Creatures of Destiny Power 19

[Creatures of Destiny]

[MKAdams]

	Logged

[Creatures of Destiny]

Basically if you take a story like Lord of the Rings (I'm taking that example because of its obvious influence on the first RPGs) then you have characters who vary widely in power - I mean you've got Sam, who's just a hobbit gardener, and Gandalf, who's a near immortal wizard in the same party. Imagine trying to play with a party like that in say D&D . It wouldn't work right? Because either Gandalf would be an uber "DMPC" and that would suck or else some players might feel sidelined by the fact that in many situations their characters are overshadowed.

In Creatures of Destiny players have a destiny pool which they assign to characters. They can either use pre-game to empower their characters or in game to gain story and game adavntages. Mostly characters play a Lead - a main character. Sometimes they play smaller roles, but they can still earn destiny while doing so. They can also put some of their pool into creating a Cameo - I haven't really worked this out mechanically. But the idea is that the player can create a more powerful character who is however limited in availabilty because the player must stake destiny (risk losing destiny) to bring that character into play. Furthermore Cameos suffer greater effects from Calamities.

So maybe in the Fellowship one player would play Sam as a lead and Gandalf as a Cameo, while another plays Frodo as a lead and another Strider and Pippin as leads and so on. The players are "balanced" in importance even if the individual characters are not.

Also one or more leads can be spotlighted - their players take them off on their own while the other players run various Extras alongside the GM's NPC's (or maybe just take over some NPC's as extras). Even the players running Extras earn destiny which they can use to power their Leads and Cameos in other scenes.

Make sense?

[opsneakie]

This sounds really cool. So, let me see if I follow.

I'm playing Frodo, someone else is playing Strider. The character of Strider is way stronger than Frodo; a better fighter, more powerful, etc, but that's not what's important, am I right? The destiny is what's important, and both of those characters have major destinies. Strider has to become king of Gondor, and Frodo has to destroy the Ring. Both are important to the story, so their power levels aren't a big deal, right?

Both players might play little people throughout the course of the game to earn destiny, which works like a sort of currency for influencing the world? Then you accomplish your destinies to 'win'?

Is this right? I like the idea of a destiny game a lot, so I'm interested to see where this is going.

-J0hn

[Creatures of Destiny]

Exactly,

 I wanted to have something that players wanted to feel like they're "winning", like XP and treasure in D&D, glory in Pendragon and Karma in Marvel Super Heroes. I figured what players get as a reward can strongly influence the way they play so I wanted something that is not strictly tied to one character. It's tied to the player, how much destiny they invest in characters is up to them.

I guess there are  couple of things I want this to do with this. One is to allow characters to develop backstory and stuff in play, rather than necessarily have all their characters work out beforehand. Maybe characters could start play as basic skeletons but still become quite developed in play. So So this is also the way important powers and items would be accumulated - like when Obi One says to Luke: "This is your father's lightsaber" rather than a magic shop or whatever. Again a player might run Obi One as a Cameo. I'm thinking a bit of the various roles in the Hero's Journey here: mentors, gatekeepers etc...

The other thing is that it helps avoid the "don't split the party" thing. If one character goes off to do their own thing then the other players can still continue play and accumulate destiny. You know that scene in Kill Bill II where she's buried in a coffin? You could play out that whole flashback sequence - the buried player spends destiny to gain the power and play goes into flashback with another player maybe taking the role of the old kung fu master (and earning destiny while doing so).

[Creatures of Destiny]

I'm playing Frodo, someone else is playing Strider. The character of Strider is way stronger than Frodo; a better fighter, more powerful, etc, but that's not what's important, am I right? The destiny is what's important, and both of those characters have major destinies. Strider has to become king of Gondor, and Frodo has to destroy the Ring. Both are important to the story, so their power levels aren't a big deal, right?

Both players might play little people throughout the course of the game to earn destiny, which works like a sort of currency for influencing the world? Then you accomplish your destinies to 'win'?
-J0hn

I just re-read your post and Iike to point out that, yes, that is what I want, but that the destinies are not actually predermined, but are created on the fly during play. To go back to Frodo and Strider (and it's important to note here that for the purpose of this example I'd lik eyou to imagine that no-one playing has read the book or seen the film), the Strider player spent more destiny on beefing up the character, while the Frodo player took on the Ring Bearer option. Since I envisage players creating backstory as they go it may be that when the campaign starts, Strider IS just a ranger named Strider. The fact that he's also Aragorn and rightful heir of Gondor is something that the player creates during play by spending destiny. Maybe in the hypothetical Rings campaign the  GM had the idea of the One Ring needing to be destroyed and so the players might bid to be the ringbearer - thus the Fordo player has less destiny left over to make his character "powerful". But all players are balanced in RELEVANCE to the story and in play.

I also write fiction and I was thinking about Stephen King's "On Writing" where he mentioned that he writes by just putting a character in a situation and then seeing where that leads. Of course he has the advantage that he can make backstory as he goes and develop things further. I thought that would be a great model for a RPG, one where players can just start with an outline - some ranger guy called Strider or whatever - and by the end of the campaign have a fully fleshed out character with background and personality that reflects their role in the story and how the player has run them.

I'd also imagine that the GM would use destiny too. Say the players have a total pool of 60 destiny, that's what the GM has to create adversity for them - whether that's foes, hostile environments or just plain bad luck. Of course in play it'd be dynamic with destiny pools incresing and running low.

[opsneakie]

YES!

This is exactly what I was hoping you were going to write. If destiny was predetermined, play would stagnate I think pretty quickly, but while you're making it up, your guy in the Rings campaign can drop a huge pile of destiny tokens (or whatever, but I think tokens would be cool) and say, "Strider's real name is Aragorn, and he is the rightful King of Gondor." Boom. Suddenly the whole game looks different, and I as a PLAYER have introduced a major plot element. Now the story focuses (at least somewhat) on Strider becoming King?

Speaking as a writer as well, this seems very much like a novel brought to life, which is great. When we meet Strider, he IS just a ranger named Strider, but later on we find out these things, and the story gets moved along by a series of these kind of realizations. We as readers don't know anything about the characters at the start, we find everything out bit by bit as they go along.

Wow. Just wow. This game kind of imploded my mind.

When can I get a copy?

-John

[Creatures of Destiny]

Thanks Opsneakle I'm really glad to hear that kind of enthusiasm!A novel brought to life is very much what I want. But I also want the Destiny to make it work as a game and give it an edge.

I want to try and get playtest copies out by the Summer and then hit the drawing board again based on feedback.

As it was I imagined destiny as dice - they can be staked by rolling them (so you increase your chance of success by risking some of your destiny) or spent as tokens. That doesn't mean you actually have to have a handful of dice, just that if you wanted to you could.

I've also been reworkign characater creation from the standpoint that any abilities bought are those that the character has already REVEALED. Basically a 0 average with the player buying as much stuff as they want to at the start and leaving as much open as they want. So buying new powers has more the feel of revealing stuff.

I also started thinking that with the players creating their own good luck the GM could be much more antagonistic - playing the Antagonist destiny pool destiny to beset the players with bad luck, adversity and foes. The antagonist roles could also have the same principal of being Leads (major villains), Extras and Cameos (the super powerful characters that are sort of in the background). So if the original Star Wars movie was a campaign, Darth Vader would be a Cameo (there's no way Luke or Han or any of them could face him directly)  while Obi would be one of the player's Cameos. But by Retrun of the Jedi Darth is a Lead villain  (as in Luke can, and in fact has to face him), while the Emperor would be a Cameo. In a Rings Campaign Sauron would be an antagonist Cameo while the Ring Wraiths would be the Lead villains for the first part (while orcs would be Extras).

Maybe it could even be that to get a break from the GM the players need to play destiny - "I'm playing 5 destiny for an ally" and the GM would throw in 5 destiny worth of help (maybe even having a villain help out for some reason). This is just an idea, I want the Destiny to enrichen the play experience, not strangle it.

Daniel

[wild_card2007]

I like what you're doing here with introduction of new character/story elements during play, by players; passions; and the idea of a destiny.

I'm curious about the economy of destiny points?  How are they earned and lost?  How do you figure out how many points it costs to introduce something, like "Okay, Aragorn is the heir of Gondor", or "Aragorn has great horsemanship skills"?  What if I wanted to spend destiny points to do something twinky like "Aragorn is filthy rich -- he can buy a whole kingdom with his pocket change", or "Aragorn's best friend Tharon is a wizard whose powers dwarf even Gandalf's"?  How does your system deal with that?  And how does the GM earn and use destiny points?

I'm also a little unclear as to how the game keeps the players' interest/attention.  Where is the challenge, the risk, the conflict?  What are the stakes?  Is it mainly about creating a story with your characters?

Thomas

[Grinning Moon]

I think this is a really brilliant notion you're hitting on. This is a game I'd like to play.

...I'd tinker with the title, though. 'Creatures of Destiny' just, well, lacks a realy 'ring' and doesn't feel like it hits on what th game is about.

I'm curious about the economy of destiny points?  How are they earned and lost?  How do you figure out how many points it costs to introduce something, like "Okay, Aragorn is the heir of Gondor", or "Aragorn has great horsemanship skills"?  What if I wanted to spend destiny points to do something twinky like "Aragorn is filthy rich -- he can buy a whole kingdom with his pocket change", or "Aragorn's best friend Tharon is a wizard whose powers dwarf even Gandalf's"?  How does your system deal with that?  And how does the GM earn and use destiny points?

While I'm curious about the economy as well, if I understand what's been said already, a situation like this is of no concern. Effectively, destiny points buy you plot devices - and the 'power' of any device can pretty much be however arbitrarily large you want, because the focus is never about that - the focus is on moving the story to it's conclusion. If I spend destiny to make my character, Firmus Piett, captain of the ominous Executor-class Super Star Destroyer (or, more likely, to bring him in as a Cameo), so be it. In terms of moving the plot forward, it will hardly be more effective against, say, Han Solo's unwaveringly loyal ally, Chewbacca the Wookie.

I'm also a little unclear as to how the game keeps the players' interest/attention.  Where is the challenge, the risk, the conflict?  What are the stakes?  Is it mainly about creating a story with your characters?

To talk inn GNS terms, the game sounds like it has a very Narrativist agenda. Risk and conflict, then, are achieved through storytelling rather than, say, task resolution. The stakes are very open-ended - the question would likely be, 'How is this story going to end?' or 'What's going to happen next?'

[danielsan]

Hmm. You know in Toon, they have this rule that you can 'buy' a Widget for your possessions at the beginning of the game, and later, when you need something specific during the adventure, you can pull out the Widget and declare it to be what you need (a map, a compass, an anvil, whatever.)

In Spirit of the Century, they have these Aspects that you can compel or invoke to gain plot points or help with die rolls.

I wonder if your idea could combine these two ideas? Like writing down "widget" or in this case 'Hidden Mystery' or 'Unrevealed Destiny'. Then, when you want to invoke it, you suddenly reveal your hidden mystery or destiny and can use it as you need. But mechanically, players must choose to have a 'stronger' character at the beginning with less 'widgety-aspects,' or a 'weaker' character at the start with more of them.

[Creatures of Destiny]

Danielsan,

That's much how I imagined Destiny being - you spend your pool to either make your character more powerful, or you keep some back to have unrevealed stuff and to use in play for other things (like preventing character death).

Grinningmoon (Don't know your real name)

Thanks for the support.

Yeah I think you're right about the title. Actually the Forge is also a pretty good gauge of that - you know the title didn't bring that many "hits" to the thread so I guess I'll change it. I meant "Creatures" in the sense of "Creation" (The original sense) and Destiny, well that's in there. But "Creatures" in that sense is hardly in common usage.

Yes I think I have a strong narrativist agenda, but at the same time I do want there to be a strong "Bring it on" element that helps act as a motor for things. Players story intereests will reflect how much destiny they invest in stuff and that will in turn affect the plot and the game mechanical elements.

Thomas :

Well I think Grinning Moon answered quite well about the twinky stuff - if you spend loads of Destiny on a super ally, then you have less for other things. As to the economy I imagined that the when players "buy" a plot device, ("Strider is actually ARagorn and heir to the throne of Gondor") they hand over a bunch of destiny to the GM. THe Gm then uses that to throw stuff at them - maybe not immediately but at some point ("Okay, so the current "Steward" of the throne has no intention of giving it up, and Sauron's army is about to attack Gondor").

So you play "Aragron is filthy rich", hand the dstiny over to the GM and well, "Mo' money Mo' problems" as Biggie said.

So that's one way the GM gets destiny (at the start of the game the GM has Dstiny equal to the players total). For players I'm tinkering with some ideas, a bsic one is that PLayers "Stake" destiny on a Motivator, that can be either something the player thinks up "Werral wants to avenge his family's murder") or soemthing the GM offers as a plot hook - when the players take up the hook they stake destiny on it. The more they stake the more the GM can throw at them and the moer they can "win". The thing is this is a step removed from the characters, so a character could sacrifice his life or just get killed and the player wouldn't lose destiny, might even gain it. The player could spend destiny to save that character though.

I was also thinking that buying stuff when it's not immediately useful is cheaper than when it's needed NOW. So if you spend destiny to say "Aragorn's great with horses" it'd have one cost if you say that while walking down the road, and another while saddling up for a chase scene. Kind of a "set up" bonus. Maybe when you buy teh ability that could trigger a "set up" scence, you know, like a bucking stallion where Aragorn can try out against the horse, or a random fight where someone can show off their kung fu or whatever. If I teid this to the concept of details addded to qualities (basically a you might have "HOrsemaster +2/-2 on your empathy and add +2 to Emapthy with horses, while having -2 on other empathy checks) then I could require that players suffer the penalty BEFORE they can play the bonus.

Characters may also have flaws. You pointed out in my "Qualities" thread how in games like Gurps players always go for flaws that won't come up, but here the idea is different - characters earn the player destiny when they confront their flaws. So the guy with a terror of rats find himself up against the Rat Lord and in confronting the object of his fears. This is a common concept in films, especially Hollywood movies (Truman's terrified of water but has to sail across the sea to freedom). So these are like character archs.

With Cameos or powerful character's they basically cost much less destiny than a Lead of the same value but they have limited availability. Also I think Cameos can't earn destiny as easily as other players, and actually require the player to risk destiny whenever they're used - so brining in Gandalf or Tharon makes it harder to win dstiny. Still against a GM Cameo (Darth Vader, the Balrog, meeting Sauron) then a Cameo becomes invaluable and can earn destiny. Also Cameos have their own motivators.

Extras too have motivators - so an innkeeper might want to get one over his rival over the road, or get in touch with his estranged daughter or whatever. Players can take up these sub-plots or ignore them if they want to concentrate on the leads' story. But players earn destiny by completing these subplots (which would still be part of the main story, you know the band is in an inn and one player runs the innkeeper in his antics).

Basicaly players have absolute control over the lead and more limited control over the extras and cameos they run.

[wild_card2007]

I think I understand a little more -- thanks.  But I'm still not getting the "economy" of destiny points.  You say "if you spend loads of Destiny on a super ally, then you have less for other things".  First, how do you earn destiny points?  I think you're giving me some of the answer, with players staking destiny on a motivator.  (Which, given your example, sounds to me like a goal or objective.)  You also mentioned using destiny to influence dice rolls, but I'm not clear on the actual mechanics of that.

My second question is, how is the value (or price) of an ally, or ability, or plot device determined?  If I can spend one point for both "Aragorn likes tea in the morning", and "Aragorn is filthy rich", why would I want to spend more?  Or what would force me to spend more?  Put another way, what do I get out of spending 20 points instead of 2 points? 

Thomas

[Creatures of Destiny]