One Chance to Be More Specific

In Omnia, the primary building block of character creation is the Ability, which is a vocation or avocation. Characters may start with one to four Abilities. If they start with fewer than four, they may add Abilities during gameplay. An Ability gives a character a wide swath of capabilities. If you possess the Ability of Musketeer, you are skilled at marksmanship, fencing, battlefield tactics, carousing, and any number of things that might pertain to being a musketeer or having a musketeer's experience. An Ability is not a general characteristic or attribute like Strength or Intelligence or Dexterity, although an Ability might be indicative of a character's inherent characteristics. A character's rating as a Musketeer might very well indicate an equivalent level of agility and dexterity (especially if you make your character a Dextrous Musketeer or an Agile Musketeer). Attributes, in other words, can be inferred from a character's Abilities and used as such with moderator approval.

The problem is that some gamers will ignore this fundamental fact of the game and resort to listing their Abilities as common attributes instead of occupations. I cannot stop people from doing this, but I can offer this insight: If you list an Ability as being an attribute such as Dexterity or Charisma, it will deprive your character of skills and knowledge. You may be generally dextrous or charismatic, but anyone who is, for example, a Pianist or a Game Show Host can already use their Abilities of dexterity and charisma respectively in general terms, but they also have skills, knowledge, and connections associated with those Abilities. You are only depriving your character of competence when you focus on general characteristics.

If a player insists on using run-of-the-mill generic attributes as their Abilities, I, as a moderator, will just mentally substitute a generic avocation. Your Ability is not Intelligence 3. You are a Generally Intelligent Person 3. Your Ability is not Strength 5. You are a Generally Strong Person 5. You will be able to test your Abilities generally like anyone with an applicable Ability, but you will lose any tie against a character with a more specific Ability, and you will never be able to use such Abilities to achieve tasks that are the province of dedicated vocations or avocations. For that, you can only use Luck (with moderator approval).

Abilities are so much more powerful than attributes. Lean into it.

Wise Allocation

Omnia does not use random character generation, although I am not opposed to providing a form of it as an optional method of character creation. Instead, I have chosen the point allocation method for determining Ability ratings. Initially, I planned to allow points to flow between Abilities and other elements of the rules, but I have decided I want Abilities to be self-contained. Enough flexibility is already present with the potential for spontaneous Ability generation if the player character chooses less than the maximum number of starting Ability points. Allowing players to tap other elements during character creation leads to both power inflation and Ability dilution. I want the choices in Ability selection and competency to be meaningful.

Does this mean there is no exchange between any rules elements in the game? No, it does not. In the current draft of Omnia, Complications serve as a character creation currency that can be used to increase Health, Psyche, or Luck as well as purchase Powers (within the scope of the setting and genre being used). In a way, Abilities can be modified by exchanging points with other rules elements indirectly through the purchase of Powers. (Powers are capabilities possessing their own ratings, which are used in coordination with appropriate Abilities.)

This enables Omnia to maintain the integrity of the Ability microsystem without sacrificing flexibility during character creation.

P.S. I realize this article will make little sense to anyone but me until I release Omnia in some form or other, but for now it serves as another installment of design notes recorded for posterity.

Luck Happens

In some role-playing games, you earn Luck for accomplishing something, and you spend Luck either to accomplish something or to improve yourself so you can accomplish things. That doesn't sound like luck to me. It sounds more like experience. You don't earn luck—you're just lucky. It isn't karma. It isn't brownie points. It's just dumb luck that can happen to anyone at any time, and it can be good or it can be bad. So, maybe "Luck" isn't a good term for this kind of metacurrency. Karma is great for Marvel Super Heroes and Brownie Points are perfect for Ghostbusters, but Luck should literally be the result of actual luck, as in chance.

Luck already happens in any game with a randomizer. You roll the dice. You flip the coin. You spin the spinner. The result is pure luck. If you want a rule where you can gain Luck and use it later without stepping on the experience system's toes, you need to make sure that Luck is always acquired purely by chance.

As an example, consider any game that has a rule for critical success or critical failure. You could make a house rule that any critical success (or critical failure, or both) grants the player a point of Luck they can use later for whatever they are allowed to do with Luck. For a game with a dice pool system, perhaps there is a unique die that grants a point of Luck whenever a specific side comes up. For a card game, it's the Joker. If you're lucky, you get a Luck point.

What you can do with Luck points depends on the game, but the one thing it should never let you do is increase your skill/ability/level. That is the realm of experience, not luck. Luck that is gained should be spent on lucky breaks. Even as a resource, it should remain within its own ecosystem.

All of this has me reevaluating the metacurrency in Omnia.

The Arcade Style

There is one genre where experience levels can be justified in Omnia, and that is the genre of video games. Yes, I know video game developers derived the "level up" concept from the earliest real role-playing games (primarily D&D), but I think levels make more sense in video games and the role-playing games adapted from them. Levels and the points needed to achieve them become an element of the game world itself as experienced by the characters—or it can be, and to good effect, I think. There might be room after all for levels, points, and even power-ups in an alternative Omnia arcade.

Improving Improvement

I have re-examined the rules of character development and, after briefly entertaining the possibility of directly linking the Luck metacurrency to improvement, I have decided to separate them. Luck remains an easy-come-easy-go resource that players can use freely when they feel the need. Character development will be based on what characters do during and between adventures. For those who seek a random element and slower progression, an optional rule can be added that requires a check (or "test" as it is called in Omnia) after the conditions for improvement have been met.

The temptation lingers to add another alternative for advancement along the lines of accumulating experience points. The concept is familiar and easy to grasp, but it is a remnant of the early hobby that interferes with immersion and requires an amount of bookkeeping I prefer to avoid. It's fine for certain games, especially those that are concerned with traditional character classes and levels, but it runs counter to the spirit of Omnia. I want to encourage player characters to pursue personal goals and group objectives within the setting. I do not want them to be distracted by the abstract point values of treasure, foes, or miscellaneous activities and how many points they need to level up or increase a skill.

I am striving for simplicity and verisimilitude.

As Luck Would (or Would Not) Have It

The Luck score in Omnia has changed and will possibly change again, but one thing it will never be is a reality-altering superpower like "The Force" in Star Wars or an authorial metacurrency in a story game. They have their place in their respective spheres, but this is not the way of Omnia. Instead, Luck is an intangible combination of circumstances and willpower, or Fortuna and bloody-mindedness, that occasionally enables people to exceed their normal capabilities, avoid catastrophe, and possibly even make a major breakthrough. I think this is something that accelerates the gameplay without breaking immersion. We shall see...

Omnia Update 2025-04-21

The question of the moment is: When I am writing unofficial material that will be available to all for free, do I publish it in Omnia Pro Omnibus or do I create another Omnia blog for this material? Should I have two blogs with no known readership, thus doubling nothing? Is there a point to this? Probably not. Carry on.

Omnia (Tentative) Progress Report 2025-04-09

Contrary to the last progress report, Omnia was not ready for playtesting in April of last year, and I continue to combat my perfectionism, but I think I have overcome one of the most daunting hurdles in designing this game (combat) and will be able to start playtesting before the summer solstice. If I fall short of this deadline, you are welcome to reprimand or console me in the comments.

Be seeing you...

Distinguishing Results

Because of the kind of person I am, I invariably concern myself with style choices of which most readers are unaware. I care about such things because it has an impact on clarity, and clarity is paramount in good rule-writing. As I have agonized over optimal game notation for Omnia, I have become aware that I do not have a clear way of indicating when a number refers to an actual randomly generated result as opposed to a rating such as Ability or Difficulty. If I don't resort to any of the game notation gimmicks I have been toying with, it stands to reason (in my mind, at least) that something should at least distinguish a result from other numbers. I could enclose it in quotation marks, but this becomes tiresome if it is nested in a quotation. I have decided, for now, that it would be best to italicize results. For example:

• Jane Doe tests her Ability as a Pole Vaulter 4 versus a Difficulty of 2 and scores a 3.
• Jeremiah Doe, Brawler 4, throws a punch and scores a 1.
• Jedediah Doe, Veteran Infantryman 3, defends with a 2.
• "I'll use my Ability as a Cat Burglar 5 to deactivate the alarm. The Difficulty is 3? I scored a 4."
• "Test your Botanist 4 Ability. The Difficulty is 3. You scored a 3? The plant is clearly extra-terrestrial in origin."
• "The Difficulty is 3? I'll use my Ability as an Armorsmith 4. I scored a 2 and I'll spend 1 point of Luck to bring it to a 3."

(You will note I avoid using terms such as "roll," "throw," "shake," or "toss" because the randomizers used in Omnia could take a variety of forms from coins to dice to cards to anything that can be used to generate a binary result.)

Is this style choice helpful?

Last Year Was Not the Year

Last year was an abysmal year for resolutions, as "This Will Be the Year" now attests. This year, I have completely abandoned resolutions, quotas, and deadlines regarding my involvement in the hobby whether it's running games, playing games, creating games, or blogging. I would very much like to be involved in every aspect of the hobby, and I would devote the majority of my free time to its pursuit if I could, but circumstances are currently unfriendly to my ambitions. I will try to remain involved, but I can make no promises. Granted, it would be easier if I knew I had actual readers, but that's life on the edge of the void.

Peace.