Crawling Yggdrasil

[Christoffer Lernö]

This Sunday Chris Edwards and Shreyas Sampat together braved the fuzzy mass of corruption that was my many new experimental magic rules for Ygg.

Most I did away with the sure and tried (err not really but still) taint system and used the Demonic Weird instead. That was not entirely... successful. Also there was confusion on narration rights and stuff.

We agreed in the beginning to run more of a playtest than an adventure, so I set them up at the entrance of a crypt with some backstory, ready for the two mages to try out their magic on its inhabitants. To arm them I allowed them to make HW style spells with ratings. I figured I would be able to translate such ratings on the fly to pieces of the actual Ygg magic system.

So what happened? Well a little magic and some more at the end. The whole taint thing didn't really figure enough to count and what was in the game was the highly experimental Demonic Wyrd rather than the conventional taint rules (similar to CoC insanity rules). That said we still managed to get Judazzi partly in demon form.

Anyway, I got a lot of ideas from the adventure on what to facilitate. Like they should have needed to define spells "everyone is supposed to have".

But enough of me talking. Chris and Shreyas, what were your impressions and what would you like to see improved?

(Note to Ron and Clinton: If this is more appropriate for Indie Game Design - I'd like to able to discuss improvments for the magic in this thread - could you move it?)

[C. Edwards]

Well, where to begin? (removes gloves and Mr. Nice Guy name tag)

I have serious reservations about the mechanics, Christoffer.  It's not that they aren't sufficient to run a game, it's that they aren't sufficient to run Ygg.  Mechanics are one means to an end and these mechanics just don't go anywhere close to far enough to making the game feel like Ygg.  They are bland, they feel clumsy despite their simplicity, and they don't readily support all the various "cool stuff" that you want the system to include.  I personally believe that the best thing you can do for Ygg is to divorce yourself of any sentiment that these mechanics hold for you and start over.  If your foundation is weak then so is everything built upon it.

Anyway, I got a lot of ideas from the adventure on what to facilitate. Like they should have needed to define spells "everyone is supposed to have".

I have to disagree somewhat with you here.  I think you run the risk of watering down a player's character concept when you start handing out a packet of base spells that serves as a mystical swiss army knife.  One thing I truly liked was that the two sorcerers had distinctly different spells.  I'm of the school that if my character ends up in a situation where he doesnt really have any relevant ability that will save him or win the day, then it just sucks to be me and I scramble to save my ass.  I don't feel the need to always be triumphant, as long as I lose, die even, in an interesting manner.

That sort of leads in to my next issue: success.  There is no method for determining how successful the use of a trait or spell is other than GM fiat.
You kept asking us to narrate but with no idea just how successful we might have been that was nearly impossible.  You ended up having to append much of the narration.

I really want to like Ygg, Christoffer.  Right now though, the only Ygg available is what you, as the GM, inject as atmosphere and color.  That is just not enough to make Ygg more than a heart-breaker.  

I know you're in the process of writing up some quick-start rules, and when they're finished I will certainly play-test them again if you would like.  But I strongly urge you to consider what is more important to you, keeping the existing mechanics, or using different mechanics that will actually make the game FEEL like Ygg.

Hope this criticism helps, Christoffer.

-Chris

[Shreyas Sampat]

I think I'm with Chris (not -toffer) here; the swiss army knife idea's a little shady.  On the other hand, a packet of 'spells' as we had them defined, in my opinion, isn't really what makes a mythic magician, IMO, especially people like Ygg's diabolists.

I'd like to have a less sharply defined view of a magician's capabilities, I think; something that says, "I have X sphere of influence, and Y is the way that my influence manifests itself."  Heck, I can call on demonic powers to do my bidding; what prevents me from spitting icicles instead of breathing out clouds of supercooled air or turning whatever I touch to ice?  I'm not positive this is your vision of Ygg, but it feels like where you were going with Demonic Weird and the Taint; loosely defined, flexible magics.

So, theoretically magicians should be able to create effects on the fly, with some design principles in mind; this is what I was doing.  I basically said to myself, "Okay, Vidar knows how to affect the minds of creatures and sculpt things out of flesh and bone.  More advanced - sentient - minds are probably harder for him to affect, and detail work is probably difficult too."   Out of these two ideas I created at least three very different spells, that had a subtle theme running through them.  For the curious, they were:
A simple spell that attracted nearby predators to a particular creature, making it seem especially desirable prey.
A complex spell that made a little bird-automaton out of shards of my bones, and summoned a demon to operate it.
A very difficult spell that caused a creature to feel all the pain it had inflicted on others, in one excruciating moment.

As for mechanics or lack thereof, I agree with Chris again, the system was so heavy in negotiation with you that even though it was a very simple system, it felt clumsy.  I really like your setting; it just needs mechanics to match.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Just a quick thing Chris, the "foundation" you are talking about is basically the magic system right? I don't remember we used any other part of Ygg. Except the part when the corpse was cut and when rolling for damage by the magic lightning I think we pretty much only used magic?

If you're talking about the the mechanics meaning the magic mechanics or if you talk about the stuff including the combat system give quite a difference to your meaning in the rest of the letter.

I can only assume you meant the former, and if so then I wholly agree with you that the stuff we were using definately didn't work. Especially your observation of it not conveying the Ygg flavour enough. That realization dawned on me the second you cast that first spell Chris. Either I should have let your characters simply pick spells I already had created from a spell list, or I should provide a framework for spell colour. I very naively thought it would be possible to playtest the magic system without either of these components.

You are very right about me labouring hard to maintain some illusion of Ygg style magic. As a game system that simply (most definately) doesn't cut it.

What is encouraging though (if may lift that forward) that you already feel that you know what "Ygg is supposed to feel like". I'm not being ironic. That means I've already managed to convey the feeling (at least partly). Now all that needs to be done is to make a framework that supports what we laboured against the system to achieve when we playtested.