Update

So okay ... you would probably be surprised to know that I spent the last few weeks re-doing the Animal Creation Rules from Innate Powers. Why? I got bogged down in Psionics. I started doing the Back of the Book chapter. I took a beak to examine some examples of Animal Creation and determined that the rules, although "okay" needed a serious overhaul in terms of clarity.

One of the things I have been doing is going back through the various myriad of chapters and sections and re-reading and then re-writing them for tightness and clarity. This is good ...

All good writing is re-writing.

On the other hand, (a) no one has ever really accused me of being a good writer and (b) while I can manage to like my best stuff okay, I have not reached the point where the mess of rules that is JAGS Revised Archetypes clocks in at "good writing."

On the other hand, it's a great deal more concise now than it was. The animal creation rules ... work better. I am mostly happy with the mechanics that I have tested / stress tested. Over-all, I am pretty happy ... and getting happier.

I have also, today, "concluded" the Back-of-the-Book chapter. That's "revision One" so it's gonna need some more work--but at least it's there ... "in print." I mean, that's something.

When Psionics--which is not that far from done--is "complete" I will begin the "final revisions" and "fleshing out" stage (that is: putting in the last few powers bouncing around our heads, writing up a few sections that haven't been added--but mostly small things).

At that point I will have to decide: do I do a chapter on "Gear." It would be good and useful. It is also a "new chapter" (even if it's small) and I'm not sure I want to do another chapter right now.

I'd rather start trying to figure out editing and then type-setting ... and ordering artwork.

The idea of this thing ever being done sounds like a fairy tale to me ... but I have a half-ounce of faith that if I just keep working on it, however slowly ... at some point it'll be finished.

Won't it?

A New Discovery ... TAP Revision ...

It's a bit unsettling to, when I think I'm "finishing" the book, make what amounts to a major discovery and rules change. But we did (it's not exactly a 'discovery' as a 'realization'--but hey). Let's set this up ...

TL;DR
An interesting "test challenge" from one of our team led to the conclusion that an optional rule should be less optional and that our costing for some abilities was not just too complicated but NOT VIABLE. We're changing things.

The Jedi Challenge ...
So E sends me an email saying "you wanna test the new rules-set? Make a space-knight Jedi." He lists a bunch of stuff they have: TK, super-acrobatics, block lasers and reflect them back, some "cosmic awareness" and "read person" and control the weak mind ... and so on.

I sit down: this is interesting. Firstly, one thing (this isn't important) jumps out--all our Mind Control centers around Telepathy. Jedi can't really read minds but they (and a lot of other characters) can influence them--so right away I see a space for some influence and mind control type powers that do NOT require Telepathy. Okay, fine.

I also start giving these guys Defensive SP pools so they can duel with light-sabers and not die on the first hit. I give them extra REA and Initiative and all this stuff. A lot of it is TAP-Costed.

What Does TAP-Costed Mean?
If you're new to the blog, TAP-Costed means the cost of the ability (such as Extra REA) is based on how many Total AP's (TAP) your character is built on. We determine this factor (usually a decimal like .50 if the ability cost a whopping 50% of your Total AP's, whatever they are). And early on we noticed that the %-of Total APs varied a little as your Total AP count went up. So an ability might test at .17 (17% of your Total APs for a 16 AP character but only test at .09 (9%) of your Total APs for a 64 AP character.

Why? We think it's because the "normal person" (built with Character Points) is a lot more important at the lower AP levels than the higher ones and the 64 AP test is a more 'objective' view of the ability's worth absent the "regular guy" who has it--which does not mean that the value of extra REA isn't higher at lower levels. It just means that if you played with a hypothetical 1024 AP (a HUGE number) the value of the extra REA in a fight would be FAR MORE heavily based on what you spent your AP on than your (probable) 50 Character Points.

So we got 3 numbers for each TAP ability: the tested value at 16 AP, the tested value at 32 AP, and the tested value at 64 AP. We'd then calculate the cost, rounding normally for each 8 AP "level" of a character from 8 to 64 AP and "smooth" out the intermediate values between the tested ranges (so a 48 AP character's % of a TAP power is the average of the tested 16 AP value and the tested 64 AP value).

I know your eyes are glazed over. The write up looked like this:

Lucky Dodge

TAP [.18,.17,.16]

Description:  You can manipulate probability when being attacked to make it less likely to hit! The Lucky Dodge works like a normal dodge but: v It only costs 3 REA (even if you don’t have L3 Acrobatics) v You get +2 to Dodge or Block moves and the dodge works against Ranged Attacks v -4 Damage Mod if the defensive move fails NOTE: If using a Block roll the above modifiers still apply save for the +2 to roll.
Trait				8	16	24	32	40	48	56	64+
Lucky Dodge			1		3	4	5	7	8	9	10

 Down at the bottom here you can see how we computed the cost for each AP level (so if you are 32 AP, you pay 5 AP for Lucky Dodge. If you are 64 AP, it cost 10). The raw numbers are up at the top so that if you are getting all advanced ... you could calculate the cost yourself (if you are playing on more than 64 AP, you just use the last one).

So, okay--it's complicated--but most people will just use the chart and they're fine.

This is important in a minute.

The Second Thing: Utility Powers

 So the Jedi Write Up had a bunch of TAP stuff if you added it all up it came to .76--a BIG number (that means: 76% of their points went to stuff like Success Point Pools, extra REA, extra Initiative, Reflection Blocks, and 'Chi Leaping.'). 

Of the rest of the stuff (Damage Points, Psychic Abilities) they came to about 29 APs. Okay ... good so far. Except of those 29 APs about 10 of them were on psychic stuff (sensory) and yet they were paying the 76% surcharge on those points too.

We had (thankfully) already written up the (Optional) Utility Point rules that say if you are calculating TAP costs you need only use the combat points and not the movement / sensory / social stuff. So that helped.

But then came the problem: How many points were these guys? Remember: to calculate TAP cost you have to start with the Total AP the GM gives you and take the % of that. But what if the GM just picks a bunch of abilities and wants to know what they add up to?

The Formula

Unless I miss-remember the formula it's this: Total Cost = Fixed Cost / (1-TAP Total)

Fixed Cost is all your stuff that isn't TAP (and, if using Utility Power rules, isn't a Utility Power). So that's around 19 AP (for extra DP, Telekinesis, the Influence ability, and so on). You divide that by 1-.76 = .24 and you get 80 AP (+10 AP Utility) = 90 AP total character. High--but not absurd and it's a pretty bad-ass space knight.

Except ...

Except there was a problem: how did I get the .76 in the first place--remember, these powers each have three ratings. I just "eyeballed" the numbers and said "these guys are gonna be more than 64 AP so I'll use the 3rd number"--but that's not ... accurate. We can't expect even advanced players to do that. There is math that can figure it out--or trial and error--but both of those fail even our (insane) level of expectation.

The Conclusion

Our conclusion is as follows: firstly that you should ALWAYS be able to deduct any points spent of Utility Powers from your Total Cost for purposes of TAP calculation. Paying an extra cost on your "make rocks glow" ability because you get extra attacks kind of adds insult to injury. 

The second thing we're doing is just going with ONE rating for TAP powers instead of three. We're using the highest AP rating (The lowest cost version) and, so long as there isn't a big difference between the 16 AP tested cost and the 64 AP tested cost, leaving it at that.

The difference is usually 1 but sometimes 2 AP (the largest tested differences are around 4 AP for very complex power-sets).

Power Modification ...

Hero System's rules for creating your own powers are brilliant and I wouldn't try (exactly) to do them "better." The basic idea is that there's a pretty comprehensive set of generic abilities (i.e. Energy Blast) and then a ton of specific modifiers that you can add on to get "exactly what you want."

This basic idea is going to be applied, to an extent, with JAGS--we have a lot of abilities (although generally not so "Basic" as Hero's) and you can apply positive and negative modifiers.

When this is something we can directly test in the simulator, meaning it applies to a combat power (example: Fires every other round after the first) then we can give you an exact decimal modifier that you can use to re-compute the damage per AP. This is slightly complex (most people will want a calculator) but it works, it's balanced, and the list of modifiers, while not tiny, is not huge.

The harder part is where you have some modifier that does not directly impact the mechanical effect of the power. Take, for example, a Force Field that makes a loud noise, sounds a little like a light-saber when you move around with it, and throws off enough electromagnetic radiation that a lot of people can track it (if they have special gear). That's a defect over an invisible force field that you can casually walk around with without cluing people in.

So, okay: it makes the ability worth a little less. Not a lot less: combat (when you really want a Force Field) is noisy anyway. Something that wrecks your stealth is bad if you're a ninja--but this guy probably isn't a ninja. Being trackable isn't fun--but ... ehh ... it's not that bad. We also assume that character designs will generally not be fatalistic: if the character is a wanted fugitive it is not likely they will take an ability that makes them easily found (it is possible--but it is not the "most likely configuration").

So it's worth a little less. 

Since we do not do fractional APs, how do we do that? The answer is that we give you Damage Points (called Mod Points) back on each 8 AP of purchase. Let's say that this is an "Inconvenient -2 MP" modification. If you spend 8 AP on Force Field, you get 2 Damage Points back for your loud glowing trackable field.

Let's assume you, the reader, think that kinda works.

What if you spend 4 AP? You get half that--1 Mod Point (which converts to a DP).

What if you spend 1 AP? You run into a minimum MP special rule. You probably get 1 DP but it's a GM call.

Okay. Now let's expand the problem a bit:

I have the noisy force field AND I also have super-noisy glow-y flight. When active I shine brightly, I can be seen coming for miles. I leave "glowing lines of force behind me." Basically it's the same problem: anyone who wants me can find me if I'm using the power. This is also 2 MP. Do I get +4 DP for both of them?

Answer: probably yes. At this point we are still talking about slightly different things--and the glowing-lines-of force are, you know, a little different (the news media can tack you).

So then I get Tracking Sense that lets me scan for people I've "put a trace on" for, let's say, 2 AP--and I do the same thing: it's glow-y? Do I get +1 DP for that?

Answer: AT this point, probably not. See, the collection of Mod Points is based on them having to do something "new" so making all your powers obvious isn't all that new anymore. So probably the GM says "no--that's not new."

Problem 1: This is now a GM call and I'd rather avoid that.

Problem 2: I can make a case that I might use the sense when I'm not flying or using the force field and that is at least theoretically different.

Let's bump it up a bit: What if my Teleport Power creates a "pool of spectral unease" around me that turns people off and makes them mistrust me for a few minutes or an hour after a teleport? That's kind of a defect, right? Then: My mystical armor which is always on does it too. Okay, we already know that it's "no longer new" so the GM could refuse it on those grounds. 

Yeah? Not too convoluted.

But wait: having a spectral sense of unease cling to me is kind of a character point Trait. I mean, it's not in the Character Point rules exactly but there are things like Ugly and Obnoxious that kinda do the same thing--they don't get you more DP. They just give you CP.

On the other hand, a "spectral sense of unease" is, almost definitionally, a meta-normal ability (a bad one--but still): it's unnatural. So if it were a good thing (spectral sense of coolness) then it would cost Archetype Points. Right?

So maybe this should get me Archetype Points?

So That's The Problem

There are not just several different categories of defects and enhancements but there are potentially even other currencies that they could be vended in. Superman has two problems with Kryptonite: the first is that he loses almost all of his powers (so all powers have a "Does not work in the presence of Kryptonite" defect on them). Secondly he has a problem with falling unconscious in the presence of Kryptonite. That sounds like an Archetype Point issue: it's very unusual (it's not something normal people can buy--it's related to his unusual / unique physiology).

So What Do I Do?

I think the answer is to simply split things up similarly to the way I have here.

1. If the modification makes the ability less useful (or more useful) it's a Mod Point issue.

2. If it creates the "kind of problem an normal person could have" then you get CP for it.

3. If it creates "the kind of problem a normal person could not have" then you get AP for it.

You are probably limited in how much CP / AP you can get from these.

You might be able to get more than one pay back for a given modifier.

What's an example of #2? Stinky Armor. If your bio-armor has a nasty odor to it then you get a CP Trait the equivalent of Ugly or Obnoxious since the social impact is similar.

If your armor is radioactive, however (minorly, we're sure) you get some AP for it since that's the sort of thing most people cannot get.

In any event, you don't get that much for them.

One More Thing

While I tend to like giving you DP to make up for defects in abilities, if you want to, you can reduce the cost of the ability by 1 AP per 4 Mod Points you have. There's no reason for that not to be legal.

Also Note: there's a limit on how many Mod Points you can get for an ability without GM permission--especially doing things like adding up a bunch of small things. If the idea is that the ability is worth "half as much" because it doesn't work inside 7/11 stores and won't function under the New Moon and doesn't target red-heads, even if you say that adds up to a big defect ... it isn't.

So clearly there will be some judgment calls going on here.

Back of the Book

Am I done with everything? No. I am not. There are still some powers that need to be fleshed out. There are a few things that need to be added. I need to finish up Telepathy (almost done) and do Telekinesis and Astral Travel (not too bad).

I'm working on the dreaded Back of the Book chapter. This is where everything that's been thought about gets laid out. It's gonna be good.

Traumatize

There's a bunch of stuff I'd like to write about--but I don't have a lot of time so here's something short that came up: Traumatize!

The Traumatize Attack
So I'm re-doing the Telepathic attack powers. There's a bunch of them (different kinds of memory manipulation, Burn Mind, Mind Control, etc.) and one of the questions that came up during our Psi game of long ago is this "how do you have it that someone who was savaged by a telepath has like, lasting psychological damage?"

This is the sort of thing you'd expect in some fiction--or darker games. It's pretty, well, dark--yeah. And is that really necessary?

Well, our Psi game was very dark--and, as I think about, mental assault is dark too. Of course so is physical assault and we don't have rules for PTSD. So do we need them for Psionics?

The answer is "no." We don't need them--but I had a set of rules written up--a Traumatize attack--and I decided I would like to keep the basic concept. After all, if you are going to sack someone's mind, having lasting (if only for a few hours or day) disorders might be a good bit of color.

So I went to transcribe it--but then there was a problem: who the heck would take it?

I mean, sure: some villain. Some PC with an attitude--okay. But I decided that I didn't want people running around with a Traumatize attack because it was oh-so-good and I generally don't want "villain" powers in the game (example Villain Power: Diseased Sword--it cuts you and then you get deathly ill like a day later--very few PCs will get any value out of this--but they sure would fear fighting it).

So I adjusted the standard Burn Mind attack to have an optional rule where, for +25% power-boost your damage results can have "traumatic" effects where the target suffers temporary psychiatric problems. This has the beneficial effects of:

(a) Getting rid of a power
(b) Solving the "who would ever buy this?" problem. Lots of people might buy Burn Mind. It now can come with it.
(c) Having that stuff in there as an optional rule instead of a separate power.

Another Note
Although the rules (probably) won't make it into JAGS Revised Archetypes, the rules for crippling in combat do exist. In our formulation, when you suffer a wound result you can--if the optional rules for crippling are in play--elect to take a "cripple result" instead. That means (probably) rolling on a table based on Wound Result.

So let's say you are playing a gritty fantasy game and you suffer a Dying Result. That's bad--but you go "I'll take a Crippling Roll" and on the Dying Table (maybe we could even do it by damage type too--I always loved Fantasy Warhammer critical hit charts!) you could roll like "lose a leg" or something. Hey, it's better than being dead, right?

At the higher levels there's stuff like "Facial Scar" and "Missing Ear" and "lost eye (eye-patch).

So that's how in JAGS you can get crippling injuries! We, of course, could add psychological trauma to that list too ... if we wanted to / if anyone cared.

Finishing Up Psionics

My wish to complete the JAGS Revised Archetypes books is limited only by my intent to have a power-set that is complete to what was originally scoped. If not: I'd declare it done right now. This means transcribing the Psionics rules.

Originally there was a bunch of random Psionics files that got turned into JArch1.7 (which you can download). This was the first almost-complete JAGS Archetypes book and I'd even started working on artwork for it (the last stage before editing-ruining "fixes") when we realized that it just wasn't the book we wanted to produce.

This was clear for two reasons. The first was that, well, a bunch of the rules didn't quite work--that included a fairly disastrous test of the Telepathy rules. The second was that we realized there were some "bad answers" encoded into the framework.

We knew that stuff like -4 Damage Modifier against all attacks was worth some % of your AP's--but we didn't quite know how much--or how to codify that in rules. We knew that fast company characters who somehow did a lot of damage were too good--so we had this rule for "high damage" and "low damage." But it wasn't a good rule.

So we created the Combat Simulator which began a new era of testing (learning how to use the simulator is what the first part of this blog is about). Back to Telepathy ...

Telepathy
So we had a JArch 1.7 version which touched on how we saw Telepathy working. An earlier version of these rules got a pretty good playtest in a campaign set in post-apocalyptic Miami. The telepath in the group was reasonably powerful and the basic abilities worked okay.

However, at that time, the rules were emphatically non-scalable. Chi Fighters (What the other two characters were) had very discrete limits. Cyborgs a little less--but not much--there were like three "grades" of them. Within those limits the rules worked okay.

The problem came when we tried a very similar cut of the rules (what is in JArch 1.7) in a game where everyone played a telepath. It became clear that we were not able to do a lot of things we wanted to--and that a good portion of the abilities simply didn't work--there were rules holes all over the place.

So I wrote a Telepathy v3 file.

It fixed the rules--but kept the vision relatively intact.

Now I need to take that 56pg file and "update it" to the new framework. That means two major things: 1. Simplify it greatly. The new framework favors a lot of small-description powers rather than long ones. It also favors more straightforward effects rather than special rules systems (like Chi Points).

2. Re-evaluate the vision. In my vision telepathic combat is a little like grappling (shudder). The idea is that you establish a "mind link" (or "lock on" as the current PDF calls it) and then you can start trying to mess with their minds.

While in a mind link people can "mind strike" each other using their WIL as STR. So if your telepath mind-links with a super Tai Chi master martial arts master with a 15 WIL you may have telepathy but going 1:1 with his superior mind is a bad idea ...

I like that--but it's complex. Do I need to keep that? What if I drop it and make all the telepathy attacks one-offs without the concept of "mind-linking?" What if I take out the Mind-Strike thing altogether and assume that there is no way for non-telepaths to hit back mentally?

It's not as cool and colorful--but it's a lot simpler.

I think the middle ground here is to see if I can present a very simple mind-link system that covers the bases (how do you break a mind-link if you're not the initiating telepath who can just drop it?) but doesn't take 50 pages to explain?

That's the key thing.

Last chapter ...

Types of Games

The current "open chapter" is Psionics--which presents a whole host of questions (some of which I have discussed here). However there's another top-of-mind question: the previously discussed Utility Powers.

As said before, the idea is that if you get 32 AP for abilities and you split it between "attack" and "defense" of various types you get a decent degree of balance out of the rules. Maybe not perfect--but: really? Better than we thought (thanks to many millions of sample combats with the Java Combat Simulator!).

However when you start drawing from those points for things like super senses or telepathic communication or even flight that changes. Sure, if you can fly and fire energy beams and no one else can, you'll win a lot of fights--but in an even match (say: indoors?) those 4+ AP have a pretty severe effect on your Percent of Victory (POV). This, statistically, encourages nothing-but-combat characters.

Not what we want.

So what do we do?

Well--if you've been following ... it's what we've already done once. We split point-types between Character Points and Archetype Points because we noted there were some pretty good mathematical reasons for having different cost-schedules. We found in GURPS and Hero we were differentiating between "normal character stuff" and "paranormal stuff." So we formalized it.

Now we can do that again: Combat APs and Utility Power APs. This gives characters a pool of points to use for all that non-combat stuff. Now, the rules are slightly more complex than that: for example, you can always move APs from your Combat Points to your Utility Points if you want to--and how TAP powers are calculated are based on your Combat Points--not your Utility Points ... and okay--this isn't a complete write up of the rules--but you get the idea there's some additional thought around this.

Let's get one thing clear: this whole point-partition thing? It's Advanced Optional--we don't expect most games or most players to care that much--we just want the framework there in case people do.

But that raises the interesting question: what kinds of games use Utility Point Pools?

What Kinds Of Games Use Utility Point Pools?
The big one is superhero games. That's where how well you fight is important and so is color. You want both aspects to be firing on all cylinders for a good supers game. How about Chi Martial Arts Street Fighter type people? They should, maybe, have some non-combat healing type powers and still compete strongly in the Kumite so ... yes. Super Spies? We can see some APs on things like "Drive any Vehicle" and weird senses ... right? Okay--good.

Do they all get the same ratio of Utility Points? How many should they get anyway?

Well, we think there are two "schedules" for Utility Points (if you are using them).

1. A lot: you get half your combat APs in Utility Points. This is the schedule for supers. A "powerful" 64 AP Super character would get 32 AP to spend on Utility stuff and could have some pretty good flight, senses, environmental support, etc.
2. A few: you get 1/4th your Combat APs in Utility Powers. So a 16 AP action-heroy super-spy type gets 4 AP in Utility Powers. Enough for one good stand-out trait or so.

What Games Don't?

Some "color" is always good, yeah? However there are some games where Utility Points don't make sense. We think these are (to name a few):

1. Low AP Games. Clearly if you get 0 AP you don't get Utility Points (or ... do you? There could be a game with weird stuff but no combat stuff--but that's weird). If you get 8 AP for "one trait" you probably have to choose combat or not (or split them yourself).
2. Level / Adventurer Games: Our now-epic Have-Not game has run for almost 2 years and advanced the characters from Level 0 to Level 9 (each Level is approx. 8 AP). This has been a triumphant success of the Level System and the balance mechanics. There is no reason to mess with that by adding in other kinds of APs.
3. Standard I-Don't-Want-Complexity Games: The CP/AP split is, we think, necessary for some kinds mechanical issues that are very hard to solve otherwise (consider that rolls cover a range of numbers from 0-20 but most powers are scalar and can go up to any level. If you don't want to trivialize having 20- skills you need to do something about cost-schedules ... the most elegant is to split points). There, we're sure, be plenty of games where the GM just says "You have 12 AP, go for it"--and no one will worry about Utility Points vs. Combat Points. The difference in POV just isn't that much.

Are There Other Kinds Of Games?

Well, sure--and we're not even covering all kinds above. What are "psychic detectives" (we tried a game like that and it proved the ESP rules needed a lot of work). We ran a game with Telepaths and those inexorably mix Utility Stuff (communication, some Mind Reading) with Combat (Psi Blast). If we sell the abilities separately--as we are wont to do now (but did not in the cut of rules tested) then some work needs to be done to resolve that (you kinda must have basic telepathic communication before you can launch most kinds of mind attacks--do we ... formalize that? What does the printed rule look like on the page?).

But "Telepaths" isn't really a game type. It's just focus of Traits. It's like "Cyborgs" where the characters might be more like super heroes or more like adventurers or whatever. 

As I get ready to do the next, probably final pass, on the rules, I have to determine how we explain this and what we need to do to ensure that player's trust in the rules isn't damaged by too many options and too much game-design theory getting in the way of comprehension.