Wiki Spotlight: Hacking in Psi-Wars (with Backer Special Preview)

 

Hacking has turned out to be much more important than I originally thought it would when I first put together Psi-Wars back in Iteration 1.  If you watch Star Wars, or even most Space Opera out there, Hackers don't play much of a role.  After all, Space Opera is action where square-jawed heroes punch evil warlords in the jaw and rescue the scantily clad damsel; the pallid nerds who hide from the sun in their basement while hacking even corporations is something more appropriate to Cyberpunk.

But I should have known better.  "Slicer" is a major concept in pretty much every Star Wars RPG I've come across, and indeed I'm pretty sure the term comes from the extended universe, and if you pay attention, there's actually a ton of hacking being done in the Star Wars films, it's just generally by robots. I had originally pushed that concept onto robots, but in practice, I find that it becomes pretty central to the action.  Because all security systems are controlled by a computer, the easiest way to bypass systems is to find a terminal and just hack the systems (open the door, disable the cameras, etc).  This makes the hacking robot much too important to leave to just an NPC, and much too interesting to deny to players.  So, we need hackers.

There's another problem with hacking, which is what made me reluctant to give it much of a treatment: a lot of RPGs that have hacking in them treat it as an entire subgame.  You must invest a ton of resources and time into hacking, and whenever hacking comes up, it takes a big chunk of the game.  I definitely didn't want that: Psi-Wars is a game about space knights dueling, not about a deep exploration of cyberspace that takes an hour.  Fortunately, Action handles this nicely: you just spend an hour and roll Computer Hacking; done.  The only problem with this is we lose some individualization: all hackers have high levels of hacking and everything else (nerdy computer, mischievous anarchist, calculating criminal).  GURPS Cyberpunk (at least as per Pyramid) gets around this with techniques, but those techniques assume the sort of deep investment in cyberspace that I want to avoid.  So I came up with something else: inspired by the magic perks, I thought we could spice up the gameplay with some player-activated perks.  Rather than worry about a ton of details, we just have our base system, and the player can introduce complexity via little bonuses that, ideally, don't take up too much time.

So, where do we get our hackers? Do we have a hacker template? That feels a bit big for me.  The Spy could certainly be a hacker, but that's just one of the spies many skills. So, instead, a skillset feels more reasonable to me, especially if we slather it over something like the Criminal Sidekick Template that I put up on Patreon awhile ago. This left me thinking about Skillsets, as I've been exploring them as an optional set of power-ups, but the more I mess with them, the more it feels like they should be more like the 50-point cross-class templates from Dungeon Fantasy than the Skillsets of Action.  The Action Skillsets are just a slightly chunkier way to build a character.  You can do that, but it tends to blur niche, which isn't necessarily a problem (and not something I worry about in Psi-Wars) and I find that the general thrust of Psi-Wars tends indelibly towards a sort of specialization: if you're psychic, you could easily invest 100+ points in psychic powers; if you're a space knight, you could easily invest 100+ points in your force swordsmanship.  Couldn't skillsets work in a similar way? So I'm going to try an approach of a "50 point" lens, where there's 25 points of minimum investment and 25 additional discretionary points, to allow a little more variety among the characters, and to create a list of things a player might invest in, if they want to dump another 50 points into a particular skillset specialization.

Of course, all of this was inspired by the Undercity Noir adventure, as we have at least one Hacker in the mix (and, I noticed, a lot of NPC hackers as sysads).  Thus, I wanted to get this out sooner than later.

The biggest change made to gear and the hacking rules is the removal of "superior" hacking gear that grants a bonus.  As I worked on the rules (especially using the surprisingly superior Thinking Machine rules which I had previously unfairly dismissed) I noticed that the typical computer that players would hack would ultimately be mainframes, which meant you need a pretty powerful machine to even attempt to hack.  This also eliminates one of my complaints with UT, which is that money can buy skill and character traits.  Now, your ability to hack is determined entirely by skill, not the wealth necessary to buy superior hacking hardware.

• The slightly updated hacking rules are found here
• The hacker gear is found here
• The Hacker skillset is going to be a Backer Exclusive for now, with a bonus "Mechanic" sidekick template.
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Wiki Highlight: Psychic Vampirism Power-Ups

 

I've been pretty busy behind the scenes working on Undercity Noir; the PCs are beginning to come together, but I feel like I'm still behind on a lot of elements.  One of those elements was psychic power-ups.  I wanted to have both Psychic Healing and Psychic Vampirism up, as the Ranathim and Keleni were going to feature prominently in the one-shot (though I didn't realize how prominently until I saw the proposed PCs), but my goodness are these power-up sets exhausting and time-consuming.

Why Psychic Vampirism and Psychic Healing? You're not buying the Keleni/Ranathim argument above? Well, I find that the act of writing material teaches you how to write better material.  The best RPG material of an edition tends to come more towards the end, rather than the beginning.  If I started with beloved abilities like Telepathy and ESP and ended with abilities most people don't care about, like Psychic Healing, then the most loving detail and cool ideas would end up in the least used abilities, so I'm trying to "learn the ropes" with these less popular abilities.

Psychic Vampirism was especially frustrating, as it forced me to confront overpriced afflictions, deal with weird, overly broad detection abilities, and a difficult cost structure that puts most "work horse" Psychic Vampirism beyond the budget of casual, minor psychics. In particular, I still find myself struggling with Power Theft and working that into more affordable categories.  Sure, I know, some people point out that if something is powerful, it should cost a lot of points, but a lot of people like the "Zero to Hero" journey of discovery their psychic powers and then slowly unlocking their abilities with them.  The cheapest you can possibly get for Steal Power is 55 points, which means you go from Weak Latent Psi (Psychic Vampirism) to absolutely minimum Steal Power with a little skill in about 12 sessions at 5 CP per session (which is pretty generous) without getting anything else.  There's a reason I break down upgrades down into 25 point chunks, and a lot of people still find that overly chunky.  So I'd like to break down Steal Power too, if I can.

I ran out of time.  I wanted to have more Rare Powers (Karmic Theft and Unstable Power Theft) but the end of the month is racing up at me, and it's better to have something than nothing.  I can always go back and add some more abilities.

You can check out the new psychic vampirism power-ups here.

More Kronos Musings: Geography

Now that we know something of its history, what does it look like today? I generally don't like "island worlds" though on some level it's unavoidable. Most games can't handle one fully detailed world (Earth) and even your most far ranging fantasy games rarely escape a single continent. Still, we can add a few more details than just "one city." Nonetheless, let's start with one city.

Wiki Highlight: Psionic Gear

 "Did we ever decide what Psi-Tech was available in Psi-Wars?"
"It varies from tradition to tradition, from world to world."
"Yeah, sure, all technology does that.  But, like, what can my psychic character buy for Undercity Noir?"
"I... uh..."

That's a good question.  What Psi-Tech is available? To be sure, there are highly specific items, such as memory crystals or resonance staves, that relate to a single group or culture.  But broadly speaking, what can people get?

So I sat down to think about this, and I came up with the following psychic tech as fundamental to Psi-Wars:

Psychic Testing Gear: Obviously, you need Zener cards and weird EM sensors that go beep and white noise machines that one can attempt to hear voices in, etc.

Psi-Damper Collars: We need a way to capture rogue psis, so we need Psi-Damper collars.  This one combines the neuronic restraint with the electronic collar for a full suite.  There's also a helmet for that cool, cyberpunk psi-look of a rogue psi in a helmet that covers their eyes to prevent them from using their evil eye on you.

Mind Shields: Obviously, people will want to protect themselves from psychic attack.  Rather than a lame helmet, let's go with a mask. I've also added the mini mind shield, because the idea of someone shielding themselves with a token or a jewel is cool.  I've not included Mind Shield Circuitry: it exists in Psi-Wars, but you get it as part of a pre-built helmet, generally.

Sensory Deprivation Chambers: More of an Akashic thing, but anyone can use them, and it's a signature of Psi-Wars that reminds you that the "magic" of Psi-Wars is closer to cold-war psychic powers than it so the space magic of Star Wars.

Psi-Amplifiers

This is what it's really about, isn't it? So let's give it its own section.  The headband is the go-to default, but I tend to see the headband as more of a crest however; while it didn't make it into the final art of the Maradonian lady, a crest or halo behind her head was in the art notes.

However, I noticed in the Psi-Tech notes that the rules for the amplifiers is that they halve the cost of extra-effort, which is no doubt why our resident psychic was so insistent on knowing if they're available.  Alas, I don't think I can allow this particular rule, because the rules for Psi-Tech never assumed you were going to be using Godlike Extra Effort, and I think that might break the rules. I can, however, add ER to them, integrating psychotronic batteries into the design.

Of course, if we're going to talk about different traditions, why not several different amplifiers? I've created the default "maradonian crown" added a wild, psychic super-collar/harness that's battery powered, a gauntlet drawn from Pyramid #3/69, and a Ranathim crown.  They have slightly different rules for where the ER comes from, but in all cases, it's about 10 points, or enough for 5 techniques or increasing your godlike extra effort up to 5 times.  I'm not sure how well that'll play out, but we'll see.  The prices are a bit high, but they're based on psychotronic batteries costing $10,000, a headband clocking in at $6000 (or a helmet clocking in at $25,000), and then adjustments either for an inferior product, variant ER regeneration rules, and styling, and then capped about about $25,000 because that's one signature gear point.

All of this together should cover our bases and give players a few things to play with.  You can check them out here.

More Kronos Musings: History

 So, quite some time ago, I announced a playtest, a heist; we did a poll, and Kronos won out.  I expect it did so because it's an interesting, alien world set in the midst of an otherwise human dominated part of space, and that's pretty much all we knew about it at the time.  I believe I've made some musings on it before, but let's do another iterative cycle on it, where I simply walk through some basic logic, and what I need to make it an interesting heist location.

I was originally going to post the whole thing at once, but it turned out to be way too big for me to handle, so here it is in the first chunk.

What is Kronos? Why is Kronos?

So, let's start with why Kronos even ended up in the Psi-Wars atlas.  One of the things that irritates me about a lot of space history is the timelessness of it.  Star Wars is the worst, of course, with Coruscant being a big, urban capital world for basically all of galactic history, at least as far back as the Old Republic.  This would be like deciding that Rome was the capital of the world for all time, when it wasn't even the capital of Rome for the entire history of the Roman empire! Things move, they change, and they get left behind.  I wanted to express that, and to acknowledge the slow shift in power from the alien empires that made up the early history of the Psi-Wars galaxy.  Once upon a time, the power of the galaxy lay centered more towards the "eastern" half of the galactic core, around Kronos, between the Umbral Rim of the Ranathim, and the Arkhaian Spiral of the Eldoth.  Then came the Alexian Crusades and the conquest of the galaxy by humanity, and the center of power shifted to the "West" of the galactic core, closer to the Glorian Rim of humanity, and Sovereign.  This makes Kronos "the old capital."

So, in a sense, Kronos has always been a historical world.  It's had a few name changes, from Chronos (time) to Cronus (the titan, the king of the bygone age) to Kronos (an aptly confusing blend of the two), all meant to represent this notion of Kronos as a world deeply embedded in the history of the setting.  Thus, it's most distinguishing feature is that it featured strongly in, and retains features of, previous eras, making it something of a time capsule world.

But I don't want to go too far in that direction.  We often freeze locations in history based on a preferred narrative perspective.  I think Egypt suffers the most from it: when we discuss Egypt, most people immediately think of the pyramids, mummies, great monuments to bygone eras, the nile, palm trees, etc.  But this was _but one moment in time_ and from a very long time ago, once that was trumpeted wildly in the early 20th century, a moment in time that has set a lot of the tone of pop culture. But Egypt has been many, many things since, from a seat of Greek power to the breadbasket of the Roman empire, to one of the most important regions for Christianity to a seat of power of the Muslim world, home to Saladin and the Ismaili sect that later spawned the Hashashin, to the home of the Mamluks, and I could go on and on. I wanted Kronos to feel like that: it was not some world frozen in a single era, but one that had accumulated history, like layers of dust, over the eons, and you could see all of them every day, such as being in Egypt, with the pyramids at your back, a coptic church before you, and hearing the Islamic call to prayer.

Psi-Wars diseases as Afflictions

 So, awhile back, I introduced an alternate disease system, to make diseases more usable in a more "narrative" game where tracking HP day by day is less interesting.  I've been working on psychic powers, particularly Necrokinesis and Psychic Vampirism and they, plus some Communion powers, make sense as a source of disease.  In classic GURPS, each disease would be made as a bespoke thing, but because my version of disease is generic, in the sense that all trivial diseases work more or less the same way, and all major diseases work the same way, and so on, then it should be possible to apply a generic disease as an affliction.

How, then, would we price it?  There are two possible ways.  First, we can determine what a disease would look like in RAW GURPS and work out its cost (on the theory that my system is an abstraction of the RAW), and we can work out what a literal Affliction using my new rules would look like, and decide which direction we'd like to go.

Side Effect vs Affliction Part II: Should Psi-Wars make Afflictions Cheaper?

 So, my previous article on Side Effect provoked some interesting discussion.  There's nuance that I missed, and people were kind enough not to call it out directly on the blog (though by all means!), but the broader point still stands: you can build Side-Effects into simple Innate Attacks for what often amounts to a cheaper and better Affliction than the Affliction advantage.  Malediction often does the same too: rather than take a bunch of levels of Affliction, you can take Malediction and take a bunch of levels of Talent or the controlling Attribute (Will, I believe) and get the equivalent to more Affliction.

So what? What am I going to do about it?  See, if we're talking the broader context of GURPS, I'm mostly just tossing it in the general direction of the complaints box for if Kromm ever gets around to a 5th edition.  But with Psi-Wars, I've already adjusted costs.  Sure, I mutter about it and complain mightily about the complexity costs of adjusting everything, but I've done it.  So why not do it again?

The arguments for tend to go along these lines: Ultra-Tech weapons deal pretty hefty damage for cheap, which reduces the utility of buying that damage as an advantage, thus the cost should be lowered.  By the same token, Ultra-Tech weapons inflict afflictions for cheap, which reduces the utility of Afflictions, thus their cost should also be lowered. If you can inflict Agony on someone with a cheap neurolash baton, why should Agony still be full price as an affliction?

The counter-arguments tend to go like this: changing afflictions means people have to know the specifics of your new rules (but that's already true for other elements); you'd have to reprice tons of traits in Psionic Powers (but we already to that!); and you lose compatibility with RAW (but at this point, Iteration 6+ Psi-Wars has the same relationship with GURPS that the DFRPG or other "powered by GURPS" works have, which is that they use those rules, but aren't afraid to adjust them).  However, the most compelling argument against that I can think of is that there are weird edge cases where afflictions can do things that ultra-tech cannot, like resurrect people, give them cool powers, take psychic powers away, etc.  What do you do with those weirdly specific edge cases?  For example, Neutralize seems priced around Affliction, as a broadly capable Affliction that removes whatever power the target has.  If I reprice Affliction, should I reprice Neutralize? Where does it end?

I don't really have a good answer there.  But I would like to explore what a fair price for Affliction would be if I followed the logic of repricing it.

Backer Preview -- The Psion Template Draft

The more I’ve messed with Psi-Wars, the more obvious it is to me that psionics is different from the Force. The Force is closer to magic: A jedi doesn’t use his power, he calls upon the force to perform a task for him. In principle, this means any force user can perform any feat, and we see this often in the films, where a Jedi with no dark-side training will wield the powers of the dark side powered only by their rage. This suggests that “unique” powers should not be possible. We do see unique powers, but they’re never adequately explained, sometimes described as “rare gifts.”

Psi-Wars uses a different approach: people have their psychic power, and this grants access to Communion, which means they have the room for a quirky, unique power as a gateway to the more universal power. While most psionic abilities are fairly similar (TK-Grab is TK-Grab) there should still be room for weird and unique powers (“I kill people in their dreams!”). The more we go down this route, the more the Psis of Psi-Wars look less like Jedi and more like the characters from Push, or the X-men.

This template is an attempt to embrace that character aesthetic. It isn’t the Mystic template: while you can make a fortune teller or a healer with this, the idea is more of a strictly sci-fi feeling psychic character, typically a kid whose strange powers have erupted, or a powerful psychic on the run from the conspiracy, etc. There is some crossover with other psychic templates: some of the innovations with Secrets, Enemies and Licenses should be ported over to Space Knights, and this should be balanced and contrasted with Mystics, and I’m not sure where edge cases, such as Zathare sorcerers should go. However, this is a good start, and we can start exploring the idea now, and solidify it more fully later.

This is a Backer Post for Fellow Travelers ($3+)

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