Character Creation

Traits

There are four traits in Dead Running.

Intelligence - Reasoning, problem solving, hacking, and other mental feats.

Strength - Running, lifting, punching, and all other physical challenges.

Charisma - Lying, persuading, conning, and other social tests.

Insight - Skimming, pursuing, diving, and all other psychic abilities.

Traits begin at a certain die type, but players receive a number of raises to increase them. Each raise increases the die rolled for that trait.

Psychics

Psychics (everyone but the Null) begin with each trait at a d6. Psychics receive 4 raises that may be spent to increase their traits, limit 2 raises per trait.

Psychics also choose a talent, the way their Insight can be used:

Skimmers - Eaves Drop on multiple minds, bodyguards and security.

Pursuers - Trace a web of connected thoughts, interrogators and psychologists.

Divers - Plunge for a single buried thought, spies and assassins.

Scavengers - Devour dead minds to gain knowledge, detectives and mercs.

Nulls

At least one player must play a Null. If there are no volunteers, this can be decided randomly. Null characters, lacking Insight, have only 3 traits that begin as follows:

Intelligence d4, Strength d8, Charisma d6

*The mind never fully recovers from brain death though the body becomes unusually resistant to pain. Higher level creativity and ingenuity is lost, but a dulled body can be pushed beyond its former limits.*

Nulls receive only 3 raises to increase their traits, limit 2 raises per trait.

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At this time, I'm not planning to include any sort of bonus dice from equipment or the like. It'll be a pretty simple system though there will be an allowance for a 'trust point' style bonus as soon as I work it out.

Psychics It Is!

Had a really good talk with some gamer buddies today. They helped confirm some strange ideas and provided a few awesome ones of their own.

Seabirds = Psychics

The diet of seabirds leads to a concrete metaphor for telepaths. After the event, everyone developed the ability to read minds. The world has likewise changed in several big ways.

Skimmers - "Gulls"

Skimmers can 'listen in' on the surface thoughts (current intentions) of anyone in the vicinity. They can't dig too deep but they are usually the first to know what will happen next.

Pursuers - "Loons"

Pursuer work only begins at surface thoughts. A good pursuer can follow a large number of connected thoughts, learning a great amount of information, before losing the connection.

Divers - "Pelicans"

Divers get in and get out like a bolt of lightning. Not settling for the flotsam at the surface, they shoot for a specific thought before the subject can muster much resistance.

Scavengers - "Petrels"

Even the weakest mind provides too much resistance for a Scavenger. They are quite proficient at sifting through the thoughts of the dead, however, even the dead that still walk. No one's sure if scavengers really consume the dead brain tissue, or if they perpetuate the myth to add to their own legend.

Nulls - "Zombies"

Brain death used to be a one-way street, until Sombien hit hospitals. After full recovery from a vegetative state, the only side-effect of the drug is the total loss of any psychic ability and the total inability to be read by anyone but a scavenger.

In a world of mind readers, nulls become secure couriers. As long as they can avoid hostile scavengers, the information they carry is safe and secure. Of course, things are never that easy.

A Sea of Thoughts?

Jungian symbolism holds the ocean as a pretty classic symbol for the human mind. Perhaps our 'seabirds' are then psychics that spend their time digging through the minds of others. Some simply dip in for whatever thoughts float at the surface while others plunge quickly to catch slippery thoughts before they're hidden.

Would this be a game of psychic detectives? Telepathic criminals? Enforcers for the Man seeking to root out terrorists or revolutionaries desperately trying to hide their thoughts from the establishment?

These situations are certainly rife with Intrigue. Is there a dice mechanic that could actually feign mind-reading...?

Early Ideas

In the tradition of those that have already begun, I'll comment on the ingredients and medals of this year's contest.

Theme: INTRIGUE

The only thing this brings to mind right now is the Vampire rpg and LARPS. I dislike both of them so as much as I want to stay true to theme, this may be the first thing I toss out.

Ingredients: FLEUR-DE-LIS, DIVIDERS, SEABIRD, and STAR

Skimming the wiki page on fleur-de-lis brought nothing to mind, but it could possibly be the symbol for a faction within the game.

Dividers were used in cartography and navigation. My game could involve exploration as a theme or maybe there's an exploratory faction opposite the fleur-de-lis group.

The wiki on seabirds was fascinating with the description of diet and feeding especially catching my eye. Seems seabirds fall into 4 broad categories of feeding. Surface Feeders dip their heads to catch krill and other food at the ocean's surface. Pursuit Divers (like penguins) swim after food that's up to 70m down! Plunge Divers catch faster prey by dropping from up to 20m above the water's surface. Kleptoparasites are avian pirates, stealing the hard won food of other birds.

My first thought was sci-fi or steampunk style airships 'mining' the skies by diving to different depths. Then the Kleptoparasites immediately made me think pirates. Haven't we done the pirate thing to death already though?

The star ingredient didn't strike me near as hard as seabirds. Weird, right? The symbol for a 3rd faction maybe? Star's have a natural place with the navigation dividers from above. Why does it feel like I'm the only one getting a strong nautical vibe from these ingredients? I never considered making a sailing game, but maybe this is a sign.

Other Medals

There's a host of other medals I could qualify for, but only a few really stood out. Brevity means the rules will need to fit on 4 pages, Zombies means the protagonists would have to be zombies, Cerberus dictates the game must be for 3 players, etc. I'm definitely aiming for Brevity and that's the only one I'm shooting for at this point.

Maybe the seabirds are classes of ships where some are built for skimming, some for diving, etc. Maybe intrigue comes from plotting against the ship's captain. Maybe there aren't ships at all, but the diving is into a more symbolic or supernatural medium like the mind (Lacuna), hyperspace (Hellas), the underworld, or the like.