Starting with the basics: attributes and traits

[Dementia Games]

I am working on a horror RPG which has suffered many different incarnations due to my inability to settle on a given method of...well...anything.  From the basics of the dice system (it has used 1d20, d6, 8 and 10 dice pools, percent die, etc!) to the level of fantasy in the story.  By level of fantasy I mean just how far out from reality it actually goes.  Being completely new as a poster to the Forge, I wanted to start with the basics: dice convention, attributes and traits. 

First, let me say that my utmost priority at this point is simplicity.  I want as simple a system as possible without sacrificing all semblance of reality.  That said...

There are three attributes: Body, Mind and Spirit.  The ratings for attributes are 1 through 3, with 1 being below average, 2 average and 3 above average.  These ratings correspond to 6-sided dice so, effectively, 1d6 below average, 2d6 average and 3d6 above average.

There are a number of traits per attribute, which are basically like skills.  However, they also encompass aspects of the attribute, hence the blanket term "traits."  For instance, under Body, you have Stamina (resistance to physical wear and damage), Deftness (quickness and coordination), Marksmanship (ranged weapons), Fighting (unarmed combat), etc.  Each trait is measured in points which do not currently have an upper range value.  These points add to the result of the appropriate attribute.  So, let's say a character of average Body and a Marksmanship of 2 wants to fire at an opponent.  They would roll 2d6 + 2.  The average difficulty might be 7 or 8 (this part is undecided right now). 

The way it would seem to work is that at lower skill values the attributes play a more influential role, while at higher trait levels the trait adder becomes the defining aspect of success or failure.  It is possible that the upper range of the traits should be limited, at least to normal human standards.  At this point I haven't even decided concretely on what the trait values mean (i.e. what level equals professional and what level equals mastery, etc).

Does anyone see an immediate or, more likely, eventual problem with the attribute dice + trait adder system and the average difficulty hovering around 7 or 8? 

I will certainly post more in the future because I am keen to garner opinions on some of these ideas. 

In actual resolution, actions taken against another character would be on an opposed roll basis - higher roll wins.

Thanks to anyone who helps.  If the information is too sketchy, please let me know what might help and I'll reply.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Yes, I think we'll have an interesting discussion. Some questions:

Tell us more about your game. I'm especially interested in the sort of interactions you're looking to create for the players: will there be a GM who describes a setting and prepares adventures? What sort of decisions will the players make in the crucial turning points of the game? Will they make decisions? How does the game inform and support this interaction? What sort of experiences do you want to create for the players? That sort of thing; I want to know about the social interaction you visualize for the game, rather than the resulting fiction.

How does the differentiation between traits and attributes inform the experiences and activities of play? In what sort of situations does the distinction come up? Do the two change at any point, or are they fixed in value? Are the changes engendered in the attributes and abilities important for the core activities of the game?

Tell us about your background with rpgs and especially horror rpgs. Would you say that there are games out there that have informed your work on this? Are you making a new game to improve or fix your past experiences with some other game, or would you say that your game is trying to do something new?

What sort of interaction will the characters in the game undertake to use these abilities and attributes? Who determines what sort of actions and events come up in the fiction of the game? What principles or rules does he use in making these decisions?

--
That array of questions is ultimately predicated upon a suspicion on my part that I should probably illuminate: I suspect that the ability/attribute system you describe actually has no Earthly significance whatsoever for your horror rpg and the central goals you are trying to fulfill in your design. I might be grievously wrong, and have actually seen horror games where the arrangements of abilities are actually significant, but I wouldn't know without hearing more. So let's reserve any further discussion until we know more, eh?

[Dementia Games]

Wow, yeah interesting indeed.  First, to address the last bit: you're right that the attribute/trait system does not have a grand amount of significance in this horror game specifically.  I am also trying to formulate the basis of a system which will be applied (with genre-specific alterations) to multiple genres for future use.  Again, the theory behind the system itself is simply that our inborn talents (the attributes) have more of a role to play initially than our experience or specializations, which begin to eclipse raw talent almost completely.  Does this mean a hill of beans to this horror game?  No, not really, other than to be a mechanic for resolving conflict and measuring the abilities of characters, which any other mechanic will do.

Now, on to the other stuff...

The game (Illuminatus: the Dwindling Light, working title) assumes that the popular conspiracy theories concerning the Illuminati are wrong - the order exists, but for the greater good of mankind.  Players assume the role of IOs (Illuminati Operandi), who are essentially the field operatives of the order.  The purpose of the order is to research, understand and ultimately protect the world from a powerful and unseen darkness from which all ghoulies and haunts originate.  The game centers around the obvious confrontations with the supernatural as well as the necessity of utmost secrecy in all things.  This secrecy is not just to protect the order: the more people "believe" in this darkness and, more importantly, fear it, the stronger it becomes.  That's the basic backdrop.

The GM describes the setting and lays out individual missions (things to seek out and resolve), while also providing a foundation from which the players can operate independently.  IOs are somewhat left to themselves, occasionally visited by their Magus to receive new orders.  There should be as much intrigue with the order itself as there is horror or adventure in its operations.  The players' decisions, then, could influence a number of things.  Firstly, their survival, obviously.  The system needs to be dangerous - the baddies should be lethal, so that this does not become a "seek and destroy" sort of game.  In some cases it will be as simple as physically removing the problem, but more often than not there will be spiritual connections which must be severed through other means.  The players will also decide how their IOs interact with the world, what lengths they go to in order to protect the order's oath of secrecy.  There are eyes always watching them.  In that regard, they have to be discrete in their dealings with the Darkness.  Mundane people can't be allowed to witness events transpire in ways that might clue them in to the greater realities of the cosmos.  Experience wise, players should not only experience dark horror (inasmuch as a RPG can inspire with proper atmosphere), but also the difficulties of sitting on a secret that's almost not a secret at all.  Everyone's heard of the Illuminati, but (in the game) no one really has a clue to what they're all about - nor should they.  The players (and thusly the characters) should be forced into teamwork, with loners quickly losing their lives in the field.  To this end, characters have Gifts, which are supernatural abilities such as Clairvoyance, Telepathy, Exorcism, Healing, etc.  These are not ultra-powerful by any means but are useful in their endeavors.  All IOs are assumed to possess a Gift, part of the reason they were chosen as IOs in the first place.  Lastly, the structure is largely put in place by the GM, but this should not be so rigid that the players feel "boxed in."  Players should have the ability to ultimately change the story - if nothing else, they could endanger the secrecy of the Illuminati (though they would be quick to discredit it!).  Their only contact, by the way, with the order itself is the Magus.

The attributes and traits do have some importance, I should say.  The breaking down of Body, Mind and Spirit are to address the three fundamental aspects of mortal life: the physical, the ethereal (or mental) and the spiritual.  Most traits can be based on these three aspects, so that a player can begin to focus their character's abilities more effectively.  The basic questions you are asking here are: Is my character strongest physically, mentally or spiritually?  This attribute obviously gets a 3.  Is my character weakest physically, meantally or spiritually?  This attribute gets a 1.  The remaining attribute will be considered average with a 2.  This is obviously incredibly basic.  The traits, then, are a focal point.  Take a Body of 3: this means the character's strongest assets are physical, but how?  Perhaps the player decides their character has a background in athletics.  They would put emphasis on traits such as Balance, Speed, Muscle and Stamina rather than Melee, Marksmanship or Fighting.  Likewise, if a character is strongest mentally, they would have a Mind of 3.  Suppose the player decides their character is a physicist primarily, and certainly an overall scientifically minded individual.  They might focus on the Mind traits of Intelligence, Memory, Science (General) and Science (Specific - in this case Physics) rather than Creativity, Mechanical or Technical.  Now, I can see potential problems with taking aspects of an attribute and calling them a trait the same as skills.  For instance, Intelligence and Memory both surely influence a character's abilities in Science, but they have no impact on it as presently stated.  Obviously, I need to back up and punt on that.  Suggestions?  (Can you tell I'm writing from stream of consciousness here?)

Changewise, attributes are not going to naturally change, but traits will.  Again, this will become an issue with Intelligence or Memory as far as being treated like skills.  It looks like I'll have to break away from the simplicity of only the 3 attributes or just suck it up and deal with the fact that one attribute embodies all aspects of itself (Mind of 3 means you are very intelligent, very creative, have a great memory, etc, straight across the board) completely and traits are simply changed to skills.  Obviously in such a case the skills would change but, again, the attributes are not likely to.

My experience in roleplaying games goes back to Basic and Advanced D&D (primarily the latter), through a plethora of them - just assume many.  I have owned and read more than I have actually run or played.  Horrorwise, my background is in the Storyteller series of games and Call of Cthulhu.  I own Chill but never liked the system enough to attempt running it. 

This game is not so much attempting to reinvent the wheel as tell a different story and do it with a very simple system that isn't outright stealing from others.  I want it to be simple but not totally freeform (it's the old D&Der in me).  I want dice to matter but not to be the focal point of the game by any means.  The actions of the characters will lead to the needs to use the attributes and traits, though the GM will provide the backdrop that leads them toward these points of conflict.  It will be fairly open as to how the characters go about accomplishing their goals, but the goals will largely be set by the GM in accordance with the assumed overall goal that has them all in the same order to begin with - combatting the dark forces that prey upon the Light.

Hope that helps.  I'll be checking, so let me know anything else you're looking for.

[Dementia Games]

Also, I should note that the 1, 2, 3d6 concept with adders for traits/skills is a rather sudden thought that I am toying with.  The standing system is based on a variant of Robin Laws' Feng Shui rules, using 2d6, one positive and one negative, resulting in a modifier of -5 to +5.  This modifier is then applied to a number composed of an attribute and a relevant skill.  Attributes are given a simple 1-10 scale, with 1 being feeble and 10 being a prime specimen.  Skills are then expressed as an adder, so that a Firearms skill of 3 would be added to a Reflexes value of 6 (fairly average) to yield a 9.  Rolling the dice, the result (let's say +1) is applied and the final value is 10.  This is compared to the difficulty of the attack (usually an opposed roll using the defender's Dodge skill).  If the attacker equals or exceeds the defender's roll, the attack succeeds.  If taking an unopposed action, such as picking a lock, the GM assigns a difficulty - say, 8 - and the roll must exceed this.  I'm sure you're familiar with this type of system if you've read Feng Shui at all.  It is partially open-ended: if you roll a 6 on either the positive or negative die (not both), reroll and add.  If you again roll a 6, reroll and add again, etc.  If both dice are sixes, it is simply treated as a zero.  I think this system is actually quite simple and is probably the one I'll stick with.  The problem is, I'm a tinkerer.  I can't seem to be totally satisfied with something.  I think, too, I'm trying to create a proprietary system so I don't feel like I'm taking from Robin's.  That said, I know game designers do it all the time.  I think the 1-10 scale is cool for the simple reason that it's a natural scale for people to use.  We've all heard "on a scale of one to ten..." and we automatically know that 1 is the worst and 10 is the best.  Thus, it's almost more intuitive to sum up a character's attributes this way at a glance than looking at numbers based on 3d6 or what have you.  Just my opinion, I suppose.

[Eero Tuovinen]

That's a very good answer! I have multiple fronts I'll want to address this from, so I'm going to break it down a bit...

Wow, yeah interesting indeed.  First, to address the last bit: you're right that the attribute/trait system does not have a grand amount of significance in this horror game specifically.  I am also trying to formulate the basis of a system which will be applied (with genre-specific alterations) to multiple genres for future use.  Again, the theory behind the system itself is simply that our inborn talents (the attributes) have more of a role to play initially than our experience or specializations, which begin to eclipse raw talent almost completely.  Does this mean a hill of beans to this horror game?  No, not really, other than to be a mechanic for resolving conflict and measuring the abilities of characters, which any other mechanic will do.

Quite so. Now, this is a very important question: why do you find the distinction between inborn talents and learned skills important? I'm asking this because I myself used to obsess with this exact sort of stuff in my rpg design around the millennium, but ultimately decided that what I was doing was obsessing over secondary details that actually did not impact the sort of game I wanted to make; rather, my insistence on having a perfectly balanced emulatory framework for depicting character skill/ability matrices was actively interfering with the things I wanted my game to focus on. The system worked beautifully to depict fine points such as balanced learning of languages or handicraft skills without the use of heavy-duty tables, but that very fact meant that player attention would turn on the character as a static, unchanging focus of play, which was the opposite of what I really wanted from my game.

Now, it well might be that a layered system with separate abilities and skills is exactly what your game needs for some reason that's not readily apparent to me at this moment. There are many good reasons to have a layered system of character efficiency:

• Layered systems can actually simplify the system and decrease handling time when you have specific features you want your resolution mechanics to possess. For example, in a game focused on character advancement, it can be beneficial to have decreasing returns on one layer and increasing returns on another, just so the sum total adheres to some fancy development arc you want to hit.
• If there are several sources of efficiency that are significantly distinct tactically or thematically, it can make sense to make them separate layers. For example, if one set of potential to succeed in a tactical commando game comes from a pool of points the player gathers in a preparation for the operation, while another comes from static character skills, then it makes perfect sense to layer the resolution mechanic with these two resources instead of unifying them.
• In some very rare games there is special value in actually modelling that eternal obsession of roleplayers, the nature/nurture debate. I can't name a published game that focuses on it, though; I wrote one generational game a couple of years ago that was all about this topic, but usually it's just a sidetrack in a game that actually involves something else.

However, the important point is that ideally you'd first know that this is something you want and need to have, and then only second decide to actually apply such a system. I fear that you might be obsessing with the dicing mechanics just because you have a narrow view as to the possibilities game mechanics have to offer, like I did. I would want for nobody to have to repeat my extremely frustrating experiences in hunting imaginary design goals based on nothing more than preconceptions about how rpgs should be structured.

The GM describes the setting and lays out individual missions (things to seek out and resolve), while also providing a foundation from which the players can operate independently.  IOs are somewhat left to themselves, occasionally visited by their Magus to receive new orders.  There should be as much intrigue with the order itself as there is horror or adventure in its operations.  The players' decisions, then, could influence a number of things.  Firstly, their survival, obviously.  The system needs to be dangerous - the baddies should be lethal, so that this does not become a "seek and destroy" sort of game.  In some cases it will be as simple as physically removing the problem, but more often than not there will be spiritual connections which must be severed through other means.  The players will also decide how their IOs interact with the world, what lengths they go to in order to protect the order's oath of secrecy.  There are eyes always watching them.  In that regard, they have to be discrete in their dealings with the Darkness.  Mundane people can't be allowed to witness events transpire in ways that might clue them in to the greater realities of the cosmos.  Experience wise, players should not only experience dark horror (inasmuch as a RPG can inspire with proper atmosphere), but also the difficulties of sitting on a secret that's almost not a secret at all.  Everyone's heard of the Illuminati, but (in the game) no one really has a clue to what they're all about - nor should they.  The players (and thusly the characters) should be forced into teamwork, with loners quickly losing their lives in the field.  To this end, characters have Gifts, which are supernatural abilities such as Clairvoyance, Telepathy, Exorcism, Healing, etc.  These are not ultra-powerful by any means but are useful in their endeavors.  All IOs are assumed to possess a Gift, part of the reason they were chosen as IOs in the first place.  Lastly, the structure is largely put in place by the GM, but this should not be so rigid that the players feel "boxed in."  Players should have the ability to ultimately change the story - if nothing else, they could endanger the secrecy of the Illuminati (though they would be quick to discredit it!).  Their only contact, by the way, with the order itself is the Magus.

You know, this sounds almost exactly like Delta Green. Good going. Another game that comes to mind is Dread: First Book of Pandemonium, mostly in how it works around many of the issues you have outlined here. Perhaps you'd find either of those games instructive reading, if you have the inclination to study what others have done in the field.

The attributes and traits do have some importance, I should say.  The breaking down of Body, Mind and Spirit are to address the three fundamental aspects of mortal life: the physical, the ethereal (or mental) and the spiritual.  Most traits can be based on these three aspects, so that a player can begin to focus their character's abilities more effectively.  The basic questions you are asking here are: Is my character strongest physically, mentally or spiritually?  This attribute obviously gets a 3.  Is my character weakest physically, meantally or spiritually?  This attribute gets a 1.  The remaining attribute will be considered average with a 2.  This is obviously incredibly basic.  The traits, then, are a focal point.  Take a Body of 3: this means the character's strongest assets are physical, but how?  Perhaps the player decides their character has a background in athletics.  They would put emphasis on traits such as Balance, Speed, Muscle and Stamina rather than Melee, Marksmanship or Fighting.  Likewise, if a character is strongest mentally, they would have a Mind of 3.  Suppose the player decides their character is a physicist primarily, and certainly an overall scientifically minded individual.  They might focus on the Mind traits of Intelligence, Memory, Science (General) and Science (Specific - in this case Physics) rather than Creativity, Mechanical or Technical.  Now, I can see potential problems with taking aspects of an attribute and calling them a trait the same as skills.  For instance, Intelligence and Memory both surely influence a character's abilities in Science, but they have no impact on it as presently stated.  Obviously, I need to back up and punt on that.  Suggestions?  (Can you tell I'm writing from stream of consciousness here?)

Yeah, the thinking here sounds familiar. You're trying to emulate reality in a flexible manner that gives you a strong tool set for resolving all sorts of potential events when they come up in play. You evaluate your success by looking for weak points in how the system handles edge cases, and you evaluate the success in terms of believability and how the results make sense. The system is built to be neutrally focused in pre-play, with no assumptions about the sorts of activities that will be involved in the activities of the fictional characters. The reasons you list for this character description set-up have to do with modelling the character's abilities in a comprehensive manner, so that you can make all sorts of different characters in the game.

These are certainly alluring reasons for having a resolution set-up of the sort you describe. However, the next question to ask is this: How do these points of interest turn into the goals you have for Illuminatus? Will the game strike with force at the statement that my character is primarily body-based? What sort of important events turn on the fact that my character is mind-focused and has a weak spirit? How does the separation of mind from the body and spirit from the mind reflect on the world-wide conspiracy that is trying to save the world from darkness?

If the answer proves to be that the game is not particularly focused on any of the things the character-model describes, then perhaps you should not worry overmuch about how you model characters. Some games are built in such a manner that it doesn't actually matter how characters are modeled and how tasks are resolved, because the actual interest in the game is somewhere else. Call of Cthulhu is a fine example of a game where there is an almost complete disjunction between the character description rules, resolution rules and higher-order reward cycles of the game. It would affect that game in rather minimal ways if you ripped out the whole resolution/character description core and replaced it with something else.

Changewise, attributes are not going to naturally change, but traits will.  Again, this will become an issue with Intelligence or Memory as far as being treated like skills.  It looks like I'll have to break away from the simplicity of only the 3 attributes or just suck it up and deal with the fact that one attribute embodies all aspects of itself (Mind of 3 means you are very intelligent, very creative, have a great memory, etc, straight across the board) completely and traits are simply changed to skills.  Obviously in such a case the skills would change but, again, the attributes are not likely to.

In what situations will the traits change? What do the changes mean for the players of the game?

This game is not so much attempting to reinvent the wheel as tell a different story and do it with a very simple system that isn't outright stealing from others.  I want it to be simple but not totally freeform (it's the old D&Der in me).  I want dice to matter but not to be the focal point of the game by any means.  The actions of the characters will lead to the needs to use the attributes and traits, though the GM will provide the backdrop that leads them toward these points of conflict.  It will be fairly open as to how the characters go about accomplishing their goals, but the goals will largely be set by the GM in accordance with the assumed overall goal that has them all in the same order to begin with - combatting the dark forces that prey upon the Light.

Sounds good to me. Overall you'd know best yourself, but it seems to me that what you have here is a fine dicing core for a roleplaying game of this sort. My recommendation, in case you're interested, is that you should now move on from the core dicing and character description rules into the actual substance of game design: what the players do and how your game influences that? Do not presume that the work of design centers upon these minor matters of character description and dice mechanics. The real job is to figure out how your game can support players in creating the sort of interactions you want them to experience. This sort of traditional dicing system, should you choose to use such, just means that it won't be the character description and dicing mechanics that focus play. What will?

[Dementia Games]

You've given me a lot to think about and have really hit the nail on the head about obsessing over things that are, at best, of minimal importance to the overall experience.  It doesn't actually matter about the difference between attributes and skills, except that my experience with older RPGs dictates it to be so.  Even newer ones, for that matter, considering that games such as White Wolf's different offerings still add a skill value to an attribute value.  What I want is simplicity overall, at first thought.  Once I get into the system, a Mr. Hyde side of me takes over that wants it to come as close as possible to "real life" and I guess that really complicates things. 

I'm going to think over what you've written here and already have some ideas rolling around about how to keep things simpler, since I want the focal point to be the confrontations with the Outer Darkness and the impact that has on the character's psyches and lives, not to mention their being part of an order that is secretive even to its own members.

I will come back with more soon, but you've sent me back to the drawing board on these points.  Thank you very much for taking the time to write such insightful responses.  I really do appreciate it - it's difficult to stay focused without someone else's influence, too many distractions for the mind to seize hold of when it ought to keep its sights on the primary objective: a horror game that actually conveys horror.  On that subject, I've never seen Delta Green before but I do actually posses a copy of Dread and played in one of Raphael's one-shots.  I do like the game but I'm after more of a ongoing campaign potential.  Further, while Dread is indeed very simple, it is also very action oriented.  As I told Raphael, if In Nomine and Feng Shui had a love child, Dread would be it.  I enjoy it, but it's not what I'm after with mine.  I'm looking more for the grittier CoC or Chill aspect, where characters are not that powerful (though they do have Gifts to help out a little) and are constantly in real danger.  It should never be a good idea in Illuminatus to just charge something, and combat is likely to be completely pointless and futile in some situations because the entities encountered are simply above and beyond any kind of mundane concept of "combat," instead requiring mystical secrets to be unveiled and utilized for the specific task.  Anyway, that's for another discussion.  For now, I'm back to the drawing board on the attribute/stats issue, because it is important in so far as I don't want it to get in the way - which it certainly does right now.

Thanks again, and I'll post more soon.

[Dementia Games]

Here is how the Power 19 shapes up at this point.  While I'm working on the resolution system a little more, notice that I'm having issues with finding ways to reward good roleplay.  I know it has to be fairly simple, it's just that I'm distracted by other things.  Any suggestions would be welcomed.

1.) What is your game about?  <2.) What do the characters do?
IOs are given assignments by their Magus, the only representative of the Illuminati with which they have contact.  These assignments are based on evidence or suspicion of paranormal activity.  IOs investigate the activity and determine what forces or entities they are dealing with, subsequently taking whatever measures are necessary to send them back where they belong.  At the same time, they walk the thin line between the mundane world and that of the Illuminati, two worlds that must not cross over, since secrecy is paramount to survival.

3.) What do the players (including the GM if there is one) do?<4.) How does your setting (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
It is not so much setting as atmosphere in Illuminatus.  The setting is basically our world, with the same histories, cultures, continents, nations and relationships.  However, the Outer Darkness enters the Light routinely, in often secret and nearly undetectable ways.  The setting, then, can be anywhere in the known world.  The atmosphere, however, is one of divergence from the norm and the oppressive mood of knowing that there is a force much greater than you which is nothing but hostile and bent on the destruction of that world. 

5.) How does the Character Creation of your game reinforce what your game is about?<6.) What types of behaviors/styles of play does your game reward (and punish if necessary)?
The game rewards teamwork, first and foremost, since survival is dependent upon it.  Characters cannot successfully complete a scenario and gain whatever secrets that may be learned from it if they do not survive.  Further, the game should reward players that play their characters according to their concept (background and personality), but I have not devised an actual mechanic for that yet.

7.) How are behaviors and styles of play rewarded or punished in your game?
Again, characters can only complete scenarios and gain the secrets they may impart if they are able to survive, which is almost always going to be dependent on teamwork.  The reward for playing characters according to their concept has not been determined at this time.

8.) How are the responsibilities of narration and credibility divided in your game?<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?)<10.) What are the resolution mechanics of your game like?<11.) How do the resolution mechanics reinforce what your game is about?<12.) Do characters in your game advance? If so, how?<13.) How does the character advancement (or lack thereof) reinforce what your game is about?
Enlightenment through failure reinforces the struggle against seemingly insurmountable odds, while an improved understanding of the Outer Darkness coupled with the slow loss of connectedness between the character and the Light reinforce the idea that, even in trying to combat it, the Outer Darkness taints you.

14.) What sort of product or effect do you want your game to produce in or for the players?<15.) What areas of your game receive extra attention and color? Why?<16.) Which part of your game are you most excited about or interested in? Why?<<18.) What are your publishing goals for your game?<19.) Who is your target audience?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Good to know that you have a process going on there. I'm liking a lot of what I'm seeing in your Power 19; I can see a game here that I'd play, even if I'm not that hot on the kewl powerz angle.

This is totally first thoughts territory, still. We can move out to the playtest forum whenever you'd like to discuss your playtest experiences, though.

Being that you're familiar with Dread, do check out the GMing section of that game with an eye towards the notion of game process. I've found it immensely useful myself to concentrate on designing game processes, as opposed to game structures. Consider, which one of these is the heart of Dread:

• Characters have attributes and skills, but they are not used in a layered manner. Instead, the attributes cover the general tasks, such as fighting and magic-use, while skills are used for highly specific information gathering purposes. d12s are rolled against a difficulty set by the GM. There is no character development system to speak of, the characters are pretty much as good as they're going to get right from the start.
• The GM has chosen a particular demon with particular preference of victims and an in-built program of behaviour. The demon terrorizes the community, killing people and doing its demon things, which attracts the attention of the player characters. The players need to collect clues as to the nature of the demon, so they can find it and take the right steps to stopping it. The climax of the session is the fight with the demon; success depends on luck and setting up the conditions smartly, to favor your side. All of this is prepared by the GM in very rough terms: he has a list of prepared locations for hints and for fights, which the players then go through; whether the players of the GM control the progress from location to location depends on how well the players do in gathering clues and being assertive.

What i'm driving at here is that the actual game design of Dread is not in the dicing mechanics, really. Those are just support structures for the real heart of the game, which is the challenge of finding and overcoming the demon. The core that makes Dread the game it is is that process described in the GMing section - that's the social, interactive process the players go through when playing, and that's what the designer should focus on when designing a game.

But anyway, that's general, let's look at specifics: I'd like to hear more about the Fear and your ideas regarding it, that sounds like an interesting part of the game. I'd also like to know how your game is going to handle failure - what happens when characters mess it up and just plain make stupid decisions, or the dice are against them or whatever. Will the GM rearrange things to save them, or will the characters die horribly?

That part about failure brings me to the heart of your design theory - it seems to me, according to your Power 19, that your game is predicated on the idea that the players will care about their characters and live vicariously (experiencing thrills and fear) through them thanks to the character generation process, which will be in-depth. Could you tell me more about what sort of depth your chargen process has, and how that allies the player and his character? I'm asking this because what first comes to my mind when somebody mentions "deep character generation" is writing a long-ass essay about the character's childhood and the mysterious man who gave him an amulet on his 13th birthday. This has always been boring as hell to me, so I'm interested in hearing more about your thoughts on the matter; I have some notions from other games and other ways that character generation can be deep [Poison'd < come back if pertinent], but it's better to hear about your ideas, first.

Also, a question that surfaces when looking at the Power 19 is that I'm interested in hearing about the system of play your game works with - we've covered the character mechanics and resolution, more or less, so what I'd like to hear about is the structural precepts of GMing the game. Is there an elaborate setting that the events of the game are embedded in, '90s style? Do you have some sort of flow-chart process that the GM runs the characters through, like Dread has? Or does the GM have a Call of Cthulhu -style backstory-heavy prepared scenario, which is then arranged to open at the table during play? I think I understand the sort of resulting adventure you're looking to create, but I'm still a bit vague about the tools the GM will use to bring this about.

[Dementia Games]

[Eero Tuovinen]

Some of what you write reminds me heavily of Dead of Night, an excellent horror movie roleplaying game. I think that I can now understand your character modeling aesthetics from that viewpoint, specifically - DoN has somewhat similar logic in how and why characters are represented mechanically. The Pulse Meter also reminds me of how tension points work in that game.

A further question, to help me understand your creative agenda here: would you say that players fail when their characters succumb to the Darkness, or would you say that the point of the game is to experience the thrills and events that are commonplace in this genre, including awful failure and death? In other words, is it the player who fails, or is it the character who fails? I'm asking because horror roleplaying games ever since Call of Cthulhu have often been rather confused about this very point - CoC, for example, simultaneously advocates both viewpoints.

Other than that, I'm liking what I'm seeing. The Pulse Meter seems especially nice, although I'd be more excited if it were more concrete about its effects instead of just piling mathematical penalties on action. It seems to me that the horror would penetrate better for the player if his character simply couldn't do something because of the stress and fear, instead of just having a big penalty on doing it. Psychological point, that.

Regarding Gifts, this is just my perspective, but I suspect that you might be better served if you detached the idea of paranormal events and forces from player character identity. You could just say that a character is more or less capable/impressionable towards psychic forces based on some statistic, but leave the exact meaning of that confluence to be resolved on a case-by-case basis.

Other than that, it seems that you have this game well in hand, and should perhaps be thinking of playtesting. I'm thinking that you probably should keep a careful eye on the processes of play when you do - what players care about, how their character identity forms and affects play, how they react to different GMing techniques regarding atmosphere and tension - those are key questions where you can actually provide value to your audience if you succeed in laying out some principles, rules, advice or other structures. Rules for modeling characters and resolving attempts at climbing out of a pit are thirteen to a dozen; the interesting bit in your game will be the way you decide to structure the situation of play to generate the sort of experiences you're interested in.

[Dementia Games]

No, players don't fail if their characters succumb to the Darkness.  In fact, if the characters are routinely doing their jobs, they'll be edging toward that line all the while.  Not unlike, I suppose, a CoC character's inevitable decline into madness and depravity - same thing, really.  The only way I would say players can fail is by not doing their part to create a good story (i.e. not playing their characters according to their concept and not being adequately involved in the session).  Of course, the GM can just as much fail in that regard as well.  The Dissociation only portrays the hardening process to the bizarre experiences they have and how that affects them in mundane life.  Sorta like in The Crow, "this is the really real world, there ain't no comin' back," only from the other side of the mirror.

The Pulse Meter... I agree that putting stuffy old penalties on actions is overdone and pretty boring.  However, it's the only way I know right now to simulate the obvious in good films and stories - picture the character running in panic, fumbling with keys, dropping them, having trouble starting the car, etc, like you've seen in a million stories.  It isn't that they literally couldn't handle the keys or start the car, but their fear and panic was making it more difficult.  That's what I'm after.  If you have a suggestion of a smoother way to handle that notion, I'm up for it, because the penalties thing occurs in every game, just about, and it really is a boring effect.  Just the only way in my mind so far to simulate the difficulty of handling oneself with escalating fear.

I think that the Spirit attribute will come into play with supernatural/paranormal phenomena, I just don't totally know how yet.  I think it will be a part of a Sensitivity check, something like Chill's ability to detect the Unknown.  I'm still cooking some ideas in my head that aren't ready to be put down in writing just yet. 

Yeah, there's no doubt that atmosphere and tension are the very backbone of such a game.  One of the ways to TRY to accomplish that is to provide the GM with not just the Darkness, but the Illuminati itself.  Characters will have stress from both directions at various times and for various reasons.  It will be paramount that things sometimes happen within the Order that the characters don't understand, things that seem to be helping the opposition and hurting them.  There should be a "the Illuminati move in mysterious ways" feel to the Order.  Even though they are the street-level members of it, they are so far removed from it that only the Magus is in contact with them - they will not have met anyone else.

I guess playtesting isn't too far away.  I'm still trying to find a good damage system that fits in with the theme.  I like the Pulse Meter concept for fear, but I'm not sure if a wound box or hit points quite get there where physical injury is concerned.  Any ideas from your experiences?  It seems you've seen a lot more indie games than I have, so I'm assuming you've seen damage handled a million ways.  What's made the most sense in a horror-type game to you?

[Eero Tuovinen]

Ah, the Illuminati itself is an active, operational tool that the GM can use to mold the characters' situation? Most excellent, usually the background organization is very passive in this sort of game, or at least there is no in-built structure to make it do any work for the game.

I think I'm getting a handle on your agenda here, based on what you wrote about player success and failure. In case you're interested in that fabled beast of rpg theory, GNS, it seems that this game project is solidly simulationistic. Good for you, and a good reason to check out Dead of Night and Dread (the jenga one, not Rafael's), which are two excellent simulationistic horror games that might have some good ideas to steal. I found both of those games (and refound this particular type of rpg in general) just a short while ago, so I'm always keen to recommend them to anybody who comes along

--

About the Pulse Meter and a character fumbling for his keys, I totally get what you're trying to go for here. About five years ago I wrote a horror rpg scenario that worked with similar atmosphere and had the same goal of inducing impressions and feelings on the players. The approach I took then was to make strong, ritualized suggestions to the players about how they might wish to play their character at a given time. In practice I had this deck of cards on the table, out of which the players would draw cards now and then. There were no rules about how those cards would need to be used - they included ideas, thoughts and feelings that these characters in this desperate situation might have. This helped the players see the scenario from my perspective - or rather, the perspective of their scared, desperate characters.

However, looking at this specific situation... when characters in horror movies or stories get afraid and panicky, what does that actually mean for the story? It seems to me that reducing character efficiency numerically is a very diametrical approach compared to what happens in those movies; it draws focus on the capabilities of the character and the tactics the player should be employing to get out of the situation, as the player is rewarded for understanding and adapting to the fact that his character's level of efficiency is impacted. This doesn't seem like a psychological process that would give the player thrills; more likely he'll experience frustration as he crosses off things in a mental list of possible strategies, which all would now fail with this big fat penalty hanging above his head.

Looking at it from this perspective, it seems that some other mechanic would serve better in getting the player into the right frame of mind. Dead of Night, which I mentioned above, does this same thing by having the GM collect tension chips (or whatever, I forget their name) which he piles in front of himself as the monsters go bump in the night, the characters get injured or the situation turns to the worse in other ways. The increasing pile of chips in front of the GM serves to increase the tension, as the players know that when the pile reaches certain size, awful things turn even more awful. When the chips are actually used, they're used by the GM to proactively mess with the situation on a case-by-case basis, instead of having them affect all characters equally all the time. Consequently the players know that those chips are trouble, but they don't ever get to categorize their characters into the safe and unambiguous category of "scared" or "panicky" - the tension chip penalty might strike them whenever the GM feels like it, and they can't do anything to help it, so they never need to account for that pile, either. It's pure terror.

However, one might also question whether fear and panic are best reflected by increasing chance of failure at all. After all, when characters panic and fumble with their car keys in the movies, it's usually not an important pivot point for the events - the character will get the car going anyway, the fumbling is just color. Or he fails to get the car going, but it's pretty rare that the scriptwriter assigns the blame to the character's panic and fear; sure, he's afraid, but whatever went wrong would have likely gone wrong anyway. It's just not very good psychology on the part of the scriptwriter to have his characters actively sabotage themselves, even when afraid, as that tends to turn the audience against them pretty easily. Fumbling buffoons are not as sympathetic as vulnerable victims.

From this background, I could see going into all sorts of directions with panic in a horror game. For example, what if the panic was not a modifier on task resolution, but a consequence? Have the player normally roll black dice, but when the situation is dire, have him roll red dice (either instead of or in addition, perhaps). Then if the red dice fail him, have the character panic and act accordingly. This way we can say that "he was so afraid that he failed this task", but we don't actually need to lower the chances of success to do it. Heck, we could even raise the chances: let the player add however many red dice he wants into the check to improve his chances, but if any of them rolls a '1' or whatever, then the character panics and does stupid things. That sort of possibilities.

Or fear could be a full-body condition that limits the things the character can successfully do. It might even freeze him to the spot at a crucial moment. But also give the player some kind of resource pool to spend, so he can pull the character out of the jaws of death - sure his hands shake from the fear, but spend a point of willpower or whatever, and he's just dextrous enough to not drop those car keys.

--

Damage-wise, it seems to me that you should take your cues from whatever you end up using to handle fear, panic and exhaustion. The damage system can then feed into and out of that: injury feeds panic which feeds exhaustion which feeds more injury, perhaps. Personally I'd stay away from hit points and such traditional abstractions, but that's largely because I have a personal dislike of that sort of mechanics. Dead of Night, for instance, does the hit point thing very well by leaving actual damage completely freeform and up to description while keeping track of character survival points - drop to zero, and the next time a monster succeeds in attacking, it's lethal.

Even if actual injury is tracked, perhaps the important thing to track is not how badly the character gets hurt, but how much pain he's in, which again raises his pulse. I could imagine doing a system where whenever you get hurt you mark a "hurt" box on the character sheet and roll a 1d6 or whatever to find out how much pain the character happened to suffer this time around, regardless of what sort of damage it was. Then factor that pain into the fear/stress/exhaustion mechanics, whatever they are, and forget the whole damage otherwise. Later on, when the character gets out of the situation, those hurt boxes can be used to figure out how quickly he recuperates, if at all.

In general the horror genre is not very sadistic in the way dungeon adventure fetishizes violence. A character in a horror movie or novel will, when hit by something, either be basically fine, basically dead, or basically corrupted/poisoned/impregnated/doomed to a slow death. So perhaps that'd be something I'd use in this sort of thing. Better yet, I wouldn't let the player know at the time of the injury which one it'll be. Actually, why anybody would need to know? Just mark down that wound box and roll dice after the situation to find out whether the injury was fatal or not. That should make for some nice tension!

[Dementia Games]

b]Hurt: superficial damage, slight bleeding, nagging pain, 2 Death points
 Injured: damage is more apparent, pronounced bleeding, focused pain, 2 Death points
 Wounded: freely bleeding, possible fractured or broken bones, hurts to breathe, intense pain, 2 Death points
 Mortally Wounded: bleeding profusely, definite broken bones, shallow breathing, agonizing pain, 4 Death points.
 Incapacitated: loss of consciousness, above effects present, roll 1d6 every round thereafter.  If result is less than the number of rounds incapacitated, character dies.

Every time damage is taken, roll 2d6 + Body vs. current Death point total.  Failure brings you immediately to the Incapacitated level.  Once Mortally Wounded is reached, characters roll the usual 2D6 + Body vs. 10 (the total of the previous Death points) every time they would be damaged, until they fail and reach the Incapacitated level.

Sample Damage values:

1: small knife, small club, small caliber weapon, blow dart, etc.
2: large knife, small sword, large club, medium caliber weapon, claw hammer, etc.
3: large sword, axe, large caliber weapon
4: heavy duty damage above and beyond the above.

Willpower can reduce damage or fear by one point per expenditure.

Fear:
Character makes a Mind roll (2d6 + Mind) vs. disturbance difficulty (a value based on level of disturbance).  If the roll fails, apply MoF directly to the following pulse meter:

 Shaken: pulse quickens slightly, 2 Fear points
 Disturbed: pulse quickens significantly, color fading, eyes dilating, 2 Fear points
 Panicked: pulse is rapid, color is gone, eyes fully dilated, clammy hands, 2 Fear points
 Terrified: pulse is deafening in the ears, chest hurts, breath is short, 4 Fear points.
 Frozen: Incapacitated due to either fainting or freezing in one's tracks.  1 Dissociation point.

Similar to damage, character makes another Mind roll vs. current Fear points each time a disturbance occurs.  Failure brings them to the Frozen level.  There should also be a desire to flee somewhere in there.

Some tension, both with damage and fear, should be gained by watching the Death or Fear points increasing and knowing it's going to get increasingly harder to succeed at the roll and stay in the game. 

What do you think?  Progress?  Regression?
Hurt[/b]: superficial damage, slight bleeding, nagging pain, 2 Death points
 Injured: damage is more apparent, pronounced bleeding, focused pain, 2 Death points
 Wounded: freely bleeding, possible fractured or broken bones, hurts to breathe, intense pain, 2 Death points
 Mortally Wounded: bleeding profusely, definite broken bones, shallow breathing, agonizing pain, 4 Death points.
 Incapacitated: loss of consciousness, above effects present, roll 1d6 every round thereafter.  If result is less than the number of rounds incapacitated, character dies.

Every time damage is taken, roll 2d6 + Body vs. current Death point total.  Failure brings you immediately to the Incapacitated level.  Once Mortally Wounded is reached, characters roll the usual 2D6 + Body vs. 10 (the total of the previous Death points) every time they would be damaged, until they fail and reach the Incapacitated level.

Sample Damage values:

1: small knife, small club, small caliber weapon, blow dart, etc.
2: large knife, small sword, large club, medium caliber weapon, claw hammer, etc.
3: large sword, axe, large caliber weapon
4: heavy duty damage above and beyond the above.

Willpower can reduce damage or fear by one point per expenditure.

Fear:
Character makes a Mind roll (2d6 + Mind) vs. disturbance difficulty (a value based on level of disturbance).  If the roll fails, apply MoF directly to the following pulse meter:

 Shaken: pulse quickens slightly, 2 Fear points
 Disturbed: pulse quickens significantly, color fading, eyes dilating, 2 Fear points
 Panicked: pulse is rapid, color is gone, eyes fully dilated, clammy hands, 2 Fear points
 Terrified: pulse is deafening in the ears, chest hurts, breath is short, 4 Fear points.
 Frozen: Incapacitated due to either fainting or freezing in one's tracks.  1 Dissociation point.

Similar to damage, character makes another Mind roll vs. current Fear points each time a disturbance occurs.  Failure brings them to the Frozen level.  There should also be a desire to flee somewhere in there.

Some tension, both with damage and fear, should be gained by watching the Death or Fear points increasing and knowing it's going to get increasingly harder to succeed at the roll and stay in the game. 

What do you think?  Progress?  Regression?

[Dementia Games]

Probably instead of keeping two different stats, though, I would just include the overall accumulated amounts on the scales, so, for instance, Mortally wounded would not say 4 Death points, it would read "10 Death points," which would already include the previous damage.  Just a matter of simplicity.

And why is the Forge so freakishly slow and difficult to load?  It's been like that for two days.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Forge has had that sort of trouble for the last year or so. It seems to get worse periodically; I'd say that it's something to do with the server load. Vincent (lumpley) probably knows better, he's handling the technical side nowadays. Perhaps the site should switch to a faster server.

As for your damage system, aesthetically I like how the physical and psychological damage tracks mirror each other. However, I'm not sure if the Endurance-based math is satisfying, considering the emphasis of your game: your combat process seems to derive interest from modeling how a butch guy can take a wound and still walk, while the weakling keels over. What has this got to do with the horror genre? X-Files never focused on how Mulder could or couldn't walk away from a gunshot wound because of his keen interest in working out. I know that this sort of emulative thinking is the traditional solution in rpg design, but it's not sparking interest for me when the character's endurance seems like a non sequitur in the midst of a game about modern supernatural conspiracies.

Other than that, the system seems to work and bring some nuance to how severely the character gets damaged at a given point. Consider, however, that you're now bringing more rules detail into the process of getting injured than the simple skill check rules do with something like researching mysterious manuscripts, interviewing subjects, crime scene investigation, hiding from danger and all the other content that I'd actually expect of an occult conspiracy game. I don't know if that's a problem, but it certainly seems to be drawing attention to the physiology of injury in a surprising context.