ReCoil: Mechanics, part 1

[Lance D. Allen]

Example of Play: Beginning of a mission

Lance is the GM, with the players being Tara and Mitch, playing the characters Love and Morph.
Character names will be used to denote in-character speech, and player names will be used to
denote out-of-character, and descriptions of player actions.

Love: So let me get this straight. There was a subway accident that killed 15 people, somewhere
between terminals 15 and 20 on the main line?

Mortis: Correct.

Morph: Let’s get to it then. You said we have only 1 day and a few hours, so let’s not waste it.

Mortis: 26 hours, to be more exact. Are you sure you’re both ready?

(both players nod, signaling character’s actions)

Mortis: Alright then. ReCoil.

GM: The familiar sense of falling begins, and Mortis fades from view, leaving only the
featureless gray around you. Seemingly below, you see a vast swirl of lights, which is looming
ever closer. An unseen hand guides you toward a specific cluster of lights, which become to be
recognized as human souls... Okay, time to create the hosts.

Tara: A subway accident, huh. Anyone could be on the subway. I want to start with a street kid.

Morph: An undercover cop, looking for drug dealers.

Tara: Hm. The cop’s wife, who works as a social worker. Not on the subway, though.

Mitch: The police chief, also not on the subway. Ooh, maybe the street kid’s little sister, waiting
for her to get some food to bring back to where they live.

Tara: (smiles at Mitch briefly) Good one. Hm. How about a drug dealer, nervously watching the
cop?

Mitch: Cool. Maybe your street kid runs errands for the drug dealer.

GM: What about a security guard in one of the terminals?

(both players shrug)

Tara: I want to play that little sister. I like the idea of helping a child who needs a hand up in the
world.

Morph: I think I’ll go with my original cop. If you’re going to play a kid, someone’s going to need
to be capable.

The hosts are rolled up, and Mitch’s cop turns out to sync badly with him (level 0). Tara gets a
maximum (level 5) sync with the child.

Mitch: Well, he’s physically capable, at least. Good thing we’re in America, or else I’d have a
serious communication problem.

Tara: Don’t worry Morphy, Love will take care of you. Alright, let’s get to playing.

GM: Morph finds himself sitting in traffic in a beat up old Corolla in a poorer section of town. He’s
wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans, but there is the feel of something strapped around his ankle.

Mitch: I pull off at the first parking lot, and park. I’m gonna check my pockets for ID, and see
what that is at my ankle.

GM: The ID gives your name as John Harland, and there’s about $30 in the wallet as well.
Around your ankle you find a small, 5 round pistol, obviously a holdout. Inside the pistol strap
you also find police identification.

Morph: Sorry John, but it looks like you’re not going to make it to your appointment. We’ve got
bigger fish to fry.

Mitch: I’m going to check the car, see what else I can find.

GM: Your turn, Love. You find yourself huddled behind a dumpster, wrapped in a dirty blanket.
The child’s mind registers awe at finding you there, but she soon realizes that you’re there to
help, and that you’ll need her help to save her sister.

Tara: What’s her name?

GM: Don’t ask me, ask her.

Love: I’m Love. What’s your name?

Girl: My name is Sarah.

[Mike Holmes]

So in this example were all the characters "created" by the suggestions given? That is, I'm assuming that the Cop at least exists as he was bounced out of. But what about the Security Guard? Was the shrug by the players a tacit acceptance? So, maybe the rule is that all character mentioned are created unless somebody objects? Whether they get used or not in play? Basically they are on the scene for the GM to use if the need arises?

That would be pretty cool.

Who is the undercover cop, though? Where did he come from? Was he just a spontaneous creation of the GM?

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

Ah.. I obviously was less than clear.

All of the potential host characters exist once they've been introduced into the relationship map, but they'd not be rolled up unless the GM decided he wanted them to be. They are all available as potential hosts later, or as potential hosts for the Naughtwraiths (though, honestly, after play begins anyone or anything is fair game). They're also available to be used as NPCs in the story, as necessary.

The cop was not bounced out of. Mitch rolled a Synchronicity trait which was very poorly matched with Morph's (a level 0 sync) but it was not a sync X. At that point, he could have chosen another host, but he decided that Morph's abilities were enough to see him through, and that the cop's body would be sufficient, without any knowledge of the cop's skills or background. He accepted the undercover cop, despite the slight disadvantage he was at.

The shrug was a tacit approval of the GM's contribution to the relationship map. They neither really liked it, nor disliked it. All characters suggested (unless it's something like weird space alien, which wouldn't fit in this particular setting) go into the relationship map, regardless of who suggests it.

Where I'm wanting to go with this next is something that I'm finding difficult to figure out how. At this point, the GM and the players know that incident W (subway accident) is going to take place in vicinity X (between terminals 15 and 20) and that Y (people died) at Z time (26 hours from ReCoil) The GM also knows the Oblivion power level of the wraiths. They have all determined a web of some of the possible characters killed or otherwise connected to the incident. Next the player characters will need to find a way to meet up (use of power to communicate is one easy method..) and begin figuring out some of the specifics, tracking down the Naughtwraiths, or in some way foiling their dastardly plot.

And this is where I'm uncertain. I want all of the details of said dastardly plot to lie in the hands of the players. The GM should only be applying bangs if things slow down, doing the NPC interactions, and responding to what the players want to happen. This scenario could go a dozen ways. There could be a bomb. There could be a disconnect in the tracks. Both very simplistic methods, but the Naughtwraiths will want to do it in as "unrealistic" a way as possible, attempting to create a Rift at the point of the incident.

I've looked over games which sort of do what I want, such as InSpectres, but I don't think I really understand how it goes about it. Also, with InSpectres, there seems to be a great amount of potential for slapstick and silliness, though I understand that may be greatly influenced by the setting.

[Mike Holmes]

I've looked over games which sort of do what I want, such as InSpectres, but I don't think I really understand how it goes about it.

Ah. InSpectres does it two ways. First, the resolution system gives the players the ability to create the entire result on a successful roll of an attribute. Thus if I roll Athletics I and succeed, I can narrate tackling a guy and discovering in knocking him over that he was standing on a trap door to a cellar.

The other way it informs players on what they should be rolling for in the first place is with structure. Thus there is "the Call" where the players roll to get info out of the NPC calling up. Then there is the "Research" phase where they can look up stuff about the problem. Then there's "Suiting Up" where they can create pertinent equipment. Etc.

You already have the ReCoil phase where characters get the general mission, and their new bodies. That's a lot, really. It could be made into half the game if you wanted. For example, players could make Synchronicity rolls to see if they can "discover" some skill that their host has. So the guy that takes over the cop might try to get to the cop's "drive fast" skill. The cop doesn't have the skill listed at all until the player creates it. If the roll fails, he never had it, or it's buried too deep to get; the player doesn't know. BTW, this would take care of "rolling up" characters. The players would be using their abilities to create the host abilities as they need them.

Next phase could be "Recon" where the players use their perceptions scores to "find" stuff like wraiths and maybe stuff that had come in contact with wraiths, or even would come in contact in the future. That sort of thing. So the players as they create this sort of detail are "uncovering" the plot.

Perhaps whenever the player wanted to interject it, he could have a "Conviction Scene" where he could use his Conviction score to create elements that would make the upcoming plot pertinent to his character. I'm assuing that Conviction has an associated descriptor? So if Bob's character has a "Must protect the young and innocent" Conviction, he could use that to create an NPC that could be determined to be threatened by the plot. Or somesuch.

Anyhow, that's not a lot to work on, but you get the idea. Just put out some sort of framework that the players build upon. Also see Donjon for another example (Fact Mechanics) of how to accomplish this sort of thing.

Also, with InSpectres, there seems to be a great amount of potential for slapstick and silliness, though I understand that may be greatly influenced by the setting.

It's the point of play. Normal people working a nine-to-five job trying to thwart supernatural elements.

Your game's situation has it's own feel and will keep that in play. It's not Directorial mechanics that make for slapstick play, it's odd situations (people in Universalis often create these odd situations and are then surprised when play turns slapstick; figures).

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

Okay, finally got a chance to actually read through and think about what you wrote, Mike.

For example, players could make Synchronicity rolls to see if they can "discover" some skill that their host has. So the guy that takes over the cop might try to get to the cop's "drive fast" skill. The cop doesn't have the skill listed at all until the player creates it. If the roll fails, he never had it, or it's buried too deep to get; the player doesn't know. BTW, this would take care of "rolling up" characters.

My original idea was to have something like the profession trait that Taalyn is using in Aisling, (something similar is used in Sorcerer too, isn't it?) but I like this idea too. It kinda goes back to the sync level, though. At high sync levels, the host's abilities are readily available to the agent, whereas at lower levels they're erratically available, or not available at all.

My original idea for "rolling up" the host was something like this... 4 dice are rolled for traits. The host traits are Body, Senses, Precision and Profession. The results of the dice are then assigned as the player wishes across those 4 traits. So for John Harland in the example, his profession trait would have been "undercover cop", and would have a rating assigned to it. Any actions which fall under that description would be rolled using that trait, assuming the agent had a high enough sync to have access. Morph did not, as his sync was 0; No access to the host's abilities while the host is unconscious, though the agent may allow the host to "wake up" and take over their own body at sync 0. However, as the host has no direct knowledge of the agent, at this point...

Perhaps I could integrate your idea, and allow the agent, if they have a sync level of 1 to make rolls to determine if the host has a given skill within their profession, and higher sync than that, skills outside of the their profession.. At sync level 5, where the host is fully conscious and able to assist, I might allow a secondary profession trait, or something like Aisling's Nature.

Conviction: Yes, Conviction has a descriptor, as well as test conditions for raising and lowering. Love's, for example, is a desire to protect children, and she tests to raise when she successfully does so, and tests to lower when she fails to do so. As for creating NPCs that are pertinent to the mission, doesn't the ReCoil phase cover that? Love's creation of the street kid was a reflection of her Conviction. (Morph is a little more 2-d at this point, but I'll be fleshing him out as an example character as well)

Hm. More to think on, but I've got distractions at the moment. I'll be back later.

[Mike Holmes]

Yeah, profession in Sorcerer is called Cover (because it's a cover for the fact that the character is a Sorcerer, duh). I think you ought to keep that. It's one thing right now that differentiates character from each other. And you have precious little of that right now.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

You understand that Profession is for the host, not the agent, right?

The agents will have their differentiating traits, but the rather 2D feel of PCs is intentional, in the beginning. Each agent is a collection of a few vague memories and abilities to begin, but they rediscover who they are- not who they were- during play.

The agents specifically will be different, as far as the mechanics go, in their Convictions, their Synchronicity (which I'm growing more fond of the idea of having these be personality types), some of their skills and their Talents, of which there will be three per agent.

I'm about finished with the character creation section. I'll make some notes tonight at work, and try to post the initial write up in the morning.

[Brian Leybourne]

I have nothing in particular to say except that I have been enjoying following ReCoil and am looking forward to more info. It's quite similar to a concept I had been trying to work on for a couple of years (although mine were parasitic life forms instead of ghosts who are "back from the future".

Nice work.

Brian.

[Lance D. Allen]

ghosts who are "back from the future".

I never really thought of it like that... I thought I was the one who was kept around for colorful commentary?

::grins:: Thanks for the interest, Brian.

Well, I was barely able to keep my eyes open this morning, so I'm only now ready to post up the character creation bit. It's not immensely long as these things go, because, for once, I want to do something with fairly simple character creation. This is only for creating the agents themselves, not for creating individual hosts when it's called for, though that will probably be about as simple. So, without further ado...
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Character Creation:

The first thing you do to create a character is to create a defining memory. When your character died, Oblivion attempted to consume them, and in the process destroyed most of their memories of their former life. But there was one memory that was strong enough to make them fight Oblivion, and this memory is the basis for the agent’s Conviction. It can be a single picture, a scene, or a series of smaller memories based around a theme. This memory can be written down or simply something envisioned or described. It is a starting point for your character’s personality.

Mitch is creating his character, whom he has already decided will be called Morph. He ponders over a few ideas, then settles on one for his defining memory. His defining memory is a single image surrounded by myriad others. The image is a photograph of a young police officer just out of the academy, proud of his uniform and his badge. The surrounding memories show this same policeman in various situations, always doing the right thing. Mitch decides that Morph doesn’t remember if this policeman was himself, his father, or even someone he actually knew.

Next, based on the character’s defining memory, you need to decide what their Conviction descriptor is. Conviction is similar to concepts such as V:tM’s Humanity or Path, and TRoS’s Spiritual Attributes. It is what defines what is important to your character, and what keeps them going when the battle seems hopeless. Once you have chosen a descriptor, you need to choose two breakpoints, or conditions under which the Conviction score will raise and lower. Once you have done that, then you roll a single d10. The result of this roll will be your starting Conviction score.

Mitch has decided to take the simple police officer’s motto as Morph’s Conviction descriptor: To Serve and Protect. After some thought on exactly what this means to Morph, he writes down the breakpoints to raise and lower. He chooses the condition to raise as “Whenever an innocent citizen is defended against lawlessness” and his condition to lower as “Whenever he is unable to stop a significant criminal act”. Satisfied with his descriptors, he rolls a d10 and comes up with an 8, which he writes down as his Conviction score.

Next up is the Synchronicity trait. Synchronicity is very similar in concept to a zodiac sign, but notably more applicable. It is somewhat of a personality descriptor, but perhaps more importantly it’s a factor in how well your agent will sync with a host. Below is a list of the trait selections, and descriptions for the associated personality type for each.

(listed colors, bright and dark variants of the red-yellow-blue spectrum: I’m still working on this, and don’t want to hold up the mechanics portion for what is essentially stylistic)

Mitch looks through the list of colors, and decides that X is the one that most closely fits the growing idea in his mind of who Morph is. This means that he will not sync well with Y, but will sync very well with Z.
Note that X,Y, and Z are being used as fillers in this example

The final choices made for character creation is choosing 4 Talents. Talents are areas that the character currently excels in, or special abilities that they have. Below is a list of the various talents available. Note that a character may choose any of these four, it is strongly recommended that at least one choice be given over to the Talent ‘Slivers of Mortality’, which will give your character some skills to begin with other than the purely combative ones that agents are trained with.

Talents:

Slivers of Mortality - For each selection of this talent, the player rolls 1d10, with a minimum result of 3 on each die (reroll 1’s or 2’s). The total of the roll is spent on skills new skills, or even on improving the combative skills that are default. No skill may be higher than 4 to begin. Any skill that you wish your character to have is available, subject to approval by the GM. Examples: Coercion, First Aid, Languages (note on languages: 3 is considered to be fluency; 3 or higher will allow normal conversation without rolls)

Power Boost - The Power trait starts at a 5, rather than the default 3. This of course means that the Mortis pool is also raised to 5.

Perceptive - In a mortal, this would mean the ability to see things which exist outside of reality, such as Naughtwraiths and agents. Agents are considered to be Perceptive by default, but those who take this talent are moreso; Their Perception rating starts at 3, rather than the default 1.

Driven: An agent who is driven is more likely to stay focused on their convictions, and less likely to falter. However, when they do, they fall harder than more easy-going agents. Driven agents have two different breakpoints to raise Conviction, and when they reach a breakpoint to lower Conviction, they risk losing 2 points, rather than just one.

Synched: The Synched agent is more open to differences than others. Synched agents have a Sync level that is one higher than normal, up to the maximum of five. Which means that they are never going to have a Sync X, and therefore be unable to inhabit a given host. On the downside, they must inhabit the first host selected, regardless of what the modified sync level is, or any other possibly undesirable factors.

Cipher: The Cipher moves unseen through the world. Their masking trait is automatically a 10 without having to spend any Mortis to raise it. Likewise, some of this aura seems to extend to their host, requiring at least a single Perception success (this can be Passive Perception) against the default rating (Paradigm) to even notice the host’s presence unless they are directly affecting the perceiver.

Resonant: A Resonant is able to feel possibilities in the time-stream. The effect is described as being able to feel the resonance of themselves in parallel time-streams, where only small differences have occurred or can occur. These alternate time-streams are short-lived as Oblivion consumes anything which does not have the strength of Paradigm to buttress it, but in the brief instances of vergence, the Resonant can sense those alternate possibilities, and allow them to act upon this knowledge to affect their own time-stream. This means that, after a single series of actions (i.e. the equivalent of a single roll or contested roll) if the outcome is not favorable, the Resonant can spend a point of Mortis to declare that the actions did not happen in this time-stream, but rather in a parallel time-stream, so they have the ability to do it again. This is only possible in situations where the Resonant is directly affecting the outcome, and this can only be done once per individual series of actions.

More to come, but you get the idea.

Morph is coming along nicely, as Mitch looks through the Talents. He decides that Morph is definitely going to have some skills of his own, and so uses two of his talents on Slivers of Mortality. He looks through the list and decides he likes the sound of Perceptive, as a good cop is always aware of what’s around him, and likewise Resonant sounds a lot like the intuition that good detectives usually have. He rolls two dice for Slivers of Mortality, coming up with a 5 and an 8, for a total of 13 points. He decides to up his guns score from the default 3 to the max of 4, and likewise his martial arts score leaving him with 11 more. He chooses Investigation, Interrogation, First Aid and Driving as his skills, then allocates the 11 points among them, 2 for interrogation, and 3 for each of the others.

The final touches of actually recording the traits, skills and talents comes last. Record first Conviction, breakpoints and Synchronicity, if you’ve not already done so. Next, record the talents you have chosen. Then your Perception, which is a 1, unless you chose Perceptive, and your Power which is a 3, unless you chose Power Boost. Next record your skills. You always have a default of 3 in Martial Arts (M.A.) and Guns (or whatever sort of projectile weapon is common in a given setting). If you chose Slivers of Mortality and chose to raise these, then record that value, then any other skills you may have purchased.

Morph
Conviction: To Serve and Protect - 8
(+) Whenever an innocent citizen is defended against lawlessness
(-)  Whenever he is unable to stop a significant criminal act
Syncronicity: X
Perception: 3
Power: 3
Talents:
-Slivers of Mortality(2)
-Perceptive
-Resonant
Skills:
M.A. 4
Guns: 4
Investigation: 3
Interrogation: 2
First Aid: 3
Driving: 3

A .gif image of the character card can be found here.
It is a large file, as it is a 300ppi resolution, and is meant to print out as a 5 inch square.

[Mike Holmes]

It would be cool if Slivers of Mortality required that the player take additional memories related to each sliver. And the skills then relate to the memory. Makes for a more coherent selection process, IMO.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

It would be cool if Slivers of Mortality required that the player take additional memories related to each sliver. And the skills then relate to the memory. Makes for a more coherent selection process, IMO.

That was sorta the idea, though I didn't necessarily put it down in writing. Slivers of Mortality are abilities remembered from life, though the crazy thing is, the abilities may not have even belonged to the player's character. It is quite possible that the policeman that Morph remembers was his father, and the abilities were things he remembered or believed his father could do. Belief of what a character is capable of is more important than actual know-how, in a way.

The memories from life are, at the bottom line, really just roleplaying color, but I think they're an important part of making the character unique. They are intended to help the player get a feel for who the character is/was, in much the same way that KPfS has each player write "I kill puppies for satan" on the top of their sheet.

So, yeah. I'll make sure to add a few lines requiring the player to "justify" their skill choices with memories.

[Brian Leybourne]

I really like the Slivers of Mortality, but I'm not liking the wide range so much.

Two starting characters who take 2 points of SoM each could end up with very different scores - one could get 6 points and one could get 20. I understand balance is not necessarily anything you're interested in, but as a player I would be a little upset if I was the guy who got hosed with the 6 and everyone else got 15-20.

Just a thought. Otherwise, very nice so far.

Brian.

[Lance D. Allen]

To be totally honest, I usually really dislike any sort of character creation that has randomness to it. I dislike not being able to make the character I want, but in this case it made sense.. What each player is capable of is somewhat in doubt.

But while skills are very nice to have, remember that every character is essentially capable of anything, simply by editing reality, or what have you.

Likewise, I think it will be fairly easy to get new skills, and get skills into the lower levels, but it will grow exceedingly more difficult to get skills into the upper levels. I haven't decided exactly how the advancement system is going to play out, but the idea I'm playing with will use the Conviction score as a scale of relative difficulty in improvement. The higher the Conviction score, the easier it is, the lower, the more difficult.

[Brian Leybourne]

Likewise, I think it will be fairly easy to get new skills, and get skills into the lower levels, but it will grow exceedingly more difficult to get skills into the upper levels. I haven't decided exactly how the advancement system is going to play out, but the idea I'm playing with will use the Conviction score as a scale of relative difficulty in improvement. The higher the Conviction score, the easier it is, the lower, the more difficult.

Which is fine, except that a) vastly different beginning skills will still take a fair while to balance out, and b) completely random starting conviction means that some characters will find it very easy to improve skills etc right off the bat, while others will face an uphill slog because they just happened to start with a low conviction.

Maybe you could start off Conviction as 1d5+2, so there's a range of 3-8 rather than 1-10. That would even it out a little while still retaining the randomness, and I still think that reducing the drastic randomness of SoM would be a good move (and I love the idea of requiring a fragment of memory for each one, explaining how/why you are skilled in that area).

Brian.

[Mike Holmes]

I agree with Brian. If it's not important, then why mess it up by making it random. IOW, what does the randomness get you? Perhaps there's some opposite side of a low roll. That's always cool.

Mike