BARBAREN!--The ultimate Macho RPG (very, very long)

[Sean]

So there's a rule against rape. Cool - I did think the game needed to address it one way or another. I agree that it's faithful to (some of, and most of the better-quality) source material to rule this out. Still, the 'curse' seems a little bit hackneyed. Maybe it's just represented as something so ridiculous and unmanly in the culture that no barbarian warrior would consider it. The psychological block works better for me than the magical barrier. YMMV.

You could also add a rule that rape 'doesn't count' for Aggression or anything else; it doesn't help the character in the way in which sex involving wooing does. Ditto paying for a prostitute on that, for that matter.

Actually, as far as rape goes, there's a pretty simple solution which doesn't require magic or the psychological block: your attractiveness to all women immediately shoots to 0 if you rape one. That seems pretty realistic and utterly devastating in-game, so there you go.

[Sydney Freedberg]

...betraying your blood  brother is the only reason to even bother mentioning such things in a story anyway.

Well, you could always rescue your blood brother from Hell or something. ("Dammit, he can't do anything for me stuck in that fiery pit -- better get him out of there.")

[Frank T]

Hey Ralph,

that's exactly the kind of thing I'm musing about. Relatoinship mechanics. On the other hand, I don't want to burden the game with too much stuff. In the end, it's about fucking and butchering, not about trust and betrayal.

Also, if I take relationship mechanics into the game, I don't want them to be patchwork, but to function in most the same way for all relationships.

- Frank

[Valamir]

Frank, my thoughts on that are:

1) decide how meaningful you want the game to be.  Meaningful doesn't have to mean somber and serious.  For instance Kill Puppies for Satan is full of absurd sillyness and gratutous depravity...but underneath is a very subtle but very meaningful theme.  Butchering and Fucking is great fun, but that doesn't preclude having some sort of underlying subtle meaning.  Without that, I fear you risk the game becoming pure caricature which will wear thin once the novelty of butchering and fucking wears out.  Betrayal and Trust is one way of getting that underlying subtle meaning into the game that I think captures your interest in relationship mechanics while at the same time being true to the source literature.  Conan is full of "allies" callously cast aside.  Check out the Elephant Tower with the thief that helps Conan break in.  By working together (Trust advantage) they make good progress.  But then the poor guy eats it and Conan barely bats an eye.  Similarly the story with the giant slug and the skeleton with the treasure (I forget the name).  A companion that Conan has traveled with for awhile gets gacked and again Conan shrugs and moves on.  Those are kind of minor betrayals (i.e. Conan didn't ramp up the heroism to try and save those guys...it was more expedient to let them die) but still fits with the theme.  In the story where Conan is teamed up with the Aesar against the Vanir (or vice versa, I get them confused) one of his band betrays Conan to the enemy.

2) I think you can broaden the Trust / Betrayal mechanics to account for all relationships.  Loyalty to your Liege Lord...what is that if not Trust and Betrayal.  Relying on your Ring Thrall to serve you well...comes down to Trust and Betrayal.  I think you could make the Trust / Betrayal mechanic a fairly central mechanic in the game without changing how the existing rules work, without detracting from the overall theme of joyous butchery and lusty wantoness.  Those mechanics become defacto your "group effort" rules as well as a nice story creation mechanic putting player relationships at center stage.  The fucking and killing then become the stage on which the real story of trust and betrayal gets told.

[Frank T]

Hey Ralph,

thanks man, now that's some of the wisdom I was talking about earlier on! You know, I'm really warming to this. I read your post just before I went to bed, and woke up this morning still thinking about it. First draft:

Relationships have ratings. Any newly established Relationship has a rating of 1. That rating is raised by 1 whenever, in an adventure, the player has adressed that Relationship through play. What "adressing" means depends on the type of Relationship: Fighting an enemy, protecting a ward, defending your chieftain's honor, etc.

The Relationship rating acts as bonus when involved in fighting, wooing or a check. It adds to the Combat or Attractiveness score, or it grants, say, half its rating (rounded up) of extra dice in a check. "Beeing involved" can mean something as direct as wooing for your desired, or as indirect as wooing for your enemy's favorite wife.

Now for the betrayal part: Betraying your Relationship results in the loss of the rating. However, you gain both Aggression and Horny at that rating (doubled for especially heavy betrayal). "Betraying" the Relationship can again mean different things, depending on the type: Helping your enemy, turning against your brother or chieftain, casting out your wife, etc. It would make sense to establish the vacant NPC (if he still lives) as a new Relationship, so a betrayed brother or chief would become an enemy, a "betrayed" enemy could become a rival or even a brother, each starting at a rating of 1 again.

Mechanically there is little difference if you apply this rule between player characters (PCs). You could make a special rule that they need to take turns raising their rating, or maybe state that if player 1 adresses the Relationship, then the rating of player 2 goes up. Yet I hesitate to encourage a PC vs. PC situation in a game that is not strictly Narrativist, because I fear that the player vs. player it provokes could result in dysfunctional play all too easily.

Are we getting somewhere?

Excited
- Frank

[Nicolas Crost]

Hey Frank,

I really like the whole trust and relationship thing. I know I was against it at the beginning, mainly because I thought the game to be headed off in a different direction. I simply didn´t get the vibe of trust or relationships being all that important (seems that you were not all that sure about it yourself). Or to put it like Ralph did:

The fucking and killing then become the stage on which the real story of trust and betrayal gets told.

If this is where the game is going, great! To be honest I like this much more that the simple fucking and killing I thought it was supposed to become. Anyway, go for it! :)
I will post more thoughts when... well, once I have some good ones.

[Frank T]

Well Nicolas, it would have seemed to me that you should dig the reltionship stuff. ;-)

What could be worth a thought is explicitly making the relationship mechanics an optional rule. So players who are just looking for a fun one-shot can be advised to leave them out because they don't really need them, whereas players who want to play a longer "campaign" may use them to full effect.

(Um, would that be called a Dial?)

[Valamir]

Mechanically there is little difference if you apply this rule between player characters (PCs). You could make a special rule that they need to take turns raising their rating, or maybe state that if player 1 adresses the Relationship, then the rating of player 2 goes up. Yet I hesitate to encourage a PC vs. PC situation in a game that is not strictly Narrativist, because I fear that the player vs. player it provokes could result in dysfunctional play all too easily.

Are we getting somewhere?

I think that spot on and ready to playtest.  Future tweaks and refinements may suggest themselves, but I think thats a good place to dig in.

IME PC vs. PC conflict virtually never results in player vs. player dysfunction if playing with mature people who know that PC betrayal is part of the game.  Its really no different than playing Diplomacy or any other board game where alliances are made and broken.

I'm not a big fan of making key rules optional.  I think that sends the message that the designer doesn't really have faith in them or think they're very important.  I'm a big believer in tying the mechanics to the game pretty tightly.  But that's as much a design preference as anything.

[Frank T]

Okay, I agree, an optional rule is not a good idea. More like a GM'ing Tip somewhere in the back: "If you're planning a quick one-shot of two hours, consider leaving the Relationships out." So, relationships are okay for the time being. Thanks again, Ralph.

Now for The Woman. Draft:

The player can choose that his character really falls for a babe he woos. She then gets an Enthrall rating (terms aren't that important, they'll be different in German anyhow). This rating could range between 4 and 20 depending on the intended campaign length and/or the strength of the bond. So a rating of 4 would mean that she really got him going, but he'll probably get over it. A rating of 20 would mean that she really is The Woman. The player assigns the rating with the group's approval. Of course, he can only have one such Woman at a time.

When he wants to defy her, she rolls d6 equal to her Enthrall. One success is sufficient to stop him. The only thing he can roll to defend are other Relationships, if involved. He can spent 1d6 of Horny on the roll. If he rolls at least one success, that reduces the Enthrall rating by 1, no matter if he defied or not.

The normal Relationship rules could be applied in addition, but they should not interfere.

How's that?

These rules could--mechanically--work with any other relationship. What I wonder is what the matched situation and outcome would be. So when would The Enemy roll his Nemesis rating, and to what effect? And, more importantly: Does it make sense? It was a quick shot, but as I look at it, it might be well okay to limit these rules to women.

[Valamir]

Cool.  
Heres some quick somewhat random brainstorm thoughts

1) What if Trust was used only for relationships with another man...never with relationships with a woman.  Enthrall is only sort of mechanical relationship you can have with a woman.  Thus there are 3 possible states.

Man: Ignore him, Butcher Him, Trust Him
Woman:  Ignore her, Fuck Her, Be Enthralled by her.

...definitely makes a decided statement about the sort of game this is.


2) How about an XP bonus for having A Woman.  In Pendragon you can get Traits so high they start to control your character's actions...but they earn you glory.  This could work in a similiar manner.  Give players a motivation for seeking A Woman.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

H'm, I'm noticing a trend that you might want to consider, Frank. You seem to be basing a lot of your rules on negative reinforcement. No rape "or else" bad things happen. Fall for a woman, and her only rules-roll is to interfere with your decisions.

I suggest that for rape, the issue be treated as a Line - to play this game, you simply do not do it. It'd be like a character saying "I jump over the elephant" in a modern-day game - literally impossible, no rolls necessary, nothing. Putting up a penalizer rule of the sort you're describing only validates the (invalid) suggestion that the character is a rapist. Just say it's invalid, period.

I suggest that for the Woman, we should be talking about bonuses, not strictures. Finding her should be hard; you can't just declare "OK, this one." Being with her should be tremendously effective and full of intense opportunities that aren't available in any other way.

The cost of being with the Woman is that she has priorities that are absolutely non-negotiable. If she's a good person, then it's stuff like the fate of her kingdom or similar. If she turns out to be evil ('cause that's fun too), then it's conquering or enslaving the kingdom, etc. But she can't make the character cooperate; the player has to choose to do so, if he or she wants to keep the relationship going.

I don't really see this to be a major ethics/dilemma game, but I do think that finding the right parameters for moral stuff in it will make all the excessive over-the-top stuff more fun.

Overall: more carrot, less stick.

Best,
Ron

[Sydney Freedberg]

Thus there are 3 possible states.
Man: Ignore him, Butcher Him, Trust Him
Woman:  Ignore her, Fuck Her, Be Enthralled by her.

I suggest that for rape, the issue be treated as a Line - to play this game, you simply do not do it. It'd be like a character saying "I jump over the elephant" in a modern-day game - literally impossible, no rolls necessary, nothing.

I just wanted to applaud these two ideas and draw them out a little further:

Maybe the combat system just does not apply to women. It's not merely unmanly to hit a girl: it's mechanically impossible in the rules. Sure, a woman can slap the barbarian, and he can heft her, squealing, over his shoulder, but these are all fall under the rules for social interactions and have no physical consequences: Nobody gets hurt ("raped" being definitely a subset of "hurt"!).

Conversely, the seduction & sex system doesn't apply to the men your barbarians meet (well, it could, but that's probably an optional module to make a slightly different game).

For once, here's an RPG where the use of "he" or "she" in the text is not an arbitrary matter.

[Spooky Fanboy]

Here's a head-explody question: What if the Barbarian in question is female, a la Red Sonja? Female by birth, but destined to be "one of the guys" by nurture or temperment?

For this I'd modify the suggestions set by Sydney, Ron, and Ralph: In interactions with other Barbarians, they are treated as a man (Ignore, Fight, Trust), with the codicil that rape is still simply off-limits. If the player chooses, the social rolls apply to the female character. Otherwise, no go. The character also has to make social rolls (whether to the same or opposite sex is player's choice), but against PC's, the player of the seducee always has the option of saying "No."

[jrs]

Funny you should mention that.  My assumption about the game is that all player characters would be male barbarians; similar in concept to Trollbabe where all player characters are female.

Julie

[Valamir]

Yeah.  I'd definitely make all of the PCs male by default.

That doesn't preclude them running across a group of Amazons who follow the "male" rules, or a group of effete courtiers who follow the "female" rules.

But the default PC should be male.  Even for female players...who I suspect will generally be far better at playing this overtestosteroned macho figure to the hilt then the men anyway.