DissenterKnight wrote:

I just tripped over your Batman RPG using Cortex Plus and I’m a huge fan just from what I’ve read. I love it.

How do you find the Smallville system works? I’ve purchased it (Origins last year), but I’m concerned that a system designed to put players in tension -if not outright conflict- might have some issues. Maybe it’s to many years at a D&D table chant the mantra of “never split the party… inter-party conflict kills…”

Thanks. I’m really proud of this game. It’s one of my longer running campaigns and it’s been a ton of fun to run. We just did the first session in No Man’s Land (Assuming you’re semi-familiar with Batman storylines) and it was a blast.

Anyway, so funny story about how we picked up Smallville. My friends and I have been doing an RPG podcast for the last the years. At one point we went off on how absolutely shitty Cortex is. We hated Serenity, Battlestar Galactica, and Supernatural. I’ll spare you the details, but we spend a good half-hour just ripping these games apart. After the episode released I got an e-mail from Cam Banks, the head designer for Leverage and Smallville. Turns out he’s a big fan of the show and wanted us to take a look at the games he was responsible for. He promised us they were different than the old Cortex game and send us free PDFs of the games. I took them and filed them away laughing. I hate the Smallville TV show and Cortex so why would I read this? Skip ahead five or six months and a friend of mine wanted to run a “Superheroes in High School” game. We tossed around ideas for systems and I jokingly mentioned Smallville. Later that night I actually pulled up the PDF and scanned it, hoping for some content we could lift from the game. I ended up reading over the whole game and just being blow away. I encouraged my friends to read the game and they loved it too. Next episode, we apologized to Cam and became some of the biggest supporters for MWP and Cortex around.

So, back to you question. Personally, I like how the Smallville system works. I’m a fan of party conflict but most games don’t handle it very well. Smallville’s system makes it rewarding to argue with other players. If you just remind everyone that they can’t ever lose control of their characters, most players have no problem with it.

One of the biggest strengths about a party-conflict style game is the overall level of player interaction. Instead of one player arguing with the GM’s NPC while everyone else sits there and listens, you get two players talking between each other. A good GM can spin the game to get all of the players talking amongst themselves, everyone in the game interacting with the story. No one sitting there, waiting for their turn.

See, the D&D Anti-Party Conflict mentality tends to stem from how that system handles arguments. If I’m the Rogue and I want the Fighter to do what I say, I roll Bluff or Diplomacy. If I roll high enough, the Fighter has to believe me. I got a 47 on my Bluff check, you loose. The mechanics take away the opposing player’s free will.

In Smallville if I want you to do what I say we have a conflict. If you don’t Give In, you never have to do what I say. Arguments become more about whats at stake. If you really don’t want to do something, another player can’t FORCE you to go along. However, if you’re on the fence and the other player picks up dice… You can just give in.

That said, most players still shy away from party conflict. It’s been breed into us after years and years of traditional gaming. Don’t split the party. Don’t argue. It’s PCs vs. GM. Even in my Gotham game I tend to find the players working together more than working against each other. The system handles that fairly well but it’s not the real strength of the game. If you’re looking for more of a Us vs. Them superheros game, I’d say keep your eyes open for when MWP’s Marvel game comes out. We’ve been in the playtest for it and it’s more “party” focused than Smallville. It’s also really good.

I’d say give Smallville a try. It won’t be for everyone but it does some really interesting stuff. Plus, the Pathways system is a ton of fun by itself. It also takes some of the heavy lifting from the GM, which is always a good thing. Honestly, I can’t say enough good stuff about Smallville.

Anyway, if you have any questions about specifics feel free to ask. You can check out our podcast too (www.BearSwarm.com) and we talk about Smallville from time to time.

-Rob.

I’ve had a couple of people comment that it sounds really complex. While there is a certain level of complexity here I think that it’s purely in the explanation. The execution of the system is fairly simple, it’s just hard to describe how to get there. That said, this system has not been playtested in a full game scenario. We’ve toyed around with individual abstract situations but nothing for an extended game session.

Foundation

I still struggle with this question: Do I present the Character Creation rules first or the Basic Mechanics first? It seems like you always need the context of one from another one. I’ve decided to open the book with a summary of the basic mechanics, then character creation, and then jump back and talk more in detail about the mechanical elements of how the game is played. Here, first up, is a basic rundown of how Signal Zero is played.

Signal Zero uses a pool of ten-sided dice for all of its conflict resolution. Whenever you come into a conflict that you need an impartial decision on its outcome you can use the Foundation mechanic. There are other systems presented later that will help represent other facets of life in Signal Zero but at the end of the day you can always just fall back on the Foundation rolls.

To begin, players will need to gather up a pool of dice. Every roll always uses two Traits, an Attribute and a Behavior. You take the Rank of each trait and add it to your die pool. Next check to see if your character has any appropriate Reputation or Equipment that would help you in this task. Again, you’ll add the Rank of those to your die pool. Those are the only places from your character sheet that you can gather dice but you’re not done building your pool yet. Now check with your GM (or another Player depending on who your conflicting with) about any possible Reputation or Baggage that you can use against your opponent. Add any applicable Ranks to your die pool.

Jeremy is playing Richard Devoux, a hard-boiled detective and raging alcoholic. He’s been hired by a wife to see if her husband is cheating on her, pretty standard stuff. Rob, the GM, decides we need to know how this investigation turns out and asks Jeremy to make an investigation roll. Jeremy first look at his Attributes and decides he’s just watching, so it gathers 3 dice for his Cunning Attribute. With Behaviors Jeremy decides he doesn’t have a good reason to do this outside of being paid so he gathers 1 die for his Wealth Behavior. Luckily, Richard is a good detective so he gets 4 dice from his reputation of Seattle’s Greatest Detective. Jeremy also has his trusts Binoculars that he adds 2 dice for. Jeremy asks Rob if the husband has a Reputation or Baggage that can be used against him and Rob tells him to take 2 dice for the husband’s Adulatory Baggage. In total, Jeremy has a pool of 12 dice.

You can only use one of your Reputations and only one piece of Equipment per roll. If there are multiple Reputations or pieces of Equipment that could apply to a roll you can spend to 1^¤ per additional element you want to roll. For example, if you want to use Two Reputations and Three pieces of Equipment it will cost you ^3¤ .

Now that you have your die pool built take all those dice and roll them out. Now Signal Zero will separate itself from the majority of other games because you actually have some more decisions to make with your result dice. Signal Zero uses something called Number Groups. As a brief aside, Number Groups are sets of the same number. So any 7s you roll are one Number Group while any 4s you roll are another Number Group. When you have your result you’ll want to sort your dice into their Number Groups. When in the book Number Groups are written like 1×10, where the 1 is the number of dice in the group and 10 is the result on the die.

Every roll is allowed to keep one Number Group for free. After that you’ll need to see if you have a Skillset that apply to the roll. You keep an additional number of Number Groups for every Rank you have in the Skillset. You can keep additional  Number Groups by spending 1^¤ per group kept. Any Number Groups that are not kept are then discarded.

Jeremy rolls out his dice and sorts his results into the following number groups: 2×1, 3×3, 2×4, 2×6, 1×7 & 2×9. His Detective Skillset lets him keep an extra 3 Number Groups so Jeremy decides to keep the 2×9, 2×6, 2×4, and 3×3 groups, discarding the rest.

The Game Master has assigned a number of Aspects to your roll. These are the various factors that need to be decided, such as how quickly you accomplish your intention, how accurate the results are, and a number of other things. There are also a series of standard Aspects they apply to most rolls. The Target Number for every Aspect is 12. You assign your kept results to the Aspects of the roll. Dice assigned to an Aspect are then added together and if their total is greater than 12 you achieve your desired result. If your total is greater than 15 you gain another level of success and for every 5 points after that you gain another level. If your result is less than 5 your result turns out extra bad for you.

Rob tells him the investigation has the following Aspects: Speed (How quickly Richard can wrap up this case), Accuracy (How strong the evidence against the Husband is), and Size (How much evidence the investigation turns up). Jeremy can also use the Currency (How much extra he gets paid), Reputation (How much this case help’s his Seattle’s Greatest Detective reputation), and Advancement (How much he learns from this case).

After thinking about it for a moment Jeremy decides that he wants to nail this guy to the wall, so he assigns 1×9, 1×4, and 1×3 to the Accuracy and 1×9, 1×4, and 1×3 to the Size. He doesn’t really care how long the case takes but he doesn’t want it to really hurt him so he puts a single 1×6 into Speed. So far, this has cost him 4¤, so he decides to make some extra cash off this case and assigns his last 1×6 into Currency.

The final totals are 16 for Accuracy and Size, a 6 for Speed, and a 6 Currency. This means he gets a Tier 2 Success for Accuracy and Size, a failure on the Speed, and 2¤.  Rob tells him that since he took his time with the case the wife got impatient and confronted her husband. He denied it all of course but when all the evidence, and there was a lot of it, turned up he broke down and confessed to the whole thing. The wife filed for divorce and it was Richard’s investigation that lead to the judge siding with the wife.

Then it happens. I see the demon’s head in the window of his steel walled bunker. I squeeze the trigger and watch as the demon’s head is replaced with shattered glass and blood splatter. I sigh and begin to push myself off the ground. Before I can even compete a push-up I drop hard on my right side and roll onto my back. Barely avoiding the knife that lands where my head just was.

Priests are trained in the arts of stealth and ambush. This also makes us extremely apt at noticing when a trap has been sprung on us. We are trained to rely on the perceptions of God in times of peril. It’s this divine connection that warned me of my attacker. Yet, all of this divine intervention couldn’t have prepared me for seeing another Priest standing only feet away from me.

My rifle is too bulky for close combat so I have to rely on my knives and sword. I bare steal and kip-up to my feet. The Priest in front of me slides his right foot backwards and pulls his sword. I lunge in quickly with my sword arm while pulls a small knife with my off-hand. He parrys, as his training instructs him, and moves to counter-attack. He is a traditional Catholic Fencer and never expects when I step inside his range, dropping my sword, to buy my knife into his chest.

I grab his sword arm and twist, forcing him to drop his blade, as I spin free. I leave my knife in his heart and watch as his slumps to his knees. I pick my sword up and with one quick flick cut his throat. Blood spills down his chest and the scars on his forehead begin to glow.

I drop everything in my hands and touch the same sigil on my forehead as his burns open. I grab the sides of his head to steady the transfer and close my eyes. The warmth of his divinity spills from his incision into my own. I feel the glow of the Lord’s Touch spread through my own body as his cheeks grow cold in my hands. Then the moment passes and he is just an empty shell.

I gather up my rifle and clean my blades. I thought I’d have more time but you can keep no secrets from God himself. With a heavy heart I mount my bike and kick the motor into action. The mercenary shanty of Gristle is near-by and I’ll see if I can find protection there. There is always room at the inn for a woman of the cloth. They don’t need to know I just killed the local Deacon.

I want to elaborate on why I think this is a terrible idea. After the break, I’m going to talk about how Arkham City made me realize that character advancement in table-top role-playing games is broken.

Arkham City came out on Tuesday. Arkham City is the sequel to Arkham Asylum, a critically acclaimed video game. Everyone is saying the same thing about the game.

I am (the Goddamn) Batman.

I couldn’t agree more. From the start of Arkham City you feel like Batman. This is true of Arkham Asylum as well, but since Arkham City is the new hotness it’s what I’m going to focus on. If you haven’t played Arkham City, feel free to substitute Asylum. The same ideas apply.

From the moment you don the cowl and look out over a rooftop you’re given a plethora of gadgets and attacks. All of these unique abilities can be looked at like the majority of special powers in table-top role-playing games. Except, you get to start with all of them.

I start Arkham City as Batman. It seems like in too many table-top role-playing games I start playing as Bruce Wayne… outside the Monarch Theater… As his parents are gunned down in front of him. Completely helpless to the events happening around him.

There is a certain appeal to that but I have to spend game after game, week after week, in order to eventually be Batman. That just seems tedious. Why can’t I just skip ahead to when I’m Batman and start playing the game?

This doesn’t mean I’m a perfect character either, or even a complete one. Just look at Arkham City. For as much stuff as you start out with, you also start with a ton of potential stuff to get picked up later. Arkham City even rewards you with XP and Level Ups, like a traditional table-top role-playing game.

As a bit of a tangent, I want to talk about a concept my buddy John exposed me to  that I absolutely abhor. John holds the idea that character advancement isn’t an important element in a table-top role-playing game. He’ll cite examples in film and literature of characters who “never advance” and while I agree with what he’s trying to say, I disagree with the message.

Keeping with the Batman analogy. In a table-top role-playing game, John thinks a player would be able to buy off Batman’s flaws. He could get rid of Batman’s lost parents or self-destructive relationship with Selina Kyle\Talia al Ghul\Every Woman He Ever Fucking Meets. While John’s right about this, Batman shouldn’t be able to “improve” by eliminating his lost parents, there is still a very important element of growth and advancement for the character.

If Batman didn’t have a strong experience point system, he’d never have been able to buy a new side-kick when Dick Grayson became Nightwing… or when Jason Todd was beaten to death. He’d not be able to modify his gear to take done Freeze or upgrade the Batcave with wireless internet. Character growth shouldn’t be looked at as a way to make a character more powerful, but as a way to expand their repertoire. Character’s need to evolve, and experience points can help us simulate that.

It’s this author’s belief that game designers and game masters need to start approaching their groups like how Arkham Asylum approaches Batman. You get to start out being as awesome as you need to be and then the challenges need to be presented at that level. As long as you don’t let your players steamroll through everything, as long as you tug at the chinks in their armor, they will find a way to grow, change, and advance.

What I’m trying to say, if I want to start at Level 6 who am I hurting? As long as all the players feel like equals and still have something to strive for, why do they need to slog through game after game of sub-par characters?

Just a thought.

There is also the matter of other projects stealing time away from this game design. The weekly role-playing game I run requires prep time, the podcast, and recent developments that lead to my friends and I playtesting a game have eaten away time I’d normally spend on Signal Zero.

Still, it’s the 13th and I want to give you something. All two of you who read this. Instead of presenting the first portion of a project, I’m going to talk about my design goals and what, exactly, Signal Zero is meant to be.

Signal Zero is a cyberpunk game in the loosest of terms. The words cyber and punk are never seen within the text, but the genre classification gets you close to what I’m going for. Signal Zero takes place in a future version of Earth where corporations have superseded governments and the gap between rich and poor has become more pronounced. It is a world where dystopian horrors and utopian bliss live side-by-side, sort of.

Society has grown and cities have sprawled out and up. Skyways connect buildings to the point where people can live their entire lives without seeing the actual street level. The lower you go and the further away from a city’s center you get the worse the conditions are. When you’re living on street levels, you’re literally living on the streets. Buildings are topped with bio-domes that have re-created hundreds of thousands of paradises.

When it comes to the actual game, it’s all about making decisions. The basic mechanics presents the outcome of the dice not as a static success\failure but as a choice over how you want your success & failure to look. The example I give is that looking for someone has the Aspects of Distance and Speed. While there is a chance you can succeed on both Aspects, it’s more likely you’ll need to choose if you find your target quickly but a good distance away or your target is close to home but it takes you a long time to find that out.

I’m trying to design a game about the characters. The choices they make and what that means to the world. “Cyberpunk” is just my chosen backdrop. A world of stark contrasts meant to bring out the best and worst in people. Really, the goal of Signal Zero is to ask the character, “What do you do with your life?”

When designing the game I wrote a short concept sentence to fall back on whenever I hit a rut.

“Make Decisions, Get Augments, and Manage Reputations.”

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the Augments and Reputation systems have seen numerous re-writes over the last month. I’ve got the decision-making down and I’ve figured out how Augments fit into the game. I’m still hammering on Reputations to make sure the feel right but in the mean time I’ve stumbled into other game elements.

How you do something is as important as Why you do something.

When playing Smallville I loved the idea of asking Why. It doesn’t matter how your character does it, but why is he doing it. The problem I ran into is that sometimes, people do things because their good at it. With Signal Zero characters have two main traits, Attributes and Behaviors. I call this the AB Trait system and it represents the How and Why. Attributes explain how the character gets the job done while Behaviors explain why he chooses to do things.

Characters are Flawed, Players Aren’t Penalized.

I’ve shown the Baggage system in its entirety already but it wasn’t something I originally set out to design for this game. I knew that I didn’t want the characters to be Mary Sue but I also didn’t want to penalized my players. I hate negative modifiers because they de-enabled the player. John Wick said it best in 7th Sea, and I’m going to paraphrase it here. In Dungeons and Dragons if you want to slide down the banister, catch the chandelier, swing across the room, land in-front of the bad guy and have an epic sword duel… you’re going to be penalized the whole time. Like in 7th Sea, I wanted to tell players “FUCK YEAH! That’s awesome! Do that!”

Resource Management with Unlimited Resources

I knew I wanted an element similar to Style from Houses of the Blooded. A tangible reward I can give the players and that they can spend to fuel the system. The problem I ran into was that in Houses, running out of Style sucks. Now, it’s mostly a GM problem if enough Style isn’t being rewarded but it can still happen. I wanted a back-up for my Style. But I wanted it to be costly. I designed the Currency\Credit system in Signal Zero to have that function. If you ever run out of Currency and you just really need\want some, you can use Credit. There is a downside, but it’s always there for you.

Organic Advancement is awesome but cumbersome

I’m still grappling with this monster but I love the idea of being rewarded for using what character elements you chose to have. Tying it back to decision-making, I’ve set it up that you can gather Advancement Points off of any roll you make, and apply those points to any elements you used in that roll. While I like the idea, I’m hoping it doesn’t become too difficult to manage. Playtesting will sort that one out for me. Also, I hate the idea of pure-organic advancement. Sometimes things happen off-screen and I’ve developed a system for advancement points to be earned outside of your die rolls.

Hacking in Cyberpunk games sucks ass

Everyone who’s played Shadowrun knows that when the Hacker opens his mouth you can grab your phone and play Angry Birds for a while. Last week I posted the Hacking mini-game I designed for Signal Zero. The idea is that the Hacker can go play a little game by himself and then report in on the results. I’ve also realized that there is no reason you can’t just use the basic mechanics to solve the riddle of hacking. Earlier I talked about the Aspects of a die roll and the same principle could be applied here. In one roll we can figure out how quickly a hacker works, how much data he pulls back, if he gets his line traced, and any number of other questions we might have about his work. All in a single roll.

Game Masters need more definition and less fiat

When I designed Danger Close I put strict limits on what the Game Master can do. I like this style of game, where the GM actually has a set of rules to follow. With Signal Zero I’m trying to take that the next step by giving the Game Master a World Sheet. Similar to the Character Sheet, the GM gets to design the elements at play. Even in Danger Close the GM needed a little bit of fiat power and that won’t change for Signal Zero. The goal is to reduce the NEED for fiat though. To give the GM a set of rules so he can play a game too. Not just referee his players.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hopefully you have a better idea for what I’m trying to do here.

I’m not sure how I did with it but it held up to some light playtesting. Since this is designed to be a stand-alone element within the game you don’t need any other rules to be able to play the game.

While I don’t have the rules for designing a system yet, the arbitrary method of just assigning numbers works just fine. If you’re interesting in playtesting just assume you have a Dice Pool between 8 and 12. I’d appreciate any and all constructive feedback I can get on the system.

I’m also not 100% sure I’ve fully explained the system here. I need to know if there needs to be any clarifications.

Hacking

Hacking is a small mini-game played by a single player, the Hacker, against a static objective, the System. The Hacker will roll his dice pool and assign dice to various System aspects. Once all of the objectives have been completed the System is open to the Hacker. If the Hacker fails to crack the system before it’s security can respond then the system locks him out, possibly back-tracing his connection, and sounding alarms.

Before we can talk about how the game is played we need to define a few aspects of the system. Every system has two sections: The Kernel and the Firewall. The Kernel has three attributes; CPU, Memory, and Devices. The Firewall has two attributes; Encryption and Authentication. Systems can have multiple Kernels and Firewalls but every Firewall is assigned to a specific Kernel.

Kernel CPU determines how quickly the system can respond to an intrusion. The CPU rating sets how many attempts, or die rolls, the Hacker can make before the system starts to respond. If a Hacker can’t crack the system in a number of rolls equal to or less than the CPU rating, the CPU begins to increase the Authentication rating of every Firewall assigned to it. See Device: Motherboard for details on how quickly the Authentication rating increases. If the Authentication ever increases beyond 10, the system Locks Down. There is no upper or lower limit to the rating a CPU can have.

If a system has a CPU 8, it allows the Hacker 8 dice rolls before it begins to increase its security. If the Hacker needs to roll 9 times, the Authentication of the system increases.

Kernel Memory determines how quickly data can be passed into the system. The Memory rating sets how many dice a Hacker can place into the system in a single round. The dice can be split among any Firewalls assigned to the Kernel, but the Memory limit applies to the total number of dice assigned. There is no upper limit to the rating the Memory can have but all Kernels must have a Memory of at least 1.

If a system has a Memory of 4, it allows the Hacker only 4 dice out of every roll to be assigned to any of the Firewalls it controls. If the system controls 2 Firewalls the Hacker can either pass 4 dice to a single Firewall, 3 dice to One Firewall and 1 die to the Second Firewall, or 2 dice to each Firewall.

Kernel Devices are special attributes that the system has that can work against the Hacker. Devices include things like the Motherboard, Power Supply, Storage Devices, Video Cards, and more. While most systems have these devices there are a few that use them in ways to foul up the Hacker. The specific devices are covered in further detail later.

Firewall Encryption sets how many positions each Firewall has. The positions are slots for the Hacker to place dice. The higher the rating the more dice are required to bypass the Firewall. When a Hacker assigns dice against the Encryption they all need to be the same number. There is no upper limit to the rating a Firewall can have but all Firewalls must have an Encryption of at least 1.

If the Firewall has an Encryption of 6, the Hacker needs to assign six dice of the same number to that Firewall in order to bypass it. The Hacker can swap out dice later, but if the Hacker assigns 3d8s in the first round, only d8s will be accepted by the Encryption on later rounds.

Firewall Authentication sets the minimum rating each position requires. The rating is the lowest die number that the Hacker needs to fill a position. The higher the rating, the higher die is required. As such, Authentication can only range from 1-10. If, for any reason, the system increases the Authentication rating beyond 10 system Locks Down.

If the Firewall as an Authentication of 3, the Hacker can only assign dice that rolled 3 or higher to the Encryption positions. If the Hacker starts assigning 3s to the system and the CPU increases the Authentication to 4 all the d3s assigned are lost.

Devices

Motherboard determines how quickly an alerted system responds to an intrusion. When a Hacker runs out of attempts, meaning they need to roll more times than the CPU rating, the Motherboard increases the Authentication of every Firewall assigned to that Kernel by the Motherboard rating. Every Kernel has a Motherboard rating of 1 unless it’s noted in the Devices at a higher rating.

A Firewall with Authentication 1 and a Motherboard 3 increases Authentication to 4 on the first roll the Hacker makes beyond the CPU rating. The next roll increases to 7 and then to 10.

Power Supply determines how many Firewalls a specific Kernel can support. The higher the Power Supply rating the more Firewalls can be assigned to that Kernel. If a Kernel doesn’t have a specified Power Supply rating it can only support a single Firewall.

Storage convert Hacker dice of one number to another number. A Storage Device is written: Device: Storage 8:3. Which means this Device converts any 8s the Hacker attempts to assign to Firewalls controlled by this Kernel into 3s.

Video Cards can be used by the Kernel to increase Firewall Encryption. If the system has a Video Card whenever the Kernel would increase the Authentication rating on a Firewall it converts the Video Card rating of Authentication increases into Encryption increases. The rating of a Video Card must always be at least one less than it’s Motherboard. Any system with a standard Motherboard (Rating 1) can not support a Video Card.

A Kernel with a Motherboard 3 and Video Card 1 will increase of all its assigned Firewall’s Encryption ratings by 1 and the Authentication ratings by 2 every time a Hacker needs to make a roll beyond the CPU rating.

Intrusion

Now that you know how a system looks, lets talk about how to break into one. The GM will tell the Hacker the various system specifications and then it’s on the Hacker to make the rolls and report success or failure back to the GM. If Hacking is taking place during a high stress situation, such as during combat, every roll is considered one turn.

The GM tells the Hacker that the system he is trying to crack has the following stats:
Kernel CPU: 4
Kernel Memory:  4
Kernel Devices: Motherboard 2, Power Supply 3
Firewall #1 Encryption: 5
Firewall #1 Authentication: 1
Firewall #2 Encryption: 7
Firewall #2 Authentication: 3
Firewall #3 Encryption: 4
Firewall #3 Authentication: 8

The Hacker will start by gathering up their dice pool. The standard Trait Attribute is Cunning, but others may apply depending on the circumstance. That pool will remain static during the course of the Hacking attempt. Some Hackers may have special Augments, Training or Software that grant them special abilities when hacking a system but those will be detailed in their section.

The Hacker gathers his dice, Attribute: Cunning 4, Behavior: Freedom 3, Reputation: Hacked the Gibson 3, Gear: Tytian VX-3700 Rig 2 – A total of 12 Dice.

It’s suggested that the Hacker set aside a die per Kernel to track how many attempts they have remaining before they reach their CPU limit. Once the CPU limit has been reached these dice can begin tracking the current Authentication level of assigned Firewalls. Once the bookkeeping is finished the Hacker rolls their dice pool and begins the Hack.

The Hacker places a single d10 in front of him, set to Six. After ever roll he’ll tick this die down one point until he’s out of attempts.

To start the Intrusion attempt the Hacker rolls their dice pool and looks at the dice rolled. It helps to sort out your dice into Number Groups, but Skillsets do not limit the number of Groups you can assign to a system.

The Hacker rolls his dice pool and comes up with the following numbers: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, & 10.

Now the Hacker starts assigning dice to any Firewalls in the system. The Hacker can only pass in a number of dice equal to the Kernel Memory for the system. Dice can be split among any Firewalls assigned to the Kernel, but the Memory limit applies to the total number of dice assigned.

Looking over his dice the Hacker places two of his 10s into Firewall 3 and two of his 5s into Firewall 1. This reaches his memory limit and the Hacker can no longer place dice into the system.

As long as non of the Firewall Authentications go above 10 the Hacker can roll again and assign more dice. Before he can roll again the Hacker needs to tick down his CPU counter. If the CPU counter reaches zero this is also when the Hacker steps up every Firewall by its system’s Motherboard rating.

Firewall 1: Two 5s. Firewall 2: Nothing. Firewall 3: Two 10s.

The Hacker ticks his CPU counter down to 3, meaning he still has three more attempts to crack this system before it begins responding. He rolls again, getting: 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5, 6, 7, & 9. He assigns four of his 3s, the maximum allowed by the Kernel Memory, to Firewall 2 and rolls again.

Firewall 1: Two 5s. Firewall 2: Four 3s. Firewall 3: Two 10s.

Another tick down on the CPU counter to 2 and his next roll results in: 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9, & 10. He assigns another 10 to Firewall 3, two 5s to Firewall 1, and a single 3 to Firewall 2.

If a Hacker manages to assign a total number of dice equal to a Firewalls Encryption rating than that Firewall is bypassed. The Hacker successfully breaks though and it’s not longer a factor. If the Hacker need to roll more times than the CPU Rating the bypassed Firewalls do not increase their Authentication.

Firewall 1: Four 5s. Firewall 2: Five 3s. Firewall 3: Three 10s.

Another tick down on the CPU counter to 1, meaning this is his last roll before the system responds. His next roll results in: 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9, & 9. He assigns a 5 to Firewall 1, bypassing it, and two 3s to Firewall 2, also bypassing it.

Once the Hacker has rolled a number of times equal to a Kernel’s CPU rating every roll after that increases the Authentication of every Firewall assigned to that Kernel. Normally this increase is 1 for every roll but if the Kernel has a Motherboard the increase is equal to the Motherboard rating.

The Hacker is now rolling again, he still has to score one more 10 to bypass the last Firewall. Unfortunately the system now increases its Authentication. Since this Kernel has a Motherboard 2 assigned to it the Authentication of the final Firewall increases from 8 to 10. If the Hacker can’t roll a single 10 on this next roll the system will Lock Down.

Firewall 1: Bypassed. Firewall 2: Bypassed. Firewall 3: Three 10s.

His final roll results in: 1, 1, 1, 1, 3, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10, 10, & 10. He assigns a 10 to Firewall 3 and successfully bypasses the system.

If the Hacker successfully bypasses the entire system the game is over and he reports his results back to the GM. He should also check into what he missed while ie was Hacking, but that’s optional.

Lock Down

When a Hacker fails to bypass a system before a Firewall’s Authentication increases above 10 the system Locks Down. When this happens the Hacker needs to fight the Backtrace, which would tell the system who the Hacker is and where the Hack is coming from. The Hacker makes a final roll but this time uses the Foundation rules. This roll has only one Aspect: Speed. The Hacker simply needs to know if he disconnects in time. The Hacker needs to achieve a Tier of success equal to the number of Firewalls that were not bypassed.

At any point during an Intrusion the Hacker can give up though. The system can’t Lock Down but the Hacker also fails to crack the system. The Hacker can’t gain Reputation, Currency, or Advancement off of the system.

Multiple Hackers

When Multiple Hackers login to a system the simple run rampant. The system remains unchanged but both Hackers gather and roll their full dice pools. Treat the system as operating the same but the Hacker has a much larger dice pool to assign from.

Some systems are even designed with multiple Hackers in mind. If a Hacker gets a look at the system specifications and doesn’t think they can do it alone, the Hacker can disconnect without issue.

My crowdsourcing experiment ended this morning. I closed out the poll (you can see the final results to the right) and have drafted up the first stab at the system.

The truth is, I didn’t post the poll to get an answer. I already knew what I was going to call Character Flaws. I knew the minute it was first suggested. I wanted to see if it was an acceptable idea. While I liked all five suggestions, I already had my favorite and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a terrible choice.

Lets talk about the contestants, shall we? Defects and Glitches are very similar in my mind, I liked both of them but they sound a bit too computer-y for my tastes. You don’t really think of people as Defective or Glitchy. Baggage is solid but I was worried that it went too far the other way from Glitches and Defects. Baggage is a really strong human term but not very cyber. While I liked Issues (It reminded me of the old joke about the Korn album: “What’s your problem man? Do you have issues?”, “Yeah, I love Korn.”) it sounds a bit adolescent for a “mature” game. With Dissonance my concern was that the word itself sounded like Thesaurusitis. It’s a good word, but does it need to be there?

If you’re interested in my choice and seeing the first draft of my Character Flaw system, I’ve posted it after the break. Remember, first draft. It’s likely to change a bit but I think the core is solid… I mean, I borrowed the idea from another game system. (Full credit for the inspiration will be given in the final product.)

Bonus points to anyone who can figure out what game system its inspired from.

Step D: Baggage

Baggage is all that crap you carry around with you. Sometimes it comes in handy, but most of the time it just weighs you down. Sometimes you choose to take on the burden and other times you’re forced to carry the weight. No matter the details, everyone has Baggage.

I really don’t like doing mid-game credits. It breaks the flow of the game. This time is an exception to make a point. I didn’t coin the name Baggage. I put out a call for help across the internet and got a ton of great feedback. I mentioned this idea up in your Concept and here it is, Crowdsourcing in action. For the name Baggage all credit goes to the marvelous Greg Stolze. I was struggling with what to call this system and Greg stepped up to the plate and knocked it out of the park. Not to dismiss the other feedback, as there were tons of great suggestions. It was just that Baggage really captured what I’m going for.

Baggage represents a character element that work against your character. All of your Baggage is ranked from 1 to 5. The higher the number, the more detrimental the Baggage. You can have multiple Baggage traits, which just means multiple problems.

Insert 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one joke?

While Baggage never directly hurts you, other people can use your Baggage against you. Anytime your Baggage would be appropriate, your opposition can add it’s Rank to their dice pool. Unlike other elements, your opponents can use multiple Baggage traits against you too.

Every Baggage Trait comes with a Buy-Off and Resist cost. The total cost is always 50^¤ but divided between Buy-Off and Resist. Your Buy-Off is always how many Ranks you don’t have while your Resist is always equal to how many Ranks you do have. Your enemies can pay a number of Credits equal to your Baggage’s Buy-Off amount and force you to act a certain way. If you don’t want to go with that program, you’ll have to pay a number of Credits equal to your Baggage’s Resistance Cost.

Basically: If you have Alcoholism at Rank 3, your Buy-Off is 20^¤ and your Resist is 30^¤. Might need to find a better way to phrase that paragraph.

Why would you want Baggage at all? Because sometimes it comes in handy. Baggage allows you to re-roll any dice pool you’ve rolled. You have to take the second result, unless you choose to re-roll again. Every session you can re-roll a number of times equal to your highest Baggage Rank.

If you’ve already re-rolled a number of times equal to your highest Baggage Rank, you’re not out of luck. You can re-roll again, all it costs you is another Rank of Baggage. Increase one Baggage train by one Rank and roll again. One of your conditions gets worse so you can roll again.

Baggage also has one other advantage. If you’re ever about to die, you can cash out and survive the encounter. You can only do this once per session, so try not to die again. You gain a Rank of Baggage and can’t re-roll via Baggage for the rest of the session.

May or may not need this rule. Evaluate after playtesting.

You can’t just buy off Baggage with Advancement either, you have to work on your problems. At the beginning of any session you can declare that you’re working on your Baggage. For the rest of the session you need to role-play working on your problem and if by the end of the session you haven’t used any Baggage re-rolls or had to cash out to survive, you lose one Rank of Baggage. The only exception to this is if you only have one Rank of Baggage left. You can never be 100% Baggage Free.

Ok, so I did a little crowdsourcing via Twitter, Facebook, and G+ this morning. Now I’d like to take this crowd-sourcing to the next level with a little poll. I was looking for a term to use for Character Flaws for Signal Zero. In about two hours I received 4 on Facebook, 7 replies on Twitter, and 16 on G+.

And people wonder why I’m switching to G+.

For a  more detailed breakdown of what I got and my thoughts on the process, head past the break. If you just want to make your voice heard, the poll is to your right. Without giving away too much, here are a few bullet points to help you make your choice:

• Character Flaws always hurt you, the never help. You do not get to “spin” a flaw into something positive.
• Flaws are used against you, they don’t apply a penalty.
• Having Flaws grants you access to a benefit but in order to get more of that benefit you take more\stronger flaws.
• Flaws are both Human and Machine; they range from Alcoholism to Memory Leaks. From Reality Dissociation to Malware Infections. They can be anything wrong with you or your cyberwear.

If you have questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer without spoiling the surprise of the system.

I left the request SUPER broad because I wanted to see on a basic level what people would come up with. The post read: “Crowd-sourcing: I need a good cyberpunk term for character flaws…. Thoughts?” and while I got a ton of interesting suggestions (some of which I might use in other places) most of them were way more tech-focused than I wanted. My bad, should have specified I guess.

There was a question raised a couple of times about if I needed the other side of the coin. If I was going to have a Pro/Con style mechanic. It’s interesting that people assumed that, because I’m not. The rest of your character is a Pro for you, I don’t feel the need to have a separate category to “balance” my Cons against.

Anyway, here are the suggestions I’ve got thus far. My favorites have been highlighted:

Glitches (Cam Banks, Daniel Solis, Kevin Weiser, Jermey Elder, Robert Timmerberg)
Bugs (Cam Banks, Saniel Solis, Sir Guido, Matt Dukes, Robert Timmerberg, Murph Murphy, Neosect)
Negs (Cam Banks)
Viruses (Daniel Solis)
Worms (Daniel Solis)
Features (Tim White, Richard Ashley, Robert Timmerberg, Mike McMullan)
Defects (OtherDoc, Matt Dukes, Mike McMullan, Neosect)
Robot Herpes (Antiable)
Runtime Errors (Wintjen)
Defaults (Carl Morgan)
Malfunctions (Scott Anderson)
Baggage (Greg Stolze)
Emotional Tech Support Issues (Matt Dukes)
Issues (Derek M. Johnson)
Bad Coding (Richard Ashley)
Faulty Code (Richard Ashley)
Noise (Alex Tsotsos)
Static (Temmogen FHotA)
Downers (Jessie Foster)
Crush (Alex Tsotsos)
Zeros (Richard Ashley)
Bio Bugs (Tadeusz Cantwell
Overlocks (Alex Tsotsos)
Cyber Psychosis (Mike Morelock)
Service Packs (Robert Timmerberg)
Setbacks (Marshall Miller)
Errors (Marshall Miller, Mike McMullan)
Bias (Marshall Miller)
Dissonance (Marshall Miller)
Catches (Mike McMullan)
Troubles (Mike McMullan)
Breaks (Murph Murphy)
Black Hats (Murph Murphy)
Idiosyncracies (Neosect)

The streets smell of sulfur and rotted meat. All around you there is a constant buzzing and you can’t tell if it’s from the monorail or the neon signs. It’s always dark here. The sky is obscured by buildings, skyways, and smog. The air lingers heavy, literally, and you have to choke just to get oxygen. Everything around you is covered in grime and what isn’t re-enforced steel is crumbling brick. You live here, but you still dream about someplace better.

The halls are pristine and smell faintly of lavender. Your shoes make a soft click on the synth-marble walkway. The windows open to beautiful blue sky, just above the cloud-line. Everything here is soft hues, pastels and whites. Not a glaring white but a soft, easy on the eyes, white. The climate is perfect and even in your suit you are comfortable. You live here, but you still dream about someplace better.

The market is loud, both in sound and style. Riding the glass elevator down you can see a hundred different booths setup, in different languages, with different people hawking different wares. Thousands of people pulse and melt around the stalls. On every intersection sits  a steel poll lined with floodlights and security cameras. The elevator stops and the decontamination processes ends, perfectly timed. The doors open and you’re assaulted by a hundred different of odors. The air becomes thin from everyone breathing off one filter. You shop here, and you hate it.

The store pipes in soft music while a sales representative stands behind you. He is not being pushy, just waiting to help you with anything you need. He was assigned to you the minute you walked through the doors. The shelves are pristine, very little product actually sits out because everything is custom tailored. You can look around all day and not see a single security camera but you know they are there. You can not even find where the lights are but the room is perfectly lit. You shop here, and you hate it.

Your apartment is called a ‘Efficiency Sub-Loft Studio’ which just means ‘really damn small’. You have a kitchen in your bedroom and your toilet and shower sit next to the couch. Still, these two rooms seem like a mansion compared to your sleeper-pod you rented for the last three years. The windows are barred but you never risk lifting the security cover. Your best furniture is third-hand and the rest is barely above dumpster quality. This is your home, but you’ll move up to someplace nicer soon.

Your condo is called a ‘Single Inhabitant Luxury Living Space’ which means you would never leave if you did not have to. Your massive bedroom has a top of the line sleep-chamber. It allows synaptic projections of the latest video entertainment to be streamed directly into your subconscious while you sleep. Your kitchen is full of appliances equip with the latest Virtual Intelligence upgrades. Even your patio has state of the art laser enforcement grid to protect you from slipping off the rail-less edge. This is your home, but you’ll move up to someplace nicer soon.

The tram is late, as usual. The whole tube smells of piss and shit, just like it has ever since it was deemed more economically viable to route sewer lines through the sub-stations. Everyone around you wears a mask, some just to block the smell and others so they don’t breath in the fumes from leaking gas lines. Finally the tram pulls up and everyone shuffles inside. The car isn’t much better than the tube, most of the seats are broken and the grab bars are missing. It won’t be a problem though because everyone is crammed in so tight they can’t move. It’s not your ideal way to travel, but it’s the one you have.

You arrive at the station and exit your pod directly onto the carrier. You make your way to a full synth-leather recliner with build in heating/cooling unit. You recline and a small video screen slides out from the ceiling and adjusts itself to your optimum viewing distance. The retinal scanners read your eye movements and notice that you are interested in seeing sports scores. A flight attendant checks on you and tells you that should take just over an hour for your flight from New York to Tokyo. You order a drink and see that the Cubs have lost again. You sigh and decide to just take a nap. Your chair, sensing this decision, slides backwards and forms into a small sleep chamber for the duration of your flight. It’s not your ideal way to travel, but it’s the one you have.

What is Signal Zero?

At the end of the day, Signal Zero is a table-top role-playing game. Hundreds of people have written “What is Role-Playing” sections in thousands of different books. I can’t tell you any better than they can, but I’ll give you my spin. If you already know, feel free to skip the next paragraph.

What I can tell you is what a table-top role-playing game means to me. Table-top role-playing is sitting around a table with a handful of your friends playing a game that tells a story. There isn’t any part of that equation that is optional, in my mind. If you’re not at a table, than its something different. If you’re not with your friends, then you’re missing out. If there isn’t a game than you’re just telling a story and if there isn’t a story you’re just rolling dice.

What about the setting of Signal Zero? It’s a dystopian/utopian future where humanity struggles to find the place of artificial augmentations inside a world gone capitalistic and corporate. The majority of the world is filled with massive urban sprawls stretching both horizontal and vertical. The lower you go the more dystopian everything gets while the higher levels are a utopian paradise. Everyone must decide if they want to graft high-tech machines into their flesh or focus on remaining ‘pure’. Governments collapsed and were reborn as corporations. Economically, everything is cheap up front but then you have to pay more to get everything to its full potential.

The tagline I wrote to keep looking back at while I design and write this game is:

“Make Decisions, Get Augments, and Manage Reputations.”

Hopefully you’ll see those principles reflected in both the flavor of the setting and the mechanics of the system.

Signal Zero Spotify Playlist

I’ve put together a little playlist for when I’m writing. You can check it out at Music for Signal Zero on Spotify. Currently, despite the game taking its name from a Fear Factory song the ‘theme’ in my mind is “Cruci-fiction In Space” by Marilyn Manson. Both are on the playlist, with the semi-titular Fear Factory track sitting at #1 with my mental theme at #2.

Anyway, check it out. See where my mind is at, musically, while I write. Let me know what you think.