Re-psyched

Switching to the PDQ rules has been a big improvement. I've had to move some things around after some play testing. The system needs to click with the setting, and I like the results thus far.

Qualities are the primary focus of PDQ, and Silver Cord is no exception. What I've done, is relegated everything to the simple fact that powers are qualities too, except with the caveat that psychic Qualities must be specific and focused. Broader psychic Qualities are aptly named Disciplines. After play testing PDQ in a fantasy game, the results of characters using their powers and their skills made it obvious that a system attempting to balance the physics of all possible actions (including unreal phenomenon) is going about the RPG business in an complex manner. Qualities take the importance of a particular element, or set of elements, in a character's life and brings that into focus of the game.

The way this occurs is of great interest to me. If we take the most popular RPG in the world, and extract two character classes at first level, say Fighter and Wizard, and set them at odds with one another. Aside from good dice rolling, the results are highly contingent upon the design of each character being munchkinned in a way that would allow one character or another to come out on top. If the Wizard chose the wrong spells for that day, then the Fighter would simply swing his sword a few time and the battle would be over. Then again, if the Fighter had chosen not to carry his weapons, he might end up loosing the battle. Wizards have fewer hit points, but they make up for it in power. So, the fighter would have to land only a couple of successes. The Wizard would have to land a few successes but with a bigger punch because of the fighters greater hit points.
Then if we were to replace the munchkinned Wizard with a Wizard that was more interested in creating magic items and avoiding conflict, then we'd have a very uneven confrontation between the two. The fighter would in all likelihood would find the hapless Wizard easy pickings.

Move on to PDQ and its Qualities. Creating these first level characters then becomes a matter of taste, but if we were to convert every meaningful aspect of the characters over, we'd have a good comparison to work with. Even though PDQ doesn't have hitpoints per se, it might come as a shock to find out that suddenly, the fighter doesn't have as many hit points as before. Since we're now working from the premise that character elements have importants to the story, it becomes a matter of role play to determine the results of the battle. Since the characters will be starting with the same number of character points to build their characters, they will have roughly the same amount of "virtual" hitpoints. This brings the Wizard up a notch in the damage taking department, which might at first seem unfair to the fighter. However, the Wizard's power is effectively reduced to the level of the fighters, and yet still be the same powerful spells they always were! This makes an even match encounter in PDQ, regardless of a missing weapon or improperly chosen spells. What makes up the difference is the improvisation that PDQ allows, for characters quickly reinvent themselves out of bad situations.