Gears & Spears (A little side project)

[Daniel Solis]

MAGIC (v. 0.5)
The true source of power for magic is hotly debated and without true answers since everyone's magic essentially works on principles of practice, dedication and natural talent without regard to belief systems. Nevertheless, every tribe has their own ways of thinking about these things and some will fight viciously if they feel their ways are being threatened by others.

Rituals
These lengthy ceremonies have an immense amount of energy at their disposal, but are weighted down by lots of pomp and circumstance. While some have tried trimming the fat of some rituals, it's rarely resulted in the reliability of a traditional rite. Still, rituals are widely used because anyone can lead them, though a ritual-leader, called a shaman or "daga," will often be trained from birth to have the best qualities possible for that role. Dagas are always considered heroes.

Performing Rituals
Every ritual has its own requirements and necessities to even have a chance at success. These prerequisites often include numbers of participants, types of participants, somatic actions, chanting, play of particular musical instruments, and offerings of sacrifices both common and obscure.

In game terms, these prerequisites are the ritual's traits. For every three traits satisfied, a die is added to the shaman's dice pool. Further dice can be added by supplementing the requirements of the ritual with extra acts of ceremony, but at every ritual has a minimum number of satisfied prerequisites before it can be performed with any chance of success.

Ritual supplements and their appropriate dice pool bonus include:

+1d
Adding an extra day to the ritual
Adding five participants who chant along with you
Fasting for a day before the ritual
Performing the ritual in a sacred area in tribal lands
Offering special herbs and vegetable sacrifices

+2d
Going without sleep for a day before the ritual
Performing the ritual in a sacred area outside the safety of tribal lands
Adding five participants who play instruments
Offering sacrifices of livestock or small animals
Injuring yourself continuously for a full day
Performing the ritual on an uncommon occasion, happening once a year or so.

+3d
Performing the ritual in a sacred area beset by hostile forces
Going on a pilgrimage for a month before the ritual
Performing the ritual on a truly rare occasion like on the night of an eclipse, comet passage or meteor shower
Offering the sacrifice of a monster

+4d
Performing the ritual in a previously undiscovered, but much fabled sacred area
Offering the life of a hero as a sacrifice
Adding three heroes who sacrifice their juice to the point of paralyzation

+5d
Offering yourself as a sacrifice

When a ritual's elements have been sufficiently implemented, the daga rolls the ritual's dice pool. After taking into account the daga's faith/doubt modifers, if the dice fall in his favor, the ritual is successful. Ritualistic effects are proportionally enhanced by the amount of success, as described in the ritual's description.

If the dice do not fall in the daga's favor, the GM decides the outcome. The limitation to this is that the GM cannot cause harm to the participants of the ritual. Ever. Rituals are popular specifically because of the fact that despite all the ceremonial trappings and seemingly superfluous ritual, participants know they won't be harmed despite the immense forces they choose to summon.

However, this doesn't mean non-participants cannot be harmed nor does it limit a creative GM from introducing other unusual complications. Of course, the GM still has the option of letting the ritual be concluded successfully without any drawbacks or side effects.

Finding Rituals
The details of rituals are stored within artifacts of the ancient world. These storage devices come in a variety of shapes and sizes ranging from silver discs to crystals to balls of light. Whatever the form, a ritual is absorbed from its container by physically consuming it. The knowledge of the ritual is then transferred to the onik's mind, hard-wiring it into the shine itself. It's a very flashy sight, full of lightning, arcane floating symbols and other supernatural phenomenon.

From that point on, teaching the ritual to anyone is up to its owner to decide for they are the only owner of that knowledge. Many are driven mad in their quest for ritual containers, of those driven to collect the containers for noble purposes, a few still turn to their darker instincts upon obtaining such valuable treasures.

Making a Ritual
Rituals are created out-of game. No onik has yet created their own brand new rituals, they've all been discovered, taught and occasionally improvised upon. Still, you'll eventually find yourself exhausting the rituals officially written up. To make your own, follow these guidelines.

First describe the effect you want this ritual to have once completed.

Next categorize the effect as minor, major, or heroic. An effect is minor if it will only lasts less than a week, affects fewer than five individuals or affects an area smaller than a 5 meters. An effect is major if it lasts between a week and a month, affects fewer than 5-50 individuals, or affects a 5 meters and 1 kilometer. An effect is heroic if it lasts between a month and a year, affects 50-250 individuals, or affects an area 1-100 kilometers. Rituals beyond this categorization are myths themselves.

Minor rituals have 5 traits and require a minimum of 3 satisfied to be successfully performed.

Major rituals have 10 traits and require a minimum of 7 satisfied to be successfully performed.

Heroic rituals have 20 traits and require a minimum of 15 satisfied to be successfully performed.

(I'll write up several sample rituals in the book's final form.)

Fetishes
Unlike rituals, fetishes can be created. Their effects are immediate with little required in the way of activation procedures. Fetishes are usually accessories and trinkets like masks, necklaces, leather herb pouches, pelts, clusters of animal bone, and headdresses. No magic armors, +1 long swords, or arrows of slaying. It's all tribal, voodoo-style magic here.

Finding a Fetish
These magical items are even more difficult to find than ritual containers, which makes them all the more valuable to anyone with the skill to create good fetishes. However, where one is found, there are usually others. Fetishes are found in clusters of four of five with similarly themed magical effects.

Making a Fetish
First decide the effect you'd like your fetish to have. You'll have to think on a much smaller scale than if you were making a ritual. Instead of a bazooka, you'll have a desert eagle. Instead of a starship, you'll have a Ferarri.

Rank the effect as minor, major or heroic. It's minor if it only affects you or or lasts only an instant. It's major if it affects up to three individuals, an area less than a meter or lasts less than a minute. It's heroic if it affects up to five individuals, an area between 1-5 meters or lasts for a whole scene.

All fetishes are primarily composed of animal bones, teeth, fur, or sinew. The animals and parts chosen for the fetish must be symbolically related to the fetish's intended effect.

The rank of the fetish's effect determines the difficulty in obtaining its parts. A minor effect would call for creatures that, while dangerous, are of no particular rarity. A major effect calls for true monsters' parts, usually parts of several monsters spliced together. Heroic effects call for the parts of monsters of such notability, cunning or danger they they have their own mythos.

For example, the Mask of Seventy Winds has a heroic effect. It allows its wearer to fly unassisted for an entire scene. Its creation required the beak and skull of the Gruthansha, the windeagle of the southern highlands, be crested with the feathers of Gruthurnazush, the lame windeagle chick who betrayed and slayed her mother to earn her wings.

Using a fetish
To use a fetish, you must wear it as it's been designed to be worn and spend a dot of juice to activate its effect. This occurs immediately and can be done while performing other actions. If out of juice, you can spend shine to activate the fetish as if three dots of juice had been spent.

[raga]

Things are looking better. I have a question about the faith/doubt meter. Does that only come in to play when dealing with people who are aligned either for or against you? Suppose you come across some onik's who don't really know of your myth, would there be zero effect from faith/doubt?

peace,
mike

[Daniel Solis]

Yeah, that's pretty much it. Just like with regular traits, there is either a beneficial or disadvantageous relevance, but aside from that there is no relevance whatsoever and thus no modifier to dice rolls.

However, I've asked a few friends who are more mathematically inclined than me and they say getting more dice in this 50/50 mechanic doesn't make a roll any more likely to fall in anyone's favor. So I'll have to augment it a bit.

Option A: Roll only one die, but having relevant traits allows you to reroll if the die did not fall in your favor. You can keep rerolling a number of times equal to the value of your positively relevant traits.

Option B: Roll a dice pool as currently described. If at least one of those dice falls in your favor, you gain control of the outcome.

I think the latter looks more promising since it'll chew up less time with die rolls and it actually does make having a larger die pool an advantage. It essentially has the same effect as a series of rerolls but in a single roll. That means all modifiers are modifications to the dice pool rather than to the results of the dice. I can live with that, what do y'all think?

On another note, I'm not so satisfied with either the rituals or fetishes. I just wrote those little bits so I could have something mold, but now I want to refine it and tweak it just right to get that voodoo vibe across.

Goals for G&S magic:
[*]Rituals must be slow and ceremonious but safe and powerful
[*]Fetishes' effects must be fast and immediate but costly and less powerful
[*]Any ritual should be a big deal in the story, they should not be done with a blase attitude like magic missiles or what have you
[*]Fetishes are less of a huge dramatic deal in a story but should pack some history behind them if their components are recognized ("That spear head is the tooth of the iron demon!")
[*]players should be rewarded for embellishing their rituals' performances and their fetishes' backstories
[*]While rituals shouldn't be taken lightly, I do want them to have a creamy improvisational nature[/list:u]

Obviously I've not quite hit on an elegant way to do all these things just yet but I hope some Forge-ites can provide some insights. As I recall, there is a martial arts game whose task resolution is driven by embellishment in the description of your actions. That might be something to look into for the "embellishment bonus" aspect of rituals.

[dragon_of_colour]

Hiya all
I am new to these boards (which are great, BTW) and I have been browsing through this thread and I would like to say 'Wow!' what a fantastic setting for an RPG. Of course I would like to add my 2c worth though, on just a couple of points:

1. If you're unhappy with the title Gears & Spears (I think its quite catchy as a title, although it makes the setting sound a little like something that takes itself less seriously, eg. Tunnels & Trolls ), you might want to call it simply Shine, for obvious reasons. IMHO it captures the mood and the valorous, mythical nature of the game, and also makes one think of highly polished metal/chrome. Its also cunningly simple ;-)

2. Its important for players to be able to customise their PCs to the extent that they 'look' and 'feel' different to the next guy's. The idea of having customisable bodyparts adds some of this colour, and while their functions could be very generalised (eg. sensory, manipulation, etc.), it still conveys a sense to the player of it being his character. This would be the 'creamy' approach, I believe.

3. I think the idea raised about other characters building the character, and having that character's skills to some extent dependant on the skills of the builders, is excellent, and I have never seen it in an RPG myself. Of course not all players will take well to that idea (most obviously, powergamers), but your 'target market' could well stomach and even appreciate that. Perhaps if not built by the other PCs themselves, the new character could be assembled by the tribe's builders, who would obvioulsy have skills in certain areas (great excuse to develop a game with a particular flavour, i.e. GM wants the emphasis off of combat, so the tribe's builders aren't very good at that sort of thing).

4. The whole communal tribe thing is great. Having a PC's abilities augmented by the tellings of the tribe, again, is quite novel.

Anyways just a few comments. I'll be following this thread actively in future and waiting with baited breath for 'launch date'!

[Daniel Solis]

1. If you're unhappy with the title Gears & Spears (I think its quite catchy as a title, although it makes the setting sound a little like something that takes itself less seriously, eg. Tunnels & Trolls ), you might want to call it simply Shine, for obvious reasons. IMHO it captures the mood and the valorous, mythical nature of the game, and also makes one think of highly polished metal/chrome. Its also cunningly simple ;-)

Indeed, it's a good title, but I thought it sounded strangely familiar. A quick google reveals "Shine" has already been used in an academy award winning movie starring Geoffrey Rush. :)

In case anyone's still reading this gigantic thread: I'm compiling all the input and stuff into one html for the time being. The content will change as I think of more stuff, but I figured it'd be more convenient to have a central location for G&S as it stands.

I've not included a magic section on the html yet because I'm still not satisfied with it. The other thing I'm considering is stuff about the spirit world, but I don't know if I want to broach that can of worms for this setting. It'd be kind of neat if the spirit world was actually the remnants of a VR/AR network, only detectable when wearing the proper mask. Anyway, I'll post a new thread for specific questions when I get to that point.

My thanks to everyone who responded to this thread, I had no idea it would generate 4 pages of replies. Even if I didn't use your suggestions, it still helped me define what I did and didn't want in the setting. Every little bit helps. I've listed y'all at the bottom of the html. If you'd rather I use your real names, PM me and I'll fix it up real nice.

[Jeph]

Could you play a character from, like, a tribe of deep-sea mechanized oil rigs or something? Or do you imagine the PCs being more "humanogons"?

Personally, I think playing a gigantic drill would be pretty cool.

But that's just me. ;-)
--Jeff

[Daniel Solis]

I'm handling the jungle oniks first, I think. But I haven't forgotten the tribes who may live in the Sand Sea, on and under the Big Water, or the ones in the "floating cities." I'd like to include them in their own chapters, but the differences in culture, ecology, and types of adventures may warrant that they get their own supplements. That's a very, long-term goal, though. Considering this is technically a side project. :)

[taalyn]

On dice - returning to your base-3 thing, it seems to me that fudge dice would be perfect. On a d6, that's 2 success/blessings/Player, 2 complications/GM, and 2 neutral.

Another option is to go symbolic. Since you're dealing with mythic themes here, return to dice as divination.  Frex, each side is associated with some particular Onik concept or item.

1 : Arm - physical stuff
2 : Wheel - movement stuff
3 : Sensor - mental/observation stuff
4 : Onik - social stuff
5 : Cell (battery) - shine/juice stuff
6 : Fetish - magic stuff

So, rolling to see if GotuKola kills the Land squid threatening his village:

He has 5 dice in his pool, rolls, gets 1,2,1,4,3 - 2 that speak to physical acts, 1 for movement. The player has to describe how is his results are relevant, and that's compared to a difficulty (or GM roll), best number of successes wins. So the player may describe the Onik roll (4) as concern for his village, and bump his success from 3 to 4.

This is stolen from my game and adapted. Feel free to use if you like it. I think it supports the mythic thing pretty damn well, myself.

Aidan

[Daniel Solis]

Another option is to go symbolic. Since you're dealing with mythic themes here, return to dice as divination.  Frex, each side is associated with some particular Onik concept or item.

1 : Arm - physical stuff
2 : Wheel - movement stuff
3 : Sensor - mental/observation stuff
4 : Onik - social stuff
5 : Cell (battery) - shine/juice stuff
6 : Fetish - magic stuff

So, rolling to see if GotuKola kills the Land squid threatening his village:

He has 5 dice in his pool, rolls, gets 1,2,1,4,3 - 2 that speak to physical acts, 1 for movement. The player has to describe how is his results are relevant, and that's compared to a difficulty (or GM roll), best number of successes wins. So the player may describe the Onik roll (4) as concern for his village, and bump his success from 3 to 4.

Currently, G&S is using something like that but a bit more abstract. The dice are 50/50 like described earlier in the thread. Every die that comes up in your favor equals one outcome you can describe for your action. If there is a difficulty number for the task, then the difference between it and the dice result is the number of outcomes you can describe.

It could be interesting to include some divination style dice to the other playstyle I'm working up, where the whole game is played in past tense like the Baron Munchausen game of competitive boasting.

It could also be neat to have the dice that don't succeed flavor the outcomes you describe. This especially true since the current version of G&S describes dice as split between "protagonist" and "the Fates." Say the dice are split for the protagonist on one half, but the Fates' side has further divisions categorized by the style of outcome. Perhaps having the names of actual onik Fate deities? Hmm...

Let's use "Physical, mental, social" just for argument's sake. Of the dice that come up on the Fate side, the most common result influences how the player describes his character's outcomes.

For example:

Your character, Ryatha is desperately trying to save his friends from falling into a fiery volcanic pit. You roll five dice. Each die is split according to the following table.

Protagonist
1, 2, 3 : The player describes a...
Fates
4 : ...Physical outcome.
5 : ...Mental outcome.
6 : ...Social outcome.

Two dice come up in your favor, meaning you can describe two outcomes of Ryatha's efforts. Three dice come up on the Fate side. One 4, two 5. The Fates decide Ryatha will solve this problem with intelligence and cunning.

First outcome: You describe Ryatha dropping his Salamander Cloak of Flame's Bane knowing that it will speed right through the heated air of the volcanic pit, landing beneath his endangered friends.

Second outcome: By his keen intellect, Ryatha coordinated his toss to have the cloak land on one of the volcanic geysers of hot steam, spewing his friends safely out of the pit a little singed but none the worse for wear.

Hm... Maybe... I've never been a fan of having the nature of successes decided by dice. Considering the primary cause of faith loss is acting contrary to mythos and passions, it would seem inconvenient to have a normally social protagonist suddenly forced to solve problems physically or a mighty warrior made to use uncharacteristic flair and panache.

If I did implement something like this dice system, I'd feel compelled to remove the 50/50 die split. The new die format would probably be.

Protagonist
1 and 2 : The player describes a...
Fates
3 : ...Physical outcome.
4 : ...Mental outcome.
5 : ...Social outcome.
6 : ...Magical outcome.

That is, again, if I were to use the divinatory die mechanic. I may not. Either way, thanks for getting my wheels spinning. :)

[dragon_of_colour]

Wow, the webpage looks spiffy, and, hey, I'm in the credits ;-)
Keep up the good works, can't wait to try out a prototype!