Hello,
I was hoping to put together some kind of video, but that didn’t happen. So here’s my written submission.
My name is Anthony Finfrock. I’ve played and homebrewed TTRPGs intermittently since around 1989. A friend of mine got me into the hobby when I was 11 with the Robotech RPG (and later Rifts). I had no idea that other games existed back then, and I wasn’t big into fantasy, so I never jumped on the D&D bandwagon.
Recently, I’ve spent a year and a half remaking my game from the early 90s, tentatively titled Imperium – Essence And Steel. The game’s setting is in the distant future, far from Earth, millennia after complete societal collapse. Modern and older pre-collapse technologies coexist, with the latter often surpassing the former in advancement. This ties into the death mechanics in a few ways.
Regarding the “vibe” of the game, I’m aiming for 80s/90s action sci-fi, with some fantasy mixed in. The Rifts influence is hard to shake, and I always liked the mix of technology and magic in some of the JRPGs from around 1990. I’m going for fast-paced, possibly deadly, and cinematic, but not fully narrative. My goal is for the game to be played with the book closed. Most of the time.
If I had to mash up some genres, I’d go with an unholy conglomeration of sci-fi, cyberpunk, space opera, and mid-fantasy.
I have a website I try to keep updated here: https://imperium.uberlaut.com/imperium-ttrpg/
You can also find me on reddit: u/DjNormal and Discord: Anthony Finfrock/djnormal (not entirely sure how that one works/links).
Durability
Death is very much a possibility in Imperium. Your characters are usually everyday heroes. You might take that one headshot and be gone, or you may make it to the end of the scenario bloodied and battered, but still fighting. If you survive, you’ll get yourself patched up with a combination of conventional medical treatment, nano-medical therapy, “cyberonics,” or even magic.
In brief, characters can take a set number of wounds, regardless of their severity. Much like TFE, you can “treat” serious wounds to remove negative modifiers during the current scene. But all wounds contribute towards a threshold unless they are completely healed.
If you reach that threshold. There is a “saving throw” to prevent being “downed.” Once you are downed, you are unable to act, but not necessarily dead. There is also a lethal threshold that will trigger this roll immediately.
If you fail the saving throw, you will be unconscious if you have only light wounds, or potentially dead if you have serious/lethal wounds. If you are downed with serious/lethal wounds will add a condition to your character. Thus, the risk of being downed with serious wounds is amplified, because healing doesn’t automatically let you rejoin the fight unscathed.
NPCs are mostly asymmetric and similar to Savage Worlds. There are a range of options from basic enemies that go down when they get a whiff of damage, to elite NPCs that use the same rules as player characters.
I’m dead. Now what?
1. I am incorporating concepts like a last stand, which is probably going to be fairly common in this community spotlight, so keep this brief. You will roll your saving throw. The amount of successes you get determines the remaining turns you can take before you are dead. You will also get bonuses to your actions during this time, and you can’t be downed unless you take a lethal wound.
2. I also think the idea about giving bonuses to allies who use a dead character’s equipment is great. An “avenge me” equipment bonus, if you will. I love the narrative flavor that brings. It makes me think of Mac picking up Blaine’s minigun in Predator (which definitely got a temporary ammo buff).
3. On the sci-fi end of things. There’s always the possibility of being revived as a cyborg (think RoboCop). Advanced cyberonics and nano-medical healing are prevalent in more developed regions. Yet, in the undeveloped frontiers of human space, you can still find older, less sophisticated cyborg parts, but comprehensive replacements or advanced medical facilities remain scarce.
4. Another option, while not wholly unique, is choosing to become a ghost, or “Ashkion” in setting parlance. This is also an option during character creation. Either deliberately or in a scenario where you die from a life event (like Traveller). These ghost characters can manifest a physical body or possess recently dead NPC, or potentially another player character’s corpse. Which might be a bit unnerving.
“Bob just died, then Steve died. Now Steve’s corpse is walking around, claiming to be Bob. This is too weird, man.”
All living things have “essence.” Which is an immaterial “life-force” that is tied to blood and consciousness (and magic fuel). Separating that from the body will lead to death, but unless the essence itself is destroyed, options remain.
Mechanics
If we want to dive more into the mechanics behind all of this. Let’s start out with the basics. If not, the last two paragraphs in this section talk specifically about the death mechanics.
Imperium is a d6 dice pool system at its core. 1 is a “fumble,” 2-3 is a null result, 4-6 is a success, 6’s explode without limit. The maximum number of dice that can be rolled is 6. This is why the success threshold is much lower than most dice pool games.
That does mean that you are often much more likely to succeed than fail. But in many cases, it matters how much you succeed, rather than a pass/fail outcome. There are Difficulty Values that act as a threshold for a success as well. For example: DV2 requires 2 successes to succeed. If you succeed, all of your successes count. This prevents a great roll from barely succeeding, and making that roll feel more rewarding.
A basic failure is any roll that doesn’t meet the DV of the “check.”
A serious failure is called a “botch,” and occurs when you roll more fumbles that successes. This carries additional consequences beyond failing. While a basic failure becomes less likely with higher numbers of dice, the botch chance is still somewhat significant.
Regarding the death mechanics
A botch on any “saving throw” from serious or lethal wounds results in death, rather than the downed status. A basic failure on a lethal wound will also result in death. Your saving throw dice pool is determined by averaging your Mental and Physical attributes. This is my nod towards both toughness and willpower playing a role in surviving a grievous wound.
A dead player character can be saved, as long as they are healed by nano-medical means, cybernetic reconstruction, or magic, in the following scene. The ghost option can be taken immediately or after other methods may have failed.
I have been trying to get away from hit points, and have a more abstracted wound system. Though with the “wound threshold,” it feels a bit like a hybrid system. As you can take X number of hits before needing to make that saving throw. But I think the consequences are different enough that it’s not just HP with extra steps.
I still struggle with the essence as HP end of the spectrum. I don’t think I want a separate wound system for spiritual/psychic damage, but given that essence values are usually very low and not a major focus of being used as HP, it’s ok to have that deviation form the main system.
Thanks for taking the time to check out my submission. I hope this was coherent. 🙂