Aberrant RPG - BlueNinja's new rules for Chrysalis

[BlueNinja]

This is adapted from the system that the storyteller of my tabletop Aberrant game uses, and IMO it's much simpler than the Chrysalis system as written in the Teragen book.

To start with, scrap the whole system of Chrysalis-as-Taint. The PC still picks an Archetype as usual, and at the end of each story arc (when XP is awarded), the Storyteller chooses to assign up to one Archetype XP if the PC sufficiently lived up to his chosen Archetype. These XP should be recorded separately on the character sheet, naturally, as they can only be spent in Chrysalis. While the book normally penalizes the character with a week per XP spent in Chrysalis, this can be highly unwieldy in a game, and force a player to switch characters, therefore the ST can set the length of the Chrysalis by limiting the amount of extra XP the character can spend, and pick an arbitrary length of time.

Once the character has accumulated at least 10 Archetype XP, they can enter Chrysalis during downtime; this requires the same sort of outlook-changing action and a Willpower roll. To start with, the player chooses three points of aberrations (ie, 3 minor aberrations, 1 minor and 1 medium, or 1 major aberration) and has an additional +1 social difficulty. The player may also choose to take on extra aberrations, for 2 XP per point of aberration (ie, a minor aberration is worth 2 XP, a medium 4 XP, a major 6XP) or an additional +1 social difficulty for 3 XP. All of the Archetype XP must be spent as well as all the extra XP from additional aberrations, plus however much regular XP the player chose to save up, using the same Chrysalis XP chart in the Teragen book.

Example: Ash Phoenix manages to make contact with some Teragen members, and manages to impress someone enough that he 'officially' joines the Teragen. His player sets his Archetype to Marvel, and over the course of 20 story arcs, manages to accumulate up 11 Archetype XP. He dorms down and starts a fight at a biker bar, trusting to his wit and natural Luck to save him, succeeds at a Willpower roll, and enters Chrysalis at a nearby Teragen safehouse. For aberrations, he picks Bad Luck (a medium level) and Glow (a minor level). He also decides to take an extra aberration of Unearthly Beauty for an extra 2 XP, giving him at least 13 XP to spend in Chrysalis.

[Alex Green]

Interesting...

The one problem I see with this is it makes Taint *much* harder to control for Teragen members.

Solutions:

1) Half the cost of the various In-Chrysalis "remove taint" options.

2) Have every Archtype XP remove a point of temp taint.

[BlueNinja]

The one problem I see with this is it makes Taint *much* harder to control for Teragen members.

With my system, you cannot turn Taint into Chrysalis - but you are also not trying to accumulate Taint to be converted, so IMO it balances out.

Then again, the Teragen book never says what happens if you buy off a point of Permanent Taint, let's say lowering your Taint score so that you go from 4 to 3. As far as my game is concerned, if you did so, the aberration and social difficulty would fade, to return when you prove dumb enough to rack up Taint again. ::biggrin

[Alex Green]

With my system, you cannot turn Taint into Chrysalis - but you are also not trying to accumulate Taint to be converted, so IMO it balances out.

Not sure. That works fine for low taint people who become Terats, it works less well for the "I got a few aberrations and now need to panic" crowd. The Teragen is big on "controlling your evolution" and embrassing taint and all that.

IMHO, your system has a *lot* going for it. It stresses the permancy of taint, it makes the "Teragen lifestyle" *MUCH* more sane. In order to wrack up as much taint as you'd need to get into Chrysalis in a year or two you'd need to put 5 to 10 power maxes a day.

Your system also solves the "percentage" issue. For example, if someone is pulling all those powermaxes and is true to their archetype 50% of the time, then to get into Chrysalis he'd need +5 Chrysalis, but would also generate +5 Taint. If he's true to his archetype 80% of the time then he'd generate +1.6 taint, etc.

On the other hand, since Teras are going to be throwing around less experience while down, that makes their special ability costs MUCH higher proportionally.

[SkyLion]

Hmmm.....The PC Im working on for the NoLK game is made to actually want to channel taint into Chrysalis...in fact for some some concepts (like thi one) its absolutely neccessary to be able to channel taint...which from the story/flavor perspective is what Chrysalis was created to do...So Joe Terat (theres those J names again!) decides to push his marvel archetype with a powermax so everyone goes OOHHH!!! But he bothches it and gets some taint...its for precisely those moments that he should be able to archetypically convert those taint points into Chrysalis.

,,

Does the archetype xp get tripled once you go into it?

,,

And lastly, suppose you do spend your hard won xp to reduce taint...so the aberration goes away but you are stuck with aberrations from the Chrysalis...so you are still inhuman and you still have the Chrysalis social difficulty...This actually makes a bit more sense IMHO since it solves the double-dipped mutant taint monkey problem from novas who have had lots of taint and lots of chrysalis (though that double dipping is prob what is supposed to make trin era aberrants SO mutated.)

[Psilord]

At the N!Prime site there is another take on a Chrysalis type system.

Follow the link to read the article.

Exemplarism

[BlueNinja]

At the N!Prime site there is another take on a Chrysalis type system.

Follow the link to read the article.

Exemplarism

That is possibly the most stupid and futile system I have ever seen. It's like Chrysalis to buy off aberrations ... except to do it, you have to rack up aberrations in exactly the same way as Chrysalis. You'd have to save up a few dozen XP just to break even.

[Centimane]

That is possibly the most stupid and futile system I have ever seen. It's like Chrysalis to buy off aberrations ... except to do it, you have to rack up aberrations in exactly the same way as Chrysalis. You'd have to save up a few dozen XP just to break even.

yeah.

I read it.

I agree.

What were they thinking?

[SkyLion]

They weren't thinking...

,,

They were smoking...

[BlueNinja]

Anyway, to continue expounding on my view of Chrysalis and Taint.

Novas with a social difficulty to deal with baselines need extra successes, as per normal rules. Baselines trying to deal with these novas have the same difficulty against them. Novas treat other novas with a lower difficulty by 2. For example, if Caestus Pax (with a +3 social difficulty) was dealing with a non-tainted nova (let's say Jonathan), he would be rolling against a +1 difficulty. This means that novas with a +1 or +2 social difficulty do not face problems dealing with other novas (beyond what their aberrations already provide).

Familiarity between specific baselines and tainted novas can also reduce the penalties. By 'familiarity' I mean that they have spent the equivalent of 40 hours a week together for at least six months since the social penalty was gained. As an example, Michal (with a +1 social difficulty) and his specific department heads (Richard and Carmela, to name two) do not have a difficulty when dealing with each other, but the social penalty remains when Michal deals with random employees he doesn't normally speak with on a daily basis.

[BlueNinja]

Does the archetype xp get tripled once you go into it?

Don't know how I missed this when the thread was active ... but no. The Archetype XP is the exact amount. Since you need 10 temp Chrysalis points to get 3XP for Chryslis, I don't think it slows down the progress much.,,

And lastly, suppose you do spend your hard won xp to reduce taint...so the aberration goes away but you are stuck with aberrations from the Chrysalis...so you are still inhuman and you still have the Chrysalis social difficulty...This actually makes a bit more sense IMHO since it solves the double-dipped mutant taint monkey problem from novas who have had lots of taint and lots of chrysalis (though that double dipping is prob what is supposed to make trin era aberrants SO mutated.)

Buying off permanent Taint through Chrysalis is supposed to keep you from becoming inhumanly insane (ie non-playable). It doesn't stop you from becoming inhuman. ::ultracool