[sic] Why did they leave us.

[Christian Liberg]

MAN that rustled my tree.

Great input everybody, you blew me right out of my ordinary thinking, and gave me some great ideas, which i intend to go forward with.

I intend to still use the Faith tokens and perhaps the leadership token, but to key in some sort of despair mechanic as well, to give the system a feel for the desparation felt by priest's who's belief are starting to wane.

OKay will write up a short summary, just a little later, got to get some work done now

Chris

[Christian Liberg]

On the topic of Mechanics.

Ive done some thinking, but cant seem to get all the notches to fall into place. So im going to share my current thoughts with you guys, and see if i can get my ideas straight.

Having heard you all talk, im thinking about going for a GM less game ( of sorts ) where narrative changes constantly.

Their will be three stats Leadership, Faith and Despair. Presented respectively by Green, white and Black tokens ( poker chips sounds good, or simply cut out pieces of paper, with symbols on them )

Faith are used to lower difference in a conflict or situation that carries promise of failure or success, dealing with the priest directly. Leadership will are used to lower difference with any conflict on the henchmens behalf, plus giving the possibility of having henchmen/bodyguards. Despair tokens raise the difference in any conflict.

characters are created by assigning them a name. There is created one character less, than the total amount of players.

100 is divided with the total amount of Characters(players -1) which is the rating of any token. The ensuing percentage is the difficulty of any given conflict.

everytime a priest are directly involved in a conflict, the entire group chips in ( they can chip in either a black token or white token ) despair tokens raise the difficulty with a rating, white tokens lower them with a rating. Same for henchmen ( conflicts happen for henchmens as well ).

Every time a conflict happens, the narrator changes. it changes counter clockwise around the table ( or in some other predefined order ) it changes x number of persons counter clockwise, x being the number of despair tokens in the pot.

My intention was that the narrator takes over after the conflict is resolved for good or bad, and continues the story. Any conflict that fails, will give the priest a despair token. If a henchmen fails a conflict, the priest whom the henchmen works for gets a despair token.

every priest starts with 3 faith tokens 3 leadership tokens and no despair tokens.

Im having a whole lot of issues here, which i hope you guys can see me through.

• 1. there needs to be a reason why you simply can not accumulate despair, or at very horrible thing happens if you do.
• 2. What happens if a character runs out of tokens ( all 3 ) somewhat bleak story that would be.
• 3. im thinking that there should happen something at chapter change( replenishing faith or something, using faith points and leadership points to reap some sort of rewards, or to reward your henchmens, or even procure new ones.)
• 4. This is my first time ever, creating a somewhat GM less system, am i missing anything totally obvious.

If you see blatant blunders which i propably need to adress let me know

Chris

[Christian Liberg]

Vulpinoid wrote.

What do the parasites specifically do to the host, and how many ofthe dragons are there? Maybe the parasites magnify a specific dark urge within the host (leading to a "7 deadly sin" option)? Are their lines of mortal descendant connected to the dragons who have retained parasitic blood in their families?

If this was the case, you've got pre-determined cults dedicated to the dragons who instantly become the antagonists to the heroes.

Very interesting option there, could be that the dragons themselves has been the carrier of the parasite for centuries, and having amassed a cult long beforehand. But it was at the invention of the blood-infusion, the parasitic influence started to spread. Now whole tribes live of killing the dragons minion and selling the dragon blood to the highest bidder, some use it for fighting the dragons minions, some use it simply for the buzz, some use it for intensifying their own dark desires.

with 7 dragons, i also have names of the 7 dragons interesting twist, that would certainly do. Hmm im going to leave it hanging whether the parasite or the cardinal sin was there first. *evil grin*

Thanks for once again bumping my brain.

Christian

[Filip Luszczyk]

1.Maybe if Despair is X times higher than Faith, the character dies, is broken, joins the enemy or the like? This would make spending Faith a more difficult decision (e.g. sometimes personal sacrifice would have to be chosen), and it would encourage spending Despair to create adversity.

2.I think some way of replenishing tokens during the chapter could be good, but I'm not sure what to suggest.

3.Maybe at the end of the chapter everyone gains some number of tokens to award to other players? I'm not sure about spending Faith and Leadership for benefits would work well, as they are already used for that during the chapter - but what kinds of benefits do you have in mind?

4.Basically, you have rotating GM duty here - and it's probably the safest way to approach it, if you don't have much experience with other non-traditional models of handling GM functions in the game. Unless I'm missing something, what you have should work, I think.

Other thoughts:

I'm not sure if I follow the rule about changing the narrator x places.

[Anders Larsen]

Some thoughts and questions

I do not understand why you have one character less that players. Does the characters rotate between the players?

Every time a conflict happens, the narrator changes. it changes counter clockwise around the table ( or in some other predefined order ) it changes x number of persons counter clockwise, x being the number of despair tokens in the pot.

I also think this is a bit strange. What about it is the person who have used most despair tokens who gets to be narrator? If you do this you probably don't have to worry about accumulating despair tokens.

2. What happens if a character runs out of tokens ( all 3 ) somewhat bleak story that would be.
3. im thinking that there should happen something at chapter change( replenishing faith or something, using faith points and leadership points to reap some sort of rewards, or to reward your henchmens, or even procure new ones.)

I think you need a way for the players to earn tokens during a chapter. Maybe they can do this by setting up some problem for their own character, or maybe you can get token when you narrate certain things into the game (when it is your turn to narrate). This way there will be even greater motivation for the players to try to get the narration right.

4. This is my first time ever, creating a somewhat GM less system, am i missing anything totally obvious.

What you have to do is to distribute what the GM use to do between the players. Basically this is three things.

1. Set up the scene (or the conflict)
2. Take the part as the opponent in the conflict
3. Narrate the outcome of the conflict

It is important that a player do not do all these thing for his own character. What you should do is making some procedure that describe what player should do what.

It is also a good idea to make some rules for what it is possible to narrate. Especially, what can a player do with his own character and what can he do with the other players' characters.

- Anders

[Vulpinoid]

Let's say you divide the game into chapters.

During the first chapter you start with a set number of tokens, there are two differences that I'd make though. The first would be to throw in a despair token to every player indicating the shock at realising their god has left the world and it has fallen on them to bring the deity back.

The second would be to give every player an equal number of black and white tokens, each equal to the number of players in the game + 1. Then we throw in a communal pool with a few tokens of each colour. The combined total of all the tokens is representative of all the forces of destiny in the world.

If we work on the assumption that each player will face a confrontation in each scene, then this gives all players enough tokens to modify the difficulties of all the challenges faced by other players. These modifications can be applied without needing to reveal the chip pile to other players, so a certain player could apply penalties to everyone, but they'd rapidly run out of these negative chips.

Once everyone has faced a challenge, the chapter is over, and all players redraw a number of chips equal to the number of players (split evenly between black and white chips).

In this way the player who applies penalties to everyone all the time will encounter a problem. Eventually, they will find that they'll run out of negative karma to apply to people. They'll be forced to give bonuses.

So a strategic player will only apply penalties when effects would be detrimental to them, while giving out bonuses when they might be able to get a benefit from the result.

As for gaining tokens during the chapter, I guess that all depends how long the chapters are. If a chapter consists of multiple challenges, then this system would require a replenishment of tokens after each challenge.

As for despair...

A character may pick up a despair token every time they fail a challenge, and the more despair challenges they pick up, the more negative their outlook on life. As a result they may be forced to pick up more negative tokens from the pile when it's their chance to replenish the pool. This would also be symbolic of the dragon's growing influence in the world.

You could have a flip-side to despair, for this hypothetical example I'll call it "Confidence". The more successes you acquire, the more "Confidence" you pick up, and the more positive tokens you'd bee forced to draw, and this would reflect the renewed interest of the gods in the world.

Despair and "Confidence" could be spent to modify actions, but this is done openly and everyone knows about it. A character spends Despair as an act of desperation to bring back their gods or an act of rebellion to join the dragons. A character spends confidence to exert their specifc god's influence over the world. Each of these would have a dramatic impact on the game world, through working miracles, invoking natural disasters, etc.

If you aren't running a GM-player oriented game, you could have each chapter focused on a card drawn from a deck. Perhaps scenarios derived from the 22 major arcana of the tarot, a player draws a card to represent their specific confrontation for the round. Characters with lots of "Confidence" could face a challenge associated with the positive manifestation of the tarot card, characters with lots of Despair could face a challenge associated with the negative manifestation. A little research into these manifestations could reveal dozens of scenario ideas.

You could easily do the same with the 5 stages of grief, the 12 steps of the hero's journey, the 10 sephirot of the kaballah, the 8 trigrams of the taoist i-ching, the runes of the norse, etc...

These allow you to run a game with no need of a narrator at all.

Again, just ideas.

V

[Christian Liberg]

ON the moving narration and the missing character


The Oldest player starts as narrator, at this point in time he do not have a character!

During his narration, a conflict between an antagonist and a player sends 5 chips to the table, 2 faith and 3 despair tokens.

The current narrator ( still the oldest player ) now receives the charactersheet from the 3'rd character to the left. The current narrator now has the control of the situation, and depending on the outcome of the conflict, continues his narration. The players can interact with the narrator, in any way that would be normal for a player/gm interaction.


Rewards and Despair

If the conflict failed, a despair token was given to the character who lost the conflict. If any player made progress for his faith, he would be awarded a Faith Token, if he made progress for the uprising against the draconic rule, he would get a point of leadership.

This mechanic means that players will not per say, run a single character through the course of the game, hopefully focusing more on the story as the gathering point.

Im thinking that there should be two consequences for the rule of despair tokens.

one where you have double amount of despair tokens and one where you have 0 faith.
Id call them Taken by despair and Run out of faith

Taken by despair is the equivalent of turning to the dark side, while running out of faith demotes a once strong priest to a whimpering weak willed fool of a man. Im not sure if either one of these consequences should make the character leave the game though.

Im also thinking that a priest should be able to use leadership points to gain henchmens.

Character Death
If no henchmens are left, and a conflict's resolution causes a priest to be slain, the priest is dead, and that character leaves the story, but what should happen to the player??? should he now just play a new character or should he start some nefarious task or what?

chapters and conflicts
A chapter could have several conflicts, or just one.

ideas and inspiration
Im thinking of creating a mechanism"fade to black", which causes players other than the narrator to sacrifice a point of despair, and allow to end the chapter. Now they write a little note on a piece of post-it, with what happened at the end of the chapter, and what their idea would be for the continuance, and what good would become of it( for the group ). Now at any given time they can cash in their post-it and create a flashback scene. if any given conflict in this flashback scene is resolved successfully the player initiating the flash back gets a faith point. if any conflict are failed, the character initiating the flashback as well as the touched character, both are given a point of despair.

Hmmm perhaps im clunking it all up with to many mechanics. will try to to go back a bit and think mechanics again.

Chris


Im thinking that

[Björn K. Johansson]

hey really nice setting! Like the tokens! But about the "Fade to black" part. I agree that it may be a little to much. It is a great idea by the way.

//Björn

[Filip Luszczyk]

The lack of a single character is interesting here, although I think there's some risk of confusion as well.

Fade to black sounds neat.

[Christian Liberg]

Okay im throwing the towel into the ring. However i came close, but there is no way i will be able to have it done in 20 mins

So for now im going to throw it right here, and you can rip in it as you see fit, and hopefully i will have an actual game within the week.

Chris

Why did they leave us?

A while ago, the world was a great place to be. Sure there where orcs, and yes evil wizards roamed the land. Truth to be told the world was a dangerous place, but at least the gods listened to the worlds inhabitants. These days even the gods have forfeited the world.

A small germ infected the cerebral of the world's inhabitants. This went unattended by most, as the cerebral parasite, only grew to its full evolution, when it infected the brain of an age old grown dragon. The grown parasite fought a battle inside the draconic skull. A fight that lead the dragon to roar its rage, and rampages it surroundings.

After a so-called Draco rage, the dragon settled on a mountain, the cerebral parasite having taken to great a hold on the dragon.

Within few months several dragons followed suit. The dragons used much of their age grown innate abilities, to enslave people. Orcs, humans and even beholders can be found in the dragons employ. Dragons soon grew fat and secluded, tinkering with things not to be tinkered with.

Soon the most trusted in the dragons employ, appeared with a belt carrying vials. Vials of potent dragon blood, and with a single twist of the hand, the dragon blood would fill the veins and arteries of the trusted -- Blooded.

Little by little the dragons systematically killed of the gods chosen. Priest's clerics and their ilk were destroyed, burned asunder in their temples, their groves and their mosques. The gods turned their watchful eye from these lands.

What drives the dragons, and to what end, they use the world for, no one knows, but now most of the world are enslaved by a few score of millennia old dragons, and their implant augmented followers.

A few people stand their ground, using the arcane arts and martial prowess to fight the oppressive rule of the dragons. In a world where even the gods have left, they stand as beacons of hope for the world.

You are such a beacon.

This game is a fantasy cyberpunk amalgamation game. It can be run with as little as three players, but would benefit from more players.

It is set in the world of Argoa, a world of until recently free elves, dwarves and many a roaming monster. Dragons where few in numbers, and seldom seen. The land was fertile and even the heavens smiled on the face of Argoa.

Not so any more, the dragons rule the world with an iron fist. The dragon's minions are all blooded carrying several vials of potent dragon blood, ready to unleash the exhilarating power of the draconic blood, into their blood streams.

Rules of the game
The game revolves around faith, despair and leadership. Priest's fighting for faith, the faith of a god who has forgotten them. The game only has 3 stats, namely Faith, Despair, and Leadership. These stats are constantly and interchangeably used, to create the full story of the humble priests in the lands of Argoa.

Difficulty: Each conflict are resolved by a percentile roll, at a difficulty, decided on by the characters by the use of their Faith, Despair and Leadership tokens.

Faith: Faith is a measure of the priest's conviction, and used in several ways to alter the conflicts that affect the priest. For each point of faith put in the pot, the Difficulty lowers a Rating.

Despair: Despair is the measure of the world's grim brutality, the strength of the priest's voice, who says, that he is fighting a futile battle. Despair is like faith, in the way that despair changes any conflict, the priest comes in to, but in a negative way. If a despair rating rise to double that of faith, a priest is taken by despair.

Leadership: Leadership is how the free races of Argoa see the priest, with a high Leadership, they are viewed as saviors. With a low leadership, they are viewed no better than any other riff raff. Leadership also changes the way conflicts, act out, but to a much lesser degree than faith and despair. Leadership also determines how many people currently follow the priest around, acting as bodyguards. A leadership token lowers the difficulty with half a rating

Rating: At start of the game the number 100 is divided by the number of players, this number constitutes a rating. This rating equals the bonus or penalty on the difficulty, conveyed by each sacrificed faith or despair token.

Narrative: The narrator grant shifts around after each conflict. The level of despair, as defined by the numbers of despair tokens in the pot (see resolution), when a player has the role of the narrator, he does not control a character.

Resolution: At any given conflict, the players secretively put from 0 to 2 tokens in the pot. Any combination of tokens can be places in the pot, except a leadership token and a faith token.

Pot:  Some sort of container, which hides the content from the players.

Running out of faith: if a person comes to 0 faith he is said to have run out of faith, this causes the priest to become selfdestructive, putting him at risk of death. If a priest have 0 in faith and 0 in leadership, the priest is dead, and the player should narrate the story of his death, in a manner befitting the world of Argoa.

Taken by despair: When a character has double the amount of despair, than he has faith, he is taken by despair.  When a priest is taken by despair, he can not use faith or leadership points, until such a time as he has a higher rating in faith than in despair.

Creating the Characters
Character creation is simply assigning a name to your priest, and you are done. Each starting character gets 5 faith tokens 5 leadership tokens and one despair token.

Each character has undergone a tragic event, at the loss of his faith, hence the single point of despair.



The game roughly follows the monomyth's 5 sections. Each section

The call for adventure
A road of trials
Achieving the goal
A return to the real world
Application of the boon

[Filip Luszczyk]

Hey, check out the new deadline given in the Entries thread. There's still a few hours available (provided you are ready to sacrifice the night, heh).

[Filip Luszczyk]

Ok, now that I'm not under the pressure of the deadline, I gave it a closer look. What you have now looks like it's taking an interesting direction, and I'm waiting for the complete version.

For now, I think you could improve the wording a bit and reorganize the glossary (i.e. Rating before concepts that refer to it, and the like). In the final layout, it might be a good idea not to put the glossary before the rules, but for example in a frame next to the rules.

[Christian Liberg]

Hey Filip.

thanks for the once over. Im working to get it done, although not at the feverish pace of the SIC contest ( if there is another contest, count me in )

I have gotten a good deal of feedback and in a week i think my ideas have really changed.

I will post the game version 0.9 soon, as soon as i get it all done

Chris

[Christian Liberg]

Not really [sic] anymore, but im still running along with the game.

I intend to create the game following the monomyth, dividing the story being told in 5 specific sections

1. the call to adventure
2. The road of trials
3. Getting the boon
4. A return to the ordinary world.
5. Application of the boon.

It is my intention that for the last 4 sections of the story, the players themselves should decide how many chapters should be in each section, by using despair tokens. if for instance they used 4 tokens there would be 4 chapters. at the start of each chapter, im thinking a chart which players could roll on, and then decide how the specific chapter plays out, by the resolution system and the different narrators. Im thinking a chart with 3 parts. Setting/Element/Foe, and at three die rolls, you would get a somwehat large portion of possibilities.

for instance
1. Marketplace / Weight / Orc
2. Dirt road / Dead animal / Dragon

I intend each section to have their own charts, so if you rolled 1, 2, 1 on the section "road of trials" and 1,2,1 on the section "getting the boon" you should have enough possibilities to replay the game quite a few times.

But im kinda at a halt, with the different chapter possibilities of the different sections.

Could you guys help me out here? i would really want to get this one done, now that im soclose.

christian

[Filip Luszczyk]

The idea of random elements charts sounds interesting. However, I'm not sure if there's any good way to assign different charts to different sections. Basically, you could have any motifs and elements in any section, I think. Maybe you could group them by general mood that they communicate or something like that, but this could be tricky (different people will incorporate the results in different ways, anyway). Otherwise, maybe you could do with one big set of charts for all sections, and instead have some specific interpretation guidelines for each section?