Conceptual Psionic Mechanics

[Ben O'Neal]

Forge Notebook Entry #3:

I was just sitting here thinking, and the thought popped into my head about making mechanics for psionic characters that reflected their strengths in different areas and helped create the organic nature of bringing your talents to bear in psionic power use. I also had the idea that if you were born with innate psionic abilities, they would be as much a part of you as your limbs. As such, when you ran or jumped or conversed with other people, you would most likely bring your psionic abilities to bear and help you out, simply because they are essentially another "muscle". I also wanted to play with the idea of using different colour die. So here's what I got:


Characters
Characters are defined by 6 attributes, 3 of which are "doing" attributes, and the other 3 are "static" resistance attributes which are mirrors of the first three. So you have Mental (blue die), Physical (black die) and Spiritual (white die), and then these same attributes again but as resistances (of course, die colours are arbitrary, so long as they are different). Make sense? So your "doing" attributes are measured as die types on a scale of 1-10:

1: 1d4
2: 1d6
3: 1d8
4: 1d10
5: 1d12
6: 2d8
7: 2d10
8: 2d12
9: 3d10
10: 3d12

Mental: This attribute measures your mental capabilities, including raw intelligence, memory, perception, analysis, and psionic ability for affecting mental states of things. I like blue die for Mental.

Physical: This attribute measures your strength, speed, agility, etc, and psionic ability for affecting things physically. I like black die for Physical.

Spiritual: This attribute measures soul, courage, personality, emotions, etc, and psionic ability to affect the spiritual side of things. I like white die for Spiritual.

Your resistance attributes are also Mental, Physical, and Spiritual, but are not measured as die types, but instead as standard static numbers. Everything in the world has at least some resistance attributes. They are the TN that must be beaten in order for them to be affected. For example, a door might have a resistance (Physical) of 12, which means that you must roll higher than 12 to affect it (like breaking it down), whilst it's lock might have a resistance (Physical) of 8. You might have a resistance (Mental) of 14, but a resistance (Spiritual) of only 6, and thus you have a weakness which can be found and exploited.

Chargen: PC's get 24 points to distribute amongst their "doing" attributes (let's call them "powers" why not) and their resistances. Resistances cost half as much as powers, so that if you spend one point on a resistance, you get 2. So if a player distributes their points evenly, they will have 1d10 for each power, and 8 in each resistance. NPCs get less points, probably around 18, except Big Bad Guys, who get around 30 why not. Dunno, playtesting would highlight any flaws. I haven't worked out advancement yet.

Playing:
So when doing mundane things, you would probably only use one attribute at a time. Like you might want to kick someone, so you use Physical against their resistance (Physical). You might want to seduce someone so you use Spiritual against their resistance (Spiritual). You might want to barter with someone so you use your Mental against their resistance (Mental). You get the idea. In most cases, when you want to do something against another sentient being, that being will want to do something back to you. In these cases you roll simultaneously. If you both win, then both effects happen. Simple. If, by some twist of fate, you both choose to do things which disallow the opponent being able to do something (like if they go to kill and you go to defend), and yet you both win, then whoever wins by the largest margin wins overall. Winner narrates events in any way they see fit so long as their description does not extend beyond the mundane. They can say that their psionic powers helped their scrawny ass kick down that concrete wall, but it must have been a physical kick. They can say that their psionic powers helped them coerce that guy into selling his shit for cheaper, but they must have engaged in actual dialogue with them. They can say that their abilities were a strong influence in making that cute guy agree to protect them for free, but they must have actually flirted with him in-game. Get it? Got it? Good.

However, being that you are psionic, and you are playing in a game focused on this aspect, you will undoubtedly come across other psionic people. There would be a list of a bunch of stuff you might want to do that is purely psionic power stuff (like telepathy, telekinesis, all that junk), and all of these would require success in multiple attributes. Like, for example, telepathy might require some small success in physical as well as a larger success in mental, being that you must be able to single out the target in terms of location. Telekinesis might require some mental as well as physical to represent the mental effort involved. This is the reason for the different colored attributes. Hell, maybe I could get away with scrapping the list in favour of some generic table like in TRoS where you determine the difficulty of the psionic power according to the attributes involved and why. Like you say "Is the target within your line of sight? If so, must beat physical of 4" or something. Yeah, that might make things more flexible and easier for me to do.

Ok, so we have mundane shit being done with one power, and psionic shit being done with more than one, and at all times, rolls are made against resistances of targets. Now, what if the target has hella high resistances? Well, that's where it's nice to have friends. Players can try to help out each other in a few ways. Ok, two ways. Two is a few.

Way number one: Increasing an allies resistance. An ally can raise one of your resistances by rolling their corresponding power, and you taking their roll. The cool part is that you risk having your resistance lowered if they roll lower than your original resistance. If multiple allies help you out in this way for the same resistance (like 3 allies rolling their Physical to help raise your resistance (Physical)) then they stack. The effects last for that exchange only. Helping an ally in this way is not considered an action, and thus comes at no risk to the players doing the helping.

Way number two: Increasing an allies powers. An ally can boost one of your powers by rolling that same power against you. If they beat your resistance to that power, then you gain the difference as bonus modifiers to your rolls. If they don't beat your resistance, then you suffer the difference as a penalty modifier to your rolls. For example, if you want to help a friend with a mental attack against a common enemy, you roll against your friends resistance (Mental), and the difference is given to your friend's next Mental roll in the form of +/- modifiers. Helping an ally in this way is considered an action, and thus costs the helping players their turn in the exchange.



So that's the main gist of it. I'd probably throw in skills and leave them player defined within a certain bound of specificity, like "handgun use" or "sniper" instead of "weapons expert". They would work as standard modifiers like +1 and shit. I just realised that weapons would probably simply add to your resistance. For example, if you shoot someone with a handgun, then you roll your physical against their resistance (physical) in order to win. In order for them to get out of the fucking way (or cooler, stop the bullet mid-air), they roll their physical (plus mental if they want to stop the bullet) against your resistance, which is now higher because you have a gun. It might be a bit counter-intuitive, but it's internally consistent and simple.

I don't know what sort of play I'd like to encourage with this, so I'm not sure exaclty what to tie advancement to. It would almost certainly be awarded in points to distribute amongst resistances and powers though.

So, any questions? Any thoughts? Does it look accessible? Does it make sense? Does it look fun? Anything else at all that anyone would like to say?

Thanks,
-Ben

[Ben O'Neal]

Adding 3 new "attributes": health for each of the three core attributes. So now we have "Physical, Mental, and Spiritual" represented in "Power, Resistance, and Health". Health for an attribute is given by adding the raw scores from your power and resistance, so that if you had a power of 4, and a resistance of 8, your health would be 12.

Damage can be done to any of the health's via an opponent succeeding at the corresponding power against your corresponding resistance. If an opponent rolls a mental power and beats your mental resistance by 3, your mental health goes down 3 points.

When a health hits 0, you lose 1 point from both your resistance and power for that corresponding attribute, and the health resets to it's new maximum. So using the above example, if you take 12 points of mental damage, your new mental power would be 3, and your new mental resistance would be 7, making your new mental health 10.

If either your resistance or power for a given attribute reaches 0, you are dead.

This makes psionic powers especially nasty, as they will no doubt be using more than one attribute, and can of course be used at range, sometimes huge range without the requirement of line-of-sight. Make enough powerful enemies ing-game, and you could find yourself subject to a great many attacks from out of nowhere.

Examples of psionic powers:
Predominantly Mental: telepathy, tire, dominate, illusion, mind-shield, pain, bond, mind blast
Predominantly Physical: disintegrate, electrokinetics, kinetic shield, levitation, photokinetics, psychokinetics, pyrokinetics, telekinesis, morph
Predominantly Spiritual: biokinesis, clairaudience, clairvoyance, control metabolism, empathy, heal, postcognition, precognition, spirit shield, psychometry, rejuvenate.

Higher Powers requiring approximately equal use of all three powers:
teleport, dimension shift, annihilate,

Whenever you attempt to use a psionic power, and you fail, you take the difference as damage to your corresponding health. for example, if you fail to beat the physical resistance of an opponent by 3 points despite beating the mental resistance when trying to move them with telekinesis, then you would take 3 points of damage to your physical health. (can interpet physical damage as fatigue or otherwise wearing out the body, mental damage as a headache or loss of concentration or whatever, and spiritual damage as draining your life force or causing great frustration)


Resistances of opponents and resistances of psionic powers.
When you try to use a power, you must add it's "cost" to the resistances of your target, and beat that with your power rolls. For example, if the "cost" of a levitating yourself was 4P and 3S, (P=Physical, M=Mental, S=Spiritual) and your resistances were 8P and 10S, then you would have to roll higher than 12P and 13S with your P and S power rolls. If you fail one of the rolls, then you take the difference as damage. If you succeed at both, then you narrate the effects as you see fit. Effects always last until the character takes damage or they choose to end the effects. If the character takes damage whilst an effect is in play, and they wish to maintain it, they must roll for it again, with the amount of damage sustained added to both resistances, with success meaning that the effect remains and failure meaning that it ends (but without any additional damage for failing the rolls).


Breaking someone else's psionic effects:
If someone has used telekinesis and lifted you off the ground, and they are about to fling you over a ledge, you can roll against the resistance of their psionic power to break it. If they had to beat 12P and 4M to use telekinesis on you, you have to beat 12P and 4M to break the effects and end their telekinesis.


Changed my mind. Weapons do not alter your resistance, they add to your power with them. In this way, it is no easier to "hit" someone with a fist than it is with a gun or a sword, but it is easier to hit them harder. Likewise, it is no harder for them to avoid your attacks, but is is harder for them to avoid them more than you hit them, remembering that if two competing attempts succeed in their rolls, the one which wins by the largest margin wins overall. The result of the rolls should influence narration, such that if I try to shoot someone in the head, and I beat their resistance by 5, and they try to dodge, and beat my resistance by 2, then I win overall, but I should take into account their success in dodging, by narrating that instead of hitting their head, I instead hit their arm or something.

Also, considering this is a "hit point-esque" system, in which players get narration rights over successes, I should provide clear guidelines for how to narrate non-lethal "hits", so that players don't say "I shoot him square in the eye with my shotgun" when they only deal 1 point of P damage. Alternatively, I could make GMs narrate successes, and players narrate failures...hmmmm. Nah.


Chargen... Check
Resolution Mechanic that covers the focus of play... check
Advancement Basis...TBA
People interested in the idea...TBA

-Ben

[F. Scott Banks]

I like this system.  Psionics has always been something that I've had trouble integreating into my games.  The base system makes sense and it supports a skill-based system which is a personal favorite of mine.  

I'd been playing around with an idea for an RPG.  I wanted to speed up the combat rolls so that every character would roll at the same time and all players could use the results in whatever way they wanted.  Say, each of four characters throws a single colored die.  The resulting rolls determine what attacks or defenses they have against one another.  Since, like poker or spades, the players have to either defend or attack simultaneously, every single round, I was thinking CCG.

But that's neither here nor there.  I like this system because it can be simple and fast-paced.  The dice are broken down into defensive and offensive rolls (through your "doing" and "resisting" stats)  Conversely, it could also be applied to a more sedate and controlled RPG where combat is rolled but other player interactions are roleplayed.  I think that storyteller RPG's (a personal name for 'em...I don't know what they're officially called) would do well to make note of what you've got here.

I'll definately be paying attention to what you come up with in the future.