Okay, im trying to jump into the contest as well ( in the last minute )
I will take the following set.
SET D
Setting: sword-and-sorcery/cyberpunk.
Theme: religious conversion/flight-of-fancy story.
My idea rests in the following. A good while ago, the world was a great place to be, sure there where orcs, and yes evil wizards roamed the land. Truth to be told the world was a dangerous place, but atleast the gods where listening to the worlds inhabitants. These days even the gods have forfeited the world.
A small germ infected the cerebral of the worlds inhabitants. This was no cause of despair, in truth the cerebral parasite, only grew to its full evolution, when it infected the brain of a age old grown dragon. The dragon lead through its dracorage, a flight where the dragons cerebral pores fought the cerebral parasite. The dracorage lead a great waste to much of the once fertile land.
After a socalled dracorage, the dragon settled on a mountain, the cerebral parasite having taken to great a hold on the dragon.
within few months several dragons followed suit. The dragons used much of their age grown innate abilities, to enslave people. Orcs, humans and even beholders can be found in the dragons employ. Dragons soon grew fat and seclusive, tinkering with things not to be tinkered with.
Soon the most trusted in the dragons employ, appeared with a belt carrying vials. Vials of potent dragon blood, and with a single twist of the hand, the dragon blood would fill the veins and arteries of the trusted.
Little by little the dragons systematically killed of the gods chosen. Priests clerics and their ilk was destroyed, burned asunder in their temples, their groves and their mosques. The gods turned their watchful eye from these lands.
What drives the dragons, and to what end, they use the world for, noone knows, but now most of the world are enslaved by a few score of millenia old dragons, and their implant augmented followers.
A few people stand their ground, using the arcane arts and martial prowess to fight the opressive rule of the dragons. in a world where even the gods have left, they stand as beacons of hope for the world.
Well this is my idea, going to post alot more later
It seems promising so far... :)
What about tha PCs? Will they be dragons, or maybe priests who were long forgotten by their god?
Thanks
Im thinking that they will be priests.
faithful priests who are working to give their god a foothold back in this world.
Im juggling a few ideas around ATM.
Will try to write them up in a post in a few :D
Chris
Okay some more ideas spewing forth.
i intend for the game to flow in chapters, much like a book. Trying to follow the disposition of many a story.
so the first part of the game will be the defining act that creates the hero, in effect a prelude to the game so to speak. Im thinking that the first chapter will be a very short chapter, enabling people to get a quick introduction to what the world once was, and giving the players a spark plug to get the game running. This part is actually a co-narrative piece, where the GM and player quickly tells how the character to be's temple/monastery/grove/Sanctuary or what ever it is, are razed. This way the "softer" parts of character creation will be a part of the running game.
As i intend to run the game like chapters, there will be a few chapters which are almost mandatory.
1. meet the opposition ( the first chapter where the players actually goes head to head with the enemy, whether this be in a politically heated debate, or ferreting out a saboteur or meeting them in combat.
2. Where the players meet their allies and henchmens.
3. the Finale ( whether it is the end of the characters or the victory of an special important battle.
Any feedback on the idea of chapters in a book?
1. Chosen by gods in country of despair(introduction)
2. Helping those in misfortune(small fights/debates/whatever)
3. Brave ones will be awarded(first allies/progress)
4. Spotted by the enemy!(First obstacle)
5. We made it!(progress because of the overcoming obstacle)
6. Treachery and catastrophe(major obstacle)
7. We will not give up(overcoming major obstacle and progress/plot twist)
8. Final battle
You can also check out sites with scrpt writing advices.
Looks like an interesting setting. I really like the minions empowered by dragon blood. Literal power addiction, and the trading soul for power vampirism angle - a lot of narrative heft in a single line. (Also reminds me of the Juicer, one of the better ideas to come out of the Rifts RPG.)
How about this for a way to frame the scenes: the Kübler-Ross model of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.) can be an extended metaphor for the (re)introduction of faith. First your laugh at, then blamed for heresy, further discussion, the masses question their lot under the old system, and accept the new dogma as an improvement.
Or you could look to the hero's journey, Joseph Campbell, and the Monomyth.
Any system ideas yet? Rules for encoding faith/convincing ontological arguments for conversion etc? Or is this more of freedom fighters against the theocracy than proselytizing?
What are the other implications of this parasite - cross species infection? A possible cure? Hive mind?
I'm not sure how well the chapters idea works in the 4 page instant rpg format, but it certainly sounds like something to pursue in a longer game.
Basing the chapters on Monomyth could be interesting.
You could have some InSpectres style progress meter, but I'm not sure if it fits your design goals.
I'd like to see your ideas for the rules - it should provide more material for discussion.
Thanks Ja on the chapters.
QuoteYou can also check out sites with scrpt writing advices.
That was a good idea, havent thought of that, any links to good pages?
Basing it on the monomyth, sounds intriguing, perhaps giving enough info, to allow a possibility to play each such a phase, without its preceding or following phases. The Kübler-Ross model im having a hard time with at the moment, but perhaps i should give it some more thought, as it would work quite good with the loss of the gods.
The game is mostly centered around the return of the gods, set on a backdrop of these dragon architects and their minions. However i think i need to create a broad system enough in order to allow for people wanting to play it as a freedom fighter vs. the system and to play it as the resurrection of faith. im thinking along the lines of ressurecting the faith will give people a banner to unite below, enabling the free people of the world to fight back. ( more to come on that idea )
on the subject of rules.
I intend for the rules to be light, but versatile enough to give players leeway. I where thinking of basing the game on percentile dice, every roll being a percentile dice, and every modifier being a percentage score, allowing the difficulty to go up and down.
In terms of rewards i was thinking about two lines of rewards, one which gives faith token ( acts of Proselytism as well as building temples and so on, in short for acts that work against reenactin the faith ) and another for freedom fighting ( twarting the evil minions plans, creating sabotage against an enemy foothold, killing a evil minion )
I was also thinking about some sort of cumulative bonus if an action was Proselytizing and directly harming the system ( such as converting the lord of a citadel to the cause, and inducting him in the faith )
I also do not intend for the characters to be fighters, but they will have bodyguards or henchmen based on their faith tokens. These bodyguards/henchmen will be taken from the followers of the priest, and will be called acolytes. they will be the combative side of the game.
Im still trying to think up how that should work, but this is the gist of it.
Chris
forgot to answer this
QuoteWhat are the other implications of this parasite - cross species infection? A possible cure? Hive mind?
I was thinking three things.
1. The cerebral parasite are somehow linked to eachother, but only a few can actually use this as means of sending information.
2. The reason for the massively potent dragon blood, injected via tubes directly in to the bloodstream, are laden with the cerebral parasite, The parasite can survive on the dragon blood for a little while, enough to do something in the brain.
3. It started as a small contemplation but im kinda working on it, lets say that the term god is not correct? the term god is simply the collective sum, of the worlds brainwaves ( working much akin to a clustered server ) so what the parasites are doing is creating a "god" a collective hivemind, making reactions based on the thousands of tiny fragments of thoughts.
Hmmm im getting crazy ideas, think im going to blow the 4 page limit in a few hours :)
Chris
Mechanics
This is currently my ideas for mechanics
Mechanics.
The game uses d10 dies and most resolution is handled by opposive percentage rolls. understood in such a way that the person who rolls the furthest away from his or hers ability have either won or lost. a roll of 100 always wins the roll. In cases of even difference, the highest ability wins. If a character tries something dangerous or with the danger of getting hurt ( physical as well as social ) the GM assigns a difficulty.
example
Grieg the old friar has a whooping 65 % in his social ability. Grieg are trying to persuade the male sahuagin to abandon the falseness of his ways, in a massive barrage of smoothtalking, the sahuagin only has 40 % in his social ability. The rolls come out Grieg 62 ( which is rather good ) and the sahuagin rolls 35 ( not bad but for bystanders not as good as Grieg) However the sahuagin is 15 % away from his social ability, and Grieg are only 3% away from his social ability. This causes the sahuagin to be the winner of the debate, and is surely not at all persuaded to change his allegiances.
Example 2
if Grieg where to jump on to a ledge outside his window, fleeing from the blood-crazed brutal dwarf standing in his rented inn-room, Grieg will need to do a physical test against a difficulty set by the gm. 25 % for instance. If this difficulty are lower than Griegs physical ability, there are no need for a roll. If the difficulty is higher, the percentile dice is rolled. if the eyes are lower than the percentage roll, Grieg fails. The amount of this failure is left to the discretion of the GM.
a character of this game, has some abilities and numbers presenting their ability to interact with the world.
these are Physical / Mental / Social any action involves one of these
Health a bare number presenting how well the character takes blows, and or the sting of magic.
They also have numbers representing their progress
Faith - A number roughly corresponding to how many people they have converted to the faith, this number can go up or down, if people leaves the faith.
Leadership - How well people perceive them as beacons in the battle against the opressive rule of the dragons.
Finally they also have a special powers enabling them to interact with the world, and aid their comrades.
Gifts.
there are 4 types of gifts ( Healing, Protection, Body and Mind )
Healing is what it says, an amount of health brought back to any given character good or bad at the priests discretion.
Protection, allows a percentage bufferzone outside any single person, shielding them partially from blows. ( allows them to exceed their health pool )
Body - augments the physical attribute
Mind - augments the Mental attribute.
the gifts blessing can not be granted to the priest himself, nor can he receive the blessing from another Priest.
There are two types of people in this freedom fighting world.
Priests and henchmens/bodyguards.
A henchman has the same attributes ( Physical / Mental / Social ) as well as Health. Besides these, they have a few traits belong solely to the henchman
Loyalty = how loyal are the henchman and is a metric for how easily he can be bought, and how easily they are persuaded to the beliefs of the dragons minions.
Secondly they have sword/sorcery two stats on how well they fight with either the blade or the sword. Percentage stat once again.
a faith token is rewarded for each person converted, or any other contribution to the faith.
a leadership token is rewarded for striking a blow to the opposition.
That was it for now, at the moment, they are a bit jumbled, but will try to sort them out a bit.
I like the idea of faith and leadership tokens.
Other than that, I see two problems. However, they are inherent issues of this particular model of resolution.
First, you have a number of statistics here, and determining them might take some time. Here, I'm thinking especially about the GM, who might need to spend some time preparing NPC stats (or wing it in the middle of the session).
Second, you have difficulties set by the GM by sheer fiat, and NPC stats are probably determined arbitrarily too. Effectively, it's the GM who determines chances of success for the player, and the impact of PC statistics is purely illusory.
With what you have, I think you don't really need NPC stats and opposite rolls - in practice, it's just a complicated way of modifying players chance of success and it could just as well be done with a straight modifier to the roll. However, I think PC statistics might be redundant in the first place, as it would be much more direct if the GM simply determined the chance of success for the player.
Personally, I'd probably prefer if there were no modifiers set by fiat - i.e. some kind of budget for the GM for each chapter, or modifiers based on chapter, or no modifiers at all. I'd say it would be more playable if only players rolled the dice, too. However, that's just me and my general dislike for unchecked GM's mechanical fiat in games :)
I have always been fond of the GM's role as a storyteller, that his sole duty is to make others have fun. If a GM is good at that i dont see a problem with the GM assigning difficulties.
The other question about the statistics, are somewhat of a sore point, this being a sword and sorcery world, there are going to be several monsters, not something im ever going to fit into the 4 pages i have at my disposal.
I actually had an idea for another system of resolution, but i gave up on it, as it seemed well just not enough.
However i will share my vies on it nonetheless, hoping to get som good comments on it.
Mechanic #2
The game is centered around percentile dice. At the start of the game 100 is divided by the number of players. The result rounded down, is the modifier of one used faith token.
Whenever a priest does an action ( stabbing somebody, trying to persuade somebody or something similar ) each player around the table chips faith token in. this settles the difficulty.
For instance Grieg the fat friar, are trying to run out on the ledge once more, running from the literally bloodthirsty dwarf high on Potent dragon blood. Their are 5 players each chipping in a faith token ( causing the difficulty to be 100 % ) a roll of 100 % would always fail.
Later in the game, Max the mad monk, stands in a heated debate with a caravan driver, trying to deliver the message that gods will be back, and that the group is actually the bringers of good tidings. Everybody knows that this is a really crucial part of the game, so people try to chip in, but only 3 people have faith tokens, so the difficulty is 60 % any roll over 60 would cause Max to fail.
the antagonists of the game would have something similar called Dark Dominion, which worked in much the same way. the number of Dark dominion points would be determined beforehand depending on the status of the antagonists.
there are a few stats
1. Faith Tokens.
2. Leadership Tokens.
3. Health.
3. Healing.
Leadership tokens enable one to build stronger henchmens, and attract new ones. ( no more henchmen at any given time, than your amount of Faith tokens though )
thats about it.
What do you guys think?
Chris
I think that the second mechanic has much more potential, and it sounds pretty playable. It's simple and involves the whole group at any given moment.
I'm not sure if you would need Dark Dominion points in the game - but it could be something that simply cancels out Faith points invested in the roll.
Leadership tokens could be spend just as Faith tokens, I think, but when the character acts through his proxies and not in person.
NPC stats I mention due to the "instant playability" thing, and the requirement of including everything needed to play the game in these four pages. This kind of makes it difficult to use traditional session prep models, and including pre-made lists requires sacrificing space - so working a way around it that doesn't sacrifice the playability is probably the best thing to do here.
QuoteI have always been fond of the GM's role as a storyteller, that his sole duty is to make others have fun. If a GM is good at that i dont see a problem with the GM assigning difficulties.
Well, I don't like games with the GM as the sole provider of fun, and the only person that has any real input into the game (especially if such setup is muddled with mechanics that confusingly suggest players they actually have real input). But then, it's usually difficult for me to see the GM as *the only* storyteller at the table, and the only person responsible for the whole group's fun, so I have a hard time relating to such games :)
Halløj Christian
I also think that your second mechanic is the most interesting. It is simpler and it is easier to add some interesting stuff on top of it. One thing I would recommend is to add something which will have some "side effect" on the story. One thing I was thinking about you could do is to have faith token in different colour which represent different feeling. For instance, red for anger, white for friendship, black for hate, yellow for love and so on. If the majority of the players then puts down a token of the same colour, that feeling will then dominate the following scene.
This is just en example. You could also have token which, when used, can give a player narratory rights over the scene, or give the players some other way to affect what happens, even though it is not their conflict.
Of cause things like this can crate some competition between the player, but because it is a game where the character have to work together this could result in an interesting tension.
- Anders
I hate reading through a topic, thinking some really cool and possibly insightful suggestions, then continuing to read through the topic and finding that other people have already made the suggestions I was thinking of.
As I read through the first part of the post, my initial thoughts were...the Hero's journey...then this was suggested.
Then I thought the five stages of grief [because I've been seeing the death of Captain America comics at the houses of a few friends]...but that one got suggested too.
I thought the idea of the originally suggested percentile system seemed a bit illogical and clunky, but that point was also addressed.
So I'll add something from a completely different angle.
What do the parasites specifically do to the host, and how many ofthe dragons are there? Maybe the parasites magnify a specific dark urge within the host (leading to a "7 deadly sin" option)? Are their lines of mortal descendant connected to the dragons who have retained parasitic blood in their families?
If this was the case, you've got pre-determined cults dedicated to the dragons who instantly become the antagonists to the heroes.
As for mechanic #2, why not allow players to secretly submit one of two types of tokens into a bag (black and white). Each black token adds to the difgiculty in the way you describe, and each white token has no effect. This way everyone puts in a token, but no-one knows what the difficulty will be until the end. The acting player may then roll their percentile die, to see if they succeed. They may spend a black token openly before the roll to increase their chances of success.
I'm just thinking of some potential ideas here...
V
MAN that rustled my tree.
Great input everybody, you blew me right out of my ordinary thinking, and gave me some great ideas, which i intend to go forward with.
I intend to still use the Faith tokens and perhaps the leadership token, but to key in some sort of despair mechanic as well, to give the system a feel for the desparation felt by priest's who's belief are starting to wane.
OKay will write up a short summary, just a little later, got to get some work done now :D
Chris
On the topic of Mechanics.
Ive done some thinking, but cant seem to get all the notches to fall into place. So im going to share my current thoughts with you guys, and see if i can get my ideas straight.
Having heard you all talk, im thinking about going for a GM less game ( of sorts ) where narrative changes constantly.
Their will be three stats Leadership, Faith and Despair. Presented respectively by Green, white and Black tokens ( poker chips sounds good, or simply cut out pieces of paper, with symbols on them )
Faith are used to lower difference in a conflict or situation that carries promise of failure or success, dealing with the priest directly. Leadership will are used to lower difference with any conflict on the henchmens behalf, plus giving the possibility of having henchmen/bodyguards. Despair tokens raise the difference in any conflict.
characters are created by assigning them a name. There is created one character less, than the total amount of players.
100 is divided with the total amount of
Characters(players -1) which is the rating of any token. The ensuing percentage is the difficulty of any given conflict.
everytime a priest are directly involved in a conflict, the entire group chips in ( they can chip in either a black token or white token ) despair tokens raise the difficulty with a rating, white tokens lower them with a rating. Same for henchmen ( conflicts happen for henchmens as well ).
Every time a conflict happens, the narrator changes. it changes counter clockwise around the table ( or in some other predefined order ) it changes x number of persons counter clockwise, x being the number of despair tokens in the pot.
My intention was that the narrator takes over after the conflict is resolved for good or bad, and continues the story. Any conflict that fails, will give the priest a despair token. If a henchmen fails a conflict, the priest whom the henchmen works for gets a despair token.
every priest starts with 3 faith tokens 3 leadership tokens and no despair tokens.
Im having a whole lot of issues here, which i hope you guys can see me through.
- 1. there needs to be a reason why you simply can not accumulate despair, or at very horrible thing happens if you do.
- 2. What happens if a character runs out of tokens ( all 3 ) somewhat bleak story that would be.
- 3. im thinking that there should happen something at chapter change( replenishing faith or something, using faith points and leadership points to reap some sort of rewards, or to reward your henchmens, or even procure new ones.)
- 4. This is my first time ever, creating a somewhat GM less system, am i missing anything totally obvious.
If you see blatant blunders which i propably need to adress let me know
Chris
Vulpinoid wrote.
QuoteWhat do the parasites specifically do to the host, and how many ofthe dragons are there? Maybe the parasites magnify a specific dark urge within the host (leading to a "7 deadly sin" option)? Are their lines of mortal descendant connected to the dragons who have retained parasitic blood in their families?
If this was the case, you've got pre-determined cults dedicated to the dragons who instantly become the antagonists to the heroes.
Very interesting option there, could be that the dragons themselves has been the carrier of the parasite for centuries, and having amassed a cult long beforehand. But it was at the invention of the blood-infusion, the parasitic influence started to spread. Now whole tribes live of killing the dragons minion and selling the dragon blood to the highest bidder, some use it for fighting the dragons minions, some use it simply for the buzz, some use it for intensifying their own dark desires.
with 7 dragons, i also have names of the 7 dragons :) interesting twist, that would certainly do. Hmm im going to leave it hanging whether the parasite or the cardinal sin was there first. *evil grin*
Thanks for once again bumping my brain.
Christian
1.Maybe if Despair is X times higher than Faith, the character dies, is broken, joins the enemy or the like? This would make spending Faith a more difficult decision (e.g. sometimes personal sacrifice would have to be chosen), and it would encourage spending Despair to create adversity.
2.I think some way of replenishing tokens during the chapter could be good, but I'm not sure what to suggest.
3.Maybe at the end of the chapter everyone gains some number of tokens to award to other players? I'm not sure about spending Faith and Leadership for benefits would work well, as they are already used for that during the chapter - but what kinds of benefits do you have in mind?
4.Basically, you have rotating GM duty here - and it's probably the safest way to approach it, if you don't have much experience with other non-traditional models of handling GM functions in the game. Unless I'm missing something, what you have should work, I think.
Other thoughts:
I'm not sure if I follow the rule about changing the narrator x places.
Some thoughts and questions
I do not understand why you have one character less that players. Does the characters rotate between the players?
Quote
Every time a conflict happens, the narrator changes. it changes counter clockwise around the table ( or in some other predefined order ) it changes x number of persons counter clockwise, x being the number of despair tokens in the pot.
I also think this is a bit strange. What about it is the person who have used most despair tokens who gets to be narrator? If you do this you probably don't have to worry about accumulating despair tokens.
Quote
2. What happens if a character runs out of tokens ( all 3 ) somewhat bleak story that would be.
3. im thinking that there should happen something at chapter change( replenishing faith or something, using faith points and leadership points to reap some sort of rewards, or to reward your henchmens, or even procure new ones.)
I think you need a way for the players to earn tokens during a chapter. Maybe they can do this by setting up some problem for their own character, or maybe you can get token when you narrate certain things into the game (when it is your turn to narrate). This way there will be even greater motivation for the players to try to get the narration right.
Quote
4. This is my first time ever, creating a somewhat GM less system, am i missing anything totally obvious.
What you have to do is to distribute what the GM use to do between the players. Basically this is three things.
1. Set up the scene (or the conflict)
2. Take the part as the opponent in the conflict
3. Narrate the outcome of the conflict
It is important that a player do not do all these thing for his own character. What you should do is making some procedure that describe what player should do what.
It is also a good idea to make some rules for what it is possible to narrate. Especially, what can a player do with his own character and what can he do with the other players' characters.
- Anders
Let's say you divide the game into chapters.
During the first chapter you start with a set number of tokens, there are two differences that I'd make though. The first would be to throw in a despair token to every player indicating the shock at realising their god has left the world and it has fallen on them to bring the deity back.
The second would be to give every player an equal number of black and white tokens, each equal to the number of players in the game + 1. Then we throw in a communal pool with a few tokens of each colour. The combined total of all the tokens is representative of all the forces of destiny in the world.
If we work on the assumption that each player will face a confrontation in each scene, then this gives all players enough tokens to modify the difficulties of all the challenges faced by other players. These modifications can be applied without needing to reveal the chip pile to other players, so a certain player could apply penalties to everyone, but they'd rapidly run out of these negative chips.
Once everyone has faced a challenge, the chapter is over, and all players redraw a number of chips equal to the number of players (split evenly between black and white chips).
In this way the player who applies penalties to everyone all the time will encounter a problem. Eventually, they will find that they'll run out of negative karma to apply to people. They'll be forced to give bonuses.
So a strategic player will only apply penalties when effects would be detrimental to them, while giving out bonuses when they might be able to get a benefit from the result.
As for gaining tokens during the chapter, I guess that all depends how long the chapters are. If a chapter consists of multiple challenges, then this system would require a replenishment of tokens after each challenge.
As for despair...
A character may pick up a despair token every time they fail a challenge, and the more despair challenges they pick up, the more negative their outlook on life. As a result they may be forced to pick up more negative tokens from the pile when it's their chance to replenish the pool. This would also be symbolic of the dragon's growing influence in the world.
You could have a flip-side to despair, for this hypothetical example I'll call it "Confidence". The more successes you acquire, the more "Confidence" you pick up, and the more positive tokens you'd bee forced to draw, and this would reflect the renewed interest of the gods in the world.
Despair and "Confidence" could be spent to modify actions, but this is done openly and everyone knows about it. A character spends Despair as an act of desperation to bring back their gods or an act of rebellion to join the dragons. A character spends confidence to exert their specifc god's influence over the world. Each of these would have a dramatic impact on the game world, through working miracles, invoking natural disasters, etc.
If you aren't running a GM-player oriented game, you could have each chapter focused on a card drawn from a deck. Perhaps scenarios derived from the 22 major arcana of the tarot, a player draws a card to represent their specific confrontation for the round. Characters with lots of "Confidence" could face a challenge associated with the positive manifestation of the tarot card, characters with lots of Despair could face a challenge associated with the negative manifestation. A little research into these manifestations could reveal dozens of scenario ideas.
You could easily do the same with the 5 stages of grief, the 12 steps of the hero's journey, the 10 sephirot of the kaballah, the 8 trigrams of the taoist i-ching, the runes of the norse, etc...
These allow you to run a game with no need of a narrator at all.
Again, just ideas.
V
ON the moving narration and the missing character
The Oldest player starts as narrator, at this point in time he do not have a character!
During his narration, a conflict between an antagonist and a player sends 5 chips to the table, 2 faith and 3 despair tokens.
The current narrator ( still the oldest player ) now receives the charactersheet from the 3'rd character to the left. The current narrator now has the control of the situation, and depending on the outcome of the conflict, continues his narration. The players can interact with the narrator, in any way that would be normal for a player/gm interaction.
Rewards and Despair
If the conflict failed, a despair token was given to the character who lost the conflict. If any player made progress for his faith, he would be awarded a Faith Token, if he made progress for the uprising against the draconic rule, he would get a point of leadership.
This mechanic means that players will not per say, run a single character through the course of the game, hopefully focusing more on the story as the gathering point.
Im thinking that there should be two consequences for the rule of despair tokens.
one where you have double amount of despair tokens and one where you have 0 faith.
Id call them Taken by despair and Run out of faith
Taken by despair is the equivalent of turning to the dark side, while running out of faith demotes a once strong priest to a whimpering weak willed fool of a man. Im not sure if either one of these consequences should make the character leave the game though.
Im also thinking that a priest should be able to use leadership points to gain henchmens.
Character Death
If no henchmens are left, and a conflict's resolution causes a priest to be slain, the priest is dead, and that character leaves the story, but what should happen to the player??? should he now just play a new character or should he start some nefarious task or what?
chapters and conflicts
A chapter could have several conflicts, or just one.
ideas and inspiration
Im thinking of creating a mechanism"fade to black", which causes players other than the narrator to sacrifice a point of despair, and allow to end the chapter. Now they write a little note on a piece of post-it, with what happened at the end of the chapter, and what their idea would be for the continuance, and what good would become of it( for the group ). Now at any given time they can cash in their post-it and create a flashback scene. if any given conflict in this flashback scene is resolved successfully the player initiating the flash back gets a faith point. if any conflict are failed, the character initiating the flashback as well as the touched character, both are given a point of despair.
Hmmm perhaps im clunking it all up with to many mechanics. will try to to go back a bit and think mechanics again.
Chris
Im thinking that
hey really nice setting! Like the tokens! But about the "Fade to black" part. I agree that it may be a little to much. It is a great idea by the way. :)
//Björn
The lack of a single character is interesting here, although I think there's some risk of confusion as well.
Fade to black sounds neat.
Okay im throwing the towel into the ring. However i came close, but there is no way i will be able to have it done in 20 mins :D
So for now im going to throw it right here, and you can rip in it as you see fit, and hopefully i will have an actual game within the week.
Chris
Why did they leave us?
A while ago, the world was a great place to be. Sure there where orcs, and yes evil wizards roamed the land. Truth to be told the world was a dangerous place, but at least the gods listened to the worlds inhabitants. These days even the gods have forfeited the world.
A small germ infected the cerebral of the world's inhabitants. This went unattended by most, as the cerebral parasite, only grew to its full evolution, when it infected the brain of an age old grown dragon. The grown parasite fought a battle inside the draconic skull. A fight that lead the dragon to roar its rage, and rampages it surroundings.
After a so-called Draco rage, the dragon settled on a mountain, the cerebral parasite having taken to great a hold on the dragon.
Within few months several dragons followed suit. The dragons used much of their age grown innate abilities, to enslave people. Orcs, humans and even beholders can be found in the dragons employ. Dragons soon grew fat and secluded, tinkering with things not to be tinkered with.
Soon the most trusted in the dragons employ, appeared with a belt carrying vials. Vials of potent dragon blood, and with a single twist of the hand, the dragon blood would fill the veins and arteries of the trusted -- Blooded.
Little by little the dragons systematically killed of the gods chosen. Priest's clerics and their ilk were destroyed, burned asunder in their temples, their groves and their mosques. The gods turned their watchful eye from these lands.
What drives the dragons, and to what end, they use the world for, no one knows, but now most of the world are enslaved by a few score of millennia old dragons, and their implant augmented followers.
A few people stand their ground, using the arcane arts and martial prowess to fight the oppressive rule of the dragons. In a world where even the gods have left, they stand as beacons of hope for the world.
You are such a beacon.
This game is a fantasy cyberpunk amalgamation game. It can be run with as little as three players, but would benefit from more players.
It is set in the world of Argoa, a world of until recently free elves, dwarves and many a roaming monster. Dragons where few in numbers, and seldom seen. The land was fertile and even the heavens smiled on the face of Argoa.
Not so any more, the dragons rule the world with an iron fist. The dragon's minions are all blooded carrying several vials of potent dragon blood, ready to unleash the exhilarating power of the draconic blood, into their blood streams.
Rules of the game
The game revolves around faith, despair and leadership. Priest's fighting for faith, the faith of a god who has forgotten them. The game only has 3 stats, namely Faith, Despair, and Leadership. These stats are constantly and interchangeably used, to create the full story of the humble priests in the lands of Argoa.
Difficulty: Each conflict are resolved by a percentile roll, at a difficulty, decided on by the characters by the use of their Faith, Despair and Leadership tokens.
Faith: Faith is a measure of the priest's conviction, and used in several ways to alter the conflicts that affect the priest. For each point of faith put in the pot, the Difficulty lowers a Rating.
Despair: Despair is the measure of the world's grim brutality, the strength of the priest's voice, who says, that he is fighting a futile battle. Despair is like faith, in the way that despair changes any conflict, the priest comes in to, but in a negative way. If a despair rating rise to double that of faith, a priest is taken by despair.
Leadership: Leadership is how the free races of Argoa see the priest, with a high Leadership, they are viewed as saviors. With a low leadership, they are viewed no better than any other riff raff. Leadership also changes the way conflicts, act out, but to a much lesser degree than faith and despair. Leadership also determines how many people currently follow the priest around, acting as bodyguards. A leadership token lowers the difficulty with half a rating
Rating: At start of the game the number 100 is divided by the number of players, this number constitutes a rating. This rating equals the bonus or penalty on the difficulty, conveyed by each sacrificed faith or despair token.
Narrative: The narrator grant shifts around after each conflict. The level of despair, as defined by the numbers of despair tokens in the pot (see resolution), when a player has the role of the narrator, he does not control a character.
Resolution: At any given conflict, the players secretively put from 0 to 2 tokens in the pot. Any combination of tokens can be places in the pot, except a leadership token and a faith token.
Pot: Some sort of container, which hides the content from the players.
Running out of faith: if a person comes to 0 faith he is said to have run out of faith, this causes the priest to become selfdestructive, putting him at risk of death. If a priest have 0 in faith and 0 in leadership, the priest is dead, and the player should narrate the story of his death, in a manner befitting the world of Argoa.
Taken by despair: When a character has double the amount of despair, than he has faith, he is taken by despair. When a priest is taken by despair, he can not use faith or leadership points, until such a time as he has a higher rating in faith than in despair.
Creating the Characters
Character creation is simply assigning a name to your priest, and you are done. Each starting character gets 5 faith tokens 5 leadership tokens and one despair token.
Each character has undergone a tragic event, at the loss of his faith, hence the single point of despair.
The game roughly follows the monomyth's 5 sections. Each section
The call for adventure
A road of trials
Achieving the goal
A return to the real world
Application of the boon
Hey, check out the new deadline given in the Entries thread. There's still a few hours available (provided you are ready to sacrifice the night, heh).
Ok, now that I'm not under the pressure of the deadline, I gave it a closer look. What you have now looks like it's taking an interesting direction, and I'm waiting for the complete version.
For now, I think you could improve the wording a bit and reorganize the glossary (i.e. Rating before concepts that refer to it, and the like). In the final layout, it might be a good idea not to put the glossary before the rules, but for example in a frame next to the rules.
Hey Filip.
thanks for the once over. Im working to get it done, although not at the feverish pace of the SIC contest ( if there is another contest, count me in )
I have gotten a good deal of feedback and in a week i think my ideas have really changed.
I will post the game version 0.9 soon, as soon as i get it all done :)
Chris
Not really [sic] anymore, but im still running along with the game.
I intend to create the game following the monomyth, dividing the story being told in 5 specific sections
1. the call to adventure
2. The road of trials
3. Getting the boon
4. A return to the ordinary world.
5. Application of the boon.
It is my intention that for the last 4 sections of the story, the players themselves should decide how many chapters should be in each section, by using despair tokens. if for instance they used 4 tokens there would be 4 chapters. at the start of each chapter, im thinking a chart which players could roll on, and then decide how the specific chapter plays out, by the resolution system and the different narrators. Im thinking a chart with 3 parts. Setting/Element/Foe, and at three die rolls, you would get a somwehat large portion of possibilities.
for instance
1. Marketplace / Weight / Orc
2. Dirt road / Dead animal / Dragon
I intend each section to have their own charts, so if you rolled 1, 2, 1 on the section "road of trials" and 1,2,1 on the section "getting the boon" you should have enough possibilities to replay the game quite a few times.
But im kinda at a halt, with the different chapter possibilities of the different sections.
Could you guys help me out here? i would really want to get this one done, now that im soclose.
christian
The idea of random elements charts sounds interesting. However, I'm not sure if there's any good way to assign different charts to different sections. Basically, you could have any motifs and elements in any section, I think. Maybe you could group them by general mood that they communicate or something like that, but this could be tricky (different people will incorporate the results in different ways, anyway). Otherwise, maybe you could do with one big set of charts for all sections, and instead have some specific interpretation guidelines for each section?
Hey Filip.
Im not entirely sure i completely follow you, could you elaborate? what exactly do you mean with interpretation guidelines?
Chris
Basically, you could have some guidelines for each section, explaining what meaning can be given to the results and how to apply them.
So, if you roll Marketplace/Weight/Orc in section one, there's some task of great weight that the characters are given, and it involves infiltrating an orcish bazaar. The same result in section five could result in a scene in which the characters can use whatever they gained in their journey to free local merchants from the weight of paying taxes to an orcish crimelord. (Or whatever.)
It's hard to create any rules for this kind of thing, and the same elements could appear in any section. Their application, however, would have to be different in some way, consistent with the nature of the section.