Secret & Lies

[Mario]

Well I decided to take the plunge and create a game of my own.  Here are some of the initial ideas.

Setting:
   My first thoughts were of a day after tomorrow kind of setting.  Where the players are members of any number of 3 letter organizations. Think Conspiracy Theory.

   My second thought was of a very Film Noir setting.  Nobody is ever quite what they seem.  Think Maltese Falcon, D.O.A. and many others.

I'm kind of liking the second setting, but I'm not sure how well it will work.


System.

Every character has only 3 traits,  Truth, Secrets, Lies.
These start at 2 and the player gets 9 points to spread out among them.  With a max of 7.

The basic die mechanic is roll 1d10, if its equal to or under your trait you succeed.

For each point of Truth you have, you create two, for lack of a better word, Descriptors.  You will have one Positive and one Negative.  These can be anything you want, they are what describes your character.  Positive: Martial arts expert, Secret Service Agent, Chess champion.  Negative: Have no depth perception, Having an affair with the presidents wife, Never uses the Castle.  These can't contradict each other, but they can be related or not. The GM gets final say, just to keep it within reason. No gods allowed.

All Descriptors should be kept secret from the other players. More on this latter.

Whenever you want to attempt any action you choose which trait you want to use.  There is no limit to what you can do.  If you want to shot someone at 5000 paces and only scratch their check you can try.  Or if you want to do something magical, even if magic doesn't exist, if you succeed it happens, if not it doesn't that simple.  There is no need to explain why you can do something.  If you are attempting something that relates to one of your positive Descriptors, you may add +2 to your roll. Because if what your doing is noticed by a player or NPC, they may be able to use the Descriptor against you.  More on that latter.

Every time you use a trait something happens based on that trait.

Whenever you use the Lies trait, it goes down by one point.  Lies never last, with the amount of lies you tell, you can't remember every little detail and keep all the stories straight.

Whenever you use the Truth trait, your Secrets go down by one point.  By admitting to the truth, you never need to keep secrets.

Whenever you use the Secrets trait, your Lies go up one point.  The more secrets you keep the more you must lie about them to keep them safe.

If either Secrets or Lies gets to zero you may not use that trait.  If your Secrets are zero and you use the Truth trait you must reveal one Negative and Positive Descriptor.  If  all your Descriptors are known, then you are a sitting duck.  You have no protection, Nobody will help you, Everybody will be out to get you, you are a liability.  Basically the GM has the full power to make your death as gruesome and horrible an experience he can come up with.


Descriptors are used to Build Tension in a scene.  Whenever the GM initiates a scene,"While searching the market, You notice a man in a black robe following you", any player, that isn't involved with the scene and knows one of your Descriptors, can take over and narrate the build up of the scene.  The narrating player can use the Descriptor either for or against the acting player.  For example they could steer the scene into a situation where the acting player can't use any Marital arts.  When Building Tension a player can not kill or harm the acting player, he should just set up an interesting situation, though not easy, for the acting player to get out of.  The second part to a scene is the Resolution.  When the acting player makes his roll, the outcome will decide who can narrate the rest of the scene.  If the player succeeds he can narrate, if he fails, the GM narrates.


That's about it for now.  I seeing a Gamist mechanic but with a Narrativist goal, for you GNS types.

Let me have it, I'm ready for the tomatos.

Mario

[Valamir]

The concept is intrigueing.  But if I use my Lies and Lies go down and use my Secrets and Lies go up, why would I ever use Truth.  I'd just keep pumping Secrets until my Lies got really high.  Then I'd pump Lies a few times.  Then I'd go back to Secrets to keep Lies high.  If I keep using Secrets Lies never hits 0.  If I never use Truth Secrets never hit 0.

Shouldn't this be more of a round robin thing?

[Mario]

Your right, I have a couple of ideas on how to pervent this, but none of them are solid at the moment.  I don't mind that Lies and Secrets will be used most often I like the back and forth of them. Thats also kind of the point, Truth should be the last choice generally.

I'm trying to avoid a round robin type of game,  I want it to be a traditional style rpg but with interesting mechanics and goals.  I also never really liked the round robin thing.

Mario

[Dav]

Mario:

What if Truth held some triggering constraint.  When confronted with this constraint, the person must use Truth to fulfill any rolls involving that constraint.  

Some examples of constraints may be:  when drinking, when interacting intimately with members of the opposite sex, when interacting with agents of the law, and so on.

This would give the agents a fatal flaw (like James Bond and his women) and motivate use of Truth.  Or, alternatively, make successful uses of Truth more impacting (similar to Monologues of Victory in Pool).  

Just two suggestions.

Dav

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mario,

I've been looking forward to this for a while.

Here's my suggestion - keep the Lies + Secrets "reinforcing power" as it is, such that Secrets give Lies power, but give Truth an extra "punch" - applied Truth, in action, has a destructive effect on Secrets. However, in terms of getting stuff done during play, it is not as effective as Lies.

So it comes down to those who have no Secrets being less effective day to day, but being very powerful against Liars, whereas Liars are more effective day to day but being at more risk. I strongly suggest that the Situation of play make Lies very necessary - I like this, it means that the Truth tends to be like a flamethrower, a big weapon with low focus, that stops one's opponent but also might destroy the desired goal as well.

GNS babble: your whole deal is thoroughgoing Narrativist, no Gamism in sight. Managing resources and conflicting scores is not, in and of itself, Gamism.

Best,
Ron

[Valamir]

I'm trying to avoid a round robin type of game,  I want it to be a traditional style rpg but with interesting mechanics and goals.  I also never really liked the round robin thing.

Sorry, wasn't clear.  I didn't mean round robin play style.  Rather a truth effect secrets, secrets effect lies, and lies effect truth kind of circular thing.

Or Ron's suggestion could work too.  Point being there has to be some reason that I want to use truth and something preventing me from simply reinforcing lies and secrets indefinitely.

[Mike Holmes]

Yes, like Ron and Ralph point out a balance is good. But keep it asymetrically balanced. different forces pushing each way (like Ron and Dav's suggestions). The circular thing is too simple, and the permutations are too intuitive. The results of the system will become too obvious after a while. An asymetrical system will probably offer many more interesting combinations of mechanical conflict.

Mike

[Mario]

Dav,

Thats kind of what I was going for with the Descriptors, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to tie them to a particular trait.  I will have to think more on this.

Ron,

Perhaps a little more restriction on when and in what situations certain traits could be used.

GNS babble; I was thinking of the competitiveness that could arise out of the players trying to use another players descriptors against them.

Valamir

I see, I thought of that, then I decided that I wanted truth to unaffectable.  Truth is the only constant, you can manipulate or enhance a truth but you can never take it away.

There does need to be something that makes truth more useful, but not overpowering.  I kind of see a priority in the use of the traits, Lies, Secrets, then Truth.  How about a failure penalty. something like

use...
....lies, lies goes down 1; Fail using lies it goes down 1 more.
....secrets, lies goes up 1; Fail using secrets, secrets goes down 1.
....truth, secrets & lies goes up 1; Fail using truth a descriptor must be revealed.

Does this make truth worth a little more just in this sense.

Mario

[unodiablo]

Or you could do what Ron's doing with the Stats in TrollBabe... Have Lies & Truth be the same number, roll over for Truth, under for Lies, or vice versa... That way when your Truth increases, it decreases your Lies, or as you Lie more, it decreases your Truth. That's right in with the genre or premise you're talking about - 'he's as honest as a Boy Scout!', 'she lies like a rug, so I couldn't believe a word the dame was saying...'.

Sean

[Ron Edwards]

Mario,

Some key movie references:

Your Friends and Neighbors
The Boiler Room
House of Games
Choose Me
Rashomon
The Usual Suspects
Grifters

Plenty of others possible, too.

Best,
Ron