Victorian Horror Game

[Grujav]

My wife and I are working on a new game. Not the original game we were working on, because that exploded during its first playtest which may lead to two separate games. This game is gothic horror set in Victorian era school. We've started up a livejournal which has musings on design, the supernatural and of course the mechanic.

The mechanic is using a tarot deck. Number equals success or failure of declared action, suit determines the feel of that success or failure, orientation of the card brings about positive or off side affects and major arcana illicit the supernatural. The tarot deck is also modified during character creation as each player and the GM chooses a card to represent them. These cards form another smaller deck which is used for narrative control. Possibly orientation of this deck of cards as they are revealed could mean something as well.

Anyways, enough boring you in post, here's the link:
http://phasmatis.livejournal.com/

[Sydsquicious]

Matt forgot to add that what we're hoping for is general feedback/thoughts etc.  We've been working on the game conceptually for a few months now, but this past week and a half we have finally begun getting what we feel is a coherent first draft going so are also now ready to hear what other people think of what we are working on.

Feedback either here or there is great, we check both so fire away if you have the time!

Thanks a ton in advance!

Kim

[Grujav]

Whoops, Kim pointed out my ID here is of an older variety. Its me, Matt Schlotte from Atarashi Games.

[Callan S.]

Hi Matt,

The forge is a workplace, if you've chosen to respect the community you post at you'll need to be working on something right in this post. What are you working on that you might like help with? That orientation of the deck possibly meaning something - hows work on that going?

[Sydsquicious]

Hi Callan;

Outside of the baiting nature of the respect comment, we sure do appreciate the interest in giving some feedback.   The reason Matt posted it as a link is due to the magnitidue of information on the journal.  Having seen others link larger amounts of information in the past it was actually my suggestion that Matt post it as a link rather than as a full blast of information so that it could be read in a more linear and less congested manner.  That said, we'd both be happy to cross post here.

Kim 

[Sydsquicious]

We really got some momentum going with regards to Pantaloons & Poltergeists, our 'inspired by, but not the same as Panty Explosion' game.

Pantaloons & Poltergeists, in a nutshell, is the gothic horror game of school girls set in the Victorian era. It will be focused on exploration of classical horror genre conventions and legends through cooperative narration. The mechanics will be enacted through tarot cards.

Beyond that, we will be focusing some efforts on the spiritualist movement of the time period, as well the sufferage movement that was just beginning to gain some momentum.

Much to my chagrin and excitement I'm tentatively taking on the artwork for the project; mostly due to the manner that we have decided to do the game play example narrative. More on that later.

[...]

one of the current things I'm working on is creating an example of play fluff that will be one of the connected and primary themes through out the entirety of the book.  At least that's the current plan.  That being said, here's a bit of background on the girls that people will be stepping into the lives of, and the subsequent example of play/example of narrative:

In Panty Explosion, the school girls were mostly mundane with the psychic girls being the rare wild cards.  In this universe each girl (actually each person) will have a special latent 'something' about them.  Not something earth shattering, but something special that makes them unique.  While not expressly supernatural, there is a supernatural element to them in that each of the girls will have a guardian angel (Victorians were very big on angels), and in situations of tension, duress or excitement, these guardian angels might up the anty and invoke this ability.  Examples Matt and I have come up with are 'she knows exactly where things go, a kind of innate sense of belonging'; this would of course come in handy when the girls are in a high tension search for clues and the girl with that ability notices that something is out of place or not where it belongs.  Another example of a potential ability that I am scamming from a book I read a while ago is a girl with a compulsion to give items to people with no idea why.  She might wake up in the middle of the night and feel the need to give a friend a shoelace, and that might be due to some event that will happen where the friend will need it.  The range of abilities is limited by two things: gm approval (to avoid the something special being something catastrophic to the game continuity) and the imagination.

Onwards...

In the example of play, Matt and I have been dreaming up a young woman (unnamed as of yet), we believe approximately 15 years in age who is a rampant doodler/sketch book junky.  She constantly is drawing and doodling and her ability is that every now and then things appear in her sketches that she hadn't intended to draw.  She knows when it's happened and those things are frequently harbingers that need to be payed attention to.   Her sister Beatrice (13 years maybe?) is the only person she speaks openly about the pictures and the supernatural elements.  The drawings I do will in essence be the drawings that she is doing and subsequently writing home about.  Notes will be put in the margins as well, and the letters she writes home to Beatrice will be accompanying bits of fluff art/graphical content.

Barry made the clever suggestion that the drawings and letters be joined together that way and it seems like a great approach to illustrating the way that the powers can manifest.

That being said, any initial thoughts or ideas about what we have going with regards to the powers?

Also, what other sorts of graphical fluff/charts and chart charts seem like they might be appropriate?

[...]

"How great the dignity of the soul, since each one has
from his birth an angel commissioned to guard it."
- St. Jerome

One of the big things we are hoping to incorporate into character creation is the presence of Guardian Angels as the conduit of the supernatural talent of the character and how it ends up coming into play. 

One of the interesting and even fortuitous aspects of Angels is they can be traced pretty much throughout civilization as we know it, predating monotheism and Christianity even.  Even the Babylonians and Assyrians were prone to belief in Angels that act as guardians and muses.  At the point that Christianity arose, Angels took on aspects of both guardianship and wrath and in essence became intermediaries for God.

"Angels transcend every religion, every philosophy, every creed.
In fact angels have no religion as we know it ...their existence precedes
every religious system that has ever existed on earth."
- St. Thomas Aquinas

That being said, what we are hoping to do is pretty much envelope all these aspects of Angels and initially at least use the Christian Angel Pantheon for people to choose which Angel they fall under (and perhaps address it as an Angel that falls under the Arch Angels is the actual Guardian so that they can be personalized by the player if desired).

Right now we are not sure how active versus representative the Angels will be, but we have considered the possibility of allowing for relationships (iconic worship via talismans, prayer etc.) to have some broader effect on the invocation or appearance of supernatural powers.  Any suggestions on how it might be worked in would be greatly appreciated, though I suspect that Matt will need to post the actual tarot card mechanics for that to make any sense or for people to be able to consider it as a larger issue.

Anyways, I'm tossing up the (small) list of angels that I've compiled to be added into the character creation thus far for peoples characters to be aligned with.  I'd be curious as to what sort of power talents people would think would be appropriate to each of these angels.

Arch Angel Michael
As the highest ranking angel among Gods legions, he is one that everyone knows.  He protects the good and the innocent.  In essence, he's the warrior angel that defends light and goodness.

Arch Angel Gabriel
He's the harbinger, both good and bad.  He bears knews, has knowledge, is basically the empath among angels.  Both creative and mystical, I'm not sure yet where Gabriel should fall within the pantheon as far as which 'talents' would be best represented by him.

Arch Angel Raphael
Raphael is Florence Nightengale of the angels.  He basically is in charge of manifesting health, healing and energy.  Medical miracles are often associated with him.

Arch Angel Haniel
The angel of love, harmony and companionship, Haniel is very much the social angel.  Haniel was dubbed "the glory and grace of God" and is associated with sustaining and loving friendship, romance as well as beauty and grace.  Seems almost like a replica of Venus in a lot of ways.

Arch Angel Uriel
Uriel is the bringer of peace.  Whether personal peace or encompassing peace, Uriel takes pain and violence and with it creates wisdom, understanding and opportunity.


Your comments & critiques are welcomed!

[BigElvis]

Hi to the both of you.

I think the setting and tarot mechanic is interesting enough, but I am not sure if it mostly just adds some cool colour to a typical -GM sets up challenges for the players with a target number - resolution.

Does your game have mechanics that reinvents the typical (think D&D or CoC +other) player-gm storytelling relationship?

I see one right now which is the narration rights mechanic. How much narrative control do you see this mechanic giving players?

[Grujav]

I think the setting and tarot mechanic is interesting enough, but I am not sure if it mostly just adds some cool colour to a typical -GM sets up challenges for the players with a target number - resolution.

Does your game have mechanics that reinvents the typical (think D&D or CoC +other) player-gm storytelling relationship?

It is a standard adventure game with some player narrative control. As you said if broken compared to a type of mechanic, the basic tarot deck (as opposed to the little player representative deck) provides a resolution system of the usual GM sort with some color. Orientation of the card, suit and such provide color/steer narrative ideas but do cause it to break away from the fact that you are trying to hit a target number.

While this could be done with dice to some extent. One of my personal inclinations is for mechanics systems to fit with the setting. There was a short while where Jake and I considered using 'Spin the Bottle' for Panty Explosion. Thankfully we moved beyond that pretty quickly. Now there were dice during the Victorian times but tarot cards fit in better with the genre we're trying to emulate.

This does mean you need a Tarot deck with card backings that don't give away the orientation of the card.

I see one right now which is the narration rights mechanic. How much narrative control do you see this mechanic giving players?

Think Dust Devils or Panty Explosion. The person with narrative control has a great deal of such. The playerdoing the action gets to declare their action, perhaps even an intended outcome, but the person drawn for narrative control (which can be the person doing the action) gets to "finish" describing the action, the outcome as well as plot and miscellaneous elements to the story.

Like all such games (that I know of) kibitzing from the other players will probably be the usual as well.

The GM will then have to be quick to take this into their over all story arc. Admittedly this also leaves the game open for some fiddling to make into a GM-less game.

[Sydsquicious]

Another of the aspects that Matt briefly touched upon is the orientation of the card.  We've considered some ideas regarding nuancing with double aspects of negative and positive outcomes with the target number and also whether the card is placed face up or down.  It's probably one of the more tricky aspects of the mechanic and it's we've been going back and forth on ways to adjust it so that it both works and adds something to the narrative that is interesting without being a clunky over-excess.

[BigElvis]

Ok. I like the idea of using tarot cards (and my question wasn't really about the color part of the mechanic - but you also answered my question)

I am not sure what kibitzing means.

I see the usual problems with a loosely defined narrative power mechanic.

What about the GM? Does he have a pool of challenge points or similar or does he dish out challenges as he wants?

[Grujav]

The idea of the GM having challenge points is a good one and one I think can be incorporated using the cards. What if for every three discarded narrative cards, the GM gets a narrative control token? This gives the GM a chance of their narrative control being pulled from the narrative deck as well as the chance to buy more narrative control. The number of course could be modified depending the amount of players.

By kibitzing I mean other players throwing out suggestions.

Loosely defined narrative mechanics do have some issues, but it is a way I enjoy playing. So, its that old problem, design something tighter but doesn't work for me, or go with something I enjoy. I'm of course willing to hear out any issues or possible fixes. Just admitting my bias!

[BigElvis]

The idea of the GM having challenge points is a good one and one I think can be incorporated using the cards. What if for every three discarded narrative cards, the GM gets a narrative control token? This gives the GM a chance of their narrative control being pulled from the narrative deck as well as the chance to buy more narrative control. The number of course could be modified depending the amount of players.

With challenge points I was thinking more like: the GM has x points of 'target number' points pr. session/ other time frame that he can challenge the players with.

The narrative token is something quite different I would say, but also possible, if you want the GM to have more chance/opportunity to narrate (I would usually aim at decreasing the GMs power), another way could just be to have more than one card representing the GM in the narrative deck?

About the loosely defined narration mechanic: You are going to give guidelines in the rules text right? If you are I would like to read those at some point.

[Sydsquicious]

Currently we are debating on a few different ways of helping along narrative mechanics that seem appropriate for the game.  Lets say you've actually come to a point of challenge in the story where the group has agreed it's time to use the mechanics - I'll borrow a story that our friend Jackson used to frame a question:

Three characters are in the snowy woods searching for one of the girls sisters.  For whatever reason they believe her to be lost in the woods.  The sister of the girl's unique 'something' is that she has an affinity with birds to the point that at times she can hold conversations with them.  She see's an owl and decides she's going to ask the owl if it has seen her sister.

At this point the narrative control comes into play by her choosing a card and laying it down.  If the card meets its target number for success the narrator is then chosen by the representative cards.  The narrator looks at the original card drawn by the challenge player and considers the outcome based on these (potential) narrative mechanic facilitators:

Suit - each of the suits in a normal tarot deck represent something (note also that suits are interpreted differently by different decks, spiritual communities and people, but here is one set of interpretations).
Swords represent thoughts, clarity and communication.
Pentacles represent the body, physical health and also money.
Cups represent emotions and emotional extremes and relationships.
Wands represent passion, leadership and aggression.

So anyways, the suit is established and the narrator can choose what theme of the suit seems most appropriate.

Next narrative mechanic would be the actual card.  Each tarot card has individual meaning, so we considered making a quick cheat sheet that players could use if they wanted to add specific elements of the cards meaning into their narration.  Lets say swords was the suit picked, but the actual card could change how it's interpreted - eg: Two of swords: clash of ideas whereas the Six of swords: a journey.

Finally, orientation often makes a difference in tarot reading, which means it should likely have an effect in narration somehow.  Most likely the traditional reversal of meaning of the specific card, eg: harmony of ideas or lack of a journey.

[Castlin]

I have a shaky knowledge of Tarot, but I believe a reading involves putting the cards down in some pattern and interpreting them after the person who is being read has shuffled/cut the deck. Now, what about for a narrative resolution mechanic, the GM starts the dealing and carries it along, describing an action or event with each card that is put down. It would have to be a balance between what the card represents and what the GM wants the story to be about, but perhaps we'll allow the GM to stack the deck somewhat before a session.

As this goes along, now, each player has a collection of cards for the session as well (perhaps a mix of chosen and random?), but fewer than the GM. All players combined have as many cards as the GM (dealer)? They can interrupt or play over the dealer's cards with their own.

I'm also thinking this could work define an entire session perhaps. It would split the control about evenly between the dealer and all the other players. What you can do with a card is defined by its suite and number. I do like the idea of the major arcana being supernatural events; their relative rarity would be appropriate for a horror game.

Dealer plays all cards reverse, players play upright? Would contribute to a sense of conflict, but perhaps more than you want.

Also, I am not horrified of the name "Pantaloons and Poltergeists". Pants are not scary. This has been proven by doctors.

[Sydsquicious]

Oddly enough I posted something about full tarot readings on the journal earlier today!  Our friends Charles had suggested that we consider having some sort of reading between scenes to set the 'theme' or even predict events that might occur in the next part of play.

Your suggestion for the tarot reading mechanic is quite interesting and I love the dropping of cards over the top of the narrators card idea, but for the overall narrative round-robin control that we are hoping for, I think would be a bit too constrictive.