The Last Bastion's back!

[Kirk Mitchell]

Hey boyz (and girls, its a generic term), I just wanted to announce with as little fanfare as possible (tarrraaaaah!! ;)) that my RPG currently entitled The Last Bastion is back.

I have been very busy over the last few months, but have managed to get back on track and have restarted from the beginning. The Last Bastion is re-drafted and over the next month or so the next draft copy should be ready for dissection (bring it on Mike! This time I'm ready for you!).

The synospis is still roughly the same:

Over the past millenia, Humans have inhabited their Planet. They have lived lives rife with belief and terror, fear and anger. Over a time, this has had an adverse effect on the Nightscape, the land of Human dreams. New beings came to inhabit this land, borne of Humanity's horrible mentality. The beings eventually came to sentience, and called themselves "Dumirik", meaning Bright Ones.

For some unexplained, but hotly debated, reason, the barrier between the worlds burst, right in the middle of a Dumirik civil war, right about tea-time... Anyways, millions of Dumirik were displaced, and they found themselves in a world with fixed rules and realities, one that they could barely survive in compared to the mutable existence they led in the Nightscape.

To survive, they were forced to possess dreaming Humans, inhabiting their minds and using the Belief and Sanity of those around them to morph their surrounding reality into a place they could inhabit. These were the first interlopers.

It is now 80 years after the first incursion, the world has met a relative equalibrium, and the two races are at an uneasy peace, each needing each other for survival. The players take the part of either the mutable yet vulnerable Dumirik, the sturdy and believing Humans, or the Possessed, those who are managing to survive as pure mind while a Dumirik has possessed their body. In this world, players are people of power, and their only goal is to get more power, whatever the cost...

I have utilised a fairly simple d10 based system where you roll equal to or under the required characteristic, and am currently in the process of designing the rules for Belief (more on this later, I think I'll drip feed this time), and have just finished my simpler action system.

I don't really have a GNS goal, but from my readings of the rather confusing articles on the topic, it seems to resemble a High-concept Simulationist/Narrativist game. But please don't ramble on the GNS theory, because I really don't quite grasp how it works yet (I'm trying!).

Kirk

[Kirk Mitchell]

You know, I was just thinking, how would a thematically relevant Fortune system work for this game. I just had an idea that the players would have a pile of pebbles or bones or something, and throw them down on the table. They look at the pattern they are on the table, and compare them to certain symbols in the rules. The player with the throw closest to the highest symbol gets to narrate the action. You throw down a number of bones/stones equal to the characteristic, adding or subtracting from that number depending on circumstances, Enigmas (my version of character history based skills) etc. I was just wondering about it. I would really like a unique Fortune system for this game that has relevance to its topic or style, and if anyone has an idea, don't hesitate to tell me.

Kirk

[Mike Holmes]

Have you read the "Crux" system resolution? I think it has some similarities to what you want.

I'm envisioning a system using little sticks to represent bones. Maybe toothpicks or maybe the player can just pick some up outdoors. Some uniformity would be neccessary. No branches, and no more than a certain length, etc. Anyhow, the player picks up as many of his sticks as he has Enigmas, and drops them from no less than X inches up; X to be determined by testing the method to get the right distribution. The GM then counts the number of sticks that are touching another stick. Add one for each discernable triangle formed by touching sticks, and add two for each quadrilateral, etc.

Just an idea.

Mike

[Kirk Mitchell]

Sorry about responding a bit late, and that this post will be a bit short (very little time on my hands). No, I haven't seen the Crux system resolution, and I can't find it anywhere. Could you give me a rundown on how it works? And I have tried your idea with toothpicks, and there are a number of problems with its implementation in my current system. The numbers that I have are too small, there aren't enough sticks to touch each other.

Another idea that has crossed my mind is some sort of mechanic that allows for resolution depending on how you manage to justify the action, some sort of battle of wits. It would probably be too difficult or almost impossible to do, but it might be interesting to try considering the fact that I want to encourage thinking in this game world.

Yet another idea that I have been kicking around is one that is based upon fear, belief, humanity and some of the other basic concepts behind this game. Possibly some tokens that represent these concepts and the way they turn up decides what happens with your action. How would tarot cards work with that sort of thing. A heavily modified tarot card reading system to determine the results of actions. Hmmmm. Have to think on that one, I don't have any tarot cards around.

Oh well. Take a look and give me the feedback.

Thanks, Kirk

[Kirk Mitchell]

Helloooo. I have just started working on a basic mechanic based on Tarot cards as an experiment.

The idea is that when your character wants to make an action associated with a specific characteristic, you draw as many cards (after shuffling) as you have for that characteristic, plus any relevant bonuses or penalties. The result will be the actions the character can take at this point in time related to that characteristic. As each card has a specific theme and "actions", this leaves it fairly open-ended for enterpretation.

The player then selects the action most suited to his or her wishes, and removes it from the selection. All the rest of the cards are placed back into the deck and shuffled. Four cards are then drawn to decide the result of the action. The action card is placed in the "past" position in a line. Next to it, the first three cards drawn are placed in the "now" position. Afte that the last card drawn is placed in the "future" position next to the now position. From this, the results of the action are determined, depending on the cards drawn, their individual themes and actions, and the player's enterpretation as he or she narrates the action.

The Now pile represents what is being done at the very instant the action is taking place, while the future pile hints at what may happen in the future as a result of that action as a guide for the GM and players alike.

This is just an idea, but some feedback on the concept would be greatly appreciated.

[Mike Holmes]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CruxCIR/

Mike