[Diaspora] Using Diaspora for a 'Revelation Space'/'Counting to Infinity'-type game (long)

[Brad Murray]

Ken, first it's pretty flattering that you're choosing to use Diaspora for
what is certainly my favourite setting thread at RPG.net ever.

I think you might get some mileage out of our ongoing work on Soft Horizon
at <http://www.phreeow.net/wiki/tiki-index.php?page=Soft+Horizon> because in
a way it deals with characters that are more like those in the setting
you're targeting and they have capabilities with a scope that is better
served by the Soft Horizon system I think. You should have a peek and mine
it for things to graft on to Diaspora to solve some of the issues you're
having.

As for changing stats, what multiple rolls will do is tend more strongly
towards zero *but not at zero* necessarily. You'll actually get more
variation and fewer zero results. I'm not certain that it's interestingly
different from one roll in this context, though, and it seems like two rolls
that cancel out will be frustrating rather than fun. When we ran into a stat
change issue in game, we came up with the following rule of thumb:

Technology goes down fast and up slow.
Resources go down slow and never go up.
Environment goes up very slow and down slow, but it can also BANG go down
incredibly fast (gamma burst sterilizes everything, oops).

Off the top of my head I don't have a system to do that, but maybe:

Technology: 4dF-1 and modify technology. If T > 4, roll over (T3 +3 = T-3)
Resources: 4dF, reduce by one on -4 result
Environment: 4dF, increase by one on +4 result, decrease by 1 on -3 result,
decrease by 4 on -4 result

When a system changes I would certainly use the whole table to discuss the
changes and then try to find, as referee, some secrets in it to spring on
the players. Mine player ideas, and that way you get cool stuff for free,
but you also get emulation of character knowledge and expectations.

I would also consider allowing exploration of a new system at any time --
systems will tend towards entropy with these rules, and it will sometimes
make more sense to gamble on a whole new destination. I'd let a character
use a declaration (pay a fate point) to be the one to roll and define the
new system.

Cool project! Keep us updated!

-- 
Brad Murray (halfjack)
VSCA Publishing
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://phreeow.net/pipermail/diaspora_phreeow.net/attachments/20100104/6a6488c4/attachment.html>