D&D’s attunement property helps keep power creep to a minimum. Would it work for Genesys?

Back in the 80s, I used to run an AD&D game in the carport of my parents’ Arizona home. As a teenager, the concept of power really appealed to me, so I handed out magic items like candy in what I would later come to know as a “Monty Haul” style (named, of course, after the host of the original Let’s Make a Deal, Monty Hall). As I grew older, I tired of the power creep, the stacking of bonuses provided by different magic items and abilities, and the way players would game the system to make their characters as godlike as possible. Third Edition D&D was the breaking point for me; I could abide it no more. Why? Do a Google search for D&D bucket of snails or D&D pun-pun and you will have your answer. Eventually I stopped playing D&D entirely.

With the introduction of magic items in Realms of Terrinoth, I see the potential for some similar issues, players gaming the system. Heck, those of us who played the Star Wars RPG before this saw it happen there, with builds like the Doctor-Marauder. That issue, and a number of others, was fixed for Genesys, but the capacity of magic items to bring out the power creeper in players is strong.

The Wizards’ Solution

Wizards of the Coast managed, at least to a degree, to forestall the power creep of magic items – super-stacking benefits, anyway – by adding a requirement to some items called attunement. For those who don’t play the venerable grandfather of roleplaying games (count me among your number!), attunement is the process by which a character creates a mystical or spiritual bond with an item. A character can only be attuned to three items at a time, and cannot attune to more than one of a given item (so they cannot, for instance, attune to two Rings of Protection).

The need for attunement is determined by the following (from the D&D5E DMG, p. 285):

If having all the characters in a party pass an item around to gain its lasting benefits would be disruptive, the item should require attunement.

If the item grants a bonus that other items also grant, it’s a good idea to require attunement so that characters don’t try to collect too many of those items.

The advantage of attunement is pretty straightforward: it stems the impending rise of characters into individual nuclear superpowers by limiting their growth to XP-related improvements and items replaced by (rather than stacking with) other items. The down side? Some players might see it as stifling player advancement.

The Cybernetic Solution

There might be a Genesys-related answer to the problem of magic items. In the Star Wars RPG and in the Android setting found in the Genesys Core Rule Book, characters are able to install cybernetic enhancements to their bodies, replacing limbs or eyes, enhancing brain function, allowing a character to breath underwater or when the air around them is toxic, and other such upgrades. While the Genesys version of cybernetic rules allows a character to install an unlimited number of cybernetic improvements (the only limitations being that each characteristic, skill, or derived stat can only be upgraded once), cybertech in Star Wars gives us a better and more thematic solution.

In the Star Wars RPG, a character (outside of a droid or a member of the gank species) could install a number of cybernetics equal to their Brawn plus one. Now, I’m not proposing we make Brawn the defacto stat here. In fact, I’d argue against using Brawn at all. After all, we’re not grappling magic items. Nor are we juggling them, so let’s discount Agility right away. The remaining four? Any one of them could be used.

Intellect – Knowing a thing or two about the arcane, about the lore involved with using magic items, could increase your ability to use them, and to bond with them.

Knowing a thing or two about the arcane, about the lore involved with using magic items, could increase your ability to use them, and to bond with them. Cunning – Figuring out how to juggle a number of magic items – in your psyche, not your hands – seems like a reasonable way to increase the number you could bond with at a time.

Figuring out how to juggle a number of magic items – in your psyche, not your hands – seems like a reasonable way to increase the number you could bond with at a time. Willpower – Practiced discipline could make bonding to more magic items a possibility.

Practiced discipline could make bonding to more magic items a possibility. Presence – Commanding more items by sheer power of personality seems like a decent route, too.

What to Choose?

Of those four, I am inclined to go with Willpower. It just seems the proper approach to take, thematically; someone who is disciplined, who has a strong will, is able to push the envelope, to keep more bonded items in check. Not to mention, it has the least number of skills of those listed, and (discounting Divine, because it is very much a career-based skill) only two skills that get used regularly. Coercion is extremely situation, and isn’t often used by those who don’t have them as class skills. Of the four skills under Willpower, only Discipline and Vigilance are used regularly (and those often by characters who have ranks in neither).

Willpower seems the obvious choice.

A New Rule: Bonded

The rule, then, would have to start out with a new property for items.

Bonded. In order to benefit from this item’s supernatural properties, you must bond to the item.

Follow that up with a rule.

You may bond to a number of magic items equal to your Willpower plus one. Magically enhancing your Willpower (by the Augment spell or an item-based effect) does not increase the number of items with which you can bond.

And there you have it. D&D-style attunement ported to the Genesys system, with a path that allows for improvement (though judicious use of the Dedication talent).

What do you think? Let me know in the space below!

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