Seeking Feedback on (Kind of) New Game: MULRAH

[Chris Flood]

Simon,

You are correct about my inexperience, and I will certainly post playtest results. While I agree that Humanity/Exhaustion/Sanity can and should feel different during gameplay, they all seem to use the same kind of "use at your own expense" economy. MULRAH seeks simply to genericize this concept so the GM can rework as she desires.

- Chris Flood

[Chris Flood]

I've made a few more changes.

• I tossed the GM takeover of Totally Boring Characters.
• I collapsed Luck, Grit, and other previous "Meta Forces" that would typically recharge between game sessions into Tags. If the GM wants to have stuff like "bennies" or "FATE points," then she should just require players to Tag their Characters with universally applicable Tags like "Luck" or "Heroics."
• Instead of occurring as a result of diverging rolls, Damage now happens when invoking a Tag irrelevant to the Conflict, which will be necessary when up against a superior Character.
• Meta Forces are now optional, described as follows:

"A Meta Force (Optional) is at the core of a story's atmosphere and, once defined by the GM, cannot be Tagged. Meta Force can be a Character's Soul, Sanity, Mana, etc. and usually starts out equal to the Character's Levels (10 by default). Characters can usually increase a Resolution Score by reducing their Meta Force by the same amount, but Meta Force is recoverable only through specific acts rather than through the start of a new session. Upon reaching zero, the Meta Force will cause the Character to enter a usually game-ending state such as death, madness, etc., so players must use it with extreme caution."

We're going to playtest this weekend. I'd love to hear any final thoughts before we do!

[Chris Flood]

Final pre-playtest rules are in a PDF here:http://deaddogcafe.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/mulrah3.pdf. I made a number of changes and added a page of optional rules that can be tweaked based on the theme of the game. I understand that's a no-no here on the Forge, and that's actually kind of the idea.

[Simon C]

There are no "no-no" rules here.  Optional rules are a great idea, especially if you're clear about the effect they'll have on the game, why you'd use them, and why you wouldn't.

[Chris Flood]

Playtest results: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=28803.0