[Gears & Spears] New Mythic Task Resolution (long post)

[Daniel Solis]

It's been a while since the last update, but I have indeed written a bit more for the game (though nothing ready to be posted on the page itself.) One thing that's bubbled up is the notion of using task resolution with outcomes as clearly defined, yet open-to-interpretation as the tried and true 'success'/'failure.'

In developing the cosmology of Gears & Spears, I've started working up a divine triumverate of sleeping gods most often worshiped by the robots living in the deserts and jungles of the Big Land. All colorful descriptions aside, the three gods each govern those old fantasy staples: Destruction/Renewal (Paraka, the 'father' deity), Creation/Order (Harhua, the 'mother' deity mentioned in the G&S opening flavor text), and Chaos (Kerija, the 'child' deity).

So, to the point, I have written some prototypical rules for task resolution. The idea is that mundane actions result success/failure but mythic actions are always successful but result in either "Destruction/Renewal," "Creation/Order," or some sort of "Change."

The following is the system as it stands following this design concept.

Addition to character creation:

Divine Favor
In the Divine Favor section of your character sheet, arrange the names of the three sleeping gods in order of their influence over your legendary actions. The three gods are Harhua, governing creation, stagnation and order; Paraka, governing destruction and renewal; and Kerija, governing change and madness.

The system itself (This is rather long, so I've also included a concise summary in case you'd rather skip all the flavor text.):

Acting
Mundane acts are those everyday tasks which can be performed by any onik, including hunting or farming for meager sustenance, walking, talking, and so forth. If ever it becomes uncertain whether a non-legendary onik can succeed in a mundane action, the shining elder rolls one six-sided die, adding the bonus granted by the character's highest-ranking beneficially relevant trait. If a legend is present, and the character has faith in that legend, the SE also adds the legend's faith rating.

If the final result is '6' or over, the action is successful. However, mundane tasks performed by non-legendary oniks will never have major, life-altering effects on the world and certainly not on any character. Mundane oniks cannot kill other characters unless a legend is present.

Speaking of legends acting, a legend is always enormously successful at any mundane action. Period.

Things are a bit more unusual for legendary actions, for the actions of a living legend are aided and hindered by the blessed dreams of the divine, shining triad, the holy personages whose slumbering thoughts are most influential among all the sleeping gods.

These three great beings, Harhua, Paraka, and Kerija, whose dreams linger in the shine of oniks, are those who can help a legends towards their destinies. These three are the most dominant of the hundreds of sleeping gods. They are called the shining triad, the iridescent fates, and the three-petaled gossamer rose.

Legendary actions are those far beyond the ability of mere mortal oniks. Carving canyons with bare hands, singing monsters to sleep with a divine song, and organizing a timid, pacifist tribe into a community willing to defend itself are all "common" legendary actions. In essence, a legendary action is any that would be remembered and repeated in the stories of several generations.

Legendary actions are always successful, without question. However, a dice roll determines which of the three sleeping gods influences the nature of the action's outcome. In simple terms, mythic acts result in either something created (Harhua), something destroyed (Paraka), or something changed (Kerija).

Despite the use of dice, it is not by random whim that one deity will guide a legend's destiny. Each legend has a special attunement, known or not, willing or not, to one of the divine triad. This spiritual resonance is represented by the order in which you place the importance of each deity under the "Divine Favor" section of your character sheet. When creating your character, you placed Harhua, Paraka, and Kerija in whatever primary, secondary, and tertiary rank you felt best fits how you would be playing your character. The higher the rank of the deity, the more likely they'll influence the outcomes of your legendary acts.

To perform a legendary action, first declare what it is your character is doing, then roll three dice. For each beneficially relevant trait your character possesses, add its modifier to each die's result. If at least three of your non-legendary tribe members are present, you may add your faith rating to each die's result as well.

Your tertiary god rules results of '1' and '2.' The secondary god rules '3' and '4.' The primary god rules results of '5' and above. The "winning" deity of each die is said to be "ascendant" or "ascendant over" the die. The following are the three most influential sleeping gods in onik mythology:

Harhua, the azure mother with ten million open eyes, each with ten thousand souls casting the light of a single shine, governs creation, stability, persistence, reliability, honor, tradition, stagnation, stubbornness, community, trustworthiness, life, planning, the intellectual, and "yes." If Harhua is ascendant, your legendary action results in something created, protected, expected, or constructed.

Paraka, the black father with one hundred arms, each with five hundred hands grasping five hundred flaming golden spears, governs destruction, necessary evils, deception, stealth, self-reliance, discipline, hunting, execution, the physical, and "no." If Paraka is ascendant, your legendary action results in something destroyed, attacked, harmed, surprised, or disciplined.

Kerija, the white child, swaddled in the silken hearts of two million stars, whose laughs and cries are carried in the whims of the Great Storm, governs change, growth, maturity, wisdom, uncertainty, unreliability, madness, inspiration, potential, the social, and "maybe." If Kerija is ascendant, your legendary action results in something changed, mutated, diverted, or confused.

Your legendary actions always have three outcomes, one for each die. Resolve the outcomes of each die, from lowest to highest. This means your least influential deity may color the first outcomes of your action, but your most influential diety will have "the last word."

Mythos Tokens
The use of a mythos token is fairly straightforward. Spend a token at any time to automatically cause any effect your character has the power to directly influence, without concern for either creation, destruction, or change. The use of a mythos token represents a moment when your character taps deep within itself to access a tiny fraction of its legendary shine: willpower beyond the power of even the dreams of the sleeping gods.

Further, you can also augment a line or add a new line of your mythos that reflects how you were able to do everything you described. If a line of your mythos changes the nature of one of your traits, the affected trait is reduced to tertiary status and cannot be upgraded until the mythos once again includes it.

And a quick summary of the system:

Summary
Mundane Act Resolution
1. Declare action
2. Determine success or failure by rolling a die.
3. Add the modifier of the highest-ranked, beneficially relevant trait.
4. If a legend is present, add the legend's faith rating.
5. If the final, totalled sum is equal to or greater than '6,' the mundane action is successful. If not, it was a failure.

Legendary Act Resolution
1. Declare action
2. Determine ascendant deities by rolling three dice.
3. Add the modifiers of all beneficially relevant traits.
4. If non-legendary tribe members are present, add your character's faith rating.
5. Determine the ascendant deity of each die, from lowest to highest.
      a. Results between '1' and '2' are governed by your tertiary deity.
      b. Results between '3' and '4' are governed by your secondary deity.
      c. Results 5 and above are governed by your primary deity.

System Pros:

[*]It has a very tight connection to the in-game setting, helping reinforce the notion of belief and religion having definite perceptible influences over the flow of the story.

[*]In the spirit of tribe creation, which is used as an in-game method of deciding certain elements of social contract, the arrangement of the three gods' divine favor allows a player to choose how her mythic actions will affect the drama of the story and to have mechanically positive reinforcement of her decision. (I want to play a character whose mythic acts will most often result in creation, so I choose Harhua as my primary deity.)

[*]The loose nature of mythic task resolution somewhat alleviates my worries over how to implement a magic system. In essence, any mythic act has an element of the supernatural whether it is an act of great strength or arcane knowledge.

[*]The time spent interpreting the dice adds an interesting divinatory element to gameplay. Something akin to analyzing the patterns of augury or tea leaves.[/list:u]

System Cons:

[*]The extended search & handling time of dice interpretation may be too much work for vague results.

[*]Divine favor suddenly has much, much more importance than the character's traits, which are obtained through developing the character's mythos. It becomes too much about the three deities than about developing a new mythology (which was, and is, a core design goal). I tried balancing this a bit by making traits add bonuses to dice rolls, but it's a clunky solution.

[*]The limits of "success" and "failure" are easy to figure out, possibly from years of RPG conditioning, but the dramatic restrictions of "creation/destruction/change" are not as easy to wrap my brain around. I don't know if this is because it's a flawed concept or because I've just not played with something like it before.

[*]I have no idea how to do contested rolls with this system.

[*]Rules examples are my greatest fault, and one which I doubt I'll resolve any time soon, hence the lack of examples here. Hopefully, discussion on this thread will help me more clearly explain the system.[/list:u]

Questions
Are there better ways to reach the positive aspects of the system without using such a clunky resolution mechanic?

How can I balance out the influence of individual character mythos traits with the influence of the divine favor?

Does destruction/creation/change provide enough of a guideline for non-narratively inclined players to narrate their own actions?

Are the three outcomes too restrictive for those who are accustomed to narrating their own actions?

If I stick with this system, how could I do contested mythic actions?

[anonymouse]

I'll come back to this in a day or two when I've had time to think about your specific questions.

In the meantime.. ergh. I don't really like this turn at first blush; as you say in the Cons, you're taking focus away from the character's mythos, which is the whole point of play. Now all of a sudden a god's sharing the spotlight with you.

Also.. is this how it works, in a nutshell?

Rahu is trying to break a rock. He rolls three dice: azure is 3, black is 5, white is 9.
* He's destroying it, so he uses the result of the black die, 5, to determine the result.

It looks like the create/destroy/change has to do with intent, too. I broke the rock in half:
* I destroyed the rock; once whole, it's now in two pieces.
* I changed the rock; it is still rock, just split.
* I took a whole rock, and created two smaller ones.

And when do you think you'll have a complete playtest doc available? I'm gnashing at the bit to run a game of this. =)

[Daniel Solis]

Yeah, as I said, this is essentially just an idea on the drawing board. I could very well strike it down to the cutting room floor, but I wanted some input from the Forge-ites before I make a final decision. The rock-breaking example you described is making me lean very much towards the "Eh, it was just an idea," end of things.

Someone on the forum once said that if the idea doesn't get you excited, you can't expect anyone else to get excited either. To be honest, this idea isn't getting me immediately excited. I mean, intellectually I think it has some interesting possibilities, but maybe not so much for Gears & Spears specifically.

I had this scene in my mind where the players finish off describing their mythic actions by saying, in a wise storyteller style of voice, "...and that's why there are two suns," or "...and that's why we have a stampebeast herd outside the tribal grounds," or "...and that's why we never go to the forbidden city." You get the idea.  Basically, I don't care about mythic actions making sense, just good myth. You want to toss the fire spirit into the stars to make a second sun? Go ahead. You want to shatter a mountain, pour magic water over the rubble and create a herd of livestock? Rock on.

What happened here is probably that I just got fascinated with an idea of create/destroy/change task resolution but lost sight of how it actually helped the game.

So, the basic problem is still there. How do I encourage mythic role-playing in all its dramatic, sometimes illogical fun? For reference, here are the current rules for G&S.

[raga]

ok... after a third re-reading I'm starting to understand exactly how this works. it sounds a little convoluted but it may have an interesting impact on play, as it definately calls the diety aspect into the player's description. I dunno could be cool,  playtesting would be fun :)

peace,
mike

[Shreyas Sampat]

I think I agree with you that, while this system is interesting and exciting, it isn't what you want for G&S.  You gain a certain closeness to the mythic roots of the onik culture, but at a dramatic cost of character differentiation.

I could see this still being used, but rather than have each theme correspond to one of the gods, each legend could choose three resonances that are important to him.  So for a Vedic Indian sort of flavor, you could have resonances with family ties, enlightenment, and duty, while a more Greek-coloured hero resonated with national pride, hubris, and ...something else....

Admittedly, I've taked this route before and haven't playtested it, but i think it has a lot of potential for enforcement of ongoing themes.


As for the rock-breaking example, you can colour me unimpressed; that looked like a mundane action to me.  Now, if you were trying to get past a mountain, then I would be impressed:
* I created something; I built a bridge around the mountain in a night and a day.
* I destroyed something; in a fit of fury I smashed the mountain into sand.
* I changed something; in a moment of inspiration, I rode a river to the mountaintop and reversed its course so I could ride down the other side.

[Daniel Solis]

I could see this still being used, but rather than have each theme correspond to one of the gods, each legend could choose three resonances that are important to him.  So for a Vedic Indian sort of flavor, you could have resonances with family ties, enlightenment, and duty, while a more Greek-coloured hero resonated with national pride, hubris, and ...something else....

I could include this as a transition between tribe creation and character creation. I've been considering expanding tribe creation to include specific traits like taboos and cultural ideals as you just described. Living up to the ideals of the tribe could instill greater faith in the mythic hero. Breaking tribal taboo would cause a loss of faith.

As for the rock-breaking example, you can colour me unimpressed; that looked like a mundane action to me.

Ah! You're right, it is a mundane action! Hm... Still, it's a rather complicated mechanic to get these results. It would likely be easier to have three specialized Plot Points, as in octaNe. You spend plot points to add facts to the world (while mythos tokens add facts to the character), but "Change" plot points can only add changes, "Destruction" plot points can only be spent to destroy, and "Creation" plot points can only create.

However, even though the actions you described were indeed of mythic proportion, the line between the three outcomes is still uncomfortably blurry. For example:

* I destroyed something; in a fit of fury I smashed the mountain into sand.

This could be interpreted as changing the mountain into sand, or even a desert.

The other two described attempts to get past the mountain are fairly within their lines of definition, but the whole process is a very tricky bit of phrasing. Perhaps so tricky that it ceases to be fun to actually play?

[Shreyas Sampat]

I like this link between tribe creation and the mythic hero - it sounds much more in line with my understanding on the original goal of G&S.

As for drawing the line tighter, you can do that if you want.  Desive a simple test:
Is it change?  If I Change a mountain and then ask you what it is, you will still answer, "It's a mountain."
Is it creation? If I Create something, and I ask you what happened, you'll tell me, "Something is there that was not before, and all else is largely unchanged."
Is it destruction?  If I Destroy something, and I ask you what is there, you will reply, "All remains but the object of your fury."

Personally, I believe that each route has its own benefits; the interpretive route can be leveraged to produce valuable insights into character, while the more rigid route will probably create more unpredictable results, and generally force the players to think harder about their mythic actions.

I think this 'plot token' idea is something that you can definitely try out; the 'three dice' mechanic is still more or less opaque to me.

[Jonathan Walton]

This could be interpreted as changing the mountain into sand, or even a desert.

The other two described attempts to get past the mountain are fairly within their lines of definition, but the whole process is a very tricky bit of phrasing. Perhaps so tricky that it ceases to be fun to actually play?

Nonsense.  This is exactly how Nobilis does it.  It's inevitable that there will be multiple ways to acheive the same end.

And Shreyas is right.  It's only a Change if the Sand-that-was-a-Mountain is important to the story.  If the important part is that the Mountain is no longer there, it's Destruction.  Otherwise, who cares about the Sand?

[Daniel Solis]

I like this link between tribe creation and the mythic hero - it sounds much more in line with my understanding on the original goal of G&S.

It also continues the tribe-creation-as-contract-creation process I had envisioned:

Say the group agrees that they'd rather play a game of trickstery and mischief-making without resorting violence. This desire can be expressed by giving the tribe a taboo against using violence to solve problems and an ideal that celebrates quick thinking and ingenuity. Suddenly, there is a mechanical incentive supporting a playstyle the group has chosen for itself. Is there a better word for "ideal" that can be the opposite of "taboo"?

As for drawing the line tighter, you can do that if you want.  Desive a simple test:
Is it change?  If I Change a mountain and then ask you what it is, you will still answer, "It's a mountain."
Is it creation? If I Create something, and I ask you what happened, you'll tell me, "Something is there that was not before, and all else is largely unchanged."
Is it destruction?  If I Destroy something, and I ask you what is there, you will reply, "All remains but the object of your fury."

If you don't mind, I'll use this very example in my next revision of the game text. BTW, thanks a lot, Shreyas. I was hoping you'd impart some of your insights onto this matter since you've worked on similar subjects for Mridangam. :)

Nonsense.  This is exactly how Nobilis does it.  It's inevitable that there will be multiple ways to acheive the same end.

Very true. I'll lighten up when it comes to the strict definitions and whatnot.

[Jonathan Walton]

Is there a better word for "ideal" that can be the opposite of "taboo"?

Well, "taboo" was originally a religious term.  How about "Sacred" and "Profane" as categories for things?  So a given tribe will consider X sacred and consider Y profane.

[anonymouse]

re: the rock: I was invisioning a rather big rock, if that changes anything. ;p

[Daniel Solis]

How about "Sacred" and "Profane" as categories for things?  So a given tribe will consider X sacred and consider Y profane.

Hm... I like, but I still want to see some more suggestions.

In a related matter, most steps in character and tribe creation follow the "make a tertiary trait, secondary trait, and a primary trait" model. Making three of everything may be too much of a hassle. So, for the taboo/ideal stage of tribe creation, I was thinking of just having a simple 1:1 rule: "For every ideal, create a taboo." I don't know how accurate this is for tribal culture, but it seems to make sense that a society with lots of things it passionately celebrates would also have just as many things it passionately hates. At the opposite extreme, a dispassionate society will have fewer ideals and taboos.

re: the rock: I was invisioning a rather big rock, if that changes anything. ;p

No worries. :)