Oracle -- the End of Time.

[anonymouse]

Originally, this was going to be my next 24-hour project, as the inspiration hit tonight and I was really moving along and happy.. but I decided to pace it slower, rather than get burned out like with my first attempt, Dragon. Something good came out of Dragon, though, something I came up with on my own I really liked.

I had decided to have the player use tarot cards to set the major Moods, Locales, and Events for each hour of play (draw 1-3 cards every real-hour, and those draws set the Mood/Whatever for the next hour). So now I've spun that off into its own game.

There are a bunch of inspirations for this: the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the big thematic one, for me. The mechanics and the "what do the players do?" answer come from aforementioned Dragon, and the Dune Chronicles, respectively. The Legend of Mana (another video game.. y'know, I'm sensing a pattern..) contributed to the Locale/Item concept. I can explain the significant points if anyone's interested, but otherwise, I'll just get on with it..

Setting
There is a monastary, a temple, made of stone, sitting on a cliff; below is the Ocean, stretching off into the horizon, and before is the Plain, endless flatland of pale grass. Nothing grows, nothing dies, nothing changes.

Somewhere along the way, humanity made a wrong turn. It ran out of time. Its future ended, and this small sliver is all that's left of existance; it rests on the cusp of Infinity, beyond which is.. absolutely nothing.

In the temple are brown-robed monks; at one point, they were the guardians of time. They would sheperd those who felt the Call, and ensure that there was always a Future for humanity to move into. But someone failed. They don't know who, or why, or how or where; they do not know when. It simply happened: their Temple was here, their Oracles - their heroes, their chosen - were gone, along with Everything.

All except you. They do not know who you are; you may not know yourself. Neither of you can imagine how you might have come here. But the monks have trained you as a new Oracle, in the hopes you will create a future for the universe, and find a pathway for humanity to flow down once again.

Tools
Oracle uses a single d10 as its standard Fortune tool.
You also need some non-standard stuff to play: a deck of tarot cards, and a large bucket of random objects. I'd suggest taking a bucket, and filling it with small odds and ends you find around the house or, preferrably, scavanged from outside; the older and more worn it looks, the better.

Play
The characters are Oracles trained at the Temple of Time, the last sliver of Existance. From here, they venture out into time in an effort to construct a Path for humanity to walk down.

Any amount of roleplay could happen in the Temple. The "you" can be a single player, or a small group; there's no stricture that it's a single-player game. But once the players actually want to try and Fix Things..

Step One: Define the Starting Location
This is easy. You reach into your bucket (or pile, or whatever) and pull something out. Whatever it is, use it to represent the Beginning. For example, a few Lego bricks could be a small town, or a wheel could be a highway. This is your starting point for the Path you're trying to find (or, it could be argued, create)

Step Two: Divine the Path
This is where the cards come in. You basically do a tarot spread, with as many or as little cards as you'd like; I'm thinking something like ten. The spread can either be something pre-defined, or you can make it up as you go along. You should decide what the card represents before you place it/turn it face up, however.

Example 1: You decide you're doing ten cards. The first card will be your role, what you need to get done in an overall sense. The tenth card is your goal. Every even card between then is a Locale, and every odd card is an Event attached to that Locale.

Example 2: You start placing cards at random; maybe you decide the first card will represent your Adversary on the path, and you turn it face-up for interpretation. You decide the second card is the Fulcrum, on which everything balances, and place that card. So on and so forth, until you're done.

Each card placed should have a Marker attached to it. The Marker is something that will happen; it has to. If for some reason it doesn't, you've strayed from the Path and are now walking blind, and all the Events, Locales, and such you haven't yet come to now have no guarantee of happening, and all future Markers on this Path are void.

Step Three: Walk the Path
So then the Oracles step into the past, start walking their Path, and attempt to see it to the end. The hope is that it somehow contributes to re-establishing a Future.

Resolution
Oracle uses a d10 whenever a character attempts something that has a chance of failure. The Target Number is the 1s digit of the current time: that is, if it's 10:01, the current TN is 1 (:01). If it's 3:45, the current TN is 5. You could also use the current running game-time if you decided to use a stopwatch or something of that nature.

If the roll hits the TN exactly, that's a Great Success, and lets you state 3 facts that occur. If the roll is within 2 (+/- 2), for example a TN of 6 and the roll was 4, 5, 7, or 8, then it's a Success, and you can state 1 fact.

If the character was attempting something they have Prowess in, their Success range is bolstered to +/- 3 and they can state an extra fact on both Great Successes and Successes.

Characters
I haven't really delved into this yet. The characters will probably have a few things they have Prowess in, or are particularly good at. They'll have a few Items they can bring with them when walking a Path; items will be drawn from the Object Bucket/Pile, probably, at character creation.

I kind of want some other details too, simply because I like character sheets and I want to come up with stuff to fill one with. ;) I'm not really digging the usual Attribute-type stuff, though.
--------------------------

I know I haven't gotten into the "how" of the time travel, but it's relatively unimportant, thematically, as I see it. The content of the game - adventuring, lots of talky roleplay, killin' stuff in ancient ruins - is entirely left up to each group of Oracles. And the Big Reason for the End is best left to the GM, who can make it as simple or complicated as he'd like.

Thoughts? Comments? Aside from the aborted Dragon last week, this is my first attempt at a real game design, and I'd like to get the opinions of the Forge community as to viability, coolness factor, interest, and so on. 'ppreciate any feedback! =)

[Mike Holmes]

There was a mechanic sorta like this somewhere previously. Where you made up a little medicine bag ful o stuff, and used it to divine where play should go. I seem to remember Gareth Martin involved, but that could be faulty. Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

As for he design, I'm torn between the whole "starting blank" idea being esthetically a good or bad idea. I mean it works in video games because there's a whole world to explore. I'm not sure that this will translate to a TT game.

Essentially the setting is the protagonist in these things, not the character.

Mike

[anonymouse]

There was a mechanic sorta like this somewhere previously. Where you made up a little medicine bag ful o stuff, and used it to divine where play should go. I seem to remember Gareth Martin involved, but that could be faulty. Anyone remember what I'm talking about?

I did some digging via Search, but couldn't come up with anything; however, there are a lot of posts, and maybe my pattern was off just enough I missed the critical post. I'm more than happy to dig through the archives, though, if you've any more for me to go on. =)

As for he design, I'm torn between the whole "starting blank" idea being esthetically a good or bad idea. I mean it works in video games because there's a whole world to explore. I'm not sure that this will translate to a TT game.

Essentially the setting is the protagonist in these things, not the character.

I've let this stew for hours, thinking I was merely dense and not "getting it" but.. can you elaborate? Specifically, it seems like you're saying the Blank World approach is a potentially troubling one, and that players should have a very defined "court" or "field" to play on?

I've actually been having a lot of fun with the Blank World setup, playing Donjon, and in fact - now that I pause to think on it - I'm porting my experiences from playing that into the setup for this.

For the Donjon games, I setup a Town, and I outlined a few of the nearby areas (the Mountain of the Sea is southwest, the Ancient Ruins like to the north, and the Endless Grotto is out the east gate), and then the rest of it is up to the players to make up as they go along.

Except in Oracle, there's the Town, and the Past; and the Past is, literally, everywhere you can imagine. Is it simply too broad? Would including "snapshots" of different places and times help? Or.. hmm.

Originally, my concept for all of this was spun out of daydreams; there's this really great old church in downtown Portland, and I imagined something like that being set in the middle of a bustling city. Behind the big oaken doors is this unassuming monastary dedicated to Time, et cetera, et cetera.

Maybe I should try giving more focus. Or leave that focus up to the GM, depending on the time period(s) he wants to play in: the monks know that What Went Wrong happened in roughly This Period or That Place. Go from there.

[Mike Holmes]

Again, I'm very ambivalent. I'm not saying it's a bad idea.

Thing is, what do you see as the protagonist? What is it that the players are playing for? Normally in a game like, say, Donjon, the characters are the protagonists. But in the Blank Start game, they only tend to get as characterized as the people they come across, and the things they do. As I say, the setting makes the characters who they are, and that's where the protagonism comes in. It's like the setting is a character that the PCs have some link to intrinsically. Almost like the whole setting is a dream of the character.

The point is that without any base, I'm not sure that this will develop. Is the kernel of The Town enough? Maybe. In play I'd expect to see lots of memes, cliches, and tropes show up. A lot like what you see in Universalis, which starts blank as well. The question is whether or not the mechanics provided will impel the participants to create something interesting and coherent.

Looking at it, I think your sources of inspiration may be sufficient to the task. I'm starting to come around to seeing it happening. But can we get a third (and more) opinion on this?

Mike

[SrGrvsaLot]

I seem to be missing the point as well. The path is chosen randomly, and the characters are trying to walk that path?

A one sentence summary of what you want to do with this game could really help.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Unlike the other posters, I like the idea of a random draw laying out the structure and whatnot of the path to follow. I'm a big fan of Fortune providing the "bounce" that the person's creative agenda in question (G, N, or S) will have to work with.

I think the key thing is the Facts' GNS role. From a mainly-Simulationist viewpoint, the neat part of play is working the Facts themselves into a timeline and event/matrix that more-or-less creates the new universe. The watchword would be consistency with previous Facts and perhaps some thought into the metaphysics of time travel that are being illuminated for us, as players.

From a mainly-Narrativist viewpoint, it's more about options - why arrange this batch of Facts in arrangement A, rather than method B? Which requires some form of pressure or dramatic tension that would lead some people to B, and some to A.

The above are pretty crude and only present one application per mode of play, but I hope they make my point - I like what you've presented, and I think it could be a great basis for play, but the decision-making, aesthetic end remains a little vague to me at this point. And that's OK! All game design starts with Color, in my opinion; the question I'm asking now is only the second step, right on schedule.

Best,
Ron

[anonymouse]

Ron,

First, thanks for the support on the Path mechanic. I've had a small bit of trouble convincing myself that it's not only a neat idea, but a good idea, and hearing someone else express interest is a needed pick-me-up. ;)

Facts, Facts..

Ah! I've been thinking about your post for a day now, and just picked up on your point; not sure why it didn't click before. I think it's: why would you choose a "negative" Fact? Now, other than a pithy, "Because it's more interesting that way," I don't have a real answer. =/ Right now, I'm not sure there is such a thing as a 'negative' Fact as far as the game concerned.

// cut from Ron-reply, meandering replies to Mike's and Groove's posts //

Time-travel is a bitch. You have metaphysics and paradoxes and all kinds of things screwing with you in a normal game (and, for that matter, in current theory!), things that if you ignore them, you wind up with a vaguely dissastified feeling; you cheated, in a sense, because if you didn't, you would have killed your own grandfather and negated your birth et cetera et cetera et cetera.

What I see as a strong feature of Oracle is being able to screw with the timeline, with cause-and-effect, without having to worry about all that stuff. You start at the End of Time; things cannot get any worse.

To answer, "What do the players do?" I'd say they drop in at Past Point A, try and follow a general outline (the drawn Path) to Past Point B, then step back to the Temple and try and figure out if a) the effect they wanted happened, and b) how it may have impacted everything else. The goal is to explicitely mess with Time: to use, abuse, mangle, wrench, forge, shatter, weave it and try and pull off the biggest, grandest, most important act of savior-dom ever conceived. This is the ultimate "ends justify the means".

Thought: in the current state of Existance, there is no more real paradox, no cause-and-effect to worry about. The Oracles are trying to re-introduce that. By doing so, by re-directing an earlier Flow of Time and bypassing the End, they'll.. what, remain on an Island of Dead Time? Something. It's important to note that if this generated any kind of paradox, it's one that Time can accept. There should never be any confusion that reaching the Goal will somehow screw things up more. Success is not an illusion.

Thought 2: you could emphasise the whole, "and no one will ever know what you did if you succeed" bit.. but that's somewhat trite, and I don't really want to focus on it. It's.. unimportant? Hmm.

The actual process of following any particular Path is dictated entirely by a combination of what the Path is, and what the group wants to do. If the GM decides that the End came about because of a rampaging demon tearing a whole in spacetime, the game could be a linked series of dungeon-crawling interspersed with some investigation stuff as the characters try and repair little tears before slaying the demon.

Any finished product would likely include a number of possible Ends, along with the styles of play that seem to fit with each End the best.

// back to Ron-reply //

Okay, so after thinking through all that stuff, the application of Facts: to make the desired Effect (dictated by the Path) happen. It's like.. it's like assembling a puzzle? Someone tells you what the picture is of (a guy on a chair); they don't give any more descriptive details than that. You've got a whole mess of pieces to start with, but sometimes you need to make new pieces to fill in gaps, or replace broken pieces you started with.

That feels a little unsatisfying, but it also feels like I'm on the right track. Thank you for the comments! They did, indeed, make your point, and I appreciate it. =)

// back to game-design stuff //

I played with spreads a little bit tonight. My current thinking is something like this:

There are two main types of spreads; those that attempt to achieve Anchor Points, and those that attempt to Fix Things.

The AP is a 5-card spread. it is, in order: the necessary Effect, the Major Event, the Locale, a Significant Person, and the Cause. If the Oracles manage to walk this simple Path, they form an Anchor Point.

When the characters attempt to Fix Things, they lay a longer Path. The more AP they've completed, they.. get some kind of benefit.

Off-the-cuff metaphor: Anchor Points are like placing rocks in a river, so you can force the water to move certain ways. Drop enough rocks, and you can get the water to a point where it's easier to shift the flow one way or another.

..okay. That's all for now.

character goals:
* find out why this happened
* find out what it takes to change it
* make everything better again

..reading back over this whole thing, I think I can see a couple of different directions I'm trying to steer this, and not necessarily compatible ones. Definitely need to ponder this some more..

[anonymouse]

Mike,

Thing is, what do you see as the protagonist? What is it that the players are playing for? Normally in a game like, say, Donjon, the characters are the protagonists. But in the Blank Start game, they only tend to get as characterized as the people they come across, and the things they do. As I say, the setting makes the characters who they are, and that's where the protagonism comes in. It's like the setting is a character that the PCs have some link to intrinsically. Almost like the whole setting is a dream of the character.

Okay, I've definitely caught on to what you're saying, and I think it's a spot-on assessment. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad either.. primarily because I've never played anything of this sort, so I don't have experience to draw on.

I'm wondering if the setting (Time, Existance) is the main character which all the players have some control over. After all, they're trying to make it "grow" towards a certain goal. The characters, then, would be supporting roles.

Oh. Hmm. Actually, it'd be more like Setting = main character, PCs = interface or method or somesuch.

I'm not entirely sure it would be quite that obvious, or that players would mind even if they came to that conclusion, but it still bugs me a bit.

So.. yes. Hmm.

I'll definitely have to decide if this is how I want things to be, or if it would make the game better to shift focus; and if so, how to go about doing that.

Also, re: inspiration, just so I have it all out there:

the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time: the Temple of Time and its theme music (a chant-type piece) was the definite genesis for all this. I've daydreamed the Temple into a number of different incarnations over the years.

the Dune Chronicles: for the ideas of man running down a "dead end", and for the concept of walking down a path of Fate so tightly you could go blind and still find your way through the world.. because you had already seen it all happen.

the Legend of Mana: for the Starting Location/Character Items/"object bucket" thing. The game has a system whereby you can recover various artifacts and build up the game world with new locations. I liked the idea of different objects from the whole of the past washing up on the beach, having an Oracle go down and collect these things, and using them as some kind of focus.

There have probably been others, but since those were the main three (besides Dragon, which I already 'splained) I cited, I kind of wanted to expand on it a little.

I think I've a whole mess of Color so far, and yeah, need to sit down and start working out the mechanics of this. Any other input's still appreciated. =)

[Jonathan Walton]

If you haven't read Aetherco's Continuum, you definitely need to take a look.  Best/most realistic time travel game ever, in my opinion.  Even if you don't use any of the concepts in it, it'll change the way you see time travel games forever.  At least, it did for me.  Some people also swear by GURPS Time Travel, but they're completely different beasts in my book.

[anonymouse]

I haven't read it; its been in the back of my mind since I started this thread. I wish they had a PDF version, but I may have to break down and buy a physical copy just to see how others have done this.

*prints out order page*

I think I've actually seen you mention Continuum elsewhere on the boards, but I'm glad for the pointed reminder. =)

// general side-note //

Oracle doesn't need to be based on Tarot cards, but they're what I have handy, and seem to work pretty well. And there's certainly no one deck that should be used with it. I plan on making it pretty open as far as the Path/divination aspect goes, so one group could use I Ching if they wanted, and another could use runes.

In fact, the method of Path-divination that's chosen will probably influence some of the game's tone.

// return to reply //

RPG.net has some reviews I'm reading, and are serving to get me interested. ;) It sounds like the game definitely has concepts that even if I don't tweak directly, will at least get me thinking about some of it.

[Mike Holmes]

When I'm reading this, it's exactly Ocarina of Time I'm thinking of. In no small part due to having just personally completed Majora's Mask about a month ago. My wife is also a big fan of these games which is the real reason that we own them.

In any case, the point is that, in these games, the character has no "character". As the video game avatar, the only protagonism that occurs with the "main character" is that they eventually win. But it's very much their link to the the destiny of the realm that causes this (the player will play until success occurs, so they are really a small part of motivating this).  

So, yes, I agree very much that in this model, the "protagoinist" is the realm itself. The various spiritual characters (faeries, for instance), that inhabit the place, and are the source of the materials and strength that the character needs to succeed at the individual subtasks. You don't play to be cool, you play to see the world and story unfold.

To contrast, Final Fantasy is different in that the story is about the characters.

You have a greater opportunity in an RPG to elaborate on that by allowing for more protagonization of the main character. But you seem to be somewhat ignoring that. Or I may be reading you wrong. In any case, protagonizng the setting is a neat option.

I guess what I'm saying is that I'd like to see some statement about what the protagonism is going to be about. Is it the players' choice? Or is it one or the other (character or setting)? In any case, how do you direct whichever you choose with the mechanics? That's the most important question.

Mike[/i]

[anonymouse]

Mike,

Using video/computer game terminology, the difference between a Zelda game and a Final Fantasy game is that the former is an adventure game, while the latter is a role-playing game, for exactly the points you make. By my book, Zelda would actually be action-adventure, but that's a minor quibble as far as this discussion goes.

And so I think Oracle will follow that path, with the Setting as the protagonist. Which is going to be.. weird. I'm interesting in seeing where I wind up going with this! Can anyone think of other games that have gone this route? I'm not familiar with enough games to be able to see how others might've done this (though a much-discounted copy of Continuum is on its way via eBay; thanks Jonathan!).

Since the main goal in the game is to change the effective makeup of the setting (that is, all of Time, all of Existance), it seems like the natural choice. The characters are there to facilitate the change.

Hmm. Winding up as some kind of Gamist/Narrative mix?

[Mike Holmes]

I'm not seeing the Gamism side of things. How is failure in-game a bad thing here? Seems part of the process. Where is the non-storytelling challenge?

Mike

[anonymouse]

Disregard that, then; just me tripping over the Forge terms. =/