A RPG of Heroic Passion

[Ben Lehman]

Hey everybody.

So I had some free time today, and sat down to work on Tactics (minutia of movement rules... joy!)  Instead, this came out, nearly whole cloth, in about 15 minutes.  I'd like some feedback on the design, if possible.

Tentative Title:
The White Hart
A brief RPG in the heroic style:

Sources:
This is a flaming Riddle of Steel heartbreaker, which also takes influence from some Silhouette mods friends of mine have done, the Ironclaw dice system, and  lumpley's recent designs.  Of course it is also influenced, as all my RPG design is, by Over the Edge.

Attributes:
Every character has five attributes, each associated with a polyhedral dice, d4 through d12.  Each attribute is some defining *personal* feature of the character, for example a love of someone, a destiny of some kind, a horrific doom, or any some such thing.  Four of these attributes are personally defined by the player of the character.

The d4 attribute is a little special.  It is always called "Puissance" and it measures the "mundane abilities" of the character.

Each attribute has a number associated with it.  When you are called on to roll that attribute, roll that number of dice with the appropriate sides.

Free Play:
   If you are not actively in a conflict, you are in free play.  You can say whatever you are doing, within the limits set by the world and your character, do "in-character" play acting, or whatever.  If another player, or the GM, says "You can't just *do* that" then it's conflict time.
   If you are trying to do something that breaks the setting or flavor of the game (like pulling out your machine gun in an Arthurian game), and everyone else at the table says so, you can't do it.  You can't even try.  No challenge.

Resolution:

In short: Decide on what the conflict is, roll a set of dice, compare the two highest dice for margin of success, highest roller (narrator) looks at the "results table" and decides whether their character wins or loses the conflict, and narrates.

What is the conflict?  When one person or entity in the game world wants one thing, and another person or entity wants another, and both can't happen at once.  The field of conflict can be personal combat, romantic intrigue, investigation of the occult, whatever.  At this point, the players involved should decide the "scope" of the conflict, the venue that it takes place in, what they want to get out of it, and possible negative or partial victory outcomes.

What set of dice do you roll?  Good question.  Pick out, with the consensus of your group and GM, what attributes of yours apply to the conflict at hand (puissance always applies) and roll all the dice associated with them.  Satisfying to roll all those dice , isn't it?

Compare the highest two:  Look at all those dice you just rolled.  What are the highest two dice (ties don't matter)?  Add those two dice together, and compare to the two highest dice on the other side.  Subtract the higher from lower.  This is the "margin of victory" and will be important later.

Narrator chooses results:  The person who rolled lower now just sits back and watches, perhaps eating some cheetos (sometimes it's good to lose.)  The person who rolled higher now becomes the narrator.  They look at the chart below and choose whether their character was Victorious or suffered a Setback.  The opposite character gets the other result.

Narrator narrates results:  The narrator, with help from the group, describes what happened, and how the conflict ended up for each of the participants.  Ideally, this is in a manner that sets them up for new conflicts although, if it does not, the group should return to "free play" mode until another conflict emerges.  Note that the narrator is strongly encouraged to take the input, particularly, of the player in the other side of the challenge.

*results table* will be here eventually.  Essentially, the narrow margin of successes have "partial victories" on one side and "setbacks" (which increase one of the relevant attributes) on the other.  Also present are options to change your attributes, etc.  The large margin of successes are more a simple "win/lose" with no advancement.  The idea here is that conflicts with a narrower margin of success are "more important" because the participants care about them equally, and probably a lot.  There will possibly be some options where attributes go down.  I haven't decided on that, yet.

Optional Rule: Extended Contests.  "But Ben," you say, "if every conflict comes down to one die roll, how do we get the suspense of a long scene?"  All right, motherfuckers, here's your extended conflict mechanic.
   The player with the highest (number of dice, for ties size of dice) attribute rolls one or more of his smallest dice, and offers a narration of the result in terms of the conflict as it taken out.  Then the other player rolls one or more of his smallest dice, and narrates the results of that.  Trade back and forth like this.  As the dice hit the table, it should become more and more clear who is going to win, but there is always a chance for a last minute turnaround, especially when those d12s finally get rolled.
   After all the dice have hit the table, handle comparison and narration as usual, with a focus on the *aftereffects* of the conflict, rather than the conflict itself (which has already been played out.)
   "But Ben," you say, "that's just the normal challenge mechanic in slow motion."  Yup.
   (Caveat: If, in narration, *by the other player* one of your other attributes comes up, add the dice for that attribute into the pool.  Go you!)

Character Creation.

Choose one of the dice options: {Ben Notes: vast playtesting and probability calculation needed here}

Cynical, Worldy Hero:
   This guy has a lot of experience in the world, but doesn't particularly care about much (or, rather, what he cares about hasn't hit him in the face yet.)

4d4 2d6 2d8 1d10 1d12*

Questing Knight:
   This guy has one thing that he cares about a lot, a quest or a maiden faire, perhaps, which consumes him.

3d4 2d6 2d8* 1d10 2d12

Destiny Boy:
   This guy is a putz just waiting to burst into heroic power.
1d4 1d6 2d8* 2d10* 2d12*

{Ben Notes: Final game would have more options}

Name Your Attributes:
   Pick good things, like "Destined to Become King of the World" or "Sworn into Service of the Lord of Torment."  Note that "Good at Killing Ogres" is not, as such, an attribute, and neither is "Strong."  Those are both part of "Puissance."  "Hates Ogres Because They Killed My Family" is decent, and "I Must Prove Myself The Strongest Man in The World" is golden.  This is a good time to talk with your group and clarify what sort of conflicts you think that your attributes will come up during.
   Some people like to phrase attributes like questions: "Is it worth it to take a man's life to do good in the world?"  This is fine, as long as everyone is clear on how they apply.
   See your character options, where these is that weird little star next to some of the dice pools?  That's a "unassigned attribute --" you can name it during play, even right before a challenge, if you like.  Once you name it, though, you can't change it.

Thoughts:

My goal here is to design a useful "light game for heroic narrativism."  Does it work?

Other build options might be?  I think I hit on the three biggest that I can think of right now, but I'd like to, at the least, have a 2d4 option.  I could always include "Bad-Ass who cares about nothing" at 5d4 with no other stats, with appropriate snide commentary.

Where is the text unclear?  Where would examples be particularly helpful?

Is there anything massive that I'm overlooking?

I'm thinking of allowing the d6 and possibly even the d8 attribute to be "personal traits" like "I'm very very strong" or "I'm the smartest man in the world."  This is largely so that one could have a "brave" Sir Lancelot or a "strong" Hercules.  What do people think of this?

I'm thinking of using "three highest dice" which would make Puissance more useful, and also the d6 attribute.  What do you all think of that, as opposed to "two highest" which it presently is?

End draft will have more examples, a setting design section before the character design section, rules for 3+ participant challenges, yielding in challenges and, of course, the conflict table.  Possibly some advice on GMing, too, which would largely come down to "How to give NPCs, Places, Objects, and Quests their attributes."  Anything else that should be in there?

All game text (c) Ben Lehman 2004, all rights reserved, blah blah blah.

[james_west]

The rules seem pretty straightforward; I understood them the first time through, although I have to admit I had a moment of uncertainty about whether this was meant to be a GMless game, and had to check up the text a bit.

However, how it all winds up working together is a little harder to parse; it's pretty clear that anyone who has a passion involved is very likely to win any conflict, but beyond that, it's hard to see how it'd run.

Thus - I think that this is a game on which little meaningful comment could be made without playtesting.

- James

[Jeph]

I think having the d6 as a personal trait would be a good idea. Maybe make it like Cover in Sorcerer, so Lancelot would have Knight, Hercules would have... what was he, a solder?, Superman would have Newspaper Reporter and so on and so forth.

Also, I don't entirely get the why of how conflicts are resolved--how can you add up your two highest dice when you're only rolling one die at times? Why add up two dice anyway: is there any problem with just taking the highest?

Character creation might be a bit simpler and comprehensive if it were a simple 1/1/2/3/4 spread.

A method should be added for dealing with Narration Fatigue Syndrome. As has come up a mountain of times before, it can get hard to keep narrating and describing stunts with any degree of satisfaction if you've been doing it for the last thee hours.

The extended contest mechanic needs something more. Perhaps a brief but non-final description after each throw of a die, based upon the totals thus far?

Anyway, it looks like this could shape up to be quite a game. :^)
--Jeff

[Ben Lehman]

I think having the d6 as a personal trait would be a good idea. Maybe make it like Cover in Sorcerer, so Lancelot would have Knight, Hercules would have... what was he, a solder?, Superman would have Newspaper Reporter and so on and so forth.

BL>  See, I think that, if you choose your Profession correctly, there is no situation in which it doesn't apply.  Look at the knights of Camelot.  At what time are they not doing things that would fall under "knight?"

Also, I don't entirely get the why of how conflicts are resolved--how can you add up your two highest dice when you're only rolling one die at times? Why add up two dice anyway: is there any problem with just taking the highest?

BL>  You roll all dice, then add up the two highest numbers, and compare for margin of success.  This needs to be made more clear in the text.
 The reason that you sum the two highest dice -- and the reason that I may move to three highest -- is that it makes the smaller attributes considerably more worthwhile.

Character creation might be a bit simpler and comprehensive if it were a simple 1/1/2/3/4 spread.

BL>  The thing is, there'd be little incentive to not have your 4 in your d12 stat.  Although, there could be... (ponders)

A method should be added for dealing with Narration Fatigue Syndrome. As has come up a mountain of times before, it can get hard to keep narrating and describing stunts with any degree of satisfaction if you've been doing it for the last thee hours.

BL>  Note that you (usually) only narrate the results of a challenge, after all dice are rolled, and it doesn't effect your ability to succeed, which I think might take the pressure off a bit.

The extended contest mechanic needs something more. Perhaps a brief but non-final description after each throw of a die, based upon the totals thus far?

BL>  I thought it already had this?  Time to go back and clarify the text.

thanks very much for your comments.

yrs--
--Ben

(edit: So, quote tags, my old nemesis, we meet again...)

[Ben Lehman]

The rules seem pretty straightforward; I understood them the first time through, although I have to admit I had a moment of uncertainty about whether this was meant to be a GMless game, and had to check up the text a bit.

BL>  Check.  More textual clarifications.

Thus - I think that this is a game on which little meaningful comment could be made without playtesting.

BL>  Check.  More work next weekend, then to the connections forum.

thanks for your comments.
And *you* were the author I forget to credit in "inspirations."  I'm very embarrased!  I was sitting there, thinking "What was the first game I read where 'who narrates' is at stake in the die roll?" and couldn't come up with "the pool."  More textual revisions.

yrs--
--Ben

[Jeph]

*blink* Indeed you're right Ben. How inatentive of me.

I think that there's equal reason to have different numbers in each stat. If you always pair higher numbers with higher dice, your effectiveness will be exponential, making you very focussed. However, if you put your stats as 4d4, 3d6, 2d8, 1d10, 1d12 you'll have a much great chance at success when you're not using your highest attributes, making your effectiveness more a gradual slope.

And I think you're thinking of James V. West there, Ben...

I look forward to further discussion. :)
--Jeff