’s most famous successes, and the UEF would love to get their hands on its technology.
The general idea is that, for 5 UP, a point of Energy blocks two Damage from a few sources, and 10 UP nets you protection from basically everything. Because you can take Custom Barrier twice, you could choose to shield yourself from Melee and Shooting, or Beam and non-Beam. Both Upgrades play very differently, though. Absolute Barrier is better at blocking super attacks from single sources while Custom Barrier can handle a multitude of weaker attacks better. There will be more varied Active Defenses, but these are just going to be the basic ones the others build upon.
(By the way, Internal Upgrades go in the Core, while External Upgrades go into any of the other four Areas.)
Back to our Damage formula, a defensive specialist can counter an offensive one pretty well. Just Custom Barrier alone blocks 5 from that bonus +4 or +6, and Absolute Barrier can negate it entirely for 2 or 3 Energy.
And that's all for Today.
I hope you can see what I mean now by having a game where the math is more transparent than GGG's. This is also the most basic level of combat, because there's plenty of ways to tamper further with fancy effects coming from Upgrades, Weapons and Powers.
What about the flashier Weapons or Defenses? What about the other Attributes? And what about the special abilities not directly related to attacking or defending? There's a lot to go over, and it'll likely take most of December to cover it all. I haven't decided what the next post is going to be about yet, so we'll find out a week from now!
Showing posts with label Previews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Previews. Show all posts
December 8, 2013
October 20, 2013
Our Roleplaying Persona
Another thing I want to do as part of expanding the game is making it easier to adapt to other kinds of settings. Magical Mecha (Masoukishin, Rayearth) have lots of elemental-themed magical attacks, but not a lot in the way of traditional technology-based weapons. Likewise, PCs as sentient Mecha (Transformers, Braves) would require a rewrite of the Attribute system to integrate their Intermission and Operation abilities into a single coherent entity.
Where I'm going with this is that I want the game to be more versatile, and that needs adapting various subsystems on a case by case basis. With that said, the examples above are complex changes beyond the scope of today's post, instead I will be posting a variant of the Genre Theme rules. Themes should not be ignored when it is time to adapt the rules to a different setting, their function is to help convey a game's... well, themes.
Never had a Friend like Me
Because GGG is very much about anime-styled heroics, we have cooperation and teamwork as a running theme throughout the rules, representing the Power of Friendship and other similar genre conventions. We have Synchro Attacks, Combinations, Leadership, and all other sorts of character abilities that are very strong when the characters work together. But they're limited to combat effectiveness, and don't really say much about the characters themselves. They tell us that characters who work together are good fighters, but not if they get are back-to-back badass partners, or if they get along despite disagreeing often, or if one of them is manipulating the other. The rules don't say much about their relationship.
Good mechanics to represent character relationships are hard to write. With that I don't mean rules for romantic relationships, but relationships in a more general sense. Something like, for example, characters who trust each other do work better when cooperating but are also more susceptible to each other's lies. The rules we have are not relationship rules. I swear that's the last time I'll italicize that word for emphasis. At least for today.
Relationship rules are conceptually easy to write in a way that is usable, but it is easy to accidentally make a rule that ends up getting in the way of the game when you aren't careful with them. If your Players don't want their PCs getting close to NPCs because the main cast end up penalized when something bad happens to the supporting actors, then you're doing something wrong.
But it is also a matter of conveying the proper mood and tone. If characters who worked well together also had an easier time betraying each other, you would probably see both lasting friendships and deep betrayals more often than if those rules did not exist. Because GGG is a game meant to be taken in whatever direction you need (as long as it is somewhat heroic) there are no such rules in it.
The closest GGG has to relationship rules are Genre Typecasts, which are fairly agnostic in the mood and tone you can use them for, but they can be easily modified to encourage more specific group dynamics. Today's rewrite is for a game more about personal growth, with characters expected to be hitting their highest and lowest moral points, and a character centric narrative with a very tight cast.
Okay, I can't really dance around the issue or pointlessly obscure what it is I'mripping off homaging any further. Today is about Social Link-styled rules in the vein of Persona 3 and 4 of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise of videogames. If you know what that means, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
In Persona, you fight by summoning various mythological entities (the titular Personas or Personae) each aligned with a different Tarot card of the Major Arcana (Odin, for instance, is a Persona of the Emperor Arcana, as chief of the other Norse Gods) and each Arcana has a corresponding Social Link. Social Links are the relationships you have as the Main Character with various NPCs, whether it is just one or a whole group of them. Your best friend or your pals from your sports club are valid Social Links. All Social Links have a Rank going from 1 to 10, which represents how close the bond is, and it grows (increasing in number) as you help the NPCs grow as people. High Social Link Ranks make their corresponding Personas grow stronger, and the Social Links of your party members make them stronger as a bonus, to boot.
Social Links are pretty neat, they put a spin on traditional 'grindy' gameplay by making you 'grind' through roleplaying and dialogue options instead of fighting mobs. I am far from the first to posit houserules of choice for adapting this to Roleplaying ends, since they're very popular videogames among roleplayers. I do, however, have a very clear idea of what parts of them translate better as rules in a kitchen table medium, or at least to the kind of game you'd play with GGG.
A Personal Matter
Here are the guidelines I set for myself to follow when writing up this variant Theme system:
The rules should encourage genuine, lasting bonds. Whether it is friendship, romance, rivalry, or something else altogether. Those things don't just spring from the ground, they start out small and grow over time getting more emotionally intense and resilient to outside forces. In a videogame this is easy to achieve because you are following a linear paths with a clear start and end point... But they have a preset script to be followed through, and that is not going to work in a Roleplaying game. Or at least it goes against the point of playing a game that has always had creativity and improvised acting as fundamental features.
There should also be a downside to being too close to someone, it doesn't have to be anything big, heck it should probably be something easy to ignore. But let's not forget that this is a game, and one about making choices, so your choice of who to befriend and who not to befriend should matter. If there are no real downsides and everyone is always everyone's bestest friend forever, then these are not so much relationship rules as they are just plain powerups.
The Tarot motif should play an important role, since its symbolism is a big part of what makes each Social Link distinctive, and you have just enough of them (around 20, depending on which version of the Tarot deck you use) to have a wide variety to choose from without being drowned in options. Each of the Major Arcana represents anything ranging from types of people, worldly influences, and various trials of the soul. And since they usually correspond to one specific character, that character should have a power of some sort over the portfolio of the Arcana in question. Likewise, the benefits of being best friends with the Death Arcana Character should be clearly different than those of being best friends with the Justice Arcana Character. Even if you don't quite know what the cards mean the names alone should tell you that much.
Here's what I got, I'll post the blank template first then a few examples. You can find a list of the Major Arcana and the symbolism attached to each card all over the web I'll just grab a few to use as examples. Note that I'm not saying you should seriously use Tarot card spreads to read the future for someone, this is just an adaptation of its symbolic themes for the purpose of playing a game about pretending to be people with superpowers.
Arcana Themes
Choose one of the Major Arcana to represent. As the embodiment of that Arcana, you have a limited ability to manipulate fate and luck towards shaping the world in a way according to your Arcana. You are at your strongest when your acts align to your Arcana's correspondence, but you can also bless others with good luck when they act in the same way, or curse them with the negative traits of your Arcana when they are messing with your domain. Your Genre Reason becomes an Arcana Reason using the card's positive connotations and your Genre Bane becomes an Arcana Bane using the card's negative qualities. You no longer have a Genre Typecast, but instead you have Arcana Providence, a version of the Providence Miracle that can do Blessings and Curses related to your chosen Arcana's portfolio.
Arcana Providence:
Through a concentrated effort you may transform your very life essence into a blessing or curse aimed at someone else, this can manifest as inner strength they did not know they had within them, or a stroke of bad luck that causes their tools to break at the worst possible moment, or some other effect that could be explained as being just plain (un?)lucky. This will cause you to have a headache, bleed from the nose a little, or feel a tad dizzy, so you shouldn't have to worry about it much. But should you be defeated from hurting yourself this way you immediately pass out, and anyone with this ability will be able to tell you were up to something just now. Note that you may only use this version of Providence towards Help and Disrupt Tests, and that it does not have an innate Advantage when you are using it. You may not use Arcana Providence on yourself.
Let's have some examples, starting with a pretty straightforward card in The Chariot, following it up one that is about as good as you can make it in The Fool, and lastly one that is almost always better reserved for antagonists in the Devil.
The Chariot
Reason - The Chariot excels at standing ground against adversity and trampling past the obstacles and competition in its path. Chariot characters are strong of will, and usually of mind and body too, knowing what they want and how to get it. The character earns a Genre Point when they have to struggle to pursue their goals, demonstrating their steadfast resolution to everyone around them.
Bane - The Chariot aims for the finish line relentlessly until they win the race against all odds, often leaving a trail of destruction behind, and sometimes they won't stop until they crash and burn themselves. Chariot characters tend to be aggressive, violent and ambitious enough to not care about the people they will inevitably hurt. The character earns a Genre Point when their stubbornness gets them or people they care about in trouble.
Providence - You may bless or curse others when they are acting with iron determination amidst uncertainty. This may make it easier for to walk barefoot through a fire, but can also make someone who stubbornly refuses your help to ruin everything they've worked so hard for.
The Fool
Reason - The Fool is a free spirit, with the world before them waiting to experience the joys and sorrows it has to offer. Fool characters are optimistic and all about trying new experiences, chasing down opportunities for adventure without sweating the details. The character earns a Genre Point when taking leaps of faith and doing things that others would deem illogical yet seem to work out.
Bane - The Fool often embarks on a journey without a map, and ends up stranded in the wilderness as a consequence. Fool characters don't quite grasp consequences that their actions may have, and their naivete makes them the first to fall prety to deals too good to be true. The character earns a Genre Point when they get in trouble pursuing the pretty butterflies.
Providence - You may bless or curse others when they are acting with spontaneity and recklessness. What otherwise could seem like an idea destined to fail can be much more likely to succeed with your help, and someone taking a risk without fully thinking things through first can be doomed with a worst case scenario. This does not work if they are aware you will have a participation in it beforehand, though, because then their act is a calculated risk.
The Devil
Reason - The Devil is the dark side of humanity, the selfish, materialistic and lustful side that always wants more even if it means taking away from others. Devil characters are cynicists with little respect for moral values, and are attracted by positions of authority from which they can reign over others. The character earns a Genre Point when they go through very questionable means to meet their ends, which may or may not be just as questionable themselves, making enemies in the process.
Bane - The Devil was banished to the underworld because the world fears it, but it does not escape because it too fears the world outside. Devil characters are horrible people because it is all they know, sustaining themselves through various types of addictions. The character earns a Genre Point when their lifestyle of dependency on substances, behaviors, people or even beliefs gets the better of them.
Providence - You may bless or curse others when they act out of the pure greed and lust in their hearts. Someone looking for a good time might get lucky that night, while a ruthless plutocrat might make a mistake that costs them their fortune. Promises of power and deals with the Devil are recommended, but optional rather than mandatory.
And the Relationships?
You now have have separate Affinity levels for each PC or NPC you are close to. Affinity Levels are mutual and decided by the owners of the characters, so both characters will always be at the same Affinity Level with each other. Characters that were once very close will continue to know each other inside and out even if they had a major falling out, this means that Affinity Levels can only go up, and characters may not go back down to the previous one with each other.
Affinity Level 0 - The characters don't click together, they might keep themselves at arm's reach or actively distrust and even hate each other. There are no special rules for this Level.
Affinity Level 1 - The characters are companions of circumstance or casual acquaintances, they trust each other enough to share food or a roof to sleep under, but not much more than that. Characters at this Affinity Level gain an Advantage to Blessings and Curses cast on each other.
Affinity Level 2 - The characters are close friends, they trust each other with personal favors and secrets... Just not the really shady, dark stuff. Characters at this Affinity Level gain a second Advantage to Blessings and Curses cast on the other.
Affinity Level 3 - The characters have a very close bond like that of life partners, and it would take genuinely surprising turns of events for them to split. Characters at this Affinity Level may freely give each other their own Genre Points, sharing with each other as necessary.
Characters without an Arcana don't gain any benefit from a high Affinity Level other than maybe the occasional blessing and getting a Genre Point every now and then, which they can't use considering they most likely don't have any Powers either.
Example time: Let's say Alice (Chariot) wants to help out Bob (Fool) and they have an Affinity Level of 2. Bob is having a really hard time with planning an anniversary event for his significant other because he has the attention span of a gnat, but he feels a really intense love even if he is terrible at committing to other things, and Alice wants to help him out. She can use Providence to help him keep his focus through all this responsible man stuff without messing up, because it fits right within the purview of The Chariot. Alice has two Advantages to her Help Test so Bob will have a much easier time with whatever it is he ends up rolling the dice for. Meanwhile, Charlie (Devil) keeps trying to get suckers to sign a contract with her for power in exchange for their eternal servitude, but they all have Affinity Levels of 0 with her so they don't fall for it. Even if they did, she can't do much for them without any Advantages to the eventual Help Tests, she would need to get closer for Providence to start getting effective.
In Conclusion: No I don't want to get to writing supplements like right now what gave you that idea? Next month, I'll stop beating around the bush and start talking about my future plans.
Where I'm going with this is that I want the game to be more versatile, and that needs adapting various subsystems on a case by case basis. With that said, the examples above are complex changes beyond the scope of today's post, instead I will be posting a variant of the Genre Theme rules. Themes should not be ignored when it is time to adapt the rules to a different setting, their function is to help convey a game's... well, themes.
Never had a Friend like Me
Because GGG is very much about anime-styled heroics, we have cooperation and teamwork as a running theme throughout the rules, representing the Power of Friendship and other similar genre conventions. We have Synchro Attacks, Combinations, Leadership, and all other sorts of character abilities that are very strong when the characters work together. But they're limited to combat effectiveness, and don't really say much about the characters themselves. They tell us that characters who work together are good fighters, but not if they get are back-to-back badass partners, or if they get along despite disagreeing often, or if one of them is manipulating the other. The rules don't say much about their relationship.
Good mechanics to represent character relationships are hard to write. With that I don't mean rules for romantic relationships, but relationships in a more general sense. Something like, for example, characters who trust each other do work better when cooperating but are also more susceptible to each other's lies. The rules we have are not relationship rules. I swear that's the last time I'll italicize that word for emphasis. At least for today.
Relationship rules are conceptually easy to write in a way that is usable, but it is easy to accidentally make a rule that ends up getting in the way of the game when you aren't careful with them. If your Players don't want their PCs getting close to NPCs because the main cast end up penalized when something bad happens to the supporting actors, then you're doing something wrong.
But it is also a matter of conveying the proper mood and tone. If characters who worked well together also had an easier time betraying each other, you would probably see both lasting friendships and deep betrayals more often than if those rules did not exist. Because GGG is a game meant to be taken in whatever direction you need (as long as it is somewhat heroic) there are no such rules in it.
The closest GGG has to relationship rules are Genre Typecasts, which are fairly agnostic in the mood and tone you can use them for, but they can be easily modified to encourage more specific group dynamics. Today's rewrite is for a game more about personal growth, with characters expected to be hitting their highest and lowest moral points, and a character centric narrative with a very tight cast.
Okay, I can't really dance around the issue or pointlessly obscure what it is I'm
In Persona, you fight by summoning various mythological entities (the titular Personas or Personae) each aligned with a different Tarot card of the Major Arcana (Odin, for instance, is a Persona of the Emperor Arcana, as chief of the other Norse Gods) and each Arcana has a corresponding Social Link. Social Links are the relationships you have as the Main Character with various NPCs, whether it is just one or a whole group of them. Your best friend or your pals from your sports club are valid Social Links. All Social Links have a Rank going from 1 to 10, which represents how close the bond is, and it grows (increasing in number) as you help the NPCs grow as people. High Social Link Ranks make their corresponding Personas grow stronger, and the Social Links of your party members make them stronger as a bonus, to boot.
Social Links are pretty neat, they put a spin on traditional 'grindy' gameplay by making you 'grind' through roleplaying and dialogue options instead of fighting mobs. I am far from the first to posit houserules of choice for adapting this to Roleplaying ends, since they're very popular videogames among roleplayers. I do, however, have a very clear idea of what parts of them translate better as rules in a kitchen table medium, or at least to the kind of game you'd play with GGG.
A Personal Matter
Here are the guidelines I set for myself to follow when writing up this variant Theme system:
The rules should encourage genuine, lasting bonds. Whether it is friendship, romance, rivalry, or something else altogether. Those things don't just spring from the ground, they start out small and grow over time getting more emotionally intense and resilient to outside forces. In a videogame this is easy to achieve because you are following a linear paths with a clear start and end point... But they have a preset script to be followed through, and that is not going to work in a Roleplaying game. Or at least it goes against the point of playing a game that has always had creativity and improvised acting as fundamental features.
There should also be a downside to being too close to someone, it doesn't have to be anything big, heck it should probably be something easy to ignore. But let's not forget that this is a game, and one about making choices, so your choice of who to befriend and who not to befriend should matter. If there are no real downsides and everyone is always everyone's bestest friend forever, then these are not so much relationship rules as they are just plain powerups.
The Tarot motif should play an important role, since its symbolism is a big part of what makes each Social Link distinctive, and you have just enough of them (around 20, depending on which version of the Tarot deck you use) to have a wide variety to choose from without being drowned in options. Each of the Major Arcana represents anything ranging from types of people, worldly influences, and various trials of the soul. And since they usually correspond to one specific character, that character should have a power of some sort over the portfolio of the Arcana in question. Likewise, the benefits of being best friends with the Death Arcana Character should be clearly different than those of being best friends with the Justice Arcana Character. Even if you don't quite know what the cards mean the names alone should tell you that much.
Here's what I got, I'll post the blank template first then a few examples. You can find a list of the Major Arcana and the symbolism attached to each card all over the web I'll just grab a few to use as examples. Note that I'm not saying you should seriously use Tarot card spreads to read the future for someone, this is just an adaptation of its symbolic themes for the purpose of playing a game about pretending to be people with superpowers.
Arcana Themes
Choose one of the Major Arcana to represent. As the embodiment of that Arcana, you have a limited ability to manipulate fate and luck towards shaping the world in a way according to your Arcana. You are at your strongest when your acts align to your Arcana's correspondence, but you can also bless others with good luck when they act in the same way, or curse them with the negative traits of your Arcana when they are messing with your domain. Your Genre Reason becomes an Arcana Reason using the card's positive connotations and your Genre Bane becomes an Arcana Bane using the card's negative qualities. You no longer have a Genre Typecast, but instead you have Arcana Providence, a version of the Providence Miracle that can do Blessings and Curses related to your chosen Arcana's portfolio.
Arcana Providence:
Through a concentrated effort you may transform your very life essence into a blessing or curse aimed at someone else, this can manifest as inner strength they did not know they had within them, or a stroke of bad luck that causes their tools to break at the worst possible moment, or some other effect that could be explained as being just plain (un?)lucky. This will cause you to have a headache, bleed from the nose a little, or feel a tad dizzy, so you shouldn't have to worry about it much. But should you be defeated from hurting yourself this way you immediately pass out, and anyone with this ability will be able to tell you were up to something just now. Note that you may only use this version of Providence towards Help and Disrupt Tests, and that it does not have an innate Advantage when you are using it. You may not use Arcana Providence on yourself.
Let's have some examples, starting with a pretty straightforward card in The Chariot, following it up one that is about as good as you can make it in The Fool, and lastly one that is almost always better reserved for antagonists in the Devil.
The Chariot
Reason - The Chariot excels at standing ground against adversity and trampling past the obstacles and competition in its path. Chariot characters are strong of will, and usually of mind and body too, knowing what they want and how to get it. The character earns a Genre Point when they have to struggle to pursue their goals, demonstrating their steadfast resolution to everyone around them.
Bane - The Chariot aims for the finish line relentlessly until they win the race against all odds, often leaving a trail of destruction behind, and sometimes they won't stop until they crash and burn themselves. Chariot characters tend to be aggressive, violent and ambitious enough to not care about the people they will inevitably hurt. The character earns a Genre Point when their stubbornness gets them or people they care about in trouble.
Providence - You may bless or curse others when they are acting with iron determination amidst uncertainty. This may make it easier for to walk barefoot through a fire, but can also make someone who stubbornly refuses your help to ruin everything they've worked so hard for.
The Fool
Reason - The Fool is a free spirit, with the world before them waiting to experience the joys and sorrows it has to offer. Fool characters are optimistic and all about trying new experiences, chasing down opportunities for adventure without sweating the details. The character earns a Genre Point when taking leaps of faith and doing things that others would deem illogical yet seem to work out.
Bane - The Fool often embarks on a journey without a map, and ends up stranded in the wilderness as a consequence. Fool characters don't quite grasp consequences that their actions may have, and their naivete makes them the first to fall prety to deals too good to be true. The character earns a Genre Point when they get in trouble pursuing the pretty butterflies.
Providence - You may bless or curse others when they are acting with spontaneity and recklessness. What otherwise could seem like an idea destined to fail can be much more likely to succeed with your help, and someone taking a risk without fully thinking things through first can be doomed with a worst case scenario. This does not work if they are aware you will have a participation in it beforehand, though, because then their act is a calculated risk.
The Devil
Reason - The Devil is the dark side of humanity, the selfish, materialistic and lustful side that always wants more even if it means taking away from others. Devil characters are cynicists with little respect for moral values, and are attracted by positions of authority from which they can reign over others. The character earns a Genre Point when they go through very questionable means to meet their ends, which may or may not be just as questionable themselves, making enemies in the process.
Bane - The Devil was banished to the underworld because the world fears it, but it does not escape because it too fears the world outside. Devil characters are horrible people because it is all they know, sustaining themselves through various types of addictions. The character earns a Genre Point when their lifestyle of dependency on substances, behaviors, people or even beliefs gets the better of them.
Providence - You may bless or curse others when they act out of the pure greed and lust in their hearts. Someone looking for a good time might get lucky that night, while a ruthless plutocrat might make a mistake that costs them their fortune. Promises of power and deals with the Devil are recommended, but optional rather than mandatory.
And the Relationships?
You now have have separate Affinity levels for each PC or NPC you are close to. Affinity Levels are mutual and decided by the owners of the characters, so both characters will always be at the same Affinity Level with each other. Characters that were once very close will continue to know each other inside and out even if they had a major falling out, this means that Affinity Levels can only go up, and characters may not go back down to the previous one with each other.
Affinity Level 0 - The characters don't click together, they might keep themselves at arm's reach or actively distrust and even hate each other. There are no special rules for this Level.
Affinity Level 1 - The characters are companions of circumstance or casual acquaintances, they trust each other enough to share food or a roof to sleep under, but not much more than that. Characters at this Affinity Level gain an Advantage to Blessings and Curses cast on each other.
Affinity Level 2 - The characters are close friends, they trust each other with personal favors and secrets... Just not the really shady, dark stuff. Characters at this Affinity Level gain a second Advantage to Blessings and Curses cast on the other.
Affinity Level 3 - The characters have a very close bond like that of life partners, and it would take genuinely surprising turns of events for them to split. Characters at this Affinity Level may freely give each other their own Genre Points, sharing with each other as necessary.
Characters without an Arcana don't gain any benefit from a high Affinity Level other than maybe the occasional blessing and getting a Genre Point every now and then, which they can't use considering they most likely don't have any Powers either.
Example time: Let's say Alice (Chariot) wants to help out Bob (Fool) and they have an Affinity Level of 2. Bob is having a really hard time with planning an anniversary event for his significant other because he has the attention span of a gnat, but he feels a really intense love even if he is terrible at committing to other things, and Alice wants to help him out. She can use Providence to help him keep his focus through all this responsible man stuff without messing up, because it fits right within the purview of The Chariot. Alice has two Advantages to her Help Test so Bob will have a much easier time with whatever it is he ends up rolling the dice for. Meanwhile, Charlie (Devil) keeps trying to get suckers to sign a contract with her for power in exchange for their eternal servitude, but they all have Affinity Levels of 0 with her so they don't fall for it. Even if they did, she can't do much for them without any Advantages to the eventual Help Tests, she would need to get closer for Providence to start getting effective.
In Conclusion: No I don't want to get to writing supplements like right now what gave you that idea? Next month, I'll stop beating around the bush and start talking about my future plans.
September 15, 2013
Recycling Old Junk
From the first day the game was out there it changed a lot, and whole lots of individual mechanics got rewritten, merged together, or got entirely lost somewhere along the way. Today is about the last bunch of those, the ones that vanished entirely, or at least the most memorable ones of the bunch. I'll make the token attempt to bring them back here, plus some attempts at content that I've been trying to write in since forever but never felt it was good enough to make the cut. Let's start with some Mecha stuff.
Hidden Power's Missing Family Tree
Once upon a time, there existed the Potential line of Upgrades. It was a series that increased your Attributes after you reached Tension 10, then they got rewritten to work off of Tension 5, then ceased existing entirely. What happened? First off, Attribute changes are overwhelmingly powerful, and because you had to wait for ten whooping turns to get them, they had to be some really good Attribute boosts. They were just fundamentally flawed.
But couldn't they just do some more interesting stuff instead than Attributes? I tried that, and the game was pretty close to having something like this:
Awakened Power v1
Areas: Core
Cost: 5
Effect: Choose two Upgrades or Weapons worth 5 UP each and assign them to any compatible Areas. After Tension increases to 5 you may now use one of said abilities, and after Tension 10 you may use another. You choose which one is enabled when you reach the corresponding Tension bonus.
This doesn't look too bad, does it? Well, it kind of still sucks, because it has to be balanced around something the Player has no real control of: Operation length. Depending on the playstyle of the GM and the size of the group, it is either a guaranteed free 5 points, or a net 5 point loss for most of the combat sequence.
What about using Tension as a resource? Early on there was stuff that increased your Tension specifically (there's still a reference to that possibly happening in the manual, in case I ever want to go back there) but I never had anything that just ate up your Tension as if it were a Limit Break gauge. So what happens when we do that?
Awakened Power v2
Areas: Core
Cost: 5
Effect: Choose any number of Upgrades or Weapons worth a total Cost of 10 UP or less and assign them to any compatible Areas. At the beginning of your Turn you may reduce your Tension by 5 until End of Operation to gain use of said abilities until then. You may not do this if your Tension is under 5.
So why didn't it work? Well, it is almost always a strict downgrade. Odds are a bunch of defensive abilities, utility upgrades, or new weapons won't make it easier to win than a flat bonus of 5 to Accuracy does. And 'fixing' it by having it grant more UP just makes you want to pick Eagle Chassis so you can rack up on free UP, because your Accuracy is already high enough.
Tension-based abilities are neat, and I want more of them, but they have to be very limited in scope to keep them balanced. Anything that boosts your Attributes directly or grants UP is too versatile for its own good.
Speaking of dangerous versatility, Transformation and Expansion Pack had a bastard child that I never quite put out there on the web for that same reason...
Secret Equipment v1
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: Make two ‘sets’ of Upgrades or Weapons worth 10 UP each, and choose one Area to house all abilities within. One set will be usable normally, while the second set will be 'hidden' within this Area and unavailable. You may have the chosen Area purged at the beginning of your Turn, Maiming it and losing a Level of Threshold in the process to enable use of the second set. Once first Maimed, the first set is done for and will not be compatible with abilities that let you use Areas as if they weren’t Maimed.
So what is the problem with it? First, if you have any kind of regenerative ability, this is free points period. Second, even if you use this as intended and the choice has any legitimate tactic to it, the hidden Area is completely immune to Maiming, which last time I checked was what Expansion Pack did, and that one costs 10 UP. I mean, what are you going to do against the hidden area, Double Maim it? Hide the equipment in a completely different Area? Then why isn't it available regularly?
Attempting to fix either of those issues rules placing conditions of what you can do with it would result in a pile of words messy enough to make Combinations blush. As long as there is any way to heal you from the Damage you've dealt to yourself (even if we make the specific Area and Levels unrepairable) this is still free points. And I straight out have no idea how to even handle the thing with the hidden Area being a free Expansion Pack. Let's tackle it like a straight benefit instead because this is not quite working.
Secret Equipment v2
Areas: Core
Cost: 25
Effect: Make two ‘sets’ of Upgrades or Weapons worth 10 UP each. Both sets will be assigned to one of your non-Core Areas, but one of them will only be available after the chosen Area was Maimed. You may have the chosen Area at the beginning of your Turn purged, losing a Level of Threshold in the process. Once first Maimed, the first set is done for and will not be compatible with abilities that let you use Areas as if they weren’t Maimed.
Now we're talking. This one is less susceptible to abuse of various types and is much better balanced, but... There's something else that is wrong, isn't there? Yes, because this already exists. It is pretty much a more complicated, and essentially worse, rewrite of Expansion Pack. Well okay, because it only costs 5 extra UP, it is not strictly worse, it is just generally worse.
Oh well, can't win them all I guess. This is printable, but is complicated and bad enough that it looks like a trap choice when put next to its progenitors. As you can see, this kind of 'midfight powerup' stuff is tough to pull off well. Hidden Power is a tad too strong as a Genre Power, but it has a lot of slack to pick up for all the mechanics that don't exist.
The Big Fish in a Small Pond
Some NPCs used to be stronger than Grunts but weaker than Rivals, being either low-rank named characters or just faceless groups with a pedigree. Fittingly enough, they were called Elites. The problem with Elites is that they were at an odd cross with Grunts, because the existence of the former meant the latter had to be weaker, and that meant balancing Grunts so that they were worth even less than half a PC. And that was really weird to balance.
So I now have decided they don't necessarily need to have their own spot in the ladder. Elites could continue to exist if they are promoted to being up to par with PCs, bringing all the simplicity of Grunts to the power level of Rivals. Like so:
Elite Non-Combatants
Nature: Any. Choose one of Fitness, Intellect or Empathy and another of Awareness, Willpower or Resources. Enhance the chosen Attributes by 5.
Skills: Up to 30 PP worth in Skills
Traits: Up to 30 PP worth in Traits.
Genre: No Genre Points or Themes.
Progression: Choose one of Fitness, Intellect or Empathy and another of Awareness, Willpower or Resources. Increase the chosen Attributes at the end of every Episode Arc by 1.
Elite Combatants
Genre: No Powers.
Archetype: One Boss Archetype.
Chassis: Any. Choose one of Evasion, Threshold or Penetration and another of Accuracy, Armor and Energy. Enhance the chosen Attributes by 5.
Upgrades: Up to 15 UP worth in Upgrades.
Weapons: Up to three Weapons with a Cost of 5 or less.
Progression: Choose one of Evasion, Threshold or Penetration and another of Accuracy, Armor and Energy for each type of Enemy Elite. Increase the chosen Attributes along with Systems at the end of every Episode Arc by 1.
As Mecha these guys have high stats and enough wiggle room to fit in a Boss Weapon or another Boss Archetype, making them pretty good for their complete lack of Genre Powers and slightly weaker Systems than Rivals. Even non-combatants have more than enough PP to burn with Skill training and Equipment, or Miracles and Psychic Power, to be a challenge. These guys are alright for something that got thrown away, let's say their recycling has been successful.
A Genius for Every Field
Another thing that got lost in the shuffle were the various Upgrades that let you Enhance Attributes past the regular mark and granted some kind of ability with it. Removing the limiters is just too strong to exist, as even Modules have proven. The special abilities fared better, getting recycled into Archetypes and being standardized into general rules for the most part, but some just disappeared. The biggest losses here would be Supercharged, which granted a static regeneration of 1 Energy per Round, and the Weapon Specialization line that rewarded you for sticking to one type of the four.
Now this here might be a shocker, but originally I was going to have all Mecha regenerate Energy naturally like with Supercharged. The reason I didn't was that I found out it made you want to bleed the most out of your Energy capacity every Turn, making things repetitive and dragging out fights longer from infinite use of Active Defenses. But after earning more than 40 XP most character builds require some kind of Energy regeneration if they're going to grab any more fun stuff, so the tradeoff wasn't all that good. I might go back to change back that thing, letting everyone restore 1 Energy each Round for free, we'll see.
Weapon Specializations got split up into being basic Keyword Abilities, the Weapon-based Genre Powers, and there's a Melee/Everyone else split with The Beast and Artillery Mode. These do encourage specialization... Slightly. I tried several things here, starting with the most obvious buff one can give them:
Weapon Specialization v1
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: Choose one type of Weapon when you take this Upgrade. If it is Melee, Ballistic or Missile, then whenever you take an Offensive Action with the chosen type of Weapon you can add all of the excess bonus to your Penetration instead of halving it. If it is Beam, then you gain an Advantage to all your Offensive Actions with Beam Weapons.
I kind of like this one for the sake of simplicity, but it does make all Custom Weapons play very, very much the same. Then again, it could be argued that being different is what Specific Weapons are for, so I remain uncertain. Let's try something more creative and see what happens.
Duelist
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: When using a Melee Weapon in a Duel you may shift the battle one Zone away in a direction of your choice.
Sniper
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: Your Ballistic Weapons increase their Maximum Range by one half of what it normally is after you take the Aim Action with them. If you would lose out on the Advantages from using a Ballistic Weapon because you cannot normally Move, then you don't lose the Advantage.
Blaster
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: When using a Beam Weapon you may do so for half its regular Energy cost, but doing so grants it the Slow ability until used regularly again, or until end of Operation. You may still only have one Slow weapon at a time.
Dogfighter
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: You gain an Advantage to Offensive Actions with Missile Weapons used while you Move.
Creative names, I know. With Duelist you can now effectively control the movement range of your Enemies forever, barring constant Disengaging. With Sniper you strike accurately and from beyond the horizon, specially now that Artillery mode no longer takes away your Advantage. Blaster seems overpowered, but it is only really notable with Weapons that cost 5 Energy and above... And that opens its own can of worms. Dogfighter makes your missiles pretty darn strong if you can keep your Enemies at medium range while you fly about.
These are alright. Ish. They do what they do and that's that. Perhaps the best move would be combining the previous entry with these other four ones to keep it expensive (We're talking at least 15 UP here, possibly 20, maybe more) but make it genuinely rewarding.
Man Against Machine
The game used to have Anti-Mecha Mines as a piece of Equipment you could buy. When detonated they would deal 1d10 Damage to Mecha (which meant more back then than it does now) and murder the crap out of pretty much any people in the Zone. They make sense to want to have around, as they're a common thing to use in fiction against giant robots when you don't have any of your own. But when PCs can buy them, scattering billions of the things all over the place every single time you get the drop on your Enemies gets old fast.
Also, we already have Extreme Terrain to represent them.
So uh... Yeah. I guess I now have material for a sidebar, if not any new Traits proper. Test Resources as if to obtain Equipment at a DN of 20, lay one Zone's worth of a mines. Yep. That's pretty much it.
But there's another Trait I can still make, one that I've been avoiding forever, simply because every time I pull it off I look at it again and realize it should not exist no matter how cool it might be on paper. I think I'll just leave it here so you can see for yourself and I'll and close off for theday week month time being.
Toppler of Titans
Cost: Your heart and soul.
Effect: Increase your Defense against Mecha by 10. When you strike down a Level of Threshold, the Core of a Mecha is an eligible Area for you, disabling them immediately if chosen. You may use Deathblows against Mecha while on foot, and your attacks add together the entire excess bonus from the Combat Test plus your Genre Points as Penetration.
Description: When your enemies see a person with a scarf they run away screaming. They are the prey and you are the hunter.
Hidden Power's Missing Family Tree
Once upon a time, there existed the Potential line of Upgrades. It was a series that increased your Attributes after you reached Tension 10, then they got rewritten to work off of Tension 5, then ceased existing entirely. What happened? First off, Attribute changes are overwhelmingly powerful, and because you had to wait for ten whooping turns to get them, they had to be some really good Attribute boosts. They were just fundamentally flawed.
But couldn't they just do some more interesting stuff instead than Attributes? I tried that, and the game was pretty close to having something like this:
Awakened Power v1
Areas: Core
Cost: 5
Effect: Choose two Upgrades or Weapons worth 5 UP each and assign them to any compatible Areas. After Tension increases to 5 you may now use one of said abilities, and after Tension 10 you may use another. You choose which one is enabled when you reach the corresponding Tension bonus.
This doesn't look too bad, does it? Well, it kind of still sucks, because it has to be balanced around something the Player has no real control of: Operation length. Depending on the playstyle of the GM and the size of the group, it is either a guaranteed free 5 points, or a net 5 point loss for most of the combat sequence.
What about using Tension as a resource? Early on there was stuff that increased your Tension specifically (there's still a reference to that possibly happening in the manual, in case I ever want to go back there) but I never had anything that just ate up your Tension as if it were a Limit Break gauge. So what happens when we do that?
Awakened Power v2
Areas: Core
Cost: 5
Effect: Choose any number of Upgrades or Weapons worth a total Cost of 10 UP or less and assign them to any compatible Areas. At the beginning of your Turn you may reduce your Tension by 5 until End of Operation to gain use of said abilities until then. You may not do this if your Tension is under 5.
So why didn't it work? Well, it is almost always a strict downgrade. Odds are a bunch of defensive abilities, utility upgrades, or new weapons won't make it easier to win than a flat bonus of 5 to Accuracy does. And 'fixing' it by having it grant more UP just makes you want to pick Eagle Chassis so you can rack up on free UP, because your Accuracy is already high enough.
Tension-based abilities are neat, and I want more of them, but they have to be very limited in scope to keep them balanced. Anything that boosts your Attributes directly or grants UP is too versatile for its own good.
Speaking of dangerous versatility, Transformation and Expansion Pack had a bastard child that I never quite put out there on the web for that same reason...
Secret Equipment v1
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: Make two ‘sets’ of Upgrades or Weapons worth 10 UP each, and choose one Area to house all abilities within. One set will be usable normally, while the second set will be 'hidden' within this Area and unavailable. You may have the chosen Area purged at the beginning of your Turn, Maiming it and losing a Level of Threshold in the process to enable use of the second set. Once first Maimed, the first set is done for and will not be compatible with abilities that let you use Areas as if they weren’t Maimed.
So what is the problem with it? First, if you have any kind of regenerative ability, this is free points period. Second, even if you use this as intended and the choice has any legitimate tactic to it, the hidden Area is completely immune to Maiming, which last time I checked was what Expansion Pack did, and that one costs 10 UP. I mean, what are you going to do against the hidden area, Double Maim it? Hide the equipment in a completely different Area? Then why isn't it available regularly?
Attempting to fix either of those issues rules placing conditions of what you can do with it would result in a pile of words messy enough to make Combinations blush. As long as there is any way to heal you from the Damage you've dealt to yourself (even if we make the specific Area and Levels unrepairable) this is still free points. And I straight out have no idea how to even handle the thing with the hidden Area being a free Expansion Pack. Let's tackle it like a straight benefit instead because this is not quite working.
Secret Equipment v2
Areas: Core
Cost: 25
Effect: Make two ‘sets’ of Upgrades or Weapons worth 10 UP each. Both sets will be assigned to one of your non-Core Areas, but one of them will only be available after the chosen Area was Maimed. You may have the chosen Area at the beginning of your Turn purged, losing a Level of Threshold in the process. Once first Maimed, the first set is done for and will not be compatible with abilities that let you use Areas as if they weren’t Maimed.
Now we're talking. This one is less susceptible to abuse of various types and is much better balanced, but... There's something else that is wrong, isn't there? Yes, because this already exists. It is pretty much a more complicated, and essentially worse, rewrite of Expansion Pack. Well okay, because it only costs 5 extra UP, it is not strictly worse, it is just generally worse.
Oh well, can't win them all I guess. This is printable, but is complicated and bad enough that it looks like a trap choice when put next to its progenitors. As you can see, this kind of 'midfight powerup' stuff is tough to pull off well. Hidden Power is a tad too strong as a Genre Power, but it has a lot of slack to pick up for all the mechanics that don't exist.
The Big Fish in a Small Pond
Some NPCs used to be stronger than Grunts but weaker than Rivals, being either low-rank named characters or just faceless groups with a pedigree. Fittingly enough, they were called Elites. The problem with Elites is that they were at an odd cross with Grunts, because the existence of the former meant the latter had to be weaker, and that meant balancing Grunts so that they were worth even less than half a PC. And that was really weird to balance.
So I now have decided they don't necessarily need to have their own spot in the ladder. Elites could continue to exist if they are promoted to being up to par with PCs, bringing all the simplicity of Grunts to the power level of Rivals. Like so:
Elite Non-Combatants
Nature: Any. Choose one of Fitness, Intellect or Empathy and another of Awareness, Willpower or Resources. Enhance the chosen Attributes by 5.
Skills: Up to 30 PP worth in Skills
Traits: Up to 30 PP worth in Traits.
Genre: No Genre Points or Themes.
Progression: Choose one of Fitness, Intellect or Empathy and another of Awareness, Willpower or Resources. Increase the chosen Attributes at the end of every Episode Arc by 1.
Elite Combatants
Genre: No Powers.
Archetype: One Boss Archetype.
Chassis: Any. Choose one of Evasion, Threshold or Penetration and another of Accuracy, Armor and Energy. Enhance the chosen Attributes by 5.
Upgrades: Up to 15 UP worth in Upgrades.
Weapons: Up to three Weapons with a Cost of 5 or less.
Progression: Choose one of Evasion, Threshold or Penetration and another of Accuracy, Armor and Energy for each type of Enemy Elite. Increase the chosen Attributes along with Systems at the end of every Episode Arc by 1.
As Mecha these guys have high stats and enough wiggle room to fit in a Boss Weapon or another Boss Archetype, making them pretty good for their complete lack of Genre Powers and slightly weaker Systems than Rivals. Even non-combatants have more than enough PP to burn with Skill training and Equipment, or Miracles and Psychic Power, to be a challenge. These guys are alright for something that got thrown away, let's say their recycling has been successful.
A Genius for Every Field
Another thing that got lost in the shuffle were the various Upgrades that let you Enhance Attributes past the regular mark and granted some kind of ability with it. Removing the limiters is just too strong to exist, as even Modules have proven. The special abilities fared better, getting recycled into Archetypes and being standardized into general rules for the most part, but some just disappeared. The biggest losses here would be Supercharged, which granted a static regeneration of 1 Energy per Round, and the Weapon Specialization line that rewarded you for sticking to one type of the four.
Now this here might be a shocker, but originally I was going to have all Mecha regenerate Energy naturally like with Supercharged. The reason I didn't was that I found out it made you want to bleed the most out of your Energy capacity every Turn, making things repetitive and dragging out fights longer from infinite use of Active Defenses. But after earning more than 40 XP most character builds require some kind of Energy regeneration if they're going to grab any more fun stuff, so the tradeoff wasn't all that good. I might go back to change back that thing, letting everyone restore 1 Energy each Round for free, we'll see.
Weapon Specializations got split up into being basic Keyword Abilities, the Weapon-based Genre Powers, and there's a Melee/Everyone else split with The Beast and Artillery Mode. These do encourage specialization... Slightly. I tried several things here, starting with the most obvious buff one can give them:
Weapon Specialization v1
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: Choose one type of Weapon when you take this Upgrade. If it is Melee, Ballistic or Missile, then whenever you take an Offensive Action with the chosen type of Weapon you can add all of the excess bonus to your Penetration instead of halving it. If it is Beam, then you gain an Advantage to all your Offensive Actions with Beam Weapons.
I kind of like this one for the sake of simplicity, but it does make all Custom Weapons play very, very much the same. Then again, it could be argued that being different is what Specific Weapons are for, so I remain uncertain. Let's try something more creative and see what happens.
Duelist
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: When using a Melee Weapon in a Duel you may shift the battle one Zone away in a direction of your choice.
Sniper
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: Your Ballistic Weapons increase their Maximum Range by one half of what it normally is after you take the Aim Action with them. If you would lose out on the Advantages from using a Ballistic Weapon because you cannot normally Move, then you don't lose the Advantage.
Blaster
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: When using a Beam Weapon you may do so for half its regular Energy cost, but doing so grants it the Slow ability until used regularly again, or until end of Operation. You may still only have one Slow weapon at a time.
Dogfighter
Areas: Core
Cost: 10
Effect: You gain an Advantage to Offensive Actions with Missile Weapons used while you Move.
Creative names, I know. With Duelist you can now effectively control the movement range of your Enemies forever, barring constant Disengaging. With Sniper you strike accurately and from beyond the horizon, specially now that Artillery mode no longer takes away your Advantage. Blaster seems overpowered, but it is only really notable with Weapons that cost 5 Energy and above... And that opens its own can of worms. Dogfighter makes your missiles pretty darn strong if you can keep your Enemies at medium range while you fly about.
These are alright. Ish. They do what they do and that's that. Perhaps the best move would be combining the previous entry with these other four ones to keep it expensive (We're talking at least 15 UP here, possibly 20, maybe more) but make it genuinely rewarding.
Man Against Machine
The game used to have Anti-Mecha Mines as a piece of Equipment you could buy. When detonated they would deal 1d10 Damage to Mecha (which meant more back then than it does now) and murder the crap out of pretty much any people in the Zone. They make sense to want to have around, as they're a common thing to use in fiction against giant robots when you don't have any of your own. But when PCs can buy them, scattering billions of the things all over the place every single time you get the drop on your Enemies gets old fast.
Also, we already have Extreme Terrain to represent them.
So uh... Yeah. I guess I now have material for a sidebar, if not any new Traits proper. Test Resources as if to obtain Equipment at a DN of 20, lay one Zone's worth of a mines. Yep. That's pretty much it.
But there's another Trait I can still make, one that I've been avoiding forever, simply because every time I pull it off I look at it again and realize it should not exist no matter how cool it might be on paper. I think I'll just leave it here so you can see for yourself and I'll and close off for the
Toppler of Titans
Cost: Your heart and soul.
Effect: Increase your Defense against Mecha by 10. When you strike down a Level of Threshold, the Core of a Mecha is an eligible Area for you, disabling them immediately if chosen. You may use Deathblows against Mecha while on foot, and your attacks add together the entire excess bonus from the Combat Test plus your Genre Points as Penetration.
Description: When your enemies see a person with a scarf they run away screaming. They are the prey and you are the hunter.
August 25, 2013
The Insanity Game
Mecha and Roleplaying Games both love action scenes. Rare is the piece of fiction belonging to either that doesn't involve the bad guy (or girl, or monster, or giant robot) getting beat up for the big climax of the story... Or any time they need to make an antagonist feel threatening at all.
That said, sometimes it is more about threatening the character's mental stability instead of physically hurting them. Characters get more and more messed up in the head with the passage of time, even those that are invincible on the battlefield.
GGG had a system for handling that in the past. It was exactly the same as the system for physical combat, for simplicity's sake, and wasn't all that good as a consequence. I think it is about time that gets fixed, but there's a few things that need to be kept in mind:
Turning elements of mental trauma into a game is never realistic, because what makes things fun in fiction often makes them very different from how they are in real life. This gets more complicated in a game about flashy action scenes, larger than life characters, and kicking reason to the curb in the name of coolness.The existing rules do handle things like being paralyzed with fear, running away from something horrifying, or similar consequences. It works off the usual Plot Armor rules and is meant to be a different way to knock someone out or defeat them momentarily.
However, Insanity is at its best when it is not just part of your Hit Points, because the fun part of roleplaying games with elements of insanity added in are its lasting consequences and long term damage. Another complication is that it is also one of those aspects of roleplaying where less is more, the more rules you attach to different types of mental illnesses, the more that you risk detracting from roleplaying them in favor of arbitrarily punishing a character. We have to work on the assumption that roleplaying a character's breakdown is fun (Otherwise why would you play a game where that is supposed to happen?) and enable that.
All of this is a gross oversimplification, and each of the previous paragraphs could stand to be expanded upon (or explained better, really) but it does serve as an introduction to the meat of this post.
Mental Damage and Plot Armor
Trauma takes its toll on the human soul, tragic things happen, and you are forced to readjust your beliefs and way of life in the face of things greater than yourself. The human mind and body are indeed fragile, specially when there are things out there that cannot be understood with human logic and want to destroy everything you care about. PCs are heroes, they can face the worst the world has to offer and hold themselves together as long as they are victorious. But when they falter and their shells crack, something does get to them, leaving a permanent scar.
Any time a character is defeated as a consequence of Plot Armor Damage, they accrue one Insanity Rank per Layer lost this way. This is most common as a consequence of physical violence, but it will also happen if you just see something horrific happen to someone else, as well as when something clearly supernatural takes place. Indeed, a game of GGG intending to make use of these rules should make Willpower Tests to not take Plot Armor Damage from being witness to traumatizing things more common.
Insanity Ranks go from 1 to 10, measuring just how well you are holding up from what you've been through... Or rather, how you aren't. An Insanity Rank of 1 leaves you just a tad more unhinged than you used to be, but at Rank 10 you have more issues than Time Magazine. Along the way, you pick up Trauma Traits at Insanity Ranks 3, 5, 7 and 10. After Rank 10 the character has seen way too much and been powerless too many times. At the Players' choice the character can either become an NPC because they're too far gone, or can be institutionalized until they've had enough Therapy to go back to 10 Insanity or under.
You can pick your Trauma Traits from an example list, or come up with your own variants as long as it is clearly explained how they would come into play. A Trauma Trait is not purchased with PP, you just get them as a consequence of having Insanity Ranks. They are like a combination of Features and Genre Banes in that they each have a positive and negative side to them. The positive side is that they will give you more Genre Points, while the negative side is that you don't control just how and when they make you go crazy, the GM does.
Once per Episode per Trauma Trait you possess, the GM may force the Trauma's effects on you, and you can choose to either submit or fight it out. If you submit your character must roleplay the Trauma Trait as appropriate, but you gain a Genre Point out of it. If you fight then you must make a Contested Test of Willpower against the GM Testing your Insanity, should you win then you compose and maintain control of yourself for the time being... But should the GM win, you lose control of yourself to the Trauma Trait and play it out without gaining any Genre Points for it.
Therapy can mitigate this ticking clock of doom. Therapy Tests are made through the Diplomacy Skill, and remove one Insanity Rank from the patient for each multiple of 5 met by the result. A Character may benefit from only one Therapy Test per Episode Arc, however, and going below the Insanity Ranks required to earn Trauma Traits will remove them. Trauma Traits lost this way may come back the moment the character earns enough Insanity Ranks again, or may instead be replaced with new ones.
A Character may start higher up in the Insanity Rank scale than 0 if they want to, giving them the appropriate number of Trauma Traits.
Insanity Rank Descriptions
Rank 0-2: You can be a little on edge or obsessive at times, and perhaps the coffee of your life needs a spoon or two more of sugar, but you're fairly normal.
Rank 3-4: You're not crazy. You're just anxious and get nervous in situations most people don't, and sometimes you wonder if things make too little or too much sense. But you're not crazy and will repeat it as long as you need to.
Rank 5-6: You can mask it if you try hard enough, but anyone who knows you personally should be able to tell that you've got issues. Maybe you know you're crazy, maybe you don't, but it is getting hard to hell.
Rank 7-9: Legitimately unaware of what is and isn't real anymore, you're an inch away from hurting yourself and others.
Rank 10+: Tethering on the edge of reason if not completely gone already, you're likely living a nightmare in waking life. Suicide looks pretty good.
Traumatic Experience Difficulty Numbers
DN 5 - Facing an alien monster for the first time, Watching someone else being tortured in front of your eyes, Spending days in jail.
DN 10 - Watching someone die victim to violent psychic powers, Seeing years of hard work being lost in minutes, Spending days in solitary confinement.
DN 15 - Watching a monster take on human form, Losing your family in a tragic accident, Being deeply betrayed or lied to by a loved one.
DN 20 - Being tortured for days, Having a loved one die in your arms after you failed to save them, Killing another human being and eating their corpse to survive.
Example Trauma Traits
Terror - You are always under distress and feeling vulnerable, at times you experience sudden panic attacks no matter how calm the circumstances may logically be. Episodes can last from minutes to hours, with their consequences ranging from being paralyzed to a deeply uncomfortable nausea.
Flashbacks - When exposed to something that reminds you of a traumatic event, memories force their way to the forefront and you are in danger of reliving it. When this happens everything feels exactly like it did back then, physically and emotionally.
Depression - You feel tired and sour, you likely also have problems eating or sleeping to make it worse. This can get bad enough to hold you back from doing things that are really important, either because you don't feel like you can do it or you feel it is not worth it.
Blackouts - The character is prone to entering a fugue state and losing control of themselves for days at a time, ignoring everyone else and just idly hanging about until they wake up. They will snap back to reality if threatened or directly engaged, but this can make it impossible to get things done during downtime.
Megalomania - You are full of yourself these days, often acting with recklessness and arrogance with little to no provocation. As if that weren't enough, your hyperactivity and lack of concentration make you go seek out ways to get in trouble.
Hallucinations - You see things that aren't real, but even when you can tell the difference, imaginary fire still burns and the screams of imaginary people still keep you awake. At some point they will get you, and you will do something really bad while believing them to be real.
Antisocial - You have gotten violent, either out of hate or anger at everything and everyone. You could even be alternating between the calculated violation of the rights of others and flipping out in rage the next if it is bad enough.
Dependence - You cling to something or someone else to get through bad times, deferring to them whenever possible. Maybe you just ask another PC for what to do about every little thing, or perhaps you flip coins obsessively when it comes to yes/no questions, but you certainly don't trust your own judgement.
Delusions - You have your own explanation to make more sense of this nonsensical world. These range from flat denial of whatever happened to outright blaming everything on the inhabitants of fairyland.
Addiction - You're holding together thanks to taking in various chemicals in unhealthy doses and at irregular intervals. Alcohol, drugs and medication all change your mood in different ways, but the real problem comes from your desperation when you start to feel the withdrawal.
In Closing
The above is just a way to use the typical elements of insanity that could make for a suitable adaptation to an action-centric game. More complicated and detailed depictions of mental illnesses, like a character suddenly beginning to suffer from amnesia or multiple personality disorder would complicate things too much to represent in a satisfying way. Not to mention it would be something of a buzzkiller as far as character development goes.
Mechanically, Trauma Traits are a slightly more hands-on approach to Genre Themes, retaining an element of rewarding Players for roleplaying in ways that are interesting if not exactly beneficial to the Characters themselves. Because they are meant to represent something that is outside of the control of the PCs, the GM is the one who brings them out to center stage. Their influence can be resisted, sure, but the threat of your PC losing themselves to their disorders remains, and that makes getting a reward for roleplaying them more enticing.
This is one of many ways in which Genre Themes can be rewritten into more interesting mechanics depending on the setting. They're the most malleable rule in the game, so this is not the last modification you'll see. Next time will be about Mecha Upgrades that once were part of the game but no longer do or were pretty close but didn't make it for whichever reason.
That said, sometimes it is more about threatening the character's mental stability instead of physically hurting them. Characters get more and more messed up in the head with the passage of time, even those that are invincible on the battlefield.
GGG had a system for handling that in the past. It was exactly the same as the system for physical combat, for simplicity's sake, and wasn't all that good as a consequence. I think it is about time that gets fixed, but there's a few things that need to be kept in mind:
Turning elements of mental trauma into a game is never realistic, because what makes things fun in fiction often makes them very different from how they are in real life. This gets more complicated in a game about flashy action scenes, larger than life characters, and kicking reason to the curb in the name of coolness.The existing rules do handle things like being paralyzed with fear, running away from something horrifying, or similar consequences. It works off the usual Plot Armor rules and is meant to be a different way to knock someone out or defeat them momentarily.
However, Insanity is at its best when it is not just part of your Hit Points, because the fun part of roleplaying games with elements of insanity added in are its lasting consequences and long term damage. Another complication is that it is also one of those aspects of roleplaying where less is more, the more rules you attach to different types of mental illnesses, the more that you risk detracting from roleplaying them in favor of arbitrarily punishing a character. We have to work on the assumption that roleplaying a character's breakdown is fun (Otherwise why would you play a game where that is supposed to happen?) and enable that.
All of this is a gross oversimplification, and each of the previous paragraphs could stand to be expanded upon (or explained better, really) but it does serve as an introduction to the meat of this post.
Mental Damage and Plot Armor
Trauma takes its toll on the human soul, tragic things happen, and you are forced to readjust your beliefs and way of life in the face of things greater than yourself. The human mind and body are indeed fragile, specially when there are things out there that cannot be understood with human logic and want to destroy everything you care about. PCs are heroes, they can face the worst the world has to offer and hold themselves together as long as they are victorious. But when they falter and their shells crack, something does get to them, leaving a permanent scar.
Any time a character is defeated as a consequence of Plot Armor Damage, they accrue one Insanity Rank per Layer lost this way. This is most common as a consequence of physical violence, but it will also happen if you just see something horrific happen to someone else, as well as when something clearly supernatural takes place. Indeed, a game of GGG intending to make use of these rules should make Willpower Tests to not take Plot Armor Damage from being witness to traumatizing things more common.
Insanity Ranks go from 1 to 10, measuring just how well you are holding up from what you've been through... Or rather, how you aren't. An Insanity Rank of 1 leaves you just a tad more unhinged than you used to be, but at Rank 10 you have more issues than Time Magazine. Along the way, you pick up Trauma Traits at Insanity Ranks 3, 5, 7 and 10. After Rank 10 the character has seen way too much and been powerless too many times. At the Players' choice the character can either become an NPC because they're too far gone, or can be institutionalized until they've had enough Therapy to go back to 10 Insanity or under.
You can pick your Trauma Traits from an example list, or come up with your own variants as long as it is clearly explained how they would come into play. A Trauma Trait is not purchased with PP, you just get them as a consequence of having Insanity Ranks. They are like a combination of Features and Genre Banes in that they each have a positive and negative side to them. The positive side is that they will give you more Genre Points, while the negative side is that you don't control just how and when they make you go crazy, the GM does.
Once per Episode per Trauma Trait you possess, the GM may force the Trauma's effects on you, and you can choose to either submit or fight it out. If you submit your character must roleplay the Trauma Trait as appropriate, but you gain a Genre Point out of it. If you fight then you must make a Contested Test of Willpower against the GM Testing your Insanity, should you win then you compose and maintain control of yourself for the time being... But should the GM win, you lose control of yourself to the Trauma Trait and play it out without gaining any Genre Points for it.
Therapy can mitigate this ticking clock of doom. Therapy Tests are made through the Diplomacy Skill, and remove one Insanity Rank from the patient for each multiple of 5 met by the result. A Character may benefit from only one Therapy Test per Episode Arc, however, and going below the Insanity Ranks required to earn Trauma Traits will remove them. Trauma Traits lost this way may come back the moment the character earns enough Insanity Ranks again, or may instead be replaced with new ones.
A Character may start higher up in the Insanity Rank scale than 0 if they want to, giving them the appropriate number of Trauma Traits.
Insanity Rank Descriptions
Rank 0-2: You can be a little on edge or obsessive at times, and perhaps the coffee of your life needs a spoon or two more of sugar, but you're fairly normal.
Rank 3-4: You're not crazy. You're just anxious and get nervous in situations most people don't, and sometimes you wonder if things make too little or too much sense. But you're not crazy and will repeat it as long as you need to.
Rank 5-6: You can mask it if you try hard enough, but anyone who knows you personally should be able to tell that you've got issues. Maybe you know you're crazy, maybe you don't, but it is getting hard to hell.
Rank 7-9: Legitimately unaware of what is and isn't real anymore, you're an inch away from hurting yourself and others.
Rank 10+: Tethering on the edge of reason if not completely gone already, you're likely living a nightmare in waking life. Suicide looks pretty good.
Traumatic Experience Difficulty Numbers
DN 5 - Facing an alien monster for the first time, Watching someone else being tortured in front of your eyes, Spending days in jail.
DN 10 - Watching someone die victim to violent psychic powers, Seeing years of hard work being lost in minutes, Spending days in solitary confinement.
DN 15 - Watching a monster take on human form, Losing your family in a tragic accident, Being deeply betrayed or lied to by a loved one.
DN 20 - Being tortured for days, Having a loved one die in your arms after you failed to save them, Killing another human being and eating their corpse to survive.
Example Trauma Traits
Terror - You are always under distress and feeling vulnerable, at times you experience sudden panic attacks no matter how calm the circumstances may logically be. Episodes can last from minutes to hours, with their consequences ranging from being paralyzed to a deeply uncomfortable nausea.
Flashbacks - When exposed to something that reminds you of a traumatic event, memories force their way to the forefront and you are in danger of reliving it. When this happens everything feels exactly like it did back then, physically and emotionally.
Depression - You feel tired and sour, you likely also have problems eating or sleeping to make it worse. This can get bad enough to hold you back from doing things that are really important, either because you don't feel like you can do it or you feel it is not worth it.
Blackouts - The character is prone to entering a fugue state and losing control of themselves for days at a time, ignoring everyone else and just idly hanging about until they wake up. They will snap back to reality if threatened or directly engaged, but this can make it impossible to get things done during downtime.
Megalomania - You are full of yourself these days, often acting with recklessness and arrogance with little to no provocation. As if that weren't enough, your hyperactivity and lack of concentration make you go seek out ways to get in trouble.
Hallucinations - You see things that aren't real, but even when you can tell the difference, imaginary fire still burns and the screams of imaginary people still keep you awake. At some point they will get you, and you will do something really bad while believing them to be real.
Antisocial - You have gotten violent, either out of hate or anger at everything and everyone. You could even be alternating between the calculated violation of the rights of others and flipping out in rage the next if it is bad enough.
Dependence - You cling to something or someone else to get through bad times, deferring to them whenever possible. Maybe you just ask another PC for what to do about every little thing, or perhaps you flip coins obsessively when it comes to yes/no questions, but you certainly don't trust your own judgement.
Delusions - You have your own explanation to make more sense of this nonsensical world. These range from flat denial of whatever happened to outright blaming everything on the inhabitants of fairyland.
Addiction - You're holding together thanks to taking in various chemicals in unhealthy doses and at irregular intervals. Alcohol, drugs and medication all change your mood in different ways, but the real problem comes from your desperation when you start to feel the withdrawal.
In Closing
The above is just a way to use the typical elements of insanity that could make for a suitable adaptation to an action-centric game. More complicated and detailed depictions of mental illnesses, like a character suddenly beginning to suffer from amnesia or multiple personality disorder would complicate things too much to represent in a satisfying way. Not to mention it would be something of a buzzkiller as far as character development goes.
Mechanically, Trauma Traits are a slightly more hands-on approach to Genre Themes, retaining an element of rewarding Players for roleplaying in ways that are interesting if not exactly beneficial to the Characters themselves. Because they are meant to represent something that is outside of the control of the PCs, the GM is the one who brings them out to center stage. Their influence can be resisted, sure, but the threat of your PC losing themselves to their disorders remains, and that makes getting a reward for roleplaying them more enticing.
This is one of many ways in which Genre Themes can be rewritten into more interesting mechanics depending on the setting. They're the most malleable rule in the game, so this is not the last modification you'll see. Next time will be about Mecha Upgrades that once were part of the game but no longer do or were pretty close but didn't make it for whichever reason.
July 28, 2013
Reining NPC Forces In
Gonna make a few posts about some supplementary material that will, maybe, get its own manual down the line. The first content of this type I want to bring up is not specifically about PCs, or even about enemies. It is about support NPCs, and it called the Reinforcements system.
What are Reinforcements?
Reinforcements represent helping hands that are completely separate from your own Mecha, and thus different from Subpilots. Reinforcements can come in the form of sidekicks not directly under your command, bridge bunnies sending you crucial new information in the middle of a battle, or regular armed forces without their own Mecha contributing in their own way.
For instance, most of the GaoGaiGar cast can be represented through Reinforcements. They can't defeat the enemies entirely on their own, but they have a myriad of support abilities like the Eraser Head or the Melting Siren to make GaoGaiGar's fight easier. But Soushi Minashiro from Fafner in the Azure, who shares a mental link with the other pilots and guides them in battle from the base, is also a good example of Reinforcements.
Reinforcements are ranked from one to ten representing just how strong they are as a whole, as follows:
1-2 Insignificant: Lacking in power and versatility, these Reinforcements are better than nothing and can come useful every now and then, but aren't anything to write home about.
3-4 Elite Mook: The Reinforcements are strong enough to make the difference between otherwise matched opponents, and are equivalent to an Enemy Grunt in power.
5-6 Friendly Rival: As the equivalent of facing another full-blown Rival NPC, these Reinforcements make great companions out there in the front lines.
7-8 Mentor: The Reinforcements are powerful and have a deadly variety in what they can do, making them genuinely fearsome and the equivalent of having another Boss Enemy on the battlefield.
9-10 Deus Ex Machina: The Reinforcements are overwhelmingly powerful and victory is all but assured to the Squad that benefits from them.
How do Reinforcements work?
Reinforcements are NOT regular NPCs, they are simpler to work with and more useful to the Squad as a whole, for a variety of reasons. Let's see how, specifically.
First, they are a group resource represented by a single Squad Reinforcement Unit. This represents all of their sidekicks and allies at the same time - If there are multiple members to a Reinforcement Unit, they'll have to take turns sharing the narrative spotlight.
Second, the Reinforcement Unit has its own Initiative always set at 10, during which it may use any of its abilities. A Reinforcement Unit may use one ability during its Turn, and it may only use a total number of abilities equal to its Rank per Operation. The group should decide as a whole what they request the Reinforcement Unit to do.
Beyond Rank 5, Reinforcements exceed Rivals in power (and as such are likely at least a group of Rivals) they may use two abilities in one turn. A Rank 6 Reinforcement can use 2 abilities on turns one, two, and three, but it will have spent all of them by then. It may not, however, use the same ability twice per Turn.
Third, a single Reinforcement ability can be repeated any number of times (unless otherwise noted) for as long as the Reinforcement Unit’s Ranks allow, repeatable abilities are interchangeable this way as far as the number of uses they have go.
Lastly, a Reinforcement Unit has no other discernible battlefield presence outside of their own abilities. They cannot be attacked or disabled, but they also cannot win on their own and if the rest of the PC Squad is defeated, so are they.
A Rank 4 Reinforcement can use its abilities four times, and has four abilities. It can use each ability once, or use two abilities twice, and so on. Note that Reinforcements do not need to use an ability every Turn, they can just pass a Turn.
What can Reinforcements do?
There are ten Reinforcement abilities, Reinforcement Units have a number of these (of their choice) according to their Rank. A Rank 10 Reinforcement Unit has all 10 abilities.
Airstrike: All Units within a target area the size of a Blast suffer an amount of Damage equal to half the current Tension.
Assisted Targetting: One Ally gains the benefits of the Aim Action to their next Offensive Action this round.
Flash Analysis: One Enemy’s complete rules are revealed to the Squad. If they need an update afterwards on their status, they will need to use this ability again.
Pathfinder: One Ally may Move an additional Zone as part of their next Action, ignoring the effects of Difficult Terrain while doing so.
Remote Hotfix: One Ally may ignore the effects of Maiming on all of their Areas for a Round.
Electromagnetic Detonator: One Enemy may not restore Threshold by any means for a Round. Use this ability once per Operation.
Fight On!: Restore one Ally's Threshold by 5. Use this ability once per Operation.
Fire at Will: One Enemy suffers the effects of Extreme Terrain (in addition to any other Terrain properties) during their next Turn. Use this ability once per Operation.
IFF Hacking: One Enemy loses the benefits of Tension to Offensive Actions for a Round. Use this ability once per Operation.
Supply Drop: An area the size of a Blast becomes Base Terrain (in addition to any other Terrain properties) for the rest of the Operation. Use this ability once per Operation.
What is the best way to use Reinforcements?
Their primary use is to represent NPCs without the GM having to stat them out and take Actions in their stead. This becomes more important for weaker, sidekick-esque characters, who usually are left to do as they please constantly getting extra attacks in or explode violently the moment anyone looks at them funny and are completely useless. This system adds a middle ground to that.
It becomes a lot more useful when you're trying to represent that the PCs have some serious firepower backing them up. I am talking about having fleets of grunts behind them, which would be a nightmare to handle if we were trying to give 100 planes/tanks/robots turns of their own.
A small fleet of spaceships can get by with Airstrike, Fire at Will, and Assisted Targetting as a Rank 3 Reinforcement to have a small but noticeable impact. A Repair & Resupply support dropship can use Assisted Targetting, Flash Analysis, Remote Hotfix, Electromagnetic Detonator, Fight On! and Supply Drop to shape and affect the battlefield about as much effectiveness as one of the PCs.
High-Ranking Reinforcements make for perfect 'here comes the cavalry' moments for those times when the PCs could use a helping hand. They are pretty simple to make up rules for (Decide how powerful the Reinforcements are, think of a handful of abilities that are like Genre Powers and make sense for the Reinforcements in question, done). A final note to make is that, if you choose to customize their abilities, they shouldn't be much stronger than a Genre Power, and they should be more interesting than 'Deal Damage to one Enemy', Reinforcements are at their best when they support the characters, not when they steal their kills. If you are going to make abilities like that anyway (like Fire at Will), make them usable once per Operation.
That's about it for Reinforcements. There is not that much else to explain, since they're just something that the GM may decree necessary or not and is more or less up to them... At least until Reinforcements become purchasable with UP. Next time, it'll be about the return of Mental Plot Armor rules.
What are Reinforcements?
Reinforcements represent helping hands that are completely separate from your own Mecha, and thus different from Subpilots. Reinforcements can come in the form of sidekicks not directly under your command, bridge bunnies sending you crucial new information in the middle of a battle, or regular armed forces without their own Mecha contributing in their own way.
For instance, most of the GaoGaiGar cast can be represented through Reinforcements. They can't defeat the enemies entirely on their own, but they have a myriad of support abilities like the Eraser Head or the Melting Siren to make GaoGaiGar's fight easier. But Soushi Minashiro from Fafner in the Azure, who shares a mental link with the other pilots and guides them in battle from the base, is also a good example of Reinforcements.
Reinforcements are ranked from one to ten representing just how strong they are as a whole, as follows:
1-2 Insignificant: Lacking in power and versatility, these Reinforcements are better than nothing and can come useful every now and then, but aren't anything to write home about.
3-4 Elite Mook: The Reinforcements are strong enough to make the difference between otherwise matched opponents, and are equivalent to an Enemy Grunt in power.
5-6 Friendly Rival: As the equivalent of facing another full-blown Rival NPC, these Reinforcements make great companions out there in the front lines.
7-8 Mentor: The Reinforcements are powerful and have a deadly variety in what they can do, making them genuinely fearsome and the equivalent of having another Boss Enemy on the battlefield.
9-10 Deus Ex Machina: The Reinforcements are overwhelmingly powerful and victory is all but assured to the Squad that benefits from them.
How do Reinforcements work?
Reinforcements are NOT regular NPCs, they are simpler to work with and more useful to the Squad as a whole, for a variety of reasons. Let's see how, specifically.
First, they are a group resource represented by a single Squad Reinforcement Unit. This represents all of their sidekicks and allies at the same time - If there are multiple members to a Reinforcement Unit, they'll have to take turns sharing the narrative spotlight.
Second, the Reinforcement Unit has its own Initiative always set at 10, during which it may use any of its abilities. A Reinforcement Unit may use one ability during its Turn, and it may only use a total number of abilities equal to its Rank per Operation. The group should decide as a whole what they request the Reinforcement Unit to do.
Beyond Rank 5, Reinforcements exceed Rivals in power (and as such are likely at least a group of Rivals) they may use two abilities in one turn. A Rank 6 Reinforcement can use 2 abilities on turns one, two, and three, but it will have spent all of them by then. It may not, however, use the same ability twice per Turn.
Third, a single Reinforcement ability can be repeated any number of times (unless otherwise noted) for as long as the Reinforcement Unit’s Ranks allow, repeatable abilities are interchangeable this way as far as the number of uses they have go.
Lastly, a Reinforcement Unit has no other discernible battlefield presence outside of their own abilities. They cannot be attacked or disabled, but they also cannot win on their own and if the rest of the PC Squad is defeated, so are they.
A Rank 4 Reinforcement can use its abilities four times, and has four abilities. It can use each ability once, or use two abilities twice, and so on. Note that Reinforcements do not need to use an ability every Turn, they can just pass a Turn.
What can Reinforcements do?
There are ten Reinforcement abilities, Reinforcement Units have a number of these (of their choice) according to their Rank. A Rank 10 Reinforcement Unit has all 10 abilities.
Airstrike: All Units within a target area the size of a Blast suffer an amount of Damage equal to half the current Tension.
Assisted Targetting: One Ally gains the benefits of the Aim Action to their next Offensive Action this round.
Flash Analysis: One Enemy’s complete rules are revealed to the Squad. If they need an update afterwards on their status, they will need to use this ability again.
Pathfinder: One Ally may Move an additional Zone as part of their next Action, ignoring the effects of Difficult Terrain while doing so.
Remote Hotfix: One Ally may ignore the effects of Maiming on all of their Areas for a Round.
Electromagnetic Detonator: One Enemy may not restore Threshold by any means for a Round. Use this ability once per Operation.
Fight On!: Restore one Ally's Threshold by 5. Use this ability once per Operation.
Fire at Will: One Enemy suffers the effects of Extreme Terrain (in addition to any other Terrain properties) during their next Turn. Use this ability once per Operation.
IFF Hacking: One Enemy loses the benefits of Tension to Offensive Actions for a Round. Use this ability once per Operation.
Supply Drop: An area the size of a Blast becomes Base Terrain (in addition to any other Terrain properties) for the rest of the Operation. Use this ability once per Operation.
What is the best way to use Reinforcements?
Their primary use is to represent NPCs without the GM having to stat them out and take Actions in their stead. This becomes more important for weaker, sidekick-esque characters, who usually are left to do as they please constantly getting extra attacks in or explode violently the moment anyone looks at them funny and are completely useless. This system adds a middle ground to that.
It becomes a lot more useful when you're trying to represent that the PCs have some serious firepower backing them up. I am talking about having fleets of grunts behind them, which would be a nightmare to handle if we were trying to give 100 planes/tanks/robots turns of their own.
A small fleet of spaceships can get by with Airstrike, Fire at Will, and Assisted Targetting as a Rank 3 Reinforcement to have a small but noticeable impact. A Repair & Resupply support dropship can use Assisted Targetting, Flash Analysis, Remote Hotfix, Electromagnetic Detonator, Fight On! and Supply Drop to shape and affect the battlefield about as much effectiveness as one of the PCs.
High-Ranking Reinforcements make for perfect 'here comes the cavalry' moments for those times when the PCs could use a helping hand. They are pretty simple to make up rules for (Decide how powerful the Reinforcements are, think of a handful of abilities that are like Genre Powers and make sense for the Reinforcements in question, done). A final note to make is that, if you choose to customize their abilities, they shouldn't be much stronger than a Genre Power, and they should be more interesting than 'Deal Damage to one Enemy', Reinforcements are at their best when they support the characters, not when they steal their kills. If you are going to make abilities like that anyway (like Fire at Will), make them usable once per Operation.
That's about it for Reinforcements. There is not that much else to explain, since they're just something that the GM may decree necessary or not and is more or less up to them... At least until Reinforcements become purchasable with UP. Next time, it'll be about the return of Mental Plot Armor rules.
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