HEX: Rip the System

[Sykora]

Back in October (I'd post the link but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make 'em show up) I brought up my techno-urban game called HEX. Progress has continued apace and I'm much closer to my design goals (as outlined in the original thread.) Of course about that time I discovered Ron's Mongrel and Jake's La Familia, which share similar designs and themes. I can only conclude that The Forge has bugged my computer. ;)

As it stands right now, a decent portion of all sections have been written out and there are extensive notes on the unfleshed-out parts. What I'm looking for is a bit of feedback on the various elements.

HEX is a generic (totally using the term wrong) cyberpunk game, in that it can be used for any particular genre that involves loser punks battling The Man. From Neuromancer, Pattern Recognition, Bubblegum Crisis, Ghost in the Shell, to The Untouchables or Naked Lunch. Part of this is changing the genre tag to techno-urban to suggest those types of stories (instead of mirrorshades and chrome). Setting is determined by GM or group consensus (three methods are actually described) by answering certain questions including the Theme (What is Human? Or What is Reality?), tech level, style, etc.

The next step is that the group designs the Threat. Points spent on Threat directly correspond to points the group gets to build their characters with. Designing a Threat has several sections:

Threat Creation
1.  Decide on the Type of Threat
This covers your basic descriptor: Corporate, Government, Media, Occultic, Technological, or Idealistic. These have absolutely no game effect.

2.  Decide on the Threat's Will and Power
These are the two Threat attributes. They are rated 1-10. Will covers how hard the Threat will follow its agenda as well as how hard they'll come after people who screw with them. Power covers the amount of control and influence the Threat has in its particular interests and how hard they'll fight for this.

3. Choose Knacks
Knacks are descriptors. A Threat gets a number equal to its highest Attribute. Each one is a word or short phrase that descibes an aspect of the Threat. They are picked in the following order:

Action - What the Threat does (ex: Manifest Destiny, World's Largest Manufacturer of Pudding, Bleeding Edge Tech, Protests, etc.)

Reaction - How the Threat reacts when pushed (ex: Peace Talks, Espionage, Litigation, etc.)

Influence - pull or reputation (ex: Jackboot, Charitable, etc.)

If the Threat has any extra Knacks after those three are picked, the group decides what category and what exactly they are.

Knacks are rated with a hex string (like: A741). These are raised by one level (there's list of the different hex strings and their value) per point the Threat has in its lowest Attribute.

4. Decide on how the Threat will be Neutralized
This is how the group plans on neutralizing the Threat. This is more of a general direction for the players to steer when designing characters.

Characters are then made, with the points spent on the Threat x 4 being the points that the whole group gets to divide amongst them. Leftover points are fought bitterly for. The same basic process is followed when making characters as with Threat. There is still thought about some sorta Kicker-type idea floating around, but it hasn't made it onto the page yet.

The two Attributes for characters are Edge and Cred. Edge covers all the physical and mental derring-do a character might attempt, while Cred covers reputation and contacts. Knacks are then bought, using the same formula and order from Threats. In addition, characters have an optional category of Gearz, and Warez, covering any technology or tools they might have available. Characters have one additional stat called Alienation that starts at 0. Alienation represents the essential dichotomy of these types of characters: while fighting to protect others from something, they often neglect themselves. It goes up when rolls are failed. When it reaches 10, the character is rewritten to reflect the break. They can either emerge as a stronger person or a hollow shell of a human, depending on what the player desires. A high Alienation can be temporarily ignored by picking up Flaws, which raise the limit by 1 per.

The System is, hopefully, quick and simple. Players bid dice from their Attributes for actions. Whoever spends the most goes first, followed by the next, etc. Ties get jack. Dice are d10s. The player then rolls and takes the highest die. Any ties with that result add 1 to the highest die. If this beats a target number or opposing roll, the player succeeded. They get to return the dice spent to their Attribute. If they fail they lose those dice from their Attribute and gain a point of Alienation.

If a Knack applies to the action attempted, the die total is compared against each level in the Knack. The appropriate Knack level is then used to determine effects. (ex: a roll of 9 doesn't beat an A  but does beat a 7. Ergo, for this result the player achieved a result of 3 success levels.) Success levels are used as a measure of success for descriptive actions and subtracted from an opposing player's Attribute if an opposed roll. In addition, the player who rolled a succesful Knack gets one die in the Attribute.

When Attributes are 0 or less, the player is out. This could be dead if it were combat, totally flummoxed in a social situation etc.

And that's about it. Hopefully that made sense (the Knack success level thing is hard to explain). One of my main queries right now is how to model passive defense Knacks like Armor or Shrug Off Insults.

So, please rip the system. Comment away.

- Mark

[ethan_greer]

Stream of consciousness rip commences forthwith:

If we're talking task resolution, then 10 seems like a low number for Alienation, unless you want characters rewritten a minimum of once per session.  If it's scene-based conflict resolution ala Story Engine, 10 seems more reasonable, but still low.  Have you playtested the Alienation stuff?  How does it play out?  How often are characters breaking?

Threat creation is a cool-ass idea.  Kudos.

How are attribute dice that are lost through failed rolls regained, if at all?  At the end of the scene?  Session?  Or what?

Also, I'm fuzzy on how knack levels are determined.  You pick a knack level, and then increase it based on the lowest attribute?  Huh?  Why not just pick a knack level?

I dig the hex numbers.  Techie but accessible.  Nice touch there.

Please clarify what "Ties get jack" means.  (I know the slang, just not clear what the sentence means from a game mechanics standpoint.)

That's all for now.

[Sykora]

Alienation (at least this incarnation) has not been playtested. It's not my goal to have characters rewritten every session. However, from my feeble attempts at math, it doesn't look like failing happens all that often. Target numbers are relatively low. The only major instance when it might go up fast is against opposed rolls when they're spending billions of dice a turn. But then, that's sorta what's supposed to happen. Still, if it does turn into a problem, there are a number of solutions I've thought of. One would involved losing a point of Alienation whenever an appropriate Knack succeeds. But this obviously requires actual play to determine.

Threat creation is a cool-ass idea. Kudos.

Thanks. That's the part that's gotten the most attention from others. It just sorta seemed like the way to handle this genre.

Regaining attribute dice is one of those things that are still up in the air. This one kinda needs actual play to determine as well. I do know that improvement happens at the end of a session when you have more attribute dice than your original attribute value.

Knacks. Sorry for the confusion. Let's lay this out:

There are six Knack levels. From greatest to least they are:
Alpha       A741   
Beta         B852   
Gamma    C963   
Delta       DA74      
Epsilon      EB85   
Zeta          FC96

All Knacks start at Epsilon. You get a number of points equal to lowest Attribute to raise them. Each point spent raises it by one level.  Hope that was clearer.

You weren't confused by the hex strings, were you? I find that many people, expecially computer types, get all flummoxed when they see them. They keep trying to make them work like real hexadecimel and it doesn't.

As for the "Ties mean jack" comment and what that means in game mechanics terms, it basically means that whoever bids highest goes first. If someone else bids the same number of dice, they don't get to go simultaneous or first. You've actually got to bid higher than anyone else to go first. Of course, ties aren't useless. You still get to roll more dice than others, but you don't go first necessarily. (And if you found that part confusing, I'm gonna have to rewrite this whole damn thing. Apparently my idea of explaining mechanics consists of lots of irony, swearing, and anger.)

Thanks for the comments.

[ethan_greer]

I'm a certified computer type, but I didn't particularly have a problem with the hex strings after reading your example.  They're strings, not numbers.  If you find, however, that it generates too much confusion it would be easy enough to do something like 10-7-4-1 instead.  Although then you'd have to change the name of the game, potentially, unless you wanted people asking you why you named your game "HEX."  Whoa, that was rambly.  Maybe I shouldn't be posting this late...

Thanks for the clarifications - everything you've presented seems decent to me, but I'm not the best system ripper around here... :)

Oh wait, one quick question - if all knacks start at Epsilon and go up from there, why have a Zeta?  Just to get the complete ABCDEF?

[Sykora]

Because I neglected to mention that you can lower Knacks as well.