[Power 19] Spellbound Kingdoms and introduction

[FrankBrunner]

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Welcome to the Forge!  I hope that you find this a useful place to help you get your game published

Quote

2) What do the characters do?
 
The characters go on adventures and pursue happiness. Usually the happiness takes the form of something that the character loves, like gold or an NPC. It may require overcoming something that the character fears, like a kobold or a Port Governor who's angry about you spending time with his daughter. And sometimes the happiness is just killing monsters and taking their stuff.

The parts of your answer that I bolded are the parts I feel you should concentrait on.  There are systems out there that are very adept at supporting the killing of monsters and the taking of their stuff.  IMHO, you game should strive for something a little different.  If that's what the players really want, they'll make it happen without any textual support. 

	Logged

Theory Blog: http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/

Game Company Website: http://www.divine-games.org/

[FrankBrunner]

Hey, thanks for the comments. I hear you about the fact that many games already support killing monsters and taking their stuff. I totally agree that this game (or pretty much any game) needs to stand out by doing something different or doing something very significant in addition to that.

The Love and Fear mechanics are part of the story pacing and character development. Loves and Fears are like action points. A character can attempt tasks and conflict resolution without risking a Love or assuming (or confronting) a Fear, but he's going to be a lot more successful if he does. So the game rewards characters who take the time to create relationships, invest in Loves, and develop and confront Fears. It also works for villains (whether they're played by PCs or NPCs) because the villain's Loves are often the targets of PC action. Once the PCs have removed his Loves or whipped up his fears - talking to his mistress to win her over, stealing his items of power, spreading rumors of the king passing him over for a new title - only then can they focus on the villain. Before then, with his Loves and Fears strong and controlled, the villain is too powerful to confront head on. As Love dwindles and Fear grows, options diminish, driving PC and NPC alike to a direct conflict. This helps pace the story.

So how is magic viewed by the common individual in your setting?  What about those who are wealthy or powerful?  What about those who are revolutionary or subversive?  I don't want to color your answer by adding my thoughts on what your answer seems to communicating.  So could you expand on that narrow topic for just a bit?

Some commoners hate magic, and some see it as a salvation, but those are the extremes. The typical commoner mistrusts magic and casters but envies them their power. He would like the power turned to his own good, but he is leery and resentful of its random nature and the nature of those who seek to control it. He also resents the control and restrictions placed on magic by his superiors (a king, a wizard, whoever is the local authority figure). Authorities almost always control magic strictly for two reasons. First, "magic hates magic." There is a finite amount of magic in any kingdom, and a second wizard inevitably lessens the power of the first. Second, magic is power, and most of these brink-of-the-renaissance kingdoms are more along the lines of Louis XIV than Frederick II. The existing powers want to maintain power at almost any cost. There are, of course, revolutionaries and subversives. That may be where the PCs come in... or it may not, depending on the campaign.

I'm not sure if that's the sort of answer you were looking for. What do you think?

[Creatures of Destiny]

A lot of your thoughts are similar to what I've been brewing up, though you seem far ahead of me in development. Especially the advancement through achieving goals and overcoming falws - not something I've seen elsewhere in RPGs but common in screenplay theory and Heros journey - is that where you took it from too?

a) The game tries to balance narrative elements with gamist elements by "switching lenses": zoom in for gamist elements like individual combats and dialogue, zoom out for narrative elements like characters meeting, people falling in love, kingdoms becoming corrupt, new holidays being established, and so forth. Perhaps think of it as My Life with Master (one roll to resolve an entire narrated scene) mixed with Dungones and Dragons combat (although much simpler, more Savage Worlds). Any thoughts on this as a model? How about easing the transition between one type of scene and the other? How about when one player is acting on a time scale different from another player, like one is in a prolonged combat (15 minutes of real-time) and another player is waiting for the next in-game week to roll around?

Well I think players and the GM could choose when to zoom in. To take a D&D example, high level characters might zoom out for  acombat against a mass of kobolds and resolve it in one roll, zoom in for an important duel, zoom out for some minor narrative stuff "Okay so we trawl the city looking for clues" and zoom in for a specific narrative encounter  - perhaps the clue leads them to a specific NPC they have to deal with - a narrative encounter that might get zoomed into. As for players in different times - you could determine where the set piece sits in narrative time and how it may affect events - resolve them in order of cause effect (for example if one character is recruiting knights and the other scene is a battle, then it's logical to play the knights scene first/ wheras if the fight is for the crown and the narrative plot is political wranglings between kingdoms then the oppositie is the case). You could use flahbacks and cut scenes that might create tension (so you start resolving the batle, did Sir Rudolf manage to convince the knights to send aid? Cut to the narrative play and continue on the recruitment scene before cutting back to the battle for the conclusion).

b) In combat, there is no initiative. Everyone acts simultaneously, the round's actions are resolved, and then we go to the next round. It seems to be going well in playtest, but does anyone have experience with similar systems? SK's system is most similar to Gemini's, I think, among published games.

Again I was thinking of something similar - I'm using opposed rolls, where aat some points characters may compete in time (so if two guys are rushing for a weapon then it's a contest of speed/wit/reactions adn the winner gets there first). Idem for quickdraws and similar. For hand-to-hand, the important thing is simply, who hit who and how hard - the hit roll is not "whether you it" but "whether you hit them before they hit you" (because in a fight, given time you'll always hit, it's just that usually you don't have time!)

c) Mood is measured as a character attribute like hit points. Is that too restrictive, as some find alignments, or is it conducive to role-playing? It depends how it is handled, to some extent, but what do you think in general?

Are you using carrots or sticks? I think people find D&D alignment restrictive because it's all sticks - a paladin lose his powers for commiting evil. By using carrots - a Paladin gains bonuses whenever doing good it might feel less restrictive. So with each mood you gain bonuses for a certain type of behaviour - you're free to do somehthing else though.

d) Right now there is no emotional piece to advancement. Any ideas on how to include it? The game tracks Love, Fear, and Mood (and possibly other values/emotions).

This seems to me to be tied to mood. Perhaps you can play points for bonuses as you want - for example you can play Love for bonuses to aid your loved one, Fear for bonuses to escape and avoid ambushes and kill people and Mood to push your character from one mood to another (say from angry to calm or confused to resolved).  The more you usea given pool the bigger it gets - so those that use Fear acumulate fear points, those taht use Love gain love points etc...

Really liked this Power 19, very well written and thought out.

[FrankBrunner]

Thanks for the comments. The flashback idea is great. Flashbacks are a favorite of mine. Just like the old Kung Fu TV series - they let you play around a lot with narrative, characters, setting. Wow, yeah, good idea. The mechanics of it might be a little tricky, but that is what playtesting is for! I also really appreciate your comments on carrots vs. sticks and advancement... more below.

A lot of your thoughts are similar to what I've been brewing up, though you seem far ahead of me in development. Especially the advancement through achieving goals and overcoming falws - not something I've seen elsewhere in RPGs but common in screenplay theory and Heros journey - is that where you took it from too?

Partly, but not exclusively from either of those. More a gestalt of literary theory in general plus some indie-type games which, for the life of me, I can't think of right now. That will teach me to post late at night on a board where you can't edit your posts! The literary theory is also where I come from when I try to keep all the talk possible during a game session away from things like, "My dice pool is X, and I'm devoting three to initiative, so I have an attack rating of X-3." I think talk like that takes people out of the game world just like John Gardner talks about in "The Art of Fiction" when he says that writing off-topic takes people out of the fictional world being created.

Are you using carrots or sticks? I think people find D&D alignment restrictive because it's all sticks - a paladin lose his powers for commiting evil. By using carrots - a Paladin gains bonuses whenever doing good it might feel less restrictive. So with each mood you gain bonuses for a certain type of behaviour - you're free to do somehthing else though.

Definitely using carrots and sticks. There are rewards for good Mood: it's easier to start a new Love, you are happier and more resilient in conversation and argument, you might even run faster or fight better (if you can somehow narrate how your Loves or Mood helps you do that). And there are sticks, too. For instance, if you get upset or heartbroken in a certain way, you can only participate in scenes in your home because you're too depressed to go anywhere else. That's way, way down there though - very unlikely to happen unless a player wants it to.

This seems to me to be tied to mood. Perhaps you can play points for bonuses as you want - for example you can play Love for bonuses to aid your loved one, Fear for bonuses to escape and avoid ambushes and kill people and Mood to push your character from one mood to another (say from angry to calm or confused to resolved).  The more you usea given pool the bigger it gets - so those that use Fear acumulate fear points, those taht use Love gain love points etc...

Right. Nice. The "more you use it the more you get" was already in there for Fear. Thinking about it again and thinking about what you're saying, I think it should be there for Love too. I like that a lot. Tying advancement to Mood is the key, I think. A different sort of a Mood can lead to a very different sort of advancement: darker, brighter, apathetic, ambitious, etc.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Some commoners hate magic, and some see it as a salvation, but those are the extremes. The typical commoner mistrusts magic and casters but envies them their power. He would like the power turned to his own good, but he is leery and resentful of its random nature and the nature of those who seek to control it. He also resents the control and restrictions placed on magic by his superiors (a king, a wizard, whoever is the local authority figure). Authorities almost always control magic strictly for two reasons. First, "magic hates magic." There is a finite amount of magic in any kingdom, and a second wizard inevitably lessens the power of the first. Second, magic is power, and most of these brink-of-the-renaissance kingdoms are more along the lines of Louis XIV than Frederick II. The existing powers want to maintain power at almost any cost. There are, of course, revolutionaries and subversives. That may be where the PCs come in... or it may not, depending on the campaign.

That's a fine answer.  Make sure you keep it in mind as you design both your system and your setting.  These beliefs and customs should show up both in play and in the reading material for your game.  It's nice to state design goals like this, but it's another to implement them. 

I'm not sure if that's the sort of answer you were looking for. What do you think?

	Logged

Theory Blog: http://socratesrpg.blogspot.com/

Game Company Website: http://www.divine-games.org/

[FrankBrunner]

Absolutely. There's all the difference in the world between stating a design goal and actualizing it. I realized that none of the first few articles I had posted on my site talked about magic this way. I put up some newer ones now, and I hope they give a better sense of the role magic plays in the world. There are definite mechanical consequences, too, that reflect the "magic hates magic" rule.

I'm going the traditional route with experience in SK. I think people like talent trees, a plethora of powers to choose from, and different consequences for different career and relationship choices. So that's pretty much what experience gets you: advancement in one of those regards. Talent trees, powers, career options, relationships. That may change a lot, though, since playtesting hasn't even touched anything close to that yet.