Servitude for Wuthering Heights

[Paul Czege]

Hey Philippe, everyone,

In the Wuthering Heights review, Ron wrote:

I think that the idea behind Wuthering Heights' resolution method should be developed and applied to a lot of RPGs, including those of more serious intent and content.

And although it's not an entirely new RPG, I recently wrote up notes toward a plug-in style modification for Wuthering Heights that I thought might be interesting to people if they're thinking about the game after having read the review. I warn you though, it's currently only a partially fleshed out concept. The working title for it is Servitude.

The idea is that the player characters are the slaves of the wealthy household of a shah or sultan. I was shooting for complex interrelationships between the slaves, partly based on fluctuations in their favor with the family, and their credibility with the other slaves.

It's really just two additions to the rules, the first of which is a Favor trait. Favor is a die that ranges between d4 and d20. As a character's Favor fluctuates, the size of the die is adjusted upward or downward. The Favor die is added to the result of any Despair roll, and subtracted from the result of any Rage roll. This means that sincerity and honesty are harder for a favored slave. To influence the master or a member of his family, roll above Despair, increased by Favor, which basically means that earnest and deceptive slaves have the greatest ability to influence the master. The slave immersed in a high Despair has it easy telling the truth, but a hard time taking important action. I like the idea that it takes a die roll to be able to tell the truth. Of course, a master could be influenced by the truth, but it would take him a successful Wisdom test, a roll below his Oldness, in order to do so. The Favor modification to Rage means that favored slaves have a harder time taking violent action, and an easier time controlling themselves from violence.

I'm thinking a game session would end with each player delivering a fairly authorial verbal justification for why their Favor should go up or down based on their interpretation of what the masters are aware of.

The second addition to the rules is cantraps, emotionally charged blessings or curses, stolen basically from The Dying Earth quickstart rules. Roll below Despair, modified by Favor, to deliver a cantrap. So the most despairing and least favored and influential slaves are the most effective with cantraps. The duration of the effect is an hour. A successful curse is a -5 modifier to the first action of the target that's within the scope of the curse. A successful blessing is a +10 modifier. A fumble affects the caster. Failure or fumble on a roll to cast a cantrap is a gain of d10 Despair. Success is loss of d10 Despair.

I think this makes cantraps the opposing power among slaves to influencing the master.

I was planning also to modify the Problems table, to remove things irrelevant to the situation like the problem of being Irish, and introduce other Problems like Kleptomania.

Paul

[ This Message was edited by: Paul Czege on 2001-07-31 14:07 ]

[Philippe Tromeur]

Hello Paul

The idea is that the player characters are the slaves of the wealthy household of a shah or sultan. I was shooting for complex interrelationships between the slaves, partly based on fluctuations in their favor with the family, and their credibility with the other slaves.

That's an original campaign idea, though I think it's more suited to a one-shot long session.

It's really just two additions to the rules, the first of which is a Favor trait. Favor is a die that ranges between d4 and d20. As a character's Favor fluctuates, the size of the die is adjusted upward or downward. The Favor die is added to the result of any Despair roll, and subtracted from the result of any Rage roll.

Personally, I don't think using modifiers is a good idea (especially random modifiers). The absence of modifiers in Cthulhu also shocked me when I was younger, but I realized how much this absence speeds up and clarifies the play of the game. The first drafts of WH used to differentiate the difficulties of actions but I suppressed the rules after playtest, realising I never bothered using them. Same for the differentiation of damage between different weapons.

As for Favor, I'd prefer the use of another d100 attribute with some special effects, and I don't even know if this attribute is necessary. (I was thinking about adding "damnation" for a gothic setting and "honour" for "Oriental Tragedies" but I still wonder if they're so useful).

The second addition to the rules is cantraps, emotionally charged blessings or curses, stolen basically from The Dying Earth quickstart rules. Roll below Despair, modified by Favor, to deliver a cantrap. So the most despairing and least favored and influential slaves are the most effective with cantraps.

Looks like my rules for ghosts, except ghost's Rage and Despair dwindle as they used their dirty tricks on mortals. Also, the French version has some rules for Weather Control, a superpower every real romantic character possess (it rains when they're sad, there's thunder when they're angry, etc) and there are optional rules for "weather duels" in one of the Tragedies included in the printed version.

I was planning also to modify the Problems table, to remove things irrelevant to the situation like the problem of being Irish, and introduce other Problems like Kleptomania.

You're free to do it. I did some modifications between "René" and "Wuthering Heights" : "Bonapartist" has been replaced with "baptist" ; "protestant" with "catholic" ; "red-haired" with "Irish" ...