Covenant - A game of conspiracy and failed prophesy

[Matt Machell]

I originally put this together a while ago, starting from the basic idea that I was bored of games where the end of the world is always about to happen. So the basic premise is that a secret society spent thousands of years preparing for an apocalypse which failed to happen, the PCs are members of this society and have to deal with the fallout (emotional, ideological, political, military etc).

It's still in that flux state, where I'm not sure how well it works, so I'd appreciate any comments on the rules. It's quite Narativist in orientation, and uses quite a fun event based conflict resolution.

It can be found at http://www.realms.org.uk/covenant



Matt

[Bailywolf]

I had an idea for a tangentaly related game theme.  A modern conspiricy/occult/fortean thing called Prophet Breakers.  The players are a disparate group of psychics, mystics, agents, and rogues recruited for America's covert Predestination Defense Agenze (PDA).  They uncover prophecy- whether ancient or modern- determine it's validity, then disrupt it so that it fails.  The PDA is the beuracratic descendant of a secret society founded by Jeferson for the same purposes- If America is truly to be a land of the free, then they must be free from prophecy and any predestined future.  I had a prophecy classification system worked out based on detail, clairity, and scope.

Anyhow, why did you world's End Time fail to go down as palned?

[J B Bell]

Matt,

What an absolutely great take on the usual "the world IS going to end" trope.  The reactions you outline are interesting and from my view actually fairly realistic.  Real religious groups have gotten their start in this exact fashion--it's perverse, but a failed prophesy very often strengthens the beliefs of a cult's members.  (I'm using "cult" here in the anthropologic sense, not to mean a brainwashing group necessarily.)  Those who don't just turn away will usually re-calculate a couple more times, eventually settling into "any day now, no, really" or the interesting heresy of immanentalism--the idea that "the apocalypse" refers to a state of being, perhaps somehow superimposed on everyday reality.

And of course, since Covenant, unlike many conspiracies, wields significant temporal power, it's no surprise that some elements have decided to get what they can from earthly life, maybe even becoming a sort of Devil-worshipper bunch, believing since their prophesies failed them, then the opposition (if there is any--not outlined in your text so far) must be right.

Great stuff.  My take on the mechanics is sketchier, but I particularly like your definition of "scars"--might I suggest the slightly more evocative "stigmata" though?  Or is that taken already?

The dice system looks nice and straightforward--it reminds me of Story Engine, which I am by golly picking up this very day.  I find especially interesting how Flaws are invoked by the opposition.  Even with that, though, I do wonder if it's necessary to categorize personality traits as always positive or negative, as I mentioned to Clinton in his thread on the game formerly known as Panels.  E.g., your alcoholic character would (story-wise, maybe not realistiically) have an Edge in a drinking contest!  (Oh, minor quibble, the two successes garnered by his opponent bring it to 5 against 4, not an impasse.)  Consider allowing a trait to be a Flaw or an Edge dependent on situation, at least as an optional rule.

I think the reward mechanism looks really strong, handing out points during play will help keep it moving when the momentum is high already and should make a nice feedback cycle.

This looks really good.

--JB

[Laurel]

Consider allowing a trait to be a Flaw or an Edge dependent on situation, at least as an optional rule.

--JB

I agreed with everything JB said, particularly this.  I think offering the value of traits to be based on situation would be yet one more way to encourage the narrative in a game with a system that looks already so well designed for it.

I wouldn't mind seeing the division of factions being a little more complex, perhaps geographically centralized as opposed as divided into what people do.  This would help add to the sense of a schism, where powerful or charismatic leaders have locally seized power.

[Matt Machell]

First of all, cheers for the comments everyone.

Bailywolf - Your game sounds a nice take on things too. As to why the end of the world didn't happen, well that's been left deliberately vague, so it can be decided by a particular group during play (makes the story more personal), though it will probably be better if I actually mention this in the text............

J.B.Bell - Stigmata is a cool, and kinda appropriate name, I may well have to steal that :) Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity in the example too, though it is only one success, as you doin't have to use all a flaw if you don't want to.

I'm not too sure of traits being both positive and negative (after all you could always have an edge of "strong stomach" to balance the flaw). I quite like flaws being very defined, especially for this kind of setting. It is worth considering though. Perhaps a way of spending more plot points to invert a flaw/edge, hmm that could work well here, more costly but still using your characters defining traits.

Laurel - Yeah, more diversity is definitely a good idea, although much of the "local factionalisation" is implied in the existing text, it could do with having more concrete examples.


Matt

[Nathan]

Hey Matt,

This is a pretty promising little document. The setup is very nice, and something I haven't really seen before. Good job -- although, I found the system somewhat cluttered. Rolling a lot of dice is cool for some folks, but I'd urge you to work up a simpler system. This would be terrific as a D20 setting.

Another thing -- don't try to do too much with this. I think the basic idea here is outstanding, and really, you don't need much else. No need to add occultic magic, zombies, or anything. Simply, we could use some examples on what characters would do -- where they would come from and so on. Beyond that, this is cool.

Keep up the good work. Let me know when you work on it further.

Thanks,
Nathan Hill

[Matt Machell]

No need to add occultic magic, zombies, or anything. Simply, we could use some examples on what characters would do -- where they would come from and so on.

You're right there, the game is intended to have mystical overtones, but not to go too far into magic etc. Part of the fun of the game is that the whole prophesy and mystical angle may well be in the characters minds......

Examples of what characters would do are quite important, some generic story seed section is probably what I'll go for, maybe some flavour text in the way of "official debriefs".


Matt

[Ace]

I originally put this together a while ago, starting from the basic idea that I was bored of games where the end of the world is always about to happen. So the basic premise is that a secret society spent thousands of years preparing for an apocalypse which failed to happen, the PCs are members of this society and have to deal with the fallout (emotional, ideological, political, military etc).

It's still in that flux state, where I'm not sure how well it works, so I'd appreciate any comments on the rules. It's quite Narativist in orientation, and uses quite a fun event based conflict resolution.

It can be found at http://www.realms.org.uk/covenant



Matt

Pretty Neat a nice minimalist system and an interesting premise. One nice thing is that it looks somewhat adaptable to other games. Something I always like.

Good job.

[Matt Machell]

One nice thing is that it looks somewhat adaptable to other games. Something I always like.

Yeah, it can be, as long as you want something very focused on character and story.

Part of the original idea was to have it be a good bridging game between more traditional RPGs and something more narativist. So you still get to "stat" your character and have "splats" as starting points, but from there on in it gets very different.

Matt