Editing Setting:HR Giger's Dark World (section)

==Mechanics==
Still under construction, but hopefully it will be a system that allows for both adventure and survival horror.
(millitary sci-fi/action too?)
===Wammnebu Suggestions and Methodology===

Some ideas for setting up the combat system. Will be filling out over time. Everything is still brainstorming so i will figure out how the stats actually work later.
==== General Guides ====
A couple guiding ideas im working with.
;Easy to adhoc
This is a game that is going to have a lot of ideas and creative monsters and creatures to it, whether developed by SavageReaper, based on the Game, as well as created by the GM. As such we need a system that lets players improvise and the GM make decisions on the fly, and be able to stat and resolve things quickly.
;Emphasize the Survival horror aspect of the game.
Essentially I want to make running away fun. For most of the game, characters should be out of their depth with these monstrous beings and trying to find more clever ways around the problem. 
;Madness is its own reward
:Trying to avoid a "sanity" meter. Instead of Lovecraft’s "Oh it’s so awful I can’t describe it" we are going to go for the idea that madness is you acclimatizing to the Dark World. Which means when you go back you are going to come back changed. I’m thinking particularly of Isaac Clark's character arc in the Dead Space series. As we progress through he does reach the point where he is just effortlessly killing all of these monsters, but Isaac himself is now a broken man.

==== Core problem with making Darkseed an rpg ====

I think if there was a key obstacle to making an RPG about an HR Geiger universe unlike say Lovecraft, is that HR Giger is not a writer, he is a visual artist. Which means we have to translate his visual language into something that works in a primarily auditory and conversational format like a tabletop RPG. Its not going to be enough to have HR Giger art in the splat books, we are going to have to find ways to make the characters feel uncomfortable and lost in Geiger's world without having to put unnecessary burden on the gm to have to describe everything unneccessarily.

I would love to bounce ideas back and forth on this, because i suspect one of the key issues we are going to run into is that we need some effort in the mechanics, objects, rules and society of the dark world. Objects cant just look weird they have to behave weird as well. your character has to react weirdly, and acclimatizing to the world should come at a cost.
====Other influences to draw from====
I don't think it would hurt to draw from other, similar, sources besides HR Geiger, so long as they don't overwhelm the main source material.
;David Cronenberg
:Fairly obvious one, but definitely one of the major designers and producers of Biomechanical objects (though it might actually be closer to mechano-biological). Im thinking of eXistenZ and VideoDrome in particular
;Prometheus
:I don't care about the hate, I really like this movie, especially the art style.
;Tarsem's The Cell
:Another good aesthetic
;40k
:Im pretty sure its an open secret that WH40k's Admech, Dark Mechanicum, and Tyrannids has some very heavy inspiration from Giger
;City of Lost Children
:French Children's classic has a lot of useful ideas for inspiration.
;doom 
:you can easily tell that doom has some giger influnces, especially in the hell levels.
;terminator 1 & 2 
: The future scenes can help craft our vision of a war-torn dark world and the terminators themselves have some nice design elemrents like the t-1000's liquid metal body and the t-800's metal endoskeleton.
;quake 
:quake 1 has many gothic influences and the antagonists of quake 2 are cyborgs called the strogg and there couid be some useful ideas there.
;blood
:the game has many giger influences but its most blatant one is the penultamate level of episode 4: in the flesh this level is litterally made of flesh and incorporates many giger-esqe elements
;ailen (duh)
:giger literally designed the xenomorph for alien and parts of the nostromo also he derived the basic shape of the ailen from an earlier painting: necronom iv 
;tyrian
many of the planetary environments in this vertically scrolling shooter have a biomechanical influence

====Stories over stats====
So instead of a player picking stats as numbers, they build the character similar to how Mount and Blade does it. You choose certain events in the character's life (or pick it randomly). These events lead to different stats being added to the character's sheet. We will eventually make a list of major character events that will include childhood events to illnesses that will have appropriate stats and roll modifiers. If something isn't mentioned, the GM will have discretion on how to stat it. Personally, I think it would be important that players not really know how their abilities and personalities work in the Dark World to continue to have that sense of discomfort. They should be encouraged to guess its effects and be (un)pleasantly surprised. Essentially where other games would stat these, these would now be feats.

===Power of Senses===
HR Giger's work seems to imply a lot of sensation, so how it affects your hormones and senses should be a major component of the game. So perhaps instead of the regular RPG stats (SPECIAL/SDEIW/etc) we stat their ability to recieve sensation. Essentially we make perception our only stat, and break it up. 
====Sensation Levels====
For the sake of simplicity we will have only 5 levels (Null, Dull, Normal, Acute, Ascended)

;Null
:This character does not have this sensation, for better or worse.
;Dull
:This character's ability to perceive with this sensation is blunt, impaired, or juvenile.
;Normal
:This character's operates within an average human's ability.
;Acute
:This character's sensation is unusually strong, but not abnormally so
;Ascended
:This character has an unnatural awareness of something.

Dull, Normal, and Acute are the standards for most human. Null represents an impediment or injury, while Ascended is a supernaturally heightened sense.

=====Using Sensation in Skill Checks=====
When using sensation in rolls different levels will permit different Dice to be used (resulting in a higher range of success).

* Null: D0 (automatic Fail)
* Dull: D4
* Normal: D6
* Acute: 2D6
* Ascended: 3D6

Success or failure will follow this chart:
*'''1-2:'''Failure
:Nothing or worse than nothing. Character may take sensory damage.
*'''3-4:'''Cursory or basic insight
:Something you can learn without paying much attention
*'''5-10:'''Exceptional insight
:Your has some unique insight into the object that only a finely trained person would know. The character can make the sorts of deductions and insights Monk or Sherlock Holmes could.
*'''11-15:'''Unnatural insight
:Your character's sense starts being able to reveal information you would normally be able to require other senses for. Think all of the bullshit abilities Daredevil's sense of Hearing and Smell can do.
*'''16-20:'''Incredible insight
:The "Sweet Spot" You will learn something extraordinary. That could help you down the line.
*'''20-24:'''Forbidden insight
:There is such a thing as learning too much, in a sense this is both a critical failure and a critical success, you will get something useful out of this, but you may also learn something that wasn't yours to know. The character will take sensory damage.

''Example''
Touch Check - your hand touches a table
;Failure
:You slam your hand against the table, your hand hurts
;Cursory Insight
:The table is made of wood
;Exceptional insight
:You can tell about the construction and durability of the table, you can feel the weathering on one side, and can tell that a heavy squareshape object was placed on the lower right hand side of the table. 
;Unnatural insight
:From the stress and weight changes on the table, you have some clues into the state of mind the person was in when he placed the object down on the table. You touched the residue left by someone and you recognize it as cologne.
;Incredible insight
:Your sense of touch is so sensitive that you were able to feel the shape of every fingerprint on the table. All you need to do is shake someone's hand and you can if they had ever been at this table.
;Forbidden insight
:You can feel the trauma of the tree as it was cut down and lumbered. The nailmarks and scratches give you a phantom pain.

====The External Sensations====
These are your chief sensations that will be used most of the time. The higher your sensational ability is the more "useful" information you will be able to gain out of someone. So in the case of a strange looking creature, you will be able to tell what some of those weird biomechanical objects are for, as well as relate to them better.

The external sensations require sensory organs, and as such you need the organs in order to have the sensation.
=====Sight=====
:The ability to visually percieve that around you.
:*Null Sight - The Character is blind
:*Dull sight - Character has a childlike understanding of colors and shapes, may also be color blind, apropasia, or other visual impairments
:*Normal sight - character has good visual identification skills and peripheral vision.
:*Acute sight - exceptional identification of objects and perhaps more deft ability to pick out values and color.
:*Ascended sight - the great works of art are boorish and tame, and the character can see colors and shapes that he cannot describe
===== Sound =====
===== Touch =====
===== Taste =====
===== Smell =====
=====Pain=====

*Null
*Dull
*Normal
*Acute
*Ascended

===== Pleasure =====
This is going to be a little tricky, I don't want the game to turn into FATAL, but at the same time, You don't have to be an art history major to know that HR Giger's paintings tend to have a deviant character to them.

*Null
*Dull
*Normal
*Acute
*Ascended

====Internal Sensations====
There is very little your character can actually do to affect these stats, but they are in play. These often cannot be honed and have more to do with the character's brain than their body.
===== Empathy =====
The ability to read others and understand their emotional situation.
;Null
:Character is emotionally impaired
;Dull
:Character has a childlike and churlish grasp of emotions. He can tell you are angry if you scream at him.
;Normal
:Character has a firm grasp of human emotion
;Acute
:Characters have high emotional intelligence, and often understand the emotions of others more than person themselves.
;Ascended
:Character's sense of empathy borders on telepathic.

;Use in Game
:Characters would use "Empathy" much in the same way they would use a diplomacy or charisma check in another game.
:Characters with high empathy who are about to be betrayed, will be given a free action and before combat starts.

===== Orientation =====
Your sense of balance but also situational awareness
* Null - Character has problems with vertigo, and severe orientation problems 
* Dull - Character struggles with theirw own sense of balance and is constantly  tripping over objects 
* Normal - An average sense of balence and situational awareness 
* Acute - Character has phenomenal balance, will likely be more capable at complicated athletics, as well as a heightened sense of alertness 
* Ascended - Character is attuned to the changes in the atmosphere and in the world around him. This might 
even be a sense of Magnetolocation or electrolocation.

;How it will be used
:Orientation will be used along with other senses to determine initiative. Additionally characters with strong senses of orientation will be harder to sneak up on.
===== Time =====
Our sense of progression and events, also affects your sleep cycle, circadian rhythms, and other aspects of the body.
* Null: Character has issues with memory, forms of amnesia, dyschronometria,
* Dull: Character may have issues keeping track of time
* Normal: Character has a normal sense of time
* Acute: Character has an excellent memory and understanding of cause and effect.
* Ascended: Character is unable to forget, every second is stored, every moment recalled.

;How it will be used. 
:Characters with strong senses of time will get an additional action during the first stages of encounter.

===== Temperature =====

====Sensations with Backgrounds====
Certain life events, or incidents will give the character some buffs to this when they meet a certain criteria. For instance lets say a character is/was a mother. The character will have stronger observational and empathy skills when it comes to children. So long as it is within normal parameters, you can use your traits to temporarily bump up one of your sensations.

==== Sensory Damage ====

Heightened senses works both ways. When you take sensory damage, you use the same dice you use for skill checks.