Refreshing Rain for Western Audiences

[Shreyas Sampat]

Refreshing Rain is my game of wuxia-style kungfu and emotional conflict; here I am making an effort to retool it for a less Color-specific application.

Character Creation
All the characters are assumed to be professionally competent in one area of expertise. They might all be wizards, or warriors, or diplomats; it doesn't matter. They all share this area of expertise, but it's important that they each approach it differently.

Characters have five Elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and a fifth, which is defined for each campaign independently. (It might be Ether for a game of wizards, Void for warriors, Harmony for the diplomats...) These have descriptive associations attached to them, and each can attack a slightly different set of problems. More on that later.

There are five Virtues which the players pair with their Elements. These are Force, Elegance, Quickness, Insight, and Guile; these describe the attitude with which the characters approach their problems.

Each of these Element-Virtue pairs is called an Aspect; each Aspect has an Alchemy score that ranges from zero to seven. All starting characters have one point in each and six points to distribute as they like.

Insert Qi conversion here

For the randomizer, you need three different decks of tarot cards which are the same size. Call one deck the "Attack" deck, one the "Defence" deck, and one the "Versatility" deck. (Versatility corresponds to One Thousand Arts in Eastern Rain.)

Insert conversion for honours here, using Major Arcana

In a conflict of, each player chooses his relevant Aspect and draws as many cards as his Alchemy; compare these as though they were poker hands. insert more detailed mechanics here

Insert Combat mechanics here

The Sky
You need two chessboards for this; one represents the dynamic of the player-characters, and one represents the player-characters in relation to the world. Each has a set of Planets. You can also add other boards for other groups that are internally complex, if you wish.


This is a very sketchy start for the conversion, and I'd appreciate any help with the things I've left blank.

[Kryyst]

Ummm not much to work on there.

But from a purely practical side of things....Seems like a huge pain in the ass.

First you need a chess board, ok not a biggie since most game type people have at least one kicking around.

Next 3 tarrot decks, most people probably don't have 1 let alone 3 lying around.  So there is a cost factor there.  With so many cards why not just make it a regular deck of cards.

Next just in playing it it'd be interesting to see how it all works but if I were to pick up a book and on the back it said:

In order to play this game you need:
3 Tarrot Decks
1 Chess set
......

I'd give it an OOOOOOk and set it back down back away slowly and walk away.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Frankly, Kryyst, you're not being at all helpful with that comment. I didn't ask, nor do I care, how approachable the mechanic ends up being; I'm trying to produce a somewhat faithful rendition of the game in a different medium, and asking for help within the medium I chose. After some discussion with some other folks, though, I'm thinking of ways to trim it down to just one deck; that'll reduce the unapproachability significantly.

The simple conflict is a comparison of hands; the winner then gives a card from his hand to the loser, and takes one of the loser's cards of his choice. If he draws a Major Arcana, he may either choose to win the conflict outright and end the scene, or keep it and draw a new card.

A combat (like an Extended Conflict in HQ) proceeds as in baseline RR; players draw cards equal to their Alchemy and each keeps the highest card his oppone, and the winner has 'advantage'; he is the first who may play a Technique, then the loser may respond with a Technique of his own. Either may choose to pass.

Techniques work as such:

The numbered cards of the four Tarot suits: Wands, Swords, Cups, and Coins; represent respectively Talents, Attacks, Resources, and Defences. Attacks and Defences are simply that: the character tries to directly harm the other or prevent himself from being harmed. Talents are indirect strategies that stem from the characters' knowledge; for instance, a water shaman might know the secret name of his opponent's blood-spirit, and use that to command his blood to stop in his veins, or turn to honey. Resources are indirect strategies that stem from external things; a rich patrician might antagonize a political opponent by bribing merchants to charge his opponent higher prices or give him lower-quality goods, or a sorcerer might shoot bolts of fire from his ensorcelled wand.

The face cards are divided between the two Retainers (the Page and Knight) of each Suit, and the two Rulers (the King and Queen). These represent the Elements.


Simple techniques use cards from only one suit, and nothing else. There may be no more than five. For each card, the opponent must discard the highest not-higher-ranked tile of the appropriate suit: Talents destroy Attacks, which destroy Resources, which destroy Defences, which in turn destroy Attacks. If he runs out of cards in that suit, he discards any cards that he chooses of the next suit in the ring, and so forth. The purpose of Simple techniques is to deny the opponent the ability to use techniques.

Complex techniques make use of the face cards. A complex technique requires the use of one Ruler, that corresponds to the Element the attacker is using to attack, or two Retainers or Aces of the same suit, for Element that is being attacked. In addition, it has whatever number of suit cards, with one restriction: To use an additional suit, you must expend all the (number) cards of the previous suit. Complex techniques destroy all the faces of the chosen suit, as well as destroying numbers in the same way that a Simple technique does.

If a Complex technique destroys all of the victim's suit cards, he loses the use of the attacked Element. If it does not, that Element's Alchemy is reduced by one, unless that would reduce it to less than zero. Then, again, the Element becomes disabled. A Complex Technique can also restore the use of an Element or increase its Alchemy.

The purpose of Complex technigues is to drop the victim's Alchemy so that he is less likely to recieve Advantage in the future, and thereby limit his options or disable him.

The Major Arcana end battles outright, in a manner consistent with their meaning. Since a Tarot deck has many more Major Arcana than a Mah Jongg deck has Flowers and Seasons, this will make conflicts dramatically shorter in this variant.

[Jonathan Walton]

Even if you're deciding to make Refreshing Rain less dependent on a particular type of Color, it always struck me as a really, really Color-focused game.  So, in order to evaluate the new mechanics I really feel like I need more info on the type of Color you're hoping the game will evoke.  Are you hoping for an Eastern-Western fusion like Exalted?  

I think one issue right now is that some of your symbology contains internal conflict and possibly unintended resonances.  For instance, chess and the tarot are super-western, while having 5 elements is not (you've got 5 elements, but 4 suits, for instance).  Plus, the King, Queen, Knight, and Page all have corresponding chess pieces.  If you're using chessboards and the tarot together and choose not to use the obvious connections that already exist, you're, in some ways, working against the grain of existing symbology.

I guess I just hope to look at games and see that everything fits together nicely, and I feel like, at this stage, this medley of East-West is a hybrid that's more heterogenous than complementary.

Also, is the plan for combat to drive the narrative or for combat to merely be the medium through which stories are told?  One thing I really enjoyed about earlier versions of Refreshing Rain was the use of combat not in a Western fanboy sense ("Holy shit!  Did you see that move!") but as a medium for storytelling, where each round of exchanges tells you more about the characters evolved, as if they were delivering a Shakespearean monologue in an avalanche of punches.

I'll send you more thoughts once I know what direction you're trying to head in.

[Shreyas Sampat]

My aim is actually to make the Color more customizable, by using tools like the Tarot; since each deck is constructed with a slightly different attitude, it produces a different sort of Color, and players with sufficient resources can choose a deck that's appropriate for what they want to do. Similarly, the fifth element is a definable thing that's meant to be "this is our specialty"... and I'm not sure it works.

Thanks for pointing out the chess piece parallel; that might be a significant problem, or a really useful tool.

The plan, as with original Rain, is that conflict of any kind is a means to an end; it reveals character and all that jazz.

[clehrich]

Following up from Jonathan's point, you could shift the Elements to the old Aristotelian/Galenic system: earth, air, fire, water.  This would accord smoothly with a number of stock occult Tarot interpretations as well: earth = coins, air = swords, water = cups, fire = rods.

Incidentally, the singular of Arcana is Arcanum, but that's just me being pedantic. :-)

I do think you're going to have a little trouble with this:

The Major Arcana end battles outright, in a manner consistent with their meaning. Since a Tarot deck has many more Major Arcana than a Mah Jongg deck has Flowers and Seasons, this will make conflicts dramatically shorter in this variant.

"A manner consistent with their meaning" seems to me quite tricky, because it really depends on how you want to bend the meaning.  In my own Shadows in the Fog, for example, the very broad range of possible meanings for each Trump is what supports the possibility of magic.  In this variant of Refreshing Rain, I think you may have to explain somewhat how people are supposed to use these cards.

As to the difference between Tarot and Mah Jongg, I agree that this will have a drastic effect.  I have only skimmed Refreshing Rain, I admit, but I know that in Mah Jongg the flowers, birds, and seasons are all suited.  Are they in Rain?  The further difficulty there being that Trumps aren't suited, of course, so if the suits on these matter then it's going to be tricky.  You might consider some sort of combination of Court cards and Trumps, maybe, or even pre-suit the Trumps?

Just some thoughts.  Seems cool to me thus far....

Chris Lehrich

[clehrich]

I x-posted with you, Shreyas,

My aim is actually to make the Color more customizable, by using tools like the Tarot; since each deck is constructed with a slightly different attitude, it produces a different sort of Color, and players with sufficient resources can choose a deck that's appropriate for what they want to do.

Hmm.  Yes, well, I have to say that I think choosing a baseline deck, at least for the examples and whatnot, might be wise; as I've said elsewhere, the Rider-Waite should work well.  I think you have to know a fair bit about different Tarot decks to be able to perceive one deck's symbolism as more or less appropriate, especially since the little books provided by US Games Systems are commonly derived from Waite regardless of the images chosen.

Similarly, the fifth element is a definable thing that's meant to be "this is our specialty"... and I'm not sure it works.

Well, that gets you right into alchemy, actually, because the fifth element is the Quintessence, literally.  You might take a look at alchemical readings of Tarot -- if you want references, give me a little time.  But the basic point is that the Quintessence is both the underlying substrate of the other four and also its transcendence, essentially the substance of the Crystal Spheres which keep all the planets up.

...which would lead into all sorts of seriously wacky occult stuff.  Differences between Chinese and European alchemy, etc.  Have you read Mircea Eliade's The Forge and the Crucible?  He makes some comparisons between Chinese and Western alchemies, and although he certainly gets some things wrong his analyses are fascinating and stimulating.  And the book is pretty short!

Sounds like it's going to be a very nifty "variant"!

Chris Lehrich

[Shreyas Sampat]

I was debating about using Arcanum, but figured it would make me sound pedantic. Pedants unite!

Baseline deck: I think I'll pick up R-W for that purpose when I have a chance; I agree that it'll probably be essential to provide examples for Major Arcanum usage.

Alchemy: Yes! "The underlying substrate and also its transcendence", that's exactly what the Quintessence needs to be. I'm not sure how this will end up interacting with the Sky, unfortunately... it felt really direct putting the Sky mechanics together in the Eastern version, but I know more about Western astrology and alchemy, and it makes me want to do Bad Things with the Sky...

I'll look into Elaide, thanks; I'd definitely appreciate any alchemical tarot references you can dig up that don't assume really solid understanding of Tarot to begin with.

Regarding your earlier post:

No, the Flowers et al. aren't suited in Rain, but I think that's a great solution for this application; to parallel the Flower/Season distinction in that version, you could do something like this:

The Major Arcana can be used to end a conflict outright. To accomplish this, an Arcanum must be played in conjunction with a face card. Playing an Arcanum with a Retainer makes an emotional ending; one of the characters simply decides to stop fighting, or is so distressed he cannot continue. Pairing a Major Arcanum with a Ruler creates an ending of extremity; some external factor makes it impossible for the conflict to continue at this time.

Either way, the event that forces this ending is some manifestation of the Arcanum, coloured by the suit of the face it was paired with.

I'll have to discuss interpreting symbology a little here; like SitF, I intend for Major Arcana to have their meanings developed through play, and not discussed overmuch beforehand.

[Shreyas Sampat]

I've decided that I'm naming this variant Crucible, after the Eliade book (which I'm enjoying a great deal).

I thought that, in keeping with the alchemical aspect of the game, it would be neat to rename the elements after metals, so (there are still 5) characters have Gold (Quintessence), Silver (Water), Copper (Air), Iron (Fire), and Lead (Earth). Gold is associated with the Minor Arcana, and each base metal is associated with its elementally-corresponding Tarot suit.

Astrology:
In Crucible, two chessboards represent the astrological forges at work in the Sky. These forces work both in the microcosm (the board that represents the PCs) and the macrocosm (the board where the PCs are represented as a single entity, showing its relationship to the world). The players manipulate these forces, taking turns moving the Planets around the boards. (Basically this happens whenever you don't have a scene in the queue).

In addition to the Planets (five per board), there are pieces to represent the characters; we call these Stars.

During a player's turn, he may move exactly one Planet. He must have nonzero Alchemy in that Planet's Metal to move it, but he may still move a Planet whose Metal is disabled but not destroyed. A 'movement' is a straight-line motion or a knight jump. The base cost of a straight-line movement is its length, and that of a knight jump is two. The Xth movement a player makes in his turn costs him X times the base cost. Players pay for movements with cards out of their reserves (the cards that they retain from conflicts). Number cards are worth 1, Court cards are worth 2, and Major Arcana are worth 3.

Four things can come of a planet's movement:

[*]You ended your turn by landing your Planet on another one. This is called 'Capturing' a Planet; the Planet you landed on is lifted off the boad and replaced on a corner. (The Astrologer picks an unoccupied point.) You increase your Alchemy in the captured Planet's Metal. Your turn is over. Alternatively, if that Metal was disabled, you can enable it instead of increasing your Alchemy.
[*]You ended your turn by landing your Planet on the same space as a Star. This triggers a scene in the Star's mind; either a dream or a flashback. Regardless, events in that scene have game reality; they can affect peoples' card reserves and Alchemies. This scene involves at least one of the Star's current relationships; move the Planet one space toward that, and continue moving it until it lands on an empty space. This process does not count as movement. Since a scene was triggered, your turn is over.
[*]You moved your Planet through one or more relationship lines. This triggers a scene, or series of scenes, involving those relationships. No Sky phase occurs until all those scenes are played. If this happens in addition to one of the two above outcomes, then play out their results before playing these scenes, or involve those conflicts in the dream/flashback sequence.
[*]You didn't do any of that. Nothing happens.[/list:u]You can also Interrupt a scene to take a single turn as if it were the Planet-moving portion of the Sky phase. Costs for moving a Planet during Interruption are doubled. An Interruption can only trigger a single scene, which is played immediately. Time in the 'external' scene freezes while the Interrupting scene is played out, then resumes when that scene ends.

Tension:
The Court cards represent figures in a character's life, that he sees in terms of the card's archetype. For example, the King of Swords is a figure of intellectual authority, while the Page of Wands is someone the character views as immature, but energetic and creative. The same character can be represented by different members of the Court to different characters.

Each time a Complex Technique is used on a character, he is forced to compromise his loyalties in some way - perhaps he has to make a promise he does not wish to keep, or betray a principle he inherited from someone he respects, or break a promise that he has already made. If a complex technique forces a player to discard Court cards, he chooses one of these cards, and describes how his actions strained his relationship with the person that card represents to him. The Tension of this relationship rises by one. (If the character hadn't previously defined who that card represents, define a relationship instead of describing how it is stressed.)

When the Tension of a relationship rises above a character's highest Alchemy, it triggers a scene (to be played out immediately after the current scene) where he resolves this in some manner. During this scene, Complex Techniques can (at the attacker's option) modify Tension in the place of Alchemy; instead of reducing the defender's Alchemy, the attacker's action relieves some of his own inner conflict. During this scene, if one of the triggering character's Tensions rises three or more points above his highest Alchemy, he cannot handle the pressure; he takes an action that destroys him.

Note on Major Arcana:
I'm thinking about having each of these represent something to each character, as well; then a scene-ending use of a Major Arcanum must incrporate this specific element, in a way coloured by the suit it is played with. The Retainer/Ruler distinction still applies.

Edited to say: You can see the character sheet at this URL: http://www.geocities.com/torchbearer_rpg/cruciblesheet.pdf

[Shreyas Sampat]

Silly me, I forgot to ask my question. This is it:

I'm trying to use the various chess pieces to enhance my symbolic system, and I'm having a problem there, because the pieces describe at a very different level than the character-associations do; they are global rather than personal.

One solution I came up with is that only the PCs are represented by 'court' pieces, while NPCs are always represented by Pawns, and NPC "collectives" are represented by the rooks. The PCs choose a role within the party by choosing their piece, and so there can never be more than 6 characters (a King, a Queen, two Knights, and two Pages (Bishops).

Another is that a character's piece defines the rank of its significance, but each character can set the Suit that they view a character as more or less independently.

I don't like either of those very well. Am I missing some elegant and useful option?

[DevP]

re: the chess board: how about the various Court/Big pieces (rook, bishop, knight, queen, king) reflect the local relationships, while the pawns are surrounding them in an abstract pattern to reflect the asbstracted global situation (i.e. danger, entrapment, opportunity, etc.)?