Mythasy: A game for bittererest roleplayers

[MusedFable]

This is a continuation of http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=18060.0.

To sum up the thread:  I said "I've played a hole crap load of rpgs over the last 9 years and I don't think any of them are for me."  Forge response was "maybe you'll like X game."  Me "I've played that and don't like it". repeat a few times.  Forge response "You don't seem to like anything.  I think you are just to choosy".  Me "Nuh-uh.  I like lots of stuff.  There just doesn't seem to be a game I like."  Forge "You might be what Ron describes as the Bittererest Roleplayer".  Me "Kinda, but there are 3 of us like that.  I think I'll design a game for people like me and my friends."  Forge "Yes, go make a game or at least start something and then come back when you have something".

Well, I have something.  I haven't been able to work on the game for over a week (the excuses aren't important and I don't want to make any).  But, today I spent the last 4 hours trying to put my thoughts down into text.  It is extremely hard to get my ideas into useable sentences.

Well here is what I've got so far:

Mythasy

What is the game about?
The game is focused on power and the struggle to acquire more of it.  The characters want more power in what they think is important.  The players want more power over the game world.  The time frame of a campaign is over generations and centuries.

What do the characters do?
A character tries to improve himself.  Each character has different values, so success is measured differently for every character.  The game rules provide measurable improvement in wealth, skill, and relationships.  Anything outside the realm of these three things can't be a character goal.   
I can't think of anything outside those three, so I don't think this is actually a limitation

What do the players do?
The players use the characters under their control to morph the world to their liking, or at least in a way that is interesting to themselves.  A player could create a religion in the game by using his character(s) to spread the word of the faith.  Belief systems, armies, cultures, music, and other memes can be added to the world by the player.  The goal is to feel that you have made a noticeable mark upon the world.


Characters
Characters have three distinct ways of affecting the world:  Combat, Stealth, and Talking.  Each has a group of skills associated with it and has a specialized resolution system (hopefully similar to each other; to help the players learning curve and intuitiveness).  There will also be feats/stunts/secrets.  These will allow the character to do something extraordinary and unique.  "Magic" will be embedded within the feats system.  The characters also have Goals (kind of like tRoS's Spiritual Attributes and tSoY Keys).  I don't know how I want to implement Goals yet, but I really like the kind of play they create.  The last (maybe not?) thing on the character sheet are Anchors.  Anchors are things/people/activities that make the character feel better, and recover from damage (stress, physical damage, or crushed egos).  Examples are:  a true love; fishing; and gaudy jewelry.  An important thing about anchors are that they should not help the character at Combat, Stealth, or Talking, so any wealth, skill, or relationships that are anchors need to add no bonuses and may even be hindrances.  If Jewelry impresses royalty (giving a bonus to Talking) then an Anchor of "loves jewelry" should be reworded as "loves gaudy jewelry" and the gaudiness of the jewelry will null the bonus or even put off the aristocrats.
Remember, all these skills and feats are there to help the character improve their wealth, skills, and relationships.  At the same time wealth, skills, and relationships give bonuses to skills and feats.  Every resource has a way of being converted to something else.  You can buy (wealth) better training (skill), or you could just keep the wealth wealth by just buying better equipment that boosts your skill.
Bulletin Style:
-Combat Skills
-Stealth Skills
-Talk Skills
-Feats (magic and special abilities)
-Goals (give the characters something to strive for)
-Anchors (help characters recover from damage, and also work similar to goals)
-List of Wealth (skill boosting equipment, or liquid cash used for bribes.  Specific items bought to bribe a specific person are considered equipment)
-List of Relationships (like wealth; it's used to boost skills, or hinder opponents skills)


Advancement

Advancement is centric instead of ever increasing.  I don't think I've run into this before in any kind of game, so I'll try and explain it as best I can (If there is a game with this system please inform me so I can learn more about it).

The word Level is used only as a gauge of overall power of the character.  I may or may not actually have levels, but the word helps explain my point.
A "chart"
1-2-3-4-5<6<<7<<<8<<<<9<<<<<10
From levels 1 through 5 the character progresses like your typical D&D nock off.  But, after that the pressure mounts and it seems as if the whole world is trying to foil the characters plans.  When you hit the level peak you have become the most skilled or the wealthiest or you control thousands of followers.  The pinnacle of power for this game is quite high.  A wizard that has reached the peak of combat prowess can level entire landscapes.  Someone who achieves the maximum relationships has just created the worlds largest empire.  Likewise, the stealthiest person in the world would be everywhere and anywhere he chose.  The wealthiest can control whole economies.

Achieving these legendary statuses is increasingly difficult and once you achieve them the pressure becomes even greater.  Holding together Rome is even harder than creating it.  Skill fades with age.  Wealth is meaningless when you're dead.

The job of dismantling a character's life falls on the shoulders of the GM.  The game rules give the GM a set amount of opposition to each character.  The GM should try with all his might to break each character.  Weaknesses are there to be exploited.  Keep the character's anchors as far from him as possible, or even attempt to destroy them.

At the same time each Player has some OOC control over the story.  This includes the GM.  Player's could weigh the odds against their own character if they think that will morph the game in the way they want it.  Similarly, the GM could use his pool of player influence to warn characters of an incoming threat because he wants to see the Church of Steve flourish.  I went a bit off the topic of Advancement, sorry.

The three things characters can advance in are:  Wealth, Skill, and Relationships.  Wealth and Relationships are acquired during the events that unfold using the resolution system(s).  Skills are gained a bit differently.  Skills get better with time (time in the game world, not in real life).  Every time increment (I'm leaning towards the 4 seasons of the year) the character gets better, worse or stays the same at each of his skills.  The player will set preferences on the skills.  Joe could set Bulvock the barbarians skills so that his "smashing shit" skills improves 5 points every season, while his "knowledge of horticulture" decreases by 3 every season.  I think I like the idea of negative skills.  Somebody with horribly messed up knowledge is kind of funny.  "Did you know Mozart was deaf."

I may have classes/races/niches for skill groups.  The jungle people of Mt.Zahulu could learn rope use very quickly while having great difficulties learning how to write.  Classes or Professions could be used to create archetypes that strengthen the games theme/background/color.  Knights learn martial combat and chivalrous diplomacy while never becoming better pickpockets or con artists.

The most influential modifier to skill rate increase (well except for wealth and relationships) is character age.  At younger years the character would learn everything much quicker than older characters.  Older characters will of course have already gone through youth and acquired more skills than a young character could gain in a short period.

An example of this mechanically:  Characters Aged 15-25 get to assign 10 extra advancements to skills; Ages 25-35 get 5 extra advancements; Age 35-45 no extra advancements; Age 45-55 you take a 5 advancement hit; Age 55-65 you lose 10 advancements; and it keeps going until you're senile.  Race, class, profession, wealth, and relationships still make up the bulk of advancements so even somebody 100 years old could still have really high skills, as long as he focused them.  You can only keep your health skill up for so long, and sooner or later you'll get a bad case of the flu and the characters life will come to a close.
Bulletin Style:
-characters can go up and down in level
-higher levels are more difficult to achieve and stay at
-skills go up (or down) with time
-skills advance at different rates based on race, class, profession
-skills advance quicker when a character is young, and withdraw when the character is old.
-the GM is given limited resources to appose the PCs with full force
-each player (including the GM) is given a small amount of direct control over things outside of character interaction




Thats what I've got so far.  This seems to be the framework for an RPG.  Am I missing anything important?  I'd like it if someone told me what my game looks like it's about, so that I can see somebody else's opinion about my preferences.  The next step seems to be fleshing out all the systems (and/or subsystems) and streamlining the game toward my games purpose and goal (which I can't seem to say concisely or accurately)

[sayter]

what sort of conflicts are there for teh characters to triumph over? Is there to be a Big Bad, or are the characters simply mortals in a world of fellow mortals and the focus squarely put on the individual? Granted, this delves into setting, which you have not yet gone over (or perhaps even devised yet). The concept seems sound enough and deceptively simplistic yet with a lot of room for tinkering. I like the idea.

Be interested to see what else springs up around the foundation.

[MusedFable]

what sort of conflicts are there for teh characters to triumph over? Is there to be a Big Bad, or are the characters simply mortals in a world of fellow mortals and the focus squarely put on the individual? Granted, this delves into setting, which you have not yet gone over (or perhaps even devised yet). The concept seems sound enough and deceptively simplistic yet with a lot of room for tinkering. I like the idea.

Be interested to see what else springs up around the foundation.

I purposefully left out the setting.  I know what I want the setting to be, but I am looking to make a generic rules system.  The term generic is a misnomer.  Every game run with these rules will revolve around fight/stealth/talk; wealth/skill/relationships; and with a greater goal of having the players use characters to flesh out and mold the world (with a bit of direct player influence).  The game should hopefully spur long term immersive play.

After looking at my post It looks like I left out one important chunk; what does the GM do specifically.  I think I need to incorporate mechanics that help the GM create situation on the brink of action.  There also needs to be advice (or a system) on how to create a setting with limited resources.  Every area has some limited resources of some kind, but I think severely limiting an important resource will make things a bit more exiting.

A short sum-up-ence of my setting is:  A while ago an evil plague swept through a magical fantasy land and killed 9/10ths of the population.  long enough ago that nobody lived during that time, but not long enough for people to forget what life was like before.  The last ten percent lived because of what seems like luck.  Each surviving group did so by exploiting their knowledge of a particular subject.  Each surviving group requires something to live.  Of course setting these life supplying resources at odds with each other will create lots of tension between the factions.  The current state of the world is similar to England after the Black Death.  Lots of vacant buildings and land are fought over.  Collapsed social structures and the end of feudalism (well the slow fading away); also the weakening of the Church and religion.  Overall, a lot of prosperity and social reform.  The Plague still infects every living person and newborn.  The Plague slowly eats away every ounce of you including your soul until you die of a broken heart (both physically and emotionally).  The Plague has an alien sentience about itself.  It's as if it finds pleasure in methodically torturing the life out of humans (no animal has ever been effected by The Plague).

-Herbological/Alchemical Dr.Jeckel/Mr.Hyde Mutant/Orcs (but not ugly or evil):  They must drink a concoction every day or start withering away from The Plague.  They can also grow in size (or shrink).  Furthermore they do a bunch of things by making potions/oils/extracts/salves that require rare plants and that create great benefits, but odd side-effects (lasting visible one being radical skin colors like green and blue).  They fill the fantasy niche of orcs, goblins, ogres, and any other

-Animal-morphers:  They survived The Plague by merging there souls with animals.  They use the animals soul to live off of.  This doesn't stop The Plague from weakening and killing their human soul (which would leave behind an animal soul inside a morphing body called a lycanthrope).  The human keeps his own body and mind safe by siphoning life from the animal.  Morphers with no morality go from animal to animal leaching the life from them by bonding with them (these are currently being called "trappers").  The more social and civilized morphers keep their bonded animals healthy by re-charging the animals soul (and physical health) by changing to animal (or hybrid) form and letting the animal revel in it's basic instincts (foraging/hunting, sex, ect).  They can "overcharge" the animal spirit so they can do some bad-ass superpowered stuff (mostly athletic stuff).  The animal spirit can get carried away with its basic instincts and refuse to submit to the human.  This usually results in the being ending up in an enraged hybrid form with both souls fighting over what to do next.  Humans are far more intelligent and clever and can normally cow the animal, but if it has been a long time since the animal has frolicked and is mistreated the animal could have enough willpower to rebel (especially if overcharged).  They fill the fantasy niche of any animal/human species from beastmen, lizardmen, to Merfolk.

-Faeriefolk:  They tapped into the power of emotion.  Love and hate can enrich a soul far better than any other method.  The tragic part is that love or hate needs to be consumed by the faeriefolk in order to survive.  Any relationship a faeriefolk will have with somebody will always be thought of as expendable to stay alive.  The faeriefolk can use extra energy from the crushed emotions of others to fuel there kewl powers.  They can manipulate emotions (charm, fear, ect); create illusions of the mind; and manifest limited physical expressions of emotions (flittery wings, nymph-like beauty, other minor manifestations).  They fill the fantasy niche of elves, fairies, succubus, and sword and sorcery witches.

-Undead:  It's debatable if the Undead have signed a pact with The Plague or that they have taken a lemon (of death) and made lemonade (of death).  They take the ability of the plague to rip the life from human flesh and use it to their advantage.  "Zombies" eat human flesh (with brains being grade A choice) and magically digest it with plague-juice to stay alive (and of course fuel their kewl powers).  Likewise Vampires use blood.  Wraiths actually rip the soul from your body and then use the plague to dissolve it into a black ichor and then drink it.  They are undead.  What's not to love about undead.

-Steampunkers:  (a note:  the world doesn't have any abundance of fossil fuels).  Machines filter the plague out of the blood.  Machines keep the heart beating in it's weakened state.  Machines keep the soul intact.  Machines also create awesome doohickeys.  The machines of the steampunkers run on wood (or charcoal), springs, waterwheels, and other pre-industrial revolution sources of energy.  They fill the niche of dwarves, golems, and god damn Steampunk is cool.

-Summoners:  There are forces outside the mortal world.  Hell, The Plague could be one of them (or if you're evil the only one).  The Summoners call upon these outsiders to help them.  These gods, demons, or whatever-they-are-s have immense power that they seem to be able to give to their followers.  The outsiders want more power, and the best way of acquiring that is by gaining more followers.  So, Summoners are required by there master to seek out and convert new followers.  If the summoner fails to meat a quota he will be required to serve time as a minion.  Minions loose free will and are transformed into puppets of the master.  Normally you don't stay as a minion for too long, but it's all dependent on the master's whim.  Outsiders only seem to be able to (or only want to) give particular gifts.  Teleportation, blinking, phasing, gating, and conjuring (teleporting minions) are common gifts.  Other powers are used, but they seem limited to being used by minions.  They fill the fantasy niche of wizards, demons, cthulu monsters, outsiders, gods, angels, and other outsidery stuff.

-Elemental Spiritualists:  They appose death by shear force of will.  It is by the devoted concentration of their beliefs that they survive the Plague.  Mechanically speaking they take mass amounts of stress damage, so they also require mass amounts of time with their anchors.  This means they will go to great lengths to fulfill their needs.  They need to quickly and effectively eliminate any risks imposed on their anchors.  This leads to a bad-ass image of Assassin Paladins.  The focus of their devotion and concentration gives them supernatural powers of insanely high skills (like super-sneaking, and super-sword thwaking, and super-jump-way-the-hell-up-in-the-air).  They fill the niche of "normal humans", paladins, assassins, ninjas, pirates (okay, but if I could get ninja's and pirates into the same niche I would), and that whole super-skilled "normal" anime inspired superhero.

I'd explain some more about the setting, but even my eyes are glazing over with boredom.
As to actually answering your questions.  The conflicts they triumph over are character specific (that's the purpose of goals).  They'd triumph mostly by acquiring power (killing people and taking their stuff; stealing stuff; making friends; blackmail; ect).  They will also have to triumph over the GM trying to take away their beloved anchors (a heroes wife is always in jeopardy, can never get any time fishing when those damn "dwarves" have polluted your stream with their factory).  There is a "Big Bad" in the form of The Plague, but most of the conflicts will be with other mortals (well if you call shapeshifting were-taurs, fairies, and undead "mortals").

Each player will have the option of having multiple characters (in fact the game is being designed assuming everyone will have a bunch of characters.  With only one per player being in the spotlight at a time).  There is a kind of layered approach to it.  The actions of a single individual character is the focus of the minute to minute play, but there is also a legasy to be made by a player.  What form of government will the player create into the world?  What will world look like after the players have morphed it with their tools/characters?

[Adam Dray]

It looks like a good start. What's missing, you ask?

What is the procedure for play? That is, show me an outline of rules that tell me (as a player or GM) exactly what I should be doing at any given time.

[MusedFable]

It looks like a good start. What's missing, you ask?

What is the procedure for play? That is, show me an outline of rules that tell me (as a player or GM) exactly what I should be doing at any given time.

Hell Yah!
Framework...Check
Actual Play mechanics... coming up

I guess this topic doesn't have much place else to go, so I'll start plugging away at making the actual gameplay mechanics.