[Cabal] intro mechanics

Hi there,

So there we were, digesting the last session of InSpectres with a nice glass of Pinot when we struck upon the idea for a new game. Its got elements of various games we like in it (here we go again!), ideas from Sorcerer, InSpectres and TROS. But for some reason we think it works and its worth fiddling with...

Firstly its a game about a Cabal of Sorcerers/Witches/Warlocks/whatever... they're drawn together and as a result of their occult dealings with each other, derive some sort of power out of it. Each member has joined this Cabal for a reason, be it revenge, personal gain, some kind of axe to grind theologically, love, hate, whatver. We have a mechanic feature called "Deepest Desire" to handle this, it adds to rolls and determines your progress as a character, kind of like SAs. Ok so thats the basics, nothing terribly innovative for sure.

We struck upon the idea of a tarot reading as a feature mechanic of the game. The first idea we had involved taking a reading at the beginning of play for the Cabal as a whole. The Reader is a member of the Cabal and for that Reading exercises certain roles ie is the GM. The Reading is interpreted with a Past, Present and Future component. From this reading we construct the situation (Present) using cues from the Past to feed elements of the game with its R-Map as a basis. The Future component of the Reading now gives some kind of story direction or premise for the length the reading is in effect.

Does this make sense? The Reading itself doesn't really have any other effect at this stage other than a source for scenes and premise cues but really lies as the centre of game prep. I was curious about people's opinions on this kind of mechanic as a whole and whether it lingers into the kind of Fortune-at-the-Start kind of mechanics?

We've toyed with the idea of using further use of the tarot to fuel the scenes, with players able to pick cards from the reading to introduce characters or scenes or other bits in the middle of play. anyway...

look forward to your responses.

cheers

Jason K....