The long article I didn’t post included some notes on Astral, an RPG I’ve talked about writing for years but on which I’ve yet to make any progress. I was considering Astral as a unifying mechanic for multi-system play, but decided it ran afoul of the Unifying System Paradox and possibly Shadowrun’s Netrunner problem.1
The Astral Report
Astral’s main problem is Feature Creep in the “magic” and “crafting” systems. In brief, though, each character’s Astral Body would be defined by the following abilities:
- Areas of Expertise, a short list of real world subjects in which the character is proficient enough to hold down a job.
- The abilities ATTACK, CRAFT, IMAGINE, and PERSUADE, all of which start at 0 and improve with use.
- An inventory of Astral Items, objects which exist only in the Astral Plane, which may be found, bought, or made with the CRAFT ability.
- A list of “Glamours”, the Astral’s form of magic, used with the IMAGINE ability.
- A map of locations to which the characters have been. Each point (hex?) on the map represents a location, like a Traveller star map with no empty space.
Astral Combat involves a 1d6 + ATTACK vs 1d6 + ATTACK contest, with the higher scoring party imposing temporary conditions on the lower. If the player chooses to defend only, they roll 2d6, choose the higher die, and add their ATTACK characteristic. Rules for movement in the Astral are pretty abstract and Theater of the Mind, but position matters.
Crafting and Glamours involve a test of 2d6 + CRAFT/IMAGINE vs. the item or glamour’s difficulty number of 8 or more. Applicable Areas of Expertise add a Bonus Die: add an extra die, drop the lowest until 2 are left.
Social Combat involves 2d6 + PERSUADE vs. the NPC’s (or NPCs’) social resistance, accompanied by roleplay, with successes swinging their reaction from negative to positive. Areas of Expertise can occasionally aid here as well.
Further Steps
None, so far. Not only do I have some real-life stuff to deal with, I’m also weirdly more interested in the Void Warriors, the Astral Wardens’ distant kin and sworn enemies.
In the past few days I’ve attempted to work on the Gear Slot capacity of Void Ships, estimated the necessary life support capacity of said ships, and tried to guesstimate how much all this would cost in silver, if Voidborn used silver.
In other words, Astral has taken a far back burner.
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The former is the phenomenon where an attempt to unify N disparate standards or protocols merely creates N + 1 standards or protocols that need to be unified. The latter is the phenomenon where one guy is hacking the Matrix while the rest of the party twiddles their thumbs. ↩︎