[Little Fears] Minor Tweaks and Thoughts

[Bifi]

Hi there,

I purchased LF recently and am thinking about running a ca. 6 sessions long adventure set in Warsaw. The current time is around '85, with the communist government still at large. It would have reminiscencies on WWII and the Warsaw Jewish ghetto - the Otherworld slowly starts to bleed itself into places and events where the characters can perceive it. The central story, not dissimilar to The Ring movie, is about a Jewish girl hiding before the Nazis and not being able to come out after the immediate threat is over and dying (somewhere in the basement or else). There could be some childrens' myths and rumours passing from generation to generation how she haunts certain places etc. The characters will probably try to find her body and help her soul - with some unexpected plot twists.

My first idea was to convert LF to FUDGE since the Scale stat would efficiently and neatly handle the age differences (being one of the common points of several reviews) - FOR ALL STATS, even for Smarts. You may be very smart for a 6-yrs. old kid, which could mean you're comparably smart to an average 8-yrs. old. (The Scale stat would range from 0 for a 14-yrs. old and above to -4 for 6 to 7-yrs. olds.)

But since I wanted to try the innovative Quiz/Test system I dumped this idea. Nevertheless, I redesigned the stats to Courage (former Spirit), Deftness (former Hands and Feet), Muscle and Smarts (the players get 5 PaPs to distribute, not 6).

Now, there a couple of problems I have with the game itself. First, I don't really see the need for three scalars (Fear, Innocence, Soul) in the way they are presented - with quite similar effects for the character of being at the low end and almost no interdependency. Also the fact that in some of them your character can afford to lose/gain just one or two points on a 0-10 scale before being hampered. Now I'm in the process of trying to find some mechanics to somehow connect (or unite) them.

The Fear mechanics:
The Fear virtue is on a 0-6 scale (for the sake of simplicity to be the same as stats). Fear starts at 0 and is gained by failed Fear checks (Courage Quiz) and rolling a 6, by the influence of Fear-feeding monsters (failing a Fear check) and by possession. To avoid possession, the player must succeed in rolling higher than his character's Fear (effectively being a Test against himself). Fear is reduced by recuperation, rehabilitation, being safe and feeling comfort or being loved (no hard-and-fast rules, but something like one point per 2 weeks). At Fear 4 the character becomes unsteady, at 5 starts to close-off, exhibit manic states/depressions and frequent mood changes (-1 to stats) and at 6 develops a mental illness (probably a schizophrenia) with a -2 to all stats.

The metagame/in-game Soul mechanics:
Soul represents humanity and innocence - the ability to accept one's human personality and life in this world. Soul also operates on the 0-6 scale and defaultly starts at 6. It can be lost by attacks of monsters or being stolen (in-game?), by committing heinous acts, by being abused or spent in order to help the character in a conflicting situation (similar to Fate points in FATE), to fuel belief magic/wonders (which are actually in opposition to the real world and the mundane human life) or maybe to prevent a monster from possession. It could also be used to erase one of the future fate elements in the written-up character fate (as mentioned by Ron in his review). It is gained if a character successfully pursues his dreams (making them real), if the characters strives to help or protect or is activelly loving, also if he shows his weakness. It could also be gained if the player makes decisions to bring the character into danger (or something similar) if it propels the story forward. Soul of 6 to 5 means the character can be described as vigorous, moral or self-reliant. With Soul 2 the characters is paling and is prone to erratic behaviour, slurred speech etc. At 1 he is fading and apathic. At 0 he just vanishes (like the kids who walk out or dissappear never to be found). I didn't incorporate any age influence into this mechanics (yet; but for an adventure that does not span years of time it's not even necessary).

I don't know whether to include a third mechanics, Innocence, which could be somehow connected to Taint, trauma and abuse, failed belief magic etc. (It would be on a 0-6 scale. Belief magic could work on the basis of Innocence Quiz.)

If anyone has some ideas or comments to this I'd be very glad to discuss them.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello!

I'm glad to see this topic. Have you seen my review of Little Fears? You'll recognize the same concerns with Fear, Innocence, and Soul. Bluntly, I consider the mechanics in the game to be inelegant and not very well-integrated with one another.

What do you think of this idea? Keep Fear and Soul as you've tweaked them, but have Innocence be a resisting value against the negative effects of losing Soul or gaining Fear. That sounds interesting to me, similar to the personality mechanics of Le Mon Mouri and My Life with Master.

Best,
Ron

editing these in: two threads you might find interesting
Little Fears mechanic questions/problems
The future-story outcome of Little Fears

[Bifi]

Ron,

Yes, the review was superb and it actually made me buy the game. I also very much liked the future story outcome mechanics. I was thinking I could use it too, with the difference that the future outcome would be quite close, just several years or maybe even months in the future.

Imagine something like "Jason began to hang out with a couple of street kids, some of which have been caught stealing before. He started to come home late and the parents would shout at him. The relations in the family would become tensed, resulting in Jason's runaway from home a few times. Finally, about a year in the future, he did not return. His body was found badly battered and bruised in the basement of a "haunted" abandoned house in the old quarter. The police never found his murderer."

It's not that humane as your future write-up technique, but it is more dramatic as it clearly ties with the current ongoings.

Re: Innocence
I do have a copy of MLwM but I'm afraid I'm not following you exactly. Nevertheless, I like the mechanics in MLwM and I also like the idea to make Innocence a separate value that somehow reflects/affects the values of Soul or Fear. Did you mean that in order to avoid the negative effects of having high Fear/low Soul a player may roll an Innocence Quiz?

Would Innocence be lost by age or by gaining Fear? Could Innocence be regained?

What if instead of lowering Soul to 2 or less (or raising Fear to 4 or more) the player could opt for lowering Innocence?

My main problem with the game was actually to distinguish between the aim of these three values. Soul and Innocence have clearly very much in common (having high Innocence and high Soul somehow occurs to me as synonymical), Fear and Innocence too (gaining Fear corresponds to losing Innocence).

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Let's see ... I actually held off from suggesting an actual mechanic, because I didn't want to influence you with a half-baked procedure, just with a concept. The concept is to treat features on the sheet as if they were opposed to one another, such as Testing Soul against Fear, for instance.

My main problem with the game was actually to distinguish between the aim of these three values.

I agree with you entirely, along with all the members of our group. We found the numerical interactions among the three scores to be nonsensical, which is why we came up with the future-story concept in order to give the numbers something to "do."

Speaking of which, I would really like to know how your version of the idea works out in play. And speaking of that, I also have to ask: is this thread best understood as "musing about a game I might play someday," or is it in actual preparation for real play?

Best,
Ron

[Bifi]

Thanks Ron,

Why, yes, I have already started collecting some resource material (Warsaw, Jewish ghetto during the WWII, photos to present and create mood (especially of kids), etc.), I think the first session could be held in about 2-3 weeks (depends on the schedule of our group since we are also starting a Sorcerer mini-campaign these days).

Concerning Tests: I probably have a problem understanding this. Tests are being made by rolling above your opponent's Stat. Qualities apply situationally. So you're not actually using any of your Stats. But elsewhere in the text (and in your later post as well) I found a formulation like "roll Stat A vs. Stat B". How does that work? (At first I thought it's because of helping to adjudicate which Qualities apply, but they are not tied to Stats, at least not necessarily).

Concerning Innocence: I will think about that and try to come up with a working system. I will post it to this thread. Actual game experiences will also follow, later.

Before I have also tried to come up with a Fear-Soul scale (feeding on Fear could be somehow synonymical to stealing Soul), something like this:

Code Select Expand

Soul  (0)             (6)
         O O O O O O
Fear  (6)             (0)
with Fear being a caps for Soul, which could then fluctuate only on the levels below Fear. Soul could not be increased above Fear (but if Fear was gained it wouldn't lower the Soul - it just means that the only direction for  Soul (being higher than Fear) is down). One of the problems with this is to differentiate between the states of having low Soul and having high Fear.

What do you think about gaining Soul/losing Fear ideas proposed in my first post? I like especially the loving (gaining Soul)/being loved (losing Fear) options.

Best,
Michal

[Dav]

My coupla cents:

You're spot-on.  I do have a weakness for opposed traits (like your Fear-Soul combo).  Have you considered allowing characters to define their Fear-Soul trigger individually, rather than as a stated and concrete representation for the storyline?  

That way, the method by which Fear-Soul manifests is intrinsically linked to the child in question.  As a GM, you can always determine some universal constant of terror (for my game it was the inherent fear that one child's father inspired in all kids)... but the idea of combatting and manifesting fear, especially in a mechanical sense, strikes me as quite interesting.

Dav

[Bifi]

Have you considered allowing characters to define their Fear-Soul trigger individually, rather than as a stated and concrete representation for the storyline?

That is actually a nice idea. Although the horror in this adventure is "objectively real/tangible", i.e. not a manifestation of a child's fear but a force of its own, the idea you're proposing fits very well with the real life interaction where every kid could be prone to being scared of something different. Yes, actually it not only does help to differentiate more between characters, it is actually a challenge for the group to not think of a child as just "a kid" but as an individuality with its own personal mechanisms of handling/experiencing things.