Last week, in discussing how System Matters, I posited the hypothetical situation of an RPG which didn’t include a combat system. I did so because the entire concept is inherently radical: Including a D&D-derived combat system (even if it’s several generations distant from its progenitor) is such an essentially universal element of RPG design that the idea of a game which doesn’t do that is perceived as bizarre. I’ve actually seen people get angry at the suggestion, so ingrained has the expectation become.

So let’s talk about an RPG that actually does this: Technoir.

HOW TECHNOIR WORKS

We need to start by explaining how Technoir works:

First, characters are given numerical ratings in nine Verbs: Coax, Detect, Fight, Hack, Move, Operate, Prowl, Shoot, and Treat. These are basically the equivalent of ability scores seen in most roleplaying games.

The core mechanic of Technoir is to use a Verb to push an Adjective onto a target. The Adjective is literally any adjective: A word describing a quality possessed by a noun (i.e., the person or thing that you targeted). By pushing an Adjective onto a target, you are changing the description of that thing. In doing so, of course, you are fundamentally affecting the fictional reality of that thing: A computer system which has been hacked or bot-slaved is fundamentally different from that has been secured.

The mechanics of the game elaborate on this central conceit by (a) varying the severity of the Adjective you can apply (from fleeting to sticky to locked), (b) giving you mechanical structures for using these Adjective (so that they’re not just nebulous descriptions of fictional state, but also mechanically meaningful constructs), and (c) providing mechanical methods for removing negative Adjectives.

The cool thing about these mechanics is that they’re not dependent on the Adjectives you’re pushing: The mechanical structures work whether you’re pushing bullet-riddled or sympathetic or terrified.

STAKES IN TECHNOIR

In most RPGs, the combat system defaults to “I want him dead” as the stakes for the scene. In fact, this is often the only time traditional RPGs mechanically declare whether or not the stakes of a scene are achieved. (Most RPGs provide lots of mechanics for determining whether a specific method chosen by a character has been successful, but ultimately leave the question of whether or not that allows the character to achieve their actual goal to the GM fiat. See The Art of Rulings for a lengthier discussion of this.)

Technoir goes in almost exactly the opposite direction: You can’t push “unconscious” or “dead” or anything else that could remove the target’s agency in one hit unless your target is a Henchman (i.e., a mook). You can trivially set virtually anything else as the stakes for a roll, but not death.

This is a mechanical implementation of one of the pillars that Technoir identifies in the hard-boiled stories it’s seeking to emulate:

COME AT THEM SIDEWAYS

The conspiracy is bigger than her. The forces she’s dealing with could crush her like an insect. She can’t just kill all her enemies, she’ll have to outwit them. As such, this game doesn’t have a combat system designed for defeating opponents. It has a social manipulation system that gives the player the means to influence characters and nudge the narrative direction in which violent methods may be employed.

One of the semi-invisible consequences of combat systems and death being the only place where traditional RPGs mechanically declare a scene’s outcome is that a lot of GMs and players have become heavily conditioned over the years to think of death as the default ending for any conflict. And this is really weird when you think about it, because it’s not the way it generally works in other storytelling mediums (and it’s definitely not the way it works in real life).

Technoir breaks that conditioning. This means that the GM and players alike need to think about what they really want and how they can achieve that. The concept of vectors is really important in Technoir: If you want to achieve X by doing Y, then there needs to be a clear path by which Y can achieve X. You need to line up your shot. The fact that vectors aren’t always a straight line is, of course, the whole point. Sometimes the PCs have to push one adjective onto an NPC before they can push the one that they want (you need to get them trusting you before you can seduce them into being vulnerable). Or you’ll need to make it stick before you can lock it down.

The same is true for NPCs: If you’re the GM, make sure you know what they actually want out of the scene. Once they’ve got it, they aren’t going to stick around. Have them push the escaped adjective onto themselves, spend the Push dice they need to lock it against the players, and skedaddle.

DEATH IN TECHNOIR

All of this is not to say that character death is taken completely off the table in Technoir. What good noir story doesn’t feature death, after all? What if what an PC wants is to kill a PC? For example, let’s say the GM wants to frame a scene where a sniper takes a shot at a PC because they’ve been asking the wrong sort of questions.

The assassin’s bullet is going to push mortally wounded as an adjective onto the PC and the GM is going to lock that fucker in place by spending a couple of Push dice. And the important part is that once they’ve taken that shot — once they’ve pushed that adjective — the scene probably ends.

At this point the rules for “Lethal Consequences” are going to kick in: “At the end of any scene in which one or more adjectives were asserted that describe physical harm against a character, there is a chance that adjective might lead to the character’s death.” The specific mechanics for working that out aren’t particularly important for this discussion (but you can find them on page 138 of the rulebook). The point is that the PC has to check to see if he’s dying from this adjective or not. Even if he’s not dying from the wound, of course, he’s still going to be permanently debilitated by his injury until somebody pays to chrome him up.

And when the assassin finds out his target somehow survived the shot, he’s going to be coming back to try again. What are the PCs going to do about that?

That final bit is the really key element to grokking Technoir: The question of, “Do you live or die?” is not intrinsically interesting. You might die, but the game is far more interested in making you own your adjectives and then asking, “And what do you do about that? How do you fix it? How do you live with it?” Mortal injuries from sniper rifles aren’t inherently more significant in that equation that having your heart metaphorically ripped out.

As far as NPC death is concerned, I’ve already mentioned that Henchmen can be killed in a single shot (by spending Push dice to make dead lock onto them). The rulebook is a little less clear about what it takes to knock out Heavies and Connections (the other categories of NPCs), but what it boils down to is vector: If the PCs can put themselves in a position where they can justify getting the bullet to stick, the GM should let it stick. (That might mean beating them bloody. It might mean compromising their security. It might mean breaking their leg and making them helpless before you cap a bullet into their skull. It’ll depend on circumstances.) Note, too, that the “Lethal Consequences” rules don’t specify player characters; in fact, it says the opposite. The GM can (and should) use those rules for NPCs, too: You shot the Bride in the head and left her dead, but she woke up.

What are you going to do about that?

WRITING & DESIGN: Justin Alexander

It takes just over a full day for one of the massive climbers to claw its way up the ‘stalk from the peaks of Kilimanjaro fifty thousand kilometers below. Steiner Technology keeps twelve of them in rotation, but you’ve got to space ‘em out to control the oscillations and with only one ‘stalk in operation they all have to arrive before you can turn them around. That means ten days of backbreaking labor for the orbitmen on Kepler Station, followed by two days off while Kilimanjaro does its turn-around.

Try to steer clear of the machinations of the Methuselah Families — cryo-preserved scions overseeing vast corporate wealth from beyond a frozen almost-grave — and dance through the back-corridors 30,000 miles up with Patthar Black Baggers and the Over-Under Gang.

This is Kepler Station. Where diamonds are cheap, but oxygen is the price of life.

MORE TECHNOIR @ THE ALEXANDRIAN
Technoir System Cheat Sheet
Untested Technoir: Fleeting Relationships
Technoir: The Untouched Core
Technoir and PvP
Technoir and the Three Clue Rule
Technoir: Sequences vs. Skill Challenges

New Supplements and New Transmissions Coming Soon!

The high-tech, hard-boiled roleplaying of Technoir has been acquired by Dream Machine Productions, the design studio owned and operated by Justin Alexander, and will be receiving active support — including new supplements, new transmissions, and new expansions — starting in January 2019.

Technoir, an exciting cyber-noir roleplaying game featuring a radical new mechanical approach and a revolutionary plot-mapping approach to improvised scenario design, was originally launched via a trend-setting and highly successful Kickstarter campaign in 2011. Designed by Jeremy Keller, the core rulebook was released in Fall 2011, with Mechnoir — an expansion player’s guide which took the game to Mars and introduced mechanics for running mecha-based scenarios — following in the spring of 2012. The game won a Judges’ Spotlight Ennie in 2012.

At that point, unfortunately, development stalled with several of the Kickstarter stretch goals still unfulfilled, and Technoir has lain fallow for the past six years. Having secured rights to the game, however, DMP has been quietly getting the core rulebook back into distribution channels via Indie Press Revolution, revamped the Technoir website, and begun development on a suite of new supplements for the game.

The first and most important goal for Justin Alexander and DMP has been to, at long last, fulfill the missing stretch goals which the original 600+ Kickstarter backers have been waiting for. We know that many of them have given up hope of ever seeing these stretch goals delivered, but we recognize that without them the game would not exist and we want to do right by them. Original backers of Technoir should return to the Kickstarter campaign page, where they will find an update explaining the steps they need to follow in order to claim their stretch goals.

All of this work culminates on January 1^st, with a major relaunch of Technoir featuring:

Morenoir. The original 12-page PDF stretch goal has been super-sized into a 38-page supplement featuring run-time operations, advanced options for the game, a transmission creation guide, and Jeremy’s Guide to Writing Player’s Guides for Technoir.

Indianapolis Conplex. A brand new transmission for Technoir, featuring the 6×6 Master Table of connections, events, factions, locations, objects, and threats that lie at the heart of every Technoir scenario.

Kepler Station. A twist on the typical Technoir transmission, set in the space station atop the Kilimanjaro orbital elevator. Kepler Station is more than just a highway to the solar system. It’s a city in space, with a population of 20,000 lurking within its spheres of plascrete, rock, and steel.

In addition to immediately receiving their long-awaited copies of Morenoir on January 1st, the original Kickstarter backers will also receive access to playtest copies of Hexnoir, the Technoir magic supplement. These playtest materials will include the full text of the Hexnoir supplement plus three bonus transmissions, with final PDF versions to be released within a few months after the radical new mechanics have endured a proper trial by fire.

Although this will, at long last, bring the Technoir Kickstarter to conclusion, it’s just the beginning for Technoir. Dream Machine Productions and Justin Alexander are proud to have received this baton, and they have plans to carry the torch into the neon-drenched future.

About Dream Machine Productions: DMP is the design studio and publishing house owned and operated by Justin Alexander, who is also known for his work as Lead Developer for Modiphius’ Infinity RPG, the Alexandrian (home to the Three Clue Rule, Xandering the Dungeon, Node-Based Scenario Design, and other GMing classics), and a long list of freelance work for Atlas Games, Dream Pod 9, Steve Jackson Games, Fantasy Flight Games, and others. More information can be found at http://www.dreammachineproductions.net.

About Technoir: More information on Technoir can be found at http://www.technoirrpg.com, including a free Player’s Guide, the free Twin Cities Metroplex transmission, and other resources.

BUY TECHNOIR NOW!

(click for PDF)

I’ve done several of these cheat sheets now, but for those who haven’t seen them before: I frequently prep cheat sheets for the RPGs I run. These summarize all the rules for the game — from basic action resolution to advanced combat options. It’s a great way to get a grip on a new system and, of course, it also provides a valuable resource at the table for both the GMs and the players. (For more information on the procedure I follow when prepping these cheat sheets, click here.)

These cheat sheets for Technoir, a cyberpunk RPG with two incredibly clever mechanics:

First, instead of traditional ability scores, characters have Verbs. They use these Verbs to push Adjectives onto a target. So instead of making an attack roll and inflicting 15 points of damage, they’ll use Shoot to make their target Bloody. Or Winged. Or Lamed. Or Ruined. Or Shattered. Or…. well, anything that follows logically from the action they’re attempting. The beauty of the system is that it allows you to create very specific effects in the context of the game world, and it can do fluidly in any arena.

Second, an incredibly rich set of plot map mechanics which, when combined with the game’s Transmissions, allow an almost infinite amount of gameplay within a given setting with minimal or no prep.

I’ve written about Technoir a number of times here on the Alexandrian. Whether you’re familiar with the game or not, you may enjoy checking some of them out:

Technoir: Sequences vs. Skill Challenges
Technoir and the Three Clue Rule
Technoir and Smart Prep
Technoir and PvP
Technoir: The Untouched Core
Untested Technoir: Fleeting Relationships
Technoir + Vornheim Contacts

HOW I USE THEM

I keep a copy of the system cheat sheet for quick reference and I also provide copies for all of my players. Of course, I also keep at least one copy of the rulebook available, too. But my goal with the cheat sheets is to summarize all of the rules for the game. This consolidation of information eliminates book look-ups: Finding something in a half dozen or so pages is a much faster process than paging through hundreds of pages in the rulebook.

The sheets for Technoir are fairly straightforward:

PAGE 1: This page contains the entire action resolution mechanic of the game, including rules for sequences and examples of common attacks. You’ll be looking at this page about 95% of the time that you’re playing.

PAGE 2: This page plays clean-up. It includes the Recovery rules. It also includes a quick reference for the equipment tags relating to the Interface and Links. And a Favors reference.

PAGE 3: A GM-only page summarizing the plot map mechanics.

Although this cheat sheet replaces some of the functionality of the Technoir Player’s Guide, that booklet can still be useful (particularly during character creation) by listing the Training Programs, equipment, and relationship adjectives used during character creation. Alternatively, you can print, in booklet format, multiple copies of the core equipment guide (pages 40-49 of the core rulebook). I’ll also print off a single sheet with a list of all the relationship adjectives in a large font (which can be passed around during character creation so that entries can be crossed off as they’re used).

I’ll also print out a reference to all the connections (and the favors they offer) in the current transmission on a single sheet of paper. This, again, facilitates quick and easy character creation without having to swap books around.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

I don’t actually use a GM screen when I’m running Technoir, but these cheat sheets have been designed with the same format of all my cheat sheets so that they can be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

Vornheim includes a set of stripped down guidelines for giving PCs a set of contacts in an urban setting: The PCs can hit up their contacts for information about a particular topic and there’s a table for randomly determining what their reaction to the question is. (Here’s an example of the system in practice.)

Technoir is built around a plot-mapping mechanic in which PCs are created with a set of contacts: When the PCs hit up one of their contacts, there’s a system for randomly determining what they know. (And here’s an example of that system in play.)

The Technoir approach is built around the assumption that the GM — taking into account the subject indicated, that subject’s position on the plot map, the contact’s relationship to the plot map, and the specific question that was asked of the contact — will provide an act of creative closure and figure out what the contact says. And, in general, that works just fine.

But I thought to myself: Wouldn’t it be useful and nifty if I had a Vornheim-style contacts table for Technoir? So that the rules of Technoir would produce the lead the contact was pointing them towards and then the Vornheim-like table would give some guidance on how they ended up pointing them at it?

The Vornheim contacts table includes some null value (“I don’t know anything about”) values, which don’t work well in Technoir. So I tweaked the table a bit and ended up with this: