[ENOCH] Belated Power 19

[ChadDubya]

Hi Gang,

Here is my much belated Power 19 (although had I done it earlier, I would have been talking about a less complete, less interesting game). FYI, ENOCH can be downloaded for free @ www.enochrpg.com/wiki (I recommend downloading the Print-Friendly Version, it contains the most current rules, including dramatic rules not found in the PDF).

Here goes:

1.) What is your game about?

ENOCH is a post-apocalyptic RPG with a mythical twist, where Mad Max meets William Blake. ENOCH is not about the fall of man, it is about his triumphant second chance in a vengeful world that has not forgotten his sins.

2.) What do the characters do?

Characters in ENOCH are rebels. Tragic events have transformed them from mundane to mythic. Not only do they act to change the world around them, but during the malleable age of a Second Genesis, their actions will resonate through time. Their trials will be legendary, for ENOCH is a world of dangerous locales, monstrous foes, and a machine Hell thriving underground.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?

ENOCH is a traditional role-playing game, complete with PCs, NPCs, EXP, and a GM. Players control the PCs, the protagonists of a story narrated by the GM.

4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

At its core, ENOCH is a science-fiction setting viewed through fantasy lenses. The world as we know it ended 1000 years ago. However, the details of that event have been lost, or warped by speculation or superstition. Treading into the wilderness outside of your character's village, science and spirit begin to blur.

ENOCH is about heroic stories during a second Genesis. Mankind faces nature's wrath, ancient machines, and the lawlessness of shattered civilization. Meric, ENOCH's stock setting is a sand-box setting ripe with moral conflicts, coming war, and factions that are as heroic as they are barbaric. In Meric, man positions himself to reenact The Fall. The PCs in ENOCH have a choice: rage against this fate, or ride it out.

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?

Before players begin to allocate points to construct their PCs, they are asked to define important aspects of their PC, including their Breaking Point and Vow. A PC's Breaking Point is a tragic and violent event that shattered their world and propelled them into action. A PC's Vow is a promise or oath they make to right the wrongs that led to their breaking point.

When game events resemble a PC's Breaking Point, they have the choice of either embracing or bottling their rage. Both choices have different mechanical and narrative consequences. As far as Vow goes, PC's are rewarded extra EXP for pursuing it, by following clues to its completion or acting in accordance to it. Not only do Breaking Point and Vow add drama and complications to story, they define from the beginning how a PC will behave in the world of Enoch, and what their true motivations are.

6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

ENOCH is meant to be played as a sand-box setting, and a moral playground. GMs are encouraged not only challenge the PCs through conventional means (dungeons, creatures, villains), but also by building scenarios that directly challenge PC Vows and simulate PC Breaking Points, resulting in a barrage of difficult choices for the PCs to make.
Additionally, PCs are encouraged to do heroic deeds, because their actions will be reflected in the world around them. If they choose to do evil, the world will follow suit. This effect, here called Resonance, is described in the next answer.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

While Breaking Point and Vow will help dictate what choices the PCs make, the consequences of those choices will be reflected in the world around them. This is done through the Chorus of Children. Any child in the setting may be asked to sing of the PCs exploits, and this song will tell of Triumphs and Tragedies.

Both triumphs and tragedies are forms of moral currency that accumulate. Triumphs can be spent by players to activate dramatic events that aid the PCs, such as timely help from a powerful hero, or an all out rebellion within an enemy faction. Tragedies, however, are spent by the GM to activate dramatic events that hinder the PCS, such as interference from a powerful villain, or a catastrophe, natural or otherwise, that cripples an allied faction.

PC actions determine triumphs and tragedies. When they act heroically (saving the meek, granting mercy to their enemies) they accumulate triumphs. When they act evilly (harming the innocent, killing for gain) they accumulate tragedies.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?

Repeating the answer to Question 3): ENOCH is a traditional role-playing game, complete with PCs, NPCs, EXP, and a GM. Players control the PCs, the protagonists of a story narrated by the GM. Breaking from this dynamic slightly, is the ability of players to activate dramatic effects by spending accumulated triumphs.

9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)

ENOCH is a cruel world, and the PCs will be surrounded by suffering. Because civilization is being rebuilt from ground up, players, through their PCs, participate in setting the rules for the new world. ENOCH is not about saving the world, but molding the future. The exploits of the PCs will be the tales of a "future Bible" by which all civilization will adhere to.
EXP rewards for following Vows, the temptation to commit heinous violence during Rage, and the consequences of good and evil actions manifesting in ways as extreme as natural disaster all serve to keep the players engaged.

However, even if players choose to be oblivious to the moral tempest raging about them, ENOCH has extremely simple mechanics and gives the players the ability to activate awesome powers by spending resources (in the form of Fatigue). Combat is highly tactical, and risk-based. Character options are loose enough to create any type of character, while the powers are familiar enough that characters can find a party-niche.

In short, ENOCH can be considered a "dungeon-crawl with a conscience."

10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?

PCs in ENOCH are defined by Spheres: broad categories of human ability and experience. The basic resolution mechanic involves adding together two Spheres, and rolling a D20 equal to or less than the sum. There are rules for varying difficulties and opposed actions, but they are all built around this very simple equation.

11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

Two main ideas guided our construction of The Sphere System. 1) Mechanics had to be very simple and very fast so that the emphasis of ENOCH was story and drama, and 2) Mechanics had to pay homage to the tried-and-true meme of "chucking dice and killing stuff." Ultimately, I feel that both of these ideas have been properly addressed. The basic resolution mechanic is extremely fast (and intuitive, IMHO), but customization options and character growth have enough depth to keep an ardent gamist happy.

12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Characters earn EXP and spend it in between game sessions to improve their character. EXP is earned in conventional ways, but is also accumulated through significant story events, such as finally fulfilling a Vow, or completing an Ordeal (a rite of passage required to unlock powerful abilities).

Advancement can also be gauged by the PC party's moral score of Triumphs and Tragedies, as well as the accumulation of old technology, sacred relics, and pre-Fall knowledge.

13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

Repeating part of the answer to Question 2): Characters in ENOCH are rebels. Rebels will be described as allegory in a "future Bible." ENOCH is their story of the transformation from mundane to mythic. Talents available to beginning characters are powerful, but mundane. Talents available to advanced characters seem to others as biblical in scope.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

This is my goal: that for every scene of compelling drama, there is at least one cheer or High Five when a PC lands a Death Blow on a creature. Despite all the hope and dread and pathos that define the ENOCH world, unapologetically, this is a game. I hope it may provide some new scenery, new perspectives on Sci-Fi, and a new dramatic/moral flair to your dungeon crawls and treks though post-apocalyptic Hellscapes. Game on.

15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

While combat gets thorough treatment in ENOCH (as violence is an inescapable reality of the game's setting), I wouldn't say it steals the show by any means. In all honestly, I would have to refer this question to an outsider, because as I see it, I have heavily developed every aspect of this game that I bothered to include: from Hacking-as-Sorcery, to the scientific origins of mythological beasts, to player motivations, it's all there.

16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

Sorcery jumps out as one of the freshest aspects of the ENOCH world. Before the Fall, man interacted with Demons (Computers) through Sig, the demon's tongue (a gestural interface). Sorcerers are those who know Sig. To command demons (such as fire doors, rail cars, or HK drones), a sorcerer gestures a glyph (Command Phrase) to them.

Powerful demons known as Overseers lord over sectors of Hell (an ancient underground railroad that spans thousands of miles). Overseers control these sectors though an army of imps (spider automata, sensors, and surveillance cameras) and can see all. Hell is extremely dangerous to mortals. However, a sorcerer who finds the Overseer's Shrine (Terminal) can enter communion (VR Session) there and communicate with the demon (who in VR manifests itself as a god or mythological creature).

Consistent with the rest of the ENOCH mythos, this is a science fiction trope viewed through fantasy lenses. ENOCH is chock-full of horrifying fantasy elements, all given a proper science fiction treatment.

17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

ENOCH adds moral questions and dramatic motivations to the D&D tropes of dungeon crawls and setting exploration. These facets are enforced through game mechanics, and are deeply ingrained into the playing experience.

18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?

I wish for ENOCH to remain a free game and an open setting, though I could foresee developing a special hard copy version for hardcore fans (though the core rules seem to be in constant development).

Ultimately, I hope to construct an elaborate Wiki where end-users (not me) can begin to define the ENOCH world. I have claimed a tiny part of the ENOCH world, but there is still an entire globe to populate.

19.) Who is your target audience?

The first and most obvious group of gamers I have made ENOCH for are people who are interested in the post-apocalyptic. I have been inspired by Mad Max and the Fall Out series, and while ENOCH delves much further into the realm of the fantastic and mythological, it is not hard to recognize how these series have influenced my work.

Additionally, I hope that ENOCH can be a "gateway game" of sorts. That it can be used to introduce serious, emotive elements to dice-chuckin' dungeon-crawlers, AS WELL AS, reminding serious gaming-as-Art storytellers the intense pleasure of Leveling Up.

[Conteur]

It seems a great game but there is some points I'm not sure about:
-Is there is no magic in the true sense? (like Psionism in many Sci-Fi)
-If I have two Spheres at ten, how can I miss? (is there penalties involved for flanking, upper ground, unwashed (for Diplomacy) and the like...)
-Players must always play the good guy? They are penalized when they do something evil? It's very hard to define evilness these days...(how can a 20th level Fighter be good when he has hundreds of corpses at his feet?)
-Can we download the .doc more easily? (I was sent 18 window pop-up when I clicked, computer overload, end of the story.)

Ok. That's all for now. I will read your PDF now.
Patrick

[ChadDubya]

Patrick,

Thanks for taking a look!

Addressing your concerns:
-No, there is no magic in the true sense in ENOCH, although many possible effects seem quite magical to the world's denizens (for instance, a Sorcerer gestures a glyph and a demon follows its command). In that sense, there is no difference if magic exists or not.

-With two Spheres at ten (hard to acheive), you will never fail any easy or average unopposed roles, while Difficult and Very Difficult unopposed roles with have a 75% and 50% success rate respectively. Opposed roles (Character A attacks/seduces/intimidates/sneaks-past Character B) are modified by the defender's Saves (derivative of Spheres), so they are never a sure thing (unless the defender is sleeping or Helpless).

-Yes, ENOCH is a heroic game, and players are encouraged to play the good guy (which is also enforced by dramatic mechanics). Players can still be bad, of course, but a sort of karmic effect will resonate from their actions, and likely manifest in something big and ugly later on. In fact, when offered the Chance to rage, if PCs accept, they become extremely powerful... however, the effects of their rage will spark the Breaking Point of an NPC rebel, who will likely take the Vow of avenging his fallen comrades, to the dismay of the PCs. ENOCH is about the nature of cyclical violence, among other things.

-I totally apologize for how obnoxious it is to download both the PDF and the DOC at this point. I will be working on this in the next few days and should have it pop-up free and smooth. PM me if you would like me to send you the DOC... the DOC is the complete game, the PDF is an antiquated first-run (despite the full illustrations and flavor test).

[Mikael]

To sort of reiterate Conteur's question from a slightly different viewpoint: your game places some emphasis on forcing moral choices on the characters (really, the players), and the players are rewarded/punished accordingly. Who decides whether something they have done is heroic or evil? I am guessing the GM, and in most cases it is probably a clear-cut case anyway, but it is the more unclear cases that are really interesting, and having the GM be the sole arbiter can easily lead to unnecessary tension between the players. Do you have or have you considered a method of letting the players judge themselves? This could perhaps be proactive: "if you use this power, it will be evil, regardless of effect", and vice versa. This could lead to some interesting player-internal thought processes, if they are rewarded for something that they did that was "good" according to the mechanics, but clearly in the morally grey zone for most of us.

[Mikael]

Or... Maybe to really affect the karmic balance, you need to something that is above a certain power level. And whenever you use such a power, you perform a sort of a collective blind vote on the morality of the whole thing. The results of the voting are two-fold: your character gets rewarded/punished based on your assessment, but you also get a moral-independent reward if your own assessment is close to the averaged assessment of the rest of the group.

[ChadDubya]

Mikael,

These are good questions and things I honestly had not considered deeply. When I have played traditional games, The "karmic" rules are there to reward selfless acts and punish utterly selfish acts. It's a way of prodding PCs into heroics.

As far as those "gray" scenarios are concerned, I'd have to see it in action before I could construct rules to cater to them. As you said, "in most cases it is probably a clear-cut case." But I need to play-test more, and run into one of these trouble spots, and get a feel for what works best for the group and still stays true to the Big Idea of the game. For the most part, I would prefer the GM to lean towards a moral deficit, just to add spice.

I see PC Vows not only as their moral anchor, and the thing that propels them through the story, but also a means by which the GM can antagonize them. The idea is that the GM can construct scenarios that challenge PC Vows... and perhaps show that following an ideology too tenaciously can lead to disaster (in the form of this "bad" moral currency that can be used against them).

[Rafu]

In a game where "good" and "evil" are clearly defined, and where I'm being rewarded for being "a good guy", why should I - as a devout power-player - ever choose to act "evil"? That would be plain silly.
Notice how most "traditional" RPGs trying to do such a thing also include mechanics to take control of the character away from the player, at times.

[ChadDubya]

I can't speak to Good/Evil handled in most games, but in terms of Enoch, evil is it's own reward. Loot, pillage, watch your enemies cower in fear at your presence.

Not good enough? Some mechanics in Enoch serve to aid this type of play. Characters who choose rage, when the opportunity is given to them, incur amazing bonuses to destroy their enemies. If a character's Vow is "kill every last member of _________," and they proceed to do so, they gain EXP along the way, and gain a boatload of EXP (a bonus of roughly 5 times the amount earned at the end of a typical session) if they exterminate every last one.

While Enoch encourages heroics, it doesn't do it for the sake of being "good." I find that boring. Instead,the idea is that the world will imitate the rebels (the PCs), so they literally create the New World around them by acting. If they act "evil", they'll see the world act "evil"... that is, natural disasters will strike, and enemies will get in the PCs way. In short, the karmic nature of Enoch is not about morality, it's about pragmatism, the the continuum between organism and environment.

-

As a side note, I often hate games that tear away at player control when their character's embrace evil. Particularly egregious to me, is when your PC becomes an NPC, because he has "fallen to the dark side," or has installed one to many cybernetic implants.

[Conteur]

It's clearer this way. It's a great game idea and it seem to work just fine. It's just that Dungeon wrote two full books about Good/Evil and it needed it (how can a Paladin be good with thousands of corpse at his feet?). Personally, with the present "democratic" Governement and Corporation power, I'm hopelessly lost about these concepts...
As for a PDF document, here is a freeware to create it. It work (I personally use it everyday) but it's a little bugged with the printer (don't let paper inside your printer or you will get your pdf on paper everytime!).

http://www.framasoft.net/article1572.html

Patrick

[ChadDubya]

Wow, this is a sweet program. Thanks for the tip!

-Chad

[Conteur]

In a long campaign (100 session or more), what happens? Everone just raise their HP and Fatigue? It's just a little problem I have with a maximum rating of 10...
I would like to storytell this game very much though. Some Dune feeling there (the Butlerian Jihad and their demonic AI)...

[ChadDubya]

Over a 100 sessions, eh? I didn't exactly design Enoch with 100 session campaigns in mind. In fact, I'm guessing that after 15 or 20, the characters will be of legendary status. At that point, they should have accomplished all of their goals, or died gloriously trying. It's nice to hear that you like the setting, though. That's the general consensus I've gotten.

[Conteur]

I think 15-20 sessions is not enough to begin to feel your character. It's just brushing gently at a story plot (one, maybe 2 adventures).
So no campaigns are possible in your game? (or maybe you play in a style that is very quick. How does a regular combat (say 4 characters against 4 enemies) last in real time?)
Sometimes, we play a short tavern scene that takes only 1 hour of real life (no fight). Must we describe our scene in an overall sense in your game? (in my group, we play second-by-second roleplaying, can't we do that in Enoch?)

[ChadDubya]

I guess the style of play I prefer (and therefor built my game around) is a fast one, where we fast forward to the important scenes (the ones with conflict). Yes, setting exploration is encouraged, but as there is likely something shocking or unpleasant around every corner (from terrifying critters to violent disagreements among men), conflict is constant (and therefor, so is character growth).

Overall, I built this game to be played in multiple campaigns, only sticking to a character so long as it takes them to achieve their goals, die, or learn that their goals were wrong/meaningless/impossible. Multiple short stories, instead of the novel. Characters are propelled by their Vow, and once that vow is fulfilled or ultimately failed, the character sort of "loses steam." At that point, it's probably time for a new character, and new campaign, to explore different ideas (First time, I'll play a character committed to mercy and humanity... second time, I'll play a character who is ruthless and wishes to become a God).