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Writer/producer for Dreamfeel. Worked on If Found. Likes books, games, anime, communism


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yrgirlkv
@yrgirlkv

for those of you aren't aware: before beam saber's current implementation of its quirks system, its mechs used to have a FUEL gauge that was essentially a 1-for-1 analogue to pilot stress — it cost two fuel to push a mech and 6 - your highest roll fuel to resist consequences in one. this was a solid idea, but it was later replaced with the more characterful quirk system, wherein your mech has four quirks which translate 1-for-2 to stress; 1 quirk to push and a flat resistance cost based on the severity of the consequence. quirks are things like light-footed, military workhorse, or strange power source, and whenever you burn a quirk on a push, you have to say how the quirk applies to that push. it's a good system! that said, the numerical asymmetry has always bothered me here; you have 9 stress but only 8 equivalent in quirks, and resisting is ALWAYS costly in a mech in a way that feels like it doesn't capture those classic gundam moments where the protagonist goes full autism mode and dissects a squad in a matter of seconds. sometimes you roll a ton of sixes and manage to operate like no one else can.

so how do we bring the numbers back but preserve the character of quirks? the answer is fuel-powered quirks, which function like so:

A Forged in the Dark stress in which sets of two boxes following are labeled with a Beam Saber quirk. The final quirk covers three boxes, so that the total adds back up to 9.

the idea here is fairly simple — quirks are now powered by fuel. at full fuel, you have access to all four quirks, which change your position and effect the same way that gear does, granting you bonus effect or improved position when relevant. but as you start burning fuel to enhance maneuvers, you start losing power towards these augmented systems, and they begin to fail. once the above mech has expended 2 fuel, its limited phase dash starts to lose power. after 4 fuel, the self-sharpening nanites of its razor plating retreat into the mech's innards, and the edges start to blunt. after six fuel, the secondary AI no longer has enough power to run, and once you break the 9-fuel barrier, a core element of the mech (in this case, the power source, but it could be anything) fails, and the machine shuts down or goes dire or whatever it is mechs do when they run out of fuel to spend.

The same image as above with 5 stress boxes checked, eliminating the 'limited phase dash' and 'razor plating' quirks from use.

so in this image, for example, our pilot has lost the use of limited phase dash and razor plating, and their secondary AI is on the fritz but not quite burnt out yet.

pros of this system:

  • numerical flexibility: you can roll dice to resist consequences and to restore fuel again, bringing variance, randomness, and fun back to the mech side of the game
  • sense of desperation: pushing a mech should feel like running out of resources, but in some ways forged games do suffer from "the only hit point that matters is the last one" syndrome" — i generally think that's actually a good thing where pilots are concerned, but fuel feels like a different thing and this way fuel alters the function of your mech linearly as your options collapse. this is, to some degree, already true of quirks, but i like that this plots them all in a line and forces you to lose them in sequence
  • simplicity? i'm not 100% sure that this is the case, but i do feel like fuel working largely the way stress does ends up easing the transition between pilot and mech

cons of this system:

  • interaction with gear: the gear lists for mechs are really pretty long in beam saber, and adding the quirks to position and effect on top of them could stand to really amplify the power of a mech in a way i'm not sure is a good thing. i don't want this to widen the gap so badly that giantkillers become impossible to play. maybe the gear list could be trimmed some to account for this...
  • complexity? i could also see this being a bit complicated for players to pick up on, though as above i'm not sure
  • implementation/switching cost: either austin ramsay himself implements this (expensive and time-consuming) or you do it at your table (not impossible but will require you to edit sheets, tweak abilities as they come up, etc.). this is the most surmountable con but i also don't want to undervalue it versus just like, running beam saber without having to put in this extra effort

if you have thoughts about this, i'd love to hear em! i think it's a real fun idea to play with.