A Vibrant and Harsh Omen

The OMEN RPG is set roughly six hundred years into the future, at a time when the destiny and survival of humanity is unclear. We have become a part of a galactic community with six other intelligent species, all of whom inhabit different stellar systems surrounding Sol.

The ever accelerating consumption of resources, and the catastrophic effect of inter-stellar warfare, has caused Earth and humanity to suffer tremendously. The other intelligent species were not more sophisticated, or had a broader empire than that of the humans, yet all seven of the species has evolved somewhat parallel to one another. As they each reached the apex of their civilizations, their native homeworlds were not enough to sustain the dozens of billions of individuals that lived upon their taxed surfaces.

Thus, the species took to the stars, hoping to find new sectors of resources, as well as sustainable systems that may provide a wellspring of life for the crumbling civilizations. What they found was that nearly every system adjacent was occupied by another sentient species, and soon the process of the struggle over resources dominated the Systems for the next three hundred years.

During this time, the societies that had struggled and climbed to a glorious point of education, quality of life, and civilization slowly broke apart under the strain of the Void Wars. Communication and compromise between the species became more necessary, yet more difficult, as long range communication between the forward forces and their political commanders back home began to dissipate. Eventually, all that was left were the descendants of those military forces and support staff that continued the war. Abandoned, they continued their difficult survival in the Black.

The vast empires had broken apart, and all that remained were thousands of pockets of savage, archaic leadership. New alliances were formed, new civilizations founded, and the majority of the known galaxy's populace now lived amongst the intricate Cosmo Grid, a network of space stations that spanned the distance between the farthest systems.

Few have seen their homeworld, even fewer were born there. The limits of space travel technology have been reached, culminating in approaching the speed of light, but unable to surpass it. This makes space travel extremely slow and expensive, and so the Systems are distant, comprising nearly entirely of the cold, apathetic Black void of space. Were one to travel from Earth to the further reaches of the Grid, it might only comprise of several days, but several years would have transpired on Earth. Families must either stay together, or bid farewell for decades.

The cold reality of space survival has crushed the romantic dreams that had been fueled by their imagination. This has caused the remainder of society introspection and philosophical contemplation, realizing that no great civilization will come to enlighten them, but that they are entirely self-reliant to continue to evolve and improve their state of living.

Wars are fought, but between hundreds of men between station to station, not planet to planet. Civilizations exist, but the racial lines are of little concern, and the localized governments are ruled by those who are able to control the dangerous environment that they have created. Five generations are station-born, and now the dreams are of the wonders and history of the fallen empires. The future is one of pragmatic realism, cold-hearted instinct, and a hopeful yearning to survive, and to thrive.

It is said that the universe has lost track of its destiny. That the tendency for all intelligent life to expand and to control their environment has ceased. That the nurturing, maternal homeworlds have borne billions of orphans with no memory of their mother, their history, or the sacrifices that were made so that they could survive. There is only the daily struggle for survival, for acceptance, and to answer the ultimate question: why are we here?

For many, the answer will never be known. But to most, the path to happiness is simply through satisfaction. Satisfaction that their family is safe, and that they have enough water and food and heat to last them the next cycle. Satisfaction that they have enough ammunition for their weapons, enough fuel cells for their generators, enough oxygen for their lungs. The notions of love and kindness and art are still widespread, and are even more appreciated than they had been in centuries past. The brevity and severity of life have made even the simplest pleasure all the more enjoyable, and treasured.

There are those who would kill simply for a spoonful of sugar, a thimble of honey, or a bite of a fresh vegetable. And yet there are those who cooperate, remain organized, and build a utopian vision of a new civilization, one amongst the infinite vastness of space, without the historical scars that have been so entrenched by their forefathers. There are those who aim to seek peace, to maintain harmony. Yet they remain powerless against those who are willing to kill, willing to strike terror, willing to plaster the blood of their enemies onto the cold, unforgiving walls of their new metallic homes.

A people are shaped by their environment, and the environment of the denizens in the OMEN universe is harsh, unforgiving, and will break those who are too weak to survive it.

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The History of OMEN

OMEN has seen multiple evolutions since its first inception. The original concept was a universal system which would allow players to play within their favorite science fiction universes. It was to be based upon the Open Gaming License and utilize a d20 core mechanic, and introduce OMEN’s interpretation of Powers and Talents, somewhere between Pathfinder, Star Wars Saga Edition, d20 Modern, and D&D 4e.

Yet as the system grew in complexity, the zone between tedium and fun began to shrink and collapse; too many things were added to encourage play within multiple universes and multiple styles of play. While this strategy had been successful with other games, it lacked the aspect of “cool” that we at the Sigil Stone labs were really trying to find. We felt that there were enough generic systems that could effectively mimic popular settings, why waste our time and money attempting to cater to an already satisfied market?

Therefore we decided to integrate OMEN with its own setting, its own universe. Certain principles were established right from the beginning, much of them as nearly idle ponderings during our spare time. But soon the fledgling setting began to evolve at an exponential rate, as most truly inspired projects do. Within less than a month, the OMEN universe was making strides and progressing quickly. Work on the project was fun and exhilarating again, and that aspect of creative rapture that artists and writers sometimes experience enveloped OMEN’s creative producers.

Things in the system had to be tweaked, the explanation behind technology altered and then solidified, the purpose behind the entire game became revealed within the next weeks as we continued to separate the boring from the fun, the good from the bad. Everything seemed relevant again.

As the game began to become tailored to specifically fit the universe, and the universe had been built upon the foundations of the system that we were attached to, we truly believed that we had a contender for one of the best and most in-depth science fiction RPGs on the market. Established design concepts such as Skills and Feats and Talents and Powers all made appearances (read: entire Chapters) while there were over three hundred attachments for weapons, armor, and other utility gear.

The playtesting began again, with renewed vigor and purpose. We were excited and eager to put our creation into the hands of the players, and hear their glorious praise and promise to purchase multiple copies for all of their friends and family. Yet, the game was still slow and clumsy. Creating a character could be in excess of an hour (sometimes far more), combats were dozens of rounds long, and long standoffs interrupted by intensely violent and far too brief firefights were the norm. Multiple dice were rolled for everything, d20’s to attack, two to six dice for damage, damage was compared to Shields, specific Resistances or Vulnerabilities, Regeneration, Squad Healing, and other weapon effects. It became an exercise in mental endurance and multi-tasking mastery for a GM to run a simple encounter.

This is not what we wanted.  We beheld our creation with revulsion; as Frankenstein looked down upon his greatest and most terrible experiment; built for beauty and elegance, gargantuan in size, yet in reality, horrible to experience, horrible to witness. And we knew that if it was not destroyed, that it would ultimately ruin the reputation of our staff and of our business. We had to do something.

And so the system was scrapped. The universe remained intact, and did well to rid itself of the cancer of its most damaging component. We settled on the basic foundations of what we wanted to accomplish, and designed the game from the ground up. Not even from the ground; we dug several stories down, built a deep foundation, and then built the system from there. Once we had removed our loyalty to the OGL, we knew that the marketability of our system would decline, although to rely on someone else’s creation in so fastidious a manner is nothing short of creativity for capitalism’s sake. It felt good and righteous to be creating something from scratch, to be experimenting like young innovators with nothing to lose and no goal in mind other than to create exactly what we wanted.

It became obvious within a few short days that our decision was the best since the creation of the company. We thought of all of the things that we hated about our old system, and all of the concepts that we loved, and we merged them together. Not in a hectic hack and slash, not in a copy paste merger of the digital ink, but with the intention of creating something new that elicited creative play, unique characters, and a fast and challenging game. We hit what many game designers call the “flow” of a game; it wasn’t too intricate, it wasn’t too simple, it didn’t take too long to get started, and the rules were easy to understand and follow. But the key element of acquiring enough “flow” to engender a game where time seems to melt away and all of the player’s focus is squarely within the game world, we had to create a breadth of tactical in-game decisions.

The most modern iteration of Dungeons and Dragons attempted something similar, but with creating “clickable” powers that do stuff to other stuff exactly as it says. In our opinion, they failed. They failed to acquire the desire for creativity that a tabletop role-playing game is supposed to incite. The majority of players involved with systems that utilize hundreds if not thousands of clickable powers, such as D&D4e, not only get bogged down in the choices, but once the choices are made, lose interest after one or two uses of said power. Because the effect is primarily the same, every time. There are certain combinations for certain builds, when combined with other combinations from other builds create a no-loss scenario, and the party can simply run up, clickity click their individual powers, and kill whatever is in the way.

In OMEN, we wanted the answer to be “Yes, you can do that.” We wanted the players to scrunch up their faces in consternated thought, chewing their fingernails to the nubs in concern and anxiety, and shout out with cries of jubilation at success. We wanted to enable the Game Masters and the Players of our system to be able to do anything that they can imagine within the context of the game and the OMEN universe.

In short, we are pretty sure we accomplished our lofty goal. We didn’t do it by adding five hundred pages of powers, we didn’t think of every exception to every rule or possible scenario, we thought of a core system based on simple, logical principles and applied them to everything in the game.

One dice mechanic with degrees of success and failure, and infinite combinations and applications. No classes, no huge leveling system, no need for a calculator. Characters are created simply and possess dynamic options, combat is fluid and intuitive (and most importantly: fun), and a unique gameplay experience with interesting playable species, abilities, and setting came to fruition.

We are happy to present OMEN RPG and we hope that you enjoy. Over the upcoming weeks, we will continue to update this blog with the musings behind the mechanics and the setting.      

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