It’s been a very long time since anything was last posted here, and there’s a very good reason for that: development hadn’t been happening.
The past tense there is very important. I got distracted from the game by a lot of things — mostly just living and focusing more on running games and putting together a solid group. But the ideas never stopped coming, and my brain was always chewing on the project in the background. Now, with my motivation back and an appreciative and enthusiastic group of players to work on the game for, development is back in full swing. Ideas are being put down and worked on in tangible form.
So, without further ado, here’s a summary of what’s going on with Cyberpunk 0000:
Presentation
–Name Change: The final title of the game is undecided, and Cyberpunk 0000 was always intended as a working title. That title has been replaced, however, and the game is now known as Deathwish. This almost certainly won’t be the final title, but it captures the player-character ethos of the setting in development and the spirit of my players — they have absolutely no qualms about taking on great risks and obviously self-destructive endeavors. Cyberpunk 0000 also tied the game to R. Talsorian’s venerable Cyberpunk line, which was intentional (as the core game system draws heavily on its mechanics) but also pigeonholes the game. Deathwish is much more than a re-imagining of CP2020, and it would also be inappropriate to piggyback on the success of another game.
–Point of View in the Rules: One of the axioms of Deathwish’s development is that players are generally not interested in rulebooks; they are intended for gamemasters, who then explain, interpret, and apply the rules at the table. The Deathwish rules will be highly modular and separated into sections throughout. Most sections will be intended for GMs and will contain the full “source code” of the rules, showing exactly what’s involved with a mechanic and what influences it. The others will provide explanation and interpretation or advice on applying the rule in play — how to play and run the game, how to modify rules (and what consequences that might have), and rules options and alternate ways of doing things. The player sections will only explain the rules of the game in the simplest, most concise, and most intuitive way possible, helping players to read only what they want to know. The other sections will always be there for the reader who wishes to know more, but they should not be an obstacle to understanding how to play the game. An example of this principle is illustrated in the next section.
–Presentation of Game Mechanics: One of the core goals of Deathwish is simple, intuitive play with easily applied rules. The game is intended to be complex, but this complexity will live in the writing of the rules and the ways they interact in the background — it will not make itself felt by requiring tedious calculations or making fundamental play cumbersome and laborious. To this end, rules mechanics will be explained in the simplest possible terms and made as concrete and direct as possible. In the player sections, the purpose and method of the rules will be explained, but briefly, allowing readers to absorb the concepts (which will be simple) and move on to the next. Part of this simplicity is adopting a set of standard forms and notations for expressing mechanics. Verbal instructions and descriptions are to be avoided; they are hard to find within a page and prone to misunderstanding.
The best example of this principle is how skill checks work versus how they are presented. As is explained in more detail below, skill checks are made by rolling 1d10 and adding a character’s applicable attribute and skill values to obtain a value which is compared to the check’s Difficulty. That’s the core engine of the game — if it were a program, that’s how the code would work. That operation involves adding three numbers together from different parts of the character sheet and then working with two-digit numbers, and it also requires that one do the arithmetic for every roll since the rule gives no indication what one needs to roll to succeed. Using the same rule, however, a much more aesthetically pleasing solution is possible — essentially, we use algebra to simplify the calculation as far as possible. An example is in order.
Example: Bionic Bob has an Intelligence of 4 and a Computer Operation skill of 4. Computer Operation is linked to Intelligence, so Bob rolls 1d10 + 4 + 4 for tasks such as setting up a machine, installing software, writing scripts, etc. On Bob’s character sheet, we compute this sum in advance next to Computer Operation in his skill list (where the values of 4 for INT and Computer Operation are already listed). That’s saved one operation — now we’re only adding two numbers (1d10+8) instead of three, but that’s nothing special. We keep track of one other value in the skill list, though: Base Target Number — the minimum value needed on the d10 roll to succeed in a task of basic difficulty. Basic tasks have a Difficulty of 10, and simple algebra or gamer’s intuition shows that, with a +8, Bob needs to roll a 2 to succeed at a basic task — a 90% chance of success, which is appropriate given his average scores. This Base Target Number is calculated in the same way — 10 – (Attribute + Skill) for every skill. We now consider basic tasks to have a Difficulty of 0, not 10, and we find the final target number for any task by simply adding the Difficulty of the task to the Base Target Number. Thus, if Bob finds himself trying to set up a computer network for a resistance cell base (an average task, Difficulty 4), he needs to roll (2+4): 6 — a 50% chance of success.
This keeps the numbers used small and reduces even the most complex skill check to a matter of modifying Difficulty, then adding it to the Base Target Number. All modifiers to tasks will act directly on the Difficulty, and no task will ever be lower that Difficulty 0. The only pitfall I see with this system is that, for above-average attribute and skill values, the BTN is negative. This doesn’t pose a mathematical problem, but negative numbers can be off-putting, as can the idea of lower numbers being better. I don’t think it will be that big a deal, though, as it’s a minor quirk in a procedure I think is quite slick and the arithmetic is still quite simple — just subtract the BTN from the Difficulty if it’s negative. [Afterthought: I actually like the semantics behind that -- high skills essentially reduce the difficulty.]
Other types of rolls would be similarly reduced to the easiest way to understand them. Other mechanics will use standardized, unambiguous notation, and I’m considering calling out mechanical bits from the main text by separating them a line from any explanatory text. This is an idea taken from textbook layout, but I think game books could learn a lot about communicating information from them.
Mechanics and System
–Core Mechanic: The core mechanic was decided upon long ago, and lots of testing and consideration have shown it does exactly what is desired. Every roll in Deathwish is a 1d10 roll (except for ad-hoc randomization rolls, but those aren’t part of the game system) — skill checks, attribute saves, damage rolls, everything. These rolls might not all use the same form, but skill checks — the most fundamental part of gameplay and what are used to accomplish all tasks — are set in stone. To make a skill check: Roll 1d10 and add the applicable attribute score and skill level. If this sum equals or exceeds the assigned Difficulty of the check, the character succeeds; otherwise, they fail. If a natural 10 is rolled, roll a second d10 and add its result to the check total. There will be some embellishments and expansions for different applications and situations, but that’s the core mechanic. The “exploding” d10 allows for small odds of success to exist in the system, which means there is almost always a small chance of success against a high Difficulty. The d10 base die means that all probabilities are easily understood as multiples of 10%, except for those long shots, which break down into 1% increments. With the high Difficulties commonly encountered in firefights (for example, the Difficulty to hit a target at medium range is 18), characters will almost always miss much more than they hit, which means the game system will portray firefights as intended — desperate affairs in which most shots miss.
The terminology needs to be cleaned up, but that’s a matter of presentation and development and will come with time. More worrying is that there is a bug in the exploding d10. Since it’s impossible to roll less than a 1 on any die, adding the second d10 means adding at least one point to a skill check total. This means that it’s impossible to roll a natural 10 — one will immediately add the second die to it — which means that target numbers of 10 and 11 are essentially the same. This means that there’s a point for any check at which changing a difficulty by one point has no effect on the probability of success. I’m not sure how to deal with this, or if it’s even a big deal — Shadowrun got along with a similar problem with exploding d6s for three editions. The solutions I’ve considered are: not doing anything and accepting it as a quirk of the system, treating a roll of 10 on the first die as 9 and adding the second d10, and reading the “0″ on the second d10 as a “0″ instead of the normal “10.” The second of these is workable, but violates the intuitive nature of reading the dice as they lie. The third changes the way dice are read in a more severe manner. Both solutions shorten the range of possible rolls by making the maximum possible die roll 19 instead of 20. (The second d10 does not explode, putting some tasks out of reach.)
Other things worth pointing out about the core system:
- There are no rules for critical success, nor will there likely be rules for exceptionally good rolls (rolling significantly higher than the Difficulty) conferring additional benefits — one either succeeds or fails. Certain skills, pieces of equipment, and situations may impose their own special effects on certain natural rolls, however. High skills are rewarded by allowing more frequent success and by allowing more difficult variants of tasks (such as called shots) to be undertaken — although there may be an optional rule allowing voluntarily increasing Difficulty after a roll is made.
- There will undoubtedly be variants on this basic skill check, including opposed rolls (for beating another character at something) and long, involved tasks (such as doing legwork or designing a piece of hardware). These tasks, regardless of how success is determined, will all use the Check Value = Attribute + Skill + 1d10 model.
- External modifiers to the Check Value are to be avoided — the Difficulty will instead be modified. This makes rolling skill checks at the table a much simpler affair, especially because of how skill checks will be expressed.
That’s far from all there is to say about Deathwish right now, but this is long and I’m running out of time. Next post, I’ll discuss attributes, the structure of the system, initiative, some musings on combat, and character generation.
–Bullet Bill
