Mechanics Hacks: Overkill, etc.

Sometimes your Academy and its special powers are better represented by different mechanics than the standard PBTA moves with Miss / Partial or Complicated Success / Success With Style.

One example of a mechanic suitable for games where overreaching your power does damage is Overkill Rolls, which switch the "success" and "complicated success" number ranges. Adding more factors in your favor can put you into the complications range.

A Move may be a good match for Overkill Rolls if your setting is one where corruption or collateral damage result from calling in too much power. Or maybe the consequences of Overkill represent temporary exhaustion from channeling too much power, too often.

Resolving Overkill Rolls

Roll 2d6 and add modifiers.

• 6- : Miss.
• 7-9: Success.
• 10+ : Overkill.

Your setting should provide examples of overkill complications that make sense with the mechanics of special powers in your world.

Not every Move needs to be resolved as an Overkill Move, but it can work to underline a setting where going too far risks escalating your problems, temporarily or permanently.

Tracking Overkill with Clocks

Overkill Moves whose consequences represent accumulating damage to a character or to their world suggest a system such as Apocalypse World's Clocks which advance a threat when enough Overkill points occur.

When a Clock changes, maybe a resource is exhausted or a foe takes action, or the Doomsday Clock ticks closer to midnight. A Clock can have different sized regions for triggering increasingly dire consequences for the storyline's people, resources, and objectives as Overkill points accumulate.

Or the Clock may be personal corruption, making the power more tempting to use, the more you let it loose.

Sample Overkill Personal Corruption Clock: