The Forge Archives

Ok, I mailed Sydney some rules and said I wanted to waited for something to happen first, and then I'd let him post the rules (since he's Foot, and all).

But I'm too excited, and Sydney's a busy fellow. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me posting this link:

My SW draft rules (pdf)

Peruse, enjoy (I hope), feedback appreciated.

Oh, and I think I've got a comment about Vincent's Otherkind in there - vincent knows this is out there.

Thanks all for your patience!

Tobias, I can't seem to download or open the .pdf file. Can you verify the URL for me?

It's coming up at

http://www11.brinkster.com/tobiasopdenbrou/SW/SWdraftrules.pdf

for me.

Yup, that's where it was pointing for me, too, but it still wouldn't download. It seems to be working fine, now, though.

The link Tobias posted originally works fine for me, and I went over the .pdf fairly closely instead of doing work. My initial impressions and comments follow.

Major Points:

1) Structuring Play
I very much like the ideas for structuring play -- especially those parts of play that are normally "just roleplay it" or "GM fiat" -- through group definition of Pillars, Passions, and "victory conditions," all of which get tied in nicely to character-creation, scene-framing, the "five act structure" with 5 conflicts per "adventure," and the overall arc of a campaign. (My Life with Master is one of the few other games I've seen that atempts this kind of meta-structure above the level of individual conflicts). This is really, really cool. Let's work on this more and really nail it: It'll give play a sense of purpose and direction lacking in a lot of games.

2) Fortune vs. Drama?
I think Otherkind is a cool model; but I'm also still attached to the suggestion very early on in this project (actually in Tobias's initial brainstorm post) that we avoid dice & other fortune mechanics. Nonrandom "karma" resolution -- you know what will happen if you do X, the only question is, is it worth the cost? -- just seems thematically right for a game about transcendently enlighted time-travellers.
Now, is there a way to make a Karma-resolution version of the  Otherkind mechanic? I think so, because the key element, as Vincent himself says, is not chance but choice. You could give a player nonrandom resources to allocate, instead of Otherkind's randomized resources (i.e. dice pools), and still force the same trade-offs among success, side effects, narration rights, etc.

3) Strengthening Fade
Tobias sounds unsure about this draft's approach to Fade, and I think he's right. Both Fade and Burn need to be tied to player-character choices. Obviously "I spend longer in the host" is a choice, but it's not a very dramatic one; I'd argue that such choices should be made during scenes, and if possible under time pressure to get a emotional gut response, rather than before scenes as a rational planning decision.


Minor Points:

i) The numbers in this draft for integrity points, influence totals etc. is probably about an order of magnitude too high -- instead of talking about 150-160 points of effect over the course of a campaign, and whittling away at those points in 1s and 10s, I think it's mathematically simpler and dramatically more potent to measure final success in 10-20 points and have each and every point be a major source of contention. I'm thinking soccer/football (real football, not the weird American kind) rather than basketball as the model.

ii) Remember a "wound" to the Host need not be physical.... What a tragedy it is to lose one's mind, as Dan Quayle famously said.

iii) Secondary passions, and the multiple Archivist types, are a Cool Thing, as is the definitions of types of Transcendent abilities/Logoi (the first time anyone's really tried to formulate a set, and rather elegantly done, I think).

iv) I'd love to hybridize this draft with the idea (originated by Doug, I think? Certainly refined by him) that how "fixed" an event is in time is determined not by its causes, but by its effects. In other words, in Schrodinger's War terms, what makes me important is not my parents and grandparents but my children and grandchildren: You don't erase me by killing my grandfather, you erase me by erasing the legacy I leave behind.

OK, this is a first read, and not a playtest review!

1) Props for coming out with something which is actually playable as a complete game!
2) I like the core mechanic. I haven't read Otherkind yet, but I will do so ASAP so I can see what's new and what's different.
3) I think that Archivist-Host interaction takes a backseat to Archivist-SpaceTime interaction. This may not be a bad thing (Hosts are to a certain degree disposable...)
4) The idea of Integrity Points as an expendable resource is good. I'd suggest that the IP loss should be directly linked to Fade, instead of being hit for Burning and wounds as well. Burn the Host, you lose access to their skills; wound the Host, you lose points on the dice; Fade and you lose IP. I thik it can be this simple.
5) I'm still having a hard time accepting Pillars - but they work within this system.

I'll read this more, and maybe we should try an IRC playtest sometime soon?

One more point, which isn't specifially about mechanics. I think that Tobias' contribution owes as much to "Iron Chef" as it does to "Groupdesign". It's not a  pick-and-choose bunch of ideas - it's a whole game.

I think that we should all be doing the same. Please discuss.

1. Agreeing with Doug

Quote from: Doug RuffI think that Tobias' contribution owes as much to "Iron Chef" as it does to "Groupdesign". It's not a  pick-and-choose bunch of ideas - it's a whole game. I think that we should all be doing the same. Please discuss.

Agreed. Kind of like the battling robots TV shows, only turned iterative & evolutionary by the addition of a 3rd stage: (1) each person builds a machine out of scrap; (2) the machines fight and pound eah other into scrap; (3) each person rummages through the scrap of ALL the machines to build a new machine; repeat.

Note that we now have three very different mechanics out there for te Host-Archivist Possession mechanic, which is at the heart of the game: Tobias's Otherkind-inspired model; Doug's "six slots" system; and (way back there), my original draft, which was basically two games of Sorcerer stuck back-to-back (instead of sacrificing humanity for power, you could sacrifice either humanity or transcendence).


2. Total different point

[slaps self on head] As long as we're stealing ideas from Vincent, why not steal from Dogs in the Vineyard, which explicitly tempts players to keep escalating the potential side-effects  ("fall-out")  of conflictsin order to get more resources (dice) to win them? This would be a lovely addition to any Possession mechanic: Instead of the Dogs temptation of, "y'know, if I pulled my gun, I could probably win this," it'd be, "if I burned out my host's love of birdwatching, I could probably win this."

Hmmm. How to implement, how to implement....

Quote from: Sydney FreedbergAgreed. Kind of like the battling robots TV shows, only turned iterative & evolutionary by the addition of a 3rd stage: (1) each person builds a machine out of scrap; (2) the machines fight and pound eah other into scrap; (3) each person rummages through the scrap of ALL the machines to build a new machine; repeat.

Definitely up for this - but if we have lots of great games at the end of this, then they all win.

Quote from: Sydney FreedbergAs long as we're stealing ideas from Vincent, why not steal from Dogs in the Vineyard, which explicitly tempts players to keep escalating the potential side-effects  ("fall-out")  of conflictsin order to get more resources (dice) to win them? This would be a lovely addition to any Possession mechanic: Instead of the Dogs temptation of, "y'know, if I pulled my gun, I could probably win this," it'd be, "if I burned out my host's love of birdwatching, I could probably win this."

Hmmm. How to implement, how to implement....

Lots of ways, lots. For example, using the Dogs system, you could burn a Trait in order to use in in an entirely unrelated conflict.

For example, burning Love of Birdwatching: 2d8 to get (say) 4d8 towards the gunfight you're in the middle of.

But this is actually a "bassackwards" application of the Dogs escalation cycle. Instead of Taking The Blow to gain Fallout in order permanently increase your Traits, you'd be permanently reducing your Host's Traits in order to gain a temporary advantage and (probably) less side-effects.

First - thank you for your kind comments as well as your patience.

I would greatly like to playtest this core before I run any tweaks. I do think some bits are weak, but I want to know this for sure before I start mucking about with them (especially why they are weak will give a good clue in how to fix them).

I'm ok with testing on IRC, but we'd have to figure out something time-zone and free-day wise (since my weekends are full up to and including next month). I'm also fine with people testing this without me being present - it will definately show the holes I gloss over/fill without thinking. Of course I'll try to test locally as well, but that might not be easy in the near future.

On structuring play - one of the things I'm happy with is that there is more co-operative building of the game than individual character building. And I'm also happy with the measure of integration of the rules.  This is (only?) possible because it is a whole game - so I'm supportive of Doug's "whole game" suggestion.

If someone (Sydney?) wants to make a Drama version of this game's rules, go right ahead. I think the Fortune mechanic can be overriden quite well by IP spending, in this case, with Fortune basically demanding you push a bit harder sometimes. I could be wrong.

Burn/Fade aren't as strong now as they have been in our discussions, and perhaps (probably?) they need to be, and it is indeed more time/space oriented than zooming in the actual possession. I thought it would be easier to add detail on possession onto what I have now, than to focus on possession, and come up with a way to integrate that to major goals later. It seems that way for me, but any approach that makes something workable... :)

Point totals are definately something that needs investigation. There are some advantages to doing it this way, I think, but that'll bear out in testing. And sure, 'wounds' need not be physical.

I didn't intend for this draft to be seperate from the metaphysics of events  as we discussed - but since I've glossed over the setting-explanation we've been discussing a lot, I can see that it doesn't neccesarily rely on that explanation. (Just trust me - it's taken into account) The Legacy mechanic might offer room for expansion. I don't know. Before hybridizing, again, I'd like to play it (or have others play it) as written.

Tying IP loss in with wounds and burning of the host is because the Archivist is 'estranging' himself from caring about the host. Still, wounds, burn, and fade need to have more zip and impact - agreed. Or perhaps Doug's "simple" solution works wonders.

Sydney mentions a way to escalate. In fact, this is wholly supported in Otherkind's base mechanics, but I didn't mention it. You can gain another die to roll (and assign) by adding another danger as possible outcome. Clean and simple. In SW, we could obviously tie this to thematically apropriate things like burn or fade. :)

Also, I've made a Windows application that does Otherkind die-rolling, action/danger choice, and assigning, with logging and load/save functions, which I'm expanding to archivist options. The core Otherkind stuff is done, but the Archivist stuff isn't yet. Still, if your mailbox can handle 1.5 MB, pm me your mail adresses and I'll send it out.

So - who's up for a playtest? With, or without me?

Online, or in person? I'd be happy to playtest online, but I'm not about to fly out to the Netherlands.

You're not? Such a shame - we've got everything that's fun - legal or illegal.

Ok, enough with the travelguide. Sydney and I were hoping to get some IRC action in the 5-6 march weekend.

Well, let me rephrase -- if you're willing to foot the bill, I'd be happy to fly out. I'm just stingy with the cash, is all.

Anyway, I'm semi-available that weekend. I'm not around Saturday morning or Sunday evening. If that works with everyone else's schedule, I'd love to test it out.

Sydney and I are testing the rules in e-mail, just the 2 of us for now. The first person responding within 1 day from this timestamp can still be added.

(note that this isn't really as much of a game as a 'finding the holes' test. the IRC session should be much more fun. Don't feel left out if you miss out on this one.)

If the e-mail does turn out to be a lot of fun, I'll gladly set up another one!

Andrew kindly stepped in, tx!

More info on the 5th/6th playtest as we get to grips with this mail thing first.