Matrixed Experience

[Vulpinoid]

I've recently posted about my take on matrixed attributes.

While taking a walk today I considered an expansion on this concept, tying an experience system into the core matrix.

A hypothetical character begins with the matrix...

x	Air	Earth	Fire	Metal	Water	Wood
Agenda	-	-	X	-	X	-
Connections	X	-	X	-	X	-
Face	-	-	X	-	X	-
Skills	XX	X	XX	X	X	X
Offences	-	-	X	-	-	-
Defences	-	-	X	X	-	-

I've recently made posts about an experience system where characters accumulate enough failures with a skill to push them toward a new degree of proficiency. I've contemplated this from a dozen directions in the context of a matrix, but it kept feeling too contrived.

Today's thought pattern comes from an entirely new perspective, and I'd like to see if other people "get it".

To explain the experience system, I'll have to put the attribute matrix in context.

The game basically works off scenes, where each scene focuses on a specific character. During the scene, a challenge calls on a specific point on the matrix (a specific combination of element and manifestation), but a player may use another combination if they can justify it through the narrative. The only catch is that the character must use either the element or the manifestation in the new combination they are using (and the difficulty increases by a degree).

If a specific challenge calls for a combination of Metal and Face, the hypothetical character above doesn't have any points in this combo. But the character could use Metal and Skill as their combination because at least they know that they've got some points in that combination, it might be a bit harder than if they'd normally possessed the skill, but it's better than trying to use a skill they don't have. The player just has to narrate why their skill would be useful to the situation at hand.

In an unfocused scene, a character challenges with a single combination. In a focused scene, they might use two or three combinations of skills to accomplish a more detailed task (but they may never use the same combination more than once in a given scene).

That's the basics. It makes sense in my head because I've been working with the concept pretty carefully over the past couple of months, if it doesn't make sense to anyone who's reading, let me know...one of my aims in this game is to keep it simple and user friendly.

Now that a context has been set, on to the experience.

My simply theory is that over the course of a game, a player marks off on a dedicated experience sheet every time they use a specific element in a skill attempt, and similarly, they mark off ever time they use a specific manifestation. By the end of the game, we'll have a good idea of whether the character's actions have been more fire oriented, or water oriented, or whatever other element has dominated. Similarly, we'll see if they relied more on their own skills, on their appearances, on offensive deeds, etc.

At the end of a session, a player may add a point to any combination that includes the element that dominated their recent actions. If they've been more angry (using fire a lot), they get in increase something that draws on that anger, or makes a connection with other people who also share that anger. Similarly, a player may  add a point to any combination that includes the manifestation that dominated their recent actions. If the character has been more defensive throughout their recent actions, they must add a point to one of their defensive combination points.

If the hypothetical character at the start of this post followed the actions just described, they could boost any fire and any defense, and might end up looking something like this...

x	Air	Earth	Fire	Metal	Water	Wood
Agenda	-	-	X	-	X	-
Connections	X	-	XX	-	X	-
Face	-	-	X	-	X	-
Skills	XX	X	XX	X	X	X
Offences	-	-	X	-	-	-
Defences	-	X	X	X	-	-

Gaining a "Fire Connection" and an "Earth Defense".

Given the elemental context, I could ban someone from buying a combination involving "water" since this is the opposite of "fire".

But here's a second twist.

Experience is not just growth, it's an evolution. Evolving toward something, but away from something else.

At the end of a session, when a character adds two points to their matrix, they also remove one.

I'm in two minds about the point removed (some might say that this is because I'm a gemini).

My first thought is that once the elements and manifestations are tallied up at the end of the session, the character automatically loses a point in the combination of the lowest element and the lowest manifestation. But if the character doesn't have any points in this combination, what happens?

My second thought is that the character should lose a point from a combination of their choice as long as it involves the element they used least or a manifestation they used least.

Either way, this reflects that a side of the character is starting to atrophy from not being used.

What do people think?

V

[apeiron]

MOAR!

Have you read Kindred of the East, the Asian vampire book for World of Darkness?  You might find some inspiration there. 

This might be in left field of what your planning, but i just though, "what if actions have an element associated?"  Each time you do something Fire-y, you take a fire token.  A character could either spend them to become more attuned to fire and all things fiery, and/or the cause some change in the character.  If a character has a big pile of Fire Tokens, they have a fever, or they become irritable.  Perhaps other players/the GM could use certain attacks against you, or nudge that character to losing their temper. 

Executing the "Palm of Flame" maneuver requires having X Fire tokens.  Having X tokens, also means the character is insatiably thirsty.  i'm fond of double edged swords like that.

[Vulpinoid]

I've just had someone from here indicate that my game shared aspects with Mage: the Ascension (thought a lot of this is to do with the background rather than the mechanisms of game operation), and this is one of my favourite games due to it's original philosophical source material.

As for Kindred of the East, that was another of my favourite lines from the Original World of Darkness.

I am seriously considering the notion that certain forms of meditation will push a characters balance temporarily in favour of a certain element. It will also work along the theory of Chinese medicine, where ingesting certain herbs and nutrients will reduce the impact of certain elements, while magnifying the impact of others.

In fact the regular mortals (around whom the micro game rotates) need some kind of temporary boost to take their various elemental and manifestation levels to supernatural extremes. After all, they are hunters of the supernatural and to have a chance at defeating their opponents they often need to face them on an equal footing. They may carefully prepare themselves through meditation, training and diet, but for a quick fix they can inject a serum concocted from the blood of their enemies.

The different races I'm intending to have for the game will be elementally focused. Undead will be attuned to metal, Shapeshifters will be attuned to wood (and since these elements oppose then it's natural within the context of the system that these two groups won't like each other). Linking further to the matrix, a race normally affiliated to a specific element doesn't have to have it's members as stereotypes who always manifest this element as dominant in their personality...but they can't have the opposing element as dominant without severe repercussions.

(As a corollary to this, each supernatural race produces a different serum. If a character with wood as their dominant element injects the blood of an undead into their veins it will work as a deadly poison rather than metaphysical steroids.)

Supernatural powers are a subset of the various matrix points. It all depends what you uintend to do with the skill. A fireball might count as a "fire offence", a shield of flame might count as a "fire defence", an aura of anger that makes people intimidated might count as a "fire face". Character only get access to these types of powers if they've accumulated more than 4 check marks at a specific point of the attribute matrix. Supernatural beings often start with one or two points of their matrix at these incredible levels, regular characters get their through the methods described above, and their only remain at these levels for a really short time (only a single scene).

The double edged swords are a definite part of the game...it's like you're reading my mind.

If anyone's interested in reading more about where this system is heading, check here followed by here.

V

[Abkajud]

What I'm seeing is that, eventually, after a TON of advancement, even your second-highest Element or Manifestation will end up counting as your lowest.. as a result, by this point, moving further (could you?) in your highest-trait direction would leave you with a single element, and a single manifestation. I could see a character who's maxed out in Wood and Offense, and dead in everything else, being some kind of vengeful nature-god non pareil. For that matter, maxing out in Air and Agenda could make me an ecstatic being of weather and enlightenment, or something. Like a walking archetype for central Asian steppe-shamans. Maybe shoving all your X's into one point puts you in god-hood, or at least in the running for god-hood. Awesome!

My question, though, is whether there's a maximum possible rating for traits. If so, that'd limit the "drift" a PC would go through towards a single point on the matrix. Better yet, because of what it'd look like to see those X's move around, call it "gathering". ^_^ Thoughts?

[Vulpinoid]

That's a point I hadn't considered.

It's almost buddhist or kabbalistic, letting go of your individuality to become a veritable force of nature.

Conversely, a character could choose to indulge in a little of everything to gain the widest possible range of experience, striving to gain a point in every combination of element and manifestation. This would be a lot harder, and would take a combination of forethought and careful play because every time you'd think the balance had been made, a point would be lost from somewhere else.

The focused force of nature would be virtually unstoppable in their chosen combination, but when they were out of their element they'd really suck (pun intended).

The previously mentioned character maxed out on Wood and Offence, would be calling the trees out of the ground to launch strikes like the Ents against Isengard. But if this character needed to convince a policeman to help them out (Water and Connections) they just wouldn't know how to start because neither their single element nor their single manifestation is suitable for the task at hand. Such a character would have to call on another PC (or NPC they'd made a bond with) to get the policeman onside.

This also fits with the game's theme of community; anyone can survive, but to do more than just survive or be comfortable you need the help of the people around you. Hence cults, subcultures, cultures and civilizations form. I guess that works well.

As for maximum trait ratings, yes and no. I'll explain a little more about the system.

(The absolute basics for die rolling are the same as for my "Guerilla Television" single-page game.)

Perhaps I should have gridded up the matrix using slashes ( / ) and crosses ( X ). Odd points count in a matrix node count as a slash, even points turn the slash into a cross.

1 = / , 2 = X , 3 = X / , 4 = X X , 5 = X X / , 6 = X X X , etc.

For every slash or cross, a character gains a filter for this node.

For every cross ( X ), a character gains an automatic success on this type of task.

For example, At the node for Wood and Defense get get the point referred to as "Vibrant". The character has a degree of living energy about them that they have manifested in a range of methods to avoid damage. For each filter, the character gains a subcategory or filter that they may use to bring this node into the game.

Vibrant Wood: Vibrant
Subcategories – Primal, Seduction, Energetic, (Regeneration)

At first, they must choose a single option (Let's say "seduction", the character is simply so alluring that other people have to think twice before hurting them). At second level they get an automatic success when using this. At third level, they may choose one of the other options ("energetic" might reflect that hypnotic and dramatic dance moves are integrated into a capoiera style martial art that they use to avoid damage), this also gains the automatic success because it's all a part of the same element/manifestation combination. At fourth level, both of the filter options gain a second automatic degree of success. At fifth level, the character starts to ascend into supernatural levels; they may manifest their resilience to damage by showing in game how their body heals wounds at a heightened rate. etc...

There are typically three subcategories/filters per point on the matrix (except for skills, which have a much wider variety to reflect a huge array of possible tasks). For regular mortals, you can't really go above 6 in a specific matrix node. There's not much point going further, because there aren't any more filters to acquire. Once you have supernatural blood in your system, the limit increases. I haven't specifically decided limits yet, but there will be a general range of heroes, half-bloods, full-blooded supernaturals, demigods, gods, forces of nature. Once you get to the upper ends of the spectrum, the sky is the limit. But remembering that the focus of this game is heroes who take on the supernatural, most games will revolve around the lower few levels. The upper levels will only really come into effect at the end of epic campaigns and complex storylines.

A corollary to this is that mortal characters would never be able to get the full effect of the drift, the limits would prevent them form focusing on a single point, but they could easily end up with a triple X's in all their manifestations for a single element and all their elements for a single manifestation.

x	Air	Earth	Fire	Metal	Water	Wood
Agenda	-	-	XXX	-	-	-
Connections	-	-	XXX	-	X	-
Face	-	-	XXX	-	-	-
Skills	XXX	XXX	XXX	XXX	XXX	XXX
Offences	-	-	XXX	-	-	-
Defences	-	-	XXX		-	-

But what would this mean? Would this draw the attention of the gods?

I think this is where our "double edged sword" comes into play.

A character's highest element shows in their demeanour and their bearing. The character above just looks like one mean angry mother f%$#er, all the time. A Character's secondary element flavours the way the dominant element appears, but in this case it's just raw fury. People just get this vibe from her that she's going to rip someones head off, or start screaming violently, there is no talking calmly to this character. And their actions up to this point will have reflected it. Most people will be a little scared of this person merely from their presence. Someone attuned to water will have the gut instinct to dislike this person, the elemental essences of their alignments are opposed.

A supernatural creature of fire would be drawn to the character, because she's got so much to offer their faction. It'd only be a matter of time before someone tried to convert her.

I'll leave it there for the moment, it's a bit more to digest.

V

[DWeird]

Hi!

This whole thing seems really fun - I especially like how character is essentially always in the making, that it's his actions and choices that make him.

However, there's that tendency (can't really judge how severe it is, given that other yet unknown mechanics would be in play) to converge on a single element/manifestation cross. Now, tapping into my inner munchkin... Seeing how I can nudge any single solution into using either of my two major proficiency lines, and have my companions take care of those I can't (?), the optimum strategy seems for me to focus on the big cross early, and have my companions do so too.

If there's six of us and we get a nice diagonal going - Air Agenda to Wood defences, we get pretty much everything covered any time, with minimum need of "outside" boosters from sponsors or groups, meanin' we're a big, happy, not-quite-human family.


Personally, I don't want to play a big fat cross (Angry Face is angry! GRRR! Deadly offences are deadly! Slice-slice-slice! Water connections make officers rain from the sky! Thud-thud-thud!) for any longer than it took me to write those things in parantheses. Neither do I want to purposefully play an inefficient character.

From what I can see (which admittedly may not be much), the only way for a character to morph towards a non-fat cross direction is to make it in some way beneficial for 'im to do things that he is less than proficient at doing (personal wealth&glory as opposed to a job well done?). Which'd probably also take away a chance from someone more worthy to shine... Which is good, right?

[apeiron]

T'would be super awesome if you could make it a non-square matrix based on the Tao Te Ching.

[scarik]

T'would be super awesome if you could make it a non-square matrix based on the Tao Te Ching.

I was going to suggest using Bagua elements to help get that more visceral feel by calling out to a well developed philosophy.

[Vulpinoid]

Apeiron...

The Tao Te Ching has come up a couple of times in my work notes...but that would really give the game a specific Chinese feel, and I'm going for something globally holistic.

If someone wanted to adapt the concept in that way, I'd be happy to see where someone would take it.

As for the earlier post from DWeird...

The cross effect is something nasty, having six characters each of whom focus on a single element, and a single manifestation isn't a guarantee of success. What if the scene calls for a use of Water/Defence, while our characters have Water/Offence and Metal/Defence as their cross? Each of these characters has to adapt their abilites to face the conflict, and has to narrate how their adapted ability usage makes sense in context. A group with 36 players could manage to cover all the bases.

Take note also of what I said in my last post...

Most people will be a little scared of this person merely from their presence. Someone attuned to water will have the gut instinct to dislike this person, the elemental essences of their alignments are opposed.

A group with someone maxxed out in fire and a group with someone maxxed out in water would have huge tension within it. It's be like having a Chaotic Evil and a Lawful Good in the same D&D party. They'd be so busy fighting one another that they wouldn't get anything done, and they certainly wouldn't want to help each other out. If the two decide to help one another, or come to an understanding between one another, their dominant levels will start to erode and their opposing elements will gradually increase. Maintaining the cross will be a hell of a job for a player, because it requires very strict adherence to a certain style of play, and that style of play (no matter what it may be) will make enemies within the game (and quite possibly outside the game if certain player types take things too seriously).

The comic I'm developing as backstory to this game explores these concepts in depth (or it will eventually).

If a character delves too deeply into an element or a manifestation, other people will want them taken down. Since the characters start in the position of hunters trying to eliminate rogue supernaturals, if a character becomes too much like their prey, then they can expect to become the hunted very soon.

Actually what I'm more worried about is when a character develops too evenly across the matrix.

After 36 games it's theoretically possible that a character will have developed an extra point in every node of the matrix, 72 games could give an extra level to every node of the matrix. After 198 games, a carefully played character could end up with triple Xs in every matrix node...they'd basically be the ultimate balanced human, maybe bordering on the divine...a Gautama Buddha?? or a Jesus Christ??

Actually, how many games last 198 sessions??...maybe I don't need to worry too much about this unless I decide to increase the rate at which characters improve. 

V

[Abkajud]

V,

Reading your posts here just gave me an idea for my own game: what if I hung onto the advancement philosophy of "ya screw up big time on something important, you get another skill point", but added this twist - you can't gain more than one point in a particular skill or stat per story arc, and you can't gain more than one point per session, regardless of how often you blow it, no matter how badly. This means that characters can only improve evenly, as opposed to exacerbating their specialization. This would also encourage people to use everything they have to achieve their goals, in ways that are very important to the PCs. That's one thing I really get tired of, actually - when people buy skills and then never use them. Ha! Awesome.

I really like your idea of a Perfect, Balanced Human; it's an awesome counterpoint to the super-specialized skill-monster. And... 198 sessions? At one a week, that's about 3 years, 9 months of play, and it assumes that you achieve another hash mark every time. You probably have nothing to worry about

Also - if some poor GM (or team of GMs) get(s) 36 players together, then I would have no qualms at all letting them form the Flawless Elemental Army. If they can pull off that PTSD-inducing logistics nightmare, they've earned it

[Vulpinoid]

I'd also accept the 36 players forming the flawless elemental army...but I'd only envision such a thing occurring in a huge LARP freeform.

A second dilemma.

Not everything in this game is directly tied to the matrix.

The matrix is just a reflection of the character's innate abilities; through the course of play a character can improve their connection with the organisations around them, they can also improve their links to the supernatural. It is through these links that they gain access to mystical abilities, but it is through the matrix that these abilities are manifest in the world).

The 2 steps forward one step back works as a method of gradually evolving the matrix. But it doesn't really tie in well with these other links.

I'm thinking that the character who performs best during a session automatically gets to improve a single link, while a random other character also gets to improve a link (in the same manner and rank improvement in 3:16).

Or perhaps allowing all characters to improve a single link every time they do something to further the agendas of the linked group within the game...(you want to become more powerful within this biker gang, you've gotta get these narcotics across to our dealer on the other side of town...oh, you've done that and you want to become even more powerful, now you have to set up your own narcotics ring). The stakes are pushed further, and once the stakes are accomplished, new stakes are set. Under this method, a character could improve their connection with a single organisation once per game, but it would take more and more effort to improve at later stages. At low levels a character could do a few little tasks for different groups to maintain links to them, but as they gain in power within one of the groups they have to start making tougher choices that restrict their freedoms and lock down any free time they might have to pursue their own agendas.

At this stage I'm just going to have to tie everything together in a working document for some playtests. I wonder what the topics of Game Chef will be this year (and I wonder if I can tie these concepts into a good entry for that contest)??

V

[JoyWriter]

I'd keep the relationships with groups as text based as possible; so you could run on a favour system "I did this" gets checked off bit by bit with "but they did this". This could be recorded as "history", and have a second group for ways that they know you have annoyed them. You could also have a star by them if they are still don't know. In addition, stuff like this sometimes makes it possible to pick up a game 3 months later and still get back into it, because your relationships to that world are held fresh. Another nice feature of the above is that it could also be a "2 forward 1 back" system, because of all the secret issues you can build up with the different orgs.

One of my concerns when first reading was that players would not get the elements system, and just not get how to wangle, but I suppose even the most basic briefing on "the threats you face" will give you a feel for how the elements work in the game.

Presumably the different factions will show the elements accentuated to such a distorted inhuman degree that they themselves will discourage people from becoming too much like them, but then I suspect that overdoing that could create the 1d villain experience; "Ooh he's red, well insult him a lot and we can get him to charge madly into that trap" etc!

Are you thinking of doing the "actions used" accounting on a different matrix? It could be that the main one is to small to keep all those numbers without confusion.

[Vulpinoid]

Actions used will definitely be on a separate sheet.

I'd actually consider using a separate experience sheet for each session, building up a booklet of character exploits as the character develops.

And since writing my last post, I'd actually considered the notion of a favour system. After playing Agon, the notion of Oaths has started to give me some ideas. I'm thinking that players can claim oaths from one another in exchange for gaining assistance in different scenes, they can gain oaths from NPCs and NPC groups by performing tasks for other people in the game world. Oaths can then be bought off by calling in those favours later.

The flip side would be gaining notoriety. If someone does something to hinder someone, they'll gain notoriety with respect to that person/faction.

I like the notion of incorporating the 2 forward 1 back system into this...A player will gain two steps of favour toward a single faction, but in the process they'll pick up a point of notoriety to another faction (this notoriety will be with respect to the faction losing the most from the character's actions).

A player could then apologise to the faction to whom they've gained the notoriety, they would then have to perform favours to this faction to buy off the notoriety (and would probably end up offending someone else in the process)...just like real life.

Thanks for the suggestion, I don;t know if I would have thought of linking the two. But it's a relatively elegant solution.

V