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Far Beyond Humanity Career Week

Far Beyond Humanity Career Week

Day 2 – Chosen

#FBHCareers

Behold! The Chosen, the channel of the otherworldly forces. Much like the Arcane career, the Chosen is an amalgamation of two earlier career concepts. In this case, both the prototype religious/spiritual aspects of those careers were merged into this new career (which also cut down on “filler” skills.

(Side note: Some of the non-supernatural skills from the prototype “Devoted” career ended inspiring a new career that I’ll be previewing tomorrow)

My favorite design here has to be Pact: The idea that a Skill can create a Faction that only that character can interact with, and the use of Debt as a metaphor for spiritual obligation/geas.

Ritual feels like a bit of an “advanced” skill, in that both GM and player could potentially stumble. But I’m not sure how to shape that idea in a way that guides without restricting… and without writing a novel-worth of rules text.

Lay On Hands was one of my first FBH designs, and hasn’t changed all that much. I appreciate it’s simplicity and how well it combos with other career elements (including new careers; Lay On Hands + Alchemy, for example). That said, when I design a skill like this, forever after I have to consider that all other skills that interact with Patch Up also interacts with this.

Tomorrow: The Fanatic

https://www.dropbox.com/s/wddika0vnne4v66/Career%20-%20Chosen.pdf?dl=0

This episode of “Let’s Brainstorm” is brought to you by: wetware!

If you had cybernetic implants/prosthetics as an Asset, what designs and tags would you give them?

Hey I came across this unofficial android origin.

Hey I came across this unofficial android origin. It looks pretty decent (though War Mind is an oddball that evokes D&D style combat-is-all play).

Anyone else have custom Careers or Origins they’ve used?

http://www.wisdomsave.com/hacks/uncharted-worlds-android-origin/

Far Beyond Humanity Career Week

Far Beyond Humanity Career Week

Day 1 – Arcane

#FBHCareers

I really enjoyed doing this when writing UW, so I’m dong it again here. Every day I’ll be releasing a new career. FBH has 7 careers that will be added to the existing 10 (increasing the total number of career combinations from 45 to a whopping 136(!!!)).

Feedback, questions, gut feelings or even (gasp) playtests would be immensely appreciated. (Have I mentioned how awesome a community you guys are. S’truth.)

First up we have the Arcane career. As I blogged/posted previously, I ended up merging two potential careers (Arcane and Occult) into one, to not oversaturate a sci-fi game with too much magic.

Arcane allowed me to toy with game elements that I thought were one-trick ponies, like Wild Jumps. It also allowed me to try my hand at tackling the recurring “problem child” of rules, the dreaded polymorph. I’m excited to see how this version pans out. Also, a fun design in Alchemy (alternate kit use) allowed me to get more mileage out of the basic skills, effectively making them modal.

Tomorrow: The Chosen.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ezq6m2th6w5oxx6/Career%20-%20Arcane.pdf?dl=0

Hello all. I’ve never played an PbtA game before, but am considering introducing UW to my group.

Can someone explain how descriptions effect the game? A lot of weapon and vehicle upgrades don’t seem to have rules, just descriptions. Also clothing types, follower descriptions, wound descriptions etc… Is this all color, or is there some AW convention I am not understanding?

Secondly, t does not appear that the GM can adjust the difficulty of a roll besides requiring a Face Adversity before the intended action. Is there precedent for giving players penalties for environmental effects, injuries etc…, or are all rolls the same difficulty, with the consequences for failure upping the stakes in difficult situations?

Acquisition for example: a Class 4 item is just as easy to find as a Class 0, assuming the Market sells both. Right?

Precognition:

While I’m still tooling around with the other Telepath abilities, Precognition ended up causing a lot of very interesting debate. The implementation of a skill that can see into the future is Not Easy ™ so I’m toying with a lot of different designs.

I figure I’d open the Google Doc up to you guys, I’d love to have your Comments on any or all of the 5 designs. (Anyone can comment directly on the Doc)

Utterly unrelated Wealth handling idea stolen from The Black Hack: usage dice.

I like the idea quite a bit, so I’m gonna use it in my current game. It’s not very PbtA-y, but I like the idea of managing individual wealth as part of the main game mechanic.

A usage die is a die, say a d6, that you roll when used; if it rolls a 1, you reduce the die size. If you roll a 1 on a d4, you are out of that resource.

I’m going to try modeling player starting wealth with a d6. When a Acquisition is made without offering cargo, the usage die is rolled. Things that are below your means (and thus don’t trigger Acquisition) don’t require a roll.

I’d also consider sales of goods, faction favors, and things like that, to trigger the opposite roll – a max value raises the die size.

Just figured I’d throw this out there, if anyone else wanted a bit more crunch for Wealth handling.

FBH Design – The Telepath

FBH Design – The Telepath

So I saddled up and started my second (first real) pass on the Psi careers, starting with Telepath. Whuff. Not easy. I’m trying to provide flexible limitations while curbing abuse, all while keeping text size to a minimum. Oddly, I ended up with six Skills instead of five, and now I find myself with the task of having to cut/cryo-freeze one of them.

2 questions for the community, if you have the time:

– Evaluate Skills: Do the skills “make sense”? Do you get what they’re supposed to do? Are they too vague? Too restrictive? Open to obvious abuse?

– Eliminate a Skill: Which skill can we do without? Which is the least interesting to you?

Precognition – When you witness a pivotal moment in time and open your sight to What Could Be, the GM will reveal brief images of a future where you and your allies did not interact with that event in any way.

Telepathy – You can create a short-lived mental communication link between yourself and a target within line of sight, or over longer distances if you have a strong bond with the subject.

Probe – Touching the head of another allows you to Access their mind as if it was a computer. Failed or partially successful Access attempts can cause significant neurological damage.

Suggestion – When you plant a fact, memory or desire in the mind of someone nearby, Roll+Interface.

– On a 10+, they accept this completely, and will act on it if they can.

– On a 7-9, they will act on it for now, but will soon come to their senses.

Empathy – With a moment of focus, you can feel the life force, health and emotional states in a given space. Large changes in life force, health or emotional states resonate louder and further.

Clairvoyance – Meditation allows you to make Assessment+Mettle about specific people, objects and locations over any distance. The glimpses granted by a failed Clairvoyance can be extremely disturbing.

There are times where I’m just tickled at what comes out of a solid design session.

In the “Fanatic” career, to replace ‘Relic’ (which has moved over to the Chosen career)

Obsessive

Choose a topic. Whenever you gain a Data Point about anything else, explain how it relates to your chosen topic. If you can, gain a Data Point about your chosen subject instead.

I’m thinking of running a star wars one shot mid June some time but I’m curious what type of star wars game people…

I’m thinking of running a star wars one shot mid June some time but I’m curious what type of star wars game people like. I don’t want to run any force users yet until FBH is released. I’d love some ideas.