[Eurid- A game of Mythic Futures] Overview

[Earthflame]

(First time poster, so apologies if this is not up to scratch. I tried to be brief, as referenced in the guide, but unfortunately my writing style tends toward verbosity over conciseness. I also apologise if anything is vague or confusing, I am not particularly skilled at writing with clarity)

Premise

Eurid is a game attempting to blend an esoteric mix of mythic and cyberpunk elements into a coherent whole, allowing stories in the vein of tragic, mythic epics amongst the scenery and ephemera of technology and conspiracy.

Setting

The setting is a near future earth (Arbitrarily 2187), with some small changes and a few major events, including the covering of South America with fast growing genetically modified rainforests, and the accidental detonation of an experimental power source in Africa, leaving the only centres of civilisation a scattering of large and advanced arcologies.

The most important element is the titular Eurids. Their true nature is not widely known, but they were generally thought to be genetically modified agents of various governments and corporations, and have acquired a degree of mystique and pop-culture fame. However, no Eurid has been seen in nearly twenty years, and they are thought to be, for some reason, extinct.

There are a number of options for the PC's, but the primary is that of 2nd generation Eurids- Humans who have a grandfather or Grandmother as a Eurid (1st generation children of Eurids are simply carriers, with no enhanced traits). Their abilities would manifest suddenly, in response to various stimuli, and as soon as this occurred, they become targets for numerous groups and organisations, as well as gaining fragmentary knowledge of the true nature of themselves and the world which they may wish to pursue and explore.

Eurids have a number of superior abilities compared to normal humans, including inherited skills, enhanced attributes and beneficial mutations, ranging from minor and simple (Contortionism) to major and highly complex (Wings). They also suffer from strange compulsions and urgings, generally referred to as The Call. It is not fully understood, but while it is often attributed an agents greatest successes, it was also blamed for many of the Eurid's greatest failures.

The opposition for the Eurids, and an alternate choice for PC's, are the Synthetics and Augmetics. Augmetics are relatively well known, simply humans with cybernetic suites, who act as soldiers and agents of various governments and corporations. Synthetics are rumoured to exist as replacements for the lost Eurids. They have more extensive cybernetics than Augmetics, and are rumoured to be emotionally controlled or nulled through some unknown procedure.

The game involves three layers of conspiracy, i.e. what is generally known, what the governments and power players know, and what is actually going on.

Mechanics

The system I'm developing is a relatively simple d6 dicepool, take highest approach, with varied effects allowing the achievement of DC's higher than 6

Dice are gathered from Heroic Virtues (stats), skills, equipment and Mutations/augmentations.

I am looking for any thoughts on the setting or system, ideas which may support it or further influences to draw from (The current system being heavily inspired by Houses of the Blooded and Don't Rest Your Head). Strong negative criticism is most appreciated, if you feel it appropriate, as a forest fire burns away old wood, allowing new life to bloom (i.e. remove the old, stagnant ideas to allow the growth of something new).

Further detail happily provided upon request.

[stefoid]

Hi.  I think you are on the right track with your approach to the setting.  My personal view with settings, particularly original settings such as yours, is "less is more".   Its fun for you to try to come up with every detail of your setting, after all creativity is an inherently fun process.  But when the author comes up with every last detail of the setting, it leaves no room for the layers of your game to do the same -- its all been set in stone and there is no wriggle room for GM or player.

I reckon the setting should serve two purposes - 1) to inspire the players to want to be there and add to it with their own detail through play and 2) to provide as many hooks for play as possible.

So I really like the way you refer to things as 'rumored'  'conspiracy' etc... without nailing down detail

One last thing, I would avoid trying to make things too coherent.  One of the things about history and 'facts' is that they vary depending on who you are talking to.  The view of Israelis and Palestinians on the truth of their local situation for instance would vary widely.   So with a setting outline, you can take a school-teachery impartial godlike perspective and say "this and this happened.  this and this is TRUE',   or you can take a more personable approach and provide opinions on what is true by the various fictional factions involved, which can be entirely contradictory and this you are leaving a lot more creative wriggle room for your players, and at the same time imparting a distinct flavor to your factions by giving them a voice.

[Earthflame]

My main goal for the setting of Eurid is a backdrop for the mythic tales of the players. Thus, I'm attempting to make a skeletal setting, a framework of hard, solid ideas which can act as a foundation, but are negotiable if a group finds them not to their liking. The framework will be surrounded by a mess of rumours and potential truths, which can be confirmed, denied or twisted to a GM or PC's pleasure. Beyond the rumours will, ideally, be plenty of space left empty, for outgrowths of creativeness from the players and GM to fill. I have my own ideas, of course, as to the "Truths" of the setting, but I'll endeavour to include at least a few possible "truths", along with ideas for more and, of course, blank space for people to invent their own. The simplest parts of the setting will be the most concrete, and with increasing complexity will come increasing fluidity of fact and fiction.

[Locke]

one thing that i don't like about d6 systems (IMHO) is the amount of dice needed to roll.

Now I am assuming the following:
- skill: 1-6
- ability: 1-6
- equipment: 1-3
- freaky mods: 1-3

averaging rolling 10 dice for a skill and as many as 16 for a min/max or specialized skill.

In a success system this leads to assumed results, meaning that if you roll 15 dice and a success is on a 5-6 than you should get about 5 successes.  This allows players to have an idea if they should be able to make a roll.

It seems that your system is not doing this exactly but rolling 4 dice and taking the highest will usually be a 6.  Check out my system (in sig) for the rolling approach and it might be something you could adapt with d 6's.

Another system that you might want to look into is Savage Worlds; its very pulp with a take the highest things explode system.  The rolling might work for you.

[Earthflame]

Actually, I'm going for much smaller ranges. Abilities from one to four, mutations or augmentations from one to three, equipment and skills from one to two. This will probably result in somewhat large dice pools, but my main play environment, at the moment, is online, and with a custom dicebot large pools shouldn't be too problematic.

I hope to get around the fact that, usually, you'll always get a six on a roll you're reasonably prepared for with DC's higher than 6.

-For mortals, each additional 6 adds one to the total.

-For Eurids, The Call (Which affects rolls using Mutations) will trigger on a six, and on each successive six, but has long term negative effects (This represents the dual effects of the heroic impulse, allowing superhuman achievements, but at the same time brings you closer to your inevitable tragedy)

-For Synthetics and Augmetics, on rolls involving augmentations, they can use additional energy (A limited but regenerating resource used to activate augmentations) to explode 5's or 6's

Your system seems interesting, with a case of parallel evolution in terms of the basic Mortal system. If you don't mind, I'll look into it further, as some of your ideas are certainly uncommon, and may be very useful inspiration.

I also like the idea of discarding extraneous dice, although I'm more thinking of the Houses of the Blooded approach, where dice can be "Wagered", not for a bonus to the roll, but for additional effects upon a success.