Alchemy and Apothecary in a gamist/narrativist system

[MartiniPhilosopher]

I am currently working on fleshing out a personal project in which I am attempting to do some bridging between Narrativist and Gamist camps. Part of my design decision in attempting this particular bridge was to back away from, as much as is possible, of telling how the player/characters accomplish things with their skill/abilities. The system currently in use is simple: The player describes what and how the character is going about things. The GM determines now many successes are needed to do what the player has described and then the player throws their dice. Since I have been running the playtesting sessions myself so far, I haven't needed to write them out for formalization, but I do have a set of guidelines for determining number of successes.

I have had a fair amount of success with this system in the current round of playtests. My players are still getting used to being able to have a hand in writing the "How" portion and not just the "What" and I am working on my GMing techniques to get them more comfortable with this.

With the success I have had so far I am wanting to expand and add alchemy and apothecary skills to the system. Unlike other skills I feel that both of these require a good deal more structure. When I picture alchemical work, I flashback to my highschool chemistry classes. When I think of apothecary I think of the number of campouts I went on where we spent hours trying to identifying plants and being quizzed on if I could eat them and not die. So in order to make them useful to the player and their characters as well as to help balance what they can do versus other skills available to the players I feel like they need a stronger structure guiding them. However, I would like to continue in the vein in allowing the character to tell how they use the skills.

For alchemy I am thinking come up with and define a dozen or more plants and herbs each of which will have various properties. Properties will be categorical but vague. Something along the lines of "Healing", "Poisonous", or "Boosting". Each will also have a rating of weak, normal, or strong. Allow the player to combine these to create the effect(s) desired. The more successes they achieve on their skill test, the better their formula works. There will be guidelines for the GM to determine the number needed for things like converting property or rating.

Apothecary presents a different puzzle. Where they are in the game world will give the character access to different landscapes and different resources to search through. Allowing the player to dictate that they simply find the herb seems counter-intuitive. I am still thinking this one through.

Are there any suggestions or places I can look at which have dealt with this before?

[Josh Roby]

With the success I have had so far I am wanting to expand and add alchemy and apothecary skills to the system. Unlike other skills I feel that both of these require a good deal more structure.

Seriously, Mister Martini (got a real name we can call you by?), you really don't need that additional structure, at least in terms of mechanics.  While it's probably a good idea to "seed" the game with some plants and herbs and potions and whatnot that are appropriate to the world, you do not need ratings attached to these things in order for the system to work.  Players are more than capable of making this stuff up as fast as you'd be able to write it down.  BUT -- and it's a big but -- this isn't the only way to go about it.

Let me ask you this, instead: what sorts of things do you want alchemy and apothecary to do for the players?  Nevermind the characters for a moment; they're fictional.  If I'm a player and I've got Alchemy-3, what's that mean I get to do or say?

Additionally, (standard plug) starting off with some actual play accounts will help us a great great deal in giving you adequate answers.  How does the rest of the system work -- give us a specific example with dialogue.  Have you ever had an experience in a game that was something like what you'd like to accomplish with your alchemy and apothecary -- again, give us a specific example.

[MartiniPhilosopher]

What sorts of things do you want alchemy and apothecary to do for the players?
With the addition of Alchemy and Apothecary I hope to expand their playing experience in the game world. To give them additional avenues to explore with being able to choose these skills and have the ability to create potions, draughts and the like hopefully for dramtic effect. I have no specific playing experience to fall back on to try to work off of. However, I do picture things like the scene from Fellowship of the Rings when they need to find the herb to keep Frodo alive or even a Miracal Max sort of situation. Not just something for the players to note on their sheets but something that can actually produce a dramatic result in play.

As for actual play accounts...last week was our first outing with second set of revised rules and my players are still getting used to being able to talk more about the how and less about the what. I'm still getting used to it. This is best illustrated in the torture scene. The players had to confront an individual and get information from them regarding the whereabouts of a twelve year old who has been sold into slavery. They try to insinuate themselves into the bad guys business, and he sniffs them out.  He tries to run away when he can't figure out what's really going on.

Player1:"I want to grapple him in my branches as he is running away."
Me:"Okay, roll your combat skill. You do have LPT^[1] with that skill?"
Player1:"Yes."
Me:"You will need to get more than his Escape skill check because that is what he is going to try to do."
Rolls happen and Player1 ends up grappling the fugitive who wasn't able to successfully escape the attack.

A little while later their captive continues to refuse to talk and they resort to force torture back in an alley to get him to talk.  While torturing him, Player1 tries to use her Divination skill to figure out what he really knows, even if he's not talking.
Player1: "While Player2 is threatening him with the sword, I'll use my Divination to see if he's thinking about where he took the girl, or who he gave her to."
Me: "Okay, roll your Divination skill.  He's sticking with the story he gave you earlier so you're rolling against his Subterfuge."
Player1: Rolls, and doesn't beat the bad guy's earlier Subterfuge roll.  "I motion to Player2 that I didn't learn anything else."
Player3: "I'm going to use my Fantastic Magic^[2] to make a giant green flame in my hand, to see how he reacts to magic."
Me: "Roll your Magic skill then."
Player3: "Crap, no.  My arm smokes a little, but nothing happens."
Player2: "Alright, he's obviously not going to respond to regular old intimidation..."
Me: "He is a Rough..."
Player2: "...so, I'll take my sword and slash at his leg, like I'm going to cut it off; but I won't actually cut him."
Me: "So, roll your combat skill, to see if you can make it threatening enough."
Player2: "Uh, that's a big no.  I botched, more than one ten and no successes."
Me: "Right, you slash out, but too well and cut off the leg under the knee.  He tries to collapse from the pain."
Player1: "Okay, so since he's broken now, I'm going to check my Divination again, searching his mind specifically for the girl."
Player1 Rolls Divination^[3], but the bad guy is too broken, and in too much pain to talk now.

As I had said in my previous post play falls along: Description of Action -> GM deciding on dice issues -> Player Rolls to see if they get to control that part of the story.

^[1]Combat skills have different abilities associated with them which the player can choose from. LPT in this instance is short for Lunge/Push/Throw, a catch-all category that stands in for getting in close and maneuvering their opponents around.
^[2]Like Combat skills, Magic has different classes of Magic that characters can use.  In this case, the character uses his "Fantastic" Magic which is a type of Magic that is typified by firebolts, lightening strikes and other fantasy style effects.
^[3]Divination Magic is another type of Magic, which deals with the finding of knowledge and "divining" the truth of a situation.

[MartiniPhilosopher]

Need to add some more thing to the above.

Characters have three parts which matter to the game: Attributes, Skill, and Tweaks. When making a skill check, the player gets a number of d10s equal to their Skill rating. They are attempting to roll at or under their Attribute score and when they do, I call it a success. There are other rules like, "1s are always a success and 10s are always failures" and "If the player rolls any 10s and no successes then they have botched". Tweaks are there modify Skills in some way. Some Tweaks make checks harder or easier, some Tweaks change what the skills allow the player to do, and so forth.

On average, I make 3 the default number of successes needed to do as they have described without the need for the GM to modify it any. Fewer than that usually means that They didn't quite do everything quite as well (in the case of combat the amount of damage is reduced) or if they got more then they were exceptionally focused (their attempt to intimidate made their target so frightened that they pissed their pants).

Anyways, I hope that helps to explain some more of how the system works. Let me know if you have more questions on the mechanics.

If you want, just call me MP.  Those are my real initials.

[Josh Roby]

Are you familiar with games that use Conflict Resolution, MP?  Cause it seems you're using lots of CR tools, but not all of them (which ain't necessarily a bad thing).

When the player accidentally chopped off the guy's leg, am I reading it right that you decided that's what failure meant, and you decided that after he rolled the dice?

As far as what you want out of Alchemy and Apothecary -- I'm going to intentionally misread you, here.  Because from what you said, you want alchemy and apothecary to only provide "drama" -- you don't want players to use A&A to add new abilities and content to the game, you don't want them to do crazy stuff in the regular course of events, you only want it to be useful in big life-or-death sorts of conflicts where the story will end if they fail.  (See what I mean about intentional misreading?)  Do you really want A&A to only be invoked for this sort of higher-order giant plot developments, or do you want its impact to be scaled about the same as the combat skills and divination skills that you talked about in your AP?  If you could just add A&A to one of your current playtesters' characters, what might you expect him to use it for?

[MartiniPhilosopher]

I guess that I'm familiar to some extent. I've read the topic a couple of times but would probably fail the test if put to it.  :)

And you are correct on the second question. There are only a few places where I have pre-plotted certain outcomes and this was not one of them. I am making things up as I go along just as much as the other players are during the games. This is being tested with people who have little experience outside of gamist style systems where so much is pre-decided for the players. So I feel that it helps keep them in the right frame of mind if I am going with the flow as well.

Do you really want A&A to only be invoked for this sort of higher-order giant plot developments, or do you want its impact to be scaled about the same as the combat skills and divination skills that you talked about in your AP?

That's a good question. These skills shouldn't be any different or more powerful than any of the other skills and abilities available to the characters. This is not to say that a player shouldn't be able to use them in the "higher-order giant plot developments". I am attempting to avoid that well tread area some games have set up where the players use skills like these to give the characters the ability to make in game trinkets and little else. Striking that balance between these two areas that will allow for the material to strike a chord with the player and get their imagination going.

If you could just add A&A to one of your current playtesters' characters, what might you expect him to use it for?

Knowing my players, I'd expect something along the lines of what one sees in World of Warcraft: Lots of gathering, lots of grinding, and very little dynamic content creation for a little while. I think they would eventually get it, it would just take them a bit to leave their old notions of player created content behind. Which is why I am aiming for more meta-rules that run along what one might come across in a real-life field guide to wild plants. Rules that more guide players along in making things up instead of telling them what can be done with their materials.

[Josh Roby]

And you are correct on the second question. There are only a few places where I have pre-plotted certain outcomes and this was not one of them. I am making things up as I go along just as much as the other players are during the games. This is being tested with people who have little experience outside of gamist style systems where so much is pre-decided for the players. So I feel that it helps keep them in the right frame of mind if I am going with the flow as well.

I'm actually asking a slightly different question.  It's not a matter of off-the-cuff versus prep, but a matter of authority and credibility -- who gets to say what when.  If a player attempts to do something and fails, does the GM have carte blanche to heap dire consequences on the character?  Consequences that the player may not expect when they make the initial attempt?  I see you giving a lot of power to the players in terms of setting their stakes ("I want to capture the guy") and defining the means by which they attempt to get their stakes ("I want to nick him with my sword"), which can be thought of in terms of giving them powers normally attributed to the GM.  The thing is, as long as the GM has the Hammer of Doom and can mete out craziness without warning, the players are still operating under Mother May I rules, just with some window dressing.  How is the GM's narration in describing character failure constrained or controlled?

These skills shouldn't be any different or more powerful than any of the other skills and abilities available to the characters. This is not to say that a player shouldn't be able to use them in the "higher-order giant plot developments". I am attempting to avoid that well tread area some games have set up where the players use skills like these to give the characters the ability to make in game trinkets and little else. Striking that balance between these two areas that will allow for the material to strike a chord with the player and get their imagination going.

Right.  So let's look at it in terms of paralellism.  What content and what rules have you included that back up and support your combat skills?  Do you have lists of weapons and maneuvers and to-hit rules and damage?  Now the harder question: do those things actually back up and support the combat skills in the way that you want them to?  (This is not asking "have you been happy with the end result of playtest so far" but "has that rule contributed to your happiness with playtest so far?")

And back to your AP: Could a player with Apothecary have produced and used a Truth Serum by invoking the system in the same way as the player who tried to use Divination in the interrogation/torture example you gave?  Using Fantastic Magic and Divination and Combat looks like they only required a single roll; why should Apothecary be any different?

[dindenver]

Hi!
  I think you shouldn't worry about potions throwing off your "game balance" or otherwise disrupting the flow of the story. The reasons are that there are multiple steps needed to use it effectively:
1) You have to have skill in it to make the potions you want (Or extra money to buy them)
2) You have to know the recipe
3) You have to have the ingredients
4) You have to take the time to make potions
5) You have to have the potion on them when they need it
6) You have to be able to drink it in such a way that it does not ruin their goal (Surruptitiously slipping poison or truth serum in someone's drink requires some sort of stealth skill, I am sure)
  I'd say that you should be able to "find" ingredients for the most common potions in the wilderness. And maybe turn the more powerful potions into a sort of subplot/quest.
  I'd suggest make the potions stand up to the "spells" of pretty much all the schools of magic. Potions are only good if you plan ahead. Unless you want to reinvent Alchemy like they did in Full Metal Alchemist, their usefullness will be severely limited to what/when it CAN come into play. In that sense it is self limiting. I am sure there may be concerns about changing what the game play is about (And that is something you need to figure ot how you want it to go down) and there may be concerns about changes to economies. But I say embrace the change and move forward with your eyes open, you know?

[MartiniPhilosopher]

How is the GM's narration in describing character failure constrained or controlled?

Currently it's not outside of personal common sense of the GM. I have been considering adding additional rules to the effect of creating "control" dice but haven't spent much time in thought about it. There is also the choice of putting it in the players' hands to begin with, having them describe what happens in extraordinary failures or successes. However that still doesn't help define when the Players get to be complete free to write and where the GM gets to step in. Something more for me to ponder.

Actually all of the responses have given me much to think about. Thanks! I'll try to post some updates as I continue along.