[Mountain Witch] New Revision Out!

[timfire]

I've finally posted my revision of 'The Mountain Witch." I intend to submit this revision for the IGC publication, so I would greatly appreciate y'all mentioning any last minute issues I may have missed.

I've attempted to address the issues that Ron Edwards and myself encountered in our respective playtests. I'll try and run through the changes I made, and attempt to address some of the issues Ron brought up in his "Actual Play" thread.

Trust stuff
I've changed the way Trust is accumulated. I've tied the number of Trust points that may be awarded in a given scene to the current 'chapter' of the story (2, 3, 4, & 5 respectively for the four chapters). In the process I've gotten rid of "Trust levels," now there's just Trust points. Also, Ally and Enemy Zodiacs now effect the max number of points that can be awarded, so it has a continual effect throughout the game. For reference, Ally Zodiacs can award each other an extra point (3, 4, 5, & 6), while enemy Zodiacs can only award each other 2 less than normal (0, 1, 2, & 3).

This does a couple of things. First, now there's a consistent growth of Trust regardless of the number of scenes that are played. This also caps the number of points that can be awarded. I discovered in my playtest that too many Trust points is a bad thing, since players can aid each other in almost every conflict, which results in the characters succeeding with a very high degree of success all the time. Before, when the build-up of Trust was tied to the number of scenes played, a group could play for 6 or 8 scenes and end up with 8-10 points, which is WAY more than you need.

Ron mentioned that with the old rules there wasn't ANY reason to lower Trust. I still think there might be cause under certain situations, namely when a character truly turns against the party. I don't know if my current rules 'fix' this issue, but I hope they help. I think part of issue before was if you dropped your Trust, you had to start over from scratch so-to-speak. Now, you can freely drop Trust one scene and then raise it back up the next without penalty. I don't know, Ron, do you think my new rules address the issue at all?

Fate stuff
"Desperately in Love:" While I am looking for another Fate to replace the "Fail Your Best Friend" Fate, I'm not sure that "Desperately in Love" is right. Part of the deal with my other Fates is that on some level they all entail some sort of betrayal, and I don't see an inherent betrayal in "Desperately in Love." If someone wanted to play that Fate, they could probably twist the "True Motives" Fate to fit it.

Witch end condition: I decided not to include an official Fate end-condition. I think the Fates are what makes the game interesting, and players will naturally be interested in fulfilling/ revealing their Fates. In the text I advocate just discussing this issue before play is started.

Combat & IIEE stuff
Both Ron and I encountered some issues with IIEE and Combat. What I decided (which still needs to be playtested) is this: Combat will happen in "exchanges." Each exchange players get 1 die that they may use to either resolve their own conflict or help out with someone else's conflict. After everyone declares what they want to do, the combatants basically get condensed into 'teams' and a common roll is made for each 'team.' (This is really just an extension of 'helping out'.) Whoever narrates is left with the task of figuring out how everything works out.

Small stuff: Here's just a list of some of the smaller issues I dealt with:

Abilities: They are now 'breadth only,' and never give numerical modifiers. I also got rid of the "one-time use" uber-powerful option.

Scope of narration: In the text I stated that narration should be for Color only.

Scope of a Conflict: I tried defining the scope of a conflict. Check page 6 or 7 (I forget which one its on), does it make sense?

Scope of  a Scene: I discussed how many conflicts should be in given scene. Check setion 4(a).

"Running the Game:" I added alot to that chapter. I'm sure it helps, but is it enough? Are there still issues I should address?

I've changed some of the terminology and re-written alot of passages, so hopefully there's less 'jargon.'

I know that the text could use some examples, but I'm really close to the 150% percent limit for the ICG Publication. Are there any glaring passages that need examples?

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And... I think that's all. I would greatly appreciate feedback, as I hope to submit the text for IGC publication very soon. (Mike Holmes, is there anything else you would like to see?)

Thanks!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Tim,

All of the following isn't intended to be relevant to the Iron Game publication, just for the ongoing development of the game. Warning: I am not especially favorable to some of your changes, which I think represent "corralling" rather than elegance.

Trust stuff
I strongly recommend that the Trust that character A holds for character B may be used as a bonus, by character B whenever he or she does something awful to character  A. I also suggest that no other organization of Trust mechanics is necessary, aside from clarifying starting values.

I don't think that the increase of the Trust points should be based on anything except decisions by players, as listed in the original rules, with no chapter-based structuring. The above suggestion puts a serious cap on the Trust levels.

I think the Zodiac-ing of the Trust levels, in terms of maxima and so forth, adds a bunch of potentially annoying bookkeeping with no identifiable benefit. I suggest replacing it with the old bonuses from the original character sheets, but have them apply to the beginning of each chapter (default Trust at the start = 2).

As for your claim that if a character "truly" turns against the party, then I think I would very much want to have Trust in him, by the old rules, because it allows me to mess with that player's narrations. My strong recommendation above mitigates this potential contradiction.

Fate stuff
By definition, every Fate disrupts the shared intent to overcome the Witch, right? That's what a Fate is, in this game. When you read your Fate (or later), you decide (a) how it's going to violate the shared contract and (b) what NPCs or historical events are necessary to bring into play to make (a) plausible. Both (a) and (b) must be brought into play by the player, then (c) the player gets to decide how the character deals with this crisis in the crunch.

All of that applies to any of the listed Fates. Without (a-b-c), the Fate is meaningless. Right?

If that's so, then "Desperately in love" is perfect. All you have to do is include "in such a way that the oath to kill the Witch is violated," which is no more and no less that what a Fate is defined as anyway.

I totally support your decisions about the players being automatically interested in fulfilling the Fates; that matches my experience in play.

Combat and IIEE stuff
Are you sure the "team" thing is necessary? Or am I  misunderstanding ... Let's say A is attacking an oni-demon and I'm helping. It's our "turn." We both roll, right? And add? If that's so, then I agree fully. It matches essentially with what we were doing in play, except that I was permitting fully-free combinations of [my action] + [helping others] for everyone. Your way, you have to choose between "my thing" and "helping others," which seems perfectly reasonable.

Gotta review the new text more fully, though.

Small stuff
I am enthused in principle by everything you've listed, but will review more fully.

Best,
Ron

[timfire]

All of the following isn't intended to be relevant to the Iron Game publication, just for the ongoing development of the game.

No problem, I plan on continuing to develop MW beyond the IGC publication.

Trust stuff...

OK, here are the issues that gave rise to my decision to change things:

1) I was concerned about how levels of Trust would vary from game to game depending on the number of scenes. It would be nice if I could work out some way to keep Trust somewhat consistent frome game to game. My answer to this was to switch Trust-growth from scene-to-scene to chapter-to-chapter. Maybe I'm making a bigger deal out of it than it really is, but I think this issue contributes to the next one...

2) I believe too many Trust points is undesirable. Here's what happened in my playtest. I started the playtest with a higher progression of Trust (3, 5, 8, 10), and decided to try out letting Trust points carry over from scene to scene (which I later decided against). My players didn't realize at first how powerful aiding was, so they didn't use any Trust until like the last 2 conflicts of the first scene. So all that Trust carried over and my players ended up with 6 or 7 points each. My players then started aiding each other literally every conflict, and they won pretty much every conflict with a high degree of success. They also alternated who would aid whom, so to stretch their points out. Because they won with so many Critical & Double successes, they flew past all the encounters I tried to put before them. They even still had points left over at the end of the scene.

So from that experience I concluded that 5 or 6 Trust points per character would be a good maximum amount. That's still alot of Trust, but it's not so much that the players can use Trust without fear of running out.

Let me ask, what do you think of switching Trust growth from scenes-to-scene to chapter-to-chapter in general? What about this idea: Trust starts at 2, per normal rules. Then, at the start of each chapter, players have the option of raising their Trust levels or not (simliar to the old rules). At the start of each scene, players can award each other any number of points up to a maximum of their current Trust level (which they decided at the start of the chapter).

I strongly recommend that the Trust that character A holds for character B may be used as a bonus, by character B whenever he or she does something awful to character A.

I've been thinking about this, but wasn't sure I wanted to put it in the IGC version. I think I may test it out during my next playtest (DemonCon, maybe?). Question about what you were thinking: If Character B gets to use his Trust as an "awful-thing" bonus against char A, would char A get a to use his Trust as defense bonus? Probably not, because the 2 bonuses would probably cancel each other. But how often would the player get to use this "awful" bonus? Just once, or everytime the player does something "awful?" Also, how do you qualify something as "awful?"

I think the Zodiac-ing of the Trust levels, in terms of maxima and so forth, adds a bunch of potentially annoying bookkeeping with no identifiable benefit. I suggest replacing it with the old bonuses from the original character sheets, but have them apply to the beginning of each chapter (default Trust at the start = 2).

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but essentially that's what I've done. You have the neutral progression, starting at 2, which then going up by 1 each chapter (2, 3, 4, 5). The old Zodiac "bonuses" are then added to the neutral progresion. Ally = +1 (3, 4, 5, 6) Enemy = -2 (0, 1, 2, 3).

As for your claim that if a character "truly" turns against the party, then I think I would very much want to have Trust in him, by the old rules, because it allows me to mess with that player's narrations.

I've done a bit more thinking about this. I hear what you'r hearing saying, but follow me: the benefit in dropping Trust exists not for the betrayed character, but for the betraying character. You can't influence another character unless that character's owner gives you Trust. Thus, if I was planning on betraying another character, I would withhold giving that player any Trust, while simultaneously taking the Trust points from that character. I could continue to influence him, but he wouldn't be able to influence me. (Such a move would obviously broadcast the intention to other players, however.)

However, I admit it's yet to be seen if players would actually do this. It'll take some more playtesting to find out. At this point, I want to keep the possibility open for a player to drop their Trust, but I also want the player to be easily 'reinstated' Trust-wise, if desired.

Fate stuff... "Desperately in love"...

It's definitely interesting. But what about this situation: Char A decides their character will fall in love with Char B. Char B decides they will love them back. Now what? How does that violate the shared intent to attack the Witch? Maybe I'm not fully understanding your suggestion, is it neccessarily that this love be self-destructive?

Combat and IIEE stuff
Are you sure the "team" thing is necessary?

Maybe the 'team' thing is just me wanting to add more jargon that only I understand (I have tendency towards that). The 'team' thing is an extension of the 'contributing'/aiding system that's already in place. Remember, I have 2 mechanics for helping out, 'contributing,' which doesn't use Trust, and 'aiding,' which does use Trust.

The 'team' thing prevents 2 characters who both want to attack the same opponent, but don't want to use Trust, from getting 2 seperate attacks on the enemy. One of the 2 characters would be forced to 'contribute,' which may create a penalty or a bonus to the other's roll. If I allow the characters to make seperate attacks, I wonder if anyone would want to try the 'contributing' option, since 'contributing' can be risky.

But I admit I wonder if it's neccessary to cling to the whole 'contributing' thing. I don't know if players would ever choose that option if given the choice.

Anyway, here's an example of a battle using the rules in the new revision:

Code Select Expand

-Char A wants to attack the Tengu
-Char B wants to attack the Tengu
-Char C wants to attack the Tengu

-The Tengu will attack whomever
-The Oni wants to attack Char C specifically.
-Char A & B will attack the tengu together (whether or not they explicitly want to work together). They can either aid each other (Trust) or one of them can 'contribute' to the other's roll (no Trust).
-Because the Oni wants to attack Char C specifically, Char C but break away from the other 2 characters and fight the Oni alone.