[Illumination] Back on tracks

[Filip Luszczyk]

It took me some time before I got down to writing this AP, but here it is.

We playtested the new version of Illumination, my Mage: the Ascension heartbreaker game, on a convention some weeks ago. The players were Kamil, who played both M:tA and the previous version of my game, and Jacek, who wasn't familiar with either and required some basic explanations of the concept. We've been playing in a harsh convention environment, in a school's corridor, and I've been loudly whispering for the whole time due to some problems with my throat - but we played the game for about five hours despite all the difficulties. Explanations and prep took us more than half of the session, and then we managed to play out only one conflict before the exhaustion forced us to wrap things up. However, even though there was no chance to use some rules, I'm pretty satisfied with the playtest as it gave me a rather good picture of what works well in my new concept of the game and what needs to change.

The old version of the system collapsed, as after some playtesting I discovered that it was not really the game I wanted to write. I can already see that the new version, designed practically from scratch, is much better focused. I like it how a bizarre setting and characters easily emerged in our game. Also I like it how paradigms are central to everything now, with Beliefs constantly moved around the table like pieces in a board game, developed by being validated or put into doubt as they travel from pool to pool. Obviously, not everything went well, but I like the direction the project took.

However, I can already see that writing the game down will be one big headache. On the convention, I've been running the game from my notes, and even though all the rules take only a bit more than one A4 page, explaining things so that the game could be played without me sitting at the table will be a pain. I need to put together the playtest document eventually, but the mere thought of writing it scares the Hell out of me now.

[Filip Luszczyk]

The Reality

The idea is to create a setting that differs from what we can see out the window in some important aspects, so that things felt somewhat bizarre and alien (this will be recommended in the text of the game, I think, even though doing something more mundane will be possible by the rules as well). We discussed it for a while, and we settled on a "retro" Earth dominated by vampires. Then, we proceeded to establish Beliefs constituting the consensual Vision (paradigm) of the humanity. Basically, the setting in Illumination is as it is because the majority of the population is deeply convinced about it on a subconscious level. Their collective faith shapes the world and its laws and literally every aspect of the Reality can be changed if enough people become convinced that things are indeed different.

We've been formulating and writing down the Beliefs on index cards* and assigning them values (from a predetermined spread) in a round-robin manner. There were twelve starting Reality Beliefs to establish total, so each of us determined four. I've picked this number exactly because it divides neatly between two, three or four players (and with five or more players three additional Reality Beliefs per player would be added). However, I can already see that there might be too many of these for the start - maybe simply giving everyone at the table three Reality Beliefs to determine would work better. These is what we came up with:

Vampires rule the world. [4]
Vampires are vulnerable against silver. [3]
There is a rigid "Victorian" social class system. [5]
Humans are slaves (controlled by the vampires with drugs). [3]
Drugs are the body of God. [6]
Humans are limited by human capabilities, vampires are not. [5]
Some people's blood is a poison to vampires. [5]
There is another world hidden in the sewers, strange and alien. [4]
All laws of physics are in place. [3]
There are no accidents - everything is predestined. [7]
Technology and science had already reached their limits (the level of World War II). [6]
Violence will solve everything. [4]

Here, I like how the last Belief, proposed by Kamil gave a lot of sense to everything else - i.e. since violence trumps anything, the rigid class system and drugs hold civilization together and prevent humanity from self-destruction.

The function of these Beliefs is twofold, anyway.

They indicate at the core aspects of the setting that differ it from the real world, acting as a reminder for the group.

However, what's more important, they also determine the laws of the Reality that are most deeply rooted in the consensus. In play, they have a mechanical weight, affecting shaping. When the character uses his shaping powers in ways that are supported by one or more Reality Beliefs, players can move relevant Belief cards to his Conviction pool, making them available as a resource in later conflicts (but after they are spent, they will go to the GM's Conviction pool in turn). This is an equivalent of coincidental magick in M:tA. On the other hand, if the character uses shaping to break the laws of the Reality, Belief cards can be moved to GM's Peril pool, and later unleashed against the culprit during a conflict, causing some strange phenomenon and adding to the value of the adversity. This is an equivalent of Vulgar magick.

Basically, it works according to a principle similar to my old Peril rules, but there are no longer any tokens or anything - the Beliefs themselves are moved around the table as resources and their values are used in the resolution. Also, every time a Belief is moved into someone's Conviction pool, it gains one mark and every time it is placed in the Peril pool, it gains three marks. Once enough marks are accumulated on a Belief, it can be changed or strengthened as the humanity readjusts its views. So, by breaking, say, the laws of physics often enough it's possible to actually permanently change them.

Unfortunately, we didn't observe the whole cycle, as there was only one conflict and only once a Reality Belief was moved into my Peril pool (if I recall, Jacek erased all the traces of a combat in progress, affecting the continuum of events and effectively breaking the laws of physics).

However, looking at the list of our Reality Beliefs now I can see that I'll have to stress their function as triggers for Peril/Paradox in the text, so that most of them could be easily activated by shaping.

Also, I think I could include some templates for various settings in the game, to facilitate establishing the Reality for pick-up games and by the first-timers.

*I've bought a whole block of those small cards used for taking notes before the convention - I'm not sure how they are properly called in English, as I couldn't find anything exactly like this in English office product catalogs. These weren't really index cards, I think, nor post-its - but since games usually suggest using index cards for similar purposes, I'll stick with them. There were five colors of these cards in the block, and we've been using different colors to make it clear who owns which Belief.

[Filip Luszczyk]

The Illuminated

After we were done with Reality Beliefs, I explained the rules of character creation and distributed an appropriate number of index cards to the players. To create a character in the new version of the game, the player establishes his personal Vision, as the character is defined entirely by his convictions.

Basically, the character is who he is because he believes he is, and can do what he can do because he believes he can. I had some roughly defined categories of character Beliefs, and players were required to pick a certain number of Beliefs in some categories - i.e. the first Belief had to be the Identity (the name and the general concept), and the character had to have at least one Trial (a goal motivating the character), at least one Belief explaining how his shaping powers work and at least one Belief about the Reality that didn't match the consensus or differed from one of the Reality Beliefs in some aspect. Apart from these, other Beliefs could represent skills and traits, connections, assets and the like. I think I need to tighten the types of Beliefs a bit, giving some more mechanical definition to them (by providing more concrete guidelines for the circumstances in which Beliefs enter play).

Also, three Substances are chosen for the beginning character - the aspects of the Reality that the character can shape according to his will. These can be as broad or as narrow as the player prefers.

The character sheet is a collection of index cards, and although the number of them lying around requires getting used to, I like how every single aspect of the character is mobile, can be used in the resolution as a resource and accumulates its own "experience" (gaining marks as the Belief is validated or put into doubt). The amount of information written on the cards is comparable with the amount of information written on character sheets in other games anyway.

Jacek apparently liked the idea that his character can be whoever he believes he is, and created a hell-hound.

I'm a demonic hound called Judas. [5]
I live the life of a homeless dog. [6]
I'm an agent of Hell. [5]
I'm a part of the prophecy. [7]
My task is to make the humanity aware of the laws of Reality. [3]
The world is ruled by vampires controlled by their need. [3]
The cursed blood flowing through my veins lets me free humans from their suffering. [5]
No human can kill me. [6]
Animals treat me like their lord. [4]
I'm fast like the wind. [3]
I can climb any height. [4]
I will not get lost in the sewers. [4]

The Substance of Sight
The Substance of Souls
The Substance of Traces

Kamil also decided to test the system, and worked out a character with multiple personalities who was an artificial construct in fact (since he could choose only one Identity Belief, he simply took different personalities as Trials, giving a different motivation to each one).

I'm an artificial construct. [7]
I'm searching for my creator. [4]
My name is Ben Jax. I hunt traitors. [3]
My name is Jane Smith. I'm running from an unknown enemy. [3]
My name is Winston Ballard. I'm trying to become a successful businessman. [3]
I'm a mechanical part of the Destiny. [5]
I can unlock my powers by being aggressive towards the Reality. [6]
Slavery is natural. [6]
I'm very strong. [4]
I'm a skilled investigator. [5]
I have a force field. [4]
There's one homeless in the park who has connections with all my identities. [5]

The Substance of Mechanisms
The substance of Numbers
The Substance of Persons

So, we winded up with some pretty cool weird characters. Nice.

Now that I look at it, twelve Beliefs for a starting character might be more than needed - I'll probably lower their number to nine or so, and change the values spread. Or, maybe I'll also drop the number of starting Substances to two, and then reduce the number of Beliefs to eight, so that there were ten cards per beginning character total. This should be enough to adequately describe a character, and would be easier to manage as the player gets accustomed to his cards.

Also, I'll have to think about including some templates for quick character creation.

[Filip Luszczyk]

The Factions

While the players were creating their characters, I worked out the factions that would later use to provide them with an opposition and adversity. It wasn't such a good idea - I suppose it would be better if the factions were created before the characters, with a greater input on the players' side (basically, I didn't discuss factions with the group too much - I presented my ideas and asked if everybody was OK with them and that's all). Possibly, players could determine some part of Beliefs for each faction.

I decided to create an order of the vampires that controls the world, an organization of human rights activists and a force of anarchists (to make use of those Reality Beliefs about creepy sewers and the supremacy of violence). Every faction got nine Beliefs, divided into a number of categories, with some requirements similar to character creation (an Identity for the whole organization, at least one Trial for it, at least one important individual member and at least one conviction about the Reality). However, for each of the factions I was left with at least one unassigned Belief - I could have established them at any later time, kind of like with Proto-NPC's traits in DitV. In the end, I was left with the following factions:

The Order of the Blood Law:

We are The Order of the Blood Law. We are pulling the strings of the nations. [6]
We are unquestionably loyal to Count Dracula. [4]
Our task is to prevent the self-destruction of humanity. [5]
We must control vampire's hunger. [4]
We have uncountable numbers of human and vampire servants at our command. [5]
God is the first vampire. [3]
God sent humans to serve vampires. [4]

Humanity Liberation League:

We are members of Humanity Liberation League. [5]
Our leader is Clarissa Straighton, a popular human rights activist. [5]
Our goal is to liberate humanity from the tyranny of the vampires. [6]
We want to bring equality and democracy to the world. [4]
We are organized into loose cells. [4]
Humans and vampires are of the same species. [4]
Humans can emulate vampiric powers thanks to training and meditation. [3]
Violence is never the right solution. [3]

The Children of Chaos:

We are the Children of Chaos. [3]
Jane Smith a.k.a Ben Jax is a paragon of Chaos. Let's take him/her as an example, but let's be wary of him/her. [5]
Our goal is to bring down all forms of organization and order. [5]
An organization organized for the disorganization of other organizations serves the disorganized agenda of Chaos. [3]
Our name is Legion, but we are not a unity. [4]
Sewers are our home. [4]
Everyone should follow his true nature. [6]
There is no law that cannot be broken. [4]

I wanted to have some kind of balance between the GM's and players' available resources, and I wanted it to be easily readjustable, so I winded up with a formula for the number of factions (one faction + one additional per player). However, it's broken. We had three factions, and it would be difficult enough to squeeze them all into one session in a meaningful manner, while with more it would be almost an impossibility. Consequently, the GM would have a trouble generating an amount of resources comparable to players. Also, in a shorter game so many opposing factions wouldn't be needed at all. I suppose I'll simply make their number flexible, and strengthen individual factions a bit.

[Filip Luszczyk]

The Otherside

We finished the prep establishing the most important locations in the Otherside (an equivalent of Umbra), the realm where the consensus doesn't reach, and the laws of these places. We distributed twelve cards around the table, choosing four values each from a predetermined spread in clockwise order. Then, we established some Otherside Beliefs, but most of these cards remained unassigned - these could have been used to create new Otherside Beliefs at any later time, as needed. First, one Belief had to be used to create a region in the Otherside, and then another Beliefs could have been added to flesh out the region (adding special locations, laws, inhabitants etc.). We created only two regions, and added a location in the first one:

A web of empty mausoleums [7]
An empty throne [6]

The First Garden [6]

In the previous version of Illumination, the Otherside had no real purpose and in practice it was only setting color. However, now there's a mechanical reason to enter and interact with those realms. Reality Beliefs do not work there so there is no danger of generating Peril. Also when the character is in one of the regions of the Otherside, players can move Otherside Beliefs to his Conviction pool when he interacts with the place and its laws in an interesting manner. Apart from that, when the character uses shaping in a cool way there, and it's strengthened by the laws of the region, Otherside Belief cards can be attached to the Substance used (like they were awarded from a Doubt pool), gaining three marks.

However, nobody traveled to the Otherside during the session, so we didn't manage to playtest these rules.

Anyway, I think I'll simply give everyone at the table three Otherside Beliefs for the start, just like with Reality Beliefs.

[Filip Luszczyk]

The Conflict

I framed a "damsel in distress" scene in the park, drawing the attention of the characters to a woman attacked by anarchists coming out of the sewers, obviously trying to take some important documents from her. And we went straight to the conflict.

In the new version of the game, I've blatantly stolen conflict structure from DitV. Only, instead of the dice, Belief cards from the Conviction pool are used. Players "raise" with one card, “block” with any number of cards that have a total value at least equal to the "raise" and “take the blow” by moving the Belief card used in in the "raise" back to the Conviction pool of the opponent, adding a mark to it. No reversals are possible. Shaping is handled like any other action, but makes it possible to add Belief cards attached to the Substance to a "raise" or “block”. Peril/Paradox works in a similar way for the GM, allowing to add Belief cards from the Peril pool of a given character to a "raise" or “block” against him.

It seemed to work rather smoothly, and the conflict resolved faster than it takes in DitV on the average, which is good, I think. However, with only one conflict it's impossible to tell for sure if the rules are not broken somehow. We didn't manage to test all the rules anyway. It's very possible I'll change conflict rules completely, but I want them to retain this action-by-action structure.

Now, every conflict is an opportunity to change someone's Vision, or even the consensual paradigm itself. As an addition to setting the stakes, the initiator has an option to chose any Belief at the table that will be affected by the resolution of the conflict (it gains five marks, and if enough marks are accumulated on it, the winner of the conflict decides if and how it changes). It's the only way to affect and develop Reality and Otherside Beliefs, as they are not owned by any single player or the GM. This makes it possible to change the whole world in result of a conflict and obviously, players will aim to make the consensus closer to their characters' individual Visions (or to shape their own kingdoms in the Otherside, or whatever - in any case, it pays mechanically).

So, the system is strongly focused on the paradigm war now. "The essence of Mage" as Kamil summed it up.

However, although I like how the general principle and I think it's good, the specific rules may not be perfect now. One thing that comes to my mind is that it could be better if I tightened the rules for choosing the Belief and required tying it to the overall situation of the conflict immediately and explicitly so that things made more sense. In the conflict we played out, Kamil picked a Belief of a faction that was barely connected to the situation (the "damsel in distress" was working for it, but I'm not sure if I mentioned it before the conflict got resolved), and later modified it only slightly - but in result, the whole faction changed its agenda due to a not so important event. Technically, there are veto rules for such cases in the game, but it was pretty late then and only later it occurred to me what were the consequences of his choice in the long run.

Probably, it would be better if Beliefs couldn't be put at stake in addition to normal stakes, and had to be the exclusive stake of the conflict - but this in turn could make paradigm battles the sole focus of the game. Or, I could place some limitations on putting Beliefs at stake to make it rare, at the same time giving it more of an impact. Or, maybe having exclusively conflicts about affecting Beliefs, with the need to refer to the resolution for anything else completely removed, would actually work well? Hm...

[Filip Luszczyk]

The Structure of Play

Is non-existent. Or, to be more precise, conflicts are the only thing that paces the game, and scene framing is totally irrelevant (as I intentionally disconnected them). However, it seems more structure could actually be in place, as currently, the flow of the game is not right.

After the conflict, we played out some scenes in your typical "we walk around, interacting with NPCs and doing stuff" manner, with no situation that screamed "let's play out a conflict about it" emerging (and then, we wrapped things up as it was late and we've been too tired to go on). The problem is, many times the flow was broken by players activating their Beliefs. In particular, Jacek started to combo his Beliefs at one point, moving them around in kind of a forced manner. It didn't feel too naturally and was rather distracting.

Currently, Beliefs can be activated and moved around for the whole time. I wanted Beliefs to work kind of like traits in DitV, coming into play when connected things are narrated. Only, most of the time this means validating the Belief somehow or putting it into doubt. Consequently, it wouldn't work well if Beliefs could be activated only during the conflict as in DitV - for some of them there would rarely be enough context. So, building up the resources occurs constantly, as Beliefs can be moved into the Conviction or Doubt pool at any time and then stay there as resources until they are used (and after every conflict spent Belief cards return to a "neutral" state in the Vision pool, and can be turned into resources again). Because every time the Belief card is activated and moved to a different pool it gains some marks, it always pays to activate as many of them as possible as often as possible and promptly initiate a conflict, before the GM does the same. It results in an unnecessary race.

So, I suppose it will be better if I introduce a more rigid scene structure with formalized scene framing, and limit the number of Beliefs that can be activated per scene. Probably, Beliefs will be activated only once the scene is closed, as appropriate to what had happened in the scene, and every player will be able to activate only one. Or maybe it will be possible to validate one and put another into doubt after every scene? I'm not sure yet. Anyway, most probably the GM will be able to activate that many Beliefs per every player character involved in the scene - and this should solve my balance issues, as the pace of resource accumulation will be controlled and comparable. It won't even pay to always activate one's strongest Beliefs first, as low value Beliefs are easier to "charge" with marks.

However, this means that I need to either rework conflict rules so that less Belief cards were used in each conflict, or have a lot of short scenes featuring no conflict so that it would be possible to generate enough resources before a new conflict starts. The second option seems more appealing to me somehow, as I could introduce a structure of play similar to the one I have in Absolute Destiny Apocalypse. Possibly, I could include a special type of scenes that would be all about fleshing out the setting by exploring various locations and interacting with the encountered NPCs, and maybe "self-reflection" scenes or something, too. Conflicts exclusively about Beliefs would fit such structure pretty nice, as they would be needed less often.

Also, I didn't include any endgame condition in this version of the game yet, but I think it might be good to have it. Most probably, it will be based completely on player's decision, relatively easy to achieve, and connected with the merging of Substances development option. I suppose I could include an Apotheosis among the development options, making it possible to achieve a perfect enlightenment, change the world radically and finish the character's story.

***

So, a fruitful playtest it was. Now, I need to get myself to gather my notes and actually write the game down, and I can get back to playtesting it once I'm down with the first round of Absolute Destiny Apocalypse's playtests.

[ja-prozac]

- You forgot to mention unholy hours and sleep deprivation or maybe they were those harsh convention conditions you've mentioned.
- This game is bent toward esoteric mindset and you can't avoid it. Even more than Mage or earlier versions. Now without perusing Zen and/or Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic trigger or Morrison's Invisibles and other psychedelic/esoteric stuff it will be bitch to describe goal and gameplay.
- The setting creation can be lead to WTF?! reactions when players see what they have created. One element can push whole thing in completely different way without knowledge of players.
- The shitload of index cards on the table makes sometimes hard to remember not only what I have in hand for my character but also to remember all other beliefs and factions.
- The whole gameplay is good as I recall, though it has the DitV fallacy - using every trait in every conflict no mattr what.
- Endgame breaks the game imho. Setting definite goal makes changing world and factions' beliefs problematic like setting endscene in Inspectres at the beginning of the game. Makes you thinking along some lines.  It's also one more thing to remember for players. For me big plus of this game is changing vision of the world or me. Accidently it makes for more magic game in real world magic tradition.

[Filip Luszczyk]

- You forgot to mention unholy hours and sleep deprivation or maybe they were those harsh convention conditions you've mentioned.

Right. We also get bonus experience points for unholy hours and sleep deprivation.

- This game is bent toward esoteric mindset and you can't avoid it. Even more than Mage or earlier versions. Now without perusing Zen and/or Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic trigger or Morrison's Invisibles and other psychedelic/esoteric stuff it will be bitch to describe goal and gameplay.

And this is the worst problem - I have no idea how to approach people who don't have even the basic understanding of some concepts. Those who are into the stuff you mention should be able to get it, and I think Mage: the Ascension players should be able to grok it as well. But some people won't be able to play it at all. Well, there's no such thing as a game for everybody, but I wouldn't like Illumination to be playable for only a handful of people out there.

I suppose that with the right explanations I could make it at least somewhat accessible for people who at least watched Serial Experiments Lain or Matrix, or read Zelazny's and Dick's stuff. So, I probably should focus on parallels with some more popular sources. Most probably, I'll have to include a whole Quantum Zen Metaphysics for Dummies chapter anyway, maybe explaining it all in a form of FAQ. In the old version, I wanted to include setting FAQ to cover the basics, but there is no predetermined setting now, only some assumptions about how things work on the fundamental level.

And there's still a problem of communicating how the game should actually be played. Highlighting esoteric stuff too much could result in players trying to focus on this layer too much, ignoring the rest of the fun stuff. I'd rather prefer the opposite proportions - fun with cool powers and weird atmosphere in the first place, with philosophy as a cherry on the pie.

- The setting creation can be lead to WTF?! reactions when players see what they have created. One element can push whole thing in completely different way without knowledge of players.

I suppose a good procedure would be something like this:

-Discuss the concept.
-Establish Reality Beliefs.
-Examine Reality Beliefs and sum things up.
-Discuss the results and their most imminent implications.
-Readjust Reality Beliefs as needed.
-Discuss things once more to make sure everything is in place.

Fortunately, everything can be later changed in play.

- The shitload of index cards on the table makes sometimes hard to remember not only what I have in hand for my character but also to remember all other beliefs and factions.

This is why I want to reduce the number of starting Beliefs. I'd even cut it to seven or so, but there needs to be quite a lot of them anyway for conflicts to work the way I want them to (otherwise, it would be difficult to accumulate enough cards in Conviction pools too have a decent exchange of actions - especially if I put some limits on the number of Beliefs that can be activated in a scene).

Also, we haven't been playing too long - I expect that players will get accustomed to most of the Beliefs at the table after some conflicts are played out and most of these Beliefs comes into play mechanically (just as people quickly get familiar with a large number of cards in a card game). There's quite a lot of index cards, but if you cut character sheet from DitV to pieces, you'd be left with a comparable amount of elements.

It will be easier if I move the activation of Beliefs to the end of the scene - it won't be breaking the flow then, and people will focus exclusively on Beliefs laying around in this phase. The exact text on the card will matter only for the purposes of its activation anyway - once it's activated, it simply becomes a purely mechanical resource.

The organization of these elements on the table is another matter. I think I'll have to provide some sheets that would help in clearly dividing the cards between all the zones. And some paper clips or weights could come in handy.

- The whole gameplay is good as I recall, though it has the DitV fallacy - using every trait in every conflict no mattr what.

I don't think it's such a problem in DitV, but here, it certainly is a problem, due to the nature of these "traits" here. This is why I want to move the activation of Beliefs to the end of the scene, and put limits on a number of Beliefs that can be validated or put into doubt. That way players will be choosing Beliefs to activate with a broader picture in mind, as a consequence of the whole event. Possibly, the choice itself will become more meaningful.

- Endgame breaks the game imho. Setting definite goal makes changing world and factions' beliefs problematic like setting endscene in Inspectres at the beginning of the game. Makes you thinking along some lines.  It's also one more thing to remember for players.

I don't really want it to be a definite goal - more like an option for the player to say "and that's it". Kind of like deciding that the character is no longer a Dog in DitV.

Dunno. It seems like lately I've become kind of warry of too open-ended play that doesn't lead to any meaningful conclusion.

For me big plus of this game is changing vision of the world or me. Accidently it makes for more magic game in real world magic tradition.

Yeah, I think I winded up closer to it than I initially wanted to. But now, I have the whole paradigm war thing from Mage nicely captured. And I think things have much more sense than in the old version of the game, and everything is kind of streamlined, too.

[JackTheOwner]

Game is Cool, I like it.

I have only few points to say.
I think we had mess on table. Too many index cards was in the game. I even didn't tried to look on IC of organisation. Every time you asked sth with Org. I only nod head

It will be easier if I move the activation of Beliefs to the end of the scene - it won't be breaking the flow then, and people will focus exclusively on Beliefs laying around in this phase.

Exactly. I also think it would be better. It's like "Summary of Action". (sum of all fear ).