This is the follow on post to last weeks introduction http://www.ppmgames.co.uk/2017/08/14/roleplaying-sense8-universe/.
The biggest standout feature of the Sense8 world is ‘Visiting’ where each character astrally projects themselves to any other Sensates location when they think of them. The visitations start as short and disorienting ‘visions’ but all members of the cluster soon adapt. Simple tricks like sharing a phone number and then calling it prove that the experience was real and not imagined. It was almost a case that the more faith they each had that the vision was going to work on demand then the more likely it was to work on demand.
So how does this work in 3Deeps game mechanics? Does it complicate the game?
No it doesn’t. In fact no game mechanics are needed at all. As all sensates have the same powers and abilities no rules are needed. The visitations initially happen only at the GMs instigation and he or she slowly hands over control to the players. As long as no player decides to try and break the universe and go off the genre material, and that is just down to the GM to enforce.
How do you play a sensate visit?
When one character jumps into the space of a fellow sensate then although the world (and any NPCs) see the original person, all stats and skills of the second sensate are the ones used in the scene as long as they are there. So you can have one character with a strength of 2 and no combat skills replaced by a character with a strength of 12 and +4 in combat. For the duration of the visit then the warrior type will do the fighting. In terms of game mechanics the only apparent difficulty is the characters speed. If one character acts on round 3 and 6 and the second character acts on 2, 4, and 6 when do they act if they are swapping in and out during the same turn? The answer is they can act on their round regardless. It is as if both are there and acting independently but occupying the same point in space.
What about damage?
The sensate who is actually present will take the damage but the effect of the damage is applied to who ever is currently acting as long as the physically present sensate is still conscious. So in the example above with a strength of 2 and 12. If the 12 strength sensate is fighting and takes 8 points of damage to their strength then they continue fighting but with a strength of 4. If they were to swap out then the current strength of the sensate would drop to -6 (2 minus the 8 damage).
If a third sensate wanted to join the fight and jumped in then they would have their full strength until they took some damage.