Nuclear Beasts

Nuclear Shadows

Hm. Well, having finally gotten to read Dogs in the Vineyard, I could use some elements of this system for a revision of Nuclear Beasts.

• Capse (Caaps?) would be constructed about like human characters, but their abilities can't involve using tools and they don't get any belongings. In return, they get a set of bonus dice in the Superhuman Senses trait... probably something like 3d10 or 4d10. Actually, it might just be called "Doggishness" or something, because it should apply to getting info from dogs and wolves, too.
• Powers would have to be more explicitly defined. Basically, in addition to normal character creation (which would have to be limited to mundane abilities), you would get a set of dice that could be spent on Cyberware or Psychic Powers (possibly called Silver or Gold).
• Cyberware mostly boosts your stats and regular traits to superhuman levels (e.g.- you might have one or more d8s or d10s in one of your stats). It can also grant new "boolean" abilities, like the ability to send radio messages or detect radioactivity (every Ranger gets that one).
• Psychic Powers give you dice in one or more special traits... these enable you to perform actions that normal people can't. You can also push them, taking automatic fallout in return for some special benefit, like setting some of the dice to maximum or using them twice. Or maybe rerolling them immediately at a higher die level. Dunno. There would have to be some benefit, though.
• There's a new category of fallout- the d12s. Call it Destructive Devices? Basically, you may have d12 fallout if attacked with ancient weapons of great power, like missiles or lasers.
• Better guns (like assault rifles) generally just grant more or better dice than normal. So if a typical gun was d8,d4 then an assault rifle might be 3d8,d4 or something.
• You can't take an action that obviously impossible. For example, if there's someone shooting at you with a rifle from rifle-range and you only have a pistol, you can't return fire and can't use your pistol dice.
• The ranges are basically Ancient Weapons, Rifles, Handguns, and Melee Range. Keep it simple.
• There are rumors that certain electronic signals can cause a Geiger to go off as though there were radioactivity in the area, even if there isn't. Enemies of the Caretakers sometimes use such gizmos to guard their bases; the Caretakers guard certain areas of the Sacred Hills that way.
• Books are considered dangerous, because the ancients often wrote down False Beliefs, Fictions and Outright Lies. Potentially useful or dangerous books can be turned in to a Caretaker or one of the servants of the Oracles... But it's better to destroy an ancient text than let it fall into the wrong hands.
• Just like the Dogs in the Vineyard, whatever decision the Rangers reach is almost certainly "correct". This isn't because of some form of predistination; it's just that the Caretakers care a lot more about order than truth. There are Rangers who abuse their authority and hand down decisions arbitrarily... which causes a lot of resentment and eventually produces disorder.
• Spirits are called Echoes if they are neutral or benign and Shadows when they are malign. Since this is a matter of opinion, folks often disagree. In general, a Malignant will be a Shadow, and a Whimsy will be an Echo, but for Furies and Obsessions it'll depend on the specifics of the case.
• Some robots are so heavily armored that they have the special trait, "Invulnerable to normal weapons." Attempts to harm them with regular attacks automatically fail and can be Blocked without expending dice.