Hi all,

I've been struggling with how to represent redemption in a game I'm working on.

Characters in this game each have a Dread.  This is not simply fear (a man with a knife is chasing me so I run away) or a phobia (I'm terrified of spiders) but rather a deep dark horror that the character will try to avoid at all costs.  Dread is always relational in some sense.  It affects how the character interacts with others.  It is usually pretty broad, such as:
Isolation
Rejection
Powerlessness
Vulnerability
Failure
etc...

Someone with a Dread of Rejection might try to always be popular and well liked by the crowd they are a part of.  Their dread might turn this into an obsession so that anyone they perceive as threatening their acceptance by others will be a target to be dealt with in some way.

Someone with a Dread of Vulnerability would do everything they could to feel safe and protected.  Their Dread might drive them to push people away to avoid being hurt and they might have great difficulty trusting anyone.

How a Dread is expressed will vary from character to character, but the main result will always be that Dread results in broken and damaged relationships.  Often what a character does to avoid her Dread will result in her manipulating others with their own Dread, and vice-versa.

Most characters are unaware of their Dread.  It is subconscious even though it influences everything they do.  Players can play more than one type of character or designate someone to play most of the non-protagonists.  Protagonists are either aware of their Dread but not sure what to do about it, or they have sought help and overcome it, and now are trying to help others.  Dread is so all-consuming that a character cannot beat it alone, save for perhaps brief moments of willpower, but in such cases it always returns to dominate a character's behavior.  The only escape from falling further and further under the influence of Dread and destroying all their relationships is to seek help from others, rather like beating an addiction.  This opens the character to risk, as people can use their Dread against them to manipulate them, but if honest help is found (usually in the form of some or all of the Protagonists) then a character can find redemption from their Dread and try to atone for the terrible things it convinced them to do to others.

I'm looking for something along the lines of Redemption Earns Life or a Last Second Chance.  I want the Protagonists to oppose the harmful things characters consumed with Dread are doing, but at the same time trying to save them because they've been there.

How can I create or encourage this dynamic with the rules/system?  I want the acceptance of help to be difficult, and to arise as naturally as possible from character development.  Protagonists will probably have to build some kind of relationship with the person they are trying to help and risk getting hurt for their efforts.  That relationship may well be strained when they oppose the harmful things the character they want to help does.

I don't think a character's acceptance of help should be modeled by a fortune or karma mechanic, as that feels either arbitrary or forced.  Any ideas how I can achieve or at least encourage this kind of behavior through drama in ways that feel appropriate to a good story?

Thanks for your time,

-Jay

Hey Jay,

That's an interesting design challenge. So...you want player characters who're surrounded by Dread-compelled NPCs? You want Batman reaching out his hand to save a poor deluded villainess from falling into the reactor core?

I think you need some sort of threshold that the player characters have to overcome before they can offer help. Maybe they have to deal with a certain amount of crap from an NPC before they can offer help. And then, in the best tradition of subconscious design, I think you've already set the stage for determining how the NPC reacts. You've said that characters don't know their Dread. So, if it's obvious from all the roleplaying leading up to the player offering help to the NPC that the player character and the NPC have the same Dread, then the offer is accepted, the NPC unconsciously recognizes that the player character can help, and accepts the offer, and you get your Last Second Chance or Redemption Earns Life. Otherwise, no, she falls into the reactor, or whatever. "Poor, deluded child."

Paul

it sounds like this could be a role play module for another game.  The concept seems like it can be applied across the board to any existing RPG.  You might want to think of it from that perspective.

very interesting concept. Roleplayers heaven.
Is this supposed to be the premise of the game or just one aspect of it?

Someone with a Dread of Rejection might try to always be popular and well liked by the crowd they are a part of.

whoah.

So, who decides how the NPCs act?  What type of system are you looking for - something rules-lite where you just give a verbal description of how you want things to work, or some kind of dread mechanic that models how NPCs behave due to their dread?

From your description of you want, the latter would involve something like     

Dreadiness:  how much hold on the character has their dread got -  determines maybe how far they are willing to go because of it, and also how difficult it is to chip away at.
Self-awareness:  how aware is the character of their problem? - determines the likelihood of  them actively doing something about it, such as seeking help and resisting dread-based negative actions.

Every time the character is faced with a situation where they could act based on dread or not, roll both self-awareness  and dreadiness, by rolling a number of dice equal to their respective scores.  Take the high dice of each roll and compare , which wins out, dreadiness or selfawareness? 

self-awareness <=  half of dread  =  character acts out in a negative way to its fullest extent, unhindered by self-awareness
self-awareness <  dread = character acts out in a negative way, to a lesser extent, struggling against the negativity itself, but not understanding why
self-awareness >= dread  = character acts out in a negative way, to a lesser extent, struggling to control their dread and the damage it is doing
self-awareness >= double dread  = character successfully struggles to control their dread and the damage it is doing, acting in a positive way instead

This kind of behaviour has a -ve feedback, +ve feedback loop, if you want to model it that way, where success or failure leads to leads to corresponding decrease or increase in dread, and also for self-awareness, however I think self-awareness can only move forward or stand still (from a low base)  it cant go backwards. 

you could read a lot of stuff into it - high dread + high self-awareness = posibility for self-harm etc...

you got your work cut out for you.

Paul wrote: That's an interesting design challenge. So...you want player characters who're surrounded by Dread-compelled NPCs? You want Batman reaching out his hand to save a poor deluded villainess from falling into the reactor core?

Paul wrote: I think you need some sort of threshold that the player characters have to overcome before they can offer help. Maybe they have to deal with a certain amount of crap from an NPC before they can offer help. And then, in the best tradition of subconscious design, I think you've already set the stage for determining how the NPC reacts. You've said that characters don't know their Dread. So, if it's obvious from all the roleplaying leading up to the player offering help to the NPC that the player character and the NPC have the same Dread, then the offer is accepted, the NPC unconsciously recognizes that the player character can help, and accepts the offer, and you get your Last Second Chance or Redemption Earns Life. Otherwise, no, she falls into the reactor, or whatever. "Poor, deluded child."

wrote: It sounds like this could be a role play module for another game.  The concept seems like it can be applied across the board to any existing RPG.  You might want to think of it from that perspective.

Necr wrote: Is this supposed to be the premise of the game or just one aspect of it?

Necr wrote: If this is supposed to be "just one aspect of it" Is this a requirement - every character must take a flaw. Some will be the savers and some will be the savees?

Necr wrote: Could you describe the gameplay?
perhaps with an example?
Maybe a comparison to a game already in exsistance?

wrote: So, who decides how the NPCs act?  What type of system are you looking for - something rules-lite where you just give a verbal description of how you want things to work, or some kind of dread mechanic that models how NPCs behave due to their dread?

wrote: Dreadiness:  how much hold on the character has their dread got -  determines maybe how far they are willing to go because of it, and also how difficult it is to chip away at.
Self-awareness:  how aware is the character of their problem? - determines the likelihood of  them actively doing something about it, such as seeking help and resisting dread-based negative actions.

Every time the character is faced with a situation where they could act based on dread or not, roll both self-awareness  and dreadiness, by rolling a number of dice equal to their respective scores.  Take the high dice of each roll and compare , which wins out, dreadiness or selfawareness? 

self-awareness <=  half of dread  =  character acts out in a negative way to its fullest extent, unhindered by self-awareness
self-awareness <  dread = character acts out in a negative way, to a lesser extent, struggling against the negativity itself, but not understanding why
self-awareness >= dread  = character acts out in a negative way, to a lesser extent, struggling to control their dread and the damage it is doing
self-awareness >= double dread  = character successfully struggles to control their dread and the damage it is doing, acting in a positive way instead

This kind of behaviour has a -ve feedback, +ve feedback loop, if you want to model it that way, where success or failure leads to leads to corresponding decrease or increase in dread, and also for self-awareness, however I think self-awareness can only move forward or stand still (from a low base)  it cant go backwards.

wrote: You got your work cut out for you.

One quick thing I forgot to mention.  While a gradual struggle to beat Dread like stefoid described is certainly fine, I want to leave room for dramatic reversals.  This is very common in stories.  Vader suddenly betraying the Emperor to save Luke, for example.  This still fits with the addiction idea.  You can't beat an addiction overnight, but you can resolve to act against it and get help overnight.  The thing is that without outside help and support, you will certainly relapse (willpower is temporary), but the start of a change can certainly be triggered by a burst of fresh resolve, as long as it is followed up on by the heroes.  I'd like to try to take this into account if at all possible.

Jay, personally I like including self awareness  because it supports the character  acting in different ways, depending.
Others help the character by acting on SA - when helping, they add their ? stat to the characters SA stat.  Its the SA >= 2 times dread outcome you are looking for - the vader moment.

stefoid,

I see what your getting at.  My concern is one of emphasis.

Others help the character by acting on SA - when helping, they add their [Hope] stat to the characters SA stat.

To clarify, John mentioned in my first example above was supposed to be Jessie.  I was trying to keep the names gender neutral but slipped up.  Sorry.

If thats the way you see it then great! 

Playing devils advocate, how can you have only one trust stat?  wouldnt each relationship you have different levels of trust?

What you call hope and /or trust, I would just call 'relationship', where the character has one for each relationship.  It could be a number that is positive or negative depending.  Different characters might have different defaults for this....  Optimistic people might have default trust of strangers at 0 or 1, whereas most of us would be in the slight negatives I think....

So when you want to leverage that relationship, you use the applicable number for  that person.... add it to the SA stat maybe in full if they are present, or half if they are not.

The reason I like the use of SA specifically is because it does convey that level of awareness... or responsibility and consequences.  A negative act perpetrated by a low SA,, like someone who is a sociopath or a hardened ignorant criminal etc, is in some ways worse than the same act perpetrated by the high SA roll.. like someone has done something bad in full knowledge of their responsibility and its moral implications, but still goes through with it because they are unable to face their dread.. kind of more pathetic and contemptible at the same time.

ramble off......  make sure you post what you come up with when its finished, would love to see it.

Jay wrote:
stefoid,

I see what your getting at.  My concern is one of emphasis.

Others help the character by acting on SA - when helping, they add their [Hope] stat to the characters SA stat.

I named your question mark Hope for the sake of discussion.  If you think another term works better, that's fine.

The concern I have is that this seems to mean that a character can overcome their Dread without ongoing support from others, while help from others provides only a temporary boost in a specific situation.  The character's SA provides the strength to overcome Dread, while the help of others augments SA.  Jessie thinks "I don't want to do this(SA), but I'm so afraid they'll kick me out if I don't!(Dread)."  A hand clasps Jessie's shoulder.  It's Alex.  John thinks "Alex wouldn't want me to do this either.(Hope bonus)"

This feels to me like an inversion of what I'm after.  Trust in the people providing healthy friendship and support provides the strength to overcome Dread in the long term, even when those people are not present in the situation.  A character facing a struggle with their Dread might think, "I'm afraid they'll kick me out if I don't do this (Dread), but I know Alex wouldn't want me to, and he believes in me.(Trust)  I won't give in!(Willpower bonus)"  Alex appears in the scene and puts a hand on Jessie's shoulder (Hope bonus).  Hope or Willpower or whatever provides a temporary situational bonus.

Do you see the difference?  If SA is a character trait, then it is what a character relies on when they are away from support.  Support only helps when it is present in the scene.  SA feels too much like Willpower to me, which doesn't provide lasting resistance and doesn't provide a connection to other characters.  If Trust is a character trait, then the character relies on the trust relationships they have built with others who support them regardless of whether that person is present in the situation.  Willpower and the Hope offered by someone reaching out helps the character to resist, but Trust is what anchors them against Dread.  Their Trust is what makes them aware of the harmfulness of their actions, because they start thinking in terms of "Alex wouldn't want me to do this," or "I would never do such a thing to Alex."  They start to see others as people rather than threats that inspire Dread.

SA doesn't intrinsically draw strength from others and doesn't connect to other characters.  Trust does.

As for allowing different responses, I think both approaches work equally well:
Trust <=   half of dread  =  character acts out in a negative way to its fullest extent, not caring how it affects others.
Trust <  dread = character acts out in a negative way, to a lesser extent, feeling that their actions betray those they are beginning to trust, but feeling they have no choice.
Trust >= dread  = character acts out in a negative way, to a lesser extent, struggling to control their dread and the damage it is doing to those they care about.
Trust >= double dread  = character successfully struggles to control their dread and the damage it is doing, drawing on the strength of the friendships they have developed and acting in a positive way instead.

Does this clear up where I'm coming from?

Here's a thought: Perhaps Self-awareness is the stat that must be increased to a certain level before the character can accept help. It could be used as a boost stat in certain circumstances... Or possibly a penalty stat in other circumstances.

wrote: Playing devils advocate, how can you have only one trust stat?  wouldn't each relationship you have different levels of trust?

wrote: The reason I like the use of SA specifically is because it does convey that level of awareness... or responsibility and consequences.  A negative act perpetrated by a low SA,, like someone who is a sociopath or a hardened ignorant criminal etc, is in some ways worse than the same act perpetrated by the high SA roll.. like someone has done something bad in full knowledge of their responsibility and its moral implications, but still goes through with it because they are unable to face their dread.. kind of more pathetic and contemptible at the same time.

Lance wrote: Here's a thought: Perhaps Self-awareness is the stat that must be increased to a certain level before the character can accept help. It could be used as a boost stat in certain circumstances... Or possibly a penalty stat in other circumstances.