What Is Yggdrasil - Just the premise, no questions

[Christoffer Lernö]

Setting - Mythic Fantasy

That means magic is alive with qualities unknown. (The presentation on my site unfortunately does a poor job describing). It's not High Myth of say Torchbearer, not the near realistic myth of Lord of the Rings or Peregrine's Wayfarer's Song. The closest I can get is Inu Yasha meets Wayfarer's Song.

There's a lot more to be said about the setting though but I'm gonna refrain from that for the time being. There are some unique touches, some is fairly standard fantasy, especially races and such. Like the games mentioned above, magic has a strongly mythic touch as opposed to the mechanical spell of say AD&D. I've a lot of postings on that already so maybe it's better to check for those if you're interested (a problem might be that the search engine doesn't allow you to search for "Ygg" since that keyword is so short... and yet I use the "Ygg" abbreviation almost everywhere. A search on posts by me would be simpler. Just check the ones with Ygg in the subject.

What the Heck Do You Do?

After the Golden Age the World is in chaos, endless civil war between upstart kingdoms that rise and fall like the waves on the ocean. In this violence there arises darkness that men choose to ignore. The Ogres, lords of magic power and The Dark, an menance from the time before the Gods.
You and your friends are a band of heroes to save people from the terrors of the times. The characters will be protecting poor villages terrorized by bandits, or tracking down Ogres posing as gods or humans and banish their kind. They might be force to battle the evil of The Dark as well. They might be ordained by beneficial kings, or heroes who gather when they feel for the ones in need.

The are monster hunters plain and simple and the world is full of monsters. (And did I mention the ruins and tombs from the Golden Age? You can do a little tomb-robbing while you're at it if you like D&D style stuff)

How is it supposed to work?

It's a bit peculiar. I want to keep the trappings of simulationism for the players. They'll be making rolls and and have wounds and all that. BUT the GM is supposed to play vanilla narrativist. I want to make it open to a strong Effect First type of play.
To patch up the inherent weaknesses of sim design, I try to patch it with limited directorial control for the players in describing certain results of their actions, for example like in combat. I'm trying to work on a HW style mechanic which from the players' POV will seem totally simulationist, which the GM can pretty much bounce things narrativist style. Since there is no game out there which actually does it this way, I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to do it.

To sum those things up again.

* An outwardly familiar (simuationist) design, like say that of D&D

* Inside supported by very limited directorial mechanics for the players that can be ignored without much loss of efficiency for the characters. These include skill use, effect in fighting and so on.

* Meta mechanics available to the GM to improve Effect First style gaming and for creating in-game effects (and more)

Because of the tricky nature of keeping the first while having the following 2, I spend a lot of time researching different possible models for the mechanics.

Ok, that's it. Questions are welcome. (hey do you want links too?)

[Christoffer Lernö]

Sorry about pushing up my thread to the top of the the list, but I wanted to ask a question promted by a pm discussion just now.

I was suggested that I should nail down my game concepts first, define my game goals, stuff like that. What I want to know is isn't that what I have done above? Or am I still playing on a totally different football field from the rest of you?

If so, then what exactly is lacking between this post and this (pretty dated) one? (I have an expanded version of the latter for private use).

I also feel that once I work out how to put the pieces in the Effect First/Descriptor/Magic mess in order the thing will just flow along and get written since there are a lot of things I'm puting off writing because I'd have to fix them in system specific shapes that I think I'll have to throw out later anyway.

[Bankuei]

I'll crack open a can of Jared's special sauce for ya...

"What do you see the PC's doing?"

Not like an entire session, just a scene...What defines Ygg?


Chris

[Mike Holmes]

See what happens, Christoffer? It's like you've started all over again. Does what you have designed so far meet the criteria above? If not, you need to start over. If what you've designed does meet the criteria, you should have it written up, so that the design process can continue.

Which is it?

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

This is gonna be short since I'm off to bed. It's soon 4 am here. The short version is: I've done this before, you can find a scene here. It's a little dated but it stills holds up fairly well.

[Christoffer Lernö]

It's the same thing Mike! It was just that I realized that I maybe with all these many Ygg threads lying around it's hard to make sense out of it.

Please someone back me up here. It's getting tiring to defend myself and keep chanting and proving to everyone that this has been what it has been about from the start.

[Mike Holmes]

Who care's if this is "what it's been about"? Ok, great, some people who may not have been aware about what Ygg was all about are now aware. Know what would make them really aware, and able to comment thoughtfully on it in addition?

A written game.

Mike

[Valamir]

Hey Christoffer...I think Mike comes off sounding all chastising and curmudgeony because he really likes the concept of Ygg and is anxious to end (or at least pause) the reworkings and get something he can play.

At least I hope that's what it is...cause otherwise it'd just be flat out abrasive ;-)

The bright side is that once you do get something in playable form, Mike is pretty much obligated to play the hell out of it or else he'll have earned a resounding bonk on the head :-)

Sorry, just trying to lighten things up a bit.

I think it is a fine thing for you to have posted this summary of where you are now with your thinking.  I think its primarily useful for you as a self evaluatory tool, but also for those who offer comment on your ideas to see whether they meet the criteria you set out here (you may want to consider even linking this thread in your Sig file so its easy to refer back to in the future).

[Mike Holmes]

Do I like to actually play RPGs? Hmm. Yes, I guess I do.  :-)

Would I playtest a complete copy of the game? Hellya. Of course. When can I expect it?

Mike

[Christoffer Lernö]

:) I understand Mike. Damn I want to play it too. Really really bad, but I'm getting increasingly more scared of even playtesting it. This brings up an important thing actually:
I've never been really happy with a fantasy adventure, not one of mine, not one of other's either. So let's say we picked up D&D and tried to play Ygg's world with that - well it would suck just as much as D&D does when I GM it. It would still lack the magic and the scenes I want to see.

The problem is that I have never been able to get out of that box which is my standard (unsuccessful) way of GMing fantasy. Nor seem the varying persons I have played with.

To make Ygg something more than just another fantasy game it has to address my issues with most FRPGs.

For the record, maybe I should state what standard rpgs I've tried and had this problem with as GM or player: AD&D 2nd ed (although my heavily modified one I partly ran EF style worked much better), Rolemaster with differing amount of companions (up to and including VIII) a swedish RPG called "Drakar och Demoner", another swedish RPG called "Khelataar", Runequest,  Earthdawn, Palladium Fantasy, Warhammer and possibly some more I forgot about.
I've also played Pendragon, very successfully I might add - but I don't feel it's pure fantasy so it doesn't fall into the same problems. (I know there might be people arguing with me on this)

So, unless I'm thinking about "what's giving me problems with these games and the GMing style I use with them" I am bound to end up with a similarly fated game no matter how nice and playable mechanics I do. It will only be an attempt at "AD&D done right".

Our discussions here are working on finding the cause of the problems I perceive. I think Effect First is the most important discovery to date. I think it might actually be "IT".

My problem before, you see, was that I couldn't allow myself to create a truly magical and mythical world becuase I knew I would have to fit it to the world. This is why I jokingly suggested GMing using THE EVIL's mechanics, since it's certified to be Effect First enabled. It would force me to GM the way I should be GMing, or I fear I would slip into old habits.

Are you with me? I try to nail down where Ygg has to be different and that's why it's taking me time, since I don't know what the problem is, I only know what a healthy game would play like.

BUT, maybe it's time to take my theory (Effect First is what fantasy needs) and put it to the test. The joke could actually be something serious... I could GM it using THE EVIL's mechanics (or lack of mechanics) for brave souls wanting to try.

(PM me if you'd be interested in participate. :) )

[Bob McNamee]

I know it would be better to playtest something not-quite-right than to second guess too much based on theory.
I had a far amount of arguing about playing Universalis with players that thought it would all implode, and to some extent, in theory it could. My argument was "This hasn't been seen by me in Actual Play".
after playing they agreed...
The main point being that we all wanted to be there to play the game together. not to break it.

I know I would like to play Ygg.
I'd be more than happy to meet at the indie netgame room to playtest ideas, mechanics, setting, adventures or whatever, even  completely experimental stuff.

I've been watching these threads for a long time...with great interest...

[Christoffer Lernö]

Well this could be arranged then :) Anyone else could sign up with the indie-netgaming at yahoogroups if you want to join in. That would help coordinating things.