Donnerjack: Game Mechanics

This page goes into more depth about Donnerjack game mechanics. Attribute comparison remains a crucial part, but there are significant differences from the ADRPG.

Death

Even gods die. True death is near when you are touched by the moiré, a shimmering effect. Death is personified in Virtù, and dwells in Deep Fields. By a tacit agreement, Death will not set foot on Mount Meru to claim a god, so long as that god has not trespassed in Deep Fields.

Haque

Actions in Virtù are resolved through the use of Attributes and Core Personae. For example, if Seaga wishes to create a whale, he would haque (gods don't hack; too coarse) his Proge attribute. Each haque takes one tick (unit of Virtù time). Since only one Attribute is used, the whale proge takes one tick to haque into existence. On the next tick, the effects of the haque take effect. You may haque as you go, but your actions may be disrupted or blocked by other aions. For example:

1. Tick One: Seaga haques Proge to create his whale.
2. Tick Two: Whale proge may act independently. Seaga haques Genius to empower his whale with sweetened charges from Mount Meru.
3. Tick Three: Whale proge is now empowered. Seaga haques Anima to draw upon the Moby Dick legend, making the whale into an even more formidable creature.
4. Tick Four: Seaga now controls Moby Dick.

Haquing a Core Persona means you can draw upon a special skill or power, justifying your haque to your GM, who determines whether or not your active Persona (i.e., the webpages) is capable of doing so. For example, Skyga's avatar (www.weather.com) may be able to haque a lightning power, but can't haque an earthquake or a big, nasty sword. Core haques are always linked with an Attribute, but the choice of Attributes is determined by the GM according to the situation. For Skyga to call lightning, for example, the ability may be linked to Genius (site manipulation) or Proge (creating a storm proge where the genius loci is hostile to Skyga). In a sense, you are putting a part of your being into the action. While this provides added power (and has the advantage of being undisruptable), you risk losing that part of your being if destruction comes. You cannot haque a Persona to more than one act or proge, which makes multiple Personae an advantage.

Avatars

If you have more than one Persona, you may manifest separate avatars. Each Persona may manifest as an avatar, but can draw only upon the powers of that particular Persona. You may bind more than one Persona into any one avatar, giving it more power, or keep certain Persona dormant in your primary form on Mount Meru. Naturally, the more avatars you manifest, the more divided your attention and mana are. If you decide to change your avatar/personae assignments, you must first unhaque the Persona from its manifestation (making it dormant), then haque in the new Persona; this takes 2 ticks.

Lost Personae

If an avatar is destroyed, the Personae associated with it becomes lost, meaning that they may be salvaged by others to add to their Core Personae. The death of an avatar will attract attention, but only those in the vicinity of the death and those that have been keeping tabs can Bid for the lost Personae. The god who lost the avatar may participate in this bid as well.

1. The GM determines who is eligible to bid. Generally, if the aion that lost the avatar has a Patron, that Patron will likely bid from afar.
2. All eligible bidders write down a silent bid. The GM bids for all NPCs.
3. If the highest bid is a tie, the Persona has been ripped apart in the struggle and is destroyed.
4. Otherwise, the highest bidder claims the Persona, and must pay the points.
5. If the highest bidder cannot pay with hoarded points, he can cash in Favors or Seeds. If he still cannot pay for the Persona, he automatically owes the second highest bidder a Favor equivalent to the amount overbid.

Attack, Defend, Disrupt

Instead of a haque, you may attack, defend, or disrupt. An attack inflicts damage on a chosen foe using the appropriate Attribute. For example, a physical assault by an aion uses Will, while a psychic overwrite attack uses Anima. Defend permits you increased defense against a specific type of attack (specify the Attribute). Defend lasts until it is disrupted by a powerful attack. Disrupt maneuvers target specific Attribute uses to interfere with. For instance, Earthma may decide to Disrupt Will against Seaga, whom she thinks is trying to shapeshift, by sinking him in quicksand. If Seaga was in fact trying to use Will that tick, he fails. However, if he was creating a sea snake proge by haquing Proge, he succeeds. Disrupt thus works best if you can guess what your opponent is up to, or if there are enough of you to coordinate your disruptions. Disrupts do not work against Core haques, Attacks or Defends (but a Defend disrupts an Attack). The degree of success is dependent upon Attribute ranks and other factors determined by the GM.

Algorithms

Algorithms are uninterruptable, preset strings of haques, and are bought during character generation or advancement. An Algorithm is minimally two actions, and may not be Disrupted once it has begun. While it cannot be disrupted by others, neither can it be terminated by the aion once it starts. Opponents may make use of their time to perform actions (such as Attacks, haques, Defends), but their Attacks are discharged simultaneously at the end of the Algorithm. Such mass Attacks make long Algorithms unwieldy, even though they amass much more collective power. For example:

1. Tick One: Seaga initiates his Summon Kraken algorithm, which is 3-tick. This tick, he creates a Kraken proge. Skyga Attacks Seaga with a lightning bolt (channeling energy using Genius). However, since Seaga's actively using an algorithm, the lightning bolt cannot be discharged against Seaga or his Kraken.
2. Tick Two: Seaga continues, unable to abort his algorithm even if he wants to. The next step in his algorithm is empowering it with energy from the datastream (haquing Genius). At this stage it is simply a big cuttlefish, not quite the legendary Kraken. Skyga knows what's coming, so he launches a second Attack haquing Genius to create a blast of frigid air to freeze the Kraken. This too will not trigger until the end of the algorithm.
3. Tick Three: Seaga finishes imbuing his Kraken with Anima. Skyga gets one more freebie, so he decides to initiate his own algorithm: Cloud of Death (2-tick), tapping Genius to create the cloud. At the end of this tick, Skyga's lightning and blizzards fire simultaneously.
4. Tick Four: Skyga will complete his Cloud of Death by linking in a Core ability from his avatar persona. Seaga decides to hide in the datastream, and commands the Kraken to stall Skyga.

An Algorithm costs 1 point per. For each Attack, Defense or Disrupt that is in the queue of the Algorithm, double the current cost. Thus, a multi-attack algorithm (4 attacks simultaneously) costs the aion 16 points. It may be worth it to be able to attack multiple times, but it also gives your opponents lots of time to plan a defense and launch counterattacks! Shorter algorithms may be more useful in the long run.

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Last modified July 27, 2000