[Gods] First thread - basic concepts

[Hans]

Yes, it is possible to cause the fall of a major civilization that someone had created in a previous Key. Keys created in previous Ages are untouchable, though. The only time you can Meddle in a Key is in the turn that it's being created. The way to affect an older Key would be, as you described, to create a new Key which would go something like:

The Fall of Nowheresdom was not immediate, but came about as a result of growing corruption and the squandering of Nowheresdom's tax money, which left its military forces unprepared when the Horse Skull Tribes came pouring out of the Red Hills.

One thing I've also thought about that I should include is a cap on the benefit you can get from putting Keys in a new Key your creating. Otherwise, as the game goes on, it could get ridiculous.

Thanks for posting your initial draft.   The concept continues to interest.

I do have a few questions/points to ponder:

* Your stated goal is "to provide a structure for collaborative world-building with a group of friends, giving you a framework for creating your own world and mythos."  Do you mean this literally?  Here is why I ask; at the moment, there seems to be little if any game actually in this game.  It really seems more like a tool for collaborative written fiction than a game.  That does not mean it is not worthwhile.  I could see at least one major application for it; I could see what you describe here as a form of highly elaborate prelude to an ongoing, and more traditional, role-playing game.  Instead of myself, as the GM, bringing my "world" to the table, instead all of the players collaborate on building the history of the world.  Its similar, I think, to the way a game of Universalis starts.  But I am afraid that if what you describe here is where it ends, there will be very few who are truly interested.  It would require an intense interesting in mythology, and specifically in writing mythology, to get to the end of the process you describe and be satisfied that an enjoyable time was had by all.

* An actual, written, coherent transcript that could conceivably be read by people who have never heard of the game and found interesting is apparently the product of the system you describe.   On the face of it, its hard to imagine any game more narrativist.  However, there is little or no visceral connection to any of the activities in the game.  I am not "role-playing" the keys, I am simply stating them, in apparent sentence form.  For example, I could state:

The trickster Shelba stole into the harem of Aspic, the Enlightened, and made off with the Girdle of Semanup, and the beautiful Semanup as well.  

However, once I have stated this, the action is over.  How did Shelba break in?  What did Shelba feel like when doing so?  Did Semanup welcome escape from Aspic, or was she carried off beating her fists on Shelba's back?  Were their guards to overcome? Was Aspic enraged or relieved?

Now of course, one could spend piles of tokens on elaborating the above statement, adding details, meddling with aspects of it, etc.  That could even be your intent.  But that quickly seems to me to become a kind of writing by comittee.  You could an entire night swapping tokens back and forth and create a few paragraphs padding out the above sentence, phrase by phrase.  But my concern is that none of that would be quite so gripping and interesting as actually role-playing the event.  I am Shelba, the trickster God, you are Aspic, she is the Beautiful Semanup, reclining on her divan.  Heck, that sounds to me like a good time for a bit of LARPing.

I"m not saying that every single element of the developing transcript should be role-played in detail, but I would say that the game as currently written provide little purchase to get ones emotions involved.  The above is assuming what you describe is the entirety of the game; if it is intended as a kind of prelude to another game, more traditional role-playing might not be necessary.  Instead, the keys you develop during the course of the world-building become integrated somehow into the character you create to use in the actual fantasy campaign.  They might become a source of Aspects, ala FATE, or similar.

* Of course, another way to get the emotions involved is to make the game overtly competitive and Gamist.  Here are some stream of consciousness ideas for gamist modifications...Meddling is not negotiated - it simply requires a higher cost (perhaps an ever increasing cost) in tokens to do so, perhaps through a bidding process (i.e. to meddle in your new key I have to pay 1, you can counter it for 0, but I can raise my bid to 2, meaning you have to pay 1, etc.).  Maybe each key is tied to its original creator, and you "win" by having keys you created be the most prevalent in the final narrative.  By using other players keys in your keys, you mandate they pay you power tokens, but they can meddle to mitigate the cost somehow.  Whenever you propose a key, it is voted on by all other players.  Player that vote yes to it you have to pay power tokens, players that vote against it have to give you power tokens.  Alternatively, each player proposes a key in a round, and then all players vote for the "best" key (can't vote for their own), with the winner getting their key in but having to pay those that voted for it tokens.  If you implemented concepts such as these, the game begins to resemble something like Capes, if what I have read about that game is correct.  You directly engage the players through their competitive streaks.

* Given all of the above I said about not being emotionally engaging, there is one venue where I can see this, as written, being of great interest, and that is online play, perhaps through a moderated Wiki of some sort.

* I love the whole boredom/meddling aspect.  At the moment, though, boredom is really just another mechanism to create change in the game.  I think this comes from the fact that you get 10 power and 10 boredom at the beginning of each.  Boredom and power are both freebies, and get relatively equal billing.  Maybe it would be better if you gained boredom as a consequence of inactivity or being twarted in the game.  For example, lets say there is a voting process on the keys as described above.  Each player proposes a key, and then all players vote for the key they want the most (you can't vote for your own).  The player who wins the vote gets their key (with the possibility of meddling), and pays all the players that voted for their key one power.  The players who voted for the losers each get one boredom token.  Boredom like clogs in the drain, similar to paradox vs. quintessence in the old Mage game.  You may have a limit of 20 total tokens, and boredom cancels out power until you successfully meddle and clear some boredom out.

* Continuing the stream of consciousness, I suggest that, since the players are playing gods after all, if you could add some "Nomic" like elements into the game it might add some flavour.  If you are not familiar with "Nomic", it is a game where the creation of new rules is an integral part of the game rules themselves.  See http://www.nomic.net/ for info.  Perhaps as an alternative, or a part of key creation, a player could essentially create a new rule.  For example:

Aspic, the Enlightened, brought fire up from the depths of the Cavern of Creation and gave it to Jellybelly, the first man.  (Any key that includes fire as a concept can be meddled with by Aspic for one less boredome token.)

This of course would add a whole new layer of complexity to the game, perhaps a layer not worth having.  But it does seem to really go along with the flavour of Gods.  Perhaps the new rules could always take the form of a bonus/penalty.  "Aspic gets one extra power token for every key that involves fire, but must pay a token for every key that involves water."  I really don't know how that would work in practice; as I said, stream of consciousness.

Good luck to you Bret.  I continue to follow developments with interest.  If you are planning an online playtest at some point, please let me know.  Again, the written nature of the game transcript and play seems very conducive to online play.  A place like www.seedwiki.com might be a good place to set up a playtest.

[Josh Roby]

My idea isn't to cap the number of Keys that can be included, but just the total benefit that one can gain from using them in Key creation - for example, capping it at 10.

I actually wouldn't worry about this too much, Bret, or at most keep it as an option sidebar rule.  In my experience with Conquer the Horizon, while players could link new Discoveries to every prior Discovery on their sheet, they didn't because that was too difficult to do feasibly.  Sure, morons might powergame the thing to their own ends, but they're going to do that anyway -- they'll just house rule your limitation out. ;)  Were I you, I'd keep the design simpler and let individual groups house rule a cap to control their own munchkins.

[Josh Roby]

Bret, I read your draft over lunch, so now I can actually talk specifics.

I like your concept a lot, but your game currency is pretty broken.  Furthermore, you have no reward system, which means the game may spin pretty fast, but it won't go anywhere.

If players get 1 Boredom per Age, and in each Age they get a guaranteed opportunity to Meddle and spend that Boredom, I don't see any reason why players will ever have more than one Boredom.  Alternately, they'll save their Boredom until they have nine and spend the all in some heavy Meddling in the Ninth Age.  There's no reason why anyone would ever get to 10 Boredom unless they pretty much wanted to end the game.

Similarily, with players getting 1 Power per Age, players will either (a) create lots of free Keys that reference the AgeKey and the various GodKeys and only occasionally (b) spend some Power to create something new.  I suspect that Power will be stashed and saved for later Meddling, instead, so (b) is even less frequent.  I don't think the game would expand away from the GodKeys much at all.

I said you didn't have a reward system and technically you do, it's just relatively weak: the satisfaction of introducing Keys and leaving your mark on others' Keys.  This is, however, purely aesthetic satisfaction unweighted by any systemic factors.  I could be really proud of the city I created, but creating that city doesn't actually do anything for me afterwards.

I think you need to make your game currency actually matter, which means it needs to (a) affect credibility and/or (b) limit player options.  Additionally, I'd reinforce that root satisfaction in creating Keys by having Keys be 'owned' by players (and thereafter fought over).  Have players get power based on how many Keys they own.  Let Meddling allow players to steal Keys from eachother -- players spend Boredom and Power tokens to initiate Meddling, and other players can spend Power tokens to support or interfere with that Meddling.  Other players' Power can be limited by how many referenced Keys they own (so if you're Meddling with the Iron Prince Key and it references my Red Hills Key and Muskets Key, I can spend 2 Power to support or interfere with you).  The stakes of Meddling would be the ownership of the Keys -- you can add or remove references to other Keys, and whoever has the most referenced Keys owns that Key.

If you want to really ramp up the Boredom currency, don't let it be spent and go away -- if you spend Boredom and win, whoever loses gets those Boredom tokens.  And if it's your turn and you have more Boredom than Power, you can't create a Key, you must Meddle.

[Owen]

Here's my suggestion vis-a-vis the capping:

A given key can only depend on at most 3 other keys.  If you're gaining the AgeKey or the GodKey benefits, that takes up one of the dependencies.  A key could conceivably reference other Keys that it does not depend on, but the three that it does depend on must be the three most central dependencies.

The End Times occurs when a Key enters the Chronology that, tracing back its ancestry, incorporates every othey Key.  The End Times signify fulfillment of whatever purpose or destiny there was in this world.

Now, in order to play like that, it would obviously be necessary to have a way of keeping track of indirect dependencies, almost like a flowchart.  I'm thinking of something of either cards or large sheets of paper.

[Bret Gillan]

Hey guys! Thanks for all the great feedback. Unfortunately I don't have the time to respond to all of it, but I'll do what I can to cover as much as I can.

I think this game is worthwhile as a self-contained, complete game. I'm not going to get into arguments about whether it's a roleplaying game or not, but I do not think it needs to only be a prelude for some other RPG nor do I think it needs the addition of elements to play it out on a microcosmic level to make it worthwhile. I think creating a compelling, interesting mythology for a world, from scratch, with my friends that I can pull out and say, "Hey, we made this, and it's COOL" is a complete and worthwhile activity without any addition. Could the results be used as the setting for a more standard roleplaying game? Sure, but that's not going to be the goal of this. And having not much of an interest in mythology or history myself, yet still thinking that this sounds like it'd be really cool, I think I can say with some confidence that other people would enjoy this as well. There was a tandem story game called Pantheon produced by Hogshead Publishing a ways back (which is similar to what I'm doing with my game), and me and a group of friends pulled it out and played it. None of us are interested in history and mythology, but we had a Hell of a time, and at the end of it we were all impressed with the epic story and mythos we'd created. What I'm trying to create here is a game that gives you that feeling, but is more organized and powerful than Pantheon. Anyhow, that was a group of eight people with a wide variety of gaming preferences that had a whole lot of fun. So, Hans, I reject your assertion that nobody will find this game interesting. Once I get this published if I don't sell anything and I get no Actual Play reports, then I'll say you're right and buy you a pizza. But I think this sounds like fun, as do some of my friends, as well as a couple people who have IMed since I started this thread. I think the current game's goals, without any modification whatsoever, are complete and satisfactory. Thanks for your concern, though, Hans. :)

Now, I'm going to look for ways to incorporate some portrayal into this (actually roleplaying out the interactions of the gods and whatnot) but right now I can't think of any way to really do it. Maybe inspiration will strike during playtesting. Right now, the focus of the game will be the creation of a cool-ass mythology - not portrayal or even getting emotionally engaged in the interactions of the characters. As long as the people playing it are having fun, that's enough emotion for me.

I'm not going to worry about capping the benefits from using Keys at the moment. The way the system is currently set up, there is nothing beneficial about making your Keys impossible to be meddled with by opponents. Driving an opponent to Boredom means they can't create Keys for YOU to Meddle with. Not a good situation.

Joshua is right, though. The system, as it stands, is really weak. I think it'll get the job done, but I don't think it will really push the game towards compelling or engaging play. I have to think about this for awhile and possible solutions, and I have a couple ideas:

- Tinker with what I have now and try to find possible solutions using the system as it stands - maybe make Boredom more oppressive and difficult to get rid of using some of Joshua's suggestions (Boredom > Power = no key creation, or create a competitive contest in Meddling where loss means the accumulation of Boredom)
- Allow GodKeys to change hands as the result of a lost contest or the creation of a Key to that end, and make them more meaningful - perhaps you get more Power for each GodKey you have? Something to that effect.
- Creating two types of Keys - persistent object keys that generate Power and that the players can struggle for, and event keys that represent the struggles for them. I want these things to be very vague though so that players can be as creative as they want to be when it comes to the creation of these things. A Object Key could be a city, a hero, a sword, a story, or a concept, and an Event Key could be a city, a hero, a story, or a concept - it all depends on the context, how much they mean to the god in question and to what end these things are being applied. This would require a big overhaul of the rules.

I'm going to playtest the rules as they exist right now, see if gameplay sucks or is pretty good but could use some tweaking, and go from there. This discussion is extremely helpful, but I want to get some Actual Play under my belt with the game to help me get some perspective before deciding where to go next with this.

Also, thanks everyone for the consistent and great feedback!

[Josh Roby]

First off, GodKeys = Power Income is golden.  That's a big hunk of what you were missing.  And then fighting over those GodKeys would be awesome -- Appollo had to win all of the things he was in charge of, and he took most of them from other gods.

Creating two types of Keys - persistent object keys that generate Power and that the players can struggle for, and event keys that represent the struggles for them. I want these things to be very vague though so that players can be as creative as they want to be when it comes to the creation of these things. A Object Key could be a city, a hero, a sword, a story, or a concept, and an Event Key could be a city, a hero, a story, or a concept - it all depends on the context, how much they mean to the god in question and to what end these things are being applied. This would require a big overhaul of the rules.

Actually, I think you could split these pretty easily without a fundamental change to your system -- you could have Keys (cities, heroes, concepts) that you put on the index cards you started the design with and Events (what happens to those cities, heroes, and concepts) which get entered into the Chronology (why don't you just call it Mythology?).  Have players perform Events in order to create and manipulate Keys.  If you then built a unified resolution mechanic to govern Events, you'd have a pretty tight system.

I wouldn't make Object Keys directly relate to power, but let them directly relate to GodKeys, which in turn relate to power.  That way I could Meddle with your Corinth Key with the intent to use it to Meddle with and subvert your Commerce GodKey.

[Owen]

This is probably my personal tastes seeping in, but I find it interesting to think of the playing out of the Keys as some sort of destiny or prophecy, without the personas of gods involved.  Hence my above suggestion about how to handle The End Times.

I suppose a lot of things really depend on how you want the game to end.  If you want it to eventually come to a close with all of the gods fading into boredom, then there needs to be something in-place to encourage that to actually happen.

Generally speaking, I like the game as it stands more than any of the proposed major changes.  But, again, that's probably just my taste.

[Josh Roby]

I'll concur that an endgame would be a good addition.  The Gods grinding down to boredom will probably be a little anticlimactic.  Perhaps they are attempting to accomplish some goal (perhaps Owen's destiny) before they're unable to do anything but Meddle Meddle Meddle?

[Owen]

I'm not sure it's inherently anti-climactic.  It depends a great deal on how the ending is narrated.  For instance, Middle Earth played out this way would eventually end with the gods (the Ainur) fading into boredom (or weariness) until the world ends in a big apocalypse when Melkor returns.

My earlier suggestion about tying the endgame to the creation of a Key that depends on every other Key (indirectly) would do a lot if you're following my "destiny" kind of idea.  Then the game isn't necessarily the entire history of the world, but rather a (potentially very complicated) unfolding of events that culminates in some kind of fulfillment.  Think how all of the Greek myths culminate in the Trojan war, the exile of Aeneas, and the eventual rise of Rome.

There are two stumbling blocks to this idea, though:

First, it has to be easy to track indirect dependencies.  I'm not sure how, but some kind of clever recording mechanism might be able to fix this.

Second, the gods' power needs to gradually decrease over time, so that the number of new Keys being introduced slowly decreases.  Otherwise the dependency tree won't get any narrower as time goes on.

[Hans]

So, Hans, I reject your assertion that nobody will find this game interesting. Once I get this published if I don't sell anything and I get no Actual Play reports, then I'll say you're right and buy you a pizza. But I think this sounds like fun, as do some of my friends, as well as a couple people who have IMed since I started this thread. I think the current game's goals, without any modification whatsoever, are complete and satisfactory. Thanks for your concern, though, Hans. :)

I hope that you never have to buy that pizza, because that would mean no one benefits from your work!  The pizza would be a lead weight unto my stomach, and it would provide no sustenance to me.  Verily, I say, it would be as ashes in my mouth.

But seriously, my intent was not to offend.  My principle concern is summarized by your comment: "I don't think it [the system] will really push the game towards compelling or engaging play".  I think I was trying to say the same thing, although I was putting the locus of this concern at perhaps the conceptual, rather than mechanical level.  You have made it clear altering the concept of the game is completely off the table, so I will no longer make any comments along this line.   I'm obviously in the minority on this one, and I stand corrected.  While my exact words were "there will be very few who are truly interested", count me among the few!  I would enjoy helping you playtest this in an online venue.  Has to be online for me, since here in Hamilton, ON, I can barely find people to play anything besides D&D, let alone something as unique as this!

I do hope that my rather insulting assertions did not cloud what I hope was useful feedback later on in the post, especially the idea of adding more challenge and gamist elements to the play.  After reading your response, I really think that addings some element of competetion or victory to the system is the best way to generate "compelling and engaging play".  How cool would it be to not only win a game by your creativity and strategy, but also create, as a consequence of play, an enduring and interesting record of the play itself?!

As to incorporating actual portrayal...ignore me on this.  Actual portrayal would be against your intent, now that I have comprehened it more fully.  Its a waste of time, and distracts from the play you want.  Concentrate on the actual narrative creation mechanics.