Hi all,

I've been sketching out more ideas for this Ancient Egyptian game, a game that's going to focus on trying to maintain the eternal balance and the power of the Egyptian state (see The Kap thread).

Stats For the Kingdom
To represent the linkage between the success of Egypt and the player characters, I was considering giving the actual kingdom a set of attributes: War 15, Economy 17, Diplomacy 11, Religion 9 for example. These ratings set the type of dice used by Egyptians in related fields (even vaguely related). 0-4 = 1d4; 5-8 = 1d6; 9-12 = 1d8, etc.

Scenarios may end with the following situations arising from the plot:

Restore a lost shrine to Osiris +1 to Egypt's Religion attribute
Fail to stop a Libyan incursion -2 to Egypt's War attribute

Character Attributes
How does this simple system relate to characters? Well I was angling for a more powerful link, using Power points or something, but I seem to have missed that completely. However, character stats will range between 1 and 6 and players add the relevant dice roll to the attribute to beat a target number. I'm thinking of minimizing or doing away with skills altogether.

Character attributes will (at the moment!) address the theme of balance - mainly by using a Pendragon rip-off ... Opposed stats, linked in pairs. Four pairs.

Nobility & Humility (related to work and profession)
Honesty & Deceit
Wisdom & Ignorance (don’t like ignorance, too ‘negative’)
Strength & Agility.

Since 7 was an Egyptian magic number the player always has 7 points in each pair, allocated how he prefers (Nobility 1 & Humility 6 for a labourer for example).

I intend to link these pairs somehow to the attributes of the kingdom. Perhaps like this:

Economy – Nobility/Humility
Diplomacy – Honesty/Deceit
Religion – Wisdom/Ignorance (see why I need another stat there?)
And finally War – Strength/Agility

I want my labourer to repair his uncle’s dried-brick hut? The player uses Humility (6) and adds a roll of 1d10 (for Egypt’s Economy score of 17). In darker days of famine, plague and depopulation when Egypt’s Economy is at 4, the task is harder, and our labourer only gets to add 1d4 to his score.

Other Aspects of Char-gen
The Egyptians considered there to be 7 (that number again) aspects of ‘self’ including the Shadow, the physical body, the Spirit Double, the Astral Body, the True Name and so on. In another game these might make quite nice attributes! But here I want to use them as empowering devices that can be gained by characters on their journey. There’ll be no experience in the normal sense. It upsets the balance. You can shift points around at suitable junctures but not keep piling on points to upgrade those combat skills. When you discover an aspect of self you gain some nifty power (don’t know what yet…). And then there’s Hekau - Egyptian magic. I guess everyone knows some Hekau, its de rigeur to have learnt some spells before you die to help you get to the Underworld intact… We’ve got to have lots of mysterious magics.

That’s the extent of my notes so far. I’m not happy with the ‘religion pair’ (Wisdom and Ignorance). I need two stats, and one must reflect religious power/piety and the other an equally useful opposite. It’s tough … I’m not worried about trying to incorporate intelligence into this, other stats will handle much of the workload and the player’s brain will take up the rest.

Answering my own question, I have a very vague idea about trying to implement the 2nd edition RuneQuest mechanic of POWER. You have a lot, the gods notice and favour you. But you are the centre of attention on Earth too, making it hard to sneak around!

I have no idea for flavor or what, but for Wisdom/Ignorance you could use Wisdom/Superstition.

-Vincent

How about Skepticism/Superstition? Insight/Superstition?

Paul

Skepticism... as an attribute.... what could you do better than someone else if you had Skepticism 6?

If one attribute is Magical Power/superstition then skepticism might be defence against magic perhaps?

The superstious guy understands, believes in and sees magic everywhere. He can use it. The skeptic does not see magic, cannot comprehend it, is afraid of it. Is defended against it by virtue of magical ignorance. No - something doesn't seem quite right about that ... I must think harder...

What about Obscurity (lack of charisma, and power, and connection with the gods) and Power (link with the gods, magical aptitude, inner power, charisma, presence).

Power is used to work magic and defend against magic. Obscurity is used to blend in, to be disguised, to sneak, hide in shadows, to be forgotten..)

I like a lot of the concepts, Mithras.

How 'bout Knowledge/Intuition as the "religion" pair? I was going to go with Knowledge/Faith, but I think that's too much a modern dichotomy.

I would suggest that you steer clear of the "skepticism = magical resistance" thing. First off, it's been done to death in other games -- Mage: The Ascension is the stand-out example -- second, I think it's too modern. The people of this time wouldn't regard skepticism of magic as being an enlightened attitude, surely?

Or you could do something like the Power/Obscurity dichotomy, something where each side is a different kind of magic. You might go with Perception/Action, or even Blessing/Curse.

Skills: I tend to not like games that do away with skills altogether (yeah, well, Amber is in many ways my favorite game, but...). What if you had them, but minimized them in some way. I'm thinking of taking a page from Mike Gentry's Buffy system, and let everyone choose a "specialty" skill that they're good at and nobody else is. This might work really well if the idea is that the PC's are a group of people from the Kap who've worked together for years -- each has a specialty that they're really good at, and all the other ones know. You could also potentially make everyone take a weakness, something that they're terrible at. Then assume that everything else is simply stat-based. It allows a bit more differentiation in characters without being too complex.

I like Vincent's superstition. I was thinking Obstinance, or something, but I think I like Superstition better. I see priests with high Wisdom casting "light" spells, and high Superstition casting "dark" spells. I'd change Deciet to something a little more PC. How about "Artifice"?

Interesting that with seven points for stats that you can never have a balance. That may not jibe with the Egyptian sense of things. How about a pyrimidal seven level scheme that favors balance.
[code]
Level Stat 1 Stat 2 Total
1 10 1 11
2 9 3 12
3 8 5 13
4 7 7 14
5 5 8 13
6 3 9 12
7 1 10 11[/code]

So, you get more total points for being in balance, but to be truely outstanding at something you need to get out of balance. This has a sort of balance all it's own. Also note how the sevens show up neatly when you are balanced (just happens that this is the lowest number you can do this with mathematically and keep the pyramid with straight edges). You can have little pyramids on the record sheet to show where the character is at statistically and just mark the stone to the left or the right when you shift stats. Below the marked stone you can find the actual stats.


Also, I'm not a fan of lots of different polyhedra for one game, and the breakpoints for dice use seem inelegant. How about the Egypt stat sets the basic target number. So, use d10s (or d20s if you must) and rate Egypt from one to ten. Roll that or less on the player dice to generate successes.

Any of that make sense?

Mike

I like Power/Obscurity, or maybe Tradition/Rebellious or Tradition/Apostasy for the religious pair. The Strength/Agility split is one I don't like. It's too traditional to be an effective dichotomy here. All other stats come off as personality characteristics. What about Bravery/Rage, or Bravery/Caution or Prowess/Cowardice for possible substitutes?

Best,

Blake

I like Strength/Agility in this case. I see it referring to armies and the like. You can either have a lot of force or be mobile. A big dilemma in the ancient world. I could see Bravery/Discretion, perhaps.

Going against tradition in a game about supporting the state seems wrong. The superstition/skepticism thing balances well. You can either do a lot with magic but are suceptible, or you cannot and are not. OTOH, this is likely to result in a lot of players going to the superwstition end. At least I wouldn't pass it up.

How about Day/Night? Ra/Set. Even stronger elements of the light and dark magic that I mentioned.

Mike

Mike, wow. That table is quite ... lovely. Very elegant. I didn't notice that the stats can't balance. A bit stupid really when the game universe is all about 'balance'.

I too am not enamoured of multi-polyhedrals. The big flaw with The Window I think, but I thought I might give it a shot. I'll see if your system can be substituted instead.

Strength/Agility. It does stand out a bit, doesn't it? Bravery/Discretion is a nice substitute. Either fight or flight/sneak/hide/scout etc. That will do nicely, and its still a personality attribute!

The religion attribute pair is still a problem. Essentially I have Fate versus freewill. Magic will work whoever you are, I don't see it as a person-dependant thing. Fate versus Action/Freewill? Fate versus Luck. At one end you have position and power within the temple, at the other you are a free independant spirit. Tradition/Spirit. Either you are part of the hierarchy and the temple institution, or you are a free spirit, relying on your own will power and determination. Both are powerful, useful and related to overcoming magical forces.

Tradition/Spirit. That should do it.

Sanctity/Pragmatism occurred to me.

These 7 aspects of the soul/self: could they be used as as organising structure? I was thinking that it might serve as a thematic link to the locus, the land. Say you construct 7 zones on the charsheet, horizontally. In the leftmost column, you place an icon and word for the section of the soul - ba, ka, whatnot. In the next column, you indicate the current values of the kingdom, symbolically linking aspects of the soal to aspects of the state/land - the physical body element corresponds to the material landscape, etc etc. In the third column, you display the balanced pair and their specific values. This means more pairs would be required to fill all 7 zones; although it could be worse - one interpretation of the soul-aspects I saw listed 9.

Another possibility might be that, with an explanation of the aspect of the soul and how these are interpolated into frex the Kingdom values, you might ask the player to propose an opposed pair of their own, thematically appropriate to the zone/aspect. I don't know how elegantly that would work; it could be used to cover professional skills and the like. A slight variation might be the capacity to select one side of a pair based on character creation, and to invent its counterpoint (rather than opposite).

So, you end up with a charsheet that can be made to look like papyrus (easy enough to download a texture), has heiroglyphic symbols down one edge, and is arranged in columns. Do all text with a strong brush font and I think you'd have a funky concept. I could do a rush over the weekend, if you liked the idea and would be in a position to nail the 7 zones down firmly.

and you could even emboss an osiris relief into the page, too.

Mithras wrote:
Mike, wow. That table is quite ... lovely. Very elegant. I didn't notice that the stats can't balance. A bit stupid really when the game universe is all about 'balance'.

Hmmm...Mr Sullivan (despite being a dateless wonder) has a point. :-P

And I did fall into one of my own favorite pitfalls: making a symetrical system for the sake of the symetry. I've been considering other alternatives. The obvious simple one is to go with the opposing stats adding to eight with a minimum of one (stats range from one to seven, and balance at four). Or the original system where balance is an unobtainable ideal. Or you can go the opposite rout where you balance at four and get two points for each one you drop which gives you an incentive to get away from the middle balance:

[code]Stat A Stat B Balance
1 10 1
2 8 2
3 6 3
4 4 4
6 3 3
8 2 2
10 1 1[/code]

In this case, however, I'd think that you'd have to give some sort of incentive to stay balanced. Perhaps a "Balance" stat calculated from adding all number from the each stat in the Balance Column (equal to the lower of the two stats, BTW, and coincidentally) in the chart above. So a character would have from four to sixteen Balance depending on his other stats. The balance of all players would form a pool that the pharoh could use to defend Egypt against her foes, or something like that (perhaps Egypt's d20 target stats must average the same as the characters' average Balance). So, it's better for the character personally to have unbalanced stats, but better for Egypt if they are balanced. There's your trade-off.

Or perhaps balance points can be used to purchase the seven forms. Lots of possibilities.


I've been thinking about resolution mechanics and I've had some ideas there as well. One is that, when rolling against a particular stat you could also roll against it's opposite to avoid negative effects. So, if I'm rolling against Bravery for successes to defeat a giant magic scarab, I also have to roll against Discretion or suffer negative side effects. So, I roll my 8 Bravery, but also I roll my 2 Discretion. I manage four successes on my Bravery rolls, but none on the discretion side. The four is enough to defeat the big beetle, but since I scored no Discretion successes, I am wounded in the process. Would work well, you see, with a "no opposing roll" system. Harsh tasks (like a really big beetle) would just lower the target. Anyhow, this would mean that unbalanced characters would succeed a lot, and well, but often at a cost due to their weaknesses. This gives more incentive for balance, FWIW.

Anything useful there?

Mike

Mike,

Yup - that's got me thinking a good deal. Balance points: using them to support the kingdom, using them to buy Aspects of the Soul, rolling both sides of each attribute.

Its all gone in, let me ruminate and see what comes out the other end!

I like contracycle's idea of setting up ASpects of the Soul as Aspects of Egypt, too.

Great ideas - I feel like I should be paying you guys a consultancy fee or something ... :)

Regards

Mithras wrote:
Mike,

Yup - that's got me thinking a good deal. Balance points: using them to support the kingdom, using them to buy Aspects of the Soul, rolling both sides of each attribute.

Mithras wrote:
Its all gone in, let me ruminate and see what comes out the other end!

I like contracycle's idea of setting up Aspects of the Soul as Aspects of Egypt, too.

Great ideas - I feel like I should be paying you guys a consultancy fee or something ... :)

Just a thought. Faith and reason could be your opposed religious stats.
-amiel

Mithras wrote:
Great ideas - I feel like I should be paying you guys a consultancy fee or something ... :)

Epoch wrote:
I like the whole "giving Egypt stats" thing. I would suggest that it's at least partially independent of the PC's. They are, after all, not solely responsible for its health. It should definitely be influenced by the PC's, though...

contracycle wrote: So, you end up with a charsheet that can be made to look like papyrus (easy enough to download a texture), has heiroglyphic symbols down one edge, and is arranged in columns. Do all text with a strong brush font and I think you'd have a funky concept. I could do a rush over the weekend, if you liked the idea and would be in a position to nail the 7 zones down firmly.

Mithras wrote:
I've done a bit of thinking and come up with the 7 aspects of the soul with equivalents for the aspects of Egypt: religion, art, fertility, production, trade, glory and war. The pairs of attributes matching these are: Tradition/Spirit, Perception/Intuition, Health/Survival, Nobility/Humility, Brash/Subtle, Bravery/Caution, Strength/Agility. Their equivalences with the aspects of the soul are quite nice - very appropriate.

But. And a big but. 14 attributes??? Is this workable? If so I will keep skills to the binary on/off level rather give them values.

14 attributes?

And I think I'm going for 1d8 plus attribute ranging from 1-6. I'd use nifty d4 instead but I hate the buggers!

It all looks lovely on paper - yes. But 14 attributes is way more than I would accept if I bought a game. Id chuck out all but 4 (which is what I used to do with ICE's Cyberspace game).

Back to the drawing board I think.

See, that's the symetry problem again (my fault, too). Just because there are seven parts to the Egyptian soul does not mean you should force seven pairs. Consider asymetry as a possibility. Often asymetry produces more possibilities than symetry.

How about this? Perhaps there are three matched pairs, and an unmatched stat. A total of seven stats, you get matched pairs, and an exception. Make religion or one of the other difficult to match stats the solo stat. Have that stat balance in a different way. If you used the war stat it could also represent hits, for example, which would mean that it would be reduced in combat. Or something like that. Just gives you more to work with. An interesting interplay between the pairs and single stat might be interesting. Perhaps a balance stat?

Lots of possibilities.

Mike

Fourteen does feel like too many, particularly when a number of them simply aren't intuitively clear as to what they represent. Further, I agree that some appear to overlap, such as Brash and Bravery.

I like the idea of the stats being personality attributes. Seven would work, and having three main pairs and a metagame attribute as the seventh would work nicely. Given my preferences, I'd prefer Bravery/Caution, Tradition/Spirit, and Nobility/Humility. Possibly replace Tradition/Spirit with Logic/Intuition, though those don't strike me as personality traits. I always liked adjectives in this wise rather than nouns, hence: Brave/Cautious, Traditional/Free-spirited, Noble/Humble. I wouldn't mind something like Spiritual/Worldly in place of the Traditional/Free-spirited.

For a seventh meta-stat, you might consider Will or some kind of Faith attribute. Stormbringer used Elan as a measurement of a priestly character's favor in the eyes of the Gods. It was a stat without permanent points. You received Elan points for acting as a loyal priest and serving your God. When you burned them for miracles, they were gone.

When I see the Strength/Agility split, it makes me yawn. The Kap is such a fresh concept that I don't think you need to go the route of mapping out all the traditional physical skills. Ho-hum. Instead, keep the paired personality attributes a la Pendragon, and then give the player Virtues to represent gifts of any stripe, from Mighty Arms to Great Beauty to Stupendous Tolerance for Strong Drink. These virtues would provide fortune bonuses when triggering circumstances are met.

Best,

Blake

Ok, you want a theme of "balance" and you want a seven in there, but you don't want 14 attributes.

Arrange the stats in a seven-sided shape (septagon?). Adjacent stats are opposed. So we've got...

Tradition vs Perception
Perception vs Bravery
Bravery vs Social Standing
Social Standing vs Strength
Strength vs ....

Gah. That's not working as written, but you get the idea. There have got to be workable combos in there somewhere.

Gareth of The Land of Ire,

That's Brilliant and very cool. Here's my suggestion for the septagon:

Humility
Nobility
Honesty
Creativity
Tradition
Wisdom
Power

Each is opposed by the next on the list, Power being opposed by Humility.

Here's a buying system. Start with 14 Balance points. Each stat starts at seven, and for one Balance point you can lower a stat and raise the opposing stat by two. You may not blow more than six balance points on raising/lowering a single pair. For each balance point purchase (representing a combination raising/lowering) the player must choose a descriptor that he feels describes the imbalance.

For example, if I lower my Humility by three to raise my Nobility by Six, I can use the descriptor "Important Father". Then if I lower my Nobility by one to raise my Honesty by two I can describe it as "Honest Upbringing". This gives me a Humility of four, a Nobility of twelve, an Honesty of nine, and ten remaining Balance points.

Note that by using two balance points on each stat you would end up with all nines and no balance points left. And the system gives you a range of possible stats from one to nineteen (d20?). Again, Then you would balance the Balance Points as Egypt power versus personal power. So a player would rarely use all fourteen balance points, unless he wanted to explore the selfish character.


Given the above cycle, then the aspects of Egypt would be found in the Interactions of the oppositions. A possible version:

Humility
---Diplomacy
Nobility
---Trade
Honesty
---Art
Creativity
---Production
Tradition
---Religion
Wisdom
---War
Power
---Fertility

Hey, that came out pretty good, if I do say so.

Each unspent balance point could be used to raise the Egypt attribute in an area. If a character is unbalanced in that area, he is limited to contributing at most one point in that area.

How do you like them ideas?

I really like the concept of creating Egypts attrributes as part of the players' CharGen.

Mike

Mike, I can't keep up with your nifty ideas! I'm still messing around with 7 stats, 6 of which are paired plus a rogue stat.

I've done some work on the structure of the experience system (for want of a better word). Characters choose to be educated either at the Kap in the scribal art, culture and warfare; or at the only other place where education is available, the Egypt-wide Houses of Life, training men for the priesthood in the scribal art, religion and magic. Essentially your deciding to create either a Warrior-Priest or a Wizard-Priest (to put it bluntly). All will be priests, climbing up a long ladder of responsibility and power, even the graduates of the Kap, who will be the elite priests of Horus, the royal cult.

Both types of characters (and my descriptions as warriors or wizards are crude labels) seek office within Egyptian bureacracy. There are 1001 different offices of all ranks, from lowly senior scribe to supervisor of canals, leader of archers, chief ambassador to Syria, royal scribe and grand vizier... Each provides an occupation, wages and social rank. You keep moving up if you can, sideways if you can't. This simulates the rigid status orintated world of Egypt fairly well. But its not the focus of the games, its just the focus of the experience system.

My notes on saving Egypt still apply, I've just opened the net a little wider. I want more magic in the game since its something I've never done before. And Egypt just screams magic .. doesn't it?

Thanks Blake, Myth-holder. Comments appeciated and assimilated. Absolutely wonderful stuff...

Hey Mithras? Um, last time I checked Egyptians had nine parts to what we might term 'the soul.' I don't know where you've done your research, so I won't go any farther into it other than to suggest what you could do if you wanted 7 'attributes' based on them.

First of all, I wouldn't call them 14 separate attributes because it sounds like the pairings would never both yield a low number. I mean, if each pair always adds up to the same number (in this case 7), then I think they'd be more continuums than separates.

Second, if you want a 'visual model,' how about the three dimensional axes? I know, I know; there's only three right? (Or six if you count them as continuums.) Don't forget an obvious seventh, the point of origin. That gives seven; up, down, right, left, backward, forward, and origin.

Finally, based on my research into Egyptology I would put forth these suggestions of 'attributes:' (Warning, as a lay person and rogue scholar, I've terribly murdered the original meanings.)

To start with forward, the Khu, defined as will and intentions, would probably be your Bravery/Caution. Although this is more along the lines of Impetus/Reflection.

For left, the Sekhem, defined as magic, would likely be the Tradition/Spirit attribute you listed. Sekhem has to do with the actual use of magic, unless I misunderstand. This makes it something like Ritual/(some word meaning essentially 'wildness').

Right, the Ab, defined as intellect, both matches your Perception/Intuition or Wisdom & Ignorance (Religion). If you think Ignorance is too negative, how about making it Insight/Willful.

On to up, the Ren, defined as name, and being most 'holy,' could be your Nobility/Humility. (I especially like Ren and took it as an anchor for Scattershot’s grand metaphysic, which is based on the five elements.)

At center, the Ba, defined as link between the soul and the mind, could have bearing on what you termed Health/Survival; sort of a mind/body health thingie.

Backward, the Khat, defined as the physical body, pretty much matches up with your Strength/Agility (which I assume speculated about being more one or another or balanced).

And down, the Khaibit (the shadow), defined as the unconscious, sounds like it might capture the meaning of your Brash/Subtle or Honesty/Deceit (although how you get Diplomacy out of that suggests a little editorial cynacism).

But that leaves two more: Sahu, defined as immortal body and Ka, defined as the double. (I leave these out of the above both to reach your target number of seven and because the deal more in the 'after death' aspect of ancient Egyptian life.)

So far, it’s looking good, but I worry who you're going to interest in playing. Who's your target audience?

Fang Langford

Me Me. The person for whom Palladium's Pharoah game makes my list of all time favorite games. The game for which my personal liabrary is now overflowing with books on Egypt. The only person on the planet still searching for the supposed supplement to Palladiums short lived game.

Pharoah BTW sums up the entire Palladium company for me. The one game they ever did that was actually good last for 1 short print run. The rest of their crap has 18 million splat books. Palladium pisses me off. THEY don't even remember if they actually released the Pharoah supplement. Hell most of 'em don't even remember releaseing that game at all.

But, I digress. Egypt is one of the coolest possible historical settings to game in ever. The hardest part of gaming in Egypt is working around the confines of the Egyptian class system without just ignoring it (Roving bands of free lancing adventurers were well known in Egypt. They were called criminals and promptly killed or enslaved). What THIS game sounds like is a game which doesn't seek to work *around* the egyptian class system, but actually use it as a primary feature of game play.

THAT is a game I must play.

Le Joueur wrote:
Hey Mithras? Um, last time I checked Egyptians had nine parts to what we might term 'the soul.'

Paul,

So does that mean you're sticking with seven or going wth nine as Fang suggests? And if you are going with seven, then do you want to link them to the historical seven parts of the soul? And if so, are the ones that Fang listed the ones you want? And if going with these and with seven, which two are to be dropped (the ones Fang mentioned after the fact, or others)? Do you agree with Fang's assesments of the parallels? Perhaps you should just go with the Egyptian terms as stats themselves, with good descriptions on the character sheet. I'm sure we can come up with opposing stats or a cycle for those as well.

Oh, and another thought. Perhaps if two of those parts of the sould are "post death" parts, then a player can play the character with seven, and then when he dies refactor the charater and have him continue to contribute to Egypt when dead. The eighth and ninth parts would be added to the character then (and possibly two others like the physical body and something else appropriate could be taken away). That way there would be nine potential parts, but only seven at play at any time.

That would be an interesting twist, IMO. Perhaps a player can have one live and one dead character. Live characters might want to look at their stats to change them over time to make sure that they can thrive in the afterlife. Lots of possibilities, there. When a character dies he can have an adventure that follows the book of the dead. Perhaps only a few make it intact to the afterlife. Makes for an interesting goal while alive, and jibes with Egyptian cosmology, if I'm not mistaken.

Just some things to clarify before anybody continues.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: So does that mean you're sticking with seven or going wth nine as Fang suggests? And if you are going with seven, then do you want to link them to the historical seven parts of the soul? And if so, are the ones that Fang listed the ones you want? And if going with these and with seven, which two are to be dropped (the ones Fang mentioned after the fact, or others)? Do you agree with Fang's assesments of the parallels? Perhaps you should just go with the Egyptian terms as stats themselves, with good descriptions on the character sheet. I'm sure we can come up with opposing stats or a cycle for those as well.

As it happens, the egyptian game of Senet was one of the things that prompted to look at characters post mortem. This was partly inspired by this sort of comment:

"During the New Kingdom, tomb walls bore representations of Senet players, for the game had acquired a religious-magical meaning, symbolizing the passage of the deceased through the netherworld, his resurrection dependent upon his winning the Senet game. The last five squares were given new markings, reflecting the desired arrival in the divine domain of eternity."

http://www.imj.org.il/archaeology/game.htm

http://www.gamecabinet.com/history/Senet.html

Apparently in the oldest versions, the starting square contains an ankh. Also note that in the earlier versions there are, significantly, seven pawns per player; furthermore, while early images show two players, later images (by which time Senet has acquired firm mystical resonance) show a player gaming against an invisible opponent.

One might speculate that the invisible opponent is oneself; that the seven pawns represent aspects of the soul and the board the path to the afterlife. It suggests that unlike most modern theologies, in which the afterlife is often guaranteed and universal, here the afterlife is being perceived as a pro-active post-mortem achievement. This might tie in with what I understand was an early egyptian conception of the afterlife as the more or less exclusive realm of the tomb inhabitants, with the pharaoh acting as emissary on behalf of his less favoured subjects.

Anyway, point of the story is that this could be probably be mined for mechanics in some way, and implies that some gamed form of post mortem existance is legitimate, in cultural terms.

OK, then what about this cycle?

Ba, defined as link between the soul and the mind
---Religion
Sekhem, defined as magic
---Fertility
Khat, defined as the physical body
---War
Khaibit, defined as the unconscious
---Art
Ab, defined as intellect
---Production
Khu, defined as will and intentions
---Diplomacy
Ren, defined as name, and being most 'holy'
---Trade

Here's my rationalizations.
Ba represents groundedness and is opposed by the ethereal nature of magic. Between them religion is found in the conflict between a sense of the world and what is beyond.
Sekhem represents magic and is opposed by the hard reality of the Body. Between them Fertility is produced as magic forces creation from the body.
Khat represents the body and as such is opposed by the unconscious part of existence between which we must exist. War is found in the conflicting needs of the body and spirit.
Khaibit represents the unwaking part of our existence, and is opposed by the part of the mind that exists in the waking hours. Art is found as an expression of the conflict between the sleeping and waking self.
Ab represents the mind and open thought, and is opposed by stubborness and deciciveness. Production is caused by the conflict of ideas with the effort caused by willfulness.
Khu represents Will and Intentions, and is opposed by the hubris of the greatness of a name. Diplomacy is found in the conflict between the will to do good for others and the impression of ones name.
Ren represents the great holy name and is opposed by groundedness. Trade is found in the conflict between one's good name and understanding the world.

I know, lots of loose rationalizations in there to wedge everything together. But not too awful, is it?

When the character dies, average the Khat, modified by mumification preparations, and Ren to create the new Sahu stat which then replaces Khat in the cycle. Average the Sekhem, modified by burial rituals, and Khabit to create the Ka stat which then replaces Sekhem. Replace fertility with Durability as the chracter can no longer make living things flourish, but may still contribute to Egypt's longevity through memory. The character can continue adventures in the underworld then to continue to aid Egypt. Death in the undrworld means permenant destruction of the soul.

How's all that sound?

Mike

Mike, how do you see these 'conflicts' (elements comining between two opposed aspects) actually coming into play?

I like your connections. The after-death piece I'll need to rewrite if I use it to come more in line with this:

After death the Ka acts as an intermediary between worlds, passing messages and offerings. Many mortuary chapels had 'ka-doors'. Without a khat (body) to use, the ka of the deceased instead uses the Khaibit or shadow. The soul or Ba uses the astral body (sah) for its journey to the Underworld.

Conflict is really not a good word. Synthesis might have been better in a lot of cases. Anyhow, the conflicts are mostly just rationalizations, but could play a mechanical role. Incorporating my idea from before, the Balance points would be limited as to what they could be spent on by the imbalances the character has. Without a balance between the concious mind and the unconcious mind the character is limited (perhaps restricted; I've been debating that) in donating points to Egypt's Art stat.

What the balance system is trying to produce is characters who are balanced in some stats and unbalanced in others. In fact, I was going to suggest a few limitations. One is that the character when finished should have no more than seven balance points left. This means that the character will have to have at least two imbalances (involving at least three stats) which means that they'd be forced to have descriptors to explain the imbalances (no perfectly balanced, descriptorless characters).

And I was also thinking that players could make characters round robin. They each take a turn choosing an imbalance that is highest for their character. Other characters can take that imbalance but at no more than two points less than the primary taker. This works as long as there are less than seven characters.

BTW, I really like your 1001 positions idea. It screams "player defined" to me. Allow a player who has a higher rank to veto any description of a position created by a player for his character who has just been promoted if the first player feels that it is more powerful than his position. Or something ike that.

Or even better, have a whole set of stats just for the position. Perhaps five stats rated one to two hundred, in stuff like resources, contacts, perks, whatever. These would all add up to the character's rank (the 1001 rank is the Pharoh, or Highest Priest, I'm assuming, and therefore, out of play). Each stat would be a pool of points to use to add to rolls where appropriate (use the square of the bonus as the cost, +1 = 1, +2 = 4, +3 = 9, etc). These points would be usable once. So when you're pools are dwindling, it's time to look for a new position.

I see rolls on promotions to determine your new rank. Botch and you are demoted. Promotion rolls permitted once per session with bonuses to the roll for sessions without an attempt? Something like that?

Gareth, cool info on Senet. Everything I learn makes me want to see this game more.

Mike

Before I get going, I think we need some clarity here: are WE making this game or is HE making this game. We are getting engaged and we need to make a decision else there will be tears before bed time.

Mike Holmes wrote:
one dead character. Live characters might want to look at their stats to change them over time to make sure that they can thrive in the afterlife. Lots of possibilities, there. When a character dies he can have an adventure that follows the book of the dead. Perhaps only a few make it intact to the afterlife. Makes for an interesting goal while alive, and jibes with Egyptian cosmology, if I'm not mistaken.

Contracycle is right about the game writing process. I plan to go away and write this up myself. I've experimented (fitfully) with more collaborative attempts, but I'm easily clouded by other peoples (great!) ideas. I prefer to shut myself away and write ...

Regarding the afterlife approach. A long-term Pendragon style game would suit this recurring life very well, but I think I might find it difficult to make such a game interesting. Its a tricky thing to write to that kind of timescale. I'll be keeping it more immediate as is my style. But still keeping death in there, perhaps just keeping dead characters around as sources of advice, friendship or conflict.

Anyway, still struggling with attributes for now...

Mike Holmes wrote:
BTW, I really like your 1001 positions idea. It screams "player defined" to me.

This is Paul's game and nobody else's as far as I'm concerned. Believe it or not, the stuff I've been putting out here is just what falls out of my head when I read what he's written. He is free to use any of it or none of it at his pleasure. And I keep going off in directions only because Paul has not said that he isn't interested in those ideas. For example, now that he has said that he does not want to do the dynastic thing, I won't riff on that. Not that I don't want to, however. Anything that he does not use I see as possible material for another game or games (and to that extent, I, Michael C. Holmes of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, USA hereby retain all rights to said material included on these pages and created by myself that is not used as previously mentioned to make the aforementioned game by Paul Elliot of somewhere in England, Yadda yadda).

So, when Paul goes off to make his Egypt game, Gareth, wanna put together a game based on some mythical kingdom in the ancient east or something? I'm seeing something called Dynasties of Myth or the like. Assuming that Paul rejects a lot of what's here, I think we might have most of a game ready to go. I'm kinda waiting like a vulure to scavenge the corpse after the hyena leaves with what he's interested in.

:-)

Mike

You're evil :)

Oh, sure, I leave thousands of words of notes for you to take or leave as you like, and now I'm evil?

No respect! One of these days, Elliot!



Oh, BTW, I like the Ka-door thing. Ya gotta keep us up to speed on these things. Now lets see, how does that affect the stat cycle after death...

;-)

Mike (easily distracted by games) Holmes

contracycle wrote:
I'm wary of the player going "so, what member of the Ancient egyptian bureacracy shall I appoint myself to... hmm... I don't know". I think the list needs to be at least partially defined, and with my inclinations, broken into regions of responsibility. I would think perhaps players could exercise, well, privileges of rank, I suppose.

Ahh, I come to post on dice mechanics and you already bring the subject up ...

I wanted to go nifty - d4s for pointy pyramid shapes
I wanted to go for d8s - two square based (ie authentic) pyramids stuck end to end
I wanted to avoid anything bigger than a d10.

But I keep coming back to my nice warm safe 2d6. A lovely bell curve, average is 7 (that magical 7), numbers not to high. I just feel I've used it before so many times. Time to be innovative, But what the hell - I like it!

So, I want to scale the gateway into the supervisor's villa. That's Khat (my rating is 5, pretty good). Difficulty is 13 (based on the Khat of Egypt, ie. its armies and forces, 13 isn't fantastic). I roll 2d6, get a 6, add 5 and just fail the climb by 2 pts.

I know that Donjon Krawl has brought this up, but I had a resolution system worked out for a 1930s pulp game which did away with failure, especially in action scenes. Either you made the roll and what you want happened, or you don't and 'something else' happens (not necessarily
failure). I still like that system.

Am I copping out with my faithful 2d6??

How about 2D8-2. That gives lots of pyramids rolling around, you get the curve (Actually a linear "pyramid" curve, not a bell for 2 dice). And the silly -2 means that you have a range from zero to fourteen averaging, you guessed it, seven.

The only case in which I'd actually advocate a -2 on a primary die roll is if the other stats didn't add directly. This can be accomplished if you want to keep all of these nifty elements. BTW, for a published game, you'd want to include two dice that went from 0 to 7 instead of 1 to 8. Now that would be really cool. Or for a FUGElike effect, have a positive 0 to 7 die and a negative one. Egypt dice.

As for the Egypt stat being the target, does what you have in your post imply that you calculate the target from the Egypt stat, higher Egypt stats producing lower targets, or do you just use the Egypt stat straight, and a Lower Egypt stat is better? My original concept was use a Higher is Better Egypt stat, and roll below the stat for success. I know, counterintuitive. But relatively simple. You could calculate all your targets before the game by adding your stat to the Egypt stat. Then roll lower on the dice for success.

If you want an all Higher is Better system, just have a standard target (20?) and add the appropriate Egypt stat to the character stat plus the roll to exceed that target.

What is your command?

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote:
So, when Paul goes off to make his Egypt game, Gareth, wanna put together a game based on some mythical kingdom in the ancient east or something? I'm seeing something called Dynasties of Myth or the like. Assuming that Paul rejects a lot of what's here, I think we might have most of a game ready to go. I'm kinda waiting like a vulure to scavenge the corpse after the hyena leaves with what he's interested in.

Heh, I was actually thinking Indus River civ. No, really. I became aware of them through the boardgame History of the World, and then the thought occurred that they should be in the board game Civilization. Well, it turns out that we found a Spanish magazine that had published an Eastern Expansion map that included the Indus valley civ (not to mention the Sumerians, Persians, and the Semites). How's that for a geek hunt? Anyway, we recently played a ten player game of Civ using both expansions; very cool.

Anyway, so, yeah, I've got the Indus Valley on my mind. And the lack of info is really cool, allows great lattitude. But it also means a lot more reading to make sure we don't put in any glaring errors. Despite my interest I know little about these people.

So, Paul, how close are you to "going off" to write this baby? Can you give us an idea of what you don't want to use? Gotta get started on this Indus Valley game (I sure hope they had dynasties). :-)

Mike

Contracycle, Mike - what am I going to use? There's lots of things I like, especially the linkage between Egypt and its people. Especially the use of stats for state and characters, the idea of supporting a prince and building him up through your own vision of what he should be.

Whatever you decide to use, I think we can safely say it will not end up up being remotely like my Egypt-game! We'll twist the stuff in different directions for sure. Don't hold back on account of me. Don't 'save' ideas on my account. Write away ...

I don't think the Indus crowd had dynasties - but if they did no-one knows about it.

I'm no expert on the Indus valley - yes, I have heard the claim that they had very little in the way of violence or dynasties - probably. It has also been claimed that the large buildings were used directly by the common folk. It's some thing that might be worth exploring in its own right; OTOH we don't need to stay in the Indus. Personally, I suspect we will eventually discover a coercive agency; IMO monumental architecture recquires social stratification.

But given this concern, we might as well make a clean decision on what to choose. The advantage of the Indus is flexibility, in that it is little defined. However, this makes greater demand on us to create detail and a sense of place. The advantage of a well-known society - say Athens - lies in the opportunity to at least attempt a "world-view" game from etsablished data. Perhaps the Minoans would be better in this regard. Some of these have been tackled before, although IMO

OK, I did a bit of research to expand my small Indus Valley civ knowledge base.

contracycle wrote:
I'm no expert on the Indus valley - yes, I have heard the claim that they had very little in the way of violence or dynasties - probably. It has also been claimed that the large buildings were used directly by the common folk. It's some thing that might be worth exploring in its own right; OTOH we don't need to stay in the Indus. Personally, I suspect we will eventually discover a coercive agency; IMO monumental architecture recquires social stratification.

But given this concern, we might as well make a clean decision on what to choose. The advantage of the Indus is flexibility, in that it is little defined. However, this makes greater demand on us to create detail and a sense of place.

The advantage of a well-known society - say Athens - lies in the opportunity to at least attempt a "world-view" game from etsablished data. Perhaps the Minoans would be better in this regard. Some of these have been tackled before, although IMO

Mike Holmes wrote:
We're dancing around the obvious choice, though, which is Mesopotamia. One of the cool things about that civ is how it's central authority changed from city-state to city-state and even from culture to culture (Assyrians, Hittites, Chaldeans, etc). There could be a very interesting premise in there, somewhere.

I'm very tempted to just create a fictional place and steal what we need from actual history. But then how is that not just another fantasy game? Hmmm...

Paul, I agree that we'll certainly end up with different stuff. Just wanted to make sure we weren't horning in on anything sacred.

Mike Holmes wrote:
We're dancing around the obvious choice, though, which is Mesopotamia.

contracycle wrote:
Well, a kinda model I have been toying with on and off would be to play a game which actually created a civilisation.

I'm getting my threads confused now Mike!!

What about a system where Egyptian characters create a dead ancestor to play alongside the PC. This other group have adventures in the Afterlife and impinging on the realworld involving the PCs (see the newly filmed series of Randal and Hopkirk? The detectiv's murdered partner continues to help him crack cases even though he's a ghost).

Even better, start like you say, but when the player's PC dies, that PC becomes the dead ancestor, and the PCs son becomes the PC. Die without heir, and you are out of the game.

How's that for enforcing the ancient worldview?

Mike

Well, perhaps this could be summed up as a concept of "biographical"; RPG. The idea is to make characters who have interesting lives in interesting times and playing over the whole course of that life. In a sequence of such lives, with any luck, a world (or at any rate a city or culture) is explore or created or maybe both. Anyway, that's the goal, and this is what I have been able to come up with based on Mikes excellent ideas about choosing the post in the bureaucracy on so on, although I may have gotten carried away.

The idea is intended to deliberately establish an explicit game frame, so as to support explicit scene framing in order to do time compression such that a group of characters can live out the critical junctures of their lives. That's the hope, anyway. This requires that the participants are aware at the metagame level that are cutting to the significant events and so forth, although the actual play of any given scene is in real time. In this pattern A Game is more or less the lives of a group of contemporaries in a significant historical moment; A Campaign would be a sequence of these generations so as to develop a progressively evolving environment over substantial chunks of game time. Part of the mechanics would map to a system of cultural representation which I have not had time to think about yet. I don't think there's any structural need to have characters in each game period necessarily descend from prior characters, let alone prior characters of the same player, but players may choose to do so and perhaps some mechanics could be written to support that.

The first step in the metagame is to establish a frame. The frame constitutes an immediate historical backdrop and the critical junctures of a given period which will be followed in game time. The players and the GM may/should cooperate in the selection of elements which constitute the frame. If a premise is to be employed it is conceived and discussed here. Once the elements of the frame have been agreed upon, it must be narrowed down to the actual window of game and real time across which the live game will occur. First of all, a rough length of time should be established for the frame; the length of time within the frame will be of critical value in scene framing. An estimate should also be agreed of the number of sessions of real time that the game will occur across, again for later use in scene framing.

The second step (still in the metagame) is the creation of characters. Characters should be created with the critical junctures in mind - indeed, character selection may tacitly occur prior to or during frame selection. This step consists primarily of realizing the character mechanically and marrying it to the frame, including adapting or rewriting existing characters to accord with the new frame, moving them on in years, adjusting their relationships, or circumstances (thus, there is no other mechanical character development). The character should probably be developed or re-conceived with the premise in mind. Character development should be as freeform as possible although mechanically related to the frame; preferably with as much player creation as possible. The characters should be created as a group with social bonds and interlocking personal relationships; IOW a relationship map should be constructed based directly upon each of the characters, filled out with all the appropriate NPC's (which could/should be generated collectively and consciously). These maps should interlock, and their interactions consciously devised with reference to the elements agreed upon in the frame. In this structure, a personal level association between characters is necessary - the dramatic dynamic exists between these characters and provides the immediate context of actual play. The characters are not allies, they are protagonists in the situation expressed by the fame. Potentially, each character should also have something like an unresolved conflict, to use the psychobabble, with each other character.

A this point we have: an idea of how long we are going to play, how much in game time is going to pass, a set of personally interrelated characters who are the protagonists in a loose context defined by the frame. The GM then constructs a set of scenes in which the frame crisis appears and plays out. The actual scene conceptualization will depend heavily on the elements agreed in the frame, the individual identities of the player characters, and the NPC's generated in stage two. The GM's purpose, in a sense, is to knit the player characters together into an experience in which they interact and play off each other. There are villains if the players designed villain NPC's; there are natural disasters if natural disasters were agreed upon in the frame (but hey, the GM should be get to play too, and IMO with a hidden hand). The game is executed in real time and the natural disasters duly occur and the dastardly villains do villainous deeds; the characters respond, interact. By definition, those scenes that occur are those which feature player characters in protagonised roles; all other scenes occur for expository purposes only. Obviously, the more characters in any given scene the better, but if they are all linked that should not be too hard. In this regard character design might possibly be done with some sense in which the characters can be valuable to one another in the pursuit of their objectives. The idea is that with the interlocked R-map design, on the principles of degrees of separation an explicit path exists between characters and so scenes can be devised to bring them into play with one another. The princess and the pauper share a relationship with a captain of the guard; the GM thus frames to scene in which the pauper is captured stealing bread by the captain, in such a manner that the princess can hear his forlorn but beautiful singing voice from the cell in the guardhouse.

Mechanically, I still like the idea of combining of the land and the personal at the metaphysical level; for one thing, this way we really can do prophecies. Its possible that could be optional too; it could be part of what is agreed upon in the frame. The elements of the frame exist so as to realize the setting so for a given culture or period you would find a good candidate crisis or something, cameo historical characters if you want, go heavy on the colour. If you're doing it "experimentally", to creatively define an unknown culture (and in a real sense, all historical cultures are known only by their shadows, as it were) then you could employ something like a Civ-like tech tree and through successive framings agree and develop say a religion or a dynasty or whatever. It's all inward looking too; external cultures only serve to provide elements to the frame, or the symptoms of crises. As for task resolution, well the idea here is really to cooperate in colouring in the frame, so I'd be inclined to a system that did not much regulate character activity. I am kinda thinking of a system, almost a magic system in a sense, in which characters solve problems by realizing parts of their environment, although I do still see the GM having a role in handling consistency; maybe someone has some ideas about that. The players should accrue rather than spend game currency by realizing the world. If the scene is "The Flight From Pompeii", players are rewarded for bringing in a fisherman they know whose boat they can run for, whatever. The GM'role is primarily to handle the sim, I guess.

Anyway, thoughts welcome.

The question is how to do all the above, and not just make it a rehash of Aria (which claims to do many of the same things).

Mike

Given the subject matter of egyptian/messopotamian settings that have been discussed for this game, may I suggest you give a good read to one of my all time favorite books James Michener's The Source.

This massive tome basically traces (in the guise of an archeaological dig) the entire history of a small Palestinian city from prehistorical settlements right through the the jews, hittites, assyrians, babylonians, romans, etc.

It is really a perfect image of what CC is discussing above. The characters lives in each chapter are aggressively cut to highlight just the key moments of their existance (usually centered around a particular artifact "discovered" by the parallel story of archeaologists). Similiar the different "generations" specifically avoid the generations where nothing much happened and cut right to the next historical "bang".

Its a huge book to read, but I've read it now at least 3 times and just can't get over how incredibly ambitious the majority of Micheners projects are.

Heh, this is why Ralph and I work together. I, too, was tinking recently that The Source would be a good, well, source for this game. I also heartily recommend it for anyone who is able to take Michener's length. I know he's not for everybody, but Ralph is right. It's very much like what Gareth describes.

Mike

Can we assume from your lack of continued posting on this thread (not to mention your appearance on the Mesopotamian thread) that you have moved into that solo writing phase that you mentioned? I hope so; I really want to see how this one turns out.

Mike

I have, yes. How much I'll get done I'm not sure, but I'm putting down my first version onto disc. I think too much debate gets my head spinning - all good ideas with no real way to pick out what will work from what will not.

I'll carry on with the Mesopotamian debate as well as post irregularly on the Kap as I encounter problems.

Thanks all!