Egypt Needs Characters (and a few mechanics)

[contracycle]

As it happens, the egyptian game of Senet was one of the things that prompted to look at characters post mortem.  This was partly inspired by this sort of comment:

"During the New Kingdom, tomb walls bore representations of Senet players, for the game had acquired a religious-magical meaning, symbolizing the passage of the deceased through the netherworld, his resurrection dependent upon his winning the Senet game. The last five squares were given new markings, reflecting the desired arrival in the divine domain of eternity."

http://www.imj.org.il/archaeology/game.htm

http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Senet.html

Apparently in the oldest versions, the starting square contains an ankh.  Also note that in the earlier versions there are, significantly, seven pawns per player; furthermore, while early images show two players, later images (by which time Senet has acquired firm mystical resonance) show a player gaming against an invisible opponent.

One might speculate that the invisible opponent is oneself; that the seven pawns represent aspects of the soul and the board the path to the afterlife.  It suggests that unlike most modern theologies, in which the afterlife is often guaranteed and universal, here the afterlife is being perceived as a pro-active post-mortem achievement.  This might tie in with what I understand was an early egyptian conception of the afterlife as the more or less exclusive realm of the tomb inhabitants, with the pharaoh acting as emissary on behalf of his less favoured subjects.

Anyway, point of the story is that this could be probably be mined for mechanics in some way, and implies that some gamed form of post mortem existance is legitimate, in cultural terms.

[Mike Holmes]

OK, then what about this cycle?

Ba, defined as link between the soul and the mind
---Religion
Sekhem, defined as magic
---Fertility
Khat, defined as the physical body
---War
Khaibit, defined as the unconscious
---Art
Ab, defined as intellect
---Production
Khu, defined as will and intentions
---Diplomacy
Ren, defined as name, and being most 'holy'
---Trade

Here's my rationalizations.
Ba represents groundedness and is opposed by the ethereal nature of magic. Between them religion is found in the conflict between a sense of the world and what is beyond.
Sekhem represents magic and is opposed by the hard reality of the Body. Between them Fertility is produced as magic forces creation from the body.
Khat represents the body and as such is opposed by the unconscious part of existence between which we must exist. War is found in the conflicting needs of the body and spirit.
Khaibit represents the unwaking part of our existence, and is opposed by the part of the mind that exists in the waking hours. Art is found as an expression of the conflict between the sleeping and waking self.
Ab represents the mind and open thought, and is opposed by stubborness and deciciveness. Production is caused by the conflict of ideas with the effort caused by willfulness.
Khu represents Will and Intentions, and is opposed by the hubris of the greatness of a name. Diplomacy is found in the conflict between the will to do good for others and the impression of ones name.
Ren represents the great holy name and is opposed by groundedness. Trade is found in the conflict between one's good name and understanding the world.

I know, lots of loose rationalizations in there to wedge everything together. But not too awful, is it?

When the character dies, average the Khat, modified by mumification preparations, and Ren to create the new Sahu stat which then replaces Khat in the cycle. Average the Sekhem, modified by burial rituals, and Khabit to create the Ka stat which then replaces Sekhem. Replace fertility with Durability as the chracter can no longer make living things flourish, but may still contribute to Egypt's longevity through memory. The character can continue adventures in the underworld then to continue to aid Egypt. Death in the undrworld means permenant destruction of the soul.

How's all that sound?

Mike

[Mithras]

Mike, how do you see these 'conflicts' (elements comining between two opposed aspects) actually coming into play?

I like your connections. The after-death piece I'll need to rewrite if I use it to come more in line with this:

After death the Ka acts as an intermediary between worlds, passing messages and offerings. Many mortuary chapels had 'ka-doors'. Without a khat (body) to use, the ka of the deceased instead uses the Khaibit or shadow. The soul or Ba uses the astral body (sah) for its journey to the Underworld.

[Mike Holmes]

Conflict is really not a good word. Synthesis might have been better in a lot of cases. Anyhow, the conflicts are mostly just rationalizations, but could play a mechanical role. Incorporating my idea from before, the Balance points would be limited as to what they could be spent on by the imbalances the character has. Without a balance between the concious mind and the unconcious mind the character is limited (perhaps restricted; I've been debating that) in donating points to Egypt's Art stat.

What the balance system is trying to produce is characters who are balanced in some stats and unbalanced in others. In fact, I was going to suggest a few limitations. One is that the character when finished should have no more than seven balance points left. This means that the character will have to have at least two imbalances (involving at least three stats) which means that they'd be forced to have descriptors to explain the imbalances (no perfectly balanced, descriptorless characters).

And I was also thinking that players could make characters round robin. They each take a turn choosing an imbalance that is highest for their character. Other characters can take that imbalance but at no more than two points less than the primary taker. This works as long as there are less than seven characters.

BTW, I really like your 1001 positions idea. It screams "player defined" to me. Allow a player who has a higher rank to veto any description of a position created by a player for his character who has just been promoted if the first player feels that it is more powerful than his position. Or something ike that.

Or even better, have a whole set of stats just for the position. Perhaps five stats rated one to two hundred, in stuff like resources, contacts, perks, whatever. These would all add up to the character's rank (the 1001 rank is the Pharoh, or Highest Priest, I'm assuming, and therefore, out of play). Each stat would be a pool of points to use to add to rolls where appropriate (use the square of the bonus as the cost, +1 = 1, +2 = 4, +3 = 9, etc). These points would be usable once. So when you're pools are dwindling, it's time to look for a new position.

I see rolls on promotions to determine your new rank. Botch and you are demoted. Promotion rolls permitted once per session with bonuses to the roll for sessions without an attempt? Something like that?

Gareth, cool info on Senet. Everything I learn makes me want to see this game more.

Mike

[contracycle]

Before I get going, I think we need some clarity here: are WE making this game or is HE making this game.  We are getting engaged and we need to make a decision else there will be tears before bed time.

one dead character. Live characters might want to look at their stats to change them over time to make sure that they can thrive in the afterlife. Lots of possibilities, there. When a character dies he can have an adventure that follows the book of the dead. Perhaps only a few make it intact to the afterlife. Makes for an interesting goal while alive, and jibes with Egyptian cosmology, if I'm not mistaken.

OK, lets crank up the death.  Speculating on what might appeal to narrativists, I have an idea for doing a live action post mortem scene carried out by players other than that of the dead character.  

This arose from a synthesis of two loose concepts I came across - the balancing of the soul vs. Ma'at, arguably its own truth, and that the heart could be magically bound against testifying at this trial.  This implies all sorts of magical measures can be taken as insurance and measures to assist achieving a good place after death; but this process would need an expository vehicle in order to be significant to the players.

So what I'm thinking is that if - or rather when - a character dies the other players take on the roles of various bits of the soul and testify for or against the character.  It might be very interesting to have other players perceptions of your character consciously verbalised.  Certain magical conditions could be attached to the various roles and handed on to those players.

This would suggest a fairly radical reapproach, though.  For this to work characters would have to die, and often.  The game would have to take a lifetime rather than realtime approach.  On the other hand, I reckon it would be interesting; I'm already wondering where I can get a jackal head mask.    Also it might permit a dynastic structure in which family, inheritance, destiny and so forth are all used directly through time compression.  To stay consistent, the game would have to concentrate I guess on significant events in a given characters life, partly for time compression and partly so that other players are there to witness them and hence have something interesting to say at the trial.  Which suggests that these things would need to be some sort of moral/metaphysical dilemma.

Dunno, but its a thought anyway.

[Mithras]

Contracycle is right about the game writing process. I plan to go away and write this up myself. I've experimented (fitfully) with more collaborative attempts, but I'm easily clouded by other peoples (great!) ideas. I prefer to shut myself away and write ...

Regarding the afterlife approach. A long-term Pendragon style game would suit this recurring life very well, but I think I might find it difficult to make such a game interesting. Its a tricky thing to write to that kind of timescale. I'll be keeping it more immediate as is my style. But still keeping death in there, perhaps just keeping dead characters around as sources of advice, friendship or conflict.

Anyway, still struggling with attributes for now...

[contracycle]

BTW, I really like your 1001 positions idea. It screams "player defined" to me.

I'm wary of the player going "so, what member of the Ancient egyptian bureacracy shall I appoint myself to... hmm... I don't know".  I think the list needs to be at least partially defined, and with my inclinations, broken into regions of responsibility.  I would think perhaps players could exercise, well, privileges of rank, I suppose.  But I like the point system concept a lot.

[Mike Holmes]

This is Paul's game and nobody else's as far as I'm concerned. Believe it or not, the stuff I've been putting out here is just what falls out of my head when I read what he's written. He is free to use any of it or none of it at his pleasure. And I keep going off in directions only because Paul has not said that he isn't interested in those ideas. For example, now that he has said that he does not want to do the dynastic thing, I won't riff on that. Not that I don't want to, however. Anything that he does not use I see as possible material for another game or games (and to that extent, I, Michael C. Holmes of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, USA hereby retain all rights to said material included on these pages and created by myself that is not used as previously mentioned to make the aforementioned game by Paul Elliot of somewhere in England, Yadda yadda).

So, when Paul goes off to make his Egypt game, Gareth, wanna put together a game based on some mythical kingdom in the ancient east or something? I'm seeing something called Dynasties of Myth or the like. Assuming that Paul rejects a lot of what's here, I think we might have most of a game ready to go. I'm kinda waiting like a vulure to scavenge the corpse after the hyena leaves with what he's interested in.

:-)

Mike

[Mithras]

You're evil :)

[Mike Holmes]

Oh, sure, I leave thousands of words of notes for you to take or leave as you like, and now I'm evil?

No respect! One of these days, Elliot!



Oh, BTW, I like the Ka-door thing. Ya gotta keep us up to speed on these things. Now lets see, how does that affect the stat cycle after death...

;-)

Mike (easily distracted by games) Holmes

[Mike Holmes]

I'm wary of the player going "so, what member of the Ancient egyptian bureacracy shall I appoint myself to... hmm... I don't know".  I think the list needs to be at least partially defined, and with my inclinations, broken into regions of responsibility.  I would think perhaps players could exercise, well, privileges of rank, I suppose.

Hmm. That's a good point. I'm kinda torn, because it's a neat place for the player to add to the setting by creating a position, but it does leave the player a bit in a vacuum. How about the player picks a few descriptors that have a matrix effect on position, but creates a couple others to make it work out to the right level?

So, I'm promoted to position 321. I decide I'm interested in Irrigation, and in Overseeing off the list. These have values of 15 and 25 respectively, which gives the position a product value of 375. So I am forced to choose demeaning descriptors to lower the value of the position. So I choose Junior and Lower Nile as my restrictive descriptors. So I am now the Junior Overseer of Lower Nile Irrigation. Nifty. As such I decide that my stats should be Resources 130 (lots of slave labor, farm kickbacks), Prestige 41 (not a well known position), Contacts 80 (lots of people involved n the agriulture of the nation), Perks 70 (free river transportation on the Lower Nile).

What is cool is that when going for a promotion, your resume should be taken into consideration. You get a bonus based on how many descriptors you intend not to change. So if I want to become Senior Overseer of Lower Nile Irrigation, I get three bonuses for not changing three descriptors. Eventually I may climb to High Overseer of All Irrigation (550 or so I'd say: 375 + two big bonus descriptors).

Hows that lookin?

Lesse, here some samples. Probably need reordering by what was really important.

Patrol 10
Pottery 13
Irrigation 15
Roads 18
Mining 20
Foreign Trade 23
Temple 25
Library 28
Pyramid 30

And here are the associated basic jobs.

Runner 10 - essentially a gofer for everyone on the project
Crew 13 - just works on the project in a staff manner
Scribe 15 - recordkeeping and such administrative tasks
Builder 23 - controls construction of projects
Oversight 25 - runs projects once built
Priest 30 - makes policy on projects, decides what to build and how to run things in general terms

Ok, I am now ready to start as the Ghanta (a tiny burg) Night Patrol Runner worth eighteen points. Resources: 3 (Spare spears when they're not all being used), Contacts: 6 (the officers of Ghanta may know who you are), Prestige: 1 (?Is that actually a position?), Perks 8 (there is a cot in the back room that is available when things are quiet, and meals are regular).

Might work with some fleshing out. Hmmm. Would be good to know the dice mechanic, eh?

Mike

[Mithras]

Ahh, I come to post on dice mechanics and you already bring the subject up ...

I wanted to go nifty - d4s for pointy pyramid shapes
I wanted to go for d8s - two square based (ie authentic) pyramids stuck end to end
I wanted to avoid anything bigger than a d10.

But I keep coming back to my nice warm safe 2d6. A lovely bell curve, average is 7 (that magical 7), numbers not to high. I just feel I've used it before so many times. Time to be innovative, But what the hell - I like it!

So, I want to scale the gateway into the supervisor's villa. That's Khat (my rating is 5, pretty good). Difficulty is 13 (based on the Khat of Egypt, ie. its armies and forces, 13 isn't fantastic). I roll 2d6, get a 6, add 5 and just fail the climb by 2 pts.

I know that Donjon Krawl has brought this up, but I had a resolution system worked out for a 1930s pulp game which did away with failure, especially in action scenes. Either you made the roll and what you want happened, or you don't and 'something else' happens (not necessarily
failure). I still like that system.

Am I copping out with my faithful 2d6??

[Mike Holmes]

How about 2D8-2. That gives lots of pyramids rolling around, you get the curve (Actually a linear "pyramid" curve, not a bell for 2 dice). And the silly -2 means that you have a range from zero to fourteen averaging, you guessed it, seven.

The only case in which I'd actually advocate a -2 on a primary die roll is if the other stats didn't add directly. This can be accomplished if you want to keep all of these nifty elements. BTW, for a published game, you'd want to include two dice that went from 0 to 7 instead of 1 to 8. Now that would be really cool. Or for a FUGElike effect, have a positive 0 to 7 die and a negative one. Egypt dice.

As for the Egypt stat being the target, does what you have in your post imply that you calculate the target from the Egypt stat, higher Egypt stats producing lower targets, or do you just use the Egypt stat straight, and a Lower Egypt stat is better? My original concept was use a Higher is Better Egypt stat, and roll below the stat for success. I know, counterintuitive. But relatively simple. You could calculate all your targets before the game by adding your stat to the Egypt stat. Then roll lower on the dice for success.

If you want an all Higher is Better system, just have a standard target (20?) and add the appropriate Egypt stat to the character stat plus the roll to exceed that target.

What is your command?

Mike

[contracycle]

So, when Paul goes off to make his Egypt game, Gareth, wanna put together a game based on some mythical kingdom in the ancient east or something? I'm seeing something called Dynasties of Myth or the like. Assuming that Paul rejects a lot of what's here, I think we might have most of a game ready to go. I'm kinda waiting like a vulure to scavenge the corpse after the hyena leaves with what he's interested in.

I'd definately be up for it - I even have a candidate, the Indus river valley civilisation, about which relatively little is known:

http://bosei.cc.u-tokai.ac.jp/~indus/english/index.htm

Esp. worth a look for the CG reconstructions. (recently borrowed by the inimitable Graham Hancock)

This is a good thing in that it gives us almost total freedom; it is a bad thing in that a lot of what we came up with was based on the intent to model an Egyptian reality.  But now we are in the realms of speculation again - but I like "dyansties of myth", that sounds good to me as a working principle :)

[Mike Holmes]

Heh, I was actually thinking Indus River civ. No, really. I became aware of them through the boardgame History of the World, and then the thought occurred that they should be in the board game Civilization. Well, it turns out that we found a Spanish magazine that had published an Eastern Expansion map that included the Indus valley civ (not to mention the Sumerians, Persians, and the Semites). How's that for a geek hunt? Anyway, we recently played a ten player game of Civ using both expansions; very cool.

Anyway, so, yeah, I've got the Indus Valley on my mind. And the lack of info is really cool, allows great lattitude. But it also means a lot more reading to make sure we don't put in any glaring errors. Despite my interest I know little about these people.

So, Paul, how close are you to "going off" to write this baby? Can you give us an idea of what you don't want to use? Gotta get started on this Indus Valley game (I sure hope they had dynasties). :-)

Mike