[Mortal Coil] Old Gods - the first playtest

[Brennan Taylor]

I ran the first playtest for Mortal Coil last Friday. I had four players in attendance, Bill, Eric, Russ, and Krista. Krista dropped out to go to bed about an hour before we stopped playing, but she was present for character creation and most of play.

A brief primer on Mortal Coil: this is an RPG with a supernatural theme. The game is completely diceless, using instead several types of tokens that players can use in a variety of ways. Players have a pool of magic tokens that they can sacrifice to add to the game world, so the GM and all of the players at the table create a world collaboratively while playing the game. Any time a player wants to, he can create a new fact about magic in the game world. All new facts also have a price, however, some condition that must be met so they work, or some situation in which the fact does not operate. Characters also have passions, attributes that describe what the character cares about. These have a strong mechanical effect if you can bring them into play.

After we all gathered Friday night, we began with the first step in playing Mortal Coil. This is the theme document, a sort of constitution for our game world. I had a basic idea: a seedy bar in Philadelphia that is frequented by gods of dead religions, gods that have no worshippers any longer. I had done some internet research, and come up with a couple of gods to use as NPCs, a bartender and his wife/girlfriend, and a little goblin character who works in the bar. This is all the prep I did for the game.

When we began, I proposed my idea, and introduced the NPCs. Everyone was on board with this, and we established the basic ground rules for our game. Since this bar existed in the real world, magic would be powerful, but any magical effects would be explainable by natural phenomena. We also established that any magical creatures and effects created should be based on actual folklore. Russ then proposed that gods can regain a spent magic token if they reminisce about the "good old days" with fellow gods, the idea being that this would help maintain the tone of the game. I also added the fact that gods could assume human form, but there would be some tell-tale sign that they would always have which someone in the know could use to identify them. With these basic guidelines agreed on, we were ready to begin character creation.

Everone began to consider their options, and came up with their characters. Russ created Pluto, the Roman god of money and the underworld, envisioning him these days as a failed stockbroker. He is still attracted to money because of his godly domain, but transactions these days are far more complex than he can handle, and he just isn't very good at it. Eric decided to play Loki as a bad standup comedian. He wants to be funny, but just can't pull it off because he's a bit too mean-spirited. Bill chose to play the only non-god in our entourage, a leprechaun who hangs out at the bar because the beer is so good. His concept was basically a grouchy little bastard who really resents having to keep track of his stash of gold. Last, Krista decided to play a Polynesian volcano goddess whose volcano had gone extinct, and now the locals weren't afraid of her any more and she didn't get any sacrifices.

These were all great concepts for the game, which was shaping up to be a semi-comedic story about a collection of cosmic losers. A couple of facts got established in the character generation process, mostly in the area of supernatural aptitudes (such as "leprechaun," "trickster god," and "volcano goddess"). What could be done with most of these aptitudes was not yet established. The facts about these aptitudes that were added during character creation were that leprechauns could teleport themselves from place to place, but not while they were observed or restrained (the price), and that the god of the underworld could pull items from his pockets, but nothing particularly valuable or large.

We then began to play, opening with Pluto going on about how things had changed, and how you used to be able to buy your way into the underworld with two coins, and now even panhandlers didn't want your change. This led into some fun free form banter than helped set the mood. At that point, Ninkasi arrived to reveal the hook for the evening. The bar had run out of beer! She swore that there had been enough for months more in the kegs below the bar, and everyone wandered down to investigate. Looking into the huge tank, the gods (and leprechaun) discovered that someone had dug up underneath the bar and drained the beer away through a hole in the bottom of the keg. Pluto, Loki, the leprechaun, and the volcano goddess decided to investigate, since all of them had at least one passion relating to the bar (mostly loves, but Loki had a fear that he would be the last loser there once everyone else had gone on to other things).

The group followed the tunnel below and came out in a railyard, where some folks wearing boots had loaded the beer onto a truck and driven it away. Loki decided to add an ability to shapeshift to his trickster god aptitude. I set the price that he sometimes forgets who he really is after he changes shape, getting too into character. He turned into a bloodhound and started to trail the truck. Pluto decided to call Ra's hack service, and a taxi soon showed up. They followed the truck to a small grotto of trees in a suburban neighborhood, and found a large rock there with steam rising from beneath it. The group decided to knock and see who was home. I sacrificed a magic token from my GM stash to create a new type of creature, the Norse myth dwarf. A surly, dirty dwarf answered, and then the group managed to push their way in to the dwarfs' underground home. There was their stolen beer! They tried to convince the dwarfs to give it back, failed, and then got into a scuffle. Pluto called up some spirits of the dead (he had a 'speak with the dead' aptitude, with the price that he had to make a blood sacrifice, as in the Odyssey, to summon them up). He now decided to add an ability to command the dead to his 'god of the underworld' aptitude, and Bill suggested the price that he can't ask them to do the same task again for a year and a day afterward. Passions also showed their power when Loki called on his fear of being left behind in the bar to bring some serious beat-down on the dwarf he was fighting. The ghosts ended up scaring off the rest of the dwarfs, and the group returned to the bar with the beer, triumphant. Ninkasi gave them all a kiss (except the leprechaun, he got a pat on the head), and all was right with the world yet again.

This was my first full playtest of the rules using the passions, aptitudes, and magic tokens in their current form. It went really well, there are only a couple of minor tweaks I want to perform on the rules before I send them out for third-party playtesting. I am really happy with the way things came out. For some reason, I am always surprised that these rules work as well as they do.

Some of the comments afterward were to emphasize the theme document in the rules text. This really is the most important thing for satisfying play, since you basically set out your goals and basic ground rules here. Our game ended up very jokey, and some players voiced the concern that if you were trying for a really dark tone, that could be a problem. After some discussion, though, everyone agreed that the basic premise of this game creates that sort of tone, and that you could use the theme document to create a more horrific or suspenseful game.

One thing everyone agreed on was that the magic token mechanic was great. They loved the freedom of adding new facts to the game, and they thought that a price attached to each fact was really cool, too, since it creates an instant limitation on whatever power or detail that is added to the game.

Another issue that came up for me was the number of action tokens characters get. I upped the starting total in this revision of the rules, and it seemed like folks had a bit much to throw around. One thing I definitely need to emphasize in the rules is that if any conflict is going on, there needs to be multiple things for people to use their action tokens on. If there is only on goal, I'm afraid it might be far to easy to overwhelm it with tokens. This is the area I want to do the most playtesting, I think.

Also, the reward mechanic is a pool of tokens that can be distributed by anyone, set in the middle of the table. I think everyone was a little too shy about handing these out, because over half were left when we were done. It was a pretty short session, but I think this sort of reward method takes some getting used to.

[Brennan Taylor]

My apologies for reviving an old thread, but I had some additional thoughts about this session, and I felt it would be better to add to this post than to repost the whole thing.

Mortal Coil is a game with a very Narrativist goal, and in the actual play above, the premise presented itself in a way that, as the game designer, I find very satisfactory. The world-creation process of Mortal Coil, expressed in the theme document, combined with character creation, exemplified by the character's Passion stats, creates premise through a collaborative process, with all of the players having input, including the GM (in this case, me).

We started with the basic theme; old gods of dead religions gathering in a bar in Philly. This has a melancholy feel from the get-go, and from this starting point, the players and I built up the game world, including a rule that mechanically rewards characters for reminiscing in play . When the players moved on to character generation, they chose some very telling Passions. Examples: Loki's fear that he will be the last loser left in the bar when everyone else moves on (which manifests itself as Loki trying to keep everyone else there, even if it means foiling their plans to get out); Pluto's hatred of gods more successful than himself, paired with a duty to see to it that things remain in their proper order; and, our volcano goddess' hatred of active volcanos.

All this adds up to one thing as the premise: envy. That is the true theme of the game, resentment and fear of failure. All of this built up by the players when we started the game.

I am really eager to run another session of this game and put in some serious bangs that relate to this theme.

[Sean]

Hi, Brennan -

I read your document a couple of times and I think I grok your system.

Question 1: You keep track of magical facts as they are introduced, right? Say, on a piece of paper? Sort of like an ongoing list of tenets in Universalis? The rule doesn't make any sense otherwise so I assume it's 'yes, of course', but it might be useful to point this out.

Question 2: The difficulty thing for resistances of the 'uncaring world' is OK, but it's essentially giving the GM a free resource to use against players, subject to the group judgment (and so arguments about realism, etc.). In your game, with the characters being washed-up unemployed Gods, the application of such a chart is less than obvious. Have you considered e.g. giving the GM his own "Adversity Token" pool, maybe set by the number of players or something, so if there's a slick wall the GM thinks the characters should have trouble climbing, he can lay down tokens to challenge their climb attempt, the same as anyone else would?

Comment 1: This is totally subjective on the game above. I like the setup and the adventure sounds fun. But, it's very much a traditional adventure - mean-spirited, ineffectual out of work gods trying to recover some stolen beer? Damn, that's humiliating. This relates to your use of the emotion 'envy'. Envy is a weak emotion, in a way - it's always based on the perception of someone else having something you lack. If I were playing a game about down-on-their-luck gods I guess I'd want some kind of hard choice related to my current status, probably one about whether I would rather return to godhood in some fashion or just resign my God card permanently and retire to be a mortal (Lucifer on the beach in Sandman). So the game would have to make both choices make a certain kind of sense, somehow. This is related to envy and/or nostalgia and/or the desire for power, lots of good stuff, but it would probably have the gods facing more proactive sorts of challenge than recovering stolen beer. I know this was the setting you came up with in playtest and not the game itself, but it's just food for thought if you go this way again. But that brings me to

Question 3: Youv'e got a semi-generic supernatural mechanic here. Are you sure you wouldn't be better off wedding it to a particular setting more strongly?

Anyway, thanks for pointing this stuff out to me.

[Michael S. Miller]

Hi, Brennan.

As a big fan of Gaiman's stuff, I like the sound of Mortal Coil. However, I've got to agree with Sean that the Premise seems a little weak. The best Premises I've seen in RPGs all boil down to a question. "Envy" is an answer, not a question. "What do you do when the world has no more use for you?" is a question. It seems to me that if the reason these gods are washed up is because they are no longer receiving worship from mortals, then their relationship with mortals should be central to play. I can't tell from your write-up how people GET tokens, so maybe this suggestion is out in left field, but here goes.

There should be some sort of token to represent Utility--a need you fill for mortals. Maybe these can be spent as wilds. Maybe the old gods outright NEED them to keep from become figments of fiction. I'm remembering the bit in Sandman when old Bast talks about how she subsists on the worshipful looks people will occasionally give to beautiful cats. Remiscing with humans should generate a small amount of these Utility tokens. If these tokens can be stolen from other gods (or other things people revere, like the flag, or movie stars, or something), then the old gods face a choice. They can A) hustle and try to make themselves useful to people and thus EARN their worship; B) scheme and plot and steal Utility from other venerated ones (this could be the "envy" option); or C) give up and fade away.

That strikes me as a very grabby Narr.-type game.

[Brennan Taylor]

Sean,

Regarding your first question, yes, you need to keep track of your magical facts as you go. I have the concept of a 'theme document' in the rules, and this is what all of the players are contributing to and it builds as play goes on. I will definitely make this more explicit in the explanation of the rules.

On question 2, that's an excellent suggestion. I think you are on the right track suggesting a finite pool of resources available to the GM is a good way of moderating the adversity/opposition in the story. That way, the GM must make choices about what is important to him as play goes on, rather than just using fiat to set obstacles.

Regarding your comment, I actually think the first scenario was pretty weak, and that the game has way more potential to bring out some great themes than I was able to provide with the setup. This was due in no small part to my difficulty in improvising a starting scenario. I think a break (even a quick one) between character and theme generation and the initial game is important, and I didn't give myself that luxury. If I had thought for even a few minutes, I might have been able to come up with a more compelling challenge for the characters. That's something else I will need to discuss in the rules. (more on this comment in my reply to Michael, below)

And, regarding question 3, actually, I had thought of doing that initially, but most of my design problems emerged from trying to do too much with the rules, and not letting the group set some of this up. I think the most interesting portion of the game is actually collaborating on the setting with the other players and building it during play. So, in this regard, I would say no, I don't think it would improve if I canonized a setting.

Now, more on your comment and on Michael's input. You have an excellent point, Michael, that the premise should be a question, not an answer. The players made the theme implicit in their choices during character creation, and the task I have as a GM is to make that theme a hard choice for them. I need to increase this pressure in the rules as presented, in order to heat up the conflicts. There should be something in there about how to apply Passions in play. All of the ideas I have for follow-on scenarios when we next get together do this, but you have a good point about mechanical reward. This would be something to add for this particular setup: some way to get new worshippers or to steal vitality from other gods.

[Michael S. Miller]

You have an excellent point, Michael, that the premise should be a question, not an answer.

Goo. I'm glad we agree. So, what's your question? Post it here for the edification of the masses, then write it really big and post it near where you write, as a reminder to yourself. Either that, or put it in the header of the document you're writing in (it worked well for With Great Power...). When you're all done, you've got your first line of back cover copy. 8^)

[Brennan Taylor]

You have an excellent point, Michael, that the premise should be a question, not an answer.

Goo. I'm glad we agree. So, what's your question? Post it here for the edification of the masses, then write it really big and post it near where you write, as a reminder to yourself. Either that, or put it in the header of the document you're writing in (it worked well for With Great Power...). When you're all done, you've got your first line of back cover copy. 8^)

Mortal Coil is very similar to Sorcerer in some ways, with characters often possessing a lot of power. Unlike Sorcerer, where the premise is "what will you do to get power?", the premise of Mortal Coil is "you have this power, now what do you do with it?" That's my initial thought, and that seems to be the premise of all of the good games of Mortal Coil I have run.