Lone Wolf Fists: Art from the post-apocalypse!

That's right folks, from our own very talented Kimberly Klevin, we're proud to present the first-ever art for Lone Wolf Fists!

Meet Nuke, our signature Radioactive Scorpion!

Three times a lady! Next up: our dive into the combat section begins!

Lone Wolf Fists: Skills pt.5, you're a Taoist, Harry

Legends of the Wulin did a fantastic job with it's magic system. It cleaned and organized the raw blessing/curse mechanics of Weapons of the Gods and beautifully re-presented them, dripping with setting authenticity. They're a marvel to behold, and they elevate every game they're in.

So I approached our magic stuff with some trepidation. This is the part of the design where I would feel like a true plagiarist if I copied it, and a total fink if I couldn't design a worthy successor. Clearly my work was cut out for me.

I didn't swallow the whole pill at once, so that helped. I'm not messing with the Imbalance-relocating stuff quite yet. I didn't dig into the prognostication or astrological curses quite yet. I didn't dig into the beneficial Prana-manipulation stuff quite yet...

You get the idea. I didn't chicken out entirely, I just don't want to layer on the more delicate, artful stuff until I've gotten in a solid bedrock of "What does spirit even do?"

And there's a lot of very specific, cultural design that I had to consider too. The Legends magic system used Taoist mystical practices (like 5-element and Chi theory) as it's underpinning. Tian Shang has a strong Indian cultural influence, and a direct translation wouldn't have been appropriate.

I didn't want to totally ignore the Chinese mystical elements, so as with everything else I sort of just... Blended them together. I kept stuff I liked and added some things from Shintoism since there are more Japanese cultural elements in this game than the predecessors.

So it's all a wonderful mishmash of magical craziness. But that's important to magic; it should be something mysterious, difficult to comprehend. It should work on dream-logic and defy rational thought. It should remain mysterious, which isn't possible if you have a predictable methodology when you write it.

This is one of the reasons I so admire the magic of old D&D; there's no scaling behind it, no linearity, no clear equation that produces predictable results. There's not even a discernible singular culture to blame for all its weird effects; like true magic, it feels like an incomprehensible and powerful collection of cosmic truths that mankind barely has the ability to wield.

So I didn't nail down everything magic can do on purpose. I want player to be surprised when something magic happens; sometimes delighted, somethings terrified, but never ever bored.

Spirit

The skill of the soul, balance, and mystical attunement. When characters need to synchronize with the weft of Dharma, sense spiritual phenomena, or use magical rituals, they use this skill. Use Spirit when you need to:

·         Attune to the invisible world of the spirit

·         Perform complex magical rites or rituals

·         Use the raw strength of your soul to change the world

Spirit Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Enjoy a moment of spiritual reverie at a site of Dharmic significance or feel unease in a cursed or haunted place.

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Vaguely sense powerful spiritual phenomena with the accuracy of scent: you detect obvious properties but lack finer detail. Aid in the creation of a mortal charm. Empower an already-active Chakra

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Sense spiritual phenomena with direct focus and scrutiny; you could, for example, accurately diagnose an Imbalance by feeling a patient’s meridians. Create a mortal charm. Awaken a slumbering Chakra

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 See fully into the spirit world with the accuracy of hearing and vision: you perceive it in detail. Sense distance events through the weft of Dharma (you gather information on any living thing with a destiny, including characters, organizations, bloodlines, even entire worlds with the frustrating vagueness of prophecy). Follow a ghost-hunter’s ritual or aid in their rites

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Physically interact with spiritual phenomena; punch ghosts with your fists or awaken a mortal’s sleeping Chakra. Create a ghost-hunting ritual. See into the Dharmic web with the accuracy of scent and taste, gaining direct and true information but only of very broad and obvious facts

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Project your consciousness into the astral plane, allowing you to enter the dreams of yourself or others and access their deepest thoughts and memories. Enact a ritual prepared by a powerful spirit. Spiritually scry the Dharmic web with the accuracy of sight and hearing

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Shift a patient’s Imbalance through their meridians to inhabit another Chakra, transforming an unwellness into a more manageable form. You can choose how the new Imbalance manifests, though it must be of the same Rank and Type (Spiritual, Physical, or Emotional). Create a ritual the equal of a powerful spirit

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Solidify an astral projection into a complete, functional facsimile of your corporeal body. Your physical body remains torpid and motionless but comes to no harm if your astral body is destroyed (although your entire self is still subject to mystical and social harm); the projection has 1 Health box per open Chakra you possess. Enact a ritual created by a powerful terrestrial deity.

Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Know the happenings of any place, person or thing in the universe through your mystical connection to the cosmic web. Create a ritual of power equivalent to a mighty earth-god.

Spiritual Rites

There are four ranks of mystical rites known in the World of Ashes and Ghosts.

Mortal Charms are the weakest. Although performed by human beings without Prana, these ceremonies nonetheless are true expressions of Dharmic magic.

Ghost Hunter Techniques are more powerful, though still primarily mortal expressions of power. They are used by trained exorcists and sages to enact potent mystical effects.

Spirit Rituals are used by powerful ghosts, djinni, and minor gods to create the laws and boundaries of the spirit world. They are powerful, potent mystical workings that can reshape landscape and destiny.

Earth God Decrees are the most powerful rites known. These are used by the few sane, healthy gods that remain in the world to establish order and permeance on a continental scale. Mortal kingdoms rise and fall in the wake of such mighty Dharmic thundering.

These rites have four primary uses:

They Ward an area, creating a barrier which must be overcome by hostile spiritual phenomena. Spirits and magic must overcome the ward to enter or affect the warded area.

They Cleanse an area. This dispels any effects and spirits present in the area. Similar to a mortal Hazard, this pushes such beings to the boundary of the cleansing, injuring them if they attempt to re-enter while the cleansing lasts.

They Bind spirits to service or imprisonment. This forces them to act in accordance with the binding while it lasts. Binding is inescapable to spirits, but mortals may shatter the delicate harmony of the seal and free the spirit.

They Heal (or Inflict) curses and possession. Possession allows a spirit to inhabit a mortal body, hiding from cleansings and wards and allowing them to control the mortal’s frame and channel their magic through it. Curses bedevil their targets by reshaping Kharma to bring them misfortune and woe.

Mortal Charms:

1.      Ward a structure such as a house

2.      Cleanse a sacred space, like a temple

3.      Bind a minor spirit or weak ghost with a prayer strip

4.      Heal/Inflict a bad-luck curse

Ghost hunter techniques:

1.      Ward an entire town from ghosts and demons

2.      Cleanse a small community, such as a village

3.      Bind a weak demon or strong ghost into servitude with a mystical seal

4.      Heal/inflict a possession on a mortal by a minor spirit or ghost

Spirit Rituals:

1.      Ward a large city from harmful spirits

2.      Cleanse an entire metropolis

3.      Bind a powerful demon with an imprisoning seal

4.      Heal/Inflict a powerful spiritual possession of a mortal or object

Earth God Decrees:

1.      Ward a country against wicked spirits

2.      Cleanse an empire of devils

3.      Bind a powerful demon into obedience with a Devil-Mollifying Seal

Heal/inflict a curse on a mortal that marks them as a foe of the entire planet, ostracizing them from succor wherever they roam

Lone Wolf Fists: Skills pt. 4, the part I dread

I'm designing out of my comfort zone with social mechanics. Partly because I abandoned them right around the time I stopped tolerating Exalted's overall design in favor of OSR games, but partly because my real-world training in business administration contains so much actual knowledge of social interaction that I fail to grasp their utility (I haven't met many NPCs I couldn't negotiate with).

There's a clear divide in the case of Power or Endurance between the player's capabilities (the "player strength") and their character's capabilities (what I've come to call "avatar strength") . The game doesn't ask players to lift heavy things to prove their character can; you can just roll dice and read the Power chart.

Social and intellectual skills have more "bleed" than that. A player could come up with a clever plan even though their character's an imbecile, for example. A well-crafted argument has real-world persuasiveness.

This bleed makes avatar social capability difficult to design. there are a lot of traps in the design, such as filtering a player's speech through a skill check. 

I hate this: The player speaks in-character and creates a perfectly convincing argument. The GM then calls for a roll; the success or failure of the roll is the sole determining factor of the efficacy of the speech.

Why make the speech? The roll was the important part. Is the speech a special tax on using social mechanics?

Why not let the argument stand? Why use avatar investment as a handicap for player competency?

You understand that this player is persuasive, right? They're just going to charm you rather than your NPCs and if they can't they'll not bother with speaking in-character. You're incentivizing them away from desirable roleplaying with this strategy.

The opposite is just as frustrating; a player makes a roll that achieves a social result, and is then expected to argue in-character to justify the roll. "Your roll persuaded them, but what did you say specifically?"

This is exactly the same; in either case you're handicapping a competent part of the player/avatar dynamic by limiting it to the weakness of the other half.

I prefer an approach that realizes the best of both worlds; sometimes the avatar's competency leads, sometimes the player's.

Under this approach, there's a new problem, but one that I think is fundamental to game design: there is a double-reward for player competency.

Let me explain: say there are two players who make two mechanically balanced characters. Player A is a social dynamo, with impressive charisma and negotiation skills, while player B is socially awkward. Player A's character is a powerful swordsman, while player B's character is a charismatic dilettante with poor combat skills.

Player A can rely on BOTH his player -strength of negotiation and his avatar-strength of fighting, while player B can ONLY rely on his avatar-strength of negotiation. Clearly player A will have a larger potential for overcoming challenges then player B.

There's a clear imbalance here, but there's not a clear solution; it's not even totally clear that a "solution" is required. If, after all, total party competency is used as a measurement rather than comparing individual player/avatar effectiveness, then player A's competencies are a clear asset to the party.

The "filtering through a roll" design above is an attempt to rectify this dilemma, but I feel like it's wrongheaded. Avatar construction and design is simply another player skill; you prioritizing the skill you want to reward in a way injurious to a broader and more natural game appeal.

The fundamental problem of life itself not creating human beings in a comprehensibly balanced way is something that can't really be corrected within the context of an RPG. The best you can do is excise all player skills aside from a very narrow band, and that leads me to Castelvania 2:

The design of the first game challenged you, as a player. It required you to possess or acquire the skills necessary to progress deeper in to the game. But it rewarded you twice for this; first in the slow drip of additional later-game content, and secondly in a constant feeling of earned satisfaction in overcoming challenges with your planning, quick reaction, and real-world game mastery.

Castelevania 2 challenged your investment of time. the longer you played, the easier your avatar could kill enemies, the more mistakes you could make, the more powers you unlocked. In this way, it effectively un-trained your actual skill. You were incentivized to "farm" by repeating challenges of the same difficulty, to lower the challenge as more content was unlocked.

This is a stark example of player strength against avatar-strength. They're beautifully compared poles of the extremes of both.

I prefer to avoid both poles, because I think both approaches to playing a game have validity. In real life, we are not martial-arts superheroes; I have to accept some degree of avatar strength as valid design space, even if my natural tendency as a designer of games is to challenge player skill.

A well-designed RPG does both by embracing the "best of both worlds" approach; sometimes player skill leads, sometimes you need to lift a dump truck and there's just no real-world analog so you use avatar strength.

In an area of bleed like social rules, having a conversation about this is very important. I don't have a solid scientific measurement for "what a human being can accomplish with social skills"" as much as I have one for mechanical things like speed or lifting.

Because of that, the tiers have a more crunchy "what you can make a society do in the short/long run" vibe to them. This should be understood to be a pure expression of avatar strength; these same effects (or even far greater) can be achieved just by speaking in-character.

They're a tool that is used in addition to natural player skill, allowing them another way to overcome challenges. I even advise GMs to allow players to just roll rather than say anything; avatar social capability can lead, and this is a fine and fun way to play.

It's still not "balanced" in the sense of balancing player skill against other players; but then, what game could ever actually do that?

Heart

The skill of empathy, charm, and persuasiveness. When characters need to communicate, deceive another socially, or convince another of an argument, they use this skill. Use Heart when you must:

·         Influence many people at once

·         Lie, directly or surreptitiously

·         Use or shape the rules of culture

Heart Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Sway the opinion of a single mortal or small group (1-10), tell a white lie, follow social customs in your home culture.

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Sway the opinion of a group of mortals (10-50), convincingly lie through your teeth, shame others in your home culture or follow basic customs in an alien culture

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Sway the opinion of a mortal family/ large group (50-100), maintain a convincing false identity, shame others in a foreign culture or establish customs in your native culture

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 Sway the opinion of a large mortal organization (100-1000), seamlessly replace another person through perfect impersonation, establish customs in an alien culture or become a cultural tour-de-force in your own

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Sway the opinion of an entire community of mortals (1000-10,000) tell a lie so convincing that another doubts their sanity, become a cultural tour-de-force in an alien culture or be an invisible master of your own, controlling cultural norms and trends from the shadows

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Sway the opinion of a mortal nation (10k-100k), engineer a convincing false reality of lies for a single unfortunate person, “program” cultural norms such that they return to a general template of your design

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Sway the opinion of a mortal empire (100k-1 million), make a lie real through psychosomatic conditioning (you could spread a rumor someone is sick, and they would be so convinced that their health would deteriorate), program a cultural to remain in unchanging cultural stasis indefinitely (the culture would become backwards luddites, rejecting any innovation or deviance from its societal expectations)

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Sway the opinion of a mortal civilization (1 million-1 billion), Lie to reality, creating physical changes in the world (you could lie to a plant convincing it that it had been watered, or lie to a mountainside that it is climbable when in fact it’s smooth as glass; this replicates Rank 4 effects from physical skills or weaker effects), program a society to inevitably generate people of certain personalities, skills, and destiny, effectively creating near-perfect generational replacements for people of your choosing

 Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Sway the opinion of a mortal planet (1 billion-10 billion), lie to Dharma so that you steal another’s destiny (for example, you could take their Zui Consequences for them, paying their kharmic debts with your own effort), program society so perfectly that Dharma recognizes the rightness of your rule (this create a Defining Dharma centered around upholding your society’s ideals)

Roleplaying

Speaking in-character is possible (and encouraged) without any use of mechanics. Characters may debate, bargain, intimidate, bluff, or otherwise interact socially with other characters without ever touching dice. Simply say what your character says, either directly (by adopting their persona and voice) or indirectly (by saying “my character says…” and describing their statements)

If other characters are convinced by their words, then your aims might be achieved through pure roleplaying. This is a viable and fun strategy, especially if you happen to have some real-world negotiation skills!

Keep in mind, however, that the GM is the arbiter of the attitudes, motivations, emotional state, and other social elements of Non-Player Characters (NPCs). It will be up to them if a given NPC is swayed by your words.

NPCs should be portrayed in a consistent, comprehensible way; they tend to pursue their own interests without taking undue risks, as normal people do. The promise of greater reward generally convinces people to take greater risks; a guide might take you through a dangerous shortcut if offered enough payment, for example.

Players have full agency over their character’s feelings, ideas, motivations, and actions. A convincing NPC or other PC might make any argument they wish, but a stubborn player can choose to disagree in character. This is perfectly acceptable, and in fact is quite realistic (intractable people exist, after all!)

Whenever a player wishes their character to use their eloquence, persuasion or deceit in addition to or in place of their own, that is when mechanics should be used. This is also perfectly acceptable; even a socially awkward player might play a paragon of charisma!

Influencing mortal NPCs with Heart actions

Swaying public opinion

Mortal human beings with no Degree are susceptible to simple manipulation through Heart actions.

Large enough crowds naturally contain many different groups with varying ideas; appealing to larger numbers of people becomes exponentially more challenging. This is why the Effect Chart describes ever larger groups of people that can be influenced as one.

Mortals must be exposed to the message for it to take root. It might be a speech delivered in person, a broadcasted message, or even a written message.

Only characters that understand the message being conveyed are influenced. This means that, in addition to the difficulties of broadcasting the message to large numbers of people, lingual or cultural barriers to communication may muddle the message and ruin its persuasiveness.

Those effected by such speech adopt the argument as a moral truth of their universe; the philosophical point made becomes a cultural norm for them. This doesn’t mean that they always act in accordance with their newfound virtue; only that they recognize the speaker’s point as virtuous and desirable.

Heart actions need not be spoken aloud; they can be written, or otherwise communicated. Manuscripts containing powerful persuasive arguments from ancient Heart masters make up the bedrock of most societies, philosophies, and religions.

Lying

All characters are susceptible to lying. Deception is one-way, mechanically speaking; there is no mechanic that uncovers a lie, only one to create it. Falsehoods, once firmly established, tend to remain. However, contradictions and prior knowledge of deceptions can unravel a lie like a whisper in the wind.

NPCs treat lies that convince them as facts; they don’t tend to dispute them and treat those that do as simple-minded or paranoid.

PCs however, are more complex; even though the character might have no reason to doubt a lie, the player certainly does; they know that it’s been generated by a Heart action!

Players are the final arbiter of what their character believes and how they act. A lie might be powerful enough to convince physics and the universe, but a PC may still doubt it. Of course, they’ll be behaving in a way that puzzles NPCs, but its best to let the player balance the harm of swallowing a known lie from the social harm of doubting it.

However, players will not always know that they have encountered a deception. For example, if they meet an imposter, they have no reason to disbelieve their apparent (and false!) identity. How does a GM handle these situations without harming the bond of trust between them and the players?

In the case of an ongoing deception, it’s advised to give the players clues so that they can figure out the deception with their puzzle-solving skills. Three clues are an acceptable amount, delivered over three scenes of interacting with the deception (or faster, if you’re feeling generous).

This gives players a fair chance to uncover the lie, without resorting to violently interrogating every person they meet.

Physical reality and fate are susceptible to lies of Rank 7 and 8 respectively. This peculiarity of deception deserves further scrutiny!

Reality can be deceived, but just barely. A character loudly speaks to rocks and shrubs and weather, and if they achieve a Rank 7 or greater Heart action, they can just bluff physical reality.

This can accomplish minor physical phenomena that are technically impossible; you could make a dry flower grow by convincing it that it had been watered or argue a rock into believing it was metal and therefore creating a magnet.

As a general limitation to this, the phenomena created shouldn’t be a greater effect than can be achieved with a Rank 4 or lower Power, Agility, or Endurance action. This is a broad umbrella, and GMs are encouraged to allow the most creative and entertaining results to stand.

Dharma can be fooled with a Rank 8 result. Here’s how that works:

When you trick destiny with a deception of that power, it thinks that you are the person you proclaim to be. This allows you to temporarily share all their Dharmas, even their defining one. You also pool Zui. This gives you several new options:

·         You can spend your own Zui, or theirs, to punish either them or yourself (if you’re feeling generous).

·         You gain a Kharmic reward every time they earn one (they still earn the reward, you just benefit as well)

·         You can gain Kharmic rewards from following their triggers. You can even get the Kharma from a negative trigger, then spend the resulting Zui to punish them!

You are still limited by the normal rules for Kharma and Zui acquisition (one per scene, per Dharma)

Cultural Norms. Trends, and traditions

The pattern of behaviors that inform a mortals’ daily life are their culture. Cultures can be manipulated by a sufficiently skilled master: they declare their opinion publicly and use a Heart actions of an appropriate Rank. Society disperses the new norm through gossip, word-of-mouth, viral memetics, and other surprisingly rapid and reliable methods.

Culture can be manipulated in the following ways:

Fashions (Rank 1-2): Fashions are short-term trends of behavioral expectations. What to wear, what constitutes acceptable topics of conversation and similar social expectations can be shaped with these actions. Those flouting the fashions are considered uncultured, clueless, awkward, and uninformed, and NPCs will respond to them appropriately.

Norms (Rank 3-4): Norms are long-term behavioral expectations. If a fashion is a fancy hat, a norm is a fancy military uniform. Those acting outside of norms are seen as having committed a serious faux-pas and are considered extremely rude and tasteless. They are generally blacklisted and denied societal advancement and benefits.

Traditions (Rank 5-6): Traditions are norms that outlive the generation that created them. They are held in an almost religious regard. Those violating tradition are considered actively hostile to society, and often face both social and criminal reprimands.

Castes (Rank 7-8): A Caste is a position and social rank both expected and cultivated by society; kings, princes, generals etc are castes. Societies with a caste structure generate talented and capable individuals to fill those castes; once per caste per generation. If the caste member’s life is cut short, they are replaced by the next most qualified individual born in that generation.

If a Rank 8 result is achieved, the GM should work with you to create a suitable Dharma for the caste you create. Those inheriting that Cast will inevitably achieve Degree 1+ from their dalliance with cosmic destiny.

Building Emotional Imbalances in powerful NPCs

Heart cannot directly influence characters of Degree 1+. Such champions of self-mastery are beyond the grosser influence that sways the mortal horde. However, they may be targeted for social influence in a more insidious way.

In addition to striking with fist and blade, characters may use their Heart skill to injure their foe emotionally. This represents powerful but subtle manipulation of the character’s feelings and ideas by a skilled speaker; it is harmful and manipulative, injuring the target’s psyche.

·         This manipulation follows the standard rules for attacks, except the Heart skill is used on both attack and defense.

·         Normal Techniques cannot boost or defend against such manipulation, but Social Gupt Kala can be used instead. Gupt Kala are covered in the Magic section.

Rather than injuring a target’s Health, a successful social attack creates an Emotional Imbalance (or worsens one, see below). It does this by building Aggravation.

·         Aggravation is the emotional equivalent of damage. For every point by which your social attack exceeds the foe’s social defense, a point of Aggravation is generated.

·         Aggravation works “backwards” from health; where health begins as a series of unfilled boxes, Aggravation builds as it is generated. Every 10 Aggravation increases the Emotional Imbalance by 1 Rank

·         Before the first 10 Aggravation, the Imbalance is at Rank 0; this means it does not have any mechanical penalties. Such minor Imbalances are too weak to influence a character’s behavior.

Additional social attacks may continue to build Aggravation on an existing Social Imbalance or may be used to create a new one. A character may have a total of 3 unique Social Imbalances at one time.

Once the Imbalance is established, it behaves in the normal way: see the Imbalances section for full rules on Social Imbalances.

Lone Wolf Fists: Skills pt. 3: Sneak attacks and the detecting thereof

Senses has been an interesting skill to work on. You may have noticed, astute reader, that the first three tiers are broadly "What a normal person can do" followed by "what a skilled person can do" followed by "the limit known of human capability".

Those heights of human capability are difficult to quantify. I've been going by Olympic records in the case of running speed and lifting strength. Intellect was a peculiar one; I basically strapped more geniuses together to simulate the powers of beyond-human intelligence.

But senses has been fascinating. The true range of what human beings perceive (and can process tactically) is extraordinary. Like for instance, meet the man who can echolocate:

Daniel there begins that video riding a bike via echolocation. Clearly, this is a sense within human parameters. Therefore it's got to go on the lower part of the chart, something reachable by normal humans without magic.

That left me with a lot of space on the upper reaches of the chart; how many ranks until your scent is as keen as a wolf's? Or your eyes able to focus like a microscope on the bacterial world? What senses lie beyond that, so far divorced from human capabilities?

And that was half of the problem with senses. Because senses is also the stealth skill.

I feel like that decision requires justification (why not wed it to Agility, similar to other games hiding mechanics?)

A few reasons. The out-of game rational came first in this case; tie too much to your dexterity equivalent, and you make it unambiguously the best stat: it becomes the dreaded "one true build", which you want to avoid for variety and strategy's sake.

If I split it between two stats (Agility to hide, Senses to seek) I'm still favoring Agility; it's the proactive skill, as it's wed to your ability to sneak attack, while Senses is merely your insurance against sneak attacks.

So fusing the ability to sneak attack with the ability to detect it allows a "Senses build" style of character a unique, proactive strategic option, with a built-in ranking system between such combatants (the sneakiest sneak character would have a clear advantage, incentivizing the less sneaky one to pursue a different tactical approach rather than direct stealth competition).

There is in-game rational behind it as well; the sharper your senses, the better you're able to account for your own obviousness. In this way, senses is a broader skill, representing a control of situational awareness, rather than just sense acuity. This meshes with our overall design paradigm of broadly capable, ranked characters nicely.

Also, because every character has every skill, sneak builds can never catch a powerful character at a complete disadvantage; they still have Focus Slots and the Effort Pool, and their sets can be used for Senses as well as any other skill.

Characters with a strong investment in sneaking will have a clear advantage in this tactical approach, but not to a game-crippling degree. Of course, I expect that such characters will invest in poisons or other tactical diversification, but that's part of a healthy metagame. As long as sneaking is one of many viable strategic paths, it's part of the careful imbalance of a tactically challenging design.

So without further introduction, the Senses skill:

Senses

The skill of the five senses, situational awareness and physical subtlety. When characters need to get information about their surroundings, move and hide, or notice minute detail, they use this skill. Use Senses when you must:

• Hide or sneak
• Detect anything with the five senses
• Gather details from your environment

Senses Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Observe any obvious thing with the five senses. Hide in a perfectly concealing spot, like behind a concrete wall or inside a chest

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Notice subtle or hidden details, like the outline of a hidden door or a camouflaged soldier. Hide in a reasonably concealing spot, such as deep shadows or a dense shrub

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Notice well-hidden or extremely subtle details: you could uncover a spy’s false identity by observing their body language or smell a poison in cooked food. Hide in a partially concealed spot, such as a dim room with no furniture or sparse vegetation

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 Use a hyper-elevated sense to substitute for another, such as using echolocation to “see” in complete darkness or scent to sense the emotional state of another through their pheromones. Hide without camouflage by unobtrusively occupying your environment, minimizing your shadow, and angling your body to flow with your surroundings

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Push your senses to mind-boggling levels; see the tiniest flea, or to the limit of the horizon with perfect detail; hear every conversation within a city block with absolute clarity; feel the minute imperfections in soil from hundred-year-old track. Hide from the mind’s eye; even as the most noticeable detail of your surroundings, the mind refuses to see you unless you draw attention to yourself

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Push past the membrane of senses to the truth that underlies them; see through solid objects with x-ray vision; “see” the layout and all inhabitants of a complex by feeling the vibrations in its wall; determine the exact chemical composition of anything via smell. Hide by walking behind light and thus becoming invisible, save for a feint blur of motion when you move

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Detect details as the most sensitive of scientific instruments; you can focus your eyesight as keenly as a telescope or microscope, flawlessly revealing the mysteries of astral and molecular reality. Hide from mechanical detection; x-rays, radar, sonar, thermal imaging, etc.

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Perceive the rough shape of the fabric of time. In addition to the present, you may perceive any event in the past or near future with the same subatomic scrutiny as the previous rank. Hide from the past, diminishing your importance in memory and historical records so that your identity vanishes from the world’s recollection

Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Perceive the fabric of time and reality in great definition; you can perfectly perceive any place, no matter how concealed, on the same planet as you as though you were observing it directly. You could see through the planet’s crust and core to the other side, or backwards in time to witness the past as clearly as the present. Hide from the weft of fate, so that you cannot suffer Zui consequences or be detected by any magic


Stealth

A character may hide with a Senses action. They cannot be observed or attacked until they are detected by another character’s Senses action of equal or higher result.
A hidden character will reveal themselves by attacking or performing any conspicuous or noisy action.

However, any attack launched from stealth has a powerful advantage. Defenders cannot use any Techniques to bolster their defense against such strikes; they must rely on defenses from their Effort pool alone.

A character launching an Attack with a Subtle weapon does not lose the benefit of Stealth. These weapons are prized by assassins
Techniques that bolster Senses can be used to defend against surprise attacks. Other prized defenses can defend against them as well; these will describe their defensive capabilities under their Power entry.

Once revealed, the character is revealed to everyone in the Scene and must take a Senses action again to regain the benefits of being hidden.

Lone Wolf Fists: Skills pt. 2, Erik's design legacy

Finished the Endurance and Intellect skills today. Working on both of these strongly contrasting skills next to each other got me in mind of some of the peculiar legacy mechanics this game inherited from Legends of the Wulin; namely, the Lake (which we've re-termed the Effort Pool, though it's mechanically identical)

The basic mechanic of rolling d10s and matching them into sets has been around at least since the One Roll Engine (ORE), but the Lake is subtly different. The brainchild of the brilliant and embarrassingly handsome Arik Ten Broeke, the Lake linked all of a character's actions to this centralized mechanic like a weird hybrid of the d20 system and ORE.

I'll let Arik tell you about it a bit:

 The genius of the design is twofold:

1. It has the potential to generate multiple actions from a single roll
2. It creates characters of broad competency; effectively masters of all mortal endeavor

That second facet has some interesting ramifications.

Like today, I realized that the same character that could reasonably juggle semi trucks or take a casual dip in hot lava could create groundbreaking advances in science and mathematics. 

A lot of games... Most, in my experience, and most media too... Don't like this. We tend to write our characters on the Achilles template: super-awesome at one or a few things (fighting, physical prowess) but disadvantaged in other areas (poor social skills, physical weak points).

The reason for this isn't hard to figure out: characters of broad competence are difficult to tell stories about. "They were awesome at everything" doesn't have any in-built weaknesses which can translate into challenges for the hero to overcome: man-vs-self is inaccessible by design. 

But characters in martial arts stories enjoy broad competency; the core idea of eastern martial teaching is overall self-improvement. Their character challenges are emotional; about conflicting loyalties, passions and responsibilities. 

Physical challenges generally take the form of superior combatants that have to be overcome, and the linear ranking is exactly what we see in those stories. If somebody is a better fighter, they're just straight-up better than you at basically everything.

Weaker foes overcome stronger ones by using unusual (sometimes downright sneaky) tactics, not by being generally stronger, but by being the rock to their scissors. The arc of character growth is tied to mastering these new strategies in the form of unique martial arts powers which thereby, almost incidentally, increase your general competence by bringing you to a new height of enlightenment.

I've had to lean into that vision of encompassing mastery as I've continued to design. Fighting against it in the name of enshrining narrower visions of character proved fruitless; you can't have a design that fights itself. Ultimately I've come to love it; it means I don't have to worry about over-specialized characters the way that D&D 3rd edition had to (at once crippling most characters and over-rewarding the unrealistically focused ones). 

I can just relax in the knowledge that any character can engage with any challenge on a mechanical level, which allows players to make whatever kind of party they want without strategically disadvantaging themselves.

 A lot of the current design has been like this; just harnessing the latent brilliance of Arik's design. Thanks buddy.

Anyway, here are the Endurance and Intellect re-writes:

Endurance

The skill of resilience, staying power, and toughness. When characters need to push their limits, resist harmful phenomena, or survive inimical circumstances, they use this skill. Use Endurance when:

·         Withstanding hardships

·         Prolonging strenuous activities

·         Enduring deprivation

Endurance Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Withstand extended exposure to sunlight on a hot day, prolong demanding physical activity for several minutes, endure hunger or thirst for hours.

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Withstand the scorching sun or freezing winds, prolong demanding physical activity for hours, endure hunger or thirst for one day

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Withstand deadly atmospheric heat and cold, prolong strenuous physical activity for days, endure starvation for two weeks and dehydration for four days.

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 Withstand being set on fire or plunged in freezing water, prolong punishing physical exertion for weeks, endure oxygen deprivation for an hour

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Survive being baked or frozen, prolong physical activity that would kill a bull for weeks, endure a vacuum or the crushing depths of the ocean

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Survive within a bonfire or immersed in liquid nitrogen, prolong physical exertion equal to a bulldozer for over a month, endure a caustic chemical or acid bath unscathed

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Survive wading through molten lava or the cold vacuum of space, prolong the energy output of a locomotive train for several months, endure any disease no matter how fatal

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Survive immersion in molten steel, prolong the equivalent energy output of a jet turbine for a year, endure a dynamite explosion

Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Survive a nuclear meltdown, prolong the equivalent energy output of a power plant for years, endure an atomic explosion

Sustaining Actions

All actions sustained during a scene are typically released when that scene ends. Endurance actions are an exception to this: they can remain longer, as exhibited on the Effect Chart.

Additionally, a sustained Endurance action may be “dedicated” to prolonging any other sustained action. This requires one Focus slot for the original action, and one for the prolonging Endurance action.

Intellect

The skill of comprehension, intuition and memory. When characters need to rigorously apply logic, conceive sophisticated thoughts, or recall a memory with speed and accuracy, they use this skill. Use Intellect when you must:

·         Intuit or engineer complex ideas

·         Solve a logic problem rapidly

·         Recall information quickly and completely

Intellect Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Perform a practiced or routine mental tasks, solve a reasonably complex problem within hours, remember a seven-digit number easily

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Perform an intricate task which requires concentration (such as repairing a combustion engine or writing a computer program), solve a difficult logic problem in minutes, recall a small book from memory

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Perform a highly detailed and complex task to create something groundbreaking (such as the great advances in technology throughout history), solve a tremendously difficult logic problem within a minute, recall a small library from memory

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 Intuit the use of sophisticated technology through logical deduction and experimentation without prior instruction or context, solve an inhumanly complex math problem within a minute, recall a library of detailed information with near-perfect accuracy

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Perform a nearly impossible feat of intellect (such as translating a document from a dead language through logic and inference, reprogramming a computer using a system you have newly encountered, or operating an alien and incredibly advanced technology with no training), solve a detailed problem in seconds, recall a large library’s worth of complex data

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Perform the mental work of a cutting-edge team of engineers or scientists (reverse-engineer an advanced technology from broken parts, create a world-changing engine of magic and science, make a paradigm-shifting disruption to math and science, etc.),

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Hold multiple libraries of information within your mind and access it with the speed of a computer and the reason of a genius. Such processing allows you to leap several epochs beyond current scientific thought; cavemen could invent sophisticated combustion engines, or bronze-age philosophers could deduce quantum mechanics

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Process and hold information as quickly and completely as a supercomputer, with all the intuition and insight of the most brilliant human mind. This allows you to personally usher in a new civilizational epoch with the sum genius of a generation’s most brilliant minds; you could personally transform a dark age into a renaissance, or advance cave-dwellers into the bronze age.

Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Deduce through fractal hyper-reasoning the precise past or probable future of any person, place, organization or natural force of which you have ever learned or theorized. Using such heights of brilliance, you can create irreplaceable artifacts of science and sorcery, map the human heart with mathematics, or create artificial life with a living soul

Lone Wolf Fists: Skills, pt.1

Working on the Skills today. I've come to a strange conclusion that I'm.... Struggling to articulate. So you guys get to hear my mind give birth to this idea.

There's a scene in Fist of the North Star where Kenshiro, our protagonist, encounters a passenger ship that's been driven through the highest floors of a skyscraper.

That's an amazing image! It forces the viewer to ask "What the hell happened to this world?!" Our minds naturally fill in the cosmic, apocalyptic circumstances that drove a ship through the roof of a skyscraper. That lone image paints a picture of this world's Armageddon that is at once fantastic and mind-boggling.

It's also total bull.

Physically I mean. The ship would have crumpled as it was driven through the building; not launched through it. Even if it did, it would have fallen into pieces because it's hull isn't built to withstand gravity like that; it relies on buoyancy, if it was suspended this way the stress on the metal would cause it to warp and it would collapse. Even if it could retain it's shape, there's no way the building's foundation would allow it to remain erect at that angle; it would collapse to the side, or just crumble under the added weight of the ship.

But the artist who brought us that brilliantly evocative and intriguing image didn't care about that. Possibly didn't even know. He saw the image in his mind and brought it to life on the page. It wasn't a mental exercise in physics; it was a statement about how the setting diverges from them.

While I'm re-working the Effect Charts for the skills, I'm researching the physical phenomena that they're based on. Weight for the lifting abilities of Power, or speed for the quickness of Agility, for instance. I'm trying to put both the physical measure of these things and in-setting examples together in the entires. For example:

"Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Deadlift about 200 lbs./100 kilos, lift an adult human or manhole cover"

There you have the rank of the roll next to a real-world approximate weight, and an example of an object that weighs that much.

The problem I'm having is this:

The real-world examples of physical phenomena are non-intuitive, and in many cases, actively resistant to their coolest and most compelling expression.

For example, which is heavier: lifting a polar bear, or lifting a motorcycle? A train car, or a battle tank? A space shuttle, or the statue of liberty?

The answers to these questions surprised me.  Who knew a polar bear and a motorcycle weighed the same? Or that a tank was significantly heavier than a train car? I sure as hell didn't.

And that's the problem. I didn't know that, why should I suspect that the GM or the players will? The entire raison d'etre of the effect charts is to link the cool stuff happening in your head with the cool stuff that happens in the game world.

The mental bridge between those things is wrong, though. Like, what if I told you that surviving in a coal oven was way more impressive than taking a bath in hot lava?

Do you see what I mean? When our intuitive understanding of physical phenomena doesn't rank up to it's real-world manifestation, a strictly scientific list harms, rather than helps, our ability to tell immediately compelling stories about it.

Because of this contradiction between intuition, physical measurement, and dramatic expectation, I'm not surprised to see that designers haven't bee-lined to mechanics like the Effect Chart.

Anyway, here are the effect charts for both Power and Agility. I'm working on Endurance today, and Intellect if I can get that done:

SKILLS

Power

The skill of raw physical strength. When characters use their muscles to lift, break, shove or otherwise leverage their sinew-studded frame, this is the skill they use. Use Power when:

·         Lifting and Throwing heavy objects

·         Improvising heavy weapons

·         Shoving, pulling, dragging, or otherwise moving weighty loads

Power Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Deadlift about 50 lbs./25 kilos., roughly 2 concrete blocks at a time.

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Deadlift about 200 lbs./100 kilos, lift an adult human or manhole cover.

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Deadlift about 400 lbs./150 kilos, lift a full drum of oil, or two adult humans.

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 Deadlift about 800 lbs./350 kilos, lift a motorcycle, or a polar bear.

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Deadlift about 2 tons/2000 kilos, lift and throw an automobile; knock over an elephant with a standing shove.

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Deadlift about 23 tons/30,000 kilos, lift a train car.

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Deadlift about 55 tons/50,000 kilos, lift a tank, or a space shuttle.

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Deadlift about 300 tons/250,000 kilos, lift a barge, or pull a hydroelectric generator out of its moorings.

Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Deadlift about 650 tons/600,000 kilos, lift and hurl a battleship, or push over a building with your bare hands.

Heavy Weapons

Heavy objects may be lifted and used as crude weapons. Such colossal objects deal d10 additional Damage per Rank of Power required to lift them, but only if they successfully strike a foe. The dice are rolled and added to damage from the attack. For example, successfully smashing a foe with a polar bear (Rank 3 to lift) would grant +3d10 Damage!

Generally, such improvised weapons are smashed on impact or dropped onto the foe at the attack’s conclusion. If the Power Action used to wield the weapon is Sustained however, then the object may continue to be used as a massive weapon.

Note that the Attack with the weapon must be made with a different action; you cannot use the same action for more than one purpose.

Hurling

When you attack a foe, you may use a Power action to hurl them into nearby scenery (or launch them to the horizon).

After you declare your attack but before they declare a defense, spend a Power action to enhance the attack.

If the foe manages to successfully defend against the attack, the extra empowering is wasted. If they do not, they are launched.

Grabbed foes may be subject to throwing without defense.

If aimed at an Element, the structure takes damage as though it were attacked at a Rank equal to the Rank of the Power action. If aimed at the horizon, the character travels a distance equal to an equivalent Agility action to move.

When the character impacts, they take an additional 1d10 damage per Rank of power action used to hurl them.

Agility

The skills of balance, nimbleness, and speed. When characters need to move fast or far, when they need to tightrope walk across a power line; when they need to dance through a hail of bullets, they use this skill. Use Agility when:

·         Moving tactically

·         Travelling fast

·         Balancing or performing gymnastic

Agility Effect Chart

Rank 0 / Mortal: Unrolled Stand on one leg, jog at a moderate pace, dodge a thrown ball.

Rank 1 / Capable Mortal: Result 10-19 Walk a balance beam, run at about 12 mph/20 kph (as fast as a normal human’s top running speed), dodge thrown punches.

Rank 2 / Peak Mortal: Result 20-29 Perform complex gymnastics and tumbling, run at 28 mph/ 45 kph (the fastest recorded human running speed), dodge sword swings

Rank 3 / Enhanced: Result 30-39 Perform jaw-dropping feats of acrobatics, run at 60 mph/ 100 kph (as fast as a cheetah at a sprint) Dodge a bullet.

Rank 4 / Superhuman: Result 40-49 Walk through a rainstorm without touching a drop of water run 260 mph/ 400 kph (as fast as a modern sports car at top speed), dodge automatic weapon fire from point-blank range.

Rank 5 / Titanic: Result 50-59 Dance through an inferno without catching fire, run at 750 mph/ 1200 kph (the current land speed record), dodge a falling star in midair.

Rank 6 / Minor God: Result 60-69 Brachiate from clouds, or balance on a surface that cannot support your weight (such as water or a leaf), run fast enough to shatter the sound barrier (Exceed Mach 1), dodge a railgun shot

…

Rank 7 / Demigod: Result 70-79 Fly by surfing air currents like a wave, traverse a small country in forty heartbeats (Exceed Mach 2), dodge a laser cannon’s blast

Rank 8 / Major God: Result 80-89 Fly by swimming through the air with perfect 3-dimensional movement, outrun the fastest fighter jet (exceed Mach 3), dodge a bolt of lightning

Dynamic movement

Moving vertically and jumping large distances is part and parcel of the kung-fu heroes in this game. When characters need to push themselves to superhuman levels of mobility, this requires an Agility action.

Battlefield prowess: Characters using these actions move and weave through the obstacles of battle with grace and panache. They use acrobatics, parkour, sprinting, and other gymnastic movement to overcome obstacles and distance.

0-Normal human movement and agility. Characters can jump half their height vertically or twice their height horizontally without significant effort. This is enough to move within a battlefield, but not to overcome significant obstacles or leap between battlefield boundaries.

1-Superior human athletics. With significant effort, characters can leap their height vertically or four times their height horizontally. This allows them to bound over significant obstacles but is still ineffective for leaping across battlefield boundaries.

2-Olympian effort. Exceptional characters can leap twice their height vertically or six times their height horizontally. This is enough to scale buildings in a few bounds and leap between battlefields.

3-Beyond-human athletics. Characters achieving this rank can leap several stories in a bound. This allows them to cleanly traverse most obstacles and move between battlefields at a whim.

4-Superhuman movement. This rank leaps tall buildings in a single bound. Two Battlefields can be cleared with a leap of this power.

5-Titanic leap. This speed allows a character to streak across five Battlefields in a single instant.

Journeys of an eyeblink: Characters moving at these velocities depart measurement in Battlefields and begin to circumvent entire countries with their movement. They sprint through long journeys in the beat of a butterfly’s wing.

6-Small god’s motion. With this divine flight, a character may traverse a Region end-to-end in their turn.

7-Herculean heft. Two Regions may be traversed with this blinding shock of speed.

8-Diefic bound. Five regions are seared across with this godly display of alacrity.