[ORX] More About Points

[greyorm]

Ron has his hands on a copy of Orx, and he and I were talking about it the other day...you know, that thing where you flap your lips at one another and make meaningful sounds?

A couple of points came up during the discussion; one of those was that the current "point" of the game isn't much of one. Currently, the point is to survive the longest. You get bragging rights, basically, but nothing mechanically rewards you to achieve this.

In fact, mechanically, you're better off dying before everyone else and using the new orc you create to take advantage of the weaknesses and injuries the others have sustained. This makes the stated point of play worthless, since it is actually not in your best interests to survive the longest.

One of the solutions we discussed was making orc death and screwing the other players over with your up-and-coming orcy a part of the game, somehow. But after some thought, I'm not liking it: as a solution or as a practice. I really do want "survive the longest" to matter in a "I won the game, sucka!" sense. I don't want to encourage players to kill their orcs off, even though all orcs are doomed to die anyways.

And that's probably why I don't like the idea, come to think of it: giving the "ok" to orc-death really dilutes the idea of an ultimately futile but necessary struggle against doom, which the current mechanics (and definitely the text) attempt to imply and focus on.

To facillitate the idea "orc death is bad," I was thinking of some sort of point-system, where you get points for living. These points can't be used for anything (though perhaps they should be?), but if your orc dies, you lose either X-amount or all of those points. I don't know how well that will work in practice, though, and I don't know if I like adding YAST (Yet Another Score to Track). Besides, to a certain extent, Loot fulfills that sort of score-keeping function already.

How's that? Well, at the end of a session, your orc gains an amount of Loot equal to the number of times he zeroed a Stat during that session (and survived, obviously) -- "zeroing" is total injury to a Stat, the only situation where the gamemaster gets to roll dice to see if your orc actually dies -- and Loot can be kept to cancel out a certain amount of doom hanging over the orc (called "Fate"), or spent to gain free, one-time die bonuses. Either way, having it is beneficial to the orc.

Also, this may or may not be important to my problem, but Loot doesn't transfer from your dead orc to your live orc: it's all gone when you're done. Even the other players can't get it (well, unless they stole it from your orc when he was alive).

So, something that supports the idea of you wanting your orc to survive the longest, and makes your orc's death a result you want to avoid. Any ideas out there? Need more details?

Now, what really gets me about this situation is that a number of days ago, I thought of something that would have worked just great, and solved my problem. I promptly failed to write it down, meaning to do so later, and after two exhausting days of chasing children around the house I'd forgotten what it was. Color me annoyed and frustrated. I'm hoping someone will post an idea that may spark my memory...so post whatever, no matter how inane it might seem. As far as I know, my idea might have been pretty inane...I don't know, I can't remember.

...

Tangent on the topic: Oddly enough, there's this joke in Orx about points...you know, pointy points, the potentially painful kind, and how everything you need to play the game is pointy (pencils, dice, paper, friends, etc)...and here we are talking about "points" ie: details and "points" ie: scores and "points" ie: meanings...ok, maybe I'm the only one who finds that amusing, and maybe that's only because it's 2:30am. But I didn't mean for there to be a joke about it, yet here I am with all these points.

[quozl]

Is player elimination unacceptable?

[greyorm]

Not necessarily. But player elimination is one of those things that requires something for other members of the group to do.

Orx is not meant as a one-shot, one-night gaming experience. Loot, after all, only comes into play after the first session is over. That makes player elimination as an option rather problematic.

[Eric Provost]

Grey,

While I know only the tinyest bit about Orx from a handful of posts here at the Forge, a few things came to mind immediately;

The Snowball Berserker Bloodlust Effect.  What if during the conflict the Orcs get stonger?  As in, every swing makes them stronger, or every foe that drops makes them more wild.  This effect would wear off after battle, but it would mean that the new guys that are brought into battle due to the death of the player's previous character are at a disadvantage.  I suppose one could sum this up by saying that, just because an Orc is close to death, that dosen't make it easier to kill.

or

Somewhat like you'd mentioned in your initial post...

A Bonus for a Single Orc.  This kinda branches out into two paths in my mind.  The Pre-Battle Bonus, and the Post-Battle Bonus.  The Pre-Battle Bonus would strictly affect the Orc's chances to survive the battle at hand.  It would be presented to all the Orcs entering battle at the beginning of the battle, but would not be presented to Orcs joining the battle later.  The Post-Battle Bonus would be presented if the Orc you end the battle with is the same Orc you started the battle with.

Hope that sparks ya' a bit.

-Eric

[greyorm]

Heya Eric,

Thanks for the post!

The bizzare thing about your suggestions, at least the first one, is that I've already implemented it. You're actually describing Fate: the closer to death you get, the nastier you get.

You gain Fate by borrowing dice from the gamemaster, in case you're worried that your measley d4 is just not going to cut it on that next roll. You can then use the Fate you just gained to improve or gain abilities..."using Fate" doesn't reduce your actual score, but imagine having gained enough Fate to have brought all your Stats up to d20? And being able to roll five or six dice on your turn and picking the best number. You are the orc-god.

Fate is a bad thing to have lots of, though, because it means when you finally are brought low (by zeroing one of your Stats -- and that might be tough given how much of a badass your orc would be at that point), it's really easy for the gamemaster's roll kill you (he has to roll under your Fate score).

Fate is sort of mitigated by injuries: truly bad injuries done to your orc result in a permanent loss from your Stats, or the loss of one of your signature traits. So some of what you'll be buying with Fate will be things you're just buying back, rather than increases or improvements.

A Bonus for a Single Orc.  This kinda branches out into two paths in my mind.  The Pre-Battle Bonus, and the Post-Battle Bonus.  The Pre-Battle Bonus would strictly affect the Orc's chances to survive the battle at hand.  It would be presented to all the Orcs entering battle at the beginning of the battle, but would not be presented to Orcs joining the battle later.  The Post-Battle Bonus would be presented if the Orc you end the battle with is the same Orc you started the battle with.

Hrm...interesting idea. It would have to be taken out of the context of "battles" though -- there's nothing different between trying to convince a guard to let you through a gate with threats or bribery and beating the stuffing out of him and eating him for supper.

Hrm...how about bonus dice of some sort for building your orc? Well, wait, that's sort of Loot...you survive a session, you get Loot (which negates Fate, or can be spent for one-shot rerolls). Orcs starting the game next session don't get that.

What about penalty dice for building an orc?
Your first orc died...you don't get as many dice to build the next one?
Or...oh wow...how about: the more powerful your last orc was, the less powerful your new orc is!? So you build up an orc and you WANT to keep him alive as long as possible, or you're hosed with a cripple the next time around.

(Defintion: more powerful = higher Fate score and more Loot (both unspent and retained in the form of unused one-shot rerolls).)

What does everyone think about that?

[ErrathofKosh]

It sounds like you could implement a reincarnation mechanic, i.e., whatever your orc does in life, no matter if it affects his current stats, would somehow reflect on your next orc's abilities, characteristics, etc.

[greyorm]

It sounds like you could implement a reincarnation mechanic, i.e., whatever your orc does in life, no matter if it affects his current stats, would somehow reflect on your next orc's abilities, characteristics, etc.

That's precisely what I'm thinking now: except it will be sort of a reverse reincarnation mechanic, in that the better your orc does in this life, the worse-off your orc will be in the next (as above).

Hrm...interesting. Every orc you make is a reincarnated version of your last orc? Well, probably not the time to start dropping weird extras like that into the rules at this point. Web-page errata or modificiation ideas.

[ErrathofKosh]

Hrm...interesting. Every orc you make is a reincarnated version of your last orc? Well, probably not the time to start dropping weird extras like that into the rules at this point. Web-page errata or modificiation ideas.

It may be a weird extra, but why not putting it in as an optional idea for the GM?  Or, maybe, it would be an interesting idea for a new game...

BTW, where can I see this game?  It sounds intriguing.

[ErrathofKosh]

BTW, where can I see this game? It sounds intriguing

.

Sorry, just noticed the link in your signature.

[greyorm]

BTW, where can I see this game?  It sounds intriguing.

Thanks! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me or just ask here! Also, if you have any interest in trying the game out, I can put something together on IRC in the Indie-Netgaming chatroom fairly quick.

[Jack Aidley]

Hi Ravenscrye,

Sorry I missed this thread when it first appeared, 'twas on holiday.

I have two thoughts:

1. I doubt you need any penalty for dying. Players almost universally dislike character death anyway.

2. I love your more powerful at death, weaker in creation idea. The Orks themselves should know about it though, as part of whatever passes for religion among them. And I'd love to see it specifically endorsed as reincarnation with 'new' Orks emerging fully formed from cacoons or summit' rather than being born. I think that'd be cool.

[greyorm]

Heya Jack,

#1 is true, though since this is a Gamist design, current character death isn't a big deal if there's benefit to be had in it. What I want to do is reduce the benefit.

#2 is definitely going to be added. At the moment I'm trying to work out a simple scale for power-to-reduction. You're right about the color text (how that will be reflected in orcish culture), it just needs to be dropped in at the section that mentions making new orcs.

As to how orcs come about, that's already customizable for each group. Slimy pods, regular babies, or warty sprouts falling off the parent, degenerate breeding progroms, whatever! It's all good...er, bad...er, gross.

Thanks for your thoughts!

[Jack Aidley]

Hi Grey,

As to how orcs come about, that's already customizable for each group. Slimy pods, regular babies, or warty sprouts falling off the parent, degenerate breeding progroms, whatever! It's all good...er, bad...er, gross.

Yeah I remember that section from the text. Thing is though, if you want players to be playing the reincarnation of their characters then they better be ready real quick.