Game in the Brain

It must be remembered in Homebrewing there is:

• No wrong answers. 
• Just Differences in how we do things. 
• Our Reasons and Methods have to be defined to help others understand our differences. 
• Take away is that we want different things for different reasons, but we can learn from each other.  

My goals are 

• Simplified Workflow
• Define the Discrete STEPS (Process: has an input, and output)
• Every piece of information needed for a STEP is at least one page away.
• Fewer Tables. 
• Injury Table replaced with d6 Stat+ or Stat- (roll a d6 which stat is increased or reduced due to injury, change, or enhancement. the number of dice is usually a Success/Fail Effect aka margin of failure or success). 
• Note Injury includes PTSD or Trauma – as both physical and mental stats can be lowered due the events. As Mental Trauma can manifest physically and physical Trauma can manifest mentally. 
• The medical Table is replaced with an Effect Modifier. Example Soldiers and Scouts have a Medical Variable that reduces the Fail Effect in Injury. 
• Concepts are Modular and Reused. Example. 
• Instead of some events having Injury
• Injury, Politics, Medical, Privilege (like Medical, it reduces the Fail Effect of a Politics roll). 
• Because there are these modular Mechanics Careers have a different feel. 
• Their risks are Different: Scouts and Soldiers have more chances for Injury. 
• Some Careers have more Politics like Enterprise, Civilian, and Elite (Elites having Privilege). 
• Fewer Rolls, Use Effects like Survival Roll. 
• For Careers with Commission, use Effect of Qualification to PUT them in Officer Career Track. 
• Create an Open Gaming License version of the events and life system. 
• Something usable that can be easily improved.  What makes it easily improved are
• Modular Mechanics like the Injury, Politics, Medical, Privilege, Aging, Enhancement, etc..
• Design Notes and Assumptions and my limitations and Problems so other Amature Game Designers can make informed decisions about how they will approach this. 

Improve the Design of a System. Iterate and allow people to work with Print out improvements or Living Documents. Control and Manage the Changes. Modularize the changes.

The Wanderer – the Poor have everything to lose, almost all Events have an Injury Roll. So the character who is a Wanderer is statistically more likely to be injured and be crippled. Odd/Dirty/Dangerous Jobs is the life of a Wanderer. there is no reward for being a wanderer just degress of less screwed – when they become a PC – that’s when they may have social mobility.  

I realized that Careers are grouped by functions. These functions have certain skills and traits.  First I have to write the Function, then Detail the Trade-off. 

Example: 

• Scouts are for gathering information or moving very quickly. 
• They fulfill the role of affordable agents, intelligence and reconnaissance.  
• Their trade-offs is being placed in vulnerable positions – being far from support, 
• They need to be self-sufficient with a lot of survival and technical skills. 
• their jobs entail sacrificing a lot of relationships and network to be able to travel far or move fast. 
• Their advantage is being more self-sufficient.
• Their Jobs have High Chance of Injury. 
• Wanderers serve as migrant labor and hard jobs.
• It should be clear Wanderer does not hold any job security, it is a desperate option for those who could not qualify for a Career and options are limited. 
• Unlike most careers, Wanderers are an output of the imperfections of a system. They represent characters with Low status and are a write of my experience as someone who is in a Developing World and the Diaspora Migrant workers created in the modern world.  
• Jobs Nobody would want are World Building Specific: In this game its Services, Material Reclamation, and Hostile/Hazardous Environmental Jobs. 
• Their strength is that there is always a Job for Them because its a Job no one wants. Its a Job that guarantees some stigma. 
• There is no “DISCHARGED” from career when a Wanderer fails a survival roll.
• Their DC to survive and thus gain Status is HIGHER than other Careers at 40% and 50% chance to survive, while many Careers fall equal or greater than 80% (DC8) chance to survive. Note surviving grants an Increase of Status.    
• Incarceration and Wanderer Design will have elements of Slavery in it. 

to paraphrase one of the career events:

• “The character finds an Item of Value”  
• “The character is part of a diplomatic mission” 

I learned that the Career Events are not the Entire 4 years of the Character’s time, that its Notable Events. Which is an important distinction since I’m making Social Services will create an event such a Natural Disaster and Mediator, Medic, and Rescuer have to fit that Career Event. Events like disasters are not “Day to Day” but they are what raises the stakes and pushes the system’s limits.  

• No Wrong Answers, Just different ways of Doing something and the Process we do these different ways and Why. 
•  2 elements have to be present Action and the Problem. 
• See scout Event-12. 
• Action: “Transmitting (1d3) Vital Information/Material/Person.” 
• Problem:  “pursued by (1d3) overwhelming/unknown/allies-turned enemies”
• Use NPC Elements. Leadership, Teams, Management, Patron, Clients and their qualities can be part of the event and randomly rolled. 
• 3-4 such Events that feature Adversaries or Personnel in a Career. 
• Corrupt implies the system has been subverted and profiting someone else. 
• Indealisticimplies the ideas do not match the reality and the variance creates problems. 
• Inept, incompetent, untried, green, etc… all deal with Competence 
• Jaded, Cynical, Toxic, Dysfunctional are dynamics of people that make for an added challenge. 
• Constraints. Every descriptor just Adds to the complication.  
• Lack of Resources: Time, Budget, Manpower, etc.. relative to the already lean Scope the work typically entails. Take some work and slowly slide it to unreasonable.
• Scope – you have resources but the scope is far beyond what is known to succeed sustainably.  Ambitious, Improvised, Impractical, Misunderstood, etc…  
• 7 is “Life Happens”
• Use the Values as the Likelihood of an Event. 5-6 and 8-9 are more likely and mundane events. Typically Overworking, too many Constraints, or Lack of Critical Resources. 
• Take 4 First Impressions of what Kind of Work the Career entails. Example Wanderer:
• Odd Jobs in a (1d3) Starport/Megaton-Freighter/Colony (1d3) Construction/Development/Pacification  Injury DC8. Politics DC12. 
• Working Dirty Jobs in Megaton-Freighter plying (1d3) Frontier/Hostile/New Trade Routes. Injury DC10. 
•  Emerged from Cryo Berth in a (1d3) environmentally-hostile/politically-contested/socially-volatile (1d3) Starport/Megaton-Freighter/Colony. Injury DC10. Gain a 1 Medical benefit. 
• Pressganged/Scammed/Conflicted into dangerous work for Tyrannical/Corrupt/Criminal Polity off in a (1d3) Frontier/Declining/War-Torn (1d3) Colony/Capital/Wealthy system. Injury DC10. Gain a Cmb/Eng/Tech Skill.       
• 4 to 2 and 10 to 12. 
• 12 is automatic advancement IF survived. 10-11 are Special Missions or Works. 
• 4 can be an Increase of Fail effect by 2. 
• Wanderer Examples. 
• Employed as Disposable/Token-Aid/Bait-and-Switch Manpower for Desperate (1d3) Unions/Communities/Colonies. Injury DC10. Politics DC11. Gain a Soc Skill at 2. 
• Coerced into a Near-Suicide Mission(s) by the employer. Injury DC13. Medical 3 for this Mission. Gain 1d3 Benefits regardless of survival outcome. 
• Lured by Good pay into a meatgrinder (1d3) Outpost/Colony/Station with (1d3) Authoritarian/Criminal/Chthonian factions. Injury13. Gain a Benefit regardless of survival outcome.
• Character’s (1d3) debts/contract/ were sold for a job in a Disaster/Proxy-War/Civil-Unrest mission. Injury DC11. Gain a Cmb/Pilot/Drive skill. Gain a Benefit regardless of survival outcome. 
• Replacement disposable manpower for a (1d3) Downsizing/Takeover/Invasion of a (1d3) Community/Union/Cooperative.  Gain a (1d3) Tech/Eng/Cmb Skill.
• An odd job that suddenly became dangerous and high stakes. (roll Wanderer Event Table again but ignore this result).  The Character gains Qualifications for a career of his choice. Gain an Ally. 

Life Happens