I started writing this as a reply to Graham Charles questions but thought it was better put it out in the open.
I wanted to provide a quick overview of my PBTA game Headspace mechanics. The core game text is getting kind of big (in a good way) but I wanted to hit the high points so folks can see what I’m doing differently.
Headspace – Shared consciousness cyberpunk:
Attributes are the 6 Emotions: Rage, Grief, Fear, Bliss, Desire and Pride. + Denotes you have control over emotion, – means you lose control easily.
All character Skills have one of these 6 Emotions as their Baggage. When you Roll the dice you +/- the Emotional stat you have.
There are 3 broad moves in the game, since the game is about shared consciousness I wanted the Move system to reflect this without causing people to memorize tiny details on x and y moves from every playbook.
The traditional 6- Failure mechanic is mostly eliminated because your characters are all VERY good at what they do, essentially 6- represents Success at a Deep emotional cost.
Players can always Fail a Move on their own terms if they don’t like the cost.
Each Operator has 3 Skills they have access to with Jason Bourne level mastery of. The game assumes you are the best ie: A-Team, Mission Impossible etc..
As an Operator you can:
Make a Professional Move – Use one of your 3 skills in the fiction, say what you want to do and roll. Rolling low means your emotions flow into the shared emotional tracks (You are in control but can broadly affect the state of mind of the group, if the tracks get too high they feedback on the group and cause Emotional Hard Choices).
Make a Headspace Move – Use one of any other Players skills at their level of competency (8-12 Depending on the number of players). Say what you want to do in the Ficition and roll. Rolling low brings in Emotional Hard Choices (The GM Picks from lists) that you have to bring back into your original declaration. For Example if you Rolled a 6- for Rage you might have to add “Ignore something Obvious” and “Provoke a Conflict” in order succeed in your original declaration.
Make an Improvised Move – When you need to do something not covered by anyone’s skills. This functions most like a “Defy Danger” and the 6- is the GM making a Move.
There are lots of other nuggets but I wanted to provide a bit of my food for thought.
http://www.greenhatdesigns.com/portfolio/projects/head-space/