[Gears & Spears] Update: Numero Uno

[Daniel Solis]

For those who missed the big, giant G&S thread, the results of that discussion have been compiled into this page.

Recap
The setting is Earth, two hundred million years after the age of thinking meat's dominance of the world. Two hundred million years since the makers left their home and abandoned their robotic creations just as they were on the verge of sentience. The old civilizations have crumbled to dust, the remaining "makers" long since dead and fossilized. A new tribal culture thrives along the jungled shores of a second Pangaea.

Those abandoned robots have been granted life once more. More importantly, each has been granted self-awareness, emotions and freedom of thought. They've been given a soul, or "shine," as the oniks call it. Almost as a parallel to the early days of the makers, the oniks have their tribes, religions, alliances and wars.

The world is full of magic, monsters, spirits and mysterious dangers lurking throughout unexplored terrain. At a loss to explain the vast, enigmatic world around them, oniks weave myths and legends centering on actual oniks within their tribe. Those oniks are elevated to status of living heroes. In the age of meat, the makers would call these heroes demigods.

And so, the heroes of the new mythology live among the reverent tribes, cultivating their own mythos by their words and deeds as interpreted through oral storytelling. The tribes need their heroes in these dangerous times and, ironically, a hero needs its tribe's faith just as desperately.

Quick updates:

[*] New PDF character sheet. The logo and sheet itself will probably get a revamp or three as the game evolves.

[*] Still trying to figure out this magic deal. Specifically, whether I should categorize rituals according to their effects or if I should just leave it as an improvised style of ceremonial mysticism. I want something improvisational, but with enough guidance to ensure that a player can effortlessly instill his magic with a spooky voodoo vibe.

[*] Searching for some other rpgs to have dealt with shamanic magic in a cool way, without relegating it to a "uncivilized" witch doctoring. Most of the ones I've seen have not really done tribal mysticism the justice it deserves. One thing I have noticed from real-world research is that most magic is divided into black and white, good and bad, whatever. Most of the time, that distinction is heavily biased by tribal prejudices (our magic is good, their magic is bad) but I'm considering actually using this dichotomy somehow. Hopefully, without reducing it to light side vs. dark side.

[*] The spirit worlds are gradually being developed, under the guise of a ruined AR/VR network. Spirits exist in this place. Desperate for physical form, they try to possess mightiest heroes, sapping their shine until the spirit has complete control of the hero's shell. The spirits are actually programs, or disembodied shine, who have been given sentience. I may make a spinoff game for these fellas, where the PCs are programs or something.

[*] I'm playing around the Australian aboriginal concept of the Dreamtime by implementing different time rates in certain areas of the spirit world. Haven't developed it much yet.

[*] Finally, I'm writing up sample character creations. The next big hurdle is a chapter filled with several sample tribe creations. The intent here is to show tribe creation as an in-game way of having the group agree on a particular playstyle and basic elements of their social contract. After that section is written, it'll be time for notable tribes, heroes, monsters, gods, regions and some plot seeds. Phew.[/list:u]

After looking at Pull I might use a similar method to emphasize a tribe's faith in its hero, instead of the dichotomous faith/doubt trait.

The gist of Pull's system is this:

Reps are your abilities. What you're reputed to be able to do and thus are able to do. Each relevant rep adds dice to your pool. Those dice have to roll under the rating of your style, or character concept, to count as a success. In Pull's social combat, an insult, accusation or rumor reduces your style rating, thus making being a criminal that much more difficult unless you react to the attack in an attempt to save face among your peers. Every character also has quirks, or unique eccentricities. If a social attack incorporates a target's quirks, the attacker gets a bonus since his accusation has a seed of truth and is thus more likely to spread.

In G&S, there could be a "faith" trait with an associated number rating. Your dice must roll under faith to be considered "in your favor." If someone spreads stories among your tribe that are contradictory to your mythos, your faith goes down and it becomes more difficult to gain control of the outcomes of your actions. Other ways for faith to go down include:

[*] If the tribe finds other more inspiring heroes to revere
[*] If you act contradictory to your mythos
[*] If you lose contact with your tribe for long periods
[*] If other concerns like survival take attention away from your mythos[/list:u]
Alternatively, I could replace "faith" with "doubt" and require the dice to roll above the doubt rating for the player to gain control of the outcomes. The mechanical essence is the same, just reversed.

Questions
Is the aforementioned system a more elegant way of mechanically implementing a tribe's belief in the protagonist?

What sort of stories should be inspired by the spirit world? Should there even be a spirit world? I get the sinking feeling that it's a big can of worms I'm not ready to open just yet.

What are the most likely playstyles within this setting? Monster-battling? Mythical quests? Tribal politicking? I'd like to know what your thoughts are on the matter so I can provide sample tribe creation writeups to suit those playstyles.

While the magic system itself hasn't been hammered out just yet, I'd like some quickie ideas for the effects that some rituals and fetishes might have. Some are obvious, like rainmaking, bountiful harvests, healing, good luck charms, but I wanna get some really funky items in the mix as well, perhaps only possible because of the invisible technology behind the magic.

[Jonathan Walton]

[*] Searching for some other rpgs to have dealt with shamanic magic in a cool way, without relegating it to a "uncivilized" witch doctoring.

Actually, I think the game you may be looking for here is this obscure piece of work called "Sorceror." :)  I mean, Shamanistic magic is ultimately about dealing with the spirit world, which can either help you or harm you, depending on its whims.  Rather like a demon, in that way.  And I think this solves your hesitations about the good/evil split.  Spirits aren't good or evil, they're just on a continuum between the spirits that are really friendly towards humans and those that are really hostile (and this may change depending on the situation).  And it's usually the hostile spirits that are good for cursing other people, because they have no qualms about harming mortals.  But they'll also have no qualms about harming you either.  Using this kind fo metaphor would be really appropriate to your game, i think.

[*] The spirit worlds are gradually being developed, under the guise of a ruined AR/VR network.

Ohmigod is that a sweet idea!  I haven't really been following your game so far, but now I see I'll have to start paying attention.  That's brilliant!  A perfect metaphor for possession that completely fits into the context of the game.  And this would allow the conciousness of a robotic shaman to travel the network, as well as spirits posessing robots.  Finding motivations for all the VR spirits would be interesting too.  Surely not all of them are hungry for physical bodies.  After all, why would that be better than staying in VR?  They need to be a host of spirits, each with its own motivation.

Right now I'm imaging a playstyle similar to Lunar-centered Exalted games.  The spirit world, ceremonial magic, tribal infighting and interfighting, seeking out powerful spirits to help your tribe or avert certain disasters, journeying to the spirit world to save a comrade from a horrible sickness.  I'd suggest reading or re-reading the first few chapters of "The Clan of the Cave Bear" (the rest is kinda silly and has less and less to do with tribal life) if you're looking for play ideas.

Hope that helps.

[RaconteurX]

I think the game you may be looking for here is this obscure piece of work called "Sorceror." :)

I was going to recommend HeroQuest, as its Animism rules are damn fine...

[raga]

Hey gobi, glad to see the improvements... here's my thoughts

Still trying to figure out this magic deal. Specifically, whether I should categorize rituals according to their effects or if I should just leave it as an improvised style of ceremonial mysticism. I want something improvisational, but with enough guidance to ensure that a player can effortlessly instill his magic with a spooky voodoo vibe.

I play in a Mage game on a regular basis, and something that works well for us in terms of ways to define "improvised" magic is the use of foci. Each sphere of magic that our characters can cast has an associated focus, that we created. The effect of using the focus is that magic is easier to cast when using the focus. The effect this has gives each of our characters style of magic a different feel. If you had some sufficiently spooky voodoo-type foci it might give the players a toolbox from which to draw their ideas.

The spirit worlds are gradually being developed, under the guise of a ruined AR/VR network. Spirits exist in this place. Desperate for physical form, they try to possess mightiest heroes, sapping their shine until the spirit has complete control of the hero's shell. The spirits are actually programs, or disembodied shine, who have been given sentience. I may make a spinoff game for these fellas, where the PCs are programs or something.

I really like that idea, especially the ruined AR/VR network part. Gives me cool visions. But, whoah man, I think you will be opening a can of worms like you said. Good follow up material, maybe for now its enough to have these "programs" as potential friends/enemies of the PCs.

I'm playing around the Australian aboriginal concept of the Dreamtime by implementing different time rates in certain areas of the spirit world. Haven't developed it much yet.

I can imagine it now, you are passing from a dual 2GHz G5 zone to a 400Mhz PII zone, get ready for a time change.... <grin>

Is the aforementioned system a more elegant way of mechanically implementing a tribe's belief in the protagonist?

well. I like the system approach you presented in this update, but I think it might take a little away from the flavor of the first version. The first version seemed to focus a little more on the specific situations adn the PCs actions more.

I hope that's useful to you. I like the character sheet as well, definately heading in the right direction. If I can get a group of friends to try this with me I'll definately post the result here. Thanks again.

peace,
mike

[Ben Lehman]

On magic:

It seems to me that, as soon as you have rules for group challenges (i.e. cooperation) and taking time for actions you have ceremonial magic, which is essentially just a bunch of Oniks cooperating and taking a long time to do something that is difficult and important.  In a system which is so loosely defined, you don't really need a seperate subsystem.

yrs--
--Ben