[GroupDesign] - Clusters 2 and 3

[Tobias]

Gentlemen (and ladies, if reading),

Let's get into the earlier defined Clusters 2 and 3:

2. Maintaining a Balance, Making Hard Choices, FastHard/SlowSteady. As far as I can tell, these are intimately related - but I may be wrong, you/we may have different take on this. What Balance needs to be maintained for the Archivists? Why? Why do hard choices need to be made? Is FastHard/Slowsteady the primary description of the balance/conflict of choices, or is there more?

Note that other issues may be related to this - Burnout, Personal sacrifice, Multiple Personality disorder - but they seem to be extreme results of things going wrong on the balance end, which is why they are point 3:

3. When things go bad - Burnout, Personal sacrifice, Multiple Personality disorder. Over here we can go into more detail.

The more general points: Human Nature, Abstraction, Earth-centric and High Tech are things I would like you to keep in mind while we're forming the definitions of these three clusters - as color, or backdrop, if you would.

I've decided we should go into both of them together to keep the momentum we've currently got. I don't think a lot of time will be needed on this.

I would prefer it if you didn't write general answers to 'why a balance' needs to be maintained - I would like stuff that will confront a potential reader/player with the immediacy and consequences of the issues at stake. Mechanics are A-OK at this time, but keep them compact and a logical derivative from the answers to the questions.

Thanks, PM me with any questions you may have.

[contracycle]

I'm a little confused.  Are we to propose clusters 2 and 3 in the light of our own suggestions for cluster 1?  Should we not make a decision on cluster 1 first?

[Tobias]

Cluster 1 is concluded - see my summary in the previous thread and the final responses.

Is there anything left unfinished? Would you like me to summarize it all again? Put it up on a website somewhere? (Actually, that may be a good idea anyway).

[LordSmerf]

Balance.

The Archivists must balance two intimately related things: The Archivist's sense of self and the Archivist's sense of Humanity.  These two elements balance against one another.  On the one hand the Archivist, as something specifically not-human, must experience humanity through the host.  On the other hand the Archivist risks getting too "involved" and becoming unable to recover himself from the Host.

This is not necessarily a fast/slow decision, but it is a balance to maintain.  I would consider a mechanic as follows: There is a sliding scale with Humanity at one end and something else ("Enlightenment" perhaps?) at the other.  Certain actions cause shifts toward one end or the other.  If you reach either end then something big happens (perhaps something as major as reaching 0 Humanity in Sorcerer, loss of Player Character).  This mechanic is strengthened when the actions that cause shifts on this continuum are chosen instead of forced.  You get this difficult decision: "If i choose to do X i risk losing the character, but if i do not choose to do X there will be a horrible consequence Y."

I hope that is relatively coherent.  There are some other ideas concerning balance, but that one jumped out in front of me.

Thomas

[Andrew Morris]

Thomas, I like the sliding scale mechanic, but how would we handle situations where the Archivist is advancing both human and Archvisist values?

Actually, this got me thinking that a neat way to construct the character is to say that every trait is a sliding scale between two opposites. For example, say everything is rated 1-10. If a human's X trait is a 7, then the Archivist's anti-X trait is 3. Thus, the Archivists might need to exert more anti-X at some point, which he is free to do, at the cost of the human's X trait. This is also kinda neat because it means that the Archivist has the most potenial power in an area where its host is weak.

I've got some more to say about clusters 2 and 3, but I'm at work right now, so I don't have the time to address them fully. I'll post more later today.

[Doug Ruff]

OK, here goes. I've written this up as a 'blurb', I hope this serves to illustrate some of the key themes for 2 and 3.

***

This game is primarily about preserving the future of the human race... except most of the humans don't know it.

As an Archivist, you 'possess' the bodies of human beings throughout history and try to guide them towards the right choices, choices that will ensure that the human race has a glorious future amongst the stars. You use your powers to protect them, inspire them, persuade them.

Why do you do this? Because you are the future of the human race - for as long as you keep winning this war....

***

But it isn't going to be easy...

For one thing, taking a Host has consequences. Your fleshly ancestors are too fragile a vessel for your powers - continued exposure to an Archivist can drive a human mad, or riddle them with radiation sickness.

Using your powers has consequences too. The Nemesis are out there, watching for signs of Archivist activity, waiting for an opportunity to pounce and remove another player from the Great Game.

But the biggest danger of all is from yourself. After so long without a body of your own, the demands of the flesh are uniquely addictive. And if you want to, you can Fade into the background, living another person's life through their eyes, their actions, their hopes and fears.

You may even Fade so far, that you can't get back out. Even if you wanted to...

[LordSmerf]

Thomas, I like the sliding scale mechanic, but how would we handle situations where the Archivist is advancing both human and Archvisist values?

I do not see it as a case of advancing the values of one side or the other.  I would say that some actions are inherently "human" and some are inherently "non-human".  Laser-beam eyes are non-human.  Heroin addiction is human.  This is not quite as clear as i would like it to be.  What i would like to see is a game in which this balancing act needs to be maintained, one in which the closer you get to either extreme the more "powerful" you become.  Perhaps the closer you are to the Humanity end the better you can manipulate things without using your powers and the closer you are to the Enlightenment end the better you can use your powers.  So if you are right in the middle (5/5 or whatever) you are not really all that good at either one...

Quite a while back Jay Turner was discussing his game concept Better Days which had all of its stats on a sliding scale and you had to determine which half was applicable to a given situation and then try to roll on that side of the split...  I am thinking of something significantly different.  Perhaps if i give it some time to percolate through my brain i will figure out what i am trying to say...

Thomas

[TonyLB]

Oh my... so an Archivist on the verge of fading into humanity, who wakes up every morning with a hang-over to drag himself to a dead-end job in the cubicles, would be as powerful (in his way) as a post-human Archivist without the need for air or food or companionship, who uses his body as little more than a conduit to channel unearthly power.

And they're supposedly on the same team.  What on (or off of) earth would they have to talk about?  I love it!

[Sydney Freedberg]

(1) General Comments:

I emphatically agree that there needs to be a temptation for Archivists to lose their detachment and "go human" (isn't this what Wings of Desire was about? I saw it years and years ago). I think this is the flip-side of "Self-Sacrifice": Whatever Archivists gained when they became Archivists, they lost much of their humanity, and they must constantly struggle to reaffirm that initial self-sacrifice, moment by moment, against the temptation to forget the Quest to solve the Question and to simply enjoy the human sensations of the Host.

So the first Balance is within the Archivist, between his/her/its "angelic" status and the desire to return to humanity. The second balance is between Archivist and Host: There is a Hard Choice between simply pushing the host too Fast and Hard, accomplishing the mission at terrible risk to the host's life and sanity, versus going too Slow and Steady, protecting the individual host but risking the human race as a whole if you fail the mission. Burnout and Multiple Personality Disorder should threaten both the Host and the Archivist if things go wrong.


(2) Mechanics Ideas

Thomas, I like the sliding scale mechanic, but how would we handle situations where the Archivist is advancing both human and Archvisist values? Actually, this got me thinking that a neat way to construct the character is to say that every trait is a sliding scale between two opposites.

I'm with Andrew for the first half of this. But I fear that multiple sliding scales would get confusing, both for players and us as designers ("Okay, what exactly is the opposite of 'Matrix-esque wire fu level 9?'"), while a single sliding scale a la Sorcerer might be too confining. So I prefer something more along the lines of free-form Traits -- but where any Trait can be characterized in the bipolar terms Thomas suggested as being either "human" (i.e. "heroin addict level 3) or transhuman (e.g. "laser beam eyes:4," "wire fu:9," or more subtly, "things that man was not meant to know:6").

In this system, every mortal human is defined by a list of Traits, each with a description and a numerical level: E.g. Sam Spade, Stereotypical Private Eye, would have "Tough:3," "Good Shot:1," "Observant:5," "Cynical:4," and "Sense of Honor:5." Some of these traits are simply functional; but some of these traits -- Cynical, Honor -- define the human nature of the character, and thus are specifically Human traits. A Human Trait is one that, if used, reinforces human nature and undermine transhuman nature.

Archivists conversely have lots of Transhuman Traits -- "Things Man Was Not Meant to Know:8," "Laser-Beam Eyes 4," "Wire-Fu 7" -- which, if used, reinforce transhuman nature and undermine human nature. BUT each Archivist also starts play with one or two Human Traits, the residue of their mortal past before becoming an Archivist.

Any Trait can count for or against you depending on the circumstances: P.I. Spade's "Sense of Honor" will help him to resist a bribe but hinder him bullying a poor scared kid into giving up crucial information. So when a character tries something, if the total value of all the Traits that help in this particular situation is greater than that of the Traits that hurt, the character succeeds; if the hindering Traits are greater than or equal to the helpful Traits, the character fails.

Now, when Possession comes into the picture, the Archivist may CHOOSE to add any of his/her/its Traits to the Host's for a particular effort. But it's a choice that has consequences. Every Host has a Limit, known only to the GM, beyond which lie illness, insanity, and ultimately death. Each time the Archivist uses [x] points of Transhuman Traits channeled through the Host, the Host moves [x] points closer to the Limit.

Conversely, every time the Archivist lets the Host act in accordance with his/her Human Traits at the expense of the Archivist's mission -- you let P.I. Spade go easy on the poor kid instead of beating the information out of him, or you let the junkie shoot up instead of reading ancient scrolls -- the host's humanity is restored. For every [y] points of Human Traits the host is allowed to use, the host moves [y] points away from the Limit.

Presumably, the Archivist also has some kind of Limit that works the exact opposite way: If the Archivist lets the Host be too human (use human traits) and doesn't exercise its transhuman powers enough (by using those traits), then ultimately the Archivist starts forgetting its identity and becomes absorbed into the Host.

Now, where does Multiple Personality Disorder fit in? Through some mechanic I confess I've not worked out yet, Host and Archivist can swap traits. If an Archivist possesses a junkie or a hardboiled hero for too long, the Archivist might end up with an additional Human Trait like addiction or honor; and the Host might end up with "Things that Man Was Not Meant to Know" permanently burned into his/her brain even when the possessing Archivist departs.

(N.B.: Yes, this is pure Karma. You could throw a die roll in there if you wanted. But Archivists are defined by an all-consuming quest for knowledge. It's only appropriate that the only uncertainty they face is not random chance, but the Limits that they don't know.)


(3)

Additional thought - Clusters 2 & 3 on a global scale:

Originally I'd thought of these clusters as a mere working-out of what we've already said (in Cluster #1) about Possession -- that the Archivist faces a Hard Choice between pushing the host Fast & Hard, at a high price to the host, or taking it Slow & Steady, at the risk of not finding the answers needed to save humanity; and that these are the two extremes that must be Balanced, at the risk of Burnout, Self-Sacrifice, and Multiple Personality Disorder. Good Archivists care about the welfare of their hosts; evil Archivists care only so far as they don't want to damage a tool while they're still using it.

But (you saw that coming, right?) as I sat down to write this I was struck by a half-formed idea that perhaps these three points apply not just to the Archivist-Host relationship on an individual level, but to the Archivists-Humanity relationship on a universal level. Perhaps in the quest to answer the Big Question, in the struggle against the Nemesis, there is a danger of pushing the whole human race too hard and fast?

One obvious problem is intervening in history too much -- or changing the past, if we allow time travel. "Too fast, too hard" takes on a new meaning in situations where you're saying [KABOOM] "oops, maybe the Aztecs weren't ready for thermonuclear technology after all." But even without time travel, heavy-handed Archivist intervention can create huge problems. Excessively showy miracles can undermine an entire culture's worldview and throw it into superstitious panic ("Signs and portents - These are the End Times! Stockpile canned goods and ammunition!"). Excessively omnipotent conspiracies deny people the right to choose for themselves, even if they choose badly, and produce a sense of powerlessness and apathy ("Why bother? Everything important is decided behind closed doors, you know...").

How to implement this mechanically? Possibly by giving entire civilizations Traits (Aztecs "Bloodthirsty level 10"?) -- which might affect default values for Hosts from that civilization? I'm not at all sure.

P.S.: This fits very nicely with Doug Ruff's "Archivists are our descendants here to make sure we descend right" concept -- though I wouldn't want them to be too transcendental, enlightened, and generally post-human, or else "human-centric" (not to mention empathy between player and character) goes out the window. But in brief, a nicely done "blurb" indeed.

[Tobias]

Whoa, meaty!

I love what I'm seeing. I will post my take on Clusters 2 and 3 tomorrow morning my time. I would make a suggestion on when we wrap up this thread, but for now, let's see if we can get a concensus or some interesting discussion. I hope to have some time to slap everything onto a webpage this week, thursday at earliest though.

Rock on!

[Thor]

Since we are aiming more at the player being both the Archivist and the Host, we need to find a good mechanic for the Schizphrenic nature of this new character type. I am not against the sliding scale mentioned befor, but what if the only things we kept track of were the Host traits and the archivist only has a limited pool of control? We have often defined the archivists in incorpreal terms and I really like the dichotomy of having diferent mechinisms for the diferent parts of the character.

With that said, what if the Host were defined in some way with a mixture of traits and some completely different system by which the Archivists can manage the Host.   I don't have a system but something where the costs would be different to the different parts of the character so that there would be good reasons to do things the Host wants or needs to do instead of what the Archivist wants/needs.

I think that the archivist is the protagonist in these stories so I want the host to be at some remove from the direct control of the player. I will be up front I haven't a clue as to how this could work. I am currently fighting in a different system where the players control of the game is filtered through a group of people he has not direct control over and I don't think that it is entirely satisfactory. Maybe this will encourage one of you to find an answer to this.

Sorry, I can feel whatI mean but am having a terrible time putting it into words.

[LordSmerf]

Possible ways to keep Hosts out of the Archivist's control:

1. A different player handles the host.
2. The GM handles the host.
3. The System (mechanics) handles the host.

There are quite possibly more, but thos spring to mind.  I especially like the third option assuming that we can put together some good mechanics for it.

Thomas

[Andrew Morris]

Cluster 2 -- Balance and Hard Choices

Okay, so I think we're all on board that there must be a conscious decision on the part of the Archivist as to how much power he wants to use, knowing that it will damage the host. How about adding in another scale? Say in character/out of character to the power/safety balance. I'll give some examples, using a soldier host.

1. The Archivist enhances the host's combat abilities over time, granting him a powerful "danger sense" and boosted physical abilities. This would have no negative side affects, because it is both limited and in character. Even the host might not be aware of anything unusual.

2. The Archivist suddenly boosts the host's strength to the point where he tears the door off an enemy vehicle to get at the soldiers inside. This would have minor negative side affects, because it is powerful, but in character for the host.

3. The Archivist enhances the host's knowledge of particle physics over the course of years. This would have minor negative side affects, because it is limited, but out of character for the host.

4. The Archivist suddenly manifest telekinesis and mind control powers in his host. This would have major negative side affects, because it is powerful and out of character for the host.

Another random idea -- what if Archivists had to use their powers to a certain degree in order to maintain their self-identity? So even good Archivists would be doing damage to their hosts simply by their presence. This is hinted at (at least it seemed so to me) by Sydney's last post.

Cluster 3 -- When Things Go Bad

Oh, boy...there's lots of nasty stuff we can come up with for this section. I'm not feeling the creative juices right now, though, so I'll just toss off a few of the obvious ideas.

Burnout. Sounds cool, but what the heck does it really mean? I've got two takes on this. First, burnout could be that Archivist loses the ability to possess hosts. This is pretty major, unless there is some way that it can be "healed" or fixed. Second, burnout might mean that the Archivist loses the ability to switch or leave hosts -- basically, he's stuck where he is. This could mean either he's just out of play until the host dies, or maybe he's now part of the host, and faces mortality once again himself.

Multiple Personalities. I like Sydney's ideas about traits switching between host and Archivist. I'd suggest that they "rub off" instead of outright switching. That is, one gains a weaker version of the other's trait. I think this is easier to handle in game, and is more dramatic. Plus, since Archivists are immortal, the odds say that eventually they'll end up a human stuck in an Archivist's non-body, making them pretty much useless for....well, anything.

Other Stuff

Global Scale Issues. Hmmm. Honestly, I wasn't crazy about this idea when I first read it, but then it got me thinking. Maybe having some sort of cultural personalies would be a neat thing. Just think about it -- throughout history, all the big miraculous stuff happend way back in the past, when that sort of stuff was pretty much accepted by most folks as entirely possible. Further on in time, we get stories of epic heroes changing the world. As we move into more modern times, it shifts to the actions of governments and religions, along with grand conspiracy theories. So basically, if an Archivist takes over a caveman and uses his laser-beam eyes and super strength to force the tribe to move to a new location, well, no big deal, right? Obviously, Og here was touched by the great spirits. Nothing out of the ordinary. In modern times, this wouldn't go over well...both the host and the rest of the folks would panic at seeing this. But the actions of a world-spanning conspiracy trying to insert mind-control drugs in Tylenol? Heck, who'd even blink an eye at that today?

Thor and Thomas make good points about the hosts, but I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with the player controlling both host and Archivist. I'll have to think it over some more.

[LordSmerf]

Thor and Thomas make good points about the hosts, but I'm not convinced there's anything wrong with the player controlling both host and Archivist. I'll have to think it over some more.

I agree that it could go either way, but we should probably make a decision about that.  Do we want a significant aspect of the game to be the struggle of the Archivist to get the Host to do what he wants?  This is not a question of capability, it is a question of ability.  A focus on such control produces a very differnt game than the absence of such focus.  I have some ideas regarding mechanics that incorporate this focus, which i will try to put up shortly.

Thomas

[Andrew Morris]

My gut instinct is to say that Archivists don't have to struggle with their host. I think there's more of a moral impact when the host is essentially helpless. There's a big difference between doing something nasty to someone who has a chance to resist it and doing to the same to someone with no defense at all.