Saturday, March 27, 2021

Is Side Effect just Better than Affliction?

As I am wont to do, I've been tinkering with some psychic powers behind the scenes, pondering how best to use them. In particular, I've been thinking about Christopher Rice's Reaving Hand and Mental Stun.  Both of these are handled as Afflictions, but afflictions create an all-or-nothing effect.  Either you succeed and your opponent is stunned, or you don't, and they're not.  Swapping it to an innate attack with a Side Effect creates more of a grey area, where your attack will have some impact, even if it doesn't afflict your target outright.  I did this with the neurolash effect: it now deals about 1d fatigue and has Stun or Pain as a side effect, because this better reflects what we often see in cinematic fights against a neurolash weapon, where the hero heroically resists the effects of a pain whip or a stun baton, but is clearly being weakened by it until at last he succumbs.  With the default Affliction attack, he's fine, fine, fine, fine until he's not. Why not treat powers like that?

But if you do, you run into an unfortunate truth.  Is Side Effect better than Affliction?

A Fatigue Attack that deals 1d damage with a Stunning side effect is 15 points.  An Affliction that stuns the target is 10 points.  If the Fatigue Attack lands, it'll deal an average of 3 fatigue damage and the target will have to roll HT-1 (on average) to resist being stunned.  The Affliction, by contrast, deals no damage, and is a straight HT roll.  The Innate Attack can potentially benefit from Extra Effort in Combat (depending on how you choose to handle that) for +2 damage, and if they're psychic powers, you can use actual Extra Effort for, say, +1 level, which improves the fatigue attack to 2d (average 7 damage and -3 to the HT roll) and the Affliction is improved to HT-1.  If the attacks can be stopped by DR, then it takes 2 DR per +1 to HT for the Innate Attack, but you have the possibility of stopping it outright (2 DR on average will drop the fatigue attack to 1 damage and HT+0 to resist, while 3 DR will on average prevent the side effect completely, no roll at all), while with an Affliction, and this is a little less clear to me, doesn't have that absolute limitation: 2 DR would change it to HT+2 to resist, 3 DR to HT+3, and DR 50 would change it to a relatively meaningless HT+50, though technically you can still screw that up on a critical failure, but I suspect at some point we have to say that it practically goes away, I just don't know where that point is.  So far that's not so bad.  Sure, the Side Effect version is better, but it's more expensive. If you tried to do something foolish like go to Affliction level 2 to match the HT-1, it's 15 vs 20 points, and then the innate attack is obviously better, but I think everyone acknowledges that Affliction should be cheaper when it comes to subsequent levels.  Going with Kromm's proposed 3/additional level reduces it to 15 vs 13, which is fairer.

But then we get into wonky stuff if we push it further. Imagine I make a lethal toxic "ghost" attack that ignores DR.  It deals 1 damage, ignores DR (+300%) and has a Heart Attack as a Side Effect (+350%).  This clocks in at a whopping 8 points. I'm not kidding, that's the price.  1 point of toxic damage that ignores DR, and since it inflicts at least 1 point of damage, the target has to roll HT to resist the side effect (ie Death) at +0. Even if he succeeds, he's still taken 1 point of damage.  By contrast, the same effect for Affliction would clock in at 75 points.  That's an insane difference! In this second case, the target has a straight HT+0 roll to resist, and if they succeed, there's no additional impact.

"Well, that's just point crock, Mailanka, don't do that" 

I actually ran into this problem in a different context.  I wanted to give a lizard man based on the komodo dragon a dangerous, gangrenous bite. It was mostly a flavor thing, so I wanted it to be cheap, so I gave it to him as an Follow-Up Moderate Pain Affliction on its teeth.  This clocked in at 12 points, which is hardly what I think of as "cheap." By contrast, a 1d toxic follow up attack with a moderate side-effect clocked in 7 points, and I could further reduce the toxic damage: 1 point actually makes a lot of sense here, or 1d-2 or something, because the toxic effect is more of a bonus atop the bite, rather than the main star.  This is a totally reasonable thing to want to do.  Why is the Affliction version so expensive?

"It's not Affliction that's broken, it's Side Effect." 

Okay.  Let's imagine a malediction that instantly kills its target if they fail an HT roll.  For the Affliction version, that's Malediction + Heart Attack, which clocks in at about 50 points. A 6d toxic malediction clocks in at 48 points, which is two points cheaper and generally does the same thing: on average it'll inflict 20 damage that will bypass the target's DR, and they'll have to roll HT or die. The innate attack actually requires two rolls: one to resist the malediction and the other to not die, and it's possible it won't deal enough damage (though it's also possible it'll deal so much damage that the target will have to roll twice not to die), while the Affliction will kill you if you fail a single HT roll.  But if you do pass the roll for the Affliction, you're fine.  Say your target has 14 HT, they'll pass almost every time, and you'll need to hit them over and over, and after each failure, nothing bad happens to you. By contrast, the toxic attack will likely drive the surviving target into unconsciousness, and it'll certainly slow them down and likely stun them.  And if you hit them again and again, death is assured unless they have expensive advantages like regeneration and/or sufficient gobs of HP that they can shrug this attack off longer than they could repeated HT rolls.

Affliction usually represents shock to someone's biological systems: a stunning blast of air, an injection of soporific venom, a surge of pain-inducing lightning, etc.  But innate attacks cause these same effects.  Hit someone with enough fatigue damage, and they'll fall asleep too.  Hit them with burning damage, and it'll hurt.  Concuss them with a blast of air for at least half their HP, and they're stunned. This is the default of the damage system and you don't even need side effects to do it! Afflictions do have the benefit of being non lethal. Maybe you don't want your target to be harmed by the attack.  If you're casting a sleep spell, they should just fall asleep, not take damage until forced to sleep, and those who resist it are pretty much unaffected.  But you're paying a pretty high premium for this non-lethality, which discourages you from using it.  Is that what you actually want?

(And let's not dive too deeply into the Side Effect No Wounding rabbit hole.  If you do that, you'll realize you can entirely replace Afflictions at a fraction of the cost)

This is exacerbated in Psi-Wars because Psi-Wars reduces the cost of Innate Attacks to keep them competitive with ultra-tech weapons.  I've toyed with doing the same with Affliction, as the logic of the reduction is to make it cheaper to buy Armor Divisor and thus bypass ultra-tech armor more easily and remain competitive.  But then we run into the other problem with affliction: it's overloaded.  GURPS decided "wouldn't it be cool if" they bundled all of the traits that let one character affect another character into a single advantage.  This means granting someone an advantage is priced and handled the same way as harming them with an affliction.  While technically you could make "Grant Extra Life Advantage" a Side Effect, it's kind of weird to have a power that inflicts toxic damage to resurrect them; not impossible, but it would leave some people scratching their head and wondering what the heck just happened.  But using Afflictions to grant advantages is messy anyway.  In computer programming, I'd say "Look, I get what you're doing, but make that its own function.  It should have a single responsibility."  If we had a Bestow advantage that was priced at a base of 10 points, with +1 point per point of the advantage, then it would be fine. None of this weird "Technically you can roll to resist but you don't have to because this is an odd edge case" as it would be its own advantage.  Then you could reprice Affliction however you wanted (in the very least, the 10 + 3 per additional level, but I suspect you could drop the price further).

I don't know if I'd necessarily change anything for Psi-Wars here, because I actually prefer Side Effects to Afflictions in most cases, and that means Affliction effectively becomes this "Bestow" trait.  But it is one of those things that makes me grit my teeth sometimes.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Wiki Highlight: the Criminal Organizations of Psi-Wars


 Man, this has been a thing I've been thinking about for literally years now, so it's nice to finally get it down on paper, so to speak.  At last, I have a sketch of the Criminal Organizations of Psi-Wars up and available. Not all of them, of course: rebellions and pirate fleets will (probably) have their own discussion, as will occult conspiracies.

This is one of those posts that leaves me feeling like it's simultaneously "too much" with too many "example" organizations with too much detail included, but at the same time, not enough, as people will doubtlessly want to know more about particular organizations, and want more organizations.  That'll come though.  As an extra treat, Subscribers and Patrons can vote on what organizations I give greater detail to, and later, if the stars align, I'd like to do a poll wherein we create our own criminal organization.

Enjoy!

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Crime in Psi-Wars

I’ve been quietly working at criminal elements in Psi-Wars, including the release of the Security Agent Template and the Outcast background.  But what sorts of crimes are we actually committing that the cops need to stop us? While not a strictly necessary thing (crime isn’t so different in Psi-Wars from the ordinary world), thinking about it helped me sort out my thoughts.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive exploration, just a meandering musing on the sorts of crime we might see in the Psi-Wars universe, especially those organized criminals might focus on.  I’m not exactly a law enforcement expert, but if we approach this with a little thought and a focus on the cinematic, I think we’ll make some headway.

Most crimes in Psi-Wars will be familiar to anyone familiar with the 20th century, as that’s the core inspiration for pulp works which, in turn, inspire Psi-Wars. Nonetheless, the “space” part of “space opera” implies some sci-fi considerations, and thus some sci-fi crimes!

I will also note that crime, especially in action films like the Fast and the Furious and various heist films tend to be depicted in a glamorous light.  That glamour quickly fades when you look very close at criminality.  Psi-Wars is, while decidedly salacious, family friendly, so I’ve tried to elide certain realities and not discuss some of the more squeamish aspects of crime, but the implications of certain criminal elements are inescapable.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Psi-Wars Corporate Briefs: Orion Arms

 


Some eagle-eyed fans have noticed the slow additions of Orion Arms gear to the wiki. I wanted to stop and take a moment to talk about them.  While I don't have "corporations as organizations" worked out yet, I think it might be something I focus on later, because a lot of it has been coming into view.

Every arms manufacturer in Psi-Wars has a theme: Syntech has the coolest, cutting edge-gadgets; Wyrmwerks goes beyond cutting edge and into prototype tech, with all the attendant issues; ARC is the High Street of arms manufacturers (it wouldn't surprise me if they had literal butlers taking your measurements before manufacturing your armor to spec), etc.  The original intent of Orion Arms was to be where I parked the arms manufacture of the Umbral Rim, the Slaver aliens and their associated races and the technology they produce to wage their wars.  I intended to base them on the military industries of "the third world," any place that produces military equipment that wasn't cutting edge, and part of the less stable, more chaotic parts of the world, as that's what I wanted to emulate with the Umbral Rim.  So I dived into my research, and didn't find what I expected.

Monday, March 15, 2021

Musings on Scale Escalation


I'm an anime fan.  It's an on-again-off-again affair: usually I'll lose interest at some point, or something else will catch my eye, and then I'll go in other directions for awhile, and then someone will recommend an anime, and before I know it, I'm buying DVDs and eating ramen, muttering that subs are better than dubs, and otherwise pretending I'm in college again.


The core anime (there are a few) that has caught my interest right now is My Hero Academia, which is a very well-done, if a bit by-the-numbers, shonen anime about super-heroes.  But what has struck me is how well it engages in scale escalation, though it should be noted it's hardly the only one, and in many ways, scale-mismatch is the driving tension behind One Punch Man.

Let me explain what I mean: nearly everyone in the world has super-powers, but most of the super-powers are lame: one guy might have stretchy, elastic fingers, or they might be able to light a candle.  Even the cooler ones might be pretty subtle and "mystery-men esque" like they might shoot a strong tape out of their elbows, or they might be able to stick to things and that's it.  But some characters have truly devastating amounts of power, like the ability to freeze an entire building solid, or create massive explosions with their hands. Most fights between supers tend to be low-scale, the sort of fights one might expect between characters on the 250-500 point level in GURPS: cool, but not mind-blowing.  Like two skilled fighters could be contained in a room in a building in a city.  Then suddenly a fight will erupt between higher level characters, or a high level character will unbridle their full power and the fight escalates to a new scale. You can't contain it in a small room in a single building in one city.  Instead, it spills out, begins to destroy the area, or it would if it was in a city. It's no longer an "n-scale" fight, but a "d-scale" or "c-scale" where stray damage from this fight would seriously injure or kill a bystander.

We like this sort of scale escalation.  It rapidly ups the stakes, and makes the fight more dynamic.  The story sets the rules for us to understand. Once we have a grasp of it and the stakes, it kicks us out of that comfort zone like a mamma bird kicking the young out of its nest screaming "FLY!" The rules haven't changed so much as greatly expanded, the tensions much higher, and a few variables, which should be obvious extrapolations of the existing rules, and we watch the characters grapple with this sudden expansion.  Ideally, a well-written story should make the solution to the new problem obvious in retrospect, but watching the heroes solve this new, higher-scale crisis with their smaller-scale skills drives a lot of the tension of the story.

Of course, what works in an RPG and what works in television show or movie aren't the same.  Nonetheless, it's the sort of thing I've seen many a GM hunger to replicate, but it usually fails. Why?

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