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Psi Run: [Psi Run] Drifting Back Towards Otherkind

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    • CommentAuthoramnesiack
    • CommentTimeApr 2nd 2008
     # 1
    Semi-cross-posted with Story Games.
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    The biggest complaints I've seen about Psi Run are that (1) It's difficult for PCs to work together (2) The Chasers have no real teeth (3) There are no rules for PC v. PC conflict. Based on these three issues, I went back to Otherkind (the primary inspiration for Psi Run, I gather) to see if it had any mechanics for these sorts of situations. While I don't see anything that really applies to #3, the other two are covered pretty well, I think. Here's what I'm looking at:

    Rolling Together: If you and another PC are facing the same enemy to reach the same goal, you can roll together. Roll 4 Basic Dice, plus your Color Dice if you're using any, plus your friend's Color Dice if she's using any, plus one more die because you're working together. You must quickly agree how to assign the dice; if you can't, the GM should step in and assign them for you. (If you can agree which dice to discard, the GM should respect that agreement.) If your enemy has Iron, either or both of you can contribute the Radiance to counter it. You can follow the pattern to include even more PCs in a roll: each PC contributes her Color Dice, plus one more for her simple participation, plus whatever Radiance she chooses. You all must quickly agree how to assign the dice.

    I think this can be ported over almost exactly as it is. Simply have one person roll the normal number of dice, plus one extra per additional person who is helping. The only thing I'm worried about with this is that it could lead to too many people regaining memories very quickly. One possible solution is to only have one player benefit from memory recovery if it occurs. The other is to have each PC share all outcomes except memory, with each one having to individually assign a die from the pool to their own Memory. If I did this, I might also increase the number of helping dice each PC contributes to 2 for healthy PCs, 1 for PCs with harm. The major problem I see is arbitrating who gets to snag which dice for their characters, if there's a dispute.

    Iron and Radiance: When you're fighting people with Iron, after you've assigned your dice, the GM subtracts points equal to your enemies' Iron from one of your dice. She can choose either your Motion die or your Safety die. For example, say the hulking giant from our ongoing example has an Iron of 2, and the GM uses it to subtract 2 from my Safety die. Now my result is Narration 4 Motion 5 Life 2 Safety 4. I narrate that in his death throes, he throws me and I fall heavily, spraining an ankle.

    Giving the Chasers something like Iron (Anti-Psi maybe?) could dramatically increase their ability to be a threat. I would probably start them off with 0 and then immediately increase it by 1 each time the Chasers show up in a scene. If I were to limit the effects of Anti-Psi to two categories (as above) they would be Goal and Harm. I think this would encourage the players not to use Chase as a "dump stat" of sorts, but it also might end up being overwhelming if the Chasers show up frequently.

    I'm definitely looking for any thoughts/feedback around this. Thanks!
  2.  # 2
    Interesting.

    After I first played, #2 was a problem of sorts; PCs were being injured left right and centre as if "harm" were a dump stat. I suggested dice penalties for various harm outcomes and I decided to test that out when I ran it myself. I used: 1 Dying, 2 -1 dice, 3 -1 dice in next scene and in any subsequent capture scene, 4 -1 dice in next scene, 5-6 fine. In that game, "harm" became a scary box: there were very few injuries. This doesn't directly address the threat value of the chasers, but I think it has a pretty similar effect.

    #3 has yet to come up for me, but I'm running it again tonight and if it does, I plan to have the two PCs roll dice as usual and the PC with the highest successful result in "Goal" will win. Tiebreaker will be the discard die, if there is none, due to injury, it counts as zero. If there is still a tie, apply all effects from both players and roll again. Repeat until there is no tie. If there are ever insufficient dice to fill all the required boxes, roll an extra dice and take the lowest 5 results (or 4 if no Psi). [That's basically Penalty dice from TSOY] There's a little leeway for tweaking in either direction on the PvP if it turns out to be too harsh or too nice.

    For #1, I just have the main PC make the roll and the helping is flavour. This doesn't come up much in my experience. I know lots of games have rules for helping, so they must get used in some games, but it's not something I'm used to seeing at the table a lot. I like your +1 dice per helper, one person gets a memory per dice assigned idea though. I'll try and use that tonight too.
  3.  # 3
    I ran it again at a local con. As in my previous games, #2 helped a lot and #1 and #3 didn't come up at any point.

    At this stage, my main problem is that I don't know what stage of development Psi Run is in anymore. Are there any further issues which need testing or fixing? Is there a release date?

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