DarkSpace Transmission 0.01.03 - The Triad
Greetings Spacers!
Let’s get metaphysical and talk about The Triad.
The Origins of the Triad
When Derek and I were in the early phases of talking about the rules hack that would become DarkSpace, we both wanted some sort of “mind power” that players could use. Derek wanted psychic powers due to human evolution and scientific experimentation for his blue collar spacers and I wanted The Force or magic for space opera and science fantasy. But both of us agreed that we didn’t want to just say the Shadowdark magic spells were now metaphysical powers. We also agreed that reskinning all of the spells into powers would be an unnecessary reinventing of the wheel. So, with that in mind I took the framework of our idea and settled in for a lot of trial and error.
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Ultimately what I landed on was a combination of the classic West End Games Star Wars RPG force powers and the modern bending powers of the Avatar: The Last Airbender RPG with a little bit of TSR’s Marvel Superheroes thrown in there.
In the Star Wars RPG the force was divided into three areas: Alter, Control, and Sense. Each one was its own “skill” that you then used to do specific things with, though I always felt like the line between Alter and Control was a bit too nebulous. You still had specific feats within each that you had to define - Mind Tricks, Telekinesis, etc. But the framework of three separate skills was something I liked. The problem was Shadowdark doesn’t have skills and I didn’t like being tied into certain ways of using these powers.
When I looked at the Avatar RPG the bending powers were surprisingly open-ended. If you were a firebender, you could attempt to do whatever you wanted with fire. The limit was your imagination. You still had to see if it would work but you weren’t locked in to only doing fire blasts or starting fires. This was what I wanted the “mind powers” in DarkSpace to look like. After all, if you could use The Force you should be able to use it any way you want within the ways that you know how to do it. The same applies to psychic powers. This reminded me of the old Marvel Superheroes RPG where you had a broad superpower and then had “power stunts” that you could imagine and attempt.
So, pulling these ideas together I had different categories of powers that each covered a different aspect in which you could do whatever you wanted as long as you passed a check. But, what was that framework going to look like?.
I liked the West End Alter, Control, and Sense but like I said they were a bit nebulous at times and ultimately I didn’t want to just use that because we’re not making a Star Wars RPG. I tried the four elements from Avatar. I tried the five elements from The Fifth Element and Captain Planet. Those felt limiting. Finally, while discussing Motivation with Derek, our resident pastor, I thought about the division of Body, Mind, and Soul. That was when the Triad was born. I realized these could just be mapped to the stats of constitution, intelligence, and wisdom and there was how we would get our Triad checks.
So, how does The Triad work?
You must have one of the three Triad Powers as a Talent. When you want to use it, you tell the GM what you want to do with it. We give some examples in the book (i.e. Body can be used for telekinesis, etc) but the limitation is your imagination. I recently got a playtest report where someone used their Body power to shatter the cockpit of a starfighter and suck a space pirate out of their ship!
The GM sets the DC for attempted “stunt” and then the player makes a check for the appropriate stat. If they succeed, it happens, if they fail nothing happens. A critical success doubles the outcome and any dice involved. A critical failure results in the loss of that power as the spacer becomes too fatigued to try it again (think Eleven in Stranger Things getting weak or Grogu passing out from trying too hard).
In the end we have something pretty simple and lightweight that puts the outcome in the player’s hands rather than the system. It can be mapped onto whatever setting you want and you can use as much or as little of the Triad as you want. If you just want psychic powers, just use the Mind power. If you want Matrix-style kung-fu, use the Body power. You don’t want any of that? Don’t use The Triad in your setting. That’s really what we want to accomplish with this system - flexible science fiction without the technical crunch of other sci-fi RPGs.
Let us know what you think about the Triad. We love getting feedback and field reports from people. Until next time… May The Triad be With You!
