Identity Crisis Flow Sheet
Posted: Tue Nov 09, 2010 6:07 am
Name the PCs
In Identity Crisis, the PCs collectively form a "Tribe". This word translates a significantly broader Japanese concept that often means "gang," and indeed the PCs will generally but not exclusively operate as a criminal gang. The important point is that they depend on each other for sfaety from a hostile world.
Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
Birdman: Birdman is a disgraced Bushi of the Raven Clan. He is sneaky and has no obvious weapons and spends most of his time jump kicking people with razor feet. He is also a doctor capable of both combat first aid and researching plot-level health problems.
Hendrix: An anemic fellow with a sacred lute, his music paralyzes peasants and charms shinto spirits.
Rose: A scarred shadow mechanic, she can fix anything. Contributes to fights by dropping bombs and poisons from a personal glider.
Johnny: sexy foreign chick rides around on a giant tigerhawk, lancing or swording things as appropriate. She can also navigate the shadowlands.
Rei: Dour sorcerer who nukes buildings, drains swamps, and flies around stabbing fools.
Tsukiko: If the information exists, this lowborn Seeress can access it. If she has to snap a few necks from behind first, so be it.
Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
Party One: Johnny, Hendrix, Tsukiko
This party is focused on wilderness adventures. Tsukiko scries ahead and they fly around on Johnny's hawk. Hendrix neutralizes animal threats and is the trump card against big demons. Brigands get eaten or sneak attacked by tsukiko. If forced into an urban stealth adventure Hendrix can fast-talk or use contacts, Tsukiko can steal paydata or gather intel, and Johnny is... probably relegated to "create a distraction" or insurance against capture.
Party Two: Rose, Rei, Birdman
Focused on intrigue. They fly around on a clunky airbus doing B&Es. Rei demolishes obstacles, Rose disable security, and Birdman does stealthkills. They don't shine in social situations but can usually avoid them. In the woods, Birdman tanks big monsters while Rose takes them our with gadgets, and Rei mows down mobs. Or maybe Rose and Rei switch. Unclear.
Step Four: Outline an Adventure
The tribe finds themselves low on cash and supplies as they stagger into Raven lands. Staying at an inn that evening, they receive a messenger from the monastery: one of the surgeons wants a discrete favor from them. They meet up with her and are unnerved by her inhuman serenity. She explains that she is being stalked and wants you to look into it--quietly. She is obviously hiding something, and can potetnailly be pressured into giving up some spoilers.
They stake out the grounds and get to play a short stealth game or an awkward social scene to avoid working at cross-purposes with the monastery's guard. Eventually, shadow-altered beasts attack, lead by a possessed child. PCs can get as involved or uninvolved with the fight as they want, or focus on tracking/analysis.
Either by physical tracking or astral traces, they track the shadow creatures to the source, but it's a sacred building they can't enter. They can report this to the abbot if they want to piss off their sponsor. They can break in, stake out, or do whatever. Eventually they catch the bad guy doing his thing, probably in the middle of the night. He is a temple steward who was married to their employer before she took vows and had her emotions removed. His kung fu is strong, and their boss wants him taken out without killing him or causing a scene.
Eventually he's beaten, and there is maybe a disturbing confrontation between him and their employer. He pleads with her to acknowledge their bond, while she has him killed, exiled, or blackmailed.
Step Five: Write out a campaign
It turns out from reading his files that the demon he worked for claimed it could take him to an ancient holy site, which is where he was planning to run away with his kidnapped ex-wife. The PCs check it out by force or persuasion.
It turns out to be a half-functional pattern gate. There is a short dungeon crawl, after which they have a sporadic source of goods and services otherwide difficult to come by. They try to keep their new powerbased hidden while they hunt down some personal enemies and subtly drive off nearby Ox clan speculators. Eventually they declare themselves lords of the region and perhaps seek membership in a great clan, or not.
Advancement Arcs:
Birdman can pretty much just kick increasingly huge enemies so hard they go flying or catch fire. Meanwhile, his medical expertise has farther and farther reaching plot consequences.
Tsukiko can eventually open portals to strange hellscapes, see the future, and make combat illusions.
Rei can tear down and raise castles, mass produce consumer goods, and nuke armies.
Rose has a natural advancement track that begins with Refine Smoke Powder and ends with Construct Plot Device.
Hendrix: this guy eventually gets a spirit companion and a cult of followers. He probably picks up soft style martial arts as a second string schtick.
Johnny: Eventually rides a dragon and has a squad of apprentice hawkriders? I have trouble seeing the advancement on this one actually.
Step Six: Choose a Base System
Here's what I'm thinking:
I like both Focus and Line mechanics that Frank proposed, which we would call Yin and Yang and represent with white and black dice. I'm also interested in the 3d6-based CAN damage system.
Together that makes for 5 dice, which is the number of elements in Wu Xing. We have toggled feat-like abilities and scaling power levels, so my thought is to make the "core mechanic" for non-combat options a 5-die Shadowrun dice pool. You make players buy 1 black, white, yellow, green, and red die and count hits, with the added feature that you can add botch and crit effects at will by tracking individual dice.
(If the Fire die rolls 1, your prototype is unstable; if the water die hits, it has a longer duration, or whatever).
Character Creation would look something like:
1: Ask DM for Ashrama and Dharma. (Ashrama is the "tier" of abilities you have access to. Dharma is the level modifier to damage and resistances).
2: Choose varna (caste/class, unlocks "restricted" options down the road)
3: Choose Traits. These are boolean abilities which cover all noncombat applications. Each has an associated element.
4: Choose Talents. Often trait dependent, each talent is a "column" of winds of fate abilities.
5: Load Chakras: Each chakra is a column of "slots" in which one talent can be "set". You can re-set chakras frequently.
6: Record Chi: Your 5 resistances, or "chi", are each equal to Dharma plus a modifier. Find the element for which you have the most traits and talents. You get +2 resistance according to the generating cycle and -2 according to the overcoming cycle.
Done!
In Identity Crisis, the PCs collectively form a "Tribe". This word translates a significantly broader Japanese concept that often means "gang," and indeed the PCs will generally but not exclusively operate as a criminal gang. The important point is that they depend on each other for sfaety from a hostile world.
Step 2: Write up a Six Person Party
Birdman: Birdman is a disgraced Bushi of the Raven Clan. He is sneaky and has no obvious weapons and spends most of his time jump kicking people with razor feet. He is also a doctor capable of both combat first aid and researching plot-level health problems.
Hendrix: An anemic fellow with a sacred lute, his music paralyzes peasants and charms shinto spirits.
Rose: A scarred shadow mechanic, she can fix anything. Contributes to fights by dropping bombs and poisons from a personal glider.
Johnny: sexy foreign chick rides around on a giant tigerhawk, lancing or swording things as appropriate. She can also navigate the shadowlands.
Rei: Dour sorcerer who nukes buildings, drains swamps, and flies around stabbing fools.
Tsukiko: If the information exists, this lowborn Seeress can access it. If she has to snap a few necks from behind first, so be it.
Step 3: Write up a Three Person Party
Party One: Johnny, Hendrix, Tsukiko
This party is focused on wilderness adventures. Tsukiko scries ahead and they fly around on Johnny's hawk. Hendrix neutralizes animal threats and is the trump card against big demons. Brigands get eaten or sneak attacked by tsukiko. If forced into an urban stealth adventure Hendrix can fast-talk or use contacts, Tsukiko can steal paydata or gather intel, and Johnny is... probably relegated to "create a distraction" or insurance against capture.
Party Two: Rose, Rei, Birdman
Focused on intrigue. They fly around on a clunky airbus doing B&Es. Rei demolishes obstacles, Rose disable security, and Birdman does stealthkills. They don't shine in social situations but can usually avoid them. In the woods, Birdman tanks big monsters while Rose takes them our with gadgets, and Rei mows down mobs. Or maybe Rose and Rei switch. Unclear.
Step Four: Outline an Adventure
The tribe finds themselves low on cash and supplies as they stagger into Raven lands. Staying at an inn that evening, they receive a messenger from the monastery: one of the surgeons wants a discrete favor from them. They meet up with her and are unnerved by her inhuman serenity. She explains that she is being stalked and wants you to look into it--quietly. She is obviously hiding something, and can potetnailly be pressured into giving up some spoilers.
They stake out the grounds and get to play a short stealth game or an awkward social scene to avoid working at cross-purposes with the monastery's guard. Eventually, shadow-altered beasts attack, lead by a possessed child. PCs can get as involved or uninvolved with the fight as they want, or focus on tracking/analysis.
Either by physical tracking or astral traces, they track the shadow creatures to the source, but it's a sacred building they can't enter. They can report this to the abbot if they want to piss off their sponsor. They can break in, stake out, or do whatever. Eventually they catch the bad guy doing his thing, probably in the middle of the night. He is a temple steward who was married to their employer before she took vows and had her emotions removed. His kung fu is strong, and their boss wants him taken out without killing him or causing a scene.
Eventually he's beaten, and there is maybe a disturbing confrontation between him and their employer. He pleads with her to acknowledge their bond, while she has him killed, exiled, or blackmailed.
Step Five: Write out a campaign
It turns out from reading his files that the demon he worked for claimed it could take him to an ancient holy site, which is where he was planning to run away with his kidnapped ex-wife. The PCs check it out by force or persuasion.
It turns out to be a half-functional pattern gate. There is a short dungeon crawl, after which they have a sporadic source of goods and services otherwide difficult to come by. They try to keep their new powerbased hidden while they hunt down some personal enemies and subtly drive off nearby Ox clan speculators. Eventually they declare themselves lords of the region and perhaps seek membership in a great clan, or not.
Advancement Arcs:
Birdman can pretty much just kick increasingly huge enemies so hard they go flying or catch fire. Meanwhile, his medical expertise has farther and farther reaching plot consequences.
Tsukiko can eventually open portals to strange hellscapes, see the future, and make combat illusions.
Rei can tear down and raise castles, mass produce consumer goods, and nuke armies.
Rose has a natural advancement track that begins with Refine Smoke Powder and ends with Construct Plot Device.
Hendrix: this guy eventually gets a spirit companion and a cult of followers. He probably picks up soft style martial arts as a second string schtick.
Johnny: Eventually rides a dragon and has a squad of apprentice hawkriders? I have trouble seeing the advancement on this one actually.
Step Six: Choose a Base System
Here's what I'm thinking:
I like both Focus and Line mechanics that Frank proposed, which we would call Yin and Yang and represent with white and black dice. I'm also interested in the 3d6-based CAN damage system.
Together that makes for 5 dice, which is the number of elements in Wu Xing. We have toggled feat-like abilities and scaling power levels, so my thought is to make the "core mechanic" for non-combat options a 5-die Shadowrun dice pool. You make players buy 1 black, white, yellow, green, and red die and count hits, with the added feature that you can add botch and crit effects at will by tracking individual dice.
(If the Fire die rolls 1, your prototype is unstable; if the water die hits, it has a longer duration, or whatever).
Character Creation would look something like:
1: Ask DM for Ashrama and Dharma. (Ashrama is the "tier" of abilities you have access to. Dharma is the level modifier to damage and resistances).
2: Choose varna (caste/class, unlocks "restricted" options down the road)
3: Choose Traits. These are boolean abilities which cover all noncombat applications. Each has an associated element.
4: Choose Talents. Often trait dependent, each talent is a "column" of winds of fate abilities.
5: Load Chakras: Each chakra is a column of "slots" in which one talent can be "set". You can re-set chakras frequently.
6: Record Chi: Your 5 resistances, or "chi", are each equal to Dharma plus a modifier. Find the element for which you have the most traits and talents. You get +2 resistance according to the generating cycle and -2 according to the overcoming cycle.
Done!