Seeking general idea feedback (Long)

[wyrdlyng]

Note: My thoughts whirl about me like a psychokinetic storm. Please let me know if I'm not making any sense. Everything is a work in progress.

I have the basic elements of a game that I have been compiling for some time. The PCs are agents of an organization dedicated to protecting "reality" from forces of Chaos and Entropy. Now allow me to elaborate.

The cosmology of this setting is like band going from Potential to Negation.

Potential-->Dream-->Reality-->Nightmare-->Negation

Potential is a realm filled with energies which allow for any possibility to occur. If you think it, it can happen. In this realm is the sheltered base used by the PCs and the organization that they work for.

The Dream realm lies between Potential and Reality. Sleepers touch this realm and shape the potential energy with their unconscious thoughts. Hopes, ideals, and fantasies are formed here.

Reality is based around the world we know. There exists a Prime Universe which is perfectly balanced between Potential and Negation. There are also near infinite parallel universes which are affected to varying degrees by either Potential or Negation. PCs come from this realm from any possible alternate universe.

The Nightmare realm lies between Reality and Negation. Sleepers also touch this realm however the more destructive energies tend to distort dreams and turn them into nightmares. Dark impulses and perverse fantasies exist here.

Negation is not truly a void. It is filled with the destructive energies of Chaos and Entropy. Everything breaks down and is destroyed here. Located in this realm is the sheltered base of the PCs direct opposition.

Both Potential and Negation have points/barriers beyond which exist pure energy and absolute nothingness, respectively.

PCs are people/aliens/"whatever you want" selected by the forces dedicated to keeping Reality from being corrupted or destroyed by the forces from Negation. They are chosen for their dedication and/or will and altered to be allowed to exist outside of Reality (not an easy thing).

Adventure ideas revolve around foiling the agents of Negation, deal with nightmares and dreams which have escaped into Reality, and preserve the balance of the two forces in the Prime Universe (the Prime Universe being the fulcrum upon which Potential and Negation balance).

Other story ideas can range from learning more about the reclusive council which governs the agency the PCs work for, to dealing with their own dreams and nightmares made manifest, to dealing with "local" problems on parallel realities or struggling with the inability to relate with people from your former homeworld.

As I said PCs can potentially be from Earth as well as alien worlds. However, in the big scheme, individual alien abilities don't mean as much outside of Reality. The BIG determinant is Willpower, the ability to focus your energy into yourself and preserve your sense of identity in the face of mutable or destructive environments.

So there's the premise. I just need to nail down some specifics.

I don't have any mechanics nailed down yet. As the settings are highly mutable and I lean towards lite games I'm thinking about going with some simple, generalized traits with "offbeat" traits playing a larger role. Sample traits:

- Willpower/Focus: what allows you to preserve yourself when travelling outside of Reality. (All PCs will have a minimum rating in this which seperates them from Reality's inhabitants.)

- Creativity: lets you shape Potential and Dream.

- Brawn: physical size and might.

- Speed: how fast you think and move.

- Empathy: lets you relate to the inhabitants of Reality.

I don't have a rating system or dice mechanics system in mind yet. However, I was toying with the idea of differing probability ranges depending on which realm you were in. Luck and chance would have a much larger role in Potential and Dream, Reality would fall into something resembling a bell curve, and Nightmare and Negation would have a small range of probability thus focusing more on the individual's skills/traits. Any thoughts on this last idea would be welcome as I'm not an expert on probability spreads for dice rolls.

This is more or less what I have distilled so far. There's more but I don't want to flood this post (too much more).

Any thoughts? Does this sound interesting? Should I keep going or crawl under my futon? Any area which is unclear? Anything I missed?

As a last note some of my inspirations for this are: The Sandman comics, the Green Lantern comics, Whispering Vault (to a large extent) and others which I can't recall right now....

[Nathan]

Cool.

Yeah, I like it. :)

Finish it in two weeks and I'll play it. :)

Thanks,
Nathan

[Matt Snyder]

Adventure ideas revolve around foiling the agents of Negation, deal with nightmares and dreams which have escaped into Reality, and preserve the balance of the two forces in the Prime Universe (the Prime Universe being the fulcrum upon which Potential and Negation balance).

And therein lies your name. I say you call this game Fulcrum. Has a nice ring to it, and becomes a metaphor for the games premise -- i.e. Reality lies on the edge of a knife. Can you keep that balance while maintaining your own identity?

You've got some great ideas going here. Keep it up.

One question. If the "good guys" are fighting to preserve reality from the forces of Entropy, why does their realm exist in Potential? What I'm getting at is, wouldn't there be some elements of that Potential realm that might be as "desctructive" to reality as Entropy is. Perhaps a wild, whimsical force entity that is so fickle reality strains over constant change, even if it is creative or positive.

I guess I just see the "good guys" as the forces of balance rather than a polar opposition of creation vs. destruction. I'm probably reading too much into it, because I can see how the game champions creativity, certainly a laudable theme in RPGs!

Matt

[wyrdlyng]

And therein lies your name. I say you call this game Fulcrum. Has a nice ring to it, and becomes a metaphor for the games premise -- i.e. Reality lies on the edge of a knife. Can you keep that balance while maintaining your own identity?

I hadn't even gotten around to thinking of a name but it does work. There are a lot of "balance" issues prevalent in the game: Potential vs. Negation, Self vs. Environment, Empathy vs. Experience.

One question. If the "good guys" are fighting to preserve reality from the forces of Entropy, why does their realm exist in Potential? What I'm getting at is, wouldn't there be some elements of that Potential realm that might be as "desctructive" to reality as Entropy is. Perhaps a wild, whimsical force entity that is so fickle reality strains over constant change, even if it is creative or positive.

I guess I just see the "good guys" as the forces of balance rather than a polar opposition of creation vs. destruction. I'm probably reading too much into it, because I can see how the game champions creativity, certainly a laudable theme in RPGs!

Potential is akin to Creative Force. Too much and it does endanger Reality (that's why dealing with escapees from Dream is an issue) but in general it is not actively hostile towards Reality and its inhabitants. It's Chaos but more disturbing than dangerous until you start getting big gouts of it rushing in.

The PCs are more agents of balance than "creationists" in truth. Potential is just a less hostile place and easier for people from Reality to deal with. Throwing someone into Potential unprotected will definitely shatter their minds (and the warp them...) but it won't instantly break them down into their component atoms.

Potential is not a place to go unless you are one of the selected agents. The energy there permeates anything unprotected. Thoughts (conscious or otherwise, and they don't even have to be yours) can trigger changes in body, mind and soul. Someone without the ability or training to hold themselves together can become a shifting mess with no stable form rather quickly.

Back to your comments, yes, Creativity is an important element of the setting. Battles in Potential, Dream and Nightmare are more often than not battles of the mind rather than physical ones. I personally envision that type of combat more along the lines of the Shaping contest between Morpheus and the demon in the Sandman comics.

Battles in Potential can involve altering the surrounding area to your advantage or creating forms to battle for you. Or, for the risk-takers, allowing some of that energy to seep through your defenses and alter your physical form. (Risky because if you take in too much or lose your focus it could be VERY BAD.)

I can also see things along similar lines in Dream but also throwing in elements of distractions based upon your inner-most fantasies or desires. Temptation is strong force there.

Battles in Nightmare would be similar to Dream but facing your greatest fears and insecurities. Despair and terror would be powerful forces there.

And Negation would be the most dangerous because unprotected you begin to slip into non-existence. Memories could fade, beliefs would disappear and of course you'd begin to discorporate.

As you can see being able to "block out" things through Will/Focus is very important. Now to work on building a mechanic around all of this...

[Laurel]

I like the cosmology; I can see how everything you mentioned influenced you (just read Whispering Vault yesterday so its fresh on my mind), but I think you are also clearly in the realm of the original.  

Now that you are starting to think about mechanics, my question would be what kind of character behavior do you want to reward?  Do you want the players to be co-creating the story, do you want them to be rewarded for very dramatic, creative role-playing, solving puzzles, for building well-rounded characters, specialist characters, etc.,.  Have you considered including some kind of Karma system? (I couldn't tell by reading your posts but might have missed it)

[wyrdlyng]

Now that you are starting to think about mechanics, my question would be what kind of character behavior do you want to reward?  Do you want the players to be co-creating the story, do you want them to be rewarded for very dramatic, creative role-playing, solving puzzles, for building well-rounded characters, specialist characters, etc.,.

All of the above? :)

Okay, I'm going to have take a step back and consider this from a more objective perspective.

The characters would be acting unsupervised for the most part. Something needs to be dealt or investigated and they go off and take care of it. A large horde of agents would attract too much attention so I think smaller teams would work best.

I encourage alternative thinking and roleplaying so I'd like to reward finding non-combatitive solutions but not eliminate combat all together. And I definitely want to encourage dramatic events. I like to see players taking the reins and guiding the story and so am going to include some kind of meta-game Karma/Hero/Story/Drama Point mechanic.

There is nothing worse than a bad story because of poor fortune. The variableness of fortune keeps things uncertain but players should be able to affect fortune when it furthers the story/is dramatically appropriate.

I encourage building characters which fit a player's concept and extend beyond a simple archetype. And I definitely prefer characters with a well grounded background. Being designed for smaller groups and being somewhat general about abilities allows the characters to be more competent overall.

Characters are a cut above the norm and possess gifts/talents/technology which allows them to do things beyond the abilities of normal folks. They are on even terms against their destructive counterparts and escaped Dreams/Nightmares. Something should act to negate that advantage when dealing with apparently "normal" threats. Perhaps the actions of normals who are trying to disrupt the balance would create fields of flux (or non-Reality) which would grant them abilities on par with those of agents.

I prefer a system beyond a simple pass/fail. Degrees of success should affect the flow of the game. Simple pass/fail actions should not be rolled for if it makes sense that the character would be able to accomplish the task. My secret agenda is to have the players interpret their degree of success or failure.

Important rolls should be opposed because if it's important odds are that you are working against another active force (even the auto-effects of the Potential and Negation are actively working against you) and their is a great deal of flux when un-Real powers collide.

Crap. So much for a simple answer.

[Nathan]

I'll be the silly devil's advocate here and say:

Yikes, man!

Write the game. :)

Write the game, then ask and answer all these questions. Talk is hot air. Get the game written, then we can go back over and point out unclear stuff and weird things! :)

I'd like to play this, not talk about it. (AT LEAST YET!)

*heh*

Thanks,
Nathan Hill

[Bill_White]

This setting idea reminds me a little bit of Fritz Leiber's Change War stories, where the ineffable Spiders are fighting the inexplicable Snakes to reshape the time stream to their liking.  IIRC, neither the Spiders nor the Snakes ever show up in person; all one meets are their agents, deployed on missions to change and reshape reality.

A quick search of the Web reveals three books relating to the Change War

1 - The Big Time (1958)
2 - The Mind Spider and Other Stories (1961)  
3 - The Changewar

[Bill_White]

The Big Time is back in print, apparently.  It's a classic.  The other two collect short stories and novellas originally published in sf magazines, but they're out of print.  The Big Time is all you need to get the "feel" of the setting and cop some ideas, anyway.

Bill

[wyrdlyng]

Write the game, then ask and answer all these questions.

But all this talk IS helping me write the game. 90% of it is there swirling in my head. Trying to explain it to others helps me put that mess in an orderly fashion.

This setting idea reminds me a little bit of Fritz Leiber's Change War stories, where the ineffable Spiders are fighting the inexplicable Snakes to reshape the time stream to their liking. IIRC, neither the Spiders nor the Snakes ever show up in person; all one meets are their agents, deployed on missions to change and reshape reality.

I only knew of the Fhafhrd and Grey Mouser stories (which I am a big fan of). I'll have to check those out.

I promise to have something written for perusal soon and let you all know where to find it.

[Mike Holmes]

It reminds me a bit of Asimov's The End of Eternity, in that the players are members of a core which exists outside of normal reality, and seeks to protect it.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

This idea sounds awesome, wyrdlyng. If you ever get it to coalesce, count me in as a playtester.

As for mechanics, It seems to me that percentiles, or something similar would work well for you. Use the character's traits (modified by circumstance) to determine a "fulcrum" point which acts as the turning point between success and failure. The closer you are to that point, the more basic the success, or the more minimal the failure.

Example: Bob the Fulcrum Agent is attempting a task. His traits and situation put his center-point at 70 (on a scale of 1-100) which is pretty good. If he rolls a 30, it's a success by a margin of 40. If he rolls a 75, it's only a failure by a margin of 5.

Now, with that in mind, he might only need a certain margin to succeed. If he were trying to make a leap across a chasm in Reality (a test based on Brawn) that 40 would put him fully across, and probably still running without losing much momentum (if there's another dropoff, this could be a BAD thing) but the -5 might have him barely landing, and having to teeter a moment before gaining his balance.. A larger margin of failure might have him failing to make the jump, but managing to catch the edge with his fingers, allowing him to pull himself up.

This is just a suggestion on a game mechanic, off the top of my head. It seems to sort of, in my mind, jive with your whole concept. Take it or leave it, free of charge. Just let me know either way, eh?

[Kenway]

Very interesting stuff.
 Just a suggestion:  How about have a variation of this campaign where the PCs are either high-powered characters or, even better, people who think they're perfectly normal.  In either case, they are therefore not fully aware of the premise of the universe.  As the adventures proceed, they are slowly drawn into the "true" struggle.
 Stories where "normal" people suddenly become insanely powerful and then realize they're in over their heads when even more powerful and experienced people show up are always cool, right?