#sw3e

[sw3e]

[sw3e]

[prahlrus]

cyber-modules and mutations in SPACEWARRIORS 3e

so right now it looks like i’ve put a third edition of SPACEWARRIORS on the backburner for the forseable future, but i thought i might share one part of it that I was reasonably proud of: the system of cyber-modules and mutations.

SPACEWARRIORS 2e has mutations, of course, but they’re done in a pretty ad-hoc fashion. one of the many things that i wanted to do in the 3rd edition was to create a more coherent system. in particular, i wanted some way of filtering out mutations that were inappropriate for a certain species (for example, lizardmen should not be able to have a mutation that gives them a tail: they already have a tail) without drawing up a separate tables for everyone. what i settled on looked like this:

the two parts important for determining mutations are: genetic hardness and chromosomes. you roll a number of dice dependent on the number and the type of careers you have had for your “radiation exposure.” for every die that rolls above your species’s genetic hardness, you will either have a mutation or a point of genetic damage (which negatively impacts your health but gives you latent psychic powers that can be manifested later on). the specific rule is:

roll a die on your species’s chromosome table and then another die on the mutation table associated with that chromosome table (chromosome tables are found in section A.1).

If either of those rolls is a 6, or if the result conflicts with another mutation or cyber-module you already possess, you gain a point of gene damage instead of a mutation.

the chromosome table was mentioned above. for a human, it’s most likely to get a chromosome B mutation, less likely to get an A mutation and least likely to get a C mutation. the tables for the individual chromosomes look like this:

(there is a seventh table but that’s not important right now.) mutations are either simple or systematic. you can only have one mutation or cyber-module affecting a given body system: bones, fibers, nerves, skin or vessels. if you roll a conflicting mutation on the table, you get genetic damage instead of the mutation.

what i was really proud of was: 1) how this gave me a very clean way to make some mutations species-specific and 2) the way that this system interacted with the system of cyber-modules. previously, cyber-modules had been pretty limited; they were basically a mutation that a mechanic can swap out for another one if you wanted. that felt pretty flat in terms of flavor to me, and didn’t give a lot of character options.

3E greatly expanded this system. if a character is cyberized, they can have either or both of replacement and enhancement cyber-modules. for replacement parts, we have a long series of old-school random tables:

after a little bit of explaining what to do with the unspecified cyberlimbs and cybersensors, we have possibly the most arcane instructions i’ve ever written:

If you rolled 3–11, roll two more dice. If the higher of the two is 5 or 6, you also have cyberguts. If your first roll was 3–6, consult the left-hand column of following table with the lower of the second dice. Similarly, if you rolled 8–11, consult the right-hand column.

BUT WE ARE STILL UNFINISHED. we need to define what exact kind of cybereyes, cyberears and cyberlimbs you have:

good gravy i had forgotten exactly how much of this shit i had written. anyway, with your replacement cybernetics figured out, the question is now: what about enhancements? mercifully, that is simply a d66 table:

anyway, that’s the lowdown on how cyber-modules and mutations got handled in SPACEWARRIORS 3E. revisiting these for this post, i’m struck by how much time i spent on what was actually supposed to be a pretty ancillary part of the game. maybe if i take this stuff off the backburner, i’ll re-frame it in a way that allows this stuff to really shine.

[prahlrus]

decoupling the SPACEWARRIORS character creation mechanics

i thought i would write a few words about why i felt that a new edition was required for SPACEWARRIORS: Degenerates of the Galactic Rim and what exactly i have been updating. keep in mind that i'm writing about a work in progress, and so the final rules in third edition may not be exactly what i talk about here.

basically, SPACEWARRIORS needed an update because it wasn't modular enough. i went to write an alternate setting for it and realized it basically would require rewriting all the character creation rules, which is no good.

in second edition, the main things about your character is your type. type tells you what species your character can be and each type has a table of backgrounds to randomly roll on. backgrounds are the way you get the majority of your starting skills, so that goes a long way towards defining your character. however, in this setup it's very difficult to update the list of backgrounds, since that would mean rewriting the table for every single character type. the only real way in which the game can be easily expanded is by adding whole new character types.

here's how i turn this around in third edition:

your type tells you what your choices are for species and for the new category of character aspect. obviously, type defines some other things as well, but that's what we're concerned with right now.

while your character type has a lot more to do with your character's background/place in the universe, your aspect is more about your character's outlook and ultimate destiny (more on that later).

everyone rolls on the same table of careers (what was formerly 'backgrounds'), but some careers are restricted from certain aspects.

this means, for one thing, that it's possible to introduce new types without modifying the list of careers, or to change up the list of careers (all you have to do is rewrite one table) while keeping the same types as before.

as mentioned above, character type is more about the parts of your character that are immediately obvious to other characters. right now there are two types—abacist and space-hand—that have every aspect and species open to them, as these are universal sorts of spacers. the remaining types are things like lizardman or zottling, most of them restricted to a single species and only a subset of the available aspects.

while there are currently fourteen character types, there are only six aspects: guide, entitled, explorer, neurotic, libertine and veteran. each one represents a particular outlook on the universe—an entitled character behaves like a person of substance and importance, while a neurotic character is acutely aware that the universe is a mysterious and menacing place—specifies the way that your character advances, and defines what eir ultimate destiny will be. but i think more on that will have to come in a later post...

[prahlrus]

a game by a person who hates space

if you don’t know (and really, why would you?), the main non-drawing thing i’ve created that i’m quite proud of is a pen-and-paper roleplaying game called “SPACEWARRIORS: Degenerates of the Galactic Rim” of which there have been two editions, one bad and one worth showing people.

this game is sort of an attempt to work through the fact that although i love many of the genre trappings of science fiction/space opera, i actually hate space and the idea of space. the ‘planets’ and ‘moons’ in SPACEWARRIORS are continent-sized chunks of rock that stretch out like weird space hands to catch warming rays from the tiny suns that orbit them. rocketships are rigged together by literal ropes and the closest you get to computers are massive vacuum tube calculators.

anyway when i went to write a supplement for SW:DotGR 2e that filled in a lot more detail on the setting, i realized that the system is very poorly designed to accept modules. i started work on a revision to make the character creation system better for this, and it sort of spiraled out of control. the draft of the core rules for Third Edition are 244% the length of second edition, and there’s still plenty that needs written.

i’ll probably continue posting about SPACEWARRIORS as i continue work on the revision, maybe even open up about the guts of some of the changes as i get closer to a pre-release draft. in the meantime, feel free to check out second edition!

[seimeinotaka]

This OP is so beautiful. The art style is gorgeous and seeing this in HD at home. HNNNNNGGGGGGGHHHHH