Asset Thursdays: Robert Science-Man

 

Many many of the assets are pastiches or parodies of memories of my youth. (Hold on to your hats guys, this stuff is going to make you feel old)

This is a mad scientist for the Aristocrats. Gorilla GroddTM (Property of DC comics) was influenced by an alien meteorite, so this would be the geneticist who reverse engineers a hypothetical (certainly not copyright infringing) gorilla influenced by alien radiation. And since Sinless takes place in our future earth they have a DC comics with a trademarked Gorilla. The study of Gorillas influenced by alien radiation obviously would be named Groddgenics. 

No Cap.

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Hack & Slash 

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On the Action Economy

This is always a sticky wicket for games. 

My highest priority in designing Sinless was making a robust frame that was easily understandable. I wanted the thing you would guess the rules would be based on your TTRPG experience to be the rule. 

So, and stop me if you've heard this before, Sinless has Simple and Complex actions, and a Reflex action. A complex action is two simple actions. You get them at the start of the round.

Holy shit, you could probably just sit down and play a cyber-sorcery game without needing to take a college course and reference reddit!

Now this isn't novel or particularly special. But we have a "Summoner" situation. Speakers summon spirits, riggers command drones—there are a lot of situations that create this 'action economy' problem, where certain people act a lot. Examples include wired reflexes in Shadowrun 3e, Summoners in Pathfinder 1e, and utilizing the bonus action in 5e.

There are many solutions to this, but Sinless uses the cohort system.

You can get exploit actions (from VCR's, Wired Reflexes, Henchmen et. al.) that can only be used for a specific purpose. Adding more drones doesn't get you more actions, you have to divide your actions among your cohorts.

This 'restricted extra action' system is flexible and descriptive rather than prescriptive. Did you take fascination and train a tiger or dragonelle? Get an exploit action to command it in combat. 

This also fits the tropes of action movies, much like the way dice pools work, your focus is limited and you choose where to apply it. 

https://sinlessrpg.com

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Hack & Slash 

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On the Cyberpunk now.

It is a universally acknowledged truth that science fiction always examines current issues, fears, and anxieties in a foreign setting: The Terminator and automation, Robocop and the fascist corporatization of democratic societies, Star Trek and interracial representation, early cyberpunk works like Blade Runner and Shadowrun examining anxiety over Asian/Japanese dominance in a pretty classic example of exoticism. 

So, you know, Sinless is pretty cyberpunk, but, uh, have we looked outside lately?

We live in that future. My future setting is a future setting, but it reflects the now. 

It requires you to walk the dance of an outsider. You have to appeal to the same system you wish to destroy and replace, otherwise it will destroy and replace you. It also puts you in the position of having the same immoral options your opponents. Whether you've been instructed by your programming overlords to consider it "the deep state" or "the patriarchy" it is the force of human nature for one man to raise himself above others and resist change to that order that keeps the system stable. 

Only it's a game, so you can win.

Check it out.

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Hack & Slash 

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On the Success of Sinless

So, Sinless is pretty good.

You never quite know with a game, how it's going to turn out. Sinless has a lot of moving parts. 

But people are playing this (a lot), and it is a simple, modern, modular design that allows for trad and classic playstyles with a concrete mathematical foundation for handling money, prices, owning and taking over territory. It isn't necessary, you can simply use the three actions during 'downtime' (or the sector turn) to handle character level things and never engage in the downtime system.

But it's pretty well integrated. The operations on the operation generator come with factions and backgrounds that integrate with the downtime phase, resulting in a robust system for managing emergent sandbox gameplay.

That's. . . a lot of buzzwords. It's accurate, but poorly communicated. Here, let me explain in pictures.

 

This is the job information for the players. They use their skills to find out what etiquette, brand, and individual is hiring.

Here is the operational background.

Of course, "Shen" and "Zenith" are corporate factions. They have locations in the sectors. 

It grounds the mission in personal drama. 

Also: the operational generator makes it super easy to manage runs. This is a sinless statblock:

The number is how many 1d6 you roll.

Compare this to a Statblock from other cyberpunk/cybersorcery games:

You may wonder "Why is the Sinless statblock so simple?"

It's simple because it's what you need to run the game and nothing more. It  has what I need to run the game. This may not be appealing to everyone, but I run two games a week, and find this helpful.

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Hack & Slash 

Follow, Twitch, Support, Donate to end Cancer (5 Star Rating) sinlessrpg.com