[From Zero To Hero] Power 19

[Llogres]

1.) What is your game about?

"From Zero To Hero" (working title, maybe i will keep it) is about a dark fantasy world, called Mael'Saresh, where different factions fight for the freedoms of their own kind. The Idea was to combine a medieval fantasy world with an postapocalyptic feeling, combined in a world that is rebuilding itself after a great Cataclysm.


2.) What do the characters do?

The Characters try to follow their own political ideas, or maybe find out what was really behind the great Cataclysm. Some may be mercenaries for any pfaction in the world, or maybe follow their own opportunistic path. Characters fight against Mutants or opposed factions in order to survive. What the Characters do depends very much on their own motivation.


3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?

The GM provides a plot to the players, confronts them with problems or hostile encounters. The GM is supposed to be neutral, and does not try to play against the players (for example by trying to get them killed).
The GM should also try to go into the player characters backgrounds to help providing a personal motivation.
The Players tell their characters (re)actions. The players roll dice in order to see if they succeed or fail in an attempt to do something. On each (re)action of the characters follows some (re)action by the GM or other players.


4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The setting provides a lot of conflicts between different factions on the peninsula "Mael'Saresh". It also provides a lot of political problems that can be used as different hooks for a GM given plot. The idea of the whole game is very much based on exploration of setting.


5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?

Characters start as almost average inhabitants of Mael'Saresh. They start with low values on the skills, and they can also set a starting reputation to each faction. Each player also can choose certain special features for his char that makes him unique. I still need to work and think a lot about this...


6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?

Helping others will be rewarded by material (eg Money) or with knowledge if the characters help someone from whom they want to get informations.
Any form of success, and if only a personal success for a single character, will be rewarded with experience points that can be spent for improving the abilities of a character.
Characters also gain a certain reputation with the different factions in the setting depending on their actions. A good reputation might bring very advantages, a bat reputation might turn a faction completely against the characters. Everything they do will have some sort of consequences.


7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?

Characters gain experience, train their skills, gain a reputation. They can spent their money in buing better equipment or information they need to complete tasks.


8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?

The GM is there to add color to the world, the NPC's and everything around the characters. It is his job to provide situations where the players can do their part: let their characters act and react on everything around them. The players may only choose what their own characters do, with their view only limited to the view of their character. Every player is supposed to play his character only with the knowledge of the character not with the knowledge of a player.
The GM knows (and actually IS) everything, except the characters, but this does not mean it is not the players job to help drive a plot with their (re)actions.


9.) What does your game do to command the players' attention, engagement, and participation? (i.e. What does the game do to make them care?)

The focus while playing the game lies on the characters, its about what happens to them so they are constantly involved in everything. The GM constantly makes the characters come into situations where they have to act and decide what to do next, and since it's up to the player what a character does it requires his thinking and attention.
The characters also have the possibility of changing things in the setting, in the beginning these changes might be small, but the more advanced the characters become, the more far-ranging will the consequences of their actions be.


10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?

It is based on success/failure rolls with d20. Depending on how much the characters succeed or fail with their roll there will be different results of the attempted task. Success or failure will only count for a certain situation, but of course will have consequences for a later situation, too. By success, but even by failure the players character will learn from what he's done and gain experience points he may spent in improving skills.


11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?

Improving skills is very important for becoming important in any form. Without beeing good at anything the characters can't really change the course of anything, which is the fate of many other citiciens of Mael'Saresh, but not the fate of the player characters.
But the players have to face the fact that their characters might also fail in what they do, and that there is not always success. Playing together and helping each other might become important because not every task can be done by every character.


12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?

Characters advance by spending experience points to improve skills. They improve by their knowledge about the things they got to do with. Characters may also spent their money on whatever someone in Mael'Saresh is willing to sell.


13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?

The characters get better, get richer, get more important due to their improvement in skills and knowledge. They are given the chance to escape the fate of average civilians. But the power given to the characters by advancement may also corrupt them and forget where they started and make them even worse than those formerly hated back then when they were just average citicens. They will be given the power to change the course of history, even if only in a limited way.


14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?

I want the players to enjoy the advancement of their characters from average people to heroes, but the players should always keep in mind that even heroes have to accept defeat in certain situations.


15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?

The different possibilities to develop a character during the play of the game, the political and social background of Mael'Saresh, the cataclysmic background. Why? - Well, because that's what i like the most about it.
The setting recieves a lot of extra attention and color, because it is very important to the air of the whole game.


16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?

I'm most interested in the players evolving "from zero to hero", and all the responsibility that comes with this fact. During character creation, you might never know which way a character might develop during the course of playing the game.
And, of course, the setting of Mael'Saresh. Without having the idea of the setting, i guess i wouldn't be here.


17.) Where does your game take the players that other games can't, don't, or won't?

The peninsula of Mael'Saresh is a place where characters won't find supermagical items that grant them the power of superheroes. In my system a character won't loose much of his thread for others if you take his equipment.
Political struggles in a land that is rebuilding, social problems in a slaveholders society, and all this without magic beeing present everywhere.
I think the answer to this question will be far expanded the further i get with my work...


18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?

Free PDF for those who are interested


19.) Who is your target audience?

My target audience are players interested in political plots, but also in fighting mutants, or doing whatever they want. Got no real special audience here, i mainly do this for the players I want to play with



Thanks for reading, and big thanks to Troy who helped me over the barriers of misunderstanding, and adviced me to open a new thread. Now the answers are much more precise i think, and I also got a good working title for my game. If you're interested in anything I'd be very happy to answer your questions.

- Llogres

[Valamir]

The setting sounds pretty cool...some questions that came to mind reading the answers.

I was encouraged that you're limiting your world to a "penninsula"...setting depth is inversely proportional to setting breadth.  Any potential to narrow it further?  I'm reminded of Xenozoic Tales which was also people rebuilding the world post cataclysm (albiet with dinosaurs instead of mutants) and while other places were hinted at, the action was focused really on one city and the factions and politics were the movers and shakers within that city.  The City by the Sea (aka Manhattan) really then became as much of a character as the characters which it sounds like what you'd like to see.

What's the vision behind zero-hero?  i.e. your goal behind having the characters start low...be rewarded with experience...get higher level.  As opposed to having the characters start as the movers and shakers.  Seems to me like there's a real danger of creating really cool faction on faction conflict, but then have your players never participate in it because their busy doing Fed Ex runs or "killing mutant rats in the sewer" or what have you.  You mention this improvement is the part you're most excited about.  Tell me more.

[Llogres]

The setting sounds pretty cool...some questions that came to mind reading the answers.

First of all thanks for reading and for your comment.

I was encouraged that you're limiting your world to a "penninsula"...setting depth is inversely proportional to setting breadth.  Any potential to narrow it
further?  I'm reminded of Xenozoic Tales which was also people rebuilding the world post cataclysm (albiet with dinosaurs instead of mutants) and while other places were hinted at, the action was focused really on one city and the factions and politics were the movers and shakers within that city.  The City by the Sea (aka Manhattan) really then became as much of a character as the characters which it sounds like what you'd like to see.

Further limiting of the world would take a lot of background i think. Since the cities are not very big compared to todays cities there are more cities instead of more inhabitants in each city. I guess I tell you little more about the history of the setting because it quite shapes the politics as they are today:
In "the beginning" (let's call it the beginning because the people first kept record of history back then) the whole peninsule (which is quite big) consisted of two empires. One was at about one fifth of the total size of the peninsula and populated by the "Skalia" (this plays a role later one), and a kingdom, both quite neutral towards each other since there was no need to harm each other. Later on the kingdom splitted itself in three parts, so that there were four nations of approximately the same size. This kept going good many years, until one of the nations that formerly had been in that kingdom, the "Rekaleth" started attacking the "Skalia". They enslaved en entire nation, but they didn't stop because with the strength their nation gained through the new lands and the slaves they had the power to conquer the other two nation. In the end the situation is that the Rekaleth completely conquered one part of the Kingdom which was placed in the middle of the peninsula, only a small part of Skaleria and a small part of one of the other two parts of the kingdom remained free.
So we had one big Rekaleth, a small Skaleria, a small Maraness (that's what the other nation was called).
But then there was this Cataclysm, and half of the total population died, 95% amongst the wizards of the whole peninsula.
Okay now i see that I'm talking way too much, what i want to say is that i need the whole peninsula in order to set up all the factions i need to make the setting interesting. Most of the cities are just owned by one of these factions and putting everything into one city would mean the loss of factions.

What's the vision behind zero-hero?  i.e. your goal behind having the characters start low...be rewarded with experience...get higher level.  As opposed to having the characters start as the movers and shakers.  Seems to me like there's a real danger of creating really cool faction on faction conflict, but then have your players never participate in it because their busy doing Fed Ex runs or "killing mutant rats in the sewer" or what have you.  You mention this improvement is the part you're most excited about.  Tell me more.

The thing is that you can't walk around in Mael'Saresh without participation in that struggle of factions. The Cataclysm was also the birth of the mutants which now make it not safe to travel between cities, which is one of the reasons why there are no united nations anymore, but just cities that try to survive.
Quite hard to explain everything in tweo sentences because it really is complicated to explain.
By the way: Don't think of the mutants as mutated super-rats but more as mutated humans and animal/human hybrids (don't know the word here).
I guess I'll take some time and draw some political maps of the peninsula because it is really hard to explain with words. It is all a big network of connections between the factions.
A reason for starting at zero: You know all the problems of a "lower class" if you where once part of it. Solving problems of others  is much easier if you had to face them yourself in the past.

I know that my answer is not very precise, but i think thats the most precise answer i can give at the moment.
Thanks for asking

- Llogres

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Further limiting of the world would take a lot of background i think.

Well, how about this idea:  You could give a general historical and geographical background of the peninsula and then laser-focus in on one city.  All PCs start out in that city.  Maybe it's the best city, or maybe the worst, or maybe it is the one teetering most on the edge of destruction- whatever.  Narrowing the playable-setting doesn't railroad the players or limit their choices, in fact what it does is help them get more invested in the plight of the setting.  Valamir makes a good suggestion when he talks about limiting the Setting some more.  But you also don't want to lose all the work you've already done.  IMHO, my suggestion is a decent comprimise. 

What do you think?

How would it affect your game?

Peace,

-Troy