Dark Nights: Role-playing Excalibur (more or less)

[Jasper]

This is what I've been working on the last week or two.  Inspiration hit after remembering the movie Excalibur and other such "dark" interpretations of classic knightly legends.  This is a game that tries, to some extent, to re-create that kind of movie in general feel and plot.  It is, I suppose, technically fantasy, but it's not pulpy or D&D-like in the least (at least I don't intend it to be).  I won't try to label it in GNS yet, since I think it would be better to get reactions in that area.  

I haven't gotten to playtest it yet because at my last gaming session, we decided to muck about with TRoS's magic system instead (not my idea...).  Any kind of preliminary thoughts would be helpful though.  It's about fifteen pages, with some examples, no artwork (yet).  You can find it at:

http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jasperm/DarkNights_03.PDF

or, try the HTML version, which is badly formatted because I just exported from Word since I couldn't be bothered to format by hand:

http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jasperm/DarkNights_03.htm


I hesitate to suggest that any section could be more readily skipped  (since people might take it as a queue!), but Qualities and Resources are the most important sections.  Combat deserves less of your attention.

Any kind of feedback would be appreciate, as usual.  As I say in the release notes, I need to add moves to combat, but themost important thing to me are Qualities and Resources, and how the game looks as a whole.  Does it mesh?  Does it carry the theme at all?  I hope so, but after working on it so continiously, I can't tell any more :)


Cheers.

[Mike Holmes]

The PDF version seemed mixed up. So I used the HTML version.

I like the resource rules in general. The only problem is the subjectivity of what resources can obtain for you. You point out how the definition of the resources in question is not linked to the magnitude of the resource, but then you turn around with the result when determining what you can get for them giving a schedule of examples.

And then you have to roll the dice anyway with normal difficulty. Why not just make resource dice just like Essence in that you can add them to any task that seems appropriate. Simpler in that you only have the one system for everything, and less subjective (you only decide the difficulty of the task as normal). PROs just become bonuses to any and every appropriate roll.

Anyhow, this leads to another potential problem. Which is the subjectivity on the magnitude thing. You have two metrics for success. This is actually sort of a good thing with respect to your stat system, however. That is, an average person rolls three dice to say swim in a storm (diff 6) with just their stat. That character has a 42% chance to roll one or more sixes. So, it's a good thing you have a method for making that more difficult.

But what you have is not very intuitive. What if I have to climb a wall? Is ten feet of wall one or two successes? It's very dificult for the GM to know what sort of difficulty they are setting for the character's actions.

Something to think about. There are a number of solutions to the problem.

Mike

[Jasper]

A quick note first: The PDF file was indeed in reverse order, but the problem has been corrected.

Now on to it....

Your point about rolling for Resources is indeed a good one.  Initially, I didn't require a roll.  I introduced it though because in instances where no other action is being attempted, there was no way to fail, and that seems important, dramatically.  For example, if I want to have my men bring me a boat when I need it, it would happen automatically without a roll.  That may be fine... I'll have to think about it.  It seems good to have occasional Resource failures though.

Magnitude and Difficulty are indeed tricky things, and I've spent some time trying to come up with solid distinctions myself.  Just thinking out loud here, but the main distinction is that Difficulty makes things harder or easier, but never impossible for a particular person.  No matter the skill, a high Difficulty will never render a task out of bounds.  Magnitude, on the other hand, very clearly makes each task aimed at a certain skill range.

I suppose definitions should center around those truths, but how to apply them to real-world terms.  Hmm.  It's late, so I'll think about that more later :)

Thanks for the comments, Mike.  No definitive response yet, so this post might have been better saved until later, but I did want to say that the PDF is up and working too, so I thought I might as well respond.

[Andrew Martin]

Magnitude and Difficulty are indeed tricky things, and I've spent some time trying to come up with solid distinctions myself.  Just thinking out loud here, but the main distinction is that Difficulty makes things harder or easier, but never impossible for a particular person.  No matter the skill, a high Difficulty will never render a task out of bounds.  Magnitude, on the other hand, very clearly makes each task aimed at a certain skill range.

From what I've read so far, Magnitude seems to indicate the duration of a task in some places, in other places it seems to indicate degree of skill required. As the skill/attribute & combat system seems quite generic, I'd replace it with something more suited to the setting, with a combat system set to cinematic/gritty to get the dark and cinematic/TV feel.

For resources, the setting of 5, 10, 20, 30 with the levels "Poor Knight", "Knight", "Minor Lord", "King", didn't seem to match the setting. Why not simply "Poor" and "Wealthy" for wealth, and Squire, Knight, Banneret, Baron, Duke, Count, King, High King, Emperor (of Rome) and so on for status? That way it's easier to fit in Bishops, Popes, priests, princes and princesses, merchants, Sherrifs, outlaws and peasants, powerful wizards, cunning minstrels and adventurous maidens. You did mention it was for Excalibur and Robin Hood?

Regarding the use of points to buy attributes and skills. It seems pointless to me to say that the average is three, yet start all characters off at zero attributes and skills and requiring players to buy them up. Why not simply start off all characters at the average attributes and competent (and boring) right from the start, then make the character more interesting from that point, either by increasing/decreasing attributes, skills, resources and threats? After all, I don't think that characters in Excalibur and Robin Hood were points balanced.

That way it saves time for players, and with the design in play method from HeroWars/HeroQuest, players can then really have the Mysterious character from paragraph one, under the Qualities subheading, page 3 (in the PDF).

The "running out of resources" part on pages 13 - 14 doesn't seem to fit the setting. For example, this:
Relations 1 A lord might allow you to stay with him for a night.
doesn't fit the setting at all. This is instead highly dependent upon the status of the host, and the person staying. For example a lord hosting the high king, wouldn't throw out the high king after one night. But a beggar with high relations wouldn't get past the guards on the gate!

The duration of a secret seems pointless as well. With Secrets 10, I know the cure for the sickness your lord suffers from. But it only lasts a scene or two? What happens after the next scene, which could as short a interval as the next day.

[Palaskar]

Okay, here's my take on Dark Nights, written down as I read it.

The Qualties stat is interesting. Reminds me of Quirks from GURPS, or the taglines from Dying Earth. However, you didn't seem to specify what effect mehcanically they have in-game. GURPS gives back points during creation, while Dying Earth rewards you when you can appropriately insert the tagline into play.

Choosing Resources as a group is a good idea; it prevents excess conflict or spotlight hogging in-play. Connections is a neat idea to bind characters together. I had a similiar stat in my Signature RPG, called Relationship. Basically, it listed a person two or more PCs had in common. So for example, one PC could have a brother who was a friend of another PC. (I got the idea from soap operas, where the importance of a character is in direct proportion to how many other characters he is connected to.)

The point cost of Resources is interesting. Have you considered apply this rating philosophy to the other stats in the game? For example, a high Strength could mean that the character has more opportunities to use his Strength stat.

The Difficulty/Magnitude dichotomy is interesting. There's a post on rpg-net where actions are broken down into a predefined amount of steps. For example, combat might have Entering Combat, Taking Their Measure, and Finishing Blows. The neat thing is that there's no wound chart or hit points -- in effect, the Margin of Success is not fixed. This seems to be what you're doing here. Just some food for thought.

I like the S, C, O, E division -- where'd you come up with it?

So competitive actions have no Magnitude? Better mention this right up front in the Difficulty/Magnitude part -- it's not self-evident. It's completely possible to have a preset Magnitude for combat. (See above.) For example, when fighting a dragon, you might have the steps Approaching the Beast, Avoiding It's Fiery Breath, Closing to Combat, and Slaying the Beast.

Formal rules for humilation? Hmm. You might try looking at Paladin, which has mechanics for redemption of corrupt Paladins.

I'd keep the skill penalty instead of dice penalty for exhaustion. RL seems to work that way -- it's hard to maintain proper form in Tai Chi, for example, when you're so tired your limbs feel like they want to drop off. (Trust me, I speak from experience.)

Have you considered having a universal modifier chart? For example, you could classify things into Minor, Major, and Extreme modifiers/difficulties -- 1 for Minor things like exhaustion, 2 for Major things like unfamiliar weapons, and 3 for Extreme things like fighting mortally wounded. This gives you a nice baseline to improvise from.

You should clarify which things involve skill penalties or bonuses and which involve dice penalties or bonuses. Unfortunately, I don't have a quick answer for this one. Help, anyone?

You've gone the right path with multiple opponents. I once tried with three of my classmates to incapitate a Ba Gua teacher, a style that specializes in multiple opponent combat. He ran around facing only one or two of us at a time.

Warfare. Have you looked at the new Middle Earth RPG mass combat rules? There is a chart scaled with loss at one end and success at the other, with each step of the battle moving the counter one point in either direction.

Come to think of it, this scaled chart method might be a good idea to combine with your Magnitude idea and the preset number of steps in an action. You have a chart, and for each level of success you move one level up or down.

Keep the idea that knights have to spend Resources for armor. You could probably assume that even the poorest knight has some sort of armor, like a studded leather jacket, but it's not heavy enough to make a difference.

Ah, came to the Qualities section. Maybe you should move this part to the beginning with the rest of the Quality text, or better yet, move the Quality section down to this part.

Oh so you break Resources down into Relations, Secrets, and Physical Means? Better mention this when you first introduce Resources.

PROs are interesting. Universalis does basically the same thing. There's a review of it at rpg-net, you might want to take a look at it for ideas.

For using Attributes, I suggest you use a universal modifier chart as mentioned above.

[Jasper]

I did up all the probabilities, which was certainly informative: Magnitude (which I'm now calling Complexity) is more important than I thought initially.  I think I've settled on a simpler but more useable set of definitions: Difficulty is to be tweaked to represent highly random factors in the resolution, so that a high Difficulty task could even stump a very skilled person.  Complexity will be the more typical adjustment.  The way the various combat modifiers affect one or the other may change, or may stay the same -- I'll have to consider the probability changes on each one.

As the skill/attribute & combat system seems quite generic, I'd replace it with something more suited to the setting, with a combat system set to cinematic/gritty to get the dark and cinematic/TV feel.

This is probably a good idea, although the attribute-specific "moves" in combat would have helped with this maybe.  My aim with combat was mostly to have a simple system whereby you could easily decide the victor of a combat in a few rolls, but in which a smart player could perform other activities to give him an edge.  As per the cinematics, I also wanted three distinct kinds of fight (at least):

Two armored knights: Guys in full plate bash away at each other endlessly, until one eventually becomes exhausted, and succumbs to a well-placed jab.  It wouldn't always be so drawn out, but sometimes.

Lightly-armored guys: Combatants fight more cautiously, taking a few blows and shrugging them off, but falling to a major blow or exhaustion sooner.

No-armor: The combatants dance around each other, trying to avoid even the smallest scratch.  One guy gets cut...then is finally felled.

Of course, combinations will also occur, so I can't have three totally distinct rules systems.  

The "running out of resources" part on pages 13 - 14 doesn't seem to fit the setting. For example, this:
Relations 1 A lord might allow you to stay with him for a night.
doesn't fit the setting at all. This is instead highly dependent upon the status of the host, and the person staying. For example a lord hosting the high king, wouldn't throw out the high king after one night. But a beggar with high relations wouldn't get past the guards on the gate!

Well, yes, of course nothing is absoultely determined by the number of points: what you get will depend on the situation.  However, I think you're looking at Resources too narrowly.  The idea of the Resource includes the reason behind it.  It's not just some "free gift" you arbitrarily get.  If you buy Relations, your ally will help you in some way.  If you're a beggar, you can still theoretically buy Relations with a king, but you'd better have a good reason for it.

The duration of a secret seems pointless as well. With Secrets 10, I know the cure for the sickness your lord suffers from. But it only lasts a scene or two? What happens after the next scene, which could as short a interval as the next day.

I think you migth be confused (likely because the rules weren't clear): you don't just buy "Secrets 10" or "Relations 10," you have to specify the nature of the relations or Secrets to begin with.  So you might choose: "Ancient Medicine" as a (Secrets) Resource.

At any rate, regarding the time issue: it's a cinematics thing.  The rules in DN are abstract sometimes, and an appropriate explanation has to be thought up for the specific instance.  In your example, the GM (or I, the player) say: well, the moon phase changed, the cure no longer works.  Or if I'd mixed up a potion to fix him, but the last scene ended without my having given it too him, perhaps it's expired or something.   You might be right anyway, though.  I do like the idea of some time-oriented limit on Resource use, but perhaps a scene is too short.  Maybe I could distinguish between major and minor scene changes?

Actually, thinking about that and combat makes me think I'll take this in an even more player-run direction, with some elements sort of like SOAP.  Whith explicit, rules-governed scene changes, relationships, etc.

[Jasper]

Sorry about two posts in a row, but I hit send before replaying to what Palaskar had said.  Many thanks for the many comments too.

The point cost of Resources is interesting. Have you considered apply this rating philosophy to the other stats in the game? For example, a high Strength could mean that the character has more opportunities to use his Strength stat.

Hmm.  It seems like Resources are things you would run out of though, at least for cinematic purposes: for example, you can only invade your neighbor once per game, even though you do own an army.  On the other hand, I can't imagine a really strong guy, who has been strong the whole time, suddenly running out.  It could work if I wanted Strength to be super strength, but I already have Essence as a pump-up.

The Difficulty/Magnitude dichotomy is interesting. There's a post on rpg-net where actions are broken down into a predefined amount of steps. For example, combat might have Entering Combat, Taking Their Measure, and Finishing Blows. The neat thing is that there's no wound chart or hit points -- in effect, the Margin of Success is not fixed. This seems to be what you're doing here. Just some food for thought.

What do you mean "not fixed?"  I don't quite get it.  Isn't it always not fixed?

I like the S, C, O, E division -- where'd you come up with it?

Just out of the desire to have a quick way to describe tasks, and to have my own acronyms ;)

You've gone the right path with multiple opponents. I once tried with three of my classmates to incapitate a Ba Gua teacher, a style that specializes in multiple opponent combat. He ran around facing only one or two of us at a time.

Yeah.  I haven't done any multi-person combat myself (just 1-1), but I was inspired by John Clements, the head of the ARMA, the group that endorses TROS: in a fight against five or so, he just ran around and dealt with them one at a time.

Warfare. Have you looked at the new Middle Earth RPG mass combat rules? There is a chart scaled with loss at one end and success at the other, with each step of the battle moving the counter one point in either direction.

Come to think of it, this scaled chart method might be a good idea to combine with your Magnitude idea and the preset number of steps in an action. You have a chart, and for each level of success you move one level up or down.

This is a very good idea.  A lot the rules still need to be cleaned up and organized better, but charts and such always help, especially initially.

Keep the idea that knights have to spend Resources for armor. You could probably assume that even the poorest knight has some sort of armor, like a studded leather jacket, but it's not heavy enough to make a difference.

Of course DN isn't strictly about knights, even though most of my examples deal with them.  So not eery character will have any armor.

[Palaskar]

Resources as a general mechanic: That's a good point about being able only to use resources a limited amount of times. Getting tired after using strength makes sense to me , but you already have rules for fatigue and don't need to have another mechanic for it.

About no fixed Margin of Success: What I meant was there's no need for a...grr. How am I going to phrase this? I meant you don't need hit points or wound levels in the example given. Everything's purely descriptive.

Oh, and you should make it clearer that players won't all be knights. There's a lot of emphasis, it seems to me, on doing knightly things: combat, courtly intruigue, and mass combat stand out in my memory.

Pal
palaskar@ix.netcom.com