MUSE: some thoughts on heroic fantasy

[Blake Hutchins]

It's finally happened.  I've been mulling over a game design, primarily as a design exercise that incorporates techniques and ideas I've learned on the Forge.  My goal is to produce something action and intrigue-oriented, something that encourages player narration of events and setting detail.  The following notes represent my first braindump.  There's quite a lot of inspiration from Sorcerer, TROS, HW, and other games here.  I have an example setting in mind, but that's not what I'm addressing at present.

PREMISE:
I'm still working on articulating this, but I'm minded of themes from Rosemary Sutcliffe's The Lantern Bearers.  What will you strive to preserve in a crumbling world?

PATHS:
These are numerical traits that form the basis of die rolls for conflict resolution.  They're "stats," in other words.  However, the path a character takes will impact the resolution, i.e., using Fury in a debate or Guile in a knife fight.

GUILE - Achieving resolution via deception, cunning, outwitting, creativity, seduction, playing on emotion.
FURY - Achieving resolution via force, anger, direct confrontation, physical action, intimidation.
HONOR - Achieving resolution via moral or spiritual fortitude, serenity, integrity, duty, discipline.

ASPECTS:
STATION - (Noun or Adjective + Noun, such as Scarlet Legionary, Philosopher, Hardened Peasant). Describes character's skillset.
FACE - An indicator of social value or standing in the eyes of others.  This is a variable trait and goes up or down depending on the outcome of player actions.  At zero, the character is disgraced and must (a) go into exile, (b) commit suicide, or (c) become an outlaw.  There may be ways to regain face, but these opportunities should be quite challenging and hard to come by.  Face is a social indicator.  Displays of courage, skill, or success increase it.  Failure or humiliation decreases it.  Players may stake face dice to obtain re-rolls.
GEAS - A type of action in which the player automatically fails if a condition is met, e.g., swordfights on bridges, seduction under the full moon. ("Geas" is the working term here.  Suggestions welcome.)

MUSES:
A Muse is a sphere of activity into which the character's potential is channeled.  I'm not going to use the classical muses here, however.  Need to figure out an appropriate list.  I'm thinking about having this trait personified, with actual interaction possible between a character and the Muse.

Example:  WAR (bloodshed) would be a Muse for a character such that the character would achieve a bonus when expending WAR dice in a roll.  However, the player can only recharge the Muse pool when he sheds blood.

Muses take a format of BROAD (narrow).  The parenthetical narrow aspect must be fulfilled in order to refuel the Muse pool.

PROPOSED MECHANICS:
Roll d6s equal to the Path being used in the conflict at hand.  Each 4 or 5 rolled represents a success.  Each 6 represents 2 successes.  GM rolls dice based on difficulty.  Highest number of successes wins.  Net successes are used to "purchase" the level of effect, 1 being marginal, 6 being awe-inspiring.  In the example of six successes, the player may split them as desired, e.g., six marginal successes or one normal success, one marginal success, and one superior success.  I'm still working on the hierarchy but ultimately, I want a conflict resolution that would permit multiple tasks or sub-parts to be resolved with one roll.

BONUS DICE:
COLOR DIE: awarded with any roll with which the player describes a bit of sensory detail accompanying the current action.
COOL DIE: awarded with any roll with which the player describes a cool move or stunt as part of the action.
CUNNING DIE: awarded with any roll in which the character uses creative tactics or some kind of ruse.
COMPLICATION DIE: awarded with any roll wherein the player suggests a complication to the current conflict arising as a necessary consequence of the action.  This die would either be a d8 or a d10, with up to three successes available at the high end, or would be a d6 with an exploding mechanic that accumulates successes via rerolls.  If the player wins the roll, the player narrates the complication; if the player loses the roll, the GM narrates the complication.

In Geas v. Geas situations, either BOTH results obtain, using Drama to determine the outcome, or the characters make a standard opposed roll on their Paths.

Thoughts and crit are very welcome.

Best,

Blake

*Edited to change GEAS to "fail."

[Jonathan Walton]

GEAS - A type of action in which the player automatically fails if a condition is met, e.g., swordfights on bridges, seduction under the full moon. ("Geas" is the working term here.  Suggestions welcome.)

It sounds like what you're desribing is a Heroic Flaw in the "Achilles' Heel" sense.  Too bad "Flaw" has become the standard term for these kind of things.

I like the multi-use, multi-interpretation attributes.  That option seems to be getting more popular for good reasons: it rocks, encouraging players to think creatively instead of just mechanically reaching for the standard tool.

Overall, the dice mechanic doesn't particularly excite me, but, then again, neither does Torchbearer's and I think it's the best game I've seen in years.  If you can transcend the basic mechanic or really tie it in to what you're trying to do, then its "normality" isn't a big deal.

Why not use the Classical Muses?  That'd be sweet.  Nobody knows who most of the are, I bet.  I can probably only name a few: History, Epic Poetry, Astronomy, um, is Painting one?  Their domains are so broad that you could really have fun.  For instance, War might fall under the Muse of History (whoever she is), who governs the battles fought and how they are recorded.  Anyway, just an idea.

The "Face" attribute worries me a little, simply because it's universal.  What happens if I assassinate the King of _____, which makes me popular among scoundrels and the common people (who hated the king) but hated among the nobility?  Is there some particular society that "Face" represents the collective opinions of?

Later.
Jonathan

[Gwen]

Why not use the Classical Muses? That'd be sweet. Nobody knows who most of the are, I bet.

The muses, daughters of Zeus and raised by Eupheme, were named Melete, Mneme, Aoede, Nete, Mese, Hypate, but then the greeks changed them to...

Calliope, Clio, Erato, Euterpe, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.

The muses also taught the Sphynx his riddle.

[ADGConscience]

I love this game idea, particularly the "stats" and the idea of Station. The dice mechanic could use some changing, but it looks like the lush environment of Eugene has produced another winner. :)

[Mike Holmes]

This is starting to look like a failrly standard mechanical model. Will there be "augmenting", and/or rolling forward successes?

Mike

[Blake Hutchins]

Hi all,

Thanks for the great feedback.  In no particular order:

I'm not married to the dice mechanics and have a couple of other options in mind.  My reason for putting them up was to highlight some of the priorities involving stages of success, bonus dice for certain kinds of play, basic simplicity, and the like.  However, yes, I'd like to put in augmentation and the option of rolling successes forward.  I'm also considering how the player might combine Paths to determine the particular tenor of his/her action, and I'd like each Path to incorporate an Upside and a Downside.  I'll post more mechanical thoughts later.

I'm mulling over the Muses and had considered the classical muses.  It's still worth consideration, but right now I see their impact as overly complex to implement.  As I align the system to be more congruent with the Premise, the viability of this aspect should become clearer.  Right now I see the Muses as riffs on SAs per TROS.  I may drop Muses entirely in favor of a value-based system, something that might permit rerolls, exploding dice, or bumps.

Face is indeed problematic.  FWIW, I'm considering Face as an aspect of Relationships, such that you'd have different Face with different groups.  I want this game to encourage players to pay real attention to the social ramifications of their actions, even to the point that some conflicts will be avoided or yielded to for reasons of face.  I'd like players to be able to gamble Face to augment a relevant roll.  Face would probably be tied to individuals, groups, and geographical regions.

Geas is indeed an Achilles Heel.  Funny you should mention that as I'd actually called it that at first.  What I'm looking for here is a conditional auto-failure trait:  If X and Y obtain, then player narrates an automatic  failure.  I've considered whether it's worth having an auto-success trait as well.

Again, thanks for the input.

Best,

Blake