Enlightenment (GGD Group Game Design)

[talysman]

At this point, I think we have enough mechanics ideas in general terms. If people have a few more ideas, please post them. But we should start to make some solid decisions soon. So after a bit more posting on the subject, I think we should use some determination method to decide on exactly what to go orward with. I see this working one of two ways.

- We nominate people and vote on someone to write up the mechanics into a coherent whole. Then once written up, we tweak the mechanics.

- We bring up points one at a time, and vote on them individually, going back and forth on the rules until we have a complete set. Then sombody writes that up, and we tweak teh results.

The first method would be more expedient, but would result in a rule set that was less of a group effort. The latter would be a ton of work here, but would result in a more democratically chosen set of rules.

I see the following mechanics needs, based on what we've discussed:

[*]basic chargen (selecting traits for neophytes and adjusting scores)
[*]belief gen (selecting the 6-8 trait-pairs relevant to the order)
[*]abbey gen (what's present, what's absent, village/abbey relations)
[*]mission gen (mostly GM suggestions about mission types)
[*]conflict resolution (we have this mostly down)
[*]scene handling (how many conflict rolls per scene, how to move from scene to scene)
[*]character advancement (neophyte/mentor interaction)
[*]advanced rule: neophyte becomes mentor/creates "grog neophytes" (each player creates 1-3 neophytes and directs them on missions, with the GM now abdicating mentor roll)
[*]advanced rule: founding a new abbey (ARIA-level play, with each player as the head of a seperate abbey)
[*]advanced rule: playing out belief gen as interactive story about founder (GM-as-mentor narrates one story about founder of order for each trait-pair, with players-as-neophytes interjecting complications)
[/list:u]

I think you can see we have a slight problem ... if we assign people to create invidual sections, how do we make them mesh? the chargen section creator needs to know which abilities will be present in the conflict resolution rules (other than the ones we know already, the trait-pairs and Worldliness); the conflict resolution creator needs to know which abilities cannot be added to the game mechanics because they might be trait-pairs; character advancement depends on the resolution mechanics; and so on...

and if one person does all the mechanics, that may guarantee that the parts mesh, but that's a lot of work for one person! you're basically asking someone to do a 24-hour Iron Game Chef challenge...

what I suggest we do is something in between the two options. someone develops a crude version of the game mechanics, for a single neophyte and one mentor. use the current trait-pair list for now; all we want is a skeleton of the whole game for now, so that we can add the muscles one by one, then put the skin on last. to keep things really focused, describe how to make one specific mission type, selected by the audience, who would also list 3-5 scenes (one line summary of each scene!)

then, we vote. naysayers must list what they want deleted or changed (no additions yet!) either the developer has to start over, or we proceed to the next step: suggest a different, more difficult mission type, this time with two players, so that we are adding the ability to balance scenes between each player.

either the same person or a different person expands the existing rules to meet these criteria. we vote again, then either rewrite or expand again. the next step will probably be abbey generation. step four would be order generation (allowing the group to design their own set of beliefs.)

by that point, we should be ready to think about the advanced rules. add neophyte-becomes-mentor at stage five; the original mentor (played by GM) is now head of the abbey, and players are each mentors... they would design a set of "grog neophytes", and there would be rules at this stage to create more complex missions, composed of smaller missions, with scene-switching between each group of neophytes attempting to fulfill their part of the grand design.

at stage six, add the ARIA-level play; the original characters should be enlightened by now, but they must either retire or found a new monastery. the "grog neophytes" would be "grog mentors" who would have a new batch of "grog neophytes" to manage... the GM at this point plays villages and kingdoms, describing political, environmental, social, and spiritual needs to the new abbots, who must then decide how to manage their abbeys effectively to tackle these problems. this might be the level where conflicts with other orders might show up as well; also, although "enlightened", the abbots are still in danger of backsliding.

finally, we would be ready to add the rules for narrating the founding of the religion; I think Mike suggested that originally, back in the previous thread.

ok, enough of that. if no one else will start the ball rolling, I suppose I can take a crack at step one, if someone wants to suggest a mission with three to five scenes for me to design "minirules" for.

[Wormwood]

talysman,

There seems to be something wrong with the idea of one person hurriedly generating the base mechanics, and then trying to cirtique them. I also think that there are some fundamental questions about the game that still need to be answered before the system can be adequately generated.

One very important idea is, are actions spiritual or physical? Is the resolution of the actions intended to ascribe the spiritual consequences first, with the more concrete consequences being added afterwards (or with less mechanical notice)?

The difference is striking, on one hand you handle Brother Thomas' temptation to hit the bandit who is chasing after the  peasants he has chosen to protect, with the idea of damage almost unnecessary. On the other you have him hitting the bandit for 3 damage, and lossing a point of this and/or gaining a point of that. What are the main consequences of a given action?

Also what distinguishes monks? Their past? Their virtues? Their temptations? Obviously all three matter, but when monks are assigned to a mission, are they assigned because their past are applicable, because their virtues will shine brightest, or because they gain a chance to challenge their temptations, and hopefully grow from it.

Normally that's a more GM based decision, but it seems that if you want to start from a mission, that is a very important question to ask. What kind of missions in basic sense are we talking about?

Related to my first question, are players in control of their character's temptation? Will a character with a high wrath rating simply lose it, regardless of what the player prefers, or are we trying to make it mechancall tempting to use the wrath, even though the player knows it's dangerous. I'm heavilly in favor of the later, as the mechanic I offered shows.

Lastly, power curves. I propose that this game should have a decreasig power curve, as power itself is worldliness. High virtues are never as good as high  'sins'. Also I see the idea of low worldiness characters being politically in charge as somewhat counter-intuitive. Rather virtuous, but not fully enlightened characters would fit better, a hierarchy of enlightenment seems downright silly, I'd suggest rating something more measurable as the analogue of rank. Perhaps seniority or service?

I hope that is food for thought,

 -Mendel S.

[Mike Holmes]

Perhaps I was being premature. Maybe we don't have enough material or consensus yet. In any case, we will postpone a vote until more stuff has been discussed. At some point, I hope that one of the options becomes valid. We shall see.

Til then, please continue with discussing what you think has not been well enough addressed.

Mike

[Bob McNamee]

Regarding Past and Family....my thought was that Past would encompass all worldly influences from your Past, whether Family, Attitude, or Experience.

Actually perhaps this trait idea isn't needed either...

Worldliness could be said to encompass all this, as well as one's continuing bonds to worldly matters...

and Spirituality could encompass everything that Path does...

[Bob McNamee]

My preference for Action resolution...

The conflict is internal, its all about the spiritual consequences for mechanics.
How that consequence manifests itself in outward acts would be part of the narration. Who narrates for each character's conflict, and who narrates, in what order, for group checks would be something else to decide...perhaps by number of successes?

[Emily Care]

We have concensus, I believe, about the fact of the trait pairs and that actions taken increase or decrease the respective halves of the pairs.

Past was suggested to give us a pool of dice to roll against the values of the trait pairs.  If we like the idea of a dice pool, perhaps Worldliness and Spirituality could act as the dice pool numbers.

This eliminates the need for additional stats. Keeping the trait pairs central to the characters is in keeping with our original conception of the game.  

If use of one pool excludes the use of the other, then the renunciatory vows a new monk makes on joining the monastery would be reflected in their newly limited abilities since the Spiritual value should start pretty low.  The temptation to use the Passion traits (and thus have access to the initially higher Worldly pool) would be very present.  This would give the player incentive to work on increasing their Spiritual aspects.  

Alternatively, the two pools could be used to make opposed rolls against one another.  The player would need to narrate action appropriate to which pool "won". Traits could be invoked to give bonuses dice to whichever pool.  

--Emily Care

[talysman]

One very important idea is, are actions spiritual or physical? Is the resolution of the actions intended to ascribe the spiritual consequences first, with the more concrete consequences being added afterwards (or with less mechanical notice)?

The difference is striking, on one hand you handle Brother Thomas' temptation to hit the bandit who is chasing after the  peasants he has chosen to protect, with the idea of damage almost unnecessary. On the other you have him hitting the bandit for 3 damage, and lossing a point of this and/or gaining a point of that. What are the main consequences of a given action?

Also what distinguishes monks? Their past? Their virtues? Their temptations? Obviously all three matter, but when monks are assigned to a mission, are they assigned because their past are applicable, because their virtues will shine brightest, or because they gain a chance to challenge their temptations, and hopefully grow from it.

Normally that's a more GM based decision, but it seems that if you want to start from a mission, that is a very important question to ask. What kind of missions in basic sense are we talking about?

Related to my first question, are players in control of their character's temptation? Will a character with a high wrath rating simply lose it, regardless of what the player prefers, or are we trying to make it mechancall tempting to use the wrath, even though the player knows it's dangerous. I'm heavilly in favor of the later, as the mechanic I offered shows.

Lastly, power curves. I propose that this game should have a decreasig power curve, as power itself is worldliness. High virtues are never as good as high  'sins'. Also I see the idea of low worldiness characters being politically in charge as somewhat counter-intuitive. Rather virtuous, but not fully enlightened characters would fit better, a hierarchy of enlightenment seems downright silly, I'd suggest rating something more measurable as the analogue of rank. Perhaps seniority or service?

there are some good points in there, Mendel. let me try to answer the questions I believe we already have covered, then see what we can come up with for the other points raised.

first, we've pretty much established that the die rolls are for conflict resolution involving physicial or social action, with spiritual consequences. this fits your "hitting the bandit for 3 points of damage" except that it's on he conflict resolution level, not the task resolution level. the actual result of the roll is "Brother Thomas defeats the bandit", with details desxribed by the player. however, depending on the decisions a player makes in order to resolve that conflict, there is a spiritual effect -- and it is these spiritual consequences that are the focus of play.

Emily (and perhaps a couple other people) have suggested temptation rolls, which would fit in with the concept of high-Wrath characters "losing it", but I don't feel that's consistent with the conflict resolution rolls or the idea of players needing to make decisions with spiritual consequences. I do like the idea of describing two outcomes on certain rolls and letting the dice decide which happens; first, because it helps drive the the scene, and second, because it facillitates Narrativism, which is what we have been aiming for (although sometimes the game we're describing sounds more like rules-light Gamism with Narrativism as a second but definitely lower priority.

as for what distinguishes monks: mostly, the way they are played. for any given religion, there will be at least 6 stat-pairs. all of the monks must eventually work on each of those stat-pairs, but the order in which they are added and resolved is up to the player; this acts to build a unique story for each monk. there is also light background description for each monk -- Emily's idea about describing one fact of the monk's past for each point of Past or Family. (Emily: I didn't like that idea at first, but I'm thinking now it's a good one... although maybe not one fact per point, but one fact for each of the starting stat-pairs, one each for Past and Family, plus an extra fact for Past or Family if it is 4 or more.)

as for the missions: the missions are assumed to meet a specific need of the community (feed the poor family, find homes for war orphans, take an injured mercenary to his home, and so on.) but also, the work is assumed to have a spiritual effect on the monk doing the work; presumably, the mentor is assigning missions based on who will benefit most from those challenges. this really only matters when the players become mentors or abbots, but the GM will design early missions to meet specific challenges.

about power curves: I don't see where power enters into the game, except when a player makes a decision to build and use power. monks do not become "politically in charge" unless they chose to do so. they do become mentors when they are experienced enough as a monk to provide direction to a neophyte. they can also found an abbey, but this is not strictly political; historically, anyone with a saintly reputation wound up with followers, whether anyone requested followers or not. also historically, anyone with a saintly reputation was frequently asked for advice, essentially giving that person local political power. I think this is important for the game as well, because it allows a temptation to backslide, to exercise that acquired power and become more Worldly.

[talysman]

Regarding Past and Family....my thought was that Past would encompass all worldly influences from your Past, whether Family, Attitude, or Experience.

Actually perhaps this trait idea isn't needed either...

Worldliness could be said to encompass all this, as well as one's continuing bonds to worldly matters...

and Spirituality could encompass everything that Path does...

this might be better, then. I do think Family and Past may show up if those are considered worlly Passions within a specific religion, but we could work back to using just Worldly and Spiritual for all rolls if the rolls resolve the spiritual conflicts, not the worldly conflicts. and going with Emily's idea of opposed rolls + describing two results for each roll, we could have the following mechanic:
[list=1]
[*]describe your action and two possible results -- one Worldly, one Spiritual.
[*]opt to use one of your traits to boost the die roll, describing how it fits in.
[*]make a roll of Worldly opposed to Spiritual.
[*]describe the results based on which roll succeeded.
[*]if you were using a Passion, check to see if any rolls match the value of your Passion; if so, increase the Passion one point.
[*]if you were using a Virtue and succeeded on the Spiritual action, make a tally-mark next to that Virtue.
[/list:o]

if we go with this system, then all physical and social effects would be described purely as words. two injury levels ("wounded", "badly wounded") ... a character is strong if "strong" is written in the description, and so on.

[Wormwood]

Talysman,

I'd suggest keeping worldly and spiritual elements the same in terms of mechanics, a symmetry will greatly simiplify the rules. The assymetry should be from the initial values rather than as additional rules.

One major criticism of the mechanic you've presented is that monks don't ever actually risk failure, except in a spiritual sense. It seems thematically appropriate that monks have a high tendency to fail a spiritual attempt, but improve the virtue they used at the same time.

I'd suggest reversing the idea Emily mentioned, and using worldliness and spiritual as the 'difficulty' and the pools as the passion or virtue used.

Then everytime a spiritual roll would fail - there is the temptation to make it worldly, to improve the 'difficulty' on the roll to make it succeed. Each time this happens the associated passion is raised by 1.

Is there any need for the virtues and the passions to change independantly? I know this was brought up before, but it didn't seem anyone answered either way. And it seems there is little reason for the pairs not be locked.

Either way, I suggest everytime a passion rises, the virtue is decreased. But virtues can be cultivated over time, at the end of a mission, when it's moral has been discussed with the characters, but only virtues where they have avoided temptation can be raised.

Of course this avoids the whole "choose a worldy and a spiritual effect" but I think that takes the choice of temptation away from the player, something I thought was to be avoided. Better to choose between virtue with failure and temptation with success.

  -Mendel S.

[talysman]

I'd suggest keeping worldly and spiritual elements the same in terms of mechanics, a symmetry will greatly simiplify the rules. The assymetry should be from the initial values rather than as additional rules.

One major criticism of the mechanic you've presented is that monks don't ever actually risk failure, except in a spiritual sense. It seems thematically appropriate that monks have a high tendency to fail a spiritual attempt, but improve the virtue they used at the same time.

I'd suggest reversing the idea Emily mentioned, and using worldliness and spiritual as the 'difficulty' and the pools as the passion or virtue used.

Then everytime a spiritual roll would fail - there is the temptation to make it worldly, to improve the 'difficulty' on the roll to make it succeed. Each time this happens the associated passion is raised by 1.

Is there any need for the virtues and the passions to change independantly? I know this was brought up before, but it didn't seem anyone answered either way. And it seems there is little reason for the pairs not be locked.

Either way, I suggest everytime a passion rises, the virtue is decreased. But virtues can be cultivated over time, at the end of a mission, when it's moral has been discussed with the characters, but only virtues where they have avoided temptation can be raised.

Of course this avoids the whole "choose a worldy and a spiritual effect" but I think that takes the choice of temptation away from the player, something I thought was to be avoided. Better to choose between virtue with failure and temptation with success.

you may have missed the original thread, but the Passions and Virtues are, in fact, locked, as you suggest. or at least, each Virtue equals (6 - paired Passion) if that is what you meant.

also, we did agree on an asymmetry between Passions and Virtues (although we were still calling them "unenlightened actions" and "enlightened actions" back then.) the feel we are working towards is "take the easy way for success, or work hard for spiritual gain". making the worldly and spiritual symmetrical would allow characters to rise and fall equally well and would remove a source of tension.

I think the monks do risk failure. definitely, if Brother Theo attempts a Spiritual action, the player would describe a successful Spiritual roll and an unsuccessful Worldly result. if the Worldly dice succeed, the Spiritual action failed and the second description is narrated.

your idea about spiritual advancement when failing physically is a good one. I suggest this could be the result of a tie.

here's an idea on the way scenes could work: each scene has a single-digit rating (doesn't need to be higher than 5, and will be lower in most cases.) players narrate an action and suggest the two possible outcomes, as mentioned above. when the dice are rolled, the number of successes on a positive outcome are added to an accumulating "success pool", and the "negative successes" are added to the scene rating. when the success pool is greater than the scene rating, the scene is resolved; otherwise, the player must narrate why the action is successful but the scene isn't resolved.

example

go back to the case of Neophyte Yaffa and the tending of the sick children. the GM says this is a moderately difficult task, a scene rating of 3.

Emily says "Yaffa will attempt to ease the suffering of the children as an act of Compassion. the Spiritual effect she is trying for is a healing, the Worldly effect is that she halts her efforts when her Compassion is challenged by past wounds."

she has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5 Worldly dice. the roll goes in favor of the Worldly (3 Worldly successes), so the scene rating increases to 6. (if any of the rolls came up as 5, this matched her Violence trait, but we'll ignore that for now.)

Emily must narrate why she halts; either she or one of the other players suggests Yaffa recognizes the child of the taxman, and she narrates accordingly. wanting to lower that scene rating, she attempts a purely Worldly act without Spiritual consequences: "Yaffa, shaken by being confronted with the child of her enemy, chooses a more menial action to give herself time to cool down: she boils water to cleanse the disease-ridden blankets. her Worldly effect is to have a good supply of clean blankets, her Spiritual failure is that she can't shake the memory of her past wounds and fails to complete her task."

she rolls 5 dice versus 1 die and gets 4 easy successes, reducing the scene rating to 2. looking at her pile of clean blankets, Yaffa's resolve is strengthened, and she sees a way around her obstacle.

"Yaffa chooses to focus on being Industrious, visiting each child in turn, wiping foreheads, giving medicine... and blocking the identity of the taxman's child from her mind. her Spiritual effect is to heal, her Worldly effect is to be so overcome by her past that she retreats into Sloth and sits in a corner for a while."

this is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

[talysman]

back to facts!

we've also been discussing adding facts or descriptions to the monk's background. Emily suggested describing one fact of a neophyte's background for each point in a Passion. plus, I suggested something about making all non-spiritual details about a character into words/facts, to de-emphasize them. thus, instead of having a Strength score, you might say "my character is strong" and leave it at that.

looking at the most recently-suggested mechanic (opposed Worldly vs. Spiritual rolls,) it looks like we may need an opportunity for bonus dice. here's a way to do it with facts.

for each Passion, describe one fact related to that passion. thus, if your character's Passion is Violence or Pride, you could say "my character is exceptionally strong" as a possible fact.

you also get two facts for Worldly/Spiritual: a fact about your background and a fact about what lead you to a spiritual path (you could think of the second fact as a Kicker, although it doesn't have to be as extreme as Sorcerer's Kickers.)

now, suppose a neophyte is attempting a Virtuous act. even with the bonus dice from the Virtue, it's going to be hard to get those successes. but if the player describes an action based on one of their facts, the GM may allow them to add 1 bonus die to either Worldly or Spiritual. if the player can work in more than one of those facts, the GM may allow more bonus dice.

this would be where we would have monks calling upon their premonastic background as carpenters to build houses for the poor, or monks on a healing mission calling upon their strength to carry an injured peasant to a nearby cottage.

we could even allow adding facts during play. characters would need to seek out appropriate situations where such a fact could be added, then attempt a series of rolls. the GM would set a "scene rating" for this exactly as for mission-related scenes.

[Emily Care]

I think the monks do risk failure. definitely, if Brother Theo attempts a Spiritual action, the player would describe a successful Spiritual roll and an unsuccessful Worldly result. if the Worldly dice succeed, the Spiritual action failed and the second description is narrated.

I really like this approach. I am satisfied.  I vote that we develop in this direction.The example was especially helpful.

Let me make sure I'm getting some points straight:

she has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5 Worldly dice.

She gets 2 dice to roll against the scene rating: 1 from her Spiritual rating, one from her Compassion Virtue. correct?

this is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

The character has a 4 Industrious, so wouldn't she get 4 dice?

(Mendel's) idea about spiritual advancement when failing physically is a good one. I suggest this could be the result of a tie.

Yes, that sounds good. Or we could have double-failures and double-successes possible. That is kind of appealing. But how to determine which, and when?

Re-capping what John wrote:

"--each scene has a single-digit rating (doesn't need to be higher than 5, and will be lower in most cases.)
--players narrate an action and suggest the two possible outcomes
--when the dice are rolled, the number of successes on a positive outcome are added to an accumulating "success pool"
--"negative successes" (wordly successes) are added to the scene rating.
--when the success pool is greater than the scene rating, the scene is resolved
--otherwise, the player must narrate why the action is successful but the scene isn't resolved."

So:
At the scene level, there is dual narration and success or failure to resolve the scene. Repeat as necessary until scene is resolved.

.....

And Facts:

for each Passion, describe one fact related to that passion...

you also get two facts for Worldly/Spiritual... (you could think of the second fact as a Kicker, although it doesn't have to be as extreme as Sorcerer's Kickers.)

but if the player describes an action based on one of their facts, the GM may allow them to add 1 bonus die to either Worldly or Spiritual.

this would be where we would have monks calling upon their premonastic background as carpenters to build houses for the poor....

Ah, description based mechanics, rather than numbers.  Delightful!

We may want to allow players to write a statement for each stat pair from either the Passion or the Virtue or both. Or we could require it be from the higher of the two.  

Adding statments in play is great, especially since the character will be adding trait pairs as we go along. The scenes framed could be in the present or flash-backs.  

Flashbacks of previously unknown events in the character's history illustrating formerly un-activated aspects of their personality would be in keeping with some film that has been influential as we've written this (melodramatic HK action like Crouching Tiger) and meshes with the narrativist goals we've been moving towards.

What are other folks leaning towards? Time for a vote?

--Emily Care

[Bob McNamee]

I'm really liking the way things are going now!

I'm thinking  that it would be cool if the monks only need to specify the Worldly Spiritual Facts to start off, leaving all the rest to be revealed in play. This would let the Players tailor their ideas based on what ends up becoming important to the conflict at hand, hopefully not  chosen in a very Gamist way.
(I've always wanted to do something very "discover-in-play")
I like the idea of being able to riff off ideas as they are explored, and introduced by others.
(Sometimes in Universalis that plot twist just introduced leads to even cooler ideas about your character than you had in mind when first created)

[talysman]

she has Sloth/Industry 2/4, Violence/Compassion 5/1, and Worldly/Spiritual 5/1. she is trying a Spiritual, Compassionate act, so she rolls 2 dice versus 5 Worldly dice.

She gets 2 dice to roll against the scene rating: 1 from her Spiritual rating, one from her Compassion Virtue. correct?

yes.

this is 1 die Spiritual plus the 2 dice Industrious bonus, for a 3 dice against 5 Worldly dice roll. slightly better than before, and if she's lucky, she gets those two Spiritual successes and ends the scene with the children healed (and two tally-marks next to Industrious for those two successes.)

The character has a 4 Industrious, so wouldn't she get 4 dice?

oops! I reversed the numbers.

...

Ah, description based mechanics, rather than numbers.  Delightful!

We may want to allow players to write a statement for each stat pair from either the Passion or the Virtue or both. Or we could require it be from the higher of the two.  

Adding statments in play is great, especially since the character will be adding trait pairs as we go along. The scenes framed could be in the present or flash-backs.  

Flashbacks of previously unknown events in the character's history illustrating formerly un-activated aspects of their personality would be in keeping with some film that has been influential as we've written this (melodramatic HK action like Crouching Tiger) and meshes with the narrativist goals we've been moving towards.

What are other folks leaning towards? Time for a vote?

Bob seems to be in favor of it, too. let's see how this concept develops. we can always backtrack if the system becomes unworkable.

[Emily Care]

As we wait for concensus, here are some points brought up earlier by damion that I don't want to forget about. We may want to address them on the next thread, whatever it may be.

Each player would create an elder and a neophyte. The elders would be primarly used to dynamicly create a structure for the religion & monastary, but
you could also match elders and tutors in a mentor relationship(with different players, of course). That way each player could take both sides of a  students development. It also gives a good way for players to suggest missions.

Here's the bull by the thorns: gm or no gm. :) I could go either way. Most of what a gm usually does will be done by the players en masse or by mechanics. (Our mechanics account of end of scene framing, how's that for swanky, thank you  John! :)  

We could go one of two ways (there are more ways of course, but I'm thinking of two): begin each campaign with each player taking 2 characters, a neophyte and a mentor. Or have the gm play the mentor/s of all the players' neophytes and as the initial characters graduate to mentor level, players introduce new neophytes to be mentored by them.  

Right now I'm tending toward the latter, but both could work just fine.  The former would give all the players an immediate avenue to do monastery development and make character generation simpler. The latter would allow players to identify more deeply with their characters and make the process of playing begin fairly simply and gain complexity over time. The latter course might also necessitate having a gm.

--pairs will change over time in response to character actions. Are trait pairs adjusted during sequence or at "debriefing" interval?

I would actually tally changes 'in sequence' although the changes may not take effect until the 'debriefing'. Trying to do the tallying at the end is hard, IMHO.

I'd suggest changes happen in sequence, just becaues it's more interesting, although in some cases the new value may not take effect until the next scene. (I can see arguments both ways here).

How this is decided will have a big effect on game play, I imagine.  We may want to look closely at how this will interact with the mechanics we're working with.  I think it makes sense to say, at minimum, that traits cannot change until after an initiated scene has been resolved.  Perhaps it could be that Passions go up immediately after scene end, but Virtues don't increase until the debriefing session.  I think more discussion of what kind of dynamics we want for trait change will be necessary.  The Worldly/Spiritual pair would certainly wait until the end of the session, rather than at the round level.  Maybe even only change at the end of longer arcs.  

I'd also suggest giving everyone one a hand in trait changes, possibly via some bidding mechanism. This could be done through the mentor, or out of some per characther currency each neophyte has.

Interesting.  We'd probably want to use this kind of system if we have no gm. If there is a gm, it could still be fun.  What would it add to the experience if we did bid? Do we want to look at having explicit game currency for trait advancement?  The "tally points" for Virtues that's been suggested is sort of like that.

The idea would be to keep morality a little 'fluid'. I.e. sometimes violent solutions don't actually increase your bad traits (whereas a peaceful solution never does :) ).

Cool.  I like the idea of the morality being encouraged to not fall on the lines of simple polarities.  How to give guideline for those who play?  I've been imagining that we give suggestions for trait pairs, but leave the actual choice of them completely up to the participants.  

I'm thinking that it would be cool if the monks only need to specify the Worldly Spiritual Facts to start off, leaving all the rest to be revealed in play. This would let the Players tailor their ideas based on what ends up becoming important to the conflict at hand, hopefully not chosen in a very Gamist way.(I've always wanted to do something very "discover-in-play")
I like the idea of being able to riff off ideas as they are explored, and introduced by others.(Sometimes in Universalis that plot twist just introduced leads to even cooler ideas about your character than you had in mind when first created)

Yes, I agree.  Leaving it open can allow the players to weave their characters into the narrative. And what you said about things being cooler than you had in mind is dead on, Bob. :)

I think it would be best to start with at least 3-4 statements about each character.  These will form the warp, so to speak, on which the first missions and trials will be woven into. The gm or whoever is framing the plot will benefit from having ready made hooks--as John suggested the Spiritual statement could be a sort of "kicker".  

--Emily