Nuts & Bolts #139 - Hacking the Cypher System - Damage Tracks (Again)

The damage spiral from the Hordes miniatures game.

Two weeks ago I posted about an alternate damage track for games where insanity and mental degeneration was needed. It also works well for games of social intrigue where you are trying to unnerve your opponents and force them into actions that are advantageous to you. Since then I've been thinking that with just one more alternate damage track for Speed you could transform Cypher's heath system pretty radically. Yes, it would mean more bookkeeping, and yes it's a bit more complicated, but consider the advantage of characters having more than just a single way to be taken out of action, and having more thematic effects from various types of stress and harm.

The Core rules for Impaired, Debilitated, and Dead work very well for Might, with the character becoming Impaired after half their Might is gone, Debilitated when they hit zero points, and Dead if they suffer any additional damage. As always a GM can have creatures who have special attacks (poison, necromancy, etc.) that can bypass the pool points and deal damage direct to their Might damage track. Coupled with the Mental Damage Track from two weeks back (click here) we're 2/3 of the way done!

Speed pool is all that remains and a speed damage track is actually pretty easy. The following kick in when a character's speed pool reaches 1/2 its normal value and then when they reach zero. Alternately special attacks like stun weapons, sleeping gas, painkillers, and the like may move the character directly down the damage track.

• Fatigued - The character is starting to tire. The character finds that actions take a little more of their reserves to execute.
• Gathering one's energy is difficult. A fatigued character must spend 1 additional point when using any special ability take has a cost. 
• Exhausted - The character's reserves are spent, they may be in otherwise good physical health (e.g. no Might damage) but their exhaustion shows in shaking muscles and general exhaustion.
• Exhaustion robs the character of much needed mobility. They are treated as having an Inability in all tasks related to movement including Speed Defense, running, swimming, jumping, etc. In addition all movement rates are halved. 
• Unconscious - Insensate. Asleep. Knocked-out. 
• The character is out and unable to perceive their surroundings, defend themselves, and the like. They'll wake after a duration equal to their next available recovery roll, and may well not know where they are. 

Taken in conjunction with the previously proposed mental damage tracks players will be encouraged to build more well rounded characters. It also allows the GM a wider variety of options for disabling characters without killing them or ruling directly from GM Intrusion to render them unconscious or otherwise at the mercy of enemies or situations. 

Nuts & Bolts #138 - Review: Kamandi Challenge #9

Kamandi Challenge #10 is out today! So let's discuss #9. Spoilers henceforth.

Prior issue reviews:

• Review: Kamandi Challenge #1
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #2
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #3
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #4
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #5
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #6
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #7
• Review: Kamandi Challenge #8

Vitals

Published By: DC Comics • 31 pages • $3.99 • full color • Art: Kevin Eastman & Freddie Williams II • Words: Tom King

What's In It?

Spoilers ahead folks last warning!




OK, where were we? Oh, right, treading water (literally and figuratively) and at the mercy of a sea serpent... And then everything went black and white. Before I even get into the story I need to talk about the art. I've spoken my mind about the art because I'm trying to review this series from all angles and objectively. The art has been everything from great to middling in quality. Perhaps if I were an artist I'd be more prone to upgrade or downgrade the art in certain issues, but even at its subjective worst it's been better than anything I could muster.

It's also been consistently in full color. Generally rather richly so. Not so this issue, which when I first flipped it open in the store struck me as odd, and then I realized I knew this art. I don't know crap about 99% of comic art, but I instantly recognized Kevin Eastman's handiwork. Hyper detailed black and white with a lot of shading. A rounded look to everything that makes thing look softer and stranger. And technology that looks like it borders on organic. After last issue the art for this made my dread melt away, I was ready to read!

Which is good because this story turned out pretty awesome. It's not perfect, but it's the kind of story that makes you want to read more. That makes you anxious for the next issue, and makes you curse the month wait to get it. Kamandi wakes from darkness, presumably swallowed whole by the serpent from the last issue, although this is now explicitly shown. He is in a rough-hewn chamber with several mutant animals. There's a door, and shortly after he wakes it opens and allows a robot (or maybe an alien wearing strange armor?) into the room. Without a word the robot takes of the mutants and leaves, the door closing behind. Kamandi's attempt to stop it is thwarted with little more effort than a backhand from the robot that sends the boy hurling across the chamber.

They, the prisoners, soon settle into routine. Kamandi trains and every time the robot arrives to take another of the prisoners he attempts to stop it, and every time he is defeated with almost casual ease. As the days tick by Kamandi trains his body as his cellmates dwindle in numbers, always he tries to save them and always he is defeated.

Until he is alone.

And finally the robot comes for him.

We never get so much as a hint of where the prisoners are taken or what lies beyond the strange door. The robot never utters a sound. Kamandi never gives up trying to fight, but in the end he too is taken into that white light beyond the portal.

The story is simple enough, but it is the struggle and the conversations that each of the prisoners has that makes this issue so interesting to me. They pose ideas of what lies beyond; a perfect world, or a never ending hell of similar rooms. The imagination of  the reader is left to fill in the story until the next issue resolves it, and while in the grade whole this may not end up the greatest issue of the series, that open ended nature makes it the greatest until #10 releases.

Rating: 90% - An great story that captures your attention and imagination.

Nuts & Bolts #137 - Hacking the Cypher System - Mental Damage Track

So you're playing a horror game and want to have a better way to show character mental trauma. Or maybe you are playing a game with a lot of social "combat," people arguing, vying for control, political deception, and such and you want a way to track a person's demeanor. As designed the Cypher System isn't terribly granular in this regard, but that's not something that cannot be fixed. The damage track does a great job of tracking physical damage and stress, and in games of exploration and combat the loss of a damage level from mental assault and/or fatigue works well but when focusing heavily on those more social times it starts to work a bit less well.

Social and mental damage is certainly easy to integrate as damage to Intellect pool. Instead of going to Impaired however these kinds of "attacks" could go to a new type of damage level: Provoked, Disturbed, and Unhinged.

• Provoked - The character is saddened, angered, or off put. They are still in control but on edge and starting to lose control. While a character is Provoked they count as having one less armor for the purposes of mental and social attacks (this may mean having a -1 armor and therefore taking 1 extra damage from such attacks). 
• Disturbed - The character is now on the verge of breakdown. They are furious, grief stricken, or offended. Their control is beginning to slip and they are prone to making poor choices and taking reactionary actions without considering the consequences. While a character is Disturbed they gain an Inability in Intellect defense tasks, and must also make a level 4 Intellect task to act counter to their emotional state (e.g. a roll to not act in anger but instead stay one's hand). 
• Unhinged - The character has now fallen into a an uncontrolled state of wrath, anguish, outrage, or the like. At this stage the character's actions are dictated by their mental state as advised by the GM with player input. Should the character try not act as dictated by their mental state they must succeed on a level 5 Intellect task. 

Unlike the traditional physical damage track these damage conditions are tied to the character's Intellect pool only. They act as a way to track a character's mental state. When a character takes Intellect damage from a social or mental attack that puts their pool below half they also take the next available level of Mental/Social damage. When their Intellect pool falls to zero, they then take then next level of Mental damage. Should they suffer further social or mental attacks while their pool is at zero they suffer an additional level of mental damage. A GM can of course use a GM Intrusion to directly inflict a level of mental damage in appropriate situations.

Recovery on the mental damage track can be done by taking a recovery roll and succeeding on a level 3 Intellect Defense task. Success means they recover a level, failure means they do not. Taking a 10 hour rest always recovers 1 level of Mental Damage. 

As usual, these rules are not tested, so if you use them for a horror game or a Game of Thrones style political game I'd love to hear about it.