Wicked Press Gets Wyrd

[Mike Holmes]

Oohh, neat thought. As you know from GenCon, I'm firmly on the "must have Futhark" side of the argument. But then I was reading Pauls new game TWTFTD, and when I came back here, something dawned on me.

In Paul's game you customize a die as part of chargen. In Wyrd chargen could include making up your character's runes. This woould be really cool, and represents to an extent the Norns building the basis of the character's life. In fact you could make an intro stanza that had one line for each rune that indicates that the characters are fated to have these elements in their lives.

The actual Futhark doesn't matter. Just have a character scribble on cardboard squares, or pieces of paper, or whatever, ideograms that remind him of the sorts of virtues and descriptions, etc. that the character should have. They can even be things that aren't asociated with the character like strength or wit, but other archtypical things like travel or war. Anything, really that the player feels would influence the course of the character's life.

Players who do know (or have a set of) Futhark could use those runes if they like. For those who are artistically challenged, just write a word. After all, aren't words our iconic representations of concepts in the modern world? Use whatever you like to make your runes just so that you can interperet them. (I see a lit of Arioch chaos runes from Elric for some characters). For runes that look the same right-side-up or upside-down, indicate a bottom with a line or dot as is done for 6's and 9's on dice. Runes drawn would be placed as drawn right-side-up or upside-down, which would determine heroic or tragic consequences. For those runes Narration would revolve around the kinds of runes drawn.

Whadda ya think?  :smile:

Mike

[hardcoremoose]

I actually kind of like this idea...as a possible optional rule.

If I were to do it, I would use cardboard chips of identical size and shape, but of two different color.  The colors would represent the standard allotment of Tragic and Heroic stones, and if you wanted, you could scribble a rune onto some or all of your chips.  When drawn, the rune could then be "interpreted" into your narration somehow.  Doing it this way, you are staying true to the basic rules of WYRD (which are at this point nearly immuntable), but adding some guidelines to the possible narration of the Saga.

This is cool enough, and simple enough, that I might recommend it as an optional way of playing WYRD.

In fact...

I am still thinking up stuff for what will eventually be a Ring-Giver's chapter.  I have some ideas for a reward system that include the Ring-Giver awarding temporary stones of a third color that add a little variety to a Skald's purse (for those times when his Saga is getting a little stale).  To date, all of my ideas have hinged on these "bonus stones" (which are temporary, remaining in the purse for only a single game session) giving extra Tragedy or Heroism, but there's no reason a Ring-Giver couldn't hand a Skald a stone of a different color and say "this is your dragon stone", and when that stone is drawn, the Skald must somehow work the "dragon" into his narration.  What a cool and potentially unique way of telling a story!

I'll run that one by my publisher (wink, wink, nudge,nudge).

Take care,
Scott

[Mike Holmes]

Wow.

That sounds really interesting. Interjection of concepts without interference in the narrative. Really cool. I'd be chucking a couple of these in for every character each session. Excellent idea. Glad you shared it.

Gives me other ideas as well. You could have rules for trading runes, especially the special ones, or forcing others to take them or something. Don't want to deal with that dragon Rune? Pass it to your neighbor. Introduces all sorts of other possibilities.

I still contend that the marketing possibilities for this are incredible. Sell them in packs like D&D modules. Like the Dragon Mountain set which includes the Dragon rune, the Climbing rune, the Hoard, the Cavern, Magma, Family (its a family of dragons, you see), Wisdom, Trap, Spear, Legend, Flight, Flame, Scales, Path, Secret, and whatever other Runes make sense. These can be selected at random, possibly replacing the runes discarded, and must be used (discarded, themselves) by the end of the session of play or whatever. If you don't do 'em can I get licensing?

Mike

[hardcoremoose]

Ha! No way am I giving up my cash cow!  LOL.

Not to cloud my head with visions of grandeur, but I've always thought WYRD should have its own line of custom made Heroic and Tragic runestones.  Anyone out there know how to get such things made, if only for my personal use?

Take care,
Scott

[Valamir]

Well, I don't know about glass or stone, but wood should be fairly easy.  I forget the name, but one of the big East German furniture companies couldn't compete after the reunification and rather than go under, they found other things to do with wood with their simple tooling.  One of the solutions was wooden game pieces...cheaply.  This is one reason why so many German cames typically come with a selection of wooden pieces.

It probably wouldn't require too much digging to discover appropriate contact info.