Need advice to simplify mechanics and increase randomization obtained from a D20

[Alexandre Santos]

Hello,

I am currently designing a game inspired by the Claymore universe, and I need a rule system that implements the type of stories that I want this game to tell.

The game is totally focused on duels opposing one warrior to one or more opponents (a bit like a western). The idea of each duel is to show:

- what each character is ready to put on the line in order to win (or not)
- how the universe functions
- show growth and evolution of each character from duel to duel

The reason I write this post is because I am confronted to some difficulties concerning the book keeping required of the system which is too heavy to be playable, and also because I would like to have some suggestions on how to increase the range of diversity supplied by the randomization tool (currently a single D20).

There are three fundamental tenets of the game that I would like to preserve, and for the rest I'm wide open for suggestions:

1 - The rules system should implement strictly the laws of the universe. These are quite simple, and can be summarized as follows: In order to win, a warrior needs to pool his inner Power. But wielding Power corrupts, and risks the corruption/destruction of the  character.

2 -  The randomization system should be as simple and nimble as possible, ideally only requiring a single die per scene/round: a D20 (I chose a D20 because it's the die offering the highest number of outcomes in one throw).

3 - The system should allow open ended character evolution (PCs and NPCs should be able to become ever more powerful without breaking the system).

Since I read John Kirk's book on RPG design patterns, I will try to use his terminology when describing the system as designed so far.


Summary of the System


The mechanics are centered on characters. There is basically nothing which does not relate to them. The story is centered around contests between characters, and hopefully NPCs should have a simplified creation/management mechanic.

Each character is defined by 5 Attributes and 2 Gauges:

Attributes (ranging from A to E, A is better):

Strength
Speed
Perception
Willpower
Leadership

Gauges (scored in numbers, all are conflicted: increasing/decreasing them brings advanteges/disadvantages)

Power (total amount of Power that PC can invoke. The more power a PC has, the more powerful he can be)
Humanity (with 0 Humanity the PC turns into a NPC demon)

Released Power (0-100%) Fraction of the total Power that the PC invokes and can effectively use. It's easy to go from 0 to 30%, requires willpower to go to 50%, but then requires willpower to go down. Left unchecked, Released Power tends to go to 100%. Over 80% percent, it's practically impossible lower it voluntarily, and once 100% is reached, the PC turns into a NPC demon.
Stress (0-100%) Stress increases with hardship. Released Power >= Stress, so Stress can be a way to more easily release Power, but makes it harder do close it again

Available Power (AP=PxRP) Available power is the amount (in numbers) of Power available at the moment to the PC to do his stuff.

Traits

There are 3 types of Traits:

- Passions: what makes the PC tick: a goal, another character that the PC loves/hates, etc. In all circumstances in which the PC acts within the context of his Passion, his skills and capacities are modified by the Passion
- Trauma: All PCs (and NPCs) have an unique original Trauma that made them what they are now. The Trauma is similar to the Passion, but it's the original Passion, but most fundamental and basic one.
- Techniques: Techniques are skills that the (N)PCs learned that make them more efficient in a contest. A skill can involve combat (ex: quicksword), perception (telepathy), etc. Although Techniques modify the PC capacities, they are more under the control of the PC than the Passions, which depend more on the context. Each a Technique requires a certain amount of Available Power to be used.


Contest

A Contest is a confrontation between one warrior and one or more opponents. If each faction has more than one warrior, combat is split into as many contests as there are members of the minority faction. This is not a game for melee combat, which has no meaning in this universe (much like usage of guns has no meaning in a kung fu movie).

The state of the Contest is indicated by another gauge (let's call it State of Contest: SOC). SOC starts at "even", and can change among the following values:
"Defeat" - "Desperate" - "Disadvantage" - "Even" - "Advantage" - "Supremacy" - "Victory"

Each side of the contest has its SOC, which evolve in a mirror fashion (Disadvantage for one side is Advantage for the other side). So in practice, we only need one SOC.

A contest resolution is divided in tours/rounds. For each round, each faction calculates its Attack Level, and Defense Level. Both of these gauges are derived from the Attribute level and amount of Available Power, modified by Passions or Techniques.

So if we assume that Attribute letter corresponds to a number (A=6,..., E=1), and that at each additional tens of Available Power, each Attribute is multiplied, we would have:

Available Power = 1..10: Strength (A) = 6, Speed (C) = 4
Available Power = 11..20: Strength (A) = 2x6 = 12, Speed (C) = 2x4 = 8
Available Power = 111..120: Strength (A) = 12x6 = 72, Speed (C) = 12x4 = 48

Attack/Defense Level could be a combination of the Attributes. So for instance:

Attack Level = Strength + Speed + Willpower
Defense Level = Strength + Speed + Perception

(this is just one possibility, any suggestions to calculate AL and DL would be appreciated)

To solve one round, one would calculate AL and DL for each opponent, and find a Target Value (TV) for each faction.

So TV = (sum of warriors) AL  - (highest of the opponents) DL + D20

One then compares both TV obtained for each faction, and the winner wins one level of advantage (i.e. "Even" to "Advantage", or "Desperate" to "Disadvantage", or "Supremacy" to "Victory")

If the TV difference is very high (i.e. over 20 points), then SOC is moved two states up for the winner of the round, and so forth, for each 20 additional points of difference.

At each new round each fighter can modify his Released Power level, or use different Techniques, etc.

Techniques require a certain amount of Available Power to be used, and increase the amount of an Attribute by  N x Letter.

So let's say that Quicksword (giving a 5x bonus) is used by a PC with an Available Power of 30, and a Speed of B: This means that the PC has as Speed of (B x 3 (Available Power) + B x 5 (Quicksword) = B x 8 = 40

You will probably ask me why use such a complicated system? Because:

1 - I want to keep the universe flavor. And in this universe, PCs have those five Attributes defined by letters A to E. This is a given.

2 - I want that changes in Available Power modify the capacities of PCs while preserving their identity. A PC with a A Strength but a D speed should be much faster with a lot of Available Power, but still better in strength than in speed. If Available Power was directly translated into additions to the Attributes, the more Available Power the PC has, the more his Attributes even out.

Of course, as it is, the system is much too complicated. I need to find a way to reduce calculations while maintaining the features of the system.

One way to simplify the system is to limit its degrees of freedom: so Released Power would not vary from all values between 0 and 100% but only from 0%, 10%, 30%, 50%, 80% to 100%. One could then pre-calculate what does that amount in terms of Available Power, considering the total Power of a PC. One could also pre-calculate AL and DL at each level of Released Power, and on the fly calculations would be limited to adding Technique/Passion modifiers.

Another way to simplify things is display the calculations in a table format, such that the players can visually find what the value they are looking for, without needing to calculate intermediate values.

That would give:

Code Select Expand

Available Power

        10  20  30  40  50  60  70 80... 100 200
-----------------------------------------------------
A        A  2A  3A  5A  6A  7A  8A  10A   20A
B        B  2B  3B  5B  6B  7B  8B  10B   20B
.
.
.
F        F  2F  3F  5F  6F  7F  8F  10F   20F

Considering a PC (strength(A), Speed (E), Willpower (C) has an Available Power of 80 and uses quicksword, AL=8x(A+E+C)+5E (Quicksword amplifies speed) = 106

But it's still way too heavy...

Another problem with this system is that as warriors become more and more powerful, their AL and DL values increase enormously, and the randomization range provided by the D20 becomes insignificant: there is less and less chance involved as warriors increase in power. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but I do not wish it. I would like to keep a constant fraction of the skill to be subject to randomization.

One solution that I thought about would be to only take into account the first two numbers in a value, and add the D20 to that: so for instance a D20 giving a 11 would mean different things for a AL of 34 or a DL of 458: if AL = 34, then the result is simply added, and one gets 43. If AL = 458, then the D20 is added to the first two numbers, which gives 568. In this way the fraction of randomization remains constant for infinite levels of AL/DL....

A more radical option to simplify everything would be to give up on the open ended aspect of the game, and limit the range of total Power within for instance 0 to 40, and design the game around that. But I would really regret to have to give up on the open ended aspect.

So again with my two questions:

1) does anyone have suggestions on how to dramatically simplify the system while maintaining most of its features?
2) any other ways of increasing the amount of results provided by the D20 (I thought of 2 more: open ended D20, getting 1 or 20 forces the player to through the D20 again), and also to give special results if the unit result of the D20 is equal to the unit result of the TV)


Here is an example of a Contest, to clear things up:

Lets have two warriors duel: Patricia vs Claire

Patricia:
Power  100
Speed C
Strength D
Willpower C
Perception D
Leadership C

Claire:
Power  50
Speed E
Strength E
Willpower D
Perception C
Leadership E



Patricia vs Claire

SOC: "Even"

Round 1

Claire starts with
AL = E (Speed) + E (Strength) + D (Willpower) = 2+2+3  = 7
DL = E+E+C = 2+2+4 = 8

Patricia
AL = C+D+C = 4+3+4 = 11
DL = C+D+D = 4+3+3 = 10

Claire's player throws the D20 : AL (Claire) - DL (Patricia) + D20
TV = 7 - 10+12 =9

Patricia's TV = 11 - 8 + 6 = 9

Results: no difference, SOC stays "Even"...

Round 2

Claire decides to release her Power by 30%, giving her 15 points of Available Power. From now on her Attributes will be read from the tables second column.

Patricia notices the increase in Claire's Power, and decides to play it cautiously: she releases her Power, but only by 20%, giving her 20 points of Available Power. Her Attributes will also be read from the second column.

Claire
AL: 2E+2E+2D = 14
DL: 2E+2E+2C = 16

Patricia
AL: 2C+2D+2C = 22
DL: 2C+2D+2D = 18

Claire's TV : 14 - 18 + 14 = 18
Patricia's TV : 22 - 16 + 17 = 23

Results: 5 points advantage for Patricia, so SOC goes to "Advantage" for her. Claire earns 10% in Stress.

Round 3

Seeing that things are not going well, and will probably get worse soon, Claire decides to risk a large increase in her available Power. She releases her Power to 60%. At this level of release, her Power will not naturally go down, and she will have to actively try to curb it, when she's done. In the meantime she gets 30 points of Available Power, giving her access to the third column. Because of the danger, her Stress gauge goes to 40%

Patricia notices the huge effort that Claire makes to gather Power. She decides to raise the stakes and go for 50% Power Release. This gives her 50 points of Available Power, and allows her to get her Attributes from the 5th column. She also earns 10% Stress.

Claire:
AL: 3E+3E+3D = 21
DL: 3E+3E+3C = 24

Patricia:
AL: 5C+5D+5C = 55
DL: 5C+5D+5D = 50

Claire's TV: 21 - 50 + 19 = - 10
Patricia's TV: 55 - 24 + 20 + 1 = 52 (le player got a 20, allowing her to throw another die, but unfortunately this was a "1"!)

Result: - 62 for Claire! : It's a heavy loss, the SOC marker is moved 3 positions against her, leading to a swift "Defeat".

Claire's fate is now at Patricia's mercy.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Greetings, Alexandre.

I love Claymore.  My game has been inspired by it as well.  My first suggestion to simplify things would be to quit the multiplication.

If you're using a D20, for instance, could I suggest this:

Simply have attributes range 1-20, as well as Power.  Instead of Stress, just use Willpower, maybe call it "Control" instead.  Again, 1-20.

Power might just add to appropriate attributes in combat.  I don't understand the mechanical difference between "Strength" and "Speed" that you're using, so I might suggest wrapping them into one, and just using individual Techniques to distinguish between "Fast Warrior," "Defensive Warrior," "Offensive Warrior," etc.

Humans always have Power at zero, but they never have to worry about Control.

Since you're trying to get the most out of a single roll, just have every round be exactly one die roll.  Power+Strength vs. Power+Strength.  Of course this could be modified by Techniques and advantages a character might gain via special actions, such as perception actions.  With a single D20, you might want to add 10 to the opponent's score, and then require the PC to roll higher than this.  A simple win turns the tide of the battle by one category.  Winning by 6+ turns the tide by 2 categories; by 11+ turns the tide by 3 categories, etc.

Characters Release +2 power (equivalent to +10%) when the roll shows a multiple of their current power release.  This becomes increasingly harder as their current Released power gets higher, becoming only 1 in 20 if they go over 50%.  In that event, they may have to use other means (like you said) to release power.

But whenever they use those other means, they voluntarily reduce their Control by 1.  This may be fine until Control gets below 11 (below 55%), in which case their chances of turning into a monster increase.  Every time they roll a multiple of their Control, Control drops -4.  At Control 0, they're too busy trying to contain their raw power to even fight.  Anything below zero turns them into a monster (unless they have a Trait like Claire's, which would allow her to increase her Control even after it goes below zero).

Of course, this is all just an example of how it might be done with simple addition/subtraction rather than multiplication or complex formulas.  Your end result might be completely different.  Thoughts?

-Jason Timmerman

[Alexandre Santos]

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the feedback! Let me try to answer you and perhaps better explain where I am trying to get:

I agree that the best way to simplify the system would be to get rid of the multiplications, and try to fit the game parameters within the scope or a D20.

However, if I do it the way you suggest, I will lose some important aspects of the universe, that I would like to preserve:

1) In the Claymore universe, warriors have widely variable levels of power. Humans are lowest in fighting capacities, demons higher, Power wielding humans even higher, and there are demi-gods. Despite these disparities, it is still possible for a group of inferior warriers to band together and eliminate a superior one. For these reasons, I would like to have a system which accomodates in a continuum widely different fighting skill levels. It should be performant in contests between warriors of similar levels, but still accomodate fights between fighters of different levels.

2) I would like the system to model the effects of the Power on the warrior's Attributes, and not just raw fighting ability. Let's say we have a human warrior with a Strength of B. If he wields no power, his strength will be of 5. If he releases his Power by 10%, his strength will depend on his total amound of Power: a human having a inner pool of 200 points of Power will have a strength of 10, whereas a human having a total Power of 500 will have a strength of 50 by releasing just 10% of his power! These huge differences in skills induced by the usage of the Power is what I want to model. Also a human who releases his Power at 10% has nothing to do with the monster he will become if he releases his power at 70%. This is why releasing Power is so seductive in this universe. Everyone knows that it hastens one's destruction, but you become just so much more strong, that it's hard to resist the urge to use it, just one more time...

I am afraid that if I use just regular additions and a closed system (around 20 points), I will not be able to reproduce the kind of situations that the characters of Claymore have to contend with.

Now this being said, it's better to have an imperfect system that one can play with, rather than a more faithful system which is utterly unplayable. So probably I will have to switch to additions, If I don't manage to find a way to simplify the system.

One game that constantly comes to my mind is HeroQuest. In this game the skill system is also open ended, uses a single D20 roll per player, and accomodates different levels of PC power.

The problem with HeroQuest is that it has no way to model the impact of Power on the PC skills. This is ultimately the biggest problem I have to contend with. The exponential nature of the Power and its impact on the PCs skills is hard to model in a simple way.

I don't understand the mechanical difference between "Strength" and "Speed" that you're using, so I might suggest wrapping them into one, and just using individual Techniques to distinguish between "Fast Warrior," "Defensive Warrior," "Offensive Warrior," etc.

For the moment, there isn't really a mechanical distinction between Strength and Speed. These Attributes are just provided by the original universe. If things stay as they are, and I can't find a way for them to have a really distinct impact, I will fuse them, as you suggest. At the moment, the only difference is that some Techniques will augment Speed, and others Strength. But I agree with you, that is not enough to justify such a distinction.

Since you're trying to get the most out of a single roll, just have every round be exactly one die roll.

I agree with that approach, except that I must still allow a roll for each faction, since I should be able to manage PC vs PC combats within the game. But otherwise I would agree on giving up on opposed rolls.

I agree with most of your suggestions, and I think it's a good start for a system wrapped around a limited number of points. What I am missing here is the geometric progression of PC's fighting ability with Power release. Each 10% power release adds 2 more points to the TV, but like I said previously, a 10% Power release means different things depending on your total Power pool. And this plays a crucial role in the game universe.

I think as long as I don't find a way to manage the geometric effects of Power, I won't be able to progress on the rest, because all the rest of the system will just be a consequence of that mechanic.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

All of your ideas could easily be integrated into additive mechanics on a D20.  You know what you want better than I do.  I never suggested that you should use specifically my idea above.

Since I know nothing about your setting, especially nothing about what it means to be a "demon" or a "demigod" in your setting, I'll just speak in regards to the Claymore series, a Setting and Situation we're both familiar with.

My main point is that all you need to do to fit in your goals is arrange the numbers to work the way you want them.  This does not require multiplication.

For instance, if you wanted to create creatures of different power levels, you could simply use what Claymore calls a "Genkai" (I think they translate it as Limit?)  Genkai doesn't have to be 20.  Some characters may be able to hit Power 30 before they've exceeded their limits.  This would be that individual character's "100%".  So when the character reaches "80%," and they have Limit 25, then they would be at Power 20 at that point.

Furthermore, if you wanted the gaps between different Speed, Power, etc. to increase in proportion to their base abilities to channel Power into these separate attributes, you could still manage this without multiplication or charts.

I could write a whole argument against using Attributes at all to describe warrior Strength, etc. for Claymore.  Yes, the Claymores are ranked according to "Fastest," "Second Fastest," "Most Powerful," etc., but they never put numbers on the traits themselves.  My personal view of the universe is that each Claymore has learned techniques in order to use Power to increase their abilities. 

Exponents are not hard to model using additive math.  I managed to do that in my system, fairly easily in fact.

Likewise, PC vs. PC combats could be functionally equivalent, no matter how you do it.  Just because a PC is fighting another PC doesn't mean that more than one die needs to be rolled.

But I could go on and on about how I would make your game.  As I said in my first post, it probably wouldn't be what you want.  We obviously see the logic of Claymore working differently.  I don't think my example was any less "faithful" to the way I see the Claymore universe work than your ideas were to the way you see it.  If my example is not faithful to your ideas, that's another story, and you'll just have to find another way to make it work.

In essence, the way I see it, my suggestion does not interfere with your goals.  However, my example might interfere with them, and you can always tweak the numbers until you get it feeling right for you.

Please excuse the rant.  Good luck with your game!

-Jason Timmerman

[Simon C]

I like the idea of multiplying, even if it's mechanically difficult to use, because I think it would be fun to use, and would add a lot to the temptation of releasing more power.  A simple way to avoid scores getting wildly different with multiplication mught be to only count the difference in available power level.  You'd have to increase the granularity of "released power" for this to work, so there are, say, ten levels of "available power".  If two characters are on the same level, their scores aren't multiplied.  If there's one level of difference between them, they multiply by 2 (or 1.5), if there are two levels, they multiply by 3 (or two, or whatever progression works for you).  This means that usually you're going to be working with reasonably similar scores, preserving the importance of the d20.  It'll also create a "oneupmanship" thing, where it'll be extremely tempting to bump oneself up in available power to avoid being crushed by a superior fighter.

However! I think there's a more elegant solution to your problem.  Dice pools! Dice pools are cool because they can incorporate minute changes in probability without doing any hard math.  Instead of doing any math, it's just adding in or taking out dice, and counting values.  They're a great way to turn complex mathematical systems into a simple game.  What if, for example, the ratings in each attribute represented die types from d12 (A), to d4 (E).  Available power determines the number of dice rolled, and the AL and DL are the sum of the highest dice rolled of each kind? That's not perfect, but I think it's getting there.  I don't know the setting at all, so I don't know how superhuman the characters are.  The way described above means that more powerful people just perform to the maximum of their abilities more often.  That's not superhuman at all.   For superhuman, reverse the values.  Attributes represent a number of dice (from one to six), and dice type represents available power (from d4 unaugmented humans, to d12s for the most powerful humans, and d20s for demons and super powerful crazy things).  This way, available power dramatically increases both the average result and the maximum result, but there's always a chance for the weakest character to beat the most powerful. 

[Alexandre Santos]

Hi Jason,

Please excuse the rant.

Sorry for causing you frustration, let me assure you that I was trying to avoid that. I appreciate the fact that you read my long and complex first post, that you thought about it deeply enough to spot problems (like the one with speed and strength), and took time and effort to write content rich reply post. All that rests high on my book.

On the other hand I'm trying to design a game that will really be played, so I need to gently shepherd contributions to what I feel are the biggest problems in the current system. Your post helped me reframe the issue by pointing out that the toughest problem rests in the geometric impact of the Power on the PCs attributes.

And I did not say that I will not use your ideas, I'm not flatly rejecting them. I'm just trying to point out what I see as shortfalls in your suggestions, so that further contributions address them.

Of course I post here because I expect some feedback, and so I must be open to suggestions. Nevertheless I want to respect some constraints, and I need to explain them so that contributors can take them into account.

Since I know nothing about your setting, especially nothing about what it means to be a "demon" or a "demigod" in your setting, I'll just speak in regards to the Claymore series, a Setting and Situation we're both familiar with.

I want to use the Claymore setting too, but in these posts I don't want to use Claymore terminology, to avoid losing contributions from people like Simon, which do not know the universe but can make useful comments. I'm trying to solve a rule mechanic problem, not discuss the Claymore universe, so a person wishing to post should not need to read anything else about Claymore other than this thread in order to contribute.

All of your ideas could easily be integrated into additive mechanics on a D20.

That's exactly what I would wish! If you could develop that further, I would be extremely interested.

For instance, if you wanted to create creatures of different power levels, you could simply use what Claymore calls a "Genkai" (I think they translate it as Limit?)  Genkai doesn't have to be 20.  Some characters may be able to hit Power 30 before they've exceeded their limits.  This would be that individual character's "100%".  So when the character reaches "80%," and they have Limit 25, then they would be at Power 20 at that point.

I'm already doing that, but using terms like Power, and Released Power, for the reasons I mentioned.

Furthermore, if you wanted the gaps between different Speed, Power, etc. to increase in proportion to their base abilities to channel Power into these separate attributes, you could still manage this without multiplication or charts.

Once again, I'm extremely interested in the details!

I could write a whole argument against using Attributes at all to describe warrior Strength, etc. for Claymore.  (...)  they never put numbers on the traits themselves.

If you think that, then probably you are not aware that there is a Claymore databook that gives the stats about all warriors using the Attributes as I defined (probably it was not yet published in your country). Actually, this is why I defined the Attributes that way: I want Claymore fans to be able to directly use the Databook as a source book for this game. That's why I call these attributes and the letter system a given. They were provided by the manga author, and part of the challenge is to integrate that in an interesting game mechanic. If there was no databook, I would probably have designed the game in a totally different fashion.

Likewise, PC vs. PC combats could be functionally equivalent, no matter how you do it.  Just because a PC is fighting another PC doesn't mean that more than one die needs to be rolled.

The problem here is not of rules mechanic but a psychological one. If you have just one roll in a confrontation between two PCs, who makes the roll? One of the players? The other will feel deprotagonized. The GM? Both players will feel deprotagonized. That's why I left two die rolls, although I would also have prefered to minimize die rolling.

To come back to the main issue, I realize that I'm asking something pretty tough: have a geometric progression system while keeping a single D20 roll in an open ended system. Probably one or some of these requirements will have to go away, but in that case I would like to have the maximum benefit from that compromise while minimizing the losses.

So I hope I did not totally discourage you from contributing, all the more since you seem to have interesting input to provide.

[Alexandre Santos]

Hi Simon,

I think there's a more elegant solution to your problem.  Dice pools! Dice pools are cool because they can incorporate minute changes in probability without doing any hard math.  Instead of doing any math, it's just adding in or taking out dice, and counting values.

I think you have a very good point, one could hide the geometric complexity within multiple die rolls, and bypass tedious calculations. There are two reasons for which I was favoring the single D20 approach:

- the more dice are used, the more difficult it is to have the required number of dice per player when one wants to play. With a single D20, it's enough that the DM carries it and he can allow anyone to play with minimal fuss. If there are lots of different dice required, then all players must get dice, remember to bring them to play, and find a large surface in which to play. Its not dramatic, but reduces the opportunities to play.

- the second reason, and a more problematic one, is that if the number of dice increase with the amount of released power, it quickly becomes cumbersome to throw bucket loads of dice because a warrior is powerful. In effect the game would not really be open ended, since there is a certain power level beyond which throwing dice becomes unpractical.

Nevertheless the possibility to evacuate the need for calculations through the use of dice is appealing (it also has the advantage of better preserving randomization  across varying power levels). One would have to find a way to avoid having to throw ridiculous amounts of dice, and keep the system open ended, if possible.

Now when you get down to the details, things get more hairy: should all the dice be of the same type (easier to find a large number of D6 or D10), or depend on the Attribute letter (ie: A = D12, B =D10, etc), which would maybe fit better with the Attribute letter system...

I think that as a starting point using only D6 would be a good idea, to facilitate logistics. Also, since Attributes range from A to F, this seems to more or less fit.

Also, in order to simplify things, the numerical result of the die would not be important, just whether it is a success or a failure. Success would be a die result inferior or equal to the letter value. So for an attribute at E (=1), only die results of 1 would be counted as success. If the Attribute is C, then all dies equal to 4 or less are a success. The problem with this approach is that A=6 means automatic success, no need to throw a die. One compromise would be to get rid of F, and so have A=5,...,E=1. It's not perfect, so if anyone has a better idea, I'm interested.

Having multiple dies thrown would also mean that if several PCs join into a faction, each player can still throw their own dies, which is a plus.

Now the biggest problem is how to turn this into an open ended system? A normal human will just throw a die for each Attribute used. A human releasing enough power to jump to the second column will throw 2 dice per Attribute used. Very quickly the number if dice will become unbearable.

Of course, one could from all participants of a contest, which one releases less power, and turn him into the first colum, and calculate the other's columns from this new starting point. The real probabilities would be modified: since the less powerful warrior throws less dice than otherwise, his throws will be more erratic than those throwing more dice. But I guess this is a reasonable compromise.

The first option is a start, but does not solve scaling issues. Lets say one warrior releases 50 points of Power, whereas his opponent releases 70. This will result in a 2 column difference, and so 2 dice difference for each Attribute. Now we have warriors releasing 500 and 700 points of Power. That would mean that the second would use 20 more dies than the first: an impossible challenge. I would prefer that with increasing levels of power release the variability also changes, so that the chances of a 50 vs 70 fight are grossly comparable to 500 vs 700: hence the requirement for scaling.

I guess the best way to sort the issue would be to only take into account the first number of Available Power of the weakest warrior. So if I have a 50 vs 70 fight, that means 5 to 7, 2 die difference. If it's 500 to 700, same 5 to 7, two die difference. If I have 500 vs 1200, then it would be 5 vs 12, 7 die difference. I don't know if that would fly, but it's a start...

Any comments?

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Hello again, Alexandre.

I'm quite interested, actually.  Sorry if I sounded a bit redundant in that last post, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page as far as what I was talking about with the math thing.

Regarding the Claymore setting, I apologize if I haven't kept up with canonical guides.  I'm not the type of person to be interested by anything out of the sheer entertainment in a manga or anime.  I've been chewing through Claymore a bit too quickly to deal with American publishing dates or reading/watching it in English.  That said, even if the book you speak of were published here, I wouldn't bother with it.

That said, I understand your concern with canon material.  If you want the players to have a feeling of legitimacy, that's probably a step toward that end.

The main reason I focused on the complexity of your Power mechanic is because you stated a desire for simplification.  I tried to incorporate characters raising their power and exceeding their limits into a single die roll per round because that was basically what I thought you were asking for.

I want to use the Claymore setting too, but in these posts I don't want to use Claymore terminology, to avoid losing contributions from people like Simon, which do not know the universe but can make useful comments. I'm trying to solve a rule mechanic problem, not discuss the Claymore universe, so a person wishing to post should not need to read anything else about Claymore other than this thread in order to contribute.

If you're attempting to tailor mechanics to the way conflicts pan out in Claymore, at the very least the situations and the way these conflicts work needs to be understood as the mechanic is being designed.  I'm not saying we have to use the specific elements of Claymore.  Battles involving Warriors, Yohma, and the Awakened inevitably make use of Yohki, so the ways in which Yohki works must influence combat mechanics.  At the very least, setting down in your first post some basics on how Yohki (=Power) works was the important point in bridging the gap here.  

But I don't think people will be all that confused if we just use the female pronoun when referring to Warriors.  I noticed your tendancy to speak of characters in the masculine, even though you mentioned Patricia and Claire.  ^^

Regarding your interest in how to achieve exponential growth on an additive scale, I've got a couple ideas that might work here, even with the stats.  First, I need to know which of your original ideas were most important.  For instance, were Power and the five stats all that were provided?  Is the geometric relationship between Power usage and the Attributes set in stone?  Or would you prefer it exponential?  Repeating Simon's question, how important is the 1d20 mechanic to all this?

I'm fairly sure we can keep the numbers, and make a mechanic that will work.  Even more important than the complexity of the mechanic, it would seem, are the balancing points.

For instance, you said that lower-powered characters could team up on a powerful character.  At what ability gap is a 2 on 1 battle balanced?  At what difference in ability is a 5 on 1 battle balanced?  We then use this "ability gap" we came up with.  We can compare it, for instance, with a mechanic we've decided upon, and then use that to arbitrate what numbers can represent the ability levels.  Or, we can compare the "ability gap" with numerical stats we've already decided upon in order to create a mechanic.  All this is a matter of using statistics.  But I don't think that we can decide upon numerical stats, and a mechanic, and then expect our balancing points, i.e., the way the game should work, to pan out correctly.

Another important balancing point would be the speed at which Victory or Failure is reached, how long we expect battles to take, and how these states relate to costs, such as damage taken or resources used.  Will we simply narrate costs, or will costs be important, such as the loss of a limb?

The flat out easiest way to achieve geometric or exponential growth in a system which uses numbers to represent additive values is to add a specific number each time a growth condition is met.  Of course, this wouldn't necessarily account for a warrior suddenly jumping to their Limit from a resting state.  The mechanic for that will have to be based on our understanding of the mechanical effect of the power level difference we actually desire.

I will contemplate more, especially regarding the insights of your last post, and get back to you tomorrow.  Seeing as you're willing to fiddle with the mechanic, and looking at how you view relative differences in power, I'm sure I could think of a better way to handle this.

-Jason Timmerman

[Alexandre Santos]

Hi Jason,

I will contemplate more, especially regarding the insights of your last post, and get back to you tomorrow.

Glad to have you on board, hopefully we can sort out the system's problems in an elegant and practical manner.

First of all, I think it's a good idea to have a glossary, so that readers who do not know Claymore are not lost:


Claymore Glossary

Yoki: Inner Power of the warrior
Yoma: Demon
Claymore: most of the warriors capable of wielding Power are women, called "claymores" by common folk because their favorite weapon is a claymore
Awakened Ones: Demons of such power that they seem like demi-gods

Nevertheless, I suggest we keep avoiding Claymore terminology, to make things easy to readers unfamiliar with the Claymore universe.

At the very least, setting down in your first post some basics on how Yohki (=Power) works was the important point in bridging the gap here.

You have a point here. According to the way I want to set up the Claymore universe in this game, warriors are humans with a set of defined Attributes that won't change throughout the campaign. However, the effective capacity of a PC at each Attribute depends on the amount of Power the PC releases. Releasing more Power multiplies the Attribut skill level correspondingly. This is valid for all Attributes, but the increase magnitude depends on the initial value of the Attribute (A,...,E). Of course one could argue that Leadership or Willpower should not necessarily increase with higher amounts of released Power, but that's a secondary issue, to be solved later.

Another important concept is that Power corrupts. What is important is not so much the absolute amount of Power, but the fraction of total amount of Power that is released. Releasing 50 points of Power can be dangerous to a warrior whose total Power level is 60, but unimportant if the total Power that a warrior can raise is 500. This is why the Released Power gauge (giving the fraction of total Power effectively released) is important. At 10% of Released Power, the warrior is doing fine, at 80% the PC is in a very dangerous position, independently of the effective number of points it represents.

But I don't think people will be all that confused if we just use the female pronoun when referring to Warriors.  I noticed your tendancy to speak of characters in the masculine, even though you mentioned Patricia and Claire.  ^^

Ok, let's use the "she" pronoun ;-)

Regarding your interest in how to achieve exponential growth on an additive scale, I've got a couple ideas that might work here, even with the stats.  First, I need to know which of your original ideas were most important.  For instance, were Power and the five stats all that were provided?  Is the geometric relationship between Power usage and the Attributes set in stone?  Or would you prefer it exponential?  Repeating Simon's question, how important is the 1d20 mechanic to all this?

This is a crucial issue, so let me clarify it:

For me, the most important is to model the geometric effect of Power on the Attributes. This is the basis of the type of stories I would like to play with the game, because usage of the Power becomes hugely important and seductive, despite its dangers of corruption. The notion of loss of humanity is also crucial, even though I did not speak much about it (it could play the role you suggested for Control). These warriors are constantly wondering if they are still human, and I want the game mechanics to give some traction to this issue.

Second comes the effort to preserve the manga's canon (type of Attributes, usage of the letter system as defined by the databook, impact of the Released Power fraction on the PC, etc - here is a sample of the databook).

These two are crucial, the first one is the reason I'm interested in the game at all, the second is important to enable acceptance among the public, and is part of the challenge.

Next is the necessity of an open ended game. This stems from the first two conditions. The manga is not yet finished, and like many other japanese manga, it suffers from an escalation syndrome. At every new release appear mightier and mightier NPCs. For me it's important that the system can easily accommodate future NPCs of unknown power. Also, the infinite growth potential participates in the theme of arms race among (N)PCs of the Claymore universe. Even if you don't want to become more powerfull, you have to, because otherwise you will be crushed by your ennemies. Setting an artificial limit would lower this effect.

Finally I would like to have a simple and practical randomization system (because it's handy, quicker, and requires less resources to play). Hence the choice of a single D20. I am not religiously attached to the usage of a single D20, but I certainly would not like to have to throw buckets of different dice. I think the absolute maximum I would tolerate would be to throw about 10 D6, or something like that. In the end though, I will accept what it takes to enable the first three points, as long as it remains playable.

Even more important than the complexity of the mechanic, it would seem, are the balancing points.

I agree that's an important issue, but I thought it could only be solved once the basic game mechanics are sorted out?

For instance, you said that lower-powered characters could team up on a powerful character.  At what ability gap is a 2 on 1 battle balanced?  At what difference in ability is a 5 on 1 battle balanced?  We then use this "ability gap" we came up with.  We can compare it, for instance, with a mechanic we've decided upon, and then use that to arbitrate what numbers can represent the ability levels.  Or, we can compare the "ability gap" with numerical stats we've already decided upon in order to create a mechanic.

I'm pretty open on that account. I don't want to manage more than 5 vs 1 warrior duels, so we don't really need to manage gaps higher than those that allow five warriors to beat a single superior one. Of course, those five warriors would maybe not be enough to beat their opponent, but then the gap is just too high, and it's not a problem if the system does not manage that. What that means in concrete terms depends a lot on the specifics: maybe 5 humans can beat one demon, or certain demons, but maybe not other demons. The same way, maybe 2 demons are enough to beat a Power wielding warrior, but maybe more are required.

Another important balancing point would be the speed at which Victory or Failure is reached, how long we expect battles to take, and how these states relate to costs, such as damage taken or resources used.  Will we simply narrate costs, or will costs be important, such as the loss of a limb?

Since this game is basically only a succession of Duels, it's not a problem if a duel lasts an entire cession, or half of a cession. That's why I use the SOC device, which requires a minimum of three straight normal round defeats to produce a Defeat. Of course, if the Opponent is crushingly stronger than the warrior, there should be mechanics to accelerate Defeat or Victory (this is what I alluded to during the first post).

Nevertheless the Duel end should not come too abruptly. Each Duel tells the story of a duo, and needs Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. At the beginning Opponents should size each other up, this is the presentation phase. Then each of them should show what they are ready to risk/lose in order to win. This is the phase where stakes are raised. Finally comes the Conclusion, where a winner is determined, and consequences of defeat determined.

I also use the SOC mechanic because I do not wish to inflict permanent damage on the PCs before Defeat. Like in the manga, I would like that even if during combat PCs are almost torn to pieces and spit their guts, they will have no permanent damage if they win in the end. Permanent damage (like limb loss) would only occur as consequence of defeat. When a warrior defeats an opponent, she can choose to kill/maim the opponent in the way she sees fit or helps the scenario.

Of course, like in the manga, if a warrior has regenerative capacities, a limb loss during a Duel is possible. But if that would mean the end of a Duel for an opponent unable to regenerate, then I would avoid that before the end of the Duel. In short, permanent losses are narrated, not provided mechanistically by the system.

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Ugh.  Was I too tired to even preview that last post?  I apologize for not putting it into better context, but I was writing it intermittently over the course of an hour and a half doing other things, and by the time I was done writing, I was about to go to bed and saw that you had made another post.  My apologies for being too lazy to fix it.  With editing of posts off, I suppose I'll just have to leave it as-is.

I'm sorry if I've made use of the word "we" in talking about your system.  I'm here to help you out, not to join on-board.  I'm sure much of your creation process will be handled long after I've given my final suggestions.

Awakened Ones: Demons of such power that they seem like demi-gods

I think using spoilers on this definition might be necessary if we're to get the mechanics right...  Even using this term instead of the original term, "Gluttonous Ones," is a bit of a spoiler anyhow.  But their existence, I think, says something important about the nature of Yoki (as you spell it).

Nevertheless, I suggest we keep avoiding Claymore terminology, to make things easy to readers unfamiliar with the Claymore universe.

That's fine.  But to get the mechanics right, we've got to pin down exactly how the use of Power works, and I think the fear of becoming a Gluttonous/Awakened One plays a VERY big role in Claymore.  It has to be tied into the mechanic of Power usage.

According to the way I want to set up the Claymore universe in this game, warriors are humans (...)

I think even saying that warriors are still "human" is not answered by the comic.  In fact, warriors have to deal with that question, "Am I human?" as a part of the drama of the Situation.  I realize that you may see this point is a matter of manga cliche, can we simply say that Warriors are Warriors, leaving the question as to whether they are human in doubt?  I don't think whether we think they should be considered human or not is something we should be imposing upon the Setting.  You've already mentioned that you want to keep this a part of your game.  If we do, we can't go calling them humans in the game text.

with a set of defined Attributes that won't change throughout the campaign. However, the effective capacity of a PC at each Attribute depends on the amount of Power the PC releases. Releasing more Power multiplies the Attribut skill level correspondingly. This is valid for all Attributes, but the increase magnitude depends on the initial value of the Attribute (A,...,E). Of course one could argue that Leadership or Willpower should not necessarily increase with higher amounts of released Power, but that's a secondary issue, to be solved later.

A counterpoint to this is that warriors can adapt to use their Power in different ways.  I think their ability to channel Power into different "attributes" can adapt throughout the course of a campaign, as evidenced by Claire's continued growth, and learning of new techniques.

Just as another tangent point: Even with a canonical guide out, I think that we could still simply think of the Attributes you listed rather as Ratings instead of Attributes.  It would simply make more sense to me that Warriors create these Ratings through use of Power in different Techniques.  To me, that would be "truer to the setting."  Again, however, this is your game, so you have the final say.

Another important concept is that Power corrupts. What is important is not so much the absolute amount of Power, but the fraction of total amount of Power that is released.

Second comes the effort to preserve the manga's canon (type of Attributes, usage of the letter system as defined by the databook, impact of the Released Power fraction on the PC, etc - here is a sample of the databook).

These two are crucial, the first one is the reason I'm interested in the game at all, the second is important to enable acceptance among the public, and is part of the challenge.

I noticed in the factbook a couple things.  While the text is too blurry when I zoom in, it looks like Power is rated as a letter grade as well.  Since the lowest-ranked Warrior in the Organization doesn't have an F in anything, are we sure that F exists?  Besides this, she has a C+ as of the Battle in the North?  So +/- grades exist, as well?

If we can get Power on the same scale as other attributes, then we have I think a better basis to go on.  We don't need to use numbers like 50 or 500 for Power release.

Next is the necessity of an open ended game. This stems from the first two conditions. The manga is not yet finished, and like many other japanese manga, it suffers from an escalation syndrome. At every new release appear mightier and mightier NPCs. For me it's important that the system can easily accommodate future NPCs of unknown power. Also, the infinite growth potential participates in the theme of arms race among (N)PCs of the Claymore universe. Even if you don't want to become more powerfull, you have to, because otherwise you will be crushed by your ennemies. Setting an artificial limit would lower this effect.

What we could do with the letter grades is a sort of Wraparound.  Like I was saying earlier, these grades might be looked at like a Report Card from the Organization, meaning they're only meant to classify Warriors that have existed.  That said, there might be warriors that change their notions surprisingly in a certain attribute, and for these, they might even use A++.  But there are some Awakened Ones on a completely different level.  At that point, we could start wrapping around to Z, Y, X, W, V, etc. to account for them on the same scale?  Just a thought.  These may have to correspond to numbers one way or another, if we're going to use numbered dice.

Finally I would like to have a simple and practical randomization system (because it's handy, quicker, and requires less resources to play). Hence the choice of a single D20. I am not religiously attached to the usage of a single D20, but I certainly would not like to have to throw buckets of different dice. I think the absolute maximum I would tolerate would be to throw about 10 D6, or something like that. In the end though, I will accept what it takes to enable the first three points, as long as it remains playable.

Even more important than the complexity of the mechanic, it would seem, are the balancing points.

I agree that's an important issue, but I thought it could only be solved once the basic game mechanics are sorted out?

Figuring out balance after figuring out the mechanic is a backward and patchwork way to go about it.  If Balance is not built in in the first place, it's like hitting your head against a brick wall to get the exact Balance you want in afterward.  You're welcome to try it to have that experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to help you if you go about it that way.  You inevitably end up adding in a ton of fudge factors to the mechanics, and it can easily get unelegant.

I'm pretty open on that account. I don't want to manage more than 5 vs 1 warrior duels, so we don't really need to manage gaps higher than those that allow five warriors to beat a single superior one. Of course, those five warriors would maybe not be enough to beat their opponent, but then the gap is just too high, and it's not a problem if the system does not manage that.

Remember that system includes any way of deciding what happens in a game.  It's nonsensical, then, to say that a system does not handle something that happens in a game world.  So even if the manner of deciding who wins is just "He's an elder male Awakened One.  You're Warrior #47 in the Organization.  You lose."  That's still system.

What that means in concrete terms depends a lot on the specifics: maybe 5 humans can beat one demon, or certain demons, but maybe not other demons. The same way, maybe 2 demons are enough to beat a Power wielding warrior, but maybe more are required.

All you need to do, then, are translate these statements that can be made into statistics, then the statistics into dice mechanics.  (I say that as if it's a simple thing...)

Of course, like in the manga, if a warrior has regenerative capacities, a limb loss during a Duel is possible. But if that would mean the end of a Duel for an opponent unable to regenerate, then I would avoid that before the end of the Duel. In short, permanent losses are narrated, not provided mechanistically by the system.

That's fine.  So all the Winner has to do is narrate Costs on the final blow, deciding at that moment what the fight costs the Loser.  It makes things easier on the non-narrative mechanics.

-Jason Timmerman

[Alexandre Santos]

I'm sorry if I've made use of the word "we" in talking about your system.  I'm here to help you out, not to join on-board.  I'm sure much of your creation process will be handled long after I've given my final suggestions.

That's understood. Actually I am currently co-mastering a campaign with a friend. Although we contribute equally to the campaign production, I decided early on that he would have the final say on all issues (because he had the initial scenario idea). This has made our life a lot simpler, because we don't need to care about bruised egos when we disagree: I suggest stuff, and develop what he agrees on. This way we are very productive with minimal attrition.

This being said, I must warn the fellow thread lurkers that what follows contains spoilers on the Claymore universe. If you have not read/seen the last episodes, please refrain from reading further. Hopefully the next posts will be spoiler free...

Spoiler ALERT


Ok, let's get hardcore ;-)

I totally agree that the topic of being human or not is one of the most interesting issues in this manga, and it's an issue that affects Claymores and even Awakened Ones. Claymores are for sure not simple humans anymore, and continuously question if they belong humanity, even if not being totally human. But if you think about Awakened Ones such as Riful of the West, or Ophelia, the question still stands for them. Obviously Awakened Ones have crossed a certain limit, but it's also clear that they are not pure Yoma. Jean and Riful allude to that in a brief exchange.

Certainly I would not want to bring clumsy answears to those questions (the same way I won't answer to the question of where Yoma come from, what's behind the Organization, etc). On the contrary, this kind of questions should be part of the motivation to play the game, and giving answers would just lessen the interest of the players.

This being said, I definitely want the issue of humanity to have a mechanistic effect in the game system. Here is how I envisioned that:

The worst fear of a Claymore (often more than death itself) is to be corrupted by her Yoki, and turn into the things she devoted her life to destroy. Unfortunately for her, the very own act of fighting Yoma brings her always closer to that final corruption (see sword hilt black notes). This is part of the tragic side of a Claymore's life. Even if she survives her enemies, she will end up corrupted, or executed by her own allies.

There are two ways of becoming corrupted by the Yoki, a quick and a gradual one. The quick way happens when the Claymore releases too much of her Yoki (at or beyond 80%) and is unable to restrain it back to normal. She then goes to 100% Yoki and turns into an Awakened One.

The second way is more gradual. Every time she uses released Yoki, she gets one step closer to lose control of her Yoki and become an Awakened One. This is why even powerfull Claymores like Teresa or Galatea hate to push their Yoki to or beyond 10%, it brings them one step closer to loss of their humanity.

I want to model this gradual effect by loss of the Humanity gauge, and increase in the Yoki gauge (Total Power gauge).

The way I see things, the Total Yoki gauge can only increase, never decrease, modeling the one way ticket of Claymores towards the Awakening. Humanity on the other side tends to decay. Total Yoki increases every time a Claymore releases here Yoki beyond 10%. And every time the Total Yoki increases, the PC has to do a Total Yoki vs Humanity roll. If the PC fails this roll, Humanity is decreased. So over time, Humanity will decay, while Total Yoki increases. This will start a vicious circle, since the less Humanity a Claymore has, the quicker she will lose it, etc. At 0 Humanity, the Claymore awakens.

However, Humanity does not always declines. Every time the Claymore acts or experiences something that connects her to humanity (by saving humans, or befriending them, etc), the gets some Humanity points back. The consequence is that a Claymore that keeps focused on her "devotion" and dealings with humanity will take much more time to suffer a gradual Awakening.

Increases in Total Yoki happen any time the Claymore reaches 10% in released Yoki, and are always a fraction (10% rounded up) of the effective Yoki released. So if a Claymore has to release 50 points of effective Yoki during a Duel, she will gain 5 points of Total Yoki at the end of the Duel. The precise amounts need to be define to balance the system. So as Claymores fight more and more Duels, their Total Yoki will increase accordingly, and so will their fighting skills.

Humanity plays a role in determining when a Claymore awakens, in the Yoki vs Humanity rolls, but also helps in closing Yoki dangerously open. Passions and Trauma also modify Yoki vs Humanity rolls (the direction depends on the context), and in closing Yoki rolls. Depending on the context, Passions and Trauma can help opening or closing Yoki (Claire is using this all the time).

Increases in Yoki are not the only way to increase fighting skills, the Claymore can also learn Techniques that give her bonus in a certain Attribute.

(as a side note, I'm currently thinking that at each Duel round a Claymore should chose which physical Attribute (Strength or Speed) she will use in the fight (combined with Willpower for attack, and Perception for defence). This way one can vary the combat descriptions, and both Attributes start to impact the game in a different way. In the same vein, Perception could be used for attack or defense, and same for Willpower. However the PC can only use one of both at the same time.)

I think even saying that warriors are still "human" is not answered by the comic.  In fact, warriors have to deal with that question, "Am I human?" as a part of the drama of the Situation.

I agree 100%!

I realize that you may see this point is a matter of manga cliche, can we simply say that Warriors are Warriors, leaving the question as to whether they are human in doubt?

Yep, beyond this post lets call them Warriors.

A counterpoint to this is that warriors can adapt to use their Power in different ways.  I think their ability to channel Power into different "attributes" can adapt throughout the course of a campaign, as evidenced by Claire's continued growth, and learning of new techniques.

Agreed, this should give variety to the campaign. Nevertheless, it's very important for me that Attributes stay stable of the course of the game for a given PC. This way one draws the spotlight on the role of the Yoki in increasing a Warrior's abilities, and preserves a trace of the former human that the Claymore was (in this game, Attributes are all of "human" origin, and are "frozen" after the transformation).

Even with a canonical guide out, I think that we could still simply think of the Attributes you listed rather as Ratings instead of Attributes.  It would simply make more sense to me that Warriors create these Ratings through use of Power in different Techniques.  To me, that would be "truer to the setting."  Again, however, this is your game, so you have the final say.

I must admit I did not understand what you are trying to say?

I noticed in the factbook a couple things.  While the text is too blurry when I zoom in, it looks like Power is rated as a letter grade as well.  Since the lowest-ranked Warrior in the Organization doesn't have an F in anything, are we sure that F exists?  Besides this, she has a C+ as of the Battle in the North?  So +/- grades exist, as well?

If we can get Power on the same scale as other attributes, then we have I think a better basis to go on.  We don't need to use numbers like 50 or 500 for Power release.

A couple of comments there:
- actually there is no F grade, I had not read the databook for a while, and ended up inventing it. Consider F eliminated, anyway it was bothersome
- I decided to neglect +/- grades, because I think 5 grades is already more than enough, and fans will not whine too much. I could re-consider that if one can put +/- grades to good use in the game mechanics.
- I know that Power also has a grade, like all other Attributes. This is something I will not keep from the canon. Yes I know it's blasphemy, but remember respect of the canon was second, in my priority list ;-).

The main reason for that is that Power is just too important in the whole game/universe to be just another Attribute. It's the essence of everything pertaining to Yoma. Attributes derive from the original human identity of a Claymore, their human imprint/DNA in a Claymore. Power is what comes from the Yoma side. All Claymores/Awakened Ones are basically humans more or less corrupted by Power. In the game I wanted to model this by having Power impacting on the Claymore capacities through her human Attributes. Power does not create anything, it modifies what was already there. This is also why many Awakened One's (or Claymore) psychology is a distorted regression from their human Trauma. Once they are corrupted by Power, they have a lot more trouble to mature psychologically, become very rigid and fixated by past events (see Claire, Ophelia, Priscilla, etc).

Also, it's obvious from the manga that Claymore's Power increases with time and experience (Claire is the example, but also the Awakening, etc), whereas I would wish human Attributes to remain "frozen", as the trace of the human identity that they once were. The surge in Power is for me the way to model the escalation that one sees in the manga. So I need Power to behave in a totally different way from the other Attributes, and even interact with Humanity, a gauge that does not exist in the databook.

BTW, the databook is supposed to be a technical reference tool produced by the Organization for internal usage. In the end, it's just the way people in the organization view Claymores, and not necessarily how things work. Of course, one can use this for all kinds of loopholes, but I would like to minimize that.

You mention that you would like to have Power as another Attribute. That would interfere with the way I see it increasing after every single usage of Power, and its interplay with Humanity, not to mention that it would behave differently from the other Attributes, which are fixed over time. So I don't think I will treat Power like other human Attributes. Nevertheless, I would be interesting in knowing why would you think it would be better for Power to be an additional Attribute, maybe one can use parts of that...

What we could do with the letter grades is a sort of Wraparound.  Like I was saying earlier, these grades might be looked at like a Report Card from the Organization, meaning they're only meant to classify Warriors that have existed.  That said, there might be warriors that change their notions surprisingly in a certain attribute, and for these, they might even use A++.  But there are some Awakened Ones on a completely different level.  At that point, we could start wrapping around to Z, Y, X, W, V, etc. to account for them on the same scale?  Just a thought.  These may have to correspond to numbers one way or another, if we're going to use numbered dice.

I see what you mean, and agree with you. The databook is a report from the Organization, and can be updated as events play out. But because of the reasons I mentioned, I would like Attributes to remain stable, while effective abilities change because the Yoki level of the Claymore increased. Of course, the Organization would classify that as an increase in Attribute, which differs from the way I see things... Things could get more complicated if the manga author publishes an updated databook.

Figuring out balance after figuring out the mechanic is a backward and patchwork way to go about it.  If Balance is not built in in the first place, it's like hitting your head against a brick wall to get the exact Balance you want in afterward.  You're welcome to try it to have that experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to help you if you go about it that way.  You inevitably end up adding in a ton of fudge factors to the mechanics, and it can easily get unelegant.

This is the first game I'm trying to design de novo, so I'm rather inexperienced. If you think one should balance first, I find the notion reasonable and am ready to trust you on that.

Remember that system includes any way of deciding what happens in a game.  It's nonsensical, then, to say that a system does not handle something that happens in a game world.  So even if the manner of deciding who wins is just "He's an elder male Awakened One.  You're Warrior #47 in the Organization.  You lose."  That's still system.

Agreed.



END of Spoiler ALERT

You may resume safe lurking ;-)

[J. Scott Timmerman]

Even with a canonical guide out, I think that we could still simply think of the Attributes you listed rather as Ratings instead of Attributes.  It would simply make more sense to me that Warriors create these Ratings through use of Power in different Techniques.  To me, that would be "truer to the setting."  Again, however, this is your game, so you have the final say.

I must admit I did not understand what you are trying to say?

For purposes of my wording, a Rating is a measure of ability.  An Attribute is a trait a character has.  The report card example seemed to work for you on this.

Why do you need Attributes to represent a Warrior's Human component?  First, why does it matter what her attributes were when she was a human?  From a Warrior's standpoint, they were all pretty much the same as humans: cannon fodder.  Shouldn't some of the Warrior's Passions and Traumas represent her human component instead?  I honestly think that how strong she was years ago has no bearing on how she can channel Yoki into her strength now.

A major fricative point is the difference in how we see Yoki working.  I see a Warrior as being able to focus Yoki through Techniques to achieve results.  You see a Warrior as being able to amplify Human Attributes using Yoki.  It doesn't look like we can come to an agreement here.

-Jason Timmerman

[Simon C]

A quick note.

If you want your game to be about Humanity, having a humanity score is the worst way to go about that.  The question "Am I still human?" won't have much traction in your game if the players can just look at their character sheet to answer it.  Ultimately, if you want that question to be important, it needs to be the players, and not the game, judging whether the character is still human.  That's a tricky thing to accomplish.  Two games that foucs on issues of humanity are "My Life With Master" and "Sorcerer".  They do so in very different ways, which I'll outline here.

"My Life With Master"has no "humanity" score.  There's a score called "self-loathing" which marks the degree the character sees itself as a monster, and there's "weariness" which determines how much your character still cares about the people around it, and itself, but there's no humanity score.  Ultimately, "Self-Loathing" and "Weariness" decide if your character will overcome the Master, but the game never answers the question of whether the character is a monster or not.  You may find even the character with the highest self-loathing to be the most human, and the least self-hating to be the most monstrous.  The judgement is left to the players.

"Sorceror" has a humanity score, and it confused me for a long time, until I realised that Sorcerer is not "about" humanity at all.  It's about how willing the character is to sacrifice that humanity for power.  There's no score in the game that tells you that, and there's no judgement of whether sacrificing humanity is justified or not.  A character with low humanity might be a selfish asshole, or someone who puts some ideal ahead of their own humanity.  Ultimately, it's the players who judge the characters, and decide if their actions were justified.

(Sorry Ron if I've totally misinterpreted your game.)

So it sounds like your game is dealing with similar issues to Sorcerer:  The price of power, whether it's worth becoming a monster to save the world, how far each character will go.  The tension between humanity and power reinforces that.

There's a problem though.  If the characters are fighting to save the world, then it's always worth it to sacrifice their humanity.  The game doesn't address the questions you want to,  because there's no interesting question at its core.  If the choice is sacrifice your humanity or the world ends, it's a boring question.  It's an interesting tactical question, managing the risk of going over the edge against the need for more power, but from a thematic point of view, it's not so interesting, because it's never viable to choose not to release more power.  It's just a stick to make the characters act nice to people when they can.

So I think your game would be far better off dealing with humanity in a similar way to MLWM.  The question isn't "how much will I risk my humanity?" it's "what does it mean to lose humanity?" "Am I still human?" "How do I become human again?" and so on.  To facilitate this, I think it's best to remove the Humanity score entirely.  What mechanics you do use for this is up to you, but I think that having a score called "Humanity" is a direct hindrance to answering those kinds of questions.  Look at Vampire, if you need proof. 

Sorry, that wasn't the quick note I expected it to be.

[Alexandre Santos]

A major fricative point is the difference in how we see Yoki working.  I see a Warrior as being able to focus Yoki through Techniques to achieve results.  You see a Warrior as being able to amplify Human Attributes using Yoki.  It doesn't look like we can come to an agreement here.

Absolutely, and I don't think we need to reach an agreement on that. There is nothing in the manga that validates one view above the other. And even if there was, this is part of my priority number 1, above respecting canon, which is priority 2.

I will not try to convince you (since myself do not think one view is better/more logical than the other), I can only explain you how the way I see Power working serves better the kind of game I'm trying to set up.

Why do you need Attributes to represent a Warrior's Human component?  First, why does it matter what her attributes were when she was a human?  From a Warrior's standpoint, they were all pretty much the same as humans: cannon fodder.

This has to do with one of the core principles of the game, which I probably did not explain very well.

Think about crazy Roman emperors like Nero and Caligula. They were just men, with human failings, but were also the most powerful men of their world. Their wishes and whims were commands and were immediately materialized. The had absolute Power. What do we see? they behaved like spoiled brats, but spoiled children whose fancies spilled blood and caused incredible destruction. One way of viewing this is that Power did not create these men. They were already flawed, and Power provided a magnifying lens which distorted and exagerated the extent of their acts. Any farmer placed in the same position could have achieved the same results, but a farmer has not chance to express such flaws because he is better controlled by society. According to this opinion, the flaws were already in the human. Although Power distorted the man, it did so not by creating new flaws, but by favoring the expression of the original flaws. This would be a way of seeing how Power corrupts.

I do not say that this is correct. I just say that this is the type of logic that I want to infuse in the game.

So in this game, Power also distorts and corrupts those who wield it. But Power does not create anything new, just messes further what was already there. For me the story of these Warriors is how their identity and behavior is slowly distorted by the magnifying lens of their Power. Identity is crucial here. If Power corrupts by bringing exterior elements from the human identity, then it kind of "excuses" the Warrior ("my madness is imposed and foreign to me"). If corruption is the development of the Warrior human flaws, then he (and the player) will be much more haunted by it.

So knowing this principle (Power transforms, but does not create anything), it is very important to know what is of human origin, so that it can be distorted and transformed, but still a consequence of the original human. Attributes and Trauma are what comes originally from the human (and perhaps some Passions, although most will develop later), and this is the working material for Power corruption.

So when I posit that Power affects Warriors abilities through their original human attributes, I'm setting the philosophy of how Power works right at the heart of the game system.

Shouldn't some of the Warrior's Passions and Traumas represent her human component instead?  I honestly think that how strong she was years ago has no bearing on how she can channel Yoki into her strength now.

Passions and Traumas will certainly be part of the human component. But for me Attributes will also be an important part. For me, everything a Warrior is now is a consequence of the human he was before, but affected by Power.

Techniques will defenitely improve the abilities of the Warriors, but they will be most efficient when the Warrior uses Techniques that work with Attributes for which the Warrior is strong. In this way, the Warrior former human identity still has a huge impact on who the Warrior is. Actually Power magnifies what he was as a human into a grotesque caricature.

If the Warrior manages to compensate his weak Attributes by learning the appropriate Techniques, then for me the system is broken, because it weakens the Warrior identity, and encourages Warriors homogenisation.



You asked that I establish a scale for balancing purposes, so I gave a bit of thought to that, and write here a draft:

At each level, I will state how many inferior fighters is required to have 50% chances of beating ONE warrior of the next level:

NB: Warriors capable of wielding power are ranked according to their fighting abilities. Warrior 1 is stronger than Warrior 2, etc. There are at all times 47 ranked Warriors.

4 farmers vs 1 normal soldier
4 soldiers vs 1 elite soldier
4 elite soldiers vs 1 demon
4 demons vs 1 old demon (Rabona type)
1 old demon vs 1 Warrior (rank 30-47)
4 Warriors (rank 30-47) vs 1 Warrior (rank 10-20)
4 Warriors (rank 10-20) vs 1 Warrior (rank 5-9)
4 Warriors (rank 5-9) vs 1 Warrior (rank 1-4)
1 warrior (rank 1-4) vs 1 demi-god

Hope this helps. This is just a starting draft, one can probably tweak this, and I can see many exceptions to this scale.

[Alexandre Santos]

If you want your game to be about Humanity, having a humanity score is the worst way to go about that.  The question "Am I still human?" won't have much traction in your game if the players can just look at their character sheet to answer it.  Ultimately, if you want that question to be important, it needs to be the players, and not the game, judging whether the character is still human.[

Once again, a very valid comment, which joins what Jason was mentioning and forces me to re-evaluate things. I had not realized, but just creating the gauge Humanity will not actually adress the issues I want to approach during the game, as you point out.

I do not know yet how to approach this, but I will try to explain how I see things, to form a basis for an implementation in the game system.

So it sounds like your game is dealing with similar issues to Sorcerer:  The price of power, whether it's worth becoming a monster to save the world, how far each character will go.  The tension between humanity and power reinforces that.

There's a problem though.  If the characters are fighting to save the world, then it's always worth it to sacrifice their humanity.  The game doesn't address the questions you want to,  because there's no interesting question at its core.  If the choice is sacrifice your humanity or the world ends, it's a boring question.

I totally agree, even though things are a little bit more complex than that. So let me give you some explanation:

The game is centered around campaigns following the lifes of Warrior PCs until their extinction. For organizational purposes (to help the GM structure the campaign) I have divided a Warrior existence into 4 seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

Warriors were once orphan children trained by the Organization to form the current Warrior cohort (numbering 47). The Organization brainwashes the children into their goal of saving Humanity, even if that costs their lives. Children embrace these goals because of varying personnal reasons (revenge, protection, etc), and end up building their current identity around it.

A Spring Warrior starts her carreer at around 16 years old. During Spring season, the Warrior will get to know her strengths and weaknesses, face her first demons, re-experience her Trauma, and set up initial Passions. For readers aware of the Claymore universe, Claire at the beginning of the series is the perfect example of of a Spring Warrior.

During Summer, a Warrior develops Techniques that make her powerfull and renowned by her specific abilities. She performs her duty diligently according to the Organization orders. She also further develops the way she percieves her Trauma, gets further implicated and entangled in her Passions, and develops a set of core beliefs. Most of the Warriors in the manga are Summer Warriors.

Autumn starts when the Warrior is faced with an existential crisis. Her role in the organization, her beliefs, her Passions and her Trauma all collide in such a way that she will have to make choices. It will be impossible for her to save all these elements, she will have to totally embrace some, and abandon others. This usually comes with a feeling of desilliusion about her role, the Oganization, herself. Usually, if she stays true to the Organization, she will die, otherwise whe will become a traitor, chase by her fellow Warriors. In any case, something very profound about her is going to break down. Teresa is the perfect example of a Autumn Warrior.

Winter Warriors are those that have made their choices. For the first time in their life no one tells them what to do. They will choose themselves their fate, in a world which has no place for them. The story ends once the Warrior decided her fate and carried it out. This often has something to do with her Trauma, what she considers to be a human, etc. The only example of a Winter Warrior in the manga is Irene.

So basically this game can be seen as setting up an adolescent or life crisis. During the campaign the PC will develop the principles according to which she functions, then these principles will conflict with one another, causing a crisis that enables the development of a more mature personality. This could be similar to a young soldier going to Iraq and becoming desillusioned about the meaning of the war, and rebuilding himself from that. Or a very religious person who realizes her own homossexuality which is at odds with her faith: how will she rebuild herself?

So although it is true that the choice on wether to sacrifice one's life to save the world is not really an open choice, the game should come to a point where the PCs realize that perhaps their choices will have to be reframed in less absolute terms.

This being said, how do I approach the humanity issue? I think that a starting point is to see how, in the game, humanity is questioned and challenged. How the PCs feel their humanity, or lack of it, and how it plays in the game.

First of all, it is generally percieved that being overtaken by one's own Power is a form of loss of humanity. Hence all elements that prevent this could be good candidates as what favors "humanity" within a Warrior.

This is what, in my view, should help the Warrior keep control of her Power:

1 - Feel emotional attachment:

- to feel emotions (mostly attachment emotions, empathy): Most Warriors believe they cannot feel attachment emotions for others (either because they lack the capacity, or for fear of loss, stemming from previous Trauma, and their status as Warrior). Although demons fear for their lifes, experience pain of wounds, despair and sadic joy, they cannot feel attachment to other humans or to their own kind. So feelings of attachment toward other people should help the Warrior stay on the "human" side. (ex: worrying about the safety of someone, crying for someone, feeling happy for someone).
- to feel loved and accepted by others: be recognized and accepted by other people. All Warriors have an unrequited desire to be loved and accepted as they are by other people. This is made difficult because of the fact that normal humans fear Warriors, and also because within Warriors there is a lot of competition and mistrust (Warriors always strive to better each other, and strictly follow Organization orders, above their personal feelings). If a Warrior feels that she is accepted or loved by someone, this has a powerfull effect on her.

2 - have personal goals:

All Warriors are formed to save Humanity, and for that they blindly execute the Organization orders. Nevertheless with time a sense of disappointment and emptiness develops in the Warrior mind. Slowly her resolve wavers, the abstract goal is shattered and she will be lost if she does not develop concrete personal goals to carry herself on.
- demons have no goals in life, except the instinctive need to eat human flesh and gather ever more power. If the Warrior behavior becomes very similar to this, then she will not resist long to the seductive appeal of her Power.
- humans have more complex aims (revenge, care for other people, the wish prove oneself, to be recognized and appreciated by others, etc). As long as a Warrior doggedly pursues these kinds of goals, she will be better protected from floundering within her Power ("I have stuff to do before the end").

3 - Develop beliefs

Certain Warriors develop beliefs, a sense of justice that sustain the way they view themselves ("I shall stay true to my friends", "I will repay my debts", etc). This is maybe similar but opposite to MLWM "self-loathing". As long as the Warrior abides to her tao, she will respect herself, and believe in her right to exist as a human. For demons, the only belief is the "power of strength". The stronger wins and takes all. The strong one is feared, obeyed, but not loved or respected.

A warrior who loses her beliefs, drives or attachments will quickly lose it. In the real world this is what leads to suicide, in the game it leads to corruption. Power corruption could be seen as a metaphore for losing the wish to live.

I don't know yet how to implement all this, but I think something along the lines of MLWM is probably more appropriate than the simple Humanity gauge...