Preface: What the hell am I reading?
Identity Crisis: A Retro-Feudal Wuxia Crime Fantasy Role-playing Game
What Is Roleplaying?
Roleplaying is a hobby in which two or more people narrate (or act out) an extemporaneous story about unusual characters and extraordinary situations. In the most common forms of roleplaying, each player is encouraged to identify with one character who embodies a fantasy the player wishes to experience. Although not typically acknowledged, the roleplaying hobby is actually a mainstream activity enjoyed by people of all ages; witness the enduring popularity of “Cops and Robbers” or “Naughty Nurse.” Unfortunately, neither of these informal roleplaying activities works well as a social event for a group of adult friends. Roleplaying in groups introduces special challenges which formal roleplaying games like Identity Crisis attempt to resolve—primarily problems of comfort and authority.
The Cops and Robbers Problem: Authority
“Bang! I shot you!” “No you didn't!” Anyone who has played Cops & Robbers, Knights & Dragons, or any of the host of similar children's games has likely had that conversation. When multiple narrators interact, disagreements will arise as to how the story ought to proceed, and more of them the more narrators are involved. Many an afternoon of Cops & Robbers have been ended abruptly by “irreconcilable creative differences.” Unfortunately, most informal roleplaying hobbies don't have an easy way to settle these disagreements. Either a unique compromise must be brokered each and every time opinions clash, or the story breaks down. The most common way to get around this is to appoint an impartial judge, or “MC” to settle disputes. However, being subjected to the whims of an unaccountable autocrat can be demoralizing to the other participants, so many games constrain the MC's judgment with a set of rules prescribing results of predictable situations.
The Naughty Nurse Problem: Comfort
Adults often circumvent the cops and robbers problem by opting instead to play games like “naughty nurse,” where conflict between narrators is avoided because everyone has an investment in a mutually-agreed upon direction. Through a combination of explicit negotiation and a preexisting close relationship adults who roleplay in the bedroom establish beforehand where the story will go, and tap into some of our most powerful emotions to keep the participants invested. The problem with this approach is that it doesn't scale well to larger groups. With four or more participants, it becomes extraordinarily time-consuming to negotiate the details without any limiting framework, but more importantly, one person's fantasy is almost certain to be repulsive to the one of the others.
A Role-playing Game
A roleplaying game is a formal attempt to resolve these problems so that roleplaying can become an enjoyable way for 4-6 friends to spend an evening together. It resolves the problem of authority by introducing a set of rules that govern the interactions between characters and events, reminiscent on the page of the rules for Monopoly or some other board game, although considerably more open-ended. It becomes possible to settle disputes between players by appeal to the authority of the rules. In some cases, this “rule of law” is the only authority needed for the game to function. There are a number of good RPGs that function strictly democratically. However, many games find it useful to invest special authority in one of the players. Identity Crisis asks one player to assume the role of MC (master of ceremonies). The MC takes on judiciary responsibility to interpret and apply the rules, and also executive authority to keep the game on track and resolve questions that may fall outside the scope of the rules. Some groups may also provide their MC legislative authority, on which more later.
Formal role-playing games also alleviate problems of content and comfort in several ways. First, they act as a filter to establish basic compatibility and a shared direction. If someone agrees to play Identity Crisis with you, you can probably assume that they enjoy heist movies, martial arts, and Asian religious imagery, and that they are comfortable with moderate levels of violence and horror in a fantasy context. However, maintaining the group's comfort and attention largely falls upon the MC. They contribute the most to the direction the story will take, and so should do their best to clearly communicate their interests before the game begins. This simplifies negotiation, because each of the other players need only ask themselves if they share the MC's interests. During play, the MC is responsible for ensuring that attention is paid to each player's concerns in a balanced fashion, and that no one player introduces material that causes the rest of the group discomfort.
This game is intended to help you and your friends tell stories about
Crime
Identity Crisis is about people who commit crimes—crimes like burglary, smuggling, kidnapping, treason, identity theft, and more. Practically any anti-social behavior can be a crime. Learning to read, practicing your religion, or feeding orphans might be against the law in some places, but nobody really thinks of them as crimes. Fahrenheit 451 and Acts of the Apostles are not considered classic crime thrillers, and this book does not have detailed mechanics for organizing secret prayer meetings or teaching children to read. From this follows the first requirement to play Identity Crisis: you have to be willing to talk about and imagine doing things that aren't very nice. This doesn't mean that you need to check your morality at the door; in fact, Identity Crisis is most interesting when the protagonists do try to justify themselves and struggle with the consequences of their actions. There are many stories about doing basically bad things for sympathetic reasons. Feel free to use Robin Hood, The Count of Monte Cristo, or the Death of the Necromancer for inspiration. Basically, you can tell an Identity Crisis story about doing anything Kant wouldn't want you to do.
However, killing people and taking their stuff doesn't become the crimes of grand theft, murder, and B&E outside of a social context. If there's no lawmaker telling you not to do it and no police force ready and able to fight back, you're probably telling a war story, not a crime story. Identity Crisis assumes that the established authorities command enough power and wealth to completely destroy the protagonists in a pitched battle; is assumes that the protagonists do their dity work in secret. This gives us the second requirement to play Identity Crisis: You have to be willing to spend time and energy thinking about secrecy and exposure, and you have to be willing to have protagonists who are not the most powerful people in the story.
Retro-Feudal
Identity Crisis looks kind of like the middle ages, but in fact it's the future. There are castles, samurai, temples and priests, swords and armor and people threshing grain by hand. But beneath the surface, something completely different is going on. The castles are protected by forcefields, the pagodas built to store supercomputers, and when your horse gets tired you might just hop into a helicopter. In fact, it doesn't just look like the actual middle ages, it looks like the middle ages of folklore. Superscience has filled the forests with genetically engineered fox-people and the rivers with gargantuan sea serpents; it has built cloud castles and undersea palaces. This aesthetic has a lot of advantages. It throws open the gates to huge array of tropes and images, making it easier for everyone to contribute to the shared experience. It also lets you keep whatever your group finds fun about that time period, while explaining away any of that era's inconveniences you don't wish to worry about.
However, this approach also has limitations. The most important one is that when you get down to it, retro-feudalism just doesn't make sense. One can try to explain it, as I have. Indeed, a great deal of the setting information in this book flows from that attempt. Enormous inequalities, poor communications networks, environmental calamities and regressions in sciences all do their part to explain how this state of affairs came to be. However, the need to do so arguably deforms the construction of the world, forcing it down very specific paths. This means that this game is less flexible than some others. If you want it to work at all, the world you choose to play in has to fall within very narrow bounds.
Fantasy
Identity Crisis is a fantasy, so in addition to the giant fish and animal people, it also has genuine sources of supernatural power. There are two, in fact: the Pattern and the Void. Pattern-magic allows practitioners to produce lights and illusions, see distant places, read minds and contact otherworldly entities. Void magic allows one to make objects appear to and disappear, to fly, to project force over a distance, and conjure the elements. These feats aren't completely lacking in justification. In the chapters on magic, you'll see that these powers actually have their roots in the advanced physics and computing that gave rise to the rest of the future technology. I consider this a fantasy because the use and development of these powers is governed by a variety of religious and spiritual tropes. Practitioners generally do not full understand their art's sciency origins, and along with the general public regard their “magic” with some reverance. Practice and advancement in these arts tends to rest on chinese alchemy, meditation, pilgrimage, astral journeys, sacrifice, and any of a host of fantasy actions.
Fantasy imposes two restrictions on the game. The first is the most obvious: you should only play it if you like that sort of thing. Different characters will engage in the fantasy to different degress, but as a general rule if you aren't interested in rituals and spiritual experiences and don't enjoy hearing them described, you will probably find parts of this game quite boring. The second difficulty is that to play a fantasy game, you have to be willing to accept a certain level of being dicked around. Because real-world logic doesn't always apply, it is slightly harder to reach consensus on how a story should proceed. The power imbalance between the MC and the other players is also heightened. Because a fantastic world is full of things the protagonists don't understand, it is more difficult to understand your choices and more difficult to tell whether your MC is playing fair with you. To play a fantasy game you should accept that sometimes your plans will play out very differently from how you intended them, and you should assume that at least once per session one of your fellow players will think up and successfully implement a magical gambit you personally think is kind of stupid.
Wuxia
Finally, this is a Wuxia game. Wuxia is one term for the “hong kong action movies” in which martial artists fly around on wires and walk on water. Wherever on the globe you set your game, it is assumed that China, and Asia more broadly, contributed a great deal to global society of the 23rd century. This is a Feudalism where everyone drinks tea, Buddha and Zheng He are widely known, and where professional soldiers show up to battle with weights on chains and then fly around on wires. Apart from the set dressing, the games Wuxia influence has major effects. First, many of the powerful people in society have adopted pieces or variants on one or more ancient warrior codes. “Honor” as a concept is highly valued, although there are diverse ideas about what constitutes honorable conduct. One common idea is to frown on wanton killing. This is distinct from wanton violence, which is often considered the height of honor. You may have noticed that murder was left off the list of typical crimes the protagonists might get involved in. That's not to say that it isn't an option, but it's a direction you should only go y conscious choice. In general this game assumes that magic and martial arts are highly effective at subduing enemies in a non-lethal fashion, and that it is considered good form to so unless a compelling reason arises.
It also means that also this game features a “magic system” with power sources, rituals, initiations, and so on, magic is not the only way to attain superhuman powers. In Identity Crisis, jumping 20 feet in the air isn't typically thought of as magic and has nothing to do with the Pattern and the Void. It just means you practiced jumping a lot.
Summary
Identitiy Crisis is a book intended to help you and approximately four of your friends spend an enjoyable evening telling stories about buddhist thieves who wear swords, fly around on wires, and use magic to interface with derelict computers. If that sounds like your kind of fun, then read on.
Table of Contents: Identity Crisis
Chapter1: The Where and the Why
Geography and Politics
Genetics
The Void
The Pattern
The Shadows
The Lowdown
Chapter 2: The When and the How
Chapter 3: The Who
Selecting a sponsor
Selecting a path
Selecting your disciplines
Chapter 4: The Ten
The Crane
The Lion
The Dog
The Ox
The Carp
The Fox
The Turtle
Naga
Red Star
Universal Standard
Chapter 5: Operations
Chapter 6: Tactics
Chapter 7: Downtime
Three ways to track Downtime
Metagame Budget
Hidden Timetable
Encounter Tables
Downtime Benefits
Contacts
Training
Crafting
Chapter 8: Arts and Crafts
Chapter 9: Running the Game
Chapter 10: History
Appendix: Bestiary & Rogue's Gallery
Identity Crisis Version 0.1
Moderator: Moderators
Identity Crisis Version 0.1
Last edited by Orion on Wed Dec 26, 2012 8:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chapter 1: The Where and the Why
Where You Are
Identity crisis take place on Earth some time in the 23rd century, and typically somewhere in southestern Asia. As you read through this book you'll see that maps and precise geography are scarce. There is a reason for this, or two if you count my aversion to drawing maps. The global culture of the 22nd century was so integrated that enclaves of one culture might plausibly have settled anywhere in the world. The dystopia of the 23rd century is so provincial that the global perspective is essentially irrelevant. A conflict between a nomadic tribe of Mongolian buddhists and a settlement of Punjabi Christians could be happening anywhere in the world, and the parties involved may not know or care where they are. That said, unless your group decides otherwise you can assume most of the following:
• You are somewhere on mainland Asia
• The primary crops are rice and millet
• River-water is plentiful, and major settlements are built on rivers; access to the rivers may be politically contested
• The Wu Xing (the five chinese elements) are recognized, along with all its derivates such as Chinese medicine and five-direction kung fu.
• Daoism, Buddhism, ancestor veneration and nature worship are the most widely practiced religions. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Taoism are known but are the practices of more distant or less influential peoples
• There is access to a sea coast with ample fishing opportunities, and a handful of island sjust offshore with valuable plants or minerals
• The area on the widely-disseminated maps is is lowland, highland, and jungle is roughly equal proportions
• The known area is relatively small and bounded by some combination of sea coast, impassable mountains, jungles too dangerous for contemporary medicine, and the shadowlands.
Why it Looks Like This
We're also going to be deliberately vague on the exact details of the 21st and 22nd centuries. Your characters probably only known bits and pieces of this anyway, and if you really care you might make archaeology a focus of your game. That said, here are the basics you need to know.
The globalization evident in 2012 only accelerated going forward. Technological breakthroughs facilitated a space elevator for long-range shipping, commercial supersonic flight, worldwide communications with enormous bandwidth, and eventually limited teleportation. By 2100 is was more possible than ever to go anywhere and buy anything on the moment's notice. However, this access to once unthinkable diversity came at a cost. One by one, the smaller states just ceased to exist. The liberalized global markets allowed unprecedented concentrations of capital into corporations with budgets rivaling nations'. Meanwhile, the eurozone crisis had proved that economic pressure could persuade governments to simply sign away huge pieces of their sovereignty. With transportation so easy that there was no reason for local government to be locally administered, successful ventures started buying up both land and the right to govern it. Some states went into proctorship to more powerful nations after their markets failed; other were simply dissolved by vote in a legislation populated entirely with corporate plants. By 2100, the world had been carved up into 4 spheres of influence.
Universal Standard
Based in the Americas and the Pacific, Universal Standard was nominally an Aerospace company. They contributed hugely to space flight and satellite communications, and pioneered numerous advances in teleportation. They also established the first civilian space-station, eventually running as many as half a dozen as exotic resort towns for the wealthy. Most states in the Americas had privaized their functions one by one, contracting them out to Universal, whose stranglehold on global transport allowed them to provide services at lower cost. Some states were dissolved completely when Universal literally bought up their citizenship in exchange for stock, while others remained as glorified consumer protection watchdogs, turning their tax revenue directly over to Universal as a “subscription” to their shipping and telecom services.
The advent of commercial space travel lead Universal to ally themselves with a number of Charismatic churches. Fringe churches who attached religious significance to outer space, considering it the first of 7 Heavens received enormous publicity. Popular televangelists took up residence on the stations, and the increasing popularity of space pilgrimages made it all the more difficult to seriously challenge the company. The space churches had been especially popular in the military of the formed USA, and with their absorption into the company Universal Standard's hegemony over the Americas as a church-state-employer complex was essentially complete.
Red Star
Europe had ironically arrived at a federal government on a tide of neo-liberalism. Market fluctuations caused a cascade of failed states which were absorbed by larging states or by multilateral unions. The continent, along with northern Africa and the Mediterranean, were almost untied under corporate rule like the Americas. However, their would-be corporate overlords were not as good at propaganda, and they didn't start with the allegiance of the world's most powerful military. By 2100, communist uprisings had unseated moost legislature and seized most of the capital. Ultimately, nearly all of these revolutionaries joined the Red Star, a confederation of socialist republics (and “republics”) with wildly variable levels of central control.
Unable to compete with American aerospace superiority, the peoples of old Europe had made their wealth on manufacturing and industrial equipment. Tiny regions and even cities became known as boutique designers of particular sorts of power cells or engines, even supplying many parts to Universal's larger projects. With solar-powered humanoid robot suits and sophisticated farm and ground transit technology, Europe commanded more horsepower per capita than anywhere else in the world. The former African nations had taken a different route. They exploited their continent's prodigious diversity of plant and animal life to become frontrunners in crop and livestock modification and pharmaceutical development. Docile breeds of once-terrifying
Patala
Underwater Hindu Anarcho-capitalist Flash-trading body-hopping snake people.
Suntech
Asia. Least politically unified. Diverse interests but overall excellence in neurology, information management and man/machine interface.
The Pattern & The Void
Originally, the Pattern was a computer network, similar to the old World Wide Web. It uses some kind of sci-fi technology to have radically better transmission speeds and bandwidths and so on, but it's basically the Internet. The big deal was that everyone in Pattern-enabled societies was assigned a user account at birth. Because this is the Internet as designed by fascists and monopolists. In Identity Crisis, DNA sequencing can be done cheaply and almost instantaneously. So, the user accounts were each tied to a genetic fingerprint, and you used a drop of blood to log in to each system. Like Gattaca.
The Void is a space outside space containing dark matter and dark energy but non of the regular stuff before humans interfered with it. Large Stargate-looking portal things could open into the Void and allow things to be stored or retrieved. Individual Void users were able to get gene-locked storage areas in private sections of the Void, so you would again use a drop of blood to open your vault and get your stuff back. The other really cool thing about the Void is that any part of the Void can be accessed from anywhere on Earth. So you could put your stuff into the Void, get on a plane across the Pacific, and retrieve your stuff from the Void when you got back. It wasn't free--the machinery that sorts and retrieves the content of the Void expends more energy the further you are from the original point of storage. But it was still pretty great.
The Virus
The Virus is officially held the be the work of a lone, insane Turtle Clan technician. However, given the scale of the project, it seems certain that he must have had help. People generally blame the Turtles as a group, but involvement from Naga programmers and European physicists has also been floated. The Virus was a deadly combination of two new technologies.
Where You Are
Identity crisis take place on Earth some time in the 23rd century, and typically somewhere in southestern Asia. As you read through this book you'll see that maps and precise geography are scarce. There is a reason for this, or two if you count my aversion to drawing maps. The global culture of the 22nd century was so integrated that enclaves of one culture might plausibly have settled anywhere in the world. The dystopia of the 23rd century is so provincial that the global perspective is essentially irrelevant. A conflict between a nomadic tribe of Mongolian buddhists and a settlement of Punjabi Christians could be happening anywhere in the world, and the parties involved may not know or care where they are. That said, unless your group decides otherwise you can assume most of the following:
• You are somewhere on mainland Asia
• The primary crops are rice and millet
• River-water is plentiful, and major settlements are built on rivers; access to the rivers may be politically contested
• The Wu Xing (the five chinese elements) are recognized, along with all its derivates such as Chinese medicine and five-direction kung fu.
• Daoism, Buddhism, ancestor veneration and nature worship are the most widely practiced religions. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Taoism are known but are the practices of more distant or less influential peoples
• There is access to a sea coast with ample fishing opportunities, and a handful of island sjust offshore with valuable plants or minerals
• The area on the widely-disseminated maps is is lowland, highland, and jungle is roughly equal proportions
• The known area is relatively small and bounded by some combination of sea coast, impassable mountains, jungles too dangerous for contemporary medicine, and the shadowlands.
Why it Looks Like This
We're also going to be deliberately vague on the exact details of the 21st and 22nd centuries. Your characters probably only known bits and pieces of this anyway, and if you really care you might make archaeology a focus of your game. That said, here are the basics you need to know.
The globalization evident in 2012 only accelerated going forward. Technological breakthroughs facilitated a space elevator for long-range shipping, commercial supersonic flight, worldwide communications with enormous bandwidth, and eventually limited teleportation. By 2100 is was more possible than ever to go anywhere and buy anything on the moment's notice. However, this access to once unthinkable diversity came at a cost. One by one, the smaller states just ceased to exist. The liberalized global markets allowed unprecedented concentrations of capital into corporations with budgets rivaling nations'. Meanwhile, the eurozone crisis had proved that economic pressure could persuade governments to simply sign away huge pieces of their sovereignty. With transportation so easy that there was no reason for local government to be locally administered, successful ventures started buying up both land and the right to govern it. Some states went into proctorship to more powerful nations after their markets failed; other were simply dissolved by vote in a legislation populated entirely with corporate plants. By 2100, the world had been carved up into 4 spheres of influence.
Universal Standard
Based in the Americas and the Pacific, Universal Standard was nominally an Aerospace company. They contributed hugely to space flight and satellite communications, and pioneered numerous advances in teleportation. They also established the first civilian space-station, eventually running as many as half a dozen as exotic resort towns for the wealthy. Most states in the Americas had privaized their functions one by one, contracting them out to Universal, whose stranglehold on global transport allowed them to provide services at lower cost. Some states were dissolved completely when Universal literally bought up their citizenship in exchange for stock, while others remained as glorified consumer protection watchdogs, turning their tax revenue directly over to Universal as a “subscription” to their shipping and telecom services.
The advent of commercial space travel lead Universal to ally themselves with a number of Charismatic churches. Fringe churches who attached religious significance to outer space, considering it the first of 7 Heavens received enormous publicity. Popular televangelists took up residence on the stations, and the increasing popularity of space pilgrimages made it all the more difficult to seriously challenge the company. The space churches had been especially popular in the military of the formed USA, and with their absorption into the company Universal Standard's hegemony over the Americas as a church-state-employer complex was essentially complete.
Red Star
Europe had ironically arrived at a federal government on a tide of neo-liberalism. Market fluctuations caused a cascade of failed states which were absorbed by larging states or by multilateral unions. The continent, along with northern Africa and the Mediterranean, were almost untied under corporate rule like the Americas. However, their would-be corporate overlords were not as good at propaganda, and they didn't start with the allegiance of the world's most powerful military. By 2100, communist uprisings had unseated moost legislature and seized most of the capital. Ultimately, nearly all of these revolutionaries joined the Red Star, a confederation of socialist republics (and “republics”) with wildly variable levels of central control.
Unable to compete with American aerospace superiority, the peoples of old Europe had made their wealth on manufacturing and industrial equipment. Tiny regions and even cities became known as boutique designers of particular sorts of power cells or engines, even supplying many parts to Universal's larger projects. With solar-powered humanoid robot suits and sophisticated farm and ground transit technology, Europe commanded more horsepower per capita than anywhere else in the world. The former African nations had taken a different route. They exploited their continent's prodigious diversity of plant and animal life to become frontrunners in crop and livestock modification and pharmaceutical development. Docile breeds of once-terrifying
Patala
Underwater Hindu Anarcho-capitalist Flash-trading body-hopping snake people.
Suntech
Asia. Least politically unified. Diverse interests but overall excellence in neurology, information management and man/machine interface.
The Pattern & The Void
Originally, the Pattern was a computer network, similar to the old World Wide Web. It uses some kind of sci-fi technology to have radically better transmission speeds and bandwidths and so on, but it's basically the Internet. The big deal was that everyone in Pattern-enabled societies was assigned a user account at birth. Because this is the Internet as designed by fascists and monopolists. In Identity Crisis, DNA sequencing can be done cheaply and almost instantaneously. So, the user accounts were each tied to a genetic fingerprint, and you used a drop of blood to log in to each system. Like Gattaca.
The Void is a space outside space containing dark matter and dark energy but non of the regular stuff before humans interfered with it. Large Stargate-looking portal things could open into the Void and allow things to be stored or retrieved. Individual Void users were able to get gene-locked storage areas in private sections of the Void, so you would again use a drop of blood to open your vault and get your stuff back. The other really cool thing about the Void is that any part of the Void can be accessed from anywhere on Earth. So you could put your stuff into the Void, get on a plane across the Pacific, and retrieve your stuff from the Void when you got back. It wasn't free--the machinery that sorts and retrieves the content of the Void expends more energy the further you are from the original point of storage. But it was still pretty great.
The Virus
The Virus is officially held the be the work of a lone, insane Turtle Clan technician. However, given the scale of the project, it seems certain that he must have had help. People generally blame the Turtles as a group, but involvement from Naga programmers and European physicists has also been floated. The Virus was a deadly combination of two new technologies.
Last edited by Orion on Thu Dec 27, 2012 10:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Chapter 2: The When and the How
Sometimes you only need to describe your character's actions for everyone to agree on the outcome. Exchanging information in conversation, traveling in safe areas, and so on simply happen as described. But very often, you will be asked to roll dice to find out what happens. This is known as a test. There are three kinds of tests in Identity Crisis: Fault tests, Success tests, and Fortune tests. To play Identity Crisis, you will need 5 six-sided dice, and each die must be recognizably distinct from the others. We recommend differentiating them by color, and purchasing one green, red, blue, white, and black die. We will refer to these in the rules as a Fire die (red), the Water die (blue), the Wood die (green), the Earth die (black), and the Metal die (white). If you are instructed to “roll the dice” without further explanation, this means you must roll one die of each type, for a total of five.
Fault Tests
Sometimes the action being performed is something your character basically known how to do. Whether it's your shaman bypassing a firewall, your scout charting a path hrough the forest, or your ninja repairing her damage flyer, your character has done this before. In a fault test, you roll dice not to find out whether your character can do it, but what if any complications ensue or obstacles arise.
Roll the dice. Find every die showing a “1” or a “2” and set the rest aside. These low dice represent missteps or bad luck, collectively termed faults. Some characters may be able to negate or re-roll some of these faults, but if no such abilities intervene, you now go to apply them. The most common actions will explicitly desribe the possible faults in their rules descriptions. However, in the course of play, many unusual circumstances may arise. If you're unsure what faults should apply to an action, use the following guidelines:
• A fault on the Earth die suggests lack. Either some object or other person's assistance is necessary which is not ready to hand.
• A fault on the Fire die suggests hesitation. For some reason, the activity takes about 5 times longer than it normally would
• A fault on the Metal die suggests imperfection. For some reason it is impossible to achieve exactly the desired result. However, it is possible to jerry-rig an acceptable substitute at risk of later inconvenience.
• A fault on the Water dies suggests recklessness. The character exposes themselves to some kind of harm or exposure. This is different from a metal fault in that the threat is external, and in that it may lead to a new scene rather than simply dealing direct damage.
• A fault on the Wood die suggests overzealous effort. Either a tool being used, or the characters own health is damaged or comprimised in the process.
Aborting your Action: Sometimes the consequences of a fault test may be so undesirable that you don't want to complete the action at all. In this case, roll a water die. On a 4+, congratulations! You successfully abandon the project before suffering the consequences. On a 1-3, oops! You suffer the faults and fail to finish the job.
Success Tests
Sometimes a character may wish to push the limits of her abilities, and it is unclear whether the character should succeed at all. This calls for a success test. Roll the dice, and collect faults as if you were rolling a fault test. Then collect the 5s and 6s as “hits.” A normal success test requires 2 hits. If you rolled at least 2 hits, then resolve the action exactly like a fault test. If not, check for dice showing 3 or 4. You may choose to “split” any or all of these dice, counting each die as both a hit and a fault simultaneously.
Fortune Tests
A fortune test is a roll that gives the player a random benefit. This is the rarest type of test. In most cases, the player acting knows exactly what they are trying to achieve, and so there is nothing random about what they stand to gain. The dice represent obstacles between them and their goals. However, occasionally a character does have the opportunity to achieve something less directed. The classic case for fortune is the downtime test. Each time your character has downtime between missions, you may make a fortune test to see how your character has managed to prepare themselves. Depending on the results and your characters own abilities, you might craft an item, make a new contact, earn money, or otherwise strengthen your position. The other common reason to roll a fortune test is when something good falls into the character's lap unexpectedly, and the MC may not have considered the full ramifications. For instance, suppose that in the course of a mission the party's mechanic manages to divert and seize a shipment full of high-tech components. The MC isn't really sure what's in there, and the player wasn't going out collecting pieces for an ongoing project. In this case the mechanic's player might roll a fortune test to find out what benefits accrue.
To make a fortune test, roll the dice. Save every 5 and 6 as a “hit.” Discard the rest. In the absence of more specific guidance, assume
• An Earth hit provides reserves, such as replenishment of fungible goods or a hallback position in a time of trouble; or, lo-tech gear, particularly for travel and infiltration
• A Fire hit provides a window of opportunity to profit from decisive action; or, materials and contacts related to personal combat
• A Metal hit provides something of value which demands a great deal of maintenance; or, military-industrial gear
• A Water hit providessomething immediately irrelevant, but valuable with planning; or, valuable information
• A Wood hit provides an alternative solution to an old problem; or, biomedical gear
A fortune test may also be used as a “long shot.” When a character attempts to do something completely beyond their abilities, the MC may allow them a fortune test to see if they achieve some part of the desired goal. On a long shot
• An Earth hit provides the groundwork for future efforts
• A Fire hit provides a fleeting benefit
• A Metal hit provides partial success at great cost
• A Water hit provides an escape or palliative
• A Wood hit provides improved understanding of the problem
It should be assumed that all faults are in play during a longshot effort, except those that are directly superceded by the effects of a hit.
The Hierarchy of Skill
To help you evaluate what is within a character's capabilities, the game ranks characters in various categories of activity. There are ten major ratings that will be recorded on every character sheet: the 5 Arts and the 5 Elements. Some characters may have additional skill ratings reflecting specialized expertise in narrow fields. Arts, Elements, and Specialties are all rated on the same scale, as follows:
(Grandmaster)
Master
Initiate
Novice
Common
(Cursed)
Player characters in Identity Crisis will generally have ratings somewhere between Common and Master. A common rating represents the capabilities of a layman with no formal training but basic exposure to the relevant concepts. A Novice reflects the capabilities of someone with a basic education in the subject. An Initiate could work professionally in the field, and a Master would a widely-regarded expert among professionals. Grandmastery is not typically achievable by humans, requiring experience, knowledge, and capability more expansive than an ordinary lifetime can achieve. Grandmastery is the privilege of gods, supercomputers, cyborgs, immortal clones, and other who have transcended human limitations.
Most actions will fall into more than one category. For instance, pulling off a daring maneuver in an aerial dogfight might be an Initiate (Fire, Technology, Piloting) test. In other words, it's made possible by some combination of reflexes and daring, general technical background, and system-specific training. In general, a character uses any one of the relevant ratings—whichever is their best. The exception is when they have a Cursed rating. A Cursed rating represents a cultural disconnect, like a barbarian with Technology, a crippling handicap like Martial Arts from a wheelchair, or a serious personality defect like Fire for someone suffering from a panic disorder or Water for someone hammered drunk. Not only is a Cursed rating itself one step worse than Common, but a Cursed rating will reduce your skill by one step in all relevant tasks,, even when you are using a different skill.
If an action is described as an “Initiate” test, assume that it calls an initiate to make a fault test. A novice attempting it would make a success test, while a common man would get a fortune test or nothing. Sometimes, a master might automatically succeed at an initiate task without rolling, but many actions are inherently risky or unpredictable. Marked with a star (Initiate*) these complex actions always require a fault test, no matter how skilled you are. Moving about under stealth or disguise, brokering a political deal, and binding a demon are exaples of complex tasks.
(Automatic*)-Fault Test-(Success Test)-(Fortune Test)-Impossible
Teamwork: In general, NPCs are not as skilled as PCs, but they do have the advantage of numbers. Typically, a team with 5 members of equivalent skill can perform as though they were a single actor of the next higher tier. This is not stackable. While 5 Novices can break down an Initiate task into manageable chunks, they have no comprehension of where to begin with a Master task.
Effect Tests
Effect tests are written up as an appendix to this section because they work under fundamentally different principles. The other tests bridge gaps between intentions and results; because things like the time and materials expended are dependent on the roll, one typically needs to make the test first, and then backtrack to narrate the steps the character took in the time just skipped over. Sometimes, however, it's perfectly clear what happened; the plane crashed, or the sage drank the poison wine. This might be the result of a previous roll -- a success test to fly the plane resulting in a crash -- or it might arise from narration without a roll. Either way, if you find yourself wanting to measure the impact of a pre-defined instant, you need an effect test. Because this test models instants more often than entire tasks, it also tracks fractional completion in a way standard tests don't.
To make an effect test, roll three dice. We recommend using your water, wood, and fire dice, but it doesn't really matter. Add the showing numbers together. Then add your character's Edge as a bonus, unless otherwise specified. If there is a target or opponent, subtract their edge. A result of 10 or lower indicates no effect. An 11 produces an effect in the first-degree. Every three full points above eleven adds another degree, to a maximum of 4th degree effects at 20+. The effects by degree will be specified by the rule in question, with 4th-degree effects including extreme and final outcomes likes death of a person, irretrievable destruction of an object, or complete control of a group or system. Effects of lower degree may or may not be notable in themselves, but it is assumed that these effects are cumulative over repeated impacts. Unless otherwise specified, if the target is already under any similar effects, add the degree of the highest one to the effect roll
Effect tests are used most frequently in combat, where it determines the injuries sustained from an attack already landed by another mechanic. Most combat actions build up to a 4th-degree effect of "beaten the fuck down" and leave "wounds" that do indeed add a bonus to future attacks.
The Arts
Every kind of science, magic, physical or social skills which can be trained is governed by one of the five Arts. On one level, the Arts are abstractions; there to prevent players from tracking a list of 20 or 30 skills. At the same time, within the world they are quite real. People within the world know the Arts by these names, and philosophers write essays attempting to sort out why medicine and marketing seem to be related. The Arts are the the primary source of your character's identity and the closest thing you have to a “character class.” If you want your character to stand out, try to concentrate on Arts which aren't already covered. Because Specialties are uncommon and Elements are weak, your Arts will govern most actions you take in Identity Crisis.
Wushu
Wushu is “martial arts,” expansively interpreted. It includes not just every form of personal combat with hands or hand weapons, but also athletics of all kinds, mental discipline, yoga-based power over the physical body and familiar with military equipment, tactics, and traditions. A Common level of wushu allows 6-foot vertical leaps (yes, really!) and comparably impressive sprints. A Novice will be able to operate heavy weaponry, ward off exhaustion, or lead a squad of soldiers. An Initiate may be able to purge poisons from her body, feel tension like a polygraph, or sleep inside a bonfire. A Master could
Kagaku
Once the Japanese word for “chemistry”, “Kagaku” has come to be a catchall for mechanical, industrial, and scientific skills. A Kagakusha can build and repair vehicles, disable or bypass security devices, synthesize explosives and manage all kinds of sensors and bizarre weapons systems.
Ningaku A compund word meaning roughly "human studies" Ningaku has come to encompass everything related to managing or maintaining people and other biological assets. This includes psychology, sales & marketing, surgery and pharmacology, animal husbandry, and performing arts. Yes, we know how little sense that makes.
Shugendo
Shugendo is the magic of the void. By opening doors into or out of the void, a Shugenja can store and retrieve objects, as well as disintegrate obstacles and conjure fire, water, and other generic forms of matter and energy. Using the void itself, a shugenja can create forcefields, apply telekinetic force, or suspend themselves or others in midair. At its most powerful, Shugendo can bend space and teleport objects directly from one place to another, but livings things rarely survive the process.
Maho
Maho is the magic of the pattern. A Majin can create illusions, read minds and reveal secrets, contact and bind spirits and demons, and scry on distant places.
The Elements
The Elements represent your character inherent aptitudes and their basic personality or disposition. Virtually every task is governed by one of the elements, suggesting the basic kind of personality that would excel in that field. Because the Elements govern methods or itentions more than specific areas of expertise, they may at first look even weirder than the Arts. The idea of a character who excels at any “impulsive” action, whether athletic, mechanical, or spiritual may feel very strange, and it threatens to blur role distinctions and lead to bizarrely one-track characters. A look at how Elements function in the game should alleviate these concerns.
A Character's Elements are typically lower than their Arts, just as in real life talent is no substitute for experience. A starting player character will have Arts ranging from Common to Master and Elements ranging from Common to Novice. Whenever your character is working within their field, they can ignore the elements entirely. A master technician doesn't worry about whether he's programming “impulsively” or “with discipline.” What the Elements do for a PC is allow them to achieve satisfactory results in unfamiliar areas by taking the approach that fits with their personality. A particularly studious bookworm might have a Novice Water element, and thus be able to do acceptable work in any field given enough time to prepare. An adrenaline junky might have Novice Fire, and thus be able to stay marginally on top of a fight, meeting, or ritual by improvisation and instinct.
Elements at Initiate and above are most commonly seen in ancient beings that have had time to become broadly competent at everything, or in gods and monsters with great power and limited perspective. A Player character might temporarily gain a heightened element through magic, drugs, possession, or ritual, but as these experiences are “mystical” in nature most will accept the character's “intuitive” ability in fields they never actually studied. Cursed elements are also common, represnting flaws in an NPCs character for the players to exploit, the limitations on nonhuman beings, or a character under the influence of some spell, drug, or injury.
Earth
Earth is associated with balance and stability. Earth comes into play whenever one wants to protect or maintain something, or a task needs attention over a long period of time. It also governs finances.
Fire
Fire is associated with impulse, aggression, energy and movement, beauty, and passion. In general any action undertaken spontaneously or depending on spontaneity might be governed by Fire. Attempts to impress of overawe others are also Fire based, as are risky or showy spells and devices. Also anything requiring quick reflexes or otherwise calling for a burst of action in a small window of time.
Metal
Metal is associated with discipline, rigidity, and perfection. Metal might be called for for any task depending on maintaining concentration and avoiding distractions, enduring pain, or perfecting something.
Water
Water is associated with serenity, passivity, motion away (rather than fire's motion towards) and awareness. Water comes into play when a character needs to notice something, to hold themselves back, to avoid confrontation, or study a problem.
Wood
Wood has to do with the growth and health of people and ideas. Wood might be called on to organize and train others, to learn a new skill like a sport or a language, or to raise an animal. It also comes into play when physical health is in question (recovery from diseases and poisons) and when general familiarity with nature and the outdoors in called for.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deploying, Maintaining, and Subverting Technology
Whenever a new vehicle, firearm, sensor, explosive, or other technological implement in introduced to the game, the MC should assign it a gadget rating. Handguns, metal detectors, and landcrawlers are common gadgets. Motion sensors, personal shield generators, and jet fliers are novice gadgets. A genelab might be an initiate gadget, and a derelict void portal might be a master gadget. Gadgets are typically used or worked on with Kagaku.
If you have Kagaku equal to the gadget's rating, you are qualified as an operator. You can use the device for any of its standard functions either with no roll, or with a fault test. You can maintain the device, including repairing any dysfunction caused by neglect or deferred maintenance.
If you have Kagaku greater than the gadget's rating, you are qualified as a technician. In addition to operating the device, you can repair damage caused by sabotage or misuse, and even construct this device from scratch provided materials and either a blueprint or a prototype.
If you have Kagaku two steps better than the gadget, you are qualified as a designer. You can subvert this gadget, causing it to cease normal functioning or function in undesired ways without alerting its owners. You can also derive a blueprint from first principles. You can even apply custom upgrades like miniaturization, dual functions, or nonstandard materials. The rule of thumb is that each installed mod increases the gadget's rank by one for purposes of construction and maintenance, and also operation when appropriate.
Gadgets and the Elements Maintenance is associated with Earth. Subversion with Water. Customization with Fire. Construction with wood. Deployment with metal. Some gadgets also have elemental affinities which apply to all actions.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
When you want to accomplish a diffuse social task--obtaining information or documentation, navigating a bureacracy, or anything other than directly effecting the behavior of a previously named NPC--the simplest way to handle this is treat organizations as though they were gadgets. If the city watch is a Novice organization, that means a Novice in Ningaku could get them to assist him in ways which fall under their mandate, an Initiate could form or maintain an organization on that level, and a Master could subvert or corrupt the guards.
Sometimes you only need to describe your character's actions for everyone to agree on the outcome. Exchanging information in conversation, traveling in safe areas, and so on simply happen as described. But very often, you will be asked to roll dice to find out what happens. This is known as a test. There are three kinds of tests in Identity Crisis: Fault tests, Success tests, and Fortune tests. To play Identity Crisis, you will need 5 six-sided dice, and each die must be recognizably distinct from the others. We recommend differentiating them by color, and purchasing one green, red, blue, white, and black die. We will refer to these in the rules as a Fire die (red), the Water die (blue), the Wood die (green), the Earth die (black), and the Metal die (white). If you are instructed to “roll the dice” without further explanation, this means you must roll one die of each type, for a total of five.
Fault Tests
Sometimes the action being performed is something your character basically known how to do. Whether it's your shaman bypassing a firewall, your scout charting a path hrough the forest, or your ninja repairing her damage flyer, your character has done this before. In a fault test, you roll dice not to find out whether your character can do it, but what if any complications ensue or obstacles arise.
Roll the dice. Find every die showing a “1” or a “2” and set the rest aside. These low dice represent missteps or bad luck, collectively termed faults. Some characters may be able to negate or re-roll some of these faults, but if no such abilities intervene, you now go to apply them. The most common actions will explicitly desribe the possible faults in their rules descriptions. However, in the course of play, many unusual circumstances may arise. If you're unsure what faults should apply to an action, use the following guidelines:
• A fault on the Earth die suggests lack. Either some object or other person's assistance is necessary which is not ready to hand.
• A fault on the Fire die suggests hesitation. For some reason, the activity takes about 5 times longer than it normally would
• A fault on the Metal die suggests imperfection. For some reason it is impossible to achieve exactly the desired result. However, it is possible to jerry-rig an acceptable substitute at risk of later inconvenience.
• A fault on the Water dies suggests recklessness. The character exposes themselves to some kind of harm or exposure. This is different from a metal fault in that the threat is external, and in that it may lead to a new scene rather than simply dealing direct damage.
• A fault on the Wood die suggests overzealous effort. Either a tool being used, or the characters own health is damaged or comprimised in the process.
Aborting your Action: Sometimes the consequences of a fault test may be so undesirable that you don't want to complete the action at all. In this case, roll a water die. On a 4+, congratulations! You successfully abandon the project before suffering the consequences. On a 1-3, oops! You suffer the faults and fail to finish the job.
Success Tests
Sometimes a character may wish to push the limits of her abilities, and it is unclear whether the character should succeed at all. This calls for a success test. Roll the dice, and collect faults as if you were rolling a fault test. Then collect the 5s and 6s as “hits.” A normal success test requires 2 hits. If you rolled at least 2 hits, then resolve the action exactly like a fault test. If not, check for dice showing 3 or 4. You may choose to “split” any or all of these dice, counting each die as both a hit and a fault simultaneously.
Fortune Tests
A fortune test is a roll that gives the player a random benefit. This is the rarest type of test. In most cases, the player acting knows exactly what they are trying to achieve, and so there is nothing random about what they stand to gain. The dice represent obstacles between them and their goals. However, occasionally a character does have the opportunity to achieve something less directed. The classic case for fortune is the downtime test. Each time your character has downtime between missions, you may make a fortune test to see how your character has managed to prepare themselves. Depending on the results and your characters own abilities, you might craft an item, make a new contact, earn money, or otherwise strengthen your position. The other common reason to roll a fortune test is when something good falls into the character's lap unexpectedly, and the MC may not have considered the full ramifications. For instance, suppose that in the course of a mission the party's mechanic manages to divert and seize a shipment full of high-tech components. The MC isn't really sure what's in there, and the player wasn't going out collecting pieces for an ongoing project. In this case the mechanic's player might roll a fortune test to find out what benefits accrue.
To make a fortune test, roll the dice. Save every 5 and 6 as a “hit.” Discard the rest. In the absence of more specific guidance, assume
• An Earth hit provides reserves, such as replenishment of fungible goods or a hallback position in a time of trouble; or, lo-tech gear, particularly for travel and infiltration
• A Fire hit provides a window of opportunity to profit from decisive action; or, materials and contacts related to personal combat
• A Metal hit provides something of value which demands a great deal of maintenance; or, military-industrial gear
• A Water hit providessomething immediately irrelevant, but valuable with planning; or, valuable information
• A Wood hit provides an alternative solution to an old problem; or, biomedical gear
A fortune test may also be used as a “long shot.” When a character attempts to do something completely beyond their abilities, the MC may allow them a fortune test to see if they achieve some part of the desired goal. On a long shot
• An Earth hit provides the groundwork for future efforts
• A Fire hit provides a fleeting benefit
• A Metal hit provides partial success at great cost
• A Water hit provides an escape or palliative
• A Wood hit provides improved understanding of the problem
It should be assumed that all faults are in play during a longshot effort, except those that are directly superceded by the effects of a hit.
The Hierarchy of Skill
To help you evaluate what is within a character's capabilities, the game ranks characters in various categories of activity. There are ten major ratings that will be recorded on every character sheet: the 5 Arts and the 5 Elements. Some characters may have additional skill ratings reflecting specialized expertise in narrow fields. Arts, Elements, and Specialties are all rated on the same scale, as follows:
(Grandmaster)
Master
Initiate
Novice
Common
(Cursed)
Player characters in Identity Crisis will generally have ratings somewhere between Common and Master. A common rating represents the capabilities of a layman with no formal training but basic exposure to the relevant concepts. A Novice reflects the capabilities of someone with a basic education in the subject. An Initiate could work professionally in the field, and a Master would a widely-regarded expert among professionals. Grandmastery is not typically achievable by humans, requiring experience, knowledge, and capability more expansive than an ordinary lifetime can achieve. Grandmastery is the privilege of gods, supercomputers, cyborgs, immortal clones, and other who have transcended human limitations.
Most actions will fall into more than one category. For instance, pulling off a daring maneuver in an aerial dogfight might be an Initiate (Fire, Technology, Piloting) test. In other words, it's made possible by some combination of reflexes and daring, general technical background, and system-specific training. In general, a character uses any one of the relevant ratings—whichever is their best. The exception is when they have a Cursed rating. A Cursed rating represents a cultural disconnect, like a barbarian with Technology, a crippling handicap like Martial Arts from a wheelchair, or a serious personality defect like Fire for someone suffering from a panic disorder or Water for someone hammered drunk. Not only is a Cursed rating itself one step worse than Common, but a Cursed rating will reduce your skill by one step in all relevant tasks,, even when you are using a different skill.
If an action is described as an “Initiate” test, assume that it calls an initiate to make a fault test. A novice attempting it would make a success test, while a common man would get a fortune test or nothing. Sometimes, a master might automatically succeed at an initiate task without rolling, but many actions are inherently risky or unpredictable. Marked with a star (Initiate*) these complex actions always require a fault test, no matter how skilled you are. Moving about under stealth or disguise, brokering a political deal, and binding a demon are exaples of complex tasks.
(Automatic*)-Fault Test-(Success Test)-(Fortune Test)-Impossible
Teamwork: In general, NPCs are not as skilled as PCs, but they do have the advantage of numbers. Typically, a team with 5 members of equivalent skill can perform as though they were a single actor of the next higher tier. This is not stackable. While 5 Novices can break down an Initiate task into manageable chunks, they have no comprehension of where to begin with a Master task.
Effect Tests
Effect tests are written up as an appendix to this section because they work under fundamentally different principles. The other tests bridge gaps between intentions and results; because things like the time and materials expended are dependent on the roll, one typically needs to make the test first, and then backtrack to narrate the steps the character took in the time just skipped over. Sometimes, however, it's perfectly clear what happened; the plane crashed, or the sage drank the poison wine. This might be the result of a previous roll -- a success test to fly the plane resulting in a crash -- or it might arise from narration without a roll. Either way, if you find yourself wanting to measure the impact of a pre-defined instant, you need an effect test. Because this test models instants more often than entire tasks, it also tracks fractional completion in a way standard tests don't.
To make an effect test, roll three dice. We recommend using your water, wood, and fire dice, but it doesn't really matter. Add the showing numbers together. Then add your character's Edge as a bonus, unless otherwise specified. If there is a target or opponent, subtract their edge. A result of 10 or lower indicates no effect. An 11 produces an effect in the first-degree. Every three full points above eleven adds another degree, to a maximum of 4th degree effects at 20+. The effects by degree will be specified by the rule in question, with 4th-degree effects including extreme and final outcomes likes death of a person, irretrievable destruction of an object, or complete control of a group or system. Effects of lower degree may or may not be notable in themselves, but it is assumed that these effects are cumulative over repeated impacts. Unless otherwise specified, if the target is already under any similar effects, add the degree of the highest one to the effect roll
Effect tests are used most frequently in combat, where it determines the injuries sustained from an attack already landed by another mechanic. Most combat actions build up to a 4th-degree effect of "beaten the fuck down" and leave "wounds" that do indeed add a bonus to future attacks.
The Arts
Every kind of science, magic, physical or social skills which can be trained is governed by one of the five Arts. On one level, the Arts are abstractions; there to prevent players from tracking a list of 20 or 30 skills. At the same time, within the world they are quite real. People within the world know the Arts by these names, and philosophers write essays attempting to sort out why medicine and marketing seem to be related. The Arts are the the primary source of your character's identity and the closest thing you have to a “character class.” If you want your character to stand out, try to concentrate on Arts which aren't already covered. Because Specialties are uncommon and Elements are weak, your Arts will govern most actions you take in Identity Crisis.
Wushu
Wushu is “martial arts,” expansively interpreted. It includes not just every form of personal combat with hands or hand weapons, but also athletics of all kinds, mental discipline, yoga-based power over the physical body and familiar with military equipment, tactics, and traditions. A Common level of wushu allows 6-foot vertical leaps (yes, really!) and comparably impressive sprints. A Novice will be able to operate heavy weaponry, ward off exhaustion, or lead a squad of soldiers. An Initiate may be able to purge poisons from her body, feel tension like a polygraph, or sleep inside a bonfire. A Master could
Kagaku
Once the Japanese word for “chemistry”, “Kagaku” has come to be a catchall for mechanical, industrial, and scientific skills. A Kagakusha can build and repair vehicles, disable or bypass security devices, synthesize explosives and manage all kinds of sensors and bizarre weapons systems.
Ningaku A compund word meaning roughly "human studies" Ningaku has come to encompass everything related to managing or maintaining people and other biological assets. This includes psychology, sales & marketing, surgery and pharmacology, animal husbandry, and performing arts. Yes, we know how little sense that makes.
Shugendo
Shugendo is the magic of the void. By opening doors into or out of the void, a Shugenja can store and retrieve objects, as well as disintegrate obstacles and conjure fire, water, and other generic forms of matter and energy. Using the void itself, a shugenja can create forcefields, apply telekinetic force, or suspend themselves or others in midair. At its most powerful, Shugendo can bend space and teleport objects directly from one place to another, but livings things rarely survive the process.
Maho
Maho is the magic of the pattern. A Majin can create illusions, read minds and reveal secrets, contact and bind spirits and demons, and scry on distant places.
The Elements
The Elements represent your character inherent aptitudes and their basic personality or disposition. Virtually every task is governed by one of the elements, suggesting the basic kind of personality that would excel in that field. Because the Elements govern methods or itentions more than specific areas of expertise, they may at first look even weirder than the Arts. The idea of a character who excels at any “impulsive” action, whether athletic, mechanical, or spiritual may feel very strange, and it threatens to blur role distinctions and lead to bizarrely one-track characters. A look at how Elements function in the game should alleviate these concerns.
A Character's Elements are typically lower than their Arts, just as in real life talent is no substitute for experience. A starting player character will have Arts ranging from Common to Master and Elements ranging from Common to Novice. Whenever your character is working within their field, they can ignore the elements entirely. A master technician doesn't worry about whether he's programming “impulsively” or “with discipline.” What the Elements do for a PC is allow them to achieve satisfactory results in unfamiliar areas by taking the approach that fits with their personality. A particularly studious bookworm might have a Novice Water element, and thus be able to do acceptable work in any field given enough time to prepare. An adrenaline junky might have Novice Fire, and thus be able to stay marginally on top of a fight, meeting, or ritual by improvisation and instinct.
Elements at Initiate and above are most commonly seen in ancient beings that have had time to become broadly competent at everything, or in gods and monsters with great power and limited perspective. A Player character might temporarily gain a heightened element through magic, drugs, possession, or ritual, but as these experiences are “mystical” in nature most will accept the character's “intuitive” ability in fields they never actually studied. Cursed elements are also common, represnting flaws in an NPCs character for the players to exploit, the limitations on nonhuman beings, or a character under the influence of some spell, drug, or injury.
Earth
Earth is associated with balance and stability. Earth comes into play whenever one wants to protect or maintain something, or a task needs attention over a long period of time. It also governs finances.
Fire
Fire is associated with impulse, aggression, energy and movement, beauty, and passion. In general any action undertaken spontaneously or depending on spontaneity might be governed by Fire. Attempts to impress of overawe others are also Fire based, as are risky or showy spells and devices. Also anything requiring quick reflexes or otherwise calling for a burst of action in a small window of time.
Metal
Metal is associated with discipline, rigidity, and perfection. Metal might be called for for any task depending on maintaining concentration and avoiding distractions, enduring pain, or perfecting something.
Water
Water is associated with serenity, passivity, motion away (rather than fire's motion towards) and awareness. Water comes into play when a character needs to notice something, to hold themselves back, to avoid confrontation, or study a problem.
Wood
Wood has to do with the growth and health of people and ideas. Wood might be called on to organize and train others, to learn a new skill like a sport or a language, or to raise an animal. It also comes into play when physical health is in question (recovery from diseases and poisons) and when general familiarity with nature and the outdoors in called for.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Deploying, Maintaining, and Subverting Technology
Whenever a new vehicle, firearm, sensor, explosive, or other technological implement in introduced to the game, the MC should assign it a gadget rating. Handguns, metal detectors, and landcrawlers are common gadgets. Motion sensors, personal shield generators, and jet fliers are novice gadgets. A genelab might be an initiate gadget, and a derelict void portal might be a master gadget. Gadgets are typically used or worked on with Kagaku.
If you have Kagaku equal to the gadget's rating, you are qualified as an operator. You can use the device for any of its standard functions either with no roll, or with a fault test. You can maintain the device, including repairing any dysfunction caused by neglect or deferred maintenance.
If you have Kagaku greater than the gadget's rating, you are qualified as a technician. In addition to operating the device, you can repair damage caused by sabotage or misuse, and even construct this device from scratch provided materials and either a blueprint or a prototype.
If you have Kagaku two steps better than the gadget, you are qualified as a designer. You can subvert this gadget, causing it to cease normal functioning or function in undesired ways without alerting its owners. You can also derive a blueprint from first principles. You can even apply custom upgrades like miniaturization, dual functions, or nonstandard materials. The rule of thumb is that each installed mod increases the gadget's rank by one for purposes of construction and maintenance, and also operation when appropriate.
Gadgets and the Elements Maintenance is associated with Earth. Subversion with Water. Customization with Fire. Construction with wood. Deployment with metal. Some gadgets also have elemental affinities which apply to all actions.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
When you want to accomplish a diffuse social task--obtaining information or documentation, navigating a bureacracy, or anything other than directly effecting the behavior of a previously named NPC--the simplest way to handle this is treat organizations as though they were gadgets. If the city watch is a Novice organization, that means a Novice in Ningaku could get them to assist him in ways which fall under their mandate, an Initiate could form or maintain an organization on that level, and a Master could subvert or corrupt the guards.
Last edited by Orion on Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:44 pm, edited 8 times in total.
Chapter 3: The Who
Each player in Identity Crisis, save for the MC, is responsible for developing one Agent. The Agent is their primary point of contact with the story. The Agents as a group constitute a Team, and it is the team's adventures that will make up the bulk of the game. You will probably want to put some though into your Agent, because it will color your experience of Identity Crisis substantially.
Step One: The Patron
Agents are people with extraordinary equipment and abilities, so the most important question to answer is where those abilities came from. In the stratified and inefficient societies of Identity Crisis, most people simply don't have access to the kind of resources that would allow them to become a sorcerer or a master hacker. To become an Agent in the first place, your character needed a leg up from somewhere. You will need to select a sponsor for your Agent from among the major organizations. This will not only explain your character's origins, but in fact provide them with access to the sponsor's secret magic and technology. In general, Agents are assumed to be former members of these organizations, no longer in good standing. However, some Agents may never have been members, but rather gotten access to their sponsor's resources by clandestine means. There are five sponsors available in a standard game, each of which is a major splinter sect of the defunct Suntech corporation.
The Carp Clan
Expert programmers before the Virus, the Carp have reimagined themselves as prophets and visionaries. Their territory is relatively small, but their determination to stay far away from the borders of the shadowland keeps it that way. They favor the element of Water, and are Suntech's foremost experts in the practice of Maho. Some of their Agents practice an art called Elementalism, allowed them to call into being new spirits with biddable personalities by secret means. They are lead by the spirit of a senior manager from the time of the Virus who lost his body and now lives in the pattern and in his willing host, the Speaker. They insist that this is nothing at all like demon possession, even though it totally is.
The Crane Clan are Suntech's medical experts. Their territory is the least contiguous of the major clans, because they are often gifted land as payment or for access to their services. When possible, they build up, turning their hospitals into skyscraping pagodas. The Crane have access to drugs, implants, and cybernetic surgeries unheard of elsewhere, and can provide their Agents with a variety of physical and mental Augmentation and concealed weapons. Their favored art is Wushu and their favored element is Wood. Their nominal leader is the Buddha of Chrome, a man so ancient and so modified that he has become little more than an enormous network of engines and tubes surrounding a pacemaker and a free-floating brain. Day to day governance is administered by his Attendants, a priesthood devoted to attaining immortality through experimental surgery and a syncretic fusion of Taoist, Therevada and Tantric practices.
The Dog Clan Unequaled geneticists, the Dog Clan created the Kappa, Pigsies, and other servant peoples. Some of their own members were given canine adaptations or other animal traits. However, since the Virus they have become obsessed with reclaiming the glory of the ancients. Their sages teach a garbled hybrid confucian/legalist doctrine and ancestor worship is widely practiced. Their major strongholds double as enormous vaults with genetic samples from everyone and everything they consider remotely important, along with zoos that preserve living specimens. Their favored art is Ningaku and their element is Earth. Their Agents may have access to a secret art called Necromancy. Given a blood sample from the victim, they are able to extract the genetic markers that make up his access ID, allowing the Agent to deceive the Void or Pattern into treating them as another person.
The Lion Clan
The Lion were once public relations and communication specialists. After the Virus, they still specialize in maintaining control over the masses, by increasingly extreme means. The Lion sponsor a neo-animist revival, overseeing sacrifices and festivals dedicated to a host of gods who really are actual shadowlands spirits. The centres of worship are high-tech stadiums and their "priests" have inherited the trappings and mannerisms of rock stars. The Lion have a side line in subliminal messaging and pheremone programming, and it is currently unclear whether anyone at all is in charge of the Lion as a whole. Certainly individual cells get subverted by shadow spirits all the time, and there is no reason to think the entire clan may not now be managed by their memetic overlords. Their favored element if Fire, and their favored art is Kagaku, which they mostly use to build AV equipment and pyrotechnics. They equip their Agents with the secret techniques of Memetics, an eclectic mix of subtle and overt behavior modification techniques.
The Ox Clan
[*]Assign your Arts. You get 1 Master, 1 Initiate, and 1 Novice.(The other 2 are Common, if you feel like writing that down)[*]Assign your Elements. You get 1 Novice element. The other 4 are Common.[*]Pick your Talents. You get 6, but each Talent is keyed to an Art. You can't have more talents in one Art than the Art's rating (Common =1, Master=4)[*]Pick your Styles. You get 4, but you can't have more style in a given Art than your rating -1 (Common=0, Master =3). Remember that you can only ready three styles at one time.[*]Get a bunch of gear and contacts and Knacks and shit. Maybe a name, too. Names are good.[/list]
(A Talent is a utility ability. A Style is a set of five combat maneuvers)
Each player in Identity Crisis, save for the MC, is responsible for developing one Agent. The Agent is their primary point of contact with the story. The Agents as a group constitute a Team, and it is the team's adventures that will make up the bulk of the game. You will probably want to put some though into your Agent, because it will color your experience of Identity Crisis substantially.
Step One: The Patron
Agents are people with extraordinary equipment and abilities, so the most important question to answer is where those abilities came from. In the stratified and inefficient societies of Identity Crisis, most people simply don't have access to the kind of resources that would allow them to become a sorcerer or a master hacker. To become an Agent in the first place, your character needed a leg up from somewhere. You will need to select a sponsor for your Agent from among the major organizations. This will not only explain your character's origins, but in fact provide them with access to the sponsor's secret magic and technology. In general, Agents are assumed to be former members of these organizations, no longer in good standing. However, some Agents may never have been members, but rather gotten access to their sponsor's resources by clandestine means. There are five sponsors available in a standard game, each of which is a major splinter sect of the defunct Suntech corporation.
The Carp Clan
Expert programmers before the Virus, the Carp have reimagined themselves as prophets and visionaries. Their territory is relatively small, but their determination to stay far away from the borders of the shadowland keeps it that way. They favor the element of Water, and are Suntech's foremost experts in the practice of Maho. Some of their Agents practice an art called Elementalism, allowed them to call into being new spirits with biddable personalities by secret means. They are lead by the spirit of a senior manager from the time of the Virus who lost his body and now lives in the pattern and in his willing host, the Speaker. They insist that this is nothing at all like demon possession, even though it totally is.
The Crane Clan are Suntech's medical experts. Their territory is the least contiguous of the major clans, because they are often gifted land as payment or for access to their services. When possible, they build up, turning their hospitals into skyscraping pagodas. The Crane have access to drugs, implants, and cybernetic surgeries unheard of elsewhere, and can provide their Agents with a variety of physical and mental Augmentation and concealed weapons. Their favored art is Wushu and their favored element is Wood. Their nominal leader is the Buddha of Chrome, a man so ancient and so modified that he has become little more than an enormous network of engines and tubes surrounding a pacemaker and a free-floating brain. Day to day governance is administered by his Attendants, a priesthood devoted to attaining immortality through experimental surgery and a syncretic fusion of Taoist, Therevada and Tantric practices.
The Dog Clan Unequaled geneticists, the Dog Clan created the Kappa, Pigsies, and other servant peoples. Some of their own members were given canine adaptations or other animal traits. However, since the Virus they have become obsessed with reclaiming the glory of the ancients. Their sages teach a garbled hybrid confucian/legalist doctrine and ancestor worship is widely practiced. Their major strongholds double as enormous vaults with genetic samples from everyone and everything they consider remotely important, along with zoos that preserve living specimens. Their favored art is Ningaku and their element is Earth. Their Agents may have access to a secret art called Necromancy. Given a blood sample from the victim, they are able to extract the genetic markers that make up his access ID, allowing the Agent to deceive the Void or Pattern into treating them as another person.
The Lion Clan
The Lion were once public relations and communication specialists. After the Virus, they still specialize in maintaining control over the masses, by increasingly extreme means. The Lion sponsor a neo-animist revival, overseeing sacrifices and festivals dedicated to a host of gods who really are actual shadowlands spirits. The centres of worship are high-tech stadiums and their "priests" have inherited the trappings and mannerisms of rock stars. The Lion have a side line in subliminal messaging and pheremone programming, and it is currently unclear whether anyone at all is in charge of the Lion as a whole. Certainly individual cells get subverted by shadow spirits all the time, and there is no reason to think the entire clan may not now be managed by their memetic overlords. Their favored element if Fire, and their favored art is Kagaku, which they mostly use to build AV equipment and pyrotechnics. They equip their Agents with the secret techniques of Memetics, an eclectic mix of subtle and overt behavior modification techniques.
The Ox Clan
[*]Assign your Arts. You get 1 Master, 1 Initiate, and 1 Novice.(The other 2 are Common, if you feel like writing that down)[*]Assign your Elements. You get 1 Novice element. The other 4 are Common.[*]Pick your Talents. You get 6, but each Talent is keyed to an Art. You can't have more talents in one Art than the Art's rating (Common =1, Master=4)[*]Pick your Styles. You get 4, but you can't have more style in a given Art than your rating -1 (Common=0, Master =3). Remember that you can only ready three styles at one time.[*]Get a bunch of gear and contacts and Knacks and shit. Maybe a name, too. Names are good.[/list]
(A Talent is a utility ability. A Style is a set of five combat maneuvers)
Last edited by Orion on Fri Jan 04, 2013 5:48 am, edited 5 times in total.
Chapter 4: The Ten
There are ten major organizations with the resources to train top-tier agents and with secret techniques players might find desirable. They can be broken down into two groups: the Five, and the Other Five.
The Five
The Five are the surviving core divisions of Suntech. They nominally consider themselves one people, and theoretically answer to one emperor, although inighting and treachery nonetheless run rampant. Still, they have a lot of basic cultural norms and a language in common.
The Carp: Surfing the 'Net
The Crane: Zen and the Art of Cyborg Maintenance
The Dog: Hair of the Ancestor
The Lion: We Will Rock You
The Ox: Delivery in 24 Hours, or You Disappear and This Never Happened
Then there are the Other Five, who are... NOT part of the Suntech consensus. This includes two former Suntech factions, and three groups who were never part of Suntech.
The Fox: You Want Fries With That? Would You Settle for Plutonium?
The Turtle: Building a Better Tomorrow, Yesterday
Patala Finance: When EVERY Homeowner Is Underwater
Red Star: Pikachu, I Choose YOU to Organize the Proletariat!
Universal Standard Aeronautic: USA! USA!
There are ten major organizations with the resources to train top-tier agents and with secret techniques players might find desirable. They can be broken down into two groups: the Five, and the Other Five.
The Five
The Five are the surviving core divisions of Suntech. They nominally consider themselves one people, and theoretically answer to one emperor, although inighting and treachery nonetheless run rampant. Still, they have a lot of basic cultural norms and a language in common.
The Carp: Surfing the 'Net
The Crane: Zen and the Art of Cyborg Maintenance
The Dog: Hair of the Ancestor
The Lion: We Will Rock You
The Ox: Delivery in 24 Hours, or You Disappear and This Never Happened
Then there are the Other Five, who are... NOT part of the Suntech consensus. This includes two former Suntech factions, and three groups who were never part of Suntech.
The Fox: You Want Fries With That? Would You Settle for Plutonium?
The Turtle: Building a Better Tomorrow, Yesterday
Patala Finance: When EVERY Homeowner Is Underwater
Red Star: Pikachu, I Choose YOU to Organize the Proletariat!
Universal Standard Aeronautic: USA! USA!
Last edited by Orion on Wed Dec 26, 2012 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Chapter 5
An Operation is any activity or series of activities toward a goal that are neither sufficiently fraught to require Tactical tracking nor sufficiently amorphous to call for Downtime. Most of your play will be spent in Operations. It is typically during Operations that you will apply your Talents, and so it is in this chapter that we print the full list.
Wushu Talents
Infinite Patience (E) -- Ignore pain, fatigue, illness and poison
Breaking the Pillar (E) -- break things
Hold Up the Heavens (E) -- pick up big things and maybe throw them
Skin like Stone(E) -- gain natural weapons and armor, plus immunity to sandstorms and bug bites
Heavenly Speed (F) -- run really really fast
Faster than Sight (F) -- defeat non-instantaneous detection
Brilliant Banner (F) -- rally troops or inspire people
Inner Fire (F) -- ignore heat and cold, and generate either by touch
Steely Gaze (M) -- ignore fear, and cause it in others
One against Many(M) -- allows you to participate in mass combat as a if you were an entire unit
Forging the Spirit (M) -- turn extras into disciplined soldiers
Second Skin (M) -- Use powered armor or personal fliers
Third Eye Open(Wa) -- never be surprised
A Shadow's Shadow (Wa) -- shadow people or just hide
Reading the Voice(Wa) -- detect lies and hostility
Light as a Leaf (Wa) -- walk on water, walls, tree branches, and so on
Expel Impurity (Wo) -- heal by laying on hands
Block the Chi (Wo) -- lay on hands to suppress someone's power
Master Tactician(Wo) -- find weaknesses and break groups
Vault to the Heavens (Wo) -- jump really high, like onto airplanes in flight
Kagaku Talents
Demolitionist
Locksmith
Mobile Mechanic
Archaeologist
Weaponsmith
Energy Expert
Shugendo Talents
Barrier
Far Hands
Conjure Elements
Quick Draw
Air Walk
Deep Pockets
Void Thief
Quantum Tunnel
Thunderclap
Maho Talents
Google Earth
Chat Roulette
eBay
Skype
Prepare Vessel
Exorcism
Image Macro
Instant Messenger
An Operation is any activity or series of activities toward a goal that are neither sufficiently fraught to require Tactical tracking nor sufficiently amorphous to call for Downtime. Most of your play will be spent in Operations. It is typically during Operations that you will apply your Talents, and so it is in this chapter that we print the full list.
Wushu Talents
Infinite Patience (E) -- Ignore pain, fatigue, illness and poison
Breaking the Pillar (E) -- break things
Hold Up the Heavens (E) -- pick up big things and maybe throw them
Skin like Stone(E) -- gain natural weapons and armor, plus immunity to sandstorms and bug bites
Heavenly Speed (F) -- run really really fast
Faster than Sight (F) -- defeat non-instantaneous detection
Brilliant Banner (F) -- rally troops or inspire people
Inner Fire (F) -- ignore heat and cold, and generate either by touch
Steely Gaze (M) -- ignore fear, and cause it in others
One against Many(M) -- allows you to participate in mass combat as a if you were an entire unit
Forging the Spirit (M) -- turn extras into disciplined soldiers
Second Skin (M) -- Use powered armor or personal fliers
Third Eye Open(Wa) -- never be surprised
A Shadow's Shadow (Wa) -- shadow people or just hide
Reading the Voice(Wa) -- detect lies and hostility
Light as a Leaf (Wa) -- walk on water, walls, tree branches, and so on
Expel Impurity (Wo) -- heal by laying on hands
Block the Chi (Wo) -- lay on hands to suppress someone's power
Master Tactician(Wo) -- find weaknesses and break groups
Vault to the Heavens (Wo) -- jump really high, like onto airplanes in flight
Kagaku Talents
Demolitionist
Locksmith
Mobile Mechanic
Archaeologist
Weaponsmith
Energy Expert
Shugendo Talents
Barrier
Far Hands
Conjure Elements
Quick Draw
Air Walk
Deep Pockets
Void Thief
Quantum Tunnel
Thunderclap
Maho Talents
Google Earth
Chat Roulette
eBay
Skype
Prepare Vessel
Exorcism
Image Macro
Instant Messenger
Last edited by Orion on Fri Jan 11, 2013 9:18 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Chapter 6
At the beginning of a tactical encounter, roll the dice and keep them face up in front of you.
A Style is a linked group of tactical options. For this reason, the full list of Styles is printed in this chapter.
Wushu Styles
Hammer and Anvil
Ebb and Flow
Dancing Dragon
Immortal Obelisk
Steel Supremacy
Strangling Vine
Iron in the Heart
Fire in the Blood
Kagaku Styles
Daring Pilot
Grenadier
Shield Virtuoso
Combat Mechanic
Bring out the Big Gun
Shugendo Styles
Vader Style
Offensive Conjuring
Disintegration
Dancing Blade
Thousand-Knife Style
Maho Styles
Smoke & Mirrors
Basilisk Hacks
Ningaku Styles
Cunning Marshal
Peerless Scout
Cutting Remarks
Airs of Innocence
Augmentation Styles
Mouth of the Universe
Wings of Ascension
Talon Dance
Elementalism Styles
Guiding the Vessel
At the beginning of a tactical encounter, roll the dice and keep them face up in front of you.
- The Fire die is your initiative. Characters will act in initiative order from highest to lowest.
- The Water die is your awareness.
- If the enemies got the drop on you, this die determine whether you are surprised.
- It also determines whether you become aware of anyone whose presence is not obvious.
- The Wood die is your location. Place your character in the corresponding numbered zone unless an ability or operational action dictates otherwise. The Earth die is your flow. On your turn you will be able to move or project force into the listed area.
- Finally, the Metal die is your tempo. It determines which of your spells and maneuvers are available for use this round.
A Style is a linked group of tactical options. For this reason, the full list of Styles is printed in this chapter.
Wushu Styles
Hammer and Anvil
Ebb and Flow
Dancing Dragon
Immortal Obelisk
Steel Supremacy
Strangling Vine
Iron in the Heart
Fire in the Blood
Kagaku Styles
Daring Pilot
Grenadier
Shield Virtuoso
Combat Mechanic
Bring out the Big Gun
Shugendo Styles
Vader Style
Offensive Conjuring
Disintegration
Dancing Blade
Thousand-Knife Style
Maho Styles
Smoke & Mirrors
Basilisk Hacks
Ningaku Styles
Cunning Marshal
Peerless Scout
Cutting Remarks
Airs of Innocence
Augmentation Styles
Mouth of the Universe
Wings of Ascension
Talon Dance
Elementalism Styles
Guiding the Vessel
Last edited by Orion on Fri Jan 11, 2013 8:33 pm, edited 7 times in total.
Chapters 7-End
So I'm interested in any thoughts people have, but especially
So I'm interested in any thoughts people have, but especially
- Is the preface ridiculously too long? Is it interesting? What would you cut?
- Am I explaining the setting in a reasonable or helpful way?
- Fault test: great mechanic, or greatest mechanic?
- Do success tests kind of suck? Because I think they might suck. I feel like I need to have some kind of success test but I can't think of a mechanic for it that I actually like.
- Is it more intuitive for a Fault to represent an excess or a deficiency; that is, does rolling a "1" on the Fire die give you hesitation or recklessness. Originally I had them written up as excesses, with a fire fault representing your fire "getting the better of you" and leading you into trouble, but while that sounds more like a "fire fault" than hesitating does, I worried it was counterintuitive for a low number to represent excessive fieriness.
Last edited by Orion on Wed Dec 26, 2012 9:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
-
Avoraciopoctules
- Overlord
- Posts: 8624
- Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2008 5:48 pm
- Location: Oakland, CA
The dice mechanic is interesting, but it is also complicated in the same ways that got me to decide Reign wasn't worth trying to play.
I do like the way that success or failure states give you clear ideas as tp how they turn out, so that someone jumping over a chasm too enthusiastically and hitting their head is more than just flavor text the MC makes up on the spot to explain a partial glitch on the athletics roll.
I do like the way that success or failure states give you clear ideas as tp how they turn out, so that someone jumping over a chasm too enthusiastically and hitting their head is more than just flavor text the MC makes up on the spot to explain a partial glitch on the athletics roll.