[Fifth World] Practical concerns about my character sheet

[jefgodesky]

Sgëno!

I have an idea I'm really taken with at the moment about using a compass/medicine wheel/mandala as a character sheet (Design Diary entry with full details), where skills/traits/attributes are rated by their angle on the wheel.  There's lots of crunchy things to work out here, but my immediate concern is quite practical.  I want this to be an easy game to set up and play.  My first thought was pinning the character sheet to a piece of cork, and then using push-pins and string to make radii for the skills, etc. that could be easily rotated as they change.  But I'm afraid that might involve too much work.  So I thought I'd put it before you clever people: do you know of any simple, easy ways to accomplish this?

[monstah]

If you're trying to measure distances, won't a common ruler work? Or perhaps you can print a ruler of your own, with a different (or more than one) scale, on the border of a piece of paper. Actually, a square sheet of paper can hold 4 different rules, one on each side, without them affecting each other.

You could also print a diagram on a transparency paper, which you can position over your mandala in any position you'd like and use it to measure. This diagram can be as complex as you'd like, allowing you for lots of different measurements.

Also, that mandala idea has interested me a lot. Specially because, in a circle, there's always the opposite side. So every ability can have a downside to it.

Would you mail me your mandala designs, if you already have some?

[Simon C]

In my experience, as long as you're accomplishing something that can't be done any other way, a reasonably large amount of extra work is tolerable.  That is, if you're fiddling with bits of string and cork board to generate information that can easily be recorded by just writing a couple of numbers, that's going to get frustrating very fast.  If, on the other hand, your strings and corkboard convey information that's very hard to write down any other way, then that's cool.

[jefgodesky]

If you're trying to measure distances, won't a common ruler work?

Not distance, angle.  Sorry, I should've made that more explicit.

Also, that mandala idea has interested me a lot. Specially because, in a circle, there's always the opposite side. So every ability can have a downside to it.

That's the idea.   Actually, we plan to have four different axes, four different ways of being awesome.

Would you mail me your mandala designs, if you already have some?

Sure!

In my experience, as long as you're accomplishing something that can't be done any other way, a reasonably large amount of extra work is tolerable.  That is, if you're fiddling with bits of string and cork board to generate information that can easily be recorded by just writing a couple of numbers, that's going to get frustrating very fast.  If, on the other hand, your strings and corkboard convey information that's very hard to write down any other way, then that's cool.

Thanks, Simon--I've been wondering if that might be the case.

[jefgodesky]

Would you mail me your mandala designs, if you already have some?

I should have read more carefully ... I don't have any design for it yet, it's still a pretty loose idea.  But I'd be happy to mail you what I come up with once I have one.

[monstah]

No problem. So, angles? There's the protractor, but as I said before, you could print one of your own. The protractor only measures one algue, you could make one that not only get's the angles, but possibly relationships between them. Or, now that I think of it, the background for your mandala itself can be printed as to offer guides for measuring the stuff in it. So, only the mandala itself is needed (and pencil, of course)

[J Tolson]

To be rather mundane about a mandal, what exactly are you trying to measure? Determining the angel is how you are measuring, but what abstract concept is this supposed to represent and how does it fit in with gameplay?

As you said in your diary post, east of the center might mean that the character just learned something (say combat, represented by a red stone or some such) while west means it has atrophied, but what then is North and South (adept and master?)? This seems to imply a degree of aptitude. A simple line would thus seem to be simpler and easier to read. As Simon said, the amount of work is fine if it produces a unique result; as it stands, I am not seeing that your result is unique.

But of course, so far I only see a different depending on what quadrant a skill is in; the need for measurements imply a finer degree of detail that eludes me. What is this detail and what is it supposed to represent?

[PlatonicPimp]

Be careful: I like the mandala Idea in theory, but wasn't one of the design goals to make sure the required game pieces could be easily made from primitive materials? It seems this mandala on corkboard with pins and string could easily get out of hand.

How often will the position of things on the board change? How important would it be to retain this information from one game session to the next? If it doesn't matter where things were last session, you could simply draw the mandalla on the ground when you started play and use sticks. If you need to remember the locations between sessions, then you need a portable media. And when it comes to measuring, I'd think it should be something you can eyeball, not something you need to use a protractor on.

Andrew Jensen

[jefgodesky]

Thanks, everyone!  I can see I left out some crucial details here.  The character sheet would have 360 degrees ticked off along the edges, with major lines indicating the cardinal directions.  We might use two axes (N and S), or possibly four; in either case, the more a skill approaches the axis, the stronger it becomes on that axis--the further away it is from any of the axes, the weaker it is.  So it encodes information about how strong a skill is, but it also has several (2 or 4) different ways in which a character can be strong in a skill.  I haven't figured out the specifics yet, obviously, but one possibility might be that North indicates a skill you have great technical mastery over, while South indicates a skill where you have plain, raw talent, and then we'd have mechanical differences in how those are used.  At East, you know nothing about it; at West, it's utterly atrophied.  So maybe at perfect East or West, it's +0, while at perfect North or South, it's +4.  Then, ranges of degrees are marked off around the wheel.  With four axes, the basic idea remains the same, but North, East, South and West are all at +4, while NE, NW, SE and SW are all +0.

In the earlier version of the game, we had skills with straightforward ranks; the more ranks in the skill, the better you were at it.  But we also used "training points," so to increase your rank, you needed to use that skill.  I like that basic idea that to get better at something, you need to use it, but it wasn't the easiest system to use.  Again, I don't know about the particulars, but what I'm thinking is something like, when you use one of your skills, it moves around the wheel one degree (hence the one-degree tick marks and ranges), so yes, it would be changing quite often in the course of the game.

The character sheets we're used to are quite powerful philosophical statements about the nature of the universe and identity.  The Fifth World's goal is to give the player an experience of an animist world, so the character model needs to be consistent with animist identity--that is, self as "that which relates."  So far, everything is set in terms of relationships.  For skills, I like this wheel concept because it's still about relationship: directions on a compass just tell you how you relate to the earth's magnetic pole, or the horizon around you.

To be rather mundane about a mandal, what exactly are you trying to measure? Determining the angel is how you are measuring, but what abstract concept is this supposed to represent and how does it fit in with gameplay?

A character's "goodness" at a skill, trait or attribute.  But a simple rank doesn't fit in with the feel the game tries to create about the primacy of relationship.  So the wheel determines how your skills inform the resolution mechanic, couched in terms of which way your skill is facing.  Hopefully the above addresses the rest of what you asked.

Be careful: I like the mandala Idea in theory, but wasn't one of the design goals to make sure the required game pieces could be easily made from primitive materials? It seems this mandala on corkboard with pins and string could easily get out of hand.

Not primitive materials per se, but I want to keep the barriers to entry low.  That's what my question here is all about.  The mechanics of it I'm not worried about right now so much as, is there some simpler way to implement this?

How often will the position of things on the board change?

Possibly as much as every time you make a resolution check.

How important would it be to retain this information from one game session to the next? If it doesn't matter where things were last session, you could simply draw the mandalla on the ground when you started play and use sticks.

Really, I could see this working easier with primitive materials; draw a circle in the dirt and use sticks.  Between sessions, you can just trace the line with a pencil.  It's during the session that you need the versatility.

And when it comes to measuring, I'd think it should be something you can eyeball, not something you need to use a protractor on.

I agree, that's why I'm planning on having all 360 degrees ticked off along the wheel's edge.  If you have a string from a push-pin in the center, to a push-pin on the perimeter, all you need to do is move the push-pin over one degree.  No protractor necessary.  But like you said, corkboard, push-pins and string can easily get out of hand ... is there an easier way to implement this?

[J Tolson]

Thanks for providing more information. It is always easier to imagine how something might be done when one knows more about that something and how it needs to be done. Or something like that.

Anywho. Quick question; is it important for the "push-pins" (or whatever marker is used) to be a certain distance from the center? This is implied by the fact that the string is there (as it will create a set distance every time it is moved). If that is important, than an easy way to get rid of the string is to just draw a few more circles around the center. To be mathematical, let's say you have 4 circles, one with a radius of 1 unit, one with a radius of 2 units, and so forth. The center of each circle is still the center of the mandala. When a skill moves from East to north, the marker moves along the same circle the appropriate number of degrees. It keeps the same distance from the center, as this can easily be seen by the various circles (not a precise method, but it doesn't sound like you need precise).

Additionally, you can then use the distance from the center of the circle to represent more information if you so need (and if you aren't already planning on doing this). Perhaps the first circle (and any skills there in) represents the skill in how it relates to the self, the second in how the skill relates to others, the third in how the skill relates to the world, and the fourth something that I can't think of. Thus a "healing" skills might be the result of natural talent (hence near the south pole) but it is a matter of control over the self (thus in the first circle) so the character is best at using it in regards to its self.

As for the markers (the push-pins in your original description), simple stones would seem to suffice during gameplay (or perhaps bones; it is mixing cultures a bit, but it seems slightly "cool" to have "the bones" telling you about a character). At the end of the session their spots on the mandala are then marked.

Alternately, have your mandala on a sheet of paper and put it inside a plastic protector cover. Here is a quick link to the first product that I could find. Simply dry erase markers then work wonderfully. If you are worried about things getting erased accidentally between sessions, permanent markers work too and ethanol will take it right off when you need to erase.

Either should be rather simple to construct on the player's part (print, slide into the cover, done!)

Or is that missing the tactile feel that you are looking for?

~Joel


p.s. because I just can't resist commenting on theory as well as design, I really do like your idea of the mandala. If you are looking for other possibilities for what the poles represent, might I suggest each pole could represent how a skill relates to one of the "competing interests" you mentioned in your core mechanics post? Animal:Plant:Human:Spirit for North:South:East:West. These could even represent more abstract concepts as double duty. Animal:Plant:Human:Spirit for Destruction:Creation:Order:Chaos. A healing skill to the north might be particularly good on animals and if it is to the east it primarily mends wounds, while to the west it primarily destroys infections or foreign agents within the body (and on perfect north it primarily does both, as those are then in balance).

[Selene Tan]

The mandala seems like a pretty neat idea.

One thing--do you really need the precision of 360 degrees around the circle? You could mark the circle like a clock, with 60 notches around the circle in groups of 5, and people should find it pretty easy to read without getting into exact angles.

[PlatonicPimp]

I too like the mandalla, but I don't think it should be used to demarcate your relationships or your skills. In your other thread we've talked about rating a relationship (skill) in terms of beads. I had imagined you had a series of cords with beads on them which held your relationships. Perhaps the mandalla can be a measure of something else, some sort of status indicator?

I've been reading a bit of the old tom brown recently, and he talks so much about awareness that I can't help but think about it. Imagine the east/west axis is focused awareness to wide awareness, and the north/south is spiritual awareness to physical awareness. At any time a character can shift their focus around the edge (and for myself I imagine a painted hoop with a sliding bead on it) to show how they are currently seeing the world. A character who is more focused would get bonuses on noticing fine detail but penalties on noticing changes around them, the opposite would apply to a widely aware character. A spiritually aware character might notice that Sheila is very upset today, but not notice that she'd wearing a new dress. The more you approach any one direction, the farther you get from the other and the more balanced your view of the other axis becomes.

[jefgodesky]

Anywho. Quick question; is it important for the "push-pins" (or whatever marker is used) to be a certain distance from the center? This is implied by the fact that the string is there (as it will create a set distance every time it is moved). If that is important, than an easy way to get rid of the string is to just draw a few more circles around the center. To be mathematical, let's say you have 4 circles, one with a radius of 1 unit, one with a radius of 2 units, and so forth. The center of each circle is still the center of the mandala. When a skill moves from East to north, the marker moves along the same circle the appropriate number of degrees. It keeps the same distance from the center, as this can easily be seen by the various circles (not a precise method, but it doesn't sound like you need precise).

At the moment, the main piece of information I really need to track here is basically how "good" a particular trait is.

(I should probably mention that I'm leaning heavily towards using the kind of ad hoc, "simply describe your character as a character" kind of traits that you see in a game like Dogs in the Vineyard, or Aspects in FATE, to try to make the character model as narrative-based as possible.)

What I had been thinking was that the angle itself would encode this information.  The reason for the string was to make it as easy as possible to update that information.  These things would improve steadily; so, for instance, every time you "win" a resolution based on that trait, that trait would improve.  Move it one degree over.

(Actually, now I'm thinking that the reward for winning the resolution is winning, but you learn most from your failures, so it's when you fail that you move over one degree; which would also mean that the better you get, the more slowly you would improve, which is also nice, but it still comes down to the idea that you have to use it to improve it.)

But that's why, for pragmatic concerns, it needs to be something easily updated, and why I can't see too many methods involving writing and erasing would work very well--this is something the player will be updating continuously, and you'll have several traits represented on the same circle.  If I need to update trait A, and doing so involves something like erasing a line such that I'll probably erase a good bit of traits B and C in the process, this is just going to be frustrating more than anything else.

Now, making concentric tree rings is an interesting touch, and I can see that you could also include a good bit of information into that, as well, but I have to admit that in the suggestion you've made here as it is, I'm not quite sure what the different rings are encoding that you wouldn't have in just one circle?

Perhaps the first circle (and any skills there in) represents the skill in how it relates to the self, the second in how the skill relates to others, the third in how the skill relates to the world, and the fourth something that I can't think of.

Actually, I'd say it'd make more sense to go more basic than that: they're like tree rings, so they represent different stages of maturity, perhaps steps in a lifepath and the amount of experience you can have with them.  Makes for a mechanic that immediately gives elders an advantage, which seems appropriate.

As for the markers (the push-pins in your original description), simple stones would seem to suffice during gameplay (or perhaps bones; it is mixing cultures a bit, but it seems slightly "cool" to have "the bones" telling you about a character). At the end of the session their spots on the mandala are then marked.

Bones or sticks would both be great for outdoor play, but now I think it does sound like simply more colored stones, arranged around the perimeter of the circle, might be the way to go after all.  During play, you can move them around the circle quite easily, and in between games you can always just draw a circle around them.

If you are looking for other possibilities for what the poles represent, might I suggest each pole could represent how a skill relates to one of the "competing interests" you mentioned in your core mechanics post? Animal:Plant:Human:Spirit for North:South:East:West.

Heh heh, already does!  Although an important point for this game is that Human is Animal.  But we already have the Red Nation (Animals) and the Green Nation (Plants), and the Black Nation (Fungus).  Although the medicine wheel colors are usually red, yellow, black and white, so matching them up presents a small challenge ... but each pole has many, many associations, and they'll all inform what those poles mean.

One thing--do you really need the precision of 360 degrees around the circle? You could mark the circle like a clock, with 60 notches around the circle in groups of 5, and people should find it pretty easy to read without getting into exact angles.

I like the 360 degrees, because it means that you're not advancing too quickly by using your trait.  To go from East to North would take 90 degrees, or 90 failures in resolutions for that trait.  After that, I think he's probably earned that advancement.  If we mark it off in minutes, then it only takes 15 failures.  It could certainly work, but it seems a little too easy then, at least to me.

I too like the mandalla, but I don't think it should be used to demarcate your relationships or your skills. In your other thread we've talked about rating a relationship (skill) in terms of beads. I had imagined you had a series of cords with beads on them which held your relationships. Perhaps the mandalla can be a measure of something else, some sort of status indicator?

Oh, I hadn't even thought of a string of beads, that's a brilliant idea!  But aside from the relationship system, there's still the traits of a character--how skilled are they themselves, before they get any help?  Or perhaps that very notion needs to be re-examined.

I've been reading a bit of the old tom brown recently, and he talks so much about awareness that I can't help but think about it. Imagine the east/west axis is focused awareness to wide awareness, and the north/south is spiritual awareness to physical awareness. At any time a character can shift their focus around the edge (and for myself I imagine a painted hoop with a sliding bead on it) to show how they are currently seeing the world. A character who is more focused would get bonuses on noticing fine detail but penalties on noticing changes around them, the opposite would apply to a widely aware character. A spiritually aware character might notice that Sheila is very upset today, but not notice that she'd wearing a new dress. The more you approach any one direction, the farther you get from the other and the more balanced your view of the other axis becomes.

That's interesting ... and a very focused mechanic, I think.  Could make awareness a very central part of the game, but it doesn't leave much room for any of the other traits that might define a character.  Hmmmm.

[PlatonicPimp]

I think that very notion may need to be examined. Perhaps all people are equally capable (or all people in a tribe are equally capable) before you factor in relationships. Where we might say "he's good at running" they might say "he's swift like the wind" and we note on the sheet his favorable relationship with wind.

I don't know if that's how animists actually do that, though. I'm just saying that's how we could do it for this game. Then everything becomes a relationship. I don't know if that's what you want, but I'm tossing it out there.

[jefgodesky]

One of the most common tropes of animist myth is that of the proud hunter: he brags about his skill as a hunter, ascribing his big kill to his own skill, rather than honoring the deer's sacrifice.  That offends Deer, so he never finds another deer again (unless he makes the proper offerings or reparations).

That story doesn't make sense unless there's a concept of skill to be proud of in the first place, right?