I've been thinking about systems that would let you hack everything you can see. Partly inspired by Graverobber's Guide's latest about a cyberpunk dystopia. Here are some Powered by the Apocalypse style rules I'm noodling around with.
It's really easy to make hacking this weird mini-game which takes everyone out of the world, makes 1 player the Special Time Person, etc. I think Shadowrun's move to wireless hacking is maybe a try at getting away from this, but I haven't actually read anything from that setting made after 1992, other than some video game stories. But anyway, that's my idea - everyone can do some kind of Hack Thing, hacking is generally something that you're doing locally; you're co-located rather than isolated. In the world rather than hiding in your basement.
Implied Setting Blurb
Everything is wired and rewired, injected with nanomachine dust, measured, monitored. But some in the lost corners of the world have learned to twist this panopticon against itself.
Some actual moves
HACK
When you hack something connected to the Aether, roll + hacking.
10+: Gain 3 hold
7-9: Gain 1 hold
Spend 1 hold to make the target perform a fairly normal action for a few minutes.
Spend 1 extra hold to make them do so for longer.
Spend 1 extra hold if they're doing something complicated or dangerous.
So for instance, if you want to break into an apartment, you probably can hack the door lock for a few minutes by spending 1 hold, then jam the door open. You also need to spend 1 hold to keep the security system offline for a few minutes. You could drop 1 extra hold for a much longer period of this simple control - you find or create a backdoor into the system.
REDACT
When you reach out to corrupt a large number of electronic recording devices in the area, roll + ghosting
10+ It's seamless, it's like your not even there.
7-9: Pick one.
You're not identifiable, but you're definitely there.
The records are completely fragged, which is a red flag right now for someone.
If that house you broke into was remote or in a poor area, REDACT is probably unnecessary. In a rich area dusted with info pollen? You probably can't hack your way out of being seen and identified unless you emit a shriek of EM and bend all the camera-eyes and recording dust to your will.
REMOTE VIEW
When you dream through the datastreams to glimpse somewhere far away, roll + warp
SABOTAGE?
When you destroy something beyond repair, or make it destroy itself, roll + break
Stats so far: hack, ghost, warp, break.
It's all very tentative and hot-takey. I kind of think the 5th (and final) move should be defy danger and that this is really just a weird hack of World of Dungeons. I wouldn't want to get any more basic moves than that, really. WoD style Danger Rolls are great for picking up slack.
Thursday, March 14, 2019
I believe women
I posted this all over my social media, but it's worth stating here: I believe women. I believe Mandy. Jennifer. Hannah. Vivka. There's no room for abusers in this hobby. In the past I've linked to things Zak has written; not anymore. Other people have written this up and written up the write-ups.
I should've stood up more for others when Zak was charging at them, and did not. It was easier to avoid him, which was pretty much by design. It was easier, but it helped enable him to do what he did. Hopefully in the future I will do better.
(Same with Sean Patrick Fannon, I was really interested in Savage Rifts for a minute. I'm leaving those old pre-gen character posts up, but I'd encourage people to play something else.)
Friday, February 1, 2019
Hail and Kill the Techno Wizard
Salvaging an old G+ post!
Art from here!
The Hounds of Halthrag Keep is the first time I've seen roll under and roll over stat checks - you roll over your Strength to see if you can wedge yourself through a crevice, for instance. I thought this was brilliant (thanks +Noah Stevens !). I wonder if it's possible to have a Black Hack-ish hack where all the stats are explicitly for both rolling under and over.
Stats
-------------------------------
Murderous
Stubborn
Quick
Rational
Charismatic
Murderous is a combat skill, you roll over it if you're trying to blend in with non-adventurers or convince a constable that you're not some wild-eyed murderhobo on a cocaine bender, they went that way, swear on me mum's soul.
Stubborn, you roll over this to assimilate new information that you would normally find odious. New languages, maybe, or to recognize that these orcs aren't trying to kill and eat you. Roll over to understand something that breaks reality, maybe, roll over it to not lose Mental Health Points a la Perdition (out of mental HP, roll on some Mind Melting table).
Quick - roll over this to do something with steady precision. Surgery, lockpicking. For anything where slow is smooth, smooth is fast, I guess. Someone will say 'that's everything' but running needs to be quick.
Rational - roll under for tinkering, making clockwork automatons or the like, debating like a lawyer. Roll over for magic, reasoning with demons, debating from your dumb-ass gut.
Charismatic - oh God I can't get away from the original six stats, I'm a fraud, you knew it all along. Roll under because you can't come up with a better idea than 'I convince the sheriff these aren't stolen banners' (with disadvantage). Roll over to blend into a crowd or hide, or, hell, sneak around in general. Does this overlap with rolling over Quick well I just came up with this stuff. It overlaps with using rational to debate people, but you don't need charisma for debate, especially if you don't care about winning.
With this stuff you probably want some kind of 'WITHSTAND' save stat that you're almost never going to want to roll over (unless you're trying to get mutated in a radiation zone). Or just call it 'Save' and have it be your level plus 2 or the like, and you want to always roll under.
When you level you can probably try to roll over a stat to increase it or roll under.a state to decrease it, your choice. This is that 'improving crappy stats is easier than improving great stats' rule from the Black Hack but you can decrease, say, Rational, if you want to be a better wizard.
-------Monsters--------
Some monsters have a BULK stat they roll under to pick you up and throw you with. They roll over it to get inside a building.
Some animal-intelligence monsters can have an EAT stat. Roll over EAT to stop fighting the PCs and flee when they put up a good fight. Roll under it to eat PCs.
Demons could have stats like CORRUPT to try to seed you with cancerous thoughts or ideas that you have to Stubborn your way through. Or find someone with crap Rational who learned magic good and have them help you.
------Employees-
---
Hirelings could have a FOLLOW stat to roll under to stay true to their recalcitrant, mercurial bosses, or roll over to take their own initiative and do something wonderful for the PCs. (Or to stab 'em in the back!).
I would give hirelings one other stat - SKILL - and they roll under it to do what you hired them for (soldiers fight, trappers find or create traps, etc). Roll over it to do anything else that's risky, probably with a disadvantage so that you don't hire a shitty scribe to be your private assassin / engineer / starship pilot / magus. Or maybe they just can't roll over it for more than 1 thing a session, I dunno, that might be too much to track.
---------Later thoughts---------------
I think these stats are a bit too generic - I need to work on channeling a darker Thundarr vibe. Carcosa-ish. Numenera but scarier.
MURDER
LIE
CRAVEN (run away or hide, roll under. Roll over to face down horror)
OLD TECH (still make tech vs do magic)
CORRUPTED
only thing missing - what do you roll to scavenge? Maybe that's a flat 1-in-6 chance per turn.
Corruption happens to those who wander from (slowly failing, class stratified) settlement. When you fail a corruption roll-over your corruption decreases right then. And you may or may not have to roll on a mutation / corruption table. Some of these effects should be good, some should be neutral (but distinctive), some should be at least somewhat negative. Like you can't use your tentacle hand to wield a weapon for now (needs training from a mutant) but you can use it to grapple like crazy well.
There's overlap so maybe you are using your tentacle hand with MURDER or maybe it's CORRUPTION.
As the awesome Andrew Shields pointed out, this is basically an extension of ideas in Lasers and Feelings. He also urged me to use a die other than d20 for this, which seems reasonable.
The Hounds of Halthrag Keep is the first time I've seen roll under and roll over stat checks - you roll over your Strength to see if you can wedge yourself through a crevice, for instance. I thought this was brilliant (thanks +Noah Stevens !). I wonder if it's possible to have a Black Hack-ish hack where all the stats are explicitly for both rolling under and over.
Stats
-------------------------------
Murderous
Stubborn
Quick
Rational
Charismatic
Murderous is a combat skill, you roll over it if you're trying to blend in with non-adventurers or convince a constable that you're not some wild-eyed murderhobo on a cocaine bender, they went that way, swear on me mum's soul.
Stubborn, you roll over this to assimilate new information that you would normally find odious. New languages, maybe, or to recognize that these orcs aren't trying to kill and eat you. Roll over to understand something that breaks reality, maybe, roll over it to not lose Mental Health Points a la Perdition (out of mental HP, roll on some Mind Melting table).
Quick - roll over this to do something with steady precision. Surgery, lockpicking. For anything where slow is smooth, smooth is fast, I guess. Someone will say 'that's everything' but running needs to be quick.
Rational - roll under for tinkering, making clockwork automatons or the like, debating like a lawyer. Roll over for magic, reasoning with demons, debating from your dumb-ass gut.
Charismatic - oh God I can't get away from the original six stats, I'm a fraud, you knew it all along. Roll under because you can't come up with a better idea than 'I convince the sheriff these aren't stolen banners' (with disadvantage). Roll over to blend into a crowd or hide, or, hell, sneak around in general. Does this overlap with rolling over Quick well I just came up with this stuff. It overlaps with using rational to debate people, but you don't need charisma for debate, especially if you don't care about winning.
With this stuff you probably want some kind of 'WITHSTAND' save stat that you're almost never going to want to roll over (unless you're trying to get mutated in a radiation zone). Or just call it 'Save' and have it be your level plus 2 or the like, and you want to always roll under.
When you level you can probably try to roll over a stat to increase it or roll under.a state to decrease it, your choice. This is that 'improving crappy stats is easier than improving great stats' rule from the Black Hack but you can decrease, say, Rational, if you want to be a better wizard.
-------Monsters--------
Some monsters have a BULK stat they roll under to pick you up and throw you with. They roll over it to get inside a building.
Some animal-intelligence monsters can have an EAT stat. Roll over EAT to stop fighting the PCs and flee when they put up a good fight. Roll under it to eat PCs.
Demons could have stats like CORRUPT to try to seed you with cancerous thoughts or ideas that you have to Stubborn your way through. Or find someone with crap Rational who learned magic good and have them help you.
------Employees-
Hirelings could have a FOLLOW stat to roll under to stay true to their recalcitrant, mercurial bosses, or roll over to take their own initiative and do something wonderful for the PCs. (Or to stab 'em in the back!).
I would give hirelings one other stat - SKILL - and they roll under it to do what you hired them for (soldiers fight, trappers find or create traps, etc). Roll over it to do anything else that's risky, probably with a disadvantage so that you don't hire a shitty scribe to be your private assassin / engineer / starship pilot / magus. Or maybe they just can't roll over it for more than 1 thing a session, I dunno, that might be too much to track.
---------Later thoughts---------------
I think these stats are a bit too generic - I need to work on channeling a darker Thundarr vibe. Carcosa-ish. Numenera but scarier.
MURDER
LIE
CRAVEN (run away or hide, roll under. Roll over to face down horror)
OLD TECH (still make tech vs do magic)
CORRUPTED
only thing missing - what do you roll to scavenge? Maybe that's a flat 1-in-6 chance per turn.
Corruption happens to those who wander from (slowly failing, class stratified) settlement. When you fail a corruption roll-over your corruption decreases right then. And you may or may not have to roll on a mutation / corruption table. Some of these effects should be good, some should be neutral (but distinctive), some should be at least somewhat negative. Like you can't use your tentacle hand to wield a weapon for now (needs training from a mutant) but you can use it to grapple like crazy well.
There's overlap so maybe you are using your tentacle hand with MURDER or maybe it's CORRUPTION.
As the awesome Andrew Shields pointed out, this is basically an extension of ideas in Lasers and Feelings. He also urged me to use a die other than d20 for this, which seems reasonable.
DOOM Oracle, Passages style
I got a decent bit of gonzo post apocalyptic play from my other Passages style Oracle, so here is one for DOOM.
Passages oracles work by rolling on this 3 times to construct a scene, but the Doomslayer wouldn't care for my petty rules and neither should you.
1. Flesh
2. Metal
3. Demon
4. Mortal
5. Distant
6. Close
7. Walls
8. Portal
9. Rage
10. Corporate
11. Military
12. Civilian
13. Blood
14. Sterile
15. Ravaged
16. Untouched
17. Hell
18. Earth
19. Treasure
20. Tear (as in Rip and Tear)
2. Metal
3. Demon
4. Mortal
5. Distant
6. Close
7. Walls
8. Portal
9. Rage
10. Corporate
11. Military
12. Civilian
13. Blood
14. Sterile
15. Ravaged
16. Untouched
17. Hell
18. Earth
19. Treasure
20. Tear (as in Rip and Tear)
Friday, December 14, 2018
d66 Sci-Fi Horror Room Details
Because I've had DOOM, Mothership, Alien, Aliens, Teleglitch, et cetera on the mind lately, and because boring rooms are boring.
ONE
ONE
- Flashing emergency lights
- Hanging chains
- Open electrical ductwork
- Venting steam, 2 meters max visibility
- Storage crates littered about
- Private improvised work/rest area
TWO
- Jury-rigged lighting
- Large AC fans / vents
- Schematics and printouts strewn about
- Sealed capsule, 1000 kg. Contains Plastic Death Tree
- Pitch black
- Super loud
THREE
- Weirdly tiered (about 1 meter difference, good for cover)
- Metal grill over wire / steam pipes / liquid / drop
- Effluent access, pipes
- Broken mainframe materials
- Extra flooring / wall / ceiling covers, some glass
- Stacks of corpses in body bags
FOUR
- 2d6 barrels of unstable fuel
- Artificial park
- Foundry re-flow, open, molten metal
- Demon sigils carved everywhere, humming faintly
- Graffiti'd with rumors
- Emergency computer terminal
FIVE
- Large industrial bags of trash everywhere
- Vaulted ceiling, thick columns
- Large acquariums
- Spare algae farms
- Crates full of flour, (one secretly contains powder-based drugs, worth 30k credits)
- Overgrown with lightvine, 3 meters visibility despite light as it hangs down from ceiling
SIX
- Filled with acrid smoke
- Lots of nooks and crannies, dim
- Bright and very spartan
- Shot up, ceiling panels creaking, falling
- Narrow, twisting like guts
- Loose floor panels
Monday, December 10, 2018
DOOM in an RPG
I wanted to play DOOM as an RPG. (Happy 25th anniversary, DOOM!) There are two things you need: Stay Frosty and Exemplars and Eidolons.
Stay Frosty is an RPG about playing a bunch of Doom Marines or Aliens' Space Marines running around, getting stressed, which makes you more competent until you make an unlucky save and then TENSION EXPLODES and you're murdering everything and ignoring tactics, possibly until you die. It's like if Mothership were about just playing marines and people panic by doing Billy-style last stands from Predator. Remove armor, throw away gun, attack big bad with a giant knife. The reason I don't just use it vanilla, is that the PCs are still fairly flimsy, _especially_ if you want to just run 1 PC against squads of enemies like a Doom Slayer.
To up the PC power level, I use damage, Gifts, and HP/HD from Exemplars and Eidolons.
Exemplars and Eidolons is about playing supernaturally-powerful thieves, wizards, or warriors. Your warrior can take on groups of 1 HD fools and destroy them all, punch through walls, never needs to sleep, that kind of thing. E&E evolved into Godbound, where the PCs are even more over-the-top, but E&E is perfect for what I want to play: solo Doom Slayer vs the first level of that game.
So your PC has 4 stats (Stay Frosty): Brawn, Brains, Dexterity, Willpower. Roll 3d6 and sum. You roll _equal to or over_ your stat: So Brains 9 is like '9+', and you want to roll a 9 or higher. If none of your stats are 5+, set one to 5+. Enemies try to hurt you (or terrify you) by rolling a d20 under your stat, and you subtract the difference between their level and yours from the roll.
Stay Frosty is a Black Hack hack that figured out to make everything the PCs want to do roll over. 20s are good! You use your stats to resolve attacks, unbreaking an APC's engine, wire electricity through a bulkhead, dodge falling rains of fire, that kind of thing.
Tension is as per Stay Frosty - you get tenser and better at kicking ass, until Tension Explodes and you flub your Willpower save and then you're fighting a cyberdemon with a knife. There's also critical hit and critical fail tables in there that I'll use. And enemies, mission generators, pointcrawling advice.
You can carry 21 - Brawn items.
You have 8 HP and gain 4 per level. Monsters use their HD as their HP. Armor is ablative HP that gets ruined and replaced just like in DOOM. Back-and-breast armor has 2 hp, a helmet has 1 hp. You could probably cobble together arm and leg armor and have up to 5 hp - for a 1 HD soldier that's a lot of extra survivability. Perhaps too much, we'll see when I run this more.
Damage is: weapons do 1d6 to 1d20 damage, a roll of 1 is 0 damage, 2-5 is 1 hp/HD of damage, 6-8 is 2 hp/HD, 9+ is 4 hp/HD. A combat knife does 1d6 damage, a pistol does 1d8, as does a 1-handed sword, as do some cheap assault rifles. A good rifle or two-handed weapon does 1d10 or more damage - a chainsaw might do 1d12, as might a super shotgun at optimal range. A BFG does 1d20 damage to an area of enemies but has like 1-2 shots taking up inventory slots.
So the damage is one huge thing that ups a single PC's survivability. You start with 8 hit points, you can take out 1 HD enemies with 1 hit, you can probably go toe-to-toe with a decent-sized demon/alien monster and survive.
You get 2 Effort, from Exemplars and Eidolons. You spend that to use some of your E&E Gifts.
You get some of the Warrior or Generic gifts - 3 at level 1. So you might be able to fight large groups of your-HD-or-less monsters and only get attacked once, or you can rip bulkhead doors down given a few minutes, or you can spend effort for the combat to nat 20 hit your enemy. To me this is another thing that we see the Doom Slayer do all the time.
Stay Frosty is an RPG about playing a bunch of Doom Marines or Aliens' Space Marines running around, getting stressed, which makes you more competent until you make an unlucky save and then TENSION EXPLODES and you're murdering everything and ignoring tactics, possibly until you die. It's like if Mothership were about just playing marines and people panic by doing Billy-style last stands from Predator. Remove armor, throw away gun, attack big bad with a giant knife. The reason I don't just use it vanilla, is that the PCs are still fairly flimsy, _especially_ if you want to just run 1 PC against squads of enemies like a Doom Slayer.
To up the PC power level, I use damage, Gifts, and HP/HD from Exemplars and Eidolons.
Exemplars and Eidolons is about playing supernaturally-powerful thieves, wizards, or warriors. Your warrior can take on groups of 1 HD fools and destroy them all, punch through walls, never needs to sleep, that kind of thing. E&E evolved into Godbound, where the PCs are even more over-the-top, but E&E is perfect for what I want to play: solo Doom Slayer vs the first level of that game.
So your PC has 4 stats (Stay Frosty): Brawn, Brains, Dexterity, Willpower. Roll 3d6 and sum. You roll _equal to or over_ your stat: So Brains 9 is like '9+', and you want to roll a 9 or higher. If none of your stats are 5+, set one to 5+. Enemies try to hurt you (or terrify you) by rolling a d20 under your stat, and you subtract the difference between their level and yours from the roll.
Stay Frosty is a Black Hack hack that figured out to make everything the PCs want to do roll over. 20s are good! You use your stats to resolve attacks, unbreaking an APC's engine, wire electricity through a bulkhead, dodge falling rains of fire, that kind of thing.
Tension is as per Stay Frosty - you get tenser and better at kicking ass, until Tension Explodes and you flub your Willpower save and then you're fighting a cyberdemon with a knife. There's also critical hit and critical fail tables in there that I'll use. And enemies, mission generators, pointcrawling advice.
You have 8 HP and gain 4 per level. Monsters use their HD as their HP. Armor is ablative HP that gets ruined and replaced just like in DOOM. Back-and-breast armor has 2 hp, a helmet has 1 hp. You could probably cobble together arm and leg armor and have up to 5 hp - for a 1 HD soldier that's a lot of extra survivability. Perhaps too much, we'll see when I run this more.
Damage is: weapons do 1d6 to 1d20 damage, a roll of 1 is 0 damage, 2-5 is 1 hp/HD of damage, 6-8 is 2 hp/HD, 9+ is 4 hp/HD. A combat knife does 1d6 damage, a pistol does 1d8, as does a 1-handed sword, as do some cheap assault rifles. A good rifle or two-handed weapon does 1d10 or more damage - a chainsaw might do 1d12, as might a super shotgun at optimal range. A BFG does 1d20 damage to an area of enemies but has like 1-2 shots taking up inventory slots.
So the damage is one huge thing that ups a single PC's survivability. You start with 8 hit points, you can take out 1 HD enemies with 1 hit, you can probably go toe-to-toe with a decent-sized demon/alien monster and survive.
You get 2 Effort, from Exemplars and Eidolons. You spend that to use some of your E&E Gifts.
You get some of the Warrior or Generic gifts - 3 at level 1. So you might be able to fight large groups of your-HD-or-less monsters and only get attacked once, or you can rip bulkhead doors down given a few minutes, or you can spend effort for the combat to nat 20 hit your enemy. To me this is another thing that we see the Doom Slayer do all the time.
Passages of Planet Psychon
Rescuing this from Google+:
Here's a Passage-style oraclular list but for Planet Psychon or Ultra Violet Grasslands or whatever Heavy Metal / Moebius inspired thing you want. Some are from Passage, because it has a great list of words in there.
How To Use This: Roll 3d20 and make up a scene or thing or resolve some action using the Oracular Words! That's about it.
1. Weakness
2. Might
3. PSI
4. Magic
5. Tech
6. Ancient
7. New
8. Crimson
9. Jade
10. Fuchsia
11. Azure
12. Light
13. Shadow
14. Memory
15. Hallucination
16. Walls
17. Portal
18. Discovery
19. Loss
20. Gods
The only thing that really needs explanation is the colors.
CRIMSON: Blood, Chaos, violence, brick, sky, rivers, motion
JADE: Wealth, vegetation, jungle, food, decoration, labyrinthine, complexity
FUCHSIA: Mutation, dust storms, sky, weather, skin, pools
AZURE: Sky, wind, air, starkness, openness, expanse, stillness in motion
Gods can be AI Gods, actual Gods, agents of Gods, false gods...
Memories or Hallucinations can be dreams, dream-quests, desires.
Planet Psychon has a lot of tables for weather, what the hex you're in looks like or sounds like, colors, etc. It's great, it's really vivid. UVG has some similar things going on with its illustrations and descriptions. Google them! They're AWESOME!
Passage is also pretty great. It's here: https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250996/Passage--A-Storytelling-Exploration-Game-for-Exactly-One-Player
Here's a Passage-style oraclular list but for Planet Psychon or Ultra Violet Grasslands or whatever Heavy Metal / Moebius inspired thing you want. Some are from Passage, because it has a great list of words in there.
How To Use This: Roll 3d20 and make up a scene or thing or resolve some action using the Oracular Words! That's about it.
1. Weakness
2. Might
3. PSI
4. Magic
5. Tech
6. Ancient
7. New
8. Crimson
9. Jade
10. Fuchsia
11. Azure
12. Light
13. Shadow
14. Memory
15. Hallucination
16. Walls
17. Portal
18. Discovery
19. Loss
20. Gods
The only thing that really needs explanation is the colors.
CRIMSON: Blood, Chaos, violence, brick, sky, rivers, motion
JADE: Wealth, vegetation, jungle, food, decoration, labyrinthine, complexity
FUCHSIA: Mutation, dust storms, sky, weather, skin, pools
AZURE: Sky, wind, air, starkness, openness, expanse, stillness in motion
Gods can be AI Gods, actual Gods, agents of Gods, false gods...
Memories or Hallucinations can be dreams, dream-quests, desires.
Planet Psychon has a lot of tables for weather, what the hex you're in looks like or sounds like, colors, etc. It's great, it's really vivid. UVG has some similar things going on with its illustrations and descriptions. Google them! They're AWESOME!
Passage is also pretty great. It's here: https://www.rpgnow.com/product/250996/Passage--A-Storytelling-Exploration-Game-for-Exactly-One-Player
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