So, last night we had a terrific playtest of Divinity Horizons. My wife and my two long-term gamers were there, as well as a newcomer to our group. Divinity Horizons (DH, from here on) has been through many playtests already, and the rules have been through multiple revisions. They’re looking very close to completion. Last night also marked the first game where I really focused in on what I wanted as the theme and mood for the game; those two things had been glossed over and even ignored in some of our prior playtests in favor of rules-testing, and the games suffered for it. But last night I really tried to emphasize the theme of heroics and the mood of this great, big, mythic world and it went great.

If you have not read the Power 19 for DH, check my sig below for a link.
I will try to stay away from talking about the rules specifics as much as possible, as I find that it is difficult to read an actual play post to a game you don't know the rules to.

First, the Dramatis Personae, if you will.

Andrea, my beloved wife, reprised her role as Polarus. Polarus came from a “Berlin”-like divided city right on the border between the Ondron Commonwealth and the Tantalus League. She escaped over the “wall,” but her family did not. As such, she’s fiercely dedicated to the League; she wants vengeance for her family. Her character has a piece of the dead god Casimir, giving her Dominion over Seas and Division.

Bain, one of our long time players, made a new character, Marcus. His character was a fallen-from-grace, self-exiled ex-Tribune (general) that had recently received a Halvard shard, giving him Dominion over Swords and Stone. He has returned to offer his services to the League, but only by re-earning it; he refuses to use his reputation.

Brandon is our other long-timer; he played Torm. Torm had grown up in the Ondron Commonwealth, but bad decisions by officers in charge of his home town caused him to feel betrayed. He’s dedicates himself to hurting the Commonwealth and has become quite notorious, but he's not sure if he's actually on the League's side, yet.. He’s got a Paeril shard, Dominions: Frost and Wolves

Finally, Peter was new to our group and DH, though certainly not to roleplaying. He played Phylexis, a honey-tongued rabble-rouser. Freedom of the people is his creed; he sneaks from town to town in the Commonwealth, seeding dissent and stirring rebellion. His shard is from Tyrrol, giving him control over the Dominions of Shadows and Mirrors.

I was very pleased with everyone’s characters and the character creating experience in general. Everyone came up with fairly detailed backgrounds on their own, without any prodding from me. Their Traits were, for the most part, a natural extension of their backstories, and everyone filled up their character sheets pretty quickly. They even helped each other come up with more mythic or appropriate sounding Traits, too. The introduction of my regular players to Wushu and DH was a slow, drawn-out experience; so it was good to see how quickly Peter was able to jump on board, having only read Wushu once a long time ago and knowing only the basics of DH that I sent him the day before. His Traits were right on, and he even helped with the naming of other player's Traits. That was very encouraging.

I let everyone have a very free reign with creating their characters; I had only two requests. One was that they were at least neutral towards the Tantalus League. The second was that they all come up with a reason why their characters would be at this certain island, where the story would be taking place.

This did not work out so well as I had hoped, and it was my fault. I made that request because my players, traditionally, have a lot of fun putting thought into their characters, but they hardly ever put any thought into how their characters might fit together. Many times I'll have the problem of the typical "loner in the shadows" type character. I was trying to skip over the burdensome and wearying task of trying to force the group together through contrived means and deus ex machinas; most of which take up much of the game session.
This was a bad call on my part. I should have just said "let's talk about how your characters can come together" or something. All I ended up doing was inadvertantly forcing the players to come up with the contrived means and deus ex machinas so that they were all on the island, and I still had to waste a lot of time getting them to come together. Disappointing, that, but everyone was a good sport and didn't seem to mind. They were just anxious to get rolling.
Four Amalga all showing up in the same place is extremely unlikely, and the players just wrote it off as "Well, we're the PCs, so we have to get together." They'll discover that Fate wasn't working entirely on its own soon enough.

So, the reason they were at this island was that it was the victim of a recent attack. When the low gods died, sometimes pieces of their souls that didn't find a human host would clump together and form dangerous, gargantuan monsters. This island was attacked by just such a monstrosity.

After the characters discovered that they were all here to help, they went to visit the local magistrate to find out all they could. They learned that the island was attacked by the Gymantiks, twin monsters made entirely of living marble. One is a giant mantis with the "tail" of a wasp, the other is a giant wasp with the razor-scythe arms of a mantis. The monsters pretty much ravaged the entire island and kidnapped several hundred islanders, presumabely taking them back to their hive for food. They learned that the Gymantiks live on the cursed marble isle of Gemenon and found out where the island was located.

Torm had come to the island because he was offered a great deal of information he could use to hurt the Commonwealth if he would resuce this guy's son that got taken by the monsters, so he went and got the scent from the boy's clothes.
In the meantime, the islanders learned that the characters were Amalga. They began begging them to help, asking for them to rebuild the town or to help look for survivors buried under rubble. Marcus was all ready to go and help, but the others reminded him that the kidnapped villagers were still alive last anybody saw, and they needed to go help them. He reluctantly agreed (but secretly helped the woman who believed her family to be buried alive beneath her home). Excellent. I was seeing, already, where the character's values lay and what their priorities were.

They arrived, some time later, at Gemenon thanks to a fishing vessel and Polarus' control of the sea. The island looked like a giant iceberg; it was composed completely of white marble, with no plants or animals visible. There were some strange looking humanoids moving around the shore, but nothing else. As they drew closer to the isle, the Divine Stream began feeling stranger to them. They could still operate as normal, but things definately felt a little "off," like a mild sense of vertigo that just wouldn't go away. They were entering a Nexus--a place where the Physical and Spiritual realms blended together more than usual, and natural laws do not always apply.

Phylexis used his control over mirrors to make their boat appear much farther from the island than it actually was. They snuck up and found those pasty humans to be nearly mindless. To Torm's wolves, they smelled like stone, and they paid no mind to anyone. They were there mainly to freak the players out and show them that they were definately in a strange place.

Torm's wolves caught the scent of live humans coming from very far away. The characters all started heading up the island towards the peak at the center. Along the way, they were ambushed by a group of mad, cyclopaen orangutans made of limestone. The first combat. It went very well, though there were a few problems. The good news, first:
Everyone had a good time warming up their creative muscles, inventing clever, cinematic ways of taking the apes out. Peter was a little hesitant at first but, after only a single round of watching everyone else, he was able to jump right in there and started narrating very appropriate in-character reactions to the apes. It does make me worry just a little bit about people who don't have the benefit of watching players who've played DH before, but the finished book will have very large portions dedicated to examples of play and example stories, which Peter did not have. Hopefully, that will take care of it.

The incident with the orangutans was supposed to be a quick warm-up for the big, epic battle at the end, but it went for a lot longer than I anticipated. In the end, I had to reduce the challenge rating so that the scene wrapped up quicker. [Warning, a little rules-speak ahead] I placed the dice cap at 5 to keep action quick and the rounds moving, but everything took a lot longer than it should have. The problem is: my players are a little too good at narrating cinematic combat! I have trouble making them stick to just 5 details a round. They filibust every time. I could, of course, raise the dice cap, allowing them to take advantage of all those wasted details, but then what would I got to for the epic scenes? I don't feel comfortable with a dice cap of more than 8, especially with 4 players. Not sure what to do there. Maybe just lower the challenge ratings for scenes I want to be shorter.
This is, probably, just a problem with my players, and not necessarily an issue with the game. I can't be sure, though.

So, the battle was fun, nevertheless. After some more hiking, the character finally found their way to the entrance of a tunnel that led to the center of the isle. The whole top of the island was hollow, it seemed. They followed the scent to a giant cavern, open at the top like a volcano, and filled with stalactites, stalagmites, and columns of marble. Around the walls, they saw they kidnapped islanders, stuck to the walls with what appeared to be secretions of marble. Upon seeing the characters, they all began calling for help. One of them began coughing and hacking, then exploded as dozens of hawk-sized, marble wasps burst from his body. Uh oh. But, before they could help the others, the Gymantiks woke up.

The players now had multiple options. They could attack the Gymantiks; each one was a seperate nemeses ("boss", if you will). They could try to deal with the 'little' wasps, the gymantoi, which would be harrasing all of the characters. Or they could try to rescue the people. A lot at stake. A great deal of danger. And the heroes jumped right in without a moment's hesitation.

Torm ran right for the big mantis. They tusseled a bit, neither one really coming off the worse. Polarus and Marcus went after the gymantoi and the people, respectively.
Peter sadly informed me that he had to go. But, because he didn't want to mess up the climatic scene, he came up with a delightful way to bow out. His character is very much about freedom of the people, and he has a lot of anger issues. So, seeing the helpless islanders really drove him crazy. He launched an all-out attack against the big wasp, really laying on the narrative smack-down and saving no dice for defense. He nearly took out that Gymantiks in one turn, badly injuring it and throwing it to the ground. But, having saved nothing for defense, the wasp drove him into the negative and scored the right to a coup de graces. Phylexis knew he was almost a goner, but he leapt to deliver the final blow to the wasp, anyway. It snatched him up in its mandables mid-leap and swallowed him whole. (Amalga can heal from any wound so long as they still have a god's shard in their body. So, Phylexis won't be gone forever, so long as his allies manage to get his body out of the Gymantiks!)

Down to three Amalga, the stakes were even higher. Every round, another islander would burst open, pouring gymantoi into the air and raising the Threat rating by 1 (in other words, things were getting worse). The three players know their characters are in trouble if they don't do something, quick. Then, Brandon has an idea.

You see, in DH, when an Amalga would be killed, they can choose to "risk Torrent." They channel massive amounts of the Divine Stream through their bodies to keep them active, but if they lose control, their shard(s) will rip out of their bodies and cause massive amounts of damage for several turns. Nobody wants to risk that here, because they could kill all the islanders if they experience Torrent. But Brandon wants to know if he enters Torrent inside one of the Gymantiks, if their stone body will protect everyone else. My mouth falls open. Yeah, it would.

So Torm does the same thing Phylexis did. He allows himself to get real beat up, then launches himself down the mantis' throat. Frigid, feral power erupts inside the monster, ripping it to shreds from the inside. One Gymantiks down, but also another Amalga down (he needs 3 rounds for his Torrent to calm down and his Spirit pool to refresh back to normal).

Marcus decides to split his attention between the wasp and freeing the people. Polarus, likewise, focuses on freeing the captives, and comes up with a way to get the larva out of the poor islanders' stomachs.

At last, the final islander is freed, but Marcus is also down, having gone for a serious offensive to finish off the damaged wasp and rolled very badly. Now, it's up to Polarus.

Fortunately, her Passion was "Seek my destiny." Standing between the monsters and the innocent, helpless victims, knowing her team mates will never heal if she can defeat the wasp and gymantoi, she realizes that this moment is pivotal to her destiny. We see the power of having a Passion really shine, here, as she was allowed to roll 10 dice instead of the normal 8. She takes the wasp out in an incredibly cinematic fashion, splitting it in half with her Division. Phylexis' body falls to the ground. The gymantoi swarm over her. It looks like this could be the end.
She looks down, and her breath is turning to frost. Torm is back. Laughing, the two make quick work of the remaining gymantoi and save the day.

As Torm is looking for the son he was sent to find among the rescued islanders and Polarus is helping to two fallen Amalga to recover, the wolves catch the sound of muffled crying coming from across the cavern. Torm looks over and sees a tiny crevase where the sounds of a little girl's whimpering are coming from. He starts to head over there when a deep thumping sound shakes the cave. Again, they hear it. And again. The columns of marble begin to melt, merging into the ground. What is going on? they all wonder. Then they see: the marble is travelling into the Gymantiks. Their wounds heal, their bodies righten. One of them flickers its wings and turns to look at the Amalga.

And the scene fades to black.

All in all, I have to say it was one of the funnest sessions I've had in a long, long time. Would have been top ten worthy, if it hadn't been for the bumbling on my part in the beginning.

I found the Wushu system to be very appropriate for the setting, and the custom tweaks we made worked out better than I'd hoped. What pleased me most, though, was the way the players all worked together. They passed their turns around without any problem, helped each other think up cool uses of their Dominions... it was really quite the collabrative, creative effort.

So, things I need to work on:

~ Better character introductions
~ Work on timing of challenges and deal with over-filibustering, one way or another.

Hope this wasn't too long-winded. Questions or comments are, as always, much appreciated.

Nice session. 

In no particular order:

Have you considered not having the players be "in a group"? If its that hard to justify why all these folks would be together, that's probably a good signal that they don't need to be.  I've found that certain games Sorcerer and 9 Worlds especially really shine if the characters are not only NOT a group but actually are or potentially could be rivals.  Letting the players be each others villains can be a very effective and rewarding way to play.  Trollbabe is especially good at having the characters be completely ignorant of each other's existance, essentially playing through entirely seperate (or sporadically entertwined) stories simultaneously.

I didn't see anything in this write up that fed into the idea of influencing the world.  Are there mechanics or ingame rewards that let players become movers and shakers on a national or global scale or are you hoping that that will naturally evolve out of the in game narration as a result of the power levels being thrown around?

This session seemed to be a bit on the "get a mission, kill the monster" side.  Is that typical for how you see the game working or is that just how this one went?

In the session you described the people begging the characters for help.  Was that just colorful narration or is that a defined feature of the game.  Games such as Dogs in the Vineyard and descendent Prince's Kingdom have the idea of civilians confronting the characters with needs and demands as a central feature of how play progresses and information is delivered.

I guess at the root of alot of these questions is the core question of:  how much of your goals for this game is enshrined in how the mechanics and system works and how much is left to the GM to introduce.  In the right hand we have really cool setting and things to do.  In the left hand we have a resolution system geared towards cinematic combat.  What's in between?  Anything other than the GM?

Excellent questions! Now, let me see...

Valamir wrote:
Nice session. 

In no particular order:

Have you considered not having the players be "in a group"? If its that hard to justify why all these folks would be together, that's probably a good signal that they don't need to be.  I've found that certain games Sorcerer and 9 Worlds especially really shine if the characters are not only NOT a group but actually are or potentially could be rivals.  Letting the players be each others villains can be a very effective and rewarding way to play.  Trollbabe is especially good at having the characters be completely ignorant of each other's existance, essentially playing through entirely seperate (or sporadically entertwined) stories simultaneously.

I didn't see anything in this write up that fed into the idea of influencing the world.  Are there mechanics or ingame rewards that let players become movers and shakers on a national or global scale or are you hoping that that will naturally evolve out of the in game narration as a result of the power levels being thrown around?

This session seemed to be a bit on the "get a mission, kill the monster" side.  Is that typical for how you see the game working or is that just how this one went?

In the session you described the people begging the characters for help.  Was that just colorful narration or is that a defined feature of the game.  Games such as Dogs in the Vineyard and descendent Prince's Kingdom have the idea of civilians confronting the characters with needs and demands as a central feature of how play progresses and information is delivered.

I guess at the root of alot of these questions is the core question of:  how much of your goals for this game is enshrined in how the mechanics and system works and how much is left to the GM to introduce.  In the right hand we have really cool setting and things to do.  In the left hand we have a resolution system geared towards cinematic combat.  What's in between?  Anything other than the GM?

When I prepared this post, I was just thinking, "I'm posting an Actual Play report." I forgot all about the Playtesting forum.

Ron, does this thread need to be moved? Or is it ok here?

On the one hand, I feel that epic roleplaying should have as few rules as possible. The more charts and tables you have to look up, or spells and powers you have to refrence, the more games slow down--for combat as well as for social moving and shaking. In this case, Wushu meets the game's needs precisely, placing the emphasis of the rules on the story and the characteristics of the characters, rather than on physics or realism.

Sovem, (I still want to read that as Sovern, with an r and an n, rather than as an m)

Ever since your first posts here, I've been keeping an eye on this project, and to be honest, I'm incredibly impressed by what you're trying to do. I'm going to highlight some of the things that Ralph has said that I think are especially important for you to pay attention to;

Third, what seems easy to "just do" as the GM to you, may only seem that way because you are the ultimate authority on how things are supposed to be and how they work.  Often times the "right rules" aren't about you thinking about anything new, but rather instead thinking about all of the things you actually do at the table automatically and without thinking about it...but which aren't written down...and then writing them down.  Nothing at all has changed...its still exactly the way you play...but now everyone else can see what that looks like too.

1) How do you determine what Dominions a player has, and what qualifies as a Dominion?

2) I agree that character advancement should be through ripping out reclaiming shards.

3) What effect, again, do Passions have on dice?

4) Is there a playtest document for this game? 

Lessee...there's too much to quote in both Ralph and Lance's posts, so let me see if I can just respond in general..

About what makes sense to me vs. what will make sense to others: You guys are absolutely right on that one. I know an understanding of what can or can't be done is crucial to every RPG, but with Wushu, it's critical. Wushu depends entirely on everyone around the table knowing exactly what can or can't be done. This is usually accomplished by everyone having watched the same movie, or read the same book, and therefor having the same expectations.

That is why I intend to make the entire first half of the book an epic novella. It will introduce people to the world, give them an expectation as to what a typical DH game should be like, and show them what kinds of things Amalga can do before they ever read the rules. Then, at the end of the book, I will have many Examples of Play with full rules play-by-play explanations.

Do you think that will be enough?

About Ralph's idea for a social mechanic: awesome. You're totally right; from the comments I'm seeing about this game so far, I think a mechanic like that is totally needed. I don't know if any of you know Wushu well or not, but in Wire-Fu, Dan Bayn has a neat little mechanic for Honor. The higher your Honor score, the more people you can tell what to do, but also the more obligations you have to the people. If your Honor score is low, you can do whatever you want, but no one's going to listen to you, either. Maybe I can think up something like that, or somehow combine that and your idea, Ralph?

In summary: this need for so many examples of the world is why I still don't have a beta copy of the rules to pass around for others to playtest. I really need to have that epic and examples of play done before I ask any third parties to try it out for exactly the reasons you guys have pointed out.

Spooky wrote:
1) How do you determine what Dominions a player has, and what qualifies as a Dominion?

2) I agree that character advancement should be through ripping out reclaiming shards.

3) What effect, again, do Passions have on dice?

4) Is there a playtest document for this game? 

Sovem wrote:
Lessee...there's too much to quote in both Ralph and Lance's posts, so let me see if I can just respond in general..

About what makes sense to me vs. what will make sense to others: You guys are absolutely right on that one. I know an understanding of what can or can't be done is crucial to every RPG, but with Wushu, it's critical. Wushu depends entirely on everyone around the table knowing exactly what can or can't be done. This is usually accomplished by everyone having watched the same movie, or read the same book, and therefor having the same expectations.

That is why I intend to make the entire first half of the book an epic novella. It will introduce people to the world, give them an expectation as to what a typical DH game should be like, and show them what kinds of things Amalga can do before they ever read the rules. Then, at the end of the book, I will have many Examples of Play with full rules play-by-play explanations. (1)

Do you think that will be enough?

About Ralph's idea for a social mechanic: awesome. You're totally right; from the comments I'm seeing about this game so far, I think a mechanic like that is totally needed. I don't know if any of you know Wushu well or not, but in Wire-Fu, Dan Bayn has a neat little mechanic for Honor. The higher your Honor score, the more people you can tell what to do, but also the more obligations you have to the people. If your Honor score is low, you can do whatever you want, but no one's going to listen to you, either. Maybe I can think up something like that, or somehow combine that and your idea, Ralph? (2)

In summary: this need for so many examples of the world is why I still don't have a beta copy of the rules to pass around for others to playtest. I really need to have that epic and examples of play done before I ask any third parties to try it out for exactly the reasons you guys have pointed out. (3)

Hey again,

I knew there was a point I forgot to make.

I don't know if it's the case in your games or not, but trying to get all the players up to speed by getting them to read the book is... sometimes impossible. A very real and from my experience extremely typical scenario is where only the GM has read the book before play, and others will either openly refuse, or passively refuse; ie, agree to read it, but keep putting it off.. And unless you're going to sit there staring at them until they read all the source material, you can't make them. Usually, many players will turn this around once the game is begun, and they start to be engaged by the setting and style, but for the most part, many gamers expect that the GM will feed them whatever source material (and rules, for that matter) they need to know during play.

I wish I could remember the thread where this phenomena was discussed in relation to layout, art and marketing.. But the general idea was that setting fiction, art, layout, etc. was generally intended to get the purchaser of the book excited, and that it would generally be their excitement about the game that would convince or fail to convince the rest of the group to play.

My point is this; If you're counting on everybody being on the same page by providing source material, you're gonna get a lot of misses with your hits, and the typical gamer will just blame the game. On the other hand, if you can find rules to follow that will encourage the style of play you're looking for (as it seems the basic wushu mechanic does, at least somewhat) then you'll have a better chance of successful play emerging, whether or not they've read the book or seen the right movies.

Spooky wrote:
1) I would appreciate something like that. It would be a pleasant change of pace that PCs can do what's detailed in the setting fiction.

2) Yes, some Social-Fu would be nice. Maybe that can be adjusted upward/downward during play,  for a sort of "traditional XP lite?"

3) Actually, beta tests are great ways to not only ask questions, but also for people to offer suggestions. Some of those suggestions might work. Incidentally, have you shown any of this to Dan Bayn? He is, by default, the WuShu guru.

Wolfen wrote:

I don't know if it's the case in your games or not, but trying to get all the players up to speed by getting them to read the book is... sometimes impossible. A very real and from my experience extremely typical scenario is where only the GM has read the book before play, and others will either openly refuse, or passively refuse; ie, agree to read it, but keep putting it off.. And unless you're going to sit there staring at them until they read all the source material, you can't make them.

I've got a game I've been working on probably about as long as you've been working on DH, possibly longer. I haven't had the benefit of good solid playtesting tho', as I'm continually leaving the game in an unfinished and unplayable state. But what finally made it click for me is sitting down and realizing that the best way to get the sort of play you want is the reward system.

Basically, I sat down and I thought about the questions "What do I want players to do in this game? What do I want characters to do in this game?" My answer was a lot vaguer than yours, and it was simply that I wanted both players and characters to set goals, and then accomplish them. The goals could be anything they wanted, so long as they were interested and invested in doing it.

Once you have the answer to that question boiled down to it's most essential parts, you build a reward system that rewards them for doing that, and empowers them to do it more.

My answer was a reward system that gave points to the players that they used to set goals. They then got more points for accomplishing those goals. Those points could be used to improve their characters, but more importantly, they could be used to set more goals. Setting and accomplishing goals is the only way to gain the points, so if the players wanted to keep advancing, they had to keep setting and working toward goals.

Now obviously an identical system wouldn't work for you. You've got a different answer for what players and characters do. But building your reward mechanic around those things would be a good way to encourage that sort of play. Wushu already seems to have some of that built in.. The more detailed your description of what you do, the more dice you get. Elegant way to encourage descriptive conflicts.. And from this report, it seems to have really worked, because your players have taken to playing that way for it's own sake, narrating above and beyond the dice they get. So you've already got part of it. Now you just need to figure out how to encourage the rest of it.

The ideas and advice I've gotten from this thread are invaluable. My wife and I have been kicking around y'all's suggestions and questions all day, and we've got the basics of an idea that will hopefully solve some of the problems (and make the game even better).

The idea is to add two new values to every character: Destiny and Renown. We only have a few vague ideas as to what those traits will do, but we know that Destiny, at least, will determine when your spirit is "bright enough" to gain a new shard--IOW, determine how many godshards you can have and when you're entitled to a new one.

Destiny will go up whenever you change the setting in a significant way. It will start with small changes, and have a sliding scale that gets progressively harder to increase your Destiny. Renown will be a much more temporal trait, waxing and waning as you do things to win renown or to lose it.

I will post more on this when we get our ideas a little more ironed out. Perhaps in the First Thoughts forum? Or can I keep discussing it here?
I can't thank you guys enough for all your questions and ideas. Keep'em coming!

Thanks,
John

Sovem wrote:
The idea is to add two new values to every character: Destiny and Renown. We only have a few vague ideas as to what those traits will do, but we know that Destiny, at least, will determine when your spirit is "bright enough" to gain a new shard--IOW, determine how many godshards you can have and when you're entitled to a new one.

Destiny will go up whenever you change the setting in a significant way. It will start with small changes, and have a sliding scale that gets progressively harder to increase your Destiny. Renown will be a much more temporal trait, waxing and waning as you do things to win renown or to lose it.

I will post more on this when we get our ideas a little more ironed out. Perhaps in the First Thoughts forum? Or can I keep discussing it here?
I can't thank you guys enough for all your questions and ideas. Keep'em coming!

It's hard to make comments not already introduced here but I picked up a copy of WarGods by Crocodile Games from Gencon.  It has a similar concepts even though it is a wargame.  It has a system for renown/destiny which they call Ka.  Every time a rival leader is defeated in ritual combat, the victor has a chance to absorb their lifeforce, depending on how powerful the opponent was.  It is based on ratings and of course with most wargames, a dice roll is involved although you could find subsistutes for die rolls.  It allows give thematic examples of powers for different gods.  If your resources allow it, I would take a peek at that game as well.  If not, then a sliding scale could work as well.

So, alright. Some new ideas. Awesome.

What would make you lose Renown? It's easy enough to figure out what would make you gain it. Slay a monster, save a damsel, abolish slavery. But what would make you lose it? I'd imagine that even 'evil' actions would raise your renown.. Maybe people wouldn't like you, but if you destroyed a town for it's insolence, I'd imagine that people would be likely to obey you in the next town you roll into. You did mention that the Amalga could be the settings villains, as well, didn't you? So if that's the case, I honestly can't think of much that will lower it.

And what would make you lose or gain Destiny? Some idea of these actions would need to get nailed down.

Also, I'd like to offer an alternate word from destiny. Destiny implies a certain amount of predetermination, and it seems to me that the point is that the PCs are determining the destiny of the setting themselves. So my suggestion is Arete, a greek word meaning excellence. It is a related word to Aristeia, which specifically means a warrior's excellence. However, Aristeia was used as a major concept in Burning Wheel, so you may not want to use that one.

Anyway, good things!

One way to solve the loss of renown...perhaps there are different types of renown.  If the Wushu comes correctly to me, perhaps their renown could be named...ie I want to be known as a good guy renown vs do anything it takes to win renown for instance.  Destiny...I will have to think about it.

Thanks,

Sean

I've made a new thread to discuss this to avoid stepping on any forum's toes. To wrap up the discussion on this thread:

Wolfen: Renown would probably only be lost if you disappear from the public eye for a long time. And the idea behind calling it 'Destiny" was that the characters were taking ahold of the reigns of mankind's destiny (and their own, to a certain extent), which had previously always resided in the hands of the gods.

Sean: that's a neat idea for Renown. I'll run it by my co-creator.

I don't have too much to post about our playtest last night; certainly not as much as the previous game. Peter is no longer able to come, so it was just Andrea, Bain, Brandon and myself. We picked up right where the last game left off and immediately dove right into an argument.

The nature of the argument is too much to get into here, but it had to do with the way Wushu works. Looking back, I think the major problem was just a series of kneejerk reactions that might have been dealt with had everyone not started to give their opinion at once, thereby leading to confusion and much chaos. I remembered someone saying that one should never change rules in the middle of a playtest, so I declared that we would use the rules as written and debate them after the game. Everyone agreed, and the circumstance everyone was worried about never even happened, so we didn't really get to see how it worked. I ended the game a little early, to give us a chance to discuss the issue again. Again, tempers flared. In the end, it was determined that we were all pretty much on the same page. After further discussion and a quick look over what other Wushu players have said over the years, we've decided that, in the end, none of the rules variants proposed by anyone really would have made that big of a difference, and it certainly wouldn't ruin the game the way some of us were fearing.

So, as to the game itself: once we got past that little kink, we actually had a pretty good time. If you recall, the Gymantiks had just regenerated. They fought them and defeated them again. I was quite pleased to see the way Brandon dealt with the mantis--a lot of people new to Wushu have this hangup where it is difficult for them to see that when they force a nemesis into the negative and win the right to a coup de graces, it doesn't automatically mean you have to kill them. He clued in to the way the stalagtites and stalagmites seemed to melt as the Gymantiks had reformed, and he used his coup de graces to trap the mantis in a giant block of ice, preventing it from touching any part of the cave. His guess was right--the Gymantiks, being made of marble, were able to regenerate by absorbing more marble from their island. Andrea finished off the wasp, using her coup de graces to preserve the division between the wasp and the walls of its prison (which she crafted by dividing a big hole in the ground and filling it with sea water).

(In the meantime, Bain and Peter's character, now an NPC, narrated getting the rescued villagers off the island. Peter's character went with them while Bain returned, still injured, to see if he couldn't help out)

When they found the little girl that had been crying, she stood and adressed them very authoritatively. "At last, you came," she said. "Some of you I expected, and some I did not, but it is a start."
They were, obviously, very confused. She told them her name was Calliope, and they didn't press it any further. She said that she had orchastrated the events that brought them all here (not the Gymantiks attack--just the events that brought them to deal with it). She told them that they had to prepare for a grave threat to all humanity. The gods were afraid of Death, true, and that bought them some time. But, like humanity at the dawn of the world, they would eventually come to terms with that fear and would be stronger because of it. Humanity had to be united and ready if they were to keep their newfound authority. She told them that a threat to the unity their Queen had established was forming on the islapolis of Morisawa, where the Red Dawn Rising was plotting to overthrow her.

Then the island collapsed. We narrated them trying to escape, but they couldn't do much. Remember how the Divine Stream felt funny to them when they approached the island? Now it was going positively crazy. They couldn's grasp it no matter how hard they tried, and they were pretty helpless as the island collapsed and they all got sucked down a whirlpool. They felt their shards slip away and the water fill their lungs, then all went black.

Skipping over a little narration, basically what happened was that they woke on a beach and discovered that all their shards had been switched. Andrea's character now controlled Stones and Swords, Brandon's Seas and Divisions, and Bain's Frost and Wolves. I did this for two reasons: 1) they had been complaining that, after a month of playing with the same shard, they were running low on ideas for what to do with it*. This way, they can watch as other people take a go at their Dominions. 2) The event was orchastrated by that 'little girl'. She'll return their shards to their proper owners in time, but first she wants to remind them that they are not gods--they are humans. Their power is not theirs, it is borrowed, it can be taken away. She wants them to remember not to define themselves by what shards they have, but by who they are.
I didn't tell the players that, but one or two of them have kind of figured it out, I think.

The rest of the game was spent narrating their return to Myrrh and their journey to Morisawa. At Myrrh, the people wanted to throw a celebration, but Bain was insistent they deal with the threat to the Queen. They let the islanders praise them for a single night, then wrapped up their loose ends and left in the morning. Brandon spoke with the exceedingly grateful father of the son he went to rescue, and got the information as promised. Andrea did really well roleplaying her character's reaction to loosing her shard: for one thing, her character had a fear of drowning and now no defense against it. For another, she had definetly seen her shard as a part of who she was, and showed her character shaken by her loss.

At Morisawa, they weren't really sure what to do. It was a larger islapolis with several cities; they picked one and started asking around to find more information. I forgot to mention (to you, the reader, not to them)-- the Red Dawn was a group of Amalga loyal to the Queen and the League. So far, they were the only known group of Amalga in the decade or so that Amalga have existed, so they are very famous. They've "saved" many islapoli from the Ondron Commonwealth. One member is an Admiral (Navarkhos) of the league, and another is a niece of one of the Queen's Councilmen. So, very influential people.
So, they ask around but don't find much. There's a rumor that there's a new addition to the group. They learn that nobody really knows when they come or go.
So, they decide for the direct approach. Bain and Andrea's characters dress in all their best military finery and head straight for the command headquarters of the Navarkhos, Memero Phosphes. Aaaaand.... to be continued.

Like I said, not too much for discussion, here. I think we may need to address the way we handle rules disputes in the future... but it probably won't happen. These disputes don't happen too often. I've posted this mainly so that, in future sessions that I may need discussion, people have a record to know what's going on. Any questions or comments, though, are always welcome, should anyone have any.

Thanks,
John

*I should note, here, that this will hopefulyl not be an issue in a normal game once DH is finished. Characters should get a new shard after a good month of steady gaming. However, we've gone through so many changes about how the process is done and what actually happens, that I've held off letting them get new shards just yet.

Hey John, do you feel that the whole "Little girl is in charge" plot thread fits in with your Power 19 about the players being the ones who make the big decisions about their socity?  'cuz I'm having a hard time reconciling the two.  Can you clarify?

Hmmm... well, I'm pretty sure my players never check here, so I guess I can go ahead and reveal the plot...

The little girl comes from an idea my wife had. When the Spiritual realm started flooding into the Physical and being absorbed, many physical things began to become more spiritual. There are (as-yet unnamed) spirits of different physical things, like your classic driads or nereids, etc. These spirits are interested in the wellbeing of whatever they are the spirit of, but they don't have a whole great deal of power to influence things to their betterment. Small powers of the elemental sort.

Well, this little girl is one of the Seven Spirits of Humanity. As such, she "knows certain things," but she doesn't have that much power to influence events. She made little minor changes--had the officer Bain's character had reported to (when he went to rejoin the League military) suggest that he should go help with the Gymantiks. Likewise, she made sure that the little boy's father was able to get a message to Brandon's character as speedily as possible. These sorts of influences. Reshuffling the character's shards around... well, they went into Torrent, so they would have got their shards back, anyway. She just pushed the shards back in opposite directions. That was a little gamemaster fiat for reasons I explained previously.

If you do a quick search on "Calliope," you'll see that's the name of one of the muses of Greek mythology. I'm basically using her as a "muse" to the character's epic. She's offering some directions they could go--now, when they get there, they could choose to stop the Red Dawn and save the Queen. They could talk with them and decide that the Ondron's way of unity is preferable over the League's (that's the story the Red Dawn are using, because an Ondron Amalga is helping them out in their coup). Or, they could push deeper to find out that the Queen is involved in some pretty deceitful stuff, and decide to help take her out for the betterment of the League (which is what the Red Dawn are really planning; double crossing Ondron to make them the scapegoats and glavanize the League against Ondron despite the loss of their very beloved Queen).

Does that explain things better? Calliope is not in charge, nor is she necessarily even wise in her advice. But I used her to give the characters a direction for their epic (for any of the above three options will certainly be epic) and used her as an excuse to switch their shards around for reasons already stated. I could have just said their shards got confused because of the Nexus, but I kind of wanted an excuse to put their shards back in order, and she gives me an excuse to do that, too.

Does that make more sense?

I pretty much figured that you had some sort of huge plot behind the little girl, which justified why she could do all the things that she could do, and which further justified your belief that she wasn't bossing the players and their characters around.

Do you see how much your in-game justification for an out-of-game problem really does not matter?

The players have to have their characters do what the little girl tells them to.  Why?  Because you haven't got anything else prepared.  The fact that she doesn't dictate every single action is beside the point:  She tells them what arena they have to act in.  In all seriousness ... can you imagine Conan or Elric or the Grey Mouser taking that kind of direction from anyone, much less a small girl?

Is being able, as the GM, to do this to your players consistent with your Power 19?

You're probably right. Two things here:

1) The world is still evolving from a design standpoint now, so any ability to "change the world" is a little flimsy when thrown at a world that's still very much a cardboard set. Or, rather, it's the world that's flimsy. It's still being defined, so things that, in a normal game, might be like "let's try to change X" are instead "X is a cool idea... let's make X a part of our world, so that future players can change it."

2) I don't know what else to do! (This is a cry for help, not an exclamatory defense). My experience in roleplaying, while spanning many years, is very narrow. It's pretty much just been White Wolf, WotC, and a little smattering of smaller--but still mainstream--games. It hasn't been until recently that I even heard of indie rpgs or found amazing games that broke stereotypes and did cool things. You say that they have to do what I have planned...because I have nothing else planned. Pretty much, yeah. In a game with a GM and a bunch of players, how else can you play? I'm asking, seriously, because it sounds like you either have a good idea or know of games that I don't.

Sovem wrote:
You say that they have to do what I have planned...because I have nothing else planned. Pretty much, yeah. In a game with a GM and a bunch of players, how else can you play? I'm asking, seriously, because it sounds like you either have a good idea or know of games that I don't.

Dang, I'm really trying to get this, but I'm just not. I'm starting to get a little experience with more non-traditional games; I bought Universalis, and I checked out the link in your sig and read a bunch about Capes (looks awesome!)--but we're not looking to make anything that revolutionary.

Regarding your example, I'm not really sure I get it. What's the difference between "spirit girl offers plothooks" and "samurais' lord offers plothooks"? Of course, the players could have chosen to ignore it, or at least focus their investigations on the girl, instead of the Red Dawn. But they didn't. Part of this is because my players have a tendency towards a "let's just get with the game" mindset. Peter observed how, when all the characters first met, they pretty much just went along with each other because "they look like PCs". This is true. IOW, when they see a plothook, they usually bite.
But they often also play characters with moral conscience, such that if the samurai lord made that order, they'd refuse (or do the faking death thing), so they're not just going to do whatever an NPC tells them.

I think that this issue you've raised is a good example of why we're trying to perfect this "Passion - Destiny" mechanic. One idea that's been put forth is that every Player come up with a destiny they'd like to see their character meet, then work together to create a destiny for the group. This would give them goals and also give everyone at the table an influence in the direction of the epic.
Might this be something like what you're recommending?

Sovem wrote:
Dang, I'm really trying to get this, but I'm just not. I'm starting to get a little experience with more non-traditional games; I bought Universalis, and I checked out the link in your sig and read a bunch about Capes (looks awesome!)--but we're not looking to make anything that revolutionary.

Sovem wrote:
Of course, the players could have chosen to ignore it, or at least focus their investigations on the girl, instead of the Red Dawn.

:(

I'm sorry, I'm just not getting it! >.<
Ok, instead of going round and round on this, why don't you try to explain what, specifically, was in the Power 19 that you felt I wasn't representing very well in the playtest, and maybe we can go from that angle?

Sovem wrote: Divinity Horizons is a game where the PCs are expected to change their world.

Actually, if you want to be all technical, it says the PCs (as in player *characters*) are expected to change the world. Not necessarily that the players are. So depending on how he meant PC (as it is frequently used interchangeably to describe characters and players, unfortunately) then this could still be very much in line with how the game is meant to be played.

But for the sake of discussion, let's go from the angle that the players' choices are supposed to be strongly a part of how the world changes.. How do you give the players, rather than characters, this power?

Now obviously there's the social method.. The GM picks up on what the players want either through explicit discussion, or implicitly through the things that get them excited, and the choices they make with their characters, and then he gives them what they want. This is a tried and true method, and does work in a lot of cases. But unfortunately, this is implicit in the group makeup, and not in the game, so if player empowerment is important, you're going to want to do it with the game text, rather than relying on the GM.

One way, one that Universalis should demonstrate, is to give the players the ability to add aspects to the setting and situation. Maybe some action in the game gives the player a token that they can spend to say something like "The Red Dawn is secretly conspiring against the queen!"

Another way, stolen from Clinton Nixon's Donjon, is to let the players narrate the results of their information rolls. Where in Donjon a player can say "I listen at the door.. <rolls> Two successes. That means, uh.. There are orcs on the other side of the door, and they're waiting for us to open it, to ambush us." In a game like DH, it might be more like.. I report back to the king, and try to find out what's behind all the monster attacks we've been facing. <rolls> Three successes, which means I can involve a tier three NPC like the king himself.. So the king confesses that he accidentally opened a door to the plane of monsters!"

Or whatever.

Of course, all of this is based on the supposition that players should have a direct effect on what arena they get to play in. If that's not the case, and you're intending that the GM creates the story, and the PCs are the heroes of that story, then disregard.

Ok, I think I see where some of the confusion is coming from. Lance is right--by "PCs" I was referring to the characters, not the players. I don't like games where it feels like your characters are always just trying to survive, where they can't make any meaninful impact on the setting. In DH, while you might not start out changing the world, you're expected to quickly gain enough importance to do so.

However, I like the notion of player empowerment, so I want to continue this discussion. As I said before, we're tossing around ideas about a Destiny mechanic where each player chooses their own destiny ("I'm going to become a king" or "I'm going to slay the god Azra Firemane"), giving the GM a plain as day statement as to what they want out of the game. Then, the group comes up with a group destiny ("We will conquer the Ondron Commonwealth in our name" or "We will destroy the League and unite all lands under the Commonwealth" or "We will rid the world of monsters, once and for all"), which gives the GM another great idea of which direction everyone wants to go. When they move the story significantly towards their destiny, they would get a Destiny point. We're still tossing around what those points could do, though I'm considering some sort of plot driving effect, like you talked about, Lance.

So, tell me what you think of that idea, but I'd also like to hear what you would have done with that story. Maybe that will help me understand better where you're coming from, because I still don't see the difference between Calliope and the lunatic samurai lord :(

We may have different definitions of "change the world" here.  I don't think that being involved with world-changing events is the same thing as changing the world yourself.  Originating the chain of events, that's changing the world.

Scenario #1:  Overlord Bob says "It is time for my world-shaking plot to go into action!  All that remains is to push ... The Red Button!  Igor!  Push ... The Red Button."  Igor pushes ... The Red Button.  The world is changed forever.

Did Igor just change the world?  Sorta depends on what would have happened if he hadn't pushed the button, doesn't it?

Scenario #2:  Igor refuses to push the button.  Bob says "Oh, for pete's sake," walks over and pushes the button.  The world is changed forever.

Scenario #3:  Igor refuses to push the button.  Bob raves, "You fool!  The critical moment has passed!  My plan is RUINED!"  The world spins on in its merry course, unaware of how close it just came to being changed forever.

If Igor is weighing the decision between Scenario #1 and Scenario #3 then he is an active agent with important impact on the course of events.  Igor, in that case, is changing the world in Scenario #1.

If Igor is weighing the decision between Scenario #1 and Scenario #2 then he is just caught up in the course of events.  Igor, in that case, is not changing the world in Scenario #1.

Ok, I think I'm about to get it.

Basically, you're saying that that event (Scenario #1&3) is dependent soley upon Igor, right? Because the red button would only be pushed if he pushed it, he is the originator of the event. You're saying that, in my story, Igor is going to push the button, and I'm telling the characters they can either try to stop him or let it go, and therefor they are not originating the event, but responding to it.
Is that what you mean?