Shadows - Harlekin-Maus April Game

[Ron Edwards]

Zak,

I think this is your strongest game yet. I strongly recommend not doing your usual "point and shoot," but taking some time to promote its use. Get some art and do some hyping on various sites to draw attention.

Best,
Ron

[Zak Arntson]

Thanks, Ron! It does feel really good as a game. Real, I don't know, solid.

But I'm wondering how to hype something that is essentially two simple rules. It's not a complicated thing. I wouldn't know what kind of art and what kind of hyping I'd do. Any suggestions? It's a far simpler game than, say, InSpectres and doesn't look to lend itself well to any grand treatment.

I'm considering expanding the concept out in different areas, kind of like how James used The Pool as the basis for Questing Beast. Would you recommend this approach to getting the word out? So the base system is 2 pages, but the "supplements" are actual full-fledged games? (I suppose Shadows does have a default setting: A bunch of kids waking up to a noise)

In any case, the two concepts behind Shadows is definitely part of my permanent toolbox (this thing is getting all crammed full of great stuff! Thank you, Forge!)

[Christoffer Lernö]

A guy had this idea on the rpg.net:

All Hallows Town is a unique place; it was the town founded by the victims of the Church's most secret pogrom in the middle ages. This pogrom rooted out all the supernatural monsters and forced them into one place on earth - and this place evolved into a town all of its own, All Hallows Town.

This town now exists with an economy and culture all its own, eerily mirroring that of mortal culture, yet populated by the supernatural, all of whom are just trying to eke out a living.

Or so it was until the mortals returned; the last ten years has seen an influx of mortal concerns into the town as the local mountains have been discovered to contain a very precious ore: crystalised fear. A most potent resource to many of the worlds big businesses who seem to thrive on the effects it produces when burned.

Now the town is overrun by greedy human enterprises who strip the landscape, pressgang the locals as cheap labour and then leave the town in pain.

Life is hard for a supernatural monster trying to earn a living, but the real evil comes from mankind - as ever. Old wounds die hard.

He didn't quite know how to get the right flavour of it. I had an idea he didn't like, maybe I misunderstood his thoughts behind his world in the first place. But what if one borrowed what he said and then do something like this:

To create your own monster, you decide two things to define it, one is your Seeming, which is your outer shape. It might be a Mummy, Pumkin head, Thing That Lives Under The Bed or whatever.

The second is your Soul. The soul is what your monster is like inside, beyond the archetype of his appearance.

It can be things like "Caring child", "Spoiled brat", "Disillusioned teenager" or "Grumpy Old Man"

You get the point.

Anyway, the you then assign a total of 10 points to seeming and soul. Their sum must be 10 in total. So you might be "Mummy 4" and "Caring Child 6". Something like that.

So anyway, when you want to do something you use the Shadow system with a twist. (Note, you should probably use something smaller than a D20 for this, like a D6). If you want to use power from your seeming (your powers as a mummy, like scaring people) you work it out like in Shaodw, but instead of the Shadow it's the Soul which is doing something else. So if you want to use your Strange And Scary Staggering Walk to scare those mean humans, you state that's what you're gonna do, and then say what your soul does, which is seeing a really neat looking bug on the ground you want to pick up and play with.
Instead of rolling dice equally, you add the Soul rating to the roll for the soul and same for Seeming.

Rest is worked out like in Shadow.
Other than that, every time you succeed with something really opposed to your other side (Being real mean to someone when having the soul of a caring child for example) you increase in the "winning" side and decrease one in the other. (If Mummy is Mean to the nice old tourists he will lose one point from his Caring Child (down to 5) and increase on as Mummy (up to 5))

Oh, well, just a quick thought.

-The End- :)[/quote]

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Zak, I may have missed it or just be dumb in some way (like missing a "greater than" or whatever), but what's up when the Good Die and the Shadow Die are tied?

Oh yeah, and I presume that for a given roll, a given die can only be forced to re-roll once? Or can you blow all your tokens on really cranking up a given re-roll?

Best,
Ron

[Zak Arntson]

Pale Fire, thanks for the offer, but I've got plenty of my own ideas for extending the Shadows system. It's also a philosophy of Shadow (so far) to have no addition, only comparison. I think what I'm going to do is taken the initial Shadows system and provide it as-is (i..e, the default setting, where it's intent is an all-ages game), and also offer different subtle modifications to the rules for different kinds of games. After reading Wagner's Bloodstone and talking at length to Jared (who is the master of getting me to analyze my design), the first extension I'm working on is Pulp Fantasy.

If I ever publish the thing, it would be sort of like Hogshead's Pantheon, a basic introduction to the system, and a ton of extensions/ways to play. I'm also considering making an educational system-friendly version (i.e., emphasize the educational & creative value), and see what avenues are open there.

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Ron, the Shadow die loses ties. It's in the rules there, but I'll make it more explicit. About multiple spending, I don't know. I'm tempted to say that you can be forced to reroll as often as you like. A big part of the system (for me) is that there's no loss of Tokens, only the distribution differs. So if you want to give someone all you Tokens to keep rerolls going, feel free. Whether you use that to hose or help them, you'll probably get it back in some way (either that, or you'll learn more about your group's social dynamic :)

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Lastly, I'll be damned if I'm going to rewrite the rules AND modify the HTML to be PDF friendly (for my HTMLDoc program) every time. If I write some sort of script that automatically does it for me, I'll make it publicly available.

[Zak Arntson]

Okay, added clarifications to both your questions, Ron. I also added Game Moderator advice, a mention towards the social contract in the Introduction, and a Designer's Words at the end. I also updated the copyright notice so that any teachers out there can use it during school without getting permission.

[Bob McNamee]

Okay, added clarifications to both your questions, Ron. I also added Game Moderator advice, a mention towards the social contract in the Introduction, and a Designer's Words at the end. I also updated the copyright notice so that any teachers out there can use it during school without getting permission.

I like this game!
I have a friend with kids 7-12 that have also asked about RP-ing. Very imaginative kids. Going to do this!

I'm also putting together some old Champions players for a different Supers game...  before I get locked down, I'm going to try a test run with a couple folks.
"Shadow of the Dark Knight"  where Bats is Bats, and his Shadow is that Archetypal Demonic Bat image from his childhood memories, the one that pushes him toward being  somewhat of a psychopath.  The other player will probably be Robin...I'll let that player decide, Robin's Shadow.

Only real change in the game I'm making is that as GM I'll have three tokens, and that certain NPC's will be shadow characters, Like Joker and Two-face etc...all other flunkies have no freewill, merely moved by the narration.

Bob McNamee

[Andrew Martin]

Here's some more ideas for Zac's Shadows game, that I thought of while walking home from work. Zac, feel free to grab any/all of these ideas as you want or even ignore them if you want.

When using player characters, instead of oneself, just describe your character in general terms. When rolling the dice in an area where your character doesn't support this, the Shadow dice has the advantage in that it wins on ties. Note: I'm thinking of using D6, not D20.

If your character is particularly strong in an area, then this counts as a free token that can be spent by the player to re-roll one of their own dice. So if Amy is really good with horses, her player can reroll one of her own dice in a situation involving riding horses, as it's more likely that Amy would succeed than another character in the same situation. This free token is invisible and automatically refreshes. There's effectively an infinite stock of tokens here, but only one reroll is allowed at a time.

If the player chooses to reroll their own dice (usually in order to get their character to succeeed), they pay their token into a group/individual pool called Shadow's Tokens.

If the player chooses that the character lets Shadow win (instead of rolling dice) and suffers the consequences, based on the character's weakness, the player gets a token from Shadow's Tokens.

The GM can use Shadow's Tokens to force a player to reroll (usually to make Shadow come true), and then gives the token to the player, if the Shadow's version of events takes place.

The above three guidelines allows the GM's stock of tokens to come into play.

I'm not sure if it's better to have one communal pool for Shadow's Tokens or each player has a pool of Shadow's Tokens, placed on top of their picture of the Shadow. Probably better to have individual pools? Thoughts?

[Paganini]

Took a birthday hiatus in March (though Sea Monkey RPG and In the Works on the website happened then, so I'm guiltless), and am back with an April game!

Shadows, a roleplaying game for all ages

Zak, you rule. I've got these two big macho d20s (one red, one black) that I've been dying to do something with. Now I've got a system for them! :)

--
Paganini

[Zak Arntson]

Bob, let me know how the GM Token thing goes. I'm working on a (possibly) commercial version of Shadows with tons of "add-ons," though my current (and untested) philosophy is that only Players should use Tokens.

I haven't gotten to S.H.A.D.O.W.S. (my tentative name for a Supers add-on), but I have done Flashing Steel for swashbuckling (and general heroics). It doesn't mimic the personal relationships of comics, but it would do the heroism/tragedy part nicely.

Zoiks! I can't remember the Flashing Steel rules, so I'll cut 'n paste tonight. In any case, the Shadows Add-Ons should consist of: GM never has Tokens, changing the nature of the Outcomes is key to changing the nature of Shadows, and a Special Token with a few simple rules goes a long way.

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Andrew, again with the GM Tokens! While these additions sound interesting, allowing a Player to change her own Outcomes and giving the GM Tokens makes it an entirely unShadows RPG.

I also toyed with measuring Player effectiveness with something like a Trait, but figured an equal playing field where effectiveness was measured by Tokens only made the most sense for Shadows.

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Great ideas from everyone, I just don't know if they'd work to keep Shadows what it is. But then, I haven't playtested it much, so I'd love to hear any stories!