[Saint Sever] heroic-tragic conflict resolution

[Bandari]

Hello all,

I posted here a while ago regarding an iron age game I am starting up in a month or so. The question then was regarding the mechanics, and after a bit of rather fruitful discussion I went back to the drawing board. Now, I've had an idea regarding the narration mechanics... so, I'm just going to present it here for dissection.

We've all read the greek myths, of the heroes like Heracles and Jason and Achilles and so on. In all of them we may observe a certain terrible symmetry - for every success a hero achieves, a defeat will follow. The higher a hero flies, the lower he falls, with a certainty that seems embedded in the structure of heroic epic itself. Conversely, every fall is followed by redemption. But no matter how things go for the hero and his surroundings, the end is always the same - death. Heroic or tragic, every character dies in the end.

This rather neat narrative system appeals to me for role-playing because it provides a simple basic premise for the gamer: your hero's life is, in a sense, a zero sum game. The end result of all your actions, when your character dies, will always be zero - every positive result balanced by a negative result.

Now, to the mechanic for conflict resolution. Since the last discussion here I've been aiming at a free-form, flowing system for narrating the stories and resolving character conflict. (CharGen will still be card-assisted, to help players get a physical *feel* for their character)

Basically, your character has two kinds of tokens: HEROIC and TRAGIC.

Everytime something bad happens to your character, his family, his clan, etc. he gains tragic tokens.

And the reverse - when something good happens, he gains heroic tokens.

Now, here's the catch - the number of heroic tokens a hero posesses represents how much TROUBLE the GM or the other players can send his way, while the tragic tokens represent how much FATE he can muster in support of his goals.

The narrative system is pretty simple - your character does what you say he does, until he comes into conflict with the GM or another player. [and its the conflict system that isn't worked out yet!] When conflict arises, however, the parties to the conflict must decide what and how much is at STAKE. Stakes vary, but the larger the results of the conflict the greater should be the stake. It is the initiator of the conflict that determines how much he stakes.

Example stakes: (1) the character's possessions, (2) the character's body (wounds), (3) the character's family, (4) the character's clan.

After the goal is determined and what is at stake is determined, the player rolls for success. Depending on the size of the stake, more dice can be rolled. One die for possessions, two for wounds, etc. Each even result is a success.

All well and good, but the opponents of the character can oppose him, if he has heroic tokens. For every heroic token the player posseses, his opponent (other characters or the GM) may roll one die - up to a maximum of as many dice as the character has rolled (i.e. - a 4th level stake means the character rolls 4 dice, but if he has 4 hero tokens, his opponent can roll just as many). Of course, a character with tragic tokens may roll additional dice to assist himself.

Draws are decided by another roll (50:50).

If the character wins, he gains a heroic token. If he loses, he gains a tragic token. When the character wins, he has narrative control and describes the outcome. When he loses, his opponent gains narrative control.

The stake of the character's life carries a special effect - when it is used it functions as a maximum level stake, but there is a catch. Whether or not the character wins or loses (lives or die), his player retains narrative control.

Finally, a character (or GM) may not force another character into conflict - any character can simply cede a conflict, ceding narrative control and not gaining or losing any tokens.

[like I said, this is very rough and needs work - which is why, I'm asking for help!]

problems I notice myself:

1. how to structure the game, conflict magnitude, order of play
2. how to introduce a mechanic that does not penalise character death but treats it as the normal end result
3. how to make the tokens more fun... I dunno, I feel this aspect needs a bit of elaboration. Maybe specific "fate" cards or something?

[Bandari]

Another thing I would like to try is a way of - using somekind of narrativist system similar in principle to the above - taking the GM out of the game. Any suggestions?

[Spooky Fanboy]

Basically, your character has two kinds of tokens: HEROIC and TRAGIC.

Everytime something bad happens to your character, his family, his clan, etc. he gains tragic tokens.

And the reverse - when something good happens, he gains heroic tokens.

Now, here's the catch - the number of heroic tokens a hero posesses represents how much TROUBLE the GM or the other players can send his way, while the tragic tokens represent how much FATE he can muster in support of his goals.

Hmm, I have a question: Why not reverse that so that the Hero earns Heroic Tokens when something bad befalls him, but when the Hero is getting his way, he earns Tragic tokens? Tragedy fuels the fires of his efforts, but burns out when he is rewarded, that sort of thing is what I'm getting at. Did you look at this option and then discard it? If so, I'm curious why.

[Justin Marx]

Hmm, I have a question: Why not reverse that so that the Hero earns Heroic Tokens when something bad befalls him, but when the Hero is getting his way, he earns Tragic tokens? Tragedy fuels the fires of his efforts, but burns out when he is rewarded, that sort of thing is what I'm getting at. Did you look at this option and then discard it? If so, I'm curious why.

Hi Bandari, guess I agree with Spooky, insofar as the Heroic/Tragic terminology seems a little counter-intuitive to me. Reward Tragedy to someone when they do good (and tragedy is a penalty) and Heroic when they get screwed (heroic is the bonus). It's a much of a muchness, same concept, but seems a little more intuitive to me to reverse the terminology.

Sorry for the brief rejoinder, am interested in mythological basis of the game, but am not much of a narrativist. Although, how rules lite or heavy did you want this game? It sounds like you want it quite light to me, in which case cards a good way to go. However that limits total play options, if you want fate tokens to get really interesting and ugly then start specifying how people use them, related to people's passion's, loyalties etc (items that are quantified in some way on the charsheet, I'm thinking TROS's Spiritual Attributes style). So if you earned the penalty points for doing good, like saving your crew by spearing a cyclops through his eye, then those penalty points are going to come by an angry diety (in this case Poseidon, the cyclops' patron) trying to mess with your day, so when you try and take your boat back to Ithaca a storm is going to take you away. That adds a little extra colour to the story, instead of fate being an abstract concept - you have pissed off Poseidon, not earned bad luck. Of course, this makes GM-less play more difficult to achieve as someone needs to interpret when fate can be used or not, or perhaps it can be used at any time, but it must be narrated using the passions and so forth presented.

If you want ideas for a card system, just pick up Bullfinch's Mythology or, if you feel masochistic, 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell, and write out each of the tricky fate hooks used in the myths they present. Either way, you'll notice there is a lot of character motivation, especially in regards to the deities, on why they decide to pick on people, and I think that the passions of Gods and Men would be interesting to replicate. Anyway, that's my meagre take.

[Bandari]

Hmm, I have a question: Why not reverse that so that the Hero earns Heroic Tokens when something bad befalls him, but when the Hero is getting his way, he earns Tragic tokens? Tragedy fuels the fires of his efforts, but burns out when he is rewarded, that sort of thing is what I'm getting at. Did you look at this option and then discard it? If so, I'm curious why.

Well, that is the way it is... I guess I wasn't clear enough. That's precisely how it works.

Hero success = tragic token
Hero failure = heroic token

[Bandari]

Hi Bandari, guess I agree with Spooky, insofar as the Heroic/Tragic terminology seems a little counter-intuitive to me. Reward Tragedy to someone when they do good (and tragedy is a penalty) and Heroic when they get screwed (heroic is the bonus). It's a much of a muchness, same concept, but seems a little more intuitive to me to reverse the terminology.

Guess my late night writing was a bit imprecise - that's exactly what I meant.

Sorry for the brief rejoinder, am interested in mythological basis of the game, but am not much of a narrativist. Although, how rules lite or heavy did you want this game? It sounds like you want it quite light to me, in which case cards a good way to go. However that limits total play options, if you want fate tokens to get really interesting and ugly then start specifying how people use them, related to people's passion's, loyalties etc (items that are quantified in some way on the charsheet, I'm thinking TROS's Spiritual Attributes style). So if you earned the penalty points for doing good, like saving your crew by spearing a cyclops through his eye, then those penalty points are going to come by an angry diety (in this case Poseidon, the cyclops' patron) trying to mess with your day, so when you try and take your boat back to Ithaca a storm is going to take you away. That adds a little extra colour to the story, instead of fate being an abstract concept - you have pissed off Poseidon, not earned bad luck. Of course, this makes GM-less play more difficult to achieve as someone needs to interpret when fate can be used or not, or perhaps it can be used at any time, but it must be narrated using the passions and so forth presented.

I don't know yet precisely how I would make play GM-less - at least for the first few games I'll probably be working with the group at least as co-ordinator and to help with game management.

What you're describing is precisely how I want the system to work (but, will it?). Essentially, the heroic points give the player greater narrative control. The more of them he uses, the likelier his preferred outcome. Tragic points give narrative control to the forces opposing the player (GMs in most cases). The more of them the player has accumulated, the greater the tragedy that the fates (and other players) can throw his way. Of course, a player can have both heroic and tragic points at the same time.

Another option for the player is that he can stake his belongings, his body, his mind, his family, his country - thus increasing his *potential* narrative control, but at a risk. He may succeed at what he is planning, but in the process he loses his stake.

Heroic tokens mean the player gains greater control for a smaller stake, tragic tokens increase the price of the stake.

If you want ideas for a card system, just pick up Bullfinch's Mythology or, if you feel masochistic, 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' by Joseph Campbell, and write out each of the tricky fate hooks used in the myths they present. Either way, you'll notice there is a lot of character motivation, especially in regards to the deities, on why they decide to pick on people, and I think that the passions of Gods and Men would be interesting to replicate. Anyway, that's my meagre take.

...hmmm... will think on that.

[Graham W]

It's a fantastic setting for a game. There's a wealth of background you can draw on.

1. how to structure the game, conflict magnitude, order of play

If you want to use Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey" structure, it's everywhere on the web. A quick search should bring it up. The book "The Writer's Journey" by Christopher Vogler is a good, simple introduction to it.

Now...if you really wanted to get complex...the Greek epics use flashbacks a lot. It's perfectly normal for a character in a Greek epic to suddenly narrate an old myth or heroic story. So you've got all that at your disposal, if you want it.

2. how to introduce a mechanic that does not penalise character death but treats it as the normal end result

Well...you could always use the idea that a character can't die before his time. A central character never (?) dies before the end of his story and, until then, he seems to be protected by fate.

3. how to make the tokens more fun... I dunno, I feel this aspect needs a bit of elaboration. Maybe specific "fate" cards or something?

Could you use the gods in there somewhere? One of the huge aspects in Greek myth is that gods take sides. They can be on a character's side or against them. For example, Odysseus has such trouble travelling home because Poseidon's against him. (Perhaps Poseidon has shares in London Underground). But Odysseus is protected by other gods, who assist him.

The other thing you could use - if you want to - is the idea of virtues. There's a fairly specific set of virtues - beauty, wealth, cunning, skill in combat, strength, skill in sports - which Greek heroes possess in abundance. Having these virtues is something to aspire to and it makes you more successful in life.

Just some ideas. Feel free to use or ignore.

Graham

[Justin Marx]

The other thing you could use - if you want to - is the idea of virtues. There's a fairly specific set of virtues - beauty, wealth, cunning, skill in combat, strength, skill in sports - which Greek heroes possess in abundance. Having these virtues is something to aspire to and it makes you more successful in life.

That's a simple, rules light and very evocative set of simple traits for a character - with those alone, maybe one or two more, you have half a character sheet, after that add only passions and relationships (with both men and Gods). I'll agree with Graham and say that it is on these virtues alone that the great myths in Greek literature revolve around (well, almost entirely, I can't presently think of any other examples which disagree, and I can think of a lot of examples where these are actively encouraged). With these you wouldn't need much else to capture the feel.

On the other hand, is this game limited only to an ancient Greek-flavoured mythology?

[Arturo G.]

 Graham Walmsley:

Quote from: Bandari on September 20, 2005, 08:59:22 PM
2. how to introduce a mechanic that does not penalise character death but treats it as the normal end result

Well...you could always use the idea that a character can't die before his time. A central character never (?) dies before the end of his story and, until then, he seems to be protected by fate.

I think this is an important issue. Nowadays we are not used to understand Fate as in the Greek Myths. I have seen in many movies and novels that characters arrive at a point where they face an important decission. They must choose between two ways of action and they tipically choose the one that seals theit fate.

But in old myths Fate is something different from highly-probable-forecasting. Old heroes never ever have a chance to avoid their fates. Even consulting the oracle and solving riddles about future facts does not give people the opportunity to change or avoid them. Once the fate is known, it is something that will happend.

If you want this flavor you could add a system for setting fate/oracle information. Once it is set, the character may not risk anything in a conflict that compromises that information. In these situations the player should avoid the conflict.

Thus, if we know something about the fate of a hero related to his death, he cannot enter/scalate a conflict to risk his life. On the other hand, when the fate circunstances arrive, there should be no choice except to take it.

And about death, don't forget that there are very exceptional stories where Hades was visited, and someone was near to be drawn from it (e.g. Orfeo's story?)

Cheers,
Arturo

[RedWick]

Maybe setting up a situation where, after a certain number of Heroic and/or Tragic tokens have been accumulated, the circumstances of whatever fate the character is destined to have come about.  This could help to set the pace of the story as well.  A player could look at how many tokens they're in possession of and know how close they are to the inevitable.  And, if you end up taking the Inevitable Fate route, you could have some randomized way of determining what kind of fate a particular character will have, giving the players a cue as to where to lead the story.

Just tossing ideas out.

[Bandari]

On the other hand, is this game limited only to an ancient Greek-flavoured mythology?

Nice... lots of interesting ideas.

Anyway - no, it's not limited to Greek mythology. I just used the Greek example, since it is the most familiar - however, heroes in other epics face similar fate-filled lives. The precise game is more mid-east flavoured, however since the Greeks had a massive influence there (through hellenism and even before, through trade and contact) it isn't a far stretch for the game. Most of the key game points are quite close to Greek mythology:

heroism, tragedy (obviously), war, death, empire-building, capturing maidens, defeating monsters, dragging your enemies through the dust, slavery, gods... yadda yadda.

[Peril Planet]

But in old myths Fate is something different from highly-probable-forecasting. Old heroes never ever have a chance to avoid their fates. Even consulting the oracle and solving riddles about future facts does not give people the opportunity to change or avoid them. Once the fate is known, it is something that will happend.

If you want this flavor you could add a system for setting fate/oracle information. Once it is set, the character may not risk anything in a conflict that compromises that information. In these situations the player should avoid the conflict.

I love the idea of a character's fate being tied to their actions / motivations.  What about having each player outline a fate for their character right at the very start of character generation - something appropriately vague like "wrestling with the beast with one eye shall cast your life into Chalon's ferry".  Then, the player can decide whether it is wise to stick around when he/she encounters the cyclops - and accidentally maiming a wild beast in one eye might prove to be a particularly poor move on the character's part!  You will have a built in story hook for each character, and so long as the fate remains vague, the character will never be certain if the next encounter with a half-blind washer-woman will be their last or not.  You might even want to award hero points for taking actions that will lead a character to their fate ("My companions are trapped by the cyclops!  Do I run and save my own skin, or rescue them, knowing I may well meet my fate?").

If you want to stick with the card-based character gen, you could have a set of pre-generated fates, a bit like a tarot deck.  Hand one to each player at the start of the game, and leave them guessing what terrible end will be met by the bearer of "the one eyed lion", "the child with two faces", or "the laughing wise woman".

Anyway, they were just some ideas that sprang into my head as I was reading through the posts.

[Justin Marx]

"wrestling with the beast with one eye shall cast your life into Chalon's ferry"

I thought it gave you hairy palms and blindness.... sorry, couldn't resist that one....

[Bandari]

"wrestling with the beast with one eye shall cast your life into Chalon's ferry"

I thought it gave you hairy palms and blindness.... sorry, couldn't resist that one....

chuckle ... and it makes your brain rattle

... but it might work. Another idea I had might be giving different characters the lowdown on another character's fate ... hmm. Haven't been ironing on this concept in a while - RL concerns (like college graduation) got in the way.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

As far as controlling character death:

If the premise of the game is that a hero's life is ultimately a zero sum game, then why not make the character vulnerable to death only when she has an identical number of Heroic and Tragic tokens? This could be the only circumstance under which the player can risk the hero's life, and (even better) the mechanical advantage for this risk could be linked to the number of tokens. The higher the number when this risk occurs, the more the character can achieve by risking her life.

This would give players incentive to risk character death -- if you can only get 2 mechanical units from risking personal injury, but your hero's tragic/heroic tokens are up to 8, then obviously you are going to be able to achieve vastly more epic feats if you stake the hero's life on the conflict. This helps regulate the length of a character's life -- at first, there is no advantage to risking life and limb, but as the hero racks up achievements that risk becomes increasingly tempting, and increasingly rewarding.

Of course, this could create problems with very unlucky (or lucky) characters who end up with lopsided token ratios -- they become immortal in a sort of inconvenient way.

--

Rereading, it looks like you have something like this, where risking a character's life counts as a 'maximum' stake -- but it's not clear what that means, in the context of the system you outlined.

--

Overall, I really like the premise, but my immediate expectation was that it would be fulfilled through the spending/bidding of tokens -- not by their simple accumulation, and their effect on random contests. A bidding/spending process seems much more in tune with a 'zero-sum' idea (the suggestions above could be adapted so that character death occurs whenever both token pools are reduced to 0) -- in a system with the tokens affecting dice, it seems like a hero could easily achieve something totally unlike zero-sum by luck alone (and then die). If my hero wins seven conflicts in a row and then risks his life on the eighth and loses... where are the seven great losses that balance this out? Instead, we have a hero who achieved nothing but successes and then died gloriously (since I get to narrate how he dies.)