Got a little work done on Jupiter Sovereign.
Wanted to get some conditions done and have some way to represent them.
Conditions are all represented by an icon, because I like having that as a way to potentially encode a character. I haven't yet worked out positive conditions, but they will exist.
I've had some ideas about writing about how games can reflect tragic reality without becoming bothersome, but I have some other work to do tonight, so expect to see more maybe tomorrow.
Conditions
A character who is suffering from negative conditions suffers penalties to their actions, while positive conditions provide bonuses that may be used in certain situations.
Negative conditions provide penalty dice based on the number of times that the negative condition has been gained. Each negative condition is represented by a single character. Suffering any negative condition causes a one die penalty (this first penalty is not cumulative), but more extreme negative conditions have special, sometimes interesting, effects.
🝎 Damaged
A character who is 🝎 damaged is suffering from some sort of physical harm. This can be the result of any sort of injury.
As with any negative condition, being damaged provides a one die penalty on all tests. If a character is damaged twice (🝎🝎), then they suffer an additional one die penalty when they attempt actions that depend on their body.
A character who is damaged three times (🝎🝎🝎) suffers a two die penalty to all rolls and may not attempt rolls based on their body.
A character who is damaged four times (🝎🝎🝎🝎) dies and may not take actions until reinstantiated.
🝤 Disoriented
A character who is 🝤 disoriented is suffering from mental confusion or instability. This can result from certain events, but also mind virus attacks and psionic backlash.
As with any negative condition, being disoriented provides a one die penalty on all tests. If a character is disoriented twice (🝤🝤), then they suffer an additional one die penalty when they attempt actions that depend on memory or awareness.
A character who is disoriented three times (🝤🝤🝤) suffers a two die penalty to all rolls and may not attempt rolls that require cognition.
A character who is disoriented four times (🝤🝤🝤) suffers a complete breakdown of consciousness and cannot act deliberately until psychosurgery is provided or they are restored from backup.
🝖 Dispirited
A character who is 🝖 dispirited is suffering from spiritual confusion or instability. This can result from psionic backlash, extreme tragedy, and loss of will.
As with any negative condition, being dispirited provides a one die penalty on all tests. If a character is dispirited twice (🝖🝖), then they suffer an additional one die penalty when they attempt actions that depend on will or personality.
A character who is dispirited three times (🝖🝖🝖) suffers a two die penalty to all rolls and may not attempt rolls dependent on their will or personality.
A character who is dispirited four times (🝖🝖🝖🝖) suffers a complete breakdown of the psyche, and is catatonic until psychosurgery is provided or they are restored from backup.
🝗 Corruption
A character who is corrupted has come under the influence of the demiurge. This results from exposure to the demiurge, extreme moral compromise, and some psionic activities.
Corruption is not strictly speaking a negative condition, and does not immediately impose a die penalty on tests. Instead, a character with the Corruption condition rolls corrupted dice (either rolled separately or marked with a separate color) when they roll tests. One good option for doing this is to have a player and GM role simultaneously and separately.
If a corrupted die's result matches a non-corrupted die, they are both removed. However, corrupted dice are eligible to match with each other and count toward successes. If they used toward a roll's result (and they can be ignored if the character chooses), a light complication always results.
Corruption not gained as a consequence of a Background can be removed through certain processes.
Closing Thoughts
So one of the things I'm going for with conditions is that they should be incredibly simple. I want it to be possible for the GM to essentially have a one-page reference with the tags for all the symbols as well as a space to record characters using the symbols.
The idea being that you can fit all the raw data from the game on a single sheet and a handful of tokens at the table without requiring a whole ton of extra data (both the references for what each symbol represents and the symbolic representations of characters). This has the downside of meaning that there's a certain amount of overlap between characters, but with enough options characters remain unique.
Further, players can write out more details about their characters on the record sheet, making it possible to have the non-symbolic representations of these elements so that they don't need to compare to symbols.
There's a bit of a question about whether this is a thing that should be done, but I think it's interesting enough to make it worth experimenting with.