My "Fantasy Heartbreaker" ;)

[James Buchanan]

Hey there,

I wanted to get some feedback on a collection of mechanics that I have been developing. A lot of it draws inspiration from The Riddle of Steel and Burning Wheel and I am concerned about staying too close to the originals. Either way, I might just keep it as a set of house rules, but, I would like to develop it further. As my tastes may indicate, I do like a bit of crunch in my systems.

Key Concept 1: Task/Conflict resolution. (The Choice vs Consequence system)

In every task there are at least two competing desires. Sometimes one of the desires is relatively insignificant; but often, in important or critical tasks, people need to make on the fly judgements as to what is necessary. To model that, the character draws from a pool of dice, allocating subsets of this pool to each conflicting desire within the performance of the task. For Example: A  character is trying to sneak across a yard, while a guard patrols on a wall above. Obviously a key desire is to minimise the amount of noise he makes while crossing the yard, but also there is a desire to do it quickly, so that he can get across while the guard is patrolling elsewhere along the wall or similar.

When a matter is in conflict, I am thinking of having two 'levels' of mechanical task resolution.
The first method is abstract, pitting one Pool against another Pool, narrating the outcome. Example: Abstract Combat - Desires are Attack and Defence. Both parties roll their attack and defence rolls. If both attack rolls exceeds the opposing defence rolls - MAD ;); if only one attack roll exceeds the opposing defence roll, that combatant defeats his opponent; if neither attack roll exceeds the opposing defence rolls then the opponents stalemate.. 
The second method presents a 'minigame' resolution to conflict. For this, I have drawn inspiration from the TROS combat model, looking at 'two beat' systems. The reasoning for this design choice is that it fits strongly with the 'choice and consequence' mindset I have for the entire task/conflict resolution system. If the player chooses to commit heavily in the first exchange (of words/blows/whatever), he leaves himself open to being exploited in the second exchange. This combined with maneuvers which manipulate the opponents dicepools in such exchanges, or which counter particular maneuvers that the opponent has employed captures a lot of the feel of what I have enjoyed in TROS combat, but makes it more universally applicable.

Example: A Chase Scene, with character one is attempting to flee from character two through some alleyways in a city - Using the stakes as "distance between the characters" which is set at 10 units; the objective of  character two is to close that distance whereas the objective of character one is to increase the distance to say 20 (where it's impossible to keep track of which alleyway he turned into).  Initially character one commits say 7 dice "sprint" action, character two responds in kind by "sprinting" with 10 dice, after rolls are done, character two has managed to close the distance by 3 units. However, then character one performs a "obstruction" (knocking some boxes over into the alleyway) which forces the character two to perform an "evade and chase". However, because character two used more dice in the first exchange, he fails the roll, meaning that he is held up.. etc..

The main problem I can see with this is that it would require a buttload of mini-segments of rules to cover the majority of possibilities. Unless I developed a basic set of rules which are constructors for such situations.

Key Concept 2: The Drama System. (Objectives and Motivations)

I love the Spiritual Attribute system and the BIT system of the two games that have inspired me, and I wanted to do something like that. However, I don't feel like either of them have specifically captured what I wanted to go with.

So, what I came up with was this:

Objectives
Every character has two Objectives. The first Objective is his Fate; this is a purely metagame mechanic. It is a tool for the player to tell the GM "This is where I would like my character to go eventually" - the character is not aware of the fate, nor is it absolutely necessary for a character to have one, but it is a useful tool for communication. The second Objective is his Goal; this is a mechanical way of rewarding the character for getting involved with the stories or nominating and pursuing stories - in essence facilitating communication between player and GM;  it does this through providing a 'drama point' reward for any time a character achieves the goal set out for it by the player - this encourages the player to think what the next achieveable objective is and have the character work towards it or, it allows the player to see something that he wishes to pursue, nominate that as his goal and be rewarded for achieving it, as the case may be.

Motivations
While Objectives are designed to structure the adventures, motivations are designed to reflect things that are important to the character. I have broken these down into 3 categories. Relationships, Beliefs and Passions. Each of these categories have a very specific focus; Relationships pertain specifically to other people or organisations; Beliefs pertain specifically to concepts and other thoughts; Passions pertain specifically to activities. The primary purpose for each of these motivations is that (similarly to keys or spiritual attributes), when a character achieves something in keeping with the motivation, he adds a Spirit Point to his Spirit Pool. Spirit Points are rather significant for many reasons. Firstly, they can be used in the character advancement process. Secondly, they can be used in a couple of ways to increase the heroic potential of a character. Thirdly, they are intimately involved in the maintenance of Motivations. Finally, in cases of magic powers or sorcery, they are the fuel for such powers.

Investment and Catharsis
One big tip of the hat to TROS is the process I determined of investing in motivations. What this means is that the player can spend spirit points to increase the magnitude of the motivation (how much the character cares about it) up to 5. This then can be activated (through spirit point expenditure) to add to dicepools in an appropriate scene.  However, because the spirit economy is so important within the game, each level of investment has an increasing cost element to it. (I was thinking: 1-2 spirit for a new motivation, then new level in cost for investment in it - resulting in a 16-17 spirit cost for a 5 investment motivation)  The increased cost of motivations is highlighted by the process of 'catharsis' in which the player reduces the character's investment in a motivation (the character is 'letting go' of that motivation) which is painful, but spiritually healing - returning 1 spirit point per level reduction and 1 spirit point for removing the motivation altogether.

So, why bother with this catharsis (given the reduced returns that it provides for the investment)? Well, primarily because of the cost of motivations (which I term as "spirit bleed" currently). I am in two minds about this at the moment. Partly, I am thinking that it could be a cost that the player pays at the start of each session - 1 spirit point per motivation; partly, I am thinking that if a character has not attended to a motivation in too long, then it starts to spirit bleed. This is all designed to reflect that investing emotionally in too many things can cause the spirit to spread itself too thin aswell as provide an internally consistent regulation mechanic for how many motivations you have.

Example: Two sailors both have Relationship - Love for my sweetheart (or similar) when setting off on a long voyage. As the voyage progresses, the sailors both feel saddened because they miss their loved ones back at home (Mechanically: there is no manner in which to gain spirit from their Relationship, so it has become a burden to them). At some point in the voyage, the player of sailor one decides that this cost is too significant and goes through catharsis, removing the relationship. This reflects the character "getting over" his loved one. Whereas, the other player (perhaps because he had invested more points into his character's relationship) is less willing to give up the relationship, and thus, the character continues to pine for his loved one, perhaps getting some spirit back if he receives a letter from her. The relationship will continue to be useful to him, insofar that it can be activated for things such as: convincing the captain to go home, resisting the seduction of a courtesan or even escaping from the ship. But, it will not actively generate spirit during this period, so he had better have some way of compensating for it's presence.

Character Advancement
Character Advancement is partially tied into the Objectives and Motivations system in a couple of ways. For most mundane traits, advancement is achieved through an advancement roll. I haven't worked out all the specifics of it yet, but it will basically be a set target number for the specific level of skill the character is attempting to achieve, with a dicepool comprised of probably an attribute (most commonly intelligence/learning potential) plus a number of dice representative of previous failures (ie: each time you fail an advancement check, you add a dice to the next advancement check you make on that trait, until it has successfully advanced). As for the commonality of these checks, I was thinking of allowing players to spend spirit to force a check a limited number of times per session (1-3 perhaps). I also wanted to put in some mechanic of.. if a character has been practicing with a specific trait or if a character has undergone a particularly momentous activity with a specific trait, then he should receive an advancement check outside the limitations of the spirit costed ones. I will admit, I do not know how to do this entirely, other than "GM discresion" and I suspect there would be a better way to do it.


Anyway, there's a bunch more of it that I haven't gone through, but that's something of a start as to where I think I am going.

Regards

-James Buchanan

[Ron Edwards]

Hi James,

Are you familiar with The Shadow of Yesterday? I think Clinton wrote it with a very similar set of inspirations in mind.

That's not intended to dissuade you, but to provide another reference for inspiration.

Best, Ron

P.S. I know you used a smiley in the title, but really, this topic obviously has nothing to do with Fantasy Heartbreakers. Everyone, let's not have the thread topic be distracted by that.

[James Buchanan]

Thanks for responding Ron,

I have had a brief look at TSoY, particularly the keys I was directed too.

Admittedly, they seemed very similar to my motivations, which I had already codified in my head when I was looking at it.

The inspiration for the mechanics I have come up with was an attempt to clarify a lot of confusion that I have seen regarding TRoS's SAs and taking a step away from them, giving the player greater control of their development through the use of investment and the idea which sprung up of the spirit pool, which reflected a lot of ideas I had about people just generally being able to achieve more when they were 'in high spirits'.

I admire the way that TSoY's keys clearly delineate reward situations, but I dislike how they can never be taken again. I also wanted to make my motivations more specific; something that I have taken away from TRoS.

As for the title, I really didn't know what to name it. I haven't thought of a name for the system (and would welcome suggestions! ;) ) I just said it was my "fantasy heartbreaker" because it's basically intended to be a fantasy system that encompasses all those rules improvements (and complete rewrites) that I would love to see.

-James Buchanan

[Dan Svensson]

@James
when i read this bit
"For Example: A  character is trying to sneak across a yard, while a guard patrols on a wall above. Obviously a key desire is to minimise the amount of noise he makes while crossing the yard, but also there is a desire to do it quickly, so that he can get across while the guard is patrolling elsewhere along the wall or similar."

I immediately thought of the ORE system featured in Godlike. You might want to check that out and see how they did it.
In short you roll you dice pool trying to get matching die results. The higher the matches are the better they succeed and the more of the same result they get the quicker they do it.  Not quite exactly what you want to do with your rules but similar enough to warrant a look at the ORE system.

[James Buchanan]

Dan,

Thanks for the input. I have looked a little bit at the ORE engine (I downloaded a copy of StarORE) and while it does cover an element of what I am thinking about for this game, it misses the critical element that I was looking for; that being, a dice system which allows the player to decide how much effort they place into the primary "action" and how much they assign to coping with the "consequences"/other competing desire in the action.

I hate to use more TROS references to illustrate it, but the manner in which TROS handles Sorcery is a particularly good one for it. The player has to choose between how many dice they will allocate to casting the spell and how many dice will be set aside to try and minimise the aging effects of TROS Sorcery.

ORE (to the best of my understanding) folds all that into one roll, and if you happen to do the action quicker or such, you do. It's not so much a choice as happenstance.

I would love to be able to do that in 1 roll, but I don't think I can, simply because of the the neccesity to choose between two things (unless dice set aside have a constant modifier on the consequences.. hmm). Although, in conflict situations, I am trying to work out if there is a plausible way to make the "consequences" of the action, coping with the conflicting party's counter-action or similar - working with what I call a "two beat" round structure (this is currently used in TROS combat), in that pools refresh at the end of a round, but you will have two  exchanges in that period.

but yeah..  I really value feedback on what people think of the ideas I am working with, because at the moment it feels slightly like I am developing in a vaccuum.

-James

[Dan Svensson]

Just wanted to add a bit that's in the godlike rules but not in StarORE. There is a rules permutation called squishy rolls. Basically you raise the height of a set by lowering its width and vice versa. This allows some control i guess. Also recommended is you set a limit by how much you can raise heigth/width.   

[charles ferguson]

James,

..  I really value feedback on what people think of the ideas I am working with, because at the moment it feels slightly like I am developing in a vaccuum.

I hear you, man.

Based on my own wrestling with Throne of the Spider God: playtest early, playtest often. I've stolen that from someone here at the Forge, I think it was Clinton. The risk otherwise is, you invest more & more heavily in a path that you'll actually discover you want to scrap completely after a single playtest session with other people (as opposed to sitting down & rolling a few dice yourself--never think the second is even a remote substitute for the first). Something from my own recent expereince, which may or may not apply to you.

Re your resolution mechanics, I see a risk that two sets of dice pools (with two different TNs?) may well be unwieldy, maybe prohibitively so, in actual play. I dig your idea tho, it'd be cool to make it work.

What I'm interpreting from your examples (correct me if wrong) is the player being able to increase their chance of success, at the cost of bigger consequences for failure? With the player themselves defining what both 'success' & 'failure' mean? Maybe this is too narrow a reading, I dunno.

If that's what you're after, using the TN as a player-set slider might offer some possibilities: every die >= TN adds to "consequence 1", while every die < TN adds to "consequence 2".

Or maybe every "fail" is added to your adversary's roll for the followup action?

Both these are binary results so you can do it with a single roll. It doesn't have the same range of outcomes as 2 seperate rolls, each with their own success/fail outcome, though, if that's something you need (& can be digested by your gameplay).

Something I did in TOTSG is make the dice pool a player-set switch: they choose the number of dice to throw. A single success means the roll succeeded, but each fail results in an escalating level of fallout. So each roll the player chooses: more dice = more chance of success = more chance of more dire fallout; less dice = less chance of success = less chance of less severe fallout.