Thread by @Epidiah

Fuck yeah, calculator & PAIN points. I'm in.

You have no idea how much I want this to be true!

It does not disappoint!

Wait, missile AND range? I am intrigued!

Checks out!

This game, VINDICATORS, is from 1988, and I've probably have had it in my collection since then. 30 years!

I'm fairly certain that I've never played it. I'm less certain that I've made characters for it, though. Back then, I was buying a lot more than I could bring to the table.

I pulled it out last night because I'm rearranging my game library, and curiosity got the better of me. I'm so intrigued by this game!

It's definitely of an era. Those who've played Champions or DC Heroes will see vague similarities. But it isn't just a knock-off.

It's also got a Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game vibe which puts it 15 years ahead of its time.

Alright, so it's a point buy system, but you randomly roll your base stats AND the number of points you get to spend on your super powers.

It uses not one, but two different logarithmic scales! So, it's got one up on DC Heroes.

Strength (STR) is not something you roll against, but rather a pool of points you spend to do things. Power (PWR) is how much STR you can spend in a round. & Constitution (CON) is not about how much punishment you take, but how much STR you replenish in a round. Total MURPG vibe.

What really caught my eye, though, were the speed rules.

Are you read for a deep dive?

So the game is totally building its physics, right? You want to dodge an attack, you need to take into account the speed of the attack, which includes modifiers for attacks that are around the speed of sound and attacks that are around the speed of light. -10 to dodge a laser.

It also wants that moment-to-moment action that games of its era love and, to be fair, look like what's happening in the freeze frame reality of the comic book page.

But these are hard things to resolve. You got folks who can dodge lasers going toe-to-toe with everyday schmoes.

I've seen games absolutely destroy themselves on this dilemma.

Point buys that make you a fool for purchasing anything but super-speed.

Initiative systems that have you sitting in a corner for hours waiting for the speedsters to finish their 10,000 turns.

Here's how VINDICATORS tackles it.

Action is split up into Phases.
> Phases are split up into Rounds.
>> Rounds are split up into Acts.

Everyone gets a number of Rounds in a Phase equal to their Speed. Normal folks have a Speed of 1, so, you know, one round/phase.

That's straight forward, so far.

The order you do this in is based on your initiative, which is just a roll fo d20 times your Speed. Again, pretty straightforward.

In each round, you get one act for each pair of limbs you have.

Wait, what?

So you've if you've got two arms and two legs, you've got two Acts. Congrats, but Doc Ock's got two more Acts per round on you!

Here's the thing, an Act is something you're doing with those limbs. You can't perform the same type of Act twice in a round.

So you're probably running around for one of your Acts and punching for the other. Or leaping for one and blocking with the other. Or what have you.

The point is, there's diminishing returns. More limbs get you more Acts/round, but after a while, you finish your to-do list.

Also, remember the STR/PWR/CON biz from before? CON is the amount of STR you replenish at the end of a round. PWR is the max STR you spend on an Act. So if you go wild on the extra limbs, you should make sure you've got the STR reserve to deal with it.

But let's take what we have so far and assume some non-super-powered folks duking it out. These folks both have a Speed of 1 and two pairs of limbs. They roll d20s for their initiative, multiplying them by 1.

The Phase begins.

Round 1
From order of highest to lowest initiative, they each perform their first Act.
Same order, they each perform their second Act.
Round 1 ends, and they both replenish their CON's worth of STR.

We're good so far.

Throw Doc Ock in & he's got a couple more Acts after everyone else is done, but importantly these acts can't be things he's already done & these Acts cost more STR before that sweet, sweet CON replenish at the end of the round.

No Speed over 1 yet, so just 1 round/phase for us.

Let's up that Speed!

First thing that happens is that you get to multiply your initiative roll by a higher value, increasing your chances of going first every round.

Second thing that happens is that you now get extra rounds in the phase. You get as many as you have Speed.

Everyone goes in the first round. Then only those with Speed 2 or higher going in the second round. And so forth. So super speed doesn't mean you get a bunch of punches in before everyone else. It means you get a bunch of punches in after everyone is done.

Speed doesn't affect the number of Acts you have per round, but of course you get to act in the new rounds, so that's good. Also, new rounds means new CON replenishes. But you only get CON replenishes in rounds you can & HAVE acted.

Here's the hook, and it's a good one.

You get those extra rounds if and only if the Acts you take in those extra rounds duplicate the first round.

You run up to someone and punch them in the first round, you need to run up to someone else and punch them in the second, if you want to take that second round.

You want to run up to someone and punch them a whole bunch of times in a row, you need to spend your first Act in round 1 to run up them and your second Act on punching them. Then you're done for that phase! You have to wait until the next phase to start punching them a lot.

This, plus a few shortcuts for packaging a series of such punches into a single roll as well as giving slower folks a chance to defend against such a flurry with a single roll, makes it all seem far more manageable.

Speedsters get all these extra things they can do, but only if they're part of a single idea.

"I'm going to run towards the machine guns, dodging every single bullet I can."

"I'm swooping through the guard towers, snatching their radios as I go."

But when you switch tactics, everyone gets to jump back in again. And if you're doing the same thing over and over, you can roll it all up into one package if doing them individually isn't interesting.

Anyway, that's what my design brain got all excited about. A nifty 1988 solution to a persistent 1988 problem.

Now I'm eager to read the PAIN rules!