First time here, please be gentle. (long)

[Malckuss]

You are correct, sir. The only ways I could imagine someone not going for the best Action Result possible is if A) they were trying not to reveal exactly how competent they were to an outside observer B) They were attempting to subdue and opponent rather than take them out C) they were exceedingly low on Luck and thought they might not be able to earn any back anytime soon and were being judicious on the use of their last Token. I'm off for work now; I'll post the stuff I promised and answer some of your earlier questions, Tony, when I get in tomorrow morning. What do you all think so far?

[TonyLB]

I think you're closing in on having the rules conveyed, if still in somewhat rambling fashion.  The new drafts (with headers) are also definitely easier on the eyes.  Shallow of me, I know, but when presenting things it's great to have a pretty face.

[Malckuss]

I'll second what Joshua said about not saying how the pieces fit together.  I look at your writeup and I wonder (a) what you do mechanically with the resources, (b) how you arbitrate things in the shared imaginary space and (c) how (a) and (b) fit together.

So, (a):  Do I draw cards from the deck and hold them in my hand?  Or put them face up on the table?  If I earn 20 Karma tokens do I win?  Can I use a Luck token rather than a Karma token?  What would I use either of them for?

Well, as I hope I have conveyed, you do draw cards from the deck to form a hand, using the appropriate Prime Attribute + Archetype or Skill. You may then play a number of cards up to your skill ranks as long they are a straight (numerical order, eg 2,3,4,etc) or a set (two of a kind, three of a kind, 2,2,2, or4,4,, ect..)
I have explained Luck earlier. Karma has several functions as well. It makes an attempt at an action it is earned on easier, first off. Say you are playing the saucy redhead mentioned in the rough draft. If you describe the attempt to seduce someone with enough verve, or entertainingly enough, some of the other players may give you a Karma Token or two. Each Karma Token earned reduces the difficulty of the action attempted by 1 level, or may be substituted for a Luck Token. Only one Karma may be used as a Luck Token. The reason for this should be apparent, as too many Luck Tokens would make the action incredibly easy. Karma still will make attempted actions much easier. Each Token earned is then recorded on the character sheet for later use, remembering that you cannot earn more Karma in a game session than your Threshold.. Here is where one of my conundrums kick in: I like the idea of burning Karma for effect, and I want to use them for character advancement. What I would like to do is have the burned effect take place when the player spends the point to advance their character, sort of allocating the point in game, directing the characters growth in a more "realistic" manner than the whim of which power or skill they want now. If they blow the point for an in game boost, that is were the points is allocated for further development. This would also simulate that staple of fiction and film of the character figuring out last second how to fly the out of control plan by life-threatened trail and error, as well as that eureka! factor that newly acquired skill sometimes has.

(b) If I want to tell a story of Jack jumping over a pit, and Bob wants to tell a story of Jack falling into the pit and breaking his leg, how do we decide which story we tell?  Does it matter if Bob is the GM or not?


One of the things I am trying to accomplish in Simplexity is the idea of Total Control of one's own destiny, or in a less grandiose fashion; the player has almost total control over what happens to their character, and the GM has nearly total control over their plot. Bob could tell the story of Jack falling into the pit, but whether Jack actually breaks his leg or not is up to Jack, and the rules. If Jack were to take more than half of his cards in damage (more on this in a bit) and he thought the story might be made better for it, he might well decide that Jack breaks his leg. However, if Bob is dead set on that busted leg, he should offer a bribe, say a Destiny Token, which doubles all card values when burned, as a fair trade. Obviously, Jack can't use this token to mitigate that fall, or his wound, but could use it on getting himself out, or trying to mend his wound.

(c) If I have a ten card (the utmost human effort), does that mean I can use it to automatically break any Olympic record?  How about if I have an Ace?

[/i]
This seems like a good place to show the difficulty table.
ACTION DIFFICULTY CHART:

Difficulty Level     Target Number        Difficulty Level      Target Number
Automatic                  0                             Superhuman            24
Easy                         4                               Unfathomable          28
Average                     8                              Cosmic                   32
Challenging               12                           Godlike                   36
Daunting                   16                             Impossible               40
Desperate                 20   

I would say your Olympic difficulty would have a TN of Daunting, if not desperate. I would ask the player to describe their attempt. If they got two Karma Tokens, they could convert one to a Luck Token, and use the other to lower the TN one level. I would sneakily call the TN Desperate, and lower it to Daunting. With the 10 in hand, as well as the 10 they just got for the Luck Token (we will assume a Threshold of 10 for this) they have an Action result of 20, beating the TN by 4. I might let the player describe an extra small perk or two for their surpassing success. An Ace would beat the Difficulty by 2 all on its own.

As to the comment earlier about damage; all conflict resolution in Simplexity takes away the resources a player need to continue resisting: the cards. This builds in a wounds type mechanic without being so harsh as to cause a death-spiral situation. So if a player is struck by a sword, laid into by a scathing argument, betrayed or belittled, he would lose cards from his deck, making resisting further attacks more difficult. This allows the game to represent those moments in film when we see our hero, demoralized by realizing his true love has betrayed him, falls easily to an attack he would normally have been ready for, but being caught off guard, is easy prey.

[Malckuss]

I don't suppose anyone has any thoughts on the system as It is currently presented? I would dearly love some feedback.

[TonyLB]

Oh, sure!  You said you were looking for advice on the way it was presented, and I suspect we were all trying to respect that focus.  Let me point out the thing that leaps out at me:

One of the things I am trying to accomplish in Simplexity is the idea of Total Control of one's own destiny, or in a less grandiose fashion; the player has almost total control over what happens to their character, and the GM has nearly total control over their plot.

I think you need to dump the word "control" in at least one of those clauses.  As written, what you've said is a paradox at best (in fact, the particular paradox that is called, 'round here, the Impossible Thing Before Breakfast) and a zero-sum game at worst (where you contest over whose side "gives" when it's an intersection between the players "almost-total" control and the GMs "near-total" control).  If, on the other hand, you want to say "The Player has complete control over his character's actions and their outcomes, while the GM has complete control over the Reward System, and what the Player gets rewarded for choosing and achieving," then you're no longer in logically-impossible territory, and may have an easier time of it.

Now, that philosophical issue aside, the setup reminds me strongly of Castle Falkenstein.  Maybe it's just the cards.  That was a game where players (GM included) could dedicate resources on one side or the other in order to influence events.  But because of the particulars of how the GM allocated his resources (particularly that he did so in a manner which often required him to choose between "ambushing" players with a ludicrously high card or "lowball" players with a ludicrously low card).

So I wonder, looking at it, whether the GM is supposed to be using the cards at his disposal to provide a "reasonable challenge" to the players, or whether he's supposed to go for the throat.  Any thoughts on that?

[Malckuss]

Hmm. You make valid points. Actually, though this is my first attempt to coalate everything and beat it into something resembling an RPG, I have actually had several occasions to playtest it; the situation you speak of has never come up, but then I am the kind of GM that 1) wants my players to have fun, and I drive the game to that end 2) See the expeirence as a co-op story, me with my plot and the players reacting aas the feel the should 3) I try as a GM, to think of what would be fun for me as a player, and handle any given situation in that manner.
My system actually allows the other players to reward each other, based on factors of creativity and give and take. The GM has the biggest reward to hand out, though, and has the most resources to do so. as for the whole "reasonabel challenge" vs "go for the throat" I would personnally like to see it go something like this:
As long as the players are all having fun and the gm is too, reasonable challenges work best. I would save the horendous stuff for players causing problems by either wrecking the fun everyone else is having, or by trying to go somewhere with the story you absolutely don't want to go.

That being said. how would you handle That situation? And secondarily, how would you present these thoughts in a manner that they come across clearly and concisely