[Vice & Virtue] My Attempt At Creating Roleplaying Mechanics

[MacLeod]

So I've been fiddlemajiggin' with the Trait system on and off today, thought I'd post a little something before I left for some C&C action.

After thinking further on Geethree's previous suggestion... I've decided to remove Apathy/Passion and Deceitful/Honest. I'm going to go ahead and allow Entropic/Lawful to handle honesty, loyalty, chaotic behavior and other such things. =)

While I'm here... Does anyone have any suggestions for a good term to cover the opposite of the Mental Scar mechanic? I keep drawing blanks on a good name for such a thing.
Any help would be appreciated.

[JoyWriter]

While I'm here... Does anyone have any suggestions for a good term to cover the opposite of the Mental Scar mechanic? I keep drawing blanks on a good name for such a thing.

This is why people ask for broader info, theme-ing stuff like that often depends on the broader context, could be "inspiration" though. As a slight rules adjustment, how about making it so that if you act in accordance with your inspiration, you get a stress point back, otherwise you pay one as normal? Means then that people trying to be heartless might accidentally be merciful when they get reminded of something really good, or fight it down instead.

[MacLeod]

I'm considering your idea, Jaydubbya.
I'm definitely going to use Inspiration though. =D

[SeeThirty]

Well, I don't know much about the uses of systems like this, but I like it, a lot. It's even given me the urge to consider something like it for dealing with stress buildup in some of my own games. MacLeod, you are really on to something interesting here. Good luck with it.

That said, I think your terminology is fine as-is. Afterall, if the game it's used in is your game, then it is ultimately your choice what terminology to use. I like the "sins" aspect of this very much. I also think it would tie well into psychological disorders, too. You could have a horror or psychological game, where various sights and interactions pull at characters, drawing them further from sanity at every turn.

[MacLeod]

Thanks, SeeThirty. =)

This project sprung directly up from my thoughts about how I could use life's stress to erodes concentration. Simple quest with a surprise ending.

Its funny that you should mention psychological and horror... I just got done watching the extreeemely excellent 'The Signal', and I began to think about a psychological horror campaign of survival in a world gone mad. Well, that and 'The Thing', of course... but that movie always pops as a digging desire to be turned into a RPG, being the greatest horror movie of all time. ^_^

Anyways...

I'm thinking of some day using the Traits system in the aforementioned psychological horror in a world gone made that takes place in the here and now. Normal, everyday people have simply lost it and are giving into the extremes of their personalities. Each reaction (as per the Traits system outlined here) is a bizarre, over exaggerated caricature of itself. All characters, including the PCs, have a high level of suggestibility. Something even as small as body language can set off a violent reaction if someone feels threatened.

I think with some tweaking this little system could do that sort of thing pretty well. =) Obviously the horrors of the PCs' actions are going to be frequent, what with them accidentally murdering someone that was just helping them simply because they scratched their back. But hey, it looked like they were going for a gun! So, Mental Scars will have to change a bit as will Stress Tokens... This is definitely giving me something neat to think about.

[Vladius]

I like your system and how it incorporates the Deadly Sins.

How will the players maintain control over what they do? Do they get an acceptable range of behavior after their roll to see if they go good or bad? Or is it just up to the GM?

I'm envisioning that at some point somebody will open up a battle over what would truly be ethical in one place and what would be villainous in another. I love it when games actually use black-and-white morals, but what if the players and the GM start to have a fight over what their characters would really do, how they would be roleplayed, and whether or not they even want to approach the situation?

[MacLeod]

Players maintain control over their characters in a few ways...

1) Trait distribution during character creation. You have an opportunity here to affect the probabilities of your reactions later.

2) Deciding what three Traits to use for a Judgment Test.

3) The actual reaction is still described by the player. He must, must, color his reaction with the rolled Vice/Virtue. The Vice/Virtue is like a theme for the reaction... is plays to it but the player ultimately decides what it means to his character. Being cowardly may mean avoiding, running away from something or, it could be falling to your knees and begging for mercy. It could even manifest as inaction, fear grips your heart and you cannot move from where you stand.

I agree with your last point for sure. The hope is, is that everyone will try to be all grown up about it and try to come to a happy medium for everyone. That said, the GM has a tough job so his word is always final on any matter as far as I'm concerned.
I don't argue with GMs, I make suggestions and I comment but I don't press any further... aggressive people just want to argue, they think its because of the rules but it is more or less their propensity towards drama and competition that drives their desire to argue. Not all games can facilitate all play styles and personalities, unfortunately.

That said, for the game I'm building... it is possible to yank it right out... but it would lose some of its unique charm that way.

[Vladius]

It's definitely something you should leave in, but maybe you should have a system for conflicts of interest between the players and GM. One of the features of roleplaying is quantifying things that normally would never be quantified. So maybe you could have a Stat like "Will" or "Dominance" or "Self Control" or something that means that the player gets his way more often. (They would resolve the dispute with dice rolls.)

[MacLeod]

Oh, hey... you bring up a good point that I should have mentioned in the last post.

The entire game system revolves around a roll and keep mechanic. The keep portion is specific to the test involved. The Judgment Test is a [1], regardless of the dice you throw you will always keep just one.
With that in mind, there exists a skill called Judgment. Thus, for every Rank the PC has in it he may throw more than one die. This means that he can actually cherry pick his result by choosing which die to keep. So, if he wants to react with a Vice/Virtue he can. However, skill ranks are precious so not every PC will have a Rank 2 or better Judgment (Skills go up to Rank 5).

[Vladius]

Aha... that works, but I was referring to more specific behavior after you already rolled and had to choose.

[MacLeod]

Yeah, as I mentioned before... As long as the player keeps his reaction thematically correct, he is free to do as he pleases. What constitutes as thematically correct is completely up to the GM and his interpretation of the Traits as I have described them in the game text.

[JoyWriter]

I'm not sure what I think of the judgement skill thing: It's against my reflexes to put in a skill that allows you to mitigate a section of the system; it feels like too much of an encouragement to say "Yes it is a ball and chain on your leg, but if you set up your stats right you can ignore it!", you know? I prefer giving people a subsystem if they take a skill, with bonuses for the extra complexity, so everything people are actually doing they want to do.

Additionally, the whole thing with judgement is normally that you get better answers in terms of outside events. That skill would be more like self control, cos it's not like a question where answers can be right or wrong, just more or less like your idea of the characters internal integrity.

That's just a renaming thing though. My preference is for players with more self control to have more stress points available, and just have the same fun system for everyone. So perhaps people pick three of the cards, and you play that street game of swapping cards around, then they flip one and roll for how it goes. Then everyone, GM and players rely on you to make the cards interesting to interpret, and then on their own skill in making it fit:

If people are choosing to play your game, then they probably are choosing to use the system too, so I would expect that they will be prepared for doing that kind of thing. If you get them to set out at the start of play how they see those cards, then hopefully they will have enough agreement between them that you won't need anyone stepping in unilaterally unless it is the player paying stress. Don't be to draconian on their implementation if you don't have a really good reason for why they are the way they are, instead I'd encourage people to use your system by all the examples of awesome stuff it has done in playtest!

Also, you could use pictures to exemplify the virtue/vice pairs, one the right way up and one upside down. Then if you have enough cards players could put the one they got in front of them, the appropriate way up, to remind them of their characters intention. You could even have other characters try to change their mind, and go through the process above again when something unexpected is revealed or the situation/scene is resolved.

[MacLeod]

As of right now... whenever I do get a chance to playtest this system, I intend to alternate between the two methods we have discussed: the original method and then the card drawing method.

As for the Judgment Skill, its named that way because of the Test associated with it. Though, Self Control does fit better in many ways, it doesn't sound better. I'm not sure how much that actually counts for, in the end.

To be honest, most people probably won't end up with a very high Judgment Skill... Look at it this way, rookie characters begin the game with 12 Skill points. There are four primary Skills for that most characters will end up needing, they aren't required because deviations from the norm are allowed. Skills can be bought up to Rank 3 initially, Simple Skills cost 1 Sp per Rank while Complex Skills cost 2 Sp per Rank. Judgment is a Complex Skill. So you can see where only specific, specialized characters will end up with a decent Judgment Skill. Veteran characters are more likely to have a decent Judgment but by then they will have been the slave of their die results for a very long time.

That said, if my predictions concerning the Judgment Skill prove false during playtesting then it is definitely going to change.

I really like your suggestions regarding the cards. In a perfect world where I have a budget and an actual audience to sell this game to, I would have background art on each card depicting the extremes of each Vice/Virtue in addition to the things you mentioned. =)

[Vladius]

I would actually like to keep the Judgment system, as it should be possible to escape your limitations. If other skills worked like this and you could take "ranks" or extra dice in them, up to a certain cap, I think it would be more self consistent and helpful within the larger game.

[MacLeod]

Mhmm... I do like the idea of characters gaining more and more control over themselves as they grow older. =)

The entire game is based around Skills and a roll 'n' keep system similar to Legend of the Five Rings. Differents tests have a different keep value and a different modifier. Skills cap at 5. Dice Keep caps at 3. With special points you can boost dice rolled and dice kept, separately.