Mindstrike is all about psychic powers. The two biggest powers (to no one’s surprise) are Telepathy and Telekinesis. They are, after all, the foundations of most psychic powers in sci-fi media. In the game, they form the foundation of all your other powers in a system of prerequisites. In order to get the Teleportation power, for instance, you’d need to start with Telekinesis (moving stuff with your mind) and Control Density (since you’re dispersing the molecules as you move them, obviously).
“You mean like a skill tree?” you may ask.
“Yes, exactly like a skill tree,” I answer. “But it’s upside down, see?”
See? Upside down. Completely different.
Hey Darrell!
Was wondering, for the sake of specific character recreation (lets say you wanted to feature a gifted pyrokinetic pre-adolescent, for instance … yes I have seen Firestarter, and yes I am a 7th-grade teacher, and yes the concept absolutely terrifies me), do all characters need to progress up (down!) the skill tree? Could you perhaps “pay” to skip straight to certain effects, or maybe even, once you’ve gotten to a certain effect, “lose” the previous effects in order to “power up” your skill in the latest one?
I feel like that would suggest a world where these characters are fairly untrained, unique, and each manifest their powers in a personal, perhaps unconscious way … if the power balance works out, of course.
The intent was you’d have to “level up” through the various prerequisite powers, at least a little bit, to get to the more advanced powers. This is partially because (a) those powers are pretty powerful, and I fear putting them in the hands of new characters, and (b) it makes sense that in order to use (for instance) “Implant” you need to have at least some “Mind Reading.”
Of course, looking at the powers again (and working on the system today), I’m less convinced this is a requirement. After all, (a) those powers can be toned down, and (b) the pre-reqs don’t make a much sense for the telekinetic powers.
I’m open to suggestions. I’ll be working on Mindstrike all week, and going for a transparent design process, so if you have any ideas, I’d love to hear ’em.
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