A Psi-Wars Index

Welcome!  If you're here, it's because you're new to Psi-Wars and you want to know what it's about, or you're looking for a convenient way to navigate through the blog.Psi-Wars is an illustration of GURPS campaign design using a well-known property (Star Wars, in this case) as a source of inspiration.  I use the principles of creating a minimum deliverable product, and then iterating to improve the design, doing the "least possible work" to hit the next stage. That's the idea, anyway.  The result is that this is both campaign material and design journal.

If you're here for that design journal, Nemoricus has been kind enough to put together an exhaustive Table of Contents up through most of Iteration 5, so it's a work in progress, nonetheless, you can find the posts ordered for your convenience below.
But if you're here to play Psi-Wars, I've included the documents, complete as of Iteration 5, below.  They're free and you can distribute them if you wish, just give credit where credit is due.  If you're using it and you have criticisms, praise, or just want to tell me about it, I'd love to hear it.  Drop me a line at mailanka.musing(at)gmail.com.

• Psi-Wars 1: Heroes - Iteration 5
• Psi-Wars 2: Adventures - Iteration 5
• Psi-Wars Combat Cheat Sheet
• Psi-Wars Adversaries Reference

If you're looking for a setting reference, then see the Psi-Wars Wiki. This is the most up-to-date version of the the material (several iterations later). And note that the Blog has moved

• The Psi-Wars Wiki
• The New, Wordpress Blog 

If you're a Patron or a subscriber and you're looking for a Special, or you're considering becoming a Patron and you want an idea of what it gets you, look here:

• The Patreon Special Index

If you like what you want to see and you'd like to support me then you can find all the information necessary to support my blog here:

• So you wanna support my blog?

If you want to hang out with all the rest of your fellow Psi-Wars fans, ask questions about the lore, speculate on the final fate of Lucian Alexus, and argue about whether Templars or Tyrants are better, check out the dedicated Psi-Wars server

• The Psi-Wars Discord Server

Psionic Resonance and the Relics of Communion

The principle of the Paths of Communion, this idea that you can sort of bring your life and your deeds into resonance with the global perception of a legend and thereby gain power certainly applies to more than just people.  If the galactic super-consciousness begins to associate a particular force sword with a dread warrior and murderer of millions, if the sight of that weapon, the memory of it, the story of it, invokes a million fears across a million minds, then Communion is going to respond it.  Because people see it as powerful, it becomes powerful.

In short, Communion becomes our stand-in for magic, and it allows us the power of enchantment.  Not direct enchantment, of course.  Neither Star Wars nor Psi-Wars has the patience for mystics standing over an item chanting for days on end.  Both of them favor diving deep into ancient tombs and long-dead spaceship to find some ancient relic of power.  The following rules discuss how to handle those.

The Riddle of Systems

I played in a Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game once, and it was awful.  To this day I know not the name of a single NPC.  Every fight scene was an endless, and often malicious, deluge of relatively useless monsters, and the final "climactic" scene was so tedious that one of the players literally shouted "Get on with it!" at one point and everyone else at the table, but the GM, agreed with him.  When I asked him about it later, he agreed it was a terrible game. "The system was just shit." He explained.

"Yeah, that was the problem" I thought to myself, but smiled and nodded.

Another story, if you'll permit me: I've seen Fate Core discussions make the rounds, from complaints from GURPS fans that Fate Core doesn't do enough, to complaints from  minimalists that it does too much, that you need nothing but Aspects and Fate Points, that the game is driven by the Fate Economy.  I'm currently in a Fate Core game, and what struck me about that discussion is how little the GM uses fate points and aspects.  In fact, I'm the only one who does things like create scene aspects, spend my fate points, etc, and when people try to do the same, they look at me, rather than the GM for a discussion about how to actually deal with the mechanics.  When it comes to that specific GM, he runs the game the way he runs every game: He puts the book on the table, so we know what game it is we're playing, and then he tells his story and we respond and sometimes, once or twice a session, we'll roll some dice to add some uncertainty, and then go back to telling the story.

Sometimes, the game will go well.  "It's a good system," he'll say.  Sometimes, the game will go poorly.  "It's a bad system," he'll say.

I often see arguments over system.  Rifts, for example, "has a great setting but a terrible system."  The Old World of Darkness is some people's favorite system of all time, and they bristle if I point out that it's very broken.  D&D 4e is "too much like an MMO" and so on.  The general thrust that I hear in these discussions is if so and so could finally find the perfect system, then his games would finally work.  Everyone is on the look for the next supplement that will finally make their game work.  And if you show them something different, something new, they'll recoil.  "That doesn't work for me," they'll say.

Conan the Barbarian has an interesting concept called the Riddle of Steel. Let me pose to you the Riddle of Systems, and then answer it for you: Flesh is stronger than system.  What problem with your games isn't the system.  The problem with your game is you.

Belphegor, Devil of Corporations, Toys and Music

"This world is a machine. A machine for pigs. Fit only for the slaughtering of pigs."
— The Engineer, A Machine for Pigs

Belphegor is the Devil of Corporations, Toys and Music.  His Powers are Magnus Carter, Dark Duke of Corporations, Damien Bogsworth, Dark Viscount of Toys and President-for-life of Toyland, and Chad Kroeger, Pawn of Music.  His Chancel is the Reincarnation Engine, a secretive construct of vast, steampunk architecture and metaphysical machinery whose purpose remains mysterious.  He rules over a cabal of powerful mortal conspirators who work together to secretly rule the world.  Through them, Belphegor hopes to create a New World Order.

Belphegor's flowers are Acacia (Something which must be hidden) and Clemantis (Something given gifts).

The Estate of Corporations

• -Corporations seek to increase the profits of their shareholders (3)
  
• -Corporations are legally people (1)
  
• -Corporations are constructed out of legally-binding contracts (1)
  
• -Corporations only understand money (1)
  
• -Those under the thrall of Corporations eventually become empty suits (1)
  

The Estate of Music

• -Music is Sound made Art (2)
  
• -Music is seductive and alluring (1)
  
• -Music inspires passions and soothes worries (1)
  
• -Music makes you want to move (1)
  
• -Music is subjective and divisive (1)
  
• -Music sets the mood (1)
  

The Estate of Toys

• 
  -Toys are the playthings of others (3).
  
• -Toys tempt you to use them (1).
  
• -Toys spark nostalgia and fond memories (1).
  
• -Toys bring fun and amusement (1).
  
• -Toys are childish (1).
  

The Paths of Broken Communion

In addition to corrupting nature of the miracles of Broken Communion, all Paths of Broken Communion require Disciplines of Faith (Ritualism), which reflects the way in which the character must live his life in a manner symbolically associated with that of the Primordial Image.

The Paths of Broken Communion have no additional requirements than that.  Instead, the corruption of the path tends to manifest itself in particular ways.  Someone who wishes to follow a Path of Broken Communion will not have to subject himself to a disadvantage, but he'll find he accumulates disadvantages soon enough.  Because he has a rough idea of what these disadvantages are, some people who embrace Broken Communion argue that following a path is safer than simply using Broken Communion directly, as it sort of acts as a buffer.

Broken Communion

Psychosis Communion, or more commonly known as just "Broken Communion" or, sometimes, "the Nightmare," represents Communion with the pain and madness of of the collective unconsciousness of the galaxy's sapient alien races. Those who commune with this grand psychosis can connect with the very concept of disconnection itself. They gain access to higher powers of self-destruction, contagious madness, disconnection, and the way things should never be.

Broken Communion uses the rules from GURPS Powers: Divine Favor as their base.

The Paths of Dark Communion

In addition to the disadvantage required to gain access to Dark Communion, all Paths of Dark Communion require Disciplines of Faith (Ritualism), which reflects the way in which the character must live his life in a manner symbolically associated with that of the Primordial Image.  Furthermore, each Archetype has a specific -10 point disadvantage associated with it, bringing the total penalty to -25%.  These disadvantages are called sins, and are always disadvantages with self-control rolls associated with them.  A character following a path must note which disadvantage is his sin (at the GM's discretion, if he has more than one qualifying disadvantage, he may mark any or all as appropriate), and he must be willing to give into his sin, or evoke it with the Ham Clause, once per session.  Failure to live up to any of this results in the temporary loss of access to the unique Path miracles but not Dark Communion itself.  Living a week in the proper manner, plus at least one noteworthy satiation of the character's sin will, once more, put him back on the Path.