Psychological Battle Campaign

>Monitoring this thread

Are you open to homebrewing a system?

>>55316089

Weeeeel kindaaaaa I guess but you already guessed probably that I'm fucking lazy, otherwise I wouldn't have made a thread asking for a system.

Let's say that it's my plan B if really I don't find shit.

>>55316045
>Not using GURPS or Strike to run the mental fights.
You lack vision OP.

>>55316045
System is primarily for conflict resolution, seeing if a person can successfully do a thing. So to find the right system, figure out what sorts of actions the characters might try to perform and what system accommodates those actions.

Using Death Note (the anime, I haven't seen the movie or read the manga) as reference, a lot of the time the characters spend researching, between dramatic moments. Light needs to find victims and L is directing the police force in their investigations. However, the really dramatic scenes are all black-and-white, where there's really no place for a roll. Take the infamous Lind L. Taylor scene; I suppose you could have some rolls for L goading Light into action, but that also could just be rollplaying. The action of killing Lind clearly had no chance involved, just a written name.

So I suppose the only real mechanic I could think of would be one based around the values of the participants, with the intent being to somehow leverage those values into making them screw up somehow, in a manner you can take advantage of?

>>55316045
>>55316144
Maybe look into Amber Diceless? The Nine Princes of Amber book series upon which it is based is much like how I just described Death Note, where actions generally have pre-determined outcomes by the time they're made, the scheming ahead of time is where all the fun is at.

>>55316045
The only thing I can think of that comes even close to what you want is Shadowrun, but only when run with the Blackest of Trenchcoats. Deadly heists performed with laser-like precision after extensive legwork and with plans, counter-plans, contingencies, trumps and aces crammed so far up your ass you'll be picking keikaku out your teeth for weeks.

>>55316144
that sounds a little like Hillfolk actually, iirc leveraging the other player character's desires and dramatic poles is an important part of getting what you want

>>55316045
Legends of the Wulin has "classes" that are actually dedicated to just that, specifically the Scholar, Taoist, and Courtesan. Their mysteries are based on planning and forethought, and require time and effort to set up. Only by accurately planning, predicting, and utilizing strategy can you manage to alter the outcomes of events in the game.

>>55317101
To cover these in some more detail
>Scholar
The Scholar's Art involves making predictions about the world, then a roll is made where the difficulty is determined by how much evidence has been established for that prediction actually happening. If the roll succeeds then a prediction is made and all actions which help it come to pass receive a bonus and all actions against it take a penalty. The sizes of the modifiers are determined by how much you succeed the roll by.

>Courtier
The Courtier's Art is all about manipulating social conditions. Characters in LotW gain and lose conditions all the time, they provide bonuses or penalties to certain behaviors. The levels of a condition are; incidental (just fluff), minor (small mechanical effect), major (larger mechanical effect), and the final level is the character being removed from the game by it. Courtiers can use their social skills to inflict or change the levels of conditions, allowing them to push enemies in certain directions by incentivising or discouraging certain behaviours and if they spend enough time and energy they can eventually make a condition serious enough that it causes the character to make a mistake which causes them to be written out of the game.

>>55316045
I hope you have smart players, otherwise you're going to end up with autists coming up with the most convoluted nonsense and then get terrifically angry when it doesn't go 100% according to how they imagined it in their dysfunctional, chemically unbalanced brains.

I've had experience with this before.

>>55316045

In GURPS, you'd do this with Impulse Points. The character would get a regenerate condition as a limitation, probably connecting it to an odious personal habit like showing off his brilliance in inappropriate situations (social roll penalty). The other limitation is that the points can only be spent to buy coincidences and scene additions that he could have arranged in advance.

So then when the character is in a tight fix, the player spends the points. Suddenly the PC smiles and says, "actually, you're in MY trap. Did you really think I wouldn't anticipate your little game?" And then one of the thugs turns out to be the PC's secret ally, or there's a gun hidden in the couch cushions and the PC now has it, or the FBI shows up (he called them an hour ago) or whatever.

The point is that the player didn't foresee all this, but the character did, and the Impulse Points system is designed in part with stuff like this in mind.

>No reason to shill GURPS
M8 there is ALWAYS a reason to shill GURPS.

Their monthly e-zine Pyramid had an article awhile back called "Fortunately, I Saw This Coming." It's all about handling and using retroactive actions to represent that eight-steps-ahead four-dimensional chess bullshittery. The same issue also has a nice light system for actual non-retroactive planning in the style of Ocean's Eleven flashback montage. Even though GURPS, isn't your cup of tea, I recommend giving those articles a look over so you can steal ideas/mechanics for whatever system you do end up using/homebrewing.

>>55316045
>What would be a good system for that?
Cortex Plus

File: Misfortune BETA STACKS.pdf (288KB, 1x1px)

288KB, 1x1px

>>55316045
>Now obviously there won't be many physical battle so there's no point in Gurps/Strike shilling here.

Well, i'll take that as an invitation to shill my own garbage system.

Misfortune works with the idea pretty well, the game is basically about working with the story more than the world, meaning narrative tricks like twists and foreshadowing are part of the game's mechanics.

So doing a "I predicted that you predicted that I would predict just this!" kind of exchange is very possible with how the game plays mechanically.

It might still be rough around the edges, I haven't passed it through all the editing hoops, but from what I've playtested it, the game runs smoothly as all hell.

Just remember that the whole premise works on a different premise to normal RPG:s, and it's actually quite weird and hard to wrap one's head around if you're a veteran player.