[Kosmos] Patching up Everway

[Lxndr]

So, like a farce, I wound up stumbling into creating an homage to Everway.

I took bits from Diaspora and deck-building card games, and mashed it up with Everway and the Tarot deck.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ee906vviqa18sf/Kosmos.pdf

There's a lot of whitespace at the moment, waiting for examples of play, which in turn is waiting for me to finally playtest it. Dry runs are pretty solid, but that's not the same as play experience.

At this point I'm looking for a critical eye.

[Ron Edwards]

Count on it! I'm really interested.

[Lxndr]

some random thoughts:

One of the things that disappointed me about Everway was... Everway.

I mean, the city itself.  It had nineteen pages devoted to it.  It was supposedly the crossroads of all the Spheres.

It had 71 Gates.  And at the end of each of those Gates was a Sphere that Jon Tweet created.

So basically there was a layer between what the group might invent (new Spheres) and Everway.  After all, Gates are simply A to B, and Everway has no other Gates.

It never really felt special.  Or central.  The game dedicated tons of pages to it, but also tried to divert your focus elsewhere.

Like Everway is the central city of Everway, Kosmos is also the central city of Kosmos. Like Everway, Kosmos has the most gates in the entire world.  Unlike Everway, that's very likely NOT going to be 71.

but... unlike Everway, Kosmos (and its connecting worlds) are something players cooperate on making (and in turn is something entwined with their characters).  There's only a little bit that's canonical; everything else is from the players.

Also, I never really cared for the whole 'gates are just A to B'.  It made the idea of getting lost in the spheres more difficult to swallow.  I mean, you walk through a gate - okay, so you walk back, and you've made it!

The Gates of Kosmos are different. I tried to set them up such that you could get lost on any particular Gate trip, but also so that a Gate could be "the Gate to X" for the majority of its uses.

[Ron Edwards]

"Jupiter's cock!"

Apologies - too much Spartacus lately.

So I'm thinking that you've solved some pretty important problems with the mega-setting, just as you described, and also come up with a  reasonably evocative alternative to the specific Everway resolution mechanics (man does it hurt, though, to have that cool Fortune deck sitting in the box doing nothing for all these years ...).

However, instead of all that piffle in the beginning about "what is an RPG" and "why cards not dice," none of which the universe needs any more of, I would like to see you address the single biggest issue in the design of Everway: what the fuck are the player-characters doing? As written, a princess has lost her stuffed bear, or someone is lying dead in a parlor while everyone bats their eyelashes and looks innocent, or the crops are failing because the forest spirit is miffed, and most likely someone isn't getting enough love or there's some big misunderstanding. The player-characters are specifically and only there to make everything better, which may involve catching a bad guy but is more likely about clearing up the misunderstanding or encouraging a group hug or both.

In mechanics terms, the game is about turning the immediate location's card up or down; also, a given character may see his or her card turned up or down, but that's an emergent thing. The one for the setting will be turned.

The trouble is, as you rightly point out, that the settings are just ... there, waiting to be found and fixed. Although I like the card-layout format for prepping the settings' problems, there's a lot of player dynamism lies in character creation, and the unturned Fate card for each implies a character arc. Somehow the story is about their arcs ... but somehow it's about the settings ... and ....

So! I'm asking, what is up with these characters and these settings? Are they a bunch of inexplicably altruistic busybodies, Usagi Yojimbo-ing and ST:TNG-ing their way through the multiverse? Are they something else with perhaps a bit more meat on its bones, which is not that some powerful personage of Everway has sent them? Can there be some way of mechanically or conceptually pointing to this using the cards already mentioned?

Best, Ron

[Lxndr]

"Jupiter's cock!"

Apologies - too much Spartacus lately.

Hah.  I've never seen that movie.  Maybe I should.

So I'm thinking that you've solved some pretty important problems with the mega-setting, just as you described, and also come up with a  reasonably evocative alternative to the specific Everway resolution mechanics (man does it hurt, though, to have that cool Fortune deck sitting in the box doing nothing for all these years ...).

Thanks!
(and I agree on the Fortune deck)

However, instead of all that piffle in the beginning about "what is an RPG" and "why cards not dice," none of which the universe needs any more of,

It's two pages, and I like it.
(And given how many people have challenged me on my choice of cards, I felt compelled to add the why cards bit)

I would like to see you address the single biggest issue in the design of Everway: what the fuck are the player-characters doing?

...

So! I'm asking, what is up with these characters and these settings? Are they a bunch of inexplicably altruistic busybodies, Usagi Yojimbo-ing and ST:TNG-ing their way through the multiverse? Are they something else with perhaps a bit more meat on its bones, which is not that some powerful personage of Everway has sent them? Can there be some way of mechanically or conceptually pointing to this using the cards already mentioned?

Because I have Kosmos and the Axis (the central city and its core worlds) - the PCs aren't *necessarily* Yojimboing.

The PCs certainly have had experiences (through character creation), many of which might keep them *in* the Axis, surrounding Kosmos. In other words, as Star Trek, it may be more DS9 than TNG.

But there's definitely design space for TNG style play. I've established the Spiral Merchants. Like Everway, I have a University sponsoring expeditions. Like TNG, I have a "Cardassian" type empire - the Nexus. And while the Old Roads to get to the Axis are gone, there's nothing stopping new ones to be discovered.

And for one-off one-shots, there's always the possibility of the Law of Uncertainty bringing the players to wherever.

But I expect the following elements in design to answer "What do the PCs do?":

* the Visitation Phase of character creation (what formative experiences in the Worlds you made did your character have?)
* the Connections Phase of character creation (how do the PCs know each other?)
* the Intentions Phase of character creation (name your character's goals)

I guess part of the answer is:  I don't expect the characters to necessarily "Spherewalk." That particular structure of the Everway narrative is pretty much discarded - although the door is still open, *if* the group decides they want it, in which case they get to decide why they're being TNG.

Now that I'm thinking about it, if I'd really wanted a more Spherewalker-type narrative, I wouldn't have a Worlds Phase. And probably no lodestones. This game has a lot of arrows pointing back towards the core - back towards Kosmos and the Axis. A true "wanderer" setup wouldn't necessarily include that.

My Intentions Phase is, I suppose, a weak attempt to capture the Kickers of Sorcerer or the unturned Fate card.

I really want to capture the Fate card aspect, but unfortunately, the Tarot deck isn't as fraught with Meaning as Everway's fortune deck. But yeah, that's what I'm missing.

I think if I can figure out something that works more like the Fate cards, I think more things might fall into place. Maybe I can leverage the Tarot more.

[Ron Edwards]

Ahhhh. That felt good to read.

Don't you miss it, those days at the Forge when I or anyone else could rip into a draft with love and candor, and the author would unflinchingly say exactly what they had in mind, in response? No fucking status trip getting in the way? All participants getting their minds cleared, and the project jumping to another level of development, from an exchange that none of the people might have come up with individually?

I get it! Yes, I want to play this, especially if it was as rich in ethnic color as the original. I think you're onto something.

Best, Ron

[Lxndr]

I get it! Yes, I want to play this, especially if it was as rich in ethnic color as the original. I think you're onto something.

The thing about Everway is that it... really wasn't very full of ethnic color. The fortune deck felt VERY western-mythical. And the elements (Air/Earth/Fire/Water) are definitely Aristotilean. A lot of the ancient cultures recognized five or so elements.

I suppose one could look at the naming conventions as vaguely ethnic.  You don't usually meet people named Fireson, or Essence.

But what really gave Everway the feel of ethnic color was its art. Mostly, from the image cards.

And Kosmos?  I have the five classical planets (with their Western names, sure), which are at least as universal as the elements.  I don't have the Tongue, and so I lack the naming convention. And I'm using *any* image cards.  But it's up to people to choose image cards to get that ethnic feel.

(In other words: I can't promise the ethnic color.  Kosmos isn't going to have any Vision Cards included.  It'll expect players to bring their own.)