Traditions of the Flesh: Open Design Notes

[Wormwood]

First, some ground rules:

1) this is soft sci-fi, with some vague merging into fantasy, but the key point is I don't care if it's scientifically feasible, or exactly why the basic premise of the setting holds, these are largely irrelevant to the game as it stands.

2) the game is meant to be weird, it is intended for a niche and as such is being designed into a collection of niche games.

3) the game will be web-published with the rest of the 52pickup stuff on my actionroll site. (see my profile if you want to have a look.)

4) the game is intended to be completed by monday the 15th of Sept.  By complete I mean a playable draft including some clarification of what to do in the game. While not polished it should be playable by someone unfamiliar with the game or the concept. Delays of course can and probably will occur.

And without further ado, the Traditions of the Flesh:

The Setting Premise

In the far future technology and humanity have become entwined, but in the opposite way cyberneticists expected. In this world humans are the technology, and almost nothing is impossible for them to become. A perfect assassin, a factory that produces foodstuffs, or a battle ship, each was once a human being.

The System Premise

Characters in Traditions of the Flesh begin as modified humans, obviously since there are not unmodified humans anymore, as they confront their limitations and push themselves beyond their original capacity they can grow, converting the strain on their bio-form into a new form, transforming into new and wonderous forms, marvelling at their new powers, and new inabilities.

System Sketch

Each character is primarilly described by two things: their geno-form and their componants. The former describes aspects of the character that either prohibit the character from certain actions, or permit actions that were otherwise not possible. The later are 11 (possibly 12) statistics (based around 0) which describe the character's innate ability. Actions are determined by taking the difference of a difficulty and the appropriate componant, the result is the degree of success (if positive) or failure (if negative), if zero then a standstill occurs.

Characters can choose to strain if they are not already successful, this adds a random (average of zero) value to their componant for that action. In addition this adds a strain positive point (push) to the componant. If the total number of strain points is equal to some number or more (likely 5-10) the character also recieves a negative strain point (pull) which goes on any unpushed componant. Any componant with pull cannot be strained further. When characters gain access to a medical geno-form they can choose to stabilize. The result of this is that all strain is lost, if the strain on the componant is equal to 3+abs(componant value) then the componant is either increased by one (if it was all push) or reduces by one (if it was all pull).

Setting Sketch

The setting consists of three major classes of "geno-forms":

Guilds - humans adapted for a specific purpose, major guilds include the Service Guild, the Spacer's Guild, and the Engineer's Guild.

Clans - humans adapted for a specific environment, major clans include Floaters, Swimmers, Drymen, and Flame Breathers (Methane breathers)

Towers - groups of humans who have managed to retain some of the ancient technology, about a half-dozen flavours, based on which secrets they have kept, including nano-tech utility ooze and EM raditation control.

Each of these has a tree of advancement which a given character may pass through, once they qualify for a given rank of geno-form by having the appropriate componants (both minimums and maximums). Each character can be in either a Clan or a Guild, and may join a tower, but this usually limits the ability to gain rank in their original Clan or Guild.

Note, also the Clans and Guilds are very loose politically, often it is the subsects and families that are more relevant to politics between planets, rather than the Guild or Clan entire.


Looking forward to comments, any will be appreciated, expect more updates in the near future (see 4 above).

Thank you for your time,

   -Mendel S.

[Jasper]

Sounds like a very interesting premise.  

1 Question about the world:  how do the Towers keep their ancient tech from getting out to other groups?

Questions about the game: What kind of game is it, in terms of character activities?  Is it action-oriented, with different clans/guilds vying for power, or exploration of space via new forms, or maybe a psychological exploration of humanity as it has been redefined?  Is it supposed to be kind of dark, or silly?

[Little_Rat]

"A perfect assassin, a factory that produces foodstuffs, or a battle ship, each was once a human being."

G-d that's freaky. Assassin I can see but who would want to be a ship or a factory...that's just creepy and weird...

[Wormwood]

Jasper,

First, the Towers don't fully understand the technology they have, it's more they have geno-form that allows them to incorporate the bizzare form their past tech takes. Also, while their technoloy is impressive, it's fairly limited, and the Towers generally do not have as much power as more evolved members of the Clans and the Guilds. After all, the dreadnaught, the arcology, and the city power grid are all sentient and very likely competent in politics, intrigue, and command. The most potent Tower members could not hope to reach that level of influence, except as an advisor.

The game is meant to range from some inklings of dark humor (in terms of humans becoming more technological) to conflict heavy intrigue. Action is not meant to be cinematic, a character built for war vastly outclasses one which is not. Character survival in actual warfare is very low, unless they are built precisely for that. However the major themes the game suits itself towards are related to politics, intrigue, and the meaning of humanity. Much of this becomes crystalized when the geno-forms become written out. I suppose you might say that the central idea of the game is growing up, becoming something more, and undoubtably more capable, but giving up the simple things in the process.

I hope that helps,

  -Mendel S.

P.S. - Oh, and Jasper if you want to hear about people who become ships, take a look at Anne McCaffery's Ship Who Sang (and the resulting collection), food factories are a bit different, but whether this is a good idea is really a question of the group (more on this later). And thanks for the complement, if you don't find the geno-forms at least a little disturbing, I'm not doing my job.

[taalyn]

This reminds me of Brian Lumley's Wamphyri, who do similar sorts of things with their captives - it might be a useful read, if you haven't read it.

Because of that, I look forward to the finished project! Sounds amazingly cool.

Only problem - so many games, so little time.

Aidan

[Wormwood]

Aidan,

Did you mean the Necroscope novels? I read through the setting supplement to the Master Book system years ago, but admittedly don't recall too much.


And now onto more updates:

First, at the moment I'm using the following list of componants:

Sensitivity - ability to sense accurately and with fine detail.

Empathy - ability to understand and relate to others.

Leadership - ability to influence and command others.

Cognition - mental acuity, primarilly "left brain" - style

Versatility - mental acuity, primarilly "right brain" - style

Reflexes - ability to respond rapidly and appropriately to stimuli recieved.

Mobility - ability to move quickly.

Potency - raw power (yes as in energy per unit time), for more normal humans incorporates raw strength.

Accuracy - ability to move and act accurately.

Durability - ability to survive physical adversity and trauma.

Tenacity - ability to withstand mental adversity and trauma.

I may be adding one extra, but at the moment can't think of any significant gaps (obviously appearance isn't really as useful as in most games, since it changes so easily).

Second, I'm currently trying to pick the core numbers for the mechanic:

amount of push / pull required to raise / lower a componant: 3 + |comp|

push grace period (until push and pull both need to be added): 5 push

Note, that in practice there will be many geno-forms that will be hard for characters to reach both because of high componants needed, but also because of low ones. Hence many characters will want to acquire a decent amount of pull during game play.

Third, I am considering writing a section for the game which incorporates non-XP style rewards, ideally something related to character interaction. Essentially at the end of each session the GM should award bonuses to the player characters, which concretize changes that have occured in their relationships with NPC's and possibly even PC's.

things like:

the fast food restraunt (Jackie) down the street owes you a favor.

you've recieved the professional respect of an Adept of Water (Ingol).

you know some dirty secrets (betrayal of an official alliance) about the local Floater's head (Karl).

This fits again in the theme of providing capabilities, rather than bonuses. I do intend rolling to be fairly rare in the game.

Thank you for your time,

    -Mendel S.

[Wormwood]

Time to fix some of the mechanics:

strain rolls: roll two 1d6, each of different colours, one is the value, the other  is the sign. If the sign roll is odd subtract the value roll from the componant being strained, if it is even, add the value roll to the componant being strained.

componant comparison: take the difference between the difficulty or opposition and the componant being used. The result is described by the following:

if no straining:

positive - goals are achieved

zero - standstill, nothing is resolved

negative - attempt fails, goals are not achieved

if straining occurs:

4+ - major success - shifts the entire situation to actor's favor

2+ - significant success - all goals achieved

1+ - minor success - some goals achieved

0 - standstill - nothing is resolved

1- - minor failure - marginal setbacks occur

2- - significant failure - goals fail

4- - major failure - shifts entire situation against actor

Setting Difficulties: The difficulty is the lowest componant rating which will fail to achieve the goal without strain.

As such it is most relevant to discuss what a componant value indicates:

+20 - bleeding edge geno-form (Dreadnaughts have this much potency, Super-fast Courier's this much Mobility, and Global sensor arrays this much Sensitivity)

+15 - cutting edge geno-form (Battleships have this much Durability, top Shrinks have this much Empathy,  Orbital Defense Platforms have this much Accuracy)

+10 - very well adapted (Battleshells have this much Potency, 5-star Restraunts have this much Versatility, Jets have this much Mobility)

+7 - well adapted (Elites have this much Durability, House Computers have this much Cognition, Inquisitors have this much Leadership)

+5 - fully adapted (Head Cooks have this much Sensitivity, Spacer Foremen  have this much Reflexes, Rifles have this much Potency)

+3 - partially adapted ( Cooks have this much Sensitivity, Spacers have this much Reflexes, Privates have this much Potency)

0 - as capable as a normal human

-3 - actively disabed (Rifles have this much Empathy, House Computers have this much Durability)

-5 - poorly adapted (Cruisers have this Reflexes, Restraunts have this Moblity)

-7 - very poorly adapted (Battleshells have this Empathy, Inquisitors have this much Versatility)

-10 - nearly incapable (Arcologies have this Mobility, Orbital Weapons Platforms have this Empathy)

That should provide a fairly clear break-down, especially when the geno-forms become better described.

Thank you for your time,

  -Mendel S.