Total//Effect

[Binary]

So I'm currently writing up a full SRD, toolbox, engine, system, set of GM advice, fever dream, whatever you want to call it. I've made two big devlog-style posts about it thus far:

This one is all in on the core roll mechanic: roll 3d6, add them up for the Total, use individual dice for the Effect. I go in pretty deep on the probabilities involved in variations on that (Advantage, Disadvantage, increase/decrease the die used, etc). This is the mechanic that I riff on in a bunch of different ways throughout the whole system.

In this one I get into the guts of what's going to be there: basically outlining the SRD's major sections and describing the kinds of stuff I get into in each. Some of the sections are full subsystems, some are less-mechanical linking ideas used to glue together other subsystems or provide structure to a game. (Also some of the sections listed there have outdated names! But most of them have roughly the same contents. Such is a system in development.) I also talk about the three games I'm planning for this system, and outlining as part of the SRD (which is like 50% example text by volume):

- Liminal Void: Regular people in space in the 23rd Century are thrust outside of normal society and must find a way to first survive, then thrive with their newly-acquired skills and spaceship. (Touchpoints: The Expanse, FTL, Alien/s, System Shock, Cowboy Bebop. Anything that has that kind of used-future in our solar system thing going on with a kind of survival-horror vibe to it, but less horror in the spooky sense and more the horror of living under the grind of capitalism.)
- Valiant Horizon: Heroic protagonists perform great deeds as they make a name for themselves. (Touchpoints: The dragon game you're almost certainly thinking of but mostly its 4th edition, JRPGs but especially Tales and Xenoblade.)
- Machinations of Court and Frame: Exceptional mecha pilots with mixed loyalties are thrust into proxy wars and byzantine power struggles between noble Houses. (Touchpoints: The mecha things I didn't rip off in APOCALYPSE FRAME but especially assorted Gundam/Battletech stuff. Thinking about Tactics Ogre/Final Fantasy Tactics/similar vibes too.)

Spoiler

I also have a SECRET PROJECT planned for the system...

Spoiler

a XCOM 2 style sequel to APOCALYPSE FRAME where the Collective that players defend in the original loses and is disbanded, and you're the few Frame pilots left helping the refugees figure out what the next step is

...but I want to try out a few other ideas first with it to stretch the engine's legs a bit before I get into trying out anything mechanical for that.

I'm probably going to make another devlog soon too about the group combat subsystem vs. the one-on-one duel subsystem because I just got a semi-final version of those sections down and I really like how they turned out.

The SRD's gonna be out soon (in PDF and free on my site) but I'm keeping a WIP thread here because I'll be posting about the systems I'm making with it too to keep them all in one thread, as well as anything I contribute back to the main system while developing them, that kind of thing.

[Binary]

https://binarystar.games/docs/total-effect/

Soft launch is up. (Minimalist Jam demake launch is Tuesday.)

I'll be using this thread to keep ruminating about the development of those systems/etc as well as any changes that go back to core.

[selkie]

What did you use to make that SRD!?

[Authenticity Trip]

This is really interesting stuff, binary!! I really want to see more of it!

[Binary]

What did you use to make that SRD!?

Platen: https://github.com/platenio/platen-template

It's all markdown and CSS in the backend, with a few tweaks. Each of those column-splits looks like (example from Threats and Escalating Tension):

Code: Select all

### Small Scale, Small Impact

{{< flexcolumns ratio="7:9" flattenInMobileView=true >}}

This kind of threat is usually a fairly small situation, probably with impact on the PCs in particular. 

&nbsp;
<--->

### Examples

>#### Liminal Void
>The PCs' current ship was formerly an emergency shuttle from a mining colony that got destroyed in a horrible accident, assuming the company would have written off everything already. Unbeknownst to them, the company had instead put out an all-points bulletin to have the colony's shuttles returned or reimbursed. They'll have to either get the serials changed, pay off the ship via debt, or fence it to get another.
{.liminal}

{{< /flexcolumns >}}

Happy to help anyone set one up.

[Binary]

This is really interesting stuff, binary!! I really want to see more of it!

Thank you!

[Binary]

For Liminal Void I want to release a free quickstart. Not just because it's a good idea for a game, but because it's a good idea for a system. Liminal Void is a good one because I'd conceptualized Level 0 as "the time before you get a ship and really establish strong character traits" so I have a concept for a more stripped-down thing already: an adventure where you get a ship and try not to die on your way out.

So the goals of this quickstart are:

1. Create a cool pick-up-and-go Level 0 style thing that can mostly transfer over mechanically to the main game. (It's basically going to be the personal rules and not the ship+advancement rules.) Bonus points if you can run it as a funnel.
2. Create something for people who will absolutely never read an SRD, no matter how sharp it looks, to see how something made with it looks in practice.
3. Establish the tone of the game/setting/etc.
4. Create a starting point for campaigns that want that Level 0 "turning into heroes" experience. If you get to the end, you're level 1, congrats.
5. For groups that go through it, have the end of it establish a few plot hooks so both players and the GM have some kind of starting point.

I had created a very basic starting point: their hydrocarbon mining platform/station dug into an asteroid was attacked by raiders.

The twist:

Spoiler

It becomes apparent pretty quickly that the administrative parts of the station were bailing and leaving the regular workers for dead: the station's reactor has been remotely set to overload. Players really can't avoid this one.

The second twist:

Spoiler

The attack/destruction was to cover up corporate malfeasance. Players might brush up on this one, or might not!

So as a starting point I'd made the things they'd interact with. First, the station map with known routes:



(The central rectangle that everything branches off of is the main elevator, med bay is on the same horizontal hub as the mess/quarters.)

Next, the backgrounds:

Default character stats are 6 Health, 4 Endurance, 9 equipment slots (Using System Shock 2 rules: 1 slot = 1 stim/battery/clip, 3 slots = a tool or weapon.) The six Backgrounds I settled on are:

mucho texto

Loader: The people doing the "grab the ore and store it/bring it to processing" labor.

• Their background calls out being better at endurance but also zero-G movement in general.
• Their Trait is Workhorse, they get a little more Health and Endurance than anyone else.
• Their outfit is standard Safety Gear (+2 Endurance).
• Their tool is a Loading Rig. I was thinking of existing construction exoskeletons but more heavily powered. In addition to its obvious "be stronger than normal" uses, it lets them do actuated flying leaps at enemies and grapple them.

Pilot: Not just in the spaceship sense, but in this case also in the drone sense.

• Their background calls out orienteering and remote equipment usage in addition to piloting.
• Their trait is Good Eye, which gives them advantage to attack or do work at Far range.
• Their outfit is a Hardvac Suit (+2 Endurance, Resist Hazard, -3 slots) because they're more likely to be exposed to hard vacuum.
• Their tool is a Drone Kit. This lets them deploy a tiny quadcopter to (among more normal uses) harass enemies and protect allies.

Technician: The people doing technical fixes and such, more on the implementation side.

• Their background calls out mechanics, tool usage, and wiring.
• Their trait is Onto the Next Thing, which lets them either mitigate Hardship rolls where moving away would help or gain a free move whenever they take out an enemy in combat.
• Their outfit is Coveralls (+3 Slots). They're mostly internal so they don't need the proper gear.
• Their tool is a Pulse Driver. This is definitely the least "hard sci-fi" tool: I had envisioned it as a kind of gravity-field multitool that could either be used to smash enemies or put up a gravity field to slow down incoming attacks. I'll probably rework this one to match the tone of the rest.

Engineer: The people maintaining broader systems, computers, power regulation, etc.

• Their background calls out code, electronics, and logic.
• Their trait is Cool-headed, which lets them ignore Escalation when it would create penalties. (Basically as the station falls apart further the baseline Escalation goes up, which gives bonuses to more panicked actions, including combat, but penalties to less cool, reasoned actions. They get to ignore that second part.)
• Their outfit is Coveralls (+3 Slots). Same as Technician, they're mostly internal.
• Their tool is a Recharger. This is a high-voltage-capable diagnostic/quick-charge tool, it can either be used to taser enemies or charge up an energy weapon.

Security: The people tasked to protect employees, in theory. (They're mostly there to protect company assets and clamp down on riots just in case, but given the isolation it's pretty rare.)

• Their background calls out intimidation and threat assessment.
• Their trait is Presence, which lets them draw attention from active threats they Harm (gives Disadvantage to attack allies).
• Their outfit is a Security Vest (+2 Endurance, Resist Kinetic, -3 Slots). Not incredible at repelling actual armed attackers, but great for repelling the occasional worker who takes a swing.
• Their tool (weapon in this case) is a Peacekeeper. This is a crowd control measure (reinforcing that they're not really there to prevent external threats, mostly internal threats) based on sonic crowd control concepts. It can Harm multiple enemies or lock down one enemy, but doesn't really have much use outside of that.

Foreman: Floor-level managers. The person theoretically in charge in a lot of cases, though obviously that's not going to hold much water once things start falling apart.

• Their background calls out corp-speak and persuasion.
• Their trait is Coordination, which lets them give allies who they can actively give advice to 1 Advantage on rolls, or give allies 1 Advantage to attack anyone they've attacked.
• Their outfit is Safety Gear (+2 Endurance).
• Their tool is a Comms Array. This lets them use a loudspeaker or communicate with others electronically, but also overload enemies with sound or bark timely orders at allies.

Finally, in addition to these, I statted out an Assault Rifle, a Laser Pistol, a Riot Shield, and Riot Gear. (You can see that Armory up there, but also they could take stuff off of raiders or the no-shit administrative security during the course of things.)

Everything else I improvised. (Enemies in this system are either abstract 4 Health + Low Die Harm + something on a 11+ or 13+ OR 6-8 Health, one resistance, and a PC ability so that's easy.)

So that's my starting point: for the rest of this quickstart I need to fill all of those rooms with actual ideas, then actually write down the rules.

[Binary]

Was thinking about this some more today. I think I'm going to replace Security. It's the odd man out of the group and it's a little more...cop-ish for this kind of scenario than I'd like? Like the rest are mostly people who might have more of an obvious rapport, then there's the guy who's watching over them. I had been thinking of two-tiered security, where there's floor security with bullshit weapons and real security with for-real weapons to watch over everyone else, but that's probably overcomplicating things.

I'm going with Driller as the replacement. It's good for this scenario because it's a mining facility, but also in general it can be swung to be a lot of different things (excavation, ship disassembly, platform construction, etc).

• Skillset should call out things like structural analysis and demolition, which are pretty broadly applicable.
• Trait: Probably something like: step up any die results on a 13+ to perform some kind of manual physical action. (This means they use a higher die, low -> mid -> high -> high+1, for the actual effect, which could be "how far do I get drilling through this door" or could be "how much Harm do I deal")
• Outfit: They'd probably be a better fit for something like that Security Vest: +2 Endurance, Resist Kinetic, -3 Slots. Anyone involved in doing that kind of thing as a Space Job probably wants something a little more durable than the standard "basically a hard hat and some goggles" that Safety Gear provides and Kinetic covers basically all non-bullet physical Harm, including concussion from explosives.
• Tool: No prizes for guessing it's a handheld drill of some kind. As it so happens, this is a better fit for the Pulse Driver moveset that Technician used to have: a high-Harm move (the operative bit of the drill) and something that protects yourself and others (presumably the drill comes with some kind of shielding given low-gravity). So I just have to come up with something better for Technician.

I'm probably also going to rename Loader to Laborer to be a little more general, but keep everything the same. Person Do Physical Things Good in a more general sense makes it more applicable. Following suit, Laborer's Rig might make more sense as a future version of the kind of thing it's based on and its main uses, which are more so repetitive motion/extended awkward position kind of things than doing stupid flying leap attacks, but we like to have fun here. The rest probably stay as-is, minus whatever Technician gets.

[Binary]

The SRD is out for real! I attached a CC BY 4.0 to it to make sure people know they can feel free to make their own stuff with it if they're feeling bold.

https://binarystar.games/docs/total-effect

https://binary-star-games.itch.io/total-effect-srd

[Binary]

Back to Liminal Void now that the SRD itself is out.

Thinking about PC mechanics some more:

• Setting gear slots by outfit rather than baseline + modifiers because that makes more sense to me. Same amount though: Normal has 9 Slots, Low-Capacity has 6 Slots, High-Capacity has 12 Slots.
• Instead of all being 3 Slots, equipment is now a variable 2-4 Slots. I'm using that as an excuse to tweak up/down the Charge/Ammo capacity: 2 Slot things are more likely to be on the 6-8 side, 4 slot things are more likely to be on the 8-10 side. This means that it makes a little more sense to do something like pack a backup pistol.
• All tools use Charges/Batteries, all weapons use Ammo/Clips. This means that there's more of a "am I bringing something intended specifically for combat or not" tension: if you want both kinds of capabilities, you'll have to pack both kinds of resource. As a result, I'm also making the explicit weapons included strictly better at doing Harm.

For quickstart backgrounds, I've settled on:

• Laborer: same as before, but Loading Rig is now Exoskeleton (4 Slots, 10 Charges).
• Driller: This is the Security replacement.
  • Skillset suggestions are: precision, structural analysis, demolition.
  • Trait is Precision: Step up any dice on a 13+ to perform a physical action.
  • Outfit is High Impact Gear: +2 Endurance, Resist Kinetic, 6 Slots.
  • Tool is Excavator Drill (4 Slots, 10 Charges). It's like Pulse Driver but the 1/3 Charge abilities are switched (so it's 3 Charges to drill a poor soul, but 1 Charge to put up the drill's blast shield).
• Pilot: same as before. Hardvac Suit is now Pilot's Suit (no longer has +2 Endurance, but has 9 Slots). So they're a little more on the fragile side by default now. Drone Kit (3 Slots, 8 Charges).
• Technician: same as before except they now have the Engineer's Recharger (now Supercharger, 3 Slots/10 Charges). It's a better fit for them.
• Engineer: same as before but they now have a Targeting Headset (2 Slots/6 Charges). This lets them gain Advantage/step up Harm to attack enemies or flag enemies to give them Disadvantage.
• Foreman: same as before. Comms Array (2 Slots/6 Charges).

So that's what everyone can start with. I also designed a few other pieces of equipment.

First, for the security forces (who are equipped for crowd control much more than external attackers, for some reason):

• Peacekeeper (3 Slots/8 Ammo): See Security's weapon in the prior post.
• PDW (2 Slots/6 Ammo): A proper firearm. One attack provides covering fire and allows allies to move, another simply Harms a location.
• Smoker (4 Slots/8 Ammo): Gas grenade launcher for ranged support, can be used for teargas or aerosolized stims.
• Riot Gear: Like High Impact Gear but trades Vulnerable to Hazard for Resist Energy, the idea being that they're most worried about blunt force and the occasional tools.

Then, for the pirates (and non-security forces):

• Shotgun (3 Slots/8 Ammo): It's a shotgun. Can be fired at a target to catch their attention (and maybe the attention of everyone around them), or in melee range with a target to deal a ton of Harm.
• Laser Pistol (2 Slots/6 Ammo): Better at firing from protective cover than most, and its charged-up shots charge the air and make it harder to use Energy weaponry.
• Rail Rifle (4 Slots/8 Ammo): Far-range rifle that can fire low-Harm Tracers for Advantage. Its main ability is Snipe, which does more Harm the more Advantage you have and can spike up to 3x Harm.

And finally, just a useful thing you can find: an Astronaut's Suit, which is Invulnerable to Hazard (which doesn't literally mean takes no Harm but does mean most normal instances won't stick) and has 6 Gear Slots.

That's probably enough PC-specific stuff. I should probably start sketching out the flow more formally.