Runehack RPG 1: Freerunning Pillar

I've taken too long with this article. With 10 articles written in the meantime, it's been enough time to process most issues I had with writing this down. This won't be perfect, there are already things I changed from the first article, it's better to just go ahead and do it so that it's out there.

Vault, by thegryph

Freerunning Pillar

This is a pillar focused on mobility and action-packed scenes. Their focus is to deliver or retrieve information, items, or even people, moving them between a safe place (local hideout, team's van, etc.) and a dangerous place (megacorporation's offices, etc.). Optimally, you'd do this without getting noticed, but getting noticed is an inevitability. However, in this process, you can't remove your pursuers.

Let's begin by defining the environment. I've already talked about the areas and passages in the first article briefly, and they are described in greater detail in Runehack: Fairy Heist. Areas are discrete locations that could contain one or more characters, and passages (sometimes called routes) connect them. Since the pillar is all about navigating this space, several types of passages are introduced, mostly described as obstacles. Some examples of these include:

• Around is an obstacle that you navigate by making multiple turns (such as a crooked alleyway, a crowd of people, etc.). It doesn't require hands to be passed through, and it blocks sight.
• Low is an obstacle that you navigate by slouching slightly (such as a low ceiling, etc.). It doesn't require hands to be passed through, and it doesn't block sight.
• Water is an obstacle that you must swim through. It requires hands to pass through, and it doesn't block sight.

A resource energy is featured in this pillar. It equals three times your highest tier, and it can be spent on navigating obstacles (see below), as well as on avoiding attacks. Whenever you are attacked, you can choose to either take 1 wound, or spend an amount of energy that your opponent rolled, provided you have enough energy. When your energy is reduced to 0, you gain 1 wound and your energy can't be increased until you rest after the mission.

By default, when a character tries to move through a route with an obstacle on it, they must either spend an extra act or 1 energy. Through the player options offered in this pillar, players can learn how to master these obstacles and navigate them for free without being slowed down. Each of the obstacle types also has an advanced obstacle (for the examples above it's Around -> Between, Low -> Below, Water -> Underwater). An advanced obstacle can only be mastered after mastering the base obstacle it's derived from. There are additional types of routes that aren't obstacles, and therefore can't be mastered:

• Glass is a passage that can't be passed through, but one can see through it.
• Door is a passage that can be seen and passed through only when it's opened. It takes an act to open, close, and in some cases also lock or unlock.
• Hole is a passage that only tiny characters can move and see through. Others can see through it only by taking the Search act.

During a freerunning mission, players can build up momentum by passing through routes without being slowed down. Momentum can be spent to take the Call, Open/Close, Read, or Search act. When you reach Tier 3 in Freerunning, you can spend 3 momentum to take a Move action (which can produce further momentum). You lose all your momentum either when you take an act that's not Move or spends your momentum, or when your turn ends.

Senses are an important factor during the missions. A character can see clearly anything in their current area, with the exception of the contents of the hiding spots (they can see their contents only if they use the Search act). Each character can be looking in one direction of their choice, which can be changed during their turn, or at the end of any turn. They see clearly anything in that direction until an obstacle blocks their line of sight (some obstacles could maybe allow the Search act to let someone see through, like Hole), and they have a peripheral vision in directions perpendicular to it: it lets them see shapes, colors, and motion, but not specific details.

When it comes to hearing, it's determined by the volume of every sound. For every two routes the sound has to cross, its volume decreases by 1. You can hear all sounds that can reach your area, but you can only choose to hear clearly one of the sounds with the highest volume to you. You can try to focus on a sound with lower volume by making a Comprehension roll with a difficulty of 4 * its volume. A route that dampens the sound (like water) reduces the volume by 1, echo increases the volume by 1. Sounds produced by Tiny people or items built for Tiny people produce sounds with a volume that's 1 less.

Example volumes:

0: whispering
1: talking, rainfall, walking
2: swimming, flying, talking loudly
3: shouting, multiple vehicles
4: loud vehicle

(I don't know how viable the sounds will be in practice, for now it just sounded interesting enough on paper, so I'm including it here. Worst case scenario, I'll need to simplify it, and everyone will get to learn from my mistake.)

The other senses, usually labeled auxiliary, are mostly less refined than hearing and sound. One can sense the temperature and smell in their area without being able to trace its exact source or distribution. Touch can work on anything a character can reach, while taste can work on anything a character can taste. A character can always tell which way is the north.

An important part of this pillar are the Apps, which you can use as an act. An app is software installed in your runecard for assistance during a mission. Since these are rune-based, they do either telekinesis, illusions, detection, or a combination of these. What apps your character gets depends on your character's role.

Let's see an outline of an example role below. Apps are written in italics, and the current format is more elaborate than this.

Masker

Tier 1

• You can choose whether your footsteps can be heard as long as you have one hand free.
• Master Water obstacles and one other obstacle type of your choice.
• Illusory Item allows you to create a static illusory item. Make an Agility roll to determine how close does one have to examine it to determine if it's real or not.
• Silencer lets you pick one target person that can't be heard until the start of your next turn.

Tier 2

• Choose your specialization: Tinker or Veiler
• Tinker masters the Low obstacle and gains the Illusory Fairy app that lets them make an illusion of a fairy for 1 hour. The illusion can be moved twice on each of your turns.
• Veiler masters the Slope obstacle and gains the Virtual Mask that lets them mask themselves until the end of the current turn, preventing others from seeing or hearing them.

Tier 3

• You master either Around or Over obstacle, as well as one advanced obstacle of your choice.
• Distract lets you pick one target who can't see or hear until the start of your next turn. If you spend extra (TBD) credits, they fall asleep for 1 hour. While asleep, they can't see and are incapacitated until woken up by someone or a loud noise. The app can't put another target to sleep until the last target wakes up.
• You can spend extra (TBD) credits when using the Illusory Item to animate the item, letting its appearance change. Furthermore, you can have up to 8 illusory items present at the same time.
• The Silencer app lets you target any number of people.

Tier 4

• You master one obstacle of your choice, and gain any one app of your choice from Tier 2 or below from any role.
• Depending on your specialization, you gain one of the following upgrades:
• When you use the Illusory Person app, you can make a person of any species, not just a fairy. You can consider it a disguise if its size matches yours.
• When you use the Virtual Mask, its effects last until the start of your next turn. Alternatively, 1/day, you can instead make it last until the end of your next turn.

Tier 5

• You master one obstacle of your choice, and gain any one app of your choice.
• On your turn, you can use your act or spend 1 Momentum to focus on something and ask the GM whether it is an illusion. The GM must answer truthfully.

Tl;dr structure

• Tier 1: unique ability, 2 obstacles, 2 apps
• Tier 2: 1 obstacle, 1 app
• Tier 3: 2 obstacles, 1 app, 1 upgrade
• Tier 4: 1 obstacle, 1 app, 1 upgrade
• Tier 5: unique ability, 1 obstacle, 1 app
• Total: 2 unique abilities, 7 obstacles, 6 apps, 2 upgrades

The roles are mostly written already, the rules for freerunning are pretty much ready. I will admit I got sidetracked by going after my 12 Good Games new year resolution for a bit, and I actually got inspired to run a D&D 5e trishot themed after One Piece. I keep delaying the actual playtest, because I dread finding a group of people to play with regularly, plus making up the story and everything. I feel like I should talk about the hacking next when it comes to the Runehack RPG, but to be honest, everything I have for that has been already featured in Runehack: The Asterist.

Thank you for reading, and have a nice day!

Inherited Powers System, MHA Style

I need to get another idea out of my head so I can focus on things more urgently, let's do this.

Superpowers are fun. Superheroes are fun. Though you could also maybe have these featured in non-superhero-centric games, but that's beside the point. Ever since binging My Hero Academia with my wonderful girlfriend, I've wondered how would I translate stuff like this into a tabletop roleplaying game ruleset. To give a brief overview, the powers (called quirks) are mutations that keep getting wilder over the generations, there's a large variety of them, and most people seem to have one quirk each. Just to be clear, for this thought exercise, I'm ignoring the cases of more than two quirks in one person, like the blonde guy from the 1B class or some spoiler characters. No meta-quirks that manipulate the quirks.

Now that the summary of the anime's premise is done, I'm gonna go back to calling them Powers, because I prefer that name. Quirk is fun, but in TTRPGs it tends to stand for something else. I hope you'll enjoy this, and have a wonderful day!

Sidenote: Anything below isn't set in stone, it's just a proof of concept for now, barely functional for a game.

Superpower, by Dan Su

Inherited Powers System

The Powers are generally inherited from the parents, though sometimes they can be manifested completely spontaneously. Since they are genetically based, they are made up of several components:

• Trigger
• Ability
• Limitation

In a usual approach, you'd just get a bunch of points to spend on each of these, and be done. Boom, there, you got your Power, now you can go fight crimes. But as it is becoming obvious to me, some people love to gamble by rolling the dice, if there's a chance they could get some kind of an advantage out of it. So let's mix the game design with worldbuilding. Here are guidelines on how you could inherit your Power from your parents.

Everyone has two of each of those, one dominant and one recessive. There isn't any ranking as to which traits are more dominant than which, this is all just about pure luck of what one is born with. So, get a pair of color-coded dice, let's say 2d20's: one for dominant traits and one for recessive traits. Roll them for each parent's every trait (Ability, Trigger, Limitation). The higher roll defines which gene is passed onto you from that parent. If both rolls are equal, congratulations, the gene mutated and you instead get to roll on a random rolltable for that trait! (If I weren't busy with other stuff like preparing for a One Piece trishot, I'd make one, but I'll leave that for another day.)

After this is done, you should be left with a pair of Abilities, a pair of Triggers, and a pair of Limitations, one from each parent (unless they mutated). Now, assign the colors to your parents, and roll once for each pair. The higher roll determines which of the traits is considered dominant for your body. If both are equal, congratulations - you get to keep both somehow! ... look, anime makes it work for Todoroki, so I might as well include it in this ruleset.

If you want "quirkless" (or in this case Powerless) to be an option, that will occur when both rolls are a 1 on either Power or Trigger. You have a gene for it, but alas - the dominant one turned out to be a blank.

I did say that I don't have rolltables or energy to make them, but I might as well leave you with some examples. Of course, these are not complete in any way, I'd spend a lot more time if I wanted to make them complete.

Trigger

1. Always active (Invisible Girl)
2. Line of sight and focus (Eraser Head)
3. Voice and focus (Present Mic)
4. Touch and focus (Uravity)
5. Consuming something (Sugarman)
6. Focus (Creati)

Ability

I write them broadly, but with more time I'd make them extra 

1. Boost a personal characteristic (strength, speed, senses, ...)
2. Produce something (fire, sticky spheres, ...)
3. Manifest traits of an animal (frog, seal, ...). Maybe this one could come with limitations on what triggers are allowed with it.
4. Manifest a supernatural characteristic (invisibility, weightlessness, locking something in place, ...)
5. Transformation into and back from some substance (dust, paper, ...)
6. Area influencers. Not sure how this would be different from numbers 2 or 4, but I wanted there to be six items on each list.

Limit

I'm not sure if these shouldn't just come prepackaged with the Abilities and/or Triggers. For now, they are separate.

1. Time limit
2. Line of sight
3. One target at a time
4. Fuel consumed
5. Knowledge
6. Environmental condition

That's all for today. This could make for a neat core of a system. That being said, there is also a downside to this: One power per character can work well in a TV show, but it might not be ideal for a TTRPG. Depending on your Power, your character could fall somewhere in the range from "can resolve any situation on their own" to "one trick pony that needs support". 

Runehack RPG 0.1: Pivoting in a New Direction

It's time for the truth to be revealed. Maybe I never really wanted a game that's action-filled in the first place. I have always dreamed of a D&D game with an all-bards party, where they'd go on a world tour. Or something similar for another system. I lost this dream of mine somewhere along the way to Game Dev years ago and have forgotten about it... until today.

It's time to showcase how the musical pillar will work for the Runehack RPG!

A quick musician doodle redeemed from Mishroomarts

Music Pillar

There are four qualities that the music can have:

• Intensity can range from Calm to Strong, describing how loud the music's loudest tones are. It utilizes Muscle.
• Tempo can range from Slow to Fast, describing the general speed at which the music is played. It utilizes Agility.
• Authenticity can range from Bright to Dark, describing whether the music is more upbeat or emotional. It utilizes Comprehension.
• Creativity can range from Stock to Fresh, describing whether the music is predictable or if it's unafraid to experiment outside of the music theory's range. It utilizes Hunch.

Training isn't represented as a musical genre because it defines your expertise with musical instruments. You can play a number of musical instruments equal to 1 + your Training, and they can have a total number of unique properties equal to your Training.

Note: You can select a musical instrument in place of one of the expert areas that your Training gives you in the Core Pillar. If you do so, you will have expertly knowledge in how this instrument works, its history, maintenance, and significant artists who primarily played this instrument.

The musical instruments can have the following properties:

• Pedaled. Advantage on rolls for Intensity.
• Two-handed. Advantage on rolls for Tempo.
• Multi-tonal. Advantage on rolls for Authenticity.
• Contiunuous. Advantage on rolls for Creativity.
• Static. Advantage on rolls for both Intensity and Tempo.
• Custom-made. Choose one of the musical qualities. You can use Training in place of the original stat when rolling for that quality using this instrument. You can take this property multiple times.

Musical Performance

When performing, it is important to appease the crowd's demands. The GM begins by secretly rolling 4d6 and dividing the numbers between the qualities. The highest roll stands for a preference for high rolls in that quality, the lowest roll stands for a preference for low rolls in that quality, and anything in between begins neutral. If multiple numbers are the highest/lowest, it's applied to multiple qualities. If all four numbers are the same, they correspond to low (1-3) or high (4-6) rolls. The GM keeps them in the order of Intensity, Tempo, Authenticity, and Creativity behind the screen.

At the start of every round, the GM rolls 2d12 without adding them together to see which preferences flip. If they were neutral so far, they get tipped either way at GM's discretion.

• 1-3: Intensity
• 4-6: Tempo
• 7-9: Authenticity
• 10-12: Creativity

These preferences can be represented in crowd actions. These are, on purpose, ambiguous to keep the band guessing. For convenience, each is listed twice to be easier to reference. The GM should mention ideally two of them (one if there aren't two) at the start of each round to clue the players in on what the audience demands.

• Intensity (low)
• or Tempo (low): swaying
• or Creativity (low): whistling
• Intensity (high)
• or Tempo (high): head-banging
• or Authenticity (high): stomping
• Tempo (low)
• or Intensity (low): swaying
• or Authenticity (high): lights above heads (e.g. lighters)
• Tempo (high)
• or Intensity (high): head-banging
• or Creativity (high): playing air instruments
• Authenticity (low)
• or Creativity (low): screams
• or Creativity (high): crowd wave
• Authenticity (high)
• or Intensity (high): stomping
• or Tempo (low): lights above heads (e.g. lighters)
• Creativity (low)
• or Intensity (low): whistling
• or Authenticity (low): screams
• Creativity (high)
• or Tempo (high): playing air instruments
• or Authenticity (low): crowd wave

The DC for all music-making rolls is 8 unless said otherwise. However, the players must either roll above the DC as usual, or under if the audience demands low for some musical quality. Whether a player is trying to roll over or under 8 should be announced before the roll along with the musical quality (e.g. "I'm trying to go for low Tempo). Due to this, any musician can choose to roll with a disadvantage at will, and they can choose whether their stat is ignored, added to, or subtracted from a roll after it is made. The goal is to play according to the crowd's preferences, confirmed by the reactions described by the GM. If a musician succeeds in playing according to the crowd's preferences two times in a turn, or when they roll exactly 8, they get a Starpower Point.

Starpower Points are a way of performing extra actions while keeping up the performance. The pillar will feature some special actions that can be performed by spending an act or a number of Starpower Points. The details aren't worked out yet, but for now, examples could include:

• getting the crowd to sing in your place,
• dance moves,
• musical instrument tricks,
• activating special effects such as fireworks,
• jumping onto the crowd and letting it carry you,
• tossing a keepsake into the crowd.

Each would have its effect, but right now I don't have any further details worked out. Maybe some could coordinate their preferences or something like that.

---

That's about it for now. Of course, once finished the pillar would feature its own roles, their features, and so on, but that all should be done on another day. All that being said, ... it should be obvious this isn't what I want my game to be about, but I do want it to be an actual part of the game. It's not on my priorities list, but I had some time to spare during Easter and thought of working this out before I get to the final details of the core system I want to release this year as a way of relaxing. It might not come off as all that funny of an April Fools joke, but I came up with it not too long ago. The article was written in about 2 hours, most of this isn't set in stone yet. Obviously, it borrows some ideas from Play It by Cheer!, and that's because I really liked the foundation I've laid out there. Its stats map nicely onto this system's stats, Training is an awesome "ace in a sleeve" stat that'd work universally elsewhere, and... I think when I get to making the roles for this system, I'll make it so that the roles are named differently. Writing all this out made me realize that the roles probably should have different names in every pillar.

Anyway, writing the Core Pillar article took me too long, I wrote like 5 or 6 articles since I mentioned it last time it, so I can't promise I'll publish it before I begin the playtests. I'll see what I can do though. I like the way the game's development is going, and my 12 good games resolution is going to be finished soon enough. Or, it would be, if Witcher 3 wasn't still ahead of me.

That's about it! Thank you for reading, and happy beginning of April, everyone!