Sufficiently Advanced Diceless RPG

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sciborg2

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« on: January 12, 2019, 09:43:15 am »
PWYW at Drivethru RPG, I'd say check it out and if you like it show the creator some love via your wallet.

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Sufficiently Advanced is a transhuman roleplaying game of the far future.

Humanity has been reconstructed by time and technology. Wield incredible technological enhancements and thousands of years of expertise, or the ability to mold the story of the game. Play a digital intelligence with remote-controlled robot drones, a diplomatic team that shares a group-mind, a soldier infused with nanotechnology, or even a living starship. Play an Old-Worlder witnessing our fantastic universe for the first time, or a Masquerader taking on different identities each day.

This second edition runs on an entirely new diceless system. What consequences you are willing to accept in order to win? Or, when you are outmatched, can your failure help your team succeed? Use Plots and Projects to change the world, and force Complications on your characters now to warp the plot in their favor later on.

Discover five different futures: To The Stars, where you form a first-contact team reconnecting with the lost seeds of humanity. The Divide, full of espionage and intrigue, where trust is hard to find and the sides are ever shifting. The Powder Keg, a universe tumbling into a war that may mean the end of everything. Sublight, where secret societies champion their causes by transmitting their operatives across the stars. The Patent Office, where your team of Inspectors seeks to protect humanity from its own worst excesses.

The future is bright, but not without danger. Come explore it with us.

Also get the Chronotech supplement.

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Everyone wants to know the future. Now everyone can.

Build characters with Chronotech, a new Capability that brings information from the future. Use autoredactors to change sensitive information before your opponents steal it. Loop through time to line up the perfect shot or make the perfect argument. Use historical information from the future to uncover secret organizations today.

Chronotech has new material for GMs too: new civilizations and societies based around issues of time travel and foreknowledge. Learn how the universe's existing civilizations will react to the ultimate disruptive technology, and get advice on how to handle the tricky subject of time travel in your game.

Chronotech is a supplement for Sufficiently Advanced. It is focused on the second edition, but contains backwards-compatible rules for the first edition as well.

sciborg2

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« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2019, 08:27:11 pm »
The Wikidot

and

Review on RPG.Net

Actually I think that's a review for the first edition, mechanics have changed so I'd ignore that part given you can get the PDF of 2nd for free and pay if you end up enjoying the game.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2019, 08:34:35 pm by sciborg2 »

sciborg2

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« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2019, 10:56:00 pm »
Post on the changes between first and second edition

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The second edition is a diceless game. If you're in a conflict with someone, you use your Capabilities, Professions, and Core Values to get a total, and compare totals. (Various rules give modifiers, of course - teamwork, circumstances, etc.) Each side inflicts a Complication on the other, with the higher value taking a lesser Complication and the lower value taking a more serious one. You need to really overwhelm someone in order to come out unscathed. I like to say that the question in SA2 is not "can I roll well enough," but "am I willing to take the consequences." Along the same lines, Complications are now really the core of the game engine, and are used in more places.

The first edition had a single setting. This one has five, each in its own universe. They're sketched out in rough detail, just like the first edition was. Not all settings have the same civilizations and societies, but many of them reappear in multiple settings. Some universes allow wormholes; some don't. Some universes have fairly stable social situations; others are poised for change. There's an "infodump" section at the start of each setting that gives you an idea of what kind of stories you can best tell in that setting.

It's much easier to play nonstandard characters, like Replicants, group-minds, living starships, and digital intelligences. The Neuroform trait puts that sort of thing front-and-center in character creation, and the rules for playing (for example) a clone or duplicate of yourself are far more permissive and more fun in play. Body switching is given the spotlight as a major technology.

There are a number of smaller changes as well. Core Values are a bigger deal. There are some additional Themes (Action, Terror, and Wonder), and Plot Immunity got changed from being a theme to being a use for a theme. There have been some tweaks to the technology that's available, the largest change being that immortality is fairly common amongst high-tech civilizations. I also added to the Advice section, put in more civs and societies, and did some other minor expansion.

That's the big stuff. Is there anything specific that you were wondering about that I didn't cover?

TaoHorror

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« Reply #3 on: January 13, 2019, 12:27:53 am »
Man, this looks wicked! I'll check it out. Have you played it? I wanna be a conscious star ship!
It's me, Dave, open up, I've got the stuff

sciborg2

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« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2019, 01:11:11 am »
Man, this looks wicked! I'll check it out. Have you played it? I wanna be a conscious star ship!

Not yet sadly. My interest in RPGs, though going back years, has largely been as a fanboy from the sidelines - as such I don't trust myself to GM a game...

But if anyone ever wants to try to be a GM for this I'd very much be down!

TaoHorror

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« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2019, 02:04:24 am »
I would normally give it a go, but Christ, I am too burned out DMing. I've been playing D&D for 40 years ( no joke ) and DM'd most of that time. I told my group I need a break and someone else is going to DM now - but I'm going to present this to the group and see what they think, looks wild as hell. And yes, I ripped off PON for some bits of my World.
It's me, Dave, open up, I've got the stuff

sciborg2

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« Reply #6 on: January 13, 2019, 02:07:37 am »
I would normally give it a go, but Christ, I am too burned out DMing. I've been playing D&D for 40 years ( no joke ) and DM'd most of that time. I told my group I need a break and someone else is going to DM now - but I'm going to present this to the group and see what they think, looks wild as hell. And yes, I ripped off PON for some bits of my World.

Heh we have opposite problems - maybe once I feel like I've grokked the rules I may try to GM a play-by-post game of this...

Just a heads up there's also a magic Singularity (alpha) version -> Sorcerously Advanced

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What is Sorcerously Advanced?

Sorcerously Advanced is a "hard fantasy" game of cutting-edge magic. It focuses on questions of power, justice, safety, and potential in the aftermath of a metaphysical singularity. In this world, sorcery is so ubiquitous, powerful, and well-developed that it has become the basis for the world's technology. Sorcerously Advanced is a speculative fiction game that doesn't revolve around rare, powerful mages and mighty warriors, but instead around the destiny of a world where  everyone has magical power.
« Last Edit: January 13, 2019, 02:10:48 am by sciborg2 »

TaoHorror

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« Reply #7 on: January 13, 2019, 04:02:10 am »
Just a heads up there's also a magic Singularity (alpha) version -> Sorcerously Advanced

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What is Sorcerously Advanced?

Sorcerously Advanced is a "hard fantasy" game of cutting-edge magic. It focuses on questions of power, justice, safety, and potential in the aftermath of a metaphysical singularity. In this world, sorcery is so ubiquitous, powerful, and well-developed that it has become the basis for the world's technology. Sorcerously Advanced is a speculative fiction game that doesn't revolve around rare, powerful mages and mighty warriors, but instead around the destiny of a world where  everyone has magical power.

Interesting ...  :)


Heh we have opposite problems - maybe once I feel like I've grokked the rules I may try to GM a play-by-post game of this...

And even more Interesting ...  :)

It's me, Dave, open up, I've got the stuff

H

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« Reply #8 on: January 14, 2019, 03:38:55 pm »

Heh we have opposite problems - maybe once I feel like I've grokked the rules I may try to GM a play-by-post game of this...

And even more Interesting ...  :)

Well, I don't have time for anything real-time, but now you have my attention.  We are talking about the sci-fi version here?

What if, bear with me, we were to do this on like a chapter by chapter sort of basis, which would obviously take a while to play out, given the nature of posting schedules and so on, but then, at the end of the chapter, take all of what happened and all the dialogue, and write it as an sort of narrative fiction?
« Last Edit: January 14, 2019, 03:44:14 pm by H »
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

TaoHorror

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« Reply #9 on: January 14, 2019, 03:43:29 pm »

Heh we have opposite problems - maybe once I feel like I've grokked the rules I may try to GM a play-by-post game of this...

And even more Interesting ...  :)

Well, I don't have time for anything real-time, but now you have my attention.  We are talking about the sci-fi version here?

What if, bear with me, we were to do this on like a chapter by chapter sort of basis, which would obviously take a while to play out, given the nature of posting schedules and so on, but then, at the end of the chapter, talk all of what happened and all the dialogue, and write it as an sort of narrative fiction?

I like your thinking. The best RPG campaigns are the slowest - take it in, immersion, not a race to the finish line. I'm a shit writer, but I like the idea maybe we do a Discord session at the end of each chapter and discuss what happened, prep for next chapter and would be happy to help edit anything you or anyone wants to write up.
It's me, Dave, open up, I've got the stuff

H

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« Reply #10 on: January 14, 2019, 03:47:23 pm »
I like your thinking. The best RPG campaigns are the slowest - take it in, immersion, not a race to the finish line. I'm a shit writer, but I like the idea maybe we do a Discord session at the end of each chapter and discuss what happened, prep for next chapter and would be happy to help edit anything you or anyone wants to write up.

Well, we can and should, of course, collaborate on the actual writing part in the end.  I am a horrendous writer, for the most part, but I feel I have reasonable "revision" capabilities.  That is to say, if I have a bunch of material, I feel I can do a half decent job getting onto a "page" in a readable fashion.

I actually have a tSA  Discord made, a while back, I figured I'd make one in case we ever needed it...
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira

sciborg2

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« Reply #11 on: January 17, 2019, 01:25:35 am »
Sci-fi most likely, unless people really want to play the rules that are still in development for the magic stuff.

That said don't want to promise too much quite yet, gotta take some time to really make sure I understand the rules and how a game would go.

TaoHorror

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« Reply #12 on: January 17, 2019, 02:39:37 am »
Yeah, we can go with the sci-fi rules. I'm in!
It's me, Dave, open up, I've got the stuff

H

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« Reply #13 on: January 17, 2019, 12:48:24 pm »
Sci-fi most likely, unless people really want to play the rules that are still in development for the magic stuff.

That said don't want to promise too much quite yet, gotta take some time to really make sure I understand the rules and how a game would go.

Not in a hurry, just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.  I might just pick up the book myself to read it over.

Sounds like a neat setting to do a story somewhat akin to Lem's Solaris.  The book of course, not any of the poor adaptation movies.
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira