Ether-using jedi in a steampunk world experiencing the information revolution!

[Earthling]

First of all, let me introduce myself - my name is Harri Sarsa, and I hail from the barren, frozen wasteland of southern Finland. Hello to everyone.

Now, the topic seems like the title for a bad fanfiction crossover, but the word "jedi" is probably the easiest way to describe what's going on. Bear with me.

So, a game is in the works. I'm drawing some of the basic spin from Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine: basically, Charles Babbages perfected his difference engine (a form of computer) already in early 1800s, and this, combined with other technological breakthroughs (bolt-action rifles, revolvers, perhaps even an internal combustion engine), resulted in Great Britain becoming a true superpower. Though still ruled by a monarch, they have adopted a parliament, and aren't hell-bent on dominating everyone else on the planet. Their meddling in the affairs of America did result in a fractured country, with such curiosities as the communist enclave on Manhattan headed, among others, by Karl Marx. The world is by no means finished yet, and I'm keeping it open on purpose, so as to keep a "fluid" game world as the campaign progresses. Also, there just might have to be dinosaurs in Africa. Lost cultures aren't ruled out either.

As for the players, they are members of the Order of the Knights Templar, resurgent under the Anglican Church. Bastions of the Free World, their paladins, seers and other members work as a semi-autonomous entity under the Church and Crown, working as spies, diplomats, soldiers, explorers - basically, anything the Jedi order might have its members do.

Since Jedi would be kind of dorky without the Force, we're having our guys manipulate ether, which is real and permeates everything. Light and radiowaves propagate through it, heck, it can even be relativistic if needed. The main point is that people who are attuned to it achieve Matrix-esque powers: improved strength, speed, endurance is the most common "power", but ether can be manipulated in a myriad of ways. If it seems cool and appropriate, someone probably can do it, or at least the knowledge is out there.

As for the game's themes, we're going with a sort of gritty game world - our paladins have real psychological problems, it's not always so easy to fix a problem, and the Order's sense of right might leave something to be desired at points. As the campaign progresses, I'm envisioning a facist regime taking over in England and in the Order. Yet even their goals aren't necessarily evil - the ether-users ARE more intelligent and objective than normal men, and thus it's a very reasonable argument that they could rule the world in peace. If you've read the Legacy of the Force series, their version of what the Sith ideology actually means is a pretty good starting point.

As for rules, I'm a bit stumped. Our group has experimented with various Forge ideas from early this year; we even had someone throw us a demo session of Shadows of Yesterday to showcase how conflict resolution works in practice. Clearly, the idea of stakes has some merit, but I'm not so convinced that they always have to be discussed on a meta level to ensure "fairness". If there's a gentleman's agreement that the players don't try to mess up the GM's plans and the GM tries to maximize the players' enjoyment, I don't see why I need to know the exact ramifications of a failed or succeeded roll when I'm taking a shot at the senator's car. It's fun to be surprised at times. However, a player should be allowed to initiate a discussion of the stakes if he so wishes; I'm just saying that one doesn't have to always sacrifice immersion when a roll is made. Also, I don't understand why such rigid rules are required to tell who gets to describe an event and who has dramatic control over the story's direction - isn't it better that such descriptions and decisions are made collectively, as a group, with everyone pitching in ideas and letting someone with a vision (I suppose often the GM) take the reins when needed?

Now, 7th Sea has a pretty clever die rolling mechanic for a traditional RPG - throw stat+skill worth of d10s, then keep stat amount of the dice and add them together to get the final result. Surpassing the Target Number has no effect per se; one has to voluntarily Raise the TN before the roll to work in for example speed or silence when picking a lock (this affects, of course, implied or explicit stakes), and if the higher TN is failed, the whole roll fails. Nice bit of high-risk drama there.

However, is revamping the skill system (which is kind of horrible) and approaching the game with a more conflict resolution inclined mindset enough to make it work, or does one need something else? For combat, we're quite confident in our abilties to construct an enjoyable minigame based on the rules, but apart from the extended (or whatever it's in the English version) conflict resolution system in Shadows of Yesterday, are there any "modern" mechanics that allow for actual tactics in a wider variety of situations than just martial combat? It would be nice to have a system where the stakes of a combat (or even any conflict) could be other than death or injury without having to do it in a roundabout way ("If any player sustains a Dramatic Wound (7th Sea mechanical term), the bad guys escape")? My friend surmised that creating a tactical system for anything else than combat would be extremly hard if not impossible, since there are thousands of combat systems and very few social conflict resolution systems (that require tactical thinking, i.e. that are "minigames"), and they're all kind of bad. Are we correct in our assumption, or have you found a way?

Also, ether use requires rules. A classical approach would be bonus dice for skills when boosted by ether manipulation, or perhaps a reserve of abstract points that can fuel effects within broadly defined concepts ("heat manipulation"), with the number of points required varying on a case-by-case basis. Any other ideas?

I guess that's most of what I'd like input on. I'm sure I've been less than clear at parts, feel free to ask questions, and thank you for your replies.

[Earthling]

Since editing has been turned off, I'll just reply quickly:

Psychological things, trauma, succumbing to temptations and so on are planned to be a big part of the game. Are there any good mechanics for those that enhance the experience? I'd like something a bit more sophisticated than World of Darkness' Willpower system.

I was toying with the idea of using SoY-style Keys to give the characters' trauma and other charasteristics some actual substance beyond flavor text, but my players felt opposed to the idea of uneven experience points (and it seems a bit crude mechanic to use the player's want for teh XP to guide character actions, even if appropriate), so maybe some other reward would be in placed. Or not; one player said that it feels a bit guilty to always drag the story to a situation where experience points can be had, even when it is the function of the Keys to give direction to the story. Of course, we're not playing a growth story like SoY anyway, so trying to use Keys as they appear there might be a bit hazardous.

[oliof]

As for the game's themes, we're going with a sort of gritty game world - our paladins have real psychological problems, it's not always so easy to fix a problem, and the Order's sense of right might leave something to be desired at points. As the campaign progresses, I'm envisioning a facist regime taking over in England and in the Order. Yet even their goals aren't necessarily evil - the ether-users ARE more intelligent and objective than normal men, and thus it's a very reasonable argument that they could rule the world in peace.

This half-paragraph says "Dogs in the Vineyard" to me, so that might be a set of rules to mine for ideas, too. It doesn't have any hard or fast rules for metaphysical/magical stuff, but since it has been used with success for a fantasy adaptation and a star wars adaptation, it might not be as far off the mark as might seem at first glance.

Stakes negotiation in TSoY can be handled very implicitly. The way it's laid out in the book makes it quite clear that the rules are the way to open communication, but that doesn't mean there are no mysteries and secrets whatsoever.

For psychological effect, you might want to look into Nemesis, which combines Greg Stolze's One Roll Engine with Unknown Armies' Madness Meters.

[Earthling]

This half-paragraph says "Dogs in the Vineyard" to me, so that might be a set of rules to mine for ideas, too. It doesn't have any hard or fast rules for metaphysical/magical stuff, but since it has been used with success for a fantasy adaptation and a star wars adaptation, it might not be as far off the mark as might seem at first glance.

Hmm, I'll have to look into it. That was the one with the conflict escalation mechanic? It seems like an interesting idea, but I'm not sure if I want to base the entire conflict resolution mechanic around it.

Stakes negotiation in TSoY can be handled very implicitly. The way it's laid out in the book makes it quite clear that the rules are the way to open communication, but that doesn't mean there are no mysteries and secrets whatsoever.

Yeah, I suppose. Maybe our test session (which was only 2-3 hours of actual play) just went to a somewhat weird tangent, given how our "creative agenda" (if that's the correct term) didn't match with that of the GM completely (why the heck does my vampire need to start an extended (still haven't bothered to look up the term conflict with some semi-random maiden in the castle to kill her; clearly the GM had us on a different power level than we assumed).

And even if stakes are negotiated implicitly, it seems strange that the trend is for the rules to dictate the direction of the narrative so rigidly (i.e. player one gets to describe what happens to the GM's character, and the GM doesn't have any say in it). Sure, everyone can pitch in ideas, but someone always has the final say. It seems that this turns the game more into a battle of opposing interests: the player and the GM have different ideas of how they want the story to go, and they express these ideas through PCs/NPCs. When these ideas clash, the different parties have a conflict, with the winner's idea of the story getting through, and the rest having to make do with what has happened. It seems like an awfully limiting structure for the drama, and requires more meta play than I'm comfortable with (is it in line with my idea of the drama that I start this conflict and succeed in it, even if the character would probably want it?). But maybe I digress.

For psychological effect, you might want to look into Nemesis, which combines Greg Stolze's One Roll Engine with Unknown Armies' Madness Meters.

<rant>One Roll Engine? I'm sorry, but yech. I never got the point of having "speed" as a defining factor in all story-telling rolls (so my Jump roll was speedy, yey - I guess I got over the chasm... quicker than the rest of the party?); it seems that the clever idea of handling all combat things with one roll had to be forcefully extended into the storytelling system. And yey, flat extra XP in Godlike for Hyperbrain power. Me no like.</rant>

Still, the Madness Meter might have some merit, I'll have to look into it. Thanks.

[oliof]

If you don't happen to like the escalation mechanics, the town creation from DitV rules could help you find a process of creating interesting situations for your etherite paladins. That said, if you want a more free-flowing game that's still alike to TSoY, look for Fate, especially Spirit of the Century. The previous version of the Fate rules inspired the revised edition of TSoY, so there is a shared gene or two. Spirit of the Century is geared towards pulp games, so it might be a good start from the get-go.

Nemesis was primarily mentioned because of the madness meters and because it's available for free; I could as easily have pointed out Unknown Armies.

[tj333]

For social combat Burning Wheel/Empire/Sands does a good job of it.
Burning Sands has some of the rules on who this is done and is available online. The system is likely that you will end in a compromise where everyone gets a bit of what they want.
The scripting sheets should help you understand what its about. Basically each side picks what they want out of the conflict they they have a number of "hot points" called the body of argument that is based on their skill in the Duel of Wits and their will. The stronger the person believes about the cause the larger their body of argument is.


If you like stakes but don't think they should be used all the time then do something like bringing Down the Pain where players/GM can choose to add stakes to something when they think it is appropriate.
Burning ___ somewhat does conflict resolution/stakes done implicitly by the following rules:
Say yes or Roll the Dice.
Either the players do what they want to or the rules are used to figure it out. This mainly removes trivial die rolls.
Let it Roll
Unless things change only one attempt per thing. This lets things be decided.
Rolls are done with an intent or why. I'm jumping the pit, you jump it. I'm jumping the pit to escape the monster, roll the dice.


Speed in ORE is the initiative system, at least in Wild Talents. Works rather nicely in that regard and is ignored in most others.

Clearly, the idea of stakes has some merit, but I'm not so convinced that they always have to be discussed on a meta level to ensure "fairness". If there's a gentleman's agreement that the players don't try to mess up the GM's plans and the GM tries to maximize the players' enjoyment, I don't see why I need to know the exact ramifications of a failed or succeeded roll when I'm taking a shot at the senator's car. It's fun to be surprised at times. However, a player should be allowed to initiate a discussion of the stakes if he so wishes; I'm just saying that one doesn't have to always sacrifice immersion when a roll is made. Also, I don't understand why such rigid rules are required to tell who gets to describe an event and who has dramatic control over the story's direction - isn't it better that such descriptions and decisions are made collectively, as a group, with everyone pitching in ideas and letting someone with a vision (I suppose often the GM) take the reins when needed?

I feel off topic here so I'll keep it short. Let me know if you want it expanded.
What about the player's plans and the GM's fun?
The GM is just another player. There is precedence for him making the plans and looking after the other players fun but that is not the way it has to be.
I'd say one reason stakes works well in the Shadow of Yesterday because the players have plans too (Their keys.) and in Dogs because the GM shouldn't have a plan on how the town goes. In Capes all that really helps keeps things fun and friendly between the players since their is no GM.

As for who takes the reins in decision making that is what the rigid rules do. As far as I recall TSoY and Dogs in the Vineyard systems are open to taking suggestions from other people despite the rigid form of deciding who say what.
If the GM is more of just another player then some rules addressing that are a good thing.
Or another point of view is that it can be fun to mix things up just because it makes things different.


What this comes down to is thinking about the play experience that different mechanics cause and how those would fit into the kind of game that you are making.

[Earthling]

Thanks to oliof for suggesting Spirit of the Century, it seems to be very much what we're looking for. Requires some tweaking to fit our exact setting, but that's to be expected. We're going to use a separate Ether skill and tag several other Stunts as (Ether), allowing the characters (all of whom have the ether-user aspect) to use Fate Points on any roll where they apply the stunt.