Recoil: Concept

[Lance D. Allen]

Satisfaction, I think, will be based on defeating the Naughtwraiths (I don't really think it can be separated from the setting. The setting, in this case, makes the game.) without causing more damage. I think it will also come from learning more about who the character is, through play.

The way I'm intending it, who you WERE isn't important. You don't have such things as gender, racial background, skin color, religion, nationality, social class to help you determine who you are. You're a disembodied spirit with only vague recollections of your life, and it's entirely on you who and what you become. Even your name is yours to choose and change as you wish. Many people would lose their identity, and fade away without something to help them define themselves. But the point is that the agents aren't that sort of person. They were strong enough of spirit to fight off Oblivion and become an agent. Now they have to decide who they want to be, and what's worth fighting for.

Err, yeah. Tangent, sorry. I'll try to answer you a bit more specifically Chris.

The reward, as I see it, is that of any other game; An entertaining night of roleplaying. What makes it entertaining is meant to be a mixture of tactical thinking, in order to defeat the Naughtwraiths, and a certain amount of self-exploration. (Err. Damn, guess it's going to be a Sim game afterall, isn't it? Heh. I guess I'm stuck in a rut.) So long as the players enjoy themselves, they have succeeded. The characters' level of success is based on whether or not they can defeat the Naughtwraiths' aims without causing undue damage to people, property, and reality themselves.

Is this clearing up any ambiguity, or am I only managing to make it worse?

[Christoffer Lernö]

To me it still sounds like you haven't decided yourself what the game is really about. On one hand you have the "kill monsters"-theme which is fairly trivial. Take AD&D and give the characters other powers and a different backstory but still the same play.

But I'm gonna step out on a limb here and say that this is probably not what you want. In that case, killing naughwraiths are just a backdrop for the real story. The real story being about the characters.

Compare the AD&D style of play where characters and setting just for a backdrop for defeating monsters.

I think it's best if you have a primary objective in mind: the character do this and the players are exploring this.

You've already answered the former (naughtwraith hunting), what about the latter?

[Mike Holmes]

I disagree, Christoffer. The mission idea can be the entire goal of play. If it's not, then Ygg is seriously in trouble, because from what I can see it's all about killing monsters.

That said, why can't a game be about two things simultaneously. Lance will have to work out how that will work, but it's certainly far from impossible.

Mike

[Walt Freitag]

After giving myself a few days to try to get used to it, I've been forced to conclude that the title "Recoil" won't work, IMHO. I really do like the cleverness of the derivation -- re + coil as in "mortal coil" = "recoil" = afterlife return to the physical plane. But unfortunately, in the modern world "Recoil" as a title can only mean it's a game about (or at least, that uses lots of) guns.

- Walt

[Mike Holmes]

How about:

Re>Coil

Hip, easyto reproduce in any font, and you get to keep the name while not only making it obvious that there's an alternate meaning, but enticing the reader to find out what that meaning is.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

::frowns::

I can see your point, Walt, but at least part of me is saying "Who cares if people's first impression is wrong?". That's the part of me that wants to stay pure to the original concepts and terms in that single, hand-written page I did so many months ago. On the other hand, the more rational side of me knows that packaging (name, cover art, etc.) can make or break a game, and if I want to see it in print, I should keep in mind.

So we'll call "Recoil" a working title, with the understanding that it may very well need to go when I come to a finished product.. And I would like very much to finish this. Mage Blade is still my baby, but I'm coming to realize that I've really got to settle on a direction and focus for it if I ever want to complete it to my satisfaction.. So it's shelved, for now.

I think that this Concept thread is starting to wind down, so I figure to let it drop off for now. I'm going to organize the ideas put forth by myself and others in this thread, then start working to put the mechanics into some sort of presentable form for another post, probably within the next week or so.

[Christoffer Lernö]

I disagree, Christoffer. The mission idea can be the entire goal of play. If it's not, then Ygg is seriously in trouble, because from what I can see it's all about killing monsters.

That said, why can't a game be about two things simultaneously. Lance will have to work out how that will work, but it's certainly far from impossible.

Like I said, just my impression. My impression is that the "kill monsters" just became default to Lance out of habit rather than necessity. In WV which in many ways is similar to Lance's concept, I never got the feeling that it was a "kill the monster"-game, despite that what you did in every adventure was to hunt down and kill a monster.

[C. Edwards]

ReCoil works just fine. Pay no attention to Walt, he's been contrary ever since 'the accident'. ;)

Seriously though, I think that an appropriate sub-heading, cover art, etc. that suggest that the name of the game doesn't necessarily mean what you think it means creates a desire to pick up the game and look at it.

-Chris

p.s. I started thinking about why we call them 'dice'. I mean, I've never cut up my stir-fry with a d8...

[Walt Freitag]

Pay no attention to Walt, he's been contrary ever since 'the accident'.

No I haven't.

- Walt

[talysman]

ReCoil works just fine. Pay no attention to Walt, he's been contrary ever since 'the accident'. ;)

I think the capitalization you just used sort of subverts the tendency to interpret it as "[gun] recoil". other things you could do would be to toss a colon in the middle (Re:Coil) or use an old-looking spelling (ReCoyle), but that just might be too artsy and annoying.

but yeah, a subtitle will help tremendously. something like "ReCoil: return to the flesh for one last battle..."

ok, maybe not.

[Mike Holmes]

Like I said, just my impression. My impression is that the "kill monsters" just became default to Lance out of habit rather than necessity. In WV which in many ways is similar to Lance's concept, I never got the feeling that it was a "kill the monster"-game, despite that what you did in every adventure was to hunt down and kill a monster.

I think he chose it deliberately. And I think that Whispering Vault is the same. Primarily about accomplishing the missions, with the possibility of looking at character issues along the way. But by no means does WV promote this mechanically. There are no rules, to my recollection, that deal with pushing the engagement of character issues. It's just a possibility in play.

IOW, I think this is just your personal bias.

Now, maybe my interperetation is just my bias. But we can see that the game was written to support at least two interperetations, then. I see no reason why Lance has any need to change his current focus for his game if he doesn't want to. Seems perfectly valid the way it is to me.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

One last revisit to this thread, with a hint of the mechanics I'm developing. The dual-focus of the game is to be supported by two of the primary "meta" mechanics.

The aforementioned Conviction stat will be the one and only way that an agent can "die". If it drops to 0, they risk permanent death, giving in to Oblivion. They're in some sort of spiritual funk, their reason for fighting having proven less than adequate. If they are Recoiled when it happens, they risk Oblivion when they return to Outside. If they are Outside they risk Oblivion when they Recoil. It's a highly precarious position, so they've got to find a new reason, and quickly. The intent here is to keep the reason that the character fights always in the forefront of the player's mind, and (for those who like a little sadism in the early morning) gives the GM something to aim at. It's somewhat like the SAs in TRoS, in that it's a direct statement to the GM and the rest of the group. THIS is what is important to my character.

The reward mechanic will be somewhat fickle, but based on efficient execution of their mission. Basically, it goes like this.. When the mission begins, it has a set Oblivion rating, which is the total power points allocated to the Naughtwraiths. For each point of Oblivion, 1d10 is rolled. They're totaled up, and this becomes the Mortis Pool, which represents the total amount of power that Mortis can supply for that time period. Each character begins play with their Mortis rating equal to their Power score. That is it's max. Their Mortis rating can be depleted by using powers, affecting reality, or by direct damage to the agent. If it reaches 0, they're temporarily removed from the Coil, though they can reenter almost immediately. (though, unless they Attuned with the host, they're not likely to return to the same host) Whenever the individual character's Mortis rating drops below max, it will refill at a rate of 1 point per hour, or it can be refilled entirely by using one of the agent's powers. It refills from the Mortis Pool. The reward mechanic comes in when the mission is completed; any unused points in the Mortis Pool are divided up amongst the agents who participated in the mission, becoming "experience points" that can be used to improve the character, or as "meta-points". The specifics of these will be covered in detail later. This is designed to encourage the players and characters to think tactically, and make their actions count for as much as they're able.

So, do you think I'm on the right track?

[Mike Holmes]

Couple of potential problems. First, mechanics that reward the player for not using their abilities can make for dull play. The players are encouraged to be subtle, and only use their abilities when they really need to. This may even make sense inside of the context of the game, but it makes players tentative. Hit points are a classic example. Rather than make players less cautious, lots of HP make players more cautious as they know that they'll need every one of them eventually. Interestingly, you find that in games where a character can die at any moment, that they'll act more heroically if the results of heroic actions is an increase to effectiveness. Because then heroism makes tactical sense. It doesn't when monitoring resources is key.

Also, how do we know when the mission is over? Are the players out to reduce the "Oblivion" rating to zero? What if the Mortis roll goes really good? Does that make it too easy to win? What if it goes too low? Does that make a win impossible? Why not have a set amount, or at least less variability? How many dice are we talking about anyhow? What's the range of Oblivion ratings? If it's above 20, then this isn't a problem. Below 5, and it definitely is.

Mike

[Lance D. Allen]

I've got a spreadsheet (though not quite the same sort of thing as you do) that randomly rolls for Oblivion rating 10, 15 and 20 missions, and divides it among a number of players, for an average amount of points per player. 10 appears probably to be the lowest recommended range for 5 or so players (which, honestly, is the largest number of players I'd recommend running in ANY game, but that's personal preference) Also, it's intended that the actual amount in the Mortis Pool wouldn't be made known to the players, so they're not going to monitoring more than their personal usage. So far it seems like it should be enough, but that's a playtest issue, I think. You could, of course, be totally right about it's effect on the player's playstyles.. Hm. I want them to be leary about their use of power, but do you think it will actually inhibit them from using it in circumstances where it will be necessary? Perhaps an additional means of recharging their individual Mortis ratings, based on their Conviction stat, which does not draw from the Mortis Pool?

The mission is over when either: A) All the Naughtwraiths are eliminated (which basically means that, yes, the Oblivion points for the mission have been depleted.) B) The time of the "incident" comes and goes without it happening. In the latter case, Naughtwraiths might still be around to cause mischief, but their coordination or power level has been sufficiently disrupted that they're not likely to make concerted mischief for a while yet.

[Thomas Tamblyn]

With regards the Time problem you are (or were - I'm posting this because though the conversation has moved on, but you didn't seem to settle on a solution so might yet find this useful), why not just use real time?  If the mission needs to be completed in 2 hours, then if the plaers haven't stopped the noughtwraith in 2 hours of play, they fail.

Since you say you want something fairly simmy I'd suggest also moving time forward between scenes as appropriate for (say) long journeys, research or delays that you don't want to roleplay through.

This has the rather nice consequence that the players will become increasingly frantic as the fail-time approaches as well as the characters.