For those of you who have seen the Kill Bill Inspired Mechanics thread over in RPG Theory, this will be a significant revision and addition to what was presented there. For those who haven't, I suggest having a look, because in this post I am not posting how actions are resolved, because there is really no huge change to what was presented in that thread.

Stats and Action Pool

Stats are now rated as die types, instead of number of die rolled.

1=1d4
2=1d6
3=1d8
4=1d10
5=1d12

The minimum for any stat is 1 and the maximum is 5.
For example, if your character had the following stats:
Style: 3
Weapon Coolness: 2
Luck: 1
Grudge: 2

Then their action pool would be 1d8, 2d6, and 1d4. If you wanted to, you could colour co-ordinate the stats and their die, but it isn't necessary for resolution (but it looks cooler).

Damage: Damage is now handled a little differently. You have two scores for damage, one is called Fuel, and measures the points of damage you have taken thus far, and the other is called Fire. Fuel converts to Fire at a rate of 2:1, so that if you have 10 Fuel, then you can have 5 Fire. Fire is the stat that you use to add to your action pool. Once you convert Fuel to Fire, you lose those points of Fuel, and Fire only remains for one encounter. Fire also "spreads", meaning that if you "burn" more than 10 Fuel (giving a Fire stat higher than 5, remembering that the maximum a stat can be is 5), then you create a seperate Fire stat that carries the extra "burn".

For example, say you have taken 14 points of damage, giving you 14 Fuel. You want to burn all of this into Fire for this encounter. You burn 10 Fuel, giving the maximum of 5 Fire, and adding 1d12 to your action pool. But you also burn 4 more Fuel, which becomes another Fire stat with a score of 2, granting you an additional 1d6 to your action pool. So 14 Fuel would give you 1d12 and 1d6 to your action pool.

That came out real messy, hopefully I'll come up with a better way to explain it in the text.

The maximum amount of damage you can take (Fuel) before being forced into a bind is equal to your stats added up times two (16 for a beginning character). Also, you can only convert Fuel to Fire between encounters, so you can't convert damage done to you by Bob into Fire against Bob, unless your encounter is interrupted by another encounter. In this way you can't continually burn damage dealt by a single opponent against them.

Due to the removal of excessive amounts of die, collateral damage is now handled a little differently. If you would take damage but do not wish to, then you can subtract the damage directly from any Fire stat(s) you may have (reducing them on a 1:1 basis, thus subtracting from your action pool, but not forcing a bind), converting this damage into collateral damage (requiring appropriate narration).



Advancement Mechanics:

Style: Improved by narrating out of a bind through present tense(for which there will be rules, think the opening chapter where The Bride has to escape from the hospital). A Present Bind can be made interactive by the player designating various character roles to other players and the GM (all of whom must play the roles with the player, not against them).

Weapon Coolness: Can be improved in a few ways, but the core resolution of the improvement is the same. You must specify the value you desire for your new weapon, and you must beat the possessor of the weapon. If it is an opponent, and you want to take their weapon after you kill them, then you specify the coolness of their weapon, making them harder to kill because their weapon will be stronger. If you want to purchase a weapon, you make an opposed roll of Style+Luck+Grudge against the Weapon Coolness+Style+Luck of the seller (where the Weapon Coolness is the value you wish to obtain). If you fail this roll you cannot attempt it again with the same vendor. Note that "seller" and "vendor" do not imply money, as you may simply be convincing an old legend to part with their magnificent heirloom.

In all circumstances, you must justify why the possessor of your desired weapon has such an awesome weapon, and why the weapon is in fact so awesome. The GM decides on the non-weapon stats of the possessor in accordance with your description.

Luck: Remains the same, improved by narrating out of a bind through history (for which there will be rules, think the chapter with Pei Mei to explain her escape from being buried alive). An Historic Bind can be made interactive by the player designating various character roles to other players and the GM (all of whom must play the roles with the player, not against them).

Grudge: Increased through the introduction and resolution of a dilemna. A dilemna might be "the person who you are trying to kill turns out to be pregnant", or "your target is the mother/father of your child, who you thought was dead". When you introduce such a dilemna, you must narrate why it is a dilemna for your character, including your character's emotional response.

In order to actually resolve this dilemna, you must roll your Grudge (only your Grudge) against the opponent's Luck (opposed roll, like everything).

If you lose the roll, you cannot bring yourself to kill the person voluntarily, and your Grudge against that person decreases by 1 (making your attempts to kill them more difficult if they try to kill you). If you succeed in the roll, your Grudge (towards everyone) increases by 1. You can only introduce one dilemna per person on your list (and all stats are capped at 5 anyways).



The List
The list must have 5 names on it. You must have a very good reason for each name being there, but you don't have to tell everyone all at once. In fact, narrating why the person is on your list is how you "travel" between names. Try as much as you want, you can't reach a name on the list without narrating why they are there: who they are, what they did to you, why you hate them enough to kill them. The last person on your list must have ties with all the preceeding people, and these ties must be at least hinted at in the "travelling" narration.

Mechanically, you, the player, create the stats of the people on your list, according to their rank on the list. Each rank, 5 through 1, carries a number of points you must distribute amongst their stats ("Bosses" don't have a Grudge stat, they have Callousness instead).
#5: 12 points
#4: 14 points
#3: 16 points
#2: 18 points
#1: 20 points
The rank of a boss also influences the stats and numbers of their peons. You have 50 points to distribute amongst the peons of your foes. By spending a point on a peon, you can choose whether the rank of the boss increases the stats of that peon or the number of peons:
#5: 1
#4: 2
#3: 3
#2: 4
#1: 5
For example, if you spend one peon point on the #1 Boss, you either get 5 rank one peons or 1 rank five peon. If you spend 10 peon points on the #5 Boss, then you get 10 rank 1 peons.
A peons rank determines how many d4 die they roll in their action pool and how much damage they can sustain before dying/becomming ineffective at opposing you. Thus a rank 3 peon would roll 3d4 against you and would be able to sustain 3 points of damage before dying.

Whilst it might seem like a good idea to spend all your points on the lowest ranking peons, that would turn out to be very limiting, because you would find it very hard to increase your Fuel or trigger binds. And considering that #1 bosses have maximum stats, you're really gonna need to make sure your character has improved plenty or has access to ample Fuel.



GM?
The role of the GM in Scarlet Wake is primarily to play the baddies the way the players want. The Travelling Narration should provide enough info for the GM to take on the role of the Boss and their peons. The goal is obviously not to kill the PC (impossible), nor to make their task hard (all outcomes are decided by the players), but instead to make their task interesting and enjoyable, by introducing the peons in interesting ways, by playing the Bosses well, and basically responding to player triggered events (like binds and dilemnas) in a fun way. The players are the ones who drive their stories, and the GM "plays along".

The secondary role of the GM is to ensure all players get equal "screen-time" and equal input. Playtesting will tell, but I'm leaning towards suggesting a rough time limit on all narrations (a longer time limit on narrations involving other players takaing on different roles), and a limit to how much time is spent on a given player's story before the next player get's a turn. This wouldn't be an issue in games where the PCs are a group who share the same list (or whose lists have different people who are close associates of each other).



Questions
I've not much experience with this style of play, and I haven't had time to play-test this except in my head. Does anyone see any problems with what I have presented thus far, be it concepts or implementation?

I know that this is shaping up to be very gamist, but I'm concerned that it might be lacking in Step On Up. What do you guys think?

Any other comments/suggestions/criticisms/whatever?


-Ben

No Step on Up? My god man, this has Step on Up all over it!

The damage is stepping on up -- can you afford the risk of damage?
The binds are step on up. The weapon is step on up. The basis of the game seems to be "are you cool enough to be even cooler?"

This game is like raw, unpasteurized bad-ass stuffed into a syringe and injected straight into my heart.

I have a couple of suggestions, though --

First, let the other players direct the baddies, just to give them something to do during the one person's scene. Also, this ramps up the competition gauge.

Clarify the peon-buying rules.

if you want the game to drift narrativist a bit, you could change the Grudge rules so that there are different benefits to still wanting to kill the person and letting them go.

All in all, a great-looking game.

yrs--
--Ben

Regarding Step On Up... yeah. I guess I simply had too narrow a view of what constituted a "risk" or a "challenge". Silly me :)

"are you cool enough to be even cooler?"

First, let the other players direct the baddies, just to give them something to do during the one person's scene. Also, this ramps up the competition gauge.

Clarify the peon-buying rules.

if you want the game to drift narrativist a bit, you could change the Grudge rules so that there are different benefits to still wanting to kill the person and letting them go.

All in all, a great-looking game.

GM?
The role of the GM in Scarlet Wake is primarily to play the baddies the way the players want. The Travelling Narration should provide enough info for the GM to take on the role of the Boss and their peons. The goal is obviously not to kill the PC (impossible), nor to make their task hard (all outcomes are decided by the players), but instead to make their task interesting and enjoyable, by introducing the peons in interesting ways, by playing the Bosses well, and basically responding to player triggered events (like binds and dilemnas) in a fun way. The players are the ones who drive their stories, and the GM "plays along".

The secondary role of the GM is to ensure all players get equal "screen-time" and equal input. Playtesting will tell, but I'm leaning towards suggesting a rough time limit on all narrations (a longer time limit on narrations involving other players takaing on different roles), and a limit to how much time is spent on a given player's story before the next player get's a turn. This wouldn't be an issue in games where the PCs are a group who share the same list (or whose lists have different people who are close associates of each other).

So far, it looks like your system is becoming pretty solid, at least mechanically. Plus, the idea of a "GM-Less" game gives it a unique positioning...after all, everyone has had a night where everyone wants to be on the PC side of the table. So far, so good...

...here's the part where I play the Devil's Advocate... =-)

Now: if we look at most Role-Playing Games, the things that differentiate them from just "Playing Pretend" (IMHO) are the elements of risk, and reward. Dice are the great equalizer. Putting your character on the line and succeeding (or failing in an entertaining way) is what really makes RPGs fun for many people. This poses an interesting question for Scarlet Wake...if Player Character's are, for all intents and purposes, immortal, then what do the players (not the characters, but the players themselves) have to gain/lose by playing? Is the game really a game, or is it more of an activity?

Basically, what is *motivating* your players to play their hearts out?

Certainly, the Devil's Advocate (not necessarily me, mind you) is not suggesting that you throw out the idea of PC's never being killed from damage. This seems to be a core element of your game--not only story-wise, but mechanically as well.

Chew on this idea, though--if this is a game that's all about bloody revenge, cinematic duels, and exciting narrative, then perhaps the "risks" that your players take don't necessarily have to be the physical well-being of their characters. If we're taking the "Are You Cool Enough to Be Cooler?" approach, then perhaps this element could be used to provide the players with a little risk. What would that mean?

You've gotta be cool to survive. It's no longer about keeping your health boxes unmarked...that's already taken care of. Now, you've gotta outcool your opponents...and if you can't do that, you start racking up something like...oh, we'll call it "Humiliation" or something negative like that. This could be potentially racked up by blowing really important rolls, or not effectively narrating yourself out of a bind. Rack up too much of this, and your character might find themselves out of the game (maybe not dead, but trapped in a Chinese prison forever or something).

If playing to keep characters "Alive" doesn't suit you, then maybe rewarding exceptional play could be a sufficient motivation. Perhaps, at the end of every session, players could rate each-other on their performances (Giving each other player one to five "Stars"). The player with the best star-rating at the end of the night might be allowed to advance one of their stats, or they might get some other reward for their character. In this manner, players would be motivated to really put their hearts into their roleplaying, even though their character won't die either way.

Of course, The Devil's Advocate is just saying this to get your brain juice flowing. =-)

-CHRIS M.

Anyhow. looks good. I think I preferred the multiple dice option though, rather than dice types.

This poses an interesting question for Scarlet Wake...if Player Character's are, for all intents and purposes, immortal, then what do the players (not the characters, but the players themselves) have to gain/lose by playing? Is the game really a game, or is it more of an activity?

Basically, what is *motivating* your players to play their hearts out?

You've gotta be cool to survive. It's no longer about keeping your health boxes unmarked...that's already taken care of. Now, you've gotta outcool your opponents...and if you can't do that, you start racking up something like...oh, we'll call it "Humiliation" or something negative like that. This could be potentially racked up by blowing really important rolls, or not effectively narrating yourself out of a bind. Rack up too much of this, and your character might find themselves out of the game (maybe not dead, but trapped in a Chinese prison forever or something).

You make some good points. Thank you for taking my little diatribe in the spirit in which it was meant--not as a flame, but as food for thought. In my experience, I've found that a good pain-in-the-butt can make a world of difference in the creative process. =-)

Can someone point me in the direction of the "Step On Up" essay? It sounds like there's a lot of good stuff in there, and I'd like to improve my "Forge Vocabulary" as much as possible!

-CHRIS M.

Chris

Check the Articles link at the top of your screen. The essay is Gamism: Step on Up.

best,

Trevis

Thank you for your kind assistance. =-) I don't have much time to read it tonight (I primarily surf the web at work, ain't got none at home)--but from skimming it a bit it looks like something I could really chew on.

... Moving along....

Here's an idea, let me know what you think:

Whenever a protagonist takes damage (increases their Fuel), the antagonist players gain some sort of resource... let's call it Kick for now (as in "Kick'em when they're down"). They can use this resource to increase the rank of peons, introduce more peons, or add to the attributes of a Boss. For example, if the protagonist player takes 4 damage (4 Fuel), then the antagonist players get 4 Kick (shared between them). They can then, at any time, spend some or all of this Kick. They could introduce 4 rank 1 peons, 1 rank 4 peon, or increase the stats of a Boss by 2 (2:1 ratio for Boss stats). Kick can be saved up for as long as the antagonist players want, and is recorded on the protagonist player's character sheet.

Now what if you could use a certain amount of Kick, say 20 points or so, to introduce a "sub-boss", who would work exactly like a normal Boss, only with less stats... say... equal to the protagonist character's stats. The introduction of a sub-boss would be initiated by the antagonist players (who have naming rights), but would have to be narratively justified by the protagonist player. I'm actually a little flexible on that last part. It would be in keeping with the theme of each player's story being their own creation, but it might also be interesting and fun to allow the antagonist players to have some say in it... so maybe I'll let sub-bosses be "owned" by the antagonists who create them. What do you guys think?

This idea, to me, looks like a Step On Up Stake. The protagonist player can choose to take damage, for the gain of improved character effectiveness (Fire), at a risk of uncontrolled (by that player) greater challenges and loss of control over some aspects of the story (sub-bosses). Actually, it kinda looks like a blend of Challenge and Step On Up... hmmm. Thoughts?


As always, all comments, criticisms, and suggestions welcome. (But can we please keep the off-topic chat for pms? Thanks.)

-Ben

I actually rather dislike Quentin Tarrentino's films but this game is so perversely cool (err, rather like a Quentin Tarrentino film) that I can't resist kibbitzing.

Ravien wrote: .....games where the PCs are a group who share the same list (or whose lists have different people who are close associates of each other).....

Sorry about that, Ravien...I haven't used forums for about five years, so I'm still learning the etiquette. =-)

I think the idea is pretty sweet, myself...if only because it appeals to my inner gambler. Giving antagonists that extra advantage may also keep your players playing hard--after all, if your players decide to just let their characters get beat on just to gain more Fuel, it has the potential to cause a bit of a train wreck during play. I say play with this idea some more.

CHRIS M.-

Don't worry Chris, no harm done. Etiquette around here is stricter than... well... everywhere else AFAIK, and simply means that off-topic posts should be handled by pm.

Thanks for your comments though, appreciated. I will play with the idea and see if it goes anywhere.


You pose a very interesting proposition there Sydney. Unfortunately I can't make it so you can only win if you kill a person who is on everyone's list, because as soon as you do everyone will know that they can't win anymore. However, if I introduced some mechanism whereby players could re-gain the advantage, right up until the #1 name on each list... that would be very cool indeed. I shall have a ponder.

Regarding making it a race, it really wouldn't work in this format. As it stands, players must take turns to play, so it could simply reduce to whoever goes first wins... especially considering PCs can't die (the only way to stop them would be forcing them into a bind or dilemna, which is something I wanted to be in control of the protagonist players themselves). Basically I feel a race-like structure would result in games where as soon as it was clear a player would win, other players would become less interested in being involved (like what happens when the current loser in monopoly starts watching TV or goes to bed).

If there was to be a win condition (there is already an endgame condition), then I'd want it to both only be able to be identified after evreyone has reached endgame, and have rewards that carry on to future characters. I shall think very hard.

Also, PC vs PC mechanics huh? hmmm. I do like the underlying cause... in making PCs fight, then make up and cooperate.



So a preliminary concept to implement this coolness: some sort of reward points are given for killing people on your lists. Names which appear on more than one list are worth more, so if a name is on two lists, it is worth 2 points instead of 1, if it is on 3 lists, it is worth 3 points. If one player kills that person, they get all the points. If multiple players kill that person, the points are divided evenly (and rounded up, so that if 3 players share a name worth 3 points, and two kill that person, both get 2 points and the third person gets none). No name can appear on all lists (because there must always be someone to control the antagonist characters).

Ok, this is sounding interesting so far... let's see where we can take it.

PC vs PC mechanics. Really, they already exist. If two PCs fight, one will eventually be forced into a bind, forcing them to narrate why their character is still alive and not able to kill the boss. The other will leave with a bunch of Fuel. Ok, but now we need some way to implement cooperation. By sacrificing a point of Honour, one player can offer to cooperate with the other. If the other player accepts, the first player get's their Honour back, and the second player gets a free point of Honour. If the other player declines (to get the points for killing the boss), then the first player has lost that point of Honour and the fight continues. The first player can only regain that point of Honour by winning the fight. So we have a complicated (to me) gamble dynamic:

Both fight, no cooperation-
-----winner = doesn't share Boss points
-----loser = narrates their bind, no share of Boss points
Both fight, cooperation-
-----offer accepted = accepting player gains 1 Honour, Boss points shared
-----offer declined-
----------decliner wins fight = doesn't share Boss points
----------offerer wins fight = doesn't share Boss points
----------decliner loses fight = no share of Boss points
----------offerer loses fight = loses 1 Honour, no share of Boss points

How does that look?

So there is incentive to kill bosses yourself, so you get that whole "I can't let you kill him -- I want to kill him!" thing, but it isn't so devastating to lose because you don't instantly lose the whole game.

So how about a win condition? What if, at the end of the game (when everyone has cleared their List), everyone calculates some score. Let's say that you add up all your Boss points and all your stats, and then you divide the result by 2. This is how many stat points you have for the creation of your next character (even if it's less than 8, which shouldn't happen unless you completely suck). This of course can easily be seen as the player with the most points winning that game.

What do we think? Sound fun? Any problems?

Thanks,
-Ben

P.S. What the hell is "kibbitzing"? Is it even a real word? :)

For those who are interested, here is some of the artwork that will appear in the finished game:

Crimson Fiend (85Kb)
Amber Ghost (85Kb)
Scarlet Wake Logo (525Kb)

Guess what my inspiration for style was :)


Also, I've decided that if I go with these "Boss points", that they will be called "Name", as in, "making a name for yourself". On your character sheet they will be recorded next to your name, symbolising how famous (infamous) you are. I'm considering allowing them to be used in the Action Pool, cos that sounds cool.

So so far your primary stats will be: Name, Style, Weapon, Luck, Grudge, and Honour. Out of those, only Style, Weapon, Luck, and Grudge can be added to at chargen; Name and Honour only increase through play. Fuel, Fire, and Kick will be secondary stats, again, only increasable through play.

And to think I started this idea with only 4 stats. Now I have nine, seven of which could be used in the action pool. God help us if each one was #of die instead of die steps! Can anyone say 60d6 each roll?

-Ben

Nice art. All of it your own handiwork?

And I'd love to play the game, it sounds quite cool.

Cool stuff:

- carnage, chop-sockey style
- binds
- 'No, I wanna kill him'

Less cool stuff (personal opinion, of course)

- multiple die types - it seems less elegant.
- more and more stats - but maybe it'll run elegantly with 9 as well

Now I HAVE to go see KB2...

Yeah, all my art is my own. Why pay someone to do what I can do myself? :) Drawing is what I do (when I'm not studying and have a chance and the inspiration).

Regarding mutliple die types. Yeah, perhaps it is a bit less elegant, but it does save time and actualy allows for greater freedom in some respects. Whereas before you had to "match up" your roll to thiers from highest to lowest, now you just add up your roll and compare it to theirs, then determine how many points of your roll go towards defending against/killing each opponent.

For a basic example, say you roll 1d8, 2d6 and 1d4. You get 4,5,5,2, for a total of 16. Your two opponents roll 7 and 6. You could distribute 13 of your points between them to avoid any damage, and lump the remaining 3 onto them as damage (they were both rank 2, so you could kill one and damage the other).

I think the only elegnance that is lost here is the use of different types of die, which is really purely an aesthetic preference.


Regarding stats, Fuel and Fire are really one aspect, and only split into two stats to keep the math and handling simple. Name is cool cos it measures your Boss-killing capabilities and inter-player competitiveness, Honour is tied to grudge, and Kick is a weird one, cos it doesn't measure what you can do, it measures how many points your opposing players have to use against you. All in all, it should be pretty easy for players to keep track of and understand, and where possible, I've tried to avoid too many seperate things where things could be concievably combined (like Boss points being Name points, because you already have a name, now it has a score!).

I'm really dying for my last exam to be over so I can write up a play-test version and give this sucker a go with my friends. If anyone would like to help me playtest it in about two to three weeks (possibly four if life decides to shaft me unexpectedly), drop me a PM and include your email (or just email me) and I'll be sure to send you the playtest when it's wriiten. I only ask that anyone willing to playtest it for me is also willing to provide me with feedback. With a bit of luck I might be able to organise a website and forum for it.

-Ben

P.S. Playtesters will get a free copy of the finished product and their name printed in the back! I plan on releasing this as a POD book from somewhere with good quality colour printing and good prices.

1) The cooperation/noncooperation mechanics -- very neat.

2) Implementing competition without a simple race -- also very neat.

3) Art -- very, very, very neat.

4) kib·itz: intr.v. Informal kib·itzed, kib·itz·ing, kib·itz·es
To look on and offer unwanted, usually meddlesome advice to others.
To chat; converse.
Yiddish kibitsen, from German kiebitzen, from Kiebitz, pewit, kibitzer, from Middle High German gbitz, pewit, of imitative origin.
[http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=kibitzing]