itch.io

Here's my first attempt at the "Science" subsystem.

Creating the Science Matrix

Before the game begins, roll 8 d4's for each row of the matrix. Count up the number of dice that correspond to the column number, add 1, and put that number in the cell. So, for example, if you rolled [3, 4, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1] for the Surgery row, you would fill in 4, 2, 3, 3. For the MISC row, add 3 rather than 1 to the d4 roll.

#	Abbrev	Area
1	INC	Increase Essence Strength
2	DEC	Decrese Essence Strength
3	REDF	Redefine Essence
4	EXT	Extract Essence
5	INS	Insert Essence
6	MISC	Some other essence manipulation not covered by above
7	SURG	Surgery
8	FLUID	Injecting/Extracting bodily fluids
9	CHEM	Laboratory Chemistry
10	BODY	Internal Body Chemistry
11	MIND	The use of the will, concentration, or altered mental states
12	ENV	Extreme Environmental Conditions

The science of essence manipulation

This science is still a very new field. Not much is known about it. Indeed, the results of Jekyll's experimentation are about the only thing that is known for certain. To wit, a certain chemical mixture, when ingested, enabled Dr. Jekyll to suppress certain essences which he considered his “good side” leaving only his “evil side” active. The change affected both Jekyll's personality and physical form, although his memories remained intact across transformations. The duration of the effect eventually became erratic, with the transformation sometime ending on its own, sometimes requiring another ingestion of the mixture to reverse, sometimes happening spontaneously in the Jekyll form. However, even Jekyll himself was not fully aware of how to replicate his process; before his death he determined that an unknown impurity in his initial batch of formula was a key component in its efficacy.

In order to maintain the spirit of empiricism, players of this game will never know for sure how things work. The functioning of this field of science will partly be determined by a dice-rolling procedure that the GM conducts before play begins. The GM keeps this information secret from the players while the game is in progress. By conducting experiments players, like the characters they control, may gain some insight into the way the science functions, but science never provides certainty, especially in such a new field. Jekyll thought he understood what he had discovered, but he only partly understood. On the other hand, those who never dare to explore understand nothing at all.

In order to “explore” the science of essence manipulation, the GM must make a virtual “map of the territory” before play begins. This takes the form of a large matrix. The rows of the matrix correspond to aspects that might be involved in an essence-manipulation process. The columns are abstractions that represent that some things work better than others.

When a player wants to develop a process they'll describe what they're trying to do, and map that onto a series or corresponding matrix cells. For example, if Dr. Jekyll were a player character, he might have said that he wanted to create a chemical mixture that would operate inside a person's body to target a particular subset of essences and reduce their strength to zero. For each major category you roll a d4 to see which column of the matrix it uses. So, in game mechanics terms, Jekyll's formula could be CHEM3-BODY2-DEC4 (the numbers correspond to random d4 die rolls). Someone else might propose a process by which a person's blood is extracted, heated under intense pressure, and then reinjected into the body in order to increase the strength of an essence. This could be FLUID3-ENV1-FLUID2-INC1. Then roll a d6. If you have less components in your process than the number on the d6, add MISC components to the process (sometimes it turns out to be harder to create elegant processes than ones that might seem complex on the surface).

Once you have the sequence, the GM will add the numbers in each cell of the matrix to determine the difficulty to compare to the die roll in a Devise a process scene. If the numbers are low this sum may correspond to a simple task that's merely waiting for someone to try it for the first time. If it's difficult perhaps it's possible, but requires some expertise to perform the required delicate procedures to get the right efficacy. Some may be so difficult that they're effectively impossible to do that way – sometimes science doesn't care how much you'd like to achieve something, it just can't be done (just ask the alchemists who hoped to turn base metals into gold). However, the GM will never tell any players what the actual difficulty number is. The only way to know for sure is to experiment, and see if the results are what you expect them to be – if your mechanical roll to invent the procedure is lower than the difficulty number the GM may alter the actual effect relative to your intended effect based on some rules. Sometimes this might be as simple as being fatal to whoever is being subjected to the process, sometimes it might be subtle, such as the intended effect working perfectly but a second essence being redefined as a side-effect. Regardless of the relationship between your roll and the difficultly number, the process (if performed correctly) will always “succeed” at producing the same effect in the future. Maybe a mistake in one area could be a serendipitous solution for another.