Paladin 2e: A peek behind the design

[Clinton R. Nixon]

In Paladin 2e, I'm changing character creation a lot. One of the big differences is I'm genericizing the attributes and putting a lot more into skill type things.

Characters will have a Flesh, Mind, and Spirit attribute pool. These are how many dice you roll.

In the first iteration, Light and Dark attributes (now Spirit, combined) determined what dice you could re-roll. Now, those are Qualities. I have three areas: Abilities, Knowledges, and Qualities, each corresponding with an attribute. (Flesh->Abilities, Mind->Knowledges, Spirit->Qualities.)

Here's where I'm stuck. I'm waffling in two areas:

1) Do I combine Abilities, Knowledges and Qualities into a big mess of "Stuff You're Good At"? That way, you can use your Wrestling ability with your Spirit pool. I'm not so keen on this, but I like that you could have a "Big" quality. That doesn't fit in an Ability column, but it's Flesh-based. I dunno.

2) The big question I'm wrestling with is this. In 1e, if you had a Light attribute of "Patient 3" you could re-roll all dice three or under. In 2e, I kind of want to leave numbers off the AKQ's (Abilities, Knowledges, Qualities). You add up all that apply to a situation up to five, and that's the number you can re-roll. Giving them numbers leaves more room for customization, but you'd only use one at once.

I need to playtest this out and see, I suppose.

[Russell Collins]

The big mess o' stuff pile seems to be the way most games are going. Even those that list abilities as tied to an attribute gave occaisions when they can be used differently (Ex. You want to identify if the enemy is holding a glave guisarme or a pole-axe, use your brains and weapon skill.) That said, those occaisions are awful rare and since you have some abilities that cannot be used with other attributes it may be best to separate them out into categories.

The patience ability sounds like it just needs more situational limitations on it. "Only used in non-combat situations" or something. Since this one trait allows you to re-roll up to 3 dice, while others (I assume) let you re-roll one, it's pretty hefty.

Now why do your ideas start sounding like mine? Is it just because I played your game at Dreamation? I didn't even read the whole book yet!

[Paganini]

Clinton, I'm personally a fan of the method (like, I think it's story bones) where individual entries aren't rated with numbers. Instead, you have a category that gets a number based on the number of entries it contains. If you have specific entries that apply to a situation, then you can activate them for a bonus.

[James_Nostack]

Clinton, naturally playtesting is in order for this, so all of my post should be ignored.  But here are my comments anyway:

1.  I say abandon the Abilties, Knowledges, Qualities distinction, and list them as Traits which can be used with any of the Big Three, for the following reasons:

a. It gives the participants more freedom.

b. You've already got a distinction between Body, Mind, Spirit in your Big Three.  Carrying that distinction into a second layer seems unnecessary.

c. Honestly, saying "List your Abilities.  Then list your Knowledges.  Then list your Qualities," strikes me as the normal D&D fussbudget style of RPG'ing.  "List stuff about your guy, here are some examples" seems better.

2.  Leave the numbers off and count up how many apply is probably the more elegant solution.  But how often will the traits overlap?

I've got a few other thoughts about some apparent shifts in premise from 1e to 2e, but I'm not sure how to say it.  I miss the whole Light and Dark adjectives thing!

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I've got a few other thoughts about some apparent shifts in premise from 1e to 2e, but I'm not sure how to say it.  I miss the whole Light and Dark adjectives thing!

They are there, I assure you. You can't see them yet, but they're pretty awesome.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I've got a few other thoughts about some apparent shifts in premise from 1e to 2e, but I'm not sure how to say it.  I miss the whole Light and Dark adjectives thing!

There is a change. I include rules for changing the Code, and that's a big deal. You must be purely Light or purely Dark to do so, however.

Anyway, I've written some more notes. I wanted to write more, but work went until 9:30. Argh.

My new hangup is that Mind attribute sitting there. It seems intrusive and totally unrelated to the premise. However, it seems necessary. I can definitely see Mind conflicts, and if I make it something else, like "Tongues" (social) then Spirit is fucked, as you use it for social conflicts right now.

Paladin fans! Help me with this Mind thing. Why's it there? Can you see it being used? What would you replace it with? (Let's assume, for argument, there will be three attributes.)

[Paganini]

How about "will" instead of mind? Use that for social stuff. Change "spirit" to be how in tune you are with supernatural forces, or something like that.

[Lance D. Allen]

Will is a good replacement.. unless Mind also takes into account things like perception.

Why precisely do you have a problem with it?

[James_Nostack]

Paladin fans! Help me with this Mind thing. Why's it there? Can you see it being used? What would you replace it with? (Let's assume, for argument, there will be three attributes.)

Clinton, would the word "Intellect" work better?  The word "Mind," in some philosophical/religious traditions, is identical with the soul, or a component thereof.  But this is just semantic hair-splitting and may not be helpful.

Regarding how well this addresses premise: could you clarify the premise of Paladin 2e?  

1e, on the surface, looked like a game about well-meaning but flawed people who run around and smite the shit out of bad guys.  But once you actually got into character generation, it became obvious that what was really going on, was that you were telling a story about a soul in conflict with itself.  All the running and smiting and decapitating and burning-witches-at-the-stake stuff is just a vehicle for bringing that conflict to the surface, and the various Kewl Jedi Powahs are just FX of the internal struggle.

From this perspective, I kind of regarded Paladin characters as basically Souls with some other gunk attached; they're not flesh & blood people so much as latent moral conflicts personified.  Of course, 2e may be a completely different beast!  But if that's the goal, then things like Body and Intellect are secondary features of a character.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Regarding how well this addresses premise: could you clarify the premise of Paladin 2e?  

The big question, huh? Ok, but I'm going to get some coffee first.

I didn't know, when Paladin was written, where it really came from. It honestly was a "let's see how to make cool Jedi powers and, oh, D&D paladin should be in that mix." That's what I thought, anyway.

Looking back, is it really a coincidence I wrote a game about moral absolutism and holy warriors within 12 months after a terrorist attack? Probably not. Paladin is the game I wrote that I think is least playable and most interesting. As written, play goes like this:

a) Character does something cool.
b) Everyone oohs and aahs.
c) Character does something that he knows is in the right.
d) Players don't see the good and start to wonder what's going on.
e) Repeat c-d until...
f) Character is still convinced he's right. He's more convinced than ever. Players are replused by character.

It's not that different than life: moral absolutists are abhored by their audience that's not as absolute as they. In the game, though, you're partially responsible: you're playing this asshole. So, it's not that enjoyable after you've made the pretty simple realization that absolutists are wrong and replusive.

But, I love the game. I think it has something pretty magical about it, plus it's as much a response to the faith of my childhood as anything else.

----

The name of Paladin 2e is actually "Paladin: A New Testament." It could well be "Paladin: The Jedi Strike Back." It's my Gospel of Thomas to Paladin 1e's Old Testament. It explicitly shows moral absolutism as an unsustainable system and makes the characters decide on a new way. How?

a) Light and Dark attributes are removed and replaced with the neutral "Spirit". Light and Dark Animus is not. Why? The universe contains good and evil. You contain potential for both.

b) You have good and bad Qualities. When damaged in a conflict where a good Quality has been wagered, you can either lose that Quality (temporarily) or convert it to a bad Quality immediately and keep using it. Why? When in stress, it's easy to take the mean and ugly way out. It's tempting, and you might do it.

c) If you manage to stay wholly virtuous or become completely corrupt, you can change the Code through an arduous quest. You can put your foot down and say "This law right here? This sucks, and I'm changing it." Why? Absolutism towards good or evil is unsustainable. It will break down. The center cannot hold. Make a new way.

The premise: What will you do when conviction runs out? When all you live for proves to be flawed, how will you go on? Can a human act for the divine and what does that practically mean?

[Bankuei]

Hi Clinton,

I always tended to read it with the idea that the point was to break the code.  

Following the code completely is inhuman and crazy, so it always seemed like a Faustian deal to "help humanity" by giving up a good portion of your own.  Breaking the code completely usually meant being not completely on your rocker either, as you had to operate with all these negative traits.  It seemed like the point was to ride the middle and sort of write your own code through your actions about when to follow it and when not to.  Or, as Ron pointed out, Usagi Yojimbo is a good samurai story because he's a bad samurai.

Funny enough, you've got the same premise running as Greg put in Glorantha- "...religious requirements are not human ideals."  

One thing you might want to put in is to drop some advice as far as social repercussions of all this code following and breaking.  In Dogs, you shoot someone's wife, well, a few people are going to be unhappy, even if she had the devil coming out of her.  For Paladin, it would be neat to drop a formula for setting up those conflicts like Dogs does, and some advice if not out and out mechanics to represent how everyone responds to the PC's actions.  

Chris

[Tony Irwin]

2) The big question I'm wrestling with is this. In 1e, if you had a Light attribute of "Patient 3" you could re-roll all dice three or under. In 2e, I kind of want to leave numbers off the AKQ's (Abilities, Knowledges, Qualities). You add up all that apply to a situation up to five, and that's the number you can re-roll. Giving them numbers leaves more room for customization, but you'd only use one at once.

So like if I say "Ok, I bounce of the walls to avoid their spears, drawing my sword while I'm in the air above their heads - so that's gymnastics, swordsman, and uhhh foolhardy to reroll 3s and under."

Yeah that sounds cool - I like the idea of building combos like that. It sounds very focused on building up a step by step idea of what I want to do. Sometimes in 1e I knew what I wanted to do but it was a real pest trying to colour it so that an attribute would fit it.

Will AKQs cost the player if being reactivated in a conflict? I imagine you'd need a lot of AKQs to get through a conflict using each one only once.

Tony

[Clinton R. Nixon]

So like if I say "Ok, I bounce of the walls to avoid their spears, drawing my sword while I'm in the air above their heads - so that's gymnastics, swordsman, and uhhh foolhardy to reroll 3s and under."

Yeah that sounds cool - I like the idea of building combos like that. It sounds very focused on building up a step by step idea of what I want to do. Sometimes in 1e I knew what I wanted to do but it was a real pest trying to colour it so that an attribute would fit it.

Will AKQs cost the player if being reactivated in a conflict? I imagine you'd need a lot of AKQs to get through a conflict using each one only once.

It will cost to re-activate them, but you get to re-activate all of them for 1 Animus. The other cool thing about your example is this:

'Foolhardy' would probably be a negative quality. If you had 'Brave' you could use it instead - and then if it got damaged, you could change it to 'Foolhardy' and use it again.