The System Agnostic Mentalics EngineTM (Post 2 of 3): The Core Concepts

For this second installment of my 3-part entry on the System Agnostic Mentalics Engine^TM, I wanted to present the basic concepts upon which the mentalics rules were based.

At the time I wrote my mentalic abilities system, the HiBRiD^TM game mechanics I had been working on had not been finalized yet; indeed, I had not yet even settled on a central underlying mechanic for the game! Still wishing to move forward with my new insights from my academic studies despite this, I decided that rather than basing my mentalics system on the mechanics of any specific game system that might change multiple times before it was complete, I should change my approach.

For this new approach, as I previously posted, I chose to design the system in terms of a single overriding concept: “What would physically be necessary for mentalic abilities to exist in our own world, given the current molecular model of the neurophysiological basis for brain function?” To answer this question, I came up with a series of four questions that would need to be answered.

The Core Concepts

The first question I needed to answer was “What types of abilities would exist?”? To answer it, I turned to the neurophysiological and anatomical basis for psychological behaviors modeled on the fact that specific physical structures and areas of the brain mapped to specific psychological, sensory, and motor functions. I grouped these functions into simple broad categories to make them easier for players to understand. Any abilities traditionally thought of as “mental powers” that did not relate to these functions (such as telekinesis or teleportation) were excluded, while any abilities involving the interpreting or interacting with these functions in the minds of others were referred to as mentalic abilities. Any individuals with mentalic abilities would be referred to as mentalists.

The second question I needed to answer was, “How would a mentalist detect a target’s mental processes?” To answer this question, I modeled the ability to do so on that of the other human senses. Similar to the manner in which eyes are sensitive to differences in the wavelengths of light and skin receptors are sensitive to differing degrees of thermal energy, mentalic characters would need to possess receptors that specifically detect the patterns of electrical energy differentials that exist only in the presence of an organized neural mass that characterizes a brain and discern them from other electromagnetic phenomenon in the environment. Then, in a manner similar to all of the other five senses, the detected energy pattern would be interpreted by a particular area of the mentalist’s brain as a three dimensional “mentalic image” of all of these billions of interwoven and interconnected neurons into a sort of web that would outline and define the overall shape of the brain. As a result, a mentalist would truly would have a “Sixth Sense” based on this interpreted three-dimensional mentalic image of all of the detected brain’s electrical potentials and differentials. 

The third question I needed to answer was, “How would a mentalist discern one individual function from another within the overall mentalic image they perceive?” To answer this question, I adopted current neurobiological theory that postulates that each function of the mind is created when a neural impulse travels a specific and unique path of neurons (or sets of such paths) throughout the vast neural web that makes up the brain. Each of these paths is referred to as a neural trace, or more simply a trace. Once a character perceives a target’s full mentalic image, the mentalist mentally overlays the image onto their own mentalic pattern, and then, using their own brain as a point of reference, maps the neurons in the perceived “mentalic image” to those in their own neural net. Once this mapping is complete, specific mentalic traces in the target may be easily interpreted. To reflect this process, I coined the term synchronization or establishing a sync. The process would take only fractions of a millisecond, however, it would require active concentration on the part of the mentalist to consciously interpret.

The final question I needed to answer was, “How would a mentalist physically interact with the neural traces of a target in a remote location?” To answer this question, I turned to the concept of quantum entanglement and a unique characteristic of cellular biology. Once a sync is established, the mentalist would simply need to choose the desired neural trace in three-dimensional space within the mentalic image to depolarize (activate) in the target and then induce the quantum entanglements required in the neurons of the target’s mind that correspond to that desired trace. The energy required to initiate the quantum entanglement would be obtained from the energy generating structures already present in the mentalist’s cells: the mitochondria. In normal folks, these structures are actually very leaky and very wasteful however in mentalists, they would need to be virtually leak proof, allowing for the massive buildup of energy required. Additionally, the mentalists would possess organelles that allowed for the transduction of energy to set up the quantum interaction.

With the answers to these questions answered resolved in my mind, I finally felt I had enough of a scientific foundation to sit down and design the game system. Now with over 10 years of practical playtesting, I offer it here for free, stripped of as many system-dependent mechanics as possible for use in your own home game.

The System Agnostic Mentalics EngineTM (Post 1 of 3): What Prompted Me to Define Yet Another Mentalics Game System?

Well, it has been a while since I threw a blog entry up here, but I was recently motivated by @dampscot on "the Twitters", who had mentioned he was interested in checking out other alternative mentalics game systems. I was going to offer him the HiBRiD^TM game but realized he probably didn’t want to spend the time having to slog through the whole rule set, so I took some time off of my GenCon 2017 preparations and spent the last few weeks de-HiBRiDizing it and making it as system agnostic as possible.

For those of you who don’t know me particularly well, I wanted to take this entry and explain the reason why I designed the system the way I did. In my next entry, I will explain the basis for the system, and in the final entry of the series, I shall present the engine itself...

So let's get started... 

What Prompted Me to Define Yet Another Mentalics Game System?

I first encountered mental powers as “Psionics” in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons back in 1983. I always wanted to play a character with such abilities but never could find a game director who would allow them. I first got my chance to see such a character in action in 1986, when I was introduced to a “new” roleplaying game called The Morrow Project. The director introduced a teleporting NPC to the game that teamed up with my PC (a biochemical specialist that was pretty good with a sniper rifle) to break into a biological weapon manufacturing facility. The combination of the NPC’s “psionic” powers with my own character’s skills enabled the two characters to work together to great effect and accomplish our party’s mission objectives. After the game, I took the chance to review the rules and discovered that the abilities possessed by the NPC were nowhere to be found. I clearly remember asking the director how he managed to run the game session with no such rules. I also clearly remember his answer: “I thought it would make a cool character so I made it up to see what would happen”. The way the director used the teleportation to enhance the game rather than simply make an über-powerful NPC renewed my desire to play more games that featured “mental abilities”, so I began to seek out other game systems and groups playing them. In the process, I encountered systems that took primarily mechanistic approaches that were burdensome and complex as well as narrative approaches that were too subjective and inconsistent for my taste.

When I finally began running my own roleplaying campaign, I started with the stock psionics rules provided by the game system our gaming group was using . Soon, after being bogged down by mechanics, however, I began tweaking the rules by implementing parts from multiple other systems with the hope of allowing the players to use psionic powers while simultaneously preventing the powers from slowing down play and wrecking my campaign in the process.

Eventually, like many gamers, I made the break from other systems and decided to write my own. As luck would have it, it was about that time that I started as a psychology major in college and was inspired to begin writing my new powers system to reflect (and help cement) my knowledge and understanding of psychological phenomena. As I set to work, however, I discovered that someone on Usenet had beaten me to the punch and written a system based on the DSM-IV, the standardized set of guidelines and descriptions of mental disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association used by those within the professions of psychology and medicine. While I was impressed by the work, I realized quickly when I attempted to implement it that it was too unwieldy, too detailed, and just not aligned with the goals I had for the system I was attempting to design, specifically, to be easy to understand and quick to play.

Several years later, luck intervened once again. I encountered a paper entitled, A synaptic model of memory: long-term potentiation in the hippocampus ((T. V. P. Bliss & G. L. Collingridge, Nature 361, 31 - 39 (07 January 1993); doi:10.1038/361031a0A). The article described a model for memory based on molecular biology that completely supplanted pretty much everything I had learned about what was important in the field of behavioral psychology. I became dissatisfied with psychology’s subjective and descriptive nature, and realized a stronger attachment to this new model’s ability to explain behavior from a functional standpoint in a more quantitative, objective manner.

Two things happened the day I read that article. The first thing that happened was that I went to University Hall and changed my major from psychology to biology with an emphasis on molecular biology and biochemistry. The second thing that happened, an event much more relevant to this article, was that my entire approach toward designing a system of “mental powers” for my game changed. Instead of thinking in terms of game mechanics and game balance, I instead shifted my focus and began by asking the question, “From a functional standpoint, what would it take for mental powers to exist in our own world?” From there, I derived a number of questions that, once I had answered, I hoped would define the core concepts for my new system.

Why I Hate Feats

Why Do I Hate Feats?

While I usually disdain from talking negatively about game systems in general, I have lately been reading a lot about how "awesome" Feats are with respect to a numer of new source books. With their introduction in 3^rd edition D&D, the OGL, and all the diaspora that have stemmed from them, Feats manifest an especially cold, crystallized, lightless cavern of hatred in my heart when it comes to roleplaying games, next to the use of standard distribution curve for mechanics and use of the term “roleplaying game” when it is applied to any computer-based simulation first-person simulation.

I hate feats because they make a game unnecessarily complicated and slow down play.

By adding feats, clarity becomes lost as modifier stacking rules, precedence rules, and exceptions to both sets of rules become more and more convoluted. Whether or not players have their modifiers memorized, feats slow action down as they accrue if they haven't been pre-calculated. Further, play can get slowed down by others who try to help the player to maximize the benefits of the feats and feat combinations. Tie in multiple classes/roles held by a single character, multiple sourcebooks adding their own feats specific to a setting, as well as online and homebrew feats, complexity increases quickly and gameplay gets exceedingly slower.

As a general rule, a major HiBRiD concept is that only ONE number should EVER be added to a die roll; anything else slows down play. The rules of HiBRiD go out of their way to reinforce this idea. As a director, I don’t want to have to know every go****n feat to adjudicate an action and slow down my narrative. Lately, online, people have been asking me how I can run 12 players at a time in a game and the answer is easy: the players have only one number to add, leaving them to focus on their description of the action; there are no numeric, mechanic-based, pieces of Scheisse gumming up the works. Ask anyone who has played HiBRiD at a convention. They know. They'll tell you. If I want to add numbers to solve a puzzle, I’ll play [Samuel L. Jackson expletive] Soduku. Seriously.

I hate feats because they reinforce number crunching and rule mongering rather than imaginative play. 

This does not mean an imaginative player can’t play well within a more structured and numeric system such as that created by feats; it is just that two things tend to happen at the gaming table when feats are in play.

The first thing that can happen is that the extent of an action can become proscribed by the limits of the feats. This can be limiting to a more imaginative player, especially when an action is boiled down to a modifier that must be stacked with or depend on another feat and another and so forth. The goal then becomes gathering a list of feats so that they can be selected from and mixed and matched in real time. This either slows play (as mentioned above) or alters it to become like a CCG, where you are just collecting things to mix and match during play. If I want to do that, I’ll play the Pokemon CCG. Personally, as a player, I just don’t give a damn about what my numbers are; my character does what my character does, screw my modifers! I would rather use abilities to give me ideas for cool actions; not to define what my actions can or cannot be.

The second thing that can happen is that the imaginative player may wish to extend the ability of a feat to an action in which the feat is not designed to give a “bonus” or confer some sort of in-game strategic, mechanistic advantage. The director, or course, can make a rule off-the-cuff or house rule to provide for this, but then, really, doesn't that just defeat the point of having the feat system anyway?

I hate Feats because they are not what they say they are

To me, a feat is a one-time action, taken to reflect a heroic effort on the part of a character. A character commits a feat of derring-do. Accomplishing the slaying of a dragon in one blow is no small feat. A feat that can be done more than one time ceases to be a feat; it is simply an Ability. Of course, then the question becomes, if all characters in these games have 6 Abilities, so what does one call Feats? How about calling them "Excuses To Make And Sell New Rule Books?? What about "Creativity Killers"? 

Conclusion 

When I encountered Feats as part of 3E, I was excited by the many changes in the system ran a 3E game for 3 years, trying to get behind it. My frustrations (as I mentioned above) became apparent and as they began to accrue, I realized it was time to jump ship. The evolution of the d20 family of games accepting feats as an accepted norm was the final push I needed to stop playing the games of others and finish up HiBRiD.

HiBRiD Things For Your Game #8: Improvised Items

Improvised Items: Knicknacks and Clutter

I HATE EQUIPMENT LISTS! 

HiBRiD is a game of action, not accounting; a game of improvisation, not lists. In addition to listing and describing your character’s clothes, weapons, and items required to support your character concept, rather than listing every single item and trying to account for every item your character might need to carry, you will also be given a number of generic, unidentified items referred to as Improvised Items.

Improvised items are like placeholders. They represent any of a number of nameless items that any character might need at any given time that they would have no way of knowing they would need beforehand. Perhaps your character, stranded on a rural dirt road and camping out until help arrives, feels a sudden need for a bag of marshmallows? Perhaps your character was mystically transported from a rain forest to a desert and suddenly finds a real need for a canteen of water? What if your character went to the library expecting to find a book to answer a riddle, only to find a secret passage and a sudden need for a flashlight? Improvised Items come to the rescue!  

Improvised Items Defined

Improvised items are classified as one of two types. The first type of items, Clutter items, are simple with few if any moving parts, fit into a large pants pocket or small purse, and possess low or no monetary value, typically less than five dollars, euros, or whatever the base unit of exchange would be, based on the genre description. The second type of items, Knicknacks, may be of moderate complexity, no larger than a breadbox, and must be able to be purchased commonly by anyone of a cost less than a hundred dollars, euros, or whatever the base unit of exchange would be based on the genre description.

There are few restrictions to what your character may declare as an Improvised Item, however items that are rare, not part of the genre of the game, or extremely expensive may not be declared as Improvised Items. Likewise, weapons, ammunition, or equipment related to your character concept may also not be declared as Improvised Items.

Using Improvised Items

To use an Improvised Item, you simply need to declare the item you wish your character to possess and integrate the type of Improvised Item your character will be declaring into the description of your character’s action, e. g. I pull out my flashlight Knicknack, throw in a few batteries from the Clutter in my pockets, and light it up to get a good look around”.

You may declare as many Improvise Items as you wish at a time, as long as you have enough items remaining on your character sheet to do so. You may also choose to declare one Knickknack as if it were two pieces of Clutter or vice versa as a general rule, though if the situation arises, the director may alter this exchange rate for purposes of keeping the story moving along or game balance. For example, if a flashlight needs two batteries, the director may rule that two batteries make up an item of Clutter rather than two.

As you declare each item, you will cross out the current number of items of the appropriate type your character possesses and decrease it by the appropriate number of items you have declared, then record the specific item in the appropriate location on your character sheet to keep track of it.

Your character receives a number of Knicknacks as well as a number of Clutter items equal to the Heroic Factor of the campaign.

Determining Improvised Items

In HiBRiD, all characters receive a number of Improvised Items equal to the Heroic Level of the campaign. For OSR/d20/3E/5E games, characters begin play with one and gain an additional item each level of experience.

Directing Improvised Items

Over the course of the game, the director, rather than describing every item in a location, may choose to describe in terms of the number of Clutter items and Knicknacks a party or character finds. In these cases, the director can simply add them to the number of items your character has not yet declared. When doing so, the director should award them in aliquots of N items, where N is the number of players in the party to make distribution as easy as possible for the group.

HiBRiD Things for your Game #7: Traceblaze

Introduction

I grew up with AD&D Psionics, first and second edition. From there, I bounced from system to system over the years, always comparing “psionics” rules systems to these classics and realized that I hated how mental powers were handled in most games. While I love systems as much as any other geek, in practice, I find the majority of them unnecessarily mechanistic, complex, and crunchy. In my years of directing, I have figured out that, to quote a friend of mine, "Rules are only required for those that need them." and that a good storywriter and director should be able to design (or selectively choose to run) scenarios that automatically maintain game balance, so the mechanics of play do not have to. In essence, an inexperienced director or one who just wants to tinker and wallow in the glory of complex game systems might require or even desire such complex systems. I, however, do not.

Limiting Mentalics

If a genre is well-defined, it should be able to naturally account for the balances in any game scenario that would inherently arise if such abilities exist. It is within these natural balances of the genre that the context of a mentalics-based game can truly shine. Instead, many game systems I have found that incorporate mentalics either err in a touchy-feely, highly interpretive system that gives the director and players free reign with few, subjective, ill-defined limitations or err in the other direction of defining abilities in mechanistic terms of bonuses, task rolls, specific feats, et cetera. This was one of the main reasons for my decision for writing HiBRiD rather than continuing to just add house rules to the games I was running. I wanted a mentalics (yet another term I hate…”psionics”) system that was:

• Simple to play and run using the exact same mechanic as every other action in the game
• Rooted in basic neuroanatomy rather than mechanics-no small trick when considering the complexity of the human brain-but shelter players and directors from the science
• Intuitive, with effects defined in terms of real-world effects rather than in terms of game mechanics
• Without inherent limitations made by mechanics solely for ensuring game balance but for creating a certain feeling that reflects the genre of the game. 

Unlimiting HiBRiD Mentalics

Mentalics are not magic. Otherwise, they’d be magic.

Mentalic abilities are the remote, subtle, perception and temporary rerouting of mental traces in different portions of the brain. Directors wishing to add a level of mysticism and overcome the physical barriers of what this would entail (such as being able to use these abilities in the presence of electromagnetic fields or from inside an insulated room) can choose to integrate them with the plane of Ite’ to allow extra heroic abilities that defy explanation by science. In these scenarios, causality does not need to be explained; indeed, researching the causality could even be a plot point in a paranormal investigation scenario.

An Example

As an example, I would like to share and offer free of charge and licensing fees (under GPL2) one of the standard mentalic abilities defined in the HiBRiD Game: Traceblaze.

Using traceblaze is an involved action; no other action can be conducted in the action round. If a character moves or is damaged while using (also known as asserting) it, an opposed WILL-based task roll by the asserter against the attacker's task roll is required to prevent its disruption. The character asserting this aspect must be within within 10 meters of the character and have a direct line of sight.

There are no other limitations on this aspect; no points to spend, damage to take, et cetera; just complete concentration on asserting it. This means that any modifiers for reflexes, quickness, dexterity, et cetera are not applied whenever an asserting character is physically attacked.

Traceblaze begins with a grade of 1 when initially taken by the player for a character. In level-based systems, if a character class is based on it, the grade increases by 1 per 3 character levels. If a standalone ability, it can be upgraded for 8000 experiences points per grade. It is never a feat, because feats go against the very concept of HiBRiD.

Traceblaze

Initiation: Activated

Grading: G

Modes: Dreams, Drives, Emotions, Memories, Movements, Perceptions, Thoughts

Cost: 8 

This assertive mentalic aspect enables a character to directly attack a target and attempt to disrupt the type of mental pattern specified by the mode, and forcefully lay a new pattern of the same type.

A successful task roll inflicts 1d10 (5) points of STUN damage per grade and immediately hinders the target as if affected by incapacitating poison with an intensity equal to the grade. After a character has been reduced to 0 points of STUN, the asserting character may place one mental trace within the defender’s mind of the sort specified by the mode. This trace becomes the driving force for everything in the defender’s life from that point on, from motivations to behaviors.

The hindrance effect of this aspect lasts one hour per grade. Additional blazed traces after the first disrupt previous ones so only on blazed trace can exist in a target at one time. A critical success on the assertion task roll completely reduces the defender’s STUN to zero and blazes the trace immediately. A critical failure on the assertion task roll renders the asserting character unable to use this aspect for one hour. A trace can be removed by Mentalic Surgery.

Game Release Update: A Change in Design: Modularity and Simplicity

While prepping the final edit of the character creation book, I have been forced to realize a number of things which will deprecate previous posts. The good news is that I am getting close to the final peer edit and the layout is roughly 80% finished in Scribus! The bad news, is that these realizations have forced me to reorganize the text before final layout.

Modularity

Originally, as blogged earlier, I had planned to have a basic, and advanced system in order to mirror the classic D&D schema and a 10 step system for creating characters.

As I progressed through editing and began combining electronic and physical paper files, however, I realized that over the years, I have used several different systems for each of the steps of character creation, depending on the game I was playing and my audience. I used a fully detailed system for my home game, a modified version that for my GenCon games, a simplified version for playing with my kids, and an even simpler version for conventions or impromptu games. As a result, several years ago, I  switched gears and planned on a Black, A White, and a Silver system of books to fit these different levels of complexity.

As I have been racing toward completion, however, I realized I want to also capture a connection between the level of complexity and the genre of the game people want to play.

Players who want a gritty game often want realism and crunch so that they can face threats on many sophisticated levels and have many tools and well-defined abilities. Heroic storytelling players often want to gloss over these details and just start playing as quickly as possible. Kids that play love to tinker with rules but still love to play freely want just enough detail to manipulate in neat ways.

Similarly, directors often have different intents when the run games. Some might want to reflect a world from a book, a movie or a video game world. Some want to create or play a fully-developed, rich game world either published or spun from whole cloth. At the same time, I felt that regardless of complexity, game directors need to have as few tethers and rules as possible to run the game freely and quickly, regardless of the compleity of the game they are running; they too, often want to reflect a certain level of simplicity or complexity in the games they run.

To accommodate both players and directors to this end, I have decided on my final strategy for the format of game books. There will still be three core game books, but they will be shorter and organized differently. This organization will allow gaming groups to swap the level of complexity in and out as they please without adding rulesets on top of rulesets.

The first book will be called the Character Generation Guidebook. The book will describe the 8 basic steps for character creation and present a default method for each of these 8 steps of a middle level of complexity.

The second book will be called the Player Spielbook. It will describe all of the rules for how to play the game and give players and directors the tools they need to play a game regardless of the level of omplexity the director chooses. This book will also act as a resource to reflect the real world in terms of game mechanics quickly, cleanly, and simply.

Finally, there will be a third book called Director’s Field Manual. This book that will help game directors create the game they want with as much or as little complexity and detail as they want. The Field Manual will have a chapter that reflects a number of optional methods for each of the 8 steps of character creation, a chapter that describes how to create a game world rich enough to play in, and a chapter with how to use the rules to run a game as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Simplicity

The second major realization was that I still have had too much complexity in the aspect section. I had a number of notes from playtesting where players didn’t like a number of ways the aspects worked and thought they were too complex. Originally, I had ignored them, but as I have playtested with my kids and kept them in mind, I realized that many of the complexities were either unnecessary or could be reflected in other ways. Further, I realized that many of these abilities existed as simply limits imposed by the game system from which they were inspired to help maintain mechanical game balance. 

Examples include:

·         Microscopic Vision: I originally had a graded aspect for microscopic vision. As they increased, the power increased. From a balance standpoint, it worked. From a player standpoint, who cares if I can see 25 nanometers or 250 nanometers. Can I see a virus? A bacteria? A molecule? I settled on a middle of the road cell organelle size as the limit and changed it to a constant aspect, which simplified it massively in terms of play. In terms of rules, however, while it eliminated only a few lines of text for that one aspect, applying the same logical method to the rest of the aspects enabled me to eliminate another 11 pages of rules!

·         Mental Blast: Most games have some sort of mental attack. But I had originally based my entire mentalic scheme on a specific game world I had created that featured a race of mentalic humans that could read anyone without any problems at all. To balance this, I needed a level of defense and had to design 4 multmoded aspects around it. After playing at several GenCons, however, I realized this simply did not work. Additionally, a player of mine resented having to spend aspect points just to protect his character. The final fix was to eliminate the whole system, treat mentalics like any other attack, and give it a neat effect based on a feature of neuroanatomy (specifially on a phenomenon called long term potentiation), somewhat novel from a game system point of view. The resulting change eliminated 5 aspects and 1 page of text

·         Telekinesis: The original system had two separate aspects for blast and fine control of telekinetic powers. This limited the usefulness of the aspect in terms of heroic storytelling and slowed down play whenever a player had both and had to remember which one was used for what type of action, which one required a task roll, et cetera. By combining these two aspects, I was able to save a column of text, but more importantly, make telekinetic abilities and actions much more accessible and much more able to reflect the types of heroic actions players were wanting to take.

These were not the only changes but among the biggest. I also combined a number of aspects, cut down their costs to make them a bit easier to upgrade, and increased the scope of others. Because the rules are compact and agile enough to reflect an unlimited number of actions, many of the aspects and their limits were no longer needed and were shredded. The addition of the Scale System I presented elsewhere in this blog into the core rules was the final piece that really aided in cleaning up and simplifying the aspect system.

Conclusion

The final result of all of these changes, as my second round of editing has closed, has been the elimination over 25 pages of complexity that added nothing but crunch where it was not needed. Additionally, as I read through them, I am kind of excited to realize I have pretty much swept away many of the old aspects and made the standard aspects of the game uniquely my own.

Flinging Ite' and Fighting Dragons: Ite' in Fantasy (The Magic Connection)

Intro

I have been designing a fantasy campaign of late, my first one using the HiBRiD system.  HiBRiD uses a scale based on ten fold increases in mass to quickly determine if an object can affect another. (I shared it here). This works well for genres that are based in reality where mass, physics, and the laws of thermodynamics are relevant. For other genres, this system may seem to fall short or even be broken. A point of Ite' can be used to increase the scale of an attack's damage by one level, but this really just represents the small chance the attack hits just the right spot at just the right time. Multiple points of Ite' do not reflect the effects of an attack being magically upgraded to the point of destroying increasing larger enemies; they merely reflect the increase the likelihood the attack successfully causes damage.

Having never been designed for fantasy (or superheroes, for that matter), the fantasy genre is really going to test the rules. At first glance, I originally had many concerns the system would crack under a genre where all rules of physics can be thrown out the window in an instant. I began to think that the ability to throw gobs of Ite' would allow the destruction of any foe, big or small, thereby destroying one of the many challenges of the genre, specifically fighting epic fantasy creatures. 

Though Ite' can be used this way, it doesn't truly preclude use of the HiBRiD rules for fantasy however. I will be playtesting it for sure, but for now, let's take a look at a classic: The Hobbit. 

An Example

When Bard the Bowman brings down Smaug the Great Dragon with his single Black Arrow, this would seem either impossible or not a challenge at all from a HiBRiD system standpoint. The dragon would easily be a scale of 4 to 5, putting it 3 to 4 levels higher than human according the Ite' and mass rules. This would make it either impossible for players with too little Ite' or ridiculously easy with too much Ite'. While it could happen, if the party is using their Ite' to elminate challenges in this manner left and right, then the director has failed to sufficiently challenge the players. Of course, this is true of the system for any genre, fantasy included, .

So How To Keep the Challenge Alive Using HiBRiD?

Magic. Of Course. 

I just want to be clear. Magic is NOT Ite'. Ite' is NOT Magic. The two are like oil and water. Magic, unlike Ite', can break the laws of physics and scale.  Ite' is not magic nor is it designed as a magic system or a magic substitute to break the laws of physics; it only increases the likelihood of something occurring that can occur naturally.

Let's Go Back to Our Example

Bard was not firing some OSR/DnD bland “+5” arrow garbage; he was firing the Black Arrow (note the Proper Name). The Black Arrow was a magical heirloom that he, Bard, had never lost. The arrow incited a soliloquy by the hero just before he fired it. Kind of heroic, no? The arrow had the ability to break scale rules because it was magic, but the hero still needed to be heroic and do the job. A point of Ite' could have been spent to have a random thrush hear the mumblings and speaking of a nameless little hobbit to his dwarven compatriots and carry the message of the weakness of Smaug to Bard; a point of Ite' could allow Bard make the nigh impossible shot!

The Crunch

To reflect the above example and allow magic and Ite' to work together, I would propose the following:

1. In the spirit of HiBRiD, all magic items must have their effects clearly and specifically defined so that they have meaning and purpose. The HiBRiD game has NO general  +1 sword or somesuch. Every item must have a purpose and break a specific, defined law of physics or scale.

2. Ite' cannot be used to allow casters to break the casting rules of the system. It can be used to increase the results of task rolls and savings throws et cetera but other uses like maxing out damage, maximizing spell effects, or affecting the mechanics of the spells in any way will not work. It also cannot be used to break rules of class (if they are being used) or genre. It can not be used to give magical abilities that are not specifically allowed in the Genre Description. 

Conclusion

Oil and water do not mix, but adding a surface active agent such as soap can make a fantastic, stable, and enjoyable mixture. The same can be said of magic and Ite'. The two do not mix naturally in the system as designed. But, like everything else in HiBRiD, with the director and players providing the right "soap", you and your gamers can create a stable enjoyable mixture of your own...

 

Use the example and two guidelines above as a guide for the use of HiBRiD for fantasy games. Since fantasy is not really a part of the original design of the core rules they still need to be tested. If anyone wants to playtest the new genre and has questions, thoughts, feedback, or issues, drop me a line here or on Twitter. I would love to hear of your Grand Adventure!!