[Bronze] magic and 'magic items'

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

hey.  for me its not really the point of: can a house be burned down with magic?  the answer is it can.  Whats been bugging me is the idea that a character can point his finger at the house and intone some mumbo jumbo and have the house instantly burst into flames.  I havent decided yet whether that kind of thing will be possible.  Im leaning away from it.

How do the players use this to effect their goals? The fiction of the situation is secondary than how the players use magic (or anything else) to make things happen that matter to a story.

This is something big in your design that you have not confronted: does burning down the house successfully aid me in achieving my goals? A Task Resolution system such as this uses the rules to no effect whatsoever in answering that question.

To paraphrase from Vincent's website:

Conflict resolution: The player declares that she wants to kill the cultists inside the house. The player succeeds in burning down the house to do it. The cultists are killed.

Task resolution: The player declares that she wants to kill the cultists in side the house. The player succeeds in burning down the house. Are the cultists killed? Who knows?

Your rules don't say. Your solution is "The GM makes it up." You're putting the onus of game design on the GM.

The problems you're confronting are not unique to your game, but they've been effectively confronted by other games. You really should read them.

[stefoid]

hey.  for me its not really the point of: can a house be burned down with magic?  the answer is it can.  Whats been bugging me is the idea that a character can point his finger at the house and intone some mumbo jumbo and have the house instantly burst into flames.  I havent decided yet whether that kind of thing will be possible.  Im leaning away from it.

How do the players use this to effect their goals? The fiction of the situation is secondary than how the players use magic (or anything else) to make things happen that matter to a story.

This is something big in your design that you have not confronted: does burning down the house successfully aid me in achieving my goals?

Im not sure how to answer that.  I mean, I know you dont want me to come up with a table that indexes varying strengths of fireball and house construction materials vs. probability of occupant death ratios.

I cant think of any reasonable answer to that other than the GM thinks its either more fun for the some of the cultists to escape for whatever reason, or he doesnt, so they all burn.

A Task Resolution system such as this uses the rules to no effect whatsoever in answering that question.

To paraphrase from Vincent's website:

Conflict resolution: The player declares that she wants to kill the cultists inside the house. The player succeeds in burning down the house to do it. The cultists are killed.

Task resolution: The player declares that she wants to kill the cultists in side the house. The player succeeds in burning down the house. Are the cultists killed? Who knows?

Your rules don't say. Your solution is "The GM makes it up." You're putting the onus of game design on the GM.

The problems you're confronting are not unique to your game, but they've been effectively confronted by other games. You really should read them.

OK, to summarise, I have a proposed 'task resolution system', and I think its the GMs job to decide whether task resolved = conflict resolved.   You say thats a problem.  I dont understand why you say that, because I dont see conflict resolution as game design, I see it as game play.

Whats obvious to me now, is that pretty much most of the people who have been trying to help me are firmly into this narativist style of roleplaying which I have never experienced and never heard of until coming here.  I am firmly into dreaming/gaming.

If I am to become enlightened ;) which game should I buy and get my other heathen friends playing?  sorceror I suppose?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Im not sure how to answer that.  I mean, I know you dont want me to come up with a table that indexes varying strengths of fireball and house construction materials vs. probability of occupant death ratios.

Not all rules work like that. You're not doing a physics simulation. You're making a story construction toolkit (I think).

I cant think of any reasonable answer to that other than the GM thinks its either more fun for the some of the cultists to escape for whatever reason, or he doesnt, so they all burn.

That's what I mean: the die roll for burning down the house might as well have not happened.

OK, to summarise, I have a proposed 'task resolution system', and I think its the GMs job to decide whether task resolved = conflict resolved.   You say thats a problem.  I dont understand why you say that, because I dont see conflict resolution as game design, I see it as game play.

Whats obvious to me now, is that pretty much most of the people who have been trying to help me are firmly into this narativist style of roleplaying which I have never experienced and never heard of until coming here.  I am firmly into dreaming/gaming.

Well, we all like to dream and game. That's why we're here. But if we're going to design a game — which is the engineering of human interactions — we have to pay attention to how every interaction works. These are your friends you're talking about here!

If I am to become enlightened ;) which game should I buy and get my other heathen friends playing?  sorceror I suppose?

I think you'd be into The Shadow of Yesterday. It introduces a lot of these concepts in . It's a really fun game. You could use it with your setting easily.

Dogs in the Vineyard is a really good one for establishing stakes and explaining conflict resolution. It's an excellent example of a focused game with a really neat unified resolution mechanic.

You may also like Prime Time Adventures because of its extremely focused mechanics. It's probably too low-detail for you, but it's amazingly reliable in the amount of fun you have playing it. It uses a conflict res system as well, along with very tightly defined role for the Producer (who is something like a GM, but with particular duties). The way it treats the fictional environment might be particularly valuable.

Now, this assumes Narrativist design goals. I'm not certain that those are your goals. I'm not sure what to say for Gamist design and I'm not sure there are any really successful Simulationist-supporting designs at all. Not my department. But if you want players to address premise — that is, to do stories that talk about human, familial and societal issues — the games I mentioned above are very good examples of games that do that. Others will no doubt recommend other games, so look at those players' finished games to figure out about their tastes.

[Tommi Brander]

what, can I just roll up a character that has this  up hi sleeve?

How is it different from the character having an artifact of great power, or Herculean strength?

Id say that it isnt too different to having an unique artificat of great power.  There is only one 'sword of the heavens' , just as there is only one barbarian queen.  I dont see why that type of boon should be built into the character.  Those types of things should be stuff that characters work towards achieving - winning the love of the barbarian queen, obtaining the sword.  If you were talking about a 'sword of OKishness'  or 'the love of a good woman', then sure, build them into your character.

Too powerful to start with. But gaining access to them later is fine. Having a powerful item grants bonuses to what the item is good at. What does having a powerful contact give?

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Too powerful to start with. But gaining access to them later is fine. Having a powerful item grants bonuses to what the item is good at. What does having a powerful contact give?

This is nonsense, Tommi. Arthur started precisely with Excalibur (according to one telling, at least). Culchullain's Gae Bolga was his signature weapon throughout his story.

There's no reason to have to earn the fun stuff with a currency of unfun.

[lumpley]

Well, that kind of exploded randomly.

I want to talk to Steve more about arenas of conflict. I'm pretty sure that understanding what's a conflict and what's a resource you can bring to bear in the conflict will let him solve his design problems.

So, Steve. I read this:

Whats been bugging me is the idea that a character can point his finger at the house and intone some mumbo jumbo and have the house instantly burst into flames.  I havent decided yet whether that kind of thing will be possible.  Im leaning away from it.  What I am leaning more toward is that huge effects need to be invoked in special ways, via lengthy ritual, or with the aid of magic props, or in favourable circumstances.  Lets say the character spent half an hour hiding behind the tree chanting in order to effect the cooking fire flaring intensely and catching the thatch on fire?  to obtain the desired effect here is a combination of a small ritual with a slightly favourable circumstance - there is already a fire present, so to some extent, the god of fire already is present in this house.  But the magic user needs to make the deity more present...  Like Lumpley says, this type of stuff needs to be quantified.

And I read this:

for instance the god of wind affects winds.  directly.  it seems fairly obvious that this has major utility in the area of war - smash the boat, destroy the crops,disrupt the archers, blow sand in the face of the gaurds, etc...  And I can understand the need to quantify that.  In your example above, it effects the political arena - indirectly.  Im not specifying how powerful the wind is, im specifying how threatening it seems.  The number of variables involved in that calculation make it impossible to quantify in anything but the most general terms.

And you're so, so close.

You're the player, I'm the GM.

CASE 1

You say, "y'know, I really don't think this queen is going for it, I gotta pull out the stops, I gotta hit her hard with something. Hey, I have this big relationship with the God of Wind on my character sheet, I bet I can leverage that, I bet I can use that to threaten her." So you turn to me and you say, "I invoke the God of Wind. I cash in this favor He owes me for that time I rescued His 12 daughters from the sea and I burn 100 drams of fragrant oils in His name, and I ask Him to smash the queen's flagship against the rocks, and I tell her that if she doesn't marry my son I'll do the same to the rest of her fleet. Does she go for it?" (Understand that I'm summarizing, this may actually be a half-hour's roleplaying.)

I say, "let's figure out how powerful the wind is -"

And you say, "dude that isn't the point. Assume that the wind is powerful enough. Does my relationship with the God of Wind help me win my alliance with the queen, or doesn't it?"

So I say, "oh, I see, yeah, no, she mourns for the loss of her ship and her captain and her men, she sends her priests to see that they're collected off the rocks and buried in state, but she'd rather lose her whole fleet and her whole army and her homeland too than marry a boy she doesn't love. Your relationship with the God of Wind doesn't help you win your alliance with the queen."

CASE 2

You say, "y'know, I really don't think this queen is going for it, I gotta pull out the stops, I gotta sweeten the deal with something. Hey, I have this big relationship with the God of Wind on my character sheet, I bet I can leverage that, I bet I can use that to sway her toward my son." So you turn to me and you say, "I invoke the God of Wind. I cash in this favor He owes me for that time I rescued His 12 daughters from the sea and I burn 100 drams of fragrant oils in His name, and I ask Him to bless my son, so that like a gentle breeze follows him, sweet-smelling, chasing away haze and chill, and maybe carrying faint notes of music."

I say, "let's figure out how powerful the wind is -"

And you say, "dude that isn't the point. Assume that the wind is powerful enough. Does my relationship with the God of Wind help me win my alliance with the queen, or doesn't it?"

So I say, "oh, I see, yeah, that's perfect, she's a sucker for that kind of stuff. Within a week you catch her smiling fondly when you mention his name, and within a month you're pretty sure they're lovers. To get her to marry him, though, you're going to have to win over her priests - for which, here's a bonus die. So yeah, your relationship with the God of Wind helps, but it doesn't win you your alliance with the queen outright."

CASE 3

You say, "y'know, I really don't think this queen is going for it, I gotta pull out the stops, I gotta hit her hard with something. Hey, I have this big relationship with the God of Wind on my character sheet, I bet I can leverage that, I bet I can use that to threaten her." So you turn to me and you say, "I invoke the God of Wind. I cash in this favor He owes me for that time I rescued His 12 daughters from the sea and I burn 100 drams of fragrant oils in His name -"

And I say, "stop right there! Did you forget that the God of Wind hates your guts? He doesn't acknowledge you directly, but sends his Captian of the Whirlwind to deal with you. He spends six hours throwing you around your chambers, smashing you into the walls, throwing furniture at you, smashing you out through one window and in through the next. He leaves just before dawn, but spits on your broken body before he goes, a hard little final insult of a hailstone."

You say, "ow."

I say, "no kidding ow. Here, lose 2d8 hit points."

You say, "ow, man."

I say, "...but when the queen finds you lying there, her heart's moved. She hadn't realized how important to you the alliance really was. She sets her priests to healing you and agrees to marry your son that very night."

You say, "so my relationship with the God of Wind helped me win the alliance with the queen after all. Funny!"

END CASES

Of the three, which act of magic was the most successful?

Steve! Stop thinking about quantifying the force = mass x acceleration of magic. Every act of magic will have a) special effects and b) real consequences. Right now all you're looking at is the special effects - but it's the real consequences that you need to attend to.

-Vincent

[lumpley]

Oh and I need to say, especially don't get distracted by Gamism vs. Narrativism vs. Simulationism. At this stage of discussion and design, those three are so irrelevant I can't even blink.

-Vincent

[greyorm]

Steve,

Just a quick note that I do have a reply for you that I'm sitting on vis-a-vis the cultural history of sorcerers/priests, a short reading list, etc. I'm sitting on it, however, because I think this conversation with Vincent should take precedence to that discussion. When it's done, I can either post here or fire it off in private e-mail. I just did not want you to wonder why I have not yet replied.

[stefoid]

Oh and I need to say, especially don't get distracted by Gamism vs. Narrativism vs. Simulationism. At this stage of discussion and design, those three are so irrelevant I can't even blink.

-Vincent

actually Ive been reading articles on this forum and Im learning to speak your langauge, and Ive come to the conclusion that I understand where Joshua is coming from and that I dont care (not in a nasty way), because I am designing a simulationinst game - I just didnt know it because I didnt speak your lingo.

really what I need is help with avoiding the pitfalls common to simulationist games, and also how emphasise those points of the simulationist experience that Im concentrating on.  anyway, back to the subject at hand...

[stefoid]

Steve,

Just a quick note that I do have a reply for you that I'm sitting on vis-a-vis the cultural history of sorcerers/priests, a short reading list, etc. I'm sitting on it, however, because I think this conversation with Vincent should take precedence to that discussion. When it's done, I can either post here or fire it off in private e-mail. I just did not want you to wonder why I have not yet replied.

cool, thanks for that.  Ive been leafing through my book on assyria and babylon which arrived last week :D   its pretty vague on some of the points im interested in.  what we know about those times is pretty hit and miss depending on what we dig up.  I did read a good point somewhere that a lot of ritual / magic etc... would have been regarded as secret knowledge for various reasons so our chances of knowing about it are fairly slim because you dont just bake that stuff for any old one to read.  What we have is a bunch of stuff on exorcism of demons and evil spirits, I guess because that was public stuff that paid the bills.  I mean, even just knowing that they exorcised demons freom people opens up a whole avenue of posibilities.

[stefoid]

examples deleted.

Of the three, which act of magic was the most successful?

Steve! Stop thinking about quantifying the force = mass x acceleration of magic. Every act of magic will have a) special effects and b) real consequences. Right now all you're looking at is the special effects - but it's the real consequences that you need to attend to.

-Vincent

your examples are outside my experience.  I undersand them, but I dont think that way.  in either of those cases what would occur in a typical game among my groups is that the GM would say, OK, test your relationship with the god of winds to see if he's with you on this, and Id roll and it would be some degree of success or other which would indicate that my plan had a good or terrible chance of working.

a) We would never assume that the wind was powerful enough and just decide one way or the other that the end result was achieved or not... b) we would test that the wind was powerful enough and use the result of that to modify the test of whether the end result was achieved.

you and a everyone else has taken the view that procedure a) is what I really want to achieve whether I realize it or not.  Maybe youre right -- but at this stage unless someone can explain to me why a) is better than b), Im just going to have to do it the long way and grab some suggested RPGs and try to force a slot or two in with one of my groups and see what all the fuss is about.  That will actually take months so in the meantime, if you can explain to me why a) is better than b), then go for it!

[lumpley]

your examples are outside my experience. I undersand them, but I dont think that way. in either of those cases what would occur in a typical game among my groups is that the GM would say, OK, test your relationship with the god of winds to see if he's with you on this, and Id roll and it would be some degree of success or other which would indicate that my plan had a good or terrible chance of working.

Oh man, Steve, you've seized on the most pointless nothing in my post.

Okay, look. Go back and reread the three cases, and insert die rolls wherever you want them.

a) We would never assume that the wind was powerful enough and just decide one way or the other that the end result was achieved or not... b) we would test that the wind was powerful enough and use the result of that to modify the test of whether the end result was achieved.

Yeah, my group too.

In your group, would "end result" mean "the ship gets smashed on the rocks" or "the queen marries the son"?

-Vincent

[stefoid]

Oh man, Steve, you've seized on the most pointless nothing in my post.

Okay, look. Go back and reread the three cases, and insert die rolls wherever you want them.

phew, you had me going there for a minute, I thought I was talking to a crazy person.

a) We would never assume that the wind was powerful enough and just decide one way or the other that the end result was achieved or not... b) we would test that the wind was powerful enough and use the result of that to modify the test of whether the end result was achieved.

Yeah, my group too.

so when you said 'assume the wind is powerful enough', what you meant was 'roll to see if the wind was powerful enough'?

In your group, would "end result" mean "the ship gets smashed on the rocks" or "the queen marries the son"?

OK, lets just break down your example how I imagine it, so that I can get my head around it. 

1) test how successful I am at creating a wind big enough to blow the ship onto the rocks
2) use the result of this test to validate and perhaps modify the next test which is:
3) test to see if the queen is intimidated enough by the display  to give in

To my way of thinking, Id probably use the success or otherwise of 1) as the green light to even consider 3).  Otherwise I dont have the stakes on my side enough
even to warrant an intimidation test as you have described.

[TonyLB]

OK, lets just break down your example how I imagine it, so that I can get my head around it. 

1) test how successful I am at creating a wind big enough to blow the ship onto the rocks
2) use the result of this test to validate and perhaps modify the next test which is:
3) test to see if the queen is intimidated enough by the display  to give in

To my way of thinking, Id probably use the success or otherwise of 1) as the green light to even consider 3).  Otherwise I dont have the stakes on my side enough
even to warrant an intimidation test as you have described.

Okay, but consider doing it another way:

1) test to see if the queen is intimidated enough by the display to give in
2) use the result of this test to decide whether I am creating a wind big enough to blow the ship onto the rocks

In the real world, only the way you described would make sense, because cause and effect only flows forward.  But moments in fiction don't have to be arranged that way.  They're more like a jigsaw puzzle.  Yes, you can start at the left side and work relentlessly toward the right.  But you can, equally well, start at the right side and work back toward the left, or start putting together little chunks and then link them later, or any number of other ways of assembling the fiction.

You can, if you choose, decide whether the magic helps first and decide how it helps later.  Vincent's given you several prime examples of how to do that.  I particularly liked #3, but I'm a sucker for the idea of a hero hated by the Gods, who wins out because of that hatred.

[stefoid]

OK, lets just break down your example how I imagine it, so that I can get my head around it. 

1) test how successful I am at creating a wind big enough to blow the ship onto the rocks
2) use the result of this test to validate and perhaps modify the next test which is:
3) test to see if the queen is intimidated enough by the display  to give in
.

Okay, but consider doing it another way:

1) test to see if the queen is intimidated enough by the display to give in
2) use the result of this test to decide whether I am creating a wind big enough to blow the ship onto the rocks

ok, I can understand that.  instead of rolling my god connection vs. a target number, then using the results of that, I roll my god connection directly against the queens reistance to intimidaiton.

there must be a reason why that is better that isnt just 'you cut out an intermediate step that way'?

In the real world, only the way you described would make sense, because cause and effect only flows forward.  But moments in fiction don't have to be arranged that way.  They're more like a jigsaw puzzle.  Yes, you can start at the left side and work relentlessly toward the right.  But you can, equally well, start at the right side and work back toward the left, or start putting together little chunks and then link them later, or any number of other ways of assembling the fiction.

yeah, so this reason not to proceed using the way that makes sense must be pretty good.

You can, if you choose, decide whether the magic helps first and decide how it helps later.  Vincent's given you several prime examples of how to do that.  I particularly liked #3, but I'm a sucker for the idea of a hero hated by the Gods, who wins out because of that hatred.

By 'magic helps' first you dont mean whether or not the wind blows, but whether or not the queen gives in, dont you?  So who decides that and how do they do it?