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I figured I start the new thread as Ron suggested, I went with Emily's title idea as it was there.

From my reading so far the premise reminds me quite alot of movies like "Once upon a Time in China" and some what of "Crounching Tiger Hidden Dragon". Now I know the combat within these movies is highly fantastical in nature but they do have the same feel otherwise. Now I know the game so far seems to be narrativist in aprroach but I could also see the rules being very cinematic in nature.

Does someone with their head straight want to recap all that is done so far? I don't want to goof it up by mistyping something.

Sylus

Hi there,

Here's the link to the thread which preceded this one:

Let's make a game! (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3768), initiated and more-or-less overseen by Mike Holmes.

Best,
Ron

Sylus,

Welcome aboard.

While I think there are elements of those movies that are similar to what we're looking at doing, I think that the consensus so far has been that we are trying to avoid anything supernatural, and resolution via combat as well. IOW, the idea is that fighting would be a bad thing, as represented by the mechanics. So there may be more differences than similarities to the films you cite.

OTOH, we could go that way if that's what people thought was best.

I've been thinking that the TV show Kung Fu is more like what we've been driving at.

Mike

The struggle between conflicting desires/values characters deal with in movies like Crouching Tiger capture the kind of internal dynamic the monks should experience in this game. However, the spiritual orientation of the monks would give them a different set of issues to deal with than the martial arts characters of much of Hong Kong action cinema.

Are ten people already working on the outline? :)

--Emily Care

I've started one! I'll be number 11 ; )

Actually although I agree that it would be more like Kung Fu and that violence would probably be the characters last resort, the questions is how would that violence be represented. Even in Kung Fu it was very cinematic while still remaining simple, we can thank Bruce Lee for that. Anyway, if we are going for a traditional and historical bend to the monastical orders we should remember that martials arts played a very key role, especially as they walked their particular path to enlightenment. This is why I bring it up, are we going for a more historical approach or more of a fantasy approach? And if it is historical which culture would it lean towards?

Sylus

OK, evidently we're a little further off than I thought we were.

Here are my assumptions; please sound off as to whether or not they are correct.

1) Enlightenment is a game about pacifist monks.

2) Our mechanic of enlightenment is paired stats good/bad, which increase and decrease with PC actions.

3) The characters start out as (postulants is the Western term) wannabee monks, and will eventually be influencing the countryside around their monestary.

4) Game play is based on a mission model -- the PC's are given a task to perform by their superiors (or, eventually, those who depend on them to solve their problems) and need to figure out a solution without violating their tenets.

5) There are a few ways to determine the tenets of the monastic order: either the players come up with a concensus, we build it into the setting portion, or the GM designs a setting. (I believe the unspoken consensus was the first of these three)

As a side note, this almost begs for a panentheistic worldview.

Hmm...  Well, it's something to start from.

Enlightenment - working outline

1)Character Generation
a)choose 1st stat pair (personal), some #(7? or 9?) allocated between the two (ie: greed=3, thrift=4)
suggested pairs:
greed/thrift
deceit/respect
mastery/service
lust/purity
aphathy/industry
fear/courage
hope/despair
shame/confidence
pride/humility
etc.
b)physical etc. description
c)in-character role-play sequence illustrating dynamic of trait pair in char's life

2)Interview with High Priest/acceptance into Monastery
a)characters interact as waiting to be interviewed
b)grilled by HP
c)gain second stat pair
always:
Worldliness/Spirituality
d)group of characters are assigned a spiritual advisor (Teacher level character)

(order of 3 and 4 is interchangeable)

3)Campaign Initiation
a)new characters are sent to accomplish a task that has to do with some problem facing Monastery:

suggested by Mark Eddy:
                 War: Peace/Violence
                 Famine: Generosity/Selfishness
                 Plague: Compassion/Hard-heartedness
                 Religious Fervor: Zealousness/Indifference
                 Supernatural Events: Faithfulness/Worldliness
                 w/Secular Authority: Submission/Intolerance
                 w/Religious Authority: Poverty/Wealth
b)Characters take corresponding trait pair or other according to in-character actions.  Players or gm, if there is one, can assign #'s to match character experience.
c)village or monastery can be assigned trait pair corresponding to issue being face. Outcomes of character actions raise/lower traits.

4)Monastery Development
suggestions:
a)each participant suggest a series of devotions or trials that neophytes (and other monks) must undergo.
b)doctrine or dogmas, as they affect initiates or community can be developed in play
c)structure of monastery can be determined in response to character descriptions--tie conflict to character issues
d)spirituality need not mirror real world monasteries

Ah, here it is:
each character's personal trait pair could be taken to represent on aspect of the tenets of the religion.  
--if we tie the third pair that a character gets to the issue facing the monastery that helps tie them in thematically to the broader plot.  Also allows for characters introduced later to have a different set of issues in response to changing times.

5)Episode Structure
suggested by Mike Holmes:
1.The characters, members of the organization are brought together for the briefing on thenature of the problem.
2.Do research and get stuff together, etc. And do some pre-mission soul-searching.
3.Head out into the harsh world looking for more data. Meet NPCs, and get involved with them.
4.Once they have the problem figured out they have to find a way to overcome it.
5.Execute plan (recover bodies).
6.Return to "base" and get debriefed.
7.Train, intrasession.


6)Character Advancement
a)Characters will gain one more personal and one more religious trait pair during course of campaign.
b)trait pairs can be "solved" by reducing negative trait to 0 and max'ing out positive trait
**Insert mechanics here***
b)when "solve" 3 pairs, can become "Teacher" and train acolytes.
c)When solve two more stat pairs, gains sixth, becomes High Priest and can train other Teachers or go start another monastery
e)once solve all six, retire character from use


questions:
--pairs will change over time in response to character actions. Are trait pairs adjusted during sequence or at "debriefing" interval?
--exact mechanisms need to be agreed on. There have been some suggestions. What do we want to go with? Anyone want to state them here?
generally:
a)negative traits can increase effectiveness, but their use makes it harder to increase positive


note:
--Character play could mirror  change in trait pair values
--When character max's out multiple negative traits, there could be consequences in game--trials to be undergone, exile from the monastery.
--if max's out all negative traits, they could be promoted to antagonist for the monastery/some character. :)


--Emily Care

I've edited this 4 times between when it was posted and 5:15 pm 10/22/02. mostly minor letter/word changes.

There's been a lot of movement in other threads; this one may have seen its day.  I really like what we came up with collectively and am interested in fleshing it out. I've got some free time coming up, so I'll be playing with it.

If other folks who gave input into developing it are interested in continuing, let me know!

--Emily Care

Quote from: Emily CareThere's been a lot of movement in other threads; this one may have seen its day.  I really like what we came up with collectively and am interested in fleshing it out. I've got some free time coming up, so I'll be playing with it.

If other folks who gave input into developing it are interested in continuing, let me know!

I'm  certainly interested, Emily. I just haven't come up with anything new to add just yet.

short, shameful confession: I told myself yesterday that I would study your outline last night and prepare a response. then I forgot.

I'll have more to add later. either game material, or another SSC.

Me too, I'm like Talysman though, still trying to come up with something useful to say.

Sylus

Can anyone help here? I've been following this, but havn't had time to
write much. That and I know very little about eastern philosiphy.

Here's some suggestions though.
It was suggested before, but I'd bring up the Ars Magica analogy again.

Each player would create an elder and a neophyte. The elders would be primarly used to dynamicly create a structure for the religion & monastary, but
you could also match elders and tutors in a mentor relationship(with different players, of course). That way each player could take both sides of a  students development. It also gives a good way for players to suggest missions.  

Quote from: Emily Care


questions:
--pairs will change over time in response to character actions. Are trait pairs adjusted during sequence or at "debriefing" interval?
--exact mechanisms need to be agreed on. There have been some suggestions. What do we want to go with? Anyone want to state them here?
generally:
a)negative traits can increase effectiveness, but their use makes it harder to increase positive traits

I would actually tally changes 'in sequence' although the changes may not take effect until the 'debriefing'. Trying to do the tallying at the end is hard, IMHO.

I'd suggest  changes happen in sequence, just becaues it's more intersting, although in some cases the new value may not take effect until the next scene. (I can see arguments both ways here).

Since I imagine alot of 'calls' on trait usage can go both ways,  
I'd also suggest giving everyone one a hand in trait changes, possibly via some bidding mechanism. This could be done through the mentor, or out of some per characther currency each neophyte has.
The idea would be to keep morality a little 'fluid'. I.e. sometimes violent solutions don't actually increase your bad traits (whereas a peaceful solution never does :) ).

Just some ideas.

I think I've identified our central problem.

We don't have any resolution mechanics.

This is a huge problem, when one of our central "gimmicks" is that stats change as monks approach/fall from enlightenment, where 'unenlightened' actions are easier and more powerful, but 'enlightened' actions are more desirable.

I'm still being the guy who just throws things out there, so here is an idea -- I honestly don't have any clue how 'fair' or 'smooth' it is.

Stats total to ten. For unenlightened action: Roll (Unenlightened stat)d10, target number (Enlightened stat). Any success is considered a sucess, extra successes provide "power ups". For enlightened actions, roll d%, target number (Enlightened stat)x10+(Unenlighened Stat). There is no chance for "power ups".

Does anyone have any idea how this would work in play?

You have it that there is difficulty matched to numbers of successes. For example 1 succes is just simple success and each extra success ups how well you succeeded up to say 5-6 levels of success. But you could also have have failures apply to the negative side of the stat, kind of a yin and yang sort of thing.


Sylus
Not sure if that made sense or not?

A stray thought that I had would to have all actions/resolutions tie in some way to the Worldiness/Spirituality pair...either influencing it or being influenced by it  in some way.

Thus being more Worldly you may be influenced to choose the more expedient Violence side of the pair...or you may try for the harder route of Compassion and thus influence your Spirituality side of the pair.
(or a bit reversed...you may try for calling on your weak Spirituality to increase your Compassion roll).

Something like using Dual stat pair rolls...
example
Worldly/Spirituality plus
Violence/Compassion  (assuming V bad, C good)

results
roll                    to Influence                                           Result
Worldly              Violence                                                V  2 / W 1
Worldly              Compassion                                         C 1 / W 1
Spirituality          Violence                                              V 1 / S 1
Spirituality          Compassion                                        C 2 / S 1

Violence             Worldly                                               W 2 / V 1
Violence             Spirituality                                           S 1 / V 1
Compassion       Worldly                                                W 1 / C 1
Compassion       Spirituality                                            S 2 / C 1
         

I'm thinking that a failure at either roll impacts negatively with both pairs

this would be a way of having decisions that impact one way on your Self and another way on the Monastery (or personal Monkhood).

Kind of unclear I think... I'm groping for something that has a bit of Succeed, Succeed, but... Marginal(fail,but)...Fail, and... type feel

Greetings all and sundry,


Truth be told I have sort of been following bits and pieces of this thread, so my comments may be a bit narrow.

On the "enlightenment" questions.

If by this you are stating Enlightenment to be the ultimate goal, as in Eastern religious practice (read: the reaching of Nirvana) then there would have to be some mechanic beyond the mere statistical measure (1-10 I believe was the example) to indicate the approach/achievment of Nirvana, would there not?

Enlightenment is supposed to be the *penultimate* state, the goal which every monk strives for, but how many have reached it?

Not even the Dhali Lama.  Maybe, and I stress *maybe*, Enoch could qualify.  Having "walked with god" Enoch could be said to have achieved a state of transcendance.  Of course his is a very special case, mainly because the intimation is usally taken that he was directly elevated into the Empyrean (or into "Grace" if you prefer) by God.

So, what does this mean for lowly mortals?

Meditation.  Ecstatic trance states.  Etc.

These could be used as a dynamic to raise (or "elevate" if you prefer a play on words) ones "Enlightenment" Stat.

What is to happen to these monks once Elightenment is achieved?

If you set Enlightenment up as a goal then, once reached, game over.  Perhaps, and you can throw tomatoes at me later (if you can find me) one should ues Enlightenment as a measure, a *degree* (note I did not use the word Level nor did I imply it, don't throw those tomatos yet) of...

Now that is the question, isn't it?

I know confounding and probably not very helpful.  But I am earnestly curious.  (You may throw your tomatos now.)  Just a few thoughts.



Kind Regards.

here are some quick replies and additional comments:

Quote from: Mark D. Eddy
Stats total to ten. For unenlightened action: Roll (Unenlightened stat)d10, target number (Enlightened stat). Any success is considered a sucess, extra successes provide "power ups". For enlightened actions, roll d%, target number (Enlightened stat)x10+(Unenlighened Stat). There is no chance for "power ups".

I think it's a little rough having two different dice mechanics for conflict resolution. also, I can't see having the dice rolled or the target number being based on the stat-pair, for a couple reasons:

• it wouldn't make sense for non-monk characters (NPCs,) although this might not matter
  
• it prevents monks from making actions that have nothing to do with their stat pairs
  
• the unenlightened number can be lowered to zero, so it needs to be a bonus rather than a dice pool or target number
  [/list:u]
  
  also, for simplicity's sake, we might want to represent each stat pair as a single number; if each stat pair has to add up to 10 (for example,) why not just write "Monk Theo has a 7 in Pride/Humility", then roll over for actions invoking humility and under for actions invoking pride.
  
  

  Quote from: Bob McNamee
  A stray thought that I had would to have all actions/resolutions tie in some way to the Worldiness/Spirituality pair...either influencing it or being influenced by it in some way.
  

  
  we could tie this to the above mechanic, since we could assume that non-monks have a Worldiness of 10; the act of applying as a neophyte lowers this. this is important because one game variant might be "the self-made monk", player characters who try to form their own spiritual community.
  
  how's this for a mechanic?
  
  first, assume that there is one primary descriptor, Worldliness (or its inverse, Spirituality) and several possible traits (the stat-pairs that represent personal problems and religious issues.)
  
  roll 1d10 under Worldliness to succeed in worldly conflicts; roll equal to or higher than Worldliness to succeed in spiritual conflicts. if one or more stat-pairs can be applied creatively to the conflict, narrate how they apply and roll one d10 for each pair used; the target number for this roll is the highest score (if rolling equal or over) or the lowest score (if rolling under) out of all stat-pairs used.
  
  there is one other trick to this: if you choose to roll under any trait (in other words, invoke the unenlightened side of the pair,) you add one point to that trait (becoming less enlightened.) on the other hand, if you roll a success on any enlightened trait roll, you can sacrifice that success for a tally-mark next to that trait; when you return to your mentor after the mission and describe your actions, if your mentor feels that you have earned the tally-marks (based on your actions as a whole, not just those with sacrificed successes,) then you keep them -- and if your tally marks in a trait plus your current score in that trait add up to at least 10, you can lower that trait by one point.
  
  here is an example of play: Monk Theo is on his way to a village to purchase grain for the monastery. along the way, he encounters a beggar who is weak with hunger and blocking the road. Brother Theo could simply take the beggar with him to the village (a simple roll above Worldliness) or he could bring him to a nearby farmhouse and offer to pay to make the beggar well (roll over Worldly and Selfish/Generous); he could even try to rush past the beggar, knocking him to one side (roll under Worldly.)
  
  he chooses the farmhouse option and rolls two successes. Theo decides to "burn" one success and marks a tally next to Selfish/Generous; he still has one success, so he is able to help the beggar and continue on his way.
  
  however, with only one successes, the GM rules that it took all Theo's money to care for the beggar. now, he is in need himself. he can't go home to the monastery, so he must rely on the generosity of the village. first, he speaks to the parish priest and attempts to ask for a contribution to the monastery, again trying to use Selfish/Generous as well as Pride/Humility; Theo's player narrates how Theo makes a plea based on his own poverty and the extreme neediness of his brethren at the abbey. that's three dice, and Theo gets two successes. the GM rules that two successes would give Theo enough money to purchase all the needed grain, or one success would purchase part of the supplies; not wanting to risk it this time, Theo uses both successes and proceeds to purchase grain.
  
  taking the grain with him, he is met at the edge of the village by some angry farmers; they say that they are starving, too, and would normally be able to rely on the parish for help feeding their families, but Theo has used up the parish's money. tired and wanting to get home, Theo decides to roll under and uses his Violence/Peace trait for an extra die; he gets his success, but Violence goes up one point.

continuing with ideas on mechanics:

one rule we could add is that a monk can add a new trait pair in play by attempting to use that pair to resolve a conflict. we could assume that any new trait pair can be added with the same score as the highest trait the character possesses. all traits would be assumed to be present in a potential state; when the character is accepted as a neophyte, the mentor determines the single trait a character is most in need of resolving. also, the mentor determines how spiritual the applicant's request is: if accepted, the neophyte's Worldliness is lowered from 10 to a score equal to the starting trait.

using this rule, a beginning character suffers a temptation: roll extra dice now and manifest negative traits at higher scores, or work on lowering a single trait for now and explore other character flaws later, after progressing a little further towards enlightenment?

also, here's another rule suggestion: the Worldiness of a monastery equals the highest Worldliness of the monks present.

I haven't described yet how to lower Worldliness. I'm inclined to make it a little tougher than lowering traits. a neophyte can't lower Worldliness at all until reducing one trait to zero. this drops Worldliness one point. once Worldliness has dropped, say, 3 points, the neophyte becomes a fully vested monk and can share the burden of mentoring new neophytes. this could fit in with damion's idea here: a player could create a couple neophytes as secondary characters, or opt to continue on the solitary path, acquiring new traits and working them down.

the benefit of creating neophytes is that whenever a neophyte lowers Worldliness, the mentor lowers Worldliness one point as well. once a mentor's Worldliness drops to zero, it's time to strike out into the wilderness and found a new monastic community.

I still have some issues with the basic mechanic. maybe it should be 3 dice versus Worldliness, plus extra dice for relevant traits as described.

what does everyone think?

Sounds good, John, everyone.  

Going back a bit--having each player choose a mentor to play as well as a neophyte is great.  As you said,  it gives an avenue for players to develop the monastery as well as direct the missions.  I think it's necessary for the game, however, that means we have to come up with character generations mechanics (or a process for it anyway) for the initial Teacher level monks as well as the neophytes.

Quote from: John Laviolettea neophyte can't lower Worldliness at all until reducing one trait to zero. this drops Worldliness one point.

I like this idea, but I have some hesitations: If you could only improve your worldliness after solving an additional trait pair, would that be automatic? If so,then there would have to be as any trait-pairs in addition to W/S as the character needs to improve their Spirituality score.   If it's not automatic, then what happens if the character doesn't improve it? Would they have to wait until they solved another pair to get another chance?  The interactions of the trait pairs is a complicated issue.

Worldliness would become a meta-trait, affected by the monk's progress on the other traits.  This could be the last trait pair, then to be "solved", after which you retire into High-High-Priestness.  However, if that was the case, based on some suggestions we've had for the structure of a monastery (the  highest HP being one with all pairs solved) there would always be at least one monk max'd out. That would eliminate the dynamic for the monastery unless they were missing a character at that level.  Perhaps we could use only the highest character that's in play for the monastery.

Resolution Mechanics: yes, that is what we've been missing.  

Quote from: Johnroll 1d10 under Worldliness to succeed in worldly conflicts; roll equal to or higher than Worldliness to succeed in spiritual conflicts. if one or more stat-pairs can be applied creatively to the conflict, narrate how they apply and roll one d10 for each pair used; the target number for this roll is the highest score (if rolling equal or over) or the lowest score (if rolling under) out of all stat-pairs used.

This means there needs to be a range of possible totals for any given trait pair, instead of a constant value that is dispersed between the two traits.   Is that the direction we want to go? If so, characters could start with low trait totals and slowly progress, based on successes they have in either half of the pairs.  More successes in the negative or worldly halves would raise their traits that way, and the same for the positive side.  The mentors of the monks would be responsible for sending characters on missions that would help their spiritual development, and guide them away from "the dark side".

And I think it's worth considering having the rolls be against the halves of the trait pairs seperately rather than against the total.

Quote from: KesterWhat is to happen to these monks once Enlightenment is achieved?

As it has been conceived, once a monk reaches a certain point of development (solving all their trait pairs) they leave play, moving into the higher echelons of the monastery and devoting all time to things spiritual, and no long attending to the worldly. Their inner conflict has been resolved, so it is a natural step to remove them from play. This doesn't necessarily match with real-world issues of Enlightenment, but it seems to fit with the needs of the game.  If you have suggestions of ways that the "solved" character can continue being used, Kester, please go for it. :)

--Emily Care

Assuming a total of 7 (which we can retool if we like), I was thinking something like rolling d6 equal to the stat and adding everything but the sixes. Opposed by a similar roll. So, Bob the Monk has Compassion 4, and is testing that against a disease with a rating of 3. Bob rolls, 1, 4, 6, 6, for a total of 5, and the disease rolls 2, 3, 3 for a total of 8. Bob loses, and the disease takes another victim. In another case, Bob, angry at finding that the disease was started intentionally by a Bandit Clan, uses his 3 Violence against the bandit leaders 5 violence. Bob rolls. 3,4,5  for 12, and the Bandit leader rolls 1,2,4,4,6, for 11. Bob defeats the bandit leader (and possibly increases his violence stat).

Is that too simple?

Another idea that crosses with Worldliness, is to roll d8s equal to stat, and count all that roll worldliness or less as successes. To be precise, the target number would be equal to the side of the worldliness stat-pair that matched. So for Compassion, you'd use Enlightened (or whatever the opposite of worldly is), and for Violence, you'd use Worldliness as the TN.

Mike

Greetings Emily,

Quote from: Emily Care

Quote from: KesterWhat is to happen to these monks once Enlightenment is achieved?

As it has been conceived, once a monk reaches a certain point of development (solving all their trait pairs) they leave play, moving into the higher echelons of the monastery and devoting all time to things spiritual, and no long attending to the worldly. Their inner conflict has been resolved, so it is a natural step to remove them from play. This doesn't necessarily match with real-world issues of Enlightenment, but it seems to fit with the needs of the game.  If you have suggestions of ways that the "solved" character can continue being used, Kester, please go for it. :)

Are you sure that solving the issues of trait pairs, while on the surface sounding intriquing, is really what you want to center game goals around?

The reason I ask this is because many types of monastic orders have been touched upon in the discussion of this game concept.  Far be it from me to speak out of turn (sound of bull elephant pushing it's way through the cue) but wouldn't it be better to expand upon the basic premise by having a number of "paths" which the characters could follow?

Monasticism, on a whole as discussed of late herein, I think, has devolved to the Medieval sort.  There are/have been Buddist monks, Franciscan monks, Gnostic monks, etcetera.  And what about Cabalists?  Nuns?

Meditation, indeed attempts to seek enlightenment, are hardly limited to monastic orders.  In fact the underlying premise could easily (perhaps) be expanded to include <<gasp>> "Fraternal" organisations; read: secret societies with claims of inisghts into "gnosis", knowledge.

While I see nothing wrong with the game concept as it is currently being developed to me, in the early posts at least, there seemed to be the promies of much more.  As it stands the most interest I can see a game about Monks engenering is perhaps a one-shot evening's entertainment.

However add in various sorts of monastic orders with their different approaches to what Enlightenment might mean (and thus differences in the road to Enlightments, perhaps as defined by the use of "trait pairs") and you have a game with potential political machinations, intrigue, and perhaps even education value if you do more than merely model fictional monastic orders on historical ones.

As for "achieving Enlightenment" and what to do with characters who do so.  I should think this should so rare that it would be the culmination of an campaign effort.  But how to actually create such a campaign, I am sorry to say, I can not envision at the moment.

I do like the basic premise though, otherwise I would have remained in "Lurking Troll" mode.

Just my half-pence worth.  What do you think?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

Greetings Emily,

Quote from: Emily CareWorldliness would become a meta-trait, affected by the monk's progress on the other traits.  This could be the last trait pair, then to be "solved", after which you retire into High-High-Priestness.  However, if that was the case, based on some suggestions we've had for the structure of a monastery (the  highest HP being one with all pairs solved) there would always be at least one monk max'd out. That would eliminate the dynamic for the monastery unless they were missing a character at that level.  Perhaps we could use only the highest character that's in play for the monastery.

Again, not trying to be the proverbial bull in a china shop, but I have to ask:  What does Worldliness and Priestess have to do with Monasticism?

Hieriphants and High Priestesses, as I understand the terms, have nothing to do with Monastic orders.  They are leaders of Temples (read: Churches) and are, or can be catergorized as, Clergy.  Monostaries, if my imp of memory serves me well, are usually run by Abbots and Abesses, are they not?  At least the Medieval variety.

While I think the idea of a "Worldliness" trait is a valid one the name, to me, does not imply someone who is seeking "Enlightenment".  Worldliness, to me, intimates grounded in things earthly, the material world, not spiritual matters.

I would suggest terms for use as a measure of "Spirtual Enlightment" either Bodhi, Gnosis, or... I can see your eyes glazing over, ok, how about just plain and simple "Nous" or something similar  (Ens? Psyche?  Spirit?)

The reason I ask this is primarily because, as it stands, there are a lot of good mechanics which have been discussed.  However, at this point, I think the basic underlying premise, namely the shape, texture, and color of the game environment needs to be properly codefied.  Then, I think, this game will really take off.

Your thoughts?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

Quote from: Kester Pelagius

Quote from: Emily Care

Quote from: KesterWhat is to happen to these monks once Enlightenment is achieved?

As it has been conceived, once a monk reaches a certain point of development (solving all their trait pairs) they leave play, moving into the higher echelons of the monastery and devoting all time to things spiritual, and no long attending to the worldly. Their inner conflict has been resolved, so it is a natural step to remove them from play. This doesn't necessarily match with real-world issues of Enlightenment, but it seems to fit with the needs of the game.  If you have suggestions of ways that the "solved" character can continue being used, Kester, please go for it. :)

Are you sure that solving the issues of trait pairs, while on the surface sounding intriquing, is really what you want to center game goals around?

technically speaking, solving trait-pairs is a character improvement mechanic, but it's not what the game goals are centered on; rather, it's the "carrot" that leads players to make decisions for their characters that are centered on the values of the religion. if:

• the values of the monastic order are expressed as trait-pairs; and,
  
• solving trait-pairs is the only way to improve the character; and,
  
• conflicts are expressed in such a way that they challenge trait pairs,
  [/list:u]
  
  ... then play will revolve around trying to be as true to one's faith as possible in a world filled with pain and hurt.
  
  

  Quote from: Kester Pelagius
  The reason I ask this is because many types of monastic orders have been touched upon in the discussion of this game concept.  Far be it from me to speak out of turn (sound of bull elephant pushing it's way through the cue) but wouldn't it be better to expand upon the basic premise by having a number of "paths" which the characters could follow?
  
  Monasticism, on a whole as discussed of late herein, I think, has devolved to the Medieval sort.  There are/have been Buddist monks, Franciscan monks, Gnostic monks, etcetera.  And what about Cabalists?  Nuns?
  

  
  any suggestions anyone wants to make can be helpful, Kester, so there is no need to apologize for "speaking out of turn". this is a group effort, after all. I think we've already decided on making the trait-pairs definable by the group, so you can design any belief system you wish. I noted, for example, that although Compassion might be paired with Violence in one belief system, it might be paired with Rationality in another (with Compassion indicating a negative in that belief system.)
  
  since it's possible to design numerous belief systems (or at least that is our intention,) you could certainly include rival monasteries, if that is what you prefer. we could include a rules section on how to deal with that in the game system. however, keep in mind we're working on the assumption that the monks are living spiritually in a time of worldly troubles; there are going to be a whole lot of horrible things going on around them (war, famine, disease, robbery, slavery, torture...) don't you think the plate is pretty full already? adding rival monks doesn't add that much to the game.
  
  

  Quote from: Kester Pelagius
  Meditation, indeed attempts to seek enlightenment, are hardly limited to monastic orders.  In fact the underlying premise could easily (perhaps) be expanded to include <<gasp>> "Fraternal" organisations; read: secret societies with claims of inisghts into "gnosis", knowledge.
  

  
  certainly you could play whatever kind of order you want, although I think we made a decision not to use real-world religious orders in case anyone was offended. meditation is irrelevant; for certain kinds of conflict, you might narrate "I meditate upon the meaning of Fear" or "I pray for guidance on this tough choice between Compassion and Peace". there probably won't be any game mechanics to specifically deal with meditation and prayer; this enables players to select some other action to replace it for their specific game vision.
  
  you might want to go back and read the previous thread called Let's Make a Game (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36430#36430), since we covered some concepts about what play would be like there. we've already mentioned gnostics, for example (I specifically suggested a historic game with wandering cathar monks after the destruction of their abbey during the french crusade, for example; we moved away from that for a couple reasons.) I think if you read that thread, it will become clear that the goal of the game is not really enlightenment, especially not enlightenment as defined by a specific belief system; the goal is to design a belief system and attempt to live up to your own values.
  
  hmmm... it could even be thought of as a learning exercise. "if you think other religions have failed one way or another, now it's YOUR turn. can you live up to your own ideals when faced with a world in despair?"

I'll try to respond to this (Kester's questions) fairly generally. My vision for Enlightenment is that the players (with or without GM direction) will determine the stat-pairs for their group of monks. (Note that, in this unique circumstance, I am considering Monk to be a gender-neutral term encompassing both monks and nuns.) As they "solve" their stat-pairs they become gradually more Enlightened. Once a character has "solved" a certain number of stat-pairs, they become Enlightened. This effectively takes the character out of play, and should be a campaign-culminating event. Earlier, the evocative line of "The Enlightend One passes within, and is not seen again" was used. There was also the proposal that the next character brought into the game by that player would have some sort of leg up (or the group would...) to make them more effective.

If anyone had liked my dual mechanic set up, I would have added that any roll that precisely matched their stat-pair on an enlighened action would gain a level (or tick) of enlightenment, representing a "Zen moment." I don't understand the other resolution mechanic well enough to propose a similar mechanism.

In the medeval setting, Abbots and Abbesses *were* considered clergy, many with as much power as a bishop (and in a few limited cases more power -- these were the 'mitred' Monestaries and Convents). I seem to recall that the same is true in Buddhism, where (as an example) the Dalai Lama is not just the reincarnation of a Great Spirit and a priest, he is also a Buddhist monk. An exception is Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism, which is heavily laicised.

I agree with John, Kester, that we have cerainly not gone with the Western idea of monks, but that we have in fact decided to leave it open ended. My use of the term priest (which Emily followed up on) has to do with the idea that in Bhuddist temples, the higher-ups are in fact referred to as priests in translation. I'm sure something is lost in the translation.

Not that we have to go that way. I just wanted there to be a concept of rank in these organizations. I could have as easily used abbot. The point is that we need to have some term to discuss the idea of "the guys who are higher up on the ladder than the monks and teachers". I just chose high priest as a convenient term.

As far as Worldliness, that's the negative trait opposite Enlightenment. It's the bad side. And it soes seem to be the universal thing about monks. The cloistered lifestyle seems to be chosen specifically because it reduces the monk's Worldliness. So I would vote for it's retention as a central trait.

Mike

Greetings talysman,

Quote from: talysmanyou might want to go back and read the previous thread called Let's Make a Game (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=36430#36430), since we covered some concepts about what play would be like there. we've already mentioned gnostics, for example (I specifically suggested a historic game with wandering cathar monks after the destruction of their abbey during the french crusade, for example; we moved away from that for a couple reasons.) I think if you read that thread, it will become clear that the goal of the game is not really enlightenment, especially not enlightenment as defined by a specific belief system; the goal is to design a belief system and attempt to live up to your own values.

Hmm.  Sounds like the premise of Neo-Paganism as often described in FAQs.  Create as you go, mix and match belief systems and mythos templates to suit personal Ego-identity of the moment, etc.

IOW: fast food religion.

(Put the stones down.  I am only talking about what I have read online, this is not a critical deconstruction of anyone's faith or belief system.  Ok, down, yes.  On the ground... Good.  Now we can continue.)

Now, if you formulated rules to allow for the creation of realistic religious/belief systems for use within the game environment... now that might be interesting.  Educational, too.  Especially if you "referenced" real world religions of the *past* as examples of certain theurgical points of... and... your eyes are glazing over again.  Ok, I digress.

As for the wandering Cathari monks, I have to admit, as the premise for module adventure campaign, it isn't a bad idea.  Hope you haven't abandoned it.  Of course you may have to change the names to protect the innocent and not offend but otherwise a interesting concept.

Then again what is wrong with a Historical RPG?

While your qualms are valid I am moved to ask:  Is this game being developed for the fun and inspiration of gamers by gamers or in a effort to second-guess what a commercial market will find consumable?

Did I mention thta I liked the idea of the wandering monks?  Ah.


Time catches up.  Will have to save this thread (and hope my imp of memory reminds me I did so) for further reading.


Kind Regards

Kester Pelagius

some more mechanics issues:

Kester -- Worldly/Spiritual is a trait pair. this is why we keep talking about Worldliness: it starts high and you must lower it.

Emily -- I'm not sure what you mean here:

Quote from: Emily Care
This means there needs to be a range of possible totals for any given trait pair, instead of a constant value that is dispersed between the two traits. Is that the direction we want to go? If so, characters could start with low trait totals and slowly progress, based on successes they have in either half of the pairs. More successes in the negative or worldly halves would raise their traits that way, and the same for the positive side. The mentors of the monks would be responsible for sending characters on missions that would help their spiritual development, and guide them away from "the dark side".

And I think it's worth considering having the rolls be against the halves of the trait pairs seperately rather than against the total.

what I was saying was that if each trait pair adds up to the highest possible die roll (10 on a d10, for example,) then having one number which you roll above for virtuous acts and below for base acts is identical to writing two numbers and rolling seperately against each. I stole this idea from Trollbabe, of course, although I'm using it slightly differently. I just think it's easier to erase and change one number instead of two.

we might actually want to go with d6 as Mike suggests, since basing everything on d10 means Worldliness could be as high as 10, in which case you would need to define at least 10 trait-pairs to solve. that might be a little too many religious values than people want to deal with when designing their religion.

how's this for character design?

characters start with two trait-pairs at 5 and Worldly at 3 (so they already have slight spiritual leanings.) they can lower a trait-pair by one point if they then add a point to either the other trait-pair or to Worldly. none of the scores can be raised above 6, nor can Worldly be lowered. we might have something like "Past", which indicates what skills the neophyte acquired before deciding to join a monastic order. Past could be expressed as a score as well, starting at 4; it can be raised only if Worldly is raised by the same amount. (lowering Past is allowed, but only as the last character score change, and it doesn't affect the other scores. no lowering Worldly by being less skilled!)

for dice resoultion, maybe something like what Mike suggested, but instead of rolling a dice pool equal to a trait, roll dice equal to Past. if the challenge you are facing is outside your experience, the opposing roll gets a bonus die. if you opt to use a trait-pair, you can roll extra dice (I'm still inclined to make the virtuous bonus work differently than the nonvirtuous half of the pair; I'd like to see the nonvirtuous trait be tempting because it is more powerful. maybe if you opt for the virtuous route, the challenge dice must be lower than the trait value -- if using a single number for the pair -- or higher than the trait value, if using two numbers for each trait pair.)

Quote from: Mark D. EddyIn the medeval setting, Abbots and Abbesses *were* considered clergy, many with as much power as a bishop (and in a few limited cases more power -- these were the 'mitred' Monestaries and Convents). I seem to recall that the same is true in Buddhism, where (as an example) the Dalai Lama is not just the reincarnation of a Great Spirit and a priest, he is also a Buddhist monk. An exception is Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism, which is heavily laicised.

yes... technically, monasticism is the practice of setting up special religious communities to reduce worldly influence. that applies to both christian and buddhist monks... in addition, medieval christian monks were simply a form of clergy that followed a monastic rule; delivering a sermon was one of the duties of a clerical monk above the neophyte level. there were also christian lay monks -- basically, people who lived at the monastery and did work in exchange for room, board, and prayer. lay monks could not perform priestly functions, they simple said their prayers on schedule and attended mass; most were illiterate.

the problem is, most people in the western world don't know what monks are anymore except via kung-fu movies and rpgs. maybe they are aware that the catholic church still has monastic orders, but for the most part they regard catholic monks as male nuns -- and nuns get little respect these days, either.

Quote from: talysmanmaybe they are aware that the catholic church still has monastic orders, but for the most part they regard catholic monks as male nuns -- and nuns get little respect these days, either.

Heh, I'll mention that to Brother Marv when I see him next. Of course having been raised Catholic might have something to do with the fact that I know quite a few Monks. ;-)

Want a stereotype from someone who talks to monks occasionally? Monks, rock, and are, in the very Catholic tradition, all pretty decent basketball players. Which only makes sense, as the Spirituality of B-Ball brings one closer to God.

Get to know a monk; they're fun guys. Franciscans, especially.

Mike

P.S. if you get a chance to, talk to a Jesuit priest some time as well. Yeah, they still exist, too.

Greetings Everyone,

There's a lot of comments in this post so take your time in plodding through it.


RE: Mark D. Eddy and Mike Holmes comments:

Seems I miscontrued something.  Did I mention that I had been reading bits and pieces of this thread?  I did?  Whew.  In that case you were very kind with your remarks.

QuoteMark D. Eddy: In the medeval setting, Abbots and Abbesses *were* considered clergy...[/i]

Yes, Abbots and Abbesses were definately ranked as members of the clergy.  They were not ordeigned Priests, generally speaking; if memory serves.  Monks, on a whole, were usually just lay persons.  Albeit persons who had taken vows, usually specific to Orders.

Sort of like that fine fellow Brother Cadfael.  What, they never showed those murder-mysteries on your local PBS station?

Good series.

I knew this was probably going to be a bad word choice when I used it but in all honesty I couldn't think of a better term so just forged ahead with it.

QuoteMark D. Eddy: I agree with John, Kester, that we have cerainly not gone with the Western idea of monks, but that we have in fact decided to leave it open ended.[/i]

I hope you'll forgive me for saying so, but when glancing over a post, and specific terminology jumps off the screen, I think most might make some basic assumptions.  As I obviously did.  To my eternal chagrin.

On a whole, if I may amend my previous posted statement, the *feel* of the game seems to be Western.  In spite of comments like:

QuoteMark D. Eddy: ..representing a "Zen moment"..[/i]

Sure Mark didn't use the term "ecstasy" in his example, but overall the *sense* of the *flavor* I got while reading was that of a Western(ised) Monastic system.  Alas, in this, I can only blame my own preconceived notions and world perceptions.

Which means, for once, my imp of memory doesn't get the blame.  Lucky it.  ;)

QuoteMark:

"Enlightenment is a game about pacifist monks."

Nice blurb.  But doesn't that narrow the potential game a bit?

How about something like:

"Enlightenment, the game in which characters dare to know"

This would thus leave the game open to a multitude of possible character archetypes.  Unless it has absolutely been decided that there is to only be one sort of character archetype?



Closing Comments

In short I guess what I am saying is that, while Emily's outline is good and well concieved, I think there could be much more to the game as orignally proposed.  Not that a game that provides a single night's entertainment is a bad thing.  Just that *I think* if the rules and concepts were seperated so that the end result was the concepts complimented the rules, meaning the game not only provided for a rules system by explained how to create a playable concept...

...then"Pacifist Monks" and "Wandering Cathari" could be adventures implemented for use with the core rules system.

IOW: Design a core rules system.  Take the "premises" which have been outlined by various people, many of which were very good by the way, develop them into full fledged "campaigns" or "scenarios" and what you have is an instant RPG with playable scenario modules.

Hope that made sense?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius


EDIT:  In my mad-cap rush to get this posted I had a title header in the wrong place.

Now to really take the rose by the thorns!

My suggestions for fleshing out CharGen in Enlightenment - working outline are as follows ::


Stats (possibles): Gnosis, Willpower, Psyche.  There should only be three (3) Stats, no more and no less, whatever they turn out to be.

Stat numerical range is from 0-7.  (Yes, there is a reasoning behind these numerical values, as I am sure many of you have begun to notice.)

Trait Pairs should be choosen as "aim for: Courage, must fight against: Fear" and should have a mechanic for in-game use applied accordingly.

There should only be twelve (12) Trait Pairs.  Each Trait Pair should be required to have FULL RANK mastery before anyone can be proclaimed as "Enlightened".


NOTE: Those wishing to delve into the darker side of things can institute an mechanic for the "Three Entered into Pardes but only One came out whole" effect on the Psyche.  But I would leave that up to group vote/decision as to whether such a negative aspect of the game should even be addressed.

There should be nine (9) Character Archetypes.

Alternatively the number of Trait Pairs and Character Archetypes could be reversed.  Then again they could also be arranged in Ogdoads, though I wouldn't suggest it.

There should 13 Ranks/Levels of advancement.

Comments?

Questions?

Rants?


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

Quote from: Mike Holmes

Quote from: talysmanmaybe they are aware that the catholic church still has monastic orders, but for the most part they regard catholic monks as male nuns -- and nuns get little respect these days, either.

Heh, I'll mention that to Brother Marv when I see him next. Of course having been raised Catholic might have something to do with the fact that I know quite a few Monks. ;-)

Want a stereotype from someone who talks to monks occasionally? Monks, rock, and are, in the very Catholic tradition, all pretty decent basketball players. Which only makes sense, as the Spirituality of B-Ball brings one closer to God.

Get to know a monk; they're fun guys. Franciscans, especially.

Mike

P.S. if you get a chance to, talk to a Jesuit priest some time as well. Yeah, they still exist, too.

oh, I know there are still Jesuits (there's a school here called Christian Brothers, which is Jesuit-run.) I'm just talking about popular perceptions. I get the feeling most people don't know what a monk is, or that they do things besides teach in schools. there's a group of (Trappist?) monks who specialize in training dogs. there are other monks who get medical degrees and start free clinics. nuns, too; monks and nuns really aren't that different from each other, but most people I hear talking about monks or nuns just talk about them as if they were people who pray alot, don't have sex, and get teaching jobs.

and most people don't even know that friars (like the Franciscans) still exist, let alone the differences between a friar and a monk (friars take vows, but they don't have a monastic rule; plus, I don't know if this is still true or not, but monks originally were clerics and could perform the rites of the church, while friars couldn't.)

anyways, we're zooming way off topic. oh, and to Kester: please re-read that thread I mentioned for more information about the game's premise. this thread is not about changing the premise of the game to make it more historical or whatever; it's about implimenting the existing premise through game mechanics. if you still have questions about what the premise is, you could private message me, I suppose. also, please keep opinions about NeoPaganism or other religions in another thread. this thread is in the "RPG Theory" forum and is about making a game. thanks.

QuoteIOW: Design a core rules system. Take the "premises" which have been outlined by various people, many of which were very good by the way, develop them into full fledged "campaigns" or "scenarios" and what you have is an instant RPG with playable scenario modules.

Hope that made sense?

Oh, yes. It makes perfect sense. The problem is that we seem to have a pile of people who are great at ideas and concepts, but lousy at mechanics.

The closest we've been able to come to what we want are the following:
1)It should be easy to raise the Unenlightened stats, but difficult to raise the Enlightened stats.
2)The stats should be paired up to represent the two sides of an Enlightenment coin.
3)There should be enough power in Unenlightened action to tempt the character to temporarily abandon his path of Enlightenment.
4)There should be some mechanism by which the Stat-pairs (as I have been calling them) can be customized.

As an aside, I hate to say it, but your memory-imp is on the fritz when it comes to monastics as clergy in the Christian setting. Especially in the Eastern Orthodox churches. Not all monks are/were ordained to the diaconate or priesthood, but a significant minority are/were. I think it rises to 20% in, for instance, the Russian Orthodox monestary in my neck of the woods (Vashon Island, WA).

Greetings,

Even having saved this thread to file I feel I cannot hold my proverbial water as I feel strongly about this.  My apologies, but read near the end, it is topical to this thread.  I ask, kindly, for my fellow Forgeites indulgence in this matter.  Your support or contempt is your own regard and you may act accordingly.

Quote(text expunged)

talysman:  anyways, we're zooming way off topic. oh, and to Kester: please re-read that thread I mentioned for more information about the game's premise. this thread is not about changing the premise of the game to make it more historical or whatever; it's about implimenting the existing premise through game mechanics. if you still have questions about what the premise is, you could private message me, I suppose. also, please keep opinions about NeoPaganism or other religions in another thread. this thread is in the "RPG Theory" forum and is about making a game. thanks.

As a general rule I endeavor not to take posts too seriously.  However, the unmitigated gall and sheer hypocrisy displayed in a post where two people are chattering on *about* religious matters where one of those actively taking part in said conversation then closes their posting with an caustic aside to an unrelated party about taking any of *their* comments about "religions in[to] another thread" is utter tripe.

Especially when the reference made was so obviously in relation to *online* material, of which most isn't scholarly in the slightest.  Not, I now realize, that this matter one whit to you, sirrah.

As I have started to use multi-syllable words this should tell you, sirrah, that I am none too pleased.

As to the remainder of your remarks, having read the originating thread, I was under the impression this was an OPEN DISCUSION to develop the best game possible.  If I was mistaken in this then, dear posters, give the fatal words and I shall delete all my posts and leave you as you were.  It is not in my philosophy to continue where unwanted.

Casual readers and posters to this thread,

Thank you.

To talysman:  Good day, sirrah.

Quote from: Mark D. Eddy

QuoteIOW: Design a core rules system. Take the "premises" which have been outlined by various people, many of which were very good by the way, develop them into full fledged "campaigns" or "scenarios" and what you have is an instant RPG with playable scenario modules.

Hope that made sense?

Oh, yes. It makes perfect sense. The problem is that we seem to have a pile of people who are great at ideas and concepts, but lousy at mechanics.

not so much lousy at mechanics as not yet able to agree on what mechanic to use.

Quote
The closest we've been able to come to what we want are the following:
1)It should be easy to raise the Unenlightened stats, but difficult to raise the Enlightened stats.
2)The stats should be paired up to represent the two sides of an Enlightenment coin.
3)There should be enough power in Unenlightened action to tempt the character to temporarily abandon his path of Enlightenment.
4)There should be some mechanism by which the Stat-pairs (as I have been calling them) can be customized.

there are a couple other points to add to that list:

• we (or at least a majority of us) want a dice pool technique.
  
• the highest number for either side of a stat-pair should be equal to the highest roll on 1die (for obvious reasons).
  
• the Unenlightened stat increases by one point permanently any time the Unenlightened bonus is used (we decided that in the previous thread.)
  
• the Enlightened stat only increases after an "exit interview/debriefing" with the mentor, and only after successfully using the Enlightened stat a number of times equal to the Unenlightened stat (Mike's idea from the last thread, which is why I suggested a tick-mark system in this thread.)
  
• the stat pairing is permanent -- so when an Enlightened member of a pair is increased, the Unenlightened member decreases, and vice versa.
  (this is why I suggested writing each stat pair as a single number, but writing two numbers that add up to the highest roll on 1 die works fine, too.)
  [/list:u]
  
  I'm switching alliegance from d10 to Mike's suggestion of using d6, so I believe that solves the problem of die type. so, our current sketch of how conflict resolution should work is:
  
  [list=1]
  
• describe your action, including whether you will be acting in an Enlightened or Unenlightened manner;
  
• roll an as yet unknown number of d6s;
  
• factor in a bonus based on the trait you used;
  
• interpret the roll (working on this);
  
• narrate the results;
  
• if acting Enlightened, make a tick-mark next to trait used; if acting Unenlightened, shift one point from Enlightened half to Unenlightened half of pair.
  [/list:o]
  
  at the end of a mission comes the debriefing with the mentor. if the mentor agrees that your overall mission was in accord with the religion's values, you keep your tick-marks, otherwise they are lost (or possibly: tick-marks become metagame points that shift to the mentor, who uses them to add neophytes or otherwise improve the monastery.)
  
  if you have enough tick-marks after debriefing (equal to your Unenlightened stat,) you can decrease the Unenlightened stat one point and increase the Enlightened stat. also, if the Unenlightened stat reaches zero, that problem is considered "solved" for that neophyte; Worldly is reduced 1 point (and Spiritual thus increases 1 point.)
  
  at appropriate moments, the neophyte can "graduate" to mentor, and later may even "graduate" to master of a new monastery.
  
  there's certainly more to be done, but right now, we need to focus on the conflict resolution and improvement mechanics, focusing first on how we determine how much dice to roll, how we add a bonus, and how we determine success.

Quote from: Kester PelagiusAs to the remainder of your remarks, having read the originating thread, I was under the impression this was an OPEN DISCUSION to develop the best game possible.

Well, John could have been more polite. We certainly were chit-chatting at least as much as you were. OTOH, he had put at the end of his response a note saying that he and I were off topic and that we, too, should get back on topic. So he wasn't being that hypocritical. Just trying to get things back on track in general terms.

Also, your comments could be seen to be potentially post premise, and as such they are appreciated. Still, in some lights they do look to be about a topic that has been closed for a while now. Namely that the general premise is set. As such, we have to try to go forward, and not look too much back, because if we continue with that behavior the project will never proceed. That said, we could have made it more clear what the subject of this thread is, which is, namely, coming up with mechanics for the premise determined by the previous thread.

So, please try to forgive John, Kester. He's just trying to get things moving in a forward motion. Which is something that this project will need a lot of if it is to get anywhere. And, BTW, I'd like it if this game could be the "best game it could be" but I'd settle for "complete" any day of the week. Because I still think it's got about a snowballs chance of actually making it there. So if we have to leave behind some good ideas, that's going to happen. The project can only proceed by group consensus, which, if you've ever worked by committee you'll know, is an extremely difficult proposition.


I will respond to your comment about a "Single night's entertainment". You must see this as very different that I think the rest of us do. That is, I posted about how progression for a single character would take several sessions per rank. Sounds like a very long term game to me. But that's just my impression. Why do you think that the framework as proposed would only support a one-shot?

Mike

Quote from: Mike Holmes

Quote from: Kester PelagiusAs to the remainder of your remarks, having read the originating thread, I was under the impression this was an OPEN DISCUSION to develop the best game possible.

Well, John could have been more polite. We certainly were chit-chatting at least as much as you were. OTOH, he had put at the end of his response a note saying that he and I were off topic and that we, too, should get back on topic. So he wasn't being that hypocritical. Just trying to get things back on track in general terms.

yes, I apologize if my comment seemed harsh. I think one of the problems is that I should have made the comments about the premise seperate from the comment about "opinions of NeoPaganism". although Kester's comments related to reworking the premise, I did not intend to criticise him for that; in fact, I welcomed him to post his game ideas earlier in this thread. I merely was suggesting he can catch up on what the premise is in the original design thread. I even offered to answer premise questions in private mail.

as for the comment about NeoPaganism, I believed it was potentially inflamatory, and I think Kester recognized that when he added the "don't throw stones". I think we need to avoid that, myself. if you have an idea about how to impliment NeoPagan monks, that's fine; discussions of what real-world religions do in order to impliment them in game terms is fine. but I don't want this thread to turn into an argument. I did think a long time about how to diffuse that situation politely, but I was obviously a little more curt than I should have been. maybe a simple "let's not call NeoPaganism a fast-food religion in this thread" would have been better and less offensive.

as a further apology, I will assume that Kester really was asking if the rules system works the same way as he understands NeoPaganism to work and answer the question. I haven't read these FAQs he refers to, but based on how he describes it, we are not talking about religions that make up their belief systems as they go along. the players design the religion, not the monk characters. the religion is assumed to have existed for some time. when we talk about choosing religious beliefs, we're talking about designing the setting.

Greetings All,

Rather than propitiate what the near semi-divine moderaters may take as a flame war (and forever banish me from these sacred halls) I would just like to say, next time just E-Mail me.  I actual included my email in my info when I logged in initially.  Should save on wasted space on "misunderstandings".

Additionally, for my part, I apologize if any thought my response was out of line.  Speaking of which, to get back *into* line...  Believe it or not talysman, me boyo, that post did inspire.

I started a thread here (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=8550d033cccbf42ac5afa237b8a39b81&threadid=19419) on the RPG.NET Game Design Forum which you may find of interest.

In an attempt to clarify my part in all this let me just begin by saying it is my *opinion* that what is required is a codefied Core Mechanic, meaning specificaly a complete Rules System encompassing (in outline) 1) definitions of the Attributes/Stats; 2) CharGen methodolgy; and 3) whatever else my fiendish imp of memory may have absconded with into the shadowy closet in the corner.

In otherwords a rules referent which *everyone* can agree upon and have to hold as model for their designs/ideas/etcetera.

As for the rest of it, I was just trying to suss out what, exactly, everyone wants/intends the overall game premise to be.  In my *opinion*, I think there *could be* a larger game here encompassing *everyone's* ideas.  Perhaps it is not practical to impliment, but from what I have read it appears like there is a cornucopia of ideas.  If there was *just* a Core Rules outline, in my *opinion*, I think something wonderful could be hammered out here.

Which is why I was asking round about questions, more or less.

You have all done a lot of work, very interesting and thought provoking, and I was trying not to seem like someone coming up to your gaming table and saying, "Hey what's that?  Oh," picking up the dice without asking, "pretty, but funny looking.  So what's this all about then."

As for the rest of it.  My suggested mechanics tie in to the premise.

I wont bore you with lame attempts to explain why as most here probably already are well aware of the numerical associations, and could probably tell you better than I the reasons why.

I will save this thread for further review.  Good evening to you, sir talysman, and a good and safe weekend may it be.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

EDIT:  One day I will learn the "preview" button is there for a reason, and that the board administrators provided it so people wouldn't have to correct grammar and syntax errors this way.  But did I find them all?

One thing that hit me at work today after having posted my thought about doing a combined stat pair roll method.  I'm putting cart-before-horse ...

Are we doing task resolution, conflict resolution, scene resolution, narrative control rolling?

I/We should try to hammer out an example description of "the game in play"

Bob McNamee

Quote from: Bob McNameeOne thing that hit me at work today after having posted my thought about doing a combined stat pair roll method.  I'm putting cart-before-horse ...

Are we doing task resolution, conflict resolution, scene resolution, narrative control rolling?

I/We should try to hammer out an example description of "the game in play"

good idea. I was just thinking we do need a sample of how it would play out. I've been posting really simple examples, the kind you would see as explanations of rules, not a sample of play.

as for the resolution system, we've been mostly talking conflict resolution. I think everyone's anxious to avoid the task-resolution level. this so far seems Narrativist rather than Simulationist or Gamist.

Quote from: talysman

Quote from: Bob McNameeOne thing that hit me at work today after having posted my thought about doing a combined stat pair roll method.  I'm putting cart-before-horse ...

Are we doing task resolution, conflict resolution, scene resolution, narrative control rolling?

I/We should try to hammer out an example description of "the game in play"

good idea. I was just thinking we do need a sample of how it would play out. I've been posting really simple examples, the kind you would see as explanations of rules, not a sample of play.

as for the resolution system, we've been mostly talking conflict resolution. I think everyone's anxious to avoid the task-resolution level. this so far seems Narrativist rather than Simulationist or Gamist.

Thats more or less what I thought...Narrativist conflict resolution, just kicking it out there to see if I had misinterpreted.

If I get some quiet time this weekend maybe I'll write up some play example text... (how I envision it anyway...)

Kester,

thank you for accepting my apology.

Quote from: Kester Pelagius
In an attempt to clarify my part in all this let me just begin by saying it is my *opinion* that what is required is a codefied Core Mechanic, meaning specificaly a complete Rules System encompassing (in outline) 1) definitions of the Attributes/Stats; 2) CharGen methodolgy; and 3) whatever else my fiendish imp of memory may have absconded with into the shadowy closet in the corner.

In otherwords a rules referent which *everyone* can agree upon and have to hold as model for their designs/ideas/etcetera.

we're probably not all going to agree. that is OK. I've already had a couple of my ideas shot down (and I was the one who suggested monks!) it's no big deal... if someone's vision doesn't get accepted by the group as a whole, there's always the possibility of a "rules fork" -- someone develops the rules in the specific direction they find most inspiring.

this is why we are discussing "Enlightenment the RPG" as a generic, low-detail, ahistorical background; it's easier for  group to cooperate on. highly specific settings are really more like personal visions and are best designed by one person (or maybe a two-person partnership.)

plus, we have to be realistic about this. we're designing a game as a group, in the forums. I doubt you could do a 100+ page game that way; it's too much work for what may later turn out to be a "just for fun" experiment. we're really talking about a 30-pager, here. that's quite enough on our plates.

your earlier suggestion (3 stats, 12 trait-pairs, 9 archetypes, and so on) is just far too complicated for a small Narrativist rpg. plus, the carefully-selected numeric values and stat names fit in with a specific religious background rather than being generic. they would be good for a different game, maybe (specifically, one designed by a single designer.) plus, one of the reasons why we went with a monks-only game was the challenge of creating a single-character-type system; nine archetypes sounds like nine character classes, to me. we're not doing "Monk: the Enlightenment", just a nice simple game you could play for 3-5 sessions.

so far, what we have been aiming for is:

• one stat (not decided yet, although I suggested Past);
  
• a variable number of trait-pairs (start with one, acquire others during play);
  
• a Worldly/Spiritual stat-pair for each scope of play (one personal, one for the monastery as a whole, perhap one for the order as a whole.)
  [/list:u]
  
  as we develop the system, there's a chance we may discover a need for another stat or two. we just might take your suggestion to add Psyche or Willpower (probably not both, since one stat could be used for all "internal" issues, in contrast to the stat for "external" issues.)
  
  still, why not describe how you see psyche or willpower being used, or how you would break down nine archetypes of monk? if there's something that just screams "USE ME!", or something that raises some issues that need addressing, that would help a lot.
  
  thank you for your suggestions!

Quote from: talysmanKester,

thank you for accepting my apology.

After those two eloquent and even minded posts I would have felt a heel to have done otherwise.

Quote from: talysmanKester,

we're probably not all going to agree. that is OK. I've already had a couple of my ideas shot down (and I was the one who suggested monks!) it's no big deal... if someone's vision doesn't get accepted by the group as a whole, there's always the possibility of a "rules fork" -- someone develops the rules in the specific direction they find most inspiring.

If that is the case, and you don't mind, then I think I will post my little bit of rule mechanics I have partially hammered out.  Not saying they will be viable for use with this, but for the sake of *idea* and *inspirational* value they may aide others.

If no one objects to this I shall post the thumbnail mechanics under the title: "Code Name: Pleroma".  (I know, a bit puffed up, but I wanted to keep to something relatively in line with "Enlightenment".)

Quote from: talysmanthis is why we are discussing "Enlightenment the RPG" as a generic, low-detail, ahistorical background; it's easier for  group to cooperate on. highly specific settings are really more like personal visions and are best designed by one person (or maybe a two-person partnership.)

Indeed.  I have no qualms with the background.  The background, as established, is fine.  I was (or rather was *trying*) to find out what direction the mechanics were taking and how close to the underlying premise/background they were intended to be.

Moot point now.  Onward and upward I say!

Quote from: talysmanplus, we have to be realistic about this. we're designing a game as a group, in the forums. I doubt you could do a 100+ page game that way...

(Blink)

(Blink)

Great gods of Cobol man, who said anything about anyONE doing a 100+ pages of text?

(Sorry, Battlestar Galactica reference.)

Of course, if everyone contributed a few pages here or there...

Quote from: talysmanyour earlier suggestion (3 stats, 12 trait-pairs, 9 archetypes, and so on) is just far too complicated for a small Narrativist rpg. plus, the carefully-selected numeric values and stat names fit in with a specific religious background rather than being generic. they would be good for a different game, maybe (specifically, one designed by a single designer.)

It only sounds complicated.  You already have lain the ground work for most of the Syzygies (opposite pairs), I only suggested "12" because, I think, there were 8 or 9 in Emily's example.

You could just as well reduce this to 7, 9, or expand it.  I wouldn't suggest the latter.  Overtly complicated.

Quote from: talysmanplus, one of the reasons why we went with a monks-only game was the challenge of creating a single-character-type system; nine archetypes sounds like nine character classes, to me. we're not doing "Monk: the Enlightenment", just a nice simple game you could play for 3-5 sessions.

Well if that is what is wanted who am I to argue?

Still it would have been nice to expand the system to be modular and allow for those wandering monks...  Of course it would also be nice if we could all win the Lotto.  ;)

Quote from: talysmanas we develop the system, there's a chance we may discover a need for another stat or two. we just might take your suggestion to add Psyche or Willpower (probably not both, since one stat could be used for all "internal" issues, in contrast to the stat for "external" issues.)

Yes, I noticed my flubb.  Instead of Stats for "Body, Mind, Spirit" I did "Mind, Spirit, Soul" or somesuch.  I redid those basic Stats.  Of course they are rather religio-centric, if that's even the right made up word for them.

No matter, if no one objects I'll post what I have.  Still very much a work in progress.

Quote from: talysmanstill, why not describe how you see psyche or willpower being used, or how you would break down nine archetypes of monk? if there's something that just screams "USE ME!", or something that raises some issues that need addressing, that would help a lot.

thank you for your suggestions!

Alas, from what you have said here, I fear what I had in mind may not be usable.  I haven't actually tried to write any of this up but here goes...

I had envision the Archetypes sa being based upon real-world mystic/philosophic paths.  Since every religious and mystic Order is slightly different I thought there would be plenty of background to braw upon.  Here's a few I had in mind:

Buddhist
Cabalist
Gnostic
Franciscan
...

And a few "Nun" types.  The female orders really are different, least I seem to think *some* are (Tibetan?) for some odd reason.   The few I can think of off the top of my head might include:

Pythoness
?

Not very inspiring, I am afraid.  But that's about as far into the idea as I got.  Also there were a lot of "fraternal" Orders which skirted the edges, then there are the "mystery schools" which could probably be looked into for resource material.


Kind Regards,

Kester Pelagius

Quote from: talysmanKester,

thank you for accepting my apology.

Quote from: Kester Pelagius
In an attempt to clarify my part in all this let me just begin by saying it is my *opinion* that what is required is a codefied Core Mechanic, meaning specificaly a complete Rules System encompassing (in outline) 1) definitions of the Attributes/Stats; 2) CharGen methodolgy; and 3) whatever else my fiendish imp of memory may have absconded with into the shadowy closet in the corner.

In otherwords a rules referent which *everyone* can agree upon and have to hold as model for their designs/ideas/etcetera.

we're probably not all going to agree. that is OK. I've already had a couple of my ideas shot down (and I was the one who suggested monks!) it's no big deal... if someone's vision doesn't get accepted by the group as a whole, there's always the possibility of a "rules fork" -- someone develops the rules in the specific direction they find most inspiring.

this is why we are discussing "Enlightenment the RPG" as a generic, low-detail, ahistorical background; it's easier for  group to cooperate on. highly specific settings are really more like personal visions and are best designed by one person (or maybe a two-person partnership.)

plus, we have to be realistic about this. we're designing a game as a group, in the forums. I doubt you could do a 100+ page game that way; it's too much work for what may later turn out to be a "just for fun" experiment. we're really talking about a 30-pager, here. that's quite enough on our plates.

your earlier suggestion (3 stats, 12 trait-pairs, 9 archetypes, and so on) is just far too complicated for a small Narrativist rpg. plus, the carefully-selected numeric values and stat names fit in with a specific religious background rather than being generic. they would be good for a different game, maybe (specifically, one designed by a single designer.) plus, one of the reasons why we went with a monks-only game was the challenge of creating a single-character-type system; nine archetypes sounds like nine character classes, to me. we're not doing "Monk: the Enlightenment", just a nice simple game you could play for 3-5 sessions.

so far, what we have been aiming for is:

• one stat (not decided yet, although I suggested Past);
  
• a variable number of trait-pairs (start with one, acquire others during play);
  
• a Worldly/Spiritual stat-pair for each scope of play (one personal, one for the monastery as a whole, perhap one for the order as a whole.)
  [/list:u]
  
  as we develop the system, there's a chance we may discover a need for another stat or two. we just might take your suggestion to add Psyche or Willpower (probably not both, since one stat could be used for all "internal" issues, in contrast to the stat for "external" issues.)
  
  still, why not describe how you see psyche or willpower being used, or how you would break down nine archetypes of monk? if there's something that just screams "USE ME!", or something that raises some issues that need addressing, that would help a lot.
  
  thank you for your suggestions!

I was thinking earlier that maybe there was a need for a stat like Family, Friends...etc that acted as a pull away from the contemplative enlightment into the world. Something mechanical to keep you from just deciding your way up the ladder. (always choosing the monkly choice)

I like the sound of the idea of a Past...
I'll have to go find where you mentioned it.
Does it work like a target number (maybe a target roll to even attempt a Worldly / Spiritual roll...a chance to leave your past behind)? This would make Worldly/Spiritual a very slow moving stat pair since there would be an addition "activation roll" to try for changing it. Perhaps the target number starts high as an initiate... lowering as you make successful Worldly / Spiritual decision rolls.

Alternately, you could include a Past stat as an Other-player director stance stat...that is, If you wish to jump in and use directors stance to up-the-emotional-ante for another Player's character... you can jump in (with a roll) and create ties to the Past of the character...actual ties or parallel situations that charge the scene for them.

I know...more thoughts...still no real mechanics...
(and now I'll go look for your last mention of Past stat to see if I've reinvented the wheel)

Enjoy!

Quote from: Bob McNamee
I was thinking earlier that maybe there was a need for a stat like Family, Friends...etc that acted as a pull away from the contemplative enlightment into the world. Something mechanical to keep you from just deciding your way up the ladder. (always choosing the monkly choice)

I like the sound of the idea of a Past...
I'll have to go find where you mentioned it.
Does it work like a target number (maybe a target roll to even attempt a Worldly / Spiritual roll...a chance to leave your past behind)? This would make Worldly/Spiritual a very slow moving stat pair since there would be an addition "activation roll" to try for changing it. Perhaps the target number starts high as an initiate... lowering as you make successful Worldly / Spiritual decision rolls.

Alternately, you could include a Past stat as an Other-player director stance stat...that is, If you wish to jump in and use directors stance to up-the-emotional-ante for another Player's character... you can jump in (with a roll) and create ties to the Past of the character...actual ties or parallel situations that charge the scene for them.

I know...more thoughts...still no real mechanics...
(and now I'll go look for your last mention of Past stat to see if I've reinvented the wheel)

I suggested Past, described the dice mechanic I imagined, but didn't really describe the stat much. I basically borrowed the idea from Sorcerer & Sword, although there are a couple other games that use a "catch-all character profession stat", like SHERPA and Risus.

the Family mechanic sounds interesting, although instead of using a seperate stat, I'd just use Worldly. but that basic idea may be something we want ... so far, Worldly isn't being used except as a measure of steps away from the final goal. we could require a Worldly roll before any use of a virtuous ability. this would allow us to make the virtuous side of the stat pair work otherwise like the negative side.

normal roll:

• describe action being attempted
  
• roll dice equal to Past, opposed by opponent's Past, or:
     1 die for common actions, or
     3 dice for actions within the boundaries of your Past, or
     5 dice for actions outside your experience.
  
• dice higher than opposing dice count as successes
  [/list:u]
  
  negatively empowered ("unenlightened") roll:
  
  
  
  • describe action being attempted, including how you are drawing upon your passions or attachments
    
  • roll dice equal to Past, opposed as above, but add dice equal to the negative stat involved
    
  • dice higher than opposing dice count as successes
    
  • add 1 point to negative stat used
    [/list:u]
    
    postively empowered ("enlightened") roll:
    
    
    
    • describe action being attempted, including how you are drawing upon your virtuous behaviour
      
    • roll dice equal to Past, opposed as above, but add dice equal to the positive stat involved
      
    • dice higher than opposing dice count as successes if they are also higher than your Worldly stat
      
    • mark a tally next to the positive stat used (for a possible later gain)
      [/list:u]
      
      this would keep the negative stat a little more risky to use and keep the positive stat only slightly less useful than the negative side, which sort of reinforces the inner conflict more.
      
      oh, and if we wanted to make the negative side slightly more tempting, we could make it only partly risky. maybe you only gain a point on the negative stat any time you roll one of your dice equal to or below your Worldly stat. maybe you could even gain multiple points, if several of the dice are below Worldly. this would make it sometimes risky to draw upon your anger when defending an innocent person, but not ALWAYS risky... plus, it is riskier when you are very worldly (a beginner) and becomes less risky the more spiritual you become... and virtuous actions become easier to perform as you become more spiritual.
      
      this would also work well with the "add a trait-pair on the fly" idea I suggested in this thread. if you add a whole bunch of trait-pairs during the early stages of play, your character becomes burdened with many bad behaviors and must work harder to get rid of them... but also has more passions (and virtues!) to draw on in play... by waiting until later, the trait-pairs are added at the character's current Worldly score and may thus be closer to resolving.
      
      one side note: as you can tell, I keep switching around on what to call each half of the trait-pair. I know we've been calling them "enlightened" and "unenlightened", but we're also talking about the quest for "enlightenment", and I think we're using words derived from "enlighten" a little too much... one possibility is to call the positive side of the trait a Virtue, but I'm not sure we want to call the negative side a sin... not sure what we should call it, though. Obstacle, maybe?

Perhaps we could call the negative side of a trait pair a Temptation?

I like the idea of the negative side being easier to use, thus Tempting. In the long run leading you astray and losing power and perhaps your monkhood. Perhaps, the worldly trait can be used to judge when you have fallen into the trap of worldly connections through dropping too low and perhaps maxing a negative trait pair moves Worldly automatically.

Hello! Yay, actual mechanics to work with! Excellent. Good work.  :) Sorry this post is so g_d-awful long...

Quote from: talysmanone side note: as you can tell, I keep switching around on what to call each half of the trait-pair.... one possibility is to call the positive side of the trait a Virtue, but I'm not sure we want to call the negative side a sin... not sure what we should call it, though. Obstacle, maybe?

Do they all align with Worldly/Spiritual? We could use that to refer to them all. (eg Violence=worldly trait, Compassion=spiritual trait)  Temptation is very apt, too.

Oh, I just had an idea. :) Pre-monkdom experience could fall under the Past stat, post-monkdom experience could normally fall under a different stat: Path.  But experiences that run contrary to spiritual goals of the monk would increase their Past.  If so, there would have to be some kind of drawback to the Past Pool.

Maybe, when you roll using your past you can only use your worldly traits. When you use your Path pool you can use your spiritual traits. I'm afraid I'm having a hard time seeing if this would help or hinder what John suggested. Too sleepy. :)

And a simple char gen mechanic: for each point in each pool, you have to narrate an experience relating to an appropriate trait that gives you that die.  


And going back a bit:

Quoteif each stat pair has to add up to 10 (for example,) why not just write "Monk Theo has a 7 in Pride/Humility", then roll over for actions invoking humility and under for actions invoking pride.

This was where my confusion came from, John.  I was under the impression that the trait pairs would all add up to the same number. And if so, how could there be any variation if you roll above or below this total?  Now I think I get it: if the total # is 10 and I have Compassion 6 and Violence 4, really all I am doing is rolling above or below 4 or 6 on a d10. So, instead, we can just choose one number and say we roll above or below it. Yes? Good observation on your part.

Quote from: Bob McNamee
I was thinking earlier that maybe there was a need for a stat like Family, Friends...etc that acted as a pull away from the contemplative enlightment into the world. Something mechanical to keep you from just deciding your way up the ladder. (always choosing the monkly choice)

If this was applied to the Past, pool, then whoever happens to be giving you obstacles could use your Past to make you use your worldly trait instead of your spiritual trait? Hmmm...that sounds dangerous.  

Quotethis would also work well with the "add a trait-pair on the fly" idea I suggested in this thread. if you add a whole bunch of trait-pairs during the early stages of play, your character becomes burdened with many bad behaviors and must work harder to get rid of them... but also has more passions (and virtues!) to draw on in play... by waiting until later, the trait-pairs are added at the character's current Worldly score and may thus be closer to resolving.

Very interesting.  I don't know if I suggested it, but the thought occurred to me that in order for a character to become really saintly, we could require that they have overcome a lot of challenges.  This sounds different from the earlier idea of having just so many trait pairs that any given character gets assigned.  We might want to look at the scope of the game (is this giong to be intended to be a short campaign system, or is it intended to support a long-term campaign set in a fully-elaborated world).

I'd like to see characters be individuated by which set of trait pairs they get assigned.  I hope this doesn't undercut the "single-character-class" nature of the design. I think it would work with it and help give niches for the individual characters.


--Emily Care

I've written an example of play as I understand it. Here are some suggestions I've thought of as I was writing it:

--Especially given the setting, letting other character support someone making a roll would be good.
--Past could be invoked to tempt characters into using their more worldly trait-pair half.  You could have to make a saving throw to avoid doing it.
--If a "Path" pool (from experiences after becoming a monk) look useful, it could be increased by completing signigicant tasks, and dice from it could use spiritual sides of the trait pairs more efficiently somehow.

--An alternate approach altogether that we could explore would be doing something like in Shadows, where the player narrates two actions: one using the negative half of the trait pair, one using the positive. The resolution could determine that narrative that happens.

Quote from: talysman
normal roll:

• describe action being attempted
  
• roll dice equal to Past, opposed by opponent's Past, or:
     1 die for common actions, or
     3 dice for actions within the boundaries of your Past, or
     5 dice for actions outside your experience.
  
• dice higher than opposing dice count as successes
  [/list:u]
  
  negatively empowered ("unenlightened") roll:
  
  
  
  • describe action being attempted, including how you are drawing upon your passions or attachments
    
  • roll dice equal to Past, opposed as above, but add dice equal to the negative stat involved
    
  • dice higher than opposing dice count as successes
    
  • add 1 point to negative stat used
    [/list:u]
    
    postively empowered ("enlightened") roll:
    
    
    
    • describe action being attempted, including how you are drawing upon your virtuous behaviour
      
    • roll dice equal to Past, opposed as above, but add dice equal to the positive stat involved
      
    • dice higher than opposing dice count as successes if they are also higher than your Worldly stat
      
    • mark a tally next to the positive stat used (for a possible later gain)
      [/list:u]

Example using the above:

Neophyte Yaffa
Has just joined her Monastery. She is from one of the fishing villages on the coast. She has--say--3 trait pairs, two personal from before her admission and the Worldly/Spiritual master pair. She's joining pretty young, say at 12-15, so her Past stat is low.

Past  3

Her first trait pair is Sloth/Industry. Working with her family gave her an appreciation for hard labor so her enlightened/virtuous/spiritual half of the trait is fairly well developed. (Using d6, so 6 is the max of any stat pair) She's got:

Sloth/Industry  2/4

Her second trait pair is Violence/Compassion.  The local gentry is extremely corrupt, so her family has been overtaxed and been forced to sell a couple of her siblings into slavery to survive.  Yaffa has attacked the tax collectors in the past, and been beaten for this.  Her violence is pretty high. (Though this situation evokes her compassion as well--for her family--maybe there could be a case for having some stats be higher than others depending on the circumstance: there might be higher potential for development in some areas than others?)

Violence/Compassion  5/1

She left her village and came to the monastery. She has a mix of motivations for coming, including a selfish desire to escape punishment, a compassionate desire to help her family and her own spiritual yearnings.

She has many attachments to her past, so her Worldly stat is correspondingly high. (Should it simply start out the same as the "worst" trait pair the character has?)

Worldy/Spirtual  5/1

The Rimpoche/Priest/Master who takes her in sees her potential in her strong desire to help her family.  He sees that she is in moral danger of falling into her baser desires.  She is sheltered and taken in, to ground her and her first tasks are to tend the sick, to help her compassion to grow.

Quote from: talysman
postively empowered ("enlightened") roll:

• describe action being attempted, including how you are drawing upon your virtuous behaviour
  
• roll dice equal to Past, opposed as above, but add dice equal to the positive stat involved
  
• dice higher than opposing dice count as successes if they are also higher than your Worldly stat
  
• mark a tally next to the positive stat used (for a possible later gain)
  [/list:u]

Yaffa is assigned to help with the sick children who have been brought to the monastery.  Many of them have the same illness, a fever that has swept through this part of the country side.  She is working with a team of other monks, to provide the round the clock care the children need to have any hope of surviving.  She is shown how to prepare the herbal decoctions and compresses used to treat those with the fever and assigned to making sure there is a steady supply.

Yaffa's player, or the gm, states that Yaffa has a hard time connecting with the children. There is a tense moment or two when she realizes that one of the children is from a family of one of the tax-collectors who beat her.  This would be a good moment for some kind of roll "against" making a Violent action of some sort.  

A Suggestion:
The player could narrate what the character would do if she fell into her darker side, and then make a saving throw to avoid it. All penalties of the usual use of the worldly or tempting traits would apply.  This would be a good place for Bob McNamee's suggestion about players having Family stats or having the Past come back somehow.

In order to accomplish the task, Yaffa's player invokes her Industrious trait.  

Quote from: talysman
postively empowered ("enlightened") roll:

• describe action being attempted, including how you are drawing upon your virtuous behaviour
  
• roll dice equal to Past, opposed as above, but add dice equal to the positive stat involved
  
• dice higher than opposing dice count as successes if they are also higher than your Worldly stat
  
• mark a tally next to the positive stat used (for a possible later gain)
  [/list:u]

She's got a Past 3, and a 4 in Industrious, so Yaffa's player rolls 7d6.

The task is outside the boundaries of her past, she's never done this before.  So the opposing role is 5d6.

Yaffa's player wants to call on the support of the other monks since her worldly stat is so high.  All her successes will have to be higher than 5 (her Worldly stat), not 4 (her Industrious stat).  

Rolls:

Yaffa         1-2-2-4-4-5-6
Opposing   2-3-3-5-5

The support of the other monks could allow her to only have to roll as high as her positive trait, rather than her worldliness.  So instead of only getting one success, this roll would give her three successes.

--Emily Care

I like the idea of all new monks starting with a Worldly / Spiritual trait pair of 'X' / 1...
Worldly / Spiritual (5/1) or (9/1)
New characters start the game mostly connected to the
world... even those with a "spiritual bent" are much more connected than they realize.

I like Past and Path as... categories / traits / dice pools /  target numbers concerning connections to the worldly Past (family, attitudes, experiences) or things learned along the spiritual Path (wisdom, selflessness, enlightenment).

The possiblity of doing something Shadow-like with them would be cool.

Quote from: Emily CareI've written an example of play as I understand it. Here are some suggestions I've thought of as I was writing it:

--Especially given the setting, letting other character support someone making a roll would be good.
--Past could be invoked to tempt characters into using their more worldly trait-pair half.  You could have to make a saving throw to avoid doing it.
--If a "Path" pool (from experiences after becoming a monk) look useful, it could be increased by completing signigicant tasks, and dice from it could use spiritual sides of the trait pairs more efficiently somehow.

just to clarify, I didn't suggest Past as being another form of attachment or obstacle, although I suppose we could use it that way. I think players should have a basic opportunity to resolve a scene without using any Virtue or Passion/Temptation at all; using a trait-pair would boost the basic opportunity. Past is thus just what you started to do before hearing the Call and seeking the monastery.

we could change it to another possible trait-pair, I suppose, and shift the game mechanic away from opposed rolls. for any action, roll 3 dice if it would be easy for anyone in your environment, 2 dice if it requires training and you've had that training, or 1 die if it's outside your training.

Quote
--An alternate approach altogether that we could explore would be doing something like in Shadows, where the player narrates two actions: one using the negative half of the trait pair, one using the positive. The resolution could determine that narrative that happens.

I'm not familiar with Shadows, although I read the description of the IRC session in Actual Play. I should investigate...

you described a character, Yaffa, and asked:

Quote
She has many attachments to her past, so her Worldly stat is correspondingly high. (Should it simply start out the same as the "worst" trait pair the character has?)

that was how I envisioned it (your Worldly stat begins equal to your highest Temptation/Passion at the moment you are accepted as a neophyte. Bob's suggestion (everyone starts with Worldly 5/Spiritual 1) sounds good, too. in fact, we could go with "you have Worldly 5/Spiritual 1, one stat-pair at 5/1, and a second stat-pair at 4/1" and not bother with point-buys. I figured we'd skip chargen for now, because we need to be able to describe characters first before deciding how to build those descriptions. we can almost describe the characters completely right now, but we need to work out conflict resolution in order to see what stats we actually need -- like the question of Past and Path. we haven't even decided how to handle economics or wounds yet.

Quote
Yaffa is assigned to help with the sick children who have been brought to the monastery.  Many of them have the same illness, a fever that has swept through this part of the country side.  She is working with a team of other monks, to provide the round the clock care the children need to have any hope of surviving.  She is shown how to prepare the herbal decoctions and compresses used to treat those with the fever and assigned to making sure there is a steady supply.

Yaffa's player, or the gm, states that Yaffa has a hard time connecting with the children. There is a tense moment or two when she realizes that one of the children is from a family of one of the tax-collectors who beat her.  This would be a good moment for some kind of roll "against" making a Violent action of some sort.  

A Suggestion:
The player could narrate what the character would do if she fell into her darker side, and then make a saving throw to avoid it. All penalties of the usual use of the worldly or tempting traits would apply.  This would be a good place for Bob McNamee's suggestion about players having Family stats or having the Past come back somehow.

I'm thinking it would be nice to avoid "saving rolls". instead, maybe Yaffa would make an ordinary roll while tending to the children, but if she doesn't get any successes, she must pick one of her negative traits and the GM must narrate a challenge that arose because of that trait... so if she chose Violence when she did not get her success, the GM says she was interrupted when she noticed one of the children is the daughter of the tax-collector. I don't think it's appropriate for the GM to tell you "your character lost control, went apeshit, and strangled the child. we would just pause the scene at that point, allowing the player to opt for a re-roll (and let's say re-rolls require using traits!) or to turn aside (no immediate game penalty, but the mentor might say "you failed to learn your lesson" and take away whatever tally points were earned on that mission.

Yaffa would have a decision to make: use her Compassion on a reroll and attempt to help the child despite her remembered pain, or attempt to use her Violence in an argument with the tax-collector, threatening to leave the child alone unless he did something to make amends. maybe with no successes on a reroll, the situation goes from bad to worse (the tax collector accuses a Compassionate Yaffa of attempting to kill his daughter, even though she did no such thing... or attempts to punish Yaffa's family for daring to threaten him.)

Quote
The support of the other monks could allow her to only have to roll as high as her positive trait, rather than her worldliness.  So instead of only getting one success, this roll would give her three successes.

I'd prefer to keep it a hard roll. she has the option of taking a simple roll (Past only, or 1/2/3 dice, or whatever a roll without a trait would be.) no risk, but no danger. plus, if she has to roll as high as her positive trait, then having other monks help her out would become less likely to succeed as her postive trait rose. and anyways, that one success gives her a tally-mark; she doesn't need the help of the other monks.

still, she's going to find it hard to raise a positive trait as a neophyte, and anyways it is desirable to get the group working together, so how about this: another monk could narrate his action during the scene as "I pray for Yaffa" or "I give her a few words of encouragement" (or something similar) and make a seperate roll. that monk's successes lower Yaffa's Worldly score temporarily, for the purpose of any enlightened or virtuous acts in that scene.

so Theo is with Yaffa... he tells Yaffa "remember the words of the prophet: to heal the wounds of the spirit, you must heal the wounds of the flesh" and rolls the dice. if Theo gets two successes, Yaffa's Worldly score dropps to 3 for this scene, making it easier for her to invoke her Virtue.

here's another thought, which may resolve the issue about using actual stat-pairs versus using a single number and a roll over/roll under mechanic: if we record the number right on the character sheet, we can use pairs of numbers and still only erase once every time the stat-pair changes. here is how we can record a stat-pair on the character sheet:



VIRTUE:  Compassion    6   5   4   3   2   1   0
                     < > < > < > < > < > <*> < >
PASSION:  Violence     0   1   2   3   4   5   6  



thus, you would make a mark in the diamond representing both your Compassion and your Violence, simultaneously.

I'll work up a character sheet mock-up (a little hard to do, seeing as we don't know all that's needed, but it will help...)

Just a comment on the Worldly/Spiritual stuff.  You might indicate that these values also show the level of engagement of the character with that aspect of the world, and their withdrawal from it into monkhood.  A character still heavily engaged with (say) Family would get issues from  family matters brought to their attention; say a cousing travels to the monatsery to ask advice, tacitly offering temptation to abandon the pursuit of enlightenment in response to present needs.  Typiing this, I see I have more or less just described the Yoda-Luke-Obi Wan scene before Luke goes to Dagobah.

Anyway, this would shift attention to Embracing or Denying a particular temptation, while driving towards Enlightenment, the complete repudiation of the world (if that were of interest).

At this point, I think we have enough mechanics ideas in general terms. If people have a few more ideas, please post them. But we should start to make some solid decisions soon. So after a bit more posting on the subject, I think we should use some determination method to decide on exactly what to go orward with. I see this working one of two ways.

- We nominate people and vote on someone to write up the mechanics into a coherent whole. Then once written up, we tweak the mechanics.

- We bring up points one at a time, and vote on them individually, going back and forth on the rules until we have a complete set. Then sombody writes that up, and we tweak teh results.

The first method would be more expedient, but would result in a rule set that was less of a group effort. The latter would be a ton of work here, but would result in a more democratically chosen set of rules.

Let me say that I am of the belief that democracy is not always the best way to accomplish something. In the Roman republic, when a time of crises came upon Rome, the senate would appoint a "Speaker" who would wield complete authority for purposes of getting rid of a problem. This has it's dangers as well, however. Remember that "Speaker" translates to "Dictator" in Latin. Just something to think about.

Anyhow, what do people think about how to proceed?

BTW, I remove myself at this point from any writing duties. As originator of the thread, I may have undue influence (or have had). As such it should be somebody else who has that authority, whether the writing is done earlier or later.

Mike

P.S. In the future, I was thinking of designing a game by actual commitee. That is, several comittees of a limited number of persons would be set up as people joined, and each would have a distinct purview. Just an idea.

Virtue and Passion are good descriptors for the trait pair halves.   They will distinguish them from the individual pairs, without laying a strong value judgement on either half. The "diamonds" looks like a good format, though it will take up a bit of space.  Be interesting to see what these character sheets will look like.

Quote from: talysman
so Theo is with Yaffa... he tells Yaffa "remember the words of the prophet: to heal the wounds of the spirit, you must heal the wounds of the flesh" and rolls the dice. if Theo gets two successes, Yaffa's Worldly score dropps to 3 for this scene, making it easier for her to invoke her Virtue.

This is good. Getting help of fellow monks does assist the character, but it requires active participation on the part of other players to happen. The example gives an arbitrary change of three. Could the bonus be related to the Virtue being called upon to help the other character?

Quote from: talysmanjust to clarify, I didn't suggest Past as being another form of attachment or obstacle, although I suppose we could use it that way. I think players should have a basic opportunity to resolve a scene without using
any Virtue or Passion/Temptation at all; using a trait-pair would boost the basic opportunity. Past is thus just what you started to do before hearing the Call and seeking the monastery.

I've been reading Past to equal the base pool of dice a player would roll to resolve a "normal" task.  Virtue/Passions come into play to give bonuses to the roll by adding dice and  changing the "to hit" number.

Quote from: talysmanwe could change it to another possible trait-pair, I suppose, and shift the game mechanic away from opposed rolls. for any action, roll 3 dice if it would be easy for anyone in your environment, 2 dice if it requires training and you've had that training, or 1 die if it's outside your training.

What kind of mechanics do we think will help the participants have the kind of play experience we want to foster? Enligtenment is Narrative oriented. Should we step back a moment and look at what kind of conflict resolution mechanics we want to use? We've got at least three suggestions currently:

*Die Pools (Past/Path) with V/P trait bonuses dice
*Shadows (http://www.harlekin-maus.com/games/shadows/shadows.html) influenced type narrative choice--two actions narrated by player, one for virtue, one for passion, mechanics determine which of two is actualized, so to speak.
*Above straight role of 1,2, or 3 dice. How would traits be figured in?

Another possiblity:
--Using passion traits could force player to surrender narrative control (in limited fashion) to gm.
Or narrative control could be part of the currency of the game.  

Quote from: contracycleYou might indicate that these values also show the level of engagement of the character with that aspect of the world, and their withdrawal from it into  monkhood.

Each point of Past could be acquired by writing a sentence about what it represents in the character's life:

Yaffa's 3 points=
-Fishing village upbringing
-Family being overtaxed
-Personal conflict with tax collector

So they are three openings that can be use to tie in the character to dramatic hooks.

--Emily Care

QuoteMike

P.S. In the future, I was thinking of designing a game by actual commitee. That is, several comittees of a limited number of persons would be set up as people joined, and each would have a distinct purview. Just an idea.

Sounds good to me, count me in, it's be a lot easier to keep track of that's for sure.

Sylus

Thanks for starting this ball rolling, and continuing to keep it contained and on track, Mike.

Quote from: Mike Holmes- We nominate people and vote on someone to write up the mechanics into a coherent whole. Then once written up, we tweak the mechanics.

This seems like the most efficient way to do it. And actually, that's what has happened so far.  

I suggest we pick an approach (general form of mechanics)--I listed some on my last post--and determine who will write them up.  Nomination would help us be more democratic, but how would we figure out who is best suited?
Or we could solicit suggestions and "vote" on them, then whoever's suggestion won approval could be be nominated to write it up.

Quote from: Mike HolmesP.S. In the future, I was thinking of designing a game by actual commitee. That is, several comittees of a limited number of persons would be set up as people joined, and each would have a distinct purview. Just an idea.

Sounds interesting. Each committe would get it's own thread that certain folks would work together on?  Good idea. Please continue your efforts.  Count me in, too.

--Emily Care

Quote from: Emily CareThanks for starting this ball rolling, and continuing to keep it contained and on track, Mike.

Thanks for participating.

QuoteI suggest we pick an approach (general form of mechanics)--I listed some on my last post--and determine who will write them up.  Nomination would help us be more democratic, but how would we figure out who is best suited?
Or we could solicit suggestions and "vote" on them, then whoever's suggestion won approval could be be nominated to write it up.

My thought was that people should just nominate themselves. We will have to assume that any nominee can write well enough for this purpose (and given those I think likely to be nominated, I think we'll be more than fine). And this will also indicate who's willing to do the writing, as well.

QuoteSounds interesting. Each committe would get it's own thread that certain folks would work together on?  Good idea. Please continue your efforts.  Count me in, too.

Will do. But one project at a time, I think. Let's just see how this one goes. :-)

Mike

First one sounds good... second one sounds like it could devlove into what we were already doing...no final decision

This makes me want to use Universalis rules to govern the creation of game rules...with Currency to creation, Challenges to unliked approaches, and possibly Complications for elaborating on rules...

:>

Hello,

Emily mentioned I should look into this post, as some mechanics I had mentioned may be of interest. So here goes, hoping I'm not to late to offer an option.

Build PC's of 4 virtues and 3 faults.

Assign each of these a die type - higher indicating a stronger proclivity. Loosely this is one "past" trait and 3 positive traits, and the faults are the negative traits.

When performing a virtue based action, roll the virtue's die and the 3 fault dice. The highest die determines the outcome, with the value of the roll being the degree of success or failure.

A fault based action is performed by rolling just the faults, with the fault in use being treated as the virtue of the previous example.

Ties of virtue and fault permit the fault to be lowered, but at the cost of success.  This is often a moment of revelation for the character.

So what do you think?

  -Mendel S.

Quote from: Wormwood
Emily mentioned I should look into this post, as some mechanics I had mentioned may be of interest. So here goes, hoping I'm not to late to offer an option.

Build PC's of 4 virtues and 3 faults.

Assign each of these a die type - higher indicating a stronger proclivity. Loosely this is one "past" trait and 3 positive traits, and the faults are the negative traits.

When performing a virtue based action, roll the virtue's die and the 3 fault dice. The highest die determines the outcome, with the value of the roll being the degree of success or failure.

A fault based action is performed by rolling just the faults, with the fault in use being treated as the virtue of the previous example.

Ties of virtue and fault permit the fault to be lowered, but at the cost of success.  This is often a moment of revelation for the character.

So what do you think?

hi, Mendel, nice to see you here. while your mechanic looks nice, it kind of breaks some design decisions we've already settled on... in the game as it stands now, every virtue is paired with a passion (fault, as you refer to it,) with the passion being higher to start. game activity centers on scenes that dramatize the neophyte's efforts to reduce these passions, which automatically increases the corresponding virtue.

plus, I don't think we want multiple die types ... we've pretty much settled on all d6. also, the neophyte begins the game with very low virtues, high passions -- which would seem, under your system, to make virtue rolls almost impossible.

here's my thoughts on the double-action narration (Emily's idea of narrating both a Passion description and a Virtue description for the results of a roll): I think this might work for rolls using Virtue; for rolls using Passion, I think it might be better to have "Passion tinged with Virtue" on a success and pure Passion on no success. for an ordinary roll ... hmm ... it might work, but I'm also inclined to having each player announce at the beginning of a mission "I want to be challenged by my Violence" or something similar... then the GM describes the mission, meanwhile working up possible challenges that could manifest on rolls with no successes.

here's another thought I had: go ahead and add Family and Past, work up special mechanics, but leave it open as to whether they act as trait-pairs or not. only some religions would think of Family or Past as an unnecessary attachment; others might accept using past knowledge or maintaining family relationships (zen might fall into case #1, but medieval christian monks often practised a craft learned in their past on behalf of the monastery... and often maintained ties to their family. actually, I think buddhist monks maintain family ties somewhat, or at least the tibetan monks in this one movie relied on help from their cousins when the chinese cracked down...)

I was thinking of this as I was designing the character sheet. Past, Family, and Worldly would all be listed in pretty much the same format as the trait-pairs, but Past and Family would have special rules and would not be reduced unless that religion believed in renouncing those ties.

Quote from: Mike HolmesAt this point, I think we have enough mechanics ideas in general terms. If people have a few more ideas, please post them. But we should start to make some solid decisions soon. So after a bit more posting on the subject, I think we should use some determination method to decide on exactly what to go orward with. I see this working one of two ways.

- We nominate people and vote on someone to write up the mechanics into a coherent whole. Then once written up, we tweak the mechanics.

- We bring up points one at a time, and vote on them individually, going back and forth on the rules until we have a complete set. Then sombody writes that up, and we tweak teh results.

The first method would be more expedient, but would result in a rule set that was less of a group effort. The latter would be a ton of work here, but would result in a more democratically chosen set of rules.

I see the following mechanics needs, based on what we've discussed:

• basic chargen (selecting traits for neophytes and adjusting scores)
  
• belief gen (selecting the 6-8 trait-pairs relevant to the order)
  
• abbey gen (what's present, what's absent, village/abbey relations)
  
• mission gen (mostly GM suggestions about mission types)
  
• conflict resolution (we have this mostly down)
  
• scene handling (how many conflict rolls per scene, how to move from scene to scene)
  
• character advancement (neophyte/mentor interaction)
  
• advanced rule: neophyte becomes mentor/creates "grog neophytes" (each player creates 1-3 neophytes and directs them on missions, with the GM now abdicating mentor roll)
  
• advanced rule: founding a new abbey (ARIA-level play, with each player as the head of a seperate abbey)
  
• advanced rule: playing out belief gen as interactive story about founder (GM-as-mentor narrates one story about founder of order for each trait-pair, with players-as-neophytes interjecting complications)
  [/list:u]
  
  I think you can see we have a slight problem ... if we assign people to create invidual sections, how do we make them mesh? the chargen section creator needs to know which abilities will be present in the conflict resolution rules (other than the ones we know already, the trait-pairs and Worldliness); the conflict resolution creator needs to know which abilities cannot be added to the game mechanics because they might be trait-pairs; character advancement depends on the resolution mechanics; and so on...
  
  and if one person does all the mechanics, that may guarantee that the parts mesh, but that's a lot of work for one person! you're basically asking someone to do a 24-hour Iron Game Chef challenge...
  
  what I suggest we do is something in between the two options. someone develops a crude version of the game mechanics, for a single neophyte and one mentor. use the current trait-pair list for now; all we want is a skeleton of the whole game for now, so that we can add the muscles one by one, then put the skin on last. to keep things really focused, describe how to make one specific mission type, selected by the audience, who would also list 3-5 scenes (one line summary of each scene!)
  
  then, we vote. naysayers must list what they want deleted or changed (no additions yet!) either the developer has to start over, or we proceed to the next step: suggest a different, more difficult mission type, this time with two players, so that we are adding the ability to balance scenes between each player.
  
  either the same person or a different person expands the existing rules to meet these criteria. we vote again, then either rewrite or expand again. the next step will probably be abbey generation. step four would be order generation (allowing the group to design their own set of beliefs.)
  
  by that point, we should be ready to think about the advanced rules. add neophyte-becomes-mentor at stage five; the original mentor (played by GM) is now head of the abbey, and players are each mentors... they would design a set of "grog neophytes", and there would be rules at this stage to create more complex missions, composed of smaller missions, with scene-switching between each group of neophytes attempting to fulfill their part of the grand design.
  
  at stage six, add the ARIA-level play; the original characters should be enlightened by now, but they must either retire or found a new monastery. the "grog neophytes" would be "grog mentors" who would have a new batch of "grog neophytes" to manage... the GM at this point plays villages and kingdoms, describing political, environmental, social, and spiritual needs to the new abbots, who must then decide how to manage their abbeys effectively to tackle these problems. this might be the level where conflicts with other orders might show up as well; also, although "enlightened", the abbots are still in danger of backsliding.
  
  finally, we would be ready to add the rules for narrating the founding of the religion; I think Mike suggested that originally, back in the previous thread.
  
  ok, enough of that. if no one else will start the ball rolling, I suppose I can take a crack at step one, if someone wants to suggest a mission with three to five scenes for me to design "minirules" for.

talysman,

There seems to be something wrong with the idea of one person hurriedly generating the base mechanics, and then trying to cirtique them. I also think that there are some fundamental questions about the game that still need to be answered before the system can be adequately generated.

One very important idea is, are actions spiritual or physical? Is the resolution of the actions intended to ascribe the spiritual consequences first, with the more concrete consequences being added afterwards (or with less mechanical notice)?

The difference is striking, on one hand you handle Brother Thomas' temptation to hit the bandit who is chasing after the  peasants he has chosen to protect, with the idea of damage almost unnecessary. On the other you have him hitting the bandit for 3 damage, and lossing a point of this and/or gaining a point of that. What are the main consequences of a given action?

Also what distinguishes monks? Their past? Their virtues? Their temptations? Obviously all three matter, but when monks are assigned to a mission, are they assigned because their past are applicable, because their virtues will shine brightest, or because they gain a chance to challenge their temptations, and hopefully grow from it.

Normally that's a more GM based decision, but it seems that if you want to start from a mission, that is a very important question to ask. What kind of missions in basic sense are we talking about?

Related to my first question, are players in control of their character's temptation? Will a character with a high wrath rating simply lose it, regardless of what the player prefers, or are we trying to make it mechancall tempting to use the wrath, even though the player knows it's dangerous. I'm heavilly in favor of the later, as the mechanic I offered shows.

Lastly, power curves. I propose that this game should have a decreasig power curve, as power itself is worldliness. High virtues are never as good as high  'sins'. Also I see the idea of low worldiness characters being politically in charge as somewhat counter-intuitive. Rather virtuous, but not fully enlightened characters would fit better, a hierarchy of enlightenment seems downright silly, I'd suggest rating something more measurable as the analogue of rank. Perhaps seniority or service?

I hope that is food for thought,

 -Mendel S.

Perhaps I was being premature. Maybe we don't have enough material or consensus yet. In any case, we will postpone a vote until more stuff has been discussed. At some point, I hope that one of the options becomes valid. We shall see.

Til then, please continue with discussing what you think has not been well enough addressed.

Mike

Regarding Past and Family....my thought was that Past would encompass all worldly influences from your Past, whether Family, Attitude, or Experience.

Actually perhaps this trait idea isn't needed either...

Worldliness could be said to encompass all this, as well as one's continuing bonds to worldly matters...

and Spirituality could encompass everything that Path does...

My preference for Action resolution...

The conflict is internal, its all about the spiritual consequences for mechanics.
How that consequence manifests itself in outward acts would be part of the narration. Who narrates for each character's conflict, and who narrates, in what order, for group checks would be something else to decide...perhaps by number of successes?

We have concensus, I believe, about the fact of the trait pairs and that actions taken increase or decrease the respective halves of the pairs.

Past was suggested to give us a pool of dice to roll against the values of the trait pairs.  If we like the idea of a dice pool, perhaps Worldliness and Spirituality could act as the dice pool numbers.

This eliminates the need for additional stats. Keeping the trait pairs central to the characters is in keeping with our original conception of the game.  

If use of one pool excludes the use of the other, then the renunciatory vows a new monk makes on joining the monastery would be reflected in their newly limited abilities since the Spiritual value should start pretty low.  The temptation to use the Passion traits (and thus have access to the initially higher Worldly pool) would be very present.  This would give the player incentive to work on increasing their Spiritual aspects.  

Alternatively, the two pools could be used to make opposed rolls against one another.  The player would need to narrate action appropriate to which pool "won". Traits could be invoked to give bonuses dice to whichever pool.  

--Emily Care

Quote from: WormwoodOne very important idea is, are actions spiritual or physical? Is the resolution of the actions intended to ascribe the spiritual consequences first, with the more concrete consequences being added afterwards (or with less mechanical notice)?

The difference is striking, on one hand you handle Brother Thomas' temptation to hit the bandit who is chasing after the  peasants he has chosen to protect, with the idea of damage almost unnecessary. On the other you have him hitting the bandit for 3 damage, and lossing a point of this and/or gaining a point of that. What are the main consequences of a given action?

Also what distinguishes monks? Their past? Their virtues? Their temptations? Obviously all three matter, but when monks are assigned to a mission, are they assigned because their past are applicable, because their virtues will shine brightest, or because they gain a chance to challenge their temptations, and hopefully grow from it.

Normally that's a more GM based decision, but it seems that if you want to start from a mission, that is a very important question to ask. What kind of missions in basic sense are we talking about?

Related to my first question, are players in control of their character's temptation? Will a character with a high wrath rating simply lose it, regardless of what the player prefers, or are we trying to make it mechancall tempting to use the wrath, even though the player knows it's dangerous. I'm heavilly in favor of the later, as the mechanic I offered shows.

Lastly, power curves. I propose that this game should have a decreasig power curve, as power itself is worldliness. High virtues are never as good as high  'sins'. Also I see the idea of low worldiness characters being politically in charge as somewhat counter-intuitive. Rather virtuous, but not fully enlightened characters would fit better, a hierarchy of enlightenment seems downright silly, I'd suggest rating something more measurable as the analogue of rank. Perhaps seniority or service?

there are some good points in there, Mendel. let me try to answer the questions I believe we already have covered, then see what we can come up with for the other points raised.

first, we've pretty much established that the die rolls are for conflict resolution involving physicial or social action, with spiritual consequences. this fits your "hitting the bandit for 3 points of damage" except that it's on he conflict resolution level, not the task resolution level. the actual result of the roll is "Brother Thomas defeats the bandit", with details desxribed by the player. however, depending on the decisions a player makes in order to resolve that conflict, there is a spiritual effect -- and it is these spiritual consequences that are the focus of play.

Emily (and perhaps a couple other people) have suggested temptation rolls, which would fit in with the concept of high-Wrath characters "losing it", but I don't feel that's consistent with the conflict resolution rolls or the idea of players needing to make decisions with spiritual consequences. I do like the idea of describing two outcomes on certain rolls and letting the dice decide which happens; first, because it helps drive the the scene, and second, because it facillitates Narrativism, which is what we have been aiming for (although sometimes the game we're describing sounds more like rules-light Gamism with Narrativism as a second but definitely lower priority.

as for what distinguishes monks: mostly, the way they are played. for any given religion, there will be at least 6 stat-pairs. all of the monks must eventually work on each of those stat-pairs, but the order in which they are added and resolved is up to the player; this acts to build a unique story for each monk. there is also light background description for each monk -- Emily's idea about describing one fact of the monk's past for each point of Past or Family. (Emily: I didn't like that idea at first, but I'm thinking now it's a good one... although maybe not one fact per point, but one fact for each of the starting stat-pairs, one each for Past and Family, plus an extra fact for Past or Family if it is 4 or more.)

as for the missions: the missions are assumed to meet a specific need of the community (feed the poor family, find homes for war orphans, take an injured mercenary to his home, and so on.) but also, the work is assumed to have a spiritual effect on the monk doing the work; presumably, the mentor is assigning missions based on who will benefit most from those challenges. this really only matters when the players become mentors or abbots, but the GM will design early missions to meet specific challenges.

about power curves: I don't see where power enters into the game, except when a player makes a decision to build and use power. monks do not become "politically in charge" unless they chose to do so. they do become mentors when they are experienced enough as a monk to provide direction to a neophyte. they can also found an abbey, but this is not strictly political; historically, anyone with a saintly reputation wound up with followers, whether anyone requested followers or not. also historically, anyone with a saintly reputation was frequently asked for advice, essentially giving that person local political power. I think this is important for the game as well, because it allows a temptation to backslide, to exercise that acquired power and become more Worldly.

Quote from: Bob McNameeRegarding Past and Family....my thought was that Past would encompass all worldly influences from your Past, whether Family, Attitude, or Experience.

Actually perhaps this trait idea isn't needed either...

Worldliness could be said to encompass all this, as well as one's continuing bonds to worldly matters...

and Spirituality could encompass everything that Path does...

this might be better, then. I do think Family and Past may show up if those are considered worlly Passions within a specific religion, but we could work back to using just Worldly and Spiritual for all rolls if the rolls resolve the spiritual conflicts, not the worldly conflicts. and going with Emily's idea of opposed rolls + describing two results for each roll, we could have the following mechanic:
[list=1]

• describe your action and two possible results -- one Worldly, one Spiritual.
  
• opt to use one of your traits to boost the die roll, describing how it fits in.
  
• make a roll of Worldly opposed to Spiritual.
  
• describe the results based on which roll succeeded.
  
• if you were using a Passion, check to see if any rolls match the value of your Passion; if so, increase the Passion one point.
  
• if you were using a Virtue and succeeded on the Spiritual action, make a tally-mark next to that Virtue.
  [/list:o]
  
  if we go with this system, then all physical and social effects would be described purely as words. two injury levels ("wounded", "badly wounded") ... a character is strong if "strong" is written in the description, and so on.

Talysman,

I'd suggest keeping worldly and spiritual elements the same in terms of mechanics, a symmetry will greatly simiplify the rules. The assymetry should be from the initial values rather than as additional rules.

One major criticism of the mechanic you've presented is that monks don't ever actually risk failure, except in a spiritual sense. It seems thematically appropriate that monks have a high tendency to fail a spiritual attempt, but improve the virtue they used at the same time.

I'd suggest reversing the idea Emily mentioned, and using worldliness and spiritual as the 'difficulty' and the pools as the passion or virtue used.

Then everytime a spiritual roll would fail - there is the temptation to make it worldly, to improve the 'difficulty' on the roll to make it succeed. Each time this happens the associated passion is raised by 1.

Is there any need for the virtues and the passions to change independantly? I know this was brought up before, but it didn't seem anyone answered either way. And it seems there is little reason for the pairs not be locked.

Either way, I suggest everytime a passion rises, the virtue is decreased. But virtues can be cultivated over time, at the end of a mission, when it's moral has been discussed with the characters, but only virtues where they have avoided temptation can be raised.

Of course this avoids the whole "choose a worldy and a spiritual effect" but I think that takes the choice of temptation away from the player, something I thought was to be avoided. Better to choose between virtue with failure and temptation with success.

  -Mendel S.

Quote from: Wormwood
I'd suggest keeping worldly and spiritual elements the same in terms of mechanics, a symmetry will greatly simiplify the rules. The assymetry should be from the initial values rather than as additional rules.

One major criticism of the mechanic you've presented is that monks don't ever actually risk failure, except in a spiritual sense. It seems thematically appropriate that monks have a high tendency to fail a spiritual attempt, but improve the virtue they used at the same time.

I'd suggest reversing the idea Emily mentioned, and using worldliness and spiritual as the 'difficulty' and the pools as the passion or virtue used.

Then everytime a spiritual roll would fail - there is the temptation to make it worldly, to improve the 'difficulty' on the roll to make it succeed. Each time this happens the associated passion is raised by 1.

Is there any need for the virtues and the passions to change independantly? I know this was brought up before, but it didn't seem anyone answered either way. And it seems there is little reason for the pairs not be locked.

Either way, I suggest everytime a passion rises, the virtue is decreased. But virtues can be cultivated over time, at the end of a mission, when it's moral has been discussed with the characters, but only virtues where they have avoided temptation can be raised.

Of course this avoids the whole "choose a worldy and a spiritual effect" but I think that takes the choice of temptation away from the player, something I thought was to be avoided. Better to choose between virtue with failure and temptation with success.

you may have missed the original thread, but the Passions and Virtues are, in fact, locked, as you suggest. or at least, each Virtue equals (6 - paired Passion) if that is what you meant.

also, we did agree on an asymmetry between Passions and Virtues (although we were still calling them "unenlightened actions" and "enlightened actions" back then.) the feel we are working towards is "take the easy way for success, or work hard for spiritual gain". making the worldly and spiritual symmetrical would allow characters to rise and fall equally well and would remove a source of tension.

I think the monks do risk failure. definitely, if Brother Theo attempts a Spiritual action, the player would describe a successful Spiritual roll and an unsuccessful Worldly result. if the Worldly dice succeed, the Spiritual action failed and the second description is narrated.

your idea about spiritual advancement when failing physically is a good one. I suggest this could be the result of a tie.

here's an idea on the way scenes could work: each scene has a single-digit rating (doesn't need to be higher than 5, and will be lower in most cases.) players narrate an action and suggest the two possible outcomes, as mentioned above. when the dice are rolled, the number of successes on a positive outcome are added to an accumulating "success pool", and the "negative successes" are added to the scene rating. when the success pool is greater than the scene rating, the scene is resolved; otherwise, the player must narrate why the action is successful but the scene isn't resolved.

example

go back to the case of Neophyte Yaffa and the tending of the sick children. the GM says this is a moderately difficult task, a scene rating of 3.

Emily says "Yaffa will attempt to ease the suffering of the children as an act of Compassion. the Spiritual effect she is trying for is a healing, the Worldly effect is that she halts her efforts when her Compassion is challenged by past wounds."

she has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5 Worldly dice. the roll goes in favor of the Worldly (3 Worldly successes), so the scene rating increases to 6. (if any of the rolls came up as 5, this matched her Violence trait, but we'll ignore that for now.)

Emily must narrate why she halts; either she or one of the other players suggests Yaffa recognizes the child of the taxman, and she narrates accordingly. wanting to lower that scene rating, she attempts a purely Worldly act without Spiritual consequences: "Yaffa, shaken by being confronted with the child of her enemy, chooses a more menial action to give herself time to cool down: she boils water to cleanse the disease-ridden blankets. her Worldly effect is to have a good supply of clean blankets, her Spiritual failure is that she can't shake the memory of her past wounds and fails to complete her task."

she rolls 5 dice versus 1 die and gets 4 easy successes, reducing the scene rating to 2. looking at her pile of clean blankets, Yaffa's resolve is strengthened, and she sees a way around her obstacle.

"Yaffa chooses to focus on being Industrious, visiting each child in turn, wiping foreheads, giving medicine... and blocking the identity of the taxman's child from her mind. her Spiritual effect is to heal, her Worldly effect is to be so overcome by her past that she retreats into Sloth and sits in a corner for a while."

this is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

back to facts!

we've also been discussing adding facts or descriptions to the monk's background. Emily suggested describing one fact of a neophyte's background for each point in a Passion. plus, I suggested something about making all non-spiritual details about a character into words/facts, to de-emphasize them. thus, instead of having a Strength score, you might say "my character is strong" and leave it at that.

looking at the most recently-suggested mechanic (opposed Worldly vs. Spiritual rolls,) it looks like we may need an opportunity for bonus dice. here's a way to do it with facts.

for each Passion, describe one fact related to that passion. thus, if your character's Passion is Violence or Pride, you could say "my character is exceptionally strong" as a possible fact.

you also get two facts for Worldly/Spiritual: a fact about your background and a fact about what lead you to a spiritual path (you could think of the second fact as a Kicker, although it doesn't have to be as extreme as Sorcerer's Kickers.)

now, suppose a neophyte is attempting a Virtuous act. even with the bonus dice from the Virtue, it's going to be hard to get those successes. but if the player describes an action based on one of their facts, the GM may allow them to add 1 bonus die to either Worldly or Spiritual. if the player can work in more than one of those facts, the GM may allow more bonus dice.

this would be where we would have monks calling upon their premonastic background as carpenters to build houses for the poor, or monks on a healing mission calling upon their strength to carry an injured peasant to a nearby cottage.

we could even allow adding facts during play. characters would need to seek out appropriate situations where such a fact could be added, then attempt a series of rolls. the GM would set a "scene rating" for this exactly as for mission-related scenes.

Quote from: talysmanI think the monks do risk failure. definitely, if Brother Theo attempts a Spiritual action, the player would describe a successful Spiritual roll and an unsuccessful Worldly result. if the Worldly dice succeed, the Spiritual action failed and the second description is narrated.

I really like this approach. I am satisfied.  I vote that we develop in this direction.The example was especially helpful.

Let me make sure I'm getting some points straight:

Quoteshe has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5 Worldly dice.

She gets 2 dice to roll against the scene rating: 1 from her Spiritual rating, one from her Compassion Virtue. correct?

Quotethis is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

The character has a 4 Industrious, so wouldn't she get 4 dice?

Quote(Mendel's) idea about spiritual advancement when failing physically is a good one. I suggest this could be the result of a tie.

Yes, that sounds good. Or we could have double-failures and double-successes possible. That is kind of appealing. But how to determine which, and when?

Re-capping what John wrote:

"--each scene has a single-digit rating (doesn't need to be higher than 5, and will be lower in most cases.)
--players narrate an action and suggest the two possible outcomes
--when the dice are rolled, the number of successes on a positive outcome are added to an accumulating "success pool"
--"negative successes" (wordly successes) are added to the scene rating.
--when the success pool is greater than the scene rating, the scene is resolved
--otherwise, the player must narrate why the action is successful but the scene isn't resolved."

So:
At the scene level, there is dual narration and success or failure to resolve the scene. Repeat as necessary until scene is resolved.

.....

And Facts:

Quote from: talysman
for each Passion, describe one fact related to that passion...

you also get two facts for Worldly/Spiritual... (you could think of the second fact as a Kicker, although it doesn't have to be as extreme as Sorcerer's Kickers.)

but if the player describes an action based on one of their facts, the GM may allow them to add 1 bonus die to either Worldly or Spiritual.

this would be where we would have monks calling upon their premonastic background as carpenters to build houses for the poor....

Ah, description based mechanics, rather than numbers.  Delightful!

We may want to allow players to write a statement for each stat pair from either the Passion or the Virtue or both. Or we could require it be from the higher of the two.  

Adding statments in play is great, especially since the character will be adding trait pairs as we go along. The scenes framed could be in the present or flash-backs.  

Flashbacks of previously unknown events in the character's history illustrating formerly un-activated aspects of their personality would be in keeping with some film that has been influential as we've written this (melodramatic HK action like Crouching Tiger) and meshes with the narrativist goals we've been moving towards.

What are other folks leaning towards? Time for a vote?

--Emily Care

I'm really liking the way things are going now!

I'm thinking  that it would be cool if the monks only need to specify the Worldly Spiritual Facts to start off, leaving all the rest to be revealed in play. This would let the Players tailor their ideas based on what ends up becoming important to the conflict at hand, hopefully not  chosen in a very Gamist way.
(I've always wanted to do something very "discover-in-play")
I like the idea of being able to riff off ideas as they are explored, and introduced by others.
(Sometimes in Universalis that plot twist just introduced leads to even cooler ideas about your character than you had in mind when first created)

Quote from: Emily Care

Quoteshe has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5 Worldly dice.

She gets 2 dice to roll against the scene rating: 1 from her Spiritual rating, one from her Compassion Virtue. correct?

yes.

Quote

Quotethis is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

The character has a 4 Industrious, so wouldn't she get 4 dice?

oops! I reversed the numbers.

...

Quote from: Emily Care
Ah, description based mechanics, rather than numbers.  Delightful!

We may want to allow players to write a statement for each stat pair from either the Passion or the Virtue or both. Or we could require it be from the higher of the two.  

Adding statments in play is great, especially since the character will be adding trait pairs as we go along. The scenes framed could be in the present or flash-backs.  

Flashbacks of previously unknown events in the character's history illustrating formerly un-activated aspects of their personality would be in keeping with some film that has been influential as we've written this (melodramatic HK action like Crouching Tiger) and meshes with the narrativist goals we've been moving towards.

What are other folks leaning towards? Time for a vote?

Bob seems to be in favor of it, too. let's see how this concept develops. we can always backtrack if the system becomes unworkable.

As we wait for concensus, here are some points brought up earlier by damion that I don't want to forget about. We may want to address them on the next thread, whatever it may be.

Quote from: damionEach player would create an elder and a neophyte. The elders would be primarly used to dynamicly create a structure for the religion & monastary, but
you could also match elders and tutors in a mentor relationship(with different players, of course). That way each player could take both sides of a  students development. It also gives a good way for players to suggest missions.

Here's the bull by the thorns: gm or no gm. :) I could go either way. Most of what a gm usually does will be done by the players en masse or by mechanics. (Our mechanics account of end of scene framing, how's that for swanky, thank you  John! :)  

We could go one of two ways (there are more ways of course, but I'm thinking of two): begin each campaign with each player taking 2 characters, a neophyte and a mentor. Or have the gm play the mentor/s of all the players' neophytes and as the initial characters graduate to mentor level, players introduce new neophytes to be mentored by them.  

Right now I'm tending toward the latter, but both could work just fine.  The former would give all the players an immediate avenue to do monastery development and make character generation simpler. The latter would allow players to identify more deeply with their characters and make the process of playing begin fairly simply and gain complexity over time. The latter course might also necessitate having a gm.

Quote from: damion

Quote from: Emily Care
--pairs will change over time in response to character actions. Are trait pairs adjusted during sequence or at "debriefing" interval?

I would actually tally changes 'in sequence' although the changes may not take effect until the 'debriefing'. Trying to do the tallying at the end is hard, IMHO.

I'd suggest changes happen in sequence, just becaues it's more interesting, although in some cases the new value may not take effect until the next scene. (I can see arguments both ways here).

How this is decided will have a big effect on game play, I imagine.  We may want to look closely at how this will interact with the mechanics we're working with.  I think it makes sense to say, at minimum, that traits cannot change until after an initiated scene has been resolved.  Perhaps it could be that Passions go up immediately after scene end, but Virtues don't increase until the debriefing session.  I think more discussion of what kind of dynamics we want for trait change will be necessary.  The Worldly/Spiritual pair would certainly wait until the end of the session, rather than at the round level.  Maybe even only change at the end of longer arcs.  

Quote from: damionI'd also suggest giving everyone one a hand in trait changes, possibly via some bidding mechanism. This could be done through the mentor, or out of some per characther currency each neophyte has.

Interesting.  We'd probably want to use this kind of system if we have no gm. If there is a gm, it could still be fun.  What would it add to the experience if we did bid? Do we want to look at having explicit game currency for trait advancement?  The "tally points" for Virtues that's been suggested is sort of like that.

Quote from: damionThe idea would be to keep morality a little 'fluid'. I.e. sometimes violent solutions don't actually increase your bad traits (whereas a peaceful solution never does :) ).

Cool.  I like the idea of the morality being encouraged to not fall on the lines of simple polarities.  How to give guideline for those who play?  I've been imagining that we give suggestions for trait pairs, but leave the actual choice of them completely up to the participants.  

Quote from: Bob McNameeI'm thinking that it would be cool if the monks only need to specify the Worldly Spiritual Facts to start off, leaving all the rest to be revealed in play. This would let the Players tailor their ideas based on what ends up becoming important to the conflict at hand, hopefully not chosen in a very Gamist way.(I've always wanted to do something very "discover-in-play")
I like the idea of being able to riff off ideas as they are explored, and introduced by others.(Sometimes in Universalis that plot twist just introduced leads to even cooler ideas about your character than you had in mind when first created)

Yes, I agree.  Leaving it open can allow the players to weave their characters into the narrative. And what you said about things being cooler than you had in mind is dead on, Bob. :)

I think it would be best to start with at least 3-4 statements about each character.  These will form the warp, so to speak, on which the first missions and trials will be woven into. The gm or whoever is framing the plot will benefit from having ready made hooks--as John suggested the Spiritual statement could be a sort of "kicker".  

--Emily

QuoteThe gm or whoever is framing the plot will benefit from having ready made hooks--as John suggested the Spiritual statement could be a sort of "kicker".

"Solving" a trait pair sounds very much like resolving a kicker. How about a monk takes a Macro-Descriptor, or Mini-Kicker, at each stage of development, which is resolved as the associated stat pair is resolved? Or something of that nature?

I agree that descriptions need to be incorporated such that all monks do not become too similar. Otehr skills can be learned at the monastary. Perhaps in training to learn about humility, a particular monk must serve in the kitchen. This would give him bonuses when figuring out how to use cooking. And relates the worldy skill to the spiritual side, thus reinforcing the lesson.

Anyone see what I'm getting at?

Mike

I have a question. If I created a character, we'll call him Kaethan, and He was formerly a soldier within an army and then truned to order to get away from his violent past how would this apply to things as they stand now? How would you show his skill with weaponry and knowleedge of defense when in a combative situation? Would his past come into play if he were unable to remain passive? Or would their be some other form of rules for true combat situations?

Just some questions that popped into my head.

Sylus

My preference is that he would have a crisis concerning trait pairs...(perhaps including the Worldly Spiritual trait)
for instance
Violence / Compassion
Action / Stillness
Bravery / Cowardice

based on which he wishes to try be succesfull at (modifying the roll based on his personal Facts for the traits)
then, narrate based upon the results of the roll(s)

I would want his former military training to come out as part of the narration. The way he approaches the situation. (like getting across a battlefield to tend the wounded)

A former cowardly scapegoat might roll the same "success" in the same situation, but how he appproaches getting to the other side of the battlefield may be a very different thing.

some good stuff in there about using mini-kickers and the like. I have some more thoughts about how to impliment the mini-kickers, how to handle advancement/chargen, and how to keep the scenes flowing...

so far, my description of trait changes has mentioned tally-marks. let me explain some more about how I imagine these being used. first, obviously, when a Passion is used, one of two things happens:

[list=1]

• it increases one point; or,
  
• it increases if one of the die rolls matches the current Passion score.
  [/list:o]
  
  either way, it's immediate. I think this is easier than waiting for a scene to end. option 2 is probably better, since it leaves a chance of acting against the principals of the monk's religious beliefs without being penalized, making it a little more tempting.
  
  Virtue rolls, however, get a tally-mark next to them (or the player gets a token) whenever they are used (successful or not.) this means there is no immediate Virtue increase, but there is an immediate increase in something -- a currency.
  
  per something Mike said in the previous thread, you would need to match your trait score with points of this currency in order to increase the Virtue. we have three options here, depending on whether we want Virtue improvement to start slow and speed up later, or start fast and slow down as the Virtue gets higher, or a mix of the two:
  
  [list=1]
  
• start slow: neophytes must spend currency points equal to their Passion in order to lower the Passion (and increase the corresponding Virtue) one point; or,
  
• start fast:  neophytes must spend currency points equal to their Virtue in order to increase that Virtue(and lower the corresponding Passion) one point; or,
  
• hard on either end, easier in the middle: neophytes must spend currency points equal to the higher trait (Passion or Virtue) in order to reduce the Passion/increase the Virtue by one point.
  [/list:o]
  
  I'm leaning towards number three, although it looks a tiny bit more complicated, because I think it best reflects how most people think about self improvement: it's hard to start making a change, gets easier, but then gets harder again as you approach perfection.
  
  what about the mentor? I said earlier that the neophytes can only spend the currency if the mentor approves. here is how I imagine the "exit interview":
  
  [list=1]
  
• neophyte selects a trait for improvement: "master, I learned a lesson about Compassion and Violence while fulfilling my duties";
  
• mentor asks neophyte for a summary of the mission;
  
• neophyte summarizes each decision/action made: "I healed the children that were taken to the chapel in the village using herbs I had gathered";
  
• mentor asks about the outcome of each action and how the neophyte felt;
  
• if the mentor agrees the neophyte learned a lesson about Compassion and Violence, the neophyte spends the currency on reducing Violence;
  
• if the mentor disagrees, the neophyte loses the same amount of currency.
  [/list:o]
  
  we might as well call this currency "Lesson points" or "Lessons".
  
  that's from the neophyte's viewpoint. but what about the mentor?
  
  since mentors aren't "adventuring", the only way for them to continue on the path toward enlightenment is to lead the neophytes. every time a neophyte lowers a Passion, the mentor can lower one Passion as well. this gives the mentor a desire to see the neophyte improve.
  
  but the mentor must also judge wisely: to encourage this, the mentor's player gets to keep any Lesson points "docked" from a neophyte who did poorly. the Lesson points, however, transform into Event points for the mentor's player; Event points can be spent on three things:
  
  
  
  
  • adding one "grog" neophyte to the monastery; or,
    
  • training one neophyte in a skill (like the KP duty Mike mentioned); or,
    
  • introducing a dramatic change to a scene.
    [/list:u]
    
    each of these must be narrated as an event.
    
    you can probably tell where I'm heading with this: rotating GM duties. each player has a mentor character and one neophyte (in normal play.) when it's one player's turn to be mentor, that player describes a mission for the neophytes. that player also gets a small number of Event points (two per neophyte on mission, maybe?) plus whateve other Event points that player may have accrued.
    
    ok, this leads to questions about chargen. here's how I envision it:
    
    
    
    
    • each player suggests one trait-pair important to the religion;
      
    • players then design neophytes, selecting two trait-pairs from those suggested;
      
    • one of these trait-pairs would be 5/1, the other would be 4/2 (Passion is higher, Virtue is lower;
      
    • Worldly/Spiritual is also set at 5/1;
      
    • players write four facts about their character: one for each trait-pair, one Worldly fact, and one Spiritual kicker;
      
    • next, each player designs a mentor by taking three trait pairs, setting two at 0/6 and one at 4/2;
      
    • set the mentor's Worldly/Spiritual trait scores at 3/3;
      
    • write five facts for the mentor;
      
    • name the characters and introduce them in the first session.
      [/list:u]
      
      for the first session, every player takes turns describing one fact about the monastery or the immediate surroundings (nothing further than three days walk from the monastery.) this could be a description of common labors, improvements made to the original abbey, adding a village nearby, describing events in the village or along the roads... when one person describes an event that sounds like the basis of a good mission, the other players chime in, selecting that mission (and selecting the player who thought of it as the mentor for that mission.)
      
      players playing mentor cannot improve their own neophytes during a mission they are mentoring, although those neophytes can participate in the mission. also, when mentors add neophytes to the monastery, these are considered "grog neophytes", playable by anyone.
      
      for true GM play, players opt to have one person as permanent mentor. it's otherwise handled the same: the GM position doesn't rotate. otherwise, the position must rotate: no player can be mentor twice in a row.
      
      that's a rough sketch of the game as I see it right now.

Good sketch of the game, John.  Thanks for following through on your suggestion to write one up.  

Shall we continue in this manner, on this thread? Or pick something to firm up, like char gen, and begin a new one?

Some more thoughts:

Worldliness/Spirituality values seem like they should increase/decrease according to the rise and fall of trait pairs.  Perhaps, Worldliness could increase when any Passion hits it's maximum level. I'm not sure how to determine when Spirituality rises, since that is harder to arrange.  

When Spirituality=0, the character should probably leave the monastery, or go out of play.  And I still like the idea of a character with all it's Passions max'd becoming an antagonistic character somehow.  

Quote from: Mike HolmesOther skills can be learned at the monastary.

Don't know if this will work, but: If we allow additional statements to be written near trait pairs, these could reflect skills gained, lessons learned and be a sort of written narrative of the character's path.  I'd suggest that a statement of this type be written each time a Virtue is increased, and less frequently for the Passions, since it is easier and they are more likely to increase more often than the Virtues.  


Making the tally marks Lesson Points to get Virtues which become currency (Event points) used by the Mentors is an excellent idea.  Hoever, I have some concerns about limiting play to this economy.  Can we look carefully at dynamics of play this could create first?   Don't want the mentor characters to start "harvesting" from their neophyte charges. And I'd also like to avoid the game getting weighed down by too much accounting.  

Optional or rotating gm-ship.  Yes! I adore this game.

--Emily Care

Good Stuff!

I like the GM variable rules.
"Lesson points" are  a good term.
Are we still doing something pointwise that deteremines when a scene ends?

Monestary becomes a little like a franchise in Inspectres.
I wonder if the Monestary as a whole should have a gauge of how it is seen by the outside world (Meddlesome / Mediating)... probably not (or only in games with specific types of problems)

I'd say if this recent post looks good to everybody we should start splitting of posts to look at character creation etc.

Quote from: Bob McNameeAre we still doing something pointwise that deteremines when a scene ends?

The scene rating does this:

Quote from: talysmanhere's an idea on the way scenes could work: each scene has a single-digit rating (doesn't need to be higher than 5, and will be lower in most cases.) players narrate an action and suggest the two possible outcomes, as mentioned above. when the dice are rolled, the number of successes on a positive outcome are added to an accumulating "success pool", and the "negative successes" are added to the scene rating. when the success pool is greater than the scene rating, the scene is resolved; otherwise, the player must narrate why the action is successful but the scene isn't resolved.

repeat as necessary until scene rating is reduce to 0, ending the scene.

Is there a possibility that the scene rating will keep getting higher? If so, and even if not, it seems like a player should be able to direct their character to give up--flee the scene if necessary--though it wouldn't go over very well with their mentor, I imagine.

Quote from: Bob McNameeMonestary becomes a little like a franchise in Inspectres.
I wonder if the Monestary as a whole should have a gauge of how it is seen by the outside world (Meddlesome / Mediating)... probably not (or only in games with specific types of problems)

Driving up to Lumpley and Meguey's house tonight to hang out with them and go trick or treating with the kids, I started thinking about the monastery level Worldliness/Spirituality stats.  How do they increase?  What do they do? I had some ideas, but it's circituitous, so bear with me.

In char gen, say each player comes up with a trait pair of interest/importance to the monastery or the religion, and then the characters are developed using those trait pairs. In order to individuate the characters more, what if each got one of the ones important to the order, and one of their very own. It could overlap with someone else's, but even if it did, this would still allow for greater variation.  

Then, when during the course of play a character garnered enough Lesson points, and successfully presented her experiences to her mentor to be awarded and increase to her Virtue stat, if the trait pair was one of the trait pairs important to the order, then the monastery's Spirituality score would have a chance to increase, if it was one of her individual stats, it would increase her own Spirituality.

We could do a similar thing with Worldliness.

The monastery Worldliness/Spirituality stats would need to affect the lives of the neophytes in some noticeable way.  It could consist of a narrative allocation--the player whose character was responsible for raising it could narrate some positive change about the monastery. Or the W/S for the monastery could interact with the daily activities of the monks.  Determine scene ratings? ho-ho, maybe that's a way to go....

This would speak to the interaction with the outside world Bob is getting at above.  If a monastery has a high Worldliness, then the neophytes would have more difficult interactions with the outside world and have a harder time overcoming their own Worldliness. Scene ratings wouldn't necessarily advantage the neophyte's worldliness over their virtues, but tasks would take take longer to resolve, and so they would have more opportunities for temptation.

I can also see this sort of dynamic setting the stage for campaigns where monks are sent to clean up drastically worldly monasteries. :) The Internal Affairs of the order.

Quote from: Bob McNameeI'd say if this recent post looks good to everybody we should start splitting of posts to look at character creation etc.

I agree.

--Emily Care

I like that mix of personal - order advancement!

This may not be totally appropriate, but I'd be inclined to think that the game should accumulate dogma over time.  So maybe when a sufficient number of lesson points have been earned, the master asks "what have you learned from this" and the student must express it in a sort of Koan.  "I have learned that that the empty hand carries the heaviest burden" or some such.  This is then recorded in the monastaries Big Book 'O Truth as a prop/play aid.  Ah well thats tuppence for ya.

Edit: or, existing koans could be established, in a more mission-based model, and a student tasked with "come back to me in a month ands explain the sound of one hand clapping" or something to that effect.

Koans would be a wonderful way to make some of the statements come out of in-play interactions...

Scratch some of my musings from yesterday. Vincent reminded me last night that:

Character spirituality level increases when other trait pairs are resolved.

Of course, how could I have forgotten.
:)

--Emily Care

Hi there,

Totally unsolicited interjection: I really like Gareth's suggestion about dogma accumulating. I especially like the possibility, which occurs to me, that such accumulations are less effective later - i.e., they have become dogma per se, no longer meaningful (ie experienced/understood) but merely obediently mouthed and hence worthless.

If it doesn't fit with the other notions about playing the game, that's cool, but I love that idea.

Best,
Ron

Quote from: Ron EdwardsI especially like the possibility, which occurs to me, that such accumulations are less effective later - i.e., they have become dogma per se, no longer meaningful (ie experienced/understood) but merely obediently mouthed and hence worthless.

Hmm..we've been focusing on narrativist and gamist design elements, do we really want to go with Sim of TRW for the religion?  

:)Just a joke--thanks for lending your thoughts, Ron.  I like it too. Especially the idea of in-play generated koans being used for later neophytes to struggle with and learn from.

--Emily Care

Another suggestion from Vincent (who starting at midnight last night is now embroiled in the National November Writing Month--write a 50,000 word novelin a month!!!--so I don't expect him to have time to post about this :) was for us to seperate the die pool roles for Worldliness and Spirituality from the Virtue/Passion (and statement?) bonus die rolls.

In other words,  let the player decide on the forking narration (Worldly outcome, Spiritual outcome) and just roll the initial die pools. Then, after seeing how that comes out, decide whether to pull in a Virtue or Passion, and incorporate the trait of choice into the narrative at that point. This allows greater choice on the part of the player.

--Emily Care

Hi Em,

My thoughts, as you probably already divined, are in fact Premise-based and possibly strategic as well. The accumulating dogma presents an evolving conundrum for player-characters. As the dogma is more immediately accessible/familiar/encoded, but it gets less effective, and "new" insights and so forth are harder to generate, but very powerful. Seems like a good Gamist-Narrativist hybrid to me.

Best,
Ron

On the speed of advancement.

I prefer #3 - Slow at start, Fast mid, Slow at end

Would fit with the Dogma concept too.
Takes a while to wrap mind around Koans (or whatever) at first, then you "get them" easier, then they either lose their inspirational aspect for you  or you have learned all you can from them.

I wouldn't mind the Dogma idea with respect to the Mentor level.

Quote from: Ron Edwards
Totally unsolicited interjection: I really like Gareth's suggestion about dogma accumulating. I especially like the possibility, which occurs to me, that such accumulations are less effective later - i.e., they have become dogma per se, no longer meaningful (ie experienced/understood) but merely obediently mouthed and hence worthless.

If it doesn't fit with the other notions about playing the game, that's cool, but I love that idea.

it's a cool idea, Ron... I'm not sure how to impliment it, however. I think dogma should be decided during the "take turns narrating one fact" stage: it becomes one of the facts a player can add to the group-developed setting.

the next question is: how to use it in play? since Emily raised an important point about being able to break out of a scene if the numbers rise too fast, how about this: a player can choose to put a scene on hold and return to the mentor for advice. the mentor gives the neophyte one of the group's dogmas for spiritual inspiration and the neophyte returns to the scene. the dogma is usable once per neophyte; it acts as a dice boost, either instead of or in addition to a trait-pair boost.

to impliment the diminishing returns feature, we could base the value of a dogma on the neophytes Worldliness; as the neophye becomes less Worldly/more Spiritual, the dogma becomes less useful. another possibility: the dogma has a value that is set when it is created (based on the monastery's Spirituality at the time of creation, maybe?) dogmas in play for a long period of time are less useful because their scores are lower.

this raises the issue of monastery-level scores. I think the monastery should be developed during the round-robin setting creation stage. it would start with a Worldliness equal to the lowest Worldliness in the group, maybe... or perhaps it starts with a Worldliness equal to the number of players... trait-pairs should probably be added as facts about the monastery. I'm not certain what the exact effects of the monastery should be, other than it could provide bonuses for actions taken on the monastery grounds.

Quote from: Bob McNamee
I'd say if this recent post looks good to everybody we should start splitting of posts to look at character creation etc.

yes, this is a good idea. I even got an email from kester suggesting that the basic rules look about ready for completion.

I suggest two things:

[list=1]

• a "feature freeze"
  we can add more to the game system later, but let's concentrate on implimenting the suggestions we already have.
  
• a "run-through"
  we have a set of basic rules, and we've given examples of various parts of the system, but we need a description of a game session from start to finish. naturally, we can cheat on die rolls for now; we're just trying to get a feel for how the game would actually play, so that we can break down the play example into sections to determine exactly what we need.
  [/list:o]
  
  here's a crude outline of a play session:
  
  
  
  
  • players gather and describe the general setting they want to play in (historical france under charlamagne, fantasy medieval europe with a european version of taoism, whatever.)
    
  • players suggest trait-pairs. perhaps each player suggest a Passion or a Virtue, then other players suggest what the opposite or compliment should be.
    
  • chargen, roughly as described before.
    
  • round-robin setting description, starting with abstract facts about the religion, moving to facts about the monastery, then on to the surrounding countryside, and finally on to interesting events. setting description stops when one player suggests an event that gives the others an urge to intervene.
    
  • the mentor (temporary GM) describes the selected event in more detail and assigns each player a general duty.
    
  • continue in round-robin fashion, but each player describes a scene for how they will fulfill their duty. the scene is then played out.
    
  • when all the duties have been completed, the players have a scene with their mentor for possible character advancement.
    
  • round-robin setting description begins again, until a new event suggests a new mission.
    [/list:u]

Quote from: Bob McNameeI prefer #3 - Slow at start, Fast mid, Slow at end.

Me too.

Quote from: talysman[list=1]

• a "feature freeze"
  we can add more to the game system later, but let's concentrate on implimenting the suggestions we already have.[/list:o]

Agreed.

Quote from: talysman[list=1]

• a "run-through"...[/list:o]
  
  here's a crude outline of a play session:
  
  
  
  
  • players gather and describe the general setting they want to play in (historical france under charlamagne, fantasy medieval europe with a european version of taoism, whatever.)
    
  • players suggest trait-pairs. perhaps each player suggest a Passion or a Virtue, then other players suggest what the opposite or compliment should be.
    
  • chargen, roughly as described before.
    
  • round-robin setting description, starting with abstract facts about the religion, moving to facts about the monastery, then on to the surrounding countryside, and finally on to interesting events. setting description stops when one player suggests an event that gives the others an urge to intervene.
    
  • the mentor (temporary GM) describes the selected event in more detail and assigns each player a general duty.
    
  • continue in round-robin fashion, but each player describes a scene for how they will fulfill their duty. the scene is then played out.
    
  • when all the duties have been completed, the players have a scene with their mentor for possible character advancement.
    
  • round-robin setting description begins again, until a new event suggests a new mission.
    [/list:u]

Looks good.

Here's a tentative list of areas we want to finalize:

-Char Gen Mentor & Neophyte(how many trait pairs, which ones, etc)
-Monastery Stats
-Conflict resolution (how bonuses are applied, etc.)
-Rise and fall of traits for Char's and Monastery
-Mentor/GM powers and responsibilities
-Lesson Point uses and economy
-Other stuff, what else?...

Applying what we've got to examples of play sounds like a good way to continue.  

I propose we start a new thread, either starting the game at ground zero and work out how each stage/portion works, or pick one section at a time that we want to deal with.

--Emily Care

I say lets start at the beginning... with setting char / monestary gen...
for the new threads