Hello,

I’m new to the Forge but excited to start sharing.  I have been working on a game design for the past two years and I am very close to publishing it on the internet through PDF.  I have not been able to play test it as much as I would like.  This is a brief outline of some of the basic game concepts.  I am looking for comments or play testers if you are interested.

My goal with the game is to take a literary work, in this case Beowulf, and translate it into a role-playing game that echoes the style of its design (poetic verse) and the spirit of it’s subject matter (heroic warrior culture and the ‘aristocracy of the brave’).  Namely I am interested in the ideas of boasting and story telling that are common to the proto-vicking Scandinavian folk described in Beowulf and how those devices could be employed in a role-playing game.  The game’s major themes include fate (wyrd) and bravery (maegen).

There are a couple of major things that make ‘Ring-Hall’ (tentative game title) different from more traditional role-playing games.

1. The Game Master as a Character
In Beowulf the Game Master (GM) is also a Player Character; his character is a scop (pronounced like ‘shop’), a storytelling bard who serves his Lord as an entertainer, historian, and herald.  The other participants in the game play warrior heroes from the past, the subjects of this scop’s tale.  The game follows like a normal role playing game.  The player playing the scop is the GM.  However, at times, the GM narrates a small portion of the scop’s story for the Players.  This gives the Players clues about where the scop is coming from, foreshadowing and a glimpse into the future their characters are helping to craft.

The Game Master’s character has a name and a set of statistics that help define, to a certain degree, what kind of story the players are in.  It is important to lose the idea that happenings in the game are unchangeable historical events.  Imagine the characters living and breathing in the story as it unfolds from the scop’s lips. 

The scop does not interact with the warriors (the PC’s) in a direct way but he/she does interact with them in an abstract way.  The scop lives in a future away from the warriors but through his/her story, the influences of the GM, and the actions of the warriors, their lives bleed into one another. 

2. Characters as Storytellers
The Player Characters are all referred to as warriors, this is a classless system.  Each players is responsible for defining the concept of their warriors, they are free to choose what roll their characters have in this society, however, when war comes knocking ever swineherd, slave, and prince picks up a spear. 

Players engage in the retelling of their adventures in the form of a Formal-Boast during periods of rest at their chiefs hall.  This is a chance for the warrior to understand what has happened, gain camaraderie and respect among his peers, and turn his experience into improved ability for his next encounter.  In this way the warriors act as storytellers who reshape the events laid down by the Game-Master.  The Formal Boast is also how the players earn ‘experience’ points to improve their character.

3. Changing of the Game-Master
The game-master’s character, the scop, will eventually die or move on from his/her role as storyteller.  An end-story is narrated by the GM and  another player can take the position  and role up a new scop character while the former GM gets a chance to be a PC in the world he/she has helped to create.  In this way the story changes tone and theme as it changes narrators.

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The system is somewhat simple and I would rather not get into to much detail yet.  Characters have 6 stats (Might and Prowess cover everything physical, Wisdom and Lore cover memory, awareness and spirituality, and Daring and Honor cover emotion, passion and social skill and awareness).  Then there are a couple handfuls of skills to choose from.  I took what I love about Pendragon (quick opposed roll combat) and kind of stripped it down.  What follows are some of the major thematical devices and how they loosely relate to the governing dynamics of the game. 

The warriors have Wyrd (pronounced ‘word’) which reflects their fate or their ‘heroic life-span’ and Maegen (pronounced ‘main’) which reflects their moral resolve and courage, their comfort with fate.  Maegen is increased through defeating Foes and Formal Boasts.  Once Maegen equals Wyrd (the total of the warrior’s stats) the warrior makes a glorious sacrifice (slays the worm, so to speak) or retires.  As warriors leave the story new ones are made.

The Foe has a set of Names (death-stalker, gate-breaker, man-scather etc.) that define its appearance, MO, abilities and fearfulness.  Foes can not be killed until warriors earn enough collective Maegen, then they are prone to death.

The scop’s statistics;  Fabulist and Chronicler, which reflect creative license and historical accuracy. Mysticism and Worldliness, which represent the scop’s knowledge of the Gods and the other world vs. his or her knowledge of politics, law, and history.  Mirth and Brooding, which reflect the style and theme of their tale-weaving and the interpretation of their audience.

As players Boast they decide to direct their boast toward the theme of Honor or the theme of Daring (these themes are, of course, completely subjective, and part of the game is figuring out what these Statistics mean for the characters).  The game-master must guess which theme will be emphasized.  If they guess correctly they get a point in Chronicler, if they guess incorrectly they get a point in Fabulist.  If either Fabulist or Chronicler reach a set number, the Audience score, the scop enters an End-Story (not sure about this name) in which their storytelling days end, the position of GM is up for grabs.  One of the players retires or NPC’s his old warrior and takes the reigns.

Mysticism and Worldliness act as point pools.  The scop gets points in Mysticism when a character rolls a critical success while combating a mystical creature, a point in Worldliness when a character rolls a crit vs a mortal enemy.  The warriors may Invoke advantages (extra dice to modify rolls) from these point pools.  To Invoke the player, in his/her bravest voice, brags outwardly about what they intend to do, insults their enemy or invokes their ancestors or the Gods for aid.  The GM narrates how the scop stutters for a moment, or looses his/her train of thought, the warriors seem to step outside his/her words and the audience is visibly moved.

Mirth and Brooding are raised at the end of a Foe’s death.  Major events of a happy nature (childbirth, marriages that end blood-feuds, etc.) add points into Mirth, which is then added to Audience.  Major events of a dark nature (death of fellow warriors, major betrayals, success of other Foes, etc.) add points into Brooding.  Points of Brooding can be used by the warriors to get a re-roll or force the GM to re-roll.  If they use this advantage they subtracts points from Audience, this represents open controversy in the scop’s audience about the truth or purpose behind his tale-working.  The point assignments for Mirth and Brooding.

What do you think of the Game-Master with a character idea?  This character has a personality and a set of circumstances surrounding them but their stats are meant to act as a window between storyteller and character.  In other words, the scop defines the story itself as a character and emphasizes the apocryphal nature of myth, the subjectivity and difference between the experience of being part of a story and telling a story.  This experience is shared between the players as they exchange roles and new generations of warrior’s walk the word-worlds of old scop’s.

Also, I am wondering about trying to include more Old-English words such as wyrd, scop and maegen.  So far I have only tried to use OE words that have no single word modern english equivalent.  Wyrd is like fate but different, Maegen is like strength and bravery and value as a member of society all combined.

I think that the system and themes support a long campaign style game, I imagine stories stretching through generations of warrior’s and scop’s alike.  I wonder if the oscillation between player and GM is to much though, stories may end prematurely as new GM’s loose interest in the story arc old GMs' designed. 

Thanks for your time!  Any comments, references, suggestions would be greatly appreciated.   

I like the idea of giving the GM a character as an avatar in/of the story.  But I'm not quite clear:  What are the scop's goals?  What's he trying to achieve, and how does he achieve it?

Great Question,

I have not fully thought out this issue.  I guess the characterness of the scop (meaning how much like a normal pc he or she is) is very low.  That said, a GM could embody a scop with very specific goals; like becoming a politician - and the players could agree that if their Chronicler stat maxes out before their Fabulist stat they succeed.  A general goal of the scop (and the GM) would be to maintain their position for as long as possible by telling a great tale.  Keeping Chronicler and Fabulist even.  Do you think that the scop needs a clearly defined set of motivations, something akin to nature in White Wolf?  Or perhaps refering to the scop as a full fledged character is to much, he or she is more like a very special NPC.  Players would certainly be encouraged, within the text of the game, to make their scop as detailed and value driven as possible- unfortunately I have come up with no systemical way to represent this.  This gives me a lot to think about.   

Here's my left-field suggestion.

Open up the game with the non-skop players describing the state of the Lord's domain, and what challenges the Lord and his men are about to face.  Each player writes down a value, belief, challenge, or hell, thematic statement to describe their contribution.

Now, the skop will presumably be recalling the tales of legend to encourage and rally the men to face what they're about to do.  So whenever he gets the characters into a situation where one of the written-down goals is addressed, he gets rewarded.

This will give the skop some goals to be striving for at the same time that it makes the story about the things that the players care about.

I think that many games claim that the GM has no agenda, and that this is a critical misunderstanding.  Real GMs, being real people, will form agendas.

What you do when you make a game that claims that they don't is you bar yourself from telling them what that agenda should be.  So, in the absence of any guidance, they make up agendas of their own.  That's how you get GMs who are playing to-the-hilt adversity in games (like world of darkness) where that GM agenda is completely inappropriate ... and conversely, GMs who are playing to support the PCs and clear challenge out of their way in games (like D&D) where that GM agenda is completely inappropriate.  GMs set up elaborate logic puzzles in Paranoia, and kill-em-all doom scenarios in Castle Falkenstein.  I've seen it done, and I'm convinced that it's because nothing in the rules tells them not to.

I think that if you can provide the GM with a clear goal (or, even better, a set of procedures) for what they should be doing, and make sure that if they pursue that goal it will mesh with the rest of the system, then you're doing a great service to everyone who will play your game.  Dogs in the Vineyard, for instance, does this to a fare-thee-well ... it tells the GM "Do this, do this, do that ... then play the characters, and it'll work like a charm every time."

So, basically:  When you're being the scop in this game ... what will you be doing?  You've probably already internalized exactly what the scop should be doing, to make the rest of the game work smoothly.  Now you need to externalize that knowledge, and write it down in a form that will let every scop do exactly the same thing you do.

Hello! I'm Zac and I'm pretty interested in the subject matter you're proposing.

Before I get into game stuff, have you ever read Grendel by John Gardner? It's in the same vein as Wicked and such, with an old fairy tale retold from the monster's perspective. It's a great look at the Beowulf saga from a different perspective.... Gardner has an amazing gift for diction. I highly recommend it!

That aside, it had occurred to me that a Nordic hero game should include mead-hall bragging as a way to gain experience. I like the setup you've recommended here, with the two stories (the heroes' tale and the scop's tale) interweaving.

Maybe it could go like this: when a hero's story is being told, his audience could openly doubt particularly over-the-top parts of the story, which would demand dice rolls. For example, if the character fails a dice roll on Prowess, then he should go back and tell that bit of the story as if he were a lousy fighter instead of a great one.

I get the feeling that the game could get a little layered: the players play thanes (or at least veterans who've made it into the mead-hall) who are telling stories over a round of drinks. Some game elements here are the Storyteller, the Protagonist, Toasts, Bluffing, and the Truth.

Okay, so during the thane's story, conflicts will come up, and the Protagonist (the character featured in the story) will use various traits like Courage, Strength, Mettle, Cleverness, etc. If the Storyteller (the speaking thane) wants to use traits with higher values than he actually possesses, he has to roll something, possibly that trait's value (not sure of any exact rules ideas yet... I'm guessing that the Storyteller would make some sort of opposed Cleverness stat roll to Bluff your way into a higher stat value).

For instance, if Cruachan the Craven wants to use a Strength of 5 instead of a strength of 2 in his story about escaping the dwarf-tunnels, he would need to make a seriously good Cleverness roll to convince his furrow-browed companions that he could really do that. The cleverest among the listeners might roll Cleverness against the Storyteller's.

There could be concessions for partial success, like explanations of luck or one-time-only excuses for the suspicious line in the tale ("well, the dwarfs had taken my father's drinking horn from me while I slept, so in my rage, I..."). If the Storyteller wins by a good margin, then the other thanes believe him at face value. If the Storyteller's Cleverness roll is beaten by that of the other thanes, then he has to go back and rework that part of the story to more accurately reflect the Protagonist's stats. Such a reworking is called the Truth. Having to tell the Truth reduces the Storyteller's Cleverness by 1 for the duration of the tale.

Whenever any thane-player is particularly impressed (laughing out loud, applauding, or some other sign of real appreciation), he should call for a Toast. If the other thane-players agree, the players should (in character as thanes) declare a Toast to the Storyteller. At this point, the Protagonist's stats are increased in some way (possibly all get +1, or +1 to the most recently Bluffed stat, or one of the Storyteller's choice...) for the duration of the tale. This reflects the thanes' interest in the story and their growing gullibility (fueled by mead, of course).

The Storyteller's tale ends whenever the Storyteller wants it to, but if he's called out on his Bluffing enough times, the other thanes should clamor for the Storyteller to shut up and drink some more. In game terms, if at any time the Storyteller's Cleverness is reduced to 0 by being caught in a lie, the story ends.

When a tale ends of its own accord, the Storyteller should pass his role to another thane of his choice. If, instead, the thanes make the Storyteller stop his tale (as outlined in the previous lil' paragraph), someone else should pick up the tale and continue it. If another thane continues the tale, he has the option of introducing himself (or maybe someone he knows?) into the story. Of course, if nobody believes that he (or his uncle Vargas) was there, follow the above rules for Bluffing. Once the thane has placed himself (or one of his kinsman) into the tale, he should continue it to its conclusion via the normal rules. Once the thane finishes the Storyteller's tale in his stead, he has the option of going right into a tale about himself (and accepting the role of Storyteller).

Not every thane has to tell a tale in one evening; it's ok for some of them to sit back, drink, and catcall their mates. Maybe treasures, side characters, and other interesting little details that come up in a thane's tale could show up again in future sessions of this game. For instance, although Yog doesn't have the Dragontooth Dagger anymore, he sure used to, and he'll eventually get around to telling us all how he lost it again.

A sign that it's time to retire a character from the game could be when he either runs out of adventures to share or he tells the tale of how he got where he is today. When a player is ready to retire his thane (which might happen in the game as "I'm drunk enough for one night. Odin watch over you stinking lot!") he can tell the story of how he got to where he is today. Or, you know, he could just act out leaving the mead-hall for the evening, sodding drunk and ready for bed.

Give me your thoughts!

Zac,

Amazing ideas.  I was tinkering with the idea of letting other pc's interject or doubt a character's Boast as a formal element in the game, something akin to Unferth and Beowulf's word-duel in Hrothgar's hall.  I thought I would leave interuptions and challenges to their natural course in the game however.   

I love the idea of shared storytelling and the Boast as the generative force for the narrative of the game.  If I understand it correctly there would be no single gamemaster, and as the story switched from one thane's tale to the next the focus of who the story is about would change as well.  I'm really fascinated by this idea and would love to talk about it some more.

Grendel, by John Gardener, is amazing and certainly a satelight influence (its quoted in the draft I am working on right now).

Thank you

Tony,

This is kind of new territory for me.  I think that I understand what your saying though.  There is something missing with the scop-gm relationship.  Is the GM just there to create a world, make a story, and referee? (rhetorically)  If the GM has a set of goals, achieved through the scop, that really does bring a new dimension to the game.

"Now you need to externalize that knowledge, and write it down in a form that will let every scop do exactly the same thing you do."

I'm on the case.

  In the ideas I wrote about in my previous post, I wasn't really imaging any game master of any sort.
 
The Storyteller is basically telling a narrative all by himself, but I figure other folks in the game could chime in and give suggestions *as well as* offering praise and declaring Toasts.

  The Storyteller's goal, in one sense, is to make his story both exciting and reasonably credible; if he can do this, he keeps the spotlight as long as he wants to (or until he finishes his tale).

  So the players all portray Scanian warriors (which of course can be anybody in town, as a call to arms affects everybody) and the warriors themselves take turns telling tall tales about themselves.

  The Storyteller technically is telling a story about himself, so the actual play of the game would look like an extended monologue by a single character with the other characters breaking in on occasion. I guess we could assume that the thanes aren't interrupted for the most part; I have no idea how much it would disrupt what we've got to introduce other folks in the hall, like the king, servants, other thanes, etc.

  What I mean is, should the thanes remain undisturbed? For instance, there's the world within the Storyteller's tale, and there's the space where the thanes are drinking and talking. To make things less complicated, maybe Thane (capital t) should refer explicitly to the players' characters, and not anyone in the Storyteller's lil' narrative.

  Sometimes, I think this game sounds a wee bit complicated; then again, the written version of Beowulf jumps between the Scop and Beowulf's life a couple of times. I once read a children's version of the story that played with this a bit, occasionally reminding us that there were people in a mead-hall listening to the Scop.

  Oddly, that version also changed the Dragon into a four-headed monstrosity, each head representing one of the four Greek elements. Maybe that was an alternate version of the tale? Maybe that was something to keep kids more interested?
 
  Anyway, I was thinking a lot about Grendel today at work. I'm really excited that someone else is as into a Beowulf rpg as I am...

  It occurred to me that six stats seems like a lot. Maybe Prowess could be fighting ability; Might or Strength could be raw power; Cleverness is cunning, intelligence, and knowledge; something like Heart or Courage could function like a willpower trait. I dunno if mysticism would make a lot of sense, if we're playing thanes; they're poorly educated and definitely not wizards or anything.

  Thoughts? :D