[Equilibrium] The War Between Order And Chaos

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello,
Here's a game I made up on the spur of the moment when the group couldn't decide what to play. That was 11 years ago and its been on a notepad for all that time. We improvised the combat so that will come later. I want to play it again and think it has great possibilities and merits. Let me know what you think. Thanks!
Troy

Equilibrium

1. What is your game about?

This game is about adventuring in space and time. For eons, powerful beings of Order and Chaos wage a war to control the universe. The balance of the two lets the universe exist. If one power wins then the universe as we know it ends.

2. What do the characters do?

The characters are extraordinary people from different places and times. They are recruited by the Custodians to maintain balance in the universe. The Custodians are busy cleaning up the big messes, so they ask the characters to handle some of the minor details: like retrieving the reactor core from the crashed flying saucer in Roswell before the Air Force finds it.

3. What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?

The players create heroes to battle against oppressive and destructive forces. The GM generates the missions the players must overcome. Initially, the missions are simple and straightforward. As characters advance, they encounter greater challenges, threats and environments.

4. How do the various parts of your system reinforce what your game is about?

Focus on culture shows the diversity of the characters. Hero points emphasized heroic deeds. Penalizing Fate points introduce opportunities of misfortune. Order and Chaos show the player how the character's actions maintain or disturb balance in the game.

Jargon indicates the character's use of foreign language and specific words in other cultures. Savvy is the character's overall knowledge and confidence when dealing with other cultures. Gadget is how familiar a character is with items and technologies of other cultures. Poise gauges the character's self-assurance, stance, movement, athletics and hand-to-hand combat skills.

5. How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The setting is an ultimate variety of people, alien beings, locations, cultures and technology. Adventures can occur in any place and time. Characters see the effects of too much order or chaos and understand the necessity of balance.

6. How does the character generation in your game reinforce what your game is about?

Characters are extraordinary people among the normal population who have an opportunity to make a difference in the universe. Characters have a mundane personal history that reflects the culture of their location and time. They have interests in other areas—the accountant who likes model rockets.

They also have one extraordinary aspect that sets them apart from their community. This aspect is something that would be amazing in any place and time, and this is the reason why the Custodians choose them. The character could have perfect pitch, the ability to mimic voices, contortionism, enhanced eyesight or hearing, resistance to disease, telekinesis, ESP or anything that would be extremely rare—and unobtrusive until demonstrated.

Equilibrium puts emphasis on broad areas of knowledge and experience. It's more important to describe the character in terms of real-world language instead of using pure gaming terms. This puts role-playing back into the game and diminishes variables and statistics.

The first step is to determine the place and time of origin. Then select culture, role in society, broad areas of aptitude, a few specific skills and an extraordinary talent. Finish it with a colorful history and interesting personality.

7. What types of behaviors and styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
Rewards: heroics, bravery, sacrifice, in-character role-playing, clever use of abilities and camaraderie.
Penalty: disruption, out-of-character role-playing, unfounded contradiction

8. How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Hero points are rewarded for excellent role-playing, character use and mission successes. Fate points are given to disruptive play, out-of-character role-playing and contradicting another player's culture knowledge.

9. How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?
The GM sets the stage for the characters, defining the place and time where something will happen. Use of real world history and reasonable extrapolated futures makes the game more real. License is given to hidden history and theories based on fact; i.e. the Da Vinci Code, Hitler's occult involvement, the Illuminati, Area 51.

Each player develops his or her character with colorful history, personality and description. Each player is encouraged to add comments about culture, daily life, and react convincingly toward foreign cultures and unusual technology.

10. What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)

The players direct characters who are extraordinary in their time and out of time. They must demonstrate and succeed using their talents to accomplish the goals. The missions are vital not only to the universe as a whole but also to their personal status and community's well-being.

11. What are the resolution mechanics of your game?

Roll a number of six-sided dice and total the two highest values (just the one value if you only roll one die). If the total is 7 or more then the action succeeds. If the total is greater than the opposing dice roll then you succeed. If you roll double-sixes then the roll automatically succeeds and an additional effect occurs. The following factors determine the number of dice you roll:
1d6: Do something that you have seen often but lack in training.
2d6: Perform an action that is part of your character's broad knowledge area.
2d6: Use a skill that is part of your occupation.
3d6: Use a skill that you have devoted more training.
3d6: Use an extraordinary talent.
+1d6: Use one Hero point before you roll the dice.
Modify the total with the following:
+1: You are in your original environment or somewhere very similar.
+1 per point of Jargon when using language type skills.
+1 per point of Savvy when using knowledge or social type skills.
+1 per point of Gadget when using mechanical devices or technology.
+1 per point of Poise when performing physical skills, moving or fighting.

The GM applies other bonuses and penalties as needed.

Order and Chaos points are a simple way of how Custodians and Locals judge the characters. They will show greater attention and friendliness toward a character when the Order/Chaos numbers are similar to their own. Characters start with 1 Order point and 1 Chaos point.

Characters gain Order points when they perform pivotal actions that directly demonstrate a sense of structure and definite planning. They gain Chaos points when they haphazardly rush into major battles, improvise and say things rooted in other cultures at inappropriate times. A character can have no more than 5 points total at one time. If a character gains a point that would bring the total to more than 5, then the opposing score is reduced by 1. Example: Claire has 4 Order points and 1 Chaos point. She plans a way to rescue General Bates without tripping the alarms. She gains a Order point and that brings the score to 5, requiring her to reduce her Chaos score to 0. That immediately gains the attention of the Custodians and the forces of Chaos. Claire, beware!

12. How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

The mechanics stress familiarity, role, knowledge areas and culture. The more closely the player observes the mission and points out what the character may have experienced, the better the chances for rolling more dice.

Order and Chaos points are important when interacting with Custodians and Locals. Common values are beneficial while differences can cause problems.

Reducing an Order or Chaos score to 0 attracts the attention of the Custodians. Fate points come into play as the imbalance must be immediately restored.

13. Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Characters advance in various ways: gain Hero points while performing an amazing action. Gain specific cultural knowledge that is useful in the current and other missions. Gain general adaptation when a mission is completed: increases Jargon, Savvy, Gadget or Poise

14. How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

Players are encouraged to play their characters heroically, immerse themselves into other cultures, pay attention to mission specifics and monitor the balance of their actions.

15. What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

Have fun role-playing in other cultures. This lets the player direct unique characters that have a definite affect on the game.

16. What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

Heroics: players that have their characters work together seem to have more fun.
Balance: encourages players to play their characters in a variety of ways reducing clichés and sparking creativity.
Culture: emphasizing the character's background makes the player more aware of social and historical significance. It affords the player a chance to research their character and be proud of it.

17. Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

The excitement is about letting players create any kind of character they want. The environment and adventures can radically change from session to session. New characters introduce themselves easily by appearing in the current mission's environment. The dice mechanics maintain power levels. No open-ended super-critical numbers pop up.

18. Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

The adventures take place on any world and environment in history or the future. They can meet and interact with historical figures, be witness to major events and know secrets about the universe. The characters are plopped into events in history or the future and extracted when they have completed the mission. The GM has the power to allow characters to re-attempt failed missions again from a different avenue. Known history is static and therefore, never changed. What characters do has no effect on the events that take place in recorded history. What happens in unrecorded history is another thing. Scenarios involving alien visitation, ghosts, magic and those annoying conspiracies happen along side the events of history.

19. What are your publishing goals for your game? Who is your target audience?

My goal is to distribute it by PDF. I am targeting players who are interested in history, "what if?" scenarios and role-playing interesting personalities from any culture.

[DarkAsmodeous]

This seems like an interesting concept, however with such a broad scale of events and settings it will really be difficult for the characters to develop any continuity between games which many players find to be an integral part of the game. I say the system seems vary nice, could use some work in the balancing of the various attributes, but nice. Perhaps you could also find a goal for the characters other than to keep ANYTHING from happening in either direction on the chaos order spectrum, perhaps another(if possible) group? Perhaps groups similar to the characters, but sided with chaos or order. Anyway, keep working on it, it sounds great!

[TroyLovesRPG]

Thanks for the reply. I've been watching your Lost In The Mists thread.

The character's goals are very much rooted in their community. Throughout history (as we know it) people are thrust in and out of major events that go unrecorded. Those events may be the results or the catalysts of history.

A note about history: in our real world of today, historians are in agreement with most of what has been recorded and considered fact. There are points of contention among the reasons behind the events and what happens afterwards. To see and hear all the people surrounding events could shed illumination upon all we know and completely upset our perspective of history. Therefore, the word "history" refers to the agreed upon, written record which is readily available. When we look at the history of man in this game, current historical references, biographies, photographs, interviews and movies are valid. I want to use history as the basis for the settings in this game. However, it is the unrecorded history surrounding recorded history that our game takes us. The myths, legends and beliefs are what is exciting and attractive. The lore.

With that, the evidence of history is set in stone and cannot be changed. That removes the time-travel paradox from the game. All the civilizations, disasters, discoveries and each person exists in history. Lore is the area where anything can happen.

Back to the characters' goals. Everyone dies...period. What they do before they die is important. Now it is about life before death. The characters have an opportunity to change their future and therefore the future of the lives they touch. Because these characters are extraordinary, they do believe this. If they continue with their lives as normal then they become wormfood. If they accept this offer then they are swept up in a great adventure in time and space. So, its the adventuring spirit that takes the characters on this ride.

Enough for now. My friend just showed up.

Troy

[DarkAsmodeous]

This seems like a very good idea, one thing I would focus on is having abilities that are applicable in as much time as possible, for instance a character with drive would feel cheated if he was always in Rome or czarist Russia, and while I can't comment as to whatelse would be changed because I do not have a description of what you want to happen in an actual game, I am very impressed and look forward to continued posts.

BTW, thanks for the nod to my thread : ), I'm currently drawing up a PDF document for playtesting purposes, if your interested I can send you one seeing as how you are a DM yourself.

Good luck.

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello again,

I'm very excited about this. I haven't thought about RPG this much in 11 years. Thank the Forge!

It's difficult recalling the details of the original game, and I'm glad I found my little notebook tucked away. My inspiration for this game were the people I gamed with and I have much respect for their intelligence and enthusiasm. During the creation of this game on a Saturday at 9pm we were comprised of the following:
Bob, a wargamer whose interest lie in Warhammer 40k, Starfleet Battles, Full Thrust and Axis and Allies;
Jeff, an RPGer who drank Vampire the Masquerade, D&D assassins and Call of Cthulhu (and also had an obsession with flash paper);
Vincent, an avid photographer, computer programmer, who liked Cyberpunk 2020 and D&D;
Lis, whose excellent role-playing made Space 1899, Cthulhu by Gaslight and D&D Oriental Adventures come to life;
and me who likes Star Wars D6, Palladium RPG, Full Thrust and biographies.

Here is a quick review of a session on a Thursday evening involving a new player and myself. It was easy to introduce characters by having a one-on-one scenario. A few times the player realized their character just wasn't going to work and we would create a new one, and it's easier to do this outside the group session. This is all in third person because I can only remember a little of the conversation.

I asked Lis to create a character from history. She wanted to play an Italian opera singer, Trilby Rosalia, at the time of Wolfgang Mozart. Great! She was an exceptional singer with stunning beauty and almost made the part for Pamina in the Magic Flute. However, Trilby would not bed with Wolfgang, as she was a virgin. She refused him and her life was ruined by gossip and scandal. Her life as a soprano was over. Her extraordinary talent was mimicry and perfect pitch from contralto to soprano. Lis was excited about this.

Still living in Vienna with her two brothers, Trilby was drawing water from a fountain when an odd man appeared. He introduced himself as the Custodian explained that he was here to ask for her help. Great omens of destruction and oppression are close because of lies and deceit. She was familiar with this and it was an opportunity for her to help. You will leave your world behind and can never return. She dropped her pail and walked with him. They entered fog and appeared in a white room. He gave her a bracelet to wear; it was necessary to understand the people you'll meet and how to return to this room.

The Custodian explained to her about time and space. Order and chaos are in constant war, making the existence of the universe a very fragile place. It is important to have balance and stability, which can be measured mathematically, based on permutations, etc. At this point Trilby doesn't understand and the Custodian senses that. Essentially, history cannot be changed, only the future can be altered. Any time period has a past and a future. Example: you, Trilby, were denied the part of Pamina. That can never change. If you were to change it then you could not be here. However, your future is unwritten. Even though I come from a time beyond yours, your history is unknown. We have no record of it except that a singer of exceptional talent was denied a part. You are a footnote in history. That makes you valuable, sadly, as no one will miss you. You can do amazing things and have the potential to alter the future, yet you will always be the unsung hero. You choose to pull yourself from history to maintain it.

Her first mission was with Bob who played Williams, a US soldier from The Great War. He was an expert marksman, gassed at Catigny and taken out of action. The Army released him as being disabled and was sent home to Kansas City. Along with a curry vendor, Kolandavel, who could play dead (heart beat once per minute and react to nothing) for 10 minutes. These three infiltrated Hitler's bunker through a secret passage leading to the private quarters where Adolf and Eva were planning their escape and not commit suicide. Hitler had two bodies brought in as replacements and would torch the bedroom before he left. One of the bodies was Kolandavel and let the others in. Trilby faked Eva's voice and threw Hitler off guard. Williams shot him. The real Eva wanted to die and took the poison capsule. History was never changed and the facts remain.

The group left by the tunnel and activated the bracelets to return them to the white room. As they exit the fog, along with the Custodian, there is a young man with dark complexion, kohl in his eyes and confident look. He is Thotep-shepeshekh, the son of Amun-her-khepeshef, first son of Rameses II. He is a master charioteer and can affect the behavior of animals.

It is up to the GM to plop these characters into history and balance it. Luckily, most players have learned about the major events in history. That the mission to maintain balance surrounds the event, the known outcome is the goal of the mission. What happens behind the scenes is the exciting part. This is different from normal RPGs where most of the adventures are just there.

Luckily, there was never a time when a mission failed. Many unfortunate things happened to the characters, and one time the mission was so botched that they could attempt the mission again...from a different way. They couldn't redo their actions, because that was history--and history cannot be changed. They could; however, skirt around themselves and do things that would get the job done. I had no plan for this, and it worked out. We were all exhilarated by the session.

Hero and Fate points were always there, but Fate points didn't have a big effect. I added Order and Chaos points to remove some of the bad role-playing. Fate points then became important as a negative reinforcement. I never kept up with fate points and let the players use the honor system. Things would happen to characters that went to extremes, became disruptive or challenged the realism of the other characters. Fate points were the way to keep the players in check, through their characters. Example: Matt was playing Mack, a detective who had amazing eyesight--the ultimate private eye. He, the player, knew a lot about history and constantly berated Vincent for inaccurate references to Egyptian history. I gave Mack a fate point. On a mission to loosen the sword Caliburn, Mack lost his footing will climbing the hill to reach the bolder. He fell and I said he hit his neck and lost his voice. He could tell me what he was doing, but everyone ignored him when he spoke. Definitely, at that time, the character is motivated by the player. Mack gained his voice back at the end of the session.

Enough typing for now. I'll give you more information about character generation and game mechanics soon.

Troy.

[Anders Larsen]

I have some few comment.

Conflict design

The first thing you mention is a great conflict between Order and Chaos. And what do the character contribute to this conflict? They are retrieving a reactor core.

I would feel rather annoyed as a player if I knew there was this great fight going on between cosmic powers, and I was just searching through dirty debris after a reactor core.

You have to be very careful when you design the important conflicts in your game; the conflicts the characters are facing. You should make a short list of the conflict you feel are the most important for the game. This will get you a better view on what the characters are going to concern them self with.

Actually, I do not believe that the war between chaos and order, is the most important conflict in your game. And I do not believe that it is what your game is about. But I will be getting back to that later.


Reward system

You seem to have some very interesting reward systems in your game, and they seem to be tied into what you want with the game. But you have to be much more specific about when a player get a reward. Just saying in-character roleplay is good and out-of-character roleplay is bad, is not sufficient. If you ask 100 people what they see as out-of-character roleplay, you will get 100 different answers. So when the GM judge to give a player a penalty for bad roleplay, the player could very well end up feeling cheated, because he have a different view on the issue.

Is there any advantages by having a high chaos or order score? It could be interesting if there where a conflict between personal power and the Custodians.


What the game is about

This is what you say the game is about:

This game is about adventuring in space and time. For eons, powerful beings of Order and Chaos wage a war to control the universe. The balance of the two lets the universe exist. If one power wins then the universe as we know it ends.

Then why does thing like this:

Culture: emphasizing the character's background makes the player more aware of social and historical significance. It affords the player a chance to research their character and be proud of it.

receive extra attention and colour? It have nothing to do with what you say the game is about.

Actually what I believe your game is about is: Heroic people (the characters) that go back in time and take part of historical events that have some significants for the cosmic balance.

This will make your game make much more sense.

- Anders

[DarkAsmodeous]

I agree with the previous statement, but also do not forget that although guidelines are important, your game seems more narrative, so it might be a good idea to give players more freedom in the statistical part of the game, because if all the creativity is given to the DM, then this is just another RPG, don't get me wrong, this looks very good, I'm just trying to help keep things in perspective.

[TroyLovesRPG]

Hello,

Anders, thanks for the comments and input. Its important to keep an open mind about how the game developed. I ran this game for 20 sessions, 11 years ago. So, it's a game that works. I stopped role-playing and put it on a shelf. This is now the development of the complete background, guidelines for roleplaying, rule set and character generation. I focus on roleplaying instead of system mechanics and that works for me. I'll throw in some stats, sample roles and dice mechanics for you next time. You'll understand more as I add posts.

The game IS about Order and Chaos. Good and evil have been over-done and I was tired of that. Probably, the abstract nature of the game is strange and that's an area where most RPGs don't venture. Its usually: I build a character that will kill most things I encounter--sound familiar? I was inspired by the Dr. Who series, but didn't want to recreate the timelord/companion relationship. I did, however, like the idea of greater forces at work in various places and time periods. Also, the series was mainly about challenges and conflicts were part of it. The intellectual facet interested me.

Order and Chaos points directly relate to the way the game plays. It keeps the game from getting bogged down in over-planning and discourages the characters from running amok. Also, it shows the characters' image in the eyes of the locals and Custodian. Characters need the help of locals (npc's) and the Custodian. Too much Order or Chaos and they don't get the help they want. Most of the time a character had either a high Order or high Chaos--4 points. Later we decided to let the Order and Chaos points increase to 7, since there was too much action that would gain attention.

The conflict on the grand scale is with Order and Chaos. On the small scale it is characters completing their mission at all costs. In 3 of the sessions the characters were powerful enough to engage in battles very similar to Mortal Kombat. This is where the Order and Chaos points come into play. A character entered into a duel with an NPC of similar power but with an opposite level of Order and Chaos. You could spend a point of your highest score and double your current dice roll. This was only allowed in the arena. The winner was the one who subdued the other and would gain an additional die to the extraordinary talent. The loser would lose a die of extraordinary talent. In this case, it was good to have a high Order or Chaos. The Custodian let the characters know this before the duel took place and the duel was completely optional. Most characters won the duel. Some lost but that didn't discourage them.

Dark, the strong point of this game is for players to create characters mainly from Earth history. They can also be from sci-fi and fantasy. They can be as creative as they want. I also told the players up-front that it wasn't about creating the most statistically powerful character. Their character was their creation and most liked the idea. I developed the missions based on the character's powers and the players' comments. Detailed background for the mission came from books and what I saw on PBS. Believe me, I love narration and story-telling. I encouraged the players to talk about their characters, backgrounds and what they wanted to do.

The stats were simple in that mainly Jargon, Savvy, Gadget and Poise were increased. This increased the effectiveness of all skill areas governed by those stats. Its simple, not as detailed as most but it works. Also, the lack of detail spurred the players' creativity. Knowing that power was not important led to the players' ease at choosing broad skill areas such as gourmet cooking, animal hunting, singing, model rockets and stamp collecting. Those seemingly mundane skill areas made me think outside the box in terms of missions and encounters with locals.

Frankly, this is just another RPG. The difference is that we had fun developing it. As we played, we got rid of rules we didn't like. We tried things, moved them around, looked at it from all sides.

I always read the replies and appreciate any constructive crticism, possible changes and thoughtful questions.

Next post: stats, roles and dice. Oh my!

Troy

[DarkAsmodeous]

Of course creativity is important, and it fits your game perfectly, however this undefined freeform idea while incredibly done in your games, may be completely daunting to another DM who purchased your product and wants to play it, guidelines are essential in this respect.

BTW, if you circulate anything for playtesting, my groups would love the free creativity.

[Anders Larsen]

The answer to the question "what is your game about" is not obvious. And I believe we don't understand this question the same way.

See, from my point of view, a game can not be about something that does not directly involve the characters.

Take a look on these links where Troy_Costisick explain the three question (which correspond to the three first question in power 19), and where he explain power 19 in his blog.

The three question 
What are the 'Power 19' ? pt 2

It is really not a big problem that there is some disagreement on how to understand the questions, because you seems to have a good idea for what you want with your game. The problem is that you have to communicate this to other people, and then it is important that we have some common ground, especially if you want insightful feedback.

So, try to see what you use most time on when you explain the game, and what the character in your game is most concerned with. Here is what i see:

* People that have special power
* They get 'hired' by The Custodians
* They get to time travel
* They participate in historical events
* On heroic missions

All the talk about the talk about Order and Chaos seems to me to be more of an excuse (or an explanation), for why these thing can happen.

Actually, when I read your actual play, I found this:

Example: you, Trilby, were denied the part of Pamina. That can never change. If you were to change it then you could not be here. However, your future is unwritten. Even though I come from a time beyond yours, your history is unknown. We have no record of it except that a singer of exceptional talent was denied a part. You are a footnote in history. That makes you valuable, sadly, as no one will miss you. You can do amazing things and have the potential to alter the future, yet you will always be the unsung hero. You choose to pull yourself from history to maintain it.

And I see you explaining here what the game is about.

But then again, arguing about how to understand a question, may not be the most productive to do, so I will stop now.

- Anders

[dylank777]

Almost exactly Moorcock's setting, a vast amount of content.

Very similar to Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000's background as well.

I think the war between Order and Chaos is very close to reality also.