So I wanted to put out my rough draft for the world-creation mini game that will begin any Skein (I figure that because fate and destiny are so important to the game's concept that I'd include a somewhat pretentious and cool-sounding name for "series of interconnected sessions"). Please feel free to pick apart the mechanics, and suggest any improvements.

World Creation World creation is a group exercise wherein Players and the Game Master take turns creating and altering the proto-world by expending Influence. The act of world creation is broken up into four stages, which determine the cost of various actions of world creation:The Primordial AgeThe Legendary AgeThe Historical Age (Need a better name for this)The TwistingThe first three stages are equally shared in by the players and the GM while the Twisting stage is the GMs alone, representing the desires of the world and the vagaries of fate that corrupt (or "Twist") the world's original Purpose. Note that this may not be a matter of moral evil or corruption. The twisting stage is more about the end of the world's original purpose and a corruption of that purpose.

At the beginning of each stage each player receives 50 influence points and the GM 50 influence points as well. Fifty points are added to each player's pool and the GM's pool after the start of the first three stages. Unused points carry over from stage to stage. During the twisting, only the GM gets 50 additional points. Each stage other than the twisting, players and the GM take turns creating, altering, elaborating upon, and destroying features of the world by spending influence points. During each round, a player or the GM can take one of the following actions:

Create: Creates a feature whether that feature be a continent, a landmark, a physical law, a metaphysical law, species, organization, or civilization. When a player or GM creates a feature, they describe the general details of that feature as well as how (in the game world) that feature came to be created.

Elaborate: Adds on to the description and details given to a feature, whether one created by the one doing the elaboration or another player or the Game Master's. Elaboration can only be used to add details, not subtract them and cannot add details which contradict details described earlier.

Alter: Changes a detail of a given feature without changing the basic identity of that feature. For example, if a player creates the metaphysical law "Magic requires sacrifice" then another player (or the GM) might use the Alter action to change that to "Magic requires sacrifice of life force".

Destroy: Destroys a feature. The player or GM is required to describe how in the game world the feature was destroyed (judgment by the gods, natural disaster, famine etc.)

Reinforce: Uses Influence points to increase the cost of the Alter or Destroy actions targeted against a given feature by the number of points invested.

Wait: Choosing not to spend Influence points in a given round. A player or Game Master may only Wait two times in a row before they must spend points in some fashion or Cede the stage.

Cede: Choosing to end point spending for that stage. A record should be kept of the process of world creation, and used to create a history of the world. Details on specific features that are left vague are left up to the individual with the most points invested in that given feature (including points spent to alter, and elaborate, and points spend to reinforce but not points spent because of other people's reinforcements).



Point Costs For Various World Creation Actions

StageAction Primordial Legendary Historical

Create Continent 7 14 21

Elaborate upon Continent 2 1 4

Alter Continent 3 2 9

Destroy Continent 10 20 30

-----------------------

Create Law of Nature 10 20 30

Elaborate upon Law of Nature 5 10 15

Alter Law of Nature 8 7 12

Destroy Law of Nature 12 24 36

------------------------

Create Species 6 4 8

Elaborate upon Species 4 6 2

Alter Species 5 5 3

Destroy Species 12 6 8

-------------------------

Create Organization/Civilization 6 4 2

Elaborate upon Organization/Civilization 3 2 1Alter<span class="mceEditor"></span>Organization/Civilization 4 3 2

Destroy Organization/Civilization 4 2 3

Note: During the Twisting, the GM has access only to Alter, Elaborate, Reinforce and uses the cheapest costs listed for those actions.

A description of features:

Continent: A landmass, whether naturally appearing or created by the hands of gods or mortals. The details (terrain, climate etc.) are up to the creator, as altered by other players and the GM.

Law of Nature: A physical or metaphysical law that governs the reality of that world.Species: A life form, whether magical or mundane, singular or legion.

Organization or Civilization: A community, fraternity, cult etc. of creatures created using the species feature and the create species action.Please give me your feedback on both the process of world creation and on the costs-it'd be most appreciated!

Looks cool! I'm all about world-building exercises that involve the whole group. Speaking as someone who has tried to incorporate a similar point-spending setting creation mini-game into a couple of RPGs, that looks like a fun minigame that would create a world with some depth. It does, however, look pretty time-consuming, which was the one complaint that folks I've played with had about world-creation minigames. I found that people I know will enjoy about 1 hour of setting building, tolerate 2 hours, and get irritated with much longer than that. It's hard to say much more without a full picture of the game, but I'll do what I can.

I'm curious too about the level of detail: how much will it matter than you have a huge world? Is it a game about traveling? Do the players get some kind of narrative control over the world as play goes on? If these things aren't that important, it might help to focus more on a local level, and have a way to build larger-picture stuff as play progresses.

Another question: when does character creation take place in relation to the world building game? If its after it, how much does the world you've created impact the player's characters or story elements or whatever? In other words: is the setting essential to each player's day-to-day playing experience or not? I've noticed players seem willing to take more time on setting if it somehow ends up relating directly to their character.

What I mean is, let's say a player creates the kingdom of Esrick during setting creation. Does he get bonus dice somehow if his character later travels to Esrick? Are his skills better in Esrick? Can he call upon people he created during setting creation for aid while he travels in Esrick? Players seem more interested in spending lots of time on setting if it directly improves their character's concept and control over chance/ odds during play.

So I'd say this looks like a system worth testing, but the real acid test will be; does your audience of players "bite" on the mechanic and enjoy it? And the way I've seen that work is by making setting creation lead into, influence, and benefit character creation.

Firstly, thank you very much for your thoughtful and insightful response. You've given me a lot to think about.

As I haven't been able to play test it yet (I work weird hours at my job, which makes getting a play test group together hard) I'm not certain how long it would take to play out. I'll definitely keep time as a factor impacting the enjoyment of the process in mind though- I hadn't really considered it going into things.

The a high level of detail and an expansive world is fairly important to the game itself, as the premise of Shapers is essentially "How, and why will you change the world and what will the consequences be?" Characters will have the ability to alter the game world after it's created through two main methods, the use of their "normal" abilities (whether those are skill at arms, magic, friends in high places etc.) and the use of Destiny points gained through the accomplishment of their character's goals that enable them to rework the world to their liking sometimes permanently.

Your final point is very well taken. I had already instituted a limited version of that, in that the tone and setting of the world set the limits on character creation meaning that if the world the players create has the sentient races:

Rat-People
Humans
Dragons

You get the option of playing one of those, but couldn't play an elf given that they don't exist in this shared world. I think what I'll do to provide players with further connection to the world they create (besides being able to play the sorts of creatures they create, live in the world they create etc.) is make features that they've created easier to alter with Destiny points. So the player who created the rat-folk would be better able to manipulate Rat-Folk, their culture, their weapons etc. through the use of destiny points.