2  The Basic Ideas

2.1 They’re Out to Get You

Paranoia and Call of Cthulhu (well, all of Chaosium) are the Silver-Age games that let characters die, and—like the heat level of Tabasco sauces bought in the US—warmed us up to the thrill of near misses and dumb turns.

I’m trying to tap that beat here, while aware that one of those two games was a lot more popular than the other for a reason: It’s all right if the GM kills you. As long as it was neither a surprise nor unfair1.

So, I’m trying to make the GM less a game keeper, and more an empowered player. I mean, I can never beat Traveler in building a system where space operas can blossom2. So, why not try something new? Well, not new, but saying it right out there:

  • Or, at least the GM is out to get you.
    • But mostly by throwing in Blattids as per campaign rules

And maybe also towards some final battle made more fun by how much the Blattids (GM) got throughout the campaign?

Or maybe OPs the GM can use to tweak situations. And sure, the Players cna ask them to do it for them.

2.2 Degrees of Magnitude

It’s a D10 system. Representing log10. The difference in a score in the game—between a 3 and a 4, say—is meant to represent one order of magnitude. Something changing enough in quality that is changes in quantity. “Wounded” versus “severely wounded.” But it also represents a D10 role. So, for what it’s worth, it’s a log universe decided by “decile” probability. The game mechanics are geared to there being a few really improbable events happening. But for there then to be scenarios were nothing usual happens; you each loose X HP (X being whatever would have been the numbers of pieces each side would have, no other mods. So, if at that location you had 3 pieces, they each have 3 HP. No other HPs or OPs could be added to or moved from that scenario.

2.3 Point Flavors

Much of the game revolves around gaining and spending points. Often, these points are “vanilla3” meaning they have no special “flavor” or effect on their uses.

However, some points either come with a special flavor or are given it through actions, events, etc. Flavors restrict or4 enhance their uses.

Flavors work a bit differently for APs and OPs

2.4 Action Points

These are gained and spent in turn-based events. They essentially tick the passage of time by saying how much—and in what order—most events happen in these events.

The standard is to give 2 APs to every unit every round. Time passes as quickly for everyone, and everyone has the same speed of action.

Units don’t have to use all their APs (they can indicate when using an AP that they’re resting it).

But there are also not uncommon additional, usually-flavored APs that various unit get in a round. Very outre-flavored APs may be rested pretty often, but still regenerate like all APs.

Any time APs are spent on an action, OPs may be spent as well. Normally, all Players can invest OPs into any AP-spending action, and can use them to increase or decrease success, etc.

2.5 Opportunity Points

  • Like all points, OPs can either come flavored or be given a flavor.
  • OPs with action-oriented flavors gain double power doing that action.
    • For example, an attack-flavored OP is worth 2 attack-flavored APs, thus giving an attack roll a +2 (per such OP). (I thought about whether they could be used as APs, e.g., to do repeated attacks, but no, an OP would have to be speed-flavored or something)
  • Some OP instead/also5 have flavors that restrict their use. E.g., that attack-flavored OP in the above example could only be used to enhance attacks, not, e.g,. movement or defense.
  • Some OP flavors cannot be removed6. Some can be changed or even removed; see below.

Winning OPs through roleplay. The GM narrating combat and everyone deciding how many OPs things are worth.

And follow this rule if no decision is reached:

2.5.1 Obtaining OPs

Getting this right is critical to this whole thing working.

Whatever system I use needs to have them figured out by how many is a good number and how do Players—both Siding and Non-Siding Players—get them.

  • In most cases, rolling a 1

  • Thinking how it’s done it pretty easy: they accumulate pretty quickly.

    • And that the number you get is rolled by a 1D
      • If that roll is a natural 0, then roll again and take ten times that number.
        • If that roll is also a natural 0, take 100 times that next number.
        • Repeat
      • If that roll is a natural 1, then:
        • Deduct 1 OP chosen at random and any flavor
        • Roll again
          • Of that roll is also a natural 1, then deduct an additional 10 OPs. Repeat at most once more.
          • Any other roll than 1 results in no additional deficit.
      • So, if I’m right, OP rolls net a little over 11 OPs per roll, but with the chance of considerable variation
      • Rolls for ±10 OPs must be cogently role played in game to take effect. Greater numbers of OPs require more audacious but credible plays

  • Thinking OP rolls like the above are made any time a Player:

    • In a battle scenario:
      • Kills an other unit
      • Evades into the fog

2.5.2 The OP of an Ai

Death comes to where we were, not where we are. Buzkills have Blinkerblasters; Blattids have (in addition to Buzzkills) information penetration. Humans have Ais. They find new ways. Some of which are quite good. THey can generate oportunities. These sometimes come with weird effects, though; teh OPs are given a weird flavor. When tehy are expended, they trigger that effect. These side effects are sometomes glorious, but more often mild bad.

This might already be too granular, but the role of an Ai in a scenario’s OP is based on a probability. Well, a reduction of probablity: The level of the highest Avatar that appears anywhere in that sceenario is used to modify the OP of that whole scenario. If there are 20 OP for a given scenario, they are usually divided evenly between players (any equalities are rounded, so net less 1 OP to one player) but Ais can move OPs from one side to the other.

  1. Role D10
  2. If there is an Ai whose degree is less than the die role, then let that Ai player arrange themselves up to 10 - Ai° OP not only across moments in the scenario, but also across players in the scenario.

So, yeah, essentially a player with an Ai roles a die against there Ai for more points for their side:

Example: Min has a 2° Ai in this scenario. There’s a Decider in play, whose comes with their assigned 2°. She roles a 3, which is higher than her Ai°, so her side gets 8 OP and the other side(s) has 8 fewer OP. If there is one other side, they loose 8; two other sides, they each loose 4. Three other sides, they each get 2 (always round inequality one point down).

If Min had rolled a 1 or a 2, though, she would not have been able to move any OPs. So, yeah, I guess I should have said it was essentially a skill shot.

OPs gained/moved by Ais often come with a weird flavor. Thinking maybe something like:

Table 2.1: Random Flavors Added to OPs Gained by Ais
Roll Effect
1 When this OP is used, the next D10 turns are turned into OPs for those players. All moves during those converted points are free: They cost no points. The OPs created this way are flavored XXXX
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9 No effect
0 No effect

The Grey Wolf’s is “There must be an exceptionally-well choreographed stoner scene that beats me writing this with Min to my left, sitting in my partial darknes, getting now that I’m stoned, and reading through her citizenship materials. No time during this scene can Min be hurt.”

The Angel’s Hostage’s is “There must be a moment when ‘everyone is so happy, but me.’ When Min looses out somehow. But as adorable and innoucuous way you can. And the better you can make for the argument, the less damage you hvae to do to Min.”

And to continue that special role, really, any damage done to Min in a scenario is also deducted from the other teams after the final score tallying (so, yeah, I just invented “score tallying” and broke it at the same time—the final score tally being that time when the scenario is ended and you at each side’s final OP score, to see who won the points for that scenario).

Anyway, any player whose characters were in a battle in which Min is damaged must subtract 1 from their total OP that scenario. As always, both sides loose in a tie.

2.6 Point Flavors

One reason to call these flavors is because they can be changed, sometimes a little, sometimes entirely

  • Flavors can also sometimes be removed
    • This works differently for OPs and APs

2.7 One!

Rolling a 1 also lets the player roll again for an additional effect:

  1. For non-attack rolls, this is usually for the chance to gain a free, vanilla OP point (Unless otherwise notes that a 1 means something else.)

    • Whenever a Player or the GM rolls a natural 1, they can make a trait-based roll to earn 1 OP (Or maybe up to the degree of the trait?).
      • The Players and GM vote on which trait is most appropriate to roll against given the situation.

  2. For attack rolls, it’s to project damage to the back line of armor, systems, OPs, & HPs.

    1. The defender makes a defense skill roll, unmodified by environmental mods.
      1. A successful roll creates a negative mod on the attacker’s breakthrough
      2. An unsuccessful roll gives no additional negative mod
    2. The attacker then makes an other attack roll. This special attack costs no APs, but cannot be modified with APs
      1. It is modified by any other (e.g., environmental) mods and can be modded with OPs (if either side so chooses)
      2. A successful attack instead hits the rear-line OPs & HPs
      3. A suppression suppresses like normal
      4. An unsuccessful attack removes 1 point from the front line (or rear, of course, if the front line is empty)

  3. Rolling subsequent natural ones on the same event (like deciding which back-line point is lost first) magnifies that effect (rolling a one on that roll for the first point lost from the backline from a penetrating one instantly kills that unit: all remaining HPs are lost)/

2.8 Zero…

A roll of zero is nearly always a failure. Weapon degrees, for example, max out within a magnitude at 9°; no natural weapons automatically hit; a 0 misses unless the attack is modded.

However:

  • Whenever a unit rolls a natural zero about something happening in the game (like the result of spent APs), they can also make an un-modded 0 AP skill roll:
    • Failure: Nothing happens
    • Success: The unit’s side gains 1 OP
      • The OP gained may be flavored, usually based on the skill the unit used to win it

And yes, there are several skills a unit can use to try to get an OP:

Skill OP Flavor
Buzzkill Prayer Attack

(Yup, that’s all I got so far…)

2.9 “Or”

Just a note of clarification: I use “or” in the sense of “and/or”. “Or” thus means that one or more of the options are possible.

“Either … or,” however, means that one of the options is possible.

2.10 World’s End: Maybe a Coin Isn’t Always a Coin

It’s a D10. 1 – 5 the Humans win, 6 – 10 the Blattids win. This roll is modified depending on points earned or lost at the end of each campaign.

World ends are often potential extinction events, or at least a major reconfiguring of the order and relationships between races.

Note that many campaigns also end with a D10 decision about the wins and losses of the various races, but the outcomes are less profound.

  1. Paranoia was a fair game, I don’t mean to say it wasn’t. But it takes a masterful GM to be both homocidal and fun. And most GMs will look to the TSR’s giants campaign for guidance,↩︎

  2. Traveler made a Unix-compatible mechanics. Simple and easily did a few things well. (Of course, I’m totally pre Kazinti or whatefver they did with dogs.)↩︎

  3. Please don’t get me wrong; I love vanilla. But it is a simple and widely-understood way of describing the lack of an other flavor. And since vanilla is the most-liked flavor (median preferred flavor), it fits that most are.↩︎

  4. And just to have said it somewhere: “or’ for me denotes”and/or”—the union; “either . . . or” is used when needed.↩︎

  5. So, my elevated “or” isn’t a panacea….↩︎

  6. Or maybe I should call them colors, so I can talk about which are stains and which can be washed out↩︎