The Hive Mind 2: playing with ability pools

So I was looting Necromunda for ideas. Let's see what else could be done with the skill pools system.

As a reminder, the original ability pools are: Agility, Combat, Ferocity, Muscle, Shooting, Stealth, Techno.

Although the ideal option is probably to flesh this out into a vaguely similar gritty sci-fi setting that isn't focused purely on combat, I think I'll actually try to replicate D&D instead. That's because moving from wargame to combat-heavy game is easier than directly to lowish-combat game.

Sword and Sorcery

So here I'm going to try and throw together a set of special abilities that broadly cover the sorts of things you might expect from a fantasy adventure game, substituting for classes.

The first thing I note is that of the seven Necromunda pools, two are directly tied to raw physical ability mostly as it applies to melée combat, one is a mixture of combat and dexterity, one is a sort of willpower thing that includes toughness and scariness and more melée combat, and one is shooting. That seems excessive in an RPG.

I suggest the following seven pools to begin with, assuming a pretty straightforward dungeoneering approach to the game:

• Agility skills are about grace and reflexes
• Might skills are about physical power
• Zeal skills cover willpower, drive and encouragement
• Stealth skills are about secrecy and concealment
• Smite skills unleash destructive magic
• Conjure skills summon helpful spirits
• Enchant skills beguile and influence minds

Agility

• Catfall - you can easily maintain balance, halve the distance fallen when determining affects of a fall, and don't land prone unless you want to
• Dodge - you can burn your next action to make a save against an attack or hazard you've detected, moving up to 2m if you succeed
• Reflexes - you double your initiative and are never taken Off-Guard by traps or ambushes
• Light Fingers - you can reroll a failed Prestidigitation roll (pickpocketing, lockpicking, manipulating small objects, planting, palming, card tricks)
• Spring Up - you can stand from prone without using an action
• Quick Draw - once per round, you can draw or stash an item without spending an action

Muscle

• Sprint - you triple your speed when you run, rather than doubling it
• Hurl - if you win a combat, you can trade all your hits to shove your opponent 1d6+hits in feet and knock them prone. Larger enemies halve the distance once per size category, rounding down; if it reaches 0 this ability cannot be used
• Tireless - you treat armour and baggage as one step lighter when determining movement and fatigue
• Steel Jaw - you gain a +2 bonus to resist stunning and knockdowns
• Iron Thews - you treat weapons and shields as one category lighter when determining wielding rules
• Demolition - you deal +1 additional damage to objects and constructs, and can reroll a failed Bend Bars Lift Gates attempt.

This set may be a little opaque in the absence of rules. The idea is that our Muscly hero can use these rules to dual-wield full-sized weaponry, or carry oversized weapons, or run around with a tower shield and so on. Tireless is supposed to let them avoid speed penalties, swimming and climbing penalties, or penalties for sleeping in armour.

Zeal

• Vicious Reputation - you gain a +1 bonus to intimidate or overawe, including Fear and Retreat tests you inflict, but suffer a -2 penalty to befriend or win over NPCs.
• Nerves of Steel - you may reroll failed Pinning and Retreat tests.
• True Grit - you can make a Will test to subtract 1 from a wounding roll against you, to a minimum of 1.
• Iron Focus - you may reroll failed tests to avoid distraction, and exhaustion tests when concentrating for long periods, including overwatch and standoffs.
• Rallying Cry - you can spend your action calling reassurance to nearby comrades or silently reassuring an adjacent ally. All affected allies can immediately roll to escape one morale effect, such as Pinning or Fear.
• All Out - you can throw yourself wholeheartedly into your actions, increasing your potential, but leaving you vulnerable to error. When you do so, increase your margin of success or failure by 1.

Stealth

• Ambush - you can use a single action to attempt a Hide roll and ready an action
• Blend In - when hiding, sneaking or disguised, double the effective distance when testing whether other characters notice you or pick you out in a crowd
• Act Natural - you have advantage on rolls to maintain a disguise if you're blending into a group or have recently observed the type of person you're disguised as, unless you do something drastically out of character
• Backstab - you strike with advantage if you attack when hidden
• Soft Footed - you can move at full speed while sneaking
• Slink - you can move through small spaces at full speed and without stealth penalties

Smite

• Havoc - you gesture and the ground erupts violently, blasting everyone nearby
• Dragonsbreath - flames gush from your palms in a blazing arc
• Lance - blazing light sears a single target
• Fellblade - a glowing weapon manifests in your hand
• Banestorm - mystical energies wrack your chosen spot until you bid them cease
• Whirlwind - a spiral of air moves at your command, hurling foes and obstacles aside

Conjure

• Guardian - the spirit intervenes to protect its ward from danger
• Veil - the spirit cloaks its ward to conceal it from sight
• Steed - the spirit carries its ward swiftly along
• Healer - the spirit tends the wounds of its ward
• Servant - the spirit fetches, carries, labours and cleans as requested
• Mantle - the spirit infuses its ward with power

Enchant

• Beguile - you charm and manipulate the target into doing as you wish
• Pacify - you lull a target into distraction, slumber or a deep trance
• Mesmerize - you transfix a target with your gaze, and attempt to command them
• Hallucination - you confuse the target with misleading illusions
• Disguise - you warp perceptions with a magical veil that disguises reality
• Bewitch - you reach deep into the target's mind, sensing or influencing their memories and feelings

So, let's see. Our classic brute hero would gain access to the Muscle and Zeal pools. A thief would have Agility and Stealth. A hardy cleric might have Conjure and Muscle, while a demagogue might have Enchant and Zeal. A wizard or wrathful priest would have Smite and Conjure. This is only a very basic attempt at the model, but I think it kind of works.

Politomunda: the city-world

So we've got massive grimdark cities, and you're a bunch of, let us say, questionably-moralled individuals who are trying to get by. Each of the Houses has its own particular philosophies, genetic lineages, education systems and resources that leave their members tending towards similar abilities.

I'm going to suggest Reflex, Combat, Zeal, Stealth, Tech, Face, Instinct, Wits. Remember that these skills are not the basic mechanics for interacting with the world; they are pools of special abilities that replace things like class powers.

• Speed skills are about reactions and movement.
• Combat skills provide benefits and options when attacking or defending.
• Zeal skills cover willpower, drive and encouragement
• Stealth skills are about secrecy and concealment
• Tech skills cover interaction with technology
• Face skills apply to social interactions
• Connections skills cover society and street smarts
• Wits skills involve knowledge, understanding and perception

The specific bonuses and penalties below are arbitrary, since there's no system here!

Speed

• Catfall - you halve the distance fallen when determining affects of a fall, and don't land prone unless you want to
• Dodge - you can burn your next action to make a save against an attack or hazard you've detected, 6+ on 1d6, moving up to 2m if you succeed
• Sprint - you triple your speed when you run, rather than doubling it
• Quick Draw - once per round, you can draw or stash a handheld item without spending an action
• Reflexes - you double your initiative in any standoff and can't be surprised
• Ease of Practice - when performing Extended Actions for which you are trained, you reduce the time required by one-quarter

Combat

• Interference - enemies don't benefit from strength of numbers against you
• Pinpoint Strike - you can reroll an attack's hit location once per round, accepting the second result
• Turn Aside Blow - you can parry without a parrying weapon, or take the best of two results with a parrying weapon
• Snap Attack - you can treat your movement as one category less when determining attack penalties, but suffer a -1 penalty and cannot use sights
• Duck and Dive - instead of taking a Pinning test, you can fall prone if this would give you cover from the attacker
• Suppressing Attack - roll no damage on a hit, but inflict two Pinning rolls (ranged) or Retreat rolls (melée)

Zeal

• Vicious Reputation - you gain a +1 bonus to intimidate or overawe, but suffer a -2 penalty to befriend or win over NPCs.
• Nerves of Steel - you may reroll failed Pinning and Retreat tests.
• True Grit - you can make a Will test to subtract 1 from a wounding roll against you, to a minimum of 1.
• Laser Focus - you may reroll failed tests to avoid distraction, and exhaustion tests when concentrating for long periods, including overwatch and standoffs.
• Rallying Cry - you can spend your action calling reassurance to nearby comrades or silently reassuring an adjacent ally. All affected allies can immediately roll to escape one morale effect, such as Pinning or Fear.
• All Out - you can throw yourself wholeheartedly into your actions, increasing your potential, but leaving you vulnerable to error. When you do so, increase your margin of success or failure by 1.

Stealth

• Ambush - the character can use a single action to attempt a Hide roll and ready an action
• Blend In - when the character is hiding, sneaking or disguised, double the effective distance when testing whether other characters notice them. When hacking, systems and sysadmins treat their activities as one rank less suspicious than normal
• Method Actor - when disguised, the character treats their cover identity and cover story as true for the purposes of psychology and lie-detection
• Light Fingers - the character can reroll a failed Prestidigitation roll (pickpocketing, manipulating small objects, planting, palming, card tricks)
• Trackless - when attempting to track, trace or identify the character, treat time elapsed as one step higher (minute, hour, day, week, month, year)
• Uniform - providing the character is dressed appropriately, their presence in a location is considered one rank less suspicious than normal.

This section assumes the existence of a set of infiltration mechanics, rather more elaborate than the classic single-roll Stealth/Disguise-type mechanics, which feature:

• Ranks of suspicion for presence and activities in an area
• Ranks of security for particular zones
• A general system for determining whether people notice you and what they notice about you

I might try to rough this out at some point, it seems useful.

Tech

• Percussive Maintenance - the character can attempt a short-term fix as a single action, but the results are unreliable
• Changelog - the character always has a chance to notice hacks and modifications without actively searching, and rolls twice when searching.

Tech is hard to do without actually building the systems for doing tech stuff, because it needs to interact usefully with those.

Face

• Read Intention - the character can roll [stat] to gauge what a partner hopes to get out of a social interaction
• No Hard Feelings - when the character bargains, strikes a deal, persuades or influences an NPC, they can reduce any negative change in attitude by one rank with a successful [stat] roll. If they used Intimidation, the roll is at a penalty
• One of the Guys - the character can use an extended action to roll [stat] with a non-hostile group. If successful, they're treated as a Peer for social rolls until they fail a roll or do anything that antagonises them
• Afterthought - when the character amicably gets information from a source, within 1 week they can think of one additional question. They roll as normal; if successful, the source contacts them spontaneously to provide related information. The GM decides how and when the information arrives.
• My Pleasure - when the character strikes a bargain or seeks a favour from an NPC, if they roll [very good] the NPC feels as though the character has done them a favour.
• Between These Four Walls - when the character seeks information or antagonises an NPC, as long as the outcome is amicable, their sources are reluctant to report the incident. The chances of raising suspicion are reduced, and it is one step more difficult than usual for others to find out that the character was making enquiries.

Connections

• Find the Core - when observing a conversation or interaction, the character can roll [some stat] to understand the social dynamics between the parties
• Know a Guy - the character can roll [stat] once per day to tap a contact with a necessary skill at [level] or higher. The result determines the time it will take (minutes, hours or days) and/or the level of the contact's skill.
• Social Butterfly - the character can roll [stat] once per day to tap a contact with connections to an organisation or public figure. The result determines the degree of separation and/or the time it will take (minutes, hours or days).
• Name Dropper - the character can attempt to sway an NPC by mentioning their contacts. This requires a [stat] roll, but grants a bonus on subsequent rolls. On a botched roll, the NPC is antagonised and subsequent rolls are penalised. In either case, it is one step easier for others to learn about the interaction.
• Middleman - the character can play two NPCs off against each other, either immediately (with a penalty) or as an extended action. The NPCs must be Amiable or worse in their mutual relationship. Roll [stat] against each NPC's [discernment stat]; the character can repeat this, but each subsequent set of rolls must gain [better result] or the attempt fails as the NPCs realise what is happening. The accumulated bonus can be applied to one interaction with each NPC, and overrides their limiters for Common Sense and Professionalism.

I envision that this game would have mechanics for organisations and social connections. Perhaps there are degrees of separation, which determine your influence over NPCs and ability to interact with (or infiltrate) their organisations.

It will be much easier to interact with large, public organisations and much harder to interact with small, private and illegal organisations. Similarly, it's easy to tap a contact who slightly knows a media personality, and hard to tap anyone who's close to a criminal, let alone anyone whose real identity is unknown.

The reason for this complexity is basically that I think it makes the Face character both deeper and more distinctive. If anyone can do social magic then being the Face is a matter of quantity rather than quality, which is somewhat less interesting than other roles which have distinct and unique capabilities. Secondly, it makes it less powerful: it's easy for social systems to end up being a sort of binary, where a low roll means you achieve nothing and a high roll lets you win over a paranoid criminal you've never met before. I'm not claiming I can write a game that fixes social skills, I'm just saying this imaginary game could attempt this kind of mechanic. It's less social combat and more a framework for establishing and tracking the difficulty and scope of social interactions.

In the last example, assume that an NPC has some kind of basic behaviour limiters. There's a point where common sense kicks in, and a point where professionalism kicks in (and probably at least one for self-preservation) so that it's very hard to push NPCs into unrealistic behaviour with simple social interaction. Maybe it's something approaching a Wisdom save, and the more inappropriate or self-destructive the action, the easier it is to resist. In the case of Middeman, the PC can try to work up antagonism between NPCs so that they forget themselves and act rashly.

Wits

• Rapid Recollection - the character can make a Knowledge test to recall or recognise omething without spending an action
• Spider Sense - the character halves distances when testing to detect hidden or sneaking characters, tails and anyone watching them
• Weakness in Numbers - enemies don't benefit from strength of numbers against the character
• Skim - if the character succeed on a roll to research or analyse information, they halve the time required
• Erudition - they character's ability to grasp new information means they never count as untrained in intellectual tasks, including conversation
• Expertise - when the character draws on their training, knowledge and education they can use [stat] in place of [stat] for a social roll

Okay, I'm not going to claim this is an amazing new revolutionary game or anything, but I feel like I can see the shape of an acceptable game emerging here. Everyone gets the basic game mechanics for Doing Stuff, then they choose an archetype that draws on a subset of the talent pools; these pools let them select specific special abilities that let them do things the other characters can't.

You could push these up to more impressive effects, depending on the style of game you want. This is generally easiest with combat, which we're used to having be quite mechanical, and hardest with social/magic/technology skills where you kind of need a robust subsystem in place for your special abilities to work with. It's hard to devise special social mechanics if everything's basically left for the GM to interpret anyway, because the whole point is that the Face (for example) lets you do things the other characters cannot. I could have made these more mind-controlly, but that's a specific genre. And then you start getting into issues of "what if the character uses these on a powerful NPC" issue, because the ability to influence any NPC is extremely potent in a way that combat mechanics aren't usually allowed to be.

In general, though, you could easily use this structure to build in things like:

• Attacking multiple enemies at once
• Charming an NPC so well that they spontaneously act in your favour later (like a one-use aftereffect)
• Becoming practically invisible when you hide

I'm going to stop there for now, I feel like this bit is done, and I'm not up for actually writing (another) game right now...