[Fifth World] Core mechanic

[jefgodesky]

Sgëno!

I've been working on and off for a while now on an RPG called "The Fifth World."  The last version, 0.2, came out almost a year ago.  It basically just got some of the basic ideas on paper; I can't really object to much of Wil's review on RPG.net.  It wasn't a finished game by any means (that's why I called it 0.2 and not 1.0); it was barely a compendium of goals and ideas.  Over the past year, I've spent a good deal of time working on v. 0.3.  I think the ideas and mentality of story games mesh very well with the concepts of the Fifth World--now it's just a question of applying that.

So, to describe the game concept:

Feral humans live in an animistic world where they must constantly renegotiate their place with competing interests: plant and animal communities, competing human tribes, and the spirit world.

And synopsis:

After the collapse of civilization, humans became feral out of necessity. They rediscovered magic, tribal lifestyles, and eventually formed syncretic, feral cultures. Life in the living world can seem idyllic comparatively, but it requires constant renegotiation of the human place in the world against competing human and other-than-human powers. The players tell the stories of the shamans, scouts and braves who step up to safeguard their people and ensure their future.

Here's some of the ideas we're using right now:

• Animism strongly suggests (demands, really) a FUDGE-like fractal by its very nature: everything is (or can be) a character.
• Characters are defined not in terms of their static qualities or skills, but rather in terms of their ability to relate to other characters (if you've read David Abram or Graham Harvey, you have some idea of what I'm talking about here).  Every character has three aspects: Flesh (in the Merleau-Ponty sense of the medium of physical relationship), Breath (the animistic sense of "spirit," as a shared, ecological intelligence), and Word (social connection; when Flesh shapes Breath).  Each one is less about what a character "is," and more about how characters relate.
• Characters have relationship points with other characters, which can include totemic spirits, ancestor spirits, communities, secret societies, and so forth.  Other players can challenge you to act in accordance with the wishes of other characters; for instance, a badger totem enjoys belligerence.  You might want to simply let a potential conflict lie, but another character can challenge you, that your badger totem wants you to deck him in the face.  Now, you can either burn a relationship point to ignore Badger's wishes, or gain a Badger point (and complicate things for yourself) by picking a fight that maybe didn't have to happen.  Relationship points can be used (according to the character you're relating to) to elicit aid, demand favors, gain blessings, and so forth.  Spirits fulfill much of the same function as Keys in TSoY, while we've drawn much of the relationship points concept from aspects in FUDGE, but I think rooting it in relationships rather than aspects of personality draws it back to the animistic feel.
• The magic system is derived from ethnographic examples of animistic magic.  This is one thing 0.2 did well enough to hold over (though it still needs a lot of work).  There's entheogens (hallucinogenic drugs), trance and shapeshifting, for instance; pretty much all of them have a ritual nature, and revolve around achieving sufficient harmonization to change one's perception in a set manner.  It's what would generally be considered fairly low magic, and mostly a matter of phenomenological perception.

Here's my problem.  Games like Deadlands or Dust Devils have very evocative core mechanics.  I'm trying to make the rules reflect a kind of ecological give-and-take, with a distinct emphasis on relationships, but right now all I really have is rolling dice.  That in itself isn't so bad--we have dice from all the way back to the Paleolithic--but there's precious little about it that really evokes the setting, the way cards do in Dust Devils, or poker chips in Deadlands.  Yet whenever I look at hunter-gatherer games of chance, all I can find are either dice, or like the gambling sticks the Hadza use when they play lukucuko, just a confusing new kind of dice.

So here's my question: what should my core mechanic be?  Does anyone have any ideas for an evocative core mechanic that would fit with this game?

[Vulpinoid]

I once toyed with a mechanic using glass beads in a bag. It was when "Magic: the Gathering" first became big, and everyone seemed to be using these beads as life counters.

It gives the feeling of a shaman plucking things out of their medicine bag as they strive to shape the world around them.

The concept is fairly simple. You have two types of beads, one represents skill level (we'll call them "White"), the other represents the difficulty of the task (we'll call them "Black"). Any time you perform a task, you throw in a number of white beads equal to the character's skill level and a number of black beads equal to the difficulty. You shake them up and draw out a bead. If it's white the character has succeeded, if it's black they've failed. If you want extra degrees of success/failure, you can have the player keep drawing out beads until one of the opposite colour emerges. If I draw two white beads, then a black, I've got two successes. If I draw three black beads then a white, I've done really badly with three failures.

I've toyed with other ideas like throwing in "Green beads" that might represent mystic influence in an area. These wouldn't count as successes or failures, but if one of these is drawn while the character is determining their result then something mystical or supernatural intervenes in the scene. For example I draw a white bead, a green bead, a white bead and then a black. 2 whites counts as two successes, but the green means that there is an unexpected side effect. Maybe the hallucinogenic drugs I've taken for my vision quest reveal something significant to one of the other characters and now I have to decide whether to reveal this unexpected knowledge to them.

If you want to avoid dice, this is just one idea that seems appropriate to the setting...

V

[Bossy]

I once guided a one shot with a Paleolithic setting. I choosed a d2 system since I reckoned that most people could count but only an elite fraction could actually sum. The dice were actually converted Go pieces. I made the players draw pictograms in the back of each piece. According to skill-level they threw a certain number of pieces, then counted the number of faces showing a pictogram and this number had to match the difficulty level.

As you can see, this system was not very original but I found that it worked well: d2 made a great primitive feeling and players actually enjoyed to invent primal pictograms.

[jefgodesky]

Those are both really good ideas.  Actually, I keep coming back to beads, particularly using beads to "up the ante."  I like mechanics that give characters the opportunity to do just about anything, assuming they're willing to utterly consume themselves in the process.  It makes for some really incredible game moments.  But I also like a lot of what you said, vulpinoid.  I'll have to chew on that, but at the moment, I'm thinking beads might be the way to go.

[PlatonicPimp]

I posted on your design blog, but I really want to make sure this idea gets to you.

I think that drawing beads from a bag is the way to go on this. But what's interesting about that as a mechanic is not the draw, but what determines how many stones of what type are in the bag.

I propose that each conflict begin with bidding. Since this is an animist setting, EVERY conflict is opposed by at least one character. All interested parties will then bid beads, starting with the player who initiated the conflict. Biding then proceeds around the circle. All bidding takes place in the open, and it goes on as long as anyone is willing to up the ante.

When bidding comes to a player, they can chose to bid, to stay, or to withdraw. A player who bids adds a number of beads to the pile. A player who stays does not. Staying does not prevent a player from taking other action if bidding comes back around to them. A player who withdraws is no longer in the conflict. They remove their beads from the pool and put them back whence they came. There is no penalty for withdrawing.

Bidding ends one of two ways, either all but one character withdraws, or all characters still in choose to stay. In the first instance, the remaining character reclaims all but one of their beads (this bead is the price of victory) and decides the stakes. In the second instance, it goes to the bag. All beads are placed in the bag, which is then shaken, and a single bead is drawn from it. The owner of that bead takes the stakes and reclaims the bead drawn. All other beads are spent.

I'm also considering another action during bidding where you can spend a certain number of beads from your bid to effect another character, forcing them to either spend an equal amount of beads from their bid, withdraw, or take some penalty outside the context of what's at stake (such as an injury, diminished reputation, or whatever.)

[monstah]

I love Vulpinoid's idea of glass beads in a bag. That's as shamanic as it can get in my opinion, unless you also use the mandala from your previous post! Wasn't it supposed to measure angles between symbols on it? The symbols can be replaced for beads. So now you have concentration areas on the mandalas, and throw beads over it. The way the beads fall in relation to the mandala design determines... stuff.

Think of the one I sent you (did you get it, by the way?). It can be used not only to measure angles between beads and north/south/east/west, but also between two different beads, in relation to north/south/east/west. Spiffy eh?

Throw in different types of beads for different outcomes (as the white/black/green previously mentioned) and you get a fairly complex shamanic system.

[jefgodesky]

What I'm thinking of currently goes like this....

You have certain pools, basically your "attributes," the basic things that define your character's abilities.  And then, you have your skills/traits, charted out on the mandala/medicine wheel.  So when you enter a contest, there's a particular attribute being tested, so you have to pull your stones (your energy or effort) from that pool.  If you have a relevant skill or trait, its direction on the wheel will determine how many "free" stones you get (stones you can commit and get back after the contest).

You may not always be contesting another character.  If you want to jump a river, the river doesn't much care whether you make it or not.  Then, it's just the distance you need to clear.  So in those cases, you just need to beat a set number.  If you're good enough at jumping, maybe it costs you nothing (you have enough free stones from your "Jumping" skill/trait to cover it entirely); or, maybe it takes some of your effort (depletes your pool).

Other times, you have an escalating conflict.  You and another character make your initial bets.  Now you have the chance to raise or back down.  Whoever's still in, with the most stones committed, wins.  But you lose the stones you commit.  So you can commit everything in a climactic encounter and manage to win, but you may put yourself in a bad situation by doing so.

Admittedly, this is a Narrativist mechanic, not a Simulationist one.  I've found that some of the most fun I've had at a gaming table came in games like Munchkin, where you face the tension of whether to throw everything away to pull out a desperate win, or reserve your strength for later.  This takes that dynamic to its purest form, it seems.

Now, if adding a random element was something necessary, the beads in a bag idea would be great.  But do we necessarily need a random element?  That I'm not so sure of.  If we don't, there's something that feels somewhat inelegant to me in the beads-in-a-bag mechanic, as opposed to this betting mechanic.  But I'm open to being convinced otherwise.

[PlatonicPimp]

Jason, this is an Animist world. ALL rolls should be contested. That stream you are trying to jump over has a spirit, and it has an opinion on if it wants you to make it across or not. If all the spirits in an area want you to succeed, then no test is needed. If there is any spirit, human or otherwise, who wishes to oppose you, then you have a conflict. In my opinion, having no roll be uncontested would really get across the animist spirit of the game.

[PlatonicPimp]

Also, I feel the trouble with the simple bidding mechanic is that there is only one unknown in any conflict, and that is how much your opponent will go in for. After a few sessions together, everyone at the table will know everyone else's bidding style reasonable well, and so even that starts to be a given. In that way a player can know, just by looking at the table, if they will win a given conflict before they even start. In this system, the underdog would always lose.

The randomizer exists (in my opinion) solely to add that unknown aspect to the future (the outcome of a conflict); it makes it worthwhile to try things that you would most likely fail at because you might succeed.

Now, I can think of a non-random way to introduce that unknown that makes striving worthwhile. One that's more work, but may be more in tune with your setting. And that's to increase the number of interested parties. If two characters face off, and you compare their skill and then start adding beads, then others can add beads to either side. Since you don't know if others are going to throw in with you at any given time, then you can always try for something you don't have the means to succeed at hoping that one or more of your relations will help out. The whole idea then becomes to try and secure the aid of others in your endeavors. Mangy Wolf and Fat Bear are in a knife fight over Sheila. Sheila has a 2 bead relationship with both of them, so she can throw up to 2 beads in with either. She favors wolf, so she tosses in 2 beads with him. However, the tribe as a whole has a 2 bead relationship with Bear, as Wolf is an oursider from another tribe. They toss their beads in with Bear. Wolf, however, before the fight secured the aid of a wind spirit, prayed to his ancestors, and performed a ritual to honor his totem. All contribute a bead to wolf. He wins the fight.

The downside to this system, perhaps, is that a lot of who wins a given conflict will seem to be up to the GM, as every character not a PC will be theirs to play. As long as the players trust you to be playing the characters, that's could be OK, but It's take me a while to get comfortable with such a setup. Also, this system creates a narrative structure of deciding what you want to accomplish, securing allies, trying to separate your opponent from his allies, and then when you feel you've got enough support, attempting your goal and finding out if they'll really back you and if you really had enough support. You'd have to be OK with that structure.

I also favor the bag because it makes it so similarly skilled characters who give a similar effort an equal chance of success. A strait success system means that if two players each go in for 6 and 7, the seven wins, which I think is a poor deal for the guy who went in for 6. I'm not saying eliminate the bidding, I'm just saying that all the beads each person bids go into the bag, which means that giving it more weighs the odds in your favor.

[jefgodesky]

Jason, this is an Animist world. ALL rolls should be contested.

When Irving Hallowell asked his Ojibwe elder, "Are all stones we see about us here alive?" the answer wasn't, "Yes," but "No!  But some are."

I'm not sure every roll should be contested.  Certainly a lot of them.  But sometimes you have something that doesn't act like a person.  Other times, it may act like a person, but it really doesn't care whether you make it or not, so it's really just all up to you.

That said, the contested roll certainly fits in very broadly.  When describing inertia, even we, from our particularly clockwork point of view, have a hard time avoiding glosses like "the rock doesn't want to move."  If it acts like a person, treat it as one.  If it acts like it doesn't want to move, you don't just have to overcome inertia, you have to overcome the boulder fighting you, trying to stay in place.

But other times, things really are that simple.  Creek may act like a person, but he doesn't particularly care if you manage to jump to the other side or fall in.  He's not going to contest you for it, so whether you make it or not is entirely on you.

That stream you are trying to jump over has a spirit, and it has an opinion on if it wants you to make it across or not.

It acts like a person, so it is a spirit (rather than "having" a spirit), but does it necessarily have an opinion on whether you make it across or not?  There are plenty of things you or I could hardly care less about, so why not other-than-human persons?

In my opinion, having no roll be uncontested would really get across the animist spirit of the game.

Perhaps even too much.  After all, only some of those stones are alive.

Also, I feel the trouble with the simple bidding mechanic is that there is only one unknown in any conflict, and that is how much your opponent will go in for. After a few sessions together, everyone at the table will know everyone else's bidding style reasonable well, and so even that starts to be a given. In that way a player can know, just by looking at the table, if they will win a given conflict before they even start. In this system, the underdog would always lose.

I think you're missing the emergent dynamic here.  You might have a rough idea how much everyone will go in for, so you may well know how much effort to expend.  But you're losing energy all the time, and it takes time to build it back up.  It means that the biggest question in any given resolution is how much you're going to put in (and really, people can surprise you and go in much stronger than you might have expected).  But this forces you to start worrying about the longer-term.  Am I going to have enough energy to get back to the campsite or village?  What if something unexpected comes up along the way?  You'll need to figure out the balance between pulling out all the stops and conserving your energy; how much you're going to plan for the unexpected, and how you're going to deal with the unexpected, like a sudden downpour while you're out hunting, and as you're coming back, spending all your energy to drag a deer back to camp, and that tiny creek you crossed on the way out is now flooded, and you spent all your energy first on the hunt itself, and then bringing the deer back.  What do you do then?  So there's two sources of uncertainty: how much everyone else will put in, yes, but also what you'll have to face in the future before you have a chance to recuperate.  Really, it's the uncertainty of the future that I think will provide the greater source of uncertainty.  Sure, you may be able to completely PWN the bear in a straight encounter, but you've got to reserve enough strength to get back home, and the bear's right outside his den.  You need to reserve enough strength to get back; the bear has no such limitation.

Now, I can think of a non-random way to introduce that unknown that makes striving worthwhile. One that's more work, but may be more in tune with your setting. And that's to increase the number of interested parties. If two characters face off, and you compare their skill and then start adding beads, then others can add beads to either side. Since you don't know if others are going to throw in with you at any given time, then you can always try for something you don't have the means to succeed at hoping that one or more of your relations will help out. The whole idea then becomes to try and secure the aid of others in your endeavors. Mangy Wolf and Fat Bear are in a knife fight over Sheila. Sheila has a 2 bead relationship with both of them, so she can throw up to 2 beads in with either. She favors wolf, so she tosses in 2 beads with him. However, the tribe as a whole has a 2 bead relationship with Bear, as Wolf is an oursider from another tribe. They toss their beads in with Bear. Wolf, however, before the fight secured the aid of a wind spirit, prayed to his ancestors, and performed a ritual to honor his totem. All contribute a bead to wolf. He wins the fight.

Awesome!  We may need to limit who can throw in so that it would make sense (these would be the kind of morale bonuses that would make sense, for instance; or you could have characters helping each other, so they could essentially bid together, all their beads going into a single bet).

The downside to this system, perhaps, is that a lot of who wins a given conflict will seem to be up to the GM, as every character not a PC will be theirs to play.

The GM has a fairly limited role, and players have a much expanded role.  We could say every player (including the GL (my wife keeps insisting on calling it the GL for Genius loci, partly riffing off of GM)) can only introduce 1 or 2 aids.  The other players could suggest more than just their own characters; perhaps they could introduce any other character they have a sufficiently strong  relationship with.  Or perhaps the character can only be aided like that by characters he has a sufficiently strong relationship with.

I also favor the bag because it makes it so similarly skilled characters who give a similar effort an equal chance of success. A strait success system means that if two players each go in for 6 and 7, the seven wins, which I think is a poor deal for the guy who went in for 6. I'm not saying eliminate the bidding, I'm just saying that all the beads each person bids go into the bag, which means that giving it more weighs the odds in your favor.

If they're evenly matched, and one goes in for 7, and the other goes in for 6, then one of them comes out because he expended more effort.  I've thought about this some more, and this element of chance is simply not present in an animist worldview.  Everything in an animist's world comes from the struggle between persons, human and otherwise.  You don't get a disease because you were unlucky; you get it because you're fighting an evil spirit or poisonous vapor (an apt description of bacteria or viruses if I've ever heard one).  You don't take a deer because you get lucky; you take a deer because the deer appeared to you and allowed you to kill it.  I think the bidding reinforces that view, whereas any randomizer would reinforce our own Cartesian, literate view of a world of objects, and defining the characteristics of those objects.

[PlatonicPimp]

Yeah, I've come around. I tried playtesting the mechanic and while it's an interesting game, it doesn't tell good story.

[PlatonicPimp]

I still think, though, that no task should go uncontested. If there is no one who cares to contest, then the player gets away with it.

Lets say you are crossing that stream. If the stream doesn't care if you make it across, then you have no difficulty. In a clockwork universe we'd care about how far the jump was, how strong the character is, that kind of thing, but this isn't suh a universe and we don't.

It doesn't have to be the stream spirit that cares. After all who decides how wide the stream is, how far the jump is? In the narrative it all leads back to the land itself, in game terms the GL decides. In most games, on an uncontested roll, the GM will simply set a target number the player has to reach. I think in this game, the GL will have to spend some of his or her own beads to set the difficulty. Which is mechanically the same as a contested check.

In other words, if it matters to the story that this is difficult, then it matters to someone in the story, even if it's "just" the spirit of all things. That character will be the opposition. If it doesn't matter to any of the characters, then it doesn't matter to the story and don't waste time on it.

[jefgodesky]

What about the character vs. himself?  The character wants to jump across a ravine.  It's a tense moment, and it's in doubt, not because anyone is trying to stop him, but because he's pushing himself to the limits of his own capability.  Does he make it?  I'm not sure who the opposing character would be for a contested check, but it's still something you'd want to include in the game.

[PlatonicPimp]

Then you, as the GL, would throw in stones as his self-doubt.

[PlatonicPimp]

man I wish we could edit.

... or gravity, or whatever. But the core mechanic seems to be "you have a skill and then add in beads from a pool". Well, the GL has a target number and MAY add in beads from a pool. so if its unopposed, you just have to hit the target number, and may make it automatically if your skill is high enough. But if something opposes, it throws in the beads it wants to, and adds that to the target.

And you'd never know if a check was opposed or not until you threw in. So you might try what looks like an easy jump only to find out it's farther than it looks, or the opposite side is unstable, or a breeze hits you at exactly the wrong moment, and down you go into the stream.