Gloaming: What in the Meantime?

[fifth_child]

First post.  Finally decided to register instead of just reading, since the subject I'd like help with is pretty much what the Forge is all about (game design, that is).  About two weeks ago, a friend and I challenged each other to make a complete game; we'd come up with the premise and the basics on our own, and then collaberate from there.  Well, I feel like I've got a pretty good idea, but he's gone home for the holidays and I'd like some input.  A personal request: not too heavy on the jargon, please.  I'm spun up on some of the basics (big model, IIEE, etc.), but mostly from reading blogs (especially Vincent Baker's) and not this site, since it's inexplicably blocked from the network at my workplace.  My question's pretty specific, but of course any input you guys have is more than welcome.

Unfortunately, my question might not make sense without some context.  So here's the game, as it exists so far.  Kinda long, so please bear with me.

We are the Children of the sky and the water.  From the sky, our father, we take intellect; the ability to reason.  From the water, our mother, we take emotion; the ability to feel.  From the earth, our cradle, we take our bodies, and all things physical.  We are the Children.

For over one hundred thousand years, the sun has not risen; the sky has lain dark.  The Lightbearers protect us - one for each village, no more and no less.  Each time one of the Lightbearers is slain, one of the Children inherits his or her ability.

But recently, one of our greatest shamans has returned from a dream-quest, bearing a prophecy great and terrible.

"Find the Beast Gods," he says.  "Find them and slay them, and the sun shall grace the sky once again."

The Beast Gods are the guardians of the forest and the mountains, the rivers and the lakes.  They remind us of the mistakes our ancestors made, and keep us from delving into the ruined cities that mark that ancient folly.  To harm them is blasphemy.  But the shamans say that the time of the Beast Gods has passed: they are a test, to see whether the Children are worthy of the grace of the sun's light once again.

Of course, only the Lightbearers could undertake such a task.  Last night was the Great Assembly.  We leave in the morning.
-Dawn, Lightbearer of Silma, village-by-the-river

My major inspirations for the game are Shadow of the Colossus (PS2 game) and Princess Mononoke (aka Mononoke Hime, a Studio Ghibli film).  The Mountain Witch, The Shadow of Yesterday, and Sorcerer all influenced my design decisions quite a bit.

The basics are what I described above: the PCs are the Lightbearers, each of them the guardian of one of the villages of the Children.  All of the PCs are Lightbearers and the PCs are all of the Lightbearers.  They are given the task of finding and slaying all of the Beast Gods, which are essentially giant (and I mean giant) intelligent animals.  Think a combination of the great wolves and boars in Mononoke and the Colossi from Shadow of the Colossus.

As for setting, I'm imagining that all the world is wilderness, with sparse villages of strange people (or creatures) spread about.  The forests are primordial, with trees thick as skyscrapers and canopies that tower a thousand feet in the air.  The mountains are majestic, crested with pure white snow.  The rivers are fierce and deep and crystal-clear.  The landscape is spotted with fantastic ruins (think of the temple complex in Shadow of the Colossus), largely intact but devoid of life, the remnants of some ancient and might civilization, long fallen from memory.

Getting into mechanics.

Attributes are basically pools, somewhat similar to The Shadow of Yesterday.  The three attributes are Body, Intellect, and Emotion, and they are rated a number, probably somewhere from 4 to 10, which is a number of dice (d6s).  Whenever a conflict occurs, you wager a number of dice from the attribute you're using.  How many dice you wager is up to you (up to the maximum of your attribute, of course), and which attribute you're using depends on how you approach the conflict.  The other participant in the conflict (often, but not always, the GM) also wagers dice.

Both players roll their wagered dice, and then they pair off the results.  Your highest result is compared against mine.  Then our second highest results are compared, and so on.  Each pair where my die is higher than yours counts as a victory for me, and you lose that die you wagered, and vice versa of course.  Ties result in no one losing dice from that pair.  The dice you lose are subtracted from the attribute that you drew them from as "damage" (note that this can be intellectual or emotional damage, as well as physical).  Important to note is that you can never lose more dice than you wager, so your character cannot die unless you knowingly wager their life on whatever you're attempting.

Example: Kala is arguing with Sasha.  Juran has been injured, and is going to slow us down.  Kala is arguing logically that we should leave him behind, then come back and collect him once we've accomplished our task.  Sasha is arguing from an emotional basis that we can't just abandon him.  What's at stake is: do we leave our friend behind?  Kala wagers 3 dice from her Intellect of 7, while Sasha wagers 4 dice from her Emotion of 8.  Kala rolls 5, 3, and 2, while Sasha rolls 6, 5, 2, and 1.  Here's the pairs (Kala's dice are on the left, Sasha's are on the right):

5 vs. 6
3 vs. 5
2 vs. 2
(Note that Sasha's 1 is unused.)

That's two victories for Sasha, so Kala's Intellect is decreased from 7 to 5, and Sasha wins the stakes.  Kala just shakes her head as Sasha helps Juran to his feet and starts off down the forest path, straining under his weight.

That's the core of the system.  Players can also choose to "zoom in" on conflicts and follow them through to their end (when one participant drops to 0 in an attribute), similar to Bringing Down the Pain in The Shadow of Yesterday, and I plan on integrating some kind of trait system (probably something similar to Dogs in the Vineyard).

The next big mechanical thing is Relationships (inspired by Trust in The Mountain Witch).  Each character gives each of the other characters a number of points, to rate how strong their relationship is, then those two players decide together how to describe the relationship between them.  For example, we have three characters: Kala, Sasha, and Juran.  Kala gives Juran 1 point - she doesn't feel strongly about him one way or the other.  Juran gives Kala 2 points - he finds her interesting, and would like to get to know her better.  They decide together to describe their Relationship as "comrades;" they don't know each other very well, but are willing to work together.  Sasha, however, gives 5 points to Juran, and Juran gives her 5 points as well.  They describe their Relationship as "lovers."  Kala gives Sasha 3 points, and Sasha gives Kala 2; they decide that they're "childhood friends" who have since grown apart somewhat.

Keep in mind that these are points that one character is giving to another, which rate how much influence they are allowing that character to have over themselves.  For instance, Kala only gave Juran 1 point, so he has very limited influence over her, while she has slightly more over him, and Juran and Sasha have quite a bit of influence over each other.

Relationship points can be spent in a number of ways during the game.  The first is to aid the character who gave them to you.  This means that you spend a Relationship point, describe how you help the other character, and wager a die out of one of your own attributes on their conflict.  Yes, this means that you can be harmed while trying to help.  You can also spend a Relationship point on yourself, which gives you a free die seperate from your own attributes (and thus risk-free).  However, doing so means that you must betray, use, or manipulate the other character in some way to put yourself at advantage.  This is reflected mechanically by a point of damge to one of the character's attributes, chosen by the player who spent the Relationship point.

Relationships are reconsidered and adjusted by the players to reflect in-game events periodically, and also refresh to their full amount periodically.  I haven't decided exactly what the periods will be, but the refresh period will likely be shorter than the evaluation period.

The final mechanical bit is Doubt.  Each character has a Doubt concerning the quest they're all on, and each Doubt is tied into an attribute (probably either Intellect or Emotion, but I don't want to rule out Body without more thought).  One character's Doubt might be "What if the shamans are lying to us?"  Another's might be "What if harming the Beast Gods truly is sacriledge?"  Over the course of play, characters accrue points on their Doubt, as events play into them.  For example, when a character whose Doubt is "What if the shamans are lying to us?" encounters evidence that this might be the case, his Doubt increases.

Doubt can be spent to make Conclusions.  Conclusions are essentially statements about the game world, its characters, or the plot, that become true if they go uncontested.  Conclusions must be rooted in a character's Doubt, and play off of in-game evidence and events, even if only loosely.  So, a character with the Doubt "What if the shamans are lying to us?" could come to a Conclusion that "The shamans want us to slay the Beast Gods so that they can fill the gap of divinity and become gods themselves!" if there were in-game information that pointed to that (or, at the very least, didn't deny it).

If another player doesn't like the Conclusion, he may attempt to argue against it, by initiating a conflict against the character who made the Conclusion.  Characters can aid each other in this conflict, although if the dissenting side outnumbers the side that supports the Conclusion by 3:1 or more, it is automatically struck down.  The character may of course continue to believe in it (and likely does), but it is no longer the objective truth as far as the game and the setting is concerned.

A Conclusion that goes uncontested (or wins the Conflict) is gospel; it cannot be struck down by later Conclusions, though it can be modified.

So, I've got the setting, and the mechanics, and even the general scope of the game down.  What I really need help with is: what should the "day-to-day" of play consist of?  What else should there be to do besides go after the Beast Gods, encounter villages of strange folk (or creatures) unknown to the Children, have fiery inter-character relationships, and make neat conclusions about the plot?  Or is my gut feeling wrong, and that's actually enough for a complete game?

[joepub]

I think with the setting you're describing, the day to day is very limited.

I like the concept of doubts being used to alter your perception of the world. I think that has a lot of potential for fun.


I'm a little lost in regards to character relationships... If I give my character a "5" relationship with every other character, are those "5"s taken out of somewhere else?
Isn't it advantageous for me to put 5 into every relationship?

Or is the drawback the ability to exploit relationships? Is that what keeps them in check?




Finally, and I'm stealing this idea a little bit from Memory of Earth stuff (Scott Card):
One thing I think would be really cool... but I dunno if it fits with your flavour... is that beneath the Lightbearers, Beast Gods, Shamans and villages... there exists the crumbled remains of previous human civilization.
It'd be interesting if as the Lightbearers went about their mission, they slowly learned that humans in fact once did precide over the entire globe - that it was only after catastrophe that the  lightbearers were instilled.

That'd create some pretty huge doubts as to the mission. :)

[fifth_child]

I think with the setting you're describing, the day to day is very limited.

Do you have any suggestions that might broaden the scope?

I'm a little lost in regards to character relationships... If I give my character a "5" relationship with every other character, are those "5"s taken out of somewhere else?
Isn't it advantageous for me to put 5 into every relationship?

Or is the drawback the ability to exploit relationships? Is that what keeps them in check?

That's part of what keeps them in check, yes.  Keep in mind that spending a Relationship point to aid leaves you open to damage, while spending a point to betray is risk-free.  (If you think the game needs more of an incentive for betrayal, let me know.)  Also, characters will probably have a limit to the maximum number of Relationship points at character creation.  Afterwards, whenever it's time to re-evaluate Relationships, you can choose to increase a Relationship by 1, to keep it the same, or to decrease it by any amount.  (A la Trust in The Mountain Witch.)

Finally, and I'm stealing this idea a little bit from Memory of Earth stuff (Scott Card):
One thing I think would be really cool... but I dunno if it fits with your flavour... is that beneath the Lightbearers, Beast Gods, Shamans and villages... there exists the crumbled remains of previous human civilization.
It'd be interesting if as the Lightbearers went about their mission, they slowly learned that humans in fact once did precide over the entire globe - that it was only after catastrophe that the  lightbearers were instilled.

That'd create some pretty huge doubts as to the mission. :)

That would work well with the ruins of a lost civilization I already mentioned, and is pretty much in line with what I was thinking.

Another issue I'd like advice on: as it is, there is a strong possibility for somewhat weird damage.  For example, as it's written now, if I wager 3 Body trying to stab you, and you wager 3 Intellect to try to outsmart me, and I win... you lose dice from your Intellect, which is kinda wonky.  Should I change it so that you lose dice from the attribute that your opponent wagered instead?

[Graham W]

Another issue I'd like advice on: as it is, there is a strong possibility for somewhat weird damage.  For example, as it's written now, if I wager 3 Body trying to stab you, and you wager 3 Intellect to try to outsmart me, and I win... you lose dice from your Intellect, which is kinda wonky.  Should I change it so that you lose dice from the attribute that your opponent wagered instead?

I think that's OK. Or at least, you can justify it: you stab me, and it doesn't do any serious damage, but the pain is so much that I can't concentrate.

Bear in mind that, with the system you've outlined, strong characters will usually get stronger. If I've got 10 dice and you've got 2, then I've got more dice to wager, so I'm more likely to win conflicts, so I get more dice, so I've got more dice to wager...

As an alternative - just as a random idea - consider what would happen if the winning player loses the dice he wagered. If you do it like that, then the balance of power shifts between the players. If I win a conflict against you, then you're likely to win the next conflict we have.

Or, again, consider what would happen if bothplayers lost the dice they'd wagered to the other player.

(Neither of those are necessarily suggestions, but they're interesting things to consider, and they change the balance of power in an interesting way.)

Some quick questions: is there a GM? If so, are most of the conflicts with the GM rather than between players? Does the GM wager dice in the same way?

What happens if I only have one die? If someone launches a conflict against me, do I have to wager it? If not, how does a conflict work when I haven't wagered a die?

Graham

[Stefan / 1of3]

So, I've got the setting, and the mechanics, and even the general scope of the game down.  What I really need help with is: what should the "day-to-day" of play consist of?  What else should there be to do besides go after the Beast Gods, encounter villages of strange folk (or creatures) unknown to the Children, have fiery inter-character relationships, and make neat conclusions about the plot?  Or is my gut feeling wrong, and that's actually enough for a complete game?

I don't think, there would be much time to do other things, while on the journey. I'd give it a playtest.

If you still feel like this is there is too little to do, you could add another layer of narration. Maybe with regular flashbacks to the characters former live or something like that.

[joepub]

Are the lightbringers allowed to take shamans, servants, aides, etc from their towns?
Do the lightbringers have varied levels of wealth and pomp?

Just wondering it that angle would work in at all.


So the 3 attributes are replenished how?

Another issue I'd like advice on: as it is, there is a strong possibility for somewhat weird damage.  For example, as it's written now, if I wager 3 Body trying to stab you, and you wager 3 Intellect to try to outsmart me, and I win... you lose dice from your Intellect, which is kinda wonky.  Should I change it so that you lose dice from the attribute that your opponent wagered instead?

Maybe soemthing that could work is that the action is attempting to either A. accomplish something, or B. harm something.

A. I use 3 body dice to try and scale this cliff

B.
I use 3 body dice to harm your Body.
I use 3 Intellect Dice to try to prevent this.

or with harming, they could instead of trying to prevent this, try to ALTER the course of action instead.

C.
I use 3 Body dice to harm your Body.
I use 3 Emotion dice to try and make you realize that you're taking the life of a comrade... thus stopping your "harm"