Purgatory: An RPG About Regret

[Matt Gwinn]

Hey everyone, I finally got off my ass and started work on a new RPG. It was originally titled "4th Edition" and was about D&D style character that sought redemption after a lifetime of killing and hoarding treasure. As I started work on a mechanic the idea boadened and got a lot darker.  The end result is Purgatory.

You can download the PDF HERE

It's just a rough draft, but I think it's playable enough to start playtesting.  Let me know what you think. It's already been compared to Le Mon Mouri which I'm taking as a good sign since I've heard lots of good stuff about it (though I've never player it).

,Matt Gwinn

[iago]

Haven't gotten into it yet, but I will note, I really wish the PDF used bookmarks (the electronic style), as I often look those over first (akin to browsing a table of contents) in order to get a sense of the overall structure of the game.

[iago]

Reading through it now.

I like the idea of Clarity, quite a lot; the sentence about how higher clarity means less awareness of being dead gives me a feeling like I'm reading something that could be used for, say, a game based on The Sixth Sense (With a central character having Clarity 6, Rage 1, Understanding 1).

That said, I have a hard time reconciling the idea that high Clarity means a lower awareness of one's condition, but Understanding as that which represents the awareness of what he's become ... If someone had both high Clarity and high Understanding, couldn't that create a paradox of "I am not aware I'm dead" and "I'm very aware that I'm dead"?

The game seems geared for one GM, one player (or, with multiple players, seems to relegate them to standing around for ten minutes per other player doing nothing, acting as the audience, or playing NPCs).  If that's so, I think it needs explicit mentioning.

I think the game needs a little more discussion of the notion that spending Guilt imparts circumstances which can grant temporary extra ability to the PC in a few cases, but the spending is controlled by the GM (at least, that's how it's written), because that could be counterintuitive.  It's muddledhow these expenditures amount to the GM "using the PC's guilt against him".  This is certainly clear in a few of the cases (ending a possession, failure on a die roll) but others seem less clear (speaking with the living, allowing yourself to be seen by the living) as they seem to be something the player might actually want to happen.

Is there a particular reason why someone would never roll their Understanding?  The three attributes seem, on the first page, to be presented as a trio of equals, but the "two of these roll, one doesn't" bit on the third page left me blinking a bit.

In other news, I know this is a rough draft, but as it stands, it needs serious copy-editing and/or a nice thorough run through a spell checker and grammar validator. :)

I see the seeds of a very interesting idea here, though.  Do more!

[Matt Gwinn]

I like the idea of Clarity, quite a lot; the sentence about how higher clarity means less awareness of being dead gives me a feeling like I'm reading something that could be used for, say, a game based on The Sixth Sense (With a central character having Clarity 6, Rage 1, Understanding 1).

That's exactly how it should work, though Sixth Sense is just as much about the boy as the Ghost.

That said, I have a hard time reconciling the idea that high Clarity means a lower awareness of one's condition, but Understanding as that which represents the awareness of what he's become ... If someone had both high Clarity and high Understanding, couldn't that create a paradox of "I am not aware I'm dead" and "I'm very aware that I'm dead"?

I was referring to characters with a Clarity of 5 or 6 which would mean an Understanding no greater than 2. Although there is a possibility of a paradox occuring in a long running game when a character that started with a high Understanding starts resolving a lot of Regrets (increasing his Clarity).

I think I may rewrite it so Understanding imparts the knowledge that you are cursed rather than the knowledge that you are dead.  The Revenant's understanding of his own suffering might drive him to do things.

Characters are not supposed to have this great insight of "I have this goal I need to accomplish". Characters with a low Understanding might simply stumble through scene after scene and never figure out what is important or that they are supposed to do anything at all.  Understanding is supposed to be a sense of "I'm supposed to do something here".  I see it like the characters in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where the main character knew there was something wrong with him, knew that he was supposed to be doing something, and that somehow the image of a big tower like shape was important to it.

The game seems geared for one GM, one player (or, with multiple players, seems to relegate them to standing around for ten minutes per other player doing nothing, acting as the audience, or playing NPCs). If that's so, I think it needs explicit mentioning.

Purgatory is not meant to be played in "Party Style".  When was the last time you saw a serious ghost story that had a group of ghost trying to help each other solve their problems?  There's no reason why a group of ghost couldn't share a Regret, but for now I'd like to concentrate on the individual characters and maybe work that in later. Purgatory is not meant for everyone, and if someone can't maintain interest in  the other players' characters for 20 to 30 minutes he probably shouldn't play the game.

I think the game needs a little more discussion of the notion that spending Guilt imparts circumstances which can grant temporary extra ability to the PC in a few cases, but the spending is controlled by the GM (at least, that's how it's written), because that could be counterintuitive. It's muddledhow these expenditures amount to the GM "using the PC's guilt against him". This is certainly clear in a few of the cases (ending a possession, failure on a die roll) but others seem less clear (speaking with the living, allowing yourself to be seen by the living) as they seem to be something the player might actually want to happen.

I was kind of in a hurry to get that part finsihed so I could post the game, so I didn't go into as much detail as I wanted. When the GM makes a character visible or tangible it is definetly not supposed to be a good thing. It should be done at the worst possible moment.  Imagine a young girl talking to what she thinks is her imaginary friend only to have some horrible visage of a corpse appear in front of her. I also intend to expand the list greatly as the game gets playtested.

Is there a particular reason why someone would never roll their Understanding? The three attributes seem, on the first page, to be presented as a trio of equals, but the "two of these roll, one doesn't" bit on the third page left me blinking a bit.

Is there a particular reason why an attribute should need a roll associated with it? I don't think one all attributes should need the same mechanics as long as their effects are balanced.  

Unlike Clarity and Rage, Understanding imparts a level of direct influence on the scene. IMO it grants just as much power to the player as becoming tangible or speaking to the living.  A character can interact with the mortal world all he wants, but with only 10 minutes to solve his problem he will be wasting a lot of time and a lot of scenes trying to determine which aspects of the scene relate to his Regrets. Understanding lets the character see these things immediately.

In other news, I know this is a rough draft, but as it stands, it needs serious copy-editing and/or a nice thorough run through a spell checker and grammar validator. :)

It is indeed a rough draft.  I wrote it over the period of a couple hours and didn't spell check. I also expect most of it to be rewritten a few time so correcting the grammar is kind of a mute point this early into things.

Thanks for the response.

,Matt Gwinn[/quote]

[iago]

That's exactly how it should work, though Sixth Sense is just as much about the boy as the Ghost.

Yeah.  I like the idea of turning that on its ear, though, with each ghost in Sixth Sense being a PC, and the boy being a central NPC that shows up in all of their scenes.

I think I may rewrite it so Understanding imparts the knowledge that you are cursed rather than the knowledge that you are dead.  The Revenant's understanding of his own suffering might drive him to do things.

That definitely seems a bit more distinct; I like that.

Purgatory is not meant to be played in "Party Style".  When was the last time you saw a serious ghost story that had a group of ghost trying to help each other solve their problems?  There's no reason why a group of ghost couldn't share a Regret, but for now I'd like to concentrate on the individual characters and maybe work that in later. Purgatory is not meant for everyone, and if someone can't maintain interest in  the other players' characters for 20 to 30 minutes he probably shouldn't play the game.

I don't have an argument with this!  It's just that it's something I had to figure out about the game, rather than it being obvious from the get-go, so it might be worthwhile saying what you're saying above, up front.

I was kind of in a hurry to get that part finsihed so I could post the game, so I didn't go into as much detail as I wanted. When the GM makes a character visible or tangible it is definetly not supposed to be a good thing. It should be done at the worst possible moment.  Imagine a young girl talking to what she thinks is her imaginary friend only to have some horrible visage of a corpse appear in front of her. I also intend to expand the list greatly as the game gets playtested.

That makes it a bit more clear.  Even a single example per line item would vastly improve the understanding of the mechanic in play.

[kamikaze]

Hey everyone, I finally got off my ass and started work on a new RPG. It was originally titled "4th Edition" and was about D&D style character that sought redemption after a lifetime of killing and hoarding treasure. As I started work on a mechanic the idea boadened and got a lot darker.  The end result is Purgatory.

You need to change that name, since there's already a Purgatory RPG:
http://www.atomichyrax.com/

First thing I do when making a new game is brainstorm a bunch of names, and use Google to check each name out.

[jdrakeh]

Hey everyone, I finally got off my ass and started work on a new RPG. It was originally titled "4th Edition" and was about D&D style character that sought redemption after a lifetime of killing and hoarding treasure. As I started work on a mechanic the idea boadened and got a lot darker.  The end result is Purgatory.

You need to change that name, since there's already a Purgatory RPG:
http://www.atomichyrax.com/

First thing I do when making a new game is brainstorm a bunch of names, and use Google to check each name out.

I was just coming to that, myself (a copy of Jon Wilkie's Purgatory RPG is sitting less than a foot away from me right now). kamikaze a good suggestion when it comes to searching out licensed IP. I use the following two sites:

http://www.uspto.gov/ (to search for trademarks)

and

http://www.copyright.gov/records/ (to search for copyrights)

Both search engines are free for public use.

Sincerely,
James D. Hargrove