Nuclear Beasts

Tasks Just Too Easy?

One thing I'd have to watch out for is the supposed base difficulty of "4". That honestly probably won't work in the long run. Even in Savage Worlds, where PCs tend to roll a single die and a d6, I've seen folks complaining that unopposed tasks are just too easy.

What could I do to fix this? Let me think...

• Rename the results to Botch (1), Failure (2-3), Partial Success (4-7), Success (8-11), Critical Success (12+). That way, it's implied that you need at least a d8 to really succeed at something, but a d4 can at least give you a "partial" success. I could even keep Extraordinary successes by putting them at 16+ and changing the Rule of Twelve to grant a +4 bonus per extra 12. It's worth considering.
• Apply a lot more penalties... so that Hard (-2) and Very Hard (-4) tasks come up more often... Of course, this kind of loses the whole benefit of having a "default difficulty" if you end up dropping it as soon as the characters start to become more experienced. Is it easier to vary the target number (and subtract it from your result) or to vary the roll (and subtract it from the number rolled) but leave the target numbers the same? Mathematically, of course, it's identical.
• Bump the default difficulty up to 6 (about where it is in Ironclaw). Then the results would be Botch (1-2), Failure (3-5), Tie (6), Success (7-9), Critical Success (10-13), Extra (14+). Ugh, I don't like those numbers. That's really ugly, although it does mean that you can't score an Extra without bonuses or rolling multiple natural 12s.
• Dump the "default" and just let the GM set the target numbers appropriately. As the PCs get more experienced, the target numbers go up...
• Expand the results. 4-5: partial success, 6-7: success, 8-9: critical success, 10-11: extraordinary success, 12-13: extra², 14-15: extra³, etc.. Basically, I'd probably dump the "word" labels and say that you get 1 success for every 2 points that you beat the target by, instead of every 4. Is it worth it to have 5 success levels (0 to 4 successes) for typical rolls instead of just 3 (1 to 3 successes)?

Ironclaw Style Advancement Boxes

I was thinking that it might be possible to support my "Minor" and "Trivial" skills by using 3-4 advancement boxes like Ironclaw does.

Basically, after each skill would be 3 advancement boxes. For a regular skill, when you try to add a fourth mark, the skill goes up and the boxes get emptied. The rule is that you can't allocate more than 2 checks per skill, though. Normal checks cost 1 XP each.

For a Minor skill, each XP buys 2 checks. For a Trivial skill, each XP buys 4 checks.

Dunno. That's still not terribly elegant. I'll have to think about it.

Simple Damage System

Okay, when you hit somebody, you'll roll a contest between your Muscles & Weapon Damage vs their Muscles & Guts & Armor Dice. If you scored extra successes on your to-hit roll, you get a substantial benefit of some sort.

Some possibilities:

• Add the amount you hit by to the damage roll, so that good hits almost always blow through their soak.
• Add an extra d12 for every X you beat them by (probably 4, might just be 2). This means that damage, like skill rolls, tends to plateau around 12. Strong folks wielding big weapons see less benefit, really, because they're probably already rolling a couple of d12s.

The results of the soak roll could include the following:

• Bounced off harmlessly.
• Target takes a -2 to their actions until the end of next round, as the pain distracts them.
• Target is seriously wounded and suffers a -2 penalty until healed. Additional serious wounds increase the penalty by -1 each time.
• Target is incapacitated as well as wounded. They get to roll a Willpower check to see how long it takes them to revive.
• Target is dying. Without medical aid, they'll croak within a few hours. They can make a Willpower check to regain consciousness long enough to talk, but that won't save them without aid.
• Target is dying fast. The delay until death changes to minutes.
• Target is dead. Cut in half or similarly killed outright.

What result levels would I use for this?

• Extraordinary Success: untouched by the blow.
• Critical Success: cosmetic wound; irrelevant unless the attack was poisoned.
• Tie, Success: distracted; you take a minor wound. Your minimum wound penalty is -2 until the end of the next round; note that if you are already at -2 or worse, this will have no effect.
• Failure: you take a serious wound. Your wound penalty is worsened by 1. This lasts until you heal it.
• Critical Failure: you are also stunned; make a Willpower check to see how long it takes you to revive.
• Extraordinary Failure: as for Crit Failure, but you will die within a few hours if you don't receive medical aid. Roll Guts & Spirit to see how long. If you keep fighting you get a -4 penalty to this roll.
• Extra²: killed outright.

Hm. Actually, poisoned attacks should probably only work on a Tie/Success or worse, not a Critical Success. Otherwise, I kind of like this. I should try some of the numbers in practice.

It might be better if the worse results increased your wounds by more than 1. And I'm kind of assuming that your Muscles & Guts roll is penalized by your wound penalty, so that badly injured folks are easier to kill... but it actually wouldn't have to be, because the penalties make you easier to hit, which would cause more crits anyway.

Viewpoint Ideas

This is the Viewpoint system. Pretty cute. I like the fact that they're doing it as a Wiki page, too. A nice idea, since that gives you instant cross-referencing.

Some cute bits:

• For Initiative, every die rolled counts. When the GM counts down, you get to go if one of your dice matches the current number... then you discard that die. When you're out of dice, you're out of actions.
• If you desperately need to go before someone else, you can choose to merge dice together in order to "outbid" their initiative roll. This, of course, costs you actions, but might be worth it in desperate situations.
• When you hit and wound somebody, they have to roll a Stamina check with a penalty equal to the highest wound rating hit that they've taken so far. So if you hit someone who was at wound level 2 with a wound level 4 hit, they have to roll at -4 or be incapacitated. If you then hit them with a wound level 3 hit, they'd still roll at -4, because 4 is larger than 3. That's it- you only have to keep track of the single largest wound suffered. Additional, smaller wounds force checks, but don't increase the difficulty.
• Damage is kind of similar to what I had in mind originally, but it has two tracks. First, when you get hit, you take Fatigue equal to the number of dice in the damage pool. If your total Fatigue exceeds your Stamina+Willpower, then you take a -1 to all actions for every multiple of Sta+Will (e.g.- if Sta+Will is 4, then every 4 fatigue causes you a -1 penalty to all actions).
• Then the dice actually get rolled and each one that beats the target number inflicts 1 wound.
• Another cute damage bit: the number of damage dice rolled is equal to the number of successes you got on the hit. The weapon changes the target number of the roll, not the number of dice (uber weapons can add dice, but they're rare). I've thought about something similar, with saying that you do Muscles & Weapon Damage & an extra d12 per extra success.

Damage Alternatives

• Ironclaw/White Wolf: tough characters soak better, really big characters can take more wounds.
• Talislanta/D20: no one soaks wounds without armor; both being big and tough increase the amount of damage you can take.
• Savage Worlds: no one can take extra wounds; both being big and tough increase your chances of soaking injuries.
• Mutants & Masterminds: no wounds as such; every time you get hit you have to resist the damage or jump straight to a particular state. Little or no cumulative effects, thus no need to record wounds. Both size and toughness increase your ability to resist damage.

Hm. How about a mixed test? If the highest die in your damage roll doesn't beat their Soak roll, the whole attack is ignored; if it does, then every die that beats it does a wound.

If it was resolved like a standard contest somehow, then a crit could just add an extra d12 to the damage roll; an extra adds 2d12. The nice bit about that is that folks who are already super-strong see less benefit (they've probably already got at least one d12) than smaller PCs.

Let's see... Muscles & Weapon Dice vs target's Muscles & Guts & Armor Dice. Hm. That would make a weapon attack on an unarmored person be roughly equal... no good. Weapons either have to roll more dice or get hefty bonuses so that unarmored folks can't readily shrug off sword-blows.

More Damage System Brainstorming

I still want to figure up a good damage system for Nuclear Beasts. It's a pretty arbitrary decision... I just need to look at all of the possibilities and decide which one comes closest to the flavor I want. Let me list off some ideas I've been toying with.

Wasteworld Style: when you hit someone, you'll do damage equal to your margin of success plus the damage rating of your weapon probably plus some modifier for strength. Hard-to-aim weapons might cut the MoS in half, while particularly easily controlled weapons (like a stiletto) might have really crappy base damage but double the MoS.

What're the upsides/downsides of this?

• Accuracy can count more than weapon-mass, enabling small but agile characters to be more effective. I have to be careful so that the Big edge doesn't make you easier to kill than normal, but that should be doable.
• Allows for some weapon balancing by having damage ratings like 5+M/2 vs 1+M*2 vs 8+M/4 vs 3+M.
• The attacker only has to roll once and calculate once. Ideally, the defender's soak would be a set rating too, so that there's only one opposed roll per attack.
• Damage numbers will be high... compared to Ironclaw at least, where one wound could be significant.
• Bare-handed blows would just use your strength mod and so would be inferior to weapons.
• Really good hits would probably be able to kill folks, especially if they have bonuses and are attacking an unsuspecting foe. Even a punch might take someone out with a high enough MoS.
• There's no easy way to handle stun/fatigue damage, though.

Let's go with it for a bit just to see how it works out.

Damage bonus = Muscles level minus one (d4 is 0, d6 is 1, d12 is 4). Small subtracts. I'm not sure Big should add, since it increases your Muscles rating anyway. Perhaps Small shouldn't subtract either. Hm.

Kick adds +2 but is -1 to hit.
Claws/Knives add +1.
Swords adds +2.
Bite adds +3 but is -1 to hit.
Tusks/Big Swords adds +3.
Guns often add +4 or higher. Or would it be better for guns to add MoS x 2 instead?

Improved natural weapons adds a further +1 (First Gen Beasts get this automatically; Hyenas get it for Bite).

Your Soak (innate armor) is Muscles level plus Guts level minus 2. Ranges from 0 to 8+. Size adjusts it. Hm. Average person would be Soak 2. Second Generation Beasts would often be Soak 0 or even a negative number (if I allow that).

Alternately, your HP could be based on your Guts... hm. How about this... Soak is Muscles level adjusted by Size (minimum zero). The damage you can take is equal to your Guts or perhaps Guts + Spirit/2 or Guts + Spirit. Let's see... just Guts would give us a range from 4 to 12, average 6. Guts + Spirit/2 would give 6 to 18, average 9. Guts + Spirit would give 8 to 24, average 12. Well, regardless, just Guts alone is probably too low unless I give them at least 4 extra points. I don't want "eggshell-elf" syndrome... where the weaker PCs always eventually die just because an attack which might wound a tough character will one-pop them.

Hm. This isn't bad... I wish I had a "favorite" sort of damage system right now. Might make this sort of decision easier.

Ghoul Queen

Here's a thought inspired by playing Planescape: Torment: add a Ghoul Queen.

Basically, I've already got Ghostwalking and Channelling. Necromancy would be the ability to forcibly Channel a ghost by eating a part of its corpse. Fresh blood would be easiest, but bones will do in a pinch. Of course, non-Hyenas would have to grind the bones to avoid digestion problems, but the Queen herself is a Hyena, of course.

I'm not quite sure how the power would work. Obviously it could be used to interrogate corpses... probably a limited number of times by assuming that you had to eat a decent chunk of their flesh to do it. "Pushing" the power and compelling them to do something (lending you a skill, basically) would also require eating a larger chunk.

Wearing a chunk might work, too.

Basically, she runs a clan of Hyena Raveners... she keeps the bones of fallen victims in bags made of skin. Could she get additional benefit out of them besides just info? I could see some sort of vampiric thingie, where she can heal herself, but that's starting to get more "out there". Maybe she can force them to use their psychic powers for her? So she has the skull of an Augurer, wears the breastbone of someone with Invulnerability as armor, etc.. It could get pretty grody.

PDF Changes

Okay, I do need to write up a PDF for Nuclear Beasts. Writing up the system again may help me fill in holes, anyway. Let's see... major changes since the last version...

• No Race/Instinct trait.
• Only 12 Breeds... that should be simple enough that I can actually get them written.
• No Luck trait... let's just use an arbitrary d12 roll, just like Albedo.
• Big and Small now adjust your maximum stats. You should probably pick a Breed before doing stats or skills.
• Spirit replaces Charm.
• Now supports "Fortitude", "Reflex" and "Willpower" saves. I need to name them differently, though... Reflex was being called a Reaction check earlier, since I used it for initiative too. Muscles & Guts could be called a Toughness check or a Survival check. Or a Durability check. Willpower will probably stay Willpower, since that's what it is.
• I could also do some additional checks... am I fortunate enough to have two sets of 3 that make sense? Endurance: Guts & Spirit. Idea: Brains & Perception. That would leave Muscles & Speed... can't think of a good one for that. But it probably wouldn't make much sense to do Muscles & Perception or Muscles & Spirit.
• Any other important changes? Besides my thoughts about abandoning the old damage system and inventing a new one... again?
• All of the psychic powers. I may only describe a handful of them at first. Doing all eleven in detail would be time consuming. We'll see.
• Totally different skill list.
• Addition of half-cost skills.
• Replacing "Balanced Traits" with Drives. I may allow for "minor drives" which only grant a +1/-2 in extreme situations and otherwise have no game effects.
• Back to requiring you to max out a die in a skill before buying a new one. I might allow buying new dice at any time as an optional rule, though.

Names for Areas to Avoid

The spreading alien ecology to the south is commonly referred to as the Blight. I still need a good name for the stuff from it... I might go with "jellies" for the spores and just "monsters" for the larger critters.

A radioactive zone is usually called a Glow because of the poison glow.

And the areas where the soil has been poisoned and nothing much grows are known as Wastes. Sometimes called Toxic Wastes or Deathly Wastes.

More Abandoned Blogs

I may have to abandon the rules and setting blogs, since they were written with the old version of the setting in mind.

I'll have to think about this. Do I want to retire them completely? Start new ones? Make all of the original posts drafts and replace them with new entries? What would work best?

My goal at this point is to sit down and assemble either a PDF or a webpage with the basic game and basic setting on it. Then I want folks to read it over and give me comments and suggestions.

Which would be better?

A PDF is downloadable and easier to read offline. It would also allow me to include illustrations more easily. But a webpage might require less time and effort to make it readable; I've blown a lot of time trying to squeeze illustrations into awkward spots or insert boxes when OpenOffice didn't want to let me.

Well, I'll probably do it in the blog first. That uses less formatting and it'll be faster. Also, I've backed up the Rules and Setting blogs so I can rewrite/delete the entries with abandon.

Other Potential Breeds

Some other Breeds that I could reasonably add in... remember that some of these may have been released elsewhere, and might reasonably be considered to have a different culture than the regular Beasts.

First Generation Beasts:

• Coyotes: like wolves, but with Thievery as a racial specialty. Might get a bonus to Spirit as well.
• Tigers: like Panthers, but with Swimming.
• Horses: big honkin' Clydesdales, probably.

Second Generation Beasts:

• Raccoons: a little bigger than Mice or Squirrels, but similar skills. Oh, and Night Vision.
• Porcupines: slower, but has spines.

Third Generation Beasts:

• Foxes: Just for the popularity?
• Goats: considered them before; they didn't seem that great.
• Tigers could be here as humanoids, so that they match up with Lions.

Hm. Of the initial lot, could I reasonably create a second cluster of Beasts and say that they were from a separate creation/release? Seems reasonable... I want that to be a part of the setting, anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to have some of the initial set be outlanders.

Let's see... Hyenas, obviously. In fact, the basis of the League is their rejection of the other Breeds. Squirrels? It wouldn't be impossible for Squirrels to be native to the Tanglewoods and just move it further away from the Sacred Hills. Oxen? They are the Breed that "doesn't quite fit" in the first set, but I dunno.

I could also just have the three different generations be native to different areas; that would help explain why worship of the All-Mother isn't 100%... there were other religions out there before the First Folk met the others and convinced them that they were the first and therefore knew what they were talking about.

Pushing Psychic Powers

I want all of the psychic powers to have at least one ability that qualifies as "regular use" and one that qualifies as pushing the power. Pushing it involves additional risk and often strips you of the power for hours.

• Rending: ability to temporarily enhance the power of your natural weapons by projecting Chi through them. Can be pushed to inflict a blow which ignores all armor; just touching your opponent is enough to disrupt the soft spots behind their armor. This should be easier to do, too, since it doesn't require a solid strike. Oh, you can also push it to enable you to boost a blow with a melee weapon, which it normally won't do.
• Armoring/Toughening/Protection/Shielding/Invulnerability: ability to temporarily enhance your personal toughness and grant you some extra armor. Can be pushed to grant you a lot of additional armor, but this requires near complete concentration so you can't do much else while using it. Also, if you push it, you can choose to define one very particular kind of attack that you are prepping for and gain a ludicrous amount of armor against that attack alone. For example, if you knew that you were about to be stabbed in the gut, you could use this power to block that strike... but then it wouldn't help you if someone shot you.
• Sixth Sense: ability to pick up on subtle energies that others miss. You can sense the presence of active machinery, detect water (particularly water flows), or sense danger. It is often triggered passively. It can be pushed to use it as your primary sense, enabling you to fight or navigate in complete darkness.
• Scry: ability to divine information about the past, future or present of an object or creature that you have some sort of link to. Normally gives only short, vague info, but can be pushed to experience a full-fledged vision. Scrying the future is always iffy, but can be done.
• Empathy: you can sense the presence of strong emotions in your vicinity. This is often triggered passively. It can be pushed to scan a wider-than-normal area, to study someone's aura so intently that you can generally identify truth from falsehood (this often requires touching them) or to try and project a particular emotion in all directions.
• Focus: the ability to put yourself in various trance states. Can be used to enter suspended animation, focus all of your energies on a particular task, to resist environmental cold or heat or to aid your memory. It can be pushed to enter a much deeper trance, which improves the benefits but generally leaves you incapable of communication and unable to perform any other tasks besides what you're focused on.
• Projection: lets you send a mental construct of yourself to a person or spot you know well. It can be pushed to enable your projection to do more than just talk for a bit. If you push it and decide to bring an object back, you'll have to push it still further, a dangerous and risky proposition. While projecting, your body appears to be asleep. If you are pushing your power, your body will turn somewhat translucent and look sort of ghostly, although it will still be present.
• Ghostwalking: lets you see the ghosts of the past as though they were really there. Often triggered passively. You can push it to actually enter the spirit world for a time and interact with these ghosts, but this is a rather dangerous thing to try. Most ghosts are insane with grief or anger. On the other hand, the spirit world is very powerful, and doing this can produce some very "plot device"-ish effects.
• Channeling: you hear strange voices, which sometimes offer you advice. It's most commonly used passively, but you can actively ask a question, too. It can be pushed to allow one of the voices to take control of your body and perform a task for you. This is generally harmless, but very spooky, and your voices go away for a long while afterwards.
• Sending: lets you send messages (verbal or otherwise) to someone else's mind telepathically. It can be pushed to send a powerful emotion or sensation, including pain. It normally only works on one target at a time, but you can also push it to perform a regular sending that touches multiple minds.
• Illusions: I may drop this one. It just doesn't seem to fit, somehow. If I do include it, you can probably push it to create a surreal dreamscape over a large area.
• Empathic Healing: you can share the strain or pain of an injury or illness afflicting another person. This means that you suffer some of the effects, but it's easier for the other person to recover. It can be pushed to try and revive the recently deceased, but this is risky and each use tends to age you a little as you lose some of your own lifespan.

When you push a power, it disappears at the end of the scene, generally for a full day. Note that this means that you can use the uber-Rending touch multiple times, it's just that when the fight is over you won't be able to use it again for a full day.

If you double-push a power (it might be good to provide examples of this, too), then we add a random factor to how long it goes away. It will generally range from days to weeks, with a small chance of being permanently reduced by a die size.

The Ancient Laws

1. Harm not the Beasts who speak, nor eat their flesh. They are your brothers.
2. The Caretakers are the arms of the All-Mother; the Oracles are her voice. Heed them as you would Her.
3. Seek the fertile lands and tend them. This world is given into your care.
4. Honor the memory of Man, whose gifts you bear.

New Setting Elements

• The head priestess of the Mother of All is referred to as the Oracle. It's believed that she (and, to a lesser extent, the other priestesses) dispenses the infinite wisdom of the Mother of All to deserving Beasts. Most visitors to the Sacred Hills are there to seek such advice.
• The "city" of Dumar is actually just a sprawling, oversized village outside the Sacred Hills. It's where most petitioners wait before being called to speak with one of the priestesses. Outsiders are never allowed into the Sacred Hills unescorted. The punishment for a minor violation is a slashing. It's rumored that those who make it too far in before being caught are never seen again.
• Dumar is also the best place to speak with Rangers or Caretakers, as there are always a few in attendance there. Supply caravans from Manforge often arrive there to deliver goods to the Caretakers and the First Folk.
• The Goddess is properly referred to as the "Mother of Us All" or, in informal situations, the "All-Mother". The contraction "Mother-all" is regarded as impious by the most devout, but is in common usage anyway, especially as an exclamation.
• Zuba City is run by the Engineers, a guild of tech-savvy Beasts who have learned to read a number of ancient books and have a few working computer devices. While the Engineers publicly support the church (I really need a good name for it), they are well aware that the Caretakers are cyborgs and greatly distrust them. The feeling is mutual; the Caretakers need the Engineers' expertise, but don't like dealing with Beasts who don't see them as sacred.
• Manforge builds stuff for the Caretakers; it's actually run by one. Some of the parts that they build are very strange and are shipped out in sealed containers. They don't use slave labor as such, but the Manager is very strict and punishes almost all crimes with furnace duty.

Psi Clans

Another thing I probably won't use, but want to write about just in case, is the idea of breaking folks up into clans like a White Wolf game. Each clan would probably have a particular psi power that they were especially good at and an organization that had a lot of rivalries with the others.

I've never really liked these sort of arbitrary divisions, though. So while I could do something like saying that all Protectors are better at Rending or all Wolves have a natural knack for Projection, I probably won't.

Die Limits

What uses could I put die limits to?

• Huge, clumsy weapons have a die limit of d10 on the attack roll.
• Oversized Beasts could have a d10 or d8 limit on their Speed tests.

Well, honestly, this probably isn't that great of an idea. One major limitation of die limits is that you get these stupid gaps. Someone with a Speed of d12 becomes equal to someone with a Speed of d10 if they're under a d10 limit. In fact, he's worse off, because the d10 guy might have spent those extra points on something useful.

No, I still probably won't use limits much. I like limiting Muscles & Speed by your Size, but I'm not that fond of actual die limits.

Cities, Towns & Villages

I'll need to rearrange the map a bit. Since I'm shrinking the "known" setting to a small area, basically just the Verde, I'll have to decide which location ideas are worth salvaging.

• Wardhall: doesn't really work in the new setting, especially with psychic healing powers. Probably gone.
• Manforge: can still be around, but it'll probably be smaller and use less slave labor. Someplace has to manufacture weapons and parts for the Caretakers... even if they don't know what a lot of them are for (those just disappear into the Sacred Hills).
• Zuba City: since the Sacred Hills are kind of restricted, there has to be somewhere where trade and commerce actually occurs. Zuba could be a large and relatively prosperous town near the Sacred Hills.
• League City: the Laughing League will be smaller players now, but they could still exist. There's a militant fort on the edge of the Caretaker's influence that has all but declared independence. It's run by Hyenas and other Breeds are second-class citizens at best.
• Tanglewoods: mice and squirrels love this densely bramble-packed forest settlement. The tanglewoods might be a mutation, or perhaps someone there used a strange psychic power to create them awhile back. Mutation is probably more realistic, of course. Tanglewood is liable to grow elsewhere too, but only around clean rivers with the right kind of soil.
• The Southern Kingdoms are probably right out. There could be rumors about extremely primitive breakaway tribes living in a valley somewhere, but I don't intend to write them up in detail.

Social Skills & a Power Stat

I'm not sure how I want to handle social skills. My current method is to give a Charm stat and have it apply to social skills. Psychic skills wouldn't depend upon any traits... but maybe they should. Perhaps they should all get a flat d6? Or a Power trait?

Options:

• Keep Charm, add a Power stat for willpower and psi. It should probably start at d6... otherwise it'll be a junk stat for most non-psychic PCs... after all, what do non-psychics use it for?
• Expand Charm into a "Power" stat. This would apply to willpower, psi and all social skills. It represents your "force of personality". You'd still want social skills to be good at charming people, but it would be hard to be charming and weak-willed without some sort of Edge or Flaw. Actually, a Willpower check could be rolling Guts & Power. We could also rename the Fellowship skill as "Charm"; then it would clearly include seduction.
• Keep Charm, having all psi powers roll alone. This makes them much more unpredictable, though, which is probably a bad thing.
• Keep Charm, psi powers roll with the most applicable stat. Sensory powers with Perception, physical powers with Guts, others with Brains, etc. This is probably the most traditional solution and it can reinforce stereotypes such as the "brainy precog" if desired.

Hm. Perhaps a better name for it would be Spirit? Then you'd roll Guts & Spirit to resist pain, Spirit & Charm to make people like you, Spirit & Psychic Power to zap stuff, etc.

Let's see... Muscles, Guts, Speed, Brains, Perception and Spirit.

To resist physical harm, roll Muscles & Guts. To react to something in time, roll Speed & Perception. To withstand a test of your will, roll Guts & Spirit, or maybe Brains & Spirit instead... if Guts is primarily physical toughness, then it might not apply to mental stuff. To figure something out, roll Brains & Perception. It could work.

Actually, that works nicely. Muscles & Guts is your Fortitude save. Speed & Perception is your Reflex save. Brains & Spirit is your Will save. That's all six stats, without any overlap.

What other combos are there? Muscles & Spirit, Brains & Speed, yeah, there might be a few other combos that are meaningful, but I rather like the fact that your three saving throws are based upon two stats each, without any overlap. I could even change the order of the stats to Muscles, Guts, Speed, Perception, Brains and Spirit.

Skill Focus

Here's a thought:

A Skill Focus is an expansion onto an existing skill. It generally only costs 1 check.

For example, we could have a Streetwise/Area Knowledge skill and say that you start with a Focus on your hometown. For 1 check, you can add another town to the list of towns that you can use Streetwise in. Similarly, you could start with a number of Foci in your Melee skill equal to its level... you can only use it with those weapons. For 1 point each, you can add new weapons.

I'm not sure that's worthwhile, really, but it's an easy way to support specializations.

A similar example is the Literacy feat... once you take it, you get to roll Ancient Lore to understand english writing. Additional ancient languages can be added for a check.

Also, you can add the howl languages to your Awareness skill for 1 point each... they're Hyena Laughs, Lion Roars, Wolf Howls and the Silent Speech of Bats.

Alternately, I could just make all of those into Minor Skills and then you'd get a level per check. I'm not sure that they're worth even that much, though... maybe they should just be Minor or even Trivial Edges instead.

Priestesses and Caretakers

Okay, the "seat" of Beast civilization is the Sacred Hills. This densely forested region has a lot of rocky hills and outcroppings and is guarded by the First Folk... a large clan of Wolves who claim to be direct descendants of the very first Beasts who emerged from Eden (the implication is that more Wolves arrived later, but the First Folk came before them).

They worship the Mother of All, a goddess believed to watch over all Beasts everywhere. It is said that the gates to Eden are hidden inside the Sacred Hills, but the First Folk deny it. But then, they keep a lot of secrets.

The packs of the First Folk are matriarchical (there are a few male Alphas, but they are rare and are usually replaced by females when they retire). The High Priestess is the Alpha of Alphas and her pack occupies the Cave of Secrets.

Interbreeding with outside packs is forbidden. When population pressures grow too great, the clan picks a number of low-ranking Wolves (mostly males) and sends them away. Such spin-off clans are regarded as only slightly better than regular Wolves... honored for their direct relationships with some of the First Folk, but not trusted with their secrets.

Since the First Folk hate to leave their home (the priestesses have never been known to leave the boundaries of their territory, although lesser wolves are sometimes sent as messengers), they have only limited control over the rest of the Beasts. They train Lorekeepers of the other Breeds (and the First Folk honestly regard other Wolves as a different Breed) and send them out to guide their own clans, but they rarely do more.

The only outsiders allowed into the territory of the First Folk are the Caretakers and Rangers. These are Beasts who have chosen to serve the Mother of All as her messengers and agents. Occasionally one of the First Folk will choose to become a Caretaker, but they generally stay as priests and priestesses instead.

A Ranger is a low-ranking Caretaker. Applicants are judged by the priestesses. They are usually Beasts who have been distinguished themselves in battle but been crippled by some injury. They are never Beasts who have manifested some sort of psychic power. This isn't widely known, but it is an absolute truth; if a Beast managed to conceal their power they would lose it as part of the process of becoming a Ranger.

The applicant is given drugs and brought unconscious to a hidden place. There they are given "magical" metal limbs that replace their damaged ones. When they awaken, they will be back at the campsite of one of the First Folk packs and nurtured back to health.

There are said to be exactly one hundred Caretakers. When one dies or goes mad, a new one is chosen. It's usually a Ranger who has distinguished themselves with particular loyalty or disloyalty (although the latter fact is kept pretty darn secret). When a Ranger becomes a Caretaker they are taken by the other Caretakers into the Holy of Holies. When they return, generally months later, they will bear the metal skullcap of the Caretakers. From this point forward, their authority over the Rangers is absolute. Their loyalty is similarly unbreakable; a Caretaker will die before they divulge any secrets or betray their cause.

Neither Rangers nor Caretakers can manifest psychic powers... at least not without going mad. There are rumors that a few Caretakers have gone insane and acquired superhuman abilities in the process, but these stories are discounted by most.

Incidentally, if you find the well-rotted body of a dead Caretaker or Ranger, you'll see that their visible metal parts are only part of the metal running through their bodies. Rangers generally just have wires running from the new implant to a small cluster of wire in their brain, but Caretakers often have a lot of metal wiring running through their whole body.

[Yeah, these are cybernetic implants. The metal skullcap on a Caretaker is actually a sending and receiving station which lets them communicate with other Caretakers via radio. They also have some very potent brain implants which restrict their behavior and ensure their loyalty. Psychic powers interfere with these devices, because they cause massive neural surges that the equipment isn't designed to deal with. Caretakers and Rangers who develop psychic powers often go insane as the chips in their brains short out.]

Nowadays the authority of the priestesses and the Caretakers is being stretched to the limit. There are too many Beasts and too few Caretakers. They have to depend upon Rangers to act on their behalf, and Rangers aren't always trustworthy (no loyalty implants). Furthermore, there's a physical upper limit to how far a Caretaker can go without breaking radio contact with the rest, which they are loathe to do. They also hate going underground for the same reason.

As a result, the further a clan is from the First Folk and the Caretakers, the less likely they are to kowtow to a Ranger. They know that there isn't any way for the Priestesses to actually enforce their edicts, but law abiding folks will still obey a Ranger if his requests are at all reasonable.

PCs could become Rangers if they wanted to buy cyberware instead of psychic powers. Being a Ranger is a major Edge, since it gives you some political authority and cybernetic upgrades. A Caretaker pretty much gets a 1-step increase in every stat except for Charm, which drops a notch. They also get even more implants and upgrades to make them combat badasses. Being a Caretaker is a major promotion but also has some crippling restrictions (you surrender your freewill to the Mother of All, who isn't 100% stable these days).

The other big limit to their authority is that the Priestesses and the Caretakers defer to the Mother of All... and she's been very uncommunicative of late. A few Priestesses have even begun to consider the heretical thought that their Goddess might be going mad herself. The Caretakers, of course, are mostly incapable of even thinking that.

Alien Ecology

So, I want the nasty, unnatural, invaders from the south to seem really weird.

First you get floating jellyfish-like things with lighter-than-air gases in their balloon-like upper body. These drift over the area, then land and put down roots. They're quite fragile, although they can sting someone if attacked. A few have a dangerously toxic sting, but most are fairly harmless.

Once they land, they grow into larger, sort of cactus-like things. Rather than normal leaves, they generally produce bubble-like protusions. Some of them have sharp spines to protect them from being eaten or otherwise molested. Most are quite toxic to Beasts (you can extract clean water from them if you know how, but eating their oddly-colored tissue will make most Beasts sick. Hyenas are a notable exception, as they can digest almost anything.

The roots of these plants are parasitic to normal plants; if they encounter normal roots, they tend to burrow into them and drain nutrients from the plant. This means that the alien pod-plants tend to slowly spread over the area while all regular vegetation slowly sickens and dies. There are even some of the smaller plant-things that will adhere to trees and such and grow into them if they can, instead of putting roots into the ground.

Where the plant-things grow, the monsters are bound to follow. These lanky creatures are generally odd, unnatural colors like red, light blue or violet. They rarely have any visible sense organs, and when they do it's generally a cluster of little tendrils that get excited when something moves nearby. They often have sharp spines scattered over their bodies; a few can actually launch these spines as an attack (those spines are invariably poisoned).

Their mouths are often lamprey-like. They "graze" on the jelly-plants by adhering to them and sucking the bubbles empty. Digestive juices are often injected to help break down the tissue. A few have actual teeth, generally rows and rows of short but sharp spines.

There are a huge variety of these creatures and new ones are generally sighted every year or so. Some of them are quite large. Their predators seem willing to kill regular animals but appear to have difficulty digesting them properly. They drain them of most of their blood, then leave the corpse behind. The bodies left behind generally sprout hundreds of little crimson jelly-plants, which slowly consume the corpse before inflating their air sacs and drifting away on the wind.

The winter months tend to bring the worst incursions. The northerly winds bring millions of floating spores northward, and while the strong winds and regular storms destroy a lot of them, there are always some that survive the winter and start to grow in the spring. It the Beasts didn't work to exterminate them, it's doubtful that the Verde would still be green.

Big & Small

Each level of Big increases your Muscles die by 1 step. It also grants you an additional +1 bonus in situations when you can bring your full weight to bear.

On the other hand, it reduces your maximum Speed trait by 1 step, so one level of Big will reduce your maximum Speed from d12 to d10. Two steps reduces it to d8. That doesn't affect your starting dice or anything; it just means that you can't put a larger die in that stat.

Big actually gives a small bonus to movement, as your stride is larger. But it penalizes Acrobatics, Contortionist and Swimming by 1 point per level. It also penalizes your defense against ranged attacks.

Each level of Big is considered to be a Major Edge.

Small, on the other hand, works a little differently. Each level reduces your maximum Muscles trait by one step, so Small 1 reduces your max to d10 and Small 2 would reduce it to d8. Small 4 is generally for unintelligent animals and would reduce it to a max of d4. Each level gives a +1 bonus to Acrobatics, Contortionist and Swimming and adds to your defense against ranged attacks. Most second generation Beasts are Small 2.

Oh, and it penalizes all manuevers where you have to throw your weight into it, like pinning someone with Wrestling.

Each level of Small is considered to be a Minor Edge.

Buying Skills

I'm thinking that Trivial skills should probably be more of a footnote or optional rule than anything else.

So, the rules would be like this...

• Buying a Major Edge: 8 checks
• Buying a Minor Edge: 4 checks
• Improving or acquiring a Skill: 2 checks
• Improving or acquiring a Minor Skill: 1 check

Minor skills concern things that aren't particularly important to the game. They're basically "hobby" skills. They should be both narrow and fairly unimportant in play, otherwise they'd be regular skills. Note that minor skills can be improved twice as fast as regular ones.

There's also the generic "Expertise" skill. Expertise skills are rarely rolled on their own, but are usually combined with multiple regular skills instead. For example, "Expertise: Spear" would apply to Melee when fighting with a spear, Craft when making or repairing one, and Shooting when throwing one.

E.D.E.N. and other concepts

The Ecological Development and Enhancement Network.

I'd like the ability to add new Beasts in later. Thus, the game background needs some reason why the Beasts might be separated. There should be hints that there are other Breeds out in the wastes, waiting to be contacted.

Hm.

Perhaps the "real enemy" is the alien ecology slowly consuming the south. An isolated A.I. in the Verde started creating animal servants. First, shock troops to fight the monsters that were entering the area and hunting the regular animals to extinction. Followed by support troops and scouts to coordinate their activities. Finally, humanoid Beasts to take the place of Man and reactivate His creations.

There are hints that there are other Edens and other Breeds of Beast elsewhere in the wastes.

There are Exterminators patrolling the edges of the Verde, but they don't come into the green area. They tend to kill Beasts on sight, but any creature that presents an ID card will be ignored as a civilian (so long as they don't attack the robot, of course). The Exterminators slaughter the alien life forms mercilessly.

The Gates of Eden might even be a real place: a set of incredibly large blast-doors leading (presumably) to an underground complex. They've been shut for generations. No new Beasts... no new instructions. God has fallen silent.

The psychic powers would have been developed to help in their struggle. Rending was one of the first ones devised and it appeared with the First Generation of Beasts. Other, stranger abilities were developed later.

Another option is that the first Beasts were slaves and the High Beasts (the third generation) did indeed rebel against their maker and slay "him". Alternately, the A.I. may have felt that creating the High Beasts fulfilled its obligations to humanity and it shut itself down. I could use the White Wolf method and treat several different beliefs as possible truths.

• The Beasts were created as slave/weapons. The High Beasts were too much like Man and destroyed the A.I. that made them.
• The Beasts were created to preserve their species from extinction. The High Beasts were an attempt to recreate Man. The A.I. mysteriously shut down (or at least ceased all communications) shortly after the third generation was released. It may have done so because the Beasts had begun to develop psychic powers.
• The Beasts are a cultural blank, much like the races in Albedo. Their origin is an utter mystery to them. Ancient legends say that each new generation would travel to the Verde from the south in a trance; when they awoke, they remembered nothing of their past. Beasts who tried to follow their route back never returned. The legend of Eden was invented to explain it all.
• The A.I. that created the Beasts is still around, but has cloaked itself in mystery and enigma. A priesthood of Wolves (the First Folk) still guard and worship it. Once in a great while it actually issues a command, but for the most part it remains silent. It may well have gone mad. The Caretakers might serve as its secret police/spies.
• There were three sacred places from which each generation issued. Each group was created separately, but made peace when they encountered the other Breeds. Those places are sealed now. No one knows how many other such places there are, spread across the country.

Skill List II

Acrobatics: jumping, climbing, tumbling and other tests of balance and dexterity.
Ancient Lore: knowledge of the past. A strange mix of history, legends, rumors and stories. Can be used to read if you have the Literacy Edge.
Ancient Tech: using, identifying and fixing technological devices (even modern ones, because they're a lot simpler than the ancient sort).
Awareness: noticing things with your various senses.
Burrowing: ability to dig stable underground tunnels rapidly; also how comfortable you are moving around underground.
Craft: skill at weaving, sewing and generally constructing tools and goods.
Endurance: ability to outlast foes, especially when running.
Engineering: skill at making and analyzing large structures like houses, walls, bridges, dams and such.
Explosives: understanding how to make, use and place explosive charges for maximum effect.
Fellowship: making friends and getting along with new cultures.
Herbalism: knowledge about various plants, fungi and other growths and their effects on Beasts.
Leadership: giving effective orders and getting folks to follow them.
Medicine: skill at first aid, surgery, diagnosing problems and treating wounds and injuries.
Melee: skill at melee combat, but doesn't include grappling.
Persuasion: convincing others to see things your way.
Psychology: skill at picking up on subtle mannerisms and other hints about what someone is really thinking. Often rolled to see if someone is lying.
Shooting: skill at ranged combat, including throwing things.
Stealth: moving silently and finding good hiding spots. Essential for ambushes.
Swimming: aptitude for the water. Botches in the water often lead to drowning, so beware of deep water if you lack this skill.
Thievery: skill at sleight of hand, picking pockets, picking locks, and otherwise engaging in tasks that require a subtle and dextrous hand.
Tracking: following trails by scent and physical traces.
Wilderness: general skill at surviving in the wilderness.
Wrestling: skill at grappling combat where you seize ahold of a foe and throw, pin or crush them.

Discarded skills:
Modern Lore/Known World: perhaps this should just be the equivalent of a "Common Knowledge" check... a Brains & Perception roll or something.

I'm also unsure about how to handle Charm skills. I'm not sure I want enough of them to make a full set of 6+. I've got Fellowship and Persuade now. I could easily see adding stuff like Haggling, Seduction, Leadership, Performance, Intimidation or Oratory. Perhaps just Performance and Leadership? Also Intimidation?

Specialties & Trivial skills: the former are half the cost of a regular skill and still take 2 checks to increase. The latter are so easy that they take only a single check to bump up. I like the "checks" system for increasing skills and such, but making Specialities half of the cost of a regular skill without adding more paperwork seems troublesome. Perhaps regular skills should cost 3 to increase, specialties 2 and trivial skills only 1? If an Edge costs 4x as much as a regular skill, it would take 12 checks to go up... seems like a bit much.

The alternative is to allow for "half-checks" or let you check multiple skills with a single XP. That seems problematic, too. Hm.

You receive 3-5 checks per session. Each one has to go on a different skill or trait. A regular skill takes 2 checks before it goes up... hmph. The problem is that I want to allow for cheaper skills that don't advance any faster. Hm.

Stats II

An alternate set of stats...

Body: physical strength and toughness
Mind: brainpower
Perception: ranged combat and sense tests
Power: willpower, charisma and possibly psychic power ("Force of personality")
Agility: speed and balance
Dexterity: skill with devices; used for repair, pickpocket, lockpicking, etc.

Hm. I was originally thinking about Dex in order to give 3rd Generation Beasts a better DEX than 2nd and give 1st Gen a crippling penalty to it. But shouldn't a little Mouse have a better lockpicking skill than a Hyena-warrior? So that might be a bad idea.

Breed Writeups

Let's take the Breeds that I'm toying with and see what sort of Edges they'd get.

First Generation: all have the Flaw: No Hands and the Edge Improved Natural Weapons

• Wolves: Pack Hunter, Keen Nose, Very Fast
  Skilled at Awareness, Endurance, Stealth, Tracking, Wilderness
• Panthers: Big +1, Night Vision, Very Fast
  Skilled at Stealth, Acrobatics, Wilderness, Awareness
• Bears: Big +2, Tough
  Skilled at Wilderness, Herbalism, Wrestling
• Musk-ox: Big +2, Herd Defense, Cold Adaptation
  Skilled at Herbalism, Wilderness

Second Generation: they all have Small -1, +1 movement (after applying the -1 for Small)

• Mice:
  Skilled at Awareness, Burrowing, Contortionist, Stealth, Thievery, Craft
• Squirrels:
  Skilled at Acrobatics, Awareness, Stealth, Thievery, Herbalism, Wilderness
• Bats: Flight, Keen Ears, Silent Speech
  Skilled at Acrobatics, Awareness, Wilderness
• Otters: Water Adaptation
  Skilled at Contortionist, Herbalism, Swimming x2, Wilderness

Third Generation: reduce their size adjustments a step because they're more human

• Hyenas: Scavenger, Pack Hunter, Night Vision, Improved Bite
  Skilled at Awareness, Endurance
• Lions: Big +1, Pack Hunter, Night Vision
  Skilled at Stealth, Awareness
• Elephants: Big +2, Keen Ears, Tusks
  Skilled at Endurance, Herbalism
• Goats: Sure-footed, Cold Adaptation
  Skilled at Acrobatics, Herbalism, Wilderness
• Cheetahs: Keen Eyes, Keen Ears, Night Vision, Burst of Speed
  Skilled at Awareness, Stealth

Explanation of Edges:
Big: Adds to all strength checks and makes your character bigger and more durable. Penalizes skills like Acrobatics, Contortionist and Swimming.
Cold Adaptation: you get +8 to save vs environmental cold.
Flight: you can fly. Roll Speed & Acrobatics to perform special maneuvers.
Improved Bite: your bite attack does extra damage.
Improved Claws: your claw attack does extra damage.
Keen Ears: your hearing is so acute that you get +2 to Awareness checks involving hearing. You can also hear sounds that are too high or low pitched for the ears of other Beasts.
Keen Nose: you get +2 to Awareness checks involving Scent and to Tracking rolls vs creatures that have a recognizable scent.
Night Vision: you ignore up to 2 points of penalties from darkness, provided that there is any light source at all.
Pack Hunter: you get an improved flanking bonus when cooperating with other characters against a single foe. You also have an Echoing Cry of some sort which can carry for a great distance without revealing your current location.
Silent Speech: your Breed has a secret language which only folks with Keen Ears can hear.
Small: Subtracts from strength checks and makes your character smaller and more fragile. Gives a minor bonus to movement, Acrobatics, Contortionist and Swimming.
Sure-footed: you ignore up to 4 points of penalties due to bad footing.
Tusks: you have tusks, which are a very potent natural weapon.
Water Adaptation: you can hold your breath for minutes instead of rounds and get a bonus to Swimming checks.

Hm. I'm not too impressed with Goats. Maybe Rats would be better if I wanted another humanoid Breed? Elephants might also be overpowered... I'll have to work out whether or not Big should really be twice as valuable as the other special Edges.

Actually, Cheetahs might be worthwhile. Sure, I end up with 3 different Breeds of cat, but they're super-fast. That might be worthwhile to select for. Also, I've already got some humanoid Cheetah art.

If I wanted a 12th race (just to round out the numbers), it would need to be a Low Beast (1st generation). I'm thinking Musk-ox. They weigh as much as grizzlies.

Mix and Match

Okay, there are several tradeoffs to consider when picking a die system.

• Speed: how long does it take to figure out what you need to roll plus how long it takes you to read the results.
• Combinability: how readily can you mix and match different values? Does adding a third rating into the mix throw off the expected results by a lot or a little?
• Reasonableness: does it require some wacky combination of unusual dice like 3d30 or 10d12? Do you have to leave them all out on the table or can you roll them one at a time?
• Thresholds: do the results clump at particular values? This can be good or bad, depending on what you're looking for.

Stats

Okay, let's assume that stats granted you a small bonus to specific skills. If we wanted to break up the skills into a small number of general types, what stats would apply to them?

Strength: no skills
Endurance: no skills
Agility: combat, acrobatics
Dexterity: tech-using skills and other things that use manual dexterity
Intelligence: lore skills
Charisma: social skills
Willpower: some social skills, magical skills
Perception: noticing things, ranged combat

Probabilities

Since the d6-pooling system I threw together is quite similar to Silhouette's basic system, I found a link to a site which lists the probabilities.

If you had a total of 4d6, you'd get a 4+ about 94% of the time and a 6+ about 52% of the time. If you get up to 6d6 (about as high as I was intending for starting skills to get, you'd get 4+ about 98% of the time and 6+ about 66% of the time. There's a huge drop between 6 and 7, but I was kind of thinking that 4-6 would be a success and 7+ would be a crit, so that might not be too bad. Even a +1 bonus is a huge deal, though, since it makes getting a 7 much, much easier.

Generations

I'm thinking about breaking up the Breeds into specific generations explicitly. This would be a radical change to the setting, though.

First Generation Beasts: Low Beasts. Animals that can talk, but no hands. They tend to be large and fierce. Wolves, Panthers, Bears, possibly Horses or Oxen.

Second Generation Beasts: Mixed form. These were animals that could be granted hands with relative ease. They can stand on two legs but most commonly run on four. They tend to be small and agile. Mice, Squirrels, Otters, possibly Raccoons. Actually, Bears could be here instead of in the First Generation, but I'm inclined to think that they'd be shock troops, not tool-users.

Third Generation Beasts: High Beasts. Animals remade in the image of Man. They walk upright and cannot run on all fours. Most are roughly man-sized. They occasionally suffer from illnesses brought on by the nanoplagues that killed off Man, just because they are too similar to them. Hyenas, Lions, possibly Elephants and Goats.

Using the d6 system I was tossing around, what racial benefits would they get?

1st Gen: +2 dice and a +2 bonus to all racial skills
2nd Gen: +1 die and a +1 bonus to all racial skills
3rd Gen: +1 die to all racial skills

Should Bats exist in this version? I'm not sure. Flying scouts would be really useful, so they might be considered 2nd Generation Beasts. Or they might not exist and the Harpies could take their place. All of the other Beasts from this source are mammals, though, so Harpies would probably stay as outsiders.

Dice Summing

Here's a thought, if we did want to use a Savage Worlds-like roll just one stat system.

d4 < d6 < d8 < d10 < d12 < d10+d4 < d12+d4 < d12+d6 < d12+d8, etc.

Here when you have multiple dice, the results really are added together.

Alternately...

d4 < d6 < d8 < d10 < d12 < d12+1 < d12+d4 < d12+d6, etc.

Both of these are slightly off of the expected +1 average per step. d10+d4 is average 5.5+2.5 = 8.0 instead of 7.5. d12+d4 is 9.0 instead of 8.5. But both would be doable if I wanted to.

Of course, that system would probably require you to roll stuff separately and take the highest, rather than summing all dice together. So if you wanted to combine stuff, it would be more like, "Roll your highest rating. If that comes out to less than the max of the next highest rating-that-applies, roll it too and use the highest. Keep going until you run out of ratings-that-apply or you can't possibly beat your result."

Placeholder System

How about a super-minimal buckets-o'-d6 system?

Stats start at 1d6 and can go as high as 3d6 without special bonuses.

Skills start at 0d6 and have no upper limit.

Roll any combo of stats and skills by summing all of the dice together and rolling that many d6. You take the highest value rolled. If you roll multiple 6s, add +1 per additional 6. So your results will range from 1 to the number of dice rolled plus 5.

The base difficulty is 4. If you can't beat a 4, you totally suck. If it's an opposed test, you have to beat your opponent's total. Otherwise it's common to need a 5 for something easy, a 6 for something hard and a 7+ for something really hard.

We could use some rule like if the number of 1s rolled exceeds the number of 5s and 6s, you botch. Dunno. It might be easier to just say that a final result of 1 is a huge botch, 2 is an awful botch, 3 is a nasty failure and 4 is just a failure. 4 = failure, less than that = botch. That makes the odds of botching 1 in 2^^{dice rolled}.

Damage from attacks is done similarly. You roll a bunch of d6. The normal amount is the weapon's base damage plus the margin of success of your attack.

The target will probably roll soak... that'll be their Toughness (or whatever stat) plus any armor dice. Eh, that might be too hard. It should probably be a flat, calculated value.

Flat bonuses are rare and are usually from edges. They represent a huge boost. High Beasts get an extra die in all racial skills, Low get an extra die and a flat +1 to the final result of all such checks.

Actually, Soak could use an alternate system. You subtract 1 from the damage level for every 6 rolled and you roll Muscles + Guts + Armor. This could be represented by saying that a Soak roll is difficulty 5 and your margin of success reduces the damage. Everyone will always have at least 2d6 to roll, but since it's two stats, they probably won't have a whole lot. The high difficulty makes it hard to soak a lot of damage.

A damage of 4-5 is a scratch and costs you a die from all rolls until the end of next round. 6 is a serious wound and costs you a die until healed. 7+ inflicts multiple wounds (lose result minus 5 dice in total). If these penalties exceed your innate Soak rating (not counting the armor dice), you're out of action. The penalties might not apply to soak rolls, but once they exceed that threshold, you're toast.

Simple penalties (like range adjustments) generally cost you dice. Close range, no penalty; medium range drop 1 die, long drop 2, extreme drop 2 and -1 to result.

Lots of things add dice... if you had a rating of 3d6 in knowledge about Zuba City, you could include that with all tests involving Zuba City.

The advantage of this system is that it's dirt simple and after the first few d6, adding more doesn't net you a whole lot, so combo skills would probably be okay.

The Greatest Impediment to Creativity

... is a lack of boundaries.

Yup. I can brainstorm about the setting all day, but so far all I've really done is throw out ideas and hope that one or more of them really "clicks" for me. I haven't been getting any feedback anymore, so I'm just talking to an audience of one.

And I'm tired and indecisive. I have practically everything that I need to write up a PDF version of Nuclear Beasts... but I still lack the things that I want.

I don't have a clear vision for the game anymore. I've playtested a couple of versions of the resolution system and I don't like them that much. Honestly, I wish I could find an existing game system that I really, really liked and use that but I haven't really got one.

Amber is completely inappropriate, as are other dice-light systems like Nobilis and Everway.

D20 sucks; I'd have to hack it up so completely before I'd be satisfied with it that it wouldn't bear any resemblance to the original. Talislanta's resolution system has some major flaws that I just don't like.

Savage Worlds is just too pulpish and my regular players hated it. Maybe I could find a way to fix the flaws... I don't know.

Ironclaw is good, but has its own quirks, and will never be as fast as a system where you just have to look up a number.

Call of Cthulhu is also good, and very simple, but... it lacks any of the fancy features that I was hoping my new system would incorporate. I've gone off percentile-based systems lately, anyway.

Breeds

Okay, what Breeds would I really want if the Beasts were designed as a weapon? Start with the Low Beasts and assume that High Beast versions were created later.

Huge, mostly lone hunters, like panthers and tigers.
Well-coordinated pack hunters like wolves.
Creatures that can survive on carrion like hyenas.
Inoffensive support critters like mice.
Flying scouts like vultures.
Enormously strong beasts of burden like oxen or elephants.
Skilled swimmers like otters.
Skilled and fast climbers like squirrels.

Stats & Skills

Well, the original idea was to have a few stats and a bunch of skills and to always pair them up. I was going to limit the stats to a single die so that unskilled attempts were always risky (rolling too low results in a botch).

I want the ability to apply multiple skills to the same task. I want folks to be able to take, say, a Stealth skill and then include their Zuba City skill if they're trying to sneak around in Zuba City. Including multiple stats is less important to me.

For a really simple system, I could drop the difference between stats and skills and just make everything a skill. But I'm not sure how desirable that is.

If stats were just flat modifiers, like D20 or Silhouette, it would reduce the number of dice being rolled, but I'm not sure I want that. And it would mean that a really high stat had no effect on the likelihood of rolling a Botch.

I was leaning towards having every Trait have a cost-per-level associated with it. A stat was x16, a broad & important skill was x4, a broad or important skill was x2 and a skill that was neither broad nor important was x1. But part of me thinks that will be too much detail to keep track of. Perhaps a specialization system would be better?

I could also broaden the Traits to the point where skills and stats were basically the same thing, like in my I.D.K. system.

Here's the catch about a make-your-own-skills system. You don't want too many skills on your sheet, or you'll never remember what you called the special ones.

Basics Revised

All Traits are rated as pools of dice. A new Trait starts at a d4, then can be increased to d6, d8, d10 and finally d12. If you increase a d12 Trait, you get a second die which starts at d4. Further increases will bump that die up normally.

When you are called upon to make a test, you'll roll at least one Trait and take the highest number rolled as your result. If you manage to roll more than one twelve, you get a bonus of +2 for every additional twelve.

Example: You roll 4d12 and a d8 and get 3, 12, 12, 9, and 4. Your total is 14 because you rolled two twelves.

Note that once you get beyond a rating of d12, your average result climbs very slowly. Each additional die added provides less and less benefit. While it's possible to get multiple twelves and thus get a result higher than twelve, this is so rare that you can't depend on it.

This diminishing returns result means that we can increase a Trait at a linear cost, while the benefit that you see from it gets smaller and smaller.

When you combine multiple Traits, there isn't as much benefit at you'd think. Rolling 4d12 isn't twice as good as rolling 2d12. While it's more likely to give you a good result, it's not an overpowering advantage.

Stat/Skill Combinations

One thing that I really like about the Ironclaw system is the whole, "you can merge various skills & stats at will" bit. That's hard to do in most systems.

In most games, the best you can do is to say that you can arbitrarily mix and match one stat and one skill.

In many, like D20 and Savage Worlds, you can't even really do that- each skill depends upon a particular stat and that's that.

So even if I did drop the Ironclaw-ish resolution system, I would want to be able to mix and match easily without major balance issues.

That requires a few things:

• Adding an additional rating to the mix should increase the spread of results, but not alter the range significantly.
• It should be easy to figure out what you need to roll (this is a major weakness of Ironclaw to some folks... they can't remember what dice to use without looking them up).
• For maximum flexibility, stats and skills should be rated the same way so that they can be used interchangably.

Some possible approaches:

• The White Wolf system: every stat and skill is just rated as Xd10. You can merge any pair and just roll that many d10. Count how many of them rolled 7+.Can't merge 3+ things without seriously altering the range of results.
• The Ironclaw system: every stat and skill is rated as a pool of dice. Mix and match at will; roll all of the dice and take the highest number rolled. Can be a pain to assemble all of these pools of dice since they can be quite complicated. High stats can be overpowered since stats like Mind and Speed apply to a ton of different skills.
• The Silhouette system: stats are base zero and adjust skill results. Skills are rated as Xd6. You match up a stat to a skill and roll Xd6 and take the highest, then add the appropriate stat. Can't mix multiple stats easily; high stats can be overpowered.
• The Whispering Vault system: stats are rated as Xd6, skills are flat modifiers. When you roll, you take the highest value rolled (or sum up matching numbers, but I'd probably drop that). Can't merge multiple skills without unbalancing stuff.
• The Savage Worlds system: stats and skills are all represented by one die and are never combined. Instead, you get a bonus d6 on all rolls and you take the highest number rolled as your result. No actual mix-and-matching, but if we replace that d6 with another rating, it could work.
• The Children of the Sun system: stats are rated as pools of identical dice (d4, 4d6, 2d12, whatever) while skills are flat modifiers. Roll the dice and take the highest.We could reasonably add different stats together, but not skills.

Monsters! Monsters! Monsters!

Today I'm seriously thinking about making the game setting wilder. Add more unexplained weirdness. More monsters. Fewer Breeds. More conflict.

Y'see, one sort-of problem with the basic Nuclear Beasts setting is that it isn't necessarily fun. Even games like Fallout had unexplained weirdness mixed in and mutant horrors that didn't necessarily make sense. In my current setting, the major sources of danger are killer robots and evil people. That's pretty much it. The monsters are few and far between.

One alternate possibility is to make the setting more twisted and allow for lots of weird, alien lifeforms. They might even be alien lifeforms, unleashed into the shattered ecosystem to remake it.

Let's say that I were going to use the Gamma World system for this game. I'd stat out a handful of Low Beast Breeds as potential PC races and give them appropriate abilities. Then they'd fight hideous and twisted monstrosities in the wastes. The Beast cities could still exist, but they'd be more isolated and clannish. The Verde might even be a protected region, where there is some sort of working defense system that keeps most of the monsters out.

I originally wanted to do a hard-SF setting with no powers and no weirdness. But, honestly, would I ever run a campaign in such a world? Have I ever had interest in running a game in such a world? Ever?

I think the answer is "not really". I've always preferred settings that added weird elements and then had the rest of the setting adjust to it realistically. A mix of realism and fantasy. A game that allows you to justify the occasional mutant monster or psychic entity while not descending into utter silliness.

This is a totally different approach from what I've been trying. The novelty is causing ideas to spring up... I may keep some of them even if I don't go with this direction.

• The "safe" zones like the Verde and the Southern Kingdoms are protected by Sentinels... they patrol the edges and kill both monsters and Beasts who approach them too carelessly.
• High Beasts wearing ID cards on cords around their necks as amulets. The Sentinels don't kill creatures with IDs or those that seem to be under their protection. The struggle to find new IDs in the ruins is one of the biggest motivations of the scavengers. The Verde always needs more.
• Hideous mutants coming from the south. Twisted, hairless things with rubbery skin, fungal-looking body growths and no visible sensory organs. Are they the products of some alien ecology unleashed on earth? The end-product of a genetic engineering project gone horribly awry? Let your GM figure it out.
• Caretakers are often unaware of their own nature. They have cybernetic implants that influence their thoughts, record their experiences, and ensure their loyalty. There's an A.I. that is slowly trying to take over the world using these enslaved creatures.
• The A.I.s have been at war for a long time. Some of them manufacture killer robots. Others genetically engineer monsters. At least one of them enslaves existing creatures by implanting cybernetic controllers into them. The Beasts were originally intended to be such a weapon, but broke free.
• Large portions of the ecosystem have become strange. Beasts who range too far from the protected zones will find themselves worrying about whether or not these weird pods and mushroom-thingies are edible or dangerous. The Scavenger gift becomes really useful.
• If the Beasts were intended as weapons, there will be a limited set with a range of abilities that match what they were expected to do. Wolf and Lion infantry. Otter water-scouts. Squirrel forest-scouts. Humanoid Bears, Elephants and Rhinos as shock troops. Harpy (Vulture) air-scouts. Burrowing Mouse engineers. Swift Horse messengers. Minor Breeds could still exist, of course, but it might take some tweaking to justify that.
• This is a very different approach. There wouldn't be that many Low Beasts. We might even get rid of the distinction in some cases (e.g.- Squirrels, Raccoons and Mice may look more like Low Beasts than High, but their hands have been altered to give them opposable thumbs). There might be a third category, or we could go back to just one sort and remove the High/Low divide.

Rough Draft?

I'm thinking that at some point very soon I should sit down and write up a rough draft of the rules using some of my new ideas. See how it all fits together.

Then I could do a few mini-playtests, making up a minimal character and trying some tests to see how it works in practice (especially the damage system).

Chi Attack

One way to allow Low Beasts to keep up with High might be to introduce a few Atavist-like powers that are more potent or more useful for them.

For example, if there was a Tearing-like power that let you somehow augment your natural weapons and barehanded attacks, it would be a lot more useful for Low Beasts than for High.

I'm not sure what I would call it, of course. "Entropic Attack"? "Rending?" While Rending is a bit too close to Tearing for my taste, it does have about the right sound to it. You could include your Rending dice with damage and once in awhile, at the some cost or additional Risk, you could boost your natural weapons to the point that they might be able to blow through metal armor and shred steel.

Oh, and the Focus power should give an extra +1 or so if you use it to boost a skill that your Breed is especially good at.

Good-bye Race/Instinct Trait?

Do I really want an Instinct trait? Let me look at the pros and cons of having a trait full of dice vs a flat bonus.

• Pro: you can increase all of the skills that your race is good at simultaneously, at a slight price discount.
• Con: Low Beasts starting with a higher Race trait isn't that amazing of a benefit, since 20 XP or so can duplicate the effects.
• Pro: you can apply it to whatever tasks you want without increasing the maximum result.

Maybe it would be better to just make Instinct another stat (like Ironclaw does) and give Low Beasts a flat +1 or +2 to it?

Alternately, we could dump it entirely and say that High Beasts get a +1 on tasks that their race is good at and Low Beasts get a +2. For a bigger differential, it could even be +2/+4. A +4 is a big bonus.

One downside of dumping it entirely is losing the ability to apply it to social checks... also, then you can't increase your instincts as well... there might be an Edge that grants an additional +1 or something, but that would be about it. On the other hand, I could rule that folks get a flat +1 or +2 to social checks with other members of their species, but that doesn't get around the botch rules for unskilled attempts... unless a successful roll is a success even if it would normally be a botch. Hm.

Risk of Survival Tests?

Could you use the Risk mechanic to represent the chance of dying or otherwise being seriously hurt when you make a Survival Test? Perhaps the number of wounds that you have is the Risk of your Survival Test? Of course, then you would eventually get to the level where death was certain, once you had more wounds than the maximum that you could roll on the test.

Luck as a Psychic Power

Okay, the Luck power.

When you want to reroll a test during a game, you can roll your Luck power. On anything other than a Botch, you get a reroll.

The Risk of using this power starts at 1. Each time you use it during a session, though, the Risk goes up by 1. So your first reroll attempt only fails on a 1. Your second fails on a 1 or 2. Your third fails on a 1-3.

Worse, when it does botch, you end up making things worse. Something bad happens, or you apply an additional -2 penalty to whatever you were doing, or your power goes away for the rest of the session, or whatever. It might take playtesting to see how overpowered this is, but the increasing Risk should ensure that you can't get more than 12 rerolls per session, no matter how powerful you are.

If that wasn't potent enough, we could make it to where your Luck dice roll replaces whatever you just rolled, if it was better. If you rolled a botch, you take whichever result was worse. Botches don't increase the Risk, but once you get high enough, you'd be better off not using Luck at all.

If I do this, I'll probably dump the Luck stat, perhaps just replacing it with the equivalent of an Arbitrary Justice roll... just roll a d12. Luck, of course, could be used to reroll Arbitrary Justice rolls, too.

Should the Risk really be based on a per-session thing? Or perhaps it should go away at a rate of 1 per hour or day? Dunno. Rerolls is one of those things that might actually justify a per-session rule... it's unrealistic and can lead to metagame thinking ("Let's put off going there until next session... I want my Luck to be fully charged before we do."). On the other hand, not doing it that way means that you get screwed if your game sessions all occupy only a tiny amount of time, and you really benefit if your encounters are separated by days of travel.

Ooo! One more option. Botching causes something bad to happen to you, but afterwards it actually reduces the current Risk (to a minimum of 1). There would definitely have to be a serious downside to the botches, then, just so that folks don't call for rerolls on minor crap in order to recharge.

Hm... Risk drops at the rate of 1 point per day, or by 1 point immediately after you use Luck and botch on something the GM considers important.

Radical Changes?

I've been toying with some fairly radical system/setting ideas lately. I'm not sure if I'll do anything with them, but there you go.

• Much more blatant magi-psi stuff. I don't want Nuclear Beasts to end up like A.M.R.S. did... a system/setting that I'd write and like, but not the sort that I'd ever run. I've concluded that I like having just enough magic or other weirdness in the setting to justify adding in rare and unique special encounters.
• More mysteries in the setting history. For example, I'm thinking that right before the Last War, the United States had just made some sort of major breakthrough... something that would change the world so dramatically that her rivals decided that war was preferable to letting it go forward. No one knows what it was, anymore. It may have been the discovery of psychic powers and the way to bring them out in ordinary people.
• A possible alternate way to balance High and Low Beasts is to say that High Beasts can't take Psychic Powers at all (or only at a crippled level) while every Low Beast PC starts with a free psychic power. I'd probably add a "luck" power that most people don't realize is magical at all, too. Most Low Beast NPCs would only have the potential for a power or just a d4 in one, but for PCs it would likely be one of their starting stats.

Robot Menagerie

A potential locale for the game is the "robot menagerie". Here, a mad A.I. has repopulated a nature park with robots designed to look at least vaguely like their animal ancestors. Thus, you have robot wolves, lions, etc., all crudely made but still quite dangerous if antagonized.

Power Stunts

An interesting idea is to set the psychic powers as requiring little or no effort, but they have a secondary function that requires a lot of effort and shuts the power off for hours.

For example, Empathy might allow you to sense emotions around you, but you could also direct it towards someone to probe their mental state deeply. Doing so is exhausting and shuts off your Empathy power for a certain number of hours.

Channelling gives you voices that can sometimes offer useful advice or answer questions. You can include your Channelling dice with various Brains rolls if the subject matter is appropriate. You can also allow the spirit to act through you and include the dice with other actions, but after a spirit possesses you like this, you'll lose access to your Channelling power for hours or days.

Sixth Sense normally gives you warnings about danger and occasionally lets you sense subtle details in your environment, like the presence of electrical current in an exposed cable. If you concentrate, you can... what? Probe something deeply? Go on automatic in combat, including your Sixth Sense with every combat roll? Dunno, but again, afterwards you lose it for awhile.

Projection lets you send a mental projection to a well known person or place, but bringing something back will cost you access to your Projection power for a long while. Actually, just regular Projection can probably only be done once in awhile, while bringing stuff back is actively dangerous.

If you use an "uber" power, roll your power rating to determine how long it's disabled. Circumstances may give you a bonus or penalty to this roll.
13+: no effect, you can use your power again immediately.
11-12: 3 rounds.
9-10: 5 minutes.
7-8: 1 hour.
5-6: 8 hours.
3-4: 1 day
1-2: 3 days
0: 1 week
<0: go 1 week, then roll again at the same penalty.

Hm. How about a more standard progression? Roll an unopposed test.

• Extra² (16+): no delay
• Extra (12-15): 3 rounds
• Crit (8-11): 5 minutes
• Success (4-7): 8 hours
• Failure (1-3): 1 day
• Critical Failure (less than 1 or Botch): 1 week, then roll again at the same penalty

The base Risk of using a given power will vary by power. Sixth Sense, which is often triggered by the environment, would probably be Risk 0. Projection, on the other hand, might be Risk 2 or even 3.

Locutions

There's another cute "power" in Avoirdupois that might be appropriate for a post-Apoc psychic power. Locutions is basically the power of having spirit guides that speak to you at times.

You can include your Locutions dice with any tasks that involve piety or white magic or spreading goodness and decency. They aren't very good with worldly things like names and current events, though.

They can also be called upon to guide a group of folks, which lets them include your Locutions dice with spell-resistance rolls for a short period. After that, though, the voices fall quiet for a long period.

I'm not sure what the Nuclear Beasts equivalent would be. Spirits of dead humans? Relatives? Or just mysterious voices? Mysterious voices might work best. Whenever you ask them about themselves, they shut up for a few hours to a few days, then come back, apparently having forgotten the question. It might be that they forget their own death and asking them questions that reminds them of it drives them away... or there could be some metaphysical reason why they can't answer.

Channeling: you hear at least one strange voice periodically. The stronger this ability, the more likely you are to hear multiple voices. These spirits make occasional comments on events in your life and can sometimes answer questions, but no one can hear them but you.

Once in awhile, when you really need them to, one of them can take over your body, using its skills and your flesh to perform some sort of task.

They generally can't answer questions about themselves or their nature. When asked such a question (e.g. "What's your name?"), they simply go silent for hours or days at a time. Once they return, they won't remember the question that upset them. A character who has possessed this ability for years will generally have come to understand what sort of things the spirits can talk about and what sort of things that they know, but it can be very confusing for someone who only recently manifested this power.

Skills vs Edges

I could see removing the "Literacy" skill and replacing it with a minor Edge. If you have the Literacy Edge, then you can roll Brains & Ancient Lore to make sense of ancient writings (or modern ones, if you can find them). This implies that it's difficult to make sense of ancient writings unless you have some idea what the words mean. After all, even if you can sound it out phonetically, if you have no idea what a car is, you won't understand "The car was fast."

In Savage Worlds they had specialized Knowledge skills like "Knowledge (Stonework)" but anything that was "Common Knowledge" just used a Smarts roll modified by your character background.

But since my system allows us to combine skills easily, I'm leaning towards an "Expert (Stonework)" skill. "Expert" is a little more general than Knowledge, and applies to almost anything done in that field... including making it, repairing it, and destroying it.

Mystic Skills

The Main Powers
Focus: throwing yourself into a desired sort of trance or mystical state. This includes such effects as concentrating all of your resources on a single task, entering suspended animation, or shadow-walking, where you enter a dream-like state and follow it where it leads you.

Projection: manifesting a physical presence somewhere else. The more you want to be able to do there, the harder it is. Bringing an object back is possible, but very dangerous.

Scrying: attempting to divine the past, present or future of a person, place or item. Since precognition is often useless in RPGs, here it's bundled in with post-cognition and a form of clairvoyance.

Sending: projecting a mental presence into someone else's mind. This can range from simple mental communication to emotional influence to an outright psychic attack.

Sixth Sense: sensing subtle dangers and other presences that normal people miss. You can roll it if you're actively sensing your area, but it's often triggered spontaneously by something in your environment.

Minor or "Mixed Blessing" powers:
Empathic Healing: the ability to bolster the minds or bodies of others by sharing their suffering. It generally works on contact, whether you want it to or not.

Empathy: the ability to sense the emotional states of those around you, just like you can feel heat or cold. Unfortunately, this can be very hard to deal with if nearby folks are in immense pain or emotional distress.

Ghostwalking: more than the limited and transistory visions of Scrying, a Ghostwalker can see into the past or spirit world as though it were a physical place. Unfortunately, this often produces terrifying visions of past events when you least expect it. The effect gets stronger the longer you remain in one area, so Ghostwalkers often travel far and wide... or simply go mad.

Illusions: a form of mass-Sending which allows you to make your own hallucinations visible to other people in the area. Unfortunately, you sometimes produce these shared hallucinations in your sleep, or when under stress.

Skill List

There are only 4 of the 6 stats that skills will commonly be based on, and I'd like 4-6 major skills per stat. That way, there's some cost savings involved in boosting your stat, but not a huge one. These skills will be very broad.

I'll list some in gray if I'm uncertain about them.

Speed-based skills:
Acrobatics: jumping, tumbling or swinging from things gracefully.
Athletics: running, swimming and climbing.
Melee: covers all forms of melee combat, including punches and kicks.
Stealth: sneaking around and hiding from view.
Thievery: picking locks, finding and disarming traps, pick-pocketing and general sleight of hand.
Wrestling: covers grappling combat, where you seize an opponent and then pin, crush or throw them.

Brains-based skills:
Ancient Lore: knowledge of the past, particularly the history of the Beasts.
Ancient Tech: knowing what ancient gadgets do and how to make them work.
Known World: knowledge of what the world is currently like, particularly the locations and customs of Beast settlements.
Literacy: knowing how to read and write and how to make sense of ancient signs and books.
Mystic Lore: knowledge of the spirit world and mystical powers.
Natural Lore: knowledge of plants and animals and the natural world in general, including the healing of injuries.

Perception-based skills:
Awareness:
Psychology:
Shooting:
Throwing:
Tracking:
Wilderness:

Charm-based skills:
Fellowship:
Gambling:
Leadership:
Performance:
Persuasion:
Trading:

Sadly, I don't think there's a good spot for Transyuggothian Metaphysics, and that's too bad.