[knights] Help, tomorrow is the 2nd playtest and I just changed the core rules

[soundmasterj]

Yesterday, after burrowing my head in my pillows, I had this nice idea, so I turned on the lights again and scribbeled something on a piece of paper. Today, I read it and decide to fundamentally change the dice mechanic of knights. Well, tomorrow is playtesting time and I´d love for someone to have a look at this.

Concerning the aim of the game: do we still do Power19? Because here´d be 1,2 and 16:

1.) What is your game about?**
A knight and his decision whom to care for, whom to kill for and what to do if two of these are in conflict with each other; and what he cares for so much, he might betray his loved ones. Think the Nibelungenlied, think Lancelot between Arthus and Guinevere, Bors between his love and his brother Lionel.

2.) What do the characters do?**
Each knight has a Mission and several Oaths. He tries fulfilling his mission without breaking his Oaths, ie., letting those he swore to protect suffer harm.
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16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?
Right now, 3 things. 1., You know how belieable opposition is so really, really hard to do? How important it is to give your enemies believable motives? Well, in knights, those you care for don´t ever get hurt because evil was too strong. They only get hurt if you chose to abandon them. Every harm they suffer, it´s your knights fault. 2., the Betrayal rule complex. You may betray someone to gain a lot of dice; the more dice the more you fought for the betrayed one before. 3., knights. I love knights. This game should make me create stories like I used to love reading.
...

So basically, the rules should encourage tough decisions.

After rolling the dice a few times, I decided I like it quite a lot, but maybe I missed something crucial? (Here is a 3-page pdf, conflict rules only for reduced distraction http://mt14.quickshareit.com/share/conflictonly1c16a.pdf)
Well, it basically goes like this (bear in mind a conflict takes about 15-45 minutes of "out of game" playtime, quite fittingly for setting up the correct music, and only one roll is required per conflict):

Conflict is initiated when the current narrator implies that one of the characters´ knights is about to break some of his oaths or that some of those protected by a knights´ oaths will suffer harm. Now, to prevent this, a knights´ player decides to call for conflict about a number of oaths; in conflict, dice assignment by the conflict-caller represents his priorities.

He gets 2 dice for each oath he chooses, 2 bound to his traits, and two dice from the other players, both being bound to a detail provided by those players, should the dice be used later on. For now, all of those dice (mostly 6 to 10) are rolled.

Next, the former narrator (Lute-Bearer) demands "dice offers" from the conflict-caller. The conflict-caller creates freely assigned groups of dice, summing eyes together (an empty offer is possible), the higher the derived number, the better; and now he offers one of these groups for each of those aspects of conflict: Each single Oath in conflict (should be 1-3); Mission (the one thing a knight wants to achieve); Narration rights.
High numbers (8-9) for an Oath mean the oath gets fulfilled, maybe (10+) Favor Dice are awarded; average numbers (6-7) mean the oaths isn´t broken nor fulfilled, possibly getting skipper over in narration; low numbers (4-5) mean the oath is broken or the knight needs to call in a favor, maybe (3 or less) losing Favor Dice on that oath.
Mission: 10+ Mission advances, Mission Dice (used for resolving endgame) are awarded; 8-9 Mission advances; 6-7 barely gaining or losing ground, maybe skipping over it in narration; 4-5 losing ground; 3 or less losing ground and losing Mission Dice.
Narration Rights / Lute: 10+ the player decides who narrates the conflict and who frames the next scene, also he may add or change one sentence on his character sheet; 8-9 same, but no changing of the sheet allowed; 6-7 the conflict-caller decides if he wants to choose who may narrate the conflict or who may frame the next scene, the former narrator / Lute-Bearer chooses the other; 4-5 Lute-Bearer chooses who may narrate the conflict and who may frame the next scene, also the conflicts´ resolution has to include grave harm to the knight ; 3 or less Lute-Bearer chooses,  harm to the knight, also the Lute-Bearer may add or change one sentence on the knights´ sheet.

Now, the conflict is narrated according to dice offered.

An example? I´ll do a trivial and boring one, without much conflict (see later why these should be rare), just for the mathematical aspects. The Lute-Bearer says, "The assasin will shoot the king." I say, no way, I got this oath to protect my kings´ life, here, look at my sheet. Conflict!

I roll 6 dice (2 for the single oath, 2 for traits, 2 from other players; the first player says, the kings´ beard is white, the second says, the king secretly is a woman). I get 1 2 3 4 5 6. The Lute-Bearer demands dice for Oath Mission Lute. I give him a 6 for Mission, a 10 (5 3 2) for Oath, a 5 (4 1) for narration.
So narration has to include my knight fulfilling his oath, my knight suffering, my mission neither losing nor gaining ground (we decide to skip it). Also, I earn a Favor dice for my "Sworn to protect the kings´ life" oath.
The Lute-Bearer narrates how my knight throws himself in front of the king when the assasin is revealed, earning himself an arrow in the leg and the kings´ favor. Afterwards, he chooses another Lute-Bearer (or himself again).

Players get awarded Meta Dice for having others call for conflict over at least two of their oaths. Meta Dice may be spent and added to a conflict roll, the Meta Die showing any number (well, a 6 mostly, I guess). So, the most powerfull reward is awarded to those who force others into deciding between oaths.
I made up some other rules, for example for Endgame/Resolving Missions, Betrayal and what Favor Dice are good for. Let´s just say that neither allow for making ones knight any "better" at conflict (of course, the higher your Favor Dice, the more often you may break the oath in the future, thereby freeing up dice), only more fleshed-out and with a little more narrational authority. One needs about 4-5 or about 8+ dice for solving a mission (depending on intended epicness of the mission/game), but a completely different mechanic is used for those.

So my question is, should these work for my premise? Did I miss some way to break it?
Also, what would be more appropriate: "Stolen form Otherkind" or "Influenced by Otherkind"?

For those (~4 people) who knew the older versions, I basically learned that giving more tactical options should encourage breaking an oath without forcing anything.

[David C]

Hmm, I'm a bit lost, probably because I haven't seen your other posts, but I'll see if I can add anything.

So my question is, should these work for my premise? Did I miss some way to break it?

When you add to the conflict, which gives the player more dice, is what you say set in stone?  I mean, in your example, is the King a woman with a white beard, now? Can this be contested in any way, or can the player in the conflict refuse an alteration?  Lets take the worst case scenario where a player's just being a jerk. Can he turn your wife into a man? What happens if somebody contradicts something that happened before?  Like 3 scenes later, somebody declares that the King's beard is red.

Also, what would be more appropriate: "Stolen form Otherkind" or "Influenced by Otherkind"?

Inspired by Otherkind would be the proper phrasing.  IANAL but game mechanics fall under patents. Nobody ever applies for patents on game mechanics because they rarely stand up to being "novel" (unlike anything that's come before) and "non-obvious."  Also, the game industry heavily operates off of borrowing other people's ideas, and we all realize this, and as long as some stupid corporate lackeys don't decide company x needs to start patenting things, we all prosper.   Copyright on the other hand is "How you say something."  Some of the D&D derivatives I've seen say things like "Color Splash" instead of "Color Spray."  You're a league away from changing just a few things... as long as you're writing everything yourself in your own style, you're safely in the realm of creating unique works.  So that's why "Inspired by" is what you want to use. 

[soundmasterj]

Well, that thing about Otherkind... That was a joke. It´s just that I´m obviously heavily influenced and I admit to it.

My Gift Dice example was deliberatly silly. It works like this: if you USE the dice, what they are bound to has to be integrated in narration. You may as well simply not use them and don´t narrate the detail. Also, there´s a rule those details may not disagree with something you´ve written on your sheet, so if your sheet reads "He" anywhere, that person IS a man and nobody may offer Gift Dice saying otherwise. If contradictory Gift Dice are presented, a third Gift dice has to be presented and so on, until at least two non-contradictory dice are there.
What we came up with in the last playtest were things like "My knight helps your knight if you use my die" or "Your knight gets seduced by that witch if you use my die" or "Your knight hurts an innocent person if you use that die".

Should someone narrate the king as changing his beard color... Well, if he desn´t come up with a good explanation, noone will believe it. So you better don´t do that. I don´t think rules against bad narration are needed; if someone doesn´t care about story integrity, he should play another game and I won´t try forcing him to play this one like I want him to.

[David C]

Well, that thing about Otherkind... That was a joke. It´s just that I´m obviously heavily influenced and I admit to it.

Oh, sorry if I went off the deep end there   My "day job" is much more bound to regulation then RPGs are, so I can be a little high strung about it, sometimes.

I give you props for your pdf, the background is very tasteful/evocative and the structure is extremely easy to read.  It's something I'd more expect to see in a short and sweet card game manual, not the typical text heavy RPG.