[ENOCH] Indy game needs love

[ChadDubya]

Eric, thanks for taking a look!

I had hoped that my introduction on pg 4 would suffice, but looking at it, I may have not been as straight forward as I could have been. So for your benefit, here goes:

In Enoch, you get to kill monsters (Ancients, Drones, Sentinels, Chimeras, Swan) and take their stuff, discover evil cults (Halcyon Society, The Locust, Omicron, the Cult of Cassandra) moments before either being eaten by a god (Rintrah or one of his twisted shards) or turning gibbering insane (or turned into a mindless pawn of an AI god), all over the buried or drowned streets of America a millennium after The Fall of Man.

If there is one thing I really think is compelling about the Enoch setting, is that there is a machine Hell living underground, the leftovers of the old world. Not only that, but in Hell thrives Demons (AI). Sorcerers (hackers) use sorcery (gestural interface) to bind and crush demons. Inversely, Demons can implant slave nodes in minds of the primitive rabble who walk into their domain, creating Drones. Drones can be freaks ala Frankenstien, or immaculate prophets of a machine god who lure more primitive rabble into "the presence of God."

I admit I'm not breaking the mold, here. Just providing new scenery and stories to your classic RPG romps.

[Eric Provost]

Just providing new scenery and stories to your classic RPG romps.

Cool, man.  I can dig that.  So now, here's a serious question that I don't want you to mistake for a put-down;  Why didn't you just write up setting material for an existing game?

To put it another way; Does the Spheres system uphold the setting material you've created better than another system could?  Or were there other motivations in creating your own system?  Like, were you addressing something that you specifically did not like in other games you've played?  If so, what were those mechanisms that you didn't like and wanted to address?

-Eric

[ChadDubya]

Good question(s).

Before I had developed Enoch or the Sphere system, I had decided that I wanted to create a complete game, system & setting. The system & setting were co-developed at the same time... in fact, much of the setting was derived from questions raised during the system making process. An example: my buddy and I sat down and thought of different uses for every possible Sphere combination... occasionally, we hit speed bumps. One was Technology + Presence. In what situation would such a combination be useful?

I mean, you can't talk to machines, right? (insert light-bulb)

That's when we decided that Sig (an ancient gestural interface) would be used to command demons (computers). This gestural interface demanded that a user would be tech savvy (Technology), but also have the control and poise (Presence) to correctly gesture command lines in the demons' contractual, IF->THEN language. Suddenly, the hacker resembled a mystic, or even a Sorcerer.

So to directly answer your first question, I feel that Enoch's system and setting are inseparable. Had I simply written a setting for an existing system, I don't think that setting would resemble this one. To that end, I am very happy with Enoch's setting.

[Filip Luszczyk]

Chad,

I've given your game a closer look. I think you have a lot of cool stuff in terms of setting and atmosphere in there, but the system itself looks rather uninspired to me (however, I don't dig "traditional" games at all, so you can just as well take what I write with a grain of salt).

As for your question about the audience, it all depends. The thing is there is no such thing as an audience for "traditional" games really, as there is actually a lot of diversity among these, and different people dig different things even among "traditional" gamers. So, I can safely take "traditional" on your side as a mental shortcut, meaning "working the way I'm used to", I think. However, it's impossible to create a game that would appeal to everyone. I suppose it would be better to settle on some more specific target audience and write the game with its needs in mind, or simply write the game for yourself and hope people with similar needs find it eventually.

You mention unique game mechanics in your promotional blurb - be careful with it. Once you move into "an open sea", such claims will draw people's attention, and if the game doesn't live up to the author's promises, it will be brutally torn apart by an angry mob. Personally, I don't find the system itself unique in any way (but generally, "traditional" is kind of like an opposite of "unique").

Also, you refer to the mechanics in your setting chapter numerous times, before introducing the mechanics themselves - such forward referencing is rarely a good idea.

Anyway, it's your game, and it's your choice what to do with it, but I can only second the suggestion about using another game's system for the setting. Your feeling of inseparability of system and setting is, I think, rooted in the "traditional" mentality, as you seem to look for system that strengthens various aspects of the setting by providing a mechanical representation for them (e.g. the Sig example). However, most of such things you could just as well treat as color and use a system that would support the underlying themes of the setting better, without going into detailed representation of anything in terms of character's effectiveness.

For example, although I wouldn't play the game as it is, I could use the setting with Dogs in the Vineyard system. The rebellion theme is pretty strong. Instead of thinking up their rebels' breaking points, players would play them out as initiatory conflicts - this would give them much more impact. Then, instead of Dogs coming into a sin-infested town and passing their judgment, I'd have rebels encountering a community that faces some issues and deciding how things could be changed and whether the change is worth it. DitV uses freeform traits system that can be adapted to any setting without doing any real convertion work, so I could have everything featured by Enoch's system without writing a single new rule.

Now, I like the setting. There's a lot of awesome things in there, although I personally prefer more concise settings (I've shown the blurb to a friend, and he was like "Cool, I could run a game right away using the blurb only.")

However, I feel kind of a disconnect between the picture painted by the blurb and the picture painted by the book itself. When I read the blurb, I see a world of distant future, completely reshaped and not resembling the world of today in any way - more like a biblical postapocalyptic fantasy set in the future than a typical postapocalyptic setting. When I read the book I see a postapocalyptic America (why is it always America that falls and rises again, geez...) and names that bring Greyhawk to my mind.

My suggestion is, drop the references to America, and make it a truly new world with no connection to any nation or geographical region of the past. Like, a young continent shaped from the ruins of what once was by the wars and still largely unexplored.

As for the names, I think Republic of Lewis, Kingdom of McChord, Aircrash Mountain, The Scablands and the like don't fit the biblical theme at all - and frankly, they sound cheesy to me. I'd suggest dropping such bland names and making them all feel more biblical (names in the lines of Kingdom of Zohar and the like).

I think it would strengthen and improve the overall atmosphere of the setting.

[Michael Bethencourt]

Really cool game you have there, Chad!

As for the names, I think Republic of Lewis, Kingdom of McChord, Aircrash Mountain, The Scablands and the like don't fit the biblical theme at all - and frankly, they sound cheesy to me. I'd suggest dropping such bland names and making them all feel more biblical (names in the lines of Kingdom of Zohar and the like).

I think it would strengthen and improve the overall atmosphere of the setting.

I'd have to agree that introducing a stronger Old Testament flavor would definitely improve it's already very good atmosphere. I usually ignore most mechanics whenever I play RPG's, and are generally most interested in the setting and atmosphere. Thus, your game Enoch is very appealing to me--a nice blend of superstition and cyberpunk elements.

I'd recommend going to the source and reading up on the book itself: http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/index.htm Equally of interest would be any of the Old Testament gnostic apocrypha, such as 2nd Enoch. There's a lot of good material in there. For fantasy material, canonical scriptures tend to be more mundane, partly because they are much more well-known, and partly because the fantastic elements of apocryphal works are often the very elements that earned them their rejection.

[ChadDubya]

Filip,

Thanks for your lengthy and thoughtful evaluation of Enoch. I wouldn't argue with your take on "traditional" systems. The Sphere system has numbers and knobs typical to many systems. The Sphere system's implementation of those has been refreshing to some, and (clearly) milquetoast to others. Additionally, I agree with some of your concerns about the setting. Much of the setting's quirks were intentional. In naming factions and locales, I was always concerned with names sounding too flowery, pretentious, and like a White Wolf rip-off. In naming, I went for simple words for simple people (the denizens of Enoch, not my readers! ). Anyways, I am pleased that you found a kernel of goodness here and there, and will consider your criticisms for my next project. Thanks much!

Mike,

In fact, I have read the book of Enoch, and my game's setting is very loosely based on events in that apocrypha. Thanks for taking a look, and thanks for the compliments. (FYI, nearly every single word in the Old Testament has been claimed by White Wolf. I was concerned that if I piled on the OT material too thick, I may have run into a copyright issue ).

[Eric Provost]

Chad,

Awesome answers.  I am convinced that Enoch could not be played properly with another system.

Have you had a chance to play it much?  I'm curious about how your play experience has been with it so far.

[ChadDubya]

Eric,

Admittedly, there hasn't been a lot of play-testing. At least not in any campaign sense. Me, two buddies, and my 14 year old nephew gave it a few spins with good results (ended up patching a few clunky mechanics, etc.) A few observations about the Sphere system in action:

-Physical and Mental fatigue are used to activate powers and combat maneuvers. But they had a secondary function... more so than HP or supplies, fatigue paced the adventure. Shortly after scenes of wanton action or violence, the PCs had low fatigue levels. They made it a point to do the necessary things to regain fatigue (find shelter, rest, meditate). The ebb and flow of frantic action and restorative calm seemed really organic, and conducive to story telling. Admittedly, this effect was accidental.

-Deathblow is the crux of combat. It happened a lot in every encounter. Still, every time someone activated it, we all held our breath. Deathblow does double damage, but leaves you defenseless (meaning that if your deathblow didn't just kill your target, he was gonna' deathblow you right back, now that your defense is down). Every combat was a nail-biter, and rarely lasted longer than 3 turns. Combat was really deadly, but not necessarily lethal. Most combatants fell unconscious before their HP hit 0, meaning that they were incapacitated/KO'd at the end of combat, instead of dead. And really, unconscious foes presented some interesting moral situations. Do I finish the job? Do I tie him up and leave him to the wolves? Do I give him mercy? Those decisions really brought out how the moral actions of PCs might resonate... and how treatment of enemies may create rifts in the PC party. Again, another accidental design feature.

I have not had the chance to run an Enoch campaign yet. While the basic mechanics have been rigorously tested, I have not seen high end Talents, EXP, Vows, or Ordeals in action. I game with a few people who are interested in trying Enoch out. I hope to run the game for several sessions to get a feel for those unexplored concepts. I also hope to get feedback from others who may have tried playing the game.

[Eric Provost]

Chad,

Do you think you remember enough about the sessions you have played to write up a little bit about it in the Playtesting forum?  If you do, an interesting writeup about the things that went right and wrong during the playtests might just get some more good attention for your design.

I like the idea that characters are more likely to fall unconsious than die.  As nothing more than a personal preference, I really dislike it when the only way to win or loose a combat is with someone's death.  Because eventually that means that the PCs are gonna fall, and there's rarely any way to ensure the PCs' deaths are properly meaningful.

But capture, now that's awesome.