Singe Announcement: A Modern-Day Spy Setting

Singe Announcement: A Modern-Day Spy Setting

I was recently inspired by the television show Burn Notice where a disavowed spy becomes a modern-day Robin Hood using all he has learned to help those in need and seek revenge on those who wrong him and his family. The characters are fantastic, and after joining the Facebook Burn Notice Fan Club group, I felt inspired to write a real quick Genre Description for anyone wanting to make characters that might fit within the game and play it on the tabletop.

THE WORLD

The world of Singe Announcement is a basic, rules-light genre where players play highly competent, highly skilled characters living in the gray areas of the law in beautiful Miami, Florida. In a setting filled with spies, government agents, drug dealers, hackers, money launderers, ex-government operatives, sunny beaches filled with sexy coeds, you and your teammates fight for those the police can’t help. This is a low-heroic level setting featuring no supernatural abilities and the very real possibility of dying if you screw up.

So, don’t screw up

The game takes place in the city of Miami. Though beautiful, like every city, it has an unseemly underside. Criminals and rogue government agents are everywhere and ruining people’s lives either directly by terrorizing them or blackmailing them, or indirectly, when their operations cause collateral property damage and hurt the ones they love. It is up to you and your team with your special sets of skills to put the wrong things right and try to live normal lives.

THE HEROES

CHARACTER STATS

Characters have 6 attributes that default to the following values:

STR     0

WILL    0

RSIL    0

INTL    0

RFLX    0

PERC    0

TRAITS:

All characters are of Human Origin and have the following traits

HEIGHT= Player’s Choice (168 cm is average)

MASS= Player’s Choice (70kg is average)

STUN= (10 + RSIL) X 2

PHYS= 10 + STR

ARMV= 0 (Only increased if wearing body armor or kevlar vest)

Action Move   = 20 m/round

Action Load   = 10 + STR KG  

Action Range = 10 m + 1m/PERC

English language

Theater of Operation- This is knowledge of anything geographic-specific knowledge having to do with one area of the world. Player chooses a geographical region and the main language spoken in that region other than English.

 

SKILLS:

All characters possess the following six skills:

Civilian Stuff: Includes anything having to do with basic knowledge and education up to high school level, civilian contacts, leisure sports, vacationing, working. A specialty includes knowledge of one other specific field such as Money Laundering, Reporting, or a Specific Profession.

Military Stuff: Anything having to do with guns, armed and unarmed combat, contacts in the military, blowing stuff up, psychoactive drugs, or the military way of life. A Specialty includes knowledge of either Sniping, Strategy, Unarmed Combat, or Demolitions.

Criminal Stuff: Includes anything related to criminal contacts, breaking and entering, investigating, fencing stolen goods, illegal drugs, human trafficking and other bad things against the law. A Specialty includes knowledge of either Smuggling, Drug Doping, or Thieving.

Fieldwork: Anything having to do with noticing, interacting with, movement in, driving through, or surveilling the physical environment. A Specialty includes knowledge of either Booby traps, Camouflage, or Two forms of vehicles of the player’s choice.

Tech Stuff: Anything having to do with computers or electronics and what is the leading edge of technology. A Specialty includes knowledge of either Coding, Infiltration, or Electronic surveillance.

Streetwise: Anything having to do with knowing or being able to identify “who’s who” in the local area your character is currently in, identifying the social pecking order, and reading the social and body queues and motivations of people. A Specialty in this skill includes knowledge of two additional languages of the player’s choice common within the chosen Theater of Operation.  

CHARACTER CREATION

STEP ONE: ASSIGN Ité POINTS TO ATTRIBUTES

You have 10 Ité points to distribute between your character’s attributes. The maximum number of points you may spend on an attribute is 5.

STEP TWO: CALCULATE TRAITS

Calculate your character’s Traits using the equations and methods described in The Heroes q.v.

STEP 3: SELECT A HISTORIC THEATER OF OPERATION

Select one area of the world your character is comfortable in and one language from that region that your character is comfortable speaking in.

STEP 4: ASSIGN ITé POINTS TO SKILLS

You may assign Ité points to your character’s Skills. Start with what your character is the best at and assign it 5 points, then the next best thing, assign it 4 points and continue with 3 points to the next skill, 2 points to the next skill, and 1 point to the next skill.

 

STEP 5: SELECT TWO SPECIALTIES

For the skills you have assigned 4 point and 5 points you may choose a specialty listed in the skill’s description. Your character gets Advantage when making task roll using these Specialties

STEP 6: DETERMINE YOUR CHARACTER DETAILS

• Height, in cm
• Weight, in kg
• Appearance

STEP 7: DESCRIBE YOUR CHARACTER'S HOME AND VEHICLE

You must be able to rationalize these with your character's background

STEP 8: DESCRIBE YOUR CHARACTER'S RELATIONSHIPS

The following relationships must be defined so the Director can create a story;

• Relationship to the team members at the table
• Relationship to any living family members

MECHANICS

THE ITÉ GAMING ENGINE/MATHLESS HIBRIDTM:

To resolve actions that have a chance of failure or to resist an attack or condition, roll a twenty-sided die (hereafter referred to as  a d20). There are four possible outcome steps:

• Critical Failure: If the roll is a 1 in addition to failing, the Director decides a bad thing that happens to your character or team.
• Failure: A roll of 2-9 is a failure
• Success: A roll of 10-19 is a success

i.  The number of the ones digit determines the amount of damage if an opponent is attacked with a non-firearm weapon or object.

 

ii. Explosions or firearms deal damage by the weapon type.

 

iii. Body armor subtracts number of points of damage from wounds equal to the ARMV. For example, if your character is attacked for 5 points of damage and it is wearing armor with an ARMV of 2, only 3 points are subtracted from the victim's STUN.

• Critical Success: if the roll is a 20, in addition to succeeding, you may choose an additional benefit or effect that occurs

2.      You may spend one point of Ite’ from either a related skill or attribute to push the die roll one step in one direction, from a critical failure to a failure, a failure to a success, or a success to a critical success. When you spend a point of Ite’, it is gone until the beginning of the next game session, when it is replenished

ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE:

If a task is especially hard, your Director will say your character is Disadvantaged on the task roll, and if your character has a specialty in a task or something is helping your character to perform the task, your character will say your character is Advantaged. In either case, you will roll 2d20 instead of 1d20.

• For a Disadvantaged roll, you will accept the lower of the two rolls
• For an Advantaged, you will take the higher of the two rolls
• A critical success or critical failure will always override a non-critical result between 2 and 19.
• A Critical Failure will cancel a Critical Success. This means that the rolls will be treated as a 1 and a 20, indicating the roll is a success.  

ACTION SEQUENCES:

When an action sequence begins, the Director will announce it and conduct the sequence as a series of action rounds, each of which represents roughly 10 seconds of game time. 

The order of actions is determined by all the players and the Director rolling a d20 for initiative. Characters with rolls higher than the Director’s go before the bad guys, then the bad guys go, then characters with rolls lower than the Director go after.

Every character gets 1 action per round and can move up to 20 meters with no penalty. Additional actions beyond this are treated with disadvantage on any task rolls.

An Example: Michael wants to run across the street 40 meters through busy traffic and chuck a grenade at a drug dealer’s car. Because he is moving more than 20 meters, this will be 2 actions and the grenade will count as a third action. He will be disadvantaged on his task roll to avoid the traffic and on the task roll to accurately chuck the grenade.

OPPOSING ACTIONS

Any opponent may oppose an action taken against them with a task roll unless surprised. the winner of the opposed actin is the one with the higher die roll

Ties go to attacker/initiator of an action with the higher attribute or skill being used.

DAMAGE AND HEALING

Damage from attacks is subtracted from STUN. When STUN=0 or less, creature is unconscious and begins to bleed to death, losing 1 point of PHYS/round until dead or first aid is applied.

If an unconscious character receives makeshift medical care, he loses 1 point of PHYS per day until dead or under hospital care.

PHYS only heals in a hospital or under a trained physician at 1/point per day.

Blurbs for Origins 2021

Here are the blurbs I will be using for the Origin game in 2021.

Long Description:

Come join the fun that veterans of GenCon since 2007 have been coming back again and again for year after every other year! Come play a game where over-the-top and vivid action descriptions override game rules, where cooperative play slaps die rolls into submission, and where the only thing holding you back is fear…oh, and the genre limits! Anyone with experience with FUDGE, FATE, OSR, d20, Dungeons and Dragons, d6, Savage Worlds, or pretty much any d20-based system will easily pick up the rules in 5 minutes, or as players like to think of it, by the end of the first action scene! So, come on, try something new, let your spirit fly, and let your love of action movies run rampant!!!

Short Description:

Play a favorite butt-kicker from some of the cheesiest 80s action movies! Lock & load your biga** guns, warm up your fists & feet of fury, & let's get Cinematic! Bring a d20 & a desire to get macho!

Event Info:

Rules Edition: 2nd
Minimum Players: 4
Maximum Players: 10
Age Required: Teen (13+)
Experience Required: None (You’ve never played before – rules will be taught)
Materials Provided: Yes
Start Date & Time: TBD
Duration: 4 Hours
End Date & Time: Thursday 08/01/2019 12:00 PM EDT
GM Names: Hujraad (hujraadjohaansen@gmail.com, Matthew Chimienti
Website: www.facebook.com/pages/The-Ite-Gaming-Engine/168416283203356?ref=hlCost $: 4.00

Table Description: 3–4 Requires 2 round tables that can hold 6 each or enough to hold 12 players

Designing Aspects On The Fly

As I am done with the prose for the Player's Spielbook, I have started to edit the Director's Guidebook.

I recently had to help a new Director and he wanted guidance for how to create aspects for the characters for "zany" games. HiBRiD defines a "zany" game as one where the HiBRiD rules are followed, however characters start with blank character sheets and are created on the fly as the game proceeds.

For zany games, the genre values and skills are defined by the Director, and the Universal Aspects are used. Everything else is made up on the fly. These games are fun, especially with stripped down HiBRiD rules. As an example, here are the rules for creating physical and zany attack aspects on the fly:

Physical Attacks:

• Any attack that would not kill a person in the real world do 1+STR.
• Any 1-handed attacks that can kill do 1d6 (4) + STR.
• Any 2-handed attacks that can kill do 2d6 (7) + STR
• These attacks are considered nonballistic.

Examples:

• Plastic pointer (like the ones teachers used to have) 1+STR
• Throwing a beaver 1d6 (4) + STR
• Shield Bash 1d6 (4) + STR
• Slap 1+STR
• Cooking Pan 1d6 (4) + STR
• Rubber Chicken 1 + STR
• Glass Bottle 1d6 (4) + STR
• Vacuum Cleaner 2d6 (7) + STR Note: This will require 2 hands to use and precludes the character doing anything else with his hands.

Zany Attacks

Abstract effects as well as any sort of unrealistic, explainable, or magical attack are considered "Zany Attacks" in the game. Concepts like pain and death and others are great in novels, movies, and video games but need to be reflected in game terms. Examples include

• Pain like you have never imagined
• Flying Feathers
• 1000 years of death
• Lava Squirt Gun

To create a "Zany Attack", you will need to use the following steps.

Step 1: Define the Effect

To define the effects of the aspect, you will need to have the player explain the effects of the aspect. Often times, the player just wants to do something "cool"they saw in a video game, Youtube video, book, comic book, or cartoon and is living in the moment. As a result, they will often not have not thought that far in advance of how to reflect the effect in the game.

Whenever a player wishes to define a "zany" attack and create a "zany attack" aspect, then you will need to ask them to describe it in writing (one or two sentences should be fine) or in words so you can put it in writing. This will allow you can hold the player accountable to the rule made when it is crated, help everyone remember what it does, and let everyone know what to expect when it is used.

Step 2: Classify

Once the effect has been described and quickly documented, you will have to ask the player which of two types of effects they wish to have, either incapacitating or causing damage. IF the player can't decide, just think about the description and overall goal of using the power. The concept of death, for example is the result of taking damage so would be considered an attack that causes damage, while anything that causes pain would be considered an incapacitating attack.

Step 3: Assign Aspect Point Cost:

Once you have described and classified the aspect as either damaging or an incapacitating attack aspect, it can assigned a cost. To do so:

• Damaging attack aspects:
• Cost 7 points per grade
• Inflict 1d10 (5) of ballistic damage per grade.
• Incapacitating attack aspects:
• Cost 4 points per grade 
• Add +1 to the DR per grade for performing any and all actions/task rolls while under their effects
• All zany aspects, when used, are considered involved actions unless the multitask aspect is used and the new "zany" aspect is selected as the mode for it. 
• All "zany" Incapacitating aspects effects stop immediately once when the character's concentration stops by default. 
• Permanent effects can be inflicted by a zany aspect, but adds 10 points to the cost of the aspect and require the player to spend 10 points of STUN for each grade of the aspect when used. This is a permanent loss of STUN and the character will never regain it. 

The Creation of the Canyonside Games: A History-Part 3 of 10

2003-The Tomorrow Project

This game was the beginning of the Canyonside saga, though I didn't know it at the time. It was the HiBRiD v2.0 debut and the game was a chase scene from beginning to end. The players started as X-Files type agents (#XFilesRipoff), starting in the financial district of downtown Chicago trying to capture a psychically endowed Siyuichi Koga with massive powers modeled on those seen in the anime Akira (#AkiraRipoff). The players chased Koga through the streets of the south Loop to the SavRx mail order facility in which I worked at the time, through a portal in an elevator that mystically ended up dumping the PCs in a high-rise apartment in the Canyonside desert.

Next scene, the characters saw Koga running through the parking lot out the window of the apartment, across the desert, and toward an obelisk where a temporal spatial portal experiment had gone wrong. The players had to figure a way to catch up to him. This was designed to push players to solve problems using "outside of the box" thinking and to show off the "heroicness" of the game by showing players how a fall over 150 meters could not kill them. The players then follow Koga to the obelisk, where they were supposed to  stop him one way or the other.

The obelisk in the desert would eventually become the underground facility in our 2011 GenCon game, however, rather than building a giant above-the-ground structure, I sank it into the ground and buried it in the canyon wall to represent it being transported to our own time. Incidentally, in my home game, I used this same kiosk as the facility for the Foundation-like government for the Brih'Ja'Dunians, a pacifistic mentalic race (read Asimov's Second Foundation to get a feeling for them) I loved it so much. What can I say...if you see a good structure, reuse it as much as possible. Kind of the way I feel about writing computer code.

For this game, I also created the research facility inside the walls of the canyons attached to the sunken obelisk and the temporal-spatial gates that I used to connect the world of the Showdown in Little Canyonside games with the game world I had been running my home games in since 1988 that were seen in every game between 2005 and 2015. This is also where I got the idea for the name of the city of "Canyonside".

From a HiBRiD game system development standpoint, this was the last year I would create characters using Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Gamma World, and FUDGE/FADAD system rules and then convert them over to HiBRiD rules. In the process, I discovered that the character creation rules were ready for prime time, and no longer needed  any of the last vestiges of all the other games, in addition to AD&D, that I had borrowed ideas from. The following year, I would stick solely to the HiBRiD character creation rules.

Finally, this was the year I figured out the pace at which I could comfortably create content without getting stressedout. As a result, I decided to make GenCon an every other year visit, so I could focus on documenting the character creation system, making any system tweaks I needed to as a result of playtesting at the convention, and writing the game story line and action scenes.  

FIVE MINUTE CHARACTER CREATION

I am taking a break from the GenCon entries this week because I was sitting with the boys watching Netflix shows this week and we noticed that every character we came across could be created in HiBRiD in 5 minutes or less. Once you get the hang of the rules and have played a few games, you will get to realize how STRONGLY HIBRiD is based on the character concept. With knowledge of a character concept, character creation can be very fast, especially if you have a list of aspects and their aspect point costs in front of you. (Of course if you are like us, you have those costs memorized, making it even quicker)

Presented here are the rules required to create a character to play in 5 minutes or less. Even if you don't know the aspect costs off the top of you head, you can bust out a character in five minutes and calculate the grades and action values for aspects on the fly as you are playing. You can also skip declaring the concept skills and aspects altogether and do them on the fly, making character creation even faster.

Step One: Record Genre Stats

The level of heroism and lethality of a game setting are reflected by three numbers. Record these three numbers on your character sheet.

• Heroic Factor: The heroic factor is 5
• Ité: All characters have 5 points of Ité
• Aspect Point Pool: All characters have 50 aspect points for Step 5

Step Two: Record the Character Concept

Your character concept is phrase that contains a descriptor, a role, and a mission. The descriptor is an adjective that describes your character in some way, the role is a word or two that describes what your character spends most of his time doing and the mission is what your character is willing to live and die for. This phrase takes the form seen in the following examples:  

• A telekinetic swordsman looking to remove his family’s curse
• A lovably overconfident truck driver who deals with extraordinary circumstances to help his friends
• A bald pharmacist who lives to do everything to make his friends’ and family’s lives better than his was.

Step Three: Record Human Traits

All characters are human by default. Record the following traits:

• Can Speak/Sign
• Can Use Tools
• Have sight (light), sound, touch, taste, and smell
• Can Walk, run, climb, crawl, jump, swim
• Fifty points (50) of STUN. When out of STUN, a human is unconscious
• Ten (10) points of PHYS. When out of PHYS, a human is dead

All characters have the following action values:

• Load: 10 kilograms (maximum = 10 kilograms)
• Range: 10 meters (maximum = 100 meters)
• Movement: 20 meters walk (maximum = 100 meters)

Record your character’s height, weight, age, and appearance

Step Four: Determine your character’s skills

All characters have the following 6 Common Skills. To determine how good characters are at these skills, they are assigned Action Modifiers of +0 to +5, where +5 is the skill the character is best at and +0 is the skill the character is the worst at.

• Academic-Tasks involving boomillk learning and memorization
• Athletic-Tasks involving movement not related to combat
• Combat-Tasks related to combat
• Fringe-Tasks related to living in the wilderness or outside of the law
• Social-Tasks related to dealing with people
• Technological-Tasks related to using tools and technology

All characters also have 3 Concept skills. To determine how good your character is at each of these skills, you will assign Action Modifiers of +6 to +8, again with +8 being the one you consider most important to your character’s Concept and +6 is the least important. You may declare any three sorts of tasks your character is good at to be your character’s Concept skills. The two conditions that must be met are as follows:

• They must be more specific than the Common skills
• Your Director must approve them.
• Examples include
• A swordsman might have acrobatics, rapier, and intimidation
• A truck driver might have truck driving, charisma, and power drinking
• A pharmacist might have chemistry, problem solving, and computer use  

Step Five: Determine your character’s aspects

All characters have 50 points to spend on aspects. As you purchase aspect, subtract the number of points you spend from this total and document each aspect on your character sheet.

• If the aspect is graded, it has a grade of 1. You may spend a number of points equal to the cost to upgrade it. If you do so, each time you spend this number of points, the grade increases by 1. Write the total grade on your character sheet
• If the aspect is either reactive or activated, you will need to determine the Action Modifier for the aspect. Aspects related to the character concept have an action modifier equal to the grade of the aspect +2. Aspects not related to the character concept have an Action Modifier equal to the grade.
• If there is a mode, you will need to document the mode of the aspect.

Step Six: Determine Your character’s possessions

• Clothes-If you don’t write them down, your character is naked
• Concept Kit-Write down the number 20 on your character sheet in the box entitled Uses and how your character carries his stuff on his person in the box entitled How Carried. Whenever your character needs a possession, he is assumed to be carrying it around with him if it is related to the role in his concept except for the following exceptions
• It is not related to combat
• It cannot be carried
• It can be consumed, such as matches, batteries, pitons, lockpicks, et cetera. For these items, you will subtract 1 Use from the total in the Uses box.
• Holdings-These are:
• Items not on your character’s person. If not within the distance your character can reach in an action scene of your character, you will need to designate them as holdings.
• Items close but not able to be carried
• Specified Items
• All weapons and ammunition are specified items
• Any items not related to your character concept
• Improvised Items are any non-unique, common items not related to your character concept that are not listed in the specified items. You may declare these items until the spaces on your character sheet are exhausted.
• There are 10 spaces on your character sheet for knickknacks, objects the size of a breadbox or smaller with a value less than $100 in value
• There are 10 spaces on your character sheet for Clutter, objects in size that will fit in a pocket and are less than 5 dollars in value. 

The Creation of the Canyonside Games: A History-Part 2 of 10

The Creation of  Canyonside, Part 2

Please enjoy part two of the history of the Canyonside games.

1995‐9

These were the years I went to Gen Con around professional school. I did not run any games but instead played in several games that influenced the Canyonside game.

The firs was a great game with my friend Ben that used only a single d6 to determine the event outcomes. There were between 20 and 30 of us standing around in a circle playing in a highly improvised Justice Inc. game with no character sheet and reinforced my idea that more than 10 people could easily be run in a roleplaying game if the game mechanics were simple enough. My friend, Ben, upon listening to me extolling the awesome simplicity of the single d6-based mechanic after this game ad nauseum, when I was debating scrapping the d100 mechanic of HiBRiD version 1.0 one night, told me "just keep the d20...because a d20...it just looks cool".

I also played in a tournament with my friend Terry where my character was cursed 20 minutes in, and ruined our team's chances at advancing to the tournament finals. I spent 3 hours distracting the players from their mission and had a ball doing it. While  the 2 children in our group were a bit disappointed (I would never do something like this today),  everyone else, including the kids' dad, shook my hand and congratulated me on a well-played curse and laughed at my character's crazy antics in which my character made himself invisble and went running around laughing like a hyena and distracting the players from their goals. This was where I realized that meta gaming could be so much fun and began writing game aspects actually based on it for my pregenerated characters, such as Catchphrase and Heroic Appearance. 

These years were big for the game system in general. After remembering Ben's comments, I finally scrapped all of the rest of my d100-based rules, converting them to the current "roll-a-d20/always-add/higher-numbers-are-always-better" system that currently defines the HiBRiD system v2.0. 

These years were also when the kernel for my favorite NPC, Johnny Parkour, came into existence. By combining the Justice, Inc. character I had played, named Johnny Faaaaaaantastic with the antics of the cursed character so over the top that I mentioned above, I unknowingly created him as my standard NPC template for every Canyonside game I ever ran. After adding a heavy accent and the Catchphrases "Dees eez too crayzee for me", and "I'm going to go to de club" that I based on a coworker of mine back when I worked for Chicago's Computer Wonderland, this was the Johnny Parkour that came to be loved/annoyed at every Canyonside game over the years. I would also use him to test the speed and action rules, and he eventually became the character creation example for the Player's Spielbuch.

These would also be the last years I would ever play a roleplaying game as a player.

The Creation of the Canyonside Games: A History-Part 1 of 10

A Guide To the Creation of  Canyonside

As I was preparing for our last GenCon game, I had to research all the games I ran at GenCon over the years. Throughout the scenario, as I wrote it, I threw in references to each and every game I ever ran. As a treat to those who were there at the beginning as well as a quick historical reference to the story arc of the Canyonside adventures in general, I offer the following timeline series of posts.

It all began in 1994.

1994-The Twists of Tui-te

This was the first GenCon I ever ran a game at. I ran a 2nd edition Dungeons and Dragons scenario that would eventually become the basis for our 2013 Snakes on Plane scenario. That scenario had originally been designed to be a three part tournament. I had made 36 pre-generated character sheets and only 4 players of the 12 qualifiers showed up. I was dejected and about to begin with a  sad heart when interestingly, a number of players were walking around like homeless gazelles looking for a place to play on the arena floor. They would come and ask "is this game open" and I said "Yes, but you have to know the rules, if you don't have your character action ready, your character does nothing, and I don't want any fights on judgments of how magic items work because I don't plan on looking anything up". Surprisingly, everyone actually seemed more excited by the prospect, with one younger kid actually exclaiming "Oh Yeah!!!" like the Koolaid Man. I collected their generic tickets and I ended up running 18 players/characters for a 4 and a half hour game. It was incredible because everyone knew every magic item and ability and all I had to do is determine NPC actions; the mechanics were for the most part handled by the players! That was when I realized that the d100 system for HiBRiD 1.0 needed to be scrapped for something easier to use. I also began hacking the system apart and wrote the HiBRiD mentalics and damage systems that year.

This was when decided that I wanted to run games where the players would help me rather than have a traditional adversarial game where it was my creation against the players' knowledge of the rules. I also decided I wanted to run big groups of improvisational players instead of rules lawyers, and that I wanted to get rid of D&D altogether as it had too many rules. This was the last D&D game I would ever run.