Mutation Nation: EXTINCTION

 Mutation Nation is my current tabletop role playing game in testing, a Forged in the Dark game borrowing elements from Fate Core and Heart: The City Beneath. Its a game about playing mutants, inspired by the X-men. Extinction in Mutation Nation represents how close your team of mutants are to facing disaster at the hands of your enemies.

Extinction replaces stress or hit points you see in other games. Its a shared track, meaning everyone on the team takes some responsibility for it. It also functions a bit like Heat in Blades in the Dark. When a mission ends, the team marks some Extinction. Its always there looming.

Whenever a member of our merry mutants decides they want to resist a bad outcome- they don't want to be pinned by a villain, or they don't want to take a hit or they don't want the crowd screaming obscenities to get to them- they roll to see how much their resisting the hit passes it onto the team instead. Extinction is marked based on how bad you roll. 

The team's image and relationship with others takes the hit for you. So you don't have to deal with the harm now, but to others, the team is a bit more frightening, a bit more of a threat. Shrug enough of it off, and eventually, the shit hits the fan and the team has to confront it.

When the Extinction track is full, the team progresses a bit down the road of story. Because losing all your extinction doesn't mean the team dies or loses. No no, your still complete your last mission and everyone makes it back more or less. To clear Extinction, the team has to experience a Extinction Beat. Possibly more.

Extinction beats are selected by the Game Master when Extinction is full. These are story events, moments, that are bad. The enemies of the team strike back against them, and the Extinction beat is the how. Then we play out how the beat happens and what happens around it.

Death of a teammate 

Mutants Massacred

Mentor is Gone

Home is Destroyed

A New Threat Appears

A new Villain is revealed

Teammate(s) Incarcerated

Incoming Global Disaster

Mentor Betrays the Team

Attacked by Humanity

Extinction hangs over the team under the beat has been played out.  As long as the Extinction track is full each new instance of Extinction means the team has another Extinction beat or another threat is added to the Extinction beats they've already gotten.

I'm not sure this is a finished list of beats yet. The goal are big story events that affect the team. Moments that shake up their status quo. 

Because of how beats work in the system, having a beat occur also gives the PCs all XP as part of it. It also raises the team's Uncanny- in Blades this is Wanted Level, but here its how much humanity loathes and fears them. Extinction is the only way to raise the Uncanny level at the moment. My first thought on reducing Uncanny is for it to be a mission or long term project the team decides to pursue. 

Extinction I still haven't had the chance to test yet.  

The idea of beats- moments you pin down and reward once they've happened in play- I love. My improv GM side enjoys this idea a lot. Extinction beats are meant to be a alternative to death as a stake in the game, but I'm unsure if they have high enough stakes or how they will play out exactly. But that's the fun part of playtesting.

Beats I think can run directly against one of the principles of Blades in the Dark- Play to Find Out- but honestly don't think of them as seeds and prompts, not the same as a pre-written adventure. I might need to expand this list or to organize it better. I

'm also not sure if while a Extinction is active how resistances should work- if having them still mark extinction or if it needs to be something else more dire, like you can't resist hits until the extinction is done. I don't want to have that drastic of a option to reinforce the danger of a extinction, not unless resistances feel too easy during a extinction.

Things to see if they need changed or not when testing gets to it.

Dodo icon is from Game-Icons by Caro Asercion, under a CC license.