Mridangam: Vedic Superheroic Dance-Drama

[Shreyas Sampat]

Mridangam is a game based in Vedic mythology and the classical Indian dance-drama; its play is intended to mimic the traditional structure of a Bharata Natyam performance.  As such, it's got a lot of Sanskrit dance terminology going on.  Please bear with me.  My question about this game is, do the mechanics address the stated premise?  Does the structure of the various types of scenes create distraction, or is it useful?

Edit: There is another (short) discussion of Mridangam.

Power is nothing but beauty in motion.
Unfortunately, the world is full of ugliness.  Sometimes our passions and duties make us do ugly things for the beauty in our hearts.

Characters:
Characters have two scaled qualities, Nritta and Abhinaya, meaning Dance and Expression.  Nritta is a character's raw physicality; with Nritta you can leap across a river or lift an elephant.  Abhinaya is the character's ability to communicate with the world.  Diplomacy, driving a chariot, composing a poem, these kinds of things can be done with Abhinaya.  These are measured on a five-point scale from d4 to d12, where d12 is the high point.  They represent the dancer's potential.  There is also a sliding scale of twelve points, which marks the balance of energy the dancer has available at any moment.  One end of the scale is Titiksha, endurance.  The other end of the scale is Samadhi, concentration.  

Important characters have Kama and Dharma (passion and duty).  Kama contains things that the character is attached to by desire; Dharma contains things bound to the character by duty.

Finally, characters also have Mudras; a Mudra is a mystical ability, or in dance a specific, meaningful pattern of gestures.  A pool of Hastas (motions of the hand) permits characters to make use of their Mudras.  For example, many mythological Vedic heros had super-Archery Mudras: they could do things like slay entire armies with a single arrowshot, or fill the sky with arrows to keep a forest dry from rain.  Mudras can only be used if you're attempting to follow your Dharma or satisfy your Kama.

The Die Mechanic:
You're trying to do something, but someone - or something - is giving you a hard time.  What do you do?
Each person rolls 3d8.  If you want, you can roll your Nritta and/or Abhinaya dice; you should be able to tell these apart from the other dice and each other.  Assign exactly one die to each of three categories: Artha, Kama, and Moksha.  Assigning low rolls to categories earns you Hastas, but will force you to violate your duties or distance yourself from your passions.  Very high rolls are the opposite; they don't earn you Hastas, but they allow you to follow your Passions (Kama and Dharma.)  If you're assigning a Nritta or Abhinaya die, it counts as no greater than the corresponding energy: Titiksha limits Nritta, and Samadhi limits Abhinaya.
You can wager Samadhi or Titiksha to raise the roll of the corresponding quality, but then you can't roll the other quality's die.  The die counts as its value plus the amount of energy wagered, and if you use the die, then the scale slides to in favor of the energy not used, so if you used enhanced Nritta, then Titiksha turns into Samadhi, enabling you to use stronger Abhinaya.  If you use either quality die, you have to describe how the ability brought about the result in its category.
Finally, you can spend a Hasta to activate a Mudra, which allows you to add a quality die to a default die, and get better results that way.  Obviously, you have to describe the use of the Mudra.

Artha determines the scope of the consequences of the relevant conflict.
Kama determines whether you attain your immediate goal.
Moksha decides the moral repercussions of the action.

The Structure of the Game:
The story progresses in a series of scenes corresponding to the separate parts of the dance-drama.

Introduction
Pushpanjali: The Offering of Flowers
Setup.  This is where characters are created and the setting is decided upon.
Alarippu: The Blooming Salutation
This stage begins the action of the game, with at least one Kicker scene occurring.
Jatisvaram: Rhythm and Pattern
This scene is a moment of everyday, uneventful life, a moment of respite from tension.  The Kama and Dharma of the heroes appear here.

Body
Shabdam: Words
The Shabdam begins the action of the heroes learning more about the central conflict.  Any characters that have not been Kicked should be, now.  After the Shabdam, interlude scenes can be interleaved with the fixed scenes of the plot.  Here we learn how it is that the Kama and Dharma are threatened by the conflict.
Varnam: Sanctum
Here the heroes begin to struggle for their passions, setting out on the journey out of their ordinary lives into the world of myth.
Padam: Love
This is another scene of the Passions.
Tillana: Spellbinding
In the Tillana, the heroes overcome their conflicts.
Mangalam: Refuge
This depicts the return of the heroes to their ordinary lives.

Interludes
Javali: Lightening of Mood
In a Javali, the heroes meet with someone who can aid them on their quest, either by lending strength or offering understanding.
Kirtanam: Praise of God
In a kirtanam, the heroes pass through an ordeal which gives them renewed strength to face their challenges.  Here a hero can spend 10 Hastas to learn a new Mudra power.

[Spooky Fanboy]

I cannot tell you how drool-inspiringly cool this looks. I would like to see more. Please put more up as soon as you are able.

And please clarify: What are the stats that make up a character? How many Mudras does a character learn at the beginning? How do you determine Samadhi and Titiksha?

And actually, in this game, having discrete stages for how the adventure progresses is probably a good thing. I'd keep them.

Question: why would a character put any dice in moral repercussions for Moksha? Or the higher the dice, the less the character suffers?

[Shreyas Sampat]

Spooky, thanks for the good words.  Some answers to your questions:

A character at creation might look like this:

Karna
Spiritual descendant of Surya, the sun god

Nritta: d10
Abhinaya: d6
Karna is physically exceptional, but is not the most impressive of diplomats.

Titiksha * * * * * *|* * * * * * Samadhi
Even split until the energies are disturbed.

Kama:
Claim my just inheritance from my estranged father, the sage Vyasa.
Be honoured for my mother's royal blood, even though she gave me up and denies me.

Dharma:
Honour my adoptive parents and their trade.

Mudra:
Born with magical golden armour and earrings that provide safety and are dazzlingly beautiful.


The die scales are universally low=bad, high=good, so a high die in Moksha is good, not bad.  The point is that spiritual power (Hastas) come from trials, whether voluntary (meditation and asceticism, the domain of the sages and not this game) or involuntary (the conflicts of Kama and Dharma).

[Spooky Fanboy]

Okay,

How does Moksha affect the game?

What does the armor on your example character do for him that's magical?

What effect does distance from your passions or slacking your duties have?

I think I need a lexicon to get a grip on this game, but I'm still willing to learn. This seems like what I remember of Hero Wars, but I actually think I can get a handle on this system.

[Jonathan Walton]

You rock, as always.

Questions/Issues:

1. If adding dice from attributes is optional, why would a player want to add a die that was lower than a d8?  Does it just give them one extra die to choose from, in case the d8's roll really low?  I guess I don't see this really making an obvious difference in the outcome of rolls, unless the dice are pretty high (d12 or d20).

2. I like how the Artha/Kama/Moksha mechanic is yet another child of The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, one of the greatest designs ever.  And the sliding scale between Titiksha and Samadhi is pretty sweet too (a little bit like the Yin-Yang scale in Kindred of the East, but cooler).  However, I'm not convinced that they'll really affect rolls and outcomes that much.  Even if the math works out, they don't seem intuitively that effective to me, which could be a problem even if the probabilities are sound.  If players can't obviously see the advantage in rolling a d10 that has a max value of 6 or 7 (which, to me, doesn't sound like much better odds than a d8), I don't know if you'll get the play-aesthetic that you want, because players may not act in ways that you expect them too (simply based on odds).

3.  The game structure kicks ass and takes names.  Between my recent work on Argonauts, The GM is Dead, and this, I'm really starting to feel a move towards more clearly structured forms of play, especially in Simulationist designs that try to mimick a particular feel or color.  Giving the GM some solid guidelines can help better create that kind of tone and makes the "story" follow paths that are clearly a part of the genre.

Keep it coming.

[ADGBoss]

I like a great many things about this game but one of the most important things that I think it does is something I am trying to do with my own systems / settings.  

The intelligent use of Language to convey mood.  Reading through just the various terms and their definitions I felt like I was entering a new world.

Those of you who may have seen me rant about V:TM and its use of "language" know of my disdain for rotschrect or however one spells it and other such terms which seem to make no sense.  This makes sense.

Its amazing to (and I am as guilty or more guilty of abusing the written medium as most) that in an industry / art form we do not give more careful attention to language.

This is good stuff

Sean
ADGBoss

[Andy Kitkowski]

As someone who just wrapped up a BESM game based on stories from the Vedas, as well as finished my 3rd viewing of the Mhabharata DVD, I'd just like to say that if you make this game you can pretty much name your price and I'll pay it.

Alternately, that also means if you drop the project or don't finish it within two years that I'll rip your arms out.

Krishna (to Arju...er, Andy): "Life is an Illusion. There is no one ripping out arms of designers, and no designers having their arms ripped out."

[Little_Rat]

*nods* this does seem very interesting but I think you might want to add more to the catagory containing strength and expression- what if you have a character that isn't very good at either, perhaps a quiet scholary type. Will expression have diferent categories then? A poet and a politician might have similar expressive abilities but not necicarily in the same arena.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Replies in reverse, as usual.

Andy, thanks for the justification.  It's good to know that I'm writing for an audience that consists of larger than me.  I can tell you right now that this is one project I don't intend on dropping, though it might not recieve the energy that Torchbearer is getting - there's so much less to create (but there's a lot to interpret and work in.  I'm clearly going to have to grab a pile of books and translate the heroes of the Mahabharata and Ramayana into game terms if I ever want to put this thing into print.)

Please, tell us more about your game; I haven't seen any AP postings on BESM, and I'd like to know how well it does, being bent to support different genres.


Sean, thanks.  That's one of the things that I try to do in any game.  One thing that worried me about its use here is that all of it is more or less exotic Sanskrit, probably as likely to be off-putting as it is to set mood.


Jonathan, great, thought-provoking questions.  Some of my thoughts in response:
1 and 2 both concern the mathematics of the game, something I'm shaky on myself.  I'd like to try and retain the bones of the mechanic, while changing the math so that it all works the way it's intended to.  In light of that, this is what the mechanic should do:
Provide choices for the players to make.
Make it so that even if one ability is significantly lower than another, the players will still choose to use both of them on a more or less regular basis, based on the utility they expect from them.
Provide incentive to use Mudras and wager Titiksha/Samadhi, based on their own expected utility.

I totally agree with your thoughts on game structure - in this variety of Sim, it's such a tempting tool that I couldn't ignore it, and it helps bind the game more firmly into the 'dance drama' aspect of it, as opposed to just the Vedic supers part.


Spooky:

It's kind of like this.

Artha:
Low: Your achievement is ultimately useless.
Medium: Your achievement has some far-reaching benefit.
High: Your achievement was crucial in realizing your long-term goal.

Kama:
Low: You get a little farther from what you were trying to do.
Medium: You don't make any impressive progress, but you might get something done.
High: You do something significant.

Moksha:
Low: You harm someone you are close to or transgress your principles.
Medium: The repercussions of your action are more or less morally neutral.
High: You perform a significant service to the world or experience a moment of spiritual clarity.

All of these are rather loose and interdependent, open to interpretation.

Let's take the Mahabharata's battle at Kurukshetra for an example.  At one point, the opposing army has executed it's "Ring of Shields" manuever, which only you can defeat.
Supposing you rolled high on Kama but low on both Artha and Moksha, then you break through the shield wall, but there was nothing important inside, and what's more you're trapped inside, along with your charioteer.
Alternatively, you kill the people trying to tell you that it's a decoy even as you're breaking the wall, in a fit of battle-fury.

If you had chosen to put the high roll in Artha, then maybe it was very important tactically that you discover the ultimate falsehood of the shield wall, and this gives you an advantage later, but you are forced to use dishonourable battle tactics to do this.

Edit to reply to LittleRat:
The examples are actually a bit misleading.  Rather, it should be that they're approaches to solving any sort of problem.  
For example, you're trying to cross a gorge.  You can use Nritta to leap across it, or Abhinaya to help your retainers build a bridge.
You're trying to convince a king that you're worthy of marrying his daughter.  You can use Nritta to shoot a flock of birds, each one in the left eye, or you could use Abhinaya to demonstrate your knowledge of the classics.  Things like that.

[Palaskar]

I would like to praise you for the enormous color this game evokes.

I have to add and agree, though, that this game -needs- a handy lexicon. I'd also add the the English translations of the Sanskrit words in parenthesis (sp?) the first 4 or 5 times they're used. After that, readers should have caught on.

[Shreyas Sampat]

Okay, I'm going to do a quick rundown of the terminology (by origin, giving their outside meaning first and the game meaning, if significantly different, in parentheses) and then talk about math.

Dance Terminology:
The whole scene structure of the game; these come from the structure of the traditional Bharata Natyam graduation recital.  The translations are already included.
Nritta: 'Pure dance.'  This is dance that is purely ornamental in nature, interpretive rather than expressive. (Any "physical, self-sufficient" approach to problem-solving is covered here)
Abhinaya: 'The language of gesture.'  Abhinaya refers to portions of a dance recital where the choreography tells a story in stylized mime. (Any abstract or communication approach to problem-solving is covered here)
Titiksha: endurance, stamina.  One of the qualities of a good dancer. (The strength to perform great physical feats)
Hasta: Any specific meaningful gesture. (The power to perform Mudras)

Religious Terminology:
Samadhi: 'holy fire.'  The power that derives from concentration, austerities, and meditative insight.  Wisdom. (The concentration to communicate difficult concepts)
Kama: sensual desire.  Also the name of an Eros-like love deity who shoots flowering arrows. (The bonds of sensuality or the force of desire)
Dharma: duty.  'Proper place in the world.'  Ties in with the caste system and other things.  A righteous way of living. (The bonds of duty)
Mudra: A gesture focusing spiritual power. (A specific mystical ability activated through gesture)
Artha: material desire, the second force that ties people to the world. (utility) Like Kama, not necessarily unvirtuous, though less so than Dharma and Moksha.
Moksha: freedom, enlightenment.  The goal of Moksha is merger with the Divine. (the character's ability to follow moral law, consciously and otherwise)


Math:
Still stumped here.  Help?
I'm thinking that instead of having Titiksha and Samadhi, they can be discarded  totally, and characters can have a success dicepool split between Nritta and Abhinaya.  If you need to perform an action exceptionally well, you can overreach yourself; this causes dice equal to the amount you overreached to slide into the other pool.  Then default dice are unnecessary - you must choose between Nritta or Abhinaya for any dice action - and you can set up the A/K/M mechanic as a "distribute successes among these' kind of thing.

[Jonathan Walton]

Hmm... the only problem I see with just having a Nritta-Abhinaya split is that it doesn't give you much variation in characters.  PCs would basically be defined by which of the two attributes they favored and then by Kamas, Dharmas, and Mudras.  In that case, it seems odd that the major resolution mechanic is based on attributes, when the focus of the system is on non-attributes (Kama/Dharma/Mudra).  Are you sure that Mridigam needs to follow the traditional route and be attribute-centric?  Did you choose that format or simply fall into it out of habit?  Is there a way you can ditch an attribute system entirely and focus more on the Kama/Dharma/Mudra system & the unique game structure, which, to me at least, seem to be the most important parts of the system?

The problem would be how to generate a die mechanic out of things that aren't quantified numerically.  Then again, maybe you don't need numbers to create a World-Flesh-Devil-eque split.  In your description, you seem to only need to detemine Low-Med-High for each of Artha/Kama/Moksha.  Maybe Fudge dice (Low = "-"  High = "+"  Med= "blank")?  You roll a bunch of dice and then assign them to A/K/M, and any additional "+" you don't assign can be saved up for powering special abilities.  That way, you still reward players for choosing to fail.  And interpretation could be easier, since a "Medium" result would be more open and less restrictive than a "4."  And you could have a simple mechanic for figuring out how many dice to roll (the number of traits that applied to a given situation?  a single "level" attribute?).

Just some thoughts that came to me this morning.  Take 'em or leave 'em.