I've just written, and rewritten, this optional game rule a half dozen times.

I've gotten to that point where I know what the words are meant to convey, but I've iterated them to the point that their starting to lose their sense in my mind.

I probably just need to take a step back and think about some other stuff for a few days before looking them over again.

But for the moment, I'm going to put the short pdf section out there and ask a simple question...

Does this make sense?

What's it for? A player who wants to play a certain attitude and endevours to do by staying within certain (subjectively phrased) rules? And if he manages it, he can say his character actually was attitude X? Like, he got that attitude right? And that's what it's for - so the player can try to get that payoff?

The thing with alignment is that there was there great hullabaloo involved around the idea - but what was the payoff for doing it, for the people at the table? I mean, you've got alot of text there, but I'm left guessing as to why you'd engage it. Say a player has a fiction in mind of an urbane character - why would he engage these rules? Or is the idea that if you don't follow rules, the urbane attitude or whatever isn't part of the game or isn't real or right somehow? That fitting within a ruleset lends some sort of legitimacy?

It's interesting text. You're asking us to judge something based upon mechanics that are not fully detailed in the sample though, so it makes it more difficult. With no context for sacrifice dice in your game, we're left guessing to an extent.

Is it an interesting concept? Sure. Will it work in play? As Callan asks, what's it really meant to do for people during play? Do you need a mechanic to enforce something that can be a purely role-played choice? Does a piece of text without a hard mechanic serve the same purpose?

The system as presented is actually two subsystems I guess...and I'm going to pull out the second subsystem (the reactions).

The main system is about engaging the types of actions that reflect a culture and reinforcing stereotypes by giving bonuses through play.

A character who performs more urbane acts is considered to be acting in an urbane manner, they resonate more strongly with this urbane nature and thus gain benefits from the reinforcement of their stereotype. Conversely, a player who forsakes their urbane nature needs to make definite choices about how they are forsaking it and what path they will choose instead (in this preliminary version of the rules, they either become lost without a culture, or they may latch onto the other dominant culture in the area...that of the natives).

The reverse applies to natives to choose to walk the path of the settler and forsake their tribes.

I'm trying to get something concrete out of the rules for this player choice. It's easy for players to gain a bonus from their culture if they have a high level in that culture, it becomes harder as they forsake it...and it becomes even harder still to lose that last point in a culture (thus severing ties with your past entirely).

I guess I need to throw in a few more examples...and I guess that's the feedback I needed.

Thanks. 

Maybe you cant document this rule clearly because you dont have a clear purpose for it?  Can you explain why the rule is there in a sentence or two?

If it's the players choice - can't the player simply reach over and slide himself down a notch on the alignment/wild-urbane scale? To me it seems to go the round about way of the player moving it by acting out the character, the GM responding to that acting out and then, if I understand correct functioning of the rules, the GM putting the slider on the exact spot the player wanted? When the player could just move it himself directly? That or it includes the GM moving it not where the player would have wanted?

stefoid wrote:
Maybe you cant document this rule clearly because you dont have a clear purpose for it?  Can you explain why the rule is there in a sentence or two?