Paladin: new edition/rewrite?

[anonymouse]

Clinton, I've seen you mention the fact that you're working on a rewrite/new edition of Paladin in a few threads. Is there an official status to this, or it's just in your offtime right now? Any kind of ETA, or maybe even just a list of what's been changed so far?

I'd like to get a game of it going soon, but if there's going to be a patchfile released in a month, I'd rather just sit on it and not have to change rules midstream..

[Clinton R. Nixon]

It's totally in my off-time. Expect a few months wait.

Just because I think it could be a better game doesn't mean I think it's a bad game. I just think it's a hard game, especially for the GM.

[anonymouse]

Thanks for the quick reply! =) I'll try and wrangle some players together for a game, then, and see how it goes.

[anonymouse]

Any chance of seeing some details on the tweaks you've come up with? I'm particularly interested in the fact you've gone from 9 attributes to 4 (Active/Reactive/Light/Dark); an example character under this new system would be a cool thing to see, even if there wasn't a lot of explaination behind it (yay idle speculation!).

[Bob McNamee]

I'm wondering if the giving of Marks need to be tuned a bit, where violating a higher level of Code gives you a hits in the lower levels as well.

Break an Unbreakable Law should move each category closer to getting marks etc.

This would make it harder to mix up what level Laws you break to avoid getting a Mark.

Not sure its necessary since I haven't played a long term game, but its an idea.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Here's the details so far:

- Characters have four attributes: Active, Reactive, Light, and Dark. All of these have descriptors, as before. Note that Active and Reactive now cover physical, mental, and social actions.

- The Dark Attribute goes up when you get Marks, and no other time. This causes Dark Animus not to be so weak (it didn't make sense to use it before, as Light Attributes were usually higher, and Dark ones only got better through spending points on them).

- Spending Dark Animus will have a negative in-game effect on the character. Currently, breaking a Law does, but spending the Animus doesn't. This should be fixed.

- The main setting will be made more user-friendly. Currently, the characters in it aren't heroes in most playtesters' minds.

- Most everything else will stay the same.

A sample character:

Sveta of the Ice Maidens

Active: Wolf-speed 2
Reactive: Resolve 3

Light: Cleverness 2
Dark: Icy Heart 1

Abilities: Arms (crystal axe), Sledding, Wolf Speech

[anonymouse]

Cool. Not sure if you were going with a 5/3 spread for the Attributes, or an 8 point total; we'll try 5/3 and see how it goes. And I'll keep the Mark stuff in mind and let you know how it goes. =)

Thought: I like the 4 instead of the 9. My first thought on reading your plans in the other Paladin threads was, "Wha? That just seems to dumb it down." It actually looks like it really focuses the character.

Thought 2: I'm trying to figure out if this is going to make combat more brutal. I think so. The fewer attributes aren't going to be a problem, so much as the fact that you're working with less points than the default (due to less attributes), while I guess damage remains the same?

[Bob McNamee]

I know in my 4 color supers playtest... where we had an unbreakable law of 'Do not Kill". The players very quickly went to all Reactive Fighting. This was because Doughboy's initial Active attack (pretzel martial arts) on a Penalty Boxer rolled high and killed him...thus gaining him 10 Dark Animus right off the bat, and making his Dark higher than his light, if I remember right. (It did quite Temptation to use the Dark side!)

Captain Wonder was even better at Active then his sidekick, so he was quite nervous about accidentally Killing, so they botyh moved to all Reactive fighting.

Not that Paladin is supposed to be a 4 color Supers game... but even more lethal combat would make it very hard to play with that particular Unbreakable Law (the other examples of settings don't have such a restrictive code... I don't recommend using one this broad as written. Its certainly better balanced for rolling if Paladins can kill their enemies if they want...ala Jedi, and Paladin vs Witche)

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I like the more streamlined look for the Paladin rewrite. I'l be watching this with great interest!

[anonymouse]

Well, I've got my first Paladin-session thread over in Actual Play (I'll try and remember to link the URL later) using the stuff Clinton outlined above for the heck of it (I liked the streamlined approach, mainly).

Combat is more deadly. Tremendously so; assuming I'm doing it right, of course. I'm worried less about what Laws are broken in the process, and more on whether or not the player characters can survive at all!

We didn't really get into Laws and Dark Animus use much in this session.

I've given thought to the "negative effects for using Dark Animus" bit, but really can't come up with anything that fits the current rules.

Ideas I've had include gaining Marks for spending DA instead of breaking Laws, but then you still need a way to remove the Mark (and the current method is based on righting the Law-sin). Maybe a second kind of Mark? Probably getting too confusing at that point. On the upside, this is a setting-neutral way for NPCs to be highly Dark-aligned badguys without needing to be Dark Paladins (and thus have a Code to break) or constantly going out and killing Light-aligned things. Gain some DA, spend it, gain a Mark, your Attribute goes up..

Another idea was forcing some GM control of a character based on their Dark attribute if they spend more than N Dark Animus.. except I've never been a fan of the GM taking control of player characters, so. ;p The other issue is that if they were regularly spending more than N anyway, they're probably already Dark Paladins, and it doesn't matter anymore.

It may be that the "negative effect" should be setting-specific.

Um. Just some random comments so far. Also: should we be trying to help, Clinton? Soundboard, testing, et cetera? Or should we let you alone about Paladin stuff for now and let you work on Shadow? ;)

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I commented on your Actual Play thread, and will take all these comments into consideration.

And, please, keep bugging me. I'll knock Paladin out soon.

[anonymouse]

Well, originally this post was long-stuff about negative effects for spending Dark Animus.

Except really, the only way to gain it is to go out doing bad things to good people, or breaking your Code. It's a fair bet that the players aren't going to be doing a whole lot of the former, and I haven't played enough yet to judge if the latter comes up very often.

Maybe I'll just stop trying to think so much, and play the damned game instead. ;) I've got some ideas, (spending Dark Animus gives you a flat-out extra success, not just an extra die) but if it doesn't really come up that often, maybe I'm devoting too much energy to it..

[anonymouse]

Huh. Give myself two seconds breathing room, and already I'm back at it.

Negative Dark Animus effects are only as important as the Code, because breaking it is how you're going to wind up with Dark Animus.

Jedi/Voidknights can gain DA more or less at whim: simply give into strong emotion, and bam, some DA. Easy.

HAH!

*mouse gets a lightbulb over head in the process of typing*

This breaks down to Code guidelines!

I've been looking at the Laws as incredibly important things from.. I don't know what perspective. Like every one was written in stone, and every paladin was going to follow the to the letter no matter what.

Minor Laws should be easy to break, of common possibility, with - at least seemingly - small effects. Things like "always be rational" and "don't lie" and suchlike. That's the trick: major everyday tempation, minor risk. Major and Unbreakable Laws are things you probably go out of your way to break; very, very minor temptation in 99% of your circumstances, but huge risk when it comes down to the line.

Okay. Wow. I love when games shift in my head and suddenly fits so much better; Enlightenment, here I come. ;)

So I've gone from thinking, "Yeah, negative effect will be good," to, "..except why the hell would anyone be gaining - let alone spending - Dark Animus anyway?" to, "It's all in how you serve it."

I'm really sitting tight now and just going to play for a bit. ;)

[Tony Irwin]

I've been looking at the Laws as incredibly important things from.. I don't know what perspective. Like every one was written in stone, and every paladin was going to follow the to the letter no matter what.

Minor Laws should be easy to break, of common possibility, with - at least seemingly - small effects. Things like "always be rational" and "don't lie" and suchlike. That's the trick: major everyday tempation, minor risk. Major and Unbreakable Laws are things you probably go out of your way to break; very, very minor temptation in 99% of your circumstances, but huge risk when it comes down to the line.

One of the things my group found during play, that may interest you Anonymouse, is that breaking Code doesn't require a conscious "Ok Im going to go up to those villagers, slap them about, break a law, and earn some dark animus" from the player. Rather laws are broken and dark animus is earned naturally and effortlessly during the heat of conflict (which is pretty scary actually!)

For example if one of the laws is "Never commit an act of violence out of emotion" and then I use my dark trait "Hate" or even "Passion" to get me a reroll during a conflict then immeadiately I've broken a law. As soon as I narrate "Blazing with hatred, Fu-Shan throws himself at his opponent" then bam! I've broken a law and earned dark animus.

In previous games where I tried to deal with moral issues, I would set up situations (which often meant manufacturing the player character's histories) where the character had a moral choice to make - break a law or keep a law. In Paladin we found that the temptation is strongest in the midst of conflict - its genuine, desperately needed, power that's being offered in the heat of the moment, as opposed to "Well my character is a nice guy so he'd probably just not execute the prisoner even though it looks like its the same guy who killed his uncle."

It's such a smart system, you as player can control your character's flirtation with light/dark but without having to push your character into unnatural situations just so you can pick up some light/dark. All you need to do is care enough about making something happen during a conflict and the temptation will present itself. The temptation is built into the conflict resolution system, as opposed to the GM having to build it into situations. The result is really amazing - its such a kick-ass, fists-flying game, but our kung-fu monks became very careful about which fights they picked. They knew (for instance) that they couldn't take out the inn full of Triads and their new "I am the God of Fortune" leader without going over to the dark side. So they had to sit and fume as the triads went about disrespecting the elders of the community. The frustration of being good in an evil world, cool eh? Meekness and humilty - these are the true qualities of a Paladin*.

*I should point out that they just took out those frustrations on the hide of less powerful opponents first chance they got. Hong Kong style.