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K-Punk - a cyberpunk tabletop RPG I'm making

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oddtail:
In this case "mechanically impactful" means that what happens during a scene has consequences in the game mechanics (as opposed to something happening in the story and not being reflected in the game's rules at all).

cybersmurf:
If you need someone to play-test this, message me please.

oddtail:
Still in the process of refining and writing down the rules after the last round of feedback, so here's another teaser to keep the thread going.

The game is about being mercenaries (core principle 1) and about navigating your life as one (principle 2). Scenes in the game are made to reflect this, and are a bit... specialised.

In most games, a scene is a loose concept, mostly related to game pacing, but without rules governing what the scene *does*. It's a framework for doing other, more mechanically importan stuff.

Not so in K-Punk. Here, a scene is a measure of goals and progress not unlike a dungeon level or a monster encounter might be in D&D. And each scene is defined by what it "does" for the game.

Here's how it works:

1) PCs roll dice based on both their competence in a given situation and how engaged/invested a given PC is. All those dice form a pool for the entire Team.
2) Another dice pool is (usually) rolled that represents the environment, less important people, innocent bystanders and the general flow of time and the story.
3) If there are any major antagonists or allies or other interested parties, they each get their own dice pool.

The scene progresses through phases. Phase one means going through all dice that rolled a 1, Phase two all dice that rolled 2 and so on.

You go through each die in turn - if a die belongs to the Team, one member of the Team gets to act once. This is relatively abstract, one "action" may take seconds or days, depending on the scene, but in game terms - the character gets to try and change one thing. It usually means interacting with dice already on the table - rerolling them, removing them, adding new ones.

If a die represents another group - it means the Game Master gets to act once, as an NPC or a group of them.

If a "situation" die comes up - the GM explains what happens in that moment, and may give the Team opportunities to do something or dangers to face, depending on the circumstances.

Numbers on dice represent chronology (hence why you start with 1s rolled), with 1-2 representing things that happened well before or *just* at the start of the main action, 3-4 reflecting the bulk of the events, and 5-6 things that happen either late in the scene or afterwards, after most of the tension is gone.

Goals of a scene vary depending on its type (more on that another time), but in general the scene ends either when all characters make the decision to "bail" (exit the scene), which may be dangerous or costly, or when all neutral, "situation" dice are removed via player actions.

This leads to a resolution of the scene of some sort, and setting up the next scene. New dice are rolled and, in some cases, a portion of the dice may progress from scene to scene.

So for example, if there's a scene with some tension and goals, but no major opposition, the Team may roll (for instance) 4 dice, and there might be 5 situation dice. Let's say the dice come up like this:

Team dice: 1,4,1,6.
Situation dice: 2,2,6,4,3.

The way it would go is that the Team gets to act twice in phase one (because they have two 1s), then two events happen in phase two based on the rules and GM's judgment, followed by one event i phase 3. In phase 4, both the Team and the GM get one die each, similarly in phase 6. In phase 5, nothing much happens.

This is the initial setup - the whole point of getting to act is that the dice will change based on player decisions. So some dice may not come up at all, some may be rerolled and probably at least a few will be added during the scene. The scene will end once all 5 situation dice are removec (dice are *not* removed automatically after they come up), or when all Team members decide to cut their losses and "bail".

That's the gist of how the game works, minus what specific player actions do. More on that next time.

oddtail:

--- Quote from: cybersmurf on 21 Feb 2021, 03:00 ---If you need someone to play-test this, message me please.

--- End quote ---

Gladly! I'm at the stage when I'm still just playtesting the game just on my own, with a bunch of friends, but I *will* soon have a version I'll be comfortable showing other people.

I do absolutely want to see how the game works when someone who is not me is running it - if nothing else, because I'll make unconscious assumptions on how things "should" work that are not necessarily explicitly stated in the game rules.

hedgie:
Considering how much house rules/rulings determined things in pretty much every game I've played in, it also would be a good way to find ways the system might be changed for the better.

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