[GroupDesign: Schrodinger's War] Drafting Mechanics

[Andrew Morris]

Nate, let's look at this from a different angle. Instead of using reality as a justification for determining where the danger line lies, let's figure out what would improve the game experience. Here's how I would see the spectrum of "stuff that damages a host," from least to greatest:

Possession --> Communication --> Boosting the Host's Abilities --> Granting the Host New Abilities --> Granting the Host Otherworldly Knowledge --> Granting the Host Logoi

Let's get some comments and see if everyone agrees with that, or if some alteration is in order. After we've established the spectrum, we can then figure out where the danger line should be. Sound good?

[daMoose_Neo]

Works~

I just have a nasty tendency of assimilating real portions of the world and mythical/fantasy. It helps me ground myself and feel about a little more than jumping in blind myself. You'll find me doing this ^_^

[Tobias]

Tobias:

Okay, I think I see the key differences now. I thought of Fade and Burn in much the same way you explain it. What I was thinking would be that instead of automatically taking traits away, Burn and Fade would have a numerical score. Once that score reached a predetermined threshold, it would reset at zero, and something (like a trait) would be taken away. For example, you're at 8 Fade and take 3 more points of Fade. Your Fade would now be 1 and you'd lose, say, a point of a particular Logos.

A rollover mechanism like that would work, sure. Make it less dangerous, maybe, but that's easily tweaked in the numbers.

As to free will not being represented by a score, personally, I think we should have it. How else would we model the fact that some humans have more or less power to resist an Archivist? Of course we could say that they don't differ in their ability to resist Archivists, if we wanted to go that way.

It depends on where you want the focus of the game to lie, I guess. If you want to focus on the mind-struggle, Free Will's really important. If you just want Wire-fu and a sweeping arc of history, who cares about the struggle?

(Note: this may mean Free will's a score with a Max depending on group preference).

And, of course, Free Will may resist the Archivist (or not), but in the end, the Archivist will always have the power to shout it down - the question is - should he? (I would like there to be a HTT effect when you severely burn a Host).

So, going back to the main difference for a moment, check me again. In your model, Skills stem from Passions and Logoi stem from Otherworldly Knowledges, correct?

Thus, when a Passion was "burned out" of the host, the related skills would also be lost, right? Likewise, an Archivist who lost Otherworldly Knowledge due to Fade would lose the Logoi attached to the particular Knowledge? I like the "feel" of this setup, but does it mean that a host can never have a Skill if they are not passionate about it? For example, I'm very good at my job (in game terms, I'd have a high Skill at it). But I don't have a Passion about it one way or the other. Could we still represent situations like this in the game?

You've got it.

And I could probably model 'you' fairly well with a Passion-Skill combination. For instance:

Professional Pride <-> Job X

You may not care about the Job itself, but you might care about being a professional worker. Or:

Good Family Provider <-> Job X

And if none of these (or others) fit: well, do I need to be able to model you, for purposes of this game? Maybe it's a genre thing I want, the Passion-Skill match.

Nate:

Let's call the point where Archivist intervention begins to be dangerous (to host or Archivist or both) the "danger line." You're saying the danger line should be after communication with the host, but before the granting of powers. Is that right? My personal feeling is that the danger line should be after possessing the host (experiencing through the host's senses) but before even communication. I think there should be a very narrow area of safety for the players. I could be swayed though, so I'd like to know your reasons for setting the danger line where you suggest.

In later post, you list the increasing levels of danger (and I agree with them). My Simmist tendencies are to say danger starts right at posession. It's immediately balanced by my game design voice that says that you shouldn't restrain and burden players too much when doing the simple/essential things (gaming friction?). Simmi says: "burn for all the easy steps, but easily recovered burn". Player says: "I don't want to do all that book-keeping and rolling for those easy bits over and over again" (assuming many posessed hosts).

I just realised your danger progression is incomplete (or not detailed enough). There's a difference between posession without motor control and posession with motor control (riding along or taking the wheel). First thought would be to make the progression:

Possession (passive) -> Communication -> Possession (subtle motor control) -> Possession (clear motor control) > Boosting Host Abilities > ...

I'd say it's likely that many Archivist will develop mental/memory control effects, to balance/repair/subdue harmful memories. I guess you could rate Archivist actions on a 'Intrusiveness' scale (and couple increasing Burn to increasing Intrusiveness) and have a mental control/management skill for the Archivist, with the max skill level the max level of intrusiveness he could manage.

Again, this is only relevant if you're really into 'playing' the details of posession. If you're not, you can skip all this. (Remember the customisation of the game). So 'Beginner Possession Rules', 'Advanced Possession Rules'.

I'm spinning off out of control here (Sydney, Help!), but the final 'book' could have:

1. Introduction

2a. Character Rules - lite
2b. Character Rules

3a. Possession Rules -lite
3b. Possession Rules (Free will's a good one to put here, I guess)

4a. Action! Rules - lite
4b. Action! Rules

5a. Timetravel/HTT Rules - lite
5b. Timetravel/HTT Rules

You want a campaign focussing on Archivist/Host interaction?
2b + 3b + 4a + 5a.

You want a campaign focussing on Wire-fu?
2a + 3a + 4b + 5a

You want a campaign focussing on Timetravel/HTT?
... guess ... ;)

Mix'n'match to flavor.

[daMoose_Neo]

I think Tobias has what I'm thinking in mind too, with the "invasiveness".
I don't see riding along/observing as damaging or invasive. I don't see my telling the Host "We need to do this" invasive. Start using the Host's body in whatever way other than a ride, however, and yea. Thats invasive.
If we're not concerned with specific hosts or time frames and the 'grander, sweeping story arc', we'll have all sorts of times where *POOF!* I'm in a police officer at a crime scene- I tell the officer "Pull up that third floor board". Officer shakes his head, looks at the floor board. "Hey, Mac, come here...something's bugging me about this floor board..." and *Poof!* Gone. Nothing to it. Officer never knows he didn't have that idea, nothings happened to him, I exerted no actual control. I just suggested.

So, if we're spending a half hour jumping around from Hosts like that, anyone want to keep track of the book keeping involved with that? Me don't think so.
"Danger Line" should fall between Communicating and "Motor Control - Subtle" in my opinion, just to keep bookwork down if nothing else.

And actually, I like that brake down Tobias! Does give you an easy way to say "Okay, we're running a grand, sweeping adventure through time tonight!" Or "We're doing a deep introspective morality tale tonight".

[Tobias]

Oh, and I see I forgot something as well. This makes 'communication' (as revelation) a risky option (given Host Free Will), but will, if things go well, not make the archivist have to be more intrusive in the future. If the communication goes badly, well, burning and being intrusive was always one of the options, it's still there.

[daMoose_Neo]

Had an idea to simplify some of this ala Tobia's wonderful formula ^_^

Observe - Communicate - Possess

1) Observe-
Exactly that. Utilize the Host's sences, feelings and what not, for input only.

2) Communicate
A) Archivist-As-Muse: Archivist is a small voice in the back of your mind, suggests, but nothing overt
B) Revelation of Self: "Hey Buddy, I'm from another plane of existance and I know the future!"
C) Revelation of Truth: Cosmic level stuff, fates, futures,  inner workings of reality

3) Possession
A) Subtle motor control: Host looking over books on a shelf, running along with his finger and his eyes fall on a title below it
B) Overt Motor control: "Grab that now!" *Host grabs book*
C) Bestowment of Cosmic Powers: Host now has a form of telepathy and knows exactly whats in the book as though he just read it.
D) Supression of Host - Archivist in complete control.

I think the danger line should fall in Communication, between B & C.
Observation is very harmless. Communication-Suggestion isn't anything either, we all have these weird ideas we have no idea where they came from ("Ya know, something in the back of my mind keeps nagging me about making a game about Time Travel and ghosts, but I just don't know...") and sometimes act on them, sometimes don't.
Revelation of Self is just about close. Voices in the head saying they're from another world, I think I need another stiff drink.
Revelation of Truth, though, involves many things man shouldn't know or deal with, and from there on the Archivist intrusion is more blatant.

[Tobias]

Hmmm, if that order of intrusiveness was supposed to represent anything real, I'd argue against it. I rather think subtle motor control (stutter, shiver, flick of the eyes, tripping, a slight deviation over a mile's walk) would be less intrusive than voices in your head (and certainly cosmic truths).

I guess it depends on how you see Burn - is it physical, mental, or both? And how resilient you expect a Host to be to certain effects.

But I think we need the best scale for the game, so I'm willing to entertain this order as well.

(Just had a thought that goes against everything I've said about Burn and Fade so far - what if you Burned the host when you talk to him, and the archivist Fades whenever something in your 'Possess' category is done? ("The thrill of the fleshride"))

(That's not writing new mechanics, though, so I'll shelve this thought until I can come up with another concise mechanics post).

[Andrew Morris]

Yeah, that's a good point, Tobias. Looking at it that way, I have to agree with you and revise my earlier thoughts on the matter. I'd see the voice in my head telling me about the fate of the world as more instrusive than pretty much anything else on the list, except for Logoi.

Of course, the question is really whether Burn is caused by "intrusiveness" or something else. I saw it as being caused by sheer Transcendental power, personally. In that model, communication requires less power than even subtle control. I still like this idea, too.

So, what does everyone think? Is Burn caused by "intrusiveness" or Transcendental power? Or is it caused by something else?

[Sydney Freedberg]

Time for Patented Sydney Numbered Points again.... I've been very distracted this week (teething baby) so please bear with me as I roll back to some earlier parts of the discussion before I catch up with where you all are now.


1) Randomness

Its one thing to look a GM square in the eye and say "Dude! You knew what I had riding on that and you STILL let him do that?! How could you?!" and another to go "Shit- he rolled an X, and with his Free Will that means he's going to oppose me on this!" Least in my mind, it'd help create the illusion of another 'presence' at the table ....

That's exactly what I was thinking of when I argued for a die roll representing key Free Will moments (when everything else in the system should be Karma).  If the GM is roleplaying the free will aspects of the Host, the social pressure on him/her is potentially gamebreaking and probably leads to fudging. Leaving it up to a die roll createsa real sense for the players of "shit, we really can't control this, free will is dangerous!" and thus makes for a real dilemma. Just as none of the real people sitting arond around the table can control the die roll, none of the characters can control Free Will, if it's truly Free.

Now, if we have a Free Will score (which I know Tobias dislikes), then that allows the game to have situations where the die indicates a character's Free Will choice comes down one way, but it still doesn't affect the outcome, because their passions or Archivist control or both are so overwhelming. I think this is a good way to depict the fact that even weak-willed people can make choices, or try to, and then be swept along by forces that overmaster them (e.g. "the spirit is willing but the body is weak").


2) Skills deriving from Passions

Like Andrew, I'd originally assumed there'd have to be some kind of miscellaneous trait (I called them "neutral traits" at one point) that didn't relate to Humanity or Transcendence but which were necessary to depict the purely functional abilities of characters. But Tobias's counter-argument hits home: if you don't care about something, you're probably not good enough at it to matter. Even in the case of being good at your boring desk job, something must have driven you to get that good: either you really like it for some reason ("Passion: I love accounting"), or you really like what being good at it gets you ("Passion: Wealth" or "Passion: Provide For My Family"), or you've built your whole identity on being good at that job ("Passion: I'm a damn good accountant") -- look at all the people who were psychologically, not just financially, destroyed by lay-offs because their identity was under assault.

If we accept this principle, then we can streamline the system so that humans have Passions/Humanity (and, in rare cases, Transcendence), Archivists have Logoi/Transcendence (and, I'd argue, residual Humanity), and all Kewl Powerz are just particular manifestations deriving from Transcendent Traits/Logoi, and all Practical Skillz flow are particular manifestations deriving from Human Traits/Passions.

Besides streamlining, the really neat part of this is that skills are narrow and dry things, but a Passion can express itself in lots of different ways in different situations. Take the accountant guy two paragraphs ago. If he's driven by "Passion: I love accounting," then he can probably use that passion for doing all sorts of math, but not for office politics; if he's driven by "Passion: Wealth," he's good at anything that makes him money, but not necessarily at analyzing numbers in the abstract; if he's driven by "Passion: Provide for my family," he may turn out to be awfully handy fixing a leaky roof or coaching a Little League game, too. (This mirror-images how one Logos like "I dance with the fires of creation" can manifest in multiple and sometimes surprising waves). Just giving the character who's good at his job a high skill in "accounting" is a lot more precise but has a lot less story potential than going back to what drives him to be good at that job.

Thus you'd have a character who has "Passion: Jock" rather than high athletics skills, and he'd be different from a person with the same high athletics skills but driven by "Passion: Stronger Than You, Little Man" (the jock's probably a lot easier to hang out with); and a person with high combat skills is going to have a very different code of behavior depending on whether he's driven by "Passion: Great Warrior" or "Passion: Good Soldier" --one of these guys may go off on heroic vengeance quests, the other will sit and peel potatoes, and peel them damn well, if you order him to.

And, as Tobias said, this kind of mechanic means that burning away Passions makes the Host less good at all sorts of things, whereas a system that kept Skills distinct and thus safe from burn-out would not raise that dilemma.

Which leads us to the Big Question of the moment...


3) What is Burn, anyway? Physical, Mental, or Both?

I think both -- but I find the mental kind more interesting than the physical. Physical burn-out where your teeth and hair fall out because an unearthly being is pouring its unnatural power through your feeble mortal frame is horrifying; mental burn-out where your identity fractures into pieces because you've just figured out that an unearthly being is (to use Andrew's phrase from a few threads back) "wearing you like a cheap suit" is really, really horrifying.

And if the physical effects are really powerful, that means they're probably blatant enough that the Host notices something's weird ("Gee, why does everything I look at turn green and explode?"), which means the mental effects kick in automatically. So the high-risk ad high-drama end of the spectrum should be anything the Archivist does that makes its presence obvious -- be it by telling the Host something mind-blowing, or by using the Host's body to do something mind-blowing: In either case, the Host is going to notice and risk going nuts.

[daMoose_Neo]

Very slick.
#2) I've liked it from the get-go. Its a very nice, very explainable way to do things you didn't think of at chargen or that we didn't think of when writing.

#3) I'd almost argue granting of Powerz requires Revelation of Self.
Going to back to the scale above, maybe we have an interlapping scale?

1, 2A, 3A, 2B, 3B, 2C, 3C (or maybe even flip flop 2C and 3B on scale of effect).

Andrew, I'd argue that "intrusiveness" is how much the Archivist is pouring himself into the Host, so yes, the more intrusvive the Archivist is being the more painful it is to the Host.
Maybe gauge the phsyical effects by something? It'd be damn scary to have a DA anyhow, but our descriptions of encounters with them show a creature, not a human, whipping power about like mad. I think the physical degeneration does a nice job of driving home how little the DA's really care and give the PCs a measuring stick and a "Don't be like that!" point of reference.

[Andrew Morris]

Sydney, I thought that the Logoi were the cool powers of the Archivist, rather than the source of the cool powers.

As for humans occasionally having Transcendence, I'm all for it -- in one of the "modules" we discussed early on. For now, I suggest that we not investigate the how or why of it, especially not until we actually nail down the terms and mechanics we are discussing.

But I'm against Archivists having Humanity. Not that I think they don't retain some element of their human selves, but because it seems to have no game function. When Humanity is the trait that balances Transcendence and determines who is in control of the hybrid entity, what is the point of the Archivist having a trait that is essentially only useful to the host? The logical alternative (logical to me, at least) is that Archivists would have Passions and dependent skills, just as humans do. That concept I dislike somewhat, simply because one of the things we discussed about Archivists is that they tend to lose their human drives and motivations. But of course that really doesn't help us figure out where Archivists get their skills from -- any ideas?

Burn...hmm...what is Burn? Well, my take is that it's both physical and mental "bad stuff" that happens when an Archivist uses his host too hard. The way I see it, mental Burn happens from granting knowledges, skills, and understanding to a host, while physical Burn happens due to boosting the host's abilities or granting them powers.

[Sydney Freedberg]

I'm going to quote myself in this post. Apologies in advance. Any pretentiousness is unintentional and the product of being raised by an academic....


1) Transcendence

Sydney, I thought that the Logoi were the cool powers of the Archivist, rather than the source of the cool powers.

Actually, to quote the thread where I think the term was first proposed,

Logoi (sing. logos), an ancient Greek term meaning variously "word," "reason," and "the governing principles of the universe"

which makes it a better term for the underlying knowledge than for its particular manifestations & effects. But terms are highly negotiable.

And I'd agree that we don't need to worry about defining how human beings have Transcendence for now; that presumably is highly customizable -- a campaign that's focused on messing with the lives of Great Artists would apply this notion very different from one focused on Mad Scientists which would be very different from one that had human sorcerors and superheroes running about.

I'm against Archivists having Humanity. Not that I think they don't retain some element of their human selves, but because it seems to have no game function. When Humanity is the trait that balances Transcendence and determines who is in control of the hybrid entity, what is the point of the Archivist having a trait that is essentially only useful to the host?

Actually, in my early rules draft, an Archivist's Humanity had two game functions, neither of which helped the Host worth a damn:

1) While in the Great Library, a high Humanity trait allowed an Archivist better intuitive understanding of human nature, and thus more control over what kind of Host it could find to possess.

2) Once possession had begun, though, an Archivist's Humanity trait was particularly prone to screwing over both Archivist and Host: If an Archivist's human trait ("passion" in our current terms) was triggered, the Archivist took Fade -- because its residual human nature comes to the fore -- but the Host simultaneously took Burn -- because the human nature being expressed through the Host was someone else's human nature. Imagine you're a normal guy, going about your business, and suddenly some alien presence in your head loses its cool and starts filling you with andrenaline and rage at racial injustice, or causes you to run off after that rare beetle you just saw and try to capture it for study. (Note that this is all about Burn being That Which Messes With Your Head, as opposed to the physical side).

Now, these aren't actually essential game functions. They're not necessary to express the fundamental dilemma of the game -- the Premise, if you like -- which I think is something like "how much will you sacrifice individuals (including yourself) in the name of humanity in general?" You can address that premise just fine without them. But they do give you additional, secondary avenues for addressing said Premise; whether they're worth the added rules complication or not is open for discussion.

But my bottom-line reason for wanting Archivists to have some Humanity is that we all agree (I think) that they used to be human and their residual humanity is important. And -- now I'm just speaking for myself, not pretending to express any consensus of the group -- if it's really that important, then it ought to have an expression in the mechanics. {EDIT: I could be wrong on this principle, or I could be right about it and there could be a better of way expressing this point mechanically}.


2) Burn

I don't think we should get too tied to any particular ascending scale of actions where A causes no burn, B causes a little, and C causes a lot. Nor do I want to get locked into "physically manifesting transcendent powers causes physical Burn, and mentally conveying trancedent knowledge causes mental burn." As I've said above, if the Archivist manifests any physical effect too blatantly, the Host will get weirded out mentally as well; and conversely, you could imagine that too much Uncanny Knowledge can manifest physically: maybe your Cyberdyne engineer Host doesn't go crazy from seeing your Vision of Armageddon, maybe he stays level-headed at the price of bottling up all that horror so he gets an ulcer, high blood pressure, insomnia, and all his hair going white overnight.

So I think the type of Transcendence manifested is less important than the degree. You can probably get away with doing subtle things, either physically or mentally, with little risk of Burn -- your Host's hand just moves a little faster than he ought to be able to, or his senses pick up a detail he normally wouldn't have noticed, and his body can take the strain, and his mind can say "wow, I was really on, wasn't I?" and not worry about it. Keep ramping up the power, and the ability of the Host's body to absorb it, and of the Host's mind to rationalize it away, both start to fall apart in tandem.

[Tobias]

We all want vestiges of human nature in the archivist. Not enough for a humanity score - enough to make them something we can feel about.

Is archivist (vestigial) human nature neccesary for the player? Yes

Does that require the archivist to have Passions/Skills? Only inasmuch it drives home the point that there is some human nature left. Would it be fun to have some vestigial human skills that the archivist can bestow on the host ("I never knew the First Lady's Mom could pick lock so well!") or cause the archivist some trouble ("Joe sure started drinking heavily, I wonder what's up?") - probably yes.

So, basically, I think we all agree anyway. I agree with you lot, at least. :)

2) Burn

So I think the type of Transcendence manifested is less important than the degree. You can probably get away with doing subtle things, either physically or mentally, with little risk of Burn -- your Host's hand just moves a little faster than he ought to be able to, or his senses pick up a detail he normally wouldn't have noticed, and his body can take the strain, and his mind can say "wow, I was really on, wasn't I?" and not worry about it. Keep ramping up the power, and the ability of the Host's body to absorb it, and of the Host's mind to rationalize it away, both start to fall apart in tandem.

Sounds good. That scale is probably still useful (even if only as a code of conduct), but I like the 'degree' thing. And it's easily customisable, if a group wants to say: "All communication-effects are burn-free, all motor control causes burn over a certain noticableness, .." etc. etc. etc.

The advantage of having the Intrusiveness scale, though, is not having to quantify degrees of motor control or mental control any more than already done on the scale. Unless you just count 'degree' as the measure of raw power you're pouring in (Burn).

Maybe the degree could be the amount of passion you have to burn away to stop resistance to the action you want? Few are going to feel passionate about knocking over a coffee-cup, some might feel more passionate if there are divorce papers, say, sitting next to it.

(And then, who decides if Passion is applicable? Or do we just leave that setting up to the 'chosen evaluation/resolution agent (GM/group/player)')

Decisions decisions.

Who do we make up write some elegant coherent mechanics now? ;)

[Michael Brazier]

Reading this thread, it occurs to me that the Passions are coming to resemble Aspects in Fate ... and if we redefine Logoi as the knowledge that confers Kewl Powerz, they also resemble Fate's Aspects.  So why not push that resemblance further and make use of the invocation rule for Fate Aspects?  A possible ruleset:

Hosts have Passions, which govern mundane skills; Archivists have Logoi, which govern superhuman skills (and powers), and may have Passions as well.  It's much easier for Archivists to gain Logoi than Passions, so an Archivist's Passions will usually be remembered from his mortal life.  (Rarely, Hosts will have Logoi.)

At the start of a possession, an Archivist does not know (for certain) what a Host's Passions and skills are -- records in the Great Library give an external account of the Host's actions.  Therefore the GM keeps the Host's character sheet secret, but gives the Archivist's player a verbal summary of it.  The Archivist declares how much of his character he wants to express during the possession (this is his Presence, a numerical rating); he can change this as often as he likes.

As the possession is played out, either the Host's or the Archivist's Passions, or the Archivist's Logoi, may be triggered by events (that is, the GM invokes the Passions/Logoi to force the Host into an action.)  The Archivist can react to the invocation as follows:

If the Host's Passion is invoked, the Archivist can let it pass, in which case nothing happens to Host or Archivist; or the Archivist can suppress it, in which case the Host takes Burn, equal to the strength of the Passion.  If several of the Host's Passions are invoked, the Archivist may partly suppress the "wrong" Passions until their total rating is less than the total for the "right" Passions.  The Host then takes one point of Burn for each level of Passion that was suppressed.

If the Archivist's Logos is invoked, the Archivist can again let it pass, in which case the Host takes Burn equal to the Archivist's current Presence or the strength of the Logos, whichever is less.  Or, the Archivist can suppress the Logos, in which case he takes that amount of Fade.  If the Archivist's Passion is invoked, letting it pass gives the Host Burn as before, and the Archivist takes an equal amount of Fade; suppressing it gives the Archivist that amount of Burn, without affecting the Host.

Only the GM can invoke a Host's Passions.  The Archivist's player can invoke his Logoi and Passions intentionally, with effects as before (though in this case he doesn't get the choice to suppress!)  This changes the Host's action if the total rating of Passions and Logoi invoked in the Archivist's favor exceeds the total Passions invoked in favor of another action.  (A plurality suffices -- the Archivist doesn't have to beat the total of all other choices.)

Finally, if the Host has a Logos that gets invoked, the Archivist can let it pass and the Host takes Burn; or he can suppress it -- in which case the Host becomes aware that he's possessed, and the Archivist loses the power to affect the Host's actions by invoking traits.  (Surprise!)

This doesn't handle the "satori" technique, or Archivists trying to communicate rationally with Hosts ... but I have a feeling that, where just any Host can be possessed, illumination and direct speech should require a Host who's prepared to talk to spirits.  A Host engaged in prayer, for instance, or in meditation; or Hosts under the influence of psychedelic drugs; or even, at a low level, dreaming Hosts.  Or Hosts who have Logoi already, of course.  Different situation entirely.

[Michael Brazier]

Another thing: if a character accumulates enough Burn, he loses a point in one of his Passions, and if a character accumulates enough Fade, he loses a point in one of his Logoi.

You will notice that I didn't provide for Fade in a Host.  If Fade is damage to Transcendence, there won't be many Hosts that could take Fade ...