A mechanic swiped from Nine Worlds: Goals

[Vaxalon]

Here's the rule text:

Goals are very important traits for heroes. They are what drive him to action. They are a specific form of personality trait, that can be used as an augment any time he is acting in furtherance of that goal.

Whenever you add a trait to your character sheet, you can declare that trait a "goal". Add (goal) to the end of the trait. In order to qualify as a goal, there must be a particular circumstance under which that goal could be fulfilled.

Goal traits can be used for augments, but only become the primary trait in a contest when someone is trying to convince the character to abandon, put off, or otherwise deprecate the goal itself.

A character cannot have goals that add up to more than 100 points (20W4) in all, and cannot have more goals than he has keywords. (A beginning character has three keywords - occupation, attunement, and home domain.)

When a goal is fulfilled, you must convert it, point for point, into another trait. "Become King of Jaalban (goal)" might become the relationship trait "King of Jaalban" when it's fulfilled.

When a goal becomes unfulfillable, it can also be converted. If Jaalbanwere to fall into ruin, then "Wants to become King of Jaalban" might become "Wants to avenge the fall of Jaalban"


Thus, goals become banks for points that can be used to buy large traits all at once when they are fulfilled.

I put limits on goals, both in terms of total value and how many can be taken.

[Mike Holmes]

Do you see the total limit as a dial? That is, if you had a game with more advanced characters, would you up the limit? The keyword limit suggests that this stuff alters if you have more advanced characters.

In any case, for starting characters, who can't have abilities over 27 anyhow, the limit is going to be by number of keywords to start. It'll take 19 points added to these before anyone will have to worry about the total limit. Is the idea at that point to push players to get goals done so that they can stack up larger, more focused goals (fewer in number)?

Just trying to discern what you were going for with these particular limits.

Mike

[Vaxalon]

I see the total limit (100 points) as a way of balancing the dilettante with the monomaniac.  The more different things you care about, the less you can care about any one of them.  Yes, I don't intend beginning characters to hit this limit immediately.

There's no reason that a player can't start with just one goal.  I expect some people will try to manage lots of smaller goals, building them up and cashing them in quickly, and some will create monomaniacs with one goal that they use for augment after augment, driving their character forward until that track loses interest for them.  The intention is to be flexible with the various directions that players want to take their characters, including conflicting goals, but limit the number enough that only goals which are actually intended to be the focus of play are included.

[Mike Holmes]

Cool. I'll come up with some goal abilities for my character tonight!

Mike