The West Wind: N/S Fantasy about the Process of adventuring

[Jasper]

Hello everyone,

I realise fully that there is no dearth of fantasy games -- especially ones involving "adventuring" -- and I don't want to be writing a game that only I will play, but this is not a heartbreaker in any sense, and I hope I've approached the general subject in an interesting way....

The West Wind's main goal is to allow players to create a story and a game world together -- largely during play -- in the vein of The Lord of the Rings or   (perhaps) Narnia.   Many games claim to try to recreate Tolkien's work...obviously that is silly if taken literally, but even beyond that, most games have only the most superficial elements of the adventure: the fighting, the monsters, the grandiose wars and backstories.  I've always been frustrated (and perhaps surprised) that people always neglect what really made LoTR good: the personal struggles of the characters, and all the "rest:" actually traveling and resting in between adventures.   In effect, most such games (and novels of a similar kind) make adventuring easy and shallow.  

So, The West Wind tries to address some of those issues.  And while it's sometimes nice to have a detailed world all laid out for you (after all, Tolkien made up the world before he wrote the stories), I think the process of creating the world is more fun. So, it's a game without a specific setting: the goal is to go through a world-building process as play progresses, although the GM is advised to think up some things to use as a springboard.  Well, enough intro. You can check the whole thing out (it's about 14 pages) in HTML at:

http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jasperm/WestWind.htm

I'd appreciate comments regarding how well my ideas for play are really communicated in the text (are they clear, are they in-line with what I've suggested here?), though how well the rules affect play is obviously more important.  I'll give a quick review of them here so those pressed for time/interest don't have to look at the whole thing.

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Main mechanic is for player and the GM to each roll six sided dice depending on the Attributes involved.  This is sort of lifted from some threads here.  I can't remember who first penned it, but it was the "dark forest" example in the Protganozing Setting thread (or something like that).

So a character traveling through a mountain pass rolls one die for his Vigor attribute and two more for his Travel Hardened attribute.  GM rolls four dice for the Cold weather and the Impassability of the mountain.  Each odd facing is a success, whoever has more wins.  The person who wins gets to narrate what happens, introducing what he will (within reason: the GM and players can object, suggest alterations, or even exercise veto).  

In terms of breadth, Attributes are somehwere in between "skills" and "tropes."  So Warcraft, or Travelling are good.

The other significant rules:

Characters have Hero Points (I may rename them) that represent their confidence and strength as characters.  Sort of abstract but sort of not.  A meta-game thing to be sure, and simply allows them to add dice to a roll.

Characters have Values that are kind of like TRoS's SAs but a little looser.    You can have as many as you want.   If you pursue them actively, especially when it's difficult, you get a few extra Hero Points (they're replenished at the end of each session).  If you violate a Value, you lose some immediately.  This is not punishment to keep people "in character" but represents internal struggle.   Sometimes you have to make hard choices and compromise your values...your self-worth won't be so high for a while afterwards, and you'll be a less powerful "character" (no one is going to be evil per se).

Narrative Points are awarded to players for good ideas, good role-playing, and just making things more enjoyable in general.  They allow a player to jump in at any time and introduce a significant plot element...although the GM should take minor suggestions openly.  These are not rare or special rewards, but will be flowing pretty freely.  The purpose in making it a resource at all is to equalize narrating times, and to give some rewards as well.

Weariness tracks the general morale of characters (usually it's about the same for the whole party).   It represents fatigue, wounds, loss of direction, and hopelessness.  As the adventure goes on, this will begin to accrue no matter what.  Major failures also add on to it.  Mechanically, Weariness makes a character lose dice in every Scene, but which dice is up to the player.   So he might choose to suffer during a negotations roll, or one for running away.  But it kicks in EVERY SCENE.  Bad when it gets high.  If the player forgets or chooses to ignore the penalty, Weariness goes up.  

There are some more rules for magic, posessions (they're abstracted), and magic items (somewhat similar to Hero Wars' rules), but those are the important parts.

Thoughts?

(Edited for typos.)

[Rich Forest]

Hi Jasper,

I like your goals with this game.  Personally, I've latched onto one part in particular as being interesting—the idea that "getting there" should be fun.  Frankly, I've played plenty of fantasy rpgs in the past, and "the Road" has never really interesting in most of those games.  I've always wanted it to be, though.  

And I think it melds well with shared world creation—the players are heading somewhere and creating the world along the way.  I think it's a nice parallel.  I wanted to post earlier, but I've been fairly busy this weekend, which has left me just thinking about your game instead of writing to respond to it.  So I may have a lot of questions for you.  Ready?

One of the first things I want to ask about is how the Road is foregrounded in game play.  So far, I see how weariness can be used to build in rest times, but I'm not sure there are many support systems for actually guiding how rest time plays out.  As a player or GM, I could easily say, "Ok, everybody rests.  Let's move along."  Of course, that's an extreme example, and maybe not in keeping with the game goals, but it would be possible.  Who introduces "rests?"  Players?  I think this would be a great place to give player authoring power—players use narration points or something similar to start "rest" scenes, which are then further developed by either the players themselves or the GM or both.  It could be a "fact" based solution, like the one Donjon uses, for example.  It could require the use of narration points.  

Also, regarding making the Road interestin/important: What ideas would you have to develop this further and really put it up front in play?  I think there are probably a number of things that could be done to put the "getting there" up front and tie it even more closely to world creation.  
Here, I guess I don't have much interesting to offer, except interest: I'd like to see more support in the game rules for this play goal.  

As I said, I really like the idea of focusing on the road and shared world creation in in The West Wind.  With more development, I think it could even more fittingly address Bilbo's song:

            The Road goes ever on and on
                        Down from the door where it began.
               Now far ahead the Road has gone,
                        And I must follow, if I can,
               Pursuing it with eager feet,
                        Until it joins some larger way
              Where many paths and errands meet.
                        And whither then? I cannot say.

Ok, next question/topic.  I noticed that the world can work against the players.  I like this not only for straightforward mechanical reasons but also because I like to treat the world very animistically, and I think it is particularly appropriate for a Tolkien-esque feel.  I think, since you already have this setup, you should make more use of it in a number of the other systems.  Doing so makes the game more elegant and easier to use when various situations arise in play.  Here's one example from character creation: I think it would be fitting to also give ratings to "negative" traits that the characters have.  In fact, I'd even suggest that there is some value to having the players buy these "negative" traits with the same points used for character creation.  There was an interesting thread about this.  In your system, the beauty of this would be that sometimes these "negative" traits could be used by the players to the advantage of their characters but other times the GM could add them to the opposition roll to increase the difficulty of an action.  This would make these traits truly ambiguous—sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, and it could go for any of the traits you use.  An example of this in a "postivie" attribute might be: "Air of nobility." Yeah, it works to the advantage of the character, sure, most of the time.  But say the character is trying to interact with a belligerent peasant who doesn't like the nobles.  Well, now your "air of nobility" might work against you and be added to the opponent's roll.

I was also thinking about the loss of hero points that is connected with the character going against his morals.  I know that it's meant to simulate internal conflict, and not actually represent punishment... but I don't know if it will function that way in play.  I suspect that regardless of what it is supposed to represent, it will act as a punishment from the player's perspective, which may lead to less play that focuses on internal conflict.  I think this is exactly the opposite of what you want.  I can't say this for sure, as I haven't playtested the game, but it's my hunch.  What if you rewarded it in some way?  Or balanced it out?  You have hero points and narration points as separate things.  Why not have the points transferred, or something similar.  If I put my character in a situation where he goes against his morals, then he loses hero points but I gain narration points, or something like that.  

I also had some questions about the scales and the effects of weariness.  Basically, the first question is "Does the scale actually work the way you want it to, with the table as presented?"  I'm not one of the probabilities experts around here, but it seems that in the absence of ANY opposing rolls I can only expect to manage 5 successes if I'm rolling 10 dice.  And that's if I have 10 dice and I'm rolling against 0 dice.  Am I right?  Now If I have 5 dice and I'm rolling against 5 dice, I know that it is possible to roll 5 successes (but I think it remains pretty improbable).  In a related note, I wondered if there would be an advantage to having weariness add to the opposing roll instead of reducing the player's roll.  If you reduce the number of dice rolled by the player, you are making it impossible to get exceptional results when you're weary.  I think there is more room for interesting drama if you still let the player roll the normal number of dice but you add weariness to the opposing roll.  Then you are making the task more difficult but not ruling out the possibility for an exceptional result (overcoming all weariness, he slays the dragon).  

Why does combat have different rules?  Sure, because that's how it's usually done.  I'm kind of playing the devil's advocate here, because I actually like combat.  Still, why not add these rules as an option to any kind of task?  Also, I think the action point gains/losses need to be an integral part of the success table.  Unless I missed something, as a player or GM I don't have a clue how to determine how many points are lost with a given roll.  This doesn't seem like the kind of thing that you want to leave ambiguous.

Now, in rapid succession just to give you even more to think about, I also had a few more questions/comments.  1) Magic: looks cool so far, but I think it needs a lot more guidelines/description/examples.  2) Provisions: I like its use, and I think it's worth expanding—not as an optional rule, but as a rule that gets its own full treatment.  In particular, it felt like the end of the second paragraph and the entire third paragraph of that section didn't give much specific direction for its actual use in play. 3) Narration vs. Hero Points: I'm still not sure in some cases where these do or don't overlap/what the boundaries/differences are.  I think this is partly because rolls lead to narration, spending hero points increases die pools, but narration points are used for narration.  In a way, they are doing similar things.  Any thoughts on how to make them more different/distinct?  4) Objects of power: I like these, but I wonder if it's necessary to break them down into all these categories.  I'm especially curious as to why there is a category that is limited to use by wizards.  Also, I think it could be interesting (and elegant in system terms) to just give any items with a magical nature (hell, even mundane items perhaps) attributes that they can use both for and against their wearers/carriers/users.  Especially if some of them have their own free will.

I hope some of this is useful to you.  I'll end by saying that if there were one thing I'd like to see more of, as a gamer and reader of your game, it's even more ways to support the Road and shared world creation.  Universalis may have some useful ideas if you're looking to develop the Hero/Narration points in a more detailed direction, and I remember that Andrew Martin had a narration/point system (Token?) that had interesting aspects as well.

Cool game Jasper,

Rich

[Mike Holmes]

Rich, Awsome analysis. I had read this and intended to get back to it. By the time I had, you'd already hit every point that I wanted to hit. That includes the probability analysis which is pretty much accurate (just to verify). I like the idea of Weariness being an opposing bonus (which is how it would work in my Synthesis system which has considerable mechanical similarities).

IOW, Jasper, I'm just reiterating what Rich said for the most part. I think if you take his comments to heart you could really have something good here.

Mike

[Shreyas Sampat]

Hi, Jasper.

Reading your game, I notice something that someone on rpgnet also pointed out: you have a lot of currencies, and they are not all distinguished clearly.  I'm most puzzled by your Action Points; I can't find a clear definition of how they are used or what they represent.
I also don't know why you have such a fine Weariness scale; it seems simpler to just throw around the straight penalty totals, rather than having those subdivided.

On the loss of hero points:
I'm with Rich here; that'll just encourage players to avoid going against their characters' morals, unless you provide a reward of comparable magnitude.  I see a lot of potential here for the HP-NP interaction - suppose that you were to use Morals as an interface.  You could supply players with only one of the two currencies, and force them to filter them through Morals to turn them into the other type.  If Hero Points could be used exclusively for character effectiveness and Narrative Points for directorial control, this could be really interesting: very moralistic characters could be solitary pillars of strength, while highly unmoral characters are weaker, but have more control over the world.  (That looks very Tolkien to me).  Of course, this means that Hero Points, rather than Narrative Points, have to be tied to Attribute creation/increase.

On Narrative Points:
There's some evidence here of the player distrust issue - why is it necessary to make players propose NP usage and have it approved, while thet GM can just make things true by fiat, without recourse to a currency or tribunal?  Certainly if the GM is trustworthy and the players are too (Social Contract issue) then you can expect the players to make equally good contributions to the game.  I suggest that if you have a veto mechanic of any kind, it have compensation built in: one player may hand over an NP to the proposing player to cancel his NP spending, for example.

On Magic:
It seems that you have a lot of safety valves in here, too.  If magic is so "far-reaching and powerful", then what's with the Weariness and the double conflict roll?  Those both seem to make magic substantially weaker than ordinary skills.  Then there's your description of magical fields, thte "manipulation of fire", which appear pretty narrow.  Unless you give magicians huge stacks of dice to deal with all of this, they're going to be less effective then other characters, not more.

[Jasper]

Hello,

Thanks for the comments, especially you Rich, I'm glad it was somewhat interesting.  I'm still digesting some of what's been said, but I'll try to respond to what has stuck out most or has been repeated.

Opposing rolls for Weariness: makes perfect sense, is a lot easier, and I don't know why I didn't think of it :)   No real reason not to have straight penalties without the second layer either.

I'm also definitely dropping the penalty for acting against Values, since I was already having somewhat similar doubts (obviously, since I tried to waive them away with that disclaimer).

Four Willows, you're absolutely right that the cautions against misuse of narrative points are excessive, as might be some of the mechanics: I think I will remove the double roll.  I was indeed planning on giving more points to magic users, and someone like Gandalf would have heaps of 'em.  But even while it's not supposed to be balanced, I did want to put some cap on the over-use of magic, so that it wasn't being used in every conflict, and possibly not even every scene.  Perhaps something less far reaching then an application of Weariness.  Action Points, or whatever becomes of them, it probably more reasonable.


I agree with the comments that there are too many different kinds of currencies, some of which do very similar things, even though in my mind there is a (somewhat) clearer demarcation: HP's deal only with the character and only enhance his abilities/luck/whatever, Narration Points  deal with everything else.  Maybe that was clear though.  Hero Points are a little tacked on, and replace a system of TRoS-style SA "Motivations," which I pulled since most such motivations would come into play rarely, and most characters are going to be focused primarily on the main quest anyway (this is also where the "Interpretation of the Goal" arose from).   Dropping HPs and using just Narration points is definitely doable, but I really like the exchange ideas, with Values as the interface.  I think I had hinted at the idea of giving less traditionally "powerful" characters more influence over the world, and this really emphasizes that.  Clever.


The combat rules....I added in the Action points because I thought I needed a smaller-scale weariness that might take characters out of a fight, or signficy loss or something without having the more long term implications of real weariness.  Calling them something else, like "relative position" might have been more appropriate.  They are a little unrelated to the rest of the system though.  Perhaps just a more immediate-term penalty, that is generically referenced but could be due to anything would be better.  So if you cast a spell and exhaust yourself, you have a penalty until the next scene, likewise if you trip and fall in combat, or are hard pressed by some enemies.  So maybe if you fail to roll any successes, you get a penalty?  How would it link in with Weariness though?  With Action Points, if you ran out, a more serious outcome, like Weariness or a Disadvantage occurred... I initially had liked Hero War's sysem (and still do), but it is a little incongruous for TWW.


The divisions on Special Items is not really so hard as it might appear.  I wanted some items to help you all the time but only at certain things, while other helped occasioanlly but at most anything.  The Objects of Power were introduced mainly because it made sense to have things whose greater pwoers coudl only be unlocked by wizards.  The one ring, for instance, is a nice toy for Bilbo and Gollum, but would be devastating if weilded by Gandalf, Galadriel, or Sauron.  I should make clear the bluriness between the categories.


Well, my response has mostly consisted of nodding my head, but oh well.  I have to think about Action Points some more, among other things.  All very useful ideas, guys.

[Shreyas Sampat]

On Items of Power:

I think I understand what you're going for here.  An idea:
An Object of Power is keyed to a specific Attribute; when someone with this power activates the Object (in whatever way that might be done; a simple Object could be activated simply by using or having it, while something like a palantir requires specific skill uses), some ability manifests.  No OoP has different abilities tied to different Attributes, but some might have "free" abilities that require no Attribute to use, or abilities that require different quantities of the same Attribute, so that more powerful or experienced users can call up greater powers.

Assuming magic is an Attribute, this can retain the effect of your original rules, but it can also do things like model athelas and Narsil, things that worked in Aragorn's hands but likely wouldn't in others.  (I'm always going to use LoTR for examples in discussions of this game; it seems Right.)  These things seem like OoPs, but at the moment your rules outlaw them.  It does make sense that there are items with greater powers that can be unlocked only by certain people; that's classical epic fantasy thinking, and is great.  But to assume that those people have to be wizards, IMO, is rooted in the setting (and possibly in games like D&D, where "locked-up" powers were the wizard's prerogative always), and if your setting has people in it like Aragorn, then the rules restrict him.

[Mike Holmes]

On the topic of capping magic power. Don't. There's a better way. Games traditionally cap magic power as a means to balance it out. But this never matches the literature. That is, often wizards are indeed loath to use their abilities, but not because they'll run out of some pool of power. No, inthe literature, magic comes with some price. In LotR, for example, Gandalf refrains from using magic because it attracts Sauron's attention. Other literature talks abot exhaustion, or upsetting some balance. Or dire potential repercussions of overuse such as demons appearing, etc.

Decide on what the price of magic is in your world, and use that to make each casting an important choice. It'll really make more of magic than the usual.

Mike

[Blake Hutchins]

Y'know, a GURPS variant rule I thought worked wonders along these lines was to establish a threshold number that represented the number of mana points a mage could spend before hitting dramatic complications.  This concept iterated into several campaign dials: the threshold itself, the mage's recovery rate, geographical or temporal fluctuations in the threshold number, and more.

For example, if the threshold in the land of Hoom is 24, any mage has 24 mana points available to spend for free.  After that amount is spent, any further casting also draws off ambient mana, but with a steep cost and increasing chance of catastrophe.  The mage's recovery rate determines how quickly threshold points recover.  Spend 27 points, and you need to wait for at least four points to recover before you can cast even a minor cantrip without a potential botch.

Best,

Blake

[Mike Holmes]

That would be the much acclaimed UMana system by the estimable S John Ross if I read you correctly, Blake. And it's pretty good for a more or less "generic" system.

That said, I still think that even that can be improved upon with magic that is limited by something thematically important to the game world in question. But mechanically, Umana is a pretty cool system.

Mike

[Walt Freitag]

Blake, when I read your first sentence I thought "what a cool radical idea." Because when you said "dramatic complications" I thought you meant drama, as in plot, complications. Such as, cast a lot of magic and an enemy will find you (which could have a simple causal explanation) or a person close to you will get in trouble (which probably won't have a causal explanation, but so what? -- it's magic) or a dangerous problem will fall into your hands. The meta-explanation could be that magic works something like Hitchhiker's' Infinite Improbability Drive. Over-use it, and you invite improbable retribution from an annoyed universe.

In a way, this would just be a generalization of Mike's price-of-magic principle.

Not that there's anything wrong with your approach either. I've used similar mechanisms routinely in fantasy games, including the old standby "if you run out of mana points, you can use your health points instead." But given the kind of atmosphere Jasper's looking for, some kind of "dramatic" complications would fit in very well.

- Walt

[Jasper]

In no specific order....

As far as the magic goes, I do indeed not want to really arbitrarily limit mage power with the standard mana points or somesuch.  The more drastic problems associated with magic, like aging in TRoS, *should* be enough.  I'll just need to lay down more specific guidelines about what might happen and how bad it should be (obviously a lot worse than a normal failure).  If I can drive that idea home in the text, as well as the generla feel of magic I'm intending, players should be able to steer clear of pulling magic fire out of their sleeves every scene.  Blake's suggested system seems reasonable as a guide to these sorts of problems, though instead of a number of points to be used up, I might have a "Badness" level that goes up only when you do botch.  So the results of a botch get worse and worse.  Taking some time off from magic, relocating, or Resting would lower the level.

Four Willows, I like your change to the limitaiton on OoPs.  There's no reason to apply limits only and arbitrarily to mages.

I'm thinking of ways to implement the Hero Points / Narrative Points interchange using Values.  One option: give out only NPs at the end of sessions.  So everyone can potentially get a reward, and everyone will get at least a few.  Then, by acting in accordance with Values, a player's NPs will be converted to the character's HPs.   It'is sort of the converse of what Rich suggested -- switching HPs to NPs when you break morals.  Was there some other option that you had in mind but that I haven't thought of, Four Willows?   It's all kind of like the "paying for disadvantages" that Rich brought up.  What I really want is a method to allow or even stimulate internal conflict without forcing it down players' throats.

[ThreeGee]

Hey Jasper,

I don't want to derail your thread, but I do want to extend an invitation to join amherstgaming@yahoogroups.com if you want to talk to local gamers about playtesting or game design. Also, feel free to stop by the UStore and find me in the back where I pretend to supervise the supplies dept.

I promise useful comments when I have a chance to do so properly.

Later,
Grant

[Jasper]

Hey, Grant, long time no see.  Thanks for the info, I'll check out the list and try to stop by some time.

I've finished incorporating a number of the changes suggested here, and some other smaller things.  Magic is simpler and easier, with no caps on it formally now.  I'm still debating the "badness" rating for increasingly-worse botch results.  I have basically just removed combat entirely -- after thinking about it, it seemed a needless addition, and there's no reason to emphasize combat in such a game.  The normal rules, and some new penalty rules, should take care of it.    Hero Point/Narration Point interchange is tentative, but seems playable.

I've also added in a fair section on Organization, Narration, and the flow of gameplay, which should clarify how narration works for players.  I'm trying to really nail down just how much a Narrative Point gets you, and some sort of table with examples should be forthcoming, as should be a lot more examples in general.  This is the new file, it's a fair bit shorter than the last.  Most of the changes are in the first two-thirds.

http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~jasperm/WW_2.htm

[ThreeGee]

Hey Jasper,

It is great to see you here on the Forge. I read your rules a couple times, and I can at least give you my initial impressions.

First, while I seem to understand that you want a Narrativist game, the rules feel like old Sim games where the gm carefully doled out power to the players to help flesh out the world, as long as they ultimately respected his creative vision. I have no problem with this type of play, but it does leave me wondering ultimately what you intend actual play to be like.

I absolutely love the idea of travel being the focus of play. It worked for old Traveller, and I think there is still a lot of juice left in the idea. The Lord of the Rings is essentially a story about characters travelling, revealing the world and discovering things about themselves.

What would really help me is some text explaining how a game might go. A sample character, a sample scene, etc, would be wonderful. As it is, I am left with the vague feeling that I am not really sure what to do with this game. There is nothing to really draw me in.

Later,
Grant

[Jasper]

Hi,

Okay, I've done a quick playtest, and the results are up in Actual Play.  I'm working on some revisions in response.  Clearer definitions for the use of Narration Points, Values, and degrees of success are in order first.  I'm thinking about totally revamping Values.

I'm definitely taking to heart the suggestion made by Andrew Martin: instead of giving out NPs for "good role-playing" or something after each session, I'll give 'em out during (or maybe as well) whenever someone narrates some kind of complication or difficulty.  Obviously no NPs need to be spent to narrate such things -- played can just interject whenever they want to.  Spending NPs is only required for "good" things.  I'm not sure how/if I can integrate this with narration in conflict resolution.  Since NPs are really about story elements, and conflict resolution is more related to individual character success I may leave them separate.  Though of course, resolution is also tied to Hero Points, which are in turn somewhat linked to NPs, so further inter-relation wouldn't be totally illogical.  I could allow a player to voluntarily shift his level of success down and thereby recieve Narrative Points....

That would make for a complicated circle, though I don't quite know what the effect would be....  Characters with lots of HPs could spend them to  succeed very well.  But they wouldn't need quite so many successes and would voluntarily tone it down and get NPs.  They could later act in accordance with their Values, and reconvert the NPs to HPs to succeed sitll more later on.  Some would "leak out" of course, and to keep the whole thing going, you'd have to act morally and never succeed in too flashy a way.  As I said, interesting, but I don't know.  

One thing I did want to maintain is two equally possible modes of play: having a character who succeeds all the time thanks to HPs, or having one who doesn't do as much, but the player gets to narrate things a lot.  I'm not sure if the above would compromise that, or if it had already been compromised.

Sorry, I'm rambling, and just tossing things around.  I'll need to let it stew some more (at an earlier hour).  Any thoughts are appreciated.