Psi-Wars needs robots. Star Wars has its droids, and cute sidekick robots and ominous kill-bots clutter up Pulp Space Opera. They tell you that you're in a sci-fi world, and they occupy an interesting niche between tool and character, especially in pulp space opera. They let us waive the complex technobabble by having a robot do it ("Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow" becomes "No, shut them ALL down!").
We have a few things that we need Psi-Wars robots to do. They need, of course, to be trusted allies, someone our fighter ace counts on to keep his starfighter in tip-top shape, or someone our noble trusts with his agenda. People will also want to play as one, because they've already been asking. In both cases, we need to know the point totals involved. Finally, people will want to buy robots, like picking up a hireling. Sure, you can have that trusted Tech-bot fixing your starfighter, but if you don't care about your starfighter all that much and you don't need to be on a first name basis with your robot, won't any robot off the market do? In which case, how much money do you spend on your robot? So, we need to know a price for our robots. If we're honest, we also need to know the weight and power-consumption of our robots too, at least in broad terms.
Thursday, October 31, 2019
Thursday, October 24, 2019
Wiki Showcase: the Simple Form as Martial-Art-As-Power-Up
When I held a snap poll for the martial art most people wanted for their own space knight, the Simple Form won not only the Non-Maradonian styles, but proved the most popular style overall, handily winning the poll. This quite surprised me, as it was the newest of the styles, created in Iteration 6, exclusively for the Templars, who remain the main people who will use it.
With the Simple Form, I wanted to explore two major ideas. First, if we're going to have people learning multiple styles and integrating them together, I wanted a style that really exploited that. In that regard, I created Infinite Stance Mastery, which allows the character one "free" 5-point move from any style. Incidentally, this works much better in the power-up form, because you can just go pluck an existing 5-point move, rather than designing them yourself. Second, I wanted to reward players for exploring multiple styles. Originally, I gave them a "Style Mastery" perk, which let them upgrade their Style Familiarity from allowing them to ignore -1 in Deceptive Attack or Feint penalties to a full, outright +1 to defense. I had intended to give them a universal version of this, so they gained it with any style they had style familiarity, but I found myself thinking "They'd literally be better off with Enhanced Parry (Force Sword), or Higher Purpose. Hey! Not a bad idea!"
For the rest of the style, I had a couple of problems. First, most moves are built on a single trademark move and then whatever techniques required to make it work. But the Simple Form doesn't really teach techniques other than Feint. The whole point of its original trademark moves were to codify pretty standard tactics, like the basic attack, or the basic parry. I see the Simple Form as taking what new players to GURPS typically do ("I attack. I parry. I feint. Then I attack with everything I can.") and making them better at it. So, the only way I could do that in a move was by collecting all of them, and thus First Steps was born. Then I wanted to make them good at fighting in general. I pondered what most players generally did in addition to the basic moves (retreats, extra-effort, etc) and made those better in the style. Finally, I rounded it out with a few Judo tricks. One concept I still like, but didn't fully emphasize here, was something similar to the Fell Form's approach to Karate, only with Judo. Judo can, after all, parry armed attacks, so a character with Judo 20 is as good at defending themselves from Force Sword attacks as someone with Force Sword 20 (technically better, because they gain the +3 retreat bonus even without Chambara rules). I added the Warding Parry to answer questions as to whether you can parry a force sword with an unarmed skill (from what I can see, it's perfectly permissible, but some people might have some doubts, so, you can do it with a -1).
"I guess people really want Wuxia in space." --Nemoricus
The other major inspiration, natural from its description and other inspirations, are Chinese martial arts and the traditions around them. If the Serene Form is the epitome of Japanese swordsmanship, then the Simple Form is the epitome of Chinese Swordsmanship. My experience with many Chinese styles is that where Japanese martial arts often focus on perfecting a single move or a single tactic, Chinese martial arts tend to focus on the fighter in a holistic manner. This is where these "Miyagi"-style traditions of putting a martial artist through lots of training that seems to have nothing to do with fighting comes from. We get concepts like "Internal martial arts" from this approach: improving the fighter's core, endurance and "chi" and only then teaching them to express it through their "external" martial arts, or their actual combat techniques. This likely means people will ask if they can use some of these moves with other martial arts precisely because they're so broadly applicable, and I think the idea is valid, though I'm not sure if I'll migrate them to other, non-force sword styles n exactly these forms (the Simple Form needs to maintain some sort of niche, after all).
Given that it's evidently the most popular style, I hope those who came to love it back in Iteration 6 still love it in its Iteration 7 incarnation.
Wednesday, October 23, 2019
Wiki Showcase: Psionic Force Swordsmanship as Martial Arts-As-Power-Up
A common complaint I hear about Star Wars when it comes to the Force and the Jedi (or the Sith) is that they don't do "enough" with Force while fighting. Indeed, we see entire discussions online about integrating the Force into combat moves in cool and tricky ways pretty regularly, one of which I, for the life of me, cannot find anymore (edit: Here it is), where someone posted a bunch of pictures about cool tricks and counter-tricks to defeat your opponent in a force-heavy duel.
Psionic Force Swordsmanship was meant to address this. If you have psychic powers, you expect you might use them to help you fight. The problem, in Psi-Wars, is that psionic powers aren't the force. The Force is probably closer to "magic" than as how GURPS handles psychic powers. That is, in Star Wars, anyone who can use the Force can use all of the Force, there might just be some things they're better at than others. In Psi-Wars, someone will have one or two powers, but rarely will have all: a Knight of House Grimshaw has Electrokinesis, but doesn't have Psychokinesis, and someone with Psychokinesis may never have Electrokineses. This means I can't write a single style for all users; I have to write several styles for a variety of possible users.
As a result, you can see Psionic Force Swordsmanship as roughly three styles in one: a psychic vampirism style, a psychokinesis style, and an electrokinesis style. I could probably explore a Telepathic style (though it would need to differentiate itself from Ishin-Denshen) or a Probability Manipulation style (but Probability Manipulation is considered a "Rare" power in Psi-Wars). That is to say, we could expand the style, but I have a limited amount of time to work with, and it's complicated enough as it is. I've tried to bundle the commonalities down and to make all three powers relatively interesting, but feel integrated into a cohesive whole.
This style has existed since Iteration 4, and has seen numerous rewrites, into the broader Maelstrom Form in Iteration 6, and now back into Psionic Force Swordsmanship in Iteration 7. It's a complex style with lots of moving parts and different ways to interact with it, so if you see mistakes in it, that's why. It's a fairly defensive, but also ruthless style, one suitable for a dark space knight, and we tend to see it more in the Umbral Rim than in the Glorian Rim (though a member of House Grimshaw who gets ahold of it is pretty cool).
If you're cribbing my material for Star Wars conversions, while I find the description of Form VI (Niman) vague to the point of uselessness, Psionic Force Swordsmanship (specifically, the Resonance Omen Moveset) works more or less how I picture Niman to work, as a fusion of psychic tricks and patient, cautious force swordsmanship.
Ugh, Electrokinesis
"Lightning, as it's written now, is only good for assassination" -- Lord Buss, paraphrasedThis style, naturally, made me revisit Electrokinesis, and Lightning has been seeing some pushback, because people have to pick over every piece of Electrokinesis in ways that they don't over other powers (and I'm not sure why that is, other than perhaps people actually take electrokinesis, and it has a lot of crossover with actual gadgets). As I returned to the "Lightning" powers, I noticed a few things about them. First, I had originally edited out some elements from the original version that didn't seem to make sense (such as it stunning people) to save points for the fact that you don't draw your power from around you. After all, we picture Lightning as erupting from the hands of the space knight, not drawn down from nearby power-lines. But as I explored how Psionic Force Swordsmanship worked, I realized several things.
- We tend to picture this lightning blast erupting from the hands of the character, and attacking someone relatively close by
- We want to make this work sort of like a melee weapon, capable of feinting or making rapid strikes
- We expect our target to survive a hit, but perhaps to be very much not happy that he got hit
- The character can spend the whole fight doing nothing but lightning blasts
- We expect lightning to work like it does in GURPS Magic.
So, we need to make an arc of electricity. I called this "Electric Lash" and focused on smaller-scale damage: rather than buying it in big chunks of 3d at a time, you can pick it up for 1d per level. It's a Jet, it costs no fatigue, and it has a maximum (and 1/2D range) of 20 (chosen because that's the same range as TK-Grab in Psi-Wars). This comes to about 5 points per level. This is your more Star-Wars-like "casually toss off some electricity at a nearby enemy" sort of power, and it lets you do all sorts of fancy tricks, and this is the power that goes into Psionic Force Swordsmanship. I've also split the techniques up a bit, so that chain lightning and arc lightning goes to Lightning proper, and Painful lightning and Lightning Blast go to Electric Lash. I've also given the option for adding Electric Lash to Lightning as an Alternate Attack.
I've also created a TK-Hand, since people seem to like the idea of wielding a force sword with their TK, and the easiest way to handle that is some form of Extra Arm with the Weapon Mount option.
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Wiki Showcase: the Serene Form as Martial Arts Power Up.
When I made my Snap Poll for my Patron's preferences for styles, the Serene Form came in third for non-Maradonian forms, though it did well in the Poll overall. I suspect the poll's results might have been misleading, because I know for a fact that several talkative patrons are very fond of the style (and at least one PC has used it), and perhaps if I held the poll today, it might do better.
I believe the Serene Form predates its inclusion as a Templar Form, and that I created it back in Iteration 4. It has seen quite some updates since, turning it into a beautiful, ceremonial style that focuses on meditation, introspection and connection with communion. This is because the style was inspired by Iajutsu and Iado, which are deeply tied to meditation in the cinematic tradition, for good reason, as it has a lot less sturm und drang than most fights, and thus artists who wish to depict it often front-load it with a great deal of introspection and anticipation.
Naturally, in Iteration 6, I saw it as a style associated with the Templars, because Iado's introspection and its willingness to draw it only at the last moment lend itself well to pacifism, especially Pacifism (Self-Defense Only), because you can avoid any violence until the last possible moment. So, naturally, with Tinker Titan Rebel Spy, the Dark Communion-associated Imperial Knight took it. His reasoning makes sense: Tyrants seek to intimidate, and this is a very intimidating style, one that exerts itself only when it intends to, like passing a sentence. This actually fits nicely with Iajutsu's bad reputation for "Cross-roads cutting," and so I created the Way of the Void in this incarnation. The inner peace of the True Communion form could be replaced with an inner emptiness of the Path of Death or the Void and turn it into a style that creates a bond between the user and murderousness itself. I was tempted to make it a three-fold path, but Dark Communion doesn't cultivate the selflessness necessary to really make this style work, so I shifted that idea to the Fell Form, which is known for its reckless rage. The Imperial Knight's player, however, counters that while it's true that the Paths of the Rebellious Beast, the Beautiful Fool and the Hungry Beast don't cultivate that sort of self-control, the path of the Mystical Tyrant does, especially in its Cult of the Mystical Tyrant form. It makes sense that Tyrants might use it, and use it form a deeper bond with their Path. That does make sense; so far, I've justified the connection with Broken Communion using the fascination that the Mystical Tyrant has with Broken Communion, but I'd like to revisit it soon for a "third way."
The style focuses on defensiveness, in defeating your opponent with his own attacks. This means we need to talk about Reflection, a concept I've been struggling with since I first began Psi-Wars, all the way in Iteration 1, thanks to the Force Buckler. See, the Force Buckler lets you reflect attacks back to the Attacker with a DX roll. My initial impulse was that this was "unfair," so I reduced it to an attack that you could make on your turn after being attacked. Since then, I realized that this ability was basically just the Reflection enhancement to DR on a piece of equipment, which means GURPS totally allows "free attacks" with Reflection. My my my! My current thinking is to allow it with both Force Swords and Force Buckler; you can use Precognitive Defense as your roll (making levels higher than 16 useful and interesting), the Force Sword has a penalty to reflect this way, and I've added some new options, first an optional roll for those who dislike the idea of someone reflecting all attacks this way, and a new All-Out Defense option that lets you focus on Reflection for the whole turn, a trick we often see Jedi do.
In general, the style has been a study in Precognitive Defense. I have a love-hate affair with precognitive parry and block. First, they're one of those "extra" rolls that happen before all defenses. For example, if you attack a Chambara Jedi, he might roll Acrobatics to see if he gets a +2, and then Precognitive Defense to see if he gets a +1, and then his actual parry value. That's THREE ROLLS per attack. Worse, there's no point in taking it above 16, as it never sees any penalties or bonuses; it works or it doesn't, and that's it. So I've gone in and tried to simplify some things: we get a no-nuisance rolls option, so once you hit Master you can just assume you succeed at precognitive defense unless you're doing something crazy, and that thing might be precognitive reflection (by handing the DX roll off to Precognitive Defense, we get a reason for crazy high values), precognitive fast-draw (because some people hate waiting a turn before getting stuck in) or for better bonuses to your precognitive defense rolls. I've also suggested folded Precognitive Defense rolls into Parry Missile rolls for certain situations. All in all, I hope it helps Precognitive Defense a bit.
Also, for those who get confused (the question comes up), Precognitive Defense replaces Precognitive Parry from GURPS Martial Arts, and Precognitive Block from Pyramid #3/9.
I built this style around how Obi-Wan fought in the original trilogy era. We see it showcased in the Cantina scene, but there's also a pretty good moment with it in Star Wars: Rebels were Obi-Wan faces off against a returned Darth Maul. Obviously, it primarily draws its inspiration from Iado, just as Obi-Wan himself does. In principle, though, this style should be similar to Soresu, or Form III, if you just want to toss all of this into a GURPS Star Wars conversion, though Soresu seems more interested in Precognitive Reflection than in fast draws.
I believe the Serene Form predates its inclusion as a Templar Form, and that I created it back in Iteration 4. It has seen quite some updates since, turning it into a beautiful, ceremonial style that focuses on meditation, introspection and connection with communion. This is because the style was inspired by Iajutsu and Iado, which are deeply tied to meditation in the cinematic tradition, for good reason, as it has a lot less sturm und drang than most fights, and thus artists who wish to depict it often front-load it with a great deal of introspection and anticipation.
The style focuses on defensiveness, in defeating your opponent with his own attacks. This means we need to talk about Reflection, a concept I've been struggling with since I first began Psi-Wars, all the way in Iteration 1, thanks to the Force Buckler. See, the Force Buckler lets you reflect attacks back to the Attacker with a DX roll. My initial impulse was that this was "unfair," so I reduced it to an attack that you could make on your turn after being attacked. Since then, I realized that this ability was basically just the Reflection enhancement to DR on a piece of equipment, which means GURPS totally allows "free attacks" with Reflection. My my my! My current thinking is to allow it with both Force Swords and Force Buckler; you can use Precognitive Defense as your roll (making levels higher than 16 useful and interesting), the Force Sword has a penalty to reflect this way, and I've added some new options, first an optional roll for those who dislike the idea of someone reflecting all attacks this way, and a new All-Out Defense option that lets you focus on Reflection for the whole turn, a trick we often see Jedi do.
In general, the style has been a study in Precognitive Defense. I have a love-hate affair with precognitive parry and block. First, they're one of those "extra" rolls that happen before all defenses. For example, if you attack a Chambara Jedi, he might roll Acrobatics to see if he gets a +2, and then Precognitive Defense to see if he gets a +1, and then his actual parry value. That's THREE ROLLS per attack. Worse, there's no point in taking it above 16, as it never sees any penalties or bonuses; it works or it doesn't, and that's it. So I've gone in and tried to simplify some things: we get a no-nuisance rolls option, so once you hit Master you can just assume you succeed at precognitive defense unless you're doing something crazy, and that thing might be precognitive reflection (by handing the DX roll off to Precognitive Defense, we get a reason for crazy high values), precognitive fast-draw (because some people hate waiting a turn before getting stuck in) or for better bonuses to your precognitive defense rolls. I've also suggested folded Precognitive Defense rolls into Parry Missile rolls for certain situations. All in all, I hope it helps Precognitive Defense a bit.
Also, for those who get confused (the question comes up), Precognitive Defense replaces Precognitive Parry from GURPS Martial Arts, and Precognitive Block from Pyramid #3/9.
I built this style around how Obi-Wan fought in the original trilogy era. We see it showcased in the Cantina scene, but there's also a pretty good moment with it in Star Wars: Rebels were Obi-Wan faces off against a returned Darth Maul. Obviously, it primarily draws its inspiration from Iado, just as Obi-Wan himself does. In principle, though, this style should be similar to Soresu, or Form III, if you just want to toss all of this into a GURPS Star Wars conversion, though Soresu seems more interested in Precognitive Reflection than in fast draws.
Sunday, October 20, 2019
Wiki Showcase: Sefelka Sonostra, the Fell Form as Martial Arts Power-Up
When it came to the Non-Maradonian Forms, the Furious Form or the Fell Form came in dead last with zero points, matching the Swift Form in the Snap Poll for martial arts they personally would use as PCs. Like the Swift Form, I suspect this is because most players see it as a background form: something an NPC would take, rather than themselves. Where the Swift Form is iconic for the Maradonian Duelist, the Fell Form is iconic of the Ranathim Satemo of the Umbral Rim.
The Fell Form has been with us since Iteration 4 when I first put together martial arts. Originally, I called it "Rim Force Swordsmanship," as I saw it as the way "Rim Knights" might fight. Since then, I've given them "the Bastard Form," and when I wrote Domen Sonostrum, the Cult of the Lord of Rage. Since then, I've increasingly pictured this as a "Ranathim" style, this very distinct form unique to the Umbral Rim.
My original inspiration for the form was, of course, the way Ahsoka Tano fights. Her reverse grip lightsabers and her acrobatics and her kicks created a very distinct and visually pleasing style. Like Count Dooku or Yoda, it represented a form you could point to and say "That's a specific way of fighting." Of course, in Star Wars, it actually isn't (she evidently mingles some elements of Shien, or Form V, with Ataru, or Form IV), but I can make it so.
While building the style, though, I found it really profited from certain elements. I originally considered giving it Brawl (it was, after all, originally a street style) and giving the Destructive Form Karate, but the Destructive Form turned into the "form of being really strong," while the various elements of the Fell Form, from its acrobatics to its stealth, really made it something more DX-based. Furthermore, a lot of its elements really profited from Karate: reverse grip let the practitioner use force swords in Close Combat at no attack penalty, and less of a defense penalty if they used karate, and if we're going to emphasize close combat strikes to stun and disorient our opponents, then kicks and sweeps make sense. The net result is a style that turns every aspect of the fighter into a weapon: his feet, his fists, his blades, even his head! I liked that niche, and an interesting variation on the Fell Form would be to replace the +2 Force Sword in the Master level with +2 Karate. I'm not sure how many players would go for it, but with the Reverse Grip, it could be lethal!
As it became less of a street style and more "Taijutsu with Force Swords," I began to think of it as an assassin's style, and to more strongly associate it with the Ranathim. So, naturally, I drew a connection between the association of the style with a "rage cult," and Form VII's (Juyo's) association with anger. Why not give them a bonus when angry? I patterned it on Passionate Psi which is, itself, patterned on Drunken Fighting (though Drunken Fighting really requires you to accept penalties to everything else; it's not a free +2 to fighting; I've added something similar to Raging Warrior and I will add something similar to Passionate Psi). The result is a very "Sith Assassin" style, which fits the Ranathim nicely.
Finally, I shifted the original "Fell Frenzy" into a secret. It may or may not be "secret," but All-Out Attacks are usually a bad idea in a force sword duel, so I've couched it in a lot of cautionary notes and given it some special powers that make it a "berserker's art."
If you're cribbing notes for a Star Wars conversion, note that this form might provide ideas for Form V, the Shien variant, Form III (Ataru) and Form VII (Juyo; you're on your own figuring out how to get Raging Warrior to work with the light side and make Vapaad); it doesn't really fit any single, specific Star Wars form.
The Fell Form has been with us since Iteration 4 when I first put together martial arts. Originally, I called it "Rim Force Swordsmanship," as I saw it as the way "Rim Knights" might fight. Since then, I've given them "the Bastard Form," and when I wrote Domen Sonostrum, the Cult of the Lord of Rage. Since then, I've increasingly pictured this as a "Ranathim" style, this very distinct form unique to the Umbral Rim.
While building the style, though, I found it really profited from certain elements. I originally considered giving it Brawl (it was, after all, originally a street style) and giving the Destructive Form Karate, but the Destructive Form turned into the "form of being really strong," while the various elements of the Fell Form, from its acrobatics to its stealth, really made it something more DX-based. Furthermore, a lot of its elements really profited from Karate: reverse grip let the practitioner use force swords in Close Combat at no attack penalty, and less of a defense penalty if they used karate, and if we're going to emphasize close combat strikes to stun and disorient our opponents, then kicks and sweeps make sense. The net result is a style that turns every aspect of the fighter into a weapon: his feet, his fists, his blades, even his head! I liked that niche, and an interesting variation on the Fell Form would be to replace the +2 Force Sword in the Master level with +2 Karate. I'm not sure how many players would go for it, but with the Reverse Grip, it could be lethal!
Finally, I shifted the original "Fell Frenzy" into a secret. It may or may not be "secret," but All-Out Attacks are usually a bad idea in a force sword duel, so I've couched it in a lot of cautionary notes and given it some special powers that make it a "berserker's art."
If you're cribbing notes for a Star Wars conversion, note that this form might provide ideas for Form V, the Shien variant, Form III (Ataru) and Form VII (Juyo; you're on your own figuring out how to get Raging Warrior to work with the light side and make Vapaad); it doesn't really fit any single, specific Star Wars form.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Martial Arts Power-Ups Retrospective
- The Swift Form
- The Destructive Form
- The Graceful Form
- Knightly Force Swordsmanship (the Guardian Form)
Please note that Psi-Wars uses a "Technique Proliferation" optional rule: the costs of techniques are halved.
I wanted to take a moment and address some feedback and thoughts. This turned into quite a retrospective, so I hope you don't mind long posts.
Thursday, October 17, 2019
Wiki Showcase: Knightly Force Swordsmanship
The "Guardian Form" tied for "First place" among the Maradonian styles, and it didn't surprise me that it did so well. Where the other styles can point for lightsaber forms as as at least passing inspiration, Knightly Force Swordsmanship is a form far more grounded in GURPS. In GURPS, you need armor to really survive UT combat, so it emphasizes armor. In GURPS, we have force bucklers, so it has a force buckler. In GURPS, you can't assume people are going to stand around waiting for you to get into range, so it uses the force buckler and all that armor to protect the character as he moves into place. Dun Beltaine "used" this style before it even was a style, back in Iteration 1 before we introduced psionics or cool powers, because it let him "be a knight" without the "crutch" of the Force or Chi or something similar.
Thus, Knightly Force Swordsmanship is one of those styles that makes Psi-Wars feel like Psi-Wars. Sure, we've got high-flying space samurai with psychic powers, but we also have juggernauts with sword and board slamming into soldiers and then cutting them down. The well-armored space knight is perhaps one of the most important signature images of the setting, as it reminds the reader that, yes, Psi-Wars draws inspiration from Star Wars, but isn't Star Wars. It also feeds into the mythos and lore of the "Alexian Crusades."
Not everyone likes it, though. I haven't had the time or focus, and it was someone else's idea, but one of my readers proposed a variation that used force sword and force buckler, but dropped the armor (keeping, perhaps, a battleweave body sleeve). The idea is that by reducing armor, you reduce costs and encumbrance. This is especially pertinent if you're not using psychic powers and precognitive defenses, because a force buckler can, in principle, protect you from blaster fire, but only with a Dodge that benefits from the defense bonus of the shield. A typical character with Medium (-2) encumbrance and a Base Speed of 6 has 7 to 8 Dodge; with the shield, that improves to 10 or 11, which isn't great. With no encumbrance at all, that jumps to 12 or 13, which is pretty reliable. If you get hit, you're dead, but you shouldn't get hit. You could probably get a lot of mileage out of combining the high-flying acrobatics of the Graceful Form with the shield-focus of Knightly Force Swordsmanship. The Force Saber from the Swift Form also suffers with Encumbrance, so you can toss that on the pile of this "alternative hypothetical style."
If you're looking over my shoulder to steal these for your GURPS Star Wars game, note that despite being named "the Guardian Form," Knightly Force Swordsmanship really has nothing in common with Form III or Soresu. You'll have to wait for the Serene Form for something similar to that.
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