The Shadow of Yesterday design log

[Clinton R. Nixon]

For the last month, I've been working on a new game entitled The Shadow of Yesterday. I detailed a bit about the setting in this earlier post, but wanted to start a little log to keep people updated here.

For the first post, I'm going to talk about inspirations and forthcomingness.

My favorite thing about the creator-owned RPG community isn't the quality of the games - which are great - but the common practice of letting people know your influences and turning them on to other great games. (In another observation, the idea of doing this, and using peer pressure to get others to do this is Ron's biggest contribution to the community, in my opinion.) I've tried to do this in each game so far, and am definitely doing it in Shadow, as it rips off a ton of games.

Here's my influence sheet so far:

[*] The Riddle of Steel by Jake Norwood and Sorcerer by Ron Edwards: This game gave me the idea of advancement based off player-set character wants and desires (Key Secrets). Seeing as these are the big two games I play, they've probably crept elsewhere into the game.

[*] Over the Edge by Jonathan Tweet with Robin Laws: The bonus/penalty die mechanic.

[*] Fudge by Steffan O'Sullivan: The idea of naming the level of success with descriptive words.

[*] Buffy the Vampire Slayer by C. J. Carella (Eden Studios): The basic die mechanic, albeit modified, as well as a variation on Success Levels.

[*] Rolemaster by hell if I know these days: Too damn much - mainly the skill priority system. I played the bejeezus out of this game as a kid and certain things - including the Vulfen, a race from one of their cornucopia of supplements - have stuck around.

[*] D&D 3rd edition by Jonathan Tweet, Monte Cook, and Skip Williams (WoTC): Expertise Secrets are a direct descendant of Feats from D&D.

[*] Dying Earth by Robin Laws (Pelgrane Press): Attributes as resource pools, refreshed by in-game actions.

[*] Schism by Jared Sorensen: The idea of character "transcendence."

[*] The Nutcracker Prince by Peter Seckler and, well, me: The dwarves and their strange parentage.
[/list:u]

Not a bad parentage to have, really. As far as other media goes, I was inspired by a few things:

[*] Robert E. Howard - especially the stories "Beyond the Black River" (which created the country of Khale in my mind) and "Red Nails" (which created the idea of huge enclosed empty cities as great adventuring grounds.)
[*] Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson brought up all the crazy language stuff that's in the game.
[*] An article in the Feb 2003 Discover magazine, "Where Did the Moon Come From?" Discover's my secret game design resource, as they mesh science with interesting stuff each month. In that same issue is a great article on peyote which is getting shoved into the game, too.
[/list:u]

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The other topic for the first bit of log is that I did playtest Shadow this week, and it went quite well. The system had some major changes after the playtest - my huge load of skills hurt the game and combat was befuggered. These problems seem relatively fixed now, which means I can focus on writing all the color and setting that goes into this game.

Next time, I deconstruct the system.

[Spooky Fanboy]

I am slowly coming to realize what's happening: it seems that, ever since I started posting on the Forge and encouraging (alright, pestering) people to develop their game ideas and game fragments and game blurbs, only faster, a sinister conspiracy has formed against me. It's terrifying in it's stealthy reach and dire consequences; people indeed have been pushing out their blurbs, and making them so seductive in the process, that just by reading a few posts, I become sold on the game, and eager for more information.

Oh, it's not so bad now, but I know, I KNOW!, that soon these games will become available for sale...and I will blow my wallet out so thoroughly I won't have time to actually play them before I declare bankruptcy.

CURSE YOU! CURSE YOU ALL!! IS THERE NO END TO YOUR TEACHERY AND SUBTLE MALICE?!!

Oh, and Clinton? When's the next article on this game coming out? I kinda interested in seeing how this develops...

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Spooky,

I'm not going to post these on any sort of schedule, just as I get time. Still, you should see one a week, minimum.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

System Deconstruction

In this post, I'm going to deconstruct how the Shadow of Yesterday system works, and why I've made the choices I have so far.

In the game, all tests of ability (called Skill Checks) are done the same way. A skill, ranking from 0 to 10, is added to a roll of 2d6 and compared to the following chart

Code Select Expand


8 or below Failure
9-11 Success Level 1 (Mediocre)
12-13 Success Level 2 (Good)
14-15 Success Level 3 (Great)
16-17 Success Level 4 (Amazing)
18-19 Success Level 5 (Legendary)
20-21 Success Level 6 (Ultimate)
22+ Transcendent Success


For now, ignore the Transcendent Success level, except to note it can only be achieved with a skill of 10 and a roll of 12. As you can see, an untrained person still has a chance of success in this system - a 28% chance, to be exact. Someone with a moderate degree of skill (+3) has a 72% chance of success, with a 28% chance of a Good success, and an 8% chance of a Great Success.

Alone, this system is a bit boring and not flexible. However, the idea of bonus and penalty dice spices it up a bit. (This idea, as mentioned earlier, is stolen from Over the Edge.) A bonus die is added to the two dice rolled, and the top two are summed. With a penalty die, three dice are rolled, with the lowest two being summed. Each skill has an attribute associated with it (the six attributes are Vigor, Force, Grace, Wits, Grit, and Charm.) A spent point of the associated attribute can grant a bonus die or cancel a penalty die, changing the statistics dramatically.

With no bonus or penalty dice, the chances are:
Untrained person getting SL 1 - 27%
Untrained person getting SL 2 - 3%
Moderately trained person getting SL 1 - 72%
Moderately trained person getting SL 2 - 27%

With one bonus die, the chances are:
Untrained person getting SL 1 - 52%
Untrained person getting SL 2 - 7%
Moderately trained person getting SL 1 - 89%
Moderately trained person getting SL 2 - 52%

With one penalty die, the chances are:
Untrained person getting SL 1 - 11%
Untrained person getting SL 2 - 0.5%
Moderately trained person getting SL 1 - 48%
Moderately trained person getting SL 2 - 11%

This gets even more dramatic with multiple bonus or penalty dice - a moderately trained person has a 96% chance of SL 1, a 69% chance of SL 2, and a 32% chance of SL 3 with two bonus dice. While the normal amount of enhancement is one bonus die, Secrets, special weapons, magic, or one skill being used to assist another can result in multiple bonus dice. Likewise, damage, cursed items, magic, or other forces can result in multiple penalty dice.

So, what does all this mean?

I wanted this system to make characters who had two things: a range of ability, and a level of consistency. With this system, the range of ability is always fixed. A well-experienced character (7 or above in a skill) has no chance of failure, actually. An untrained person never has a chance to do better than Good in a task. Without bonus or penalty dice, though, the character has low consistency. While results may hover around one number (there's a 17% chance of rolling 7 on the dice, the most common result), results are still quite spread out, and uncertainty comes into every action. Even one bonus die skews this, though, with the most common dice result being 9, and the die result much more certainly being higher.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Hey, everyone:

I've been super-busy these last few weeks, and I know I haven't updated. I've got an article planned to put up soon, but until then:

FREE STUFF

Seriously. After quite a bit of thought, I've decided to make The Shadow of Yesterday a free game, with a commercial hard-copy release. I've put up the game so far at http://www.anvilwerks.com/rpg/tsoy/. I've still got a lot to do, but it's actually playable at this point. Feel free to start a new thread with any comments or questions.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm going to make a statement right now that seems completely bizarre:

The biggest innovation in a role-playing game in the next 2 years will be with that role-playing game's economy.

I know. It sounds crazy. Let's look for a second at what we have out there:
- A grainy economic system, with characters that have X amount of gold pieces, or dinars, or dollars, or whatever, and a long list of items and their costs. What's wrong with this? Some people find it too much detail, while others say it's not enough. Your list can never be complete (leading to entire supplements filled with new economic data, a la Cyberpunk and Shadowrun's equipment 'catalogs'), regional differences are not taken into account, and fixed costs are just plain unrealistic - and isn't realism (or Simulationism) what these systems are going for?
- Abstracted economics, a la all White Wolf games and Donjon. What's wrong with this? To tell the truth, not a lot. Economic fluctation is prevented, though: no Vampire character loses dots from his Resources regularly. (Ok, Donjon builds in economic fluctation, but it's so cartoony that the idea of a Donjon character going broke is ludicrous.)
- No economic system, a la tons of games. In many of these, it's pretty easy to make your own. Take Sorcerer (set in the modern day) for instance. You could have Cover rolls to see if a character can afford something; subscribe to a couple of catalogs and use a count of character dollars; or just assume characters can buy anything reasonable. (Unknown Armies is another good example here.) What's wrong with this? Works great for modern day, but poorly for fantasy.

I don't think The Shadow of Yesterday is going to be the innovative economic game, but I am excited about economics in it. When trying to decide how to build the in-game economy, I got very torn between my own preferences and the focus of the game. In my preference, the economy would be very abstracted or dropped - I personally dread writing that stuff. The game is meant to be focused towards what the players want, though, by them buying Secrets for their characters, and if I'm going to have the "Secret of Glittering Gold," I better support it.

At this point, I pretty much made the hard decision to go the "price list and X dinar" route, which is scary. Not only does it feel antiquitated, but it seems hard to write. Looking at this more, though, I thought, "How will one price list fit every region in Near? What about Qek, where metal is scarce? What about the bamboo armor of Ammeni? What about Maldorian beer versus Oranian beer?" I then had a mild aneursym, but I'm ok now.

---

Ok. So at this point, I want an economic system that:

- supports a wide range of goods
- is very granular
- supports regional economic differences
- is barter-based for the most part
- supports rising antique costs. (Seriously. A large part of this game is a yearning for the past. Pre-Shadow items are worth much more than items made yesterday.)

Here's what I ended up with, which is still a frightening eight-armed beast, but one that I think can be tamed.

- One standard price list, which focuses on services as much as goods. One day's work from a blacksmith can be ported to many items, while separate prices for a sword, a halberd, a plow, and a suit of armor cannot. Many items will be listed, but just as many services will be. This price list will be liberally stolen from other games I respect (i.e. The Riddle of Steel. If Jake is reading this, apologies.)
- An age-based multiplier effect. Post-Shadow items will be cheap, with pre-Shadow items being at least three times the cost, and pre-Unification items being at least ten times the cost.
- Regional multipliers. Let's take Qek, which has little metal, but immense amounts of jewels and amazing food. It might look like:
* Metal: 5x cost
* Jewels: 1/3x cost
* Food: 3x export / 1/3x import

Metal prices rise high in Qek, which means it's good to take metal items to trade there. Jewels are cheap, as they're so plentiful and the Qek rarely use them. The food of Qek is part of their religion and culture, and they guard it. Even though it's plentiful, it costs much. However, outside food is unwelcomed, and they are loathe to buy it.

Other countries will be done the same way. Ammeni, for example, has shitloads of bamboo, which it uses for everything. If you can figure out what +1 hard armor costs in Maldor, you can figure out how much Ammeni bamboo armor costs.

---

Lastly, I know this seems like a huge Simulationist thorn shoved right up in the craw of a game that's supposed to be unabashedly Narrativist. That thought's been on my mind a lot as I wrote this. Here's the deal: Simulationist and Gamist underpinnings can drive a Narrativist game, I believe. In this instance, the economies can make stories in and of themselves. Let's say a group of Khalean freedom fighters gets up the idea to steal a cache of Ammeni metal weapons and take them to Qek to sale to finance their fight. That can become a story of epic proportions.

In these days of troubled economic times, the economic story is one that shouldn't be overlooked. I hope The Shadow of Yesterday provides ample tools to tell that story.

[Matt Wilson]

You know, this might be food for thought: economics are what historically has driven a lot of warfare. That sort of thing might detract from a more black-and-white "epic" feel in the game, but it'd provide a lot of story fodder. If Qek has an abundance of jewels, neighboring countries will want tight alliances with them, or they might try to demonize the people of Qek to garner support for an invasion.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

You know, this might be food for thought: economics are what historically has driven a lot of warfare. That sort of thing might detract from a more black-and-white "epic" feel in the game, but it'd provide a lot of story fodder. If Qek has an abundance of jewels, neighboring countries will want tight alliances with them, or they might try to demonize the people of Qek to garner support for an invasion.

Great point. It actually goes really well with the game, as there is no real black-and-white moral feel to it at all.

[Blake Hutchins]

Clinton,

You might take a look at The Tribe 8 Companion, in which DP9 lays out a granular but easy and inspirational economic system based on barter, but with each tribe having supply and demand goods and a value assigned to each from that tribe's perspective.  It is, in my opinion, the best in-game economic system out there right now.

Best,

Blake

[Jared A. Sorensen]

- Regional multipliers. Let's take Qek, which has little metal, but immense amounts of jewels and amazing food. It might look like:
* Metal: 5x cost
* Jewels: 1/3x cost
* Food: 3x export / 1/3x import

Metal prices rise high in Qek, which means it's good to take metal items to trade there. Jewels are cheap, as they're so plentiful and the Qek rarely use them. The food of Qek is part of their religion and culture, and they guard it. Even though it's plentiful, it costs much. However, outside food is unwelcomed, and they are loathe to buy it.

Other countries will be done the same way. Ammeni, for example, has shitloads of bamboo, which it uses for everything. If you can figure out what +1 hard armor costs in Maldor, you can figure out how much Ammeni bamboo armor costs.

Clinton,

Do you plan to assign, oh I dunno what to call them...trade descriptors to items? That is, armor = metal + leather and a goat = food. In essence, you'd be listing the base goods that are necessary to create that item. You could even treat armor as leather+metal+armorsmith to take into account the service part of the equation. Even better (ooo, getting excited now)...

"Battle Armor"
Leather 1
Metal 2
Armorsmith 1

is lilke pretty standard armor...

but

"Superior Battle Armor"
Leather 1
Metal 2
Armorsmith 3

is much higher quality (and also price).

OR something? Do you see where I'm going with this?

- J

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Jared,

That is such a rad idea that I can't quit reeling from it. I'm totally using it.

And, just for color info, the primary economic "coin" will be one meal. Thinking about this, though, one chicken might be a great term to use:

A longsword
1 Metal (@ 5 chickens)
2 Blacksmith (@ 3 chickens) =
11 chickens

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Jared,

That is such a rad idea that I can't quit reeling from it. I'm totally using it.

And, just for color info, the primary economic "coin" will be one meal. Thinking about this, though, one chicken might be a great term to use:

A longsword
1 Metal (@ 5 chickens)
2 Blacksmith (@ 3 chickens) =
11 chickens

Chickens are great :) Plus, Chicken = 1 food, so ha! A goat is worth 4 chickens (or something)...feed to weight ratios and all of that. :)

Okay, so check this out:

Use the # of trade goods as a base for the damage of a weapon.

Wooden club = 1 wood. Wood is, oh, 1d4 damage, so the club does 1d4.
Bigass Wooden club = 2 wood. 2d4 damage. Metal would be 1d6. Magical metal (mithril, adamantine, etc.) is like...1d8? 1d10?

Yeah?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Jared,

Unfortunately, weapons don't work that way. You can read the game - it's free! - and find out how they do work, but I'll tell ya right here:

Much like Donjon, weapons are rated by size and sharpness, as well as other attributes. They do a flat bonus to damage.

A longsword: +2 sharp (+1 against soft armor) weapon
A huge club: +3 blunt (+1 against hard armor) weapon
A bamboo quarterstaff: +2 blunt brittle (penalty die to snap) weapon

That's about it. How that can work with trade units is pretty easy, though: 1 Unit per weapon size unit.

[heldenhammer]

I'm going to make a statement right now that seems completely bizarre:

The biggest innovation in a role-playing game in the next 2 years will be with that role-playing game's economy.

This is a gross generalization, but the fact that the magic item creation and spell component mechanics in 3rd Edition D&D are based on money gives the whole game a really funky Marxist vibe.

I've been considering a campaign where adventurers are hired by the Wizard's Guild to go out and retrieve exotic spell components; like a pen and paper version of Progress Quest.

-Rob L.

[szilard]

This thread got me thinking about economics for my game... which needs to have a vaguely-centralized, but rarely recognized coinage. This makes things tricky.

(taken from my LJ) My general thought is to go the grainy, price-list route with a bit of vagueness thrown in. Maybe a FUDGE-like scale of costs (Trivial - Inexpensive - Moderate - Expensive - Extravagant - etc.), each of which represents a range of prices that can be fixed on the spot. Different currencies would have a range associated with each point on the scale. If the market for something is particularly different in one place than another, that item could be shifted up or down a level on the scale. If someone uses an appropriate Quality (i.e., a trait like "Great Wealth"), they need not worry about the cost of anything below a certain level. This system also supports barter well enough, I think. Things can generally be traded for other things in their category.

Oddly, the biggest influence on this schema is probably restaraunt ratings...

Stuart