[Graal] Redux: tighter rules, more risk

[Jasper]

Hi,

I'm in the process of revising Graal, my game about moral questing ala classic Arthurian Romances.  In addition to a new layout, fixing typos, and so on, I'm considering some rules refinements that I hope will tighten it up more.  Graal is currently for sale at RPGNow, but this second edition will be a free download for anyone who has already bought it.  Since it's commerical already, there's nowhere for you to look at the full rules if you haven't bought it, but I'll try to describe things adequately here, and you can look at earlier threads if you so choose, where I developed the game a bit about a year ago.

There are three specific changes I'm considering.

1. More uniform use of Wisdom

Wisdom is what each character is ultimately trying to get.  Using it helps you in your final struggle to get the Grail (by giving bonus dice on your rolls) and it's acquired in various ways.  It's only other function right now is qualifying you to find and acquire relics, which are various kinds of magical artifacts.  I feel it might be good to have a more uniform rules for wisdom's use though: if relics are going to evaluate you based on your raw wisdom, why shouldn't other things?  If you can spend wisdom in the grand finale to give bonuses, maybe you should be able to do it at other times as well.

So here's my thought: allow wisdom to be spent in any conflict to give some bonus dice as long as the player can make up a nice description involving some religious truism/arcana and its effects on the situation.  However, a roll is made.  If it's failed, the player loses the wisdom that he risked -- it proved to be useful now, but not to be of universal significance.  He still gets the bonus for the current conflict even if it's lost though.

Alternately, just as relics simply demand a threshold of wisdom in order to appear, certain conflicts might require a requisite level of wisdom to perform. Or the character would receive a bonus -- equal to their total wisdom -- in that conflict.

I'm leaning towards option #2 at the moment, just because it's simpler, but my basic question is: is this greater uniformity needed?  Should wisdom have more uses, or is it best left to the end-game and the (relatively uncommon) case of relics?


2. Give Narrative Points a stronger role

As a player, you can spend narrative points (NPS) to introduce things into the game.  NPs are gained by (a) revealing your character's mysteries, (b) on a regular basis -- per session, (c) as general role-playing reward,  (d) by invoking your character's weaknesses, (e) narrating something bad happening.  I want to make two changes.  First, eliminate per-session freebie NPs.  There are plenty of ways to earn them, and all those ways make the game more interesting; freebies don't.

Second, give more emphasis to the narration of Bad Things.  Right now, the NPs you get from narrating something bad perfectly balance those you get for narrating something good.  This ensures that you're free to make the story interesting through bad things -- because you won't be penalized by doing so, in terms of your progress in the quest. However, this balance doesn't actually encourage the narration of bad (but very interesting) things.  So I'd like to tip the balance a little, so narrating bad things nets you more points than you need to spend for good things.

Will this work as an inducement, and is an inducement necessary?  Will there be any other side effects?


3. This is the most iffy.  I think I'd like to require more rolls in general.

Players do a fair amount of resource allocation, shuffling narrative points into virtue, virtue into wisdom, and so on.  However, all of this is absolutely assured: as long as you have the points, and in some cases can come up with a good narration for the interchange, the points convert.  Having re-read Sorcerer and "Sword and Sorcery," which I just got, I'm struck by how much tension is created through very real risk at every turn.  (At first I thought I detected some hold-over from D&D's endless saving throws, but I should have known better.)  Now Graal is not nearly so gritty a game as Sorcerer, at least by default, but it struck me that Graal may feature far too much of an assured up-hill progression, with few and relatively minor glitches along the way -- and certainly no chance to completely fail -- until the very end of the game, where you can simply lose.

So this gets very much into RPG theory, with a more general issue that I'm ultimately considering: what do fortune mechanics and risk in particular contribute to a predominantly narrative game?  What does more or less fortune achieve?  Introducing more might heighten a sense of drama/excitement and create interesting scenarios to consider in terms of character change (i.e. interpreting what exactly a failed humanity roll in Sorcerer actually means to the character).  But it might also frustrate players, if too random.  Have there been fruitful discussions of this before?


Any thoughts appreciated. Of course, I'd also like to hear any other suggestions those who bought it might have -- though they might be better for another thread.  In general, I want to tighten up the mechanics of Graal to really push harder in addressing the themes of Arthurian Romances, and part of that is allowing for both downs as well as ups, and perhaps some harder choices for the players along the way.