Quote from: Daddy Warpig;737816Characters also have a Max Carry amount, which is twice their Casual Carry. They cannot lift or carry more than this amount without performing a Push.

Which brings us to Pushes. Next post.

Carry

This is a simplified version of the Carry chart, listing only Minimal human (5), Average human (10) and Maximum human (15). The full chart includes entries for the other Strength values. An Extended chart, suitable for non-humans or Supers, will be made at some point.

Strength of 5 has a 1 kg. Casual Carry and a 2 kg. Max Carry.

Strength of 10 has an 8 kg. Casual Carry and a 16 kg. Max Carry.

Strength of 15 has a 55 kg. Casual Carry and a 110 kg. Max Carry.

Is there a specific reason why the pattern goes from 1 kg to 8 kg, and then to 55 kg?

If adding +5 points results in a X8 increase in the first case, I'm a bit surprised that increasing +5 to go from 10 to 15 doesn't result in the same increase (meaning going from 8 kg to 64 kg).




My only other concern with the rules quoted above is that, it seems to me, maybe the 16 kg max-carry/max-lift is a bit on the low side for an average person's max lift.

Once upon a time, I worked as a loader at UPS. Everybody who worked there in that capacity was required to be able to handle a box weighing up to 70 lbs (about 32 kg) on their own (boxes 70+ lbs had to be specially marked, and you were allowed to ask for help with those). It was my experience that an average person could comply with those rules and pretty much handle boxes up to 70 lbs (what many people couldn't handle was the volume of lifting they had to do, what with lifting box, after box, after box).

However, if I understand your rules correctly (although it is possible that I do not have a correct understanding), an average person with a 16 kg max carry/max lift would have to get a 2 SR (ST 6) - "Win a State Title" level roll in order to push enough to increase by +100% and lift that 32 kg.

Maybe if max lift was based on 2X max carry, that would fix things. That way an average person's casual carry would be 8 kg, max carry 16 kg, and their max lift would be 32 kg.

Quote from: warp9;739315Is there a specific reason why the pattern goes from 1 kg to 8 kg, and then to 55 kg?

(Simple questions, lengthy answers, I'll split them up for the sake of clarity. Also length.)

There's an implicit logarithmic function behind the real-world measures. (I mentioned this in one of the first few posts, but it hasn't obviously affected the mechanics since then.) The Strength table doesn't exactly follow the rigid math of the formula, but then it doesn't have to as the function is implicit.

The formula for this was derived from <ahem> the open source gaming D6 Fantasy Spell Measures chart (pg. 87, D6 Fantasy), adjusted for higher Attributes in ∞ Infinity. In a staggering coincidence, one that still leaves my mind reeling, the D6 Fantasy chart is exactly the same as the Torg Values and Measures chart. <ahem> This allows me to write my own totally original game (totally), yet remain backwards compatible with pre-existing Torg material.

∞ Infinity, in effect, becomes a neo-clone of the old system. Essentially, just increase Attributes by 2, and the DV of guns and other static (non-Attribute-based) weapons and equipment by 2 and everything's compatible.

EDIT: The implicit formula is used in calculating, for example, the damage of weapons and explosives, the protection granted by armor, the Toughness of inanimate objects, and so on. It's implicit, because it's too rigid to match humanity.

Were I to follow it exactly, the Attribute scale of humans would be 7-10-12 or 7-10-14, which wouldn't suit anybody. So I hide it away from plain sight and use it as a basis to work from. It's more of a guideline than a rule, really.

Quote from: warp9;739315If adding +5 points results in a X8 increase in the first case, I'm a bit surprised that increasing +5 to go from 10 to 15 doesn't result in the same increase

Reverse-engineering the Spell Measure chart, you'd find that every +5 points is a x10 increase.

15 = 1,000
20 = 10,000
25 = 100,000

But in ∞ Infinity the chart is implicit, not explicit. Were it explicit, I'd have to build pretty much the entire game around it, and I think that'd be too rigid and limiting.

As an implicit chart, I have room to fudge numbers up and down until they fit the Real World close enough (see next message) and also give numbers that are easily remembered. What you're seeing are adjusted numbers: it's a good fit for lowest, average, and highest, even if the numbers don't fit into an obvious formula. (64 would be insanely high for a Carry, see next message.)

Quote from: warp9;739315My only other concern with the rules quoted above is that, it seems to me, maybe the 16 kg max-carry/max-lift is a bit on the low side for an average person's max lift.

(2nd response.)

I understand your concern: if I claim it's a real-world match, it actually needs to match the Real World. I completely agree, and I do need to renorm the chart against real world values.

(Which is why I didn't post the full Carry chart. The last time I checked was back in 2011, and I need to make sure my notes are still current.)

Because I didn't post the full Carry chart, this question arose:

Quote from: warp9;739315It was my experience that an average person could … pretty much handle boxes up to 70 lbs

Your reading of the rules is correct. There's just one piece missing, the full (preliminary) Carry chart:

Str = Max Carry
11 = 24 kg / 52 lbs
12 = 40 kg / 88 lbs
13 = 60 kg / 132 lbs
14 = 80 kg / 176 lbs
15 = 110 kg / 242 lbs

(Casual Carry is 1/2 this.)

Strength 11, BTW, is the best fit for your UPS experience. (Coincidentally, I was also once a UPS employee. I worked in Smalls. Small world! )

A character with a Strength of 11/+3 and 1 Skill Point in Athletics (Lifting) has a Skill of 4. The base CR for a Push is 0, which means they don't even have to roll (being Skilled).

Their assumed effort is 0 SR, which is +50% increase (with +1 Shock). +50% means they can lift 32 kg, which is 79 lbs.

And Strength 11 is... Average. (Average Attribute range being 9-11.)

So, if we assume most UPS employees are on the higher end of the Average Strength range, and have at least 1 point in Athletics (Lifting) (both assumptions I am very comfortable making), then the rules do duplicate your experience.

(Which, I point out, you couldn't know, not having access to the full Carry chart.)

I should also point out that this is a job, and not something happening in-game during a running gun battle, so we'd almost never check for outcomes anyway. It'd only happen if a specific work shift was somehow important to the game, like a visiting manager might see you or you're on the verge of being fired and keeping your job is significant.

And even then, you can just assume 0 SR, because it's CR 0. Auto success.

Your point is correct, and well made. The rules need to match the real world. I need to renorm the chart, checking it against real world physical capacities.

These are the first draft of the Push rules, and I'll no doubt need to make adjustments. But, given the limitations of game mechanics, they work tolerably well.

(Though the competition chart does not. It works for racing, but not weightlifting. My mistake. I'll correct that at some point.)

Thanks for answering my questions and concerns.

Those answers do make sense.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;739381(Coincidentally, I was also once a UPS employee. I worked in Smalls. Small world! )

Yep. I guess it is sometimes a small world.

Quote from: warp9;739511Thanks for answering my questions and concerns.

Those answers do make sense.

Thanks for asking. The most helpful thing people can do is say "I'm not sure that's correct."

Though I'm glad the answers make sense, at least. It's better than them being complete gibberish.

Sad News / Happy News

We'll do the sad news first: my computer is dying, and will expire sometime in the near future. I'm not going to do much posting about ∞ Infinity until I can buy a new external HDD to backup everything (sometime next week).

Sometime after that — it could be as long as a month or as soon as next Friday – I'll probably be stopping altogether for a while, while it's in the shop. (There's a slight chance it won't blow up at all, but I'm not betting on it.) Just a head's up.

Happy News: Thanks to the kind graces of a local politician, I got to do some live fire research tonight. I got to shoot a 9mm Glock pistol, a .460 Smith and Wesson revolver, an AK-47 assault rifle (on single shot), an AR-15 assault rifle (civilian version of the M-16) on single shot, an Uzi 9mm on full auto (for 3 rounds, when it jammed), and best of all a .50 Barrett sniper rifle.

Boom!

Seriously, the sniper rifle kicks up your pants legs and lightly slaps your face from a few feet away. It was incredible.

So now I've had a little first hand experience with aiming, shooting, recoil, various sights, how loud guns are, what they smell like (cap guns), how hard it is for a beginner to hit a 6' target from 20 feet away, and all that. It was a few hours well spent.

Better than that, it was totally awesome! I'm grinning. Like a kid. I've got the brass from a .50 round I shot on my table. It was awesome.

To top it all off, I — quite unexpectedly — got to meet my new favorite writer, New York Times Bestselling author Larry Correia (Monster Hunter International). He's extremely knowledgeable about firearms, and kindly answered a few questions about shooting (such as what it's like to target shoot a sniper rifle from a helicopter in flight). My only regret is I didn't have a book for him to autograph. (Not that I could have. I bought all his books in ePub, so what, was he gonna autograph my smartphone?)

The other guys, who brought the really cool guns and let us shoot them, answered some questions, as well. (How do you shoot when your hands are shaking? Everyone's hands shake. You have to learn to pull the trigger when the sights are in the right position.) Good stuff. Very good stuff.

Best night of research ever.

Wish me luck, and I'll get back to posting ∞ Infinity stuff ASAP!

Back from my brush with computing oblivion. Moving forward with combat.

Combat: Mechanics and the Meaning Thereof
Combat, pt. 1

The combat mechanic is simple and straightforward:

The attacker rolls a Bonus and adds it to their Attack Skill. If this total equals or exceeds the Defense Skill of their target, they hit.

The attacker then rolls another Bonus and adds it to their Damage Rating. This is compared to the target's Toughness, each Success Rating doing 1 Wound and 1 Shock, plus 1 point of additional Shock for any level of Success.

Example: Failure means no damage. 0 SR means 1 Shock. 3 SR means 3 Wounds and 4 Shock.

Those are the mechanics. But what do they represent, in real-world terms?

An Attack roll is a test of the relevant combat skill. Like a Skill Challenge, the character is attempting to accomplish a specific task, employing their knowledge and experience to do so. What this task is, varies with the type of weapon used: bare fists, sword, grenade, pistol, etc.

The firearms skill represents the ability to use a firearm to aim at a target (tracking with their movements, leading them, compensating for cover, concealment, windage, and so forth), shoot at them, and hit with one or more rounds. It also represents the training to identify common types of ammo and weapons, reload magazines, perform preventive maintenance, identify common problems and fix them (such as clearing jams), draw the weapon with expediency, and otherwise prepare their mind, body, and materiel to shoot.

In combat, the specific task at hand is attacking a target in the most efficient, effective way. For firearms, unless the player specifies otherwise, this is a shot at the target's center, their torso. This is the only consistently reliable target, shots at extremities (feet, hands), limbs (arms and legs), and the head are very difficult. In live-fire conditions even skilled shooters usually miss. Players can declare an attack against one of those hard-to-hit areas, a "Called Shot", but otherwise the character is shooting at the center of the target's torso. (Or at whatever body part is currently exposed.)

Opposing the firearms skill is the dodge skill. Which, despite its name, is not about dodging bullets. The dodge skill is the knowledge of cover, concealment, and movement, and how to maximize all three: how to keep your head down, knowing where foliage or smoke is thickest and will obscure the shooter's sight the most, knowing how to jink or juke when running. By doing one or more of these things, they make it more difficult for a shooter to draw a bead. A person in the open, who isn't running, doesn't get the benefit of dodge.

The Attack roll is all about skill, and it determines the outcome of this one specific attempt to attack a target (or targets). In contrast, the Damage roll is all about the physical characteristics of the weapon and random chance.

Swords are often swung, and like swinging a bat, people make stronger or weaker blows. Different areas of the body are more or less vulnerable to attack — sometimes a couple of inches is all that separates a lethal blow from an insignificant graze — and attacks hit different areas, all at random. Combat is dynamic, and the exact motions of the defender can affect both hit location and the effective force of a strike or bullet. Then there's the thousands of tiny variables, like the effect of safety glass on a bullet passing through (which can affect its angle and speed).

The Damage roll encompasses all of these elements, and more. It abstracts them into one roll, which determines how much damage this one specific attack did.

The Attack roll is all about skill, and unless you aim for a specific location, a more vulnerable location, it doesn't affect damage. The Damage roll is all about chance, about the many non-skill variables and events that can increase or decrease the basic damage of a weapon.

This is the core combat mechanic: roll to hit, roll for damage. The rest of the combat system is built off the assumptions and mechanics above (with variations, where necessary).

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;741684In live-fire conditions even skilled shooters usually miss. .

I wanted to highlight this, because it's something that I feel most game deisgners don't account for.  At least in the context of firearms.  When I was first qualifying, I remember my drill sgt telling us, "Just because you qualified as expert, doesn't mean anything because in combat, your actually one qualification worse."  I think in games, people tend to assume skill = skill regardless of the environment, when in reality, skill is dropped significantly when shit gets real.

In my modern games, I have a trait called "coolness".  It allows the PC to be able to attack with his or her normal % when under fire.  Otherwise they take a penalty.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;741778I think in games, people tend to assume skill = skill regardless of the environment, when in reality, skill is dropped significantly when shit gets real.

This has been very much on my mind, but I haven't found a good way to incorporate it yet. I'm still thinking it over.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;741778In my modern games, I have a trait called "coolness".  It allows the PC to be able to attack with his or her normal % when under fire.  Otherwise they take a penalty.

IIRC, Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. had a mechanic that implemented a similar concept.

Thanks for stopping by!

Making Mechanics Concrete
Combat, pt. 2

Yesterday's post presented some critical information: how four central mechanics — Attack rolls, Defense rolls, the firearms skill, and the dodge skill — are tied into the real world. By deliberate design, each mechanic is concretely related to everyday reality we can all understand.

The dodge skill means you've learned how to maximize the protection a wall can offer or how to zig zag across a clearing. When players and GMs know how the skill works, it links the game mechanic with real-world actions and experiences.

Why is this so important? Because tying mechanics into concrete, real-world actions and experiences helps the GM describe the effects mechanics have on play. It also helps the table — both players and GMs — understand what's happening in-game, even when the actions aren't being explicitly described.

Player: "I run for the back of the truck. My dodge is 8."

GM: "Bullets zip around you, but you make it in before the driver pulls away."

The GM didn't include a lot of details about what happened — which is a good thing — but because the player and the GM both know what dodge entails (zig zagging, running with a will, keeping your head down), they know what was going on anyway. Their imaginations can fill in the details.

Defining mechanics in terms of specific, concrete actions and experiences helps the game world come alive in play. If you've experienced that which is being described, it helps you tap into those experiences. If you haven't, it gives you an idea of what it might be like to experience them. This makes the gameworld feel more visceral and seem more real.

Vividness aids immersion, and tying mechanics to concrete actions and experiences aids vividness. This is a goal I've pursued throughout the rules — Skill Ratings, as a good example — and yesterday's post exemplified that.

Yesterday's post was also important because the specific and concrete details therein underlie the entire combat system. Any future posts will take them as assumptions.

P.S.: Winston, one of my "no-men" asked about dodge and running. The Rule: In order to gain the benefit of the dodge skill, you either have to be in 10% concealment or greater or you have to be running.

If either applies, the base CR to hit you is your dodge skill. If neither applies, the base CR to shoot you is 0 (as usual, modified by range and other circumstances).

In combat, running means Pushing your combat move at least +50% (SR 0). Unless you're Untrained in athletics you don't have to roll, as the CR is 0, but you will take 2 points of Shock from the Push each time you dash through an open area. On the upside, you do get to move 50% farther with one Move action.

(I'll talk more about Movement and Move Actions when I get to Initiative. Real Soon Now.)

Rounds, Actions, & Moves
Combat, pt. 3

Before I talk about the Initiative mechanic, there's three concepts I need to cover: Rounds, Actions, & Moves. But before I do even that, I need to make a note for GM's.

None of the rules below are unusual. They're not meant to be. They're meant to be straightforward and easy to understand and implement. But if the rules produce confusing or nonsensical results, ignore the rules. Your common sense is the final arbiter.

Back to the rules. As in most games, combat time is measured in rounds. Each round is roughly 10 seconds long, but it can be longer or shorter depending on circumstances.

During each round, each character capable of acting gets one turn. (As in "It's your turn, what do you do?") Each turn, the character can take two Actions: one Simple Action and one Complex Action. Simple Actions are simple things: walk or run, pick something up, aim or reload, draw a weapon, basically anything that doesn't require rolling the dice.

Complex Actions are nearly anything that requires a dice roll, like Skill Challenges or Combat Challenges. Pick a lock? Complex Action. Shoot a gun? Complex Action. (Even Actions that would require a dice roll, but which we overlook, like CR 0 Challenges, count as Complex Actions.)

(There is one exception. Pushes, where you run faster or lift more, are part of the Move or Lift; you Move and Push at the same time, as one single Simple Action.)

You can forgo a Complex Action to take two Simple Actions, allowing you to (for example) Move twice, or Move and draw a weapon, or whatever. You can't do the opposite. You can only perform two Simple Actions a turn, or one Simple Action and one Complex Action.

You cannot delay either Action until later, you have to take both at the same time. You can delay an entire turn until later in the round. (More about that next message.)

Simple and Complex Actions are treated as if they happen immediately. The character's turn comes up, they take their Actions, the Actions take effect, the next character gets their turn. The major exception is a Continuing Action.

Let's say it takes 30 seconds to pick a lock. That's three combat rounds, and the character is picking the lock the entire time. A Continuing Action means the character can't do anything else until it's over (unless he stops, leaving the task uncompleted). This also means he can be interrupted by people who take their turns in the meantime. (Most of the time stopping or being interrupted means you have to begin the task again. GM's can rule otherwise.)

A Move is a Simple Action. A single Move Action is up to 4 meters. (If you're using a hex or grid map, the assumed scale is 2m per square or hex.) If you Move both Actions (a Double Move), you can move up to 8m.

If you choose to, you can move the entire round — as a Continuing Action — and move up to 16m. This is called a Full Move.

Being Incapacitated means you can only take a 1/2 move. This halves the preceding Move distances. 4m for a Double Move, for example, or 8m for a Full Move.

You can Push your Move by either +50% or x2 (with an athletics total), with the obvious effects. A single Move, Pushed to x2, is 8m. A Full Move, Pushed by +50%, is 24m.

Running, for the purposes of the dodge skill, is +50% Push to those three movement rates. You don't have to move the entire distance (hence "up to") but in order to run, you do need to Push and take the Shock.

The next post is going to be about Extra Actions, turn order and Factions, who gets a turn and when do they get it.

Turn Order and The Initiative
Combat, pt. 4

In any given combat, there are at least two sides. (Maybe more, but no less. Pretty much by definition.) The Initiative system determines which side — called "factions" — goes first, and in what order each character takes their turns. Here's the central rule of Initiative, to understand any of it you must understand this:

In any given round, either 1) only one faction has the Initiative or 2) no faction does.

Only one faction can have the Initiative during any one round. If no faction has the Initiative, all characters act in descending order of Dexterity, each character taking one turn (see previous post for turn rules). Characters with the same Dexterity act simultaneously — their turns happen at the same time.

Characters can voluntarily delay their turn, acting later in the round. They can choose to act before, after, or at the same time as any other character later than them in the turn order. This imposes no penalty on their actions, nor does it affect later rounds. They cannot delay their turn into the next round.

Example: Tiana and Jack are two adventurers (as allies, they count as part of the same faction), fighting a man-eating ogre called Firth (the other faction). Tiana has a Dexterity of 12, and Firth and Jack Dexterities of 10. Since no faction has the Initiative, all characters act in order of highest to lowest Dexterity.

Tiana would normally act first, as her Dexterity is the highest, but she delays until after Jack's action. Jack and Firth act at the same time. Firth charges towards Jack. As he runs at Jack, the slim adventurer throws a net, entangling him. Firth halts and tries to tear the net off, but fails. Jack backpedals out of the way of the ogre's flailings. Tiana steps in and jabs Firth with a poisoned spear. She hits, and the ogre is bleeding (and hopefully poisoned).

If one faction does have the Initiative, all members of that faction get an Extra Turn. This Extra Turn is exactly the same as a regular turn (two Actions, etc.) except it occurs before the regular turn order: all members of the faction with the Initiative can take their Extra Turn before any members of any other faction can act in the round. As usual, the Extra Turns occur in descending order of Dexterity, and characters can delay their turn (using the rules above).

After the Extra Turn, all characters get their regular turns, which occur in the regular turn order — descending order of Dexterity. This includes the faction that has the Initiative.

This Extra Turn is the primary benefit of having the Initiative. It gives the faction with Initiative a chance to shape the battle, before regular turns begin. They can position themselves for attacks or defense, soften up their enemies with taunts or intimidates, begin casting spells, or anything else they choose.

All else being equal, the faction with Initiative will almost always win the combat. Seizing the Initiative is of critical importance, and I'll talk about those rules next post. (As well as the Extra Action rules.)

Simultaneous Turns / Simultaneous Actions: When two characters act simultaneously, it's usually easier to resolve the Actions of one character first (rolling dice, etc.), then resolve the Actions of the other. But technically speaking, as each turn has two Actions, their first Actions happen at the same time, then their second Actions. There may be instances where this distinction is important.

In the example above, it was. Firth did a Move, Pushing his movement, intending to attack Jack. Jack threw the net as Firth was charging, entangling the ogre. (These are their first Actions.) Entangled in the net, the Ogre couldn't attack Jack, so tried to break free. At the same time as Firth struggled to get free, Jack stepped out of the way, a Move action. (Second Actions.)

Resolving the ogre's turn first would mean Jack wouldn't have the chance to entrap the ogre, and resolving Jack's turn first would mean the ogre would get two chances to break the net. The GM decided to take it Action-by-Action, just to be fair.

Again, the GM can ignore this subtlety most of the time. Occasionally it may matter, and if it does use the procedure here.

Seizing the Initiative
Combat, pt. 5

Let's recap. These are the fundamental rules of Initiative:

1) Each character gets 1 turn a round, in descending order of Dexterity.*

2) All turns allow 2 Actions: a Simple Action and a Rolled Action, or two Simple Actions.

3) In each round, either 1 faction has the Initiative or no faction does.

4) The faction with the Initiative gets one Extra Turn a round before anyone else acts.

There are more details, but so long as you know those four rules, you understand most of the Initiative system. There's one question left unanswered: How does a faction seize the Initiative?

Simple. They take the battle to their enemy. Each time they do one of the following three things in a round, they gain 1 Initiative point:

1) Damage: A successful attack on an enemy (0 SR or greater). This includes anything that deals damage: weapons, spells, miracles, etc.

2) Distract: A successful Combat Interaction Challenge against an enemy (0 SR or greater). Any CI skill is valid (maneuver, overbear, etc.)

3) Defeat: Making an enemy combatant break.

The GM keeps track of Initiative points in a combat round. At the end of the round, the faction with the highest point total seizes Initiative for the next round. (If the two highest factions are tied, no one seizes Initiative.)

Next round, all points reset. Every faction starts from zero and tries to win as many Initiative points as they can.

In these rules, the Initiative is not rolled randomly, nor is it determined by any Attributes or Characteristics of a character. Instead, it's something a faction has to fight to achieve. They have to attack the enemy, hurt the enemy, pursue and harry the enemy without respite to seize the Initiative.

The faction who pursues the enemy most vigorously, who is the most aggressive and the most effective in prosecuting the battle, will seize the Initiative and keep it. All else being equal, they will win.

New Initiative Bonus and The Extra Actions Rule
Combat, pt. 6

Initiative, in this system, isn't something given out at random or as a result of a high Attribute or skill. It must be won, one round at a time. It can only be seized by taking the battle to the enemy, attacking them, hurting them, and maintaining the assault each and every round until they're defeated.

Surprisingly enough, none of the commenters have objected to the concept. All the objections raised (so far) were to the bonus granted for seizing the Initiative (an Extra Turn for that faction), which was considered too powerful. After some discussion, I've decided to moderate that bonus.

The new rule: The faction that has Initiative gets to take their turns first, before any other faction. (These occur in descending order of Dexterity, as usual.) In addition, each member of the faction has a free Extra Action. They can use this Action as they see fit, at the same time as their turn or later in the round (if they delay, see pt. 4).

This is the Initiative rule I'll be taking to playtest. It has a smaller bonus than the last, instead of an entire turn, it's just one Action. More, it integrates cleanly with the Extra Actions rule. Speaking of which...

The Extra Actions Rule

Every character gets one turn a combat round. In that turn they get two Actions: either one Simple and one Rolled, or two Simple. They get an Extra Action for seizing the Initiative, but otherwise that's it. They do not get to take any other Actions in the round. Period.

Unless they buy them with Shock.

They can buy a single Extra Action by taking 1 point of Shock (2 if Encumbered). It can be used as a Simple or Rolled Action, can be taken at the same time as their turn or delayed until later in the round, and if delayed can even be taken in response to another character's action.

"I run across the clearing."
"I shoot."

Characters can only take a limited number of Extra Actions, equal to their Intellect bonus. A character with an Intellect bonus of +3 can only take 3 Extra Actions in one round. The Extra Action granted by the Initiative counts against this limit, so if they can only take 3, getting a free one means they can only buy two more.

(Why Intellect? Dexterity represents the quickness with which a character reacts to situations, hence its role in the turn order — the faster character goes first. Intellect, however, limits how many different things a character can react to during a 10-second round, which impacts the Actions they can take.)

That's the entire Extra Actions rule: characters can buy them with 1 Shock, up to their limit, they are regular Actions just like any other, and they can delay them or take them with their turn. It's a pretty simple rule, and the new bonus for seizing the Initiative fits right in.

There is one more quirk, which I'll get to tomorrow: rushing Extra Actions. (Plus, possibly a discussion of how Inherent Defense and Active Defense fit into the Action model.)

Template, Talents, and Trouble [pt. 1]

[After a quick break for vacation and minor surgery, let's get back at it, shall we?]

Character creation comes in three flavors: detailed, where people crunch the numbers all by themselves; quick-and-dirty, where they pick Attributes and skill values from pre-defined arrays; and, easiest of all, pre-generated characters where everything except certain skills are chosen already (including equipment and other mundanities).

Pre-gens ensure that character creation is basically effortless, a big plus for new players. They also illustrate the range of character types available in the setting. A quick flip through the pre-gens lets you know what character types are possible and well-suited for the campaign.

All characters, no matter how they're created, are built around a template: a title that illustrates the core concept of the character. Renegade Magus. Vengeful Hunter. Doubting Cleric.

This title, usually in the form of , tells you what the character is: warrior, noble, scientist, werewolf, alien, pulp super, etc. That's the part.

The part tells you something of his situation, personality, motivation, and so on. It tells you what is unique about this character, how this wizard is different from every other wizard.

A character's template is the simplest, clearest expression of their core concept. It is the seed crystal around which everything else about the character — Attributes, skills, and so forth — forms.

Even characters built from the ground up need one of these handy titles, before anything else is chosen. The player should choose what kind of character he wants (Magician, Secret Agent, Duelist) and a word or phrase that describes their situation, background, or personality (Driven, Disavowed, Cautious). They can mix and match these two as they see fit (within the limits of the campaign world). Choosing a template is the very first step in the character creation process.

Pre-gens have a template chosen for them (in fact, pre-gens are typically called templates). Players can modify the half of these, if they wish. Obsessed Parapsychologist, Disturbed Parapsychologist, and Discredited Parapsychologist all imply different truths about the character, different circumstances and different personalities. But all three are Parapsychologists, with the skills and gear that title implies.

Hunted Wildfang Werewolf, Reluctant Wushu Warrior, or Greedy Cyberlegger, the template lets you know exactly who they are. And that's important for both players and GM's.

The template is so critical that two other character elements are directly tied to it: Talents and Trouble. I'll talk more about both next post.