[GroupDesign: Schrodinger's War] The Pillars of Tobias

[Doug Ruff]

Although I haven't posted to this particular thread before, I've been keeping a close eye on it - and congrats to Tobias for actually putting something forward!

However, this particular snippet got me thinking:

These Passions & Pillars are as clear a case as you can get of deliberately and explicitly addressing Premise.

Although I think that Sydney is right, I am not sure that they address the central premise of the game.  Which is, IMHO, why are the Archivists trying to change these Pillars in the first place?

For example, is an Archivist attempting to change the course of WWII because of a general desire to end wars and suffering, or because his son died as a direct result of the hostilities? Or because he wants the Nazis to stay in power?

Another way of looking at this is that, although particular examplars of a Passion may "stand out" in History, removing the Pillar will not in itself get rid of the Passion. So, in order for the Archivist's pursuit to be worthwhile, there has to be another reason for targeting the Pillar.

This could be for a personal reason (save my son, revenge on a rival etc) or for a "greater cause" (reduce human suffering, increase the number of Archivists through careful manipulation of events, save the world) - although which "greater cause" to address is also a very personal choice.

I suppose what all of this is leading up to, is that I think that the Passions as they stand are too general to act as a spur for the protagonists, if you are going to allow players to choose their own Pillars (which I still think is a good idea) then it should be for something which is important to their character specifically and personally.

- Doug

As a sidenote: I am currently working on a different take on all of this, the main feature is that, at some point in History, the entire human race has been wiped out. This gives an immediate decision for players; do they attempt to prevent the disaster, do they attempt to "save" humans by turning them into Archivists, or do they just pursue their own desires and let the world burn? Once I have more, I will ask Sydney to start a new thread, but I'm tossing out the idea as an example of how there may be bigger fish to fry than, for example, who won WWII.

(As this is a thread for Tobias' mechanics, please don't discuss my setting suggestion here unless it's relevant to Tobias' work - but you are welcome to PM me about it.)

[daMoose_Neo]

Re: Wiping out Humanity-
That strikes me more as setting than something directly tied to the core mechanics. On a system level, do we HAVE to provide the reasoning for everything? Myself, and the folks I game with, would be able to sit down with a book about disembodied spirits altering time and come up with their own (very long) list of the particulars.
The exact premise will vary per group I'd think, with something a little vauge on the system level, such as "what does it take to change the course of the world?". It could be a literal Bedfordf Falls effect: The life of one man will cause an entire 'world' (Bedford Falls) to hang in the balance.  Or, it could involve altering a handful seemingly random events so they don't come to a head (what was that movie...LA Confidential doesn't sound right, something about X Days in the Valley?)
Anhilate the world, however, and you cement broad, far reaching events (nuclear cataclysm, alien holocaust, wrath of God) into the system. Least is my take.

[Doug Ruff]

Re: Wiping out Humanity-
That strikes me more as setting than something directly tied to the core mechanics.

You're right, of course. I do have a "mechanics" related reason for including this but I'd rather start a new thread in the next few days to discuss it, and keep the focus on Pillars and Passions for now. I hope that's OK (and if not, PM me, please!)

On a system level, do we HAVE to provide the reasoning for everything? Myself, and the folks I game with, would be able to sit down with a book about disembodied spirits altering time and come up with their own (very long) list of the particulars.

This is trickier. I agree that it would be perfectly possible to play this way - in fact, I think that this is a perfactly valid option for any Archivist - it's a bit like being able to play SimCity, with real civilisations.

However, I really believe that restricting things to this mode of play is a mistake - and by placing such extreme focus on altering the "big" things in  History (and, for those of you up with the jargon, in HTT History specifically) that a system which is based specifically around Pillars and Passions is likely to make that mistake.

This may be a case of me getting out the Bad Wrong Fun stick, and if so I apologise - I am also aware that Tobias has already said that the Pillars don't have to be the "end-all-be-all" of the premise. But this, IMHO, is why the Pillars and Passions cannot be the "end-all-be-all" of chargen or worldgen, and they appear to be taking on that role.

In other words, I think that the system as currently posted (and I must be aware that this is only the first part of Tobias' work!) only addresses a part of the available Premise for the game, and therefore this should not be the cornerstone of the mechanics.