Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker

[Username17]

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

Data Search is an absolute definite. That is a skill that has obvious and tremendous utility. Want to Google something? Data Search. Have access to a system and want to find incriminating stuff in it? Data Search. What it does during an investigation and a raid is immediately apparent, and apparently useful. It's simple, it's elegant. The Data Search skill is here to stay.

Those other three I'm not sold on. Data Manipulation could plausibly handle hologram functions, but so could Electronic Warfare. When I make a holographic dude am I conducting an Electronic Attack (EW) or am I Fabricating Data (DM)? There's no clear line there, and I don't like it.

Now there's lots of ways you could divide things up. You have the action of ripping someone's key with a quantum computer. That could be put under the umbrella of "Electronic Warfare", or "Signals Intelligence", or more specifically under "Crypto". Then we have the action of Basilisk Hacking someone to have a seizure. That could plausibly be under Electronic Warfare, or Fabrication, or Communications, or Mind Manipulation, or any of a number of other options.

The real issue I think is how much cross specialization we want out of people who take one skill or another. It would be possible to have a single skill that operates all Basilisk Hacks and Seizure Displays while another skill handles all electronic data manipulation. Alternately, it could be divided such that one skill let you handle breaking into data stores regardless of whether they were meat (mind reading) or machine (code breaking), and another skill let you interfere with systems whether they were meat (basilisk seizures) or machine (jamming/viruses).

Basically it comes down to: you're a limited Hacker who only has a few tricks (presumably you're a multiclassed style character who is also an Enforcer or Face or something): what can you do? Because that is the character who is going to have some limited subset of Hacking Skills. The fullblooded Hacker character is just going to have all the Hacking Skills up to max, so it doesn't conceptually matter for the full Hacker character how many skills they are or what they are nominally called.

-Username17

[sabs]

The only difference the number of hacking skills make to a full blooded hacker, is how many points are left over for picking up other things. Is he going to be able to pick up a combat skill or two, and some charisma skills, or are there so many hacking skills, that he might have to drop some to be able to afford all of the gear he wants. Or Possibly number of contacts, depending on how contacts are being handled.

[Grek]

Those other three I'm not sold on. Data Manipulation could plausibly handle hologram functions, but so could Electronic Warfare. When I make a holographic dude am I conducting an Electronic Attack (EW) or am I Fabricating Data (DM)? There's no clear line there, and I don't like it.

Under my writeup, it's definitely Data Manipulation. Electronic Warfare is 100% "Make software shit bricks or protect software from the same" rolls. Here's the start to finish on how to do holograms in my writeup:

Step 1: But a hologram projector. This will set you back some amount of $piders listed in the equipment section.
Step 1b: Optionally, roll a Hardware check to jailbreak your hologram projector. Store-bought projectors have all sorts of failsafes in them to keep them from projecting illegal holograms, including basilisks.
Step 2: Get a hologram file. You can either buy one for $piders (cost based on rating), make one yourself with a Data Manipulation check (rating = hits) or tell a contact or a party member to do it.
Step 3: Put the file in the projector, set it up and press "play". Setting the projector up is an Operations test. If anything happens that would make the image screw up, such as sudden movement, someone blasting EMPs or whatever, the hits on that Operations test is the TN to make the projector stop projecting.

---

As for what a guy with half hacker skills can do: Data search, all by itself, lets you google stuff and get info. Useful. Operations lets you do Crypto stuff all by yourself if you get a contact to hook you up with a jailbreaked Quantum Computer. Hardware lets you trick out your equipment and sabotoge stuff. Data manipulation lets you photoshop images, alter records and forge documents. And Electronic Warfare lets you carry out or defend yourself from cyber terrorism. While it's all interconnected, you can, for the most part, get another party member or a contact to fill in for the skills you don't personally have.

[echoVanguard]

The real issue I think is how much cross specialization we want out of people who take one skill or another. It would be possible to have a single skill that operates all Basilisk Hacks and Seizure Displays while another skill handles all electronic data manipulation. Alternately, it could be divided such that one skill let you handle breaking into data stores regardless of whether they were meat (mind reading) or machine (code breaking), and another skill let you interfere with systems whether they were meat (basilisk seizures) or machine (jamming/viruses).

It should match whatever your prevailing skill paradigm is. If you're generally subdividing skills by method, the bolded approach is optimal. If you're subdividing skills by function, the second is better. Shadowrun almost always divided skills by method, and I'm assuming you want to continue doing that. In other words, if your ranged combat skills are "Rifle" and "Pistol", approach 1 is consistent; if your ranged combat skills are "Precision Ranged Combat" and "Multitarget Ranged Combat", approach 2 is consistent.

echo

[Orion]

On the other hand, Shadowrun traditionally pairs Manabolt with Powerbolt, not with Invisibility.

EDIT: Also, splitting by function rather than target has the nice features of giving the character something effective to do against any opposition and of being able to reliably fill a certain party role like stealth or damage. On the other hand, maybe you don't want people with one tech skill to get reliably good options in all situations. If you split by targets, then a "half-hacker" gets to take Guns and Hacking, while a full hacker takes Hacking and Basilisk. Basically, have a skill for "solving computer problems" and a variety of skills for "what you do in meatspace."

[Grek]

If you don't want people to just be "Basilisks and Swords Guy" or "Data Stealing Dude", you really, really need to have it so that each skill allows you to perform a wide variety of roles. Data Search shouldn't just be divination but with computers, it should also come with offensive abilities and buffs for your allies. The skill that lets you use a hologram projector shouldn't just do holograms, it should work for all sorts of other gadgets used by character roles unrelated to illusioneering. Doing it any other way is fucking boring and even more stupid than having a single "talking to people" skill would be.

[Aryxbez]

Pardon for my asking, but I've heard that some people have been disliking the direction of this project, and thus wondering if it got canceled? Thus, curious to what those reasons were of disliking the direction, opposed to our current shadowrun, and of course the obvious secondary question that's been asked.

Also wondering how combat might be balanced between some Street Sam who takes cover and such, vs. an @Man, as I recall, is the soul of someone in a Giant Robot. Or will this system face similar problem of how in Shadowrun, Riggers with an army of drones can surpass a Street sam in firepower/lethality?

[Username17]

Pardon for my asking, but I've heard that some people have been disliking the direction of this project, and thus wondering if it got canceled? Thus, curious to what those reasons were of disliking the direction, opposed to our current shadowrun, and of course the obvious secondary question that's been asked.

Mostly at this point, wargaming the basic resolution mechanics is going pretty slowly. I'm trying to get away from the "one shot, three rolls" system that Shadowrun has historically left itself with so that reinforcements and holding actions can be a thing (and also so that larger battles can end eventually). But doing the mechanics for that is grindy and not much for discussion on the web.

Also wondering how combat might be balanced between some Street Sam who takes cover and such, vs. an @Man, as I recall, is the soul of someone in a Giant Robot. Or will this system face similar problem of how in Shadowrun, Riggers with an army of drones can surpass a Street sam in firepower/lethality?

Ideally, the Enforcer character is going to roll more actual dice, which means that he is more likely to win challenges. The @Man can put down more firepower, cover more area, lay down more suppression, and do so at less personal risk than the Enforcer. But the Enforcer should be able to win a direct engagement. At least, so long as they are engaging in terrain that is broken up enough that the Enforcer can't be swarmed.

Quality wins challenges unless the enemy has a significant and pressable numbers advantage. Essentially, the @Man has traded personal quality for better crowd control as compared to the Enforcer.

-Username17

[Vebyast]

Pardon for my asking, but I've heard that some people have been disliking the direction of this project, and thus wondering if it got canceled?

I think that setting work just kind of petered out, as Frank said - enough things were figured out that there wasn't much to talk about other than back-and-forth flaming about resolution mechanics. It's good to know that it's still going, even if it's just grindy math stuff in the background. I really like the setting.

[Copper Helm]

Say... Forgive a newb, but do you have a pdf copy of all that?

[Username17]

Say... Forgive a newb, but do you have a pdf copy of all that?

I do not. Right now it's in a series of text files, with the flags and such being in picture files. I haven't combined them into a pdf yet.

-Username17

[Copper Helm]

Say... Forgive a newb, but do you have a pdf copy of all that?

I do not. Right now it's in a series of text files, with the flags and such being in picture files. I haven't combined them into a pdf yet.

-Username17

Goddamn, I like reading rpgs and I liked "The End of the Matrix", first time I saw the Matrix ever making sense. I thought I was going crazy when I was reading that stuff when I was eighteen and I couldn't understand anything.

BTW, do you need some art? I can make stuff like this

[MDT]

It's almost a year later, what's the status on H:AT?

Is there any need for setting writeups?

[Lokathor]

Including this one, there's now three RPGs that are somewhat in the works:
Asymmetric Threat
Sentai Ftaghn
After Sundown 2e

[Username17]

It's almost a year later, what's the status on H:AT?

Is there any need for setting writeups?

Currently, I've been not doing any major writing projects because I have been working as a doctor in a new city. So I've been getting my life together and being fairly overworked. I also bowed out of Dominions games. At the hospital I haven't even had a schedule, I just work all the time. It's kind of weird and pretty exhausting.

Starting in April I start having an actual schedule. Once I start having scheduled days off and an established life, I think I'll be able to write for reals some more.

-Username17

[MDT]

Ok, I'll wait a few weeks.

I like the game so far and I'd love to help fill in some of the gaps - it's just difficult to see where the gaps are at the moment.

[Username17]

So anyway, the basic concept is that as Lancers you bring diverse talents to perform missions. Like a heist movie rather than a D&D dungeon crawl. The team has to be able to include a cyborg warrior, a magician, a hacker, and a rocker. Where games like Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2020 failed to deliver on that kind of premise was precisely in trying to model bullet by bullet levels of detail in combat. If you're rolling dice second to second in a combat that the hacker, rocker, or reporter is sitting out, that's a lot of table time that people are spending with their dicks in their hands while the solo/street samurai/killer/whatever is rolling dice and calculating things. The warrior player wouldn't want to wait for a second by second multiple dieroll resolution for the B&E guy to pick a lock, and no one else wants to watch the gun bunny roll dice twenty times either.

Now CortexPlus is a stupid system whose probabilities are "wonky as hell," but it's instructive that the Leverage RPG has no problem balancing screen time between the team's hitter and the team's grifter. It does this through abstracting actions, and that works. Missions can have discreet obstacles, which players can handle with a description and an opposed roll. I say an opposed roll so that the game is inherently capable of not choking on its own dick if players want to go against each other or the player characters end up playing defense against other Lancers.

Now one thing that can paralyze a heist game is planning sessions. Real world heist planning often goes on for days, and there's no particular reason for players of a cooperative storytelling game to do this shit any faster than real time. Conversations in RPG are one thing that always take place in something like real time.



Now the use of Flashbacks can reduce the tabletime of these planning sessions considerably - and break them up into bite sized pieces so they don't make the game drag. Simply put, every time there's a twist, you have a flashback to what your characters were planning for that contingency and then you act on it. This way you only end up using actual table time to discuss contingencies that actually matter and only have those conversations while they are pertinent.

-Username17

[DrPraetor]

I think you're over-reacting to that one time that Krish and I spent four gaming sessions planning that airplane heist.

Anyway, we were committing various other petty crimes and doing legwork at parties and so on, so it wasn't complete down time.

[Silent Wayfarer]

I think you're over-reacting to that one time that Krish and I spent four gaming sessions planning that airplane heist.

Anyway, we were committing various other petty crimes and doing legwork at parties and so on, so it wasn't complete down time.

When planning a milk run in PBP for an SR4 game, we spent like, 3 weeks going back and forth in the planning phase until the GM got fed up and told us to decide on something.

There's a very strong tendency to micromanage plans like this because you think you can anticipate everything.

[Username17]

Planning for contingencies is indeed a rabbit hole that potentially goes on forever. By pushing the non-linearity into flashbacks, planning time can get condensed and the legwork section can be more info-dump and less argument and hypothesizing.

Another issue is finding holes in security. The official rules to fourth and fifth edition Shadowrun hacking are unplayable. They call for way too many die rolls and way too many steps. But they also are unplayable in the sense that many of those steps are simply "ask your GM what, if anything, you can do next." That creates a railroad, where the MC is telling you what your character has to do, but it's also creating a railroad that doesn't necessarily have any more stops on it. What you need and want here is a system where player fiat creates holes in the security, rather than ask and answer. You make your test to find the hole in security and if successful you tell the table what it is.

So by moving to a more Leveragesque abstract obstacle bypassing system, characters can be masters in their fields and still have the overall game move forward. This means that one character could be an @Man and another character be an Occult Detective and a third character be a reporter for Tiger Beat and they can all contribute because they can declare retroactively that they had a plan that addressed each new problem with their skill set. But that means we should talk a bit about the problems that Leverage has.

First of all, it runs off the Cortex Plus system, which is made of ass. You roll a pile of dice of various flavors, and every 1 you roll is bad, and your top two dice are added to together to get your success level. It hands out extra d4s as penalties, but if your dicepool is small to begin with, the chances of those helping you are about the same as them hurting you. For example, if you're rolling 2d12 (a small but good dicepool), getting an extra d4 will generate a problem 25% of the time, but it will raise your output 23% of the time.

Secondly, you get extra dice for the rest of the adventure when you do stuff. So if you get some big dice early in the adventure you're going to be regularly outshining nominal specialists in their own fields, while if you pick up some small and shitty dice you're going to be generating problems left and right every time you open your damn mouth. The game is supposed to have characters jumping in left and right to do various shit, but the dice collection system can rapidly lead to optimal play being to have one character hog the spotlight or shut the hell up.



Thirdly, stats in Leverage are pretty opaque. Characters are not really transferable from one MC's campaign to another because every MC is going to be calling for different stats for the same actions. Your character who is built to be able to do certain things under the MC you have will find themselves shitty at those same tasks under another.

So how do we address that? Well the first thing is to go for a simple dicepool with hit counting mechanic. More dice is better, not provisionally or potentially worse. Penalties involve rolling less dice. Secondly, I don't think tying down stats to actions is particularly hard. Shadowrun and After Sundown and even Vampire don't have a huge problem with one MC calling for a Strength test where another MC would call for a Willpower test.

Getting every character their time in the sun can be as easy as giving all of them separate tallies of metagame preparation and flashback currency. The team as a whole has points they can spend only for the Tiger Beat Reporter's skills to be useful in solving problems with. So optimal strategy is always to rotate the spotlight around all the characters.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

I think you're over-reacting to that one time that Krish and I spent four gaming sessions planning that airplane heist.

Anyway, we were committing various other petty crimes and doing legwork at parties and so on, so it wasn't complete down time.

my crew and i used to do that on a semi regular basis . .
bets on who would crack and go "hold my beer, this will be awesome" included.

[Username17]

On the other hand, I've finally figured out the basic play mechanics of how I want to do Asymmetric Threat. Cyberpunk Fantasy Heartbreaker is to be goal oriented with flashbacks to how you prepared for each obstacle before or during the handling of said obstacle. This ties into the "caches" of equipment, meaning that you have access to types of gear and can flashback to having brought things that could plausibly be in caches you had access to.
-Username17

Do you see this only applying to equipment, or would "I was just using... 50% of my power!" style powerups and you now have more points in your combat skill also work.

Any form of pre-run preparation could be handled with a flashback to the planning phase. So a conjurer shouldn't have to spend a bunch of table time rolling up his pre-run pokemon, they should just be flashbacked in when and if they become important (at the cost of an appropriate amount of Prep). An enchanter shouldn't spend a bunch of table time rolling up their wards before the mission, they should just flashback in needed protection spells when required (again, by spending Prep).

my crew and i used to do that on a semi regular basis . .
bets on who would crack and go "hold my beer, this will be awesome" included.

Legwork is actually playing the game and so I'm loathe to have any specific limits on doing it. After all, legwork related to a long term goal might plausibly be scattered among many previous missions - I'm not sure a legwork limit is even possible to enforce. But pre-mission contingency prep planning simply has to be cut short because no two players have the same patience for that sort of thing.

So the first part of the mission proper is Foreshadowing. That's like flashbacks except the mission hasn't even started yet so it doesn't make sense for this to be a flashback per se. So this is where the team mentions that they are bringing a van so that they can actually get to the mission location. That sort of thing. My instinct is to make the foreshadowing segments limited in number rather than Prep cost, to encourage people to declare their biggest ticket items at the beginning. So the Puppeteer brings the van, the Cuisinart brings her Adaptive Camouflage Cloak, the Rocker creates nearby confusion down the street from the target. But then we get on with it and when the Cuisinart needs to throw a knife at someone she just does that.

-Username17

[Stahlseele]

Well, you can limit legwork by making time a vital aspect of when to do something . .

if you have a week or so time to plan, then no limiting. Well, if you don't have "trying to find out stuff takes a roll and then it takes x ammount of time to accomplish. if you do not get the needed ammount of hits on your roll, every needed hit adds y ammount of time to x and every hit above the needed ammount substracts y from x" at least.

If it is:"We have a problem. The Problem needs to be gone YESTERDAY!" Then there simply should not be any in game time left to do any meaningfull legwork/planning at all . .
Aside from: grab big gun and fast/armoured vehicle.

[Whipstitch]

In-character time isn't really the problem. Danny Ocean long cons and absurdly prepared conspiracy theorists are both fun and genre appropriate, so it's actually a feature if Sarah Connor can blow her points declaring she knows Mexican gun runners irrespective of the time table. I'd rather see a montage/foreshadow discount where people can each choose a contingency or two at a greatly reduced price since that obviously encourages people to choose that time to grab the pricey stuff. For example, the A-Team always blows their opening credits discount on vehicles and bad disguises then improvise from there.

[Username17]

Limiting legwork isn't really a big goal. I mean yes, it's important to have no one character run off with the game in a santa sack while they spend an hour and a half doing a loner legwork phase that none of the other PCs are involved with. But that's obvious, and if it wasn't for Shadowrun 2's interminable data store dungeon crawls, we wouldn't even be having that discussion. But yes, when the Reporter wants to do some internet checks, he "rolls Datasearch" and then you go straight to the info-dump.

A mission could plausibly cut allowed in-character legwork time to a very small number of legwork actions by being set a very short distance into the future. But that's only rarely of any interest or importance. It's important that sometimes the mission is that "[thing] will happen in [Y] days and you have to [verb] it." And the game has to function if that's the case. But the game also has to function without any arbitrary timetables.

The goal of legwork then is for all the characters to be able to do something during that phase, and for no character's legwork actions to take long enough that the other players get bored waiting for their turn. What this means is that the Cuisinart needs to be able to do legwork actions with her badassery. Also it means that you can't do SR2 style datastore dungeons, but we already knew that. The idea that "fighter" characters have to wait out the social bits and be wheeled out when the shit gets heavy simply has to go. The fact that the Cuisinart has a high badassery level should give her respect and understanding from criminals and thugs. The question "What would Molly Millions do?" should be asked for such characters. Because unlike in many RPGs, the genre appropriate answer is almost never "have the player go play Smash Brothers until the talky bits are over."

-Username17