Scope of Premise; Making Choices

[Tim C Koppang]

I've been working on a game now for a little over a year and a half now, the name of which is in flux, but what I have called "Lineage" in the past.

At this stage in development though, I've come to the conclusion that I need some help with the Premise of the game.  As it stands, I've begun to doubt whether or not I've designed the game around a Premise too narrow in scope.

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First, think dark fantasy with lots of political intrigue.  Characters are all members of the nobility and are charged with accomplishing great heroic deeds.  Memory and history are great weights on each character.  Characters must all be younger, somewhere around teenage to late teenage years.  Furthermore, while civilization is dark, the wild is always worse--the idea being that if a noble runs away from his responsibilities, he's only running to a literal representation of his own inner turmoil.  Otherwise, setting is left generally open.

Each character consists primarily of three "influences." The character struggles equally with each of these.  In essence, the character's job is to choose one of the three influences.  Influences fall under three headings: love, family, and hero (renaming these is probable).  An influence consists basically of an entity (a family house, an organization, a person, etc.), an ideal, a representative, and an end or goal.  These components are all defined by the player at character creation.  There are a few other components as well, but for now just think of an influence as a possible future, representing what the character will dedicate his life to.  Each influence has a numerical rating.  At character creation, these ratings are roughly equal.  In fact, they are all exactly equal except one, which is rated one point higher than the others.

Example: Under the heading of hero, my character, Sir Ryx Willnurn, has come to idolize Sir Malorin Urily.  In life, he stood for honor in battle as he defended the gates of Irriu from the invading Saxinites.  Sir Urily would have me join with the legions of General Yamil Opil as he takes up the post at Irriu. Rating: 9. Ability: Spirit.

The character also has a "passion" score that represents the effects that making a decision is having on the character.  As passion rises, so does the character's sense of being "out of balance" with himself.  In effect, the character has to choose a path, but also must leave two paths behind him.  Passion is always equal to the difference between a character's highest influence rating and his lowest.  Furthermore, passion can only ever increase.

To represent the character slowly making a decision, each influence rating is also linked to one of three ability ratings: social, spirit, and body (again, name changes are in order, but you get the idea).  Thus, for any body-based conflicts, the character's dedication to the linked influence is looked to for guidance.  The higher the rating, the better skilled the character is in that area, and the more narration rights for the player.  There's more however, as a player may shuffle points between each influence.  This is key.  As the game progresses and conflicts are called for, dice rolling tells the player whether or not his character's passion score must go up, and by how much it must go up by.  At that point, the player may rearrange points between his three influences so that the difference between the highest and lowest influence equals the new passion score.

Also, attached to an influence are a series of "relationships."  As an influence rating rises, the number of relationships you have under that influence increases, as does the strength of existing relationships.  However, if the influence rating goes down, then your character will lose, permanently, those relationships.  Relationships, mechanically, are used generally to slow mandated passion increases.

When a character's passion reaches an agreed-upon threshold, then the end-game is triggered.  The highest rated influence is effectively the character's chosen life-path, and the player then goes on not only to narrate the making of that choice, but also the character's (perhaps eventual) death.  Why death?  Because players can link previous characters to new ones by taking them as their hero influence.  In this way, the sense of past is emphasized.  My vision for the game involves players using one new character per "round" (maybe equal to a session, or whatever the group defines it as), and so each player develops a line, or lineage, of characters linked to each other.  Hopefully, there will be lots of room for recurring choices and themes between subsequent characters and their collective past.

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That's the whirlwind tour.  There's more, but I thought I'd just present the basic idea for now.

So, my question.  As it stands the game works under the presumption that the character will make a choice.  The game then presents the following questions. "You will be remembered.  What will you be remembered for?  And what are you willing to sacrifice to be remembered for it?"

I'm wondering if I shouldn't open this up to something more like: "What are you willing to sacrifice to be remembered?"--so that the choice isn't what you'll be remembered for, but rather if you'll be remembered at all.  The later, would of course involve some hefty rules modifications.

Opinions/comments/questions?

[Mike Holmes]

I don't think that it's too narrow, but here's some questions that might help.

1. Can you see more than one PC playing at once? How would they interact? Is the game otherwise like Sorcerer (bangs, kickers, Relationship Maps)?

2. How many sessions would a typical game go, do you think? Will resolution have enough rising action to support an entire story? The timing, I think, will require some playtesting, but should be doable.

3. Do the statistics suggest enough different ways to go? That is, given the setting, and how you define a character, will they all be the same? Or will variation occur?

Mike

[Tim C Koppang]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply.  And yes, questions help a great deal.

I can definitely see more than one player participating at a time.  I'm not talking about hordes; your standard smallish sized group would probably max out the system.  Interactions amongst the characters would then arise out of common relationships, similar influences, and most importantly similar or even opposing goals.  I should emphasize the need for tension both within each character and throughout the setting.  While I said that setting is open-ended, I think that was misleading.  Setting might be open, but it's nonetheless very important.  Tension between political groups for example, parallel tensions that exist between each character's influences.  Thus, characters working with or against one another gives rise to situation.

I've actually been contemplating a mechanic that would formalize directorial powers as it relates to setting and important events happening therein.  Again though, I'm worried about losing focus.

Game and session length is certainly a concern.  While I think play-testing is the answer, my vision for the game sees each new character expire at the end of a standard session length.  This is of course customizable though.  What's important is that each character gets a single complete story arc that ends with choosing an influence.  Kickers then are a must, as there won't be a lot of time to get the ball rolling so to speak.  Kickers will be built into the game as a component of at least one of the character's influences.

Also, with more sessions, I think that narrative overlap is very possible.  In other words, a player might actually choose to play an NPC from the previous session.  That new character then might already be developed to a certain extent and have easily established relationships and connections.  In some ways, you might think of a line of characters as one big character.

Scene framing is an important part of the game as well.  While one character is played out to his death, that doesn't mean that the next character in the line can't start from some earlier point.  You'll just be playing out the story from a different point perhaps, a different fork in the road.  You might get one story that develops from multiple perspectives then, albeit with the focus on what each individual chooses to stand for within that story (I'm using story loosely here by the way).

Character stats differ in that each influence is different save for the third, the memory.  That's the biggest difference.  Otherwise, the ability you choose to assign to each of the three influences can change from character to character.  Relationships will sometimes overlap, but should be different for each character.  In a sense though, characters will show larger differences as they mature and influence points are shifted.  I see where you're coming from though.  The "core" of each character is similar.  Perhaps I could round things out with some sort of descriptive traits that link up to abilities.  Here's a question: how much of a difference beyond the influences do you think is needed?

[Mike Holmes]

Actually I thought that influences were all that you'd need likely. I just wanted to know if you thought that. :-)

I think the premise is fine, and I'd move on with it, if I were you.

Mike