2/2/09

Transient

A (really, really quickly made) game inspired by K. Not quite what he wanted, but on it's way, I guess.

Character Creation
Each player plays a spirit. I don't know what sort of spirit. I don't care. Figure something out, kthx?

You have 4 stats and a bunch of traits and something called Karma, and like... a goal or some shit.

STATS
Your stats are Community, Greed, Need, and Rage. Basically, all living things are motivated by one (or more) of these four things. No, I don't have any science to back it up. It makes sense here.

Put a 1 in one of 'em. 2 in another. 3 in yet another. Can you guess where the 4 goes?

TRAITS
You have a bunch of traits. Pick three and rate them at 1,2, and 3. Star one of them. These are things built into you... I dunno, shit like "I am the ghost of christmas past" and "Seen the fall of nations" and "Cold-Blooded Killer". Stuff about your spirit. Make it cool, and have it make sense in the context of the current game. Your friends will appreciate it.

OTHER STUFF
Goal: Make up something your character wants to do. It should be big (You're like... immortal or something), but manageable in small chunks. See above about being cool and making sense.

SHAPE
You start off in a basic shape, some sort of creature you've possessed. Pick something from Rank 1, below. Yeah, they suck. You did some bad shit to end up down here. You have a trait, "I'm an X" with it's rating at the animal's rank. It gets a star, too.

Doing Stuff
So you want to do some stuff to accomplish your goal? You can't. Hah. You're a spirit. Good lu... Oh, wait, you have a possessed form?

Okay, you can tempt that form to do stuff. Choose a stat. Try to roleplay (I'm not going to explain that) tempting the creature using that stat. Roll the stat against the creature's rank. If it's something important (to your character), you can choose to fail to gain Karma. You can't like... roll to see if the animal takes a piss and then auto-fail to farm Karma. That's dumb.

If you fail? Nothing happens. The animal does what it wants. Sucks to be you. You do get a point of Karma, though.

If you succeed? Roll (Used Stat) + (Creature's Rank) against some difficulty. The GM will pick it. Don't know what a GM is? Probably this isn't the right game for you. Ask me, I'll recommend something cool. Oh, yeah, and winning sucks too. If you succeed in tempting a creature, lose a point of Karma. Karma can go negative, too. That'd be real bad, though.

Traits are cool. You can use a trait to reroll any number of dice up to the rank of the trait. You cannot, obviously, reroll dice you didn't use in the first place. You can only use each trait once per scene (whatever that is!), and the trait has to make some sense in the current roll (narrate it, whatever the hell that means).

Starred traits also let you roll a new die in addition to rerolling some dice.

You narrate actions before you roll. You reroll dice after you roll them. You narrate traits when you reroll. Figure that one out, folks.

You can bet Karma to try to win a (non-tempting) action. Pick a number, up to your current Karma - as an absolute number (one good thing about negative Karma? Probably not). Add an additional number of dice equal to 1/2 the Karma bet to your roll. If you win, lose Karma equal to that bet. If you lose, instead only lose half as much. Yeah, it sucks. Only do it if the roll means something to you.

Advancement
So you want to be something more powerful than a flea? Well, you can switch form at any time, under two conditions - A) The form must be somewhere near your current form & B) It's rank squared cannot exceed your Karma.

When you change forms, you can spend a point of Karma to gain a trait "I was an X" at one point.

If your Karma drops (probably because you're an asshole who likes to win or something) below your current form's Rank squared, all your stats and traits drop to 1 until you move into a form with a lower Rank. And you cannot increase your Karma until you do so.

Appendix 1 - Supernatural Shit
Once you reach 25+ Karma, stuff gets weird. You can turn Karma into dice at a 3-for-2 rate, act without tempting your body (you don't add it's Rank to your roll, though), and you can use the Mystical Ranks (5-8). Using a Mystical Rank creature pisses off reality, though, so you lose 1 Karma whenever you attempt to tempt it. But you get to be cool and magical.

Appendix 2 - Necromancy
You can possess corpses. You can possess a corpse at one rank higher than your normal limit, but you still can't possess Mystical Rank corpses unless you have 25+ Karma. Possessing corpses pisses off reality, just like possessing Mystical Rank creatures (see above) and possessing a Mystical Rank corpse pisses it off twice as much.

Appendix 3 - Objects
You can possess an object or even an area or something. Once you do though, you can't do shit (unless you have 25+ Karma and can act supernaturally), and it actually costs you a point of Karma to leave (you can leave for free if you somehow have 0 or less Karma). Items have no rank. You can add any of your stats to anyone who uses the item/acts in the area and you can use your traits on their rolls.

Appendix 4 - Swarms
You can control a group of creatures all of the same type. This counts as one rank higher, and you can only use "Community" to tempt them. You get like... I don't know, a free die when actually doing stuff with them (not tempting).

Appendix 5 - Ranks
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! These are just samples. Make shit up. It's what this whole thing is all about. This list is probably horrible inaccurate.
1: Domesticated Cats & Dogs, Harmless Birds, Insects, Wimpy Fish
2: Harmful Birds, Wolves, Wild Dogs, Dolphins
3: Big Cats, Bears, Whales, Sharks
4: Humans, Really Big Cats
5: Bugbears, Owlbears, Other sorts of (Word)bears, Goblins
6: Unicorns, Golems
7: Chimera, Dragonish Things, Basilisks
8: Dragons

Appendix 6 - GMing Advice
Hey, I didn't say it up in the rules, but you should reward players with Karma and punish them when the do stuff that's "Good" or "Evil". Define these yourself, in the context of the game, and don't be a total ass about it. Be consistent.

You're most important job is finding out what the character's care about and challenging that. Also, messing with their Karma so it fluctuates. Make them make difficult choices (succeed here or keep my Karma?). Tease them with Karma betting. Look at their goal as a starting point.

I don't know what a good difficulty is for non-tempting actions. Between 2-8 at normal levels. Once you hit Mystic Levels, I'd say 4-12 would do. Look at what ranks everyone is using, and base things off that. Mix it up once in a while to mess with things.

Final Thoughts
24 Hour RPG? Fuck that. This is like a 1/2 Hour RPG. Comments and suggestions, are, of course, welcome. Try playing it, maybe?

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