Let's make a game!

[Paganini]

Mike - Yes, I posted Radio Wars early on, and while I was typing it up the other guys beat me to the punch with monks. Like M. J. said, Monks dominates this thread; go with that. Don't worry about trying to combine it with Radio Wars, I think that would be a focus-losing error. I'll just put Radio Wars back on the shelf; maybe we can use it for Let's Make a Game round Two.

M. J. - Dang, man, that's hillarious. I had no idea! What was intended as a farce might almost be a realistic simultion. :)

[Mark D. Eddy]

As might be obvious, I'm all for the Monks concept. I'd like to push this idea a little farther, though.

Monks are about religious devotion. A religious devotion so strong that they are willing to become completely different from the world around them in order to express that religious devotion (with the caveat that sometimes it's the parents' religious devotion being expressed...).

Now, if we're going to avoid the two most famous versions of monasticism (i.e., Christian and Buddhist), we're going to have to either create or research and express a religion where asceticsm is an ideal. I don't know if this is something people are interested in or not; I'm certainly willing and able to help in a project like that, but it seems to increase the scope of the background work we'd need to do.

[Bob McNamee]

Unless you end up going with some sort of Secret society group/sect ala "Millenium group"...

I like the no-violence as a solution idea...
If you use violence you lose... embracing the very source of problems in the violent world... you become part of the problem...

Bob McNamee

[talysman]

As might be obvious, I'm all for the Monks concept. I'd like to push this idea a little farther, though.

Monks are about religious devotion. A religious devotion so strong that they are willing to become completely different from the world around them in order to express that religious devotion (with the caveat that sometimes it's the parents' religious devotion being expressed...).

Now, if we're going to avoid the two most famous versions of monasticism (i.e., Christian and Buddhist), we're going to have to either create or research and express a religion where asceticsm is an ideal. I don't know if this is something people are interested in or not; I'm certainly willing and able to help in a project like that, but it seems to increase the scope of the background work we'd need to do.

that's why I suggested gnostic monks... gnosticism comes in many varieties with divirgent beliefs, but a common theme is that there is a Good God who is *not* the creator of the material world, but rather is the source of the soul... the quest of the gnostic is to escape the world and rejoin the divine oversoul. this makes a good rationale for the monastery idea (they are cutting themselves off from the world); also, many gnostics (for example, the cathar Parfaits) believed that celibacy was a virtue because reproduction imprisons more souls in the world. a society of cathar parfaits would make a pretty good example of what we have been discussing, since the parfaits were celibate, were viewed as healers by the non-celibate ordinary believers, occasionally made "house calls" to the dying to administer the oath of a parfait, and also have a ready-made catastrophe to explain why they are wandering in the world instead of in seclusion (the crusade against the cathars is believed to have wiped out the believers.)

the cathars would even give us a Big Enemy, the evil god of the material world (Yaldabaoth), and a slightly smaller enemy, the roman catholic church, if we chose to go historical. however, I have my reservations against this, one objection being that I don't like the idea of calling the material world "evil". I prefer leavening the gnostics with the pelagrian heresy and saying that the world is good, but the soul is not of this world.

here's a quick excerpt of what the catholic church thought of the cathars:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/gui-cathars.html

there's a good collection of gnostic source material here:

http://www.gnosis.org/library.html

ooops, afterthought: another reason why I'm not eager to do a straight adaptation of catharism after the crusade is because I think we should aim for a setting-light game. instead of medieval historical europe, give a sketchy description of a pseudomedieval setting, not going into much more detail, just describing the immanent war, plague, and famine. this givess us an opportunity to keep the monks' value system simple and positive.

also, if you must have a dualism of good and evil gods, I would prefer describing it this way: the souls, through an accident, splinter from the Source of Good and scatter into the void... they build around them the material world, which has its beauties, but is still a prison... the longing of the lost souls produces a malignant spirit, Yaldabaoth, who then begins to torture the inhabitants of false material reality, because if every soul is saved and returns to the Source of Good, the material world (and Yaldabaoth) will cease to exist.

[Mark D. Eddy]

Actually, that's a good point. If this is going to be about Pacifist Monks, and their attempt (of whatever sort) to seperate themselves from the Evil World, Violence *has* to be one of the stats that is being lowered.

Yes, I *do* like the concept of "Worldly Values" as stats, and the Monks attempting to lower their stats to zero.

[Jeremy Cole]

that's why I suggested gnostic monks...

the cathars would even give us a Big Enemy, the evil god of the material world (Yaldabaoth)... however, I have my reservations against this, one objection being that I don't like the idea of calling the material world "evil"...

I think this is a great setting.  As a thought, perhaps the followers or forces of Yaldabaoth would not be 'evil', but merely followers of a different belief.  Perhaps they believe that denying the material nature of existance causes the soul to lose contact with earth.  The loss of contact causes the soul to move not to the Source of Good but to limbo, or whatever, ie something that must be avoided, so people should retain as strong a connection with the world as possible.

More to come...

[Jeremy Cole]

Then there is two groups with mutually exclusive beliefs and goals, but with neither attached to 'evil'.  Perhaps one group is fueled by cerebral acts, and the other by base acts, and both could be playable.  I'm not sure how the paths to enlightenment would fit this, but I'm sure it all fits together, and perhaps could be formed into one thing.

As another thought, could we establish a system that allows you to play any form of monk?  Do we have to focus on one specific faith?

Jeremy

[talysman]

I think this is a great setting.  As a thought, perhaps the followers or forces of Yaldabaoth would not be 'evil', but merely followers of a different belief.  Perhaps they believe that denying the material nature of existance causes the soul to lose contact with earth.  The loss of contact causes the soul to move not to the Source of Good but to limbo, or whatever, ie something that must be avoided, so people should retain as strong a connection with the world as possible.

I was discussing the idea of gnostic or cathar monks with another game designer tonight and we brainstormed a similar idea: the game is played from the perspective of the monks, but the question of whether God the Creator is Good, Evil, or something else is left up to either the GM or the players as a whole. perhaps one of the personal issues the monk has to resolve is to get beyond perceiving followers of the other god as evil. this conflict would be intense, since the mainstream church is political powerful and violently opposed to the gnostic church; the monk will be repeatedly confronted with examples of evil priests, but will need to contain rage in order to achieve Gnosis.

we're still not ready for actual game mechanics yet, but here's a skeletal idea: monks would have pairs of moral traits, such as Violence and Compassion. at any time, they could boost an appropriate die roll with the negative trait (Violence), but would lose one point of the positive trait (Compassion) permanently... OR they could choose to perform an act in accord with the postive trait (for no bonus,) permanently losing a point of the negative trait. perhaps also, when the character spends Violence dice to boost rolls, the trait is 1 point higher when it refreshes.

this system has several features:

[list=1]
[*]Violence and other negative traits are tempting, because they lend power;
[*]negative traits are easy to improve;
[*]negative traits are hard to reduce;
[*]postive traits have no immediate benefit;
[*]postive traits only improve  when the matched negative trait is reduced.
[/list:o]

there should, of course, be some kind of bad result that happens when a postive trait reaches zero, as well as a positive result when all negative traits reach zero.

to simulate other monastic systems, you would simply select different sets of positive/negative pairs.

[Mike Holmes]

Very interesting.

First, I would be for creating a fictional religion so as to avoid the possibility of annoying anyone who held a real world belief in one of the religions discussed. Even better, it gives us a chance to flex our creative mental muscle. So, somebody propose a ficitonal religion that follows this sort of line. Add stuff that heightens the sense of the characters as protagonists. Areas of conflict. Let's see if we can stay away from making everything Good/Evil, and introduce some other areas of conflict as well.

Anyhow, I am also excited about the "reduce to zero" stats. What I was thinking was that a stat would actually give you effectiveness. So my "Violence" stat would allow me to do violent things. My "Greed" stat would allow me to manipulate money and such. But, yes, using your stats increases them, and brings one further away from the enlightenment sought, and more entangled with the world.

My suggestion would be to have the opposing stats, and make them as effective as their opposites. Thus, mechanically, there is no advantage to going to one side or another. But then, as Talysman suggeted, we make going bad, easier. The idea would be to balance the incentive to "do the right thing" an go enlightened, with the incentive to aquire power more easliy.

This would then represent the struggle to attain enlightenment against the urges of human nature.

OK. Here's a sample model so that we can look at how to manipulate the stats. Let's say all pairs add to seven. So you have Violence/Compassion and Bob gives his character a 3/4 rating. Now, to make the hman nature slippery slope occur, we'd have to make it harder to go up in Compasson than down. A character's Negative trait goes up if he does a number of qualified actions (GM determines that they are violent in this case, and important enough) equal to the lower of his two traits. And the Positive trait goes up if he does positive acts (Compassionate and Important) acts equal to the higher of the two. So, in this character's case, Bob would need to have the character perform, four compassionate act's to go up, or three violent acts to go down. Let's say he did four positive acts, and his trait changed to 2/5. Now he'd need five compassionate acts to go up, and only two violent acts to slip. At 1/6 any violent act sends him down. Looking at the other end of the spectrum, it does not flip, but rather the difficulties are the same as the other end. a character at 5/2 (pretty violent) only takes two actions to become even more violent, and at 6/1 the character is teetering on the edge one act from becoming completely violent.

That is, I'd suggest that any player who took the incentive and rolled the six dice (or whatever) available when at that level of violence, would become 7/0, and Sociopathic at that point perhaps. He can come back but it will take him seven acts of compassion performed at level zero. Or we can say that the character is lost at that point, maybe. See Sorcerer and Soul for options. Perhaps a charcter who gets to a 0/7 (completely Compasionate, for example) is incapable of ever doing the opposite again. He has reached partial enlightenment, and is now incapable of doing the wrong thing in that area.

Just a general idea.

Anyway, the question does occur, what happens when a character reaches all max positive stats? Does he just continue like that, static? Or does he pass on from this world? If the former, the character will be powerful, but have little internal conflict. If the latter, then the player loses his character. What's the player reward? First one to enlightenmen wins the game? ;-) JK, that's too strong a pull in that direction.

Going with something like the mechanics above, I'd have players start with a set amount of points to spread about in the positive stats 9Calculating the negatives from those). So, let's say there are seven stats, I'd give players 25 points to spread about. This means that they'll have some traits in the positive zone (4+ on the positive side), and some in the negative. I'd then require the character to write up a short description of a problem that the chracter has with any trait that starts with a negative total (4+ in the negative side).

Again, just thinking out loud, as it were. Thoughts?

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

I like the sound of these mechanics, especially the gain / loss style!

Hmm, what to do after gaining all max positive or negative stats?

Perhaps that would be a level of supernatural ability gain? (don't really like this idea)

Perhaps getting a player character to that level alters the game to a different style of mission?  (perhaps making the conflicts a problem of even being able to relate to worldly reality)

or maybe maxing out stats gives you access to metagame mechanics like directors stance?

{edited: I'm not a big fan of losing your character... not much incentive to go that last step...}

{edited:on second thought...perhaps your current character is "taken out of the fray" (being beyond the conflict) and you must create a new character but your old character acts as a sort of "spiritual mentor" to him... allowing you use of a special stance, ability or effect. (Obi-wan Kenobi to Luke for the "good side"... Hannibal Lector to Will Graham for the "bad side")

[Bob McNamee]

Some quick trait pair ideas...

not exact opposites, but potential useful traits

Violence -  Compassion
Greed    -   Thrift (or Frugality...ability to do without)
Deceit    -   Respect
Mastery  -   Service
Lust       -   Serenity? (weak...)
Apathy   -   Inspiration?
Fear/      -   Hope/
Shame        Courage      

each trait could be used to drive Self or Others...

some ideas....

[Jeremy Cole]

Grabbag of thoughts...

You could use a fictional religion, but possibly also or a dead one?  There's plenty of faiths with no followers left to offend.

The sliding scale between the extremes is excellent, but is the book-keeping might be high, depending on the final feel of the game.  Perhaps the cost given is the extremity of the act, if you need six points to 'go up' you have to perform an act of very extreme charitableness.

There's the expression, 'So heavenly she's of no earthly use', and it seems to fit here.  Characters reaching high levels would be of little earthly use, having mostly celestial power, just a thought.

Perhaps 'good' acts aren't the only way to enlightenment?  Could you receive enlightenment of a different kind by being extremely greedy?

How about at extreme levels of greed/generosity you can communicate with, and recieve guidance from, angels and devils, or djinni or whatever variation you want?  Mind you, if you allow evil acts to lead to enlightenment then this gets a little...

Any thoughts?

Jeremy

[talysman]

Some quick trait pair ideas...

not exact opposites, but potential useful traits

Violence -  Compassion
Greed    -   Thrift (or Frugality...ability to do without)
Deceit    -   Respect
Mastery  -   Service
Lust       -   Serenity? (weak...)
Apathy   -   Inspiration?
Fear/      -   Hope/
Shame        Courage      

each trait could be used to drive Self or Others...

some ideas....

the definition of opposites is pretty culturally dependent... this will actually be to our benefit, because we could have one monastic order that paired Violence and Compassion, while another would pair Violence and Caution, or Violence and Diplomacy.

or... Compassion and Realism. for that belief system, Compassion would be the negative trait: it leads you meddle in affairs you have no right to meddle in. the ideal for that group would be to act in a just and reasoned manner without acting out of pure emotion.

[Mark D. Eddy]

Here are a few thoughts about a fictional religion for our monks:

1) Are we looking at a polytheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, panentheistic, dualist, or other type of worldview? For those of you who aren't into theology, the differences are:
a) Polytheism: Many gods, each of whom has specific duties and/or powers. The relationship between these types of gods often reflect philosophical ideals. Polytheistic monks would be devoted to the ideals of a single deity, and would strive to expand/improve that deity's sphere of influence and power. Allied gods would have allied monks, antagonistic gods would have antagonistic monks.
b) Pantheism: Everything has a god-spirit associated with it (Animism is a subset of Pantheism). These gods are usually less developed in personality than the gods of polytheism, but local gods will be well-defined and understood. Pantheistic monks would typically be devoted to keeping all of the spirit-gods (or, in some cases, just one of the spirit-gods) happy with the mortals.
c) Panentheism: God is a part of everything -- and infuses Its spirit into everything. Hinduism and Buddhism are both technically panentheistic. Panentheism can look Polytheistic or Monotheistic in its iconography. Eventually, the God of Panentheism will retrieve all of Its God-nature into Itself. Panentheistic monks would be attempting to rejoin themselves to the Cosmic All that is their God.
d) Monotheism: There is only one God, and He/She/It has created the universe, and is in control. Any thing that has self-determination was created by God. Any creature that opposes God can only imitate or corrupt, not create, and, in a spiritual sense, will eventually lose in some spectacular way. Monotheistic Monks would be devoted to the worship of their God, and in most cases, teaching those around them the truth about their God.
e) Dualism: There are two opposite and equally powerful Gods, each of whom has control of an aspect of the universe. Individual choice by self-determinate creatures will eventually tip the scales between the Two, and One will prevail and the other will perish with Its followers. Dualistic monks would be trying to gain adherents to their side of the Duality.

2) This has been asked before, but what happens when a PC hits Enlightenment (as difficult as it may be made to be, eventually it will happen)? Here are some choices, based on historical precedent:
a) The PC is taken to the reward of his God, and no longer has any effect on the mortal world. In most cases, a portion of his Spirit falls on another who takes up his burden/path.
b) The PC becomes a contemplative hermit, and students come to pester him about how he did it. Eventually, a new Monastic tradition forms.
c) The PC actively seeks out worthy students to train in his path, forming a new Monastic Tradition immediately.
d) The PC becomes wildly different from what he was before: having acheived Enlightenment, he/she no longer needs to worry about the strictures of his or her tradition.

3) Perhaps most importantly, how are we envisioning a "typical" game session will work?

[Mike Holmes]

Excellent post Mark.

I'll skip point one for now. I have no real preference, actually on what the religion should look like, other than it should leave room for conflict.

2) This has been asked before, but what happens when a PC hits Enlightenment (as difficult as it may be made to be, eventually it will happen)? Here are some choices, based on historical precedent:
a) The PC is taken to the reward of his God, and no longer has any effect on the mortal world. In most cases, a portion of his Spirit falls on another who takes up his burden/path.

So the new character would be played by the same player who would get some benefit? That might be cool. Howsabout the player has to introduce the character in a session before this "apotheosis" to get the benefit? Thus allowing for a more seamless transition.

I see a need for some sort of protagonism benefit because, else why go for it? Why get rid of your character, unless something cool happens for the player?

b) The PC becomes a contemplative hermit, and students come to pester him about how he did it. Eventually, a new Monastic tradition forms.

Very similar to A. But with the option of having him come back from retirement, perhaps. Again, the protege would get some bonus from having such a master.

c) The PC actively seeks out worthy students to train in his path, forming a new Monastic Tradition immediately.

Similar, but the bonus would apply to all characters who studied under the master. So it becoms a group benefit. This is kinda cool. One could refer to the teachings of the master to get bonuses. Makes it almost like they are still in play after a fashion.

Here's an idea. We can have "augmenting" rules where characters can help each other. The "retired" character types can act to augment even if not present. Representing their teaching and examples. Interestingly, they would only be effective in the positive trait areas. Which would incentivize their use. Cool. One could even retire the "full negative" sort of character, and his infamous legend could live on as inspiration to use negative traits, perhaps.

d) The PC becomes wildly different from what he was before: having acheived Enlightenment, he/she no longer needs to worry about the strictures of his or her tradition.

So the game issues become different for that character? Perhaps they get new stats. Hmm.

3) Perhaps most importantly, how are we envisioning a "typical" game session will work?

I'm seeing the mission format. Usually goes like this:

[list=1][*]The characters, members of the organization are brought together for the briefing on the nature of the problem. [*]Do research and get stuff together, etc. And do some pre-mission soul-searching. [*]Head out into the harsh world looking for more data. Meet NPCs, and get involved with them. [*]Once they have the problem figured out they have to find a way to overcome it. [*]Execute plan (recover bodies). [*]Return to "base" and get debriefed. [*]Train, intrasession.[/list:o]

Just like InSpectres and other "mission" games. The cool thing would, of course, be to mess with this format dramatically. My throw away idea was to have them never leave the monastary, and sorta fight the battle by proxy looking for info. But I'm sure we can do better than that.

Or, perhaps we should do somehting other than the mission format, entirely. Not seeing anything else, at this point, myself, however.

Mike