Duality: Formulative stage

[sirogit]

I've been working on this RPG concept, I'll call it Duality in this post for convience even if I haven't really decided on the name.

The game is built to explore characters with two different Natures, or Personas (If it's been done before, I'd greatly appreciate being pointed towards that direction.) I'd say it'd have a definate narrativist bent, in that the game should be very story/introvertly oriented, though it has a creeping movement towards Simulationist in that word 'explore' and it's attachments, and I want players to be involved a good deal in Actor-stance. As focused as the game is in Theme, it's not at all Setting specific.

Premise: Every character has atleast two Natures, Essential charistics of that person that somehow clash, leading to a seperation of the character's personality. Some examples could be:

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Shapeshifters:
Lycanthorps.
The Undead hidden as humans.
A spirit guide.
An Android.

Alternate Personalities:
Someone with a face they show the world and another they keep inside.
Someone with Multiple Personailities Disorder
Someone with a special ability that practices hiding it.

Other:
Someone who is occainsially possessed.

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Each Nature is defined on a character sheet as:

A concept, a word, possibly an adjective which describes the Nature.

Three traits, improvised words that describe how this side of the character is more capable than the average person. Rated from 1 to 5 on how much more capable it is.

Their source of Energy, which is either associated with or is one of their Traits (Is: Is a Talented Psychic/Psychic Power. Associated: Is a devoted Socialite/The Praise of Others.) and their source of Fortitude, which is similarly one of the three traits.(Fortitude can be any kind of defense, physical mental or other.) It would also be useful if someone wrote down several Empowerments, things that happen in game that relate to the character's source of Energy and supply it, these have a rating depending on how Exotic or rare they are to come by, which is also their effeciency level.


The character also has a trait among all of it's natures, called Struggle. Struggle defines how much a character's Natures fight amongst themselves, or to the agree that the character accepts it's different Natures. It is the princaple method of how characters change in the game.

Optionial: A weakness, or perhaps some other Associated traits like the Energy Trait, such as a Stealth trait.

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Character creation:

As I don't know at the moment how to balance the game if a character had three Natures, I'll assume that they have two for the purpose of this draft.

After writing down their traits etc, choosing what trait is their Energy Trait is and what thier Fortitude trait is for each Nature, players assign 20 points to those traits. each trait must have atleast 1, and it doesn't cost more to raise a trait from 1 to 2 or from 4 to 5. However, it does cost twice as much to raise your Energy or Fortitude trait, and if they're both the same trait, than it costs three times as much to raise it.

Struggle begins at 3.

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Fortitude is used as the game's hit points. As I'm not sure about the damage system, it could be either be the fortitude Trait's rating itself or it times 3.

At the begining of every session, players add each nature's Energy Trait x3 in dice to that Nature's dice pool.

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Action Resoloution:

I'll focus on what makes the action resoloution different from most systems.

While the base amount of 'success' one accomplishes at an action is determined by the character's number rating in the appropiate trait, one also has the option of Exerting themself, which uses up Energy, represented by the dice pool.

When doing such, the player rolls as many dice as they took out. If the relevent trait in an action is their Energy Trait, than they roll twice as many dice as they took out. The dice are d6s. If any come up as one, two or three, add 1 to the success of that action. four, five and six count as non-successfull. on a six 1 is subtracted from the success and the die is rerolled. On a 2, besides getting the extra success, you reroll the die. In addition to that, if you roll more 2's in any one action than the Character's Struggle minus the character's other dice pools/10, than they have an Outbreak: the stress involved in the action caused the character to relinquish power to another Nature.

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Some notes about in-play-issues:

Every character always has an "Active Nature", the side of themself they either deicde to or compulsively show to the world. If they are shape-changers, than this would be the form that they are in. If they are different personalities, they would be compelled to adorn themselves with the trappings of that Nature. While the other Natures are still in some effect, the active nature is for the most part in control while it maintains being active.

During play, you can raise a Nature's dice pool by supplying it's energy source in some way. How much energy can be supplied is limited by how hard to come by that energy supply was. The GM rates the energy supply in exoticness or rarity in 1 to 5. An energy supply can raise your dice pool to a maximum of the source's rarity X the energy trait's rating.

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p.s. (It occurs  to me that alot of popular White wolf products cover similar grounds in regards to characters with alternate natures, such as games that run a similarity to examples I gave(Undead: vampire, Lycanthrope:werewolf, Person hiding abilities:Exalted) I don't see them as meeting the same aims as the game presented here.)

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

I like this. Most of the White Wolf games give a fair amount of lip service to this idea during character creation, but only recently (e.g. Exalted) have incorporated the labels into the mechanics. To use these ideas as a primary mechanic is quite original, in my opinion.

I suggest providing examples of actions which are demonstrably not covered by a given characters' descriptors, though. Given the two Natures of Nurturer and Avenger, for instance, it's hard to imagine an in-game action that wasn't getting support from one of them.

Best,
Ron

[sirogit]

I'm quite pleased you liked it.

I'm abit confused by your question, I'll take it in the most literal sense in that you requested that I'd give an example of an action wherein none of the acting character's nature's traits would apply to the situation.

There's still quite a few holes in the mechanics, so far I was planning on the base degree of success being 0 if none of your traits are related to it. As a foreword, a degree of 0 success indicates what the average person would be capable of.

Also, whenever you apply a trait from a non-active Nature, the effectiveness of that trait is lessened by your Struggle, so if the Prince wishes to use his Criminal Impersonator side's trait Expert Deceiver(3) to make up stories to the council that is investigating him, it would be at a -1 penalty because of his Struggle(1, he can closely relate to that side of himself because it was fabricated for his own ends.)

So, an example therin would be:
The Nurturer/Avenger character(Active Nature Avenger), an inner-city highschooler, is trying to break into an underground party after her friend called her saying that some rival gang members crashed and started holding everyone hostage, but none of her traits would be at service to the situation of finding the location of the party. In this case her degree of success would be 0 + Energy dice rolled that come up successes.

I'm not sure if that's what you asked for, as I don't really see the intent, please elaborate if I'm mistaken.