Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

[Endovior]

...yes, like I said, it's only different in that you're using the +/-d6 mechanics, instead of 3d6 +/-mods.

[Vebyast]

...yes, like I said, it's only different in that you're using the +/-d6 mechanics, instead of 3d6 +/-mods.

Adding a +1 to a 3d6 is the same as removing a -1, but adding penalty dice != removing bonus dice. It's dissimilar enough that it should be noted.

[Endovior]

...yes, and I did note it. The dice mechanic is different, but the basic essence of 'core skills add bonuses, specialization removes penalties' is the same. I noted it shorthand as +/-d6 instead of explicitly describing the system where you roll bonus dice and count up net hits and roll penalty dice and subtract net faults, because that's already been well-described and analysed in this thread already, and I figured anyone who had gotten this far would know it all already.

You, apparently, don't, and for some reason feel the need to be pedantic when I use a shorthand to refer to something that everyone in this thread already knows. For future reference, don't do that, it's not helpful.

[DrPraetor]

Perhaps every skill in the game comes with maneuvers/perks?

I suggest, one such perk for each skill point after the first?

This also enables us to deal with other junk-drawer type competencies, such as languages (which are available as a perk for several different skills - Research and Expression at the minimum) and encourages people to have specializations even-more, because you can have a free one if you don't want any of the other perks.

Some perks:
Specialization (Any Skill): You can always select a Specialization for any skill, instead of any other perk or if no other perks are listed for the skill.

Take Down (Combat or Stealth): This perk enables you to bid the maneuver of the same name without suffering the two penalty dice. A Take Down will knock an opponent unconscious if you inflict any damage at all. If you use a lethal weapon (such as a knife or a gun), your opponent will also be bleeding out.

Flying Kick (Athletics): This perk enables you to bid the maneuver of the same name, which negates two of the penalty dice that otherwise accrue when you try to engage a distant, armed opponent in unarmed combat.

Flawless Balance (Athletics): This perk cancels up to three penalty dice that otherwise accrue to many tests due to being off-balance, forced to stand on one foot, or if you are on a slippery surface of some kind.

Drift Race (Drive): When calculating the penalty dice that accrue to your Driving checks due to high speed, reduce your actual acceleration by 2 steps. Basically, this enables you to drive over rough terrain or in tight spaces without slowing down.

Living Language (Expression or Research): Speak an additional living language; you are literate in the new language if you are literate at all (players are literate unless otherwise noted).

For chapters on background, we need chapters on Languages (Frank has a cool one with Lolcat and such but I'm not sure we can use any of that), and on Literacy (I assume that in the dystopic future, what with the breakdown of society, most of the population is functionally illiterate). Also a section on criminal activities within the security apparatus/officialdom, inside jobs etc. - presumably the players will want to make heavy use of their social skills to encourage more of this behavior. For that matter, we also need (possibly the same?) chapter on bigotry and cronyism.

Languages of the World, 2070.
¡No, no somos federales... somos criminales!"

Angels of our worse nature: using other people to get what you want
I believe that bigotry should be confronted at the source: me! Whether swapping racist jokes over scotches on the green at a humans-only country club, or making degrading and suggestive comments to the scantily clad women serving on my yacht, I embody the kind of old-boy-network cronyism and casual elitism that sustains economic injustice today, and will keep it alive into the next generation.

Ah! I get it, and that makes sense... that way, even a miss from a rocket-propelled grenade could still inflict damage, from the splash radius and such, while more precise attacks still need the skill success in order to work properly.

Pretty much. A hand-to-hand specialist is going to likely bounce off of people he fails to take-down, while someone with a flame thrower or machine gun could easily injure or kill even if the attack was a flub.

So here's the outline of a maneuver:

The maneuver has a minimum number of hits to go off. When you're in a Challenge Test, that's easy. You don't declare a maneuver that has a higher difficulty than your bid, because that would be stupid. When you're making an unopposed attack, the maneuver difficulty is essentially taking a voluntary challenge bid in order to buy the effect if it succeeds. In this way a "called shot" is in fact more likely to miss (because the maneuver difficulty is higher than the base of zero), but the called shot does not perversely do less damage or anything (because your hits don't actually go away).

Then the maneuver, having "succeeded" has a threshold that the target has to make on their resistance roll to save vs. suck (or save vs death as the case may be). The attacker's Style adds to the save threshold.

Here's the question though: how do people want to acquire maneuvers? At this point, I think RPGs have really tried every single possible way to give out combat maneuvers:

• oWoD Vampire Style: All the combat maneuvers are on one big list and everyone can use any of them whenever they want.
• Champions 4 Style: There is a short list of combat maneuvers that anyone can use whenever they want and a much longer list of maneuvers you can buy access to one at a time.
• SR3 Style: each Martial Art has a list of maneuvers associated with it, and as you buy into the martial art you can make selections out of that list.
• D&D 3E Style: The list of combat maneuvers is open to everyone, but you can buy "improvements" to individual combat maneuvers that make them better in your hands.
• nWoD Style: Martial Arts are packages of maneuvers, and when you buy up a martial art you collect those maneuver options in order.
• SR4 Style: Martial Arts are packages of maneuvers, and when you tag a martial art you get the whole list of maneuver options.

I think that about covers it.

-Username17

[Username17]

Perhaps every skill in the game comes with maneuvers/perks?

Every type of Challenge Test should have its accompanying maneuvers. So there are Electronic Warfare maneuevers, Spellcasting maneuvers, Chase maneuvers, Oratory maneuvers, and so on.

What that means is that there really isn't a 1:1 correspondence between maneuvers and skills. Because spells have a different skill assignment depending on what path the user is on. So Maneuver selection happens when you raise skills, and you can select maneuvers from one of the related Challenge types. So being good at Athletics can get you more maneuvers that you can use in chases, even when you happen to be driving. Which encourages people to be The Transporter rather than a fat dude who happens to be really good at driving.

It's also an interesting nerf to people who grab spellcasting that is based on ninja skills - because their spellcasting maneuvers are coming right out of the same pool as their combat maneuvers. You might actually rather have your magic come out of broccoli farming.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

So...

Drift Racer (Drive): In a chase (yes, regardless of vehicle or even on foot), this enables you to bid the maneuver Drive In Tight Quarters without taking extra penalty dice for high acceleration. The relevant obstacles (curving, narrow or crowded streets for a car; an asteroid field for a spaceship, etc.) must be present, so if you are pursued you may need to bid Change of Venue first.

[Username17]

Yeah, the idea is definitely that training in different areas gets you access to maneuvers that you can use in challenges even when you aren't doing the thing the training was literally for. Like in Ranma or something. A number of maneuvers can be essentially reprinted for different challenge tests. The "Take Down" maneuver, where you need a relatively high bid to get it off and if you win the challenge your target needs a number of hits (increased by Style) to avoid getting taken out of the fight, has pretty clear parallels in electronic warfare (where it is called "Crash") and chasing (where it is called "Hamstring") and so on.

But some have maneuvers that others do not have. For example, channeling and electronic warfare have "Astral Storm" and "Jamming" respectively. It's a maneuver where you have no penalty for taking on any number of opponents, but you also have to oppose every single other person trying to channel or hack (respectively). So if you do that, no one on your team can channel or hack unless they overbid you. I don't think there's really a combat maneuver that is substantively similar.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

Or in Pirate Island, in which you win fencing matches by picking up more witty reparte.

My only concern with this is that it will tend to produce bizarrely perturbed characters (like, every front-line fighter has Survival 4 because that's what gets you the "Endurance of the Mountains" maneuver.)

Still - jimmied up properly, that would be okay, especially since in After Sundown and it's derivatives (which presumably this will be,) Survival means *either* that you are very good at surviving in the wilderness or that you are streetwise, and "tough guy" characters will almost always be one or the other.

Further suggestion on magic marks -
There's a strong desire to have magicians cast buff spells on people, or their weapons or equipment, especially when fighting an evil sorcerer or demon. Making demons not-sword-proof is a classical function of good wizards, after all. We should handle this with Arcane Marks - there are a number of spells which enable you to spend your magic phase action assisting everyone you've marked (or who is carrying a piece of equipment you've marked) in some way. They still have to cover you in combat, but this would mean (for example), that the commando strike force shows up with magical girl Rin, because she's put her arcane mark on all of them and thus they benefit from her Haste and Demon Slaying.

[RadiantPhoenix]

this would mean (for example), that the commando strike force shows up with magical girl Rin, because she's put her arcane mark on all of them and thus they benefit from her Haste and Demon Slaying.

As opposed to because she's also a highly trained martial artist and knows how to use the magic sword that uses alternate universes to shoot giant energy beams?

[Username17]

Further suggestion on magic marks -
There's a strong desire to have magicians cast buff spells on people, or their weapons or equipment, especially when fighting an evil sorcerer or demon. Making demons not-sword-proof is a classical function of good wizards, after all. We should handle this with Arcane Marks - there are a number of spells which enable you to spend your magic phase action assisting everyone you've marked (or who is carrying a piece of equipment you've marked) in some way. They still have to cover you in combat, but this would mean (for example), that the commando strike force shows up with magical girl Rin, because she's put her arcane mark on all of them and thus they benefit from her Haste and Demon Slaying.

I'm really reticent to make demons sword-proof in the first place. While it is certainly genre classic for just about every version of future/modern fantasy (as well as archaic fantasy), it cycles back into "Fighters Can't Have Nice Things" all too easily. Summoning is a magical skill, and if you need magical skills in order to defeat the things it calls up, it rather puts a limit on what people can accomplish by not being Magic.

Now, it is entirely possible to reconcile the needs of people who don't have summoning to be viable with the desire to have demons that are immune to normal weapons. And that is done primarily by having "non normal" weaponry be something that non-summoners can guaranty for themselves. If a commando player character can definitely have whatever funky weapons are needed in order to hurt demons, then demons can enjoy relative or even complete immunity to run of the mill mooks and have that be OK from a game balance perspective.

The issue then, is what can be done to make weaponry that is sufficiently special feeling as to make its use in demon hunting "feel cool" while still being available enough to player characters that everyone doesn't feel like they have to be constantly sucking caster phallus in order to get by in life. And I think the answer frankly is special materials. It's been done, but it's been done because it works.

Just off the top of my head, I would like people to talk about their special silver weaponry and I would like people to talk about their special depleted uranium weaponry. So if there were enemies that were harmed by one and enemies that were harmed by the other, that would work. It would also explain why a single rent-a-cop was essentially useless against a werewolf or a demon - because the bullets they needed to get those jobs done are more expensive and they don't have them.

So you've got the various virus monsters (vampires, pannagalons, werewolves, etc.) and they all go down to silver. So I guess that means we are dealing with the vampires from Blade, which is fine by me. And then you have actual Outsiders, and they bite it to radiation. Of course, lasers are extra special and cut through both, making the combat laser be the kind of special weapon that enforcers want to get.

-Username17

[kzt]

DU and silver would be fine, but DU isn't that radioactive. You shouldn't eat DU, but it isn't because of the radiation. The fact that it's highly toxic heavy metal that is also pyrophoric (requiring a class D fire extinguisher to extinguish) is what makes it nasty, much more than the radiation. It's long lifetime alpha emitter that is also extremely dense and makes a great armor perpetrator.

[Vebyast]

I like DU and Silver being our two special materials. Both are relatively expensive, would be ridiculously hard to produce in the post-apocalypse (silver is done by either electrolysis or by dissolving silver in zinc and then boiling off the zinc, and DU is, well, uranium), and work pretty well as weapons (silver being traditional, DU is actually a weapon). DU also has this nifty reason it makes great bullets - it's self-sharpening. The harder the armor it hits, the better it goes through it.

Note that we also need to work outsiders into the vehicle triangle. If I recall correctly, we decided that warjars beat outsiders. Warjars are armed with melee weapons and cannons, and striders are armed with lasers and missiles.

[Whipstitch]

As an alternative you could go with a paradigm in which it's actually easiest to kill demons with tangible objects but that magic users like exorcists and demon hunting traditions can use warding maneuvers that give them a finer degree of control in the Really Abstract Locations mini-game than other characters would enjoy. That'd probably encourage dedicated exorcists and demon hunters to learn more traditional ass-kicking than other magicians or to partner up with a martially oriented character but I don't necessarily consider that a bad thing.

[Username17]

Rules of Engagement
“Once the bullets start flying, it's best to make sure some of them are flying away from you.”

During conflicts, whether they are physical combats or not, the first thing to do is to determine who is in a challenge test with whom. Often this is obvious: if two people are pointing guns at each other or sitting at a table arguing about contracts, you can kind of assume that they are in a challenge test together. But when there is a swirling melee with dozens of participants, it is very likely that the battlefield will be divided into more than one concurrent challenges with different participants. As there will very likely not be unanimous agreement as to who belongs together in a challenge, Asymmetric Threat has a formal system for determining it called Engaging opponents. "Opponents" need not be people, they might be computer systems, guard dogs, or vehicles, to name a few possibilities.

Players go around the table, engaging one or more opponents. NPCs should be assigned some table position before engagement starts being declared. Choice of engagement can go to the left or the right around the table, it's not important. But the chair where these declarations begin should be randomly generated. Everyone rolling a die and the highest roll choosing first is a good method, but you could also draw cards or roll dice and count around the table. That's not a normal test, that's simply picking one person at random to start declaring engagement and then going around the table. Once declarations have gone all the way around the table, that's the end of it. People who are left unengaged can do other stuff.

When it is a character's turn to declare engagements, they can choose to pass, and not engage anyone at all. They can also choose to engage a single opponent, or a group of opponents, provided that they are aware of and can threaten every potential opponent. When engagement is declared, the character also declares what kind of challenge they are engaging in. If a character chooses to engage more than one enemy at a time, their Challenge tests will suffer an extra penalty die for each extra target engaged (equipment and abilities exist that can situationally reduce or remove those penalties). If a character has already been engaged by one or more opponents, they must either accept a penalty die (in both challenge tests) for each opponent they are already engaged by, or declare their new engagement with suspended priority. There is no penalty for joining an already extant challenge, but the character must engage everyone in the challenge on every other side to do so.

• Example: Henrietta is in trouble ‒ there's an armed soldier who wants to shoot her in the face and she doesn't have a gun, just a friend with a gun. During the engagements, Henrietta engages in fast talk, engaging the soldier in a social challenge test. The soldier is having none of this and engages Henrietta in a combat challenge test instead. But she is providing a distraction by holding up her hands and trying to talk him out of it ‒ the soldier is saddled with an extra penalty die during the combat test. Her friend then joins the combat challenge by engaging the soldier. First the combat challenge will be decided with Henrietta and her ally being on the same side against the penalized soldier. If both Henrietta and the soldier are still alive after that challenge is resolved, the lower priority social challenge will happen normally.

[Endovior]

Could probably use a mechanic behind the engagement order that's a bit more involved then 'the order the players are sitting around the table', especially since the NPCs aren't actually at the table, and assuming that they are and remembering who's sitting where is at least as complicated as rolling for initiative.

[Lokathor]

If you're going to just go around the table, the NPCs need to always be sitting where the person who controls them is sitting. The MC's foes, the drones of a player, whatever; They get controlled on the turn of their owner.

[Stahlseele]

This does get problematic in combat though, because that would lead to half of the team going, then ALL of the enemies going, then the rest of the team going . .
Or am i misunderstanding something here?

[DrPraetor]

This does get problematic in combat though, because that would lead to half of the team going, then ALL of the enemies going, then the rest of the team going . .
Or am i misunderstanding something here?

You don't actually "go", you just say with-whom you are fighting, and then you all engage at once, and all the actions are resolved at once. So when you "go" you are just saying, "I am going to fight that guy this turn", and then once everyone decides who they are fighting all the fights resolve simultaneously. This is good.

That said, I still think that we should have an initiative system to determine in-which-order people decide on-whom to engage. If you win initiative you can choose who to engage, and other people have to bid an interrupt or something in order to stop you.

So if I have initiative, I can shoot the mage in the face. The street samurai then has to bid some special maneuver or something in order to keep the mage *out* of that combat challenge. On the other hand, if the street samurai has initiative, he can just engage me and now we're engaged. Then, I have to bid something special in order to try and *include* the mage in that combat challenge.

[Username17]

The problem with determining initiative is that it is one more thing to have to do every round. Initiative slows games down a lot, and I would like to not do it.

Anyway, how do people like this for basic challenge priority:

Fighting
Network
Order
Ritual
Delayed

Does that seem easy to remember?

And how about these for basic stats:

Fitness
Nefariousness
Observation
Resourcefulness
Discipline

-Username17

[Lokathor]

Why not just do initiative once at the start of the encounter? DnD-style and all.

The stat list looks good, but what's the difference between Order actions and Ritual actions?

[Red_Rob]

The clunky stat and action names are not worth the cute Fnord joke. Nefariousness and Order stand out the worst.

Also, the Henrietta example makes it seem like talking someone out of shooting you is not possible, as your social test will always be lower priority than their combat test. Is this intentional?

[Vebyast]

Not just a cute fnord joke. I didn't even notice the joke; I just saw clear-cut and immediately obvious relations between stats and actions. It is instantly obvious that Fighting uses the Fitness stat most of the time.

It is true that the names reach a bit to get fnord, but you should definitely keep the first-letter lineup.

[Vebyast]

It looks like the engagements system might lend itself well to play-by-post, now that I think about it. Just have every player discuss and submit their engagements asynchronously, then resolution proceeds when the last person submits. Would it be worth messing with the system to make that easier or adding a sidebar discussing play-by-post?

[Username17]

Also, the Henrietta example makes it seem like talking someone out of shooting you is not possible, as your social test will always be lower priority than their combat test. Is this intentional?

You can accept Delayed Priority in order to avoid getting penalized for declaring an engagement. So a shooter can accept a penalty die for shooting someone trying to talk to them, or they can wait for the person to try to talk them down and then shoot them without penalty.

Similarly, if there is a situation where you have a general or something, you can wait for orders and get whatever bonus they are trying to provide during the Order Priority. You go off at the Delayed Priority with whatever bonus you get. Alternately, you can just do your own thing and go off at the beginning with Fighting Priority by ignoring your orders.

-Username17

[Grek]

So, bumping this to make a sketch of how I think the hacking minigame should work:

For hacking, here's the list of things we want hackers/computer specialists to be able to do:
-Datamine and research information about a target.
-Display this info in a tactically relevant way that gives other people bonuses.
-Use an EUE key to hack into networked hardware and make it do things.
-Use an EUE key to hack into drones you brought and make them do things.
-Use an EUE key to alter/delete already existing data.
-Use an EUE key to "prove" that you're someone you may not actually be.
-Use a Quantum Computer to hack EUE signals and steal the EUE key for a system or person.
-Use a Quantum Computer to transmit very limited but quantumly un-hackable signals.
-Project photo-realistic better-in-some-ways-than-illusions holograms with a hologram projector.
-Basilisk hack things that have a brain to cause epilepsy.
-Basilisk hack things that have a brain to read minds.
-Basilisk hack things that have a brain to insert ideas.
-Run the ECM and ECCM devices that fuck up everyone's people's hardware.
-Hit specific computers with hacking attacks that make them stop working.

Which seems to mandate the following skills: Data Search, Data Manipulation, Electronic Warfare, Hardware & Operations.

Data Search is rolled when:
-Trying to find out a degree of information about a subject. You get info proportional to your hits.
-Trying to find if there are EUE signals going in or out of something.
-Collating information from a box of sensors attached to a building, drone, whatever into something a human can use.
-Providing tac-net updates to your team. Hits give a bonus a set action, glitches give a penalty to everything else.
-Searching your Basilisk library for a hack that works on a target. TN is based on Stress. Your net hits equal base damage for damaging hacks or decrease the base time for other hacks.
-Any other time you're trying to put data into a human-readable format.

Data Manipulation is rolled:
-To erase evidence in the matrix. Hits set the threshold to find the info.
-To spoof identification on the matrix. Hits set the threshold to realize it's a fake ID.
-To alter data, especially audio-video data. Hits set the threshold to realize it's been altered.
-To make hologram files look realistic. Hits cap the Operations roll to run the hologram.
-Display a Basilisk hack into someone's AR feed if they have one and you have their EUE key.
-Any other time you're trying to fuck with data.

Operations is rolled to:
-Operate a Quantum computer transmit or receive info. Hits increase your information per Q-bit ratio.
-Operate a modded Quantum computer to decrypt EUE signals and get a key. Hits decrease the signal-hours you need to do a decryption, capped by the Hardware roll.
-Operate a hologram projector. Hits set the threshold to realize it's a hologram, capped by the Data Manipulation roll.
-Use a hologram projector, boombox or other device to project a Basilisk hack. Hits are capped by the Hardware roll.
-Any other time you're trying to make a device do what it was built or modded to do.

Hardware is rolled when:
-Modding a legit Quantum Computer to be able to decrypt EUE signals. Hits cap the Operations roll for quantum decryptions.
-Modding a hologram projector, boombox or other device to stop flitering out Basilisks. Hits cap the Operations roll for the projector on Basilisk hacks.
-Modding a drone or low-grade AI to ignore programming re: not killing humans.
-Modding a piece of equipment to work as a Jammer. Hits cap your Electronic Warfare Roll.
-Modding a gun to shoot in automatic despite it having a thing that stops that from happening.
-Setting off the fire alarm, sprinklers, door lock, etc. despite there not being a button that does that.
-Any other time you're trying to alter a device to work in a way it's been designed no to.
*Note: You can get modded equipment for money through contacts. Hardware is the skill to make your own on the fly without a paper trail.

Electronic Warfare is rolled when:
-Operating a Jammer. Net hits increase the TN to use Operations and add a Operations check to make the equipment for Data Search/Manip work. Capped by Hardware.
-Jammer-proofing a location, person or piece of equipment. Hits set the TN to jam it successfully.
-Setting up your equipment (and only your equipment) to bypass a Jammer.
-Sending DoS attacks, computer viruses and other nasty computer-wrecking code to people. Net hits increase the time to repair it.
-Setting up a firewall. Hits set the TN to bypass the firewall and wreck the computer.
-Anything else that involves attacking or defending a computer's continued ability to run without crashing.