[Tempestas] Base mechanics

[Anders Larsen]

Tempestas is a fantasy rpg I have worked on with a friend for many years. The first incarnation of this game was very much in the category of traditional fantasy rpgs, but now we have decided to redo the most of the system to make it work better with the kind of stories we want it to support. In this process I am, of cause, applying a lot of the stuff I have leaned here at the Forge and "stealing" some stuff from indie-games; especially Burning Wheel/Empire.

Of late, we are beginning to discuss some of the base mechanics of the game. The basic resolution mechanic is a standard task resolution (roll under skill/stat with d100 to succeed), and it is our intention to keep it this way. To fix the shortcomings of task resolution we have build some mechanics on top of the base mechanic that the players can use to better express what they want in the game.

We are right now working on four distinct mechanics. When the player want to achieve something in the game, he can then choose the one of the mechanics that will enable him to achieve his intention.

The four mechanics

Role-playing:

Well, this is not really a mechanic. This is just here to let the players know that they can request a scene where they can have some conflictless character to character interaction. This is just some loose role-playing, but has the specific purpose, to give the players an opportunity to express their characters's behaviour, feelings and relations in the game.

An example of this could be that the characters want to spend a night at an inn to drink and have fun, or a player want his character to get to know a NPC better, so he want a 'just talking' scene with this NPC.

A role-playing scene can of course easily lead to other things.

Building/Creating:

This mechanic is used when the player want to build something that have a specific purpose in the story. This does not necessary have to be something physical - in fact, i think in most cases it will not. Here are some example of what can be build, and to what purpose:

* Spreading propaganda that will start a rebellion against a tyranny.
* Put together a strategic plan that will enable an small army to defend a town.
* Building a ship that can navigate through a dangerous sea.
* Preparing and writing material for a musical performance, that will give the character extra social impact in the area.
* Working as a smith, to earn money to a cure for the character's sick mother.

Some ideas for the mechanic: When engaging in the "building or creating" the player write down on the character sheet what the purpose of the creation is. There should also be a form of indicator of how complete the construction is. To build toward the completeness, the player have to make a number of skill and stats roll over a certain period of time. The time between rolls depend on how long time it take for the character to get hold of the needed resources for the next stage, and on how long time the construction logical will take to finis.

Investigation/exploring:

This mechanic is used when you want to find some information or clues about a mystery or something unknown. This can be:

* Investigating a murder scene.
* Searching through a library to find information about an ancient kingdom.
* Excavating a ruined city to find the course of its downfall.

Some ideas for the mechanic: The basic of this mechanic is to find clues or pieces of information. The player can use a number of skills (or stats) to do this. The important thing is that the character will get some information no matter how the rolls turns out, so he will never be left without a lead and can therefor always continue the investigation; there will be consequences of a failed roll, though. A failed roll can lead to misdirections, unexpected twist of the plot, conflict with people that don't like that you dig forth this information or it can have some consequences for the final resolution of the investigation. The important thing here is that the game do not stop if a character fail a roll when he tries to find some important clue.

Conflict:

I properly don't need to explain this one. This is "just" the mechanic for social and physical conflict.


Questions

1) Considering that the game is a traditional fantasy game, but with a focus on investigations, mysteries and political intrigues, do you think that these mechanics covers the important activities that a player want to do in a game?

2) Do the mechanic ideas for "Building/Creating" and "Investigation/exploring" make any sense, or could they be done in some more interesting ways?

Any other comments and ideas are of course welcome.

- Anders

[mothlos]

The four mechanics

Role-playing:

Building/Creating:

Investigation/exploring:

Conflict:


Questions

1) Considering that the game is a traditional fantasy game, but with a focus on investigations, mysteries and political intrigues, do you think that these mechanics covers the important activities that a player want to do in a game?

2) Do the mechanic ideas for "Building/Creating" and "Investigation/exploring" make any sense, or could they be done in some more interesting ways?

Any other comments and ideas are of course welcome.

I'm trying to figure out the separation of these four mechanics and piece together the functionality of it. I'll make a lot of unspoken assumptions I am sure. Please feel free to tear me apart if I am misunderstanding. For some reason reading this makes me think action thriller movies, so a lot of my thoughts will center around that.

I think that the name of the Role Playing mechanic is a bit offsetting. It seems that this is a character moment where players use their wits more than statistical outcomes to decide results. Calling it Role Playing indicates to me that role-playing is limited to this function, which I don't think is what you are intending here.

The next two mechanics of Building/Creating and Investigating/Exploring feel like montages to me. I'm not sure what length durations you are going for here. Since you seem to be having a little bit of difficulty expressing your ideas here I think you could call this active and passive world interaction. Passive world interaction is trying to understand things without changing them while active is trying to change things without necessarily learning more about them. What sort of mechanical advantage are players trying to accomplish by choosing these mechanics? What sorts of limits do they have?

I'm not entirely convinced that conflict can be teased out as independent of these other aspects. Conflict arises as a direct result of these other things.

You might want to think about what focus everything is in. As part of a wide focus I could be Building/Creating by trying to solidify the borders of a new country. In a more narrow focus I could be trying to claim control over a region. In a more narrow focus I could be trying to kill the warriors of a specific village. Etc. This system allows for different mechanics for dealing with different aspects of this goal, but where do you decide to do the play-by-play and when do you decide to allow a single macro decision rule the day?

[Troy_Costisick]

Well, this is not really a mechanic. This is just here to let the players know that they can request a scene where they can have some conflictless character to character interaction. This is just some loose role-playing, but has the specific purpose, to give the players an opportunity to express their characters's behaviour, feelings and relations in the game.

-What kind of character interaction might be conflictless? 

Some ideas for the mechanic: When engaging in the "building or creating" the player write down on the character sheet what the purpose of the creation is. There should also be a form of indicator of how complete the construction is. To build toward the completeness, the player have to make a number of skill and stats roll over a certain period of time.

-How does a player know/decide when to make rolls that advance this goal?  Are there trigger events that force rolls like this?

Some ideas for the mechanic: The basic of this mechanic is to find clues or pieces of information. The player can use a number of skills (or stats) to do this. The important thing is that the character will get some information no matter how the rolls turns out, so he will never be left without a lead and can therefor always continue the investigation; there will be consequences of a failed roll, though. A failed roll can lead to misdirections, unexpected twist of the plot, conflict with people that don't like that you dig forth this information or it can have some consequences for the final resolution of the investigation.

-Who gets to narrate the success or failure?

-I have a few other questions about your game.  You say it is traditional fantasy, but I'm not sure what you mean by that.  So, could you tell me:

1) What is your game really about?

2) What do the characters do during a session (or campaign) of your game?

3) What special techniques or play styles must the players engage in to get what they want?

Peace,

-Troy

[Anders Larsen]

Hi

mothlos,
You has some interesting thoughts here; I like you descriptions of passive vs. active world interaction. And I agree that "Role-playing" is not a good name for the mechanic. We actually chose another name for it, I just didn't remember correctly.

I can see there are something that I haven't explained properly. These mechanics can run in parallel, and some of them can be embedded in each other. Let me give a small example. A character want to "build" some propaganda. To do this he have to make different actions like, go around and persuade people, write and distribute rebellious papers, make public speeches and so on. In between these action, and in doing these actions, the character properly has to engage in conflict, general role-playing and investigations. So, for instance, if he want to turn a group of people to his cause in a debate, he have to use the social conflict mechanic to do this. With each of these actions he will get closer to the goal (start a rebellion).

Creations and investigations can take days (an for creations properly even longer). In many cases there will be no mechanical effect, the effect will be more something that happen in the game world. In the above example, where the character tries to create a rebellion, the effect of a success will be that he starts the rebellion. Of course you will sometimes create an actual object, that can have stats in the game.

The scope of these mechanics should be able to vary from narrow to broad, but they should not be too broad. "I want to conquerer the neighbouring kingdom" is to broad, and "I want to expose the king's spy network" may also be to broad, where "I want to build an army to besiege the capital of the neighbouring kingdom" and "I want to find who the kings local spy is" are more fitting. But this part of the mechanic is something we really haven't thought too much about yet.

I hope this answer you questions, if not, then just ask again.


Troy,

-What kind of character interaction might be conflictless? 

Conflictless character interactions are just that; the character are "just talking" without any tension going on. These scenes will properly be rather short, and can very well lead to conflicts, which then will be handled by the conflict mechanic. An example can be, that a character want to explain his feeling to another character, without having any other intention.

-How does a player know/decide when to make rolls that advance this goal?  Are there trigger events that force rolls like this?

My current idea is that, when the player decides on a goal, he also (with the GM) decides on what kind of roll he have to use to advance the goal. This is not very concrete, I know, but it is something we still haven't thought much about. So any ideas are welcome.

-Who gets to narrate the success or failure?

It will always be the GM that narrates the outcome (as it is now), it will also be him that decides witch consequences a failed roll should have.

And your last tree questions:

1)
This is hard to answer because the game is not very focused. But I hope this will help: The game is about normal people that, because of their role in the society - and their responsibility toward society - are forced to face complex problem, that can be hard to solve because of moral and political issues.

2)
The characters will engage in investigations, build recourses and face conflict to try to solve the problems they face (hence the mechanics).

3)
The intention with the described mechanics is to give the player tools so they better can get what they want. (I am not sure I understand this question, though).


Thanks for the questions, they have made me think more about what I haven't thought about yet.

- Anders