Star Wars meandering

[Drew Stevens]

So, I'm honestly not sure if this should go here or on the Theory forum, so I'm erring on the side of indie game design.  Anywho.

I've been tinkering with a variant of Feng Shui for a Knights of the Old Republic Jedi-heavy Star Wars game (deeply inspired/stolen from Jeph at Rpg.net).  And, as I was doing so, I simply made a note of 'doing bad things gets you Dark Side points.  Too many Dark Side points = become NPC of Evil doom.'

I then started to work on how you get Dark side points.  It boils down to accept bonus power from the GM, in exchange for using that power to accomplish some goal that the GM sets for you.  This power can be just some bonus dice all the way to additional full on Jedi Powers.  The more potent the gift, however, the deeper the entanglement and more heafty the requirement.

I went to bed, woke up, and blinked.  Then wondered aloud- are Dark Side points even a useful idea anymore?

I mean, they give players a metagame means of seeing 'Hokay, I'm pushing that evil button a little bit too far'.  But they get stuck in your teeth- players don't ever risk the Dark Side, because the consequences of failure are uberpermanent death and destruction (effectively).

Whereas just making Dark Side offers- well, that's /much/ easier to lead people astray on.  I mean, the ends justify the means, right?  I need this power to defeat this Sithlord.  I need this ability to overcome the Governor's guards.  And I need it /now/- the consequences of failure are too great to rely on training.

And the ante could be raised, just a little, on every vow.  Until, with no clear defining line, the Dark Side has come to forever dominate their destiny.

Breaking these vows would gain the character some penelty (which probally becomes the new Dark Side points, or something)- a punishment and encouragement not to stray from their new path.  

However, redemption should still be possible- and it is.  It's real easy, actually.  All the character has to do is walk away.  Give up their Dark Side power.

Cause we all know how often people who've tasted power will give it up... especially when it would be ever so useful, and the price is oh so small...

:)

I just got Paladin recently, and I'm munching through it now- but is anyone aware of a similiar idea I could steal?  Or at least look at, to see how else it's been done before.

[Walt Freitag]

Hi Drew,

Just a quick question to clarify -- and before you answer, you should read the forum policy posted on the sticky here. You're not really talking about a Star Wars game here, but rather, a space fantasy game with mystical elements inspired by Star Wars, right?

- Walt

[Mike Holmes]

Actually, I think he's just modifying Feng Shui. Which would be a sticky question. Is that a new game, and thus something to talk about here, or is tinkering just slight modifications, which might be better served over in Theory.

IOW, Drew, you were right to be confused about what forum to put this in.

Mike

[Drew Stevens]

Er.  Right.  A space fantasy game with mystical element a la Star Wars, with a good side and a bad side to the mystical power, as a modification of the Feng Shui system (and, to a lesser extent, setting).

In retrospect, it probally should have been Theory.  But maybe an addendum to the Sticky could make clear where 'modifications to existing systems for alternate settings' could go- since it's not that uncommon an idea or topic (See: Riddle of the Dark Sun on the tRoS board, etc).

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Actually, I'm not seeing an actual game in design here at all. Or if there is, it's in such a beginning stage that this is a theory question, 'far as I can tell. So ... and given Drew's last point ...

Here we are in Theory!

Drew, I'm very interested in seeing what you think of Paladin. It strikes me that Clinton entered the same area of concern that you're grappling with, and emerged with a functional solution.

That's not to say that you "shouldn't bother, 'cause Clinton did it already." I'm saying that reading Paladin will give you some useful material that you can turn over to see how it does or doesn't meet your goals.

Best,
Ron

[Mike Holmes]

I have to say that I think that the idea of the GM offering bits of bait to the players sounds like just too much fun.

Me [jiggling several bonus dice in my hand]: "Y'know, with a few more dice you might be able to put down these soldiers quickly enough to get to the transport ship before it lifts off with your sister."

Hehe.

But I also think that there has to be some arbitrary game mechanic that serves to throw the player over to the dark side at some point. The GM cannot just decide.

OTOH, perhaps the dice can be offered in return for bad deeds. That is, the GM says the above, but then says,

"If you want these bonus dice, you'll have to embrace the dark side, and kill your friend Bob who's fighting with the soldiers."

That sounds even more fun. You become the devil offering rewards for selling your soul. Still, the problem with this is that there's no "slippery slope" that's thematically so important to the Dark Side. It isn't the gradual descent into a pit from which there's no return.

I think that's the real challenge, finding some mechanic that allows the player to dig a hole for themselves slowly which becomes progressively harder and harder to climb out of. Paladin sorta does this, but I can see other ways, potentially.

Mike

[Drew Stevens]

Mm, Paladin digesting...

Ahem.

The problem here is that, again, Evilness is a quantified number.  Now, I'll grant, it's a far more /tempting/ number than it is in traditional Star Wars, but it's still directly quantified.

What I'm pondering is somewhat on the lines of the Shadowguide from Wraith.  Someone (the GM or a player devoted to Shadowguiding) that offers the characters / players power- but at an indirect cost, a promise they will /have/ to keep and act on, with a definite penelty associated with it.  A clever player could take the low ends of the bargins, hold out for only the choicest and least restrictive of bargins, and corrupt themselves only a little to become vastly more effective...

...but it's always going to be easier to say yes again after the first time.

The Knights of the Void are neat, but not quite what I'm thinking.  More like, Restrictions and Limitations from Nobilis, or the opposite of a Malakim's vows from In Nomine.  The Dark Offers are restrictions that specifically encourage a... certain anti-social bend to a character, while increasing their power.

Imagine if, in Paladin, some voice whispered in the back of your character's head- 'I'll give you the power you need to strike down your foe- if you will do something in exchange.'  It starts quiet, and what it asks isn't even a violation of your code.  And then it is, but only minor violations, and the results are so good, so pure...

And so on.  Er.  Is this coming across as clearer?

[szilard]

What I'm pondering is somewhat on the lines of the Shadowguide from Wraith.  Someone (the GM or a player devoted to Shadowguiding) that offers the characters / players power- but at an indirect cost, a promise they will /have/ to keep and act on, with a definite penelty associated with it.  A clever player could take the low ends of the bargins, hold out for only the choicest and least restrictive of bargins, and corrupt themselves only a little to become vastly more effective...

I was actually thinking of Wraith (shadow dice, in particular) when I read your earlier post.  

Ahh... Wraith... lots of wonderful ideas wrapped up in a typical Storyteller mess...

But anyway, with shadow dice you gain extra dice for your action. If you succeed, great. If you fail anyway, then you get a point of Angst (essentially a Dark Side point). The nice touch here is that it is easy for the player to think, "Well... if I fail then I am doomed anyway."

Stuart

[ThreeGee]

Hey Drew,

"A roleplaying restriction is no restriction."

Another option is to skip the whole karma issue and go straight to rolling dice. "Sure, with your level of Dark Side, you might fall, but really, just don't roll a one..."

Hehe, Gambling: the Addiction.

Later,
Grant

[Drew Stevens]

Mm.

I'd actually disagree with the idea of a roleplaying restriction being no restriction at all.

I'd say instead that a roleplaying restriction should only provide a bonus when the restriction is putting the character in an adverse situation they would have otherwise avoided.

That was a bit long thing to emphasis, so lemee explain a bit more, because I would have agreed with you without a second thought (and not had my blinky moment this morning) a year ago.

The problem with most games implementation of a roleplaying restriction is they are treated in the same fashion as a mechanical restriction- that is, as something which is /always/ hindering your character.  In practice, that's simply not the case.  Roleplaying restrictions /do/ but the character in a bad situtation, sometimes with great frequency and heavy cost- but they still aren't always in effect.

Thus, a proper roleplaying restriction should, IMO
A) Be something you can still violate, just at a mechanical cost
B) Be something which provides strength only when it is an active hinderance.

Also, yeah.  Wraith is good :)  Gonna have to re-read my olde Wraithe stuffe to remember quite how the Shadow worked and what it could do- the idea of the Dark Side offering additional powers comes directly from one of the Shadow's Thorns, however.  Can't think of it's name...

[Walt Freitag]

I have some reservations about the tempting bargains idea. It seems to me that players (and characters) bargaining with known quantities will fairly easily be able to draw a line they just won't cross. In bargaining-with-the-devil stories, the twist is usually that something a character bargains to do is, for some reason the character doesn't know at the time of the bargain, much more harmful or evil than expected. But playing it that way would make the Dark Side seem like a sentient satanic being playing tricks -- not the way I percieve the Dark Side in Star Wars.

Also, if a character always kept his bargains, he'd never really go over to the Dark Side, right? Although he'd eventually be acting like he had anyway, which is interesting but again not the way I see the mythology working. I still see it as a sudden and catastrophic (in the mathematical sense) change rather than a slow accumulation of badness. Episode III will, I suppose, shed more light on this.

I'd be seriously tempted to use a Jenga stack for each character, if it weren't for the logistical awkwardness of preserving the stacks between sessions. For each unit of Dark Side assistance you accept, you have to move one block. It's reliably safe at the start (unless you really screw up), and gets insanely tense and dangerous after a certain point.

One real problem with the standard "lose a Force point and roll under your remaining Force point total to avoid going over to the dark side" approach is that the probabilities are deceptive. It's actually much riskier than it looks, which is just the opposite of what you want, which is for players to be afraid of the possible catastrophe but not have it happen very often.

For example, starting with 20 force points, suppose a player uses a total of 10 dark side points, reducing her force score to half (10). After each use, a d20 must be rolled equal or below the remaining total to avoid going over to the dark side. What's the probability that the character will have gone over to the dark side by the time 10 points have been used? Answer: over 96%.

Instead, you could just require the same roll (don't roll a 20) for every point used. Over 10 rolls, the cumulative odds of failure are only 40%. But then there's no sense of increasing danger. If you get away with the first 10 rolls, it's no less likely that you'll get away with the next 10 too.

The Jenga stacks being too inconvenient, I'd substitute pulling tokens out of a bag. Start with 1 black token and 19 light ones. Pull a token for each Dark Side point used. Pull the black token and go over to the dark side. If you pull 10 tokens, your overall chance to go over to the dark side is 50%. (More generally, the overall chance is N * 5% for N tokens drawn.) Each successive draw is a little more dangerous, but not so much so that the overall chance of failure gets deceptively high.

- Walt

[Drew Stevens]

See, I really see the Dark Side as being /exactly/ that kind of tempting, taunting thing.  It's seductive, and plays that seduction off of fear, anger and hate.  And so on.

'Hey.  You.  I'll give you the power you need to avenge your mother's death- but you'll have to kill.  Not just the warriors, either.  The women and children.'

(Or, next movie)

'Hey.  Anakin.  You want revenge on the Jedi?  That can be arranged...'

Or, to quote the Yoda, 'Quick the Dark Side is to come in a battle, easily does it flow.  But once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.'

A fight is, normally speaking, the most desperate circumstance in the Space Fantasy genre.  Especially a fight against an equal or superior foe.  It's when the character is at their weakest, the most likely to give in- to accept some geas in exchange for the power to strike down their foe.  But the geas lasts longer than the fight.  One or two minor requirements- that's nothing.  But slowly, it becomes a habit- get into a fight, take on more strictures for additional power (or even the same power, over and over) -until the character is so entrapped by their Dark restrictions they can no longer even try to walk down any other road.  Hell, the Dark Side would even stop making such offers (or, at the least, make progressivly worse ones) at some point- after all, the character is already so enmeshed in their 'duties' that they can never break free, so there's no point in giving them further additional power.

[Mike Holmes]

Um, Walt, good points, in general. But the bag thing? Same odds as the d20 idea. The solution is to use more tolkens (or a larger die) and have them reduce more slowly).

OTOH, this is still known odds. I theorized that the GM could pull an unknown number of stones, but that really puts the character's fate in the subjective hands of the GM. Which isn't horrible, but...

How about if after a potential infraction, the GM asks for secret ballots which indicate from zero to three points each depending on how egregious they thought the infraction or use was (the point limit would be adjusted up or down depending on the number of players; I'd include the GM). Start with, say, 100 Light Side Force Rating and reduce it by the numbers on the ballots handed in. Then the player must roll percentile below the current rating to not go Dark Side. Players aren't allowed to tell the suffering player how many they selected, so they will have to guess just how in the hole the character is based on how bad they were, and guage chances from that. Redemptive situations would just be the reverse.

How's that sound? Keeps the drama high for everyone, and also supports the group view of the relevance of actions.

Mike

[Drew Stevens]

ER...


I dunno.

That seems like it could turn into a 'Player A versus Player B' OR a 'Party cohesion above all logic and reason' (or, ironically, both at once) real easy.  Which would be Bad.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'd be seriously tempted to use a Jenga stack for each character, if it weren't for the logistical awkwardness of preserving the stacks between sessions. For each unit of Dark Side assistance you accept, you have to move one block. It's reliably safe at the start (unless you really screw up), and gets insanely tense and dangerous after a certain point.

Walt,

It'll probably not surprise you that I once started working on an RPG mechanic based off Jenga for this very same thing. It's a rad concept in many ways, but logistically, a nightmare.