So why are there Classes?

Has it already been a month? Man, time flies. Anyway stuff is happening, though like I said there won't be any updates for a bit.

One thing that might seem odd about the system is that despite being generic and point-buy there's actual character classes (or character class-like things) in the form of Natures. They're not as restrictive as proper classes, like a Barbarian or a Wizard, tend to be but they have a similar effect. The other choices that are only possible during character creation (Archetypes, Chassis, and to a much lesser extent Traits) all have some kind of rule, or ruling, to let you change them or take more of them - Gears can be changed and the acquisition of Traits can always be justified one way or another, but your Nature is a permanent thing that more or less shapes your entire character in and out of the battlefield.

Like everything, this has its pros and its cons. Natures are a template you can customize to your liking, but they're still a template that you have to play with. And if you want someone who is a great fighter but even better with people then none of the choices seem to fit like a glove: You are going to have to use some of your starting points to up Attributes a little. And you better think of what future choices in Genre Powers you want down the line too! The Prodigy is all about endurance and versatility while the Coordinator is all about support, and if you're the leader type you want the Professional.

At the individual PC level this isn't too bad, but at the party level it doesn't work so well. Two characters with the same Nature will step on each other's toes a little, enough that they will have to focus on entirely different extremes of the archetype to be completely different. Three of the same nature makes it impossible. Now granted, this should be obvious and is not really the fault of the system for the most part, but different games focus on different types of scenes. If you know your game will be heavy on the physical action out of the robots, why should you have to choose a Nature that isn't very good at roughing up bad guys just to have different Powers?

On the other hand, it gives you a mechanical focus, and mechanical focus means you will be good at something. Genre Powers can afford to be pretty damn strong because of this, without risking complete imbalance since everyone is good at a couple different things. Which means it is that much harder to end up by mistake with a character that is bad and not actually fun to play. That and having a guide to help you conceptualize a character is very useful, specially when you're starting out and you're trying to absorb all the rules at once. Making your first PC, or making the first enemies if you're the GM, is tough. That's why there's so many pages of fluff and premade content, to show how these rules can be used in different ways.

But there has to be a way to get the good without the bad, right? I mean it sure would be cool to have multiple Designs such as having both health and energy regeneration, or to mix up a Coordinator's supporting with a Professionals' leadership Powers... Without having to water them down to make sure no single character is overpowered. Well, kinda sorta. Designs can just be a thing you buy with UP, much like normal upgrades but without being a thing that can be enhanced. Chassis types along with the bonuses from Natures could let you shuffle their numbers around. What about Genre Powers? Well, what if instead of being tied to natures you were to instead divide them into thematic packages? One for being speedy, another for being tanky, another for keeping your friends alive, another for weakening multiple enemies, and so on and so on. You choose a couple of said packages starting out, and cherrypick powers from them as the game goes on, with the chance to switch out packages later.

The end result of doing away with these pseudoclasses would be a much more customizable game, without being TOO open ended or easily abused.

Slowing Down a Little

Another small update this month. In fact this is the smallest update as of yet, and unless I've broken the game without realizing it, should be the last one for a while.

Get v1.32 at Mediafire 

Or via 4shared 

General Changes:
-After six months I think I'm finally done hunting down typos, images that go over the borders, and other similar issues.
Character Creation:
-Nothing!
Mecha Construction:
-A number of Ranges didn't make sense since the addition of the Range 0 rule. Additionally, a few Ranges didn't make sense on their own. Weapon Ranges in general were touched up a bit.
-Extending Punch costs an extra point of Energy.
-Radiant Fist is Reliable once more (why the heck did I take that out?) and both attack stats scale to Tension now.
-Heavy Machinegun no longer must Recharge but it now 'jams' after an Accuracy roll of 1 and it cannot be used until your next Turn.
-Linear Missile no longer suffers a Disadvantage to the Accuracy Test.
-Interference Barrage is now One-Shot but will inflict IFF Failure even on a miss.
Playing the Game:
-Nothing!
Running the Show:
-Debilitate will inflict IFF Failure in place of Chain Reaction now.

So now that I think there isn't much left to improve without any major alterations to the system, what I will be working on instead is the integration of the various major changes I've been discussing. I'm not sure when that beta will be ready but probably not next month. Nor the one after that, if you catch my drift.

Since it is going to be a very different version, it will probably be less like an update and more like a new edition, but the idea is that it will do everything (or nearly everything) the current game can while also being faster and simpler. Since I'm not throwing the current game by the wayside or anything, any really important and strictly better changes can be implemented to it, too, for anyone who doesn't like the future edition.

I will probably post chunks of it as it comes together here, so stay tuned.

Making the GM's Life Easier

Down to the core of my design philosophy is that a game has to be simple to understand and easy to run. It is often said that a good group can make playing with nearly any system, no matter how much of a trainwreck it is, a total blast as an experience.

And this is basically the truth. It does not matter whether your game is deep and meaningful or realistic and detailed, it does not matter if your prose is beautiful and the fluff is inspiring. At the end of the day if your rules are incomprehensible and only cause arguments or get in the GM's way then chances are they will throw away the book and just do whatever. While I have been in games without any houserules, I have yet to play or run in a game that does not alter significantly a prewritten setting, so that goes double for fluff in my experience.

I value simplicity and elegance in design very highly, but while PCs can afford to get more fiddly and complex with the stuff they can do (because they have one character and one mecha to worry about) the GM has to juggle about all the NPCs with the plot with arbitrating the results of the (often conflicting) PCs actions with giving solid descriptions of absolutely everything with knowing the rules better than everyone else at the table.

Rules meant for GM use should be the simplest of the bunch, not just because they need speed of play and preptime on their side, but because if they need complexity they can ad-hoc whatever they damn want anyway. Coming up with specific gimmicky rules is easy, coming up with the solid everyday ones not so much, and the designer's job is to provide the latter. The inherent danger to simplifying anything is that it potentially makes it blander and more boring to play with, but when executed properly the streamlining is very much worth it.

With that in mind, we go into today's topic proper: Enemy Generation. Currently Enemies function as either weakened or buffed up PCs, but are made in the same time-consuming fashion. While there is a certain charm to this, only Rivals and Elites are anywhere remotely near the same as PCs in feel and functionality, so Mooks and Bosses could stand to be both simpler and more unique, having special rules for their perks.

Such as this!

Mooks

Mooks are supposed to come in droves and be painfully weak, so they should be the simplest of the bunch and the GM should not have to check on their sheets much beyond how their Energy and Threshold are faring.

Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Mooks do not suffer Area Cost Restrictions. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 1 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 5 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements
Weapons: Two Cost 5 or less Weapons, they may not have drawbacks.
Special:
    Quantity - Mooks come in squads of four. They are immune to Maiming and instead every level of Threshold downed is a kill. This has no special rules effect.
    Quality - Mooks do not benefit from Tension.

Elites

Elites are stronger units that may count as a miniboss early on, but will be quickly outdone by the PCs later. They are perfect for representing recurring enemies that aren't quite an enemy ace yet remain distinct from the rank and file.

Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 1 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements
Weapons: 10 Points in Weapons.

Rivals

Rivals are the undying baddies that always come back stronger than before, they are meant to mirror the PCs and continue to be built exactly as them.

Bosses

A Boss is a big bad whom you should only meet once, when you or they make a last stand where it is kill or be killed. Bosses are supposed to be rare and take longer to beat than most foes, so they need to shake up their strategies and tactics a bit throughout the course of the fight to ensure it does not drag on, they could also use some additional endurance and juice to make sure they get to display all their cool powers - without going into the classic HP inflation problem where everything is a roadblock instead of being legitimately threatening.

Designs: 1
Mechanics: Choose a Chassis Type as normal. Bosses do not suffer Area Cost Restrictions. Enhance each Base Mechanic by 2 per Episode Arc cleared.
Upgrades: 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements (Except those from Exceptional Aptitudes).
Weapons: 10 Points in Weapons.
Special:
    Multiple Stages - Per Episode Arc cleared choose either 1 Design, up to 10 Points in Upgrades or Enhancements, or up to 10 Points of Weapons and assign them to the Nominal, Superficial, Critical and Lethal Threshold Levels as you wish. Said Designs, Upgrades and Weapons are only available while the Boss is in the corresponding Threshold Level. Bosses are immune to Maiming.
    EN Charge - May spend an Action to turn half the Damage taken into Energy (rounding up) for a Round.

To make the battle more dynamic they integrate a variant of what are now known as the Gygravagnite Charge and Multiple Stages Aberrant Upgrades. Naturally, they cannot pack either of those Upgrades in addition to this. The idea is, you've got a common 'build' for your boss that is shared across all stages of the battle but as they're more worn down they have to resort to backup tactics and systems. This means that PCs can't rest on their laurels even when they've begun to win, and the battle has a degree of unpredictability to the very end.

Note how they no longer get Genre Powers. Those would be entirely the Domain of Rivals. I'm still not too sure about that last one, hell I'm not really sure about a lot of this in general (Bosses might be a bit weak now, even if their base stats are great) but I think that this is conceptually in the ballpark of what I'm going to do.

Pilot Skill and Mecha Efficiency

Before today's post proper I want to point out a cool thing that other people have made. Earlier this month I thought "What would it be like if you add cool cinematic stuff like Tension and Duels to a game like D&D?" and set out to write a terrible fantasy heartbreaker as a thought experiment. Turns out it was unnecessary, because such a game is already on its way. If you like Sword and Sorcery and are tired of ancient relics of game design, check out 13th Age!

Now for today's topic proper. Of the many things I'd like to change the one I have the least idea on how to do so is in making PC stats relevant during Operations. Originally, this was the job of Genre Points, but being almost entirely a meta mechanic it does not seem to be conceptually accepted.

A brief aside:

One of my pet peeves of game design are the so-called "Power Stats" these being Attributes/Ability Scores/Whatever that are obviously much better than others, yet are presented as equal. Nothing makes the already long process of character creation feel longer than the illusion of choice being entirely pointless, because all the options are already chosen for you!

You've probably ran into games in which if you create a PC using the 'social stat' as the highest one, your character will likely suck and you're only going to slow everyone down, so you better change your concept to be good at murdering things first and talking to them second.

The end result of this is that most characters and groups look about the same, and playing a second campaign after your first is repetitive in the worst possible way - the boring "I already did all of this once" one.

That aside done and over with, I want people to be able to take whatever with their PCs and have it at least be relatively around the same power level, which is why things like Offensive Tests only recommend stuff like Combat or Diplomacy instead of tying you down to it, because creative descriptions can let you get away with Athletics and Presence in their stead.

Of course, being so open ended does take away some potential depth from the game as a whole, and if I'm going to be adding a handful of subsystems to handle things like Investigations or Social Combat in a more interesting manner, then I should also consider shaking up this balance that all options have with each other for the sake of making them more fun to play with.

One way to go about this is to use Mecha Archetypes. See, Super Prototypes include motion feedback in their cockpits, Production Models are thought-controlled and rely on skillfully managing their subprograms, and Living Weapons are handled like you would handle a very big and large animal who happens to be a giant robot.

Every character has three stats, too: Fitness, Intellect and Empathy. I think you can see where this is going. The question is how to implement it, because a stray +5 or +7 randomly placed somewhere in the operation combat math can wreck things. The one thing that could use having a fixed number is Initiative, because right now it only uses your Genre, and while sticking it to Initiative makes sense (Mooks and Elites don't have Archetypes, so they still have way lower initiative than the PCs) it is honestly kind of weak, even if Initiative is more important in GGG than in most games because of Tension.

The Archetype route also leaves me wondering what the hell would I do with Base Units. Though then again, those are slightly stronger by default so maybe they don't need the extra boost. Unless I want to add a fourth stat like Willpower or Spirit, but that's crazy talk.

Another Month, Another Update

We've got another simple one this time around. Links here and here.


General Changes:
-More typos fixed, a few things made to sound clearer, certain sample Gears were still illegal after recent changes. 
Character Creation:
-Clarification on how purchasing items works, plus you can now buy up to 10 PP of them per Arc. 
Mecha Construction:
-Clarified that Mental Link gives a singular Action for all of your Remotes.
-Slight buff to Challenger, the Penetration bonus works in all situations.
-More clarifications for Transform, again, yes.
-Added a Range 0¨for Duel-able Weapons, see Playing the Game.
-The Conditions Chain Reaction and Power Down were buffed to work off the Damage Result. All-Out Attack stats lowered in response.
-Extending Punch is no longer a Technique and is more of a reliable long range melee attack now.
-Modified Radiant Fist to be a better finisher move, its Penetration now scales with Tension.
-Buffed Vulcans with +2 Range.
-Ground Zero buffed with modifiable range to better represent its concept.
-Incinerator is now Reliable.
Playing the Game:
-Range 0 is now part of the rules as written. It still works just like it did before, invading another person's Zone makes it easier to hurt you but lets you shoot past them, and weapons that can be used in Duels now have the Range 0 distinction. 
Running the Show:
-Nothing! For once.


My favorites of the bunch are the modifications to Radiant Fist and the Conditions Chain Reaction and Power Down. Now they really hurt, and All-Out Attack can actually represent its original "You are already dead" concept. Radiant Fist deserves special mention, because I think that damage scaling with Tension makes for awesome finisher moves, even if it makes the combat math go bonkers, so I am testing it out by making it part of just this one Weapon and only with Penetration for the time being.

Intermissions as Operations

As a bonus other thing I would like to see modified, I want to add more depth to Intermissions, and hope to make encounters in them as fun as the Operations themselves. That would make it possible to run games in the style of the Giant Robo OVAs or Xenosaga, and let you save up the giant robots for those times when you want to make the robots an occasional thing, to keep them special.

The Intermission system right now is fairly robust, which is to say it can do nearly anything elegantly with a minimum of complications, but suffers from being fairly bland. Skills are like Weapons, but without any of the special effects, and Traits are like Upgrades that cannot be enhanced. Item rules are almost nonexistant, and in fact are simply Traits with a few extra rules attached. I also am being very generous by calling that extra paragraph "rules".

The upside to this is that, as advertised, you don't need to refer to the book a lot to roleplay Intermission scenes. You don't need special rules to research a weapon capable of countering the enemy's latest gimmick, you can just roll an Extended Academics Test and you'll probably find something of value eventually, nor does social combat function any different from normal physical combat at all; You just tell people enough unsavory things until they break down like the bad guys from a series of videogames featuring Ace Attorneys.

There is nothing wrong with this per se, but with all the range of viable choices and tactical depth present in Operations, it is a shame that all you really need to solve any kind of Intermission challenge (whether it is social, investigative, a battle, or of some other kind) is a high stat first, an appropriate skill second, and a trait to help out possibly maybe as a tertiary benefit.

Now, there are limits to how much more complexity I want. As far as items go, I would rather not invoke the common "Inventory minigame" traditional to RPGs, with ridiculously long shopping lists of items half of which are never going to be relevant. Things like that bog down character creation too much in a game where you already need to stat up TWO characters instead of one, so they are going to stay as Traits.

That said, Traits could stand to be more like Upgrades than they are right now, for one they could scale and improve over time, for two they could have more interesting mechanical effects. Most Traits are tied to flavor right now, and they tend to provide an Advantage when that flavor makes them beneficial to you. Keeping in mind that GGG is effects-based and more about cinematics than realism, what Traits need is to be able to cover the kinds of of scenarios that PCs usual face (from diplomancing to treating wounds to hacking databases) problems in a way that is mechanically interesting without being tied to overly-specific fluff.

For example, a common problem with many games in which you are expected to do investigation is that when the PCs fail their rolls to find a clue, the game comes down to a halt until someone figures out a new lead. Many games with investigation as a central theme give people a chance to automatically pass such checks at the cost of some other resource or a limited number of times, in this way they help to keep things moving without necessarily needing a derail of several hours to find another lead.

You can actually do this (or something like it) with the current rules, but by making specific mechanics for investigative Traits we can make them more interesting mechanically than, say, rewriting "Lucky" to apply only to Investigation Skill Tests.

The way Traits would improve like Upgrades is rather self-explanatory, an organization-themed Trait could be powered up to have more retainers the more PP you spend on it, and a style of martial arts will unlock the Secret Succession Technique sure to destroy any who fights you after it is fully enhanced.

We note down the kinds of things that a character could want to do, and make a category of Traits for each. Here's such a list, with a few examples.

-Combat (For people who want their martial artist or sniper to be unique mechanically)
-Healing (Like Support Upgrades, but for characters)
-Movement & Vehicles (Vehicles that can emphasize terrain versatility, combat viability, etc)
-Knowledge & Research (Various ways to get clues from the GM)
-Allies (From having dozens of mooks to a singular ally stronger than you are)

This is only a sample short list, but I hope it gets the point across. I frankly have no idea if this is going to work out, but it could add a lot of fun things to do in the game beyond robots.

Simplifying Combat

The main difference between a lot of mechs in a certain videogame franchise that shall not be named is that some of them dodge out of the way of enemy attacks, while others shrug them off with sheer toughness. By giving characters two sets of defensive stats - both obligatory - and making it so that characters have to balance between both or just choose one as their main defense, we can simulate this feature.

There is a small issue with the distinction between Evasion and Armor, however, which has been bothering me a little bit due to getting in the way of speed and flow of play. It is not an issue with Evasion and Armor per se, though, I am talking about the half-rollover Accuracy-to-Penetration mechanic. Not only the math involved is not elegant, but it also adds opportunities for confusion to arise with the GM. They either need to give you the precise excess bonus or the precise rollover for you to do the rest of the math, or simply tell you to roll and then do the math themselves. By splitting the damage process like this not only does it add waiting time until you get your Damage total (or fail to deal any Damage), it makes Armor that much better than Evasion and Accuracy much better than Penetration by default.

Now this last one isn't quite entirely true, the abilities out there that serve to counter Armor are usually that much better at brutally murdering specialists than the ones that counter Evasion, and there's a few that let you add your entire excess bonus to the Penetration roll to just make them even all the time. In this way, betting with Armor is usually going to pay off better, but when it doesn't then it just plain wrecks you. In theory anyway. In practice it is easier to counter anti-Armor measures as a specialist rather than to survive anti-Evasion enemies as the equivalent. This is for multiple reasons, from the higher survivability granted by a naturally higher Threshold to... well, the fact that if you're naturally sturdy then bouncing back from a fall is easier.

Point is, I'm not entirely happy with the way using Mixed Tests as the default for mecha Offensive Actions works right now. I see a few options to fix this little issue off the top of my head.

Bunch up up Evasion and Armor into a single defense:
-With a single roll you know your Damage and there is no room for miscommunication shenanigans
-It lets people fluff their defenses however the fuck they want, alternating between dodging and tanking is what mecha do in anime after all.
-The abilities that improve your offense or defense are that much more valuable since instead of each having a niche now they always help out.
-Damage is less explosive, since Tension no longer adds 1.5 or 2 points of damage per Round but 1.
-Having a single defensive stat sacrifices a lot of in-built flavor
-We sacrifice depth of gameplay, now there's that much less room for customization offensively and defensively.

Make Evasion the only defense but turn Armor into a damage reduction stat that runs off your Genre, much like Intermission defenses work:
-It is fast. Not as fast as the first, though.
-It gives Accuracy and Penetration clearly distinct functions, with the second one being akin to traditional damage bonuses.
-I'm already considering dumping that element from Intermissions, so there would be no longer anything to mirror after that.
-I really don't want to keep encouraging people to hoard up Genre.

Mixed Tests now roll all the relevant skills die at once and only add up the excess from the two rolls if they both pass:
-Fast, though the slowest of the bunch here.
-It makes Mixed Tests work better during Intermissions as the ridiculously swingy checks they're supposed to be.
-We keep the flavor of having both defenses.
-Ideally we wouldn't have to rebalance existing abilities much afterwards, we could potentially keep them as is, too.
-We lose some depth, though nowhere as much as with the first method.
-We now have two mechanics that are exactly the same by themselves and have lost all distinctive mechanical feel they once had, which is an utterly pointless thing to have outside of a flavor perspective. We can still make counters or enhancers for each work differently to help there, but it bugs me.

That said, we could try out weirder things. We could make different mecha attacks resist using different mecha defenses, in the same way physical/mental/emotional attacks have different defenses - though they would keep a single HP bar. I'm honestly leaning more towards combining the other options, though, as that is kind of wonky in multiple ways.

Mixed Tests could use the fix, but I do think that having a single roll for standard combat stuff is the way to go. At the same time, I don't want to lose the flavor of Evasion and Armor (not entirely, at least) nor the simplicity of unified mechanics (when I start to propose fancy subsystems as fixes, please shoot me), so I'll have to think on this matter for a bit.