[God-Machine Chronicles Actual Play] GMC Test Drive

Last weekend, my gaming group was able to take the new GMC rules out for a spin. I had two players in on this playtest, Mappy and Silver Countess, who put together their characters in about 30 minutes or so.

They’re both old hands at the new World of Darkness system so most of character generation was painless, and aside from a bit of delay reading through the new Merits, everyone was ready to play without any problems.

The characters were a Marcus, a gang leader who uses a gun store as a front for his operations, and Heather, a young survivalist who works for Marcus as a store clerk in his business and runs the occasional errand.

The game starts with both of them having just recently concluded some business of selling illegal guns to a buyer outside of a Bus Station during a snowy day. Having finished the transaction, the two pile into their pickup truck and head back to the store.

Heather was about to turn in when Marcus discovers that there was a young boy who slipped into the pickup. Marcus threatens the boy at gunpoint, who says his name is Sean, and he was running away from his home. Marcus is hesitant about believing the boy’s story, but Heather argued that they ought to at least have the boy stay for the night rather than turn him out into the street in the snow.

Heather interviewed the boy, and learned that the boy was convinced that his mother wasn’t the same person. She looked and sounded the same, but she wasn’t. Heather was reluctant to believe such a thing, and had the boy turn in for the night for now.

She had a nightmare of being stuck in a snowy clearing in a forest of trees composed of countless syringe needles at night. She gingerly made her way through the needle-trees and found another clearing where a strange blue-eyed bird-thing was perched on a rock facing her.

“Give him back!” the bird-thing demanded, turning its head in the jerky, twisty way that birds do. The thing’s voice was a whisper, but it’s impossibly blue eyes held a strange alien malice. “Give him back!”

Heather screamed as she woke, unnerved by the vision. She saw Sean crouched in the far corner of the room, looking at her.

And this is where we got to apply the Spooked Condition

“You’re having the dreams too.” he spoke, “You’re not going to give me back now, are you?”

“You had the same dream?” Heather asked

Sean shook his head, “Only those who take me in. The first couple who took me in threw me in their car and drove me home on the first night. They told me that they didn’t know what it was they saw, but they didn’t want me in their house.”

Heather listened in disbelief. Something was after the boy, and it could follow him in dreams.

Marcus came in, gun in hand. It seems that he’d experienced the dream as well. Whatever it was was capable of affecting more than a single person, and the dreams were so terrifying that those who had given the boy shelter were all too eager to give him back to his parents right away.

Marcus and Heather conferred with each other. Something fishy was going on, and they had to find out how it all ties in together. Heather interviewed Sean again, asking about his family situation. Sean said that his father was alright, but his mother was different.

Looking to confirm the situation, Heather decided to impersonate someone from Child Services to talk to the Father. The following day, she forged an ID and spoke to Sean’s father asking about Sean’s home situation. Heather’s angle was that the boy had run away several times, and that kind of behavior wasn’t normal and possibly indicative of trouble at home.

The father, Richard, grew increasingly agitated at this line of questioning and demanded that they return his son. Heather left after Richard walked off on the conversation threatening to sue if they don’t return Sean to him.

Heather then went on to investigate the local situation, interviewing a local priest and looping in her Social Worker friend to talk to Richard in his home situation. Heather was hoping to get a chance to see the mother as well, which was present during the interview. Heather got a strange stepford wives vibe from the mother, and with a successful perception roll, realized that the Mother doesn’t blink when she’s looking at other people.

That and the eyes were impossibly blue.

The interview turned sour pretty quickly, and they were escorted out, Richard repeating his threat to sue if they don’t return Sean.

Marcus decided that it was time to do things his way. Gathering the rest of his gang, they cased the home until Richard left the house. They cut the power to the house to see if they could get a reaction from the mom, but after five minutes, nothing happened. Nobody lit a candle or a flashlight.

Marcus, feeling weirded out, slipped into the house, to discover that it looked nothing like how Heather had described it. It was filthy, dilapitated and run down. Rust and broken things littered the home, and nothing was right. He asked his gang lackey to re-connect the power line and saw everything turn perfect as soon as the lights were on.

Marcus was dumbfounded, but asked for the lackey to cut the power again as he made his way to the bedroom, where he saw a store mannequin, filthy and broken and missing an arm lying on the bed. He was about to turn to leave when the Mannequin got up and spoke in his mind.

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

He recognized the voice from the bird-thing in his dreams. He opened fire with his gun, realizing to his dismay that it did very little to stop the thing, and beat a hasty retreat.

Marcus met up with Heather giving her a rundown on what he’d encountered. Together they decided that it was imperative to figure out how to end it. Acknowledging that the thing was resistant to bullets, Marcus decided that ganging up on it with hand weapons to crush the mannequin would be the best thing to do.

They returned to the home while Richard was otherwise occupied and snuck into the basement in hopes that they’ll find out what was making the strange illusion of perfection. Upon opening the fusebox, they saw that it was empty, and the mannequin had come down to meet them.

There wasn’t much in terms of talk at this point, as Marcus and his boys basically outnumbered it, turning the thing into dust. They finished just as Richard returned, and started wailing in grief at the loss of his perfect life. Marcus left while Heather called the authorities, hoping that Richard’s state will mean that he is thrown into an asylum somewhere.

She knew that Sean was now orphaned, they didn’t know where his real mother was, and his father was now insane and police custody. She escorted him to the orphanage where she herself grew up and made a vow to come back and check up on him now and then.

And she gains the Guilty Condition for it

—

Right, so with that all over, the team ended the session and got about to talking about their experience with the game.

GM-wise, running GMC is pretty much the same level of complexity as regular nWoD. The Conditions took a little bit of getting used to, and I feel that having a cheat sheet of sorts to refer to with their effects will be pretty handy until I memorize what each one does. The funny thing is how easily it slots into situations in the game. When something disturbing happens, the Integrity system kicks in, and after the rolls were made, everyone gets a Condition. It doesn’t count as a speedbump (even if there was a little bit of rules lookup involved) and served to further the story and hammer home the situation that the players were in.

The Players felt that the new system had more teeth. The Conditions were something that made them feel that interactions of all sorts had actual weight, and wasn’t just pure fluff. Additionally, getting negative Conditions weren’t altogether unwelcome since it was an opportunity to get a Beat out of their trouble. That said, combat was particularly worrisome for Mappy (who played Marcus) since weapons now just added entire levels of damage. That said, he understood that nWoD wasn’t exactly a cinematic game and was keyed more strongly to horror so he enjoyed that.

Overall, I feel that the GMC rules update was a success on my gaming table. Players were more involved, and more willing to get their characters into the thick of things. Conditions gave the sense of risk, but consequently the higher chance of earning a reward in the form of Beats. The resulting Push-Pull dynamic is a very nice touch. Integrity works very well too, with characters reacting thanks to the Conditions to back up a certain behavior in response to seeing something that shakes their character’s sense of self.

I’m very happy with the rules and I’ll be running maybe another one-shot or two for this, before I start tackling what happens if I decide to run Mage with the new rules.

[Let's Study] God-Machine Chronicle Rules Updates Part 4: Combat

Today we’re taking a look at the updated rules for combat from the GMC. Those familiar with nWoD combat will find some interestin changes here, as well as a few optional rules that emulate aspects of combat that don’t normally show up in most games.

Some of the tweaks applied to the combat system are:

• Weapons now have an Initiative Modifier that affects the initiative roll. Bigger, heavier weapons have bigger penalties.
• All weapon damage is now Lethal. Which makes sense, getting hit across the face by a crowbar isn’t Bashing damage no matter how I think of it.
• Weapon Damage is now applied as straight damage rather than additional dice to the attack roll. Needless to say the use of any weapons now are definitely indicative of doing some serious harm.
• Defense is now calculated as the Lower of Dexterity or wits plus Athletics. This makes for slightly higher Defense scores for most characters.
• Dodging allows for characters to double their Defense score and roll it as a pool of dice against an attack. Successes on a Dodge roll are subtracted from the attacker’s successes. This comes in very handy as this might be the best way to use Defense against ranged attacks that would otherwise nullify Defense.

Down and Dirty Combat

This system introduces a “one roll” combat for those fights that aren’t a dramatic focus. While some might argue that every fight deserves screen time, sometimes a fight exists as a speedbump and this system allows for the game to move past those as quickly as possible.

Intent is key to the Down and Dirty Combat system, as the attacker declcares their intent to justify a “one roll” approach to the Storyteller. If the ST is okay then they proceed with the simplified combat. Of course, Storyteller characters aren’t allowed to use these rules.

The roll is handled as any combat task. The Attacker rolls their combat pool, and the target rolls either a combat pool against it, or an attempt to escape.

If the attacker succeeds, then they win the contest, and deals damage equal to the difference in successes plus her weapon damage and achieves her intent. If the intent includes killing then that happens too.

Optional Rules: Beaten Down and Surrender

The Beaten Down and Surrender rules have to be one of the most interesting additions I’ve seen in a game set in the modern-day setting. As an optional rule, a character that takes more than their stamina in Bashing damage or any amount of Lethal damage has the fight knocked out of them and gains the Beaten Down Tilt (a Tilt is a special condition that affects combat, but more on that later.)

Characters who are Beaten Down must spend Willpower each time they want to take an offensive action. He can defend, dodge and run but can’t strike back without spending Willpower.

One of the most important considerations here is that the character who is Beaten Down can then surrender, and gains a Beat and a point of Willpower for their trouble. Furthermore, the assailant now has to spend Willpower to attack you and will most likely suffer a breaking point for doing so.

I’m especially fond of these rules as it simulates a common fact in a lot of real fights. People fight until someone gives up or runs away. Very rarely do fights escalate to the point at which someone dies, and even in those instances, it’s often an accident.

Of course these rules only apply when the side that surrenders has something that he can give up. If the assailant is purely after the person’s life, the Beaten Down and Surrender rules do not apply and both fight with the same kind of desperation.

Intent

I know we mentioned Intent before, but it matters at all times now. Intent is gathered at the start of any hostile encounter to determine what people are after in a fight. This is very important as if an Intent is to commit violence for it’s own sake, the Beaten Down Tilt doesn’t occur.

Storyteller Characters and Willpower

Storyteller characters now have caps on how much willpower they’re able to spend, which is always a good thing, as opposed to the old situation where a character with 5 willpower may end up facing off against 3 nameless goons with a combined pool of say, 12 Willpower.

Combat Tilts

With the Conditions rules, there are now Combat Tilts that affect gameplay during a fight. These conditions range from ones that are obtained after being hit by a called shot (like Arm Wrack) to various environmental factors like extreme temperatures or being flooded.

—

The new combat system improves the game in ways that I’d not considered, which is a very good thing. New insights into the brutal and occasionally non-lethal outcomes of combat are greatly appreciated, and will come into play somehow. I’m very eager to try this out and see how it works out side of the usual empty room scenario, with actual stakes, intent and props to work with.

[Let's Study] God-Machine Chronicle Rules Updates Part 3: Social Maneuvering

Social Maneuvering is a new system introduced in the GMC rules to simulate the process of trying to convince someone to do something for your character. It’s an interesting mechanic, and one that makes for an interesting rules-based fallback for players who might not be in the mood to handle socials from a pure roleplaying angle.

The Social Maneuvers system works with the acting character attempting to break down a series of metaphorical “Doors” which represent the difficulty of convincing a character to take a desired action. Doors are a system term, and represent skepticism, mistrust or general disposition to not do what is being asked of them.

The number of Doors is variable, with a base value of the lower of the target character’s Resolve or Composure, and modified by other factors such as whether or not the action goes against their Virtues or Aspirations and other things like whether or not the action in question will trigger a Breaking Point.

Aside from doors, the other component of Social Maneuvering is the Impressions. Better impressions allow for an acting character to be able to make successive rolls in a faster time interval than those who make less memorable impressions upon the target character.

Ways to smooth over things and make a favorable impression is called Leverage, and can take the form of bribes, gifts, or a favorable experience. Each interval allows for a single roll, and if the roll is successful, then the acting character is able to open one (or more) Doors and moves closer to getting the target character to doing what they want them to do.

Sometimes however, one has to force a Door by the use of intimidation and possibly bodily harm. Such actions can trigger an immediate social roll, but allows for a door to be opened in quick order.

—

The systems presented by the GMC are a novel one, and can be used in conjunction with standard RP to provide the necessary dice bonuses and penalties to the social roll when it comes to setting up Impressions or in Opening Doors.

I like this system a lot as it feels more organic, as opposed to straight-up mind control, and shows that getting someone to do something for you is a project in itself. Of course, I wouldn’t use this system on all social interactions, but reserve it purely for the ones that would be the most dramatically appropriate for.

[Let's Study] God-Machine Chronicle Rules Updates Part 2: Merits, Conditions and Soul Loss

Hello everyone and welcome back to Part 2 of the GMC series. Today we’re taking a look at the retooled Merits, the new Conditions system and a bit about Soul Loss.

Merits

The Merits system for GMC is still largely the same as it was in the core rules, with the exception that the Merits in GMC supercede those in the core rulebook. Many of the new Merits are much more balanced than their original versions, and have been toned down. The biggest change would be the fact that multiple attacks have been removed from the Fighting Styles. This reduces a lot of the rolling that used to happen with Fighting Style focused characters.

One other thing to note is that there are no longer dead dots in merits. Each dot does something, which is a big relief rather than spending experience for a speed bump dot.

Conditions

Conditions are a “new” system that might seem very familiar to those who have played any game that uses the FATE system. Conditions are descriptors with mechanical effects that are applied to characters. The neat thing about them is that they’re a source of Beats, and characters are therefore encouraged to accept or play through these Conditions to benefit from the added experience of resolving them.

Conditions caused by exceptional successes or via supernatural powers. Breaking points are also a source of Conditions. Furthermore, complex behaviors may also cause Conditions. In general an ST has a large amount of leeway on when he or she feels that they can apply a condition to players and NPCs.

I feel that Conditions are an inspired set of mechanics and I’m very happy to see them in the world of Darkness. It’s a simple mechanic, and yet it slots seamlessly into a more story-focused game. It also helps GMs enforce the gravity of certain situations and gives players roleplaying cues as to how their character feels or is affected by a situation.

Soul Loss

Soul Loss is a special kind of supernatural trauma that affects individuals in the World of Darkness (and is often something of severe importance in Mage: the Awakening games.)

Admittedly losing one’s Soul isn’t something that happens everyday, but several Supernaturals can have the ability to rip it out of someone. This leads to a downward spiral of conditions all based on the fact that the person has lost their soul.

The first condition, Soulless has characters at a state where they are more susceptible to possession and cannot gain Willpower through normal means, and the rewards of her Virtue and Vice are reversed. Virtues can’t give them the kind of affirmation they seek, but Vices are capable of giving more Willpower back but only while indulging their vice in a manner that is potentially harmful to themselves.

Enervated happens when their Integrity has been lost, and their Willpower is the only thing sustaining them. At this point Virtue is no longer capable of giving Willpower, and Vices restore Willpower while reducing the maximum cap of Willpower.

Thrall is the last condition, and is a point at which a player character is no longer considered playable. Willpower may no longer be spent, and they cannot apply their Defense in combat. Further more they cannot spend Experiences and are counted as perpetually under the Broken Condition.

Magics can restore a soul back to a person, but I’m pretty sure that unless Mages and other supernaturals are concerned the process is most likely difficult. Recovery is swift however, as regaining a soul (even ones that aren’t originally theirs) allows for the character to shed these conditions and begin regaining Willpower.

—

Overall the changes in the system might leave a bit of a wrinkle in existing games, but I think with a few tweaks, they should be easy enough to convert. The new Conditions system is a great addition, and refreshes the Storytelling system to the point where it feels almost like a new edition with a stronger focus on making dramatic situations that are part and parcel of any horror game.

I’ve already had a chance to pitch the new rules onto my gaming group and we’re gearing up to do a quick playtest of the rules. I’m slowly putting a scenario together that ties in to the God Machine Chronicles themselves with a few twists to make it my own.

Tomorrow we take a look at the systems that make up the new Social Maneuvering System.

[Let's Study] God-Machine Chronicle Rules Updates Part 1: Aspirations, Virtues and Vices and Integrity / Breaking Point systems

Hello everyone, today we’re taking a peek at the new mechanics that have been rolled out for the Storytelling system via the newly released God Machine Chronicle book. It’s a big update, and we’ll be tackling bits and pieces of it to get a better appreciation for the new changes.

Aspirations

The new Aspirations system is a means for the player to set “goals” for their characters. At the Final Touches stage of character creation, the player defines three goals that they want to achieve and play through.

These Aspirations can be short-term or long-term, though a mix is always good. Aspirations are positive, pro-active statements and are a way to tell the ST what you want out of the game. I find that this is valuable feedback as far as STing goes, as having players hand out their goals gives me something to work on.

Virtues and Vice

I’m starting to get a sense that the game is moving towards a more “indie” sort of mechanic. Rather than choosing from a list of virtues and vices, players are now free to define their virtues and vices on their own.

These are adjectives that describe dominant personality traits. Virtues are those that further self-actualization, while vices are short-term coping behaviors. This opens a whole slew of different descriptions for different players. Thankfully there’s also a list of sample Virtues and Vices to pick from as well for those who have a hard time coming up with their own.

when a character’s actions reflect their Vice, they gain 1 Willpower point. On the other hand, if the character acts in accordance to their Virtue while at risk, then they regain all their spent Willpower.

Integrity

The Morality system of the Storytelling System was one that was met with all sorts of reactions, the most vocal of which have been rather negative. While I didn’t mind having the old method, I do like the Integrity rules that take over this particular job.

Each character starts with an Integrity score, and this represents how well a character can cope with traumatic and supernatural events. A character can lose Integrity when they experience a breaking point.

Breaking points occur when a character goes through a traumatic experience such as witnessing horrific violence, something utterly unnatural, or experiences something that violates their sense of self.

Determining a character’s Breaking Point is done by answering a list of 5 questions that help determine what limits there are for a given character. While this seems awfully subjective, the players and storyteller are meant to use this chance to negotiate and find out just where the character’s tolerances are for such things. This way each character is different in the face of atrocity.

When a character encounters a situation that counts as a Breaking Point, the player makes a Resolve + Composure roll, modified by circumstances that can help or hinder their attempt to keep their psyche intact. Depending on the result, the character could lose Integrity dots and gain various Conditions.

I feel that I like this system much better than the original, though they behave somewhat similarly. I feel that this also makes it easier to make decisions on when a character runs the risk of degrading their Integrity based of who they are.

—

I’ve been playing nWoD for a while now, and while I haven’t really finished a campaign (they’ve always petered out for some reason,) I think that there’s a lot of changes here that show a more mature ruleset that places a lot of trust on the players and the storyteller’s ability to talk things over between themselves.

Overall, I’m liking what I’ve read so far and I’m eager to see how the Merits have been retooled. We’ll also be looking at the Conditions system and Soul Loss, a condition that is near and dear to any Mage player.