Character Creation Options
As a system that uses classes, LUMEN games follow character creation steps that are familiar to those who have played games with classes, playbooks, or other similar features. However, you may find that you prefer an alternative method of character creation. I’m going to tell you about two ways you can design your LUMEN classes in terms of character creation.
The traditional way is for each class to be its own island. It is a prepackaged selection of Health, Resources, Powers, and anything else your classes need. When a player selects that class, they know exactly what they are getting into. The Powers and other features are set, and while they may be able to be improved through character advancement, they won’t change much beyond that.
This approach is how NOVA works. Each exo has a selection of Powers that predefine the class. This expedites character creation, and helps keep players focused on what their character does best. The learning curve is drastically reduced, they just need to learn their 3-5 Powers and they are good to go!
An alternative method is what I call the ala carte approach. In this method, players choose a class framework that provides Health and Resources, and then they choose 3-5 Powers that they want to have from a longer list.
This method definitely is a more involved character creation process, but it allows players to really craft the badass they want to be. A superhero game would be great for this approach. Rather than having to choose the “Speedster” class and having 3-5 speed related Powers, you might want 1 speed power, a little telekinesis, some super strength, and maybe cloaking technology. Boom, now you have a very unique superhero, totally different from the other players.
Neither of these methods is better than the other inherently, they should be reflective of the themes and goal of your LUMEN game. When considering which one to use, you need to also consider your work load. Using the first method means creating a handful of very thematic classes. You may find it easy to create Powers for a themed class, or you might find it restrictive. The second method requires you to come up with a much longer list of possible Powers the players can “shop” from. You want to make sure they are all somewhat equally enticing, otherwise you’ll see all your players choosing the same small set of Powers.
Combat
LUMEN games are combat focused. Be it gunfights in the wild west, slashing swords through hordes of demonic forces, or hopping in your exosuit and raining hell down on your foes, you’re going to fight.
When a fight breaks out between the PCs and their enemies, it’s called a Battle.
Tactical-Lite
Combat is meant to be fast and lethal. Players will not have long drawn-out turns, and the enemy forces will do their best to try and react to the oftentimes overwhelming power of the PCs. You don’t need a map, since movement and specific distances are not measured. Instead, players will take turns snapping the camera around the battlefield as they each do something awesome.
Rounds & Turns
The progress of Battles is tracked with Rounds and Turns. During a round, each PC will get a chance to act, making up their turn, afterwhich the GM will take their turn, ending the round. This cycle is repeated until the Battle is over, usually with the PCs standing over the corpses of their enemies.
Player Turns
PCs take one action during their turn, and can move freely. What is an action? Usually it is attacking the enemy, resolving the attack with the core mechanic based on what Attribute best describes the approach. It could be other things too. For example, trying to break open a door while your allies hold back waves of enemy forces is an action.
The one exception are the Powers. Using a Power does not use up the PCs action. So long as they have the Resource to spend, they can use their Powers alongside other attacks.
Why? Two reasons. First, Powers do not require rolls. Second, the Powers are the opportunity for the players to show off, and sometimes being able to string together a weapon attack alongside a Power feels very very cool.
That’s the default setting for LUMEN. However, I mentioned earlier you need to make a decision about this when it comes to using Powers. You may find that allowing unrestricted use of Powers messes with the “action economy” of the game. It does, obviously, but that’s intentional. If that doesn’t fit the style you’re going for, then restricting it to one Power use per turn, or even having the Powers count as actions is always an alternative you could consider.
GM Turn
The GM isn’t sitting idly while the PCs take turns demolishing their enemies. Remember the core mechanic? On any roll that 1-4, there is some sort of consequence or complication. When that happens, the GM uses their enemy forces. However, we’ll get to what that looks like when we talk about enemies a little later.
After every player has had their turn, the GM does two very big things.
♢ Change the Battle in a big way
♢ Generate Drops
Both of these steps are so very important to LUMEN games. The enemies are going to get their asses kicked, again and again. But they won’t go down quietly. The GM Turn brings a big change to the battlefield. You should encourage the GM to do something big when they have this opportunity. What’s a big change? Lots of options, depending on your setting:
Alarms go blaring and reinforcements are on their way
Enemy switches their tactics
A new enemy type shows up, resistant to the PCs approaches so far
The environment changes suddenly (blow the airlock)
The important thing is that the change is big, so that the PCs have to change their tactics. They want to feel powerful, but it gets boring if they can wipe the floor with no real opposition. Write your GM’s Turn to reflect the sorts of things the GM should do to turn the PC’s approach on its head.
The GM Turn also involves generating Drops. Drops are taken from video games, when enemies die and they conveniently leave behind little blobs of health, ammo, energy, whatever you might need. Enemies in LUMEN games are filled with that stuff.
At the end of the round and wrapping up the GM’s Turn, the GM rolls a d6 for each enemy that died and generates a Drop for them depending on what fits your game. Most typically this is Health and the Resource, usually with a 50/50 split on the likelihood either is Dropped. For example, in NOVA, a roll of 1-3 creates a Health, and a 4-6 creates an Energy.
Players then quickly decide who wants what, update their sheets, and go right back to their turns demolishing the enemy forces.
What Drops you include will depend on your setting and what you’ve included. You may have a third thing that can be generated, or you may want to change the likelihood a particular thing is created. For example, if you want the players to feel really powerful, but damage is still scary, maybe make it so that Health only is created ⅓ of the time, and otherwise they are getting lots of Energy.
By combining both of these elements of the GM’s Turn, you will create a game that allows the players to continuously feel badass and powerful, but in new ways that will continue to challenge them so that it doesn’t become tedious.
Why Rounds & Turns?
If LUMEN games are fast, why use rounds and turns at all? Why not follow the path of the more narrative RPGs and just do what makes sense based on narrative positioning?
Two reasons. One, I’ve always honestly found those systems to not be as intuitive for combat. You may love them, and more power to you. But they aren’t for me if I’m running a game that is mostly focused on fighting.
Second, rounds and turns are oftentimes linked to Powers and weapons. Some Powers are effective “until your next turn” for example, and you need a way to track that. Some weapons allow you to deal “more damage against the target until the end of the round”. We need to track these things, so we need rounds and turns.
Range
Because movement isn’t measured specifically and we don’t need maps, we distill range into abstract distances. Every character is a relative distance from one another, and from other locations. LUMEN games usually require three abstract ranges:
Close: In melee, or a few steps away
Near: Across the room, a quick sprint can get there
Far: Anything beyond that
You may want to tweak those distances and descriptions based on what makes sense for your setting.
Since movement isn’t measured specifically, these ranges can be a helpful way to determine how far a character can move. Typically, rules in LUMEN games allow a character to move from one range band to the next. For example, your enemy is at Near distance right now, but you want to close the gap and stab them. Moving from Near to Close is totally reasonable for most characters. Linking movement to range like this is especially important in games where positioning is important. But if your characters are flying through the air, or incredibly nimble, you might not want to couple the two.
Harm & Death
When characters in LUMEN games attack each other, they deal Harm. Harm is measured as flat numbers, not variably. That means an attack deals 2 Harm for example, not 1d6 Harm. You always know what you are capable of.
Harm is taken away from the character’s Health. When an enemy character reaches 0 Health, they are dead, and generate that drop during the GM’s Turn. When PCs hit 0 Health, you have to consider what the “death” penalty is going to be in your game. As I mentioned earlier, in some of my LUMEN games it means the corruption of the characters, or losing access to certain Powers until the mission’s end.
Final death for PCs is not the default setting in LUMEN, unless you really want it to be.
Making Combat Your Own
What I’ve described is the most typical way LUMEN games run combat, but hopefully you see places where you can make changes to fit your game. As a quick rundown, consider these things:
- Action Economy: What counts as an action?
- Powers: What are the limitations to using them in combat?
- Range & Movement: Are the three bands enough? Is movement free or defined?
- Drops: What do you need, and how often should it generate?