Design Log Part 5: Iddhi Conceptualisation

 Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Lab Zero Games and this project is a fan project and is not endorsed by Lab Zero Games or any of its developers and employees.

 

Hello and welcome to a little shorter installation of the developmental log of an Indivisible TTRPG. Today it'll be mostly conceptual ideas on Iddhi and how it could work in the RPG.

But first, the design description for Iddhi:

Iddhi is almost like the Force in Star Wars. It is an energy that is in all living things. Special beings have a higher amount of it, and special people also possess more of it. This seems to mark them as exceptional individuals with incredible skills.

In the original context in Hinduism and Buddhism, Iddhi is a special psychic ability that gives a limited number of supernatural abilities such as flying, turning invisible, walking on water, etc. It is said to be gained from meditating and reaching a certain level of enlightenment. Obviously, Iddhi in Indivisible is slightly more mundane. Iddhi also seem to be closely associated with the idea of being "zen" or having an inner peace or being connected with one's inner self, as is often shown then Thorani guides Ajna.

In the RPG, players can use Iddhi to boost their abilities. It can be used to improve their skills or probability of success, as well as to unleash certain special abilities. Iddhi is not unlimited, and it must be regenerated. Outside of encounters, rest and meditation can generate Iddhi. In combat, acts that are related to sharp focus or being in tune with oneself can also generate Iddhi. This comes in the form of critical or Perfect Blocks, as consistent with the videogame. In Social encouters, reaching out to others and doing one's part to ease suffering can also net you Iddhi. Iddhi is a resource that will be shared by the players, which serve to bond them to each other and reinforce the theme of "Overcome Together". In social encounters, Iddhi gives players empathic abilities. They can "feel" the emotional state of other characters or their other intentions by tapping into their Iddhi. Iddhi also have other uses, such as clairvoyance for certain special characters.

Why write your own RPG?

Now that I'm talking about Iddhi, it's a good time to bring up something in case some folks are curious. The main reason why I decide to spend my time writing up a whole RPG for a universe that I like instead of just using some generic system (such as GURPS or Genesys or some d20 thing) is that I believe the mechanics of a system needs to be closely intertwined with the background of the universe. The alignment system in D&D (used to) be closely intertwined with its universe. The use of the five rings of elements in Legend of the Five Rings reinforce the idea that the five elements permeates all things. RPGs without at least some mechanics that reflect its universe are thematically weaker as a result. For the Indivisible RPG, Iddhi permeates all things, and as such mechanics surrounding Iddhi must be tangible to players almost all the time.

In the videogame, Iddhi simply act as a special metre. Juggling enemies gives Iddhi. As fun as the game is and how intertwined Iddhi is to the main mechanics of the game, the mechanic involving Iddhi is not terribly thematic. This is where the RPG differs significantly from the videogame.

Iddhi as enhancement to Skill Tests

I am considering the main use of Iddhi to be a bonus boost die to skill tests that are made. Readers who have gone through the sample combat will see that the Minor Action Focus gives a d4 to a check, but players still only choose two dice to add together for their score. Initial calculations show that this method improves the chance of success by about 10%, which is a fairly good bonus, but Iddhi use will be significantly better. For the current iteration, using a point of Iddhi will add the score of the Iddhi die to the final Score, rather than being another die you can choose from. For example, if a skill test allows the player to roll a d6 and a d8, and they decide to spend a point of Iddhi, they will add the score from the d4 to whatever they get from the sum of the d6 and d8. So let's say they roll the d6 and d8 and get 5 and 3 respectively, for a sum of 8. They then roll the Iddhi die of d4, and get 2, and add it to the 8 for a final Score of 10. Calculations show that the die as low as d4 has a significant effect on the success rate, as much as approximately 20%. There is a fear that the success rate is a little high (80 to 90% on tests that are the same level as the Characteristic and Skill dice e.g. Difficulty of 8 against d8+d8) after the Iddhi bonus. The Iddhi bonus seem to ensure a "guarantee" on same level skill tests, but give a large improvement on success rate of more difficult tests. I'll have to test with real games and see if this makes skill tests too easy. At the end of the day, it's always the feel while playing that triumph all calculations.

Iddhi in Social Encounters

Iddhi also has a significant role in Social Encounters. In the videogame, characters who have a good understanding of Iddhi such as Thorani seem to be able to "sense" other people's emotions and intentions. The RPG expands on that. Social mechanics will be explored in future posts, but for now, understand that Iddhi could be used by PCs to sense NPCs' emotions and sometimes their intention as well, which can guide the PCs' approach in the encounter.

Iddhi as a shared resource

I was pretty hard set, and still am, that Iddhi is a shared resource in the team like in the videogame. In the videogame, all Incarnations share their power with Ajna, so it makes absolute sense for them to share the Iddhi bar. In the RPG each player is an individual person, but I want to reinforce the main theme of "Overcome Together" and I have decided that Iddhi must be shared here too. Lore-wise, being in a close knit team could create a bond between the members and so they could "feed off" each other's Iddhi subconsciously. This seemed to be evident with Tungar and his teammates in his personal quest, as he was able to feel the presence of his old teammates. I got inspiration for the mechanic from FFG's Genesys's "Story Point" that is a shared pool of points that can be used by players to enhance their rolls or used to create plot devices in the game, but after using it the point goes to the GM who could use it to enhance his NPCs' rolls. And when the GM uses it, the point goes back to the players, and so it creates a "flow" of Story Point back and forth between the players and the GM.

Speaking of flow...

Iddhi Economy

Story Point exists as a bit of a meta mechanic between the players and GM in Genesys, but I don't feel that the same flow works here for Iddhi. I don't remember any instances in the videogame where Iddhi used by someone feeds into the opponent. So I looked back to the original concepts of Iddhi and see what I can tap into. In Hinduism and Buddhism, Iddhi is said to be powerful supernatural abilities one can get if they meditate and be attuned to oneself. This gives me the impression that sleep or meditation could regain Iddhi. However, I want Iddhi to also flow in Combat and Social encounters as well. For combat, I look at Japanese philosophy of being connected to oneself (or what we call being "zen") in combat. My current thought is to have critical rolls (rolls where the dice kept for a Skill Test are at the max values) and "Perfect Blocks" give Iddhi. Perfect Blocks are, of course, borrowed straight from the videogame, but how it functions in the RPG I'm still wrecking my brain over. (And then sometimes an idea just pop into my head out of nowhere. Creative brains work in really weird ways.) For Social Encounters, positive interaction (such as empathy and generosity) could be rewarded with Iddhi. This plays well into the Buddhist idea to ease suffering in the world and be in tune with everything and every one around oneself.

The next problem I had been thinking about is how much Iddhi players could have at a time. If the effects are powerful, the logical thing would be to scale it back and have it be a rare resource. However, that runs counter to the idea that Iddhi permeates everything and its presence should be constantly felt. If players only engage with the Iddhi only once or twice per session, then that reduces its presence in the minds of players. For the moment, I am ok with Iddhi being relatively powerful but used often by players, and I'll tweak things as I go. I expect beginning parties to have 4 points of Iddhi to share among them.

Finishing up

Iddhi is a core concept in the world of Indivisible. It connects living things together and is a mysterious power that powerful individuals can tap into. While playing the game, I hope that players can feel it through the game's mechanics. There is no doubt that as I develop the RPG, its mechanics may change here and there, but the core concept must remain. The more I think about it the more like The Force it is.

The only difference is that Iddhi is not correlated to some organelles in the cells that could be measured. As far as we know.