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20:12, 5th May 2024 (GMT+0)

The Role of Templates.

Posted by Pavel PaganiniFor group 0
Pavel Paganini
GM, 53 posts
guide to the undergound
Between Virgil and Charon
Fri 23 Sep 2022
at 16:25
  • msg #1

The Role of Templates

Before beginning the final round, I believe a little explanation of how Unisystem works is needed:

First of all there are six attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Perception and Willpower.  There are some that follow on from this which I'll touch on in the next post, which won't be until Sunday.

Next there are the skills:  Acrobatics, Art, Computer, Crime, Medicine, Driving, Melee Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Influence, Knwoledge, Unarmed Combat, Languages, Repairs, Notice, Occultism, Science, Sport.  These should cover most skills but just in case, there's a wild card skill in case you have a skill not otherise covered.
Pavel Paganini
GM, 54 posts
guide to the undergound
Between Virgil and Charon
Sat 24 Sep 2022
at 22:15
  • msg #2

The Role of Templates

Every action can be resolved either by handwaving (eg, there's no reason to roll to see whether Mr Jenkins can walk across the office floor) or by a roll of d10+ an attribute + a skill (and there may well be a good reason to roll to see whether he can walk along the wing of a plane flying at 200 feet in the teeth of a force nine gale)

A roll of 9-10 is one success level and for every 2 by which the roll exceeds 9, you get a further succeess level until you have five.  After that it's one more success level for every 3 by which the roll exceeds 17.  The number of success levels tell us how well you've succeeded.

Given that the practical human limit to an attribute is five (some rare humans can reach 6 but tey usually attact notice - and film crews) and there are similar limits to skills, we'd expect six or seven success levels to be extraordinary... but of course, players get drama points to play with allowing them to add ten to their rolls (before they roll) so that, with a drama point and luck, even housewives and children can manage godlike feats... occasionally.
Pavel Paganini
GM, 55 posts
guide to the undergound
Between Virgil and Charon
Sun 25 Sep 2022
at 18:48
  • msg #3

The Role of Templates

The following is from a discussion in PM I've been having with Maevre.  I won't be doing things EXACTLY the same but it gives the flavour.

quote:
Who rolls the die
Usually the player rolls. They roll to see if they hit, and they roll to see if they dodge the attack. The monsters have fixed numbers for their 'to hit' and 'defence'(usually the same) and the players will roll against it. (Because I am the GM and thus lazy and want you lot to do all the work)

What die do you roll?
Attribute + Skill + a single d10

How many die do I roll in a round?
  • You roll one for all your attacks
  • You roll one for all your defences

NOTE: you spend your drama points BEFORE you roll the die.

What skill?
Resisting being hit: you can roll Getting Medeival if you have a weapon in hand and could parry, Kung fu if you could parry safely (or are a monk! They can parry most physical things), or Dodge

Attacking things
  • With guns: Gunfu
  • With melee weapons or thrown weapons or bows: Getting Medeival
  • With bare hands: Kung fu


Multiple actions
You have a number of actions determined by your dex. You can use those actions to attack or defend. In a change to the published rules you can always defend against an attack

This table is a bit different to the published one
DexActionsModifier
..41None
5 to 72-2 on second action
8 to 103-4 on third action
11+4-6 on fourth action

You only ever roll one die and that same die roll is for every action. You can change the skill if you want. You can also change the target mid flow.

Example: The opponent is a difficulty 15 to be hit
  • You roll a 19 and have dex 'lots'
  • First attack: 19 vs 15 hits by 4, so is a good success
  • Second attack: 17 vs 15 hits by 2 so is a decent success
  • Third attack: 15 vs 15 hits by 0 so is an adequate success
  • Fourth + attacks all fail


Success Table. For things like 'how well did the blow land' or 'did I pick the lock'
Unresistedresistedleveldescription
9-100-11Adequate
11-122-32Decent
13-144-53Good
15-166-74Very Good
17-208-115Excellent
21-2312-146Extraordinary
24-2615-177Mind-boggling
27-2918-208Outrageous
30-3221-239Superheroic
33-3524-10God-like

Example:
Picking a lock is unresisted. Roll the skill and see. if you get 15 then you have a level 4 very good success.

Hitting an opponent is resisted. Suppose the target number is 12. If you get 14 then 14-12 =2 and 2 is decent

Dodging an opponent is resisted. Supposed the target number is 20 and you get 17. 20-17= 3. And 3 is 'they get decent attack on you'


Damage
In most cases the level of success influences the damage
* In melee or with a single shot weapon, the level of success is added to the damage
* with automatic weapons, the level of sucess is the number of bullets that hit (and is not added to the damage)


The main difference is I'm splitting combat into unarmed, melee, ranged and improvised but I'm going to have to find a way to deal with recoil and bow pull.  But anyway, that's enough for me to talk about the next round.
Pavel Paganini
GM, 56 posts
guide to the undergound
Between Virgil and Charon
Sun 25 Sep 2022
at 19:27
  • msg #4

...well almost

Essentially Unisystem deals with the difference between Errol Flynn and Brenda Blethyn (for example) by dividing PCs into two types, namely Heroes and White Hats.

Heroes have 20 points to distribute among attributes (at least 1 for each level) at a cost of one point per level from 1-5 and three for level six.  Level 6 is the limit for humans and for others higher levels can only be gained from some qualities.
20 points to buy qualities
20 points to distribute among skills at a cost of 1 point per level for 1-5 and 3 points per level after that.  You don't have to buy points in all skills, you could put all 20 into having one skill at level 10 and nothing in anything else, but I don't recommend it.
They can also have up to ten points in drawbacks, which are negative qualities that then give you more points to spend elsewhere.
Heroes also get ten drama points to begin with

White hats are different in that they only get 15 points each for attributes and skills and ten points for qualities (but they can still get ten points worth of drawbacks)
White hats also get twenty drama points to begin with.

'Templates' as I'm calling them are a particular type of Quality (or drawback in rare cases).  I'm dividing them into major ones which are really about who or what you are, and minor ones are about what you do.

Examples include:  Vampire (Major), Special Forces Operative (Major), Artist (Minor), Brainiac (minor) or Jock (Minor).

I'll fill those five out tomorrow to give an example of what I'm looking for and then we can begin.
Pavel Paganini
GM, 57 posts
guide to the undergound
Between Virgil and Charon
Mon 26 Sep 2022
at 19:26
  • msg #5

Examples

Major Templates

Vampire
Vampires get:
  • extra points (plural) in Strength, Dexterity and Constitution;
  • two levels of Hard to Kill (I'll explain later);
  • medium sized bonuses to hearing and smell related perception bonuses (Doubled when related to blood);
  • immortality;
  • recovery of damage at 1 point per constitution level per hour (except for fire damage which is recovered at 1 point per constitution level per day)


Vampires are vulnerable to:
  • Sunlight (good luck finding that hundreds of feet down - does UV work? - sometimes);
  • Holy symbols (not just crosses - there was an episode of the X-men comic in which Dracula himself recoiled from Kitty Pryde's Magen David);
  • stakes through the heart (incuding wooden arrows or crossbow bolts or even pencils);
  • beheading.


Special Forces Commandos
I'm basing this on the SAS but others such as Delta Force, Spetznaz or Sayeret Maktal are available.

Commandos get:
  • 1 point each to Strength, dexterity and constitution (but the maximum is still six for each);
  • fast reaction time;
  • situational awareness;
  • three levels of Hard to Kill.


They also have a three point obligation (again this will be explained when we make characters)

Minor
Artist
Artists get:
  • +1 each to any two of the mental attributes (intelligence, perception or willpower) but the maximum is still six for humans.
  • +1 to the Art skill (normally a character has to specialise in one rtform or another but this one point covers all artforms not just the one she specialised in)
  • -1 to willpower rolls to avoid crying, losing their shit or in any other way letting their emptions rule.


Brainiac
Brainiacs get:
  • +2 points to intelligence (maximum is still six for humans)
  • +1 point to one of the other mental attributes (perception or willpower) (max 6 for humans)
  • +4 skill levels to be spread among Computing, Knowledge and Science (or all four could go on one if you like)
  • -1 to any roll involving social skills


Jocks
Such sporty types get:
  • +1 point each to any two physical attributes (Strength, Dexterity and Constitution) (mas 6 for humans);
  • +2 skill levels in Sport (and at least one more level MUST be purchased
  • -1 penalty to all rolls where the intellligence attribute is used (except when sport is also used - for example, remembering the result of the 1927 FA Cup final would involve both)


These are all just examples.

For the last vote, I'd like you all to suggest one major and one minor template we could use.  You can try to set out some idea of how it might work as above or a simple description or even just the tules if you like but for all of them I'd like to to let me know in a private message.
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