man what
A game of incomprehensible self-reference.
Notes
On Style and Language
- A pompous, academic tone is prefered.
- Footnotes are obligatory. They can contain amusing-but-irrelevant asides, or have vital rules hidden in them. They may cite made-up sources in proper MLA format, if you know how.
- More tables and sidebars is always better.
- References to obvious forum culture should be disguised so that only those "in the know" will know exactly what's going on. For example, the following Inception:
Cessna had a shitty day and, out of spite, gave his mod powers to some random user, before taking them back when sobered up. You retain a random power from this Ascension.
… might be rewritten as:
A mysterious figure, garbed in the manner of an antique soldier and wearing a black, leering mask, granted you godlike powers, only to snatch them away again and leave you in terrible trouble. You retain some vestige of divine might from your temporary apotheosis; roll on Table 11.7: Miraculous Abilities.
On Task Resolution
- man what uses Advanced d02 System (5th Edition rev.) for task resolution
- Task resolution is called "Task Divination"
- First, determine what the appropriate trait is for the task at hand.
- Then, take a handful of coins (4?) and throw them into the air so that they land on your character sheet.
- For every coin that shows "heads", add one to your effective trait rating. For every coin that shows "tails", subtract one.
- Compare the result to the task's difficulty rating. If your total is equal or greater, you're fated to succeed. If the difficulty is greater, you're fated to fail.
- Complications:
- Your character sheet is a divination chart. Each sector corresponds to a lifepath phase.
- Where each coin lands has a special effect. Heads grant boons, and tails grant banes.
- Some circumstances may grant Fortune Coins, which are special coins that are discarded if they come up tails – only heads count. Other circumstances may grant Adversity Coins, which are discarded if they come up heads. Neither type grants Boons or Banes.
- There may be some way to spend resources to give Fortune Coins to yourself and Adversity Coins to your enemies.
- Each player (and the GM) also holds a five-card poker hand that does… something. This is called the Hand of Fate.
On Character Generation
- Character creation is divided into five lifepath phases:
- Lineage – what your character is/was born as.
- Inception – the critical event that inspired/forced you to become a hero.
- Attainment – the skills you've acquired in this pursuit (i.e., your class/profession).
- Confluence – what groups/organizations/secret societies you're a member of (the obligatory social splats).
- Nemesis – how your character is fated to die (pathos!).
- Your options at each phase grant cool powers, attribute modifiers, nifty swag, and/or rolls on supplementary tables for more cool powers and nifty swag.
- Character generation is done as a group (including the GM):
- At each phase, each player (and the GM) draws one card. This determines their option for that phase – look up the suit and face value on a table to determine what you are.
- Before going on to the next phase, each player can elect to draw one or more additional cards. If at least one player makes an extra draw, the GM must make an extra draw too. This continues until no player draws. The GM cannot force an extra draw.
- Some draws (half-races, attainment templates, secret societies, etc.) may carry mandatory additional draws.
- All cards drawn for a given phase stack, no matter how little sense that makes.
- If the total value of all your cards ever goes over 21 (Aces count as 1, and face cards as 10), you bust, and the last card is converted to a Trauma (another table) instead.
- A player can always choose to stick at their current number of cards for the phase, as long as they have no mandatory additional draws pending pending.
- If your lifepath options seem to contradict (e.g., an exclusively male Lineage and an exclusively female Attainment), the result is still valid. Make up a backstory to justify it, resolving contradictions by precedence in reverse order, starting with the most recent phase.
- After the lifepath is finished, roll stats, calculate derived traits, and pick other options in an as-yet-undefined fashion.
- There are a bunch of extra tables for height/weight/hair colour/gender/orientation, too. Don't roll on these tables if you have a lifepath element that requires a specific choice.
- After group character generation is finished, the GM's "character" becomes the campaign's main villain. The GM can bust, too, but any Trauma that results in the villain becoming incurably dead or otherwise unable to act is ignored (the villain just becomes extra messed up instead).
On Social Contract
- Players are classified into types, e.g., Power Gamer, Storyteller, Casual, etc., and receive mechanical bonuses based on their type.
- In order to expand roleplaying horizons, each player randomly determines what his or her type is at the beginning of each session.