[Circle of Hands] Blatant promotion campaign

[Ron Edwards]

I'm quite pleased by the response at G+ to my first promo post there. I'm shamelessly piggybacking on Paul's The Clay That Woke, starting up right when it funded and using his name front-and-center. Plus going all-out on art, including fan fave (and very great guy) Dyson Logos.

Here's the opening text of the playtest draft that will be provided free at the Kickstart. I thought of a new way to explain a game - just say everything in bite-size points in one big data-dump list, and then the rest of the book, although organized and detailed in the ordinary way, is effectively footnotes. It seems to me to match the cognitive needs of people opening a game book for the first time.

The absolute rundown

The thing about RPG rules is, everyone wants to know and understand everything all at once. So here you are. This is everything about the game in a single massive, semi-ordered, complete data-dump. After this list, everything else in this document is merely procedural explanation and helpful detail.

•   The setting is equivalent to 10th or 11th century Europe – it's not medieval, it's not feudal, and it's not chivalric. I'd say "Dark Ages" except historians don't say that anymore ... screw it, the term applies. Dark Ages fantasy.
•   The only armor is the mail hauberk, simple shields, and simple helms. No plate armor, no limb armor, no barding for horses, and no fake-historical stuff like "leather armor."
•   The chief weapon is the spear. Wealthy people have swords, a one-handed weapon with no point. Regional weapons include the great axe, the francisca, and the chained mace. There are no such things as daggers, longswords, specialized pole weapons, or longbows.
•   A thrown spear, or charging into one, goes right through mail, so look out.
•   There isn't any heraldry and no knightly culture.
•   Brace yourself for human horror. It's a time when torture is ordinary, power is almost entirely determined by immediate ruthlessness, food and shelter are more important than money, and no one knows the first thing about hygiene, long-term agriculture, geography beyond the immediate area, or history besides vague legends.
•   There's no education. People only know what their family circumstances and limited geographical experience provide.
•   The map shows an extensive crescent-shaped shoreline, with the ocean to the east. The lands along the water's edge, north to south, are forested Famberge, mountainous Rolke, and sea-hugging Spurr, with Famberge also including most of the inland north. The inland to the west is wide, rolling Tamaryon. These are not nations, but subcultural regions within a single culture.
•   Regions don't have governments, only local hierarchies based on raw power and immediate history. It's mostly about villages, clans, banditry, fortified strongholds, and families, shaking out into a stratified society based on who has the most wealth – crops, animals, weaponry, connections – with most people being miserable. Petty war among ever-changing alliances is the default condition.
•   Two magical forces are at war, black and white. They are savagely effective, diametrically opposed, utterly inhuman, and ultimately destructive, represented by fanatical wizards, and manifested in actual locations. They are destroying and stagnating the culture.
•   Black magic is called Rbaja, and in its extreme form, taints and scorches the landscape into stinking pestholes filled with undead.
•   White magic is called Amboriyon, and in its extreme form, gathers in clouds from which angelic beings descend and lead people into what looks like virtue – until it "enlightens" them into amorally perfect form or even erases them from reality.
•   The prevailing religion of the culture is not centralized, similar to minimally-institutional Buddhism. It is opposed to the magical forces, directed toward steadfastness, endurance, survival, and submission – when it shifts to resistance, it gets crushed.
•   The Rolke region is newly liberated from the magical wars, united under a young king. He has instituted extensive reforms and sworn to defy both Amboriyon and Rbaja – by using white and black magic together.
•   You play characters who've banded together to support the young king in Rolke, who opposes both kinds of magic, and you are not only a bad-ass trained fighter no matter what your social background and prior life, but you use both kinds of magic at once. This group is called the Circle – it's the only one.
•   The Circle is the sole institution in the setting with any glimmer of a better life free from the not-so-Cold War between Amboriyon and Rbaja. It's also societally-unique in that no social background is excluded.
•   All player-characters are outstanding physical bad-asses. If their background doesn't indicate this, then the Circle trained them up.
•   The setting is brutal toward women. Female Circle members, and therefore armored fighters, are yet another society-challenging innovation of the Circle.
•   Everyone makes up two characters, and that's the Circle. For any given adventure, you can play any Circle character you want, although not twice in a row. There are no Circle NPCs.
•   Characters are described by four attributes, two personality traits, one or more professions, a resulting social rank, a few interesting details, and a Key Event. Other things follow from their professions too.
•   There's a single GM, the same person throughout play. He or she does make up two Circle members at the start, along with everyone else. His or her job after that is to prepare the adventures, play the various NPCs and foes, and monitor the triggers that turn a scenario vicious and horrible.
•   Play does not concern events "at home," but only adventures. The young king and the circumstances of his presence in Rolke are never seen.
•   Adventures are created using random components and a specialized process to combine and refine them. An adventure offers opportunities and resources for the young king, and is basically a mission as far as the characters are concerned.
•   Adventures always include NPCs with interests of their own and difficult locations. They also include the chance for hidden magic, distorted beasts, and the fell influence of Rbaja, Amboriyon, or both.
•   At the table, the "mission" isn't the priority and is assumed to be ultimately successful as long as it's not triggered into disaster. Instead, an adventure showcases the characters, reveals their passions, and brings them to fateful conclusions.
•   Characters improve mechanically a little bit after adventures, but change mostly due to magical effects and significant personal experiences. Leveling-up or its equivalent isn't a major part of play.
•   Ordinary resolution is a 2d6 roll + a character's attribute, to equal or beat a 12. For easier or harder rolls, add or lose a d6. That's familiar I'm sure, but the whole fictional context for rolling is pretty different from most games.
•   A character's social rank and professional background dictate what he or she knows how to do. There is no "common sense" or general resolution.
•   In a culture based mainly on personal confrontation and immediate connections, one might commit murder and grin one's way out of retribution, but there's no way to stop a mob from killing you, outside of magic.
•   Fighting and other dynamic conflicts are organized by "clashes," a system that emphasizes simultaneity yet preserves individual, make-or-break actions.
•   Clash resolution compares mutual offense and defense simultaneously, and every exchange gives the advantage to one side or the other.
•   A killed Circle member becomes a haunt and still participates in the current adventure, but is gone after that adventure's conclusion.
•   Weapons' different properties are expressed in terms of who gets the advantage die. A knife is a superior weapon to a great-axe if the fight takes place between the sheets in a dark bedroom.
•   Anyone may swear mighty oaths tapping into black or white magical power. Doing so brings great power and great consequence.
•   All Circle members know a few white and black spells. Your character can also be a full-on wizard, who knows all the spells. Yes, every single one.
•   Magic is powered by one's own bodily energy. Wizards are physically very tough, vital characters. Magic has no other practical limiting factors – no resolution roll or anything else.
•   Spells are rated either black or white, with values of 1 to 3. Its value is both the energy it costs and the number of color points the caster fills in.
•   A character has nine "slots" to fill in with color points, from casting spells or swearing oaths. White cancels black and vice versa, but if all nine are either white or black, then more magical consequences appear. It's OK to do this, but the effects are permanent. Unlike ordinary wizards, Circle members use this option tactically, not ideologically.
•   It's true that wizards are more powerful and flexible than non-wizards, but the wizards tend to hurt themselves too much to run around unsupported. The two kinds of characters are the same when it comes to plain old spear and sword mayhem.
•   Few non-wizardly NPCs can stand up to a Circle member in open combat, but they do have local social roles and status, whereas the adventuring Circle members are far from home.
•   NPC wizards are always a threat, serving Amboriyon or Rbaja. No one knows if the magical war is due to actual scheming overlords or to the mere accumulation of so many scheming wizards.
•   Some monsters are the twisted leftovers of past magical actions. The others, the majority, are manifestations of Amboriyon or Rbaja. Creatures of Amboriyon are unbearably pure avatars or destructively wise eidolons; creatures of Rbaja are foul and all too cunning undead or insane, disturbing demons.

So read that and ask questions!

[Eero Tuovinen]

I've got no questions, sounds brilliant! This kind of summation sold me on Polaris, and it sells me on this as well. I could totes design this game myself from the summation, but as you've already done it, I don't need to, which is quite economical.

Let me know if you need anything I can help out with here, and we'll see what we can do.

[Ron Edwards]

The Kickstart page is tentatively ready for review, at least among the limited audience at this site: Circle of Hands. It still needs a video, a few links where indicated, and the all-important playtest PDF, but the basic idea and reward structure are where I want them. All thoughts and ideas are welcome!

[Moreno R.]

Questions about the game:  how would you describe the preparation work for the GM? And he/she has a fixed or limited amount of resources like in PTA or (in a certain sense) Trollbabe, or not?

[Eero Tuovinen]

The crowdfunding terms look quite nice, I think; you've got the concrete project, the ambitious extended plan - something for everyone. If I weren't fully committed to Eleanor's Dream as my primary design concern right now, I'd probably start considering a heartbreaker project myself :D

[Vernon R]

One question comes to mind.

Is there any sort of end game to this?  Since leveling up isnt a significant part of the game and the missions are guaranteed success with showcasing the characters passions looking to be what the game is for, is there a point where we know enough about the character and think it's time to move on?  If so do you see continuing play with another character from the circle or making new characters?  Can that go on forever or does the big picture story ever resolve with the battle of the young King and the magical wars?

[Moreno R.]

Ah, I forgot a important question in my previous post...

From the text above I think I can already guess, but to hear it directly from the author: Story Now, Right to Dream or Step on up?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi, and welcome Vernon!

Eero, and anyone, one of nice things about the Project as a whole is that there are no deadlines for participants. So you could take a moment to throw the cool old stuff on-line, like Paul did, sign on, and participate when and how you like, without pressure.

Moreno, the preparation for the GM is initially set by random components: location and 1-3 details which are cleverly designed to stack their magical extremity. All adventures are also required to have 2-4 significant NPCs, one or more locations with difficult terrain of any kind, and two "trigger events." About the locations, I should emphasize that in this fictional setting, there are few maps and no real cultural sense of a bird's-eye-view of the whole setting. So people navigate from a ground's-eye-view, and getting lost in a bad place, or even just an unfamiliar one, is much, much worse than anything modern people can imagine.

The GM is required to fill the various obligations, for instance if a monster is one of the components, mainly by looking over the sourcebook details for the location and other specifications, but mainly organically and creatively. It's a little bit Trollbabe-like, overall. The trigger events are similar to the pivot points in Trollbabe prep, although not identical. The overall scenario is not, however, expected to be tuned toward any character's or the collective characters' identity. The Circle knights are usually outsiders but they are not recognized as authorities (as Dogs are) or necessarily perceived as instant ally or instant foe (as trollbabes are).

I have devised a cute little method with half-sized index cards which permits rather efficient management of the various components and necessary numbers in front of the GM during play.

Story Now, without many flashing lights or explicit OMG MORAL DILEMMA. But a hell of a lot of human pain and social injustice going on.

Vernon, a couple of things. First, ordinary play is always switching characters around. Let's say you and I are playing with two other people, one of whom is Carl, the GM. All four of us make two characters each, for a total of eight. For our first session, the three non-GM players each play one character, and this time, it must be one of the two they made up. But every session after that (a session = an adventure, by the way), each player choose any of the eight characters to play that time. You aren't allowed to play a given character twice in a row.

In practice, this creates a character development process which is really delightful to behold. People pay attention to one another's characters more, and take pleasure in refining or extending the various things that were shown in previous play under another player's "management."

Second, overall play itself does not follow a mechanically imposed arc, whether direct like PTA or indirect like Sorcerer. Play might end because the group dynamic which entered play is now satisfied by the degree of portraiture, or perhaps play has generated character dynamics which are more proactive, and which demand climactic outcomes, and so an arc occurs without pre-planning. I'm trusting to the older ideal of gaming that "if we play long enough and the stuff we are using is cool enough, then what happens eventually will be really cool." Given some of the material front-loaded into the setting, the characters, and the adventures, I think that ideal has a chance to come to fruition more consistently than it did for me in my long-ago fantasy role-playing.

Best, Ron

[Moreno R.]

Rule complexity / content: could it be played by a 9 years old? (someone who is already able to play Trollbabe, for example...)
Technological footprint:  can be played by hangout?
Social footprint:  how many players? The one session = one adventure means that it easily allow for some players who can't be present every session, or there are parts that could make this difficult?

[Ron Edwards]

Rule complexity / content: could it be played by a 9 years old? (someone who is already able to play Trollbabe, for example...)

Probably not. This is the most fine-grained design I've ever done. There are spell lists.

Besides, no nine-year-old should be playing in settings where maiming, torture, and starvation are, if not rare, not regarded as exceptional in nature.

Technological footprint:  can be played by hangout?

It's designed for face to face. Combat benefits greatly by using the juxtaposition device built into the edges of the character sheets, which means shared physical presence. Given that people are becoming very skilled at hangout play, I won't say it's impossible. I think it'd be like playing Trollbabe by hangout.

Social footprint:  how many players?

Minimum of three, counting the GM. Total group size would do well up to about six, I think. Easily more than Sorcerer.

The one session = one adventure means that it easily allow for some players who can't be present every session, or there are parts that could make this difficult?

It is robust against that limitation. The character-switching rules would also help a lot in that regard, and the available number of characters is twice the number of people at the table, which is a lot.

[Moreno R.]

It's possible to play without having read the manual? (I mean, if in a group only the GM and at most another player have read it, the others can still play having the game only explained to them at the table?)

I have to say that the rundown in the first post turned my interest in this game from 0% (sorry, but "I have to finish the fantasy game I wrote twenty five years ago" seemed more a mid-life crisis than something I wanted to play...) to "how soon can I start?"

[Ron Edwards]

I don't think I can answer the first question. Most of the people who've playtested didn't have the rules available to them beforehand, but as the designer, I can't assess that variable from those play experiences. I know that playing a wizard character would be much, much easier for someone who owned the book and read it independently, because that's 80 spells they can pick from freely at any moment during play.

I'm considering some kind of independent booklet for players, or some way to whip it up quickly on-line. Something like, you enter "I'm playing a character from Spurr with the wizard and martial (low) professions," and the booklet assembles itself with the relevant setting and rules information in a player-user format.

I hope about 500 other people have the same reaction to that text as you.

[Callan S.]

Hi Ron,

I think you mentioned this idea years ago in a post on the Forge, IIRC? I recall the two different magic wielding thing most particularly?

White magic is called Amboriyon, and in its extreme form, gathers in clouds from which angelic beings descend and lead people into what looks like virtue – until it "enlightens" them into amorally perfect form or even erases them from reality.

I would geek out if this is a reference to transhumanism and the growing fetish for it in various current first world cultures! One apt description of transhuman I've heard is that it's about as well named as calling birds trans-dinosaurs - ie, calling them something that went extinct long ago! That transhumanism is really human extinction, gloryfied.

I guess it doesn't matter too much, but I'm actually dissapointed at hearing you play a bad ass fighter - particularly after all the tease of the miserable people. It makes me think of a third magic - perhaps called Skeptica, which is much weaker for undermining itself most of the time. Skeptica occasionally guides some wretched past smaller deaths to reach the ratholes of the world that the world pivots upon - not to provide a just world fallacy for them where they go rags to riches! But to leave someone who wasn't by chance born into power with the room to question. Sometimes, doubting itself, Skeptica will even abandon it's charges for a time or forever. All under the shadow of others who by mere whimsy of the power they born get to indulge their evangelisms as they might. 'Scuse me riffing off your idea - it's riff-able!

I like the haunt idea, so as to keep someone in on the thematic deal of the game night, but not so much that it keeps characters alive always.

[RangerEd]

Ron,

Great run down. The form of your pitch is well suited for this age of the PowerPoint bulleted slide. I never thought of using it as a structure upon which to hang a game. It strikes me as an innovation that targets a new cultural aspect of the time we live.

As far as setting and tone (I would say color, but still lack confidence with TBM taxonomy), I am personally intrigued because it is the D&D I envisioned 25 years ago, too.

On the "so prove it before I buy it" side...if I read this back cover at a gaming store, I would flip open the book to ensure it had the mechanics to support the intent and some text boxes to illustrate the mechanics in action. I would love to see a page per bullet. The bullet tops two textbox columns: one with the mechanics, the other the fictional demonstration. Short text boxes leave room for art.

Just my gut reactions and expectations. You may have thought it through more deliberately already.

Ed

[Judd]

The bullet-points above would get me to back that kickstarter. Maybe they could be on the page somewhere?

Sounds great. I'm reading Artesia on the train and the oaths and ghosts remind me of the magic in that setting a bit.