What's in a Class Name?

There are a couple of non-rules things I'm going to be adding or changing along with all the other stuff I mentioned last time. The first of them I want to mention are names, specifically the names of the Ubermensch and Gestalt class types. Not the classes themselves, but the types/categories of them.

Here's the problem: The Rider and Summoner class types are descriptive and to the point. The names tell you what they're about in a fairly obvious fashion. Gestalt and Ubermensch, on the other hand, are more thematic than descriptive. They only allude to what it is they're about and, outside of Monsterpunk's own context, could be used to mean any number of things entirely different from what they mean in it.

This is because both class types draw from the same well of inspiration that led me to use Orgone as the name of magic in the game instead of using mana, prana, ki, chakra or any of the other more well known names for life energy: German Fetishization Science. Gestalts are named like that because they are an integration of two different and separate things into more than the sum of their parts, this is in reference to Gestalt therapy of psychology. Ubermensch are normal humans in a game where all other PCs feed otherwordly beings with their life force in exchange for power, making the Ubermensch the closest to a superman as written in Nietzsche's work.

So you have two names that are simple and self-explanatory, if a little bit prosaic and not particularly inspiring. Then the other two names are fancy, erudite and possibly a tad bit pretentious. Of these four, two were going to have to change, but which two?

The answer didn't take long. Ubermensch is a loaded term that is often associated with, let's say, problematic ideologies. At least two people pointed out to me that the name made them uncomfortable, where the only complaint I've ever received about the other classes was a joke about how the Riders aren't tokusatsu enough. The choice was clear.

As for their new names, Gestalts are going to be called Hybrids. That one is easy enough. It's a functional, descriptive word that lets you know these are the guys and gals that are half-human half-monster. Ez pz. Also I should note that I'm not changing the name of Gestalts in-universe to Hybrids, the lore is still going to call them Gestalts, this change is just on the rules side of things. Ubermensch, meanwhile, were harder to pin down. The options were:

• Techie - all four of them rely on super science or alchemy to gain an edge over the pactmakers. 
• Solo - their single most defining trait is that they don't have a pactmate, after all.
• Boffin - like Techie, but less supersciency and more British and dorky.
• Paragon - it is Ubermensch with slightly less baggage but also only slightly more descriptive.

None of them were super convincing, so I figured I'd pick the one that was least bad. First out was Boffin, because I could not possibly take a class labeled "Boffin Tank" seriously. Second to be struck out was Paragon, because the uncomfortable implications of being superior just because you happen to be privileged are still there. Third up for deletion was Techie, because while it fits the Raptor, Mentalist and Gravranger, it doesn't make a lot of sense for the Alchemist who is more like a middle-ages scientist. That means we're going to call them Solo Classes, which if nothing else definitely gets across that they don't make pacts with monsters at all and their powerset has a different origin.

Next: Probably another small changes post like this.

Gimmick Out.

Never rush things out the door

I had originally planned to have the next version of MP done before the end of the year, specifically before Christmas, more specifically today.

It, uh, isn't going to happen today. For a multitude of reasons. One is that I didn't sit down to work on it as much as I could've, but the other is just that testing takes time because sometimes you don't notice a problem until it's been one for a while.

What was originally going to be an update with just two big changes (class tech/feat overhaul and no humanity/sanity) and maybe sneaking a lesser change here and there is now going to have tons of lesser changes here and there plus the big stuff. Some are the turning of a number up or down, others involve deleting things that just don't work and going back to the drawing board.

Here's a non-comprehensive list:

• Buffed what you can do with Wealth Tests. Now you can buy advantages to skill tests, Twists will cost you Wealth instead of backfiring on you and you get to keep weaker purchases as volatile items. It was always the lesser of the three health tracks by design, and still is, but by making it sliiightly more attractive it's less of a designated dump stat to always sacrifice when you suffer a Twist.
• The Status Mastery line of Archetypes got reworked. With the addition of Limit Breaks you can spam Limits with multiple status conditions nearly every turn. It's too much of a one trick pony build, especially in a world where status immunities are expected. The Status Condition Mastery line has been renamed to Status Prowess, it lets you trade the Status for additional Damage with every attack rather than just Limits, even against enemies that are immune to the Status itself. This makes you more resilient against enemies that would've just hard countered you before.
• Moved Group Tests from a sidebar in the GM section to the Types of Tests section and expanded it to a full page's length. Group Tests were always one of my preferred ways to make everyone pool their skillsets together during playtests but they were never spelled out in the book proper. Now they are.
• The various Archetypes that involve the use of the Assess Action got buffed with the effects of the now missing Assess Feat line. This mostly concerns the Elementalist, Mentalist and Changeling. The Chosen also did some free Action Assessing, which now is so useless that it got replaced with a free Tracking.
• The Gravranger and Dragoon have a new Trick called Fast Recovery. it lets them receive Healing Tests once per Day instead of once per Week and adds Fortitude Advantages to the healer's Test. Tanks are expected to lose 1 or 2 Vitality every fight, so they need more than 1 Healing Test per week if they're going to fight multiple days in a row.
• The Dragoon's unique Tricks are in the middle of an overhaul. The problem with Instant Friend, Know Their Price and Rumormonger is that... You can pull the same effect with a regular social Skill Test and you can also do more with them. I'm going to focus more on their leadership skills instead, one of their new Tricks is called Gang Boss and, well, I'll just let it speak for itself I think.

• Added Alternative Features to the alternative rules section. The loss of character feats isn't huge, but it does affect some of the more interesting character builds negatively. Notably, the builds based on Assessing, Tracking, Marking, defense and mobility got hurt the most. Assess-based builds already got compensated (as noted above), but the others still need more. Alternative Features are essentially powered up versions of the most interesting of the old Character Feats and you can take them in place of one of your Archetypes. For example now Orgone Jump, Marine Adaptation and Spider Climber now also give you a +2 Speed boost to make them worth the Archetype slot. They're going to be niche picks, more than they used to be in some cases, but at least they weren't straight up deleted from the game.
• The Survival Skill now works as a social skill against feral monsters. It already worked on regular animals so might as well buff it and go all the way. One of the examples includes offering a swarm of mothmen a bunch of lamps to distract them. I figured some of you may appreciate it.

There's more, but time is short and I'd rather spend today writing for the game itself than listing and explaining everything, so this will have to do for now. Since the next version is going to take a while I'll probably be sitting down to update y'all on how its coming in the next few weeks until the day comes.

Until then, have a good one.

Gimmick Out.

The Future of Humanity

Today's rather pretentiously named update will be picking up on the rewrite of the Sanity and Humanity rules from last time. Here, let me quote where we last left off:

"The one idea that comes to mind would be writing in again the discarded plot element of humans transforming into Fiends and replacing Sanity with Humanity entirely. This would be, in essence, the deletion of Humanity as it exists and giving Sanity a makeover in terms of what it represents in game. I still don't have any clear rules in mind to represent PCs that have become Fiends and they would also need a page or two of advice telling groups how to handle the going berserk scenario, concluding in how to either bring them back to Humanity 1 or making them antagonists permanently."

It's probably not a surprise that I ended up going more or less with what is quoted above. The changes list proper is as follows:

• Humanity mechanic deleted. For the sake of clarity, the original mechanic will be called oHumanity when it is relevant to the discussion.
• Sanity mechanic renamed to Humanity. Conceptually, Humanity tracks how much in control of your powers you are, losing control and becoming a monster at 0.
• Characters do not lose Humanity from burning down orphanages or kicking puppies. It is not a morality mechanic like oHumanity was.
• Characters do not lose Humanity from traumatic experiences. It is not a madness mechanic like Sanity was.
• Characters lose Humanity as a consequence of Twists, using certain Tricks, Negotiation and using Limit Breaks. In essence, Humanity loss cannot be forced on PCs and is always at the control of the player.
• Characters can now Limit Break to gain Orgone Points during combat. Each Orgone Point gained this way results in a loss of 1 Humanity, from a starting maximum of 10.
• Listening Negotiation Skill renamed to Contact. It represents mentally contacting the target and seeing a glimpse of their life through their eyes.

The gist of it is that now Humanity represents the purity of your orgone field and how much control you have over it. When you mess with it too much, such as by storing parts of it in a philactery, making mental contact with another or pushing it past your body's safe limits, it corrupts. When you fail to purify it regularly and let it corrupt too much, it transforms you into a monster known as a Fiend. Sanity and oHumanity were related to many other rules, so let's do a quick skim of all the other stuff that got affected.

First and most obviously, we no longer have a morality mechanic. I considered keeping the oHumanity mechanic as a Reputation system, but honestly it wasn't that good anyway and it doesn't really seem like a big loss to cut it. The consequence here is that there's less modifiers to Negotiation Tests (which is fine, those are always super dependent on their context anyway) and less ways to lose Sanity Humanity, which is addressed by the rest of the rules. All's fine on this end.

Second is how it affects the Bonus/Twist economy, or rather, how it doesn't. One of my worries with doing significant changes to Sanity was that it would make the lives of PCs much harder by giving them less things they could afford to lose on the events of rolling a bad string of Twists. Humanity fills Sanity's shoes as if Sanity had never left us, so that's a plus. The corruption of your orgone is not as easy to justify as stress making you go crazier and more radical, but it is always a player choice so they can just use it when appropriate. Of note: You can never cure your own Humanity, another PC has to help you.

Third is how Limit Breaks affect combat and class balance. The game was actually very well balanced on the PC vs NPC side before this last series of changes (most notably the removal of Character Feats) tilted things towards favoring NPCs quite a bit. The addition of Limit Breaks helps push the PC side of fights quite a bit, to the point where it potentially makes PCs near-invincible if they're willing to burn tons of Humanity. I suspect most combat scenes will end with all PCs losing 1 Vitality, 1 Humanity or both, which is more or less how it was with Sanity before.

Fourth is the Listening Negotiation Skill, which used to trade a point of Sanity for doing a ton of HP Damage. With Humanity this is no longer conceptually feasible, so it's being renamed to Contact and the Humanity damage is represented as a loss of self from becoming someone else for a round of combat. It's not a big change, especially if you're reskinning what the negotiation skills do, but it bears mentioning.

Lastly there's Obsessions and the potential of character retirement. Nearly all Obsessions were rewritten at the low end of the scale to properly represent a transformation into a Fiend (or Majin as the blurb calls them). Fiends are, in essence, serial killers themed around their obsession. The more they indulge the extreme ends of their obsession, the stronger they get, and if they do it while going on a killing spree and feeding on the life energy of their victims they get twice as much. Humans that change into Fiends still look the same and Fiends don't belong to any of the 12 playable Monster races. There's more, obviously (they've a whole page detailing their behavior, how to cure them and a feature of their own as NPCs) but this is getting long enough already. I want to end this bit making it explicitly clear that the default approach to PCs with 0 Humanity is restraining and healing them so that they become human PCs again.

And that about sums it up, I think. The new Humanity rules are much more focused on giving PCs the opportunity to string combos of limit techs and do cool things on the mechanical side while encouraging character development and tight party relationships. I suspect a lot of tough fights will end with a PC breaking the limits of their power level, going berserk, and getting saved by the power of FRIENDSHIP. And I think that's awesome.

Gimmick Out.