Reflections (idea stage)

[Seth M. Drebitko]

I have been working with the idea close in nature to sliders the tv series in which people could travel from one alternate earth to another but with a couple major changes.

In reflections it is ideas, beliefs, and all sorts of other similarities which connect the separate realities. People are able to travel to plains of existence that share common ideas and beliefs with the characters but the less people in a reality that share that common bond with the character the harder travel is.

Example: A character is a cyber knight seeking to travel to a primitive time setting so he "reflects" himself into a society in a reality which constantly upholds a similar knights code to that which he follows. He then in this plain discovers that yet another reality he wishes to travel to exists but he does not have much in common with it so he studies and begins to adopt the belief system of that reality in order to easily travel there.

Mirror Men: Anomalies amongst those of their species which are capable of traveling from one reality to another regardless of beliefs and such though it is a good idea to adopt as much as you can as travel is easier and safer. These are the movers and shakers of the big societies that wish to spread to new worlds as it is their job to infiltrate the new reality and change the society as much as possible so it becomes like the invading world thus allowing armies of like minded individuals to invade and reform the new reality.

The game idea: Players will be mirror men working towards whatever goal they wish maybe attaining power for themselves, for an organization but for whatever reason they will be traveling from one reality to another at least a little bit over the course of the game. Character advancement for the most part will involve gaining new traits, and attributes form other realities such as cybernetics, magic, belief structures. The currency used in the game will be a characters "identity" who and what he was before he started this whole big life of travel.


The question that I specifically have is does any one have any ideas what maybe the effects of losing ones identity could do  mechanically to a character as well as how a character gets his identity back or even if he ever can.

I am open to any ideas or input that you might have such as additional stuff to fit into the setting mechanics any thing.

Regards, Seth

[Thunder_God]

Give me the system basics so I could build on it? :)

Also, you're alternating between two contradictory things: Do you need to share as many beliefs as possible in order to make travel easier, or the world you're in needs to share as many beliefs as possible to the linked world?

[MatrixGamer]

Seth

When I read your piece I thought of people sneaking into the Louvre add to and altering master pieces. Your players have the monumental task of rewriting worlds.

Heavy stuff.

You will need some way of describing what a world is and a way of altering it as the game is played to reflect the player's progress. At the same time you want to be able to show a characters beliefs and show how they've changed. I think a mechanism I've used in Engle Matrix Games might be helpful.

Imagine that the world is a grid of squares. Each square holds a short statement or picture of some key part of the world. This is the world matrix (which is why I call them Matrix Games). Now imagine each square as a sheet of paper. The short descriptive phrase is at the top but there are many lines underneath it for additions. Each action of the players is entered in a line.

For instance: "There is NO such thing as magic."

1. Bob casts a raise the dead spell.
2. Bob does it again on national TV.
3. Etc.

Over time the added lines alter, add to, or negate the initial statement. At some point the GM or maybe the players could change the top line to reflect the new reality. As the game is played they have to cope with the often violent reaction people have to having their belief systems challenged. I see characters fleeing angry mobs a lot!

This could be done for player character sheets as well. They have beliefs which are challenged by what they see. Their old beliefs never really go away but are slowly undermined. If they went back ot a world that "made sense" then the lines would get filled with "reasonable ideas" that would slowly rehabilitate them (kind of like going into psychotherapy.)

I'm not certain what kind of rules mechanisms you want to use to make up those changes in the world but this is a real quick and easy mechanism for showing the changes. You can literally glance at the top grid and get a feel for what the world is like. It is incomplete but humans tend to automatically fill in the blanks in pictures to make it a coherent whole.

Chris Engle

PS: For a real world way of understanding this, think about how it feels to get off a plane in Europe, Africa, India, The Deep South. All are different and the difference is a shock. We learn how to ignore what we don't like and add in what we do. If you do too much of this you leave your old world behind and become cosmopolitan, have African masks on your walls, listen to South American music, watch Japanese TV, and eat Indian cooking (because you can get Chinese food anywhere now.)

[Seth M. Drebitko]

Give me the system basics so I could build on it? :)

Ok what I am thinking for system basics is that your "self" score is a sliding scale thaqt goes up and down based on checks that you make against it.

You would make checks for the following reasons
-You are forced to come to terms with a concept that your character is unable to fathom and you choose to follow it.
-You adopt a new concept (explained below).
-You gain a new rank in a concept which you have previously failed a check in.
-You directly deny the "truth" of one of your systems or concepts.

Characters are composed of four basic parts (for the moment at least)

Systems: The three basic categories of things that will challenge the players self. Each player always starts with natural and must choose one of the other two.
     -Natural, all things that are universally shared between the two main opposing groups.
     -Technological, Any thing relating to technology.
     -Supernatural, Any thing which cannot be explained through scientific means.

Concepts: A further division of systems into specific ideas such as, cybernetics, sorcery, ruins, karate. These will act as the basic things the character has picked up on and act as guidelines for his characteristics.

Characteristics: Specific things in a concept that the character uses to his advantage one example may be knight of the flaming sword, or powered armor suite.

Knacks: Knacks are the smallest most defined area of the game representing the actual special advantages a characteristic offers. A knack may be a specific weapons system on the power armor suite, or even the advantage of having connections within the knights of the flaming sword. You will be allowed a number of knacks based on your characteristic rank.

The "self": A sliding conflicted gauge that represents the characters ability to integrate himself into a given reality. The more he diversifies his beliefs and the things that truly define him the more he disassociates with himself.  The good in disassociation is that the more you disassociate the more you can start believing in the things around you even though they may regularly contradicted one another. The draw back to having a low association with ones self is that it limits the amount of time you are able to stay on one single plain of existence before your "self" withers and dies.

This is all I have for system right now I am looking to expand on it a great deal after I can get the setting and concept a little more banged out.

Also, you're alternating between two contradictory things: Do you need to share as many beliefs as possible in order to make travel easier, or the world you're in needs to share as many beliefs as possible to the linked world?

Sorry for confusion I will more clearly write up the idea as it has been altered a bit.

*There are many realities in existence and normal mortals through the use of technology or magic are able to slip between the realities but only if the starting reality matches close enough to the ending reality.

*Mirror men are special cases randomly empowered beings capable of not slipping put pushing their way from one reality to the next. Mirror men find that adopting the concepts of planes they wish to travel to much less painful and a much easier travel experience which is why they diversify themselves.

*Enterprising mortals have employed the use of  Mirror men to affect other realities enough to let there agents begin slipping in to further the cause of converting the populace for conquest. A good example might be real our reality an increased interest in the occult in the public could for example be allowing a few agents from another realm to slip into our reality here and there at which point they would they would aid the Mirror Men in implanting concepts into the population.

*Not all Mirror men work for large empires some fight against there spread but they quickly find themselves hunted. No one is quite sure of the reason for the existence of the Mirror Men but what ever it is it has not been found as there seems to be no pattern to imbuing or even any real drive behind the Mirror Men.

*One thing that suggests the Mirror Men may be being created by some higher being is the fact that when one is first awoken to its abilities it sends a shock wave out across the cosmos which other Mirror Men can pick up on and often seek out. The reason for this is to form protective groups as well as being able to share more beliefs amongst themselves without risk of losing ones self.

When I read your piece I thought of people sneaking into the Louvre add to and altering master pieces. Your players have the monumental task of rewriting worlds.

I like the picture that your description paints. The First book will strictly be about the life of a Mirror Man and the players may choose what there characters do if they wish to alter realities for the purpose of conquest or whatever other reason that is there decision. I do however plan on creating a small little supplement to go along with this core book that will detail the actual empires expanding outwards and provide rules to have players compete against one another for domination of worlds. Thanks for the ideas though gives me lots of thoughts.

So my question
Should "self" be some thing you can get back, if so how?
Is there anything you think should or should not be part of this setting?
What types of mechanics do you think might help the features of this setting really shine?

Regards, Seth

[MatrixGamer]

Should "self" be some thing you can get back, if so how?
Is there anything you think should or should not be part of this setting?
What types of mechanics do you think might help the features of this setting really shine?

I must start by admitting my bias against numerical stats. They work fine when they can be clearly defined but are less and less useful in fuzzy situations.

If "self" is a numerical stat, what is it measuring? In the TV show "Sliders" the worlds were different in lots of small ways (for the most part) so what does the difference between a 5 and 6 corralate to?

I could see compairing two realities and say "There are five major differences between your reality and this one, but I see you have altered yourself in three ways. You've learned magic, grown a tail and quit smoking. That puts you three points closer to this world so it is only a two difference. That means your chance of shifting into it is..."

I could see the idea working well in a "Quantum Leap" kind of setting as well.

As to mechanisms, obviously shifting between realities needs to be covered (though this may only happen once a game) how characters mechanically change the worlds they enter is even more important, and then the run of the mill combat, wound rules.

This game might really benefit from using a conflict resolution mechanic rather than a task resolution one.

For example. Task resolution: "My dwarf swings a sword at the orcs head." I roll a 6 which hits, then I roll a 8 for damage points. This doesn't end the fight, it is instead resolved incrementally one swing at a time.

Conflict resolution: "My dwarf gets into a fight with the orc over who eats first. If I win then I'm top dog." This sets the stakes for the fight. The players do some role playing about the start of the fight. The referee gives me dice as a reward for good role playing. Eventually I roll. If I win the roll then I get to narrate how my success happens. If I fail, the GM narrates my failure.

In an Engle Matrix Game players make an argument about what happens next. "My dwarf beats the orc up to be top dog." The referee decides how strong the argument is. The player rolls and it happens or it doesn't. If it is unimportant then one roll settles it. If it is more important then the referee can call for a second round of argument to see who actually wins the fight. There are a variety of tools the ref can pick from to make drama happen in the game at that moment.

Returning to the idea of creative agendas is useful here because the rules you pick need to support the style of play you want. If you want dramatic tension then a game with two hours of accounting to resolve crossing the street would not get you what you want.

Chris Engle

[TonyLB]

I'm not sure I really get why you want people to change themselves before they enter a world.  It seems to me that much of the fun of modelling beliefs is to have a way of tracking when peoples beliefs are out of synch with their reality.  That lets you examine the question of whether you change yourself or try to change the world, but in concrete fashion.

I'm thinking Stargate SG-1:  When Daniel Jackson gates into a world where formalized authority is more important than the value of truth, you know that he's going to change that world ... by force.  He's going to drag it into alignment with his own beliefs.  But if Jack O'Neill gates into that world ... maybe he'll be changed by it.  He's not that keen on the value of truth.

But maybe I'm just missing it.  If you're not going to play the conflict between people and their world ... is it the conflict between people and their own hopes or goals?