First off, I recognize that a lot of people in the L5R Beta hated these mechanics. Some hated the ideas entirely, some felt the implementation was clunky.

Well, I liked 'em (in principle), and I wanna steal 'em, so I'm looking for thoughts on the matter. I'll actually be using these for my Force and Destiny game, but I figure the Genesys crowd is a little more open to knocking the rules around just for the fun of it. We have two mechanics in question. The first is using an action to heal Wounds (or Fatigue in L5R) in the middle of combat. The second is Outbursts, or as it was later called, Unmasking. Basically I wanna kick this ball around and figure out how to make the ideas work in Genesys/Star Wars.

So let's talk healing. The basic mechanic would be that a character could use an action to make a Resilience roll, recovering a number of Wounds equal to rolled successes. You can't reduce your Wounds to below half your Threshold. Anyone who's played a lot of high-contact sport (American Football, Rugby, Soccer when there's no referee) has probably taken a nasty hit that almost took them out. You're not exactly injured (no Crit roll), but you're gonna have a nasty bruise, and you need to take a moment to remember how breathing works, check your face to make sure it's all there, that sort of thing. This represents taking that moment. Of course, you're pretty vulnerable if you're using your action to recover instead of attack, so hopefully you have some buddies to cover you.

I'm tempted to have the initial difficulty set at Simple, and each time you use the action (per encounter? Day? Session?), it increases by 1. It would significantly boost the value of the Resilience skill (which sees very little use at my table), and probably require that Stimpacks or Painkillers would need to be either eliminated or highly modified (one of my players had an interesting suggestion, which I'll get to later).

Still with me?

On to Strain!

As it stands, if you exceed your Strain threshold, you basically pass out.

How boring.

Let's take another page from L5R, this time with the Unmask mechanic. When you exceed your Strain threshold, you can respond in several ways. Each will have some drawbacks, because it really shouldn't be a good thing, but in some cases it might actually save your bacon. I don't have mechanics worked out for any of these, they're just ideas.

First, you can retreat. In a social situation, this would basically mean you head to the punch bowl and sulk. In a combat situation, you probably turn and run. In any case, you're pretty much done contributing to the scene. In Force and Destiny, ou'll probably suffer Conflict for abandoning your friends and allies.

You may also decide to stand firm. This is gonna be a tough choice, and it may well mean you die taking a last stand. Your actions will not be dictated, but you'll have some fat penalties.

Finally, we pull ourselves a scene from Return of the Jedi, as Vader taunts Luke:

"So, you have a twin sister. Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side... then perhaps she will!"

I think it's safe to say that Vader rolled enough successes on his Coercion roll to push Luke over his threshold. Luke's player decides to Give in to Your Anger and lays a healthy beat-down. Taking this option will cause a lot of Conflict, and and any Crits (incoming or outgoing) will be much more severe. This is a dangerous option. You may kill your enemy, but you may also get slaughtered.

I realize that the whole Outburst thing is, in its current form, a mess. Other than Give in to your Anger , none of those ideas are set in stone, and I really don't know how the mechanics for such things should work. I do think it should be much more of a punishment than L5R, because Unmasking in L5R is assumed to happen occasionally, and it's intended to drive Roleplay opportunities. Here, it's an alternative to "You're knocked unconscious."

Oh, right. Stimpacks. I was discussing this idea with one of my players, and he suggested that, rather than eliminating Stimpacks (as i was leaning towards), Stimpacks could convert Wounds into Strain. Combined with the new consequences for exceeding your Strain Threshold, this suggests an entire subculture of Stim Junkies. Roving street gangs that get in brawls, and then Stim themselves over their thresholds, going into a drug-induced rage. Now that's what I call fun!

1. Make the Resilience self-heal count against stim-pack usage, and I think it's solid.

2. For exceeding ST, I would borrow from the Fear check mechanic. The PC is impaired somehow, and the player must decide if it's better to press-on or retreat, also bearing in mind that not all characters care about conflict.

3. Totally stealing these ideas for my own games, esp. SW.

The Resilience idea would be interesting, especially if you are playing some kind of shonen sports RPG. An increasing difficulty is probably easiest, and I would also add one or more critical injury effects that limit or prevent the target from making the check. It would also work for settings where lethality is high and magic heal potions are non-existent. Painkillers can either be cut entirely, have the price/rarity dialed up so they're not as ubiquitous, reduce their effectiveness (3 instead of 5?), or put a side-effect on them (disorientation after use?).

The strain one is tricky, however, as incapacitation =/= unconsciousness. Forcing targets to run away is a little awkward for the system, I think. @Lorne 's idea of triggering a fear-ish effect is not bad, but a flip-out mechanic only works for some settings, not all. Even with Star Wars, it would only really impact Force and Destiny significantly. It works for L5R because there's an important social standing tracker.

5 hours ago, Lorne said:

1. Make the Resilience self-heal count against stim-pack usage, and I think it's solid.

2. For exceeding ST, I would borrow from the Fear check mechanic. The PC is impaired somehow, and the player must decide if it's better to press-on or retreat, also bearing in mind that not all characters care about conflict.

3. Totally stealing these ideas for my own games, esp. SW.

Make these changes and I agree, a great optional rule to add to the system.

2 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

The strain   one is tricky, however, as incapacitation =/= unconsciousness. Forcing targets to run away is a little awkward for the system, I think. @Lorne 's idea of  triggering a fear-ish effect is not bad, but a flip-out mechanic only works for some settings, not all. Even with Star Wars, it would  only really impact Force and Destiny significantly. It works for L5R because there's an important social standing tracker. 

Well, the intent is to make each option sort of a last-ditch effort. In L5R, most of the Unmask options are relatively minor setbacks, depending how they're played. In this case, I think all the options should be bad news. These are characters with nothing left to give. A character who chooses to Soldier On (I'm coming up with the names on the fly here) can basically act normally, but should suffer pretty unpleasant penalties, and of course, can't willingly suffer any more Strain. A character who Gives in to his Anger is basically betting his life on his next action or two. If it goes well, he might save the day. If it doesn't, he's probably going to die.

I guess the sweet spot is that place where a character over his Strain threshold is very nervous, but still feels like he has options.

3 minutes ago, The Grand Falloon said:

Well, the intent is to make each option sort of a last-ditch effort. In L5R, most of the Unmask options are relatively minor setbacks, depending how they're played. In this case, I think all the options should be bad news. These are characters with nothing left to give. A character who chooses to Soldier On (I'm coming up with the names on the fly here) can basically act normally, but should suffer pretty unpleasant penalties, and of course, can't willingly suffer any more Strain. A character who Gives in to his Anger is basically betting his life on his next action or two. If it goes well, he might save the day. If it doesn't, he's probably going to die.

I guess the sweet spot is that place where a character over his Strain threshold is very nervous, but still feels like he has options.

I can see where you're going with this. Perhaps a short "critical table" for exceeding strain threshold in different encounters. Once a character exceeds their strain threshold, roll d10 to determine the results, and the character acts out the effects until they reduce their strain somehow or exceed twice their threshold, in which case they do pass out. I think that the character should at least be immediately disoriented for the duration, or until the end of the encounter.

Give into Anger : The character slips into a fury (similar to the Berserk talent). Soldier On : The character can no longer voluntarily suffer strain. Panic : The character must make a daunting fear check. Collapse : The character immediately falls prone and drops any weapons or items they are holding. Just a few ideas.

1 minute ago, Swordbreaker said:

Perhaps a short "critical table" for exceeding strain threshold in different encounters

Except I really don't think it should be random, or even up to anyone other than the player. The idea is to push a difficult choice. If you choose for your character to Panic , you will probably survive, at least for the time being. If you Soldier On , you're accepting rough penalties to continue fighting alongside your friends. If you Give In To Anger , hopefully you're willing to lose your character rather than admit defeat. I suppose Collapse is also a viable option, and would be treated the same as exceeding your Strain in RAW.

Another problem I hadn't considered is Stun Damage. A simple option is to have Stun Damage deal Wounds, but it won't cause a critical injury if it incapacitates the target. Another is just to say that any Stun damage that puts the target over his Threshold immediately knocks him out.

13 hours ago, The Grand Falloon said:

Except I really don't think it should be random, or even up to anyone other than the player.

Genesys characters have 4 motivations per character, 3 of which can easily turn ugly. SW characters should probably use those categories, too. (Even though FoD characters already have something like those, clearly that's a prototype for what's in the CRB). Probably only need a handful of mechanical effects, and once the PC has chosen how he loses his poop, the GM assigns the appropriate penalty.

14 hours ago, Swordbreaker said:

I can see where you're going with this. Perhaps a short "critical table" for exceeding strain threshold in different encounters. Once a character exceeds their strain threshold, roll d10 to determine the results, and the character acts out the effects until they reduce their strain somehow or exceed twice their threshold, in which case they do pass out. I think that the character should at least be immediately disoriented for the duration, or until the end of the encounter.

Give into Anger : The character slips into a fury (similar to the Berserk talent). Soldier On : The character can no longer voluntarily suffer strain. Panic : The character must make a daunting fear check. Collapse : The character immediately falls prone and drops any weapons or items they are holding. Just a few ideas.

If you give players another more definite option to die, better believe they will exercise it. Be prepared.

2 hours ago, Doomgrin75 said:

If you give players another more definite option to die, better believe they will exercise it. Be prepared.

My good man, I am counting on it!