Augmented: The Trouble with Hyper-Humans

[Spooky Fanboy]

Okay. I want to design a game around a theme I find interesting: humans with standard human gifts/weaknesses that are augmented/uplifted to superhuman capability. Think Nobilis (for it's Aspect descriptions), Aberrant (for it's Mega-Attributes), Torchbearer (what little of it I can comprehend), and countless other superhero-type games. My current working title for it is AUGMENTED.

In short, for reasons unknown, certain people have their core abilities advanced to mythic levels. Humans use tools; Augmented make tools that do the previously impossible. Humans exhale; an Augmented can exhale enough to cause hurricanes. Humans think; an Augmented can outclass a supercomputer. Humans socialize to win friends and influence people; an Augmented could start a planetwide "cult of personality" around herself within a day or two. Humans are agile; an Augmented can dodge raindrops. Humans are strong; an Augmented can toss mountains.

Imagine five people in the same room, playing this game. What does it look like? How often do they consult papers, books, or tables? Do they use dice or any other objects? How? What sort of stuff is tracked in writing, if anything? And among the people, how often does each person talk relative to everyone else? Does one person do most of it? Does that person have to be the "hub" of interactions among everyone else? Finally, regarding the imagined material that they are creating, what must they be talking about? Is fighting the main thing they spend their time on? Building a "case file" of clues and hypotheses? Social interactions and relationships among characters? What actually occupies the real people's attention, time, and conversation?

This leads me to some questions I have:

1) Is this concept playable? As of now, I have no idea who these Augmented are going to be fighting with other than themselves. I have a rough idea of a post-apocalyptic setting, where the human race is struggling to come back and the Augmented are the champions of/ replacement for humanity.

2) What mechanics best emphasize the superhuman nature of the Augmented? I had a rough outline of "grades" of super-humaness like so: Ordinary, Above Average, Brilliant (human peak), Beyond, Legendary, Fantastic (high-end superhero), and Mythic. These would be the default setting that a character has that core trait at. This would be varied by various plusses and minuses due to character inclination, environmental factors, etc. I'm currently thinking of a scaling of 1-9 in those ratings, using a d10 (giving a range of 0-9) to vary the result.

Further variation of these results would be initiated by player's decision in the form of "Hero Points" (which I'll come up with another name for shortly). These allow the Augmented to use short bursts of adrenaline, will, concentration, etc. to achieve a result better than they would otherwise accomplish. This is a pool of points that might vary greatly depending on victory/defeat, crises in the life of the Augmented, personal fears/weaknesses, etc. (Think Will in Godlike.)

3) Related to #2, these Augmented are human, therefore prone to irrationality and failure, no matter what their level of performance. How can I compare the results of unevenly-matched Augmented and allow for the underdog to win without stretching credulity? What's a good way to model the inferior Augmented entering a conflict with a superior Augmented?

4) At Mythic levels, where characters can do the impossible on a routine basis, what will challenge them?

5) How do I balance this so that no trait (physical, mental, social, etc.) is overbalanced in respect to others, so that players who want to specialize in one or the other can do so without outshining or being eclipsed by the other players? Also, how do I make sure that generalists (good at everything, excel at nothing) do not get eclipsed by specialists?  

6) Remember, I'm talking only about hyper-abilities related to what humans can do. No resurrecting the dead, lasers from the eyes, flying (without mechanical aid), or any of that.

To answer Ron's question, based on the above, I think that the players would interact with each other socially, combat and research would still be valuable options, there would be a GM to evaluate dice roll results and set up conflicts, and that the players wouldbe concerned about their characters' goals and how close they are to achieving them. Hopefully, there will be only minimal chart-checking duringthe game, and onlymoderatedice-rolling; characters should be able to breeze through most mundane challenges. I'll have to do some more thinking on how those goals shape play, and how to integrate this with an eperience system of sorts. ( I *like* eperience systems, particularly ones thatreward character flaws (Nobilis) and which focus play on character concept and goals (The Riddle of Steel)).

HELP! Thank you for your feedback in advance.

[Valamir]

Ok, it seems to me you have a kernel of a character concept, and a pretty cool one at that.  The question really becomes...how to turn a concept for a cool character archetype into a game?

For that one REALLY needs to focus on "ok, now that we all have our cool hurricane exhaling Augmented characters...what are we going to do with them".

That's the hook that turns it into a game.  There are alot of possible approaches to that.

One could explore how being an Augmented affects the normal daily lives of people just trying to get along.  The Brave New World Approach.

One could explore the question of "now that you can leap over tall buildings in a single bound...what are you going to do with it, and what boundaries are you willing/not willing to cross on the way?".  The Sorcerer Approach.

One could explore the standard super heros defending the planet against the baddies trope.  The Marvel Comics Approach

Etc.

Each of these can (and likely should) require subtle or significant different approaches to the rest of your questions.  Personally, I think any attempt to start digging into mechanics without knowing the answer to "what are we supposed to do" is like designing a car without knowing if its supposed to be luxurious or drive real fast or be able to handle off road terrain.

That said, the first place I look for how to design mechanics that bit obscenely powerful people against other obscenely powerful people is Amber.  Take the basic concepts of Amber and stir in a few elements of Nobilis and that's about the type of mechanic I'd start looking at.  

But which basic concepts and which elements of Nobilis really depends on what the point of the game is.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My first thought is, "Why not stick with bog-standard 5th edition Champions?" The game is very well-suited to any flavor of super-humans in Simulationist terms. The current edition is exceptionally clear, well-written, playtested, and reliable.

Most importantly, the rules are quite good at specifying what sort of supers context we're talking about for a given game. Silver Age Fantastic Four, early 80s X-Men, utter fanboy Legion of Super-Heroes, postmodern Kingdom Come, dark yet corny street-grit 1940s ... all are there, carefully specified as to power levels and the usage of the powers-construction rules.

Your description of play sounds to me very much like classic 80s soap + villains superhero scenarios (GM poses conflicts, players have goals, etc).

Best,
Ron

[Daniel Solis]

I had the exact same problem when I tried working on a similar concept. My game was called The Greatest, since all the characters would be "the world's greatest (blank)." Take any one profession or skill, your character would be the greatest at doing that thing. I never made any mechanics for it, but I did always have in mind one rule of thumb: In contests, specificity wins.

(Player A is the world's greatest detective. Player B is the world's greatest ballistic forensics expert. When examining a crime scene for ballistic information, player B wins for being more specialized in that field. When interrogating suspects for information, the detective is superior.)

But, again, I had the same problem as you. What the heck do the greatest whatevers do that can unify the concept into a playable game? Of course the greatest martial artist will do martial arts and the greatest plumber would clear up clogs in pipes. But what do both of those characters have in common that could bring them together and does not fall back on old superhero tropes that, as Ron says, have been done quite well by other games?

Sorry I'm not much help here. :\

[Andrew Martin]

I've got a similar problem to Daniel and Spooky. I want to have a game system loosely based on the recent Hulk movie and the two X-Men movies. I've got to the point where the super-power, mutation, what ever is also what makes the difference between the PC and normal NPCs. Sort of like exploring the situation, you've got superpowers, and these superpowers make you radically different from others. How do you fit in to society, when you're so different from everyone else? Exploring the difference between being part of the crowd or being an outsider; being part of the herd or standing out leading the group.

For system, I thought I'd use a variant of Zac's Shadows, game where one D6 is swapped for any other die or dice (Super-Dice/Mutant-Dice_, which is the "power" level of the super-power. When using the super-power, the Super-/Mutant- dice is for the player, but when trying to fit in to society, the Super-/Mutant- dice acts against the player (and the remaing D6 acts for the player). I thought that relationships could be used to force re-rolls of either/both dice in various ways.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Andrew, it seems to me as if you've solved the problem, rather than sharing it. You've focused a mechanic, which is some of the design anyway, on the issue that you want play to focus on.

I can't see any sort of must-resolve issue in either Carl's (Spooky's) or Daniel's presentation so far - they want to "play superpowers" of a particular sort and have come up with a given aesthetic or in-game justification. Not surprisingly, it's still hard to see why a new game design is necessary for such a thing, since (a) Champions is now as clean a Simulationist design as one could hope for and (b) multiple, multiple games exist which are essentially refinements of Champions at various stages of its history.

Sorry to be such a bummer, gentlemen - I should clarify that I'm all for designing your own games, and that it's very likely that such an "issue" (or whatever) does exist in your current plans, and I'm simply not seeing it yet.

Best,
Ron

[Spooky Fanboy]

Ron, you're right--but not quite.

See, the one game mechanic system I'd be willing to use for such a game is not Champions (It doesn't jibe well with me, or me with it) but Torchbearer. Problem is, I don't quite have my head wrapped around some of the terms Shreyas uses. So I was trying to invent my own system.

My issue, if anything, is that I'm in agreement with System Does Matter, and if I'm going to be serious about making games, I want to learn how to create a system for them. I wanted to approach this topic (hyper-humans) with a system that's not too granular (Nobilis' Aspect), has clearly defined and balanced augmentation between the physical, social, and mental aspects of a human (unlike Aberrant), and yet doesn't crunch too many numbers (Champion, IMO.) I want the game to explore what it's like to do beyond what ordinary people can do, still be basically human, and yet find some sort of challenge to keep players interested in playing the game. Cart before the horse, perhaps, and that's something that's a seperate issue I need to work on.

[Andrew Martin]

Andrew, it seems to me as if you've solved the problem, rather than sharing it. You've focused a mechanic, which is some of the design anyway, on the issue that you want play to focus on.

Thanks, Ron! What was stopping me is that the design seemed not incomplete but insufficient to me, as if I was missing something or I hadn't thought of something that was important. I keep thinking, "is this all I need for the design?" and I keep wanting to add more to it. I can see that the relationships mechanics need creating and amplifying to better match the movie sources, hopefully that's where the complexity in play will emerge from the simplicity of the rules.

[Mike Holmes]

Spooks, what is it about Torchbearer that Champions will not fulfill? You're forming a Creative Agenda for the game in your mind, but you've not transmitted it, and it may still be quite incohate. Until you can express that better, it's going to be hard to help with the design. That is, until you can tell us what you want that would make us understand why Champions wouldn't make sense, and something like Torchbearer would, you haven't really got a game idea worked out.

The standard exercise in this case is to give a theoretical example of a session of play in gross terms. Have you done that in your mind yet? Could you write one up for us here?

Mike

[Daniel Solis]

When using the super-power, the Super-/Mutant- dice is for the player, but when trying to fit in to society, the Super-/Mutant- dice acts against the player (and the remaing D6 acts for the player). I thought that relationships could be used to force re-rolls of either/both dice in various ways.

You, sir, have given me the solution to that one nagging bit that's been stalling the development of the super-setting for PUNK. Thank you!

[Spooky Fanboy]

Spooks, what is it about Torchbearer that Champions will not fulfill? You're forming a Creative Agenda for the game in your mind, but you've not transmitted it, and it may still be quite incohate. Until you can express that better, it's going to be hard to help with the design.
The standard exercise in this case is to give a theoretical example of a session of play in gross terms. Have you done that in your mind yet? Could you write one up for us here?

Mike, you and Ralph have hit on my core problem: I have not done that yet.

Focusing on it some, I have an idea: the PCs are champions of their tribes. (Presumably allied, which is why they interact with each other on a regular basis.) It's a post-apocalyptic setting, and humanity has devolved to a tribal society. Old ruins of modern society dot the landscape, but there is nothing really worth salvaging. There are monstrous mutant-things abroad, things that have their own champions. Not to mention hostile tribes.

The reason I like the Torchbearer system is that it has tiers of coolness. There's Ordinary to Mythic. What I was thinking was that the champions have a Holy Fire pool that allows them to move their attributes up these tiers. The Holy Fire pool is like Hero Points in that you can spend them to either move your core score up the tier temporarily, or save them to either permanently boost your core stats or, when you've boosted your stats to a critical level, you permanently move that core stat up to the next tier.

Holy Fire is gained by advancing the success of your tribe, roleplaying your flaws and overcoming shooting yourself in the foot, and finding ways to advance your personal goals while all of this is going on. I'm thinking of adding an Alienation Pool which represents your distancing from your human perspective, thus your tribe's goals, your goals, and falling prey to your flaws. As you accrue Alienation, you can use it to boost yourself the way you use Holy Fire, but you mutate (thus allowing the potential for "superpowers" in the traditional sense.) If you go too far, you become one of the monsters that you've been fighting.

Sound good?

[Daniel Solis]

I'm working up a very similar concept for Gears & Spears. The gist of it is that it's two hundred million years in the future, enough time for humans to have created nigh-magical technology, leave earth, then have the terra ecology re-assert itself in the landscape of the distant future. The PCs are robots re-awakened with a bit of sentience and need for community. The world is a harsh place now and new mythic heroes rise from the masses of each tribe to forge the new legends of post-historical Earth.

In play, G&S focuses on three things: the hero, the tribe and the oral mythology that binds the two in a symbiotic relationship. The twist here is that a hero is only a hero because her tribe has faith in her. If the hero breaks tribal taboos (determined by the group in the "tribe creation" process), she loses her tribe's faith. If the hero lives up to tribal virtues (again, determined in tribe creation), she gains or regains tribal faith. Through all of this, the heroe's mythos grows, with new chapters. From the established mythos, a hero gains new abilities simply by having the tribe believe it to be so.

If I understand correctly, the difference between Torchbearer and G&S, aside from color, is that in TB the status of tribal hero is independent of her tribe's belief in her right to be a hero. In fact, the status of "hero" brings quite a bit of social baggage with it when it comes to associating with the tribe on a day-to-day basis. A sort of prehistoric x-men situation. The general public needs heroes to survive in a world filled with dangerous, powerful forces, but at the same time, heroes don't get invited to dinner or to social gatherings. Heroes are dehumanized and relegated to their function, much like a beast of burden. That's got some potential for coolness, it does.

There was a thread here a little while ago where someone tried working out a system for making both "superheroic" and "mundane" activities mechanically equal. Ah, here it is.

I'm not sure if you need flaws since powers are their own inconvenience in mundane situation. Similarly, an alienation pool seems redundant if you can just flip the positive/negative mechanics of the Holy Fire trait to suit the same purposes. If one trait can do the work of two, all the better for the system, I say. How clear-cut will you be making your powers?

In G&S, the heroes' abilities are determined by mythos. You do something in-game, spend a mythos token, the event gets added to your mythos and you have a new ability. In Shreyas Sampat's Mridangam (link, link), the powers are similar to your "mundane but extreme" abilities. (Mundane archer slays a soldier. Divine archer slays entire armies in a single shot.)

I'm not sure if Shreyas ever got around to defining a set of powers, but it seemed like one could take a normal trait, attach "super-" to it as a prefix, then take that trait's dramatic impact to the next highest echelon.

A way to do that mechanically is, as others have mentioned, to have all characters use one type of die for task resolution, then have super-traits use a larger die. This implies you're using a rollover-the-TN system and I dunno if that's what you're going for. Your call, really. The trick would be to combine this idea with the "flippable" nature of Torchbearer superpowers.

Here's a quickie idea:

All characters have traits (skills, talents, whatever) and a Normalcy attribute. A mundane action must roll a d10 under normalcy to be successful. A super-action must roll a d10 over normalcy to be successful. Mundane characters can't do super-actions, so rolling over normalcy results in failure. Super characters can't do mundane actions, so rolling under normalcy results in failure. Super-characters have a gradually shrinking normalcy rating, meaning that over time, they will be completely unable to do anything but super-actions even if something less dramatic would suffice.

Hm... I liked your Holy Fire concept though, even as just a name. Actually, the system just described could be flipped thusly.

All characters have traits (skills, talents, whatever) and a Holy Fire attribute. A mundane action must roll a d10 over Holy Fire to be successful. A super-action must roll a d10 under Holy Fire to be successful. Mundane characters can't do super-actions, so rolling under results in failure. Super characters can't do mundane actions, so rolling over results in failure. Super-characters have a gradually growing Holy Fire rating, meaning that over time, they will be completely unable to do anything but super-actions even if something less dramatic would suffice.

Still, it's awkward having to roll under the attribute that makes you "super." Oh well, it's time for class and I'm gonna be late. I hope these ramblings and links at least give you some help. :)

[Shreyas Sampat]

Suppose that Holy Fire and Alienation are two marks on a single scale, with "normal dude" in the middle.  To extend Daniel's example:

All characters have traits, a Holy Fire attribute, and an Alienation attribute.  A mundane action must roll between HF and Alienation to succeed; a mythic action falls to one side or other outside this range.  Super-characters eventually have all their 'normal' range eaten up, and have to act mythically in order to act at all, but it isn't always predictable whether they will act heroically or tragically.

Finally, you can spend both of those attributes to make aspects of yourself inherently mythic; this lets you do "mythic" things by rolling for normal actions.  (I suspect that this mechanic neatly diffuses the effect of the previous, however.)

[Spooky Fanboy]

Gentlemen (and any ladies present):

Thank you for your comments, all of which have inspired serious thought.

As I now see this game developing these EXEMPLARS are the embodied hearts and souls of their tribes. If they increase their Holy Fire, 'good stuff' follows and their tribe prospers. If the character increases in Alienation, s/he has taken gifts meant for the tribe and hoarded them for personal gain, the tribe suffers and may eventually mutate into monsters.

Also, they may go on 'visionquests' to gather magical abilities/talismans from the Deepside (spirit world), like the power to fly or heal, or a blessing on the crops.

This was the exact opposite of the way I had planned, because I'm a Libertarian and all about personal empowerment vs. collective empowerment. But the more I explore it, the more it makes sense. Instead of just playing a character, they play a tribe embodied through a character. This means that each character has to also stat up his tribe (a la Nobilis' Chancel and Imperator properties).

Also, I'm thinking of setting it up like Paladin, where your pool of Holy Fire can be used at any time, but doesn't replenish rapidly. Alienation, OTOH, can also be used, and replenishes much more quickly, but at a horrible cost.