[MFUC] Mechanical ideas.

[Clyde L. Rhoer]

So I've got a thread about the initial ideas for setting and situation for My Fucked Up Childhood right here.

Here's the few mechanical ideas I have so far. I'd like criticism on if they seem like they might push towards my goal of having players create and face harsh situations like rape, molestation, or other abuse. Let's start with the player characters statistics and combat resolution. They have some control over reality, so there won't be things like strength or agility. The question won't be if they can kick the door down but how much they want the door down. I'm seeing three main characteristics Pain, Rage, and Empowerment. Characteristics will be some number of dice (1 for right now). The type of dice will change. So a d6 may change to a d4 or a d8. Resolution will be Conflict resolution, with the winner getting narration rights which are constrained by whether they bid Pain or Rage.

Pain is used to endure and accept. The more you have been hurt in your past the easier it is for you to have the strength to weather new hardships. Pain will go up in die type when you lose a challenge where you bid Pain. Your past was not enough to inure you to this new trauma. Pain will go down in die type when you win a challenge where you bid Pain. Your past trials must have been to teach you the lesson you learned. Basically Pain is used when you don't set counterstakes, but you are negating some one Else's stakes.

Rage is used to force the universe to change to the desires of the person using rage. The more you use rage the easier it is to force the universe to your design. If you only knew the power of the dark side. Anyway... Rage will go up in die type when you win a challenge, and will go down in die type when you lose a challenge. Rage is used for setting stakes.

Empowerment is a bad name but it will work for now. Empowerment determines the strength of NPC's you create in the game.  It only comes into play if those NPC's are used in conflict resolution. Otherwise there is no need for them to have stats. If the NPC works against your character then the die type will increase. If the NPC doesn't oppose your character then the die type will decrease. Yes this does mean you could potentially pump up Pain and Empowerment at the same time. I'm going to wait for playtesting to see how that develops.

To complicate the raising and lowering there will be something like a hierarchy of sins. For example lets imagine that the scale of the game is d4's to d12's. Let's say the player has a Pain of d8. d10 might be set at rape or higher. So for the player to to move from d8 Pain to d10 pain they would need to lose a challenge dealing with rape or something higher on the hierarchy.

The last rule I've been thinking about is the Fade to Black. This lets any player basically fade an uncomfortable scene to black. I'm unsure how to deal with it mechanically at this point.

I'm also planning on having dice for different flags that haven't all been determined, but one will be secrets.

What I'm hoping from this thread is general criticism about the soundness or unsoundness of how these pieces sound, and any ideas to make them better.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Clyde,

You're so ready for playtesting, I dunno what to say. Any notions about working or not working, at this point, would be speculation. I'm looking forward to reading about playtesting and to trying it out myself once you get it further along.

Best, Ron