Mass Effect: Apocalypse

I noticed the link to the Infiltrator character sheet on the Obsidian Portal wiki 404s.

I am very excited to run this. Thanks for making it!

Now that I've had a chance to take a closer look at the rules, I wanted to chime in to offer a suggestion that I hope is helpful and not obnoxious. Namely, I feel like there's still room for "weird" (instead of will) in Mass Effect, and I've given some thought to how I could hack your hack to shoehorn that in for myself (and anybody else who's interested).

Maybe Ardhanari can comment on the intent behind "will" (I may just be missing it), but I am getting stuck in two places with this stat. First, it's not clear to me what it accomplishes that hard and cool weren't already doing. And second, it reads more like a classic "what you can do" stat (in the D&D vein of STR, DEX, CON, etc.) than a "what you are like" stat (in the vein of Apocalypse World, where the stats are otherwise all adjectives describing personality characteristics). And, as a side effect of that second point, this means that we lose an entire dimension of "what you are like" that is kind of important for describing certain kinds of characters in this universe.

"Weird" in Mass Effect is not exactly the same as "weird" in Apocalypse World. In AW, it's most obviously associated with uncanny powers and the psychic maelstrom. In ME, on the other hand, all the "psychic" stuff is actually fairly mundane (explained through sciences related to biotics, asari physiology, etc.). Nevertheless, weirdness is still really central to the tone of a lot of the ME games.

A character who's really good at biotics should probably still have high cool or hard scores rather than a high weird score. A character who's got a really high weird score, however, might be...

• a colonist with psychic after-effects following mind control by a hyperintelligent plant;
• a scientist who has started to go mad after studying the artifacts of a race of spaceship elder gods;
• or even a salarian who thinks and speaks so quickly that other species (and some of his own species) simply can't follow him.

If it helps you to think about it, the "weird" stat in ME could probably just as easily be called "alien." It's basically that which is so strange and foreign that the mind reels trying to grasp it.

Weird still deserves a basic move, but "open your mind" doesn't really apply in this setting. I'd be curious what you think would be appropriate, Ardhanari (and what others think here), but I'm thinking I might start with something like, "When you confront something you never could have imagined...."

All of that said, thanks again for producing this hack, and great job translating so many Mass Effect terms and concepts. (I was really pleased to see Paragon, Renegade, and Fitness still find their way in there.) My fiancee has never even played Mass Effect, but she was super excited by your rule book. She's seen me play so much that I think she sees this as a chance to finally get her hands on it without developing shooter skills. I support this!

Eh, I take it back. People on Story Games have convinced me that Mass Effect doesn't need "weird" as a stat. (I'm still not sold on "will," either, but if someone who's played this hack can describe how it went, I'd be curious to hear about that.)

I'm a couple months into running two Mass Effect games using this system. I've tweaked the rules a bit, namely on the use of Shields with gangs, and the addition / tweaking of some of the moves. Here's the link:

http://home.comcast.net/~of_the_woods/ME/Mass_Effect_Apocalypse.docx

A couple questions spring to mind:
Why do the focused classes get +3 in the primary stat vs the hybrid classes?  Presumably a balance issue?

Yep. The focused classes get +3 in the primary stat to offset their lack of selection when it comes to Class moves. Hybrid classes get two lists to mix/match from, I figured I'd give, effectively, a free stat advance to the guys with the more limited selection.

Is No Shit Pilot a tech or personal move?

It's a Personal Move. The design philosophy was that your Race/Class combo really only matters for combat, while your "role" in the party, i.e. medic, pilot, "face" man, etc. would come from your personal moves. It's not perfect, as there are some combat-y personal moves, but I tried to keep the Personal moves more "thematic" and the Class moves more "battle-oriented"

Some 'balance' thoughts- so take these for what they are worth:
Some racial +1 bonuses will come up much more often, and more importantly can be triggered by player description (e.g Asari) vs say the Quarians, who really don't want to have to use their bonus. :)
Adrenal Rush is way more powerful and flexible than Singularity (not a surprise, as it comes from the slightly powergamey Touchstone) - killing someone disables them for more than one tick.  And yet, the consequences of failure are worse for Singularity.  Maybe consider swapping them?  The Soldier also gets better gear.

Yeah, I find that I'm not over-concerned with "balance" when it comes to Apocalypse World, mostly because the game is very narrative-driven, and all characters start as kinda badasses no matter what. To address your specific nitpicks:

yes, the Quarians will rarely use their Basic Move bonus compared to, say, Krogan or Salarian, but when they DO use it, they'll REALLY need it :)

Adrenaline Rush is, yes, very badass (as is the Touchstone move from which it came). In my mind this is ok since the Soldier is otherwise pretty limited when it comes to "cool" thematic combat moves. Most of what they get are ammo powers. Singularity, however, is a cinematically cool move that has multiple applications, like battle-field crowd control etc. I also changed Singularity in the more recent revision to make it a bit cooler than it was.

I've been running two different groups of five players each, each game running once every other week, for a couple of months now and I've been really impressed with the character concepts / builds people have come up with. The human Adept who focused in Cool and Will and uses the Singularity / Dominate combo really rules the battlefield, as does the (obviously min-maxed) Krogan soldier with Carnage :) But even so, everyone gets a role to play, everyone can feel like they're doing something awesome, and most importantly, it seems to really convey the "feel" of the Mass Effect games.

Maybe Ardhanari can comment on the intent behind "will" (I may just be missing it),

Hey Jason,

Sorry it's taken so long to respond to this comment. My read on the role Stats play in Apocalypse World is this:

Cool = generic stat to roll if nothing else really fits
Hard = physical conflict resolution
Hot = social conflict resolution
Sharp = information gathering
Weird/Will = world-based "thematic" stat / move.

In looking at the Mass Effect universe, it tries very hard to avoid "space magic" by providing at least a technobabble explanation for everything. Characters explicitly state that things like "telepathy" don't actually exist, even if that's what it LOOKS like a particular alien is doing. While I do admit that there are "weird" or esoteric things in the universe, do they really rise to the level of central theme?

What I DID think was a central theme was the idea of overcoming incredible odds, standing up to a galaxy that might not believe you, pulling through no matter what, and leading / helping others through sheer force of personality and bad-assery. That's what Will was intended to convey, the stat that lets you keep on fighting even when an ordinary person would just lie down and die.

I did try to make sure that there were a number of Personal Moves and other options for someone who wanted to make a high-Will character, but ultimately the main benefit of Will is it's a stat that lets you literally defy death. Obviously Will as a stat (and the basic move that comes with it) are devalued if you don't include the very real risk of death from time to time, but even if you're not killing characters left and right, there's enough to be done with it thematically, especially with moves like Paragon or Force of Will, or Dominate.

Hope that answers your question :)

No worries on delay, and thanks for clarifying the intent.