Urban Mythos: Back at the grindstone...

[Rich Stokes]

Hi all,

Been away, been busy, been mostly dead as far as free time was concerned and a bit of a crisis as far as the idea of actually WRITING anything for about the last year.  So now I'm here and thinking about this game and whether I ought to put in the hours to get something at least readable together.

I've posted here before and had some intesetnig and valuable feedback, but it's been some time since I had any time to post so I imagine that anyone who actually saw any of the original stuff has probably forgotten all about it.

What I'm asking here is basically "Am I wasting my time and has this all been done before?"

Overview:

Setting in a sentence: "British crime drama in a world where Magic is commonplace and well understood" In playtest I used the phrase "Lock, Stock and 2 smoking wands of +3 fireball"

Some notes can be found here: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=5497

Related to other games: A bit like Bloodshadows and Shadowrun.

Playstyle is intended to be fairly traditional, using the old "GM + Some Players" recipie.  Trying to get away from Gamist thinking and towards Narrative play, but GM is fanal arbitrator.  I've always been a believer that a GM will run a game in the style he prefers anyway provided he likes the setting.

System: Currently uses Tarot cards in what is essentially a dice-pool-with-cards.  Straghtforward "attribute + skill cards and use the highest number" but Trumps count for bonuses and should be used by players and GMs to "flavour" the outcome.  I have experimented with using d20s instead of cards and found the odds to be about the same, so they could be used by a group who don't like the idea of using cards.  The probability curve created makes characters with high skills unlikely to fail, but still inserts an element of randomness by way of trumps which hopefully inspire players and GMs.  The idea was to create a system which was simple enough to play without too much prior knowledge.  The system has been compared to the core WW Storyteller system because it's easy to pick up the basics.  In all what I'm trying to do is have a system which suits the setting, and suits a narrative style, but which has enough solid foundation that others could add the Crunchy Bits they want easily.

Characters: Characters are for the most part either criminals or more likely people with dubious backgrounds.  Gansters, bouncers and dealers.  A street level cyberpunk game probably has similar concepts.  You could almost certainly play it with the players as police if you wanted but I think that suits smaller groups (2 players would be the classic).  Humans will be the norm, but I plan is to include player character Vampires and demon-breeds.

Characters are created with a simple point allocation system.  Nothing about it is random.

Thematically, this game is about 2 things:

Magic as Mundane: Magic in this world is so commonplace that it's just another tool for people to use.  In playtest, it's become extremely popular to parody real world "tech" items with magical equivalents.  Things like "O'Reilly's Fireball in a nutshell" and similar.

Game as TV series: The series of linked adventures, players gain popularity for their characters in the way most traditional games give out experience points.some characetrs can develop Schticks which are things the audience expects them to do, and players are rewarded for managing to work that into the episode.  A mechanic for "trailers" was developed, where lines were handed out secretly to each player and rewards were given to them for managing to say them.  Popular characters are very hard to actually kill, and if they die they won't stay dead for long.  Burn all your popularity and you might gett "written out" of the series.

So, the question is: Am I wasting my time?  Has all this been done before?  Is there a game like this already or is there a system that's free to use that would work really well?

Also worth noting that this idea has been kicking around my head for about 5 years now and I'm really annoyed about WotC getting Urban Arcana to market.  Not that I think I'm likely to ever sell this, but y'know.

[Jonathan Walton]

Have a look at "Castle Falkenstein" (the original version, not the GURPS adaptation).  Or, if you have already, what kinds of play are you getting at that make your game significantly different from "Falkenstein"?  So far, with British drama and magic everywhere and a card-based system, that's what it sounds like to me.  If you're planning for this to be a strictly modern setting, that might set it apart from the Victorian vibe of "Falkenstein," but I'd still think carefully about what your goals for play are.  What should the game feel like to play?

[Rich Stokes]

Have a look at "Castle Falkenstein" (the original version, not the GURPS adaptation).  Or, if you have already, what kinds of play are you getting at that make your game significantly different from "Falkenstein"? SNIP What should the game feel like to play?

A good point.  I hadn't thought of Falkenstein actually, even with the cards it somehow never occurred to me.

The main difference is class really.  The characters in Falkenstein are generally upstanding citizens, upper class aristocrats and gentlemen (and occasionally ladies).  Urban Mythos is about dirty people doing nasty things.  The feel of the characters ought to be very different.  The average Falkenstein character would chalenge their villain to a duel, fence up the staircase and generally swashbuckle around.  An Urban Mythos response is more likely to wait for you enemy to come out of his house, sneak up behind him in a crowded street and blow his head off with a sawn off.  I think that the system for Falkenstein* did a rather good job of capturing the essence of that period's drama.  I don't think that's appropriate for what I have in mind.

Fundamentally, Falkenstein is a swashbuckling setting, while Urban Mythos is a search for the next score.  Think af the difference between Pirates of the Caribean and Snatch.  The tone ought to be rather different.  A falkenstein character is typically fulfilled by good deeds, a UM character by personal gain at the cost of others.

More superficial differences are that Falkenstein's magic and fantasy elements are more Fae and glamour orientated, whereas UM is aimed more at an urban horror vibe.  The Infernal takes the place of the the wonderous.  Also IIRC Castle Falkenstein's magic appeared recently, whereas in UM it's always been there, people are almost bored with it.

System wise, UM is far more traditional.  Although both use cards, I'll freely admit that UM uses them as a dice substitute.  The game does work with dice instead, but in playtest we found the "input" from the cards really helpful to the drama of the whole thing.  Plus they have great aesthetic appeal for a game that's quite magic heavy.  Kind of cheating to get players to use props to add to the atmosphere of a setting, but ya gotta work with what ya can.

*(haven't seen the GURPS version so I can't comment.  Dispite being quite a fan of GURPS as a system for some things (in a "that's the right idea, but really I can't be bothered to run a system with that much detail" way), I can't really see how it'd work for Falkenstein)

[Garbanzo]

Rich:

Can you explain a bit more how your Tarot mechanic works?  

When you say "dice pool with cards," can players use more than one card at a time?  Under what conditions?  

And how does the player's hand refresh?  Per card spent, per "cool action", per hand spent, or something else entirely?

And how do the Major Arcana figure in?  Auto success with lots of appropriate narration?  Or, numbers get chucked for some freeform description - good or bad?  And how do the regular suits figure in?



Sorry about being the Grand Inquisitor on this one, but I'm currently looking for info on card systems.

Thanks,
-Matt

[scobie]

I don't think you have much to worry about from wizards, especially with the new 'decency' clause in the d20 license.   I think if your hook is seedy British crime drama then you are thematically miles ahead and have a unique hook right there.  The question is, how does it bear on mechanics rather than just setting.

One thing that I like about Richie's films (the good ones that is..) is the sense of complication.  Of disaster being stacked on disaster.  Schemes start off simple and end up in a real dangerous mess.  Perhaps this could somehow be mechanically represented - I dunno, perhaps with a game mechanic built around constructing a plan and then unravelling it through mishap and disaster.

If you haven't already looked, I would also suggest a look at Unknown Armies for the magick/pulp fiction connection.  They haven't really tackled the same kind of get carter/minder/lock stock field though.

[Daniel Solis]

Scobie beat me to it, but UA is probably a great place to start off if you're looking for "magic + crime + lowlifes" inspiration. From what you've described, the differences between UA and UM are that in UA, the magic is very secret and very weird, being actually based on postmodern concepts and personal obsessions.

UA has a school of magic based on alcoholism that allows some crazy reality-bending spells. The rationale is that you lose control of yourself to gain control of the universe. Much of play is focused on your character doing weird, school-based things to gain magical charges so he can cast weird, school-based spells.

UM, again, from what you've described, seems more like taking D&D style magic spells and throwing in some criminals, toughs, wheelers, dealers and "proper villains" to quote Basher from Ocean's 11. The magic isn't a focus of the story, just a way to get something done. I haven't seen this movie, but I hear To Cast a Deadly Spell is a crime story set in a modern world where magic exists and is common enough to have hate groups focused on its eradication from society. You'd probably want to check that out as well.

Sounds like a promising concept. :)

[scobie]

I haven't seen this movie, but I hear To Cast a Deadly Spell is a crime story set in a modern world where magic exists and is common enough to have hate groups focused on its eradication from society. You'd probably want to check that out as well.

There was also a followup called Witch Hunt which re-casts Dennis Hopper as detective Harry Lovecraft and is set in the McCarthy era.  Julian Sands does the worst Irish accent I have ever heard in that one, but otherwise, also recommended.

[Rich Stokes]

Rich:

Can you explain a bit more how your Tarot mechanic works?  

When you say "dice pool with cards," can players use more than one card at a time?  Under what conditions?  

Sorry about being the Grand Inquisitor on this one, but I'm currently looking for info on card systems.

No problem, I just didn't want to expand an already long post with too much stuff.

The basics of the mechanic are:

Characters have 4 broard attributes.  These are numbered 1-5, some characetrs or non-humans might have 6.

They also have a number of areas of expertise which are also fairly broard.  These are designed to mimic the kind of loose skillsets that characters in TV shows tend to have.  Again, rated 1 - 5, can go higher for exceptional individuals.

Within each expertise, there are a number of skills.  Skills are fairly narrow specialisations of an expertise.  They aren't rated, you simply know about stuff or you don't.

For example, one of the characetrs in a playtest session had:

Mechanical Stuff (4)
- Car Maintenance
- Weapon Maintenance
- Weapon Design

The guy was an enchanter who made magic weapons.  He alse had magical skills etc and craft/art skills for aesthetic design.

Whenever a character attempts something, The GM assigns a difficulty to the task.  This is a number generally in the range of 5 - 15, but it could be higher for a really hard thing or lower for a really easy thing.

The player then takes the value of the most appropriate Attribute. Add to that the value of any expertise you have if you have an appropriate skill for this task in that expertise.  If you lack an entirely appropriate skill, you can usually add some of the points you have in the expertise, depending.  If you have no appropriate expertise, you don't add anything.  Sometimes a task will be somewhat obscure and the GM may decide that there is a penalty for attempting something if you don't have the appropriate expertise.

For example, our chap outlined above is trying to pick a lock.  That definately comes under "Mechanical Stuff" but he doesn't have a lockpicking skill.  GM rules that he can therefore only use 2 of his 4 points of Mechanical Stuff.

The player draws this many cards from the top of the deck.

Looking at his cards, the player takes the point value of the highest suit card (counting royalty as 11 - 14).  Add one to that for each trump in his hand.  Compare the total to the target difficulty.  If higher you succeed.  If lower you fail.

In short, an "simple" task (defined as one that some people might fail but people skilled in that activity should breeze through) has a difficulty of about 9 or 10.  Doing something you're unskilled at means an average character is running with a hand of 2-3 cards.  A character who's skilled at something is going to usually have a higher Attribute and 3-4 points in an expertise and an appropriate skill.  He'll be puling a hand of 7 or 8 cards.

Any time you use a Trump to push the total up, the player has to justify how that card helps and what effect it has.  This is usually a complication to the action that means you've succeeded.  For this I've tended to just rely on the images on the cards and their names, some people might want to use card's meanings in "proper" fortune telling.  I think that the imagery on a decent Tarot deck is fine enough inspiration.  Players who succeed without needing to use the trumps can skip this and simply succeed, this speeds things up a little.

Some teset are opposed and rather than simply assigning a difficulty, the GM draws cards cards for the opponent and you compare results.  Highest succeeds.

All player characters also have an advantage and a dissadvantage chose usually at character creation.  Each of these is linked to one of the trumps.  For example, one of the playtest characters has a bearing and attitude which intimidates and commands respect.  The player chose the trump "The Emperor" to represent this.

Whenever one of these cards comes up you either succeed or fail automatically due to some kind of deus ex that relates to that advantage or disadvantage.  Degree of success or failure relates to your draw total, so if you would have succeeded without you disadvantage card, you'll only just fail.

Playtest example: Simon Croft is chasing the bad guys in his car.  His disadvantage is athat he's always been attracted to "the wrong kind of woman" and can't really help himself.  He chooses "the Lovers" to represent this.  He draws the cards for the pursuit and suceeds, but has The Lovers in his hand.  So he fails, and the GM rues that a drunken woman has steped out into the road ahead of him.  Since he would have succeeded without the lovers the GM rules that he stops in time to avoid a colision with anything, but the bad guys are out of sight before he gets his wits back together.

There is also a plan to tie each suit to an attribute and award a bonus to the total if the player uses a card of that suit, and a rule about drawing too many trumps in any given hand leading to a backlash down the line, but these are still in playtest and not really very firm yet.

That's probably the crux of the mechanics.