Spin System: inspired by The Pool, TROS, and Princess Bride

[Brian Leybourne]

I was thinking that non-intelligent stuff would automatically spend as much Spin as they can, and never do any fancy stuff like Bolster. If you just had inanimate objects always get their Spin Modifier in Spin each turn, then you wouldn't get that naturally dissipating effect.

No, you misunderstood me. I meant that they still have a limited Spin Pool but instead of the GM deciding how many spin pool dice to use each round, he should always spend the spin modifier in dice (which is the only thing a spin modifier is useful for for an inanimate object anyway). So for your poison, it has a Spin Mod of 3 and a Spin Pool of 5. The firsr\t round it always uses 3. The next round it only has 2 left, plus whatever extra ones it earned the previous round, so it uses 3 if it can (or less if it has to). On subsequent rounds it probably doesn't have very many dice, so it uses whatever t has (up to three) and so on.

For one-shot thinhgs like my arrow trap, it uses all it's spin dice the first (and only) shot because the spin mod is the same as the spoin pool.

Not that different from what you're proposing really, except that instead of making the object use as many dice as possible, you use the aspin mod as a limiter on how many spin dice it uses, which is another way of factoring in stronger/weaker poisons, or fires, or traps, or whatever.

A bit on practicality . . . do you think the players will be able to keep track of their spin pools easily? You could probably just have a d12 or d20 for each player, and have them keep the die at their current spin pool, and record their current pool at the end of each session. Or maybe a spin tracker board, like the shot trackers in Feng Shui?

You're worrying about minutae here. Some players will write it down, others will track it with a die, etc. Actually, I think the best way is (if everyone has lots of D6's) to just keep your actual pool in D^'s in front of you, take some away to roll them , add others as you earn them, and so on.

Also, this brings up a question: should players be allowed to see eachothers', and NPCs', Spin Pools, without doing something like scrying? Maybe that would be a roll with a Difficulty of the target's Spin Modifier, or something? Or just let it be a piece of universal metagame knowledge, maybe?

Nah, that's a metagame thing. I don't care if players can see each others spin pool totals, but I wouldn't tell them how many an NPC has, or even how many an NPC is spending on any particular roll.

Brian.

[Jeph]

About how many dice inanimate objects spend: Ahh. I get it now. :-) Hmm . . . since a poison would never get a chance to regenerate it's Spin, I guess that's a pretty good use for the SM.

On to a new subject . . . supernormal abilities. You know, magic, psi, and stuff. I'm currently writing a setting that I'm going to use for this game, a renaissance era on an island world with a bit of discreet magic thrown in, and am up to the stage where I'd be making spell lists If this was for DnD. I thought, perhaps I'd just have a bunch of possibilitues for magic. For example:

"When an area is witness to great power or a turning point in history, a 'genus loci' manifests in the area; a spirit that can be sensed by many Magi. The Difficulty to sense an event depends on two things: how well it is remembered by the common man, and the scale of the occurance. For example, a great clash between hundreds of thousands that is written into half the world's history books might be difficulty one. A powerful mage sinking an island kingdom into the sea, never to be heard of again might be three. Time has little effect on genus loci, as it takes millenia for such a spirit to fade."

I'd most likely come up with a large number of possibilities, then choose which ones are available to PC magi based on their chosen trait. If they chose Sensative to Magical Impressions, they may have a bit of empathy, be able to tell if a place is magical, be able to sense strong magical fields in the present, past, and future. If they said they were a telepath, they would be able to read emotions and minds, send mental images and phrases, create illusions, and tear the minds of others to shreds, if they were in the mood for that sort of thing.

[Brian Leybourne]

Poison et al
Sounds good. I was assuming that even inanimate objects would regenerate spin with successes, you seem to be suggesting that they can't?

Magic
Hmm.. I guess. I'm not really sure I see this system as being very condusive to magic though.. since characters have a (very) limited number of traits, and they have to be specific, taking a trait that covers magic is (by necessity) going to be more broad than Traits are usually allowed to be (such as your Telepath example), and then the character has possibly too much they can do with the one trait (compared with the limits on non-magical traits).

I'm not explaining myself very well. Hmm. I'll have to think more carefully and get back to you.

Brian.

[Jeph]

Poison et al: By not recover spin, I meant that they'd never get a chance to roll against their Spin Modifier to get some back between scenes. They still gain Spin from successes normally. :)

Magic etc.: The system has a few elements that make it good for magic. Eg., Spin is a natural limiter, making manna or spells per day and statistics of that ilk unneccesary, and a Trait would build a natural 'spell list' without all the bookeeping work involved.

But I do see your point--compare Telepathy to Vizzini's Read People Like A Book trait. Which would you rather have? Hmm . . . alternative ideas? Maybe, if a character wanted magic/psi/whathaveyou, they'd need to invest in more specific uses? Like 'able to sense other's emotions' and similar Traits . . . Or maybe They'd have to pay an extra point of Spin when using magical abilities? But that's throwing in more rules, and I want to keep this system pretty rules-lite. . .

Perhaps there could be certain penalties involved with magic, allowing the Traits to be slightly wider and more useful, but at a cost. For instance, Magi might be succeptable to the influences of Demons or the Dark Side's equivalent, or their power might act as a beacon, allerting others to their presence. But, then again, that's a more world specific thing.

Comments?

[Brian Leybourne]

Poison et al :-)
Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking. except - although they don't get a roll to recover spin, I would assume that they naturally "have" it as needed. I.E. As soon as you reset the arrow trap, it has 2 spin dice again for the next time it shoots. Likewise the poison would get it's 5 spin dice each time the dragon bit you... in other words each application of the poison starts off with the 5 dice and uses them as per it's Spin Mod. If you get bit twice, each one has it's own spin pool etc. Yeah, sounding good.

Magic
I agree that adding more complex rules are to be avoided (it's a nice rules light narritivist-promoting system at the moment).

On the other hand, you already have a system you could extend to magic - wounds. Once you take 2 wounds, every action requires a spin die to initiate, once you have 4 every action requires two, 5 means knocked out and 6 or more is dead, IIRC.

So, casting spells automatically gives you a wound (call it fatigue, but it stacks with wounds). This naturally limits mages to only being able to cast a few spells before needing rest, which is itself a limit on magic (and powerful spells may give you 2 or even 3 wounds). And even better - we're utilising an existing rule, not adding a new one.

You could even add a tiny little rule saying that spending spin dice can cancel out fatigue, so if I choose to toss a spin die (I don't get to roll it, I'm just losing it) I don't take fatique/wounds from the spell (unless it's one that gives me more than 1 point of fatigue in which case I have to drop more spin dice). This way we're only slightly modifying an existing rule, instead of adding a new one, but it has much the same effect as your original proposition :-)

The problem is still how do we define spells/magic. Your example of telepathy versus Read people like a book is spot on, although of course reading people like a book doesn't give you fatigue/wounds. Realistically, you have to specify what can and can't be done pretty clearly in the rules, probably with examples of magical traits and what their limits are.

Thoughts?

Brian.

[Jeph]

Poison, Fire, and Co.: It's best if you think of the reset arrow trap, or the poison from the dragon's second bight, as different NPCs. Then you don't have to worry about indiscrepencies (sp?) in the rules, no matter how inconsequential. :)

Magic, Etc.: Hmmm . . . I like the idea of taking wounds for magic. However, the system already deliniates between fatigue and normal damage: fatigue can be soaked without armor. So, if a character wants to cast a spell without collapsing from exhaustion, they spend Spin to enhance their damage soak roll. I like it!

You said that actions with magic should be clearly deliniated in the rules . . . I'm not sure I agree with this. Anything that can be done with magic can, most likely, be done without it. I'm thinking maybe I'll start writing action lists, that could really be performed with any relative Trait. For example, here's the difficulty to jump a certain distance, use whatever Trait you think is best for jumping. Thoughts?

[Brian Leybourne]

Magic, Etc.: Hmmm . . . I like the idea of taking wounds for magic. However, the system already deliniates between fatigue and normal damage: fatigue can be soaked without armor. So, if a character wants to cast a spell without collapsing from exhaustion, they spend Spin to enhance their damage soak roll. I like it!

That's sounding fantastic, except that I can see mages taking "constitution like an ox" every time so that they'll be able to easily soak fatigue. I guess it's up to you as to whether that's a problem or not (it's another trait they're not taking, of course) but I would be inclined to say that magical fatigue cannot be associated with a trait and always soaks at trait level 1. This way, you can say that any and all spells give 1 fatigue, becauase there's only a 1/6 chance per die of soaking it. A mage can spend 2 spin dice to have a 50/50 chance, that sounds about right to me.

You said that actions with magic should be clearly deliniated in the rules . . . I'm not sure I agree with this. Anything that can be done with magic can, most likely, be done without it. I'm thinking maybe I'll start writing action lists, that could really be performed with any relative Trait. For example, here's the difficulty to jump a certain distance, use whatever Trait you think is best for jumping. Thoughts?

Hmm.. you sarted off saying that you wanted the system to be pretty simple and rules-light, that (IMO) flys in the face of action lists. I would leave the number of sucesses to be determined by the GM, and just keep the table you already have (1 success = standard roll, 2 = tricky, 3 = hard, etc).

Have you come to any decvisions as to weapons and their stats? I still think that the most damaging weapons should have some extra penalty (or a bonus for the least damaging, which amounts to the same thing), but IYG. Just interested if you had had a think about it.

Brian.

[Jeph]

Magic: I'm beginning to see a few inherant flaws in magic as written:

1) There's a 1 in 6 chance that casting spells will cost less spin then normal actions, if an un-boosted Soak roll succeeds.
2) It adds an extra roll to some actions.
3) Players would argue that they can use their Magic trait (say, Telepathy) to soak damage from casting, and as a GM, I'd probably agree with them.

The fix: Whenever a character casts a spell, and rolls more failures then successes, they take the difference in damage. This addresses all three above problems: there's no chance that they'd gain extra Spin from it, it doesn't add an extra roll, and it already takes the character's core magic Trait into account. It also discouraged characters just tossing their whole pool onto a spell, and makes higher Difficutly spells inherantly more damaging (you need to spend more Spin, so theres a greater chance for more failures). Opinions?

Action Lists: You're right. If there are no action lists, then GMs can tweak Difficulties according to the game. I mean, any superhero can jump ten feet no prob, but can joe average to that?

Weapons: In general, larger weapons can't be used to parry or block. In addition, characters with smaller weaopns will be given the first strike by the GM, and allowed to 'blend' some actions. For instance, John is carrying a pole axe. He says, "My guy lobs off Jim's head, then slices off Josh's arm!" The GM would then say, "One action at a time, give Josh a chance to respond before you move on to him." If John were using, say, a dagger, the GM would let it fly, since a dagger-wielding characte could accomplish such a task in one fluid motion (assuming that they can behead people with a knife with utmost speed, but hey, he can try), where as an axe requires yanking the blade out of the corpse, getting ready to swing, etc.

[Brian Leybourne]

Magic: I'm beginning to see a few inherant flaws in magic as written:

1) There's a 1 in 6 chance that casting spells will cost less spin then normal actions, if an un-boosted Soak roll succeeds.
2) It adds an extra roll to some actions.
3) Players would argue that they can use their Magic trait (say, Telepathy) to soak damage from casting, and as a GM, I'd probably agree with them.

The fix: Whenever a character casts a spell, and rolls more failures then successes, they take the difference in damage. This addresses all three above problems: there's no chance that they'd gain extra Spin from it, it doesn't add an extra roll, and it already takes the character's core magic Trait into account. It also discouraged characters just tossing their whole pool onto a spell, and makes higher Difficutly spells inherantly more damaging (you need to spend more Spin, so theres a greater chance for more failures). Opinions?

Hmm, yeah, that's a good solution. So if I cast a spell with 5 dice, difficulty 2, and get 1,2,3,4,5, I have more failures than successes and so I take 1 point of damage, right? Is there an extra whammy if the spell fails? Say in the situation above the difficulty was 3. I rolled two "sucesses" but the spell actually failed because I needed 3. What happens? Still 3 damage? Or is there a further penalty for failing?

What about if I rolled 3 dice and got 2 sucesses, but the difficulty was 3. I didn't get more failures than successes (theoretically no damage), but the spell failed anyway. What happens? Do I take damage?

Weapons: In general, larger weapons can't be used to parry or block. In addition, characters with smaller weaopns will be given the first strike by the GM, and allowed to 'blend' some actions. For instance, John is carrying a pole axe. He says, "My guy lobs off Jim's head, then slices off Josh's arm!" The GM would then say, "One action at a time, give Josh a chance to respond before you move on to him." If John were using, say, a dagger, the GM would let it fly, since a dagger-wielding characte could accomplish such a task in one fluid motion (assuming that they can behead people with a knife with utmost speed, but hey, he can try), where as an axe requires yanking the blade out of the corpse, getting ready to swing, etc.

I must admit that I'm still a bit iffy on the whole "take initiative as it comes" idea, especially since you said that things like soaking use an action. There seems to me to be a high chance that noisy/pushy players will get more actions per round than quieter players.

How about this: All characters get one action per round, but can spend spin dice to gain extra actions on a one-for one basis. How characters declare can still be a bit more haphazard (as you seem to prefer it), those who are more "gung-ho" will tend to get more attacks, and the others will tend to spend their actions on defenses. Oh, and I would say that the soak roll doesn't require an action. What do you think?

Brian.

[Jeph]

Yeah, I guess I need some sort of turn structure. Suggested phrasing: "Reactions (such as parrying an attack or soaking damage) never take a spin die to perform, and neither does a character's first action in a round. However, each action past the first requires the expenditure of one point of spin to perform."

So if I cast a spell with 5 dice, difficulty 2, and get 1,2,3,4,5, I have more failures than successes and so I take 1 point of damage, right?

In that sentance, did you mean Trait 2? If so, correct. I don't think that failing to cast a spell should have any additional penalties; just wasting the spin and possibly taking some damage should be enough of a deterrant to keep casters under control. However, interesting but ineffectual side effects can always be fun.

I think that, as an option, characters can take Magic traits that are as narrow as normal ones. For instance, instead of Telepathy, a character might have a Trait of "Able to sense styrong emotions in those nearby". If a player does this, they don't risk taking damage from using magic.

Opinions?

[Brian Leybourne]

Yeah, I guess I need some sort of turn structure. Suggested phrasing: "Reactions (such as parrying an attack or soaking damage) never take a spin die to perform, and neither does a character's first action in a round. However, each action past the first requires the expenditure of one point of spin to perform."

Actually, I would still require a spin die to do a parry, myself. Otherwise there's a lot less incentive to spend the spin dice to have extra attacks. After all, your first action is free, so you still get at least one free parry. Free parries also mean that ganging up on someone is less effective as he gets to parry all attackers for free. Soak rolls I agree should always be free though.

How about this: Characters must pay one spin die to perform extra actions in a round, except their first action for the round, which is always free, and one parry which is similarly free. That way, you can have an attack and a parry, or two parries without spending spin dice, but after that you have to. What do you think?

I don't think that failing to cast a spell should have any additional penalties; just wasting the spin and possibly taking some damage should be enough of a deterrant to keep casters under control. However, interesting but ineffectual side effects can always be fun.

I think that, as an option, characters can take Magic traits that are as narrow as normal ones. For instance, instead of Telepathy, a character might have a Trait of "Able to sense styrong emotions in those nearby". If a player does this, they don't risk taking damage from using magic.

The main problem I can see with that is that it comes down to your definition of what's broad and what's narrow. I think it's probably better to say that all magic is draining (thus the damage) but that magical traits are broader OR magic is never draining but the traits have to be as narrow as other traits. There are advantages and disadvantages to both of course, but trying to run the middle ground is risking confusion.

Brian.

[Jeph]

Combat: I'm thinking I liked it better turnless. When you start introducing turns, that begins to drain the Mighty Powers of Obviousness. If you have turns, you start losing the ability to let the guy with the dagger take more actions. You start to get players complain when you say they can't parry attacks from both the guy in front of them and behind them with their rapier. I don't know, maybe it's just a mindset that more strict combat rules enforce. But I liked it better freeform: it gives more "this is the way it works" power to the GM, and keeps up the fluid feel.

Magic: It does strongly depend on the GMs perception of 'broad' and 'narrow'. Perhaps Broad could be defined as anything that might be a school of magic: Flame Savantism, Weather Control, Shadow Manipulation. Narrow might be anything that's a specific spell: Quench Flames, Summon Fog, Blend Into Darkness. Would that help?

[Brian Leybourne]

Jeff,

Well, to each their own I guess :-) I'll tell you what, I'll try combat both ways and see how they both work. Of course it's your game and I'm not trying to tell you how it should be, I'm just not one who likes things too freeform :-) I'll let you know how it goes.

Magic? Yeah, that sounds fine. Although to be honest I'm inclined to just tell my players that if they want magic they should define their magical skills fairly narrowly, and then I'll just use the normal trait rules with no fatigue etc. That's easier than trying to explain to them how broad or narrow something has to be before it picks up a new set of rules - I like the rules-lite aspect of the system so I want to see how that plays without introducing a different ruleset that is only based on my fiat anyway. Again, I'll see how it goes.

One of my players just cancelled (again) for this Sunday, so we may not get to play the Spin System this week after all (two others are overseas at the moment, and that will just leave it as me and 2 players, which isn't really enough IMO). Still, I may give it a try with the three of us anyway, instead of having to wait yet another week.

Brian.

[Jeph]

Should having players start at a higher 'level' (i.e., more trait points to assign) be an option? Personally, I'm thinking that a higher powered game would just have slightly broader Traits and slightly lower Difficulties. Opinions?

[Brian Leybourne]

I like the idea of changing the starting points, rather than actually changing the core rules for a higher powered game. I would keep the rules the same (trait narrowness, difficulty scale, wounds scale, etc) and assign more points. 10 = normal game, 15 = high powered, 20 = really experienced characters. Something like that.

Brian.