Game in the Brain

Welcome back to Game in the Brain. Our latest Fading Suns campaign (running on the lean, mean Index Card RPG engine) took a dark turn this week. We transitioned from corporate maneuvering to a desperate jungle slog, discovering that the rot in the Lesser Briers is far deeper than a few malfunctioning terraforming units. This is session 21

Session Recap: The Expedition to the Stockade

The day began with a flurry of administrative warfare at Villa Brilliante. Before heading into the wildlands, the party coordinated a series of high-level memos to the “Big Four” Guilds—the Muster, Scravers, Charioteers, and Reeves. The goal: report the subversion of technology and secure the “appendix” to original reports, making it clear that a clandestine operation was underway near the old Vault Pyramid.

Setting out in two SUVs with a skeleton crew of militia drivers, the party reached the “Range”—a wooded area near No-Name Gulch. The atmosphere was oppressive; the air smelled of blood and ash, and visibility dropped to nearly 100 feet as a supernatural smog rolled in.

The Ambush

Deep in the forest, the party encountered a unit of “husks”—undead soldiers wearing tattered military uniforms from an ancient, sinister era, bearing skull insignias and armed with submachine guns and “potato masher” grenades.

The combat was a test of discipline. Martina rushed the undead leader—a ghoulish officer with a blood-shimmering saber—eventually cutting him down with her integrated chainsword in a spray of maggots and rot. The rest of the party used tactical cover and coordinated fire to wipe out the remaining troopers before their noxious gas grenades could choke the life out of the group.

The Discovery

Utilizing drone reconnaissance, the party located the source of the smoke: a clearing with a massive wooden stockade. They witnessed a nightmare from the hierarchy of the Klipoth: a Marilith—a twelve-foot demon with a woman’s torso, six sword-wielding arms, and a twenty-foot serpentine tail. She was overseeing an army composed of undead from every era—Redcoats, ancient warriors, and modern soldiers.

The Stakes

Returning to the Avesti garrison, the party was met with the grim reality of the situation. Brother Xander warned that the Church’s standard response to an incursion of this scale is Exterminatus: a total orbital cleansing that would incinerate the entire fief. The party now has a narrow window to find the hidden trapdoor and the relics within to stop the demon before the sky turns white with holy fire.

The New Mechanic: Tactical Reactions

As the party leveled up following this encounter, GM Bob introduced a new suite of abilities designed to handle the escalating threats. These mechanics allow players to trade their REACTION (once per round) for powerful defensive or offensive “Action Economy” boosts.

Riposte Variants

To represent high-level training and combat reflexes:

• Melee Riposte (Martina): An immediate counter-attack if an enemy fails a melee strike against her.
• Ranged Riposte (Yan, Juul, Antoine): The ability to snap-fire at enemies who expose themselves or miss shots within range.

Faithful’s Aegis (Brother Thadeos)

The most significant addition is the “Take a Hit” ability for the party’s Brother Battle.

Narrative: Members of the Battle Avesti or Brother Battle are taught that their bodies are the ultimate shield of the Church. You intercept incoming strikes to protect the “flock” at any cost.

• Trigger: An ally within CLOSE range is targeted by a successful Melee or Ranged attack.
• The Reaction: Spend your REACTION (once per round) to instantly move between the attacker and your ally.
• The Intercept: You become the new target of the attack. You take the Full Damage of the hit.
• Tactical Positioning: You must be able to “reasonably” reach the line of fire or the melee reach of the enemy. Your new position may leave your ally (or yourself) exposed to the Line of Sight (LOS) of other enemies.

Key Rulings for the Table:

1. The “Reasonable” Rule: The GM determines if you can realistically reach the intercept point. If you are prone or restrained, you cannot use the Aegis.
2. The Damage Transfer: The attack is already “successful.” You take the hit automatically without re-rolling DEF (unless a specific “Block” maneuver is allowed).
3. The Ripple Effect: Relocating your mini may trigger effects—stepping out of a heal zone or into another enemy’s reach.

Systems Analysis: TTRPGs as High Availability Systems

From a game design and systems engineering perspective, Faithful’s Aegis and the Riposte mechanics serve as distinct system-stabilizing components. While Faithful’s Aegis functions as a High Availability (HA) failover (mirroring $N+1$ or $2N$ redundancy), the Riposte acts as an Action Economy multiplier that directly increases the system’s total throughput.

1. Eliminating the Cost of Delay (CoD)

In a TTRPG, your “Throughput” (Total Party Damage/Effort) is consistent as long as your PCs are active. The moment a PC is disabled (0 HP), the “System” experiences a massive Cost of Delay.

• Lost Sales/Capacity: Every round a PC is down is lost potential to end the encounter.
• Opportunity Cost: Other PCs must now spend their resources (healing) to “repair” the node rather than performing “value-add” actions (attacking).

2. Redundancy as Efficiency (The Aegis)

By using Faithful’s Aegis, we are implementing a Failover System. It is a cost-benefit analysis: the “Overhead” (the Brother Battle’s Reaction and HP) is cheaper than the “System Down Time” (the Pilot going to 0 HP). By absorbing the hit, the Tank ensures the Critical Path of the encounter remains uninterrupted. This effectively negates the enemy’s action economy by rendering their successful “milestone” (a hit) a non-setback for the party’s core damage output.

3. Increasing Throughput via Action Economy (The Riposte)

While the Aegis preserves the system, the Riposte actively expands it. By creating more opportunities over time to deal damage, Riposte creates Action Economy efficiency.

• Slack in the System: In Lean Manufacturing, “Slack” is usually seen as waste. In combat, an enemy’s miss is “Slack”—an idle moment. The Riposte converts this Slack into Throughput, allowing the PC to perform work outside of their standard “clock cycle” (their turn).
• Increased Output: By leveraging the enemy’s failures, the party increases its total actions per round, driving the Takt Time—the rate at which we must chip away at the Boss’s total HP—down significantly.

4. The Opportunity Loss

In QMS (Quality Management Systems), we look at the Opportunity Losses of failures. If a demon kills a PC, we lose the session’s forward momentum. Leveling up isn’t just about “getting stronger”; it’s about adding Redundancy and Resilience to the party system to ensure that the “total annual operational efficiency” (the campaign’s survival) remains high.

When Thadeos steps in front of a bullet, he isn’t just being a hero—he’s acting as a high-availability server providing a 99.9% uptime guarantee for the party’s damage output.

What’s your take? Is your TTRPG party a well-oiled machine, or are you suffering from too much Downtime? Let us know in the comments!