Paradigms in RPGs

[masqueradeball]

Hi everyone. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to deal with this little problem:

I'm working on a fantasy RPG based on both the real-world history and the fairy-tales and mythologies of Russia. I know I want magical creatures and events to be real and to have some characters who even possess magic powers along the lines of those found in folk-stories of various kinds. At the same time, I want some people to be so removed from the magical world that they can neither perceive or be affected by it.
So, how do you deal with these two realities existing, one atop the other and with characters who may well perceive two very different things while watching the same event. Also, how do you make the "magical" world relevant to characters who don't realize its existence and who can't be readily/directly affected by it?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[Vulpinoid]

I'd consider the easy way to take care of this is to have a spirit realm separate to the mundane world. Spirits exist in one, people exist in the other, psychics, mystics and shamans straddle the two worlds, either through an ability to step between them or simply an abiloty to percieve both of them.

You could take a White Wolf interpretation of the situation, and have dramatic changes in one world gradually come into effect in the other. For example, a new building in the physical world one world might gradually form over months in the spirit world, but the rapid movements of humans make no real difference. Similarly, a great battle in the spirit world may cause dreams and nightmares to denizens of the mortal world, a sense of unease spreading across the landscape as the spirit battles become felt.

Otherwise if you want something a bit more complex, I'd suggest you take a look at the Russian sci-fi/fantasy epic "Nightwatch"...

If that doesn't give you ideas for how to run spirit worlds in a Russian paradigm, nothing will.

V

[masqueradeball]

OK, I see what your saying, but I guess my big goal is to not make that kind of a separation. As a for instance, I know I want animals to be intelligent and able to talk, yet I want the world to be relatively "real" in regards to how the average person feels, thinks and uses animals on day to day basis to be the same as it would of been in the real 17-18th centuries.
Since innocence is going to be a major deciding factor in how much a person's able to perceive magic and I want to have the party/cast/whatever consist of people of different levels of innocence, what happens when they all encounter a wolf that to some of them can talk and to some of them is just a wolf.
The only solution I can think of besides the separate realities suggested by Vulpinoid is to have paradigms be shared amongst all those who can directly perceive a situation, using an average of what they would perceive individually. Still, thats a compromise, I'd like to figure out a way that it would be possible for all the characters perceive different things at the same time without there being a constant uneasiness about whats happening and who can do and say what when...

[Vulpinoid]

The reason I jumped in on this thread is because I'm currently working on a concept of spiritual reality perception in a similar vein.

Imagine the traditional spectrum of seven colours. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

Lets call Red the most mundane parts of reality and Violet the most mystical and spiritual. My concept works with the idea that people exist at a certain spectrum frequency based on how spiritual they are (or not). Those who exist in a very mundane and drab existence are reds, spirit beings are purples. Each can perceive the adjacent frequencies, but not necessarily affect them as well as they affect their own. A red could perceive an orange but they have better interactiopns with other reds, a green usually deals with other greens but could perceive a yellow or a blue. This perception is like encountering the average person on the street, you don't really interact with them, you just wander past on your way to things that are more important to you. But if you make a conscious decision to interact with someone from a different frequency, your own gradually starts to shift. An orange who interacts with the yellows, gradually starts to shift toward this colour until they start perceiving greens (on the other hand they start to lose their sight of the reds and everything in their world gets a little stranger).

The nest part of the concept is that people can see the permanent aspects of reality two degrees away from them. So as an example, a yellow could interact most fully with other yellow people, they can see the oranges and greens, and their perception of buildings, and the natural landscape might stretch as far as reds, oranges, yellows, greens and blues. This is the furthest boundary of their perception. If a red person made a change to a red building, this hypothetical yellow character wouldn't see who was making the changes and might not even notice the changes being made until later.

The longer a building has existed, the stronger its dominance across the entire spectrum. A church might be a symbolic Red structure that pushes away the native russian supernatural element. At first it only counts as a red structure, but after years of worship it might become a red and orange as it's presence in reality grows stronger, after decades it might grow to red-orange-yellow, after centuries it might grow to red-orange-yellow-green, etc.

A violet creature could walk through the churches walls because it means nothing to them, until it reaches red-orange-yellow-green-blue. At which point the church impacts on the violet's perception of reality.

Applying the innocence factor to this type of set-up expands a character's perception of the world around them. Maybe a moderately innocent character can now interact fully with beings on adjacent energy frequencies, a green could interact with anything yellow-green-blue. They would be able to percieve beings two steps away (in this case orange-yellow-green-blue-indigo), while their perception of the environment covers the whole spectrum.

A true innocent may be able to expand their range of interaction and perception by a further degree.

This type of system is linear and allows a simple track to be marked on a character sheet to show what perceptions lie where, and who can interact with what. It may be too complex for some types of games, or too simplistic for others.

It's just an idea I've been toying with over the last couple of months for a smoother transition between spirit and mortal planes. You could do a similar type of concept with the mortal world in the middle, and a perception consciousness spreading upward toward heavenly realms or downward toward hells (with assorted spiritual beings affecting the mortal plane in the middle while being barely able to percieve one another, an totally incapable of interacting with one another).

V       

[sirogit]

1) 'Innocent' characters don't perceive the magical world, they "open" it. For the talking animal example, non-'innocent' find an animal, it doesn't talk to them. But animals will talk to 'innocent' characters, while non-'innocent' characters will hear them. Similarly, 'innocent' characters can find special magic places and lead non-'innocent' characters to them, but non-'innocent' characters cannot find these places on their own.

2) Have a list of "Falsehoods" that low-innocent characters believe, such as "Animals cannot talk." You could, for example, have a list of falsehoods attached to each level of innocence. Characters must interpret magical events according to these Falsehoods. If a character with such a falsehood sees an animal talking to a person, he has to see the person listening for no reason or possibly the animal as a person and thus able to talk.

[Filip Luszczyk]

One easy way you could do it would be to have an Innocence score, each level being a treshold for what the character can perceive the way it is. For example, something in the lines of:

Innocence 5 - you perceive the magical nature of all things.
Innocence 4 - you are not able to find you way to magical places on your own.
Innocence 3 - you are not able to use magical tools.
Innocence 2 - you are not able to communicate with magical beings.
Innocence 1 - you are not able to perceive magic, unless it affects you directly.
Innocence 0 - you rationalize everything you perceive, even if it affects you directly.

Then, the GM narrates things as they are, and it's player's job to react accordingly and rationalize as appropriate. Maybe there could be some resource that would allow for breaching the treshold for a single instance.

Another way to do it would be not to have any kind of score, but leave it entirely to the players. They could decide whether they rationalize something or not on a case by case basis, thus making a statement about the character's innocence. You could reward rationalization, though, to create a temptation for them to actually forsake the innocence.

Say, a wolf comes to the character and warns him about the incoming danger. The player can choose to hear the wolf out, or decide the character sees only a hungry beast and fends it off, deaf to its words. If he does the latter, there's a tasty die waiting for him. The character won't receive the warning, but when the danger comes the player will be able to spend this die to deal with it in a more effective, though far from innocent, means (say, the die could be spent on violence, lying or the like). Possibly there could be two types of rewards, one for perceiving the magical word (and stating the character's innocence) and the other for rationalizing things, both usable in different context (e.g. the rewards for innocence could actually fuel magic). Either way, you'd have a tool for the players to showcase what their characters are like through mechanicaly relevant choices.

However, both my suggestions assume that the GM will provide the players with all the information necesary for them to make informed decisions. If you want the GM to picture the events according to the character's perceptions in the first place, these solutions won't work well (probably they'd even require some serious procedural tweaking to work at all).

Both approaches would play out completely different, too, creating fundamentally different gaming experiences. And this leads to an important question: what you want the gaming experience to be like? What is the role of the innocence thing in it? It's hard to settle on a solution until you have a clear picture of where you are heading with this.

[Rafu]

First, I apologise for my messed-up English. Please be patient with me.

You want the world to feel "real" and there to be "fairy tale" magic... Don't just make a "per character" distinction: make a "per scene" distinction. Some scenes, the animals start talking - some scenese they can't.
Have a "magic level indicator" in the game - maybe a pile of chips or some other "material" prop everybody can see. Each scene, it either goes up a step or down a step. "Magical" events happen past a minimum "soil": for example, at "magic level" 6+ animals are capable of speech.
If a character has a "magical" power, then there's a minimum "magic level" requirement for it to be used. A boy named Pete can talk with birds - but only at "magic level" 4+. The village's witch can actually fly on a broomstick - but only at "magic level" 8+. You get the idea.
Increased "magic level" is actually dangerous, however: because "monsters" can appear who could not be there in a non-magical scene, evil witches have their full powers, etc.

Plus, the world has an inherent "resistance" to magic level rising  - which is tied to people's (dis)belief. Basically, if a character whose Innocence rating is X or less (or Disbelief rating is X or more, or whatever) is present at a scene, the "magic level" of it can not be raised higher than Y. Or maybe, multiple people have a heightened effect (so magic does not happen in the middle of a crowded village square, but a single non-believer can have a shocking experience).

Just remember: if "magic level" doesn't go up one step in a scene (even in case it's because it CAN'T - read above), then it HAS to go DOWN one step.

[David Artman]

Riffing a bit off of Filip's idea:

I am assuming that you want the GM's narration to reveal only what each individual PC perceives, as opposed to revealing everything--mundane and magical--and then leaving the players to sort out themselves. On the surface, this seems to have a tough procedural issue: How do you "mask" the magical for the mundane PC players?

What if you had something like the Innocence score above, and the GM would frame a scene step-wise, adding more info at each new level of Innocence. Once the level higher than your PC's is announced, you literally close your eyes and cover your ears--a physical procedure that directly mirrors the "filtering out" of magical effects by mundane folk. Let me try an example:

GM: A Wolf leaps out of the bushes, growling and snarling!
Players: Ooo!
GM: TWO....
...All players with Innocence 0 or 1 close their eyes and cover their ears. Notice that this interjects some tension, as the mundane PC players know there's more to the scene than a wolf--but WHAT more, they won't know and might still react inappropriately (i.e. attack the wolf).
The wolf is speaking Wolfish, snarling, "Danger, human; do you want to be meat?
This is the GM having fun with "Wolfish" and the sorts of idioms that they might use... but it's also unnerving and a bit ambiguous.
GM: FOUR....
...All players with Innocence 2, or 3 close their eyes and cover their ears.
GM: You can tell that the wolf isn't threatening your group--in fact, it's sort of laughing at you for walking into danger unsuspecting.
The GM then raps on the table firmly--a signal to the blind and deaf players of low-Innocence PCs that the magical effects have been concluded.
GM: OK, what are you going to do? Initiative 1?

...And from there, Initiative order for narration of action kicks in. If a low-Innocence PC gets first action, it might very well shoot at the wolf before the high-Innocence PC(s) can explain that this wolf isn't threatening the PCs. Or maybe a high-Innocence PC gets first action, and wants to reply to the wolf, knowing it's not a threat. As that's Innocence 2, the player announces "TWO"--1s and 0s close eyes and cover ears again--and then makes his or her reply to the wolf...

Innocence 4 Player (I4P): TWO... I reply, "What would make us meat, if not you and your well-hidden pack?" Wolves like a bit of flattery like that, I assume.
The GM raps on the table.
GM: OK, folks, I4P is snarling back at the wolf, as if in challenge! Initiative 2?
Innocence 0 Player (I0P): That's me. I say, "Are you nuts, I4P?" as I shoot at the wolf.
GM: Roll the dice.
I4P: "Nooooo!"
...

Now, could that be sustainable if magical effects are popping off at multiple levels every scene? Dunno... find out in play. But if it ran smoothly--if the players got accustomed to quickly shuttering themselves and to announcing Innocence levels when they react--it might rock. Could be great for younger kids, too, given both the general themes and the physical mode of play.

HTH;
David

[masqueradeball]

Wow you guys, what a lot of great suggestions. Everything above will be taken into consideration and I think I have a lot of good ideas to use as a jumping off point. I think I'll work on synthesizing some of the above suggestions into an actual system example and once I have it up I'll post it in a new thread to see what you all think. Thanks. Of course, if there are any more ideas out there, I'd love to hear them.

[rekyl]

In my game we use a awful little system of handsigns to imply that two players are talking between each other in another language (or they switch from Swdish to English while doing the hand sign). Maybe that could work as some sort of sign on what level of Innocense the scene is being set?

The funny effect would be if only those innocent enough can be effected... So that the huge magical creature only damage and affect the high innocence character, maing her vulnerable to such things. But at the same time only the character with high innocence can commit acts of magic or benefit with that sort of contact, making it some sort of "mage class" in a low magic campaign.

This thread is golden btw... Thanks Masquerade for starting it.

/Jens

PS Rafu, its allot of "english as a second language people here (amongst them, me), and so far Ive noticed a high level of acceptance towards crappy grammar and vocabulary... so dont worry

[David Artman]

In my game we use a awful little system of handsigns to imply that two players are talking between each other in another language (or they switch from Swedish to English while doing the hand sign). Maybe that could work as some sort of sign on what level of Innocence the scene is being set?

This is very common in LARPs that have "languages" or "cants;" and I must say that it is a pretty poor way to maintain any kind of tension. IMO, any technique which forces players to filter between what they as real life folks know versus what their PCs know is a Bad Thing. In this case it's even worse--they are having to filter their very perceptions, consciously, throughout every scene (which is what gave me the idea to do it physically).

Your mileage, as always, may vary....

The funny effect would be if only those innocent enough can be effected... So that the huge magical creature only damage and affect the high innocence character, making her vulnerable to such things.

Personally, I think it's cooler if the low-Innocence mundanes perceive it as something mundane that is having an effect on them, even if it's actually some magic beastie whacking them. Otherwise, the magical looses some of its "hooks' into the mundane world, and becomes more and more epiphenominal and (possibly) irrelevant.

But take this example, as a contrast for "funness":

GM: There's a huge, lumbering beast leaping upon you and raking your chest--some kind of grizzly bear, you guess, but it's moving so fast that everything about it is sort of a blur.
GM: ONE.... OK, it's not a mundane animal at all; and it's attack is magical in nature, not physical.
...GM raps on the table.
...GM rolls to hit, maybe Player rolls defense, whatever. It's a hit. A damage roll is made in secret (for reasons below).
GM: It's hurt you bad, really bad... your vision is hazy from shock and you can see the heart-blood flowing.
GM: THREE... it's a Shubbering Nerfherder, trying to rake your (his/her) soul out; the claws seem to pass right through you and drag out a whispy red ectoplasm! (This is the reason for the above secrecy: it's not a "normal" damage die, but the low-Innocence players shouldn't see that.)
...GM raps on table.
GM: Initiative 1...?

This thread is golden btw... Thanks Masquerade for starting it.

To this, I most heartily agree.

It's been a while since I got excited about a technique, and I've never really thought before about how to deal with apportioning alternate views of reality while protecting "esoteric" or "secret" aspects from OOC knowledge.

Fun!
David

[lighthouse]

Hi everyone. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to deal with this little problem:

I'm working on a fantasy RPG based on both the real-world history and the fairy-tales and mythologies of Russia. I know I want magical creatures and events to be real and to have some characters who even possess magic powers along the lines of those found in folk-stories of various kinds. At the same time, I want some people to be so removed from the magical world that they can neither perceive or be affected by it.
So, how do you deal with these two realities existing, one atop the other and with characters who may well perceive two very different things while watching the same event. Also, how do you make the "magical" world relevant to characters who don't realize its existence and who can't be readily/directly affected by it?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

In Aquelarre, a Spanish game, what they did is to give every character a Rationality / Irrationality (translated here of course) modifiers going 01 to 99 % in complementary values so if your Rationality was 25% your Irrationality was 75%. I can't remember exactly how it went, but the higher your irrationality the more able you were to interact with the "duendes" and other fantasy creatures but the more vulnerable to them too.

[rekyl]

David:
Well actually the handsign thing works to up the tention since most of the other players know whats been said in private (and most probably as part as some plot against one of them) yet have to try not to think about it making the situation. Of course thats impossible to do so in essence they are in the back of their heads thinking up a good way to retaliate already... Its worked to some extent to help a bad game night go better

Your other idea sounds fun too (I use fun to describe how fun the gaming experience will be not how fun the situation would be if it was real). Well I think that a fantasy game world would benefit from that form of "mage" whose life is filled with "hands on danger" whereas everyone else would see those dangers as more mundande things that they cannot be affected with (or so they believe)... like the plague and its myths. The "mage" could combat the demons giving rise to the "bad vapours" while all the rest could do was hope not to catch the sickness... The risk is that teh demons would very much like to kill the mage first so they could work unmolested.

And I would like to say that, as a newcomer, its very refreshing to just sit and read old threads. This forum is amazing...

Keep wondering where I should post the thing I got about sociology, politics and rpg's though...

/Jens

[Vulpinoid]

David:
Well actually the handsign thing works to up the tention since most of the other players know whats been said in private (and most probably as part as some plot against one of them) yet have to try not to think about it making the situation. Of course thats impossible to do so in essence they are in the back of their heads thinking up a good way to retaliate already... Its worked to some extent to help a bad game night go better

I find this very rarely to be the case. I've seen it in all froms of roleplaying, from live action, through table-top and even down to miniatures. If someone has the knowledge in the back of their mind, it's human nature to use that knowledge to gain an advantage. An average character in a modern setting shouldn't know that the faerie has a weakness to cold iron, they shouldn't even know what the difference between cold iron and regular iron is, but because the player has read the rule book from start to finish, the character suddenly becomes enlightened with this knowledge. A peasant shouldn't know anything about courtly intrigue in foreign lands, but the player has played a noble character in the past and remembers most of the necessary gestures and bows, suddenly the peasant is accepted in high society.

I guess this is where GM fiat comes into play, ensure this level of "Out-of-character" knowledge is restrained, but there will still be influences.

Step 1.
Your character casts an illusion of a bag full of gold when the rest of the party isn't around. Your result is incredibly successful, and there is no way to distinguish this bag of gold from reality.

Step 2.
My character comes back to yours, and your character decides to "show the bag they've found".

Step 3.
I say to the GM; "I try to see through the illusion", but my character couldn't possibly know that it was an illusion. The GM must decide whether he allows the chance to see through the illusion, or denies it outright because there is no way my character could have suspected the truth.

Step 4.
You and I start arguing with the GM and the game collapses for a short while as we sort out the mess.

Following on from the same example, this gets more complicated when you throw in the innocence angle.

Option 1:
The innocent sees the bag of gold as a real bag of gold, it actually has value to them in their mystical view of the universe. The jaded individual doesn't see the illusion because they are unable to percieve mystical effects. Those between the two extremes have a varied chance of being able to interact with the illusion. The more innocent they are, the more solid it becomes.

Option 2 (flipside):
The innocent sees the illusion for what it is, a manifestation of magic and wonder. They see through it as an illusion, but will play along with it because they enjoy the fantasy world that it is a part of (in private they may be able to turn the bag of gold into a rubber chicken, because this might cause them just as much amusement later on). The jaded individual doesn't believe in illusions, so when they see a bag of gold, it is a bag of gold to them. From this perspective, the more innocent the observer is, the less solid the illusion becomes.

There are other options also to consider, but these can range onto pages of further discussion and are probably better saved for a later topic.

V

     

[David Artman]

I find this very rarely to be the case. I've seen it in all froms of roleplaying, from live action, through table-top and even down to miniatures. If someone has the knowledge in the back of their mind, it's human nature to use that knowledge to gain an advantage.

I can't be sure, but I think he meant that their suspicions were raised, because they OOC know that *something* is being related to the higher-Innocence PC and it's magic-related, but they never hear or see what it could possibly be. They only get what they're told at their Innocence level.

In other words, I don't think it's a case of "don't use OOC knowledge" by this method--far from it. It's "you'll never GET OOC knowledge" with this method.

Now, your problems with players reading about the situations and setting and then using all of that data, rather than the data that would be available to their character type... well, hell, that's role playing. You figure out a way to "fix" that, you've got a powerful technique.

Only way out of that is to define the setting and situation in a custom manner... which won't work for his setting-rich product. Tell your players not to read the book, and try to work with those who do.

I say to the GM; "I try to see through the illusion", but my character couldn't possibly know that it was an illusion. The GM must decide whether he allows the chance to see through the illusion, or denies it outright because there is no way my character could have suspected the truth.

Quibble: What if the nature of illusory magic is that you ALWAYS get a check against it--you don't have to ask for one? Solves that (annecdotal, single) problem just fine, I think.

The more innocent they are, the more solid it becomes.

Works great, if you ask me... if the pot IS magical gold. An "illusion" should work the opposite: low-Innocence folks are fooled, high-Innocence folks see the glamor on it almost instantly. But if it's magical gold--REAL gold, in the magic world--then it's valid tender to high-Innocence, a bunch of tin schlock to a low-Innocence.

All-in-all, (I think) he's trying to get at a set of techniques which allow for a multi-layer presentation of setting and situation while minimizing the opportunity to acquire OOC knowledge. I like my technique above, but I bet there are others that work as well or even better. I couldn't think of any, but hey....

I don't think it helps much to say, "But look at all these decisions you have to handle!" That's what designers do: frame a problem or a goal, setup solutions and methods, test and reiterate. He might be the first to design a system with easy to manage OOC knowledge control--even better, multiple IC layers interacting and merging and paralleling each other--or he might not. But he shouldn't be expected to solve a "problem" that's been in every RPG we've played thus far, right?

Or am I misreading what you're trying to warn him about?

David