Splitter - Implemeting Player Narrative Powers

[Jestocost]

Hi everyone,
I have some problems with my own game and would like to get some help and advice. Here's a short description on Splitter- the broken world:

You rise from your bed and step onto the window. The alarm is dead, the power is off. The light from outside tells to you that you overslept. You look out. The street is empty. The sky is gray, a world wrapped in twilight. From the block of flats opposite nothing can be seen anymore. Behind the kerb the grey begins ...
The end of the world came and went by. But no one came for you ...

That is the starting point of Splitter (German for splinter or shard], the broken world, a psychosurreal role play. The majority of the creation disappeared one day, though some places and regions remained spared from the end. These so-called Splitter are held together by a foggy boundary, called the interstice.

The player characters explore these splinter worlds in order to find out why they remained and what finally became of their world. Gradually they develop new powers and learn that they can influence the very nature of n their environment - and that their environment can change them, too. However, it's not clear whether these new abilities are real a gift are or a curse.

Splitter is surreal, mad and passionate. It's influenced by of Lewis Carroll, Philip K. Dick, William S. Burroughs and Michael Marshall Smith. Concerning roleplaying games, Splitter is based on systems like Over the Edge, Nexus and Amber.

I have already quite a good idea about most things in Splitter. Characters have a number of traits with dice ratings which show their ability. Success is determined by throwing doubles or more on six-sided dice. So if your are cabable of shooting a gun, you throw three D6 and hit if two dice or more show the same number.

The skill of your opponent determines the minimum number which will be counted as a double (which means if you shoot at a extremely agile target, you have to roll a double of 4 or higher for exampe. Two ones won't count.)

But my problem is the following: I'd like the characters to be able to influence their reality and be influenced by it. Mostly it should be something like being able to strenghen or weaken the genre laws in a given reality.

So if you are in Mediares, a splinter world based on celebrities and the media, you could do things related to being famous, if you're in L'Opera, a splinter based on 19th century decadent Paris, you could do something concerning detectives (a la murder in the Rue Morgue etc.)

Moreover, the players have a value scale, where all the things with they hold dearly are listed: This is the stuff they can influence, find in or conjure from the interstices (the place between worlds, an ever-changing maze of decaying rooms and corridors). So if you value the tree home you had as kid dearly, you probably stumble upon it in the interstice.

Unfortunately I didn't have much success to implement this idea clearly. I though of a resource system (you have a couple of points which you can expend to make changes) but somehow I couldn't convince myself that this is the thing.

I'd be happy if you could give me some advice or ideas.

[Mike Holmes]

Kinda vague at this point. Have you considered making the powers work just like Traits, mechanically, and having the only difference be in what they can affect? Basically, a normal human cannot fly, but with the Fly power, the player could fly with a level of ability equal to the trait.

It's the simplest method to go with. Perhaps you can modify from there to get what you want.

Any further information would be helpful. Is there some cost to using these abilities (mentally, spiritually, physically)? What sort of things are possible in general terms?

Mike

[Jestocost]

Sorry that things look kinda vague. Characters are just normal people when the game starts. When they find out, that there are some paths from splinter to splinter through the interstice, they should slowly develop some powers based on A) the things which are important for them - peace, their home, friendship and B) the paradigms which govern the splinters...

I had some moderate success with players just attempting to influence the stuff around them by narrating but it didn't have the right feeling. Mostly because I didn't have some clear guidelines on what's possible and what's not.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Since you're familiar with Amber, maybe it's a good idea to examine what does and doesn't work for that game, relative to your priorities for Splitter. Can you think of any disputes regarding Shadow manipulation that disrupted Amber play, which you'd like to avoid for your game?

Also, you refer to the desired emotional context of play as "mad and passionate," which I think is worth sticking to as your primary design aesthetic. For example, if play gets locked down into so-many-points of reality-manipulation being cross-referenced onto some fixed chart of what can and can't be done, then I think that would be counter to this goal.

Have you considered incorporating a strong randomizing effect of using these powers? As long as the outcomes are all fun and whacked, as opposed to being spread between ineffective and overwhelmingly effective, I think that might aim closer to that "mad and passionate" goal of play.

Best,
Ron