Level Caps are a way to limit the number of dice rolled at one time - basically, a way to keep the action from getting too big, too quick. If you don't want your characters shifting planets right out the gate but still wanna give them a big pile of dice, put a Level Cap on it (10 dice per roll, max) that you can either let players raise by purchasing or have go up as their dice pool gets bigger (10 for 30 dice, 15 for 40, and so on).
But I've been reading the Mistborn saga by Brandon Sanderson lately and got to thinking. See, the thing that makes his superpower system - "allomancy" and "ferruchemistry" and "hemalurgy" - work? It's that the powers are all 1) hyper specific (you can pull on iron OR push on it, you can store weight or lighten yourself, etc.) and 2) require clever strategic and cinematic description to use.
So how could I do something like that in XD6?
Welp, had a thought: what about a PLAY-based "level cap increase?" Call it a "condition," and make the number of extra dice that break the Level Cap PLAY specific! Check it - each of these could raise the level cap for an FX Move by 2:
- Environment: If you can describe how your power could be used effectively where you are.
- Innovation: If you come up with a new use of your power.
- Combination: If you can explain how you use two of your powers, together.
- Description: If you can make the whole thing sound epic (if everyone at the table reacts!).
Like so:
Getta Grip (a favorite superhero from my Gigacity Ghosts game for Stories RPG podcast!) can control friction - this is really TWO powers bought separately: Stick and Slide. She could normally only roll 10 dice, but here are some of her moves:
- Skates: By creating, on the soles of her shoes, a razor-thin line of friction while making the rest completely slippery, Getta Grip can skate at incredibly high speeds (14 dice: +2 from combo, +2 from description if you do it right!).
- Constrict: Facing foes in clothing, she can up their friction till their clothes start chafing to the point they can't even move! (14 dice: +2 from environment, +2 from description).
- Swing n' Fling: She sticks with a touch, increases her own grip on the pavement, then removes all friction from her enemy's feet - and suddenly they're on their back, flung like a sliding hockey puck towards a wall! (16 dice: environment, combo, description).
- Supersonic: Increase friction on a coin; fling it and remove all gravity to put the thing through a wall. (14 dice: combo, description)
- Bass Beast: Increases friction on her fingerpads to get squealing, roaring riffs out of her bass guitar (FX to wow a crowd - effectively, Empathize for a +4!)
ALL, of course, could get an extra +2 the first time they're used for Innovation. I could keep going, but I like the concept. Players can pre-gen cool narrative moves, then get a mechanical boost for prepping them - it incentivizes good narrative THINKING about what makes powers neat!