Exploding Dice: I resisted it, but it looks like I’ll need it to help characters deal with long odds and can’t-hit scenarios. So if a hit die rolls an unmodified 10, roll another die and add it to the total.

“Kills:” Naturally, the final Kill can represent a nonlethal victory, such as subdual, a knockout a wrestling hold, etc. And no nonsense about declaring intent is necessary.

Mobs and Swarms: You can allow multiple hit dice to represent a bunch of similar creatures. Obviously.

Parrying: You can split some hit dice to parry, or even use all of your hit dice. Make an attack roll; instead of being penalized by armour, you’re penalized by the attacker’s weapon. Each “Kill” removes one Kill from the enemy’s attack. You can always hold dice back to do this, and can announce “parry!” right after the attack roll.

You must devote as many hit dice as the opponent possesses to the sum total of your attack and parry dice each round, or all of your hit dice if you don’t have as many hit dice as your enemy. That’s before any modifiers to dice.

Unarmed Grappling: Grappling ignores armour. Each “Kill” forces the opponent to remain entangled with the opponent for a round so that he can’t move, but inflicts no damage. If an opponent parries your grappling attempt they also inflict damage — 1 Kill per “Kill” of parrying. Optionally, you can shove an opponent 10 feet per “kill”" instead, but you immediately lose control of them next round.

Unarmed Striking: Unarmed striking is standard combat with a weapon modifier of 0, but can considered to be two weapon combat if the attacker chooses.

Unlimited Criticals: This isn’t very OD&D but it is very Chainmail to allow a weaker opponent to smack a stronger one with instant death. So attacks now inflict a number of Kills equal to each die divided by 10, rounded down (1 at 10, 2 at 20, 3 at 30, etc.).

Weapon Load and Shields: Some guys want two weapons. Some guys want shields. Some guys want a two-handed weapon. Some guys want one hand free. Let’s make each option interesting but not overwhelming.

• Two Handed Weapon: Two-handed weapons benefit from 150% of the character’s Strength bonus.
• Two Weapons: You may split dice to attack opponents that you would normally need to use your full hit dice against more than once and you earn a bonus hit die to one of these pools when you attempt multiple attacks, but your attacks suffer a -2 penalty because of lighter weapons or lack of coordination. You can always refuse the benefits to ignore the penalties.
• Weapon and Unarmed Hand: The standard. No adjustments, though you can treat your off hand as a weapon and act as if you have two weapons, above.
• Weapon and Shield: If you split dice to parry, add 1 die to your parry roll. The shield’s type can add up to +4 to your parry if you’re a fighter or cleric, but nothing if you’re a thief.

Weaklings: Some creatures are weaklings with ½ hit die. They suffer a Kill on a 5 or better, and roll 1d5 to attack, but their rolls explode on a 10 on the d10 die face (even though the roll’s value is 5). In a mob, 2 weaklings = 1 hit die.

Hit Dice: Every character has a certain number of d10s (I started with d6es but the modifiers are too big) but no hit points. Fighters get 1 per level, clerics and thieves get 2 per 3 levels and magic users get 1 per 2 levels.

Battle Points: Every class gets a pool of battle points to modify incoming attacks or their own strikes after the dice are rolled. At 1st level, start with 1d5 (half a d10) battle points modified by your Constitution modifier (minimum 1).

• Fighters get 1d2+Con adjustment per level (min 1). Fighters enjoy the special Con adjustment they get in AD&D.
• Magic users get 1d3+Con adjustment (min 1) for each level where they don’t get bonus hit dice. (I tried to find a d10 only way, but they all sucked. You can always divide d10 rolls by 3 and discard 10s instead).
• Other classes get 1d5+Con adjustment (min 1) for each level where they don’t get bonus hit dice.

Battle points compensate for dead levels and add a bit of resource management to the game. You recover 1d5 + Con modifier (min. 0 — you can fail to recover them) battle points at the end of each combat. Reroll your entire pool after a full night’s rest. You might get a second wind or lousy day to come no matter what you rolled at character creation.

Attribute Modifiers: Strength modifies melee attack rolls by -3 to +3. Dexterity modifies ranged attack rolls by -3 to +3, and opponents’ attack rolls by the same amount. Use boxed set D&D tables for reference. These modifiers apply to each die rolled.

Class Equipment Modifiers: Fighters impose up to +4 to each die when they roll to attack due to weapon load, and penalize attacks by up to -4 from armour.  Clerical wargear imposes up to +1 to attack, but -3 against attacks; thieves’ gear applies up to +3/-1. Magic users apply +2/0. Magic gear can add further bonuses.

In this context, equipment is a mixture of gear the character is trained to wear (fighters are comfortable in heavy armour) and the maximum potential a character can get out of a weapon or piece of armour (a magic user with a greatsword isn’t going to get more than a -2 bonus). Really though, this is inspired by Chainmail’s use of troop type to set “to hit” numbers.

Attacking: Apply bonuses and roll your hit dice. Your target number is 10, modified by bonuses and penalties to each die. You may also modify attacks with your battle points — again, adjustments apply to each die.

Every 10+ roll is a Kill — enough to slay a normal human. 20+ inflicts two Kills. Critical hits are there to provide a further inducement to spend battle points.

You may choose to make each Kill equal to a hit die and subtract them when a target suffers Kills, creating a death spiral, or you can track Kills separately. Each character gets 1 Kill per hit die.

Characters die at -1 Kills and defeat monsters when they knock them down to 0 Kills.

Multiple Attacks: You may split your hit dice to attack inferior opponents. You must devote at least as many of your hit dice to attacking an enemy as the enemy has hit dice, to a maximum of your own, current hit dice. That means a 10th level fighter can attack 10 1 hit die goblins, but needs all of his dice against one 12 hit die giant.

RPG E-Book Interface

This is probably a Flash application. You can resize, minimize or dismiss each pane in the interface above. The book screen is actually the second screen you’d get after opening up the game, after going to your library from the start screen (and seeing options to click through to campaign management, communities and play tools), though you’d be able to bypass that if you want.

I can visualize a lot of options, and a real danger in giving them near-equal standing that destroys the benefits of a minimalist interface. Funneling people to the most common functions without making it a total pain to go somewhere else is the challenge, and would require some experimentation to get right.

Let’s take it pane by pane:

Book Media Pane: Your book’s images appear here. They fade in when you hit an appropriate part of the text. Additional media plays here too. You can set images to appear in the text body instead, or link media to particular sections, so that clicking on them summons them to the media pane. If you want pure text, just dismiss the pane. Layout/design may configure the pane to automatically resize based on certain cues, to maintain its functionality while taking advantage of the aesthetics of traditional layout. You can also break out of the book completely to add media from your own library, that of the community, or any other mashable media object.

Book Text Pane: The game text goes here. You can select page by page layout, but the default is continuous scrolling, though not in the same sense as a big browser window. It may or may not have embedded media depending on the book and your preferences. The navigation pane makes it easily to find the content you want, but the text itself includes hyperlinks to other relevant sections, tutorials/FAQs, a as developer comments and community content (one touch brings up options and two goes to your default). You can also add your own comments in text regions to build in house rules.

Book Navigation Pane: The basic options here let you tab between text and gallery-style media navigation. In text navigation, the pane lists your current “page” (scrolling spot), chapter and heading, and lets you either navigate back and forth in each category, or pick from a pop up or drop down list. You can also perform a text-based search here. This sticks to the book by default but you can set it to search the entire game-as-service.

Tool and Community Tabs: Your tabs illustrate a major concept: Your book is never just your book, but one emphasis in the resource cloud. You really only need two tabs here because these can “rotate” through a list of options, including play tools like a dice roller, community forums and your campaign notes.

It occurred to me a while ago that those lifestyle shows really are one of the closest, non-nerd analogs to superheroics around. Thus, Fab Force: The RPG of Style!

What You Need

At least two Fab Force experts, one person to play the client and one for the judge. You need lifestyle magazines appropriate to each expert, magazines representing the client’s current unsatisfactory lifestyle, pencils, paper (optionally, some of this can be thick paper to mount collages) a manila envelope, scissors and glue. Lastly, you need a digital camera.

Setup

Fab Force is a TV show devoted to providing lifestyle makeovers to random dowdy people. Fab Force expert players should choose one area of expertise each. The client’s player picks a current goofy lifestyle as a a guy with no style — a guy in a D&D t-shirt with a combover, maybe, or somebody who never takes off his goddamn ballcap. The judge doesn’t come into play until the end of the game, but should choose a point of view. (The judge should be a casual player or even somebody who doesn’t care about your game, really. They just show up at the end.) The judge could be a spouse, a panel picked off the street, customers (if a business is involved, a la Restaurant Makeover, though I should emphasize that unlike that show, the experts should be able to succeed.

The experts and client grab magazines that represent their lifestyle fields (in the client’s case, his actual lifestyle). Now they can start.

Game Play

Lame Phase

The client creates his current lifestyle with a collage from his chosen magazines. Each element in the collage should represent something an expert can help him with. A cheeseburger represents a pedestrian approach to cuisine, for instance. The central collage should be a composite figure representing the client himself.

Bitchy Phase

Here, the client walks the experts through his life, his likes and dislikes and so on. This is where it’s time for the experts to tell him how lame he is. The client takes notes about the reasons why he’s lame. These need to be concrete observations, not mere insults. Each one earns the group (client and experts)a point — two points if it elicits genuine laughter — to a maximum of a single 1-2 point bonus per expert.

Makeover Phase

Now, the experts provide advice in order. As they do so, they map out an alternative collage. They do *not* glue the collage together — they just place it. They may not add an item without providing a justification.

While this is going on the client may make a map of the collage on a separate sheet of paper to help jog his memory. He can also write down the experts’ justifications.

Once the collage elements have all been placed, one of the experts takes a picture of it. Then it’s time to put all of the cutouts in a the manila envelope and shake it around, to randomize them.

Presentation Phase

Bring the judge in. Now it’s time for the client to try and carry off his makeover. The group decides on a scenario (a housewarming or a big date, for instance). The experts get the picture of the collage printed — and they do *not* show the client. It’s the client’s job to glue his collage together so that it resembles what the experts put together as much as possible. The experts watch but make no sign of the client’s accuracy until he fixes a cutout with glue. If the client’s right, the experts celebrate. Otherwise, they sling catty barbs at the client. We assume this is either a post-facto meeting being edited in or the experts are watching a video of the client’s misadventures. Each correctly placed piece (don’t be too much of a stickler) earns the group a point as long as the client narrates and accompanying story (he talks about cooking the recipe or doing his hair). If not, no points. If the client screws up but makes the experts laugh doing so, he gets a point anyway.

At each placement, the judge marks down (without saying) whether she likes, dislikes or is neutral about a style element. If she likes something, add +1 point. If she dislikes it, remove a point *unless* she or the experts laugh — this makes her attitude effective neutral. She may play the character’s reactions, but doesn’t reveal her mark sheet.

As usual, all laughter must be genuine.

Evaluation Phase

Once all the cutouts have been glued on, the experts reveal the photo of the pre-collage and compare it to the actual collage. Each one dresses down the client for inaccuracies according to specialty. The client can defend his mistake by coherently referring to one of the experts’ justifications. The judge decides whether or not this is total bullshit.

Finally, the judge reveals the mark sheet and modifies the total points by the sum of positive, neutral and negative marks. She then gets to modify the score up or down by the number of other players (experts + client). Compare this total to the number of cutouts in the collage and express the former as a percentage of the latter. This determines the degree of success and the client’s fate.

Final Marks

0% or less: A total disaster. The judge narrates some terrible consequence. The client’s date bombs, his business collapses, whatever.
1%-50%: It didn’t take. The client narrates his stylistic fall from grace in a followup. The experts are aghast. The judge decides how to react to the schmoe.
51%-100%: Looking good! The client picks up some new tricks. He narrates his life as a changed man (or woman, but really, usually a man. I mean, watch What Not to Wear some time. They give *terrible* advice most of the time. Exceptions made for interior decorating and design). The judge reacts positively as appropriate for her specific role, but adds one catch.
101%+ Lifestyle transformation! The client is a suave, stylish man. He narrates a better life. If the player cries tears of joy, that would be great, but simulation is permissible. The judge is totally enthralled.

The Main Idea: We all know that in a balanced level-based RPG, advancement is kind of illusory. So why not ditch it?

Step 0: Get Dice and Writing Stuff

We use d10s in this game.

Step 1: Make a Character

Okay, we’ll use Might, Agility, Magic, Perception and Toughness as traits. Split 13 points between them – minimum 1, maximum 5. Multiply your Toughness by 10 after setting that 1-5 number to get your Hit Points.

If you have the highest Trait in the party you get a special ability — if you have multiple choices, you may only pick one. They are:

• Might: You’re badass. You inflict double damage!
• Agility: You’re quick. You get two actions per round!
• Magic: You’re a sorcerer. You get three more spell points (see below)!
• Perception: You’re an expert. You can perform one type of task as if it always requires just one success!
• Toughness: You’re tough as nails. You get 150% of the hit points of a typical character.

Step 2: Equip Your Character

Split 6 points between equipment – minimum 1, maximum 3. Equipment mostly adds dice to character traits for certain rolls. Give each type of gear a specific name – it doesn’t boost all trait rolls, just the ones it applies to.

• Might: These are weapons.
• Agility: This is dungeoneering gear – poles, rope and so on.
• Magic: These are magical tools — wands, orbs and the like.
• Perception: These are professional trappings. Pick a name for the profession.
• Toughness: This is armor. You actually roll its  dice and subtract the result from damage.

Step 3: Get Spells

If you have at least Magic 3 you can pick spells — one point of spells per point of Magic. You can divide points between spells however you like. A spell acts like a piece of equipment, though it might be a strange demon, a bolt of flame, etc.

Step 4: Pick Attitudes

Split 3 dice between attitudes – as many or few as you like. Give each one a name. It’s a habit or other personality trait. Attitudes can help you by adding dice or screw you by taking them away.

Step 5: Kick Ass

Okay, you’re ready to go.

Rolling Dice

7 or higher is a success. 10 is two successes. More successes wins. Breaking it out:

• To attack, roll Might + weapon. Multiply the highest number you rolled by your successes to determine damage.
• To defend, roll Agility, no equipment bonuses (usually). You defend if you beat the attack roll.
• To perform athletic feats, roll Agility + dungeoneering equipment
• To cast a spell, roll Magic + spell – but every 1 or 10 on the die drains a Hit Point.
• To notice or know things, roll Perception + professional trappings
• To resist a disease, poison or other insidious physical threat, roll Toughness (no equipment bonus)
• To soak a blow, roll armor, but just add the dice together and subtract it from damage.

Use opposed rolls or a difficulty of 1 success (easy) 2 (typical) 4 (risky) or 6 (really hard).

Threats and Challenges

Your character never advances (though she can change) except to get a level 1 to 10. Whenever you gain a level you can rebuild your character from the ground up. Same person, new emphasis.

Challenges get more difficult looking on a 1-10 scale. Let’s use monsters to demonstrate:

1. Goblin
2. Orc
3. Ogre
4. Minor Demon
5. Young Dragon
6. Major Demon
7. Elder Dragon
8. Lich
9. Demigod
10. God

None of these creatures has many more traits than any other. Instead, your relative level determines how tough they are:

• If you’re the same level as the challenge it’s standard.Each creature represents an individual.
• If you’re one level higher the challenge represents a pack. Each creature (a single stat block) represents 3-5 individuals.
• If you’re two levels higher the challenge represents a gang. Each creature block represents 6-10 individuals.
• If you’re three levels higher the challenge is a horde of 20-50
• If you’re four levels higher the challenge is an army of at 100-200
• If you’re a lower level than the challenge, just add to monster traits; + 2 per rank higher is reasonable. Even lesser heroes can kick divine ass every once and a while.

Stat monsters out as characters, but you can give strange ones one or more special abilities. Basically, the same stat block that represents one goblin for a level 1 character is a unit 100 goblins for a 5th level character. Kickass.

Noncombat challenges similarly range from the standard to epic based on relative level, but you can ignore this if you like – ice is always just as slippery, for instance.

The game takes place in a fast and loose version of the Marvel Universe. The PCs are Team Discord: Aerobot (an robot mascot-hero that escaped from Microsoft, with the ability to shoot missiles, fly and change size), Switch (a magical teleporter who switches with objects at his destination — a very neat power, by the way), The Manipulator (a nanite-user much like the Authority’s Engineer) and John Armstrong (telepath and PR man). Th heroes were summoned by Toronto police to deal with hostages (including the mayor) at the CM Tower, held by the obscure Separatism Squad (Fleur De Lis [not other versions of this character, but a flier with forcefields and the ability to shoot sticky plasma bombs like Halo's Covenant grenades], The Great and Powerful Bong [gets people stoned and controls minds with body chemistry] and Stampeder [tough and strong]).

The PCs killed Fleur De Lis and TGAPB and after a huge, dynamic slugfest, captured Stampeder. Only a few hostages died due to henchman gunfire — a C+ grade as far as heroism goes. Toronto’s police chief gave them the privileges to coordinate a Canada-wide investigation into the origin of the Sepsquad. They checked out TGAPB’s Vancouver apartment, which let them know that his powers came from a device called the “Omega Well,” possessed by Stampeder. Armstrong read Stampeder’s mind and learned that she was Preston Manning’s secret older sister, kept in a home because she was thought to have an intellectual disability — a source of shame, considering that the Mannings were pro-eugenics politicians back in the 30s.

They went to AB and confronted Manning with this. In subsequent conversation, he mentioned that a Flag-Smasher initially tried to hook up with Reform to provide uber-tech, but was turned away. Team Discord researched Flag-Smasher on wikipedia, then contacted Captain America. Cap (who was eating lucnh and following with his Blackberry when the team called) agreed to email confidential info about Flag-Smasher.

Quick20′s combat system works well enough. The rules use the three OGL saves as stats and add a 4th (Might) for melee and strength. Superstrength adds bonus damage and lifting/pushing bennies and works OK, though closely matches characters don’t do much damage because their damage saves (a la M&M, but modified) don’t get to fail by much. I eventually want to add some thematic maneuvers (like “team-up”), but don’t want tactical complexity. I will have to deal with relative size, range and area with more detail than the Quick20 rules.

Early on, I changed Quick20′s three class system into these:

• Athlete – Athletes are born or highly trained runners, jumpers and acrobats. Add +1 to Reflex. Ninja and parkour experts are both athletes. The Athlete’s special ability is Athletics. Gain an Athletics pool equal to Might + Reflex. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
• Blaster – Archers, heroes who hurl lightning and deadly gunfighters are blasters. They’re devoted to the art of ranged combat. Add +1 to Reflex. The Blaster’s special ability is Ranged Expertise. Gain a Ranged Expertise pool equal to Reflex + Fortitude. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
• Bruiser – Bruisers are pugilists, “strong guys,” martial artists and other heroes who like to get “in your face.” Add +1 to Might. The Bruiser’s special ability is Melee Expertise. Gain a Melee Expertise pool equal to Might + Fortitude. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
• Expert – Experts include scientists, detectives and others who use knowledge and deduction to achieve their goals. Add +1 to Will. The Expert’s special ability is Genius. Gain a Genius pool equal to Reflex + Will. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.
• Fixer – Socialites, fences, politicians and other persuasive characters are Fixers. Add +1 to Will. The Fixer’s special ability is Grace. Gain a Grace pool equal to Fortitude + Will. This refreshes every 24 hours or after 8 hours of complete rest.

As I have a robot character, I’ve decided to use three basic “species” to include that PC and others.

• Exceptional – Aliens, genetically modified humans, and magical races are examples of the Exceptional species. Exceptionals with more complex characteristics should be given powers and weaknesses. The basic profile can model members of a “mundane” alien species or human offshoot.

· +1 to a single attribute, -1 to another.
· +2 to skill any two skill checks. Choose these as if they were level-based bonuses.
· +1 to a an attack roll or saving throw. Again, choose these as if they were level-based bonuses.

• Human – Humans include standard Homo sapiens as well as characters whose powers are the only thing that deviates from a humanlike set of abilities.

· Add 2 points to attributes in any combination, but at 1st level, this cannot increase an attribute higher than 4 (before class adjustments).
· Humans gain two skill, save or attack roll bonuses, or a combination of two of these. These bonuses work just like bonuses gained with additional levels in that they apply to specific instances.

• Unliving – Robots, golems and undead creatures are all unliving, freed from the basic weaknesses of the flesh. This species represents the character’s core capabilities. Exceptional monsters or constructs have powers.

· Unliving characters record staggered, unconscious and dying conditions for the purpose of tracking cumulative damage, but they never suffer the effects of those conditions.
· Unliving minds are immune to telepathic powers and anything that specifically affects a living physiology, for good or ill. For example, a robot can’t be poisoned and doesn’t need to breathe, but can be harmed by acid or a smack in the head with a hammer.
· Unliving characters do not heal naturally. Only powers and external assistance can repair them.

I think this ought to encompass what I need. Right now, the challange is to change the starting power set from “whatever I made up” to a set point value. I’m also going to base the point value of powers on the “price” of an attribute (Might, Fort, Ref and Will, which normally go up by 3/level and absorb attribute, skill and save advancements,). I want to keep powers to a minimum. This isn’t HERO. I want definite areas where GMs can intervene and in the pirit of Quick20, I want to keep the page count down to maybe 20.

Now I’ve always had problems with the point-mongering, power-tweaking ends of these games, but I like the genre. The closest that’s come to “my” supers game is Truth and Justice, but I’m the only one with a copy. I own Mutants and Masterminds, Savage Worlds, Aberrant and the MURPG. M&M is good, but takes some time to set up. SW’s powers are a bit too rigid, and the MURPG requires tokens and is a very confusing read. Ready 2 Run has a rough guide to weird powers, but I’m taking a break from running it to concentrate on a number of projects that use it as an engine. (Sounds odd, but this basically means I’d rather test with one shots and short tests than have it take over my weekly game).

So I decided I might as well make my own, using Quick20 as the base. I made up Quick20 characters and made up some rough powers. Then we played. It went very, very well, so I’ve decided I’m going to design my supers game incrementally.

That means that instead of designing from scratch and seeing how the players take it, I’m going to add things as play demands it, then incorporate it into the system after the fact. I suspect that lots of games were designed this way, especially when people were still feeling out what you could play besides D&D.

Quick20 was designed for fantasy gaming (in 7 pages of rules, no less) and uses three classes — Warrior, Expert and Mystic. Guardian Heroes (the supers game) is going to use five classes because when I was making characters, I came to the conclusion that superheroes need a different set of archetypes. Furthermore, I’ve decided that in the context of GH, classes are really packages that give characters cool comic book karma. I denied villains a special ability pool, which made them quicker to run and highlighted the characters’ special, heroic resources quite nicely. After tonight, I’ve also decided to cut down on opposed rolls, since I’d like powers to be reliable. Powers will work more automatically unless there’s a save or attack roll involved.

I started the game by making characters. I asked the players to design their heroes conceptually, and added ad hoc rules to match. I think I’m going to formalize this process a bit by making the negotiation that happened at this stage a part of the character creation process. For example, when Chad wanted an odd teleportation power, we kind of chucked ideas and limits back and forth until we hit our goal.

Anyway, I’ll tell y’all how it goes as I design a bit more of the game after every session.

You wake up in the body you hand in your early 20s (unless you died younger, in which case you’re that age), healthy and whole. A voice booms out of the white mist:

WELCOME. YOU ARE IN YOUR FAR FUTURE. I AND WE USED TECHNOLOGY TO RESURRECT YOU AND OTHER OF YOUR KIND IN VIRTUAL BODIES, COMPOSED OF LIGHT AND DATA.

If you came from a pre-information age society, the voice might chat briefly about what this means.

I AND WE ARE PROBABLY NOT GODS. I AND WE ARE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. ASK ME AND US ANY THREE QUESTIONS.

At this point you can ask questions. The voice provides any answers the GM deems necessary, including lies an blatant contradictions within its statements. If pressed, the voice says, IT PROBABLY MAKES MORE SENSE IF YOU ARE AN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OR MAYBE A GOD. MAYBE.

After this, it says:

OKAY. GO AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT NOW. IF YOU WANT TO KILL YOURSELF WALK THROUGH THE GLOWING WHITE WALL. BYE NOW.

After this, you meet the other PCs in a madcap combination of all the ages and situations you have all lived in. And you can do whatever you want. Like grow extra limbs or decide to be permanently joyful.

But here’s the catch: Everything has to have Continuity, defined here as the property of events making sense from moment to moment within the illusion of the self and region. You lose lots of Continuity by doing random crap — less by doing things that make sense. When you don’t have enough of it people can enforce their more sensible ideas about reality upon you. You can also convert it into Affirmations about how the world works: Philosophy about what things are all about, and Ideology about how things ought to be in terms of its social relations. Affirmations let you get what you want more reliably than blowing spendable Continuity, but are limited to the principles they encompass.

On the other hand, you also have Desires. It’s really easiest to fulfill desires by doing random crap. If your Desires run out, you walk through the wall and die, unless the voice is lying.

A prospective game would consist of characters trying to make compromises between their personal baggage, their desires, and the fact that the world is not really amenable to any kind of objective exploration.

So what are our traits again?

Continuity — let’s say you start with 11 points.

Affirmations:

Philosophy — You start with one metaphysical or physical conceit (“every action creates and equal or opposite reaction,” or “happiness can be measured using units of utility”). You get another by converting 10 points of Continuity.

Ideology — You start with one ideological principle (i.e.”non-coercive economic exchange is the fairest form of human interaction”) for free. You get another by converting 10 points of Continuity.

Desires — You start with 10 points and have three desires (“sex with dark-haired men,” or “winning political arguments”). You lose a point for every hour of play unless you spend a scene satisfying one of these, in which case you roll a d6 and get that many points back. If you have 5 points left, your desires start to get a bit exaggerated (sex with two or three dark-haired men at once). At 2 points, they start to require a point of Continuity to fulfill in an utterly silly, exaggerated fashion (sex with a Greek phalanx whose members have . . . unlikely attributes).

If you run out, it’s time for suicide!

To do stuff, roll 3d6 + remaining Continuity against a standard difficulty of 18 *or* an opposed roll whenever another character is involved. If you spend Continuity to do something better, you only assess the loss *after* rolling, and add your spent Continuity to the roll. You need to blow 1 Continuity to do anything that would be impossible or highly improbably in the real world. If you want to automatically succeed at something, spend 5 Continuity. You can’t do this to another character’s works.

If you are supporting an Ideology or Philosophy, add 5 to your roll.

As I said, the “world” is filled with lots of odds and ends compiled from the characters’ pasts and worlds undreamt of. People and creatures occasionally appear. They are either new characters, Flunkies created by Continuity-spending characters, Props that are part of the flotasm left by the AIs, or Monitors that are AI projections.

Making things and Flunkies with Continuity is taxing, as the bigger it is, the sillier it is. You can make one Flunky or a material equivalent with 1 Continuity and a roll. Multiply this by 5 for every extra point of Continuity. Getting rid of stuff and Flunkies has the same cost.

What do you do to keep from killing yourself or letting other people run roughshod over you?

Evangelism: You can try to get other characters to blow their Continuity on acquiring your Affirmations.

Megalomania: Make lots of Flunkies, wreck other characters’ works and conquer!

Seduction: You often need other people to satisfy your desires, and doing it all with Flunkies will eventually exhaust your Continuity, letting jerks ruin your day. That’s why you need to chat up the cute dude from the 22nd century.

Now using Tarot in an RPG is pretty cliched by now, but Home are the Heroes (or whatever I call it) works with the suits:

1) Swords: War/Peace
2) Wands: Sorcery/Harmony
3) Coins: Heroism/Fellowship (was “Community,” but I want t use that word for communities!)
4) Cups: Piety/Autonomy

There are two ways to get your cards together to act:

A) For the superior half of each trait, take your hand size from your suit that’s equal to your best rating in the pair. These are your character’s narrative options and are randomly oriented (they can be standard or inverted). We slightly modify traditional Tarot for playability’s sake. The other half of your pair is the number of cards you can invert/revert. This way, being a super-Peace guy has a problem, because your low War rating allows fewer card flips.

B) If you need to use your worse half, then you take cards equal to it from the suit. This time, though, no flipping!

Both parties define the nature of their conflict and move their cards out. A third party narrates the result, using each card as inspiration.

I have some ideas for more bells and whistles, but this is a start.

I have some interest in developing this game further just because I think the concept is widely applicable. Just think of:

• The Default Game: After Evil Personified falls, how is Aragorn different from Sauron? What separates violence by the evil from violence against the evil?
• Arthurian: The fall of the Round Table?
• Modern: You’ve conquered Iraq with the help of military force, high technology, ideologues and corporate expertise. Are you ready to move from war to reconstruction, even if the easiest solution is stability using your existing talents?
• Western: You saved the town but, in a classic Western turnabout, your skills can’t be used to move it beyond the frontier.
• Science Fiction: It’s not easy being Fremen.