[Torn] First Steps

[xenopulse]

I've been toying with the idea for a certain type of RPG for a while, but it wasn't until I got involved in the threads here that I realized what exactly I wanted to play and how I could go about designing it. I was all caught up in the type of games I knew, without realizing what's possible outside that box. With that said, here are my first steps in putting mechanics into my game.

As a foreword, the game is somewhat influenced by my enjoyment of KULT. What I liked were the ways in which humans could, subconsciously, alter reality because of their guilt, fear, and/or other strong emotions (effectively creating their own little hells and conjuring/creating creatures that haunt them). I would aim for a similarly sinister world, but with a ray of hope.

The themes of the game are guilt and redemption. I call it Torn for the mental state of the protagonists.

The player characters are people who have the ability to shape reality. They don't really know it, for the most part. But when their strong emotions are triggered, things happen. People get hurt, strange events occur, but mostly in indirect ways. The player characters can also learn to directly unleash some of this power; however, it is a way of channeling a dark, destructive force, and unleashing this force is always a terrible thing to do.

Player characters will start with a background that contains certain aspects such as Guilt and Fear. These are specified and have numerical values associated with it. For example, a character could have Guilt 3 (accidentally killed friend as child) or Fear 2 (darkness). These aspects can be Triggered whenever the character is in a situation that either is reminiscent of the situation that caused the guilt, or relates to the fear.

The resolution tool is a deck of regular cards. Depending on the aspect value, a number of correlating cards are drawn. There will be a table depicting the potential outcomes for a number, a face card, or an ace, in rising order of severity. Certain suites would be positive while others create harm or complications. It's up to the player to narrate accordingly. For example, a character who is afraid of the dark could, when thrown in a dark room, subconsciously create a secret door--or manifest a fiend right behind himself, depending on the card(s) drawn.

Guilt can be redeemed, over time, if the character finds himself in situations where he or she feels they can "make up" for the event. Fear can be defeated by confronting the object of fear, though that is always risky, as the character could cause bad things to happen subconsciously. Also, new Fears and Guilt can be accumulated, especially if the character kills people or loses loved ones. At the same time, I am thinking of including positive aspects such as Love and Faith so that characters have something good to strive for.

So overall, characters can be redeemed, though they give away their ability to reshape reality as they become more stable.

Channeling dark energy directly is also handled through cards. The player splits a deck into red and black cards. When the character's Power is Triggered, the player draws a number of black cards of up to but no more than the character's Power. A number causes minor harm to someone or destruction of property. A face card causes severe harm to a living being, such as facial mutilation or a mangled limb. An ace claims a life. The cards are all turned over at once, and the player distributes the effects among the present characters and narrates accordingly. Every card must be assigned to a character, and all cards are to be as evenly distributed as possible. For example, if there are two PCs and two NPCs, and the PC draws three severe harms, one of them must be assigned to his fellow PC or himself.

When two characters Channel at once in opposition to one another, the opposing player draws at least as many cards as the first player. They turn around a single card at a time and compare. Players can now always choose to draw another card, until they've played out their full power. Whoever wins the most tricks wins and must distribute ALL cards. That means that when two players play 5 cards each, the winner must now distribute 10 cards of harm. This terrible force should intimidate people enough to avoid magical duels unless they are unavoidable.

There is a second way I am considering to include. Characters can, instead of trying to take over by controlling more energy, attempt to Redirect. A character will have a Control rating. The character draws from the red cards, a number of cards equal to the character's Control. For every Power card that the character can exactly match, he can redirect it to a different target. For every Power card he can beat, he can turn the effect into something else (property damage, mostly). I am thinking of tying Power to negative aspects and Control to positive ones.

Obviously, these mechanics are at the core of the game--they don't include regular resolution mechanics. But I think those will be minimal and also card and narration based. I would like the players to have a strong ability to direct the story, with the GM mostly presenting situations that Trigger.

Any and all thoughts and comments are appreciated.

[Icel]

As I read your description I got visions of a shadowy street or room with two half-mad people standing there, dark aura surrounding them.
I realy like at. The idea of horror that is created by the characters is very cool. The line "An ace claims a life" has a real "magic" to it.

[xenopulse]

Welcome to the Forge, Icel, and thanks for your feedback! I'm glad you like the idea and feel of the game.

[Darcy Burgess]

Indeed, welcome!

another thing to consider: if you do indeed include 'positive' aspects, the way your positive and negative aspects interact with each other will become important.

Your positive aspects will indicate what sorts of "bad actions" are particularly prone to increasing guilt, and the converse will be true of negative aspects.

[ivan23]

Alternately, giving the Negative Aspects as Guilt and Fear but permitting players to create their own Positive Aspects - rather than picking from a laundry list - would definitely help the GM tailor a campaign to what the players want.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

I'm really liking this, Christian. Been reading some Sorcerer, have we?

Let's consider overall card management. How often does one draw? Is a hand of cards sitting in front of me at all times, or is drawing a conflict-specific event? How about discards - are cards just reshuffled in, or is reshuffling done in some kind of longer-scale way? And so on.

Best,
Ron

[xenopulse]

Eggo,

You're right--if the character has a Friendship or Love connection, and that connected person comes to harm because of the actions of the character, it seems reasonable (and dramatic) that this should result in a directly related negative aspect. That way, there is always a risk associated with building up positive connections (just like in real life :).

Ivan,

That's a good idea. I think I will make suggestions, but depending on the Theme, they could vary.

Thanks to both of you for the input.

[xenopulse]

Ron,

I'm glad you like the idea. And yes, as for so many people here, Sorcerer has been an eye opener for me.

I figure that drawing is event-specific, and cards would be immediately reshuffled after the outcome has been narrated. There would be one central deck for aspects, and each player would have his/her own for Channeling (which is separated into black and red cards).

I guess that the central deck could also be used for conflict resolution. I was primarily thinking of having a certain number of tricks to win (one for simple task, more for extended conflicts), and someone with an applicable background can draw more cards to choose from.

[Uccisore]

Something about doing acts to 'make up' for Guilt, thus making it go away rubs me the wrong way.  If someone is harboring Guilt over something from the past, the fact that they feel the need to constantly do things to make up for it is part of the problem, not the solution as I see it.  Doing things like that should have a 'rebound' effect, where maybe they temporarily suppress the guilt, but they first time they 'mess up' in their own eyes, it comes back stronger than before.
     I would think that if you want characters to be able to permanently get rid of their Guilt, the process would be something like 'letting go', more than atonement. This is all assuming that the Guilt and need to atone is self imposed. If you mean for their to be a Higher Power which is demanding them to atone, then the way you have it set is pretty cool! The other thing too, is that 'letting go' would be an extremely hard thing to come up with mechanics for, where as atonement is pretty straight forward.

[xenopulse]

Uccisore,

Thanks for the comments. I don't plan to have a Higher Being involved, other than the dark force that's being Channeled (which is actually sentient toi a certain degree).

The other thing too, is that 'letting go' would be an extremely hard thing to come up with mechanics for, where as atonement is pretty straight forward.

Very true. I don't think I can come up with 'letting go' mechanics, and I wanted something that forces characters to confront their guilt and fear in order to overcome it, which would lead to the players involving themselves in things and stirring up trouble.

[Spooky Fanboy]

As a foreword, the game is somewhat influenced by my enjoyment of KULT. What I liked were the ways in which humans could, subconsciously, alter reality because of their guilt, fear, and/or other strong emotions (effectively creating their own little hells and conjuring/creating creatures that haunt them). I would aim for a similarly sinister world, but with a ray of hope.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who most enjoyed that aspect of KULT! :-)

I have a loose suggestion, which may help. You mention strong emotions and list two: Guilt and Fear. Great start, especially given the thematic origins of this game. But what about Anger? Greed? Lust? What drives characters to deal with their Guilt?

I have a vision in my head (culled from an idea I had on a game that I never bothered to develop, sucks to be me) of a game where characters have "breaking points": their rage, jealousy, frustration, fear, etc. built up to a point where they would somehow snap out and reshape reality...in the worst possible way while still getting roughly what they wanted: getting rid of that annoying person who was causing trouble in their life, getting an opportunity at the person they're most in lust with, getting out of that accident physically unhurt, and so on. Somehow, they'd always know, even if just on a gut level, that they triggered something horrible.

If you'll bear with me, assuming you wanted to incorporate something like that into your game, Guilt could, instead of being a negative emotion, be the most redeeming thing about your character. (Guilt isn't healthy or rational, but these characters don't strike me as being mentally sound to begin with.)

You could put the GM in charge of Trigger Events, so that whatever the character wants to explore, there's always going to be something that tests the character's capacity to restrain themselves from lashing out. If they do lash out, they take "fallout" (Dogs in the Vineyard reference) in Guilt. But, they can take action to redeem themselves in game. If successful, they could convert some of that Guilt to either boosting that Control score you mentioned, or giving themselves bonus scores in virtues that mechanically counteract their negative emotions. (For reasons Uccisore mentioned, I wouldn't use converted Guilt to buy down negative emotions; it makes sense in this game that they're always there, just waiting to strike, but the character does get better at restraining them. )

What about the "ray of hope" you mentioned? Does a character, if s/he's lucky and persistent enough, get to make a personal heaven? Or is there a  permanent cure for their fate-twisting curse? How far do you want to take the possibility of redemption?

Conversely, are you planning on throwing a limit on how much Guilt a character can accumulate before their twisting lashes back at them (say, automatically having to endure the highest black card drawn?)

Just some thoughts. I really like this idea, because except for Sorcerer, I can't really think of any horror games that really tie the horror of the game directly to the character and the player's choices.

BTW, what kind of Big Bad were you thinking of for this game? Or is that something that the players can customize to their groups?

[xenopulse]

Spooky,

That is some excellent input. I will definitely let those ideas stew for a bit.

For now, if we put guilt "in the middle" between vice and virtue, it's a bit like Sorcerer's Humanity, which might not be a bad thing. It almost makes sense to actually use the guilt value as the Power value for Channeling. The more negative feelings there are, the more dark energy you can bring over. Eventually the GM can Trigger your Channeling when your Guilt is too high, in situations when you really don't want to unleash that sort of power. I'd rather have the backlash be directed against others, to further the Guilt factor.

As to vice vs. virtue, what do you think of this:
1) Vice is triggered.
2) Player narrates which Virtue tries to stop it.
3) Draw black cards for Vice, red for Virtue.
4) All red cards beating black cards eliminate that effect.
5) Leftover black cards take effect.

Furthermore, I was thinking aboyut the game structure, and had the following thought. Maybe instead of having a set GM, players take turns. They can be short turns, maybe even only minutes. Every player creates a protagonist, and when it's that protagonist's turn, the other player(s) can introduce NPCs or, preferably, control NPCs from the character's background and R-map, with the goal of creating dramatic situations that address the aspects.

I don't have DitV yet, but I guess I should eventually look into it. I think the idea of fallout, as well as escalation (here: when failing against an antagonist, Channel), are brilliant. Of course, I'm already feeling like I'm borrowing all over the place. Obviously, a game like this won't work well without Kickers and R-maps, for example.

I haven't thought much about a Big Bad yet, except for the fact that the Channeled energy is an evil and strangely sentient one. I guess there could be antagonists who Channel on purpose, and there can always be Manifestations from Triggerings.

Thanks for all the food for thought.

[xenopulse]

Alright. After stewing on this issue overnight, I have come up with some ideas that I would love to get feedback on. These ideas concern the way that Guilt works, along with the relationships that the character has.

First of, Guilt will be a major indicator of the character's negative energy level. The higher it is, the worse off the character is. It will cause him to involuntarily cause harm and release magical energy that wreaks havoc. At the same time, the Power of the character is equal to his or her Guilt. Opposed to this will be the Control that the character gets from the positive connections in his or her life. The two are directly interrelated in the following mechanics way:

First, the player draws up a relationship map for the character. Only the characters directly related to the character provide positive support for this character, though larger networks might give some advantages. The player can assign each relationship a specific red card, or even more than one if the relationship is strong. When the character needs to Control magic, one's own or another's, he or she can use those dedicated cards to do that, thereby avoiding harm. Therefore, more and stronger connections to the world make the character care about the world itself, allowing him or her to use that to avoid bringing evil into it. In addition to the r-map, I would require a player to create a sheet for each connected character. The player needs to fill in details on the related character's personality, history, and quirks. For each card associated with the character, the player needs to add a certain number of substantial sentences. This will automatically flesh out the characters—those that are more important will develop into more than just red cards to use and eventually become as intricate as the PCs themselves.

The bad part about this: when the character does unleash evil energy, there is a chance that those related characters will be targeted. If one of their cards is drawn, they suffer the consequences. This means that more important and strongly linked characters are in more danger, as they have more cards associated with them. Therefore, PCs will sometimes be directly responsible for harm to a loved one.

Now, let us assume that this harm can be prevented through a sacrifice. The character could kill another person to avoid losing their loved one (the magic works slowly and allows in its sentience to be appeased). This would save the loved one, but ratchet up the Guilt, making it more likely that the PC will release more evil magic in the future. Welcome to the downward spiral. Enjoy the ride.

Thoughts? Comments?

[Nathan P.]

First off, this game is scarily close to a game I've been brainstorming for a while now, down to the card-based resolution mechanics. Go parallel game development, go!

Anyhow, a couple thoughts on your latest post.

*Maybe the value of the card associated with each relationship dictates how detailed that person is? That is, someone with a 2 has two sentences, while a 10 has 10, and face cards mean greater and greater detail. So number of cards indicate strength of relationship, and value of the cards indicate how complete a character that character is.

*Would the deck your drawing from to determine who's effected by negative stuff be composed just of the "relationship" cards, or would it be larger? If its larger, maybe the non-relationship cards would map to stock effects, like 8's always indicate property damage, or something like that.

*Maybe I missed this, but is the goal to get out of the downward spiral, or play it out until the end? Or something else? I don't really have a comment about it, I'm just curious.

Thus far, its a really interesting project.

[xenopulse]

Nathan,

Thanks for the comments. I don't mind parallel development, especially if we can give each other some creative feedback :)

Re: Value and number of cards
As long as the usefulness of the cards corresponds to the effort that the player puts into developing the related character ("RC"), the system will do its job. I will have to do some thinking on value versus number of cards. It seems intuitive that the character should know those RCs best with whom he or she has the closest, most meaningful relationships.

Re: size of negative deck
I figured it would include all cards, and that all those that are not tied to RCs are going to affect the immediate environment around the PC (number=property or small harm, face=major harm, ace=death). Now I need to figure out the severity of the effect on the RC if their card is drawn. I guess it could also be based on their card, which means that stronger bonds will suffer more. That might be the way to go.

Re: goal
Well, the goal of the players is to explore the issues of loss, connections, guilt and potentially redemption. As such, it should be possible to climb out of the spiral, but it should be difficult and require tough choices on the part of the player. Aside from that, the characters should have goals of their own tied in with their Kickers etc., so that there is always something else going on that ties in with the overarching theme and allows for diverse situations that tempt one to use the magic.

On a different note, I think now that I will focus on Guilt as the central aspect, but have the inadvertent Triggers be fears and other strong feelings.