It became apparent to me today that FEAR has been holding me back.
 
I'm aware that this is a well known fact about many people so I need to explain a bit more. I used to say that having CF doesn't stop you doing anything - you just have to be aware of the consequences. While 'anything' is a bit more limiting than it used to be (part of which is age), I'm still always aware of the consequences. The recent fiasco with my van showed quite clearly the limits to my energy and I have quite rightly been doing as little as possible for the last few weeks.
 
 There comes a time, though, when you have rested enough - but when do you know that point has arrived? It's not like the body is miraculously 'better'. Me, I use the church. I went to evensong last week and couldn't settle down. My body wasn't calm, it was still off-balance and I had to conclude it wasn't ready to move on again. This week, my thoughts could focus. I was actually intending to go yesterday, to the service of light which is a particularly moving service especially with the quiet prayer/meditation beforehand. Instead I sorted out pictures for playing Rage online! I will maintain though that, although I miss the service, it was important for me that I did something and I don't think I could have found peace today (or yesterday) had I not pushed on through.
 
 I've known I should have been doing things for a few days. I missed a service on Good Friday because I couldn't drag up enough energy to get dressed. Sure, I found myself tired after work but actually that wasn't because of work. That's because I hadn't got around to taking herbs. I was too busy doing nothing. As soon as I took the herbs on Friday, I felt better (no. 22; the tiredness was partly caused by a damp spleen), but by then it was too late.
 
 This brings me back to the FEAR.  It's not wrong to be mindful of the consequences but once you set yourself to do nothing it's easy to go too far. FEAR of overdoing it leads to going too far the otherway and breaking out is difficult. Finding the moment to break the cycle, to actually say, "No, I can do stuff" is difficult and to do so you have to overcome the FEAR that has settled in. So step 1 was doing something, which broke the FEAR barrier enough that while praying at church I could pull it aside completely, leaving behind confidence and reason. At least in theory!
 
 Let's see how it goes.


However, I need to add an addendum. I know there are a number of people I've said I would like to visit but haven't done so. How much of that is reason and how much FEAR? Sadly a bit of both and I find it hard to differentiate. Hopefully I will revisit this subject.

After a nightmarish fortnight for my health, I'm heading back to some semblance of normality once more.

My van problems continued beyond two weeks into the third week. When it didn't start two weeks ago, I almost collapsed - I had been keeping going in trust that I could slowly recover within my usual routine. I took the Tuesday off work, and promptly had 4 hours sleep on the night before.  Wednesday and Thursday I survived by trying to work at half speed and doing nothing else until my acupuncture appointment Thursday night.

By Chinese theory, all the tiredness had led to a weak, damp spleen which had pushed over into damp heat.  However, the acupuncture treatment was so good I felt better (if still tired already), with additional support from the herbs* and I didn't have to cancel the trip to London to see my sister. Late night packing meant I didn't have to do much on Friday, which is lucky since I spent an hour doing physio.  Most of what we did involved sitting in cafes, pubs and restaurants, with occasional walks and Muppets. And it was good. (Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.)

But by the train home I could feel exhaustion kicking me in the teeth. I knew the risks when I went but it was worse than that.  I actually got worse between Monday and Wednesday, returning from work collapsing from fatigue until a short night on Thursday left me with nothing in the tank and I had to call in sick. Unfortunately, my acupuncturist is currently in China so I'm reliant on my own diagnoses and I wasn't getting it right.

What saved my bacon was a conversation with someone in an online game who barely knows me, doesn't know I have CF and was trying to help me with my "lung problems" from a completely irrelevant direction. Except that it wasn't. My lungs were showing the classic hayfever reaction - thick but pale phlegm, no sign of anything in my pulses, not reacting to herbs.  It's the one thing that never shows in my acupuncture diagnoses.  Some prompt application of no.19 solved the problem, with some 24 to help clear it the next day.

I'm not out of the woods yet - I'm not convinced that all the heat is gone. In fact a lot of the confusion was that the symptoms were crossing over. So I need to keep doing good physio, keep taking all the right herbs - and keep doing as little as possible.

* The reminder notes (expanded) for these were:
(22) for Middle Burner - damp heat - spleen damp & deficiency
(21) Upper Burner phlegm with spleen damp

I was introduced to this "spoon theory" and it is a very good starting point to explaining how low energy works.  So read it first then continue below.




I have distinctly more than eight spoons else I wouldn't survive the typically intense four hours at work each day. Nevertheless, I have a limited number and if I do too much I start borrowing just like the theory says. Getting dressed, eating a meal, putting out the bins, fixing computer problems, speaking to difficult people can all use up a spoon. Worry uses up a spoon and I try to avoid worrying about anything that I can't control (but I'm human and quite intense so not always possible).  Yes, being "just in time" is a life choice; or at least it's a very good excuse.

The complication I add to the theory is that borrowing spoons from another day can lead to ongoing problems. In terms of Chinese medicine, tiredness can lead to chi imbalance or heat. In terms of spoons, borrowing reduces my spoon count permanently (exponentially based on how much I borrow). Exercise, looking after my health and not doing too much can increase my spoon count.

Forced to walk a lot over the last fortnight, I experienced why I don't do too much exercise. Because although it increases my fitness and helps my lungs, it also takes energy - i.e. spoons. And any decent exercise pushes me into borrowing.  Normally as a one shot this isn't a problem since I plan ahead and make sure I have spoons spare the day after (and often the day before). In this case, not only was walking necessary without such planning, I only had the weekends to recuperate so my spoon count was dropping during the week; and this was repeated the following week. It got to the point on Monday when I was eating into my reserves immediately despite having chilled all weekend; and then slept deeply for two and a half hours yesterday evening, missing Tai Chi.  My job over the next two weeks is to look after myself to such an extent that I can recover some of those lost spoons.  This will no doubt require early nights and an extra day off work if I can afford it.

Spoon theory doesn't really say anything new. However, it puts energy issues into a form that's easy to understand. The issue in my case is not that I am crippled by lack of spoons; it's that I not only have to watch today's spoon count but also tomorrow's and the next two months. Even within my limited energy, I don't have the resilience that allows other people to push themselves again and again.

And that's not even including age.

I've had a couple of interesting diagnoses from my acupuncturist since my last health post.  Five weeks ago, I had "Yang imbalance from yin deficiency", leading to excess heat.  Normally I get excess yang so the solution is to reduce it; but in this case the yang wasn't excessive but simply more than my depleted yin so we needed to increase that.  For this we looked at no. 26 (a formula I still no little about). It serves a similar purpose as no 23 (to rehydrate the lungs) but I'm still trying to feel my way through the difference.

Two weeks ago, and here my memory fails me slightly, I think the imbalance was gone but I had an element of chi stagnation and deficiency. Something is missing here because I was thinking no.21 would fix it but the key point for me to remember here is that no.21 is too cooling and is therefore more of a summer/autumn formula. Instead no.24 was recommended which is slightly warming as well as the chi-opening benefit.

Unfortunately it didn't quite do the trick. Visiting the osteopath again last week, he said I was better than previous times he had seen me (recently) but in the process of doing more work he released my upper ribs in a way which got the lymph system moving which has strong parallels to the concept of chi. That really worked and for a couple of days my concentration really bloomed. Now it's back to limping slightly :(

Finally, a hospital checkup. My lung function is slightly more than 0.1 litres on down on both FEV1 and FVC (1st second and total volume expelled), despite my vague running (200m instead of 20) and trips to the gym (all one of them, although it didn't exhaust me as it did when I stopped previously). However, I think we all agreed that I was doing more again so I had less time for the basics of care, plus I HAD been to the osteopath the day before last time. Weight was up.

To be honest, the doctor talked about almost none of this. He wanted me to reduce my steroids and this time I gave in; down to 9mg 3/week, and they want me to keep dropping them. The trouble is, the drawbacks to reducing steroids happen slowly over time so I think I will be dropping them much more slowly than they want. Tough on them, but tough on me because it becomes this contest of wills.  It was a "long day" on Tuesday though, 9 hours, and the resulting tiredness put pay to any illusion that I could go roleplaying in Oxford for a whole day. Bugger.

Through all this, despite the fact that my brain has rarely reached it's full level of activity is that I haven't had a single bug since the Christmas break, despite all my friends getting miserable with them. It's so unusual that despite everything else I have to be pleased. So much so I finally updated the church website after 6 months. *sigh*

FVC : 5.97l (117%)
FEV1: 2.63l (62%)
Weight: 94.4kg

Onwards and upwards!

Powers: the list

One of the big perils of a superhero game is that, no matter what the base mechanic, if the powers aren't quite right it fails. My favourite that I've read is Aberrant, mainly because it's so easy to build characters, but the powers were inflexible. It was that inflexibility that made me want to write my own. Having looked at other systems, nothing seems to come close to Aberrant so I'm using it as my aide memoire for listing powers.

1. Stat boosts (for the six abilities in HotB); high values can reduce other abilities; flexibility gives familiarity); most of superstrength is covered by boosting, er, Strength
2. Extra health (might use a different costing tree)
3. Static body changes (e.g. extra limbs; uses different costing tree but should all be minor)
4. Armour (flexibility gives adaption)
5. Forcefield (other than personal-only; flexibility needed for most useful effects)
6. Bolt (any pinpoint ranged attack; flexibility allows trick shots)
7. Explosion (any close or ranged area of effect attack)
8. Poison?
9. Freeze
10. Flight (power determines speed, flexibility determines manouverability and allows tricks)
11. Superspeed (needed to fly extremely fast; covers long-range and fast actions)
12. Teleport (power determines distance; flexibility allows tricks)
13. Alternative senses (any kind of x-ray vision, super-smell etc)
14. ESP (any kind of clairvoyance etc)
15. Telepathy (reading minds, memory manipulation, psionic combat; requires multiple steps, too much power incredibly dangerous; resisted by courage)
16. Mind control (controlling nervous system; full possession; unrefusable commands; resisted by courage)
17. Emotion control (separate?)
18. Animal control
19. Telekinesis (includes TK on touch, which is equivalent to superstrength holding impossible objects like aeroplanes)
20. Spawn (homunculi, cloning etc)
21. Creation (includes creating a single material)
22. Morph (full transformation; change face, transform into animal, grow parts, regeneration, better body; transform others (slowly); permanence)
23. Regeneration/healing
24. Sizeshift (required if changing form requires more/less mass)
25. Illusions
26. Invisibility/silence etc
27. Intangible (power determines which objects can be passed through)
28. Element control (element outside body where action doesn't fall under one of the other categories)
29. Elementalism (element within body where action doesn't fall under one of the other categories; includes immolate)
30. Cyberkinesis
31. Power cancellation

On a quick note, as I was going through my list I concluded that there is no real difference between different forms of damage - except that 'bashing' damage cannot kill in one hit unless it deals significantly more damage than needed.  Lethal will, albeit with a chance for final words.

Despite my diabetes getting much better (with the miserable exception of Christmas cake) I haven't been able to concentrate for about a week. I thought it was because I was getting very tense across the shoulders (even more than usual and even after seeing the osteopath). While the tension may be in a cyclical causal cycle with lack of sleep, I suspect the reason was actually that I was taking the wrong herbs (again). I got rather too carried away with no 14, the cooling herb, and as soon as I shifted to no. 21 (the rebuilding formula) I started to able to think again. Unfortunately that has meant a lot of the jobs I hoped to find time form - not least communication - are still pending as I return to work. But at least by wading through 6 months of buried paperwork I managed to find all the bits I need for my tax return. At last.

While I didn't quite feel up to going to London this year, I did at least last through Christmas not only in one piece but at least a little bouncy.

I had five days of good partying (which is a lot by my standard, even pacing myself through the days) after which I saw my acupuncturist who diagnosed heat. Lots of it. Which is pretty much a good sign that I've been pushing myself and almost certainly dates back to the team away day (see passim). I still don't regret it, but I need to remember to assume heat in future after such a day. It would have made my life simpler and I was silly to assume it was damp phlegm. I was reminded that I don't GET damp phlegm. Still, this does partially explain occasional moments of shoutiness (the other part being natural tendencies); apologies to those affected).

So I have been taking lots of no.14 and some no.10b to cool down my lungs considerably. It's mostly worked but now the rush of Christmas is over I need to lie down and do proper, proper physio because I'm sure there's stuff not moving. But compared to recent years, this is all good. Even my concentration is coming back. Sort-of.

Last time we had a system of 1-10 levels of success for powers, with some vague idea that there might be too much power being channeled. Unfortunately I was struggling to find a down side for too much power in most cases. I mean, oh look, I'm too brainy, or oh no I just smote the Bad Guy too hard aren't really downsides. I hated the idea of creating artificial negatives... and then I realised, we already had negatives in the form of Jacks.  Finally my brain came to the rescue: the downside of using too much power is giving beenies to the ST, to use when you DO reveal a Jack.

Rule: for each level above 5 used, the ST gets one beenie.  These can be used immediately on negative and wild effects.

I was also thinking about finesse and flexibility and realised that, even more than power, there was no drawback to getting higher results so what was the point?  Instead you can buy flexibility, but using it takes time. For instance, using 5 levels of flexibility takes, say, 3 extra rounds and removes a 9, 7, 5, 3 and 1.  Using flexibility like this made me realise that I would still need two suits per player (to allow for degrees of flexibility while leaving enough cards to be drawn) but that they mean the same thing. This retains the idea of having multiple bad, good and wild effects.

To summarise my thinking so far:

• The core system is that of Houses of the Blooded (total x d6, set aside y as wagers (successes), aim for highest and 10 or more)
• Uncatalysed humans can use aspects and style points largely as per HotB
• Catalysed humans can only use style points on powers
• Players have a suite of powers which have a shared flexibility score. The suite also shares face card effects that are bought or assigned (TBD).
• Players buy levels of powers. They cost 5, 10 or 15 build points, with limitations/features decreasing/increasing the cost per level.
• Powers always act before non-power actions. Any number card counts as a success with wagers equal to the number used. Probably add level of power, but level might instead/also act as ceiling.
• Courage results can be used to modify the number used.
• Each power has listed its default range, cost, typical limitations/features and sample uses of flexibility. And of course, what each level means.
• Ranges are touch/20', whip, sight/100', sight/1 mile
• Default time for most powers is 1 scene
• Some work needs to go into working out under which conditions face cards can be dropped. Mostly, removing a Jack should mean removing a Queen. I'm thinking numbers shouldn't be removed except due to flexibility.
• Some work needs to go into deciding if characters can be built that don't have the full two suits as default (e.g have 7-10 of one suit removed). I think it should be possible, but keeping one suit intact.

Following up a previous post, I came up with an idea for a 'superhero' world.

One of the tough questions I've found when thinking about superhero game design is the balance between always-on abilities and activated superpowers and all the variations inbetween. (Then there is the source of power and how gadgets work etc but that appears indirectly in this story.) There was a particular problem that characters who had always-on abilities wouldn't use the card system at all which seemed to defeat the point. While I was thinking about this, my mind wandered into technologies behind the superpowers and how they didn't really make sense when I wondered, "what if the powers were all powered by a small capsule under the skin?".  I'll take another quick detour here.

Once I started thinking about rules for mundane abilities I settled fairly quickly that I was going to go with my current favourite rules base from Houses of the Blooded: if you have two systems they both need to be fairly straightforward; and it also gives non-supers a chance. Unfortunately, Houses of the Blooded already uses beenies ("Style points") which would clash with the ones already laid down. The easy answer was that supers couldn't use beenies the normal way but why?

If you have a capsule that changed people, what if it really changed them? Once you have used it once, you lose the ability to shine without it. It's addictive. It causes trouble. But because it's big trouble, the forces of order and government have to use supers of their own despite the morality. And because it's a device, it can go wrong, be tampered with, be of different qualities. Because it's beyond human technology, it adds a question of who made it. And you can have lots of super-mooks without it feeling corny.

Going back to the discussion which kicked the superhero mechanic off, I felt it would be good for the capsule (now called Catalyst; if you're going to make a MacGuffin, why be subtle?)  to channel energy into its users, a rush that had to be controlled. That argued against innate powers, if not definitely then at least enough for me to rule against them. If you want to be superstrong, you have to let the energy course through you. Which also means the cards are very much about controlling too much power as much about making sure there is enough as was the original intent of the mechanic.

Two years ago (wow! I really don't get out much) I posted some rules ideas for live Changeling. Then I tried to implement them and found the Changeling contracts really didn't work at all in a live setting (or most didn't).  So I started again completely.

This time, players have a number of "Feats". They use up feats to perform actions. Since those numbers are low - 4-5 for the typical character, 12-15 for the most advanced - characters will spend most of their time talking which is how it should be. The original plan was that if you wanted to do something you should be able to do it, but I did build in weak defence to attacks and emotional effects. Hopefully since the results of combat will often be obvious quickly violence will be more about threats or a single punch than mob combat.

In game, players will either have one card which they tear to mark using a Feat; or they will have a keyring of cards so they can reveal an individual card before ripping it. One reason for the limitations of the feats is that they are so flexible and powerful that you don't want wacky things happening left right and centre. Players are encouraged to use their abilities imaginatively and faerie-ly.

In downtime, the abilities are used for quests and other actions. I haven't fleshed out that yet, but hopefully you can get an idea from the table below.

 

Name of feat	Represents	1 card abilities	2 card abilities	3 card abilities	Downtime
Spring	Seasonal contracts, mantle & goodwill	Create rain Emotional: learn basic desire; create object of desire	Heal, grow plants Emotional: warp desire	Animate plants (2 strength, 4 health) Emotional: all-consuming desire	Crafts (flora) Flexible (Diplomacy)
Summer	Seasonal contracts, mantle & goodwill	Endure heat/cold, create light Emotional: warp/create wrath	Attack (Weapon) Reveal hidden, disguised Emotional: cool wrath	Mass cool wrath Attack* (Aggravated, beam of light)	Flexible (Intimidation,  Combat)
Autumn	Seasonal contracts, mantle & goodwill	Bear fruit Attack (wither) Resist fear Emotional: learn basic fear	Leaf form (Flexible: Smoke, Grace) Emotional: Become object of fear (mass effect )	Summon hail storm Mass resist fear	Flexible (Intimidation, Hedge)
Winter	Seasonal contracts, mantle & goodwill	Cool temperature* Remove sorrow Emotional: learn basic sorrow	Attack* (Ice) Emotional: invoke sorrow, remove joy	Summon snow storm Overwhelming sorrow	Flexible (Diplomacy, Smoke)
Beast [Choose animal type] Beast	Contracts of the Den and of Fang and Talon	Find hidden Follow	Attack (Weapon)	Shapeshift (varies)	Flexible (Hollow, Investigation, Travel) Bonus to Hollow and  Den
Craft Wizened	Ability, contracts of artifice & animation	Repair/break complex object (permanent)	Repair/break simple object (permanent) Remote operation (1 action)	Animate object (4 strength, 2 health) Make one-use item	Make one-use items, hollow
Diplomacy Fairest	Ability, Contracts of Vainglory	No describable in-game effect			Diplomacy Bonus to contacts
Dreams	Ability, advantages, Contracts of Dreams	Dream combat (attack and defence) Make a small change to a dream*			Protect the dreams of pledged individuals Weird stuff
Elements (choose element) Elementals	Contracts of Elements and Communion	Defence (elemental) Find hidden (element)	Flexible (Craft - element) Move element	Animation (varies)	Flexible (Combat, Investigation, Craft)
Enchantment Darklings	Contracts of the Forge, various blessings	Change personal appearance (Mask and Mien)	Alter an object or digital record Create small object	Create something from a desire*	Flexible (Diplomacy, Stealth)
Fight	Ability, advantages	Attack (Weapon)	Defence^ (Weapon)	Attack+1	Combat
Fortune (can target other people or objects) Wizened	Contracts of the Hearth & Artifice	Free boost to next action Next action on target is boosted	Wild card for next action Next action fails		Wild
Hedge	Knowledge, contracts of dreams	Identify Hob or hedge plant* Hedge combat (attack and defence)			Hollow, travel in hedge, bonus to Contacts (goblin markets)
Hunting Ogres	Ability, Contracts of oath and punishment	Find hidden Binding *	Resist emotion Attack (any) Follow	Emotional: Check for broken vows	Investigation; Combat
Intimidation	Ability		Emotional: Cancel any action you can intimidate against		Intimidation
Might Ogres	Ability, Contracts of Stone	Attack (Weapon) Feat of Strength*	Defence (tough)	Attack+1	Combat, Travel
Nimble Fairest	Ability, Contracts of Separation	Squeeze through tight gaps, escape bindings, take unseen	Squeeze through impossible gaps, pickpocket unseen Defence (nimble)	Escape into thin air (after next round)	Stealth
Prophecy	Seer blessing, backgrounds, contracts of Omen	1 word prophecy (back only)	3 word prophecy (forward or back)	Wild Substantial flashback	Wild Weird stuff
Smoke Darklings	Ability, Contracts of Smoke	Mask trail Hide at a distance	Hide in good cover Cause blindness	Hide in plain sight	Stealth
Wyrd	Wyrd	Cancel an emotional effect Hedge combat (attack and defence) Change the hedge			Wild Max level of any other trait (except seasonals) is Wyrd+1, +1 if affinity.

 
Spend feats to take an action. A starting character will have 4-5 feats and they don’t go up easily. The seasonal feats also reflect a character’s mantle to that court and have a limit of 4. Affinity feats (seemings with affinity are given in italics) have a limit of Wyrd+2, other feats have a limit of Wyrd+1. Wyrd is not limited but any level above 1 starts giving faerie like flaws to the character (of increasing strength).

Backgrounds are available, some at start, some in play:

• Contacts (area): find things out, get help
• Status (area): find things out, change things; needs maintenance
• Wealth (helps with contacts, den)
• Den (significant dwelling in mortal world; offers protection)
• Hollow (significant dwelling in hedge; offers protection and can have special features)

One-use items are what they seem, effectively giving a down-time bonus. They can be mundane items, weird gadgets, faerie tokens, goblin fruit etc. It can be generally assumed that most of these are plentiful, so only items of unusual worth are noted.
Tokens of true significance (i.e. repeated or ongoing effects) have to be quested for, and generally for a specific purpose because everything is transitory.

Any time an action is taken, it needs to be appropriate. Strength doesn’t help you fire a gun, while Element (Electricity) doesn’t help you put out fires. These suggestions are only guidelines and players are encouraged to use their actions imaginatively. All effects are assumed to last for a scene (30 minutes more-or-less) unless they are obviously instant or say otherwise.

Flexible: Acts as 1 rank of one of the listed Feats. In downtime, costs double.
Wyld: Acts as 1 rank of any non-Wyld, non-season feat. In downtime, costs triple.

Free actions:  if you have multiple feats which share the same action, you can get that action without spending a feat (even if you have used some of them). You need a total of those feats equal to the level of the action+3.  E.g. a character with Might 3 and Fight 1 can use the Combat (Weapon) action for free. They wouldn’t stack with Autumn because Attack (wither) is a different ability.

Raised actions: Actions with a * can be increased by adding additional card.

Free actions: Actions with a ^ don’t require a whole round, and can be used in the same round as another action.

Boosting: Any action can be boosted by spending another feat of the same type. This boost does not change the effect but counters the first card that opposes it (so a boosted attack cannot be prevented by a single Defence). An action cannot be boosted more than once, so if both the action and the opposing action are boosted, there is no effect.

Attack+1:  Normally this means doing 2 damage, but it can also mean capture if the attacker has the appropriate weapon/equipment.

Health: every character can take 3 wounds before they are in a critical condition.  Goblin fruit is plentiful, so generally if someone vaguely competent can get to the character, they can stop them dying. Assume a count-down of a minute. However, it requires the right contract or one-use item to actually heal a wound (otherwise they are lying around not really able to move). Four wounds kills outright. However, for the Lost death is normally preferable to capture.