Free PDF idea: The Cursed

[Leviathan]

I am still in the first draft version of a small (10-11 page) PDF for free release as the initial work for Boundless Allegory. It should be ready for playtesting very soon, but I thought I might get a little input that could refine the idea a touch better before sending out the call for playtesters.

The game is one where the players work with 4 basic stats as well as one optional stat that depends on what sort of setting they are in. One of these stats is known as the Curse. Every stat has a value and players use the values to determine the most they can bid on any conflict that occurs. Most of the stats have a maximum of 10, but the Curse has no cap. For any conflict, you may bid only a maximum of the value of the stat which applies to the conflict.

The Curse stat may be used as well to augment your stat bid, but if you use it, then you lose a point in that stat and the Curse gains a point. The basic idea is that the character has something inside them that can be drawn on to boost their abilities in the short term, but that slowly eats away at them, weaking them in the long term. It is being designed to allow for numerous settings including classics like a Zombie setting as well as things such as a Horror Detective concept. Right now there are 6 possible settings listed to kickstart the imagination of the players.

I would be happy to explain aspects better since this is just a brief overview.

[Leviathan]

Update on some of the current thoughts.

So far there has been a mixed review from the people I have spoken to about the idea. Several people have expressed a strong interest in seeing the final work and possible involvement in the playtesting phase. At the sam time, a number of others have expressed that they fear it would be a dour downward spiral that would be too angsty to enjoy. While the idea of a devouring curse that slowly eats away at you is indeed a downward spiral, it need not be filled with angst from the way I have percieved it. It could be quite epic if that is what the players wish, since there is an option that the Curse is a curable event, so the players wouldn't have to feel that they were doomed. Also, it lends itself to shorter games running between 1 and 4 sessions, so people would not be required to always worry about using the powers granted by the Curse, but only about not using them for every little thing.

One of the more obvious settings would be a Zombie setting where the players are infected. This of course does not appeal to everyone, especially if they didn't like the Resident Evil games and of course that does tend to lead to the feeling of being doomed, but what about a future military setting where the players are using a specific drug to boost themselves as better soldiers or a Princess Mononoke style setting where the demon curse is slowly tearing away at the characters, but where they accept it with dignity and try to right the wrongs they find. I am trying to think of a way to make this clearer in the text of the PDF so that playtesters won't immediately assume anything about what the Curse is. I think that is going to be my first big hurdle

[Mikael]

Simple, yet intriguing mechanic. The Dark Side also comes to mind as a juicy application.

Of course, one mechanic does not a game make, and it might become a bit boring or repetitive if all the players have same or similar Curses.

As usual, you might get more feedback if you ask specific questions. Or was it the downward spiral thing? Well, there's a market for downward spirals, just see Polaris. And downward spirals can be fun, for a while. Dangling the hope of redemption will probably just ruin the whole mechanic, as then some might be winners and others losers, and nobody likes to lose. But if everyone loses anyway, then nobody loses, if you know what I mean.

You might try and get Ben Lehman to talk about his design decisions with Polaris.

[Leviathan]

The downward spiral was not something I wanted to eliminate from the system, but I did want to make it clear that there were other ways to play. I think what I was going for was a game where players could do more than their stats said, but at a cost and where there was always a firm and clear struggle that there was no true right or wrong way to handle. The game is set so that short of something absolutely suicidally sad, you aren't going to die for the most part. You are however, going to have to deal with the potential of failing a challenge and with the challenge of building a story.

How that story concludes is what can turn away some players in my experience. That is why I was wanting to hear some ideas about how to make it clear that it doesn't have to be a downward spiral, only that that is one of several options. I think that is one of the specific questions I intended to put forth: How do I make it clear that this is not just about a downward spiral, but that a downward spiral is one of multiple options for play?

By the way, Dark Jedi was actually one I didn't think about. I may have to add that to the potential settings list! Thanks.  I imagine that would lead to a second question. Right now I have only given a paragraph per setting to let players come up with their own ideas. Since the system is narrative with players each building on things and everything following a more free-form flow, it didn't seem wise to try fleshing out the settings too far. Should I focus the settings down into different starts so that instead of broad categories like Zombie Movie or Future Military with short blurbs, instead having sub-paragraphs for how those various stories might be started and what might be different from one to the next?

If I am being unclear I may need to paste a few examples from the text on here.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Let me check my understanding.

In a given setting, the characters will have two attributes that are common to the system no matter what, a Curse attribute, and a fourth attribute that is specific to the setting. Is that right? If so, what are the two universal attributes?

Here are my thoughts about the downward spiral issue.

1. Role-players will complain about it no matter what the system does. A lot of people have a lot of painful memories based on systems which screw their ability to play, based on such spirals. So all you have to do is mention something like the Curse and they start whining.

2. The best way to overcome this situation in terms of publicity is to demonstrate that the system does not have this problem by playing the game with people. Then their testimony about what the game does do will speak in the game's favor, rather than you trying to convince anyone about what the game won't do.

3. The best way to make sure the game design doesn't promote a downward spiral is to look at play that minimizes using the Curse. Is that a viable option? From the minimal material you've posted, my impression is that I can use the two universal attributes and the third, customizable attribute up to their values of 10 for bidding purposes. Since the whole point of the Curse is to be temptingly higher than 10, those attributes cannot compete in terms of raw effectiveness ... so what good are they? The answer must lie in flexibility. By using those attributes, maybe I'm not successful as often, but I can propose a wider range of activities and generally play my character as a broader being.

Is that right? If so, then here are some other thoughts for other parts of the design.

i) The setting should provide remarkable adversity. It seems to me that you are well on your way, regarding this issue. Horror Detective implies extreme crimes. Future Military and Zombie Horror both imply a dangerous enemy and perhaps within-group conflict. I agree with you that this is perhaps not the best time to focus on the setting details, but it's useful to consider their common features relative to this particular system you're describing. The necessary common feature that I see is massive stress on the characters, based on the setting.

ii) The system needs consequences for failure. Failure has to hurt - perhaps not in terms of effectiveness so much as significant conflict consequences. In Future Military, if you fail that roll or series of rolls, your character's goofy buddy is torn apart and eaten by the lizardoids. Rolls needs to be serious business and really move the scenario along, with a lot of hard-core badness littered along the way due to failed rolls, and real triumphs due to successful ones. (I strongly suggest avoiding punishing players with these mechanics, in this game. The characters , NPC and PC alike, should suffer greatly by failed rolls.)

I'm interested in this idea and I hope you develop it further. Let us know what you think.

Best, Ron

[Leviathan]

In a given setting there will be four attributes common to the system no matter what, one of which is the curse. The curse is less of an attribute and more of a qualifier to an attribute though, so I was setting it somewhat separate. There is then another attribute that only shows up in magical, psychic or similar settings. The Universals are as follows:

Physical, Intellectual, Social and The Curse
The optional attribute is Mystical

Admittedly the first three are a bit cliche, but the point of the system is to allow a broad range of capability without a long or confusing character generation. I think that for the most part, anyone can figure out what each area other than the Curse is about even before they read the descriptions of the attributes.

With regards to minimizing the use of the curse, I agree. In all honesty, a player could play the entire game without using the Curse once. They aren't going to die unless there is simply no better storyline direction for the player to chose from. The use of the curse is there to let you go beyond your own limits if you have a low stat, or to go beyond human limits entirely if you wanted to do something amazing and were already strong in something. One of the design issues I ran into was the idea of why you would ever bid less than your maximum. Granted you might not want to use the curse because of the cost, but a person with 8 is probably not going to need to use the curse anyway and still not fear failure on most tasks.

A stat by itself can be used to succeed. The Curse can make it more likely, but at a cost... but to balance out so that people had an excuse not to use their maximum on bids of only the main stat of the challenge (IE: Without the curse). Also, I wanted there to be a positive aspect to failure so that players didn't treat it as if it was something to always be avoided. Granted, if you fail in a challenge, you have to describe such failure and obviously your character is going to have negative events occur from that failure. On the other hand, it can lead to a really good development in the story. Success of course has obvious rewards to it.

There are only two ways to raise your stats from the point of character generation. The first is to bid on something by at least one less than your maximum and still win. The second is to fail in a bid. This I think helps promote a broader interest in the roleplay and storyline rather than the win/lose mentality. It also helps to balance out the fear of downward spiral. (This seems to be in opposition to your thoughts on failure Ron, but I did think it seemed to work well from my initial work on the design. Playtesters may disagree.) I should also note that Failure from doing something completely foolish can still result in an untimely demise of the character, but not typically as long as the player is focused on building a good story and not doing anything too crazy. (IE: Don't expect to do things like saying "I am going to stick my head in the mouth of this monster and tickle it... if I fail, I can just say it scratched me.")

I think that the punishment of failure should probably depend on the degree of difficulty in the task a player is trying to accomplish. That way your greatest risks come at times when you are making choices that almost demand the use of the Curse in a bid. I may make a modification to the table that shows what a challenge difficulty is so that it indicates risk of premature character death at a certain point on failures.

[Leviathan]

For those who have been following this discussion, the playtest information and link can be found at http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=23209.0 I will be posting updated versions and information on the site it links to.