Bruise: Sci-fi/ Fantasy in the Far Future (long post)

[MPOSullivan]

Heya guys, what's going?  

Alright, so I was sitting around yesterday, working on a drawing for my pet project, something I mentioned here quite a while ago.  It's a game called bruise that I've had in my head since I was eighteen, and now I'm twenty-five.  It's basically a European sci-fi comic fever dream set on a prison planet and plays with big ideas like nature vs. nurture and destiny vs. fate vs. self-determinism.  The game world I think uses the same kind of crack that the Metabarons does, except cut with a little bit of spice from Dune.  

The World

Bruise is a science fiction role-playing game set deep into the future of humanity. The human race, after many petty wars and squabbles found themselves unified under the banner of the Grand Covenance, an imperial government with a senate, similar in structure to the Roman Empire's government, and led by the Immaculara Rex. After thousands of years of peace, enforced by the Immaculara's policing force, the Protectorate, humanity had spread across the Known Universe.

This is all background though. What really matters is that at one point, approximately five hundred years before the start-date of the game, the Immaculara became paranoid and fearful of his own people. On the fringes of the Known Universe uprisings were beginning to sprout up. The utopia that had been promised by the Grand Covenance was a fruit with a very bitter taste indeed. The Immaculara had to act quickly to quell these insurrections.

Rebels were gathered up by the thousands and were put into holding. The Immaculara, burning with rage that his people would turn against him and his holy countenance, wanted to kill each and every rebel that was captured, but could not. The Immaculara's hands were tied by the Ashra, the laws upon which the Grand Covenance was built. These laws forbade execution and held high the sanctity of human life.

After many agonizing months the Immaculara had come up with a punishment that was like death, yet was so much worse. He recalled as a child reading about a planet that was discovered on the Fringes under his great uncle's rule. Fringer pilots had taken tocalling the planet Bruise after the sickly purple and yellow color of its atmosphere. An attempt had been made to colonize the planet. Seventy-five colony-craft were sent to the planet, all at a full capacity of 20,000 people. Upon the arrival of the colonizers, all communication was lost. Rescue groups were sent to investigate and communication was lost with them as well. Finally, after six months, the Protectorate was finally able to scan the surface of the planet with a group of very powerful psions. They discovered that every single human that landed on the planet was killed. All one hundred and fifty thousand colonists and ten thousand rescuers were dead and gone.

A wicked thought started to wrap its tail around the brain of the Immaculara. He would send his enemies, these foes of his grace to this horrible planet with the purple atmosphere. He would send them there to die.

Then, to add salt to the wound, he would instead take away everything that the criminal held dear by destroying his memories. His family, his friends, even his own name would be burnt out of his skull. No longer would he remember the embrace of his mother, the first kiss he ever had, he would not even remember if he had children. All that he would remember was one thing, chosen for him by the courts, to sharpen the pain of his existence, to act as a reminder of what he sacrificed to commit his crime.

Within months ten thousand convicted criminals were sentenced to live out the rest of their days as exiles on this fierce planet. Their lives were taken from them and they were sent to Bruise in small pods, crashing on the surface of the planet and awakening to a new painful and harsh life, one which would surely kill them, left only with one memory of their previous life and a mnemonic message placed inside of them, reminding them of their crime and their sentence.

As the years passed, the laws involving the exiling of prisoners to Bruise were broadened so that most any criminal could be sent there to die. Criminals convicted of treason were bunched together with murderers, rapists and thieves. Any who were thought to be an enemy of the Citizenry were sent away, never to return.

What the Immaculara and the Grand Covenance didn't expect is that these convict would sometimes survive. That some would flourish. That some would fight their fate and live on.

And that's the set-up. Players play convicts sentenced to die on Bruise. Their previous lives have been taken away from them and when they arrive on Bruise in small pods called Wombs, the only thing that they have with them is a piece of nano-organic technology called a Skin.

Five hundred years have passed since the first prisoners were sent to Bruise and, in spite of the desires of the Grand Covenance, for some reason some of the convicts actually do survive. Enough have survived over the years to create a sizable population for the planet. While the new criminal arrivals to the planet far outnumber the amount of people that were actually native-born to Bruise, there are a growing number of native-born inhabitants.

Bruise has also developed many cultures and Factions of its own. The warlike Marduk, the religious Matrons, the savage Wasters and many others have risen up over the years. Technologies left behind by the original colonizers have also given rise to a more scientifically advanced populace, led by the tech-obsessed Archen.

City-states have also risen up, normally sprouting from the remains of a rediscovered colony-craft blooms. City-states such as Sha-Razir, the home of the Matrons, and Anouk Sathum, the center for almost all trade on the planet, have risen from the ashes of the colonizers.

There are even rumors that once, millions of years previous, there was a race native to the planet. These so-called Originals have supposedly left behind some of their technology, technology purported to be so powerful as to rival even the greatest the Covenance has ever constructed.

The game itself is a game that works hopefully on a number of levels. While the game is definitely a science fiction game, at the same time, it is also my personal take on classic fantasy games as well. The game is supposed to be told on an epic scale. Players portray characters that have a chance of survival on the planet. In this instance, the game has all of the classic monsters to beat up and "dungeons" to explore for treasure. The game also has a vast new world ready for the more daring of characters to explore. And on top of this are the various Factions and City-states that exist on the planet and their inter-politics. With the knowledge that all characters have of their previous life's crime, there's even the question of whether a person is capable of overcoming their past, or are they doomed to simply become murderers and thieves all over again.

The Problem

So, my problem all these years has been in the system(s) I've cooked up for this.  At first I used a d20 style game system, way back in '96, then used an odd d6-based system of my own creation that was pretty good but was too math heavy for my tastes, since I prefer dice-light or diceless gaming.  I then baked up a nice playing card version, which was kind of the basis for my 24hourRPG Criminal Element.  That wasn't bad either, but I wanted something that felt more epic, more heroic.

Recently, I've been HGing a weekly game of Nobilis and have just bought the Marvel Universe RPG and the X-Men supplement, so I've had diceless gaming on my mind for a little while.  So, I've been thinking diceless, working on this drawing for Bruise, and suddenly I get this idea.  It's an effort-based system like Active Exploits or MURPG and is (hopefully) fast-paced and allows for an epic scope.

The Basics of the Epic System

All characters have four traits/attributes: Body, Mind, Spirit and Motion.  Beginning characters rate these on a basic white wolf scale, one through five, two being average.  Attributes also have Definitions, which is the little flavor added to each Attribute that helps differentiate them betweens characters.  One character could define their Mind as Witty; another could be Analytical.  Characters also have training in Skills, on a 0-5 scale.  Whenever a character wants to try something, they add together the appropriate Attribute and Skill rating.  This is their basic Action Total (or whatever I wind up naming it, probably something that sounds more literate).  This is then compared to a difficulty set by the Game Master (or Tale Weaver as I am thinking of calling him for this game).  IF the number is equal or higher, the character succeeds.  If it is lower, then they fail.

   Example: Barda is trying to jump a sizable gap before being caught by some hungry Waster pursuers.  She adds together her Body of 3 and her Athletics of 2 for an Action Total of 5.  The GM reveals that the difficulty was 5, so Barda just clears the gap.

   Now, before the difficulty is revealed, a character may want to put more effort into what they are attempting.  Characters all have a base number of Attribute Effort equal to their Attribute ratings.  Thus a character with Mind 3 also has three Mind Effort points.  If a player is afraid that they don't have enough to make the Difficulty, or if they want to do really well, they can spend some of their Effort to bridge the gap.  Effort spent from the appropriate Attribute adds to your action total on a 1 for 1 basis.

   Example:  Let's say that the ravine that Barda is trying to clear is a bit wider than last time and she doesn't exactly feel comfortable with just going on her base Action Total.  She decides to burn two of her three Body Effort points, raising her Action Total to 7, and a good thing too, since the GM declares that the Difficulty was seven.

   Burnt Effort regenerates at one point of the players choosing per round.  As such, a player could pretty much always put one point of effort into an action per round and not feel the effects too badly, as it would always regenerate at the beginning of next round.  But, let's say that a character has already burnt all of their stored up Effort in their appropriate Attribute.  Rather than having nothing left to turn to, they can instead use the Effort from one of their other Attributes.  In order to do so, a player must first find a way to tie in their character's Definition for that Attribute into the description of what they are doing.  If the GM agrees that the Definition fits, then they can spend Effort on a 2 for 1 basis to increase their Action Total.

   Example: Barda is trying to make that jump again, only this time she's only got 1 point of effort in her Body Effort pool, and she knows she's going to need at least two points of effort to make the jump.  She tells the GM that she is going to make a "beautiful, Graceful leap from one side of the cliff wall to the other".  Graceful is Barda's Definition for Motion, and the GM agrees that it fits what she is attempting to do.  Barda burns her last remaining point of Body effort and spends two of her four Motion Effort points to get an extra point of effort towards her Action Total, giving her a 7.

Destiny Vs. Fate

One of the ideas I want to play with in Bruise is the concept of Destiny vs. Fate, which is kind of like the potential of Good against the potential for Evil in a person.  At the beginning of character creation all characters choose one Destiny Archetype and one Fate Archetype.  These run on a scale of 1 through 10, but are both on the same scale, a Wheel, and works in kind of the same fashion as the Quintessence/ Paradox wheel in Mage.  All characters start the game with five points in both Destiny and Fate, thus making for an even wheel and showing that characters have yet to make any decisions about their potential.

   Okay, the wheel also has another wheel running along the inside or outside of it (haven't decided yet because I don't know if the system is going to work so I didn't design character sheets yet).  This second wheel is the Wheel of Deeds.  Whenever a character commits a Deed in accordance with their Destiny or Fate, they gain an appropriate Deed Point.  If the collected deed points of one type wind up exceeding the total Destiny or Fate points on the wheel of Potential by one point, then the scales become tipped in that one Archetypes direction and that Archetype gains a point on the Wheel of Potential as the other loses a point.  When this happens, all of the points on the Wheel of Deeds are reset to zero and the path to self-discovery and self-determination opens anew.  

   Now, you're probably asking yourself what good the Two Wheels do for a character.  Well, first off, points on the Wheel are kind of like points of luck.  A character has a number of Destiny Effort points equal to their Destiny rating on the Wheel of Potential, and a number of Fate points equal to the Fate Potential.  These can be used at any time on a 1 for 1 basis to increase an Action Total.  The only difference between Potential Effort and Attribute Effort is that it regenerates much slower.  Potential Effort only regenerates at the beginning of a new story or when the Wheel of Potential changes.  At either of these times the Potential Effort is completely restored.  

               Example: Grek, a Marduk warrior, has as his Archetypes Protector (destiny:6) and Barbarian (fate:4).  Grek has just fought in a battle with a horrible monster in order to save some native-born children in his small Marduk caravan.  The GM states that Grek has acted in accordance with his Destiny and, as such, gains another point of towards his Destiny on the Wheel of Deeds.  Grek had already collected 6 points of Destiny Deeds, and this new point brings him up to 7, one point better than his Destiny rating on the Wheel of Potential.  Grek changes his ratings on the Wheel of Potential to Destiny:7 and Fate:3 , refills his Destiny and Fate Effort coffers and erases all of his collected points of Deeds.

   I was also thinking that, as a character becomes polarized towards Destiny or Fate, they can gain special bonuses based on their Archetype.  Thus, a character that becomes more polarized towards their Destiny Archetype of Protector might gain extra free points of effort when putting his life on the line to help save innocents.  A Fate-Polarized Trickster might gain free effort when deceiving people.

The Wrap Up
All right, I think that's all that I've got for right now.  Please, everyone, I need help with this system.  This is the closest I've felt to the real thing ever for this game, and I want to make sure it works.  If you guys have any questions or can think of anything that needs to be addressed here, please say something!  You guys have been great in the past with my work on Criminal Element, so I'm hoping to get your collective brilliance burning once again here.

Laters!

   -Michael

[Ben Morgan]

I like what I see so far. The basic mechanic is very similar to an idea I had a long time ago to run WW diceless (never got to test it) by allowing people to spend as many willpower points on an action as they wanted, and just give out willpower like candy.

In what ways is Destiny different from Fate, other than the fact that one is good and one is not?

-- Ben

[MPOSullivan]

Hey, thanks for the reply Ben.  I guess the basics of the system can be somewhat White Wolf-ish, though I personally would prefer to compare it to Exalted than anything else from the White Wolf line.  There is an attempt in the game to play with those kind of high-concept ideas and such.

       To answer your question, this is what I'm thinking for Destiny v. Fate.  Destiny represents all that is potentially good within a person, that, if a person were set upon an even metaphysical field and allowed to develop into their most, for lack of a better word, righteous selves, they would "become their Destiny".  Fate is the holographic opposite of this.  A person who "becomes their Fate" is somehow twisted inside and is a horrible thing.  Of course, what does it matter to a player if their character becomes polarized as either good or evil (these terms being rather simplistic in the grand scheme of things)?  

       Well, the most basic of it is that the world has Telepaths, people that can read the extent to which a character has chased their Destiny or Fate.  This may make some Telepaths uncomfortable with said characters.

       Also, as characters develop towards fulfilling their Destiny or Fate and becoming their Archetype, they also develop special powers to go along with it.  The attempt here isn't to make characters into superheroes but instead to instill something of the archetypal "hero of a thousand faces" into the characters.  As characters polarize towards an Archetype, they become it, in sort of the same way as characters in Unknown Armies.  When I think of it, I tend to think of the opposing Seelie and Unseelie personality traits in Changeling: The Dreaming.  

       I know it sounds pretentious, but when I think of the Destiny v. Fate thing, I don't necessarily think good against evil, I think Yin against Yang, Order opposing Chaos, or the Holographic Universe in the Invisibles.  There are advantages to either side, it's just up to your character which potential he wants to fulfill.  Destiny I guess is that which works for the greater good while Fate only advances yourself, working towards personal gain.  I see Destiny-polarized characters as those people that turn away from what they have been told their crime was and instead try and become better people, turning their lives on Bruise into something positive.  Fate-polarized people I think take their supposed past into stride and work with it.  If they've been told that they were killers in the past, then they see no reason to stop doing that.

       On a side note, I made the way that the Wheel of Potential advances in such a way for a reason.  As a person becomes closer to becoming one of their Archetypes it becomes increasingly easier to gain a point on the wheel of Potential for the opposing ideal.  For instance, if a character has a Destiny:7 and a Fate:3, he needs to accomplish 8 destiny-based deeds in order to tilt the wheel again, while he only needs to accomplish 4 Fate-based deeds to tilt the wheel in the opposite direction.  Thus if a character is running low on Fate and Destiny Effort, they could always reset their totals by accomplishing some deeds for the lower ranking potential and get some new Effort.  Thus, the two roads become present, between the easy present and the fulfilled future.  I also think that it's fun that if a character becomes a pure Archetype that they only need step off of the path once to send their appropriate Potential score down to 9.

Laters,

   -Michael