Mmmmkay, one of the things I did with REIGN was stat up social structures so I could bring them into play and beat them against one another. 

Now I'm working on PROGENITOR, a setting for the superhero game Wild Talents.  I started with one idea ("Kansas farmwife in the late 1960s gets Superman level powers and starts using them with no idea that they're highly contagious") and am now looking at just how fragile history is when confronted with (say) a guy who can personally create oil equal to the weekly output of Saudi Arabia.  (He's a prick, by the way.) 

What I'm struggling with is how to mechanically chart the course of history from 1968 (when it deviates from our timeline) through 2001 or so.  I plan for the PCs to have a major impact, even if they don't KNOW they're having a major impact.  So what are the elements of history?  What are the equivalents of Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity for global events?

-G.

The way I have is, there is a world sheet and 1 character sheet for players. Whenever it is allowed to change any character sheet (not often), you might alternatively change the world sheet; so if you may add a trait to your sheet, "defeated the mountain barbarians with words alone", you might alternatively change the world sheet: new world trait, "the mountain barbarians got converted to christianity". This is an actual play example. I think I settled for the world sheet.
Traits are freeform and there is no mechanical difference between world and character sheets.

But to actually answer your question, hm…

I would say something like
War
Science
Art
Hunger&Disease
if you were to plot the entire history. For a shorter period, you could maybe make up nations as characters. The soviets get War:X, Moral:Y, Wealth:Z, Science, Population etc. But I think the interactions and how attributes change would be more important then what they actually are.
Nature

Hey Greg,

If I were to break history down into discreet chunks I might use categories like Economics, Armed Conflict, Pop Culture, Religion, Crime & Punishment, Industry, etc.

I think the difficulty appears when we take the historical event and try to chart the (often far reaching) effects of that event. The aftermath is where we see changes in Societal Structures, Values & Mores, Human Rights, Legislation, and so on which can be history making events themselves. So we're looking at this cascading effect where big event leads to, even if slowly, what looks like another big event, and so on.

It might be easier (or maybe just more fluid and organic) to have a sort of distabilization scale to work from when the characters do what they do in the game. Something like the guy creating large amounts of crude would have an incredibly high distabilization rating, particulary in the economic realm. Of course, you majorly disrupt the economy and that can lead to other disruptions, such as armed conflicts.

The distabilization rating could be used to make a saving throw in whatever you consider to be the primary historical category for that action/event. If the save fails then you make saves for other categories that may be relevent to the action/event. If the primary category makes the save, perhaps the event didn't cause as large a change as expected, or something happens to mitigate the effects of the action.

So, there is the skeleton of an incredibly simplified way to handle something as intricate as history on a large scale. Hope it helps.

-Chris

Some (to me) obvious possibilities: SCOPE, IMPACT, OBJECTIVITY. Say scaled 0-5.

SCOPE: This is a measure of how much stuff is directly and clearly involved in the event, at the time.
IMPACT: This is a measure of how much the event directly and clearly changes the course of history.
OBJECTIVITY: This is a measure of how much counterfactual historians in various possible futures would agree on the contents and implications of the event.

Some ad hoc, not-to-be-taken-as-position-papers examples:

World War II - Scope 5, Impact 5, Objectivity 1
9/11 - Scope 1, Impact 4, Objectivity 3
Hurricane Katrina - Scope 3, Impact 2, Objectivity 4
CFCs etc phaseout - Scope 2, Impact 5, Objectivity 5

This stuff is gold -- even if I decide to go a completely different way, these suggestions are really helpful.  Just so you know. 

Hm, what if there were 3-4 primary categories like, uh, Science/Stability/Environment/Economy and then secondary categories made of the influences of two together.  OR, it could be comparisons. 

If Science < Stability, you get war tech.  If Science > Stability, you get medical tech and consumer goods.
If Environment < Economy, you get a good year of crops and mineral finds.  If Env. > Economy, it's a thin year.  (Hm.  Don't like that one much.

But let's see how many permutations you get with four categories, ABCD, you get... AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD.  Six interactions.  That sounds like a pretty reasonable number, actually.  Hm...

Another thought I've had (reading this thread) is that there's a baseline provided by Actual History, right?  And that when the events as created by the supers (GMC and PC) deviate from it, there's a tendency to pull back towards it, no matter how far off they go.  This isn't any mystical or scientific thing: It's a convenience of game mechanics.  The baseline serves as the amalgamated effect of all the stuff that isn't covered by either (1) the big categories or (2) the effects of metahumans.  OR, you could have the original line, and then the secondary line created by the GMCs, and a third chart for how the PCs knock THAT off kilter.  But it really needs to have that cascading effect, for sure.  The PCs need to understand that if they're working at the early edge of this history, killing one third generation supervillain early in her career the math of the epidemic means they've forestalled a potential 200,000 empowerments. 

(The way powers work is, the Progenitor created 10 offspring the first ten times she used her powers on others.  She had a 90% chance of contagion every time she used her power until she'd created those ten.  Each of those ten Tier 2 powers has an 80% chance of contagion until they create 9 offspring.  Each of those Tier 3s has a 70% chance until they create 8, and so on until you get the Tier 10s who have a 0% chance of spreading it.)

-G.

You could make up freeform traits on the fly whenever something happens, representing deviation from the real world as a percentile:
"Soviets are a lot more liberal (compared to actual history) 135%"
"Africa is way more developed (ctah) 156%"
and the percentages have some kind of internal drive to return to normalcy.

GregStolze wrote:
Another thought I've had (reading this thread) is that there's a baseline provided by Actual History, right?  And that when the events as created by the supers (GMC and PC) deviate from it, there's a tendency to pull back towards it, no matter how far off they go.  This isn't any mystical or scientific thing: It's a convenience of game mechanics.

GregStolze wrote:
(The way powers work is, the Progenitor created 10 offspring the first ten times she used her powers on others.  She had a 90% chance of contagion every time she used her power until she'd created those ten.  Each of those ten Tier 2 powers has an 80% chance of contagion until they create 9 offspring.  Each of those Tier 3s has a 70% chance until they create 8, and so on until you get the Tier 10s who have a 0% chance of spreading it.)

Why the deliberately finite number of people with powers at each level? 1 at tier 1, 10 at tier 2, 90 at tier 3, 720 at tier 4, etc.

Or do the character have a chance to improve their powers through experience/training/further mutation/absorbing one another's soul essence, etc???

GregStolze wrote: So what are the elements of history?  What are the equivalents of Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom and Dexterity for global events?

GregStolze wrote: But let's see how many permutations you get with four categories, ABCD, you get... AB, AC, AD, BC, BD, CD.

A REALLY brief first idea.

If the course of history is important, I would likely examine the major events of the time period, look for common factors I thought I could quantify enough that went into the events, then alow player actions to change those underlying factor ratings, and see if things change. It would probably get mired mainly in a "do you cause this event to happen when it didn't, or this other event to not happen, that did" thinking though.

EG economic challenge (changing tech, changing markets, changing resources), faction satisfaction (issues of class, race, sex), how contrasting the new is to the established, and so on.

Really vague.

I agree with wordman, the things on the character sheets should probably not be events but dynamic things that persist from year to year: One shortcut is to grab some structuralist set of historical records, say Marxism, Foucault-ism, Diamond-ism, some old Confucian business, and mash them all together. Ok I say shortcut, more of a baseline for work. The idea I have is that all these guys say (in varying amounts), "this" is the thing you need to look at for history, the big driver of change, and you can say, maybe you're all half right, or right more in different places.

So on the Marx end you have "production" and industry and who controls it, on the Foucault end you have language and cultural "obviousness", on the diamond end you have geography, agriculture and disease and on the Confucian end you have social stability and the respect of social groups for each other.

Creating a counter-factual history is a pretty big narrative game in itself, because of what it says about what is fundimental and what is coincidence in our lives, and so I wouldn't make the above too strict. But I would allow hinge points, (which given you have superheroes will probably be quite big!) where you can change the big trends in the above stuff, which are vaguely sketched out in "normal history" form, and I'd probably have the GM be able to set the importance of the different trends as what is "really" going on, so when you decide how much the world has changed, you look at the different trends, and focus on them according to the influence you have set for them.

Technology isn't that important?  Y'think?  If a supergenius in 1988 got up one morning, had some coffee, took a decent-sized dump and CURED AIDS... that's going to be pretty huge.  (Or if he gets up and decides he's going to make AIDS faster acting and airborne...)

Version 2.0 was rating each year with four global factors -- Technology, Religious Intolerance, Violence and Economy.  Then I realized that while two of these (tech & economy) are generally things people value and want to increase, the other two (Violence and Religious Intol) are considered bad.  Or, at the least, MY values are pro tech and econ, anti violence and intolerance.  So now I'm trying to decide...

1) Do I want to rework those into all positives?  Peace, Technology, Tolerance and Economy?
2) Do I want to rework those into all negatives?  Violence, Ignorance, Sectarianism and Poverty?
3) Are there advantages to having derived factors that are composed of a 'good' thing plus a 'bad' thing?  (For example, the effects of lots of intolerance and lots of economic development... hm, sounds like a slave economy...) 
4) For deriving my secondary factors, do I want to do Peace-Economy, for example, or Peace+Economy, or the average of Peace and Economy?

Thoughts?  Like the traits or d'you want different ones?

-G.

- Technology, Religious Intolerance, Violence and Economy.

Would Cultural Intolerance be a more encompassing term than Religious? I see religion as part of culture, since countries often have disaparate versions of the same religions. However, I admit my goal was to encompass the ethnic and tribal violence around the world. Sadly, those place are usually so very poor, that economy+violence is what draws in the real powers, and creates the large scale conflicts. The tribal wars just continue like always.

It seems to me that the source category for ground zero, the catalyst event, is easily determinable. What doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me in terms of creative effort and time & handling during play is attempting to predict, using some version of real world historical benchmarks,just what particular effect(s) the catalyst event is likely to create. The possibilities are vast and the truly interesting stuff is likely to be unpredictable anyway. When the changes are wrought by the immediate and overwhelming use of superpowers, all bets are off.

A different approach would be to start from a base set of categories for the essence of the changes being made. I'd use something like Creation, Discovery, Transformation, Control, and Destruction. A particular event could cause changes of one or more type across one or more of your higher level Historical Categories (Technology, Violence, etc.), and you could split them between short and possible long term effects. Randomizing the type of effect, and applying it to your Historical Categories, while referencing whatever real world timeline(s) you're including in the game, seems like a relatively painless way to go.

Besides, if superhuman powers are involved, it's probably fine for some crazy and unpredictable events to take place as a result. Even in real world history there are many events we look back on and go "what the hell were they thinking?".

GregStolze wrote: Thoughts?  Like the traits or d'you want different ones?

I can't quite see how pure values for each value each year helps, I don't quite see how it produces alternative history. Is it just that violence would be spiking in 1992 say, but is stopped by the hero? That feels more like a graph than active traits.

Here's what I was trying to get at, or part of it (my idea was pretty multi-valued even to myself);

Say someone creates the aids cure, in the very early 80s, does it:

increase the power of african nations?
keep homosexuality private and secret?
get used by a powerful elite and bargained for favours?
not get used because people don't trust the genius?
undermine medical companies who didn't get it first?
allow the further destruction of gender roles and so bring peace?
cause massive population growth and further global warming? (ick, I hate pop control arguments)
further increase the "debasement of society"?
lead to him being worshipped and made really powerful?
allow amazing inventors/leaders to be born who change society?
cause massive spy combat to break out to control him?

and so many others!

It all depends on what is the core of history for you. If it's all just the upwards progress of technology, then have that as a stat, if it is the influence of classes, have that, if its community cohesion, corruption, artistic virility, capacity for dissent, climate, religion, feng shui planning, quality of soil, or whatever, that effects how things will go.

I don't want to jam you with too many possibilities, but my idea is that you grab these different contradictory histories that people have made and sketch them out in super-brief. Then allow players/GM to decide how much they want the history to be about this or that, and so how much changing one will skew the world off course.

Now in this version, you are not creating stats in the conventional sense, as characterising marks that tell how this thing is able to change stuff, you are using them like a kind of sensitivity test, so you can say that stopping that one rock concert really will change the world, if you want to!

Again, what do you think these are traits of? Events? Actors? Time periods?

In other words, they sound more like a way of keeping score, rather than "traits" in the typical gaming sense. That is, do these traits actually get used for something (other than monitoring)? For example, does the "global zeitgeist" ever make a "Religious Intolerance" roll? Or, can something in the game make use of the value of that trait for something?

Is it useful to track the "deltas" of the system. That is, if "Religious Intolerance" went up last year, does that have any effect on making it harder or easier to make it go up again this year?

Random thought: a system like this is vaguely like the notion of "Words" in In Nomine. Words weren't actually numeric traits in that system, but maybe they should have been. The idea if that various entities (archangels, for example) have a "word" that they "promote". (Jean is the archangel of Lightning, for example, with all of its metaphorical meaning.) One way of "keeping score" in the war between heaven and hell would be sort of similar to what you describe: a numeric rating given to the importance of all the various Words, year by year. In that sense, these Words would be the "global zeitgeist", which, in that game, they actually would be.

GregStolze wrote:
They are the traits of the global zeitgeist, I guess, shifting year by year. 

I was planning for nations to have an (essentially static, or at least hard-to-change) set of modifiers.  So the US would be +1 Violence, +1 Tolerance, +1 Economy, +1 Science.  Japan, I'm thinking -1 Violence, -1 Tolerance, +2 Economy, +1 Science. 

THAT might be a good place to keep score too.  It's a lot easier for a single superhuman to make (say) England more violent than the whole world...

-G.

so you did incorporate my modality neutral tolerance proposal? :)

you could in addition to the various nations make up overlapping entities like the church, women, democracy etc. all influencing each other

The Illuminati game might be worth a look for inspiration.  It has Groups which are organised by tags and a power rating, so for example the FBI are "Government, Strait, Violent" (IIRC).  It isnpossible to change these tags so that the FBI become "Government, Weird, Violent", or conceivably all the way to "Corporate, Weird, Peaceful" (each term has an antonym).  Needless to say that sort of change would have quite an impact on how the group operated.

Fore your porposes it might be possible to give states similar tags and allow events to change them, and also then have the current set of tags determine which events occur.