Wushu Skidoo

"Oh," I heard him say. "There's no wall when I am."

The first article of 2009 is all about the future. Two futures, in fact. It's a strange gimmick supported by an even stranger premise. In my playtest session, the result was a truly deranged mix of awesome and hilarious. Enjoy.

The Terminator, but with Telepaths

In the very near future, the human race does its best to exterminate itself. Nuclear weapons are definitely involved, but it's a big apocalypse. There's plenty of room for everything from plagues to gray goo. Most of humanity is wiped out and those who do survive may not be human, not anymore. Radiation, mutation, and relentless selection pressure twist their bodies and their minds. They unlock strange, new abilities. The most immediately important of these is telepathy, but we'll get to that in a minute.

The descendants of these apocalyptic monstrosities gradually rebuild the world and, at some point in the distant future, achieve utopia. They believe that their civilization is what mankind has been progressing toward since time immemorial... and they don't intend to let anyone screw it up.

There own ancestors, in point of fact, tried to use their telepathic gifts to prevent Armageddon. The Apocalyptics reached back in time and filled their grandparent's (the PCs) minds with terrible visions, prophetic dreams, and cacophonous voices. Buried in all this madness, there was always information: people who must be killed, technology that must be destroyed, and other blatant plot hooks.

Obviously, stopping the apocalypse would also unravel the threads of genetic chance that eventually bring about mankind's redemption. To preserve their perfect future, the Utopians made contact with those same ancestors and pleaded with them to save people, protect things, and generally thwart the Apocalyptics. It's easy to misinterpret these visions as religious experiences. The Utopians are beautiful, angelic figures who put absolutely zero effort into convincing their pawns that they're not The Heavenly Host. The Apocalyptics are burned, mutilated, nightmarish creatures who inhabit a shattered hellscape of unending pain and death. Besides, angels and demons are (sadly) easier to believe that telepaths from two consecutive futures.

The Gimmick from Paycheck

Precognition is a tricky super-power to roleplay. Obviously, no one at the game table (especially a Wushu Skidoo game table) knows what's going to happen. With Wushu's narrative freedom at your side, however, you can fake it pretty damn well.

You should lay some groundwork ahead of time. Have the players brainstorm a bunch of random things that the voices in their heads told them to do or bring, or things they've seen in visions. Put a sheet of paper in the middle of the table and write them all down. For each, throw one die into a communal Held Pool. If a player can work one of these details into the game, they get a die for their narration (as usual), plus the Held die from the pool, even if this means they'll exceed the dice cap. That's a pretty powerful benny.

For example, lets say the voices have been going on and on about Philips head screwdrivers for the last 72 hours straight, so you make sure to bring one along on your mission. Now, say you find yourself locked in a room. Wouldn't it be amazing if the grate over the air duct were held in place by phillips head screws? Or maybe the doorknob? Or maybe you're just supposed to stab the guard through the eye with that screwdriver. Whatever. The point is, you made it look like there's a precognitive guardian angel perched on your shoulder.

This is the PCs' one and only kewl power, but it's a doosie. If you've read (or, yes, even seen) Paycheck, then you're hip to my jive.

However, Held dice aren't the only way you can work precognition into the game. It's a legitimate source of details at any time. Say a guy tries to slash your leg with a knife. Good thing the Archangel Gabriel told you to put a piece of rusty metal in your pocket, cuz it stops that blade in its tracks! You don't get a snazzy bonus die, because you retconned the whole thing, but you still get a die for the detail.

Psychotic Heroics by Heroic Psychotics

There are a lot of directions you can take an HvsH protagonist: religious zealot, mental patient, agent of fate, modern Cassandra caught in the inexorable wheels of causality, etc. You could even play a relatively well-adjusted person who knows exactly what's going on and has chosen to side with the Apocalyptics or the Utopians on moral grounds. Stranger things have happened.

In any case, I recommend creating a Trait for your precognition, something like "Voices in My Head (4)." It makes a good replacement for the usual spate of action-related Traits. No need for Mafia hitmen or ninja assassins in HvsH! Armed with prophetic visions, even a Home Economics teacher can tangle with trained mercenaries and win.

Pick Me Ups

The voices want you to kidnap a kid and deliver him to a doomsday cult. Will they raise him better than his parents? Hell no, but at least the cult can hide him from the serial killers who've been hunting him since before he was born! On the other hand, what will you do when you find out that the child is destined to spill the blood of billions?

The voices want you to blow up a research laboratory and kill some scientists. The fruits of their labors will one day lay waste to half the Earth; you've seen the devastation in your dreams. Unfortunately, the Utopians have dispatched an agent to stop you, and she's armed to the teeth with homemade future-tech!

The voices want you to murder a woman, so that her son will never be born. You'd rather ruin her relationship with her future husband, thus preventing the birth without taking any lives. (Any existing lives, anyway.) First, you'll have to deal with the matchmaker the Utopians will send to undo your handiwork. Then, you'll have to deal with the fertility clinic where she's tucked away an ovum or two...

Next Up: 23 Skidoo!!!