My Game: Adventures in the second land

[Aldoth]

I am currently working on a game that is influenced by Alice in wonderland, Mirrormask, Labyrinth, Wizard of Oz,

I am at the design stage and am working on the rules at the moment. I think that for the genre that d6s will work best with a simple target number for tests. I am debating the need for a combat mechanic or if a general physical mechanic will do just as well.

The players play children lost in the second land between the age of 7 to 14. The younger your character is the less skilled they are but the more they are able to use there imagination to help them at key moments in the story.

I am open to any contribution from members here. This is my first serious stab at game design so I guess I'm ready to get a bloody nose.

Thank you in advance for any feed back.

[matthijs]

Hi, Aldoth, welcome!

It's a bit hard to say much about your game - you haven't posted very many details. You'll probably get more and better replies if you can post a bit more.

A few questions/comments:

1. Why a combat mechanic? Is combat important to the feeling of the game?
2. How does using a character's skill differ from using their imagination? It would be great if you could provide some examples of how you see this being used!

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya Aldoth,

Welcome to the Forge!  A combat mechanic for that sort of game does sound a little wierd to me.  I'd have to know more about your game to give you a solid oppinion tho.  At first blush, it would seem that imagination, curiosity, and bravery would be a characters main stats rather that stuff like attack and defense.

I think you've hit on an interesting idea here.  Maybe you could answer a few quick questions for me?

1.  What is the point of play in your game?  IE, what facets of things like Alice and Oz are you wanting the players and characters to explore?

2.  What do the characters do in your game?  In OZ for instance, each of the main characters (including the witch) had a goal they worked to achieve.  What will motivate characters in your game to act?

3.  How do the players play their characters?  I mean, what sorts of freedoms, responsibilities, and tools do you give the players to play?  How are narration right divided?  And What do you expect the players to *get* out of playing your game?

Glad to see you here, Aldoth.  I hope we can help you on your way :)

Peace,

-Troy

[Aldoth]

Here is the notes Ive got so far
Adventures In The Second Land

Characters
Name
Age
Cleverness      =   Points Pool
Quickness      =   Points Pool
Bravery      =   Points Pool
Scrappy      =    Points Pool
Imagination   =   15 – age.


Memory       =    Chapters
Heart      =   Chapters
Innocence   =   Chapters
Joy      =    Chapters

Health      =    Chapters + 1d6

Rules
A character rolls there stat in d6s and adds the stat number and has to roll over the target number.

1 Failer
6 Automatic Success
you have the number of points equal to your age
From 7 to 14 years old
Your imagination is your age – 15.
Imagination gives you points to spend every day to save your but. You spend imagination points to save your character each game.
Your age points you can use bid on what skills you want to be best at.


Characters Opposed Actions
You roll and the highest number of successes wins. You can spend self points to add to successes.


Features
Cute
Neat
Messy
Bookish
Overweight
Talkative
Stuttering
Knowledgeable
Kind
Generous
Greedy
Selfish
Unselfish
Angry
Sad
Happy


Beacons
Father
Mother
Parents
Dog
Cat
Brother
Sister
A toy
A book
Best Friend
Optional – Other characters
Guides
Guides are characters that can hinder or help the character. If the characters find a helpful guide they gain imagination points.

Guides have all stats at 2 and talents equal to the chapter that they first appear in. There imagination is equal to the number of chapters that they have been in the game for.


Barons
The lords of the second land they are the tools that the land uses to capture a character. They will have a point pool equal to the characters imagination score plus the number of characters in the tale.

Shickens
Henchmen of Barons most Shicken have all attributes at 1 and a talent.

Talismans

Talismans are items that you can find in the second land that can help you. You spend self points to acquire Talismans.

Childhood fantasy.

Labyrinth, Mirrormask, Spirited Away, Alice in Wonderland, The Oz books, Books of Magic, Changeling,

Avoiding getting lost.

You loose a point at the end of every chapter if they ever drop to zero you get lost in the land. This gives you a ticking clock.

The ticking clock is to finding your beacon.

The land is the bad guy.

There are characters that help you and characters that hinder you. They will try to trick you.

The shadow creatures Shickens.

Barons are lords of there own realms.

Player contribution.

Shicken work for the the Barons

Guides can help or hinder you if you loose you character to the land you play your guide which is a limited character to try and rescue your character from the land

The event. That shunts the characters into the Lend of the second world.

Who are you is important.

You represent an opportunity for the NPCs in the game. They want to poses you or something that you represent. They steal your beacon because they want to get to you. They feed off you in some way or another.

There goal is to posses you.

Independence is important to your character. You are fighting to remain free of the influence of the land. It can steal attributes but you gain advantages.

You can take parts of the land back with you but then you are allowing the land to enter into our world.

Your beacon is the one thing that you don't know that you don't want to loose.

So this is everything that i have so far

I have copied and pasted 2 documents so it is a bit all over the place but that is the start

[Jason Morningstar]

Welcome to the Forge, dude!

Just a quick note - it seems like you've set this up so that the older you are, the more competent you are and the better your imagination is.  I'd suggest that to reflect the genre, you might want to reverse this.  I could also see just reversing imagination, if that is notably powerful in the game.  That might provide a nice balance between general capability, represented by increasing age and maturity, and imagination, which decreases in potency as you get older. 

--Jason

[Jason Morningstar]

I see I got that wrong, sorry.  Imagination = 15 minus age, so younger = better.

[dindenver]

Hi!
  Welcome to the Forge! OK, onto the comments:
  How is Scrappyness differentiated from Bravery or Cleverness? It seems like the first 3 attributes are well defined and mostly distinguishable from the others, and then you have Scrappiness...

Memory = Chapters
Heart = Chapters
Innocence = Chapters
Joy = Chapters

Health = Chapters + 1d6

I take it Chapters=XPs? Or is that Chapters of background? Either way, Innocence tends to go down as the character experiences more of these tails of wonder.
  I think a crunchy combat resolution would be wrong for this genre. If, in the end, you feel you have to include combat, maybe use a "Falling down" rule like Toon? It is VERY RARE for a child to die in one of these stories.
  Another question I have is, how does the game deal with "bad kids"? For instance, an unruly child is almost always included in the group in the source materials. But if you have 3 or 4 players and one of them is off getting turkish delight while the others are playing as a group, how do you want to deal with the group spending a disproportionate amount of time on one character? And what if more than one want to be bad, or all of them?
  One idea you might want to borrow from Saucy Jack, is the idea that the characters are recalling their tales in the second land years later as adults or senoirs. This will explain why they never die, because how else could they be here to tell the tale...
  I think this is a good idea for a game, and it sounds like you know what you want it to look like in the end. So, I am sure it will turn out well, good luck!

[TonyPace]

Basically, I think this is pretty good. It looks solid as is, and certainly doesn't need a combat system bolted on. I suspect that's exactly what you were thinking, but you came here and asked because every other system seems to have one. Forget it. You're almost good to go with a quick edit and some guidance in terms of adventure design.

The main thing that jumped out at me is cosmetic to a degree, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit it affected my reading. You need to work some on editing your text - there are a lot of typos.

The essential question I have is how do the Schickens, the Barons, and the Guides interact? What might they want from one another and the PCs?

[Darcy Burgess]

I'm going to chime in -- I haven't scoured every one else's replies yet.  But I need some clarification about "combat mechanic"

If you mean "beating up mythical creatures" then, no.  If you mean "kids playing at fighting" then, most definitely yes.  In fact, I think you'd be remiss if you didn't include some sort of structure for how children play at violence.

Now, I'm going back to read everything in-depth.

[Aldoth]

Ok firstly thank you everyone for your contribution.

I appologise for my bad spelling I will obviously give this a hard edit when I come to typing up the first draft of the rules

Here is a long answer to several queations. You guys have been a big help and the game is starting to take shape.

How is Scrappyness differentiated from Bravery or Cleverness? It seems like the first 3 attributes are well defined and mostly distinguishable from the others, and then you have Scrappiness...

I suppose that I wanted a physical stat that reflects the ability to do physical things. Another name might be better or looking at it maybe I dont need another. Now that I think about it health really fills what I wanted scrappyness to fill in the game. I suppose that i am afraid of having too few mechanics but looking at the type of game it is probebly a better way to go. This also makes your character have higher attribute if you are a younger character. Im worried that older characters may become more powerful but imagination may equal that out.

I have decided that you buy traits as well and that they will be related to your attributes and that you can burn them for the session to add to the number of dice you can roll

I take it Chapters=XPs? Or is that Chapters of background? Either way, Innocence tends to go down as the character experiences more of these tails of wonder.

Chapters are the number of sections in the adventure the DM tells the player that they will have say fifteen chapters in the game so all there personal stats start at 15. At the end of each chapter all there personal stats go down. If any of those stats goes to 0 then they get lost in the land.

But fear not because there guide can save them.

Self points also can be taken by NPCs in the land and if they do the NPC gets stronger.

I want there to be a ticking clock in the game.

I am still getting a handel on experience I think that you will add traits to your character after each chapter that best described what you did in the last chapter.

Another question I have is, how does the game deal with "bad kids"? For instance, an unruly child is almost always included in the group in the source materials. But if you have 3 or 4 players and one of them is off getting turkish delight while the others are playing as a group, how do you want to deal with the group spending a disproportionate amount of time on one character? And what if more than one want to be bad, or all of them?

I thought of that. And one of the ways to have that fulfilled is to have one of the players be a beacon (He is off having turkish delights and the other characters have to find him.

You stop loosing self stats (Memory,Heart,Innocence, Joy and to a lesser extent health) once you find your beacon. I would imagine that bad kids would loose double the self stats that good kids do because there impuleses are dragging them closer to the Second land. So each chapter that you are bad instead of gaining a trait you loose an extra self point equal to the closest stat.) I could later have an expansion that deals with bad kids.

Also if your self does drop to 0 you dont get to sit on the sidelines for the rest of the game you then play your guide. A character that is more limited because they are of the land but still able to save your characters skin. If they can remind you of who you were and what you are looking for then you get your character back.(guides dont loose self from chapter to chapter but they dont gain traits very well either maybe once every three chapters they gain one trait. (to reflect that the other characters are having an effect on them. Or that they are being really selfless for the first time. (to get a guide you must give them a self point by discribing an action that fulfills that role then they perminantly gain the loyalty trait that they can burn and regain each chapter.

.  What is the point of play in your game?  IE, what facets of things like Alice and Oz are you wanting the players and characters to explore?

The fantasy elements of those stories I like everything turned up to 200%. I also dont see a game that really deals with these type of stories in this type of way. The point of the game is for the palyers to tell there own OZ stories or wonderland stories from a land of there creation.

I want your beacon to be related to a baron so that if we have four players then you can have up to four beacons ( Players can choose the same one) and a baron for each beacon.

So if your beacon is your father then the baron could be an evil king that looks like your father.

Elements of the baron will be reflected in the shickens.

Of course they could be completely unrelated.

But I like the idea of the players describing there beacon in character creation giving it traits. Then the barons reflect the mirror of those traits or the antithesis of those traits. Then there shicken are an element of that.

So if the beacon was say a book I would descirbe its traits as wonder, imagination, freedom, (things it represents to my character) and so the baron would be like a clock work Rectangle with black dots for eyes called the Master of order his goals would be to stamp out freedom and imagination. His shicken could be dampeners that attack your sense of wonder. Grey faceless stick figures. This would give the GM the plot that the master of order is working to take over the second land to rid the world of chaos and uncertainty. That is what the denizins of the land are worried about when the characters arrive.

With Imagination you can use the points each chapter to change the narative. You get imagination points back at the start of each chapter. ( I dont know if I have given the players too many of these points.) Maybe you dont get the points back.

The other key thing is Talismen. These are items that help you on your quests. They are things you find in the second land that you can use. They have some benefits (A very useful book in Mirror mask) They cost self points to aquire but it makes your quest easier.

You can use Talisman instead of burning traits.

I also have not yet settled on the dice mechanic.

I want it to be d6s but do I add the stat to the roll and then count sucesses or a sucess or failer flat mechanic and have target numbers over 6 for exceptionally hard tasks? (with 6 being automatic sucess  and 1 being an auto failer)

Or do I burn traits or imagination to give me an auto sucess. I will mull this over.

I think that I will have the players set the level of danger in the land. They vote on if the land is deadly or not (above the fact that the whole party could get lost in the land.


I think that after consideration that I dont need a combat mechanic for the game as it stands right now.

I may need it for guides. I will finalise the other aspects of the game before I get into the rules for playing a guide.

Can anyone fix the spelling of adventures in the thread heading?

[Sydney Freedberg]

You represent an opportunity for the NPCs in the game. They want to poses you or something that you represent. They steal your beacon because they want to get to you. They feed off you in some way or another. [Their] goal is to posses you.

Wow.

This part just leaps out at me, singing with beauty and terror. They want to possess you. (Shudder...). Because being a child is all about having no control over what you do, or where you go, or who you are -- about being, necessarily, a possession of others -- and growing up is a struggle for self-possession in the most literal sense of the world. The drug-addicted, the fearful, the workaholics, the shopaholics, the empty ones, they're the ones who don't possess themselves.

If I were you -- and I'm not, obviously, I'm just suggesting -- I'd want every piece of this game to support this struggle in some way. Everything else is extraneous, distracting, and can be cut.

May I ask what RPGs you're familiar with? There's a bunch of non-traditional games made by Forge-affiliated people (some even available for free) that are well worth looking at, I think, especially in terms of techniques for all the players to create the world of the story together.

P.S.: I had the same problem with a typo in a thread title a while back; send a Personal Message to Clinton Nixon, the technical administrator, and ask him (politely, of course) to fix it when he can; he's very busy, but only because he's so darned helpful to people.

[Mr. Sluagh]

Great idea.  I've often thought that this genre was underrepresented in RPGs.  Deliria was the best attempt, but it tried to cover too much ground.  A couple of thoughts:

You definitely need a system for combat, although it should be incorporated into the systems for all other kinds of conflict.  Combat shouldn't be too invasive, as many stories in this genre don't involve it (Alice in Wonderland, Labyrinth), but it should make combat a definite option since it's intrinsic to others (Peter Pan, The Neverending Story).

I don't see any need for limitations based on age.  It rings of Changeling-esque pretension, and unnecessarily limits what you could run with this game.  Neverwhere and The Rocky Horror Picture Show easily fall into this genre, and both of them have adult protagonists.

There should be provisions for non-human PCs.  Otherwise, most games that stuck to the source material would only have one player and a bunch of NPCs who got way too much screen time.

Might I recommend a randomless system?  It seems like solutions in these stories usually involve figuring out some sort of moral, metaphor or riddle, or thinking creatively, not simple tests of skill.  Come to think of it, I would drop numerical stats altogether.  Give each character two or three keywords about the problems they need to solve on this journey and a system for tracking their progress towards denouement.  That's just me, though, and it would be a big deviation from where you're currently taking the game.

[Graham W]

Hi Aldoth,

I really like this. Stuff like Alice in Wonderland is just asking to become a roleplaying game.

I'm still not totally sure how the game would play: could you post a quick write-up of how you see play proceeding moment by moment? What the players say, what the GM says and so on? I'm interested to know how things like Talismans and Guides actually come up in play.

By the way, it strikes me that you don't exactly need Health Levels but something subtly different. In stories like Alice, the characters don't really seem to get injured. They're not in danger of death, but they're in danger of losing who they are (as you mentioned above). Perhaps, instead of losing health levels, the characters could lose pieces of Who They Are, or something?

Graham

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I just want to throw my hat in with the no randomizer idea. I actually thought of it, but didn;t suggest it. Maybe use an effort system Like Marvel Universe?
  Something like there is a bolder in the path, and you could decide to use 5 dice of scrappy or 3 dice of clever or something else with a little imagination...

[Mr. Sluagh]

By the way, it strikes me that you don't exactly need Health Levels but something subtly different. In stories like Alice, the characters don't really seem to get injured. They're not in danger of death, but they're in danger of losing who they are (as you mentioned above). Perhaps, instead of losing health levels, the characters could lose pieces of Who They Are, or something?

I agree.  The most literal examples of this are in The Neverending Story and MirrorMask, but you can interpret it into other stories.