Interlude: Making of “The Unforgettables” - The RPG system

  Throughout the story of "The Unforgettables," there are RPG elements that complement the narrative, which have never been detailed until now. The game system actually exists as a complete tabletop RPG, serving as the primary source for the game layer. I will now describe in more detail some of the elements that appeared during Volume 1. The game layer is only a fun complement to the narrative, and it appears under the other layers.

  Next, I will show all the game tables from the last chapter (chapter 30) and comment on each one when new elements appear, making the first table comments more verbose.

  This table is an RPG "character sheet" about Silas. At the beginning of the table, there's his species, Ebex, which indicates a sentient species that was brought back to life in Gate. Some of his powers are directly related to this, which will be explained in detail soon.

  Another thing that appears on Silas's table is XP: 110+7 / 10. These are Silas's experience points, which measure his potency and dedication to his powers. On the character sheet, there are 117 XP points in total, where 110 come from adventures and training, plus 7 from milestones (explained later). Of these 117 points, 10 are still to be used, meaning that only 107 points are effectively used in his powers, and 10 points remain only as a potential. In the next chapter, the first of volume 2, Silas is expected to have 117 points effectively used in his powers, plus some value of potential referring to what was learned during the new chapter, and eventually complemented if some milestone of the story is met.

  Moving forward in the table, there is a section for the powers. Each power has a magnitude that represents its potency. Each 1 XP is capable of increasing any power by 1 magnitude. Roughly speaking, each magnitude doubles the power's effect or potential, thus being an exponential progression for a linear cost.

  Among Silas’ powers, we have some super-attributes, which are powers that amplify one aspect of the character to supernatural levels. Silas possesses Super-Technique, Super-Energy, and Super-Life. Explaining each: Technique is the mental ability to apply knowledge and to react promptly to any intellectual activity. It is also an essential attribute for developing technology projects and, to some extent, using devices that depend on fast and efficient mental processes. This is also the attribute used for mental precision, whether in the composition and assertiveness of ideas as well as in the clarity of logical or argumentative thinking. In stressful situations, Technique is an attribute that allows the character to maintain several active lines of thought at the same time, allowing the character to have much more time to think about what is happening than usual, as his brain is working much faster.

  Super-Energy is a power that allows the characters to integrate technological energy devices within their bodies. This causes them to produce energy to power up other devices when they need to rush things up. The power also allows the characters to release energy for direct effects such as rays, explosions, or even pushing things at high speed. With practice, it is also possible to push oneself and even fly.

  Super-Life is a power that Silas learned before leaving Metropolis and never trained again. When he found out he was going to venture out. This power increases the amount of physical damage that can be received before Silas′ body collapses. It is one of the things that could be learned at basic levels without the need for training, simply by venturing into Gate in places near monoliths. However, without specific training, this power remains only residual, and Silas never bothered to train this kind of thing, focusing entirely on technology.

  Silas also has the power of Super-Resistance, which came from his childhood in his nomadic tribe. This power grants him marginal physical resistance, and most Ebex in the time of the New Metropolis have at least basic training in it. Silas, however, has never enhanced this kind of thing. Similarly, Silas has the power named “Natural Combined Armor,” which has no magnitudes and only represents the ability of the Ebex to combine their bony exoskeletons with any armor they use, something that Silas forgot to do a couple of times. The power of "Unknowledge," from the Ebex tradition, allows for the "resetting" of someone's mind through social interaction. In Gate, this power can be trained further to facilitate its use and raise the chance for it to hit, given that social interactions amid stressful situations can be very complex.

  Finally, Silas has heavily trained the power “Superior Technology: Architect,” which represents the ability to architect superior technology projects using Gate's advanced science. This power is typical of trained engineers, and in his case, he chose to follow this path from the beginning of the adventure. Liora could also develop this power due to her years studying engineering in Metropolis, but she never invested in this ability. However, her daughter Laetilia, who actually helped Silas in his projects and had access to Liora′s memories, ended up developing this power, but on a much smaller scale. The more you train this power, the faster you can develop any activity related to technology, such as projects, prototypes, and mass production.

  The power "Know it all" is a gift from Liora to the group. It has no magnitude and only registers that the group has access to the vast database of Oioi memories to eventually complement their abilities.

  After the power section, Silas's table has a section on skills. These represent specializations that the characters can train throughout their lives, indicating both their personal tastes and the time dedicated to each thing. Each skill can be linked to an attribute, and in terms of the game, it facilitates the use of this attribute in general. New skills can be developed or realigned over time, always keeping a maximum of 3 effective specializations (characters could have more, but only 3 will give game bonuses). Thus, Silas maintained his focus on his village's traditional dance, which resembles a martial dance, until the end of the first volume, keeping this skill more as a personal memory that was rarely used in the adventures, except in the first chapter when he managed to disarm his four-armed opponent partially, and in the last chapter when he managed to mitigate a bit of his fall using the snow bank as a slide. Silas's other skills represent his years of engineering studies and what he likes to do. Finally, he downloaded some combat memories from Liora's database. She, however, filtered only human knowledge for his trip, preparing for a long time without access to the Metropolis computer network and considering that they would have humans in the group. That is why Silas chose a Kung-fu technique that, combined with the resistance training he already had from his village, facilitated the adaptation of the memories.

  After the skills, we have the Essence section. This only reflects the primary origin of Gate’s powers. Everyone started with Reality essence, which implies that the powers are primarily based on the science and technology of Gate, which is advanced enough to seem like magic. Only Petra and Frank changed their essence after they began to learn true magic. This does not have a direct impact on the game except for how much attention each character attracts. Magic causes Frank to manifest flaming fists and Petra a granite form, while Silas and Liora seem relatively normal. Essence increases in potency over time without any effort or training, but very slowly, and has no apparent direct effect; this could matter if some of the characters start to learn knight′s skills.

  Finally, Silas's table has space to record the number of days he has lived, as well as his equipment and other possessions.

  Liora is a specialist character; she concentrates most of her effort on her physical dexterity, so her super-dexterity power is incredibly potent, actually the highest magnitude power when compared with everyone else. This allows her to experience time in an expanded way. In game terms, this grants Liora phenomenal accuracy, or the option to sacrifice some of that precision to perform several physical actions at the same time, achieving a vast array of strategies to balance precision and super speed. Furthermore, the weapons that Silas makes for Liora use her phenomenal precision to increase their effectiveness and damage output, making her extremely effective in combat. Her super dexterity also makes Liora a character almost impossible to hit with physical attacks. Still, in the chaos of combat, there is always a small risk of something hitting her. Because of this, Liora trained a bit of Super-Life to survive extreme events, as well as a bit of Super-Energy.

  Liora also possesses several powers linked to the Oioi. The first of them is “Structural,” which has no magnitudes and only indicates that she has a structural, not biological, body. This is a double-edged sword: While it allows Liora to use her internal Super-Energy to erect a barrier that mitigates damage, it also allows her to be targeted by some effects and magics that are specific to affect things that are not biologically alive.

  Another of Liora’s powers is “Shardify,” which allows her to divide her mind into several parts and make her copies act more or less independently. Her copies do not possess her powers but retain some of her memories, and in the case of an independent copy, they can even become new, complete characters. The magnitude of this power indicates how many concurrent copies Liora can maintain, and the number of independent copies is always added to this total.

  Finally, the "Superior Technology Network" power only registers access to Oioi's technology network. Liora used this network to enroll in the engineering course. When she left Metropolis, she exhausted her access quotas to obtain project blueprints and sell them in the Paradiso market, thus obtaining the initial credits that were used to pay Ramirez and revive Petra and Frank.

  In terms of skills, Liora created a unique martial training style to use with Petra and Frank, initially designed to train on an aerolito. She also maintained her initial varied knowledge, both of informatics from her engineering course and some urban social skills, to be able to negotiate with people and try to stay out of trouble in the cities where she eventually passed.

  Petra possesses a wide range of powers, primarily focused on defense strategies and, later, some specific magic abilities. Petra's main power is "Super-Resistance." She quickly surpassed Silas due to her training and focus. In the later chapters, this power granted her epic survival abilities, as well as a capacity to deliver brutal counterattacks. Petra also possesses substantial training in super-life and super-constitution, which grants her fantastic survivability against damage from any source. She also has a formidable capacity for physical and mental regeneration, complementing her potential with magic.

  Petra also has reasonable training in Super-Mana, which allows her to cast spells at maximum power almost without needing time to rest, as well as some training in the "Spellcasting" power. In game terms, the greater the potential of this power, the greater the potency of her spells, and the greater the mana consumption.

  Petra also has moderate amounts of Super-Strength and Super-Wisdom, which give her supernatural physical strength and mental capacity. In game terms, strength allows Petra to move more effectively, as well as cause some damage in direct attacks, not just counterattacks, and wisdom gives her an extended memory capacity, as well as the ability to perceive things and relationships between any source of information. Her mental capacity also helps her enhance her teleportation spells, as well as giving her some degree of resistance to magical attacks that might eventually bypass her physical defenses.

  In terms of skills, Petra helped Liora develop her unique martial art to be trained on top of aerolites. She also preserved some military training from her past on Earth. When she was given the option to choose a martial art from the Oioi database to complement her training, she remembered Chuck Norris and chose his same fighting style in his honor. Petra did not use the signature roundhouse kick, but instead, she used some Tang Soo Do grabs that perfectly matched her style and powers.

  In Petra's and Frank's tables, there is a well-detailed list of how each of the spells they have learned works, as well as space to record the active uses of these spells.

  Frank possesses a diverse set of powers, primarily focused on Super-Strength and secondarily on Super-Dexterity, so he has phenomenal mobility as well as the most potent blows in the group in terms of brute physical strength. This combination of strength and some dexterity makes him a highly effective combat machine, though not so efficient in terms of defenses, being far from Liora’s speed and Petra’s regenerative capabilities. Despite this, Frank possesses the power of Super-Intelligence, which offers him phenomenal creative potential and superior mental capacity, allowing him to rebuild relations with his past on Earth, revisit what he knew, and learn better from his life experiences. This power also gives him greater potency in his communication spells.

  Frank also has a marginal amount of Super-Willpower, a power that, in game terms, allows him to give his maximum capacity in a few moments. However, the maximum of his capabilities is not always enough to solve everything. Frank also possesses the power of Super-Charisma, which gives him improved social potential. He decided to experiment with this type of alternative training after learning magic to return to Rocatrista in ghost form, realizing that his time would be pretty limited. He would need his communication to be as effective as possible, especially living in a wholly different world.

  Regarding his skills, Frank helped the group develop their signature fighting style to be trained on top of aerolites. Frank also preserved his life skills, which are tied to his rather intricate past as a frequent patron of Earth’s bar scene. This knowledge allowed him to better adapt to the bars of Gate, as well as nurture a more amicable relationship with more complex characters like Ramirez and his contacts. Finally, when Frank could choose from the martial arts, he chose Drunken Fighting in homage to Jackie Chan; it was also a strategic choice in case he needed to make others think that he was drunk. In combat, he used this style to land some creative unarmed hits to surprise his enemies.

  Laetilia is a rather unconventional character. As Liora's prodigy daughter, she ended up focusing solely on the experimental power of "Super-Luck," which she did not entirely understand, even as she was not fully aware of what she was doing. She loved spending her free time playing games from Seneca's database while, in Ramirez's words, she traveled inside the ship that was "rubbing itself on strange things in Gate." Despite this, Ramirez often grumbled to Frank about what was happening during the trip, amazed at how incredibly lucky they were, at least until Laetilia became completely independent and transported away from the group. Additionally, Laetilia has a large amount of unused XP since she didn't have time to train appropriately, always doing something that Liora or Silas asked. When she had the opportunity, she trained a bit of everything available at Liora's database in an innocent strategy, reflecting her still very childish personality during the first volume.

  In terms of skills, Laetilia has minimal life experience and only has piloting skills, something she has always done and will be very useful in her solo journey. She also preserved her skill with video games. Laetilia also decided to download survival skills rather than combat skills from the Oioi database right before leaving. This is because she will be alone for a while. If things get complicated, she intends to know what to do to stay alive in a potentially hostile environment, a slightly more mature choice, already indicating the significant internal changes she is undergoing at the end of the first volume.

  Another curious note is that part of the material she ordered from Sumas arrived with something strange. They sent her some experimental versions of devices that the engineers used as prototypes, which means that part of the material she bought had significant random improvements that may not be very specific to her needs.

  This table summarizes the powers related to superior technology. It lists the people who are potentially part of the development teams, their potential contributions, and a list of projects in their shared repository. Every technology project starts in the blueprint development phase, where only the "Superior Technology: Architect" power of each person is considered. Then comes the prototyping phase, which always produces one test device with some quirk. In this phase, both the architectural potential and the mental attributes of its participants are considered. Finally, in the production phase, devices are made on a larger scale, and anyone can contribute a little by working on the projects, even using a factory to mass-produce some devices.

  This table also includes a total for repairs, as this became important because the Schrogae ship they found at the Northern Valley outpost was experimental and had many inactive components, as well as some undocumented devices, as they were restricted defense weapons that the city was supposedly assembling, probably to respond to the winged creatures that the group encountered in the middle of the north vein at the beginning of their journey.

  This table summarizes the game totals and temporary notes used by the storyteller in a tabletop RPG as quick references. It includes a record of the Milestones, which are extra points awarded when the group advances in the plot. Milestones work in various ways: when used, the whole group gains 1 additional XP beyond what was planned, and it fully restores everyone's WillPower (it’s the only way to restore it).

  The maneuver is a total relative to the greatest strength of the group's individuals in the front line of combat, usually Frank, plus a combined modifier of the skills plus a specific communication magic bonus. In the RPG game, the group that wins the mobility roll defines the positioning and order of actions when it matters, as well as any combined attacks and the positioning of each character relative to the others. It is possible to partially protect some members of the group (such as Silas and Liora) via positioning if this total is high enough. In general, the group has this advantage in combat as long as Frank doesn't fall and keeps himself in the front line, except by the time they encountered the King’s fighters when there was an even match between the protagonists' and antagonists' physical strength potencies.

  Perception is a vital game total in stressful situations because you can only dodge and protect others from minimally perceptible things. It is also essential in various other situations that define how much of the environment the characters are able to perceive.

  Tactical Insight is an essential mental tool for combat tactics. It involves deciding how and when to act, in addition to a pre-defined strategy. This insight can provide general guidance in the chaos of combat and modify actions to improve a planned strategy. It is directly linked to the group's greatest intelligence total.

  Hacking Defense is a total that only matters from the moment the group regains access to the Metropolis network. It represents the active defense potential that Silas can achieve by using his defense device designed in the last chapters. In the first chapter, Liora preserved a simplified personal device that she bought only for communications made in Paradiso, but it was never needed again. After having these devices active, Silas realized and categorically stated in the last chapter that the Adarian′s power that controlled Liora was not technological.

  Feats of Strength is a description of what Frank's strength can do. As each magnitude doubles the strength potential, when Frank had 1 of Super-Strength, he could easily lift about 2 tons. In the last chapter, he could easily lift something equivalent to 295 quintillion tons if it were possible to apply such force from a solid enough point. It serves more to describe to the reader what kind of things Frank could do in each chapter, given the superior magnitudes that the powers eventually reach.

  The space for Vanguard, Ranged, and Artillery describes the group's ideal positioning in combat. In game terms, when mobility is successfully checked, the characters can preserve this relative positioning without having to spend time or effort moving, but they can eventually change positions. In situations where an attack is not perceived, this ideal positioning may not be preserved, causing the group to lose precious initial time.

  The end of the table displays specific game combat totals, where the maximum and current life totals are indicated (since most characters regenerate, the current total is rarely used). The term Umbra designates the amount of damage below zero required to actually kill a character—if the damage doesn't meet the Umbra threshold, the character falls unconscious and eventually regenerates. The "aural" term is used for other attributes such as Mana, Energy for technological devices, and WillPower. Totals for Hit and Damage may also be registered, representing bonuses for hit rolls and associated damage rolls or totals for marginal hit successes. "Def" denotes the amount of physical damage absorbed by a character’s defenses, while "MDef" applies to non-physical damage absorption. A dodge column is included to indicate how difficult it is to hit a character when they attempt to evade. TP cost and other extras are also listed, detailing specific costs and notes for each character and action. The lines in the combat totals table refer to common actions available during combat, though specific actions in-game scenarios may vary slightly while still using these totals as a base.

  In short, as already mentioned, the chapter descriptions are much more elaborate than the overall game system and what would happen in a typical tabletop RPG game where things are all decided in real-time. The rules appear here to complement the narrative, showing what would be possible to do with these characters in a campaign. The concepts of character and power construction strategies are intended to help the reader understand what is happening with the characters within the story using a game strategy layer that is particular to this style.